“Life in Christ” Ephesians 2:1-10
- Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison preached this sermon on January 29, 2023
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Audio Transcript
Foreign.
If you take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter two, we’re going to be in verses one through ten today. Ephesians chapter two. Talking about our life in Christ so far in Ephesians, in chapter one, Paul answered the question. Some people said, might we lose our salvation? He says, no, you don’t need to worry about that because God has elected you, he has predestined you, and he is doing all the work to accomplish your salvation.
Therefore you can rest assured in that. Then he answered the question, where is our salvation? Where does it come from? And he talked about how in Christ. With Christ, Through Christ.
Everything comes through Christ. And then he answered the question, how am I different when I am in Christ? And he told us, we’re blessed, we’re chosen, we’re holy, we’re blameless, we’re adopted, we’re redeemed, we’re forgiven, we’re given wisdom and understanding. We’re united with Christ, we’re heirs with him. We’re purposeful in our life.
We’re sealed and we’re spirit filled. Then he answered the question, well, how can this all really be true? Can we really depend on Jesus Christ alone for all of these blessings? The answer is yes. Yes, because he’s called you because of his great inheritance, because of the power that he has and the authority that God the Father has given him.
All these blessings rest in him for certainty, not just now, but throughout eternity. Today we’re going to be looking now what it means to have our life in Christ. So let’s begin reading in chapter two, verse one. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the Spirit, now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts.
And we were by nature children under wrath, as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace. He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For you are saved by grace, through faith.
And this is not from yourselves. It is God’s gift, not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are His Workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. Let’s thank God once again for his word. Father, we thank you that we have your written revelation that it is certain, Father, on how we can obtain true salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.
And it also teaches us how we are supposed to live. So we ask today that you would increase our love and appreciation for you and give us a desire to live our lives in service for you, not just throughout our life, but every moment, every week, every hour, every month. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. We’re going to be looking today at our life in Christ.
What we were, what we are, what we will be, why we are, and how we should respond to all of this. Let’s begin in verse one, where we talk about what we were. Paul wants us to think back to what we were before we came to salvation through Jesus Christ. And the first thing is that he tells us that we were dead, meaning that we were spiritually dead. We were separated from God.
We were deaf to hearing anything that he had to say to us. And there was nothing in us that sought after him completely dead, nothing that we can do on our own behalf to bring us to life. And Paul tells us why it is that we are in this deadly condition. He says it’s because of our trespasses and our sins. So we need to understand the differences between the two words.
To trespass means to go to the wayside, off the path that you’re supposed to be on. You’ll see signs that say, no trespassing. That means you’re not supposed to go off this way. It’s just the general way that all of the earth, those that are under Satan’s control, live their life. They’re continually going off the path that God desires for us.
And in traveling on this wrong path, before we come to Christ, as all the world does, they make the wrong choices. We fail to choose correctly over and over again. We fail to do even the things that we know are right for us to do. And we’re not walking in God’s plan. And Scripture tells us that even if we don’t make willful choices to sin by day, day by day, we continue to walk on this path that goes against God when we walk on the correct path.
Instead, once we come to faith in Jesus Christ, the opposite is to walk in righteousness, meaning that we make right choices, we know what is right, and we do those things. We live according to God’s plan. Trespasses are just walking along the wrong path. Whereas sins are those deliberate choices that we make to not follow God. They’re deliberate choices to do what we know is wrong.
They’re deliberate choices to go against his will. It’s walking according to the ways of this world instead of walking according to the ways of God. We’re going to go back to Exodus chapter 20 today, and we’re going to look at the Ten Commandments in this light. Because when we see what they’re asking us not to be, it also shows us what the world is under the control of Satan. It shows us what we were because we need to understand what we were in order to more fully appreciate what we are in Jesus Christ.
There are 10 commandments. Four of them have to do with sins against God, and six of them have to do with sins against mankind. And as we, we read through these today and discuss them just a little bit, think how our world apart from Christ, just continually goes down this wrong path. Here Exodus 20, verse 1 says, Then God spoke all these words. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
Do not have other gods besides me. Following the path of righteousness is to be monotheistic one. Monotheistic one God. That is the path that we’re to follow on. But what we see in the world and what God is telling us not to be here is to follow after a multiplicity of other gods.
We have polytheism even in our world today, where certain religions worship many different gods. We have spiritism, where they believe that there are spirits in the water and spirits and trees and rocks, and they worship those things. But we also have a type of other gods called materialism, where we don’t have something so much that we worship, that we just worship material things, the things that we can gather and gain to ourself. And eventually we have humanism that worships ourself and all other men. All of these things, things are ways that scripture is telling us we can follow other gods.
They’re the ways that the world follows. To serve other gods means that you are depending on something or someone other than God to meet all your needs, to provide you with happiness and fulfillment and salvation. And we can see these gods arising up in our lives and other people’s lives by what people spend their time with, what they spend their treasures for, and what they use their talents for. Now, there are places in the world where there are still physical idols, where people carve things out of stone or they carve things out of Woods. There are major religions where people have their temples in their home, where they have gods that they offer incense to to, and they offer fruit.
There are also temples in people’s homes where they worship their ancestors. But we can also have other things that we worship in our lives. People might look to politicians or leaders, celebrities, scientists or teachers for the answers to all their questions to help them to find happiness. Or if you’re into materialism, you see the world making things. They’re gods.
People spend their time, their talents and treasures all in their cars because that makes them happy, or on their boats or their homes. Or maybe there are activities in their life that are most important to them, whether it’s sports or sex or drinking or eating. Could even be your cell phone. It could be desiring to have the perfect social score that people like. All of your tweets.
If you’re depending on any of these things other than God, you’re going against his first commandment here. And it’s a picture of where our world is going today. They look for a God in everything except for Jehovah. God commandment number two says, do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. And do not bow in worship to them and do not serve them.
For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the Father’s iniquity on the children to the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me, but instead showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands. This reminds me of Isaiah, chapter 44, where Isaiah says that people are taking material things that are good and they’re turning them into things that become their gods. And he specifically uses the example. You have a man here. He takes a piece of wood, and he uses it for God’s intended purpose, to build a fire, to cook his food, or to warm himself.
But then another man or that same man takes a piece of wood and they turn it into something that God didn’t intend, and they carve it into an idol. And so it is with everything in our world today that God has made good. There’s always that temptation to make that thing a God in our life. And I can tell you that people know what the God in your life is by seeing where you spend your time, where you spend your talents, and where you spend your treasures. And according to the warning here, if you have something in your life that that is a God, it’s going to affect your children to the third and the fourth generations.
If you are worshiping Jehovah God and He is your only God, your children are going to notice it. But if something else in your life is taking the place of God in your life, then that thing is going to be what your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren follow after. Commandment number three. Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name. We see this in the world continually, the way that Satan steers people.
Have you seen a movie or a TV program lately where they didn’t take God’s name in vain? It’s almost impossible to find anything produced that way. Why is it going on? It’s because Satan and his influence with the world wants to belittle God and turn people against him. Listening to Lon Solomon, a pastor that used to be in Washington, D.C. he was a Jewish convert to Christianity.
And he said that this commandment here also takes on a different meaning to the Jews. It’s not just verbally using God’s name in vain, but he said, as a Jewish person, they understand that if I take God’s name upon me and I say, I am a follower of Jesus, I’m a follower of Jehovah God, and then I turn around and live my life in such a way that people say, now wait a minute. They say they’re a Christian, they’re a follower of Christ, but their life doesn’t show that in the way that they live. I’m misusing God’s name by claiming it to be my own, to be a part of me. Commandment number four.
We see this, that people are not remembering to keep God’s Sabbath day holy. Remember the Sabbath day. To keep it holy, you are to labor six days and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work.
You, your son or your daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your gates. For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sky and everything in them in six days. Then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy. We see in our world that people, generally, because of Satan’s influence, want to treat every day the same.
Whereas God set up the example for us when he created the heavens and the earth. We’re supposed to work six days and we’re supposed to have one day after that that we’re supposed to set aside for rest, relaxation, but also to make it set aside for the Lord and to be holy for Him. We’re supposed to refresh ourselves, but we’re supposed to work at honoring the Lord and developing our relationship for Him. Now, because of people’s work schedules, that may not always be on Sunday, but there needs to be a day in your life that you take time to spend that time with the Lord and to refresh yourself. But once again, what we see in the world is everybody treats the days the same.
They don’t follow the Lord’s command. Here we go. Now on to commandment number five. And these are not all sins against God. Instead, we switch to sins against mankind.
Here’s one that we don’t see as much in the world anymore. Honor your father, father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Our whole society seems to be training our kids. You don’t have to obey your parents. You have a choice.
You don’t have to do what they say. Our school systems are even allowing children to make decisions without consenting with their parents to let them know what’s going on. All of this is moving away from God’s word right path for us. It’s making people follow down the wrong path and trespass against the Lord. We also see no value for human life.
Commandment number six says, do not murder. And this stands out in the massive shootings that we see. We see it also significantly in the abortion industry that life is not considered precious. It doesn’t belong to everybody as something has given them as a gift from God. Do not murder.
Do not commit adultery. We live in a world that doesn’t say, commit yourself to the purity of marriage. We live in a world that teaches people go outside of that for sexual fulfillment. We come to commandment number eight, do not steal. And we see that people, as the world is going, are not concerned about things that belong to other people, but they want these things for themselves, not giving false testimony against your neighbor.
People are willing to lie against those that they live around for their own gain. And the 10th Commandment, do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female servants, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. That’s not saying that we can’t admire what our neighbors have and say, I’d like to have something like that. What this is saying is I want to take literally away from them so they won’t have this thing Because I desire it and I have a right for it.
Paul is telling us that this is the way that people are walking in the world, and this is the way that. That we were walking before we came to faith in Jesus Christ. That’s way back in Ephesians. It says in verse one, you were dead in your trespasses and sin, in which you previously walked according to the ways of the world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the disobedient. Paul said, we too, every single one of us, previously lived among them.
We were living according to our fleshly desires, what we wanted instead of what God wanted. We were carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and our thoughts, whatever our bodies wanted to do, whatever we can imagine in our minds, we were doing these things instead of going to God and saying, what do you want me to do today? And therefore it tells us that we were by nature children under wrath, as the others were also. We were dead, but we were also anti God. We were against Him.
We were living according to the world’s ways, we were living according to Satan’s ways, and we did what our bodies desired and whatever we thought would please us. And for that reason, everyone that is not under Jesus Christ and in him who are children of wrath. Now, what does that mean, to be under the wrath of God? Well, sometimes the wrath of God, it’s a consequence that’s built into the world that he created. In Galatians 6, 7, we read, don’t be deceived.
God is not mocked. Whatever a person sows, he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh. Acts chapter 5 tells of a different type of wrath from God, where God struck Ananias and Sapphira immediately because they were blaspheming and lying in front of the church. First Corinthians 11:30 tells us another way that God works out his wrath. Sometimes the wrath of God results in sickness and death.
And therefore Paul warns people about not taking the Lord’s Supper there in a wrong way. But ultimately all sin, if it’s not punished here, will be punished by the wrath of God one day in judgment. But we thank the Lord as believers because instead of that wrath that’s going to be poured out on the world being poured out on us. Jesus Christ took all of that on the cross for us when he died for our sins. We come now to verse four.
We weren’t talking about what we were. We were dead in Sin and trespasses. Now we’re talking about what we are. And it starts out with this one simple word. B U T but God.
Everything on this side is awful. But God steps in to make everything right. We would have continued in this same situation. We would have continued on the same path, but God steps in here. It’s this indication that it was unsuspected.
It was an undeserved entrance of God into the picture because Adam and Eve chose to go against Him. He could have stepped back from the world and not been involved. But Scripture tells us that’s not the way it was. We’re surprised here by these two words. But God, he intervenes on our behalf.
Even though it’s undeserved by us, we actually deserve the opposite. We do deserve the wrath and the punishment of God. But God steps in, and he does that because he has rich mercy and because he has great love for us. What is it when we talk about God’s mercy? God’s mercy is his active pity and compassion for us.
He doesn’t just look and say, oh, I feel sorry for them. He actually steps in to do something. And he does it not when we’re trying to be good. He does it not when we’re following after Him. He stepped in with his mercy when we were rebellious and when we were sinful.
And it was during this time that we were going against him in our sin and our trespassing that he actively showed us compassion and came to us. Some people might say, well, I’m too sinful to ever be right with God. Well, Scripture tells us here that’s impossible for you to be too sinful for God to extend his mercy to you because he is inexplicably rich in mercy. But it was not only because of his mercy, but it’s because of his great love for us. God does for us everything that we truly need.
That’s what love is. That’s what we do for babies. That’s what we do for our children. We give them the things that they need without expecting anything to come back from them. But sometimes that means that we don’t give our kids the things that they want because we know that they won’t be good for them.
So God not only gives us everything that we need, but he also withholds from us sometimes the things that we desire that are wrong for us. Because we know for certain that God gives good gifts. He only gives good gifts. He always gives good gifts. And that’s why he gave his son Jesus Christ to die.
On the cross because that was exactly what we needed. What happens when God steps in to give us this rich mercy and great love? It tells us here that he makes us alive in Christ. Our spirit that was dead is all of a sudden brought to life. It happened when we were trespassing.
It happened when we were moving in the opposite direction. It happened when we were walking on the wrong path. But he sought us and he found us when we were at our worst. In essence, we were covered with filth. We were reeking of every possible stench.
We were doing the most abominable things imaginable. And yet in this state, he came after us to seek us and to save us. And the picture that he gives us in the New Testament is the shepherd goes after the one sheep and instead of just dragging that sheep back, he picks that sheep up and he embraces that sheep. And so it is that God picks us up and embraces us, no matter how filthy and evil and dirty and pain laden we are. Jesus Christ did the same thing when he came from heaven to earth.
He came to live among us in our dirt and our filth and our disease and our sadness and our pain. And even he experienced death on the cross for us. That was God stepping in when we didn’t deserve any of this. We’re alive, but we’re also saved. The passage tells us we are saved, meaning that we’re now safe.
We’ve been delivered from, from the life that we were in. We’re no longer just partial. Our spirit is alive so that we’re made whole. And God promises us by being saved that he’s going to preserve us now from danger and loss and destruction. The life that he gives us will be throughout eternity.
And he gives this to us because of his grace, meaning it’s unmerited favor. He gives us full acceptance without us having to pay anything. He fully accepts us without us having to do anything. He gives us full acceptance without us even trying to be better people. He just comes and he saves us because of his great love for us.
But he doesn’t just save us and then leave us sitting us over there to the side. It also tells us that he raises us up and he seats us with Christ Jesus. He didn’t just pull us out of the filth and say, okay, go on your own way. He says, no, I’m doing this because I want you to have an intimate relationship with me. I want you to be seated with Jesus Christ here in the heavens in an eternal relationship.
That’s better than any relationship you can ever experience on earth what we were, what we are. Verse 7 now tells us what one day we will be. And this is so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. What this is telling us is that God is going to see us one day as a great trophy for him and he’s going to dispute display his immeasurable riches of grace that is given to us through his kindness in Jesus Christ by showing us to all beings, by displaying us to the angels, to spiritual powers and to other humans. He’s going to display us and then people are going to say, that’s a wonderful trophy.
They’re going to say, wow, God, you are so great that all of this filth and stench, you went after it and you loved it so much that you brought it to you and you redeemed it. It’s not going to be like the home court banners, let’s say the 2011 state champ and the 2012 state champ, and then you see the 2022 state champ. No, God is going to be the champ for all eternity. There is no one else that can step in and win us to salvation like he can. Why are we like this?
Why we are. Verse 8 gives us this great promise. For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not for yourselves. It is God’s gift. Not from works, so that no one can boast.
God offers all of this to us by grace, which means it’s a gift from Him. And that’s why it’s emphasized twice here. It’s grace, but it’s also God’s gift. And as with any gift that we prepare especially for someone that we love, if we hand them that gift and then they try to pay us for it, or they say, well, let me give you something in exchange, it sets us aback because we’re like, no, I’m giving this to you as a gift. I don’t want you to pay me for it.
I don’t want you to give me anything in return. Somebody might be insistent, no, you’re giving this to me, but I have to pay you back in some way. That becomes an affront to God when we do that. You wouldn’t want your grandkids to turn around and pay you back for a gift that you just gave them at Christmas. You just want them to say, what?
Thank you. I appreciate it so much that you’ve given this to me. It’s by God’s grace that he offers this to us. And Just as we reach out to accept a gift and say, yes, I claim that is mine. That’s what faith is.
Faith isn’t a work on our part. It’s just accepting what God has given for us. And the reason for this is it’s not from ourselves, it’s a gift from God. It’s not from works so that no one can boast when we stand in heaven someday and we’re the trophies that everyone is looking at and people say, look at what you’ve done, God. And one little trophy sticks up his hand and says, well, I gave some money at church, so I had part of my being here that’s not giving full glory to God.
And also, if we think that we can do any type of work, what we’re saying is that what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us is not completely sufficient. And God is completely sufficient in everything that he does. But still, in our world today, there are some people that think, well, yeah, I believe in Jesus, but I need to give money or I need to do some good things or I need to go to church. They want to ask, add something on to what Jesus Christ did. And they’re just doing that basically because we would rather save ourselves than completely say, I can’t do anything.
I have to submit to God completely. For you are saved by grace through faith. This not from yourselves. It is God’s gift, not from works, so that no one can boast. Why we are what we are is because God has given it to us.
We’ve done nothing but to accept that. How is it that we should respond? Therefore, we read in verse 10, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. What we are supposed to do in order to respond to what God has done for us is that we’re supposed to live our lives working for the King instead of working for ourself or Satan. We’re supposed to be working for the kingdom, the eternal kingdom, not working for this world.
Our good that we do should be for eternal purposes, not just for things, things here on earth. And therefore, what do we need to do? We need to discover God’s good and pleasing will for us so that we can do what he wants us to do. God has made us. That’s what it means when he says we are his workmanship.
He fashioned us while we were in the womb. He made us exactly the way that we are so that we’re all unique individuals and we each can do very specific things that he wants us to do. All this was created in Christ Jesus. We were for good works. And these good works God prepared ahead of time for us to do so.
You may say, well, I don’t know what it is that I’m supposed to do for the Lord. Well, you need to go to him in prayer and say, God, what is it that you have prepared for me to do? Because he already knows the things that he wants you to do. Now, it can be something simple. Maybe he wants you to call somebody to encourage them today.
Maybe he wants you to meet with someone to share the gospel with them. Maybe he wants you to go on a mission trip. Maybe he just wants you to come to church and worship today. Or maybe he wants you to do something kind for your children. It’s the mentality of saying, God, what do you want me to do?
Moment by moment? God, what do you want me to do day by day and week by week? And in the year ahead, instead of just thinking about what we want to do and going along the natural course of the world, take time to discover what God’s will is. But not only do you need to pray and ask God what to do moment by moment, day by day, week by week and year by year, but once God shares that with you, what you need to do, you’ve got to make a plan to do it. If God says, I really want you to send a birthday card to someone today, and it could be as simple as that, you have to make a plan.
You’re either going to borrow a birthday card from your wife, who usually has some, or you’re going to have to go to the store and buy one. If God is wanting you to go on a mission trip in the next two years, you need to start planning for that and saving up days of vacation. And you also need to spend time in preparation in order to do the good works that God has for you. You got to ask him. You got to spend time planning, be proactive, begin to prepare so that you can do these things for him.
Because when we do those, we’re expressing our appreciation back to him for what he’s doing for us. What are you doing today for the Lord? Are you seeking him as to what you’re supposed to do in your life? That’s the question. If you’re a believer or are you just going on the routine day by day and you really never seek what God wants you to do?
And the other thing that. The question that we need to ask ourselves today, Are we really alive in Jesus Christ? Have we allowed God’s grace to work in our life, to receive the gift of salvation so that we’re no longer following the ways of the world, but instead we’re living for the kingdom. We’re walking on paths of righteousness. And Scripture tells us that there’s a definite point in your life when that comes about.
It’s when you believe in your heart that you can do nothing for your own salvation. That you have to trust that the work of Jesus Christ, his death, burial and resurrection, not just in your head, but you have to know it in your heart for certainty that you’re depending on him for your salvation. But not only do we come to that realization in our heart, but Scripture says we’re willing to tell others, Jesus is Lord. He is God Almighty. He’s the ruler of my life.
And Scripture tells us when those two things happen, that we come to this point, that we’re removed from our old path into the path of life. God’s grace and his love and the salvation that he gives for us. Would you bow your heads with me as we pray? Father, we come to you today and we just ask that there are any among us that don’t have life in Jesus Christ, that their life looks more like not obeying the Ten Commandments, that than it does with a desire to obey them. That they would come to true faith and repentance today.
That they would acknowledge in their heart that your son died on the cross for our sins, that he rose from the dead. And Father, that they would be willing to tell someone today that Jesus is the Lord of my life. And Father, for those of us that have accepted Jesus Christ by faith, help us to just get in the routine, Father, of seeking your will moment by moment. God, what do you want me to do next that will honor you and serve the purposes that you have for my life? God, we know for certain that whatever you ask us to do, that you will provide us with whatever we need.
And Father, even where we don’t feel like we can do things that you ask us to do, you will step in and your strength will be seen in us to be what’s bringing about these wonderful things, Father, all these things, we come to you with thankfulness today. That you stepped in when we were undeserving and evil and nasty, Father, and made us your own. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.