Ephesians This is Your Life ~ Part 1 Ephesians 2:1-10 As part of the Passover service, there is a song that s primary focus is whatever God chooses is sufficient. There are a number of versions of this song,. The word can be translate, It would have been sufficient or It would have been enough for us. One Hagadah reads as follows: The Almighty has done so much for us, any one of his gifts or saving acts would have been sufficient to evoke from our hearts thanks and praise. Had he but brought us out of Egypt Had he judged the Egyptians And destroyed their gods Had he slain their firstborn And given us their riches Had he divided the sea to let us pass through But sank our foes into the depths Then supplied our needs for forty years And fed us with manna in the wilderness Had he given us the Sabbath to renew our strength And brought us to hear him at Mount Sinai Giving us his Torah to guide us Planned and built the Tabernacle, his dwelling place Brought us to the land he promised to Israel Consecrated the Temple he permitted to be built Sent Jesus, the Temple not built with hands That atonement be made for all our sins. 1 If we could live lives, then we truly would find contentment. We d experience an acceptance of whatever God chooses to do, for only He knows what we truly need. Living this way, we would stop constantly demanding life go our way instead of God s. I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength (Philippians 4:11-13). I Introduction II What You Were Verses 1-3 III What You Are Verses 4-10 IV Conclusion 1 Lipson, Eric-Peter, arranger, Passover Haggadah, A Messianic Celebration, JFJ Publishing, San Francisco, CA, 1986-5746, p. 41-42.
Introduction: In Chapter one Paul s emphasis is on God s saving grace. He has show that we are blessed because God has chosen to call us, elect us, predestine us to salvation. He had us in His eyes before the work of creation. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will (Ephesians 1:4-5). Paul then goes on to list all of the spiritual blessings which come to us as believers. God, out of His love for us, blesses us beyond anything we can ever imagine. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). We are heirs to God s glorious riches. And they are available to us now. We talked about how these truths should motivate us to be thankful, thankful for the positive blessings and thankful for the trials, negative blessings because both help us grow and mature through the working of the Holy Spirit. Have you been making lists and praising God? For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Romans 8:29). Now Paul gives us more truth which should help us realize just how greatly blessed we are and this should give us even more motivation to be thankful and to praise God. And what is the truth just who we were before we were saved. Verses 1-3: When God first came to you, you were dead. You were separated from God because of your fallen condition. The you here goes back to Chapter 1 and refers to Gentile believers. But in Verse 3, Paul makes it clear the Jew was no better off than the Gentile. The terms Paul uses are trespasses and sins. These are the causes of spiritual death. Yes sin was the cause of physical death, but of more consequence is the fact it brought about spiritual death. Why does he use two words? Stott explains: These two words seem to have been carefully chosen to give a comprehensive account of human evil. A trespass (paraptoma) is a false step, involving either the crossing of a known boundary or a deviation from the right path. A sin (hamartia), however, means rather a missing of the mark, a falling short of a standard. Together the two words cover the positive and negative, or active and passive, aspects of human wrongdoing, that is to say, our sins of commission and of omission. 2 These are the conditions under which the believers Paul addresses lived, past tense. And living this way demonstrated the lost were influenced by three factors, the world, the devil, and the flesh. And because of the fallen state of humanity, and one of the three is adequate to get 2 Stott, John R. W., The Message of Ephesians, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 1979, p. 71, ) 66 (
us in trouble. This being the case we are finally responsible for our own sin and can t shift the blame to, The devil made me buy this dress! First, the process of sin is a walk. The unregenerate walks in the ways of the world. The world represents the fallen state, the darkness of humanity separated from God. Christ describes this worldly system as one which hates God. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. He who hates me hates my Father as well (John 15:18, 23). And it is Satan who is the power over this system. We probably should be clear that when we talk about being tempted by Satan, etc. this should be understood as Satan having personal involvement with each of us. Wiersbie explains it this way. This does not mean that Satan is personally at work in the life of each unbeliever, since Satan as a created being is limited in space. Unlike God, who is omnipresent, Satan cannot be in all places at one time. 3 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (1 John 5:19; 2 Corinthians 4:4). Paul makes it clear that Satan does have powerful influence on the lost. There is, not surprisingly a parallel here with how God works. Satan has always tried to imitate the Godhead. And so just as the Holy Spirit influences those who are in God, so Satan influences those who are in the world. So previously these believers, both Gentile and Jew, lived under the world and the devil, now Paul moves on to point out the lost are finally driven by their own lusts, their flesh. It is important to understand he isn t speaking about the body itself. The body is not inherently evil. this should be self obvious because the incarnation is God taking on human form. Christ could not have physicality if the body was by definition evil. Stott expands on this, noting: It s passions are defined as the desires of body and mind. This addition is particularly important because it shows the error of equating the passions of the flesh with what are popularly called the sins of the flesh. (these) include the wrong desires of the mind as well as of the body 4 No one who is in rebellion against God, that is unwilling to accept the Messiah as God s answer to sin, will escape God s wrath. This is true be you Gentile or Jew. There is no way for even the Jew to please God short of accepting His ultimate sacrifice. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because 3 Wiersbe, Warren W., The Bible Exposition Commentary, New Testament ~ Volume 2, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1971, p. 18. 4 Stott, John R. W., The Message of Ephesians, Press, Downers Grove, IL, 1979, p. 74. ) 67 (
you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God (James 4:1-4). The lost are doomed. It doesn t matter wither they are good or evil but human standards. They are doomed because they are sinners, dead to God. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God s one and only Son (John 3:18) And being condemned there is no hope outside of Christ. This is the message a rebellious world wants to ignore, because with the fall came a demand for autonomy. Men had become their own gods. It is arrogance to confuse God s patience with impotence or that He has washed His hands of His creation. God will judge! But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare (2 Peter 3:8-10). The NIV Bible Dictionary defines WRATH The translation of many Hebrew and Greek words, ranging widely in tone, intensity, and effects. The wrath of a just, pure, and holy God is dreadful to evildoers (Num 11:1-10; Heb 10:26-31), yet God is slow to anger, eager to forgive (Ps 103:8-9) and so should we be (Eph 4:31-32). Less often mentioned in the NT than in the OT, the wrath of God is no less terrible, is revealed most dramatically in the wrath of the Lamb (John 1:29; Rev 6:16), and abides on unbelievers (John 3:36). 5 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, It is mine to avenge; I will repay, and again, The Lord will judge his people. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:26-31). The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever (Psalm 103:8-9). 5 Douglas, J. D. and Merrill C. Tenney, editors, NIV Bible Dictionary, Zondervan Interactive Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1990. ) 68 (
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you (Ephesians 4:31-32). The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29). They called to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! (Revelation 6:16). Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God s wrath remains on him (John 3:36). This would be a natural place to break this session. Keeping in mind though we are taking a break until January 1 st. Although I didn t want to leave you with three weeks of focusing on where we came from, I thought it would be a good idea to remember that, though we were deserving of God s wrath But God God did four things, identified in the following verses, which led to our salvation. He loved us, He quickened us, He exalted us, and He keeps us. 6 We will consider the first two today and pick up again next time. Verses 4-5: Generally speaking, one word which bogs down the counseling process is but. I admit I did something wrong, but I understand how the past affects me, but But the but here is a wonderful but. Here now matter how fallen we are we are told, BUT GOD It is a beam of sonlight breaking through the clouds of a world living in darkness. the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned (Matthew 4:16). Keeping all of this in mind we can come to the realization of just how greatly God has blessed us, choosing fallen human beings who live in the midst of the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is God s love which is the basis of our salvation. It is God s love which was manifested on the Cross. God is love (1 John 4:8). God chose us, raised us from the dead and freed us from the lost state in which we found ourselves dwelling. Notice the factors which go into our salvation. First, and foremost, it is God s love which drives everything which follows. Out of this great love comes a great mercy. It is only mercy which can save, because we are undeserving. Now comes a form of resurrection, quickening, that is being made alive in Christ. It is important to realize that God s grace and mercy came to us while we were still in our sins. Here being resurrected means being put in union with God. This is being placed in the position we were created for. 6 Wiersbe, p. 19 ) 69 (
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life (John 5:24). Conclusion: Paul s writings provide us with great encouragement. No matter what our struggles, God has loved us and saved us. No matter the transgressions and sins in the past, that is no matter how far we had fallen, God has provided the way of salvation. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). We have just passed through the Thanksgiving holiday and now are moving into the Christmas season. I can t think of a better time to focus on who we were and who we are, thanks to the love, grace, and mercy of God. Make this a daily exercise, and when we start up in at the first of the year, we will return to seeing in light of who we were, and who we are. When upon life s billows you are tempest tossed, When you are discouraged thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done. When you look at others with their lands and gold, Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold; Count your many blessings, money cannot buy Your reward in heaven nor your home on high. Are you every burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear? Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly, And you will be singing as the days go by. So amid the conflict, whether great or small, Do not be discouraged; God is over all. Count your many blessings, angels will attend, Help and comfort give you to your journey s end. Count your many blessings, name them one by one; Count your blessings, see what God hath done. 7 7 Oatman, Jr., Johnson, The Celebration Hymnal, Count Your Blessings, Word/Integrity, Waco, TX, 1997, #786. ) 70 (
Ephesians This is Your Life ~ Part 1 Ephesians 2:1-10 I Introduction II What You Were Verses 1-3 III What You Are Verses 4-10 IV Conclusion I Introduction: (2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:4-5, 3; Philippians 4:19; Romans 8:29) II What You Were: (John 15:18, 23; 1 John 5:19; 2 Corinthians 4:4; James 4:1-4; John 3:18; 2 Peter 3:8-10; Hebrews 10: 26-31; Psalm 103:8-9; Ephesians 4:31-32; John 1:39; Revelation 6:16; John 3:36; see Numbers 11:1-10)
III What You Are: Vs. 4-5: (Matthew 4:16; 1 John 4:8; John 5:24) Conclusion: (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) Personal Application: We have just passed through the Thanksgiving holiday and now are moving into the Christmas season. I can t think of a better time to focus on who we were and who we are, thanks to the love, grace, and mercy of God. Make this a daily exercise, and when we start up in at the first of the year, we will return to seeing in light of who we were, and who we are. Prayer for the Week: Lord, somehow this Christmas season, let us become aware of just how blessed we truly are, so our praise may be from the heart. Amen