Ephesians 2:1–13
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
11Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men) — 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
How do we even begin to dissect and examine this incredible passage of Scripture?
Is it possible to condense the mystery of what God has done for us into a 20 minute sermon? Do you have other plans for today?
I’ll bet that makes you a bit nervous!
Just to give you some idea of the mountainous task that I’m facing today, let me tell you about the 14th of July 1566.
Peter Gabriel had started preaching in Holland, and on this day it was announced that there would be a great service outside Amsterdam.
The authorities were not too happy about this, so they shut the city gates, but people swam the canals and used all sorts of innovative methods to make sure they were there.
Thousands gathered. Gabriel announced his text: Ephesians 2:8–10 – “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Gabriel then proceeded to preach for four hours, but nobody minded.
They hadn’t heard the gospel for a thousand years, and they were hungry for its message. Gabriel’s sermon that day was the catalyst which helped establish the Reformation in Holland. Today’s sermon won’t last quite as long as four hours, but it’s from the same text.
What I’d like to ask you to do though, is to listen to it as if you were hearing it for the first time in a thousand years.
Too often the Gospel of Jesus Christ is old hat for us, and we miss out on the wonder of the story of God’s Amazing Grace.
We say very glibly sometimes that we are saved, and that we are children of God. Yes, that’s absolutely true, but I don’t think we stop often enough and consider just how incredible that truth really is.
For those of you who have read the notices already today, you’ll see that I quoted an old saying that goes like this: “Before you begin a journey, you need to know where you are starting from.”
Facing up to the reality of our situation without God, as hard as it is, is crucial.
We will never fully understand God’s grace, but until such time as we understand the condition of our hearts before coming to Christ, we will not even begin to scratch the surface of the wonder of God’s amazing grace.
So just what is our starting point? What is the condition of our hearts without God?
Paul describes it like this in our first 3 verses today: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”
I don’t think you’ll find too many Bibles with those verses underlined or highlighted, because they make us feel rather uncomfortable, and with good reason.
There is a real hopelessness in the human condition.
The world tells that we’re essentially good people, and while we might have the occasional hiccup, and though the wheels tend to fall off every now and then, we are inherently good.
But we’re not unfortunately. We’re inherently evil.
Isaiah 64:6 says, “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”
Romans 3:23 – “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
I could go on, but the picture won’t get any rosier.
There is a depravity and a complete sense of lostness in the human heart.
Ever since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, the attitude of our hearts towards God has been the same – “I don’t need you.”
Let’s look again how Paul puts it in those first 3 verses again:
• Dead in your transgressions and sins
• You followed the ways of this world
• Disobedient
• Gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature
• Following its desires and thoughts
• By nature objects of wrath
This is one of the reasons why Biblical Christianity is so unpopular – it makes us squirm in our seats with shame and humiliation.
The world view of God, for those who say that He does exist, is that a loving God cannot possibly send anyone to hell – assuming of course that there even is such a place. That is a lie from satan himself, and there are many misinformed people who have bought into that lie.
Yes, we’re not perfect. Everyone will admit that, but we’re all going to end up in Heaven one day.
Not so.
Paul says in Ephesians 2:12 that without Jesus Christ, we are “foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.”
Why would that suddenly change when we die?
Without Christ, we are doomed.
That is the bleak and true picture of the human heart.
However, the good news is that this is not the end of the story…
There is hope, not because of anything we have done, but only because of what Jesus Christ has done.
2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”
The shadow of the Cross of Calvary lies across the gates of hell, and Jesus says, “Over my dead body.”
Let’s look at verse 4 and 5 of Ephesians 2: “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.”
That little word, the conjunction ‘but’ at the start of verse 4 is so important, because it begins to describe the transition as God moves us from a place of condemnation to a place of restoration and peace.
But God had mercy on me. But God has had mercy on you. This is such a radical change from the first three verses, which are as black and hopeless as anything can be.
Mankind is a complete failure. We are incapable of saving ourselves.
But God comes onto this scene of death with His mercy.
And He doesn’t have too little, too late. He has a surplus, because He is an infinite God who is rich in infinite mercy. He has what we need. He has what you need. The only requirement is that you believe Him.
You’ll notice that verse 4 doesn’t say, ‘Because there was a remnant of good in us,’ or ‘Despite our sin, God knew we were inherently good.’
No – it says quite simply (but yet profoundly at the same time) “Because of His great love for us.”
The plan of salvation starts and finishes with God – not us.
It’s all about His love for us.
Someone once called this the ‘Divine motivation’.
While we were still sinners, and while we were still dead in our transgressions – Christ died!
We need to stop here and just think about this for a moment.
Jesus died for us before we came to our senses, before we turned to God in repentance, in fact, even before we realised that we were lost and dead in our sins.
What God has done for us is completely and totally undeserved.
He owes us absolutely nothing, but yet He has chosen, because of His great love for us to bring us back into the relationship which He originally created us for and which we chose to walk away from.
How do you describe or define this incredible act of mercy – this undeserved, unmerited act of favour? In one simple word – Grace.
On the front page of the notices you’ll see the word Grace spelling out ‘God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.’
It seems so inadequate, and our minds and our vocabulary are just too limited to fully understand or describe the mercy and the grace of God, but I’m actually quite comfortable with that.
I like the idea of a God who loves me and has shown me mercy which is too great for me to understand.
St Augustine once wrote, “What is grace? I know until you ask me, but when you ask me, I do not know.”
I like that description, because it sums up our understanding of God so well. Just when we think we’ve got Him all worked out and we’ve pinned Him down, we realise that we haven’t.
Job 11:7 says, “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?”
I want to repeat our reading today, but this time from the Message Bible. Eugene Peterson, the man who wrote this translation, has such a wonderful turn of phrase sometimes:
“It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose His temper and do away with the whole lot of us.
Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, He embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on His own, with no help from us!
Then He picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
Now God has us where He wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all His idea, and all His work. All we do is trust Him enough to let Him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join Him in the work He does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.”
When Charles Spurgeon was a teenager, he was asked to preach at his grandfather’s church in Suffolk one day. His train was late, so Grandfather Spurgeon began the sermon, preaching from Ephesians 2:8–9.
Next thing there was a commotion at the door, and in walked Charles. “Here comes my grandson,” exclaimed the old man. “He can preach the gospel better than I can, but you cannot preach a better gospel, can you, Charles?”
Charles replied, “You can preach better than I can grandfather. Please go on.” His grandfather refused and insisted that Charles take over.
So the young man started preaching with his grandfather sitting in a chair just behind him.
But old habits die hard, and being a preacher of many years, his grandfather found it hard to just sit and listen.
So every time Charles mentioned the word ‘grace’ he would hear a voice behind him saying, “Good! Tell them that again, Charles. Tell them that again.”
Ever since that day Charles Spurgeon said that whenever he preached from Ephesians 2, he could hear his grandfather whispering, “Tell them that again, Charles. Tell them that again.”
Many of you have been hearing sermons in Christian churches for decades, and I know that I haven’t told you anything new this morning. I haven’t explained any verse differently, and there has been no reason for any of you to say, “Wow – I’ve never heard it explained like that before!”
But I hope that you have paused and listened about the mystery of God’s grace as if you were hearing it for the first time.
There is a wonder about what He has done for us that we can never get enough of.
You’ve heard this truth before, but I’m delighted and privileged to tell you again:
It is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
