Soteria Church, April 26, 2009 Mike Rydman Ephesians 2:1-3 In chapter 1, Paul discussed God s eternal plan in choosing those who are predestined to be sons and daughters, and the eventual reality that all believers on earth and in heaven will be brought together under Jesus, the Head of the Church Chapters 2 and 3 shows how this eternal plan will be executed by showing how God turns sinners into saints and then places them into the Body of Christ, the Church The first 10 verses of chapter 2 tell us how as sinners who deserve nothing but God s wrath and judgment we instead become trophies of His grace Ephesians 2:1-3 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Verses 1 through 7 are another of Paul s long sentences. (He s good at doing that) Today we look at the first 3 verses, which tell us of our condition and eventual death sentence before God intervenes and transforms those of us who agree with the gospel and believe in Jesus Strong statement in verse 1: Dead in the trespasses and sins This is not physical death, because unsaved people live physically just as we do This is spiritual death But death indicates separation, the absence of communication with the living Someone who is spiritually dead has no communication with God He or she is separated from God He or she cannot advance or progress or improve their situation He or she cannot do anything to change their circumstance The phrase trespasses and sins speaks to the scope of this being dead Suggesting that sin is a killer, and sinners remain in their dead state because sinners were born as sinners Romans 5:12 therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned Romans 7:10 the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me Even sinful people in rebellion against God are capable of doing nice things once
in a while; but doing nice things once in a while does not make a sinner an un-sinner We can spend a lot of time being religious, but religion without transformation and renewal is dead religion Even religion by itself is sinful Transgressions are false steps, outside of boundaries Like driving across the lane line on the freeway Sins are acts of missing the mark Like taking bad aim with your gun, and as the bullet propels itself farther it progressively misses the target by that much more Both suggest deliberate acts against God These acts are choosing to fail to live as we were created to live The fact that both transgressions and sins are plural nouns suggests that people are repetitive in their sin, and thus are unregenerate (meaning not transformed) In business hires, past performance determines future potential Sin, is an addictive behavior, and addicts deep into their addiction cannot climb out from under the spell and control of that addiction without intervention and serious help And that kind of help always involves a total and complete change in the addict s life Mankind s sinful state is described and expanded in verses 2 and 3 1. Sinful men and women follow the course of this world; in other words, sinners follow after the example of other sinners; they experience the world s peer pressure. The world as the word is used here is where we get our English word cosmos, and means the satanically organized system that hates and opposes all that is godly John 15:18, 23 if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. Whoever hates me (Jesus says) hates my Father also 2. Secondly, sinful men and women follow the prince of the power of the air
This is saying that if someone is not following after God through Jesus Christ, they are in fact following after Satan Satan worshippers are not just a small sub section of our society who get together on Halloween to torture goats and drink blood Satan worshippers are anyone who does not worship Jesus 1 John 5:19 we know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one The whole world is under the control of the Evil One, Satan, who is also called the god of this age 2 Corinthians 4:4 in their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God In the end times Satan will be finally and eternally separated from the world God has made, when he is thrown down to the earth, meaning his power to influence will finally and forever be destroyed Revelation 12:9 and the great dragon was thrown down, the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels wee thrown down with him But until that day, even today people who do not believe and follow Jesus Christ are now in the clutches of the ruler of the world and follow in his opposition to God 3. Thirdly, sinful men and women are under the control of the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience This is a follow up to the influence that Satan has, but this third point describes the conscious and active rebellion and opposition each individual sinner maintains and uses as motivation against God In other words, Satan causes people to want to sin, but people themselves also want to sin The term sons of disobedience is used to describe someone who is a distinctly disobedient person People like sin Passions of the flesh We feel a need, and we want that need to be met
We like sex, so we get it through sexual relationships outside of marriage And if we aren t satisfied with married sex, we start looking at pornography or anything else that makes us feel sexual We like food, so we gladly turn into gluttons Or we like getting buzzed, so we turn into drunkards and alcoholics because feeling hazy feels better than clear headed thinking Or we like not being responsible, so we accept no responsibilities This is why marriages fail This is why some children grow up to be terrorists This is why some people are destined to be stuck in their uninspiring job where they won t be challenged beyond their comfort nor have to accept any risks And this is why we all like our couches, TVs and computer games Or we like gathering more stuff around us Stuff makes me happy Though the happiness found in each new purchase doesn t last long Stuff makes me feel important, because I get noticed Stuff makes me feel secure, like I cannot be touched with loss Gratitude will overrule greed, unless greed is allowed to overrule gratitude Generosity, if given time and expression will overcome covetousness Carrying out the desires of he body and the mind This speaks to the fact that we are predetermined to chase after every passion we have Our highest and strongest passions always determine our behavior we exhibit and the choices we make Example: I like to eat, but I don t like the guilt of overeating, or the extra weight I gain by doing so. Which is the greater passion? If eating what, when and how much I want, I ll keep eating against my better judgment but in accordance with my passions and highest priorities If being healthy and not carrying extra weight is the stronger
passion, I ll leave the kitchen and go to the gym If someone is sinful by choice, and under the sinful influences of Satan and his present world system of sin, my highest and strongest passions will always be to sin And Paul says, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh and later in the same verse 3 and were by nature children of wrath, just like the rest of mankind We Christians can get pretty smug about our salvation We re pretty quick to judge other people, Christians and non-christians alike We re not so quick, however, to judge ourselves Those of us who have never experienced a personal loss or failure may have the hardest time understanding the failings of others, or the real depth of God s grace in your own life We Christians also take the grace of God through Jesus Christ to mean we can just go ahead and do any sinful thing we want to do at any moment and then just thank God afterward that already He s forgiven us. This is the one primary criticism of Reformed or Calvinist theology We can easily be accused of taking the grace of God for granted We cheapen God s grace, that the atoning blood of Jesus was shed to secure for us We claim heaven while continue to live like hell Paul paints this hopeless picture of sinners and the destiny for sinners to remind his readers, readers who claimed the salvation and lordship of Jesus that we were once no different than the sinners he has described except that God intervened Colossians 2:13 and you, who were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling out the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross We did not deserve it We did not win a heavenly lottery We were chosen for salvation and a reconciled relationship with the God of the Universe simply because in us He wanted to display His mercy and grace toward people who were completely and totally undeserving
But if you or I can continue to be described as Paul describes sinners, then we have some work to do in our own hearts We need to humble up before God and confess our sins 2 Timothy 2:19B let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity God gave us his grace in Jesus dying for our sins on the cross Because Jesus atoned for our sins on the cross, our confession finds favor with God our Father, and he hears our confessions and responds with pouring out his grace to our repentant hearts so we can experience change daily We need to ask God to daily transform our passions, and give us an unquenchable passion for Jesus and His will for us As Samuel Storms said, Jesus is not only necessary; He is enough We need to evidence the power and grace of God by being different Different than Satan; different from the world we presently live in As Christians, we were, we are called to be different The word saints means the called out from ones We are seen as different in primarily two ways: We confess our sin, openly to God and to his people We profess Jesus as Lord, and his gospel as truth This is our testimony