Our Transformation in Christ
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We are in part 3 of our series through the book of Ephesians, and, uh, this series we’re going to take it in 2 parts. Uh, we’re going to do 6 sermons leading into the holidays, then we’ll take a break for the holidays, and then in 2027 we’ll come back and get the back half of, uh, the last 3 chapters of the book of Ephesians. And, and, and Paul has organized this in such a way that it just fits naturally for us to do it in 2 parts. The first 3 chapters really give us our position in Christ. It gives us propositional truth about who we are and our blessings in Christ and how he prays for us and tells us about our salvation.
So it’s propositional truth for 3 chapters about our position and our possessions in Christ. And then the back half, the last 3 chapters are really the prescription. Okay, since we know who we are and what we have, how should we then live? So what are the practices? Of being a Christ follower.
So that kind of gives you the organization of the book. The key phrase in the book of Ephesians is in Christ. It occurs over 36 times in various ways, in Christ, in Him, in the Beloved. But Paul really wants us to get this, that being a Christ follower, being a Christian means that Christ by His Spirit lives in you, that He abides in you and you have a new life in Christ. And so that’s the key to understanding.
It’s not, Christianity’s not a life merely for Christ, it’s not a life merely like Christ, living like Christ, it’s Christ in me, the hope of glory. And so Paul wants us to know this. Now he’s writing to the believers in a city called Ephesus, and over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about this city. It was one of the 4 largest cities in the Roman Empire in Paul’s day, probably had a population around 250,000 people, it’s a huge city, and it was the seat of the proconsul of the Roman Empire for Asia Minor. Which is modern-day Turkey, and it was located on the west coast of modern-day Turkey, of Asia Minor, and it was a very wealthy city and a very influential city, and it was an important center of Christian influence.
In fact, following Paul, who spent 3 years there planting this church, he knows the city well, knows the people well. Following Paul, according to early church tradition, we find that Timothy became a pastor there. So Timothy, the spiritual son of Paul, of Paul became a pastor of the church at Ephesus later on. And then following him, we know that the Apostle John in the latter days of his life, the last living apostle, was a pastor at the church of Ephesus. And so it’s an influential and important city.
Paul wrote this letter about 61 or 62 AD. He wrote it, we believe, from his first imprisonment when he was under house arrest in Rome. And so Paul’s penning this letter, this really beautiful letter to the believers at Ephesus from a Roman prison. We covered in first chapter, in chapter 1 over the last couple weeks, we’ve covered the blessings we have in Christ, that we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, Paul tells us. He opens up with this amazing doxology about that we have every blessing, and then he gives us a prayer he’s praying for us, and he says, I pray that you would have the eyes of your heart enlightened so that you would know these blessings, that it wouldn’t just be head knowledge, but it would be deep in your heart and that you’d really know what you have in Christ.
And that brings us to chapter 2. And he’s going to move from the blessings we have and to be enlightened to know that these blessings belong to us. He’s going to now back up a little bit and tell us how we got here. How did we get this salvation and what’s that look like? And so what he wants to tell us what we have and what happened to us.
Now, most people, as Paul reminds us of this, most people think, well, I’m basically good. I’m basically a good person. And that’s what most Americans, you know, we’re good people, we’re Americans. And, you know, I make mistakes. I’m not perfect.
We’ll all admit to that, right? Nobody here says I’m perfect. And if you meet somebody like that, you know they’re lying, right? Right? And so we all make mistakes.
What we kind of think is that maybe that Christianity is where God helps us to become a better version of ourselves. That’s what Christianity is, it’s a self-improvement course. But that’s not what the Bible teaches us, that’s not what the Apostle Paul teaches us here. The Bible describes our condition apart from Christ much more radically. Paul doesn’t say that we’re spiritually sick in need of healing.
He doesn’t say that we’re spiritually weak and need strength. He says we’re spiritually dead apart from Christ and we need resurrection. He says that is true Christianity. See, the gospel’s not about self-improvement, it’s about resurrection. Christianity’s not about God taking bad people and making them a little better.
It’s about taking spiritually dead people and raising them to life in Christ. And so the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, as we get into chapter 2, he wants to describe to them how God has transformed them from being dead spiritually to being alive spiritually in Christ. And as we look at the text, I think we’ll see 3 truths that teach us about our transformation transformation in Christ. Let’s dig in. We’re in chapter 2 of the book of Ephesians.
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. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
This is God’s Word. We’re looking for 3 truths about our transformation in Christ. The first truth is this, we are spiritually dead in our sins without Christ. Without Christ, we are already Spiritually dead in our sins. Paul begins with the darkest possible diagnosis.
You’ve come in to see Dr. Paul about your spiritual illness, and he says it’s too late, you’re already spiritually dead unless God intervenes.
That’s what he says. Now, if you’ll be reminded for a moment about the book of Genesis and how humanity got where it is today, God Said, let us make man in our own image, male and female, He made them. And so He made us as the crown of creation to reflect His glory to His creation. But yet man sinned against God. And so Adam and Eve were given one law to keep and they were taught if you break that, you will die.
In that day you will die. And the evil one said, you will not surely die. And it looked as if the evil one had told them the truth because when they ate of the fruit, they did not immediately die. They were kicked out of the Garden of Eden.
Their lives were changed. They no longer had fellowship with the Lord as they did before. But at that very time, death began to be at work in them. And they were spiritually dead from that moment, separated from God spiritually. Physically, the clock started ticking on their bodies so that there’s a clock ticking even in all of us today.
There is a day coming when these bodies will cease to live. They won’t— these bodies will not live forever apart from God raising us from the dead. And so death has been at work in humanity ever since. And so we are spiritually dead. So every one of us is born As children of Adam, spiritually dead.
Thus, thus Jesus taught Nicodemus in the garden, you must be born again. In what way? Do I need to enter back into my mother’s womb? Nicodemus asked. No, do you?
Don’t you understand? You claim to be a teacher in Israel. You don’t understand spiritual things. No, you must be born again of the Spirit. You need to be born anew.
In the Spirit. Why? Because we’re all born spiritually dead. This is the news that Paul reminds them. He says, and you, speaking of the believers in Ephesus, you were, past tense, dead in your trespasses and sins.
A trespass is to step on another person’s territory. And in this case, it’s to step outside the boundary of what God has called us to be and how to live. It’s not an accidental trespass, it’s intentional. And then a sin is the idea of missing the mark of God’s highest and best. It’s falling short.
You’re dead in that. That’s how you were. And this is what it looked like, verse 2, in which you once walked. The word walked is not to be taken literally. It’s a metaphor, a Hebraic phrase that means way of life.
This is your— your former way of life looked like this. This is how you live. You followed the course of the world. In fact, Paul’s about to give us 3 enslaving influences for those of us that are dead in our trespasses and sin. These 3, if you will, a trinity of evil that enslaves us.
The first is the world. Now he doesn’t mean earth, he means the culture, The fallen culture of humanity, the worldly culture that this person just follows whatever the culture’s doing, whatever’s in vogue, whatever’s popular, they’re all in on it.
That is what you used to look like, believers in Ephesus. You followed the course of the world. And then the second member of this threesome is the prince of the power of the air. Who’s that? Well, that’s the evil one.
That’s Satan, who’s been given temporary authority over humanity because humanity rebelled. And he has a spiritual influence. And so we battle not only against the world, but we battle against the evil one who has an enslaving spirit, the spirit that is now at work And the sons of disobedience. Whenever Jesus was preaching in John chapter 8, it says that the Jews got upset at him. The Pharisees got upset at him.
They were rejecting him. And he said, well, you’re children of your father and he was a liar. And so you’re lying. He says, you know, that if you knew me, you would know the truth. And they said, our father’s Abraham, what are you talking about?
And he said, I’ll tell you who your father is. Your father’s the devil, you are children of the devil. Because if you were a child of Abraham, you would love me and you would know that I’m of the Father. So this is not new, what Paul’s using here to call what we were as sons of disobedience is the same thing Jesus was saying to them. That we’re followers of this evil influence of Satan.
Paul’s not playing. He’s not finished. He has a 3rd member of this unholy trinity, and sadly it’s us, the flesh. Not this so much as the sin nature, the fallen nature. And he begins to describe what that looks like.
He says, Verse 3, among whom we, so he switched from you to we, Paul’s including himself and every member of humanity, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.
Desires, interesting Greek word here, epithumia. Epi, if we say epicenter, we mean it’s over the center. So epi in Greek and in English, it means over. And thumia has the idea of a heated desire. Like the word thermos kind of comes from thumia in the Greek.
It has to do with that which is heated or passionate. And so he’s using this particular, it’s not just thumia, it’s epithumia. So you could translate it over-desire. Are desires all wrong, evil? No.
Did God give us, does God have desires? Yeah. Did He give us desires? He did. So that when our stomach grumbles, we have a desire for food.
When we feel thirsty, we have a desire for something to drink. He’s given us sensual desires for intimacy. And so those were given to us from God. But the problem we have is in our fallen nature, our sinful nature, is we have an over-desire. So then we overeat, we overdrink, we overindulge, we seek sexual pleasure outside of the covenant of marriage, and then we seek it easily so that we become addicted to pornography and to other forms of fallenness.
We have an over-desire. These are the enemies that Paul says that once assailed us and enslaved us and we were dead in them. But he’s not finished. He’s given us this unholy trinity, the world, the devil, and the flesh. And then he says that hanging over us, he says, and we’re by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind, all humanity, children of wrath, children of disobedience, Children of wrath.
This Greek word here is orge. It’s where you get the word ogre. It means judgment that’s moved by God’s angry, His appropriate righteous anger against sin because He’s a holy God. He cannot allow it to continue in His universe that He has created. But so He has, it’s hanging over humanity.
Like a sword of judgment, but He’s holding it back in His grace. And so we’ve become like children of wrath.
Paul says, you were spiritually dead without Christ, and you were enslaved by the world and Satan and the flesh, and you were destined for God’s judgment. That’s where you were. Praise God, that’s where you were before Christ. Paul talks about it further in Romans chapter 3. He says, as it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.
No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they’ve become worthless. No one does good, not even one, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All, all, only one, Jesus, was without sin. All.
We’re all sinners and we’re spiritually dead without Christ. And there’s a wage to being a sinner. The wages of sin is death. And that’s not just spiritual death, which we experience already apart from Christ, but ultimate death, eternity without God.
A dead battery can be recharged. A broken machine can be repaired. A sick person can recover.
But it is absurd to try to give helpful advice to a dead person.
You could do better. No, they’re dead. You could try harder to kick that habit. No, they’re dead.
Why don’t you turn over a new leaf? You’re talking to a dead person, Paul says. We must be careful not to minimize the seriousness of sin. It kills.
Christianity is not behavior modification. Spiritually dead people do not need a motivational speech. They need Jesus.
They need resurrection.
And this also destroys our spiritual pride.
When we look at people that are far from God to go, well, I would never do that.
Instead, to recognize, no, so were such— so, so were we. We were once— we once walked like that. We were once enslaved. We were once assailed with these over-desires.
No, we’re more like beggars who just happen to know where the breadline is.
Paul says this is our condition without Christ, and then he moves us to a very important transition, one of my favorite 2-word transitions in all the Bible. Verse 4, but God.
But God. Well, he’s arrived now in this story. That’s where we were, but God. That leads us to our second Truth, we are made spiritually alive with Christ. Without Christ, we’re already dead.
It’s not like we’re going to die, we’re already dead without Christ, but with Christ, we’re made spiritually alive. But God, we were dead, but God acted. Paul doesn’t say try harder, doesn’t say you should try to figure things out, he says, but God, God intervened. Why did he intervene? Well, Paul answers the question.
He says he was rich in mercy.
His mercy overflowed. We were dead and we were in rebellion and we were under his judgment, and he intervened. His, his love caused him to address his own holiness and his own judgment. And he’s so rich in mercy. And it wasn’t just that.
It wasn’t just that he’s a merciful God.
Paul continues to tell us why He intervened. He says, because of the great love with which He loved us. The great agape love, unconditional love. He loved us when we were unlovable. He didn’t love us because of who we are, He loved us in spite of who we are.
He loved us because He, as John writes in his first epistle, God is.
Love. That’s why he did it. That’s why we have but God here in verse 4, because he’s rich in mercy, because he is great in love for us. Now, when did he do it? We know why he did it.
It was his mercy, his love. When did he do it? While we were dead in our trespasses and sins. He, he didn’t say, well, let’s see if they’ll turn and do a little better, then I’ll intervene. No, we were dead.
That’s when he did it. And so Paul writes in Romans, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
That’s when he did it. And then he piles 3 actions that God does in a row here, this action that he takes out of his love. He says, He made us alive together with Christ, verse 5. He resurrected us from the dead, spiritual death we’re speaking of here, so that we are born again. He made us alive.
And then he, when he says this, he gives us a little parenthetical thought that he’s gonna unload a little bit later in verse 8, but he says, By grace you’ve been saved, I’ll tell you more about that in a minute, Paul says, you know, basically just inserted that right there. And then he gives us the second action, made alive together with Christ, verse 6, and raised us up with Him.
And then a third action, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Whatever God has done for Christ, who was crucified for our sins and buried, He raised Him to life, He raised Him up, so He ascended, and He seated Him at the right hand of the Father. And when you’re in Christ and He’s in you, whatever God has done for Christ, He’s done for you. ‘Cause you’re in Christ and He’s in you and you’re in Him. And that’s what— Christ’s resurrection and exaltation are also yours.
In Christ.
This phrase, this parenthetical phrase, he says, by grace you have been saved. Grace is God’s unmerited favor. Y’all remember the little acronym maybe you’ve been taught through the years? God’s redemption at Christ’s expense. That’s grace.
It’s the, it’s the objective basis for our salvation. It’s God’s free gift of grace that He gave us. Jesus is the object that we can place our faith in. It’s the objective rock basis of our salvation. For by grace you have been saved, he says in the ESV.
I like the King James a little better here because it tries to get at this difficulty for the English language at least of a present tense verb And then a sort of past tense with ongoing effect kind of verb that’s tagged on with it that is really a kind of -ing word, a participle. You’re like, we forgot what they taught us in 8th grade, can you help us? So here’s what the King James says, by grace ye are saved. So are is present tense. You know that, right?
That’s happening right now. I am, you are. And then saved is past tense. So that’s past tense. And so he’s put a present tense with a past tense trying to capture what Paul’s teaching here about salvation and all the activity that happens here.
And the first word that we could get out of this is we have been saved from sin’s penalty, which is justification. You hear these big Christian words sometimes and you wonder what they are, but justification is that you’ve been counted righteous, you’ve been counted just, or as I was taught when I was younger, just as if I never sinned. Justification, just as if I never sinned. So I’ve been cleansed of sin. So you have been, past tense, saved from sin’s penalty.
That’s inside this verb combo, by grace, You have been saved from sin’s penalty. Here’s sanctification. Sanctification means that you’re being made holy, you’re being made like Jesus, and it’s in— you are, we are being saved from sin’s power. We are being saved right now. It’s implied in that participle that we can’t quite see, but it’s there in the original Greek.
And then glorification is we will be saved from sin’s presence. There comes a day When there’ll be no sin. There’ll be a new world and the new heavens and getting a new glorified body.
That’s coming. Amen, right? All right. And so now you’ve learned 3 big Christian theological words and we’ve simplified it. We have been saved from sin’s penalty.
We are being saved from sin’s power. We will be saved from sin’s presence.
Book of Colossians, Paul says, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him. Who’s Him? Jesus. He made Him alive together with Jesus, having forgiven all of our trespasses. And baptism is a picture of this.
We see it in Romans chapter 6. We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. We’ve been made alive, and baptism is a picture of the old life is buried and dead, and the new life has risen to Christ. Perhaps you remember this name from 2 Samuel chapter 9, Mephibosheth. That’s the kind of name that sticks with you.
Mephibosheth, he was the son of Jonathan, David, King David’s best friend. He was the grandson of King Saul, who became an enemy of David and tried to kill David. And Saul and his friend Jonathan were killed in a battle against the Philistines, and David took over the throne. And when there was peace in the land, he looked around and he remembered his friend Jonathan. He said, is there anyone left from the house of Jonathan that I could show favor, that I could show grace?
And someone said, well, Mephibosheth is still alive, but he’s crippled. Whenever the Philistines overthrew and the land was being attacked when they overthrew King Saul, his nursemaid took off running with him and dropped him and he’s crippled in his feet and in his legs. And David said, bring him to me, bring him to my house. And I’m sure Mephibosheth was trembling thinking, I’m the last survivor from the house of Saul and he’s doing as all Oriental kings did to make sure there were no enemies of the throne left alive. That’s not what he did.
He said, here, I want you to take a seat at my table. From now on, you will eat at the king’s table. You will sit, a cripple, at the king’s, and not only that, I’m gonna restore to you all of the property, the lands of your grandfather Saul and of your father Jonathan. I’m gonna give it all to you, and you get to eat at my table. A song I enjoy through the years I’ve listened to, written by John Mark McMillan, called Carbon Ribs.
It’s a strange title. You’ll have to check it out sometime. But the chorus, sitting crippled at his table, sitting crippled at his side. We’re Mephibosheth in this story. That’s who we are.
We’ve been invited even though dead, even though crippled. We’ve been raised up and given all the riches, and we’ve been invited to the King’s table. Some believers think that now that they’re saved, they need to work really hard at making God happy with them, and they try to do it according to their own strength. But our new life comes from God and is sustained by our union with Christ, and his Spirit lives in us. Our identity is no longer about effort and earning, but it’s about being in Christ.
Paul says to be in Christ, to be with Christ. And that leads us to the 3rd truth: we are God’s workmanship in Christ. We’re at verses 8 through 10.
We are God’s workmanship. This is what he’s been up to here. In fact, I skipped over a verse and I need to back up as I get to that. And that was verse 7, ’cause it really leads us into verse 8. It begins, so that.
We see here there’s a purpose clause coming. He’s gonna tell us the purpose for why He, but God intervened and saved us. What was His purpose? What’s He— so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us.
Us in Christ Jesus. In other words, God says, here’s my purpose for bringing you back to life and raising you up in Christ is so that throughout the coming ages, now we live in a current age and this age will come to an end. In fact, I would, I’ve been telling people about this lately, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, 7 years from now, will be the year 2033. That’ll be the 2,000-year anniversary of the Great Commission. That’ll be the 2,000-year anniversary of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and the giving of the Great Commission.
So we got 7 years to celebrate and to work at sharing the gospel and living for Jesus. I’ve been thinking about that in the coming age, but there’s an age coming after this age. There’s a coming age where God’s gonna show off. He’s gonna show off. He’s gonna show His immeasurable riches toward us in Christ Jesus.
Now, when you’ve seen a sunset in the mountains, when you’ve seen a sunrise at the beach, when you’ve seen a newborn baby in a young mother’s arms, you’ve seen the immeasurable riches of God. You’ve seen glimpses of His glory. And he said, you hadn’t seen anything yet. You haven’t seen anything yet. You, you don’t know what I have coming, that, that I want to show you what you have in Christ in the coming age.
And then he says, for we are his workmanship, right? That’s just— this is awesome. Verse 10, for we are his workmanship. Now he did add something to that parenthetical phrase, for by grace you’ve been saved. He added through faith, verse 8.
And so grace is the objective basis, but faith is the subjective means. And so if grace is that Christ died for me even when I was still a sinner, and so grace is this, this is the Bible I’m using, so that’s grace, that’s the object. And so faith then is the means that I take hold of the object. And so it’s, for by grace you’ve been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, because this was given to me, but so was this. I was born with this, weren’t you?
Now I can exercise it, I can build it up, but I can’t make one. I was born with it. It was a gift. And I’m just doing my best to try to put the cookies on the bottom shelf. Y’all stick with me.
For by grace you’ve been saved through faith. But this, now whatever this is, is not of yourselves, he says. And so this, grammatically speaking, is the whole enchilada, the grace, the faith, the salvation. Salvation is not something you can brag about that you did. He did it all, and you received it.
This is not your own doing.
You got nothing to brag about, so that no one may boast except in Jesus, because he did it all, and I’m a recipient.
For we are his workmanship, Workmanship in the Greek, poema is the Greek word. If you’re thinking that’s where we got the word poem, you’re right. You in Christ Jesus are His masterpiece, His workmanship, the crown of His creation which He always intended. He said in the very first chapter of the Bible, let us make man in our own image, male and female He made them. He put them in authority over all things.
He made us as the crown of creation, but we rebelled against Him. But then He sent Jesus to raise us from the dead and to win back for Himself a people so that that which He had set aside beforehand, before He had created anything, that He had prepared a people that would be created. Oh, that’s a Genesis kind of word right there, created. For we are new creations. This is not just a remodel, this is a new creation.
We are His workmanship, a new creation in Christ Jesus, created in Him before time, beforehand, for what? Good works. Well, Gary, you made such a big deal about it not being about works. You weren’t saved by works, but you have been saved for good works. Don’t get the cart ahead of the horse.
You can’t earn salvation, but having received it, now you have Christ living in you and you’re to be the light in this world, the salt in this world, that you’re to be different. You’re to reflect the glory of God. To this world. And so you begin to look like Jesus and talk like Jesus, and you become His hands, His feet, you become His body, which is the church in this world, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk. There’s that word walk again, like bookends.
It was back there in verse 1, you used to walk, in trespasses and sin, but He has made it so that you’ve been created to walk, live in Christ, and to live for Him. Titus chapter 3, we read Paul writes, He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy. He writes again in chapter 2 of Titus, Jesus who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, who are zealous for good works. He bought us as a possession for Himself. Jesus, He wants you and He wants to live in you and save you and bring you to life so that you’d be zealous, that you would have a desire, a good desire to do good for Jesus.
I don’t know if you’ve ever visited a museum or an art gallery. If you are looking at paintings, you’ll often look to the plaque to the side to find out more about it.
The artist and about the painting, and it might tell you what year it was painted, and it will tell you what kind of paint and the canvas, but the most important thing it’ll tell you is what? The artist. And if it says Rembrandt, if it says Picasso, the value goes up because the value is not in the quality of the canvas, it’s not in the type of paint, it’s not in the frame that it hangs in, the artist. If you go to a bookstore and you’re looking for a book and you’ve got a favorite author ’cause you’ve read one of the books before and you don’t care what the title is, that’s a good writer. And so you look for the book that has the name of the author that you’ve read before and you’ve heard he’s a bestseller.
Paul says, we are God’s workmanship. In Christ, He is the author, He is the artist, He is the one who wrote the poem, that’s you, His masterpiece, that’s what He’s creating in you in Jesus, not you doing it, Him doing it, He’s the author, He’s the creator.
And so we should not ask, what must I do to earn God’s acceptance? That’s the wrong question. Christ has earned your acceptance, receive Christ. What must I do in order to fill up the difference? There is no rest to fill up.
He has fully bought you and paid for you and done all that’s necessary. To make you the crown of His creation in Christ Jesus. Instead, a better question might be, well, since You made me, what’s my purpose? And He’s so ready to tell you, and you need to stick around because the book of Ephesians is not finished. God has a plan for your life.
We were once dead in our sins, following the world, the flesh, the devil, and unable to save ourselves, God intervened. Being rich in mercy and great love, He sent His Son to die on a cross in our place, to die for our sins. He was buried, He was raised on the 3rd day, and He ascended to the Father, and He’s seated at the right hand of the Father’s throne. And He’s returning again someday. And positionally, Paul says, the Word of God says, we’re already there.
Experientially, we’re still going through it, but positionally, we’re in Christ. We’re in Christ. So remember who you are. Remember who you were without Christ, and remember who you are with Christ and in Christ. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about today and you’re hearing it now, you’re hearing it clearly, maybe for the first time, I’m gonna pray in just a minute, and I pray that you would pray with me and confess Jesus as your Lord.
Admit that you’re a sinner, repent, and believe. Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you that you intervened, that we were dead and you sent Jesus to make us spiritually alive. Lord, I pray for that one today that you’re still dead in your sins. You’re still there.
And I pray right now that the Holy Spirit is moving on your life, that he’s knocking at your heart’s door, that you would open up and say, I want you to come into my life, Jesus. I believe you died on the cross for my sins. I believe that you’ve been raised from the grave and that you live today.
Come and live in me. I turn away from my sins and I turn to you, and I ask you to save me and adopt me into your family. I wanna follow you all the days of my life as my Savior and Lord. I commit my life to you today. If you’re praying that prayer believing, the Bible says if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Others are here today and you’re a Christ follower, but you haven’t fully embraced what He’s done for you. Oh God, help us deepen it so that we have the eyes of our heart enlightened so that we know that we know that we know that we are Your workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Read transcript
We’re going to dig in now. Thankful for you being here. We’re in part 3 of Life in Christ, and, uh, we’re going to dig into this chapter 2, just a few verses in chapter 2. And what you’re going to see here— I’ve been mentioning this every week— but Paul is here speaking to the church in Ephesus, which is a large church in a very large city. The city itself is at least 250,000 people, and that’s a huge city in the Roman Empire.
It’s like number 4 among the empire, so it’s one of its biggest cities. And in chapter 1, if you missed it, Paul has talked about the blessings we have in Christ as well as what it means to belong in Christ. So he’s done that setup. He’s prayed really in chapter 1, and now he’s going to begin to unpack what has actually happened in us, what has taken place because of what Christ has done. So this morning, our title is the transformation or our transformation in Christ Jesus, that what He has done what He has accomplished has completely changed us.
And when we walk in Jesus, not only is this true positionally, but I pray it’s true experientially, that more and more you begin to experience a transformation that’s happening because of the cross of Christ. So, Paul now is digging into that. Now, here’s the setup. Before I even read it, here’s where he’s going with it. He’s attacking something that I think a lot of certainly a lot of Americans wrestle with.
Perhaps human beings throughout the known world do this as well, but certainly the people I bump into have a sense that people are basically good and need a little bit of improvement. That’s kind of a common thought, and you might have brought that in here today, and I don’t want you to feel ashamed of that. That is what you hear a lot, and I just, I want to say to you today, and Paul’s going to say this even stronger, we’ve got a more desperate position than that. We’re not good people in need of an improvement. Paul says we’re dead people in need of a resurrection.
And so, as we dig into Ephesians chapter 2, I don’t know what kind of thought process and what kind of feelings you’re bringing in today, what kind of baggage you might be bringing in today. I hope that you’re able to come in today and say, hey, I need more than just a little improvement. I need, I need a resurrection. And there’s a huge difference. We, we might imagine at times, even in, even in the church, we might imagine that God is trying to create a better version of ourselves.
And that’s only true in the sense of creating a version that looks more like Jesus every day. So the Bible says our condition is way more desperate apart from Jesus. We’re not just spiritually sick, We’re spiritually dead, and we’re in that together. I’m with you. Before Christ, I come spiritually dead in need of a resurrection.
So that means none of us— the joy of this as Christians, it does 2 things. First of all, it reminds you that in order to look more like Christ and to grow in your faith, it means spending more time getting to know Him better as well as helping others get to know Him better, and that’s the whole thing. You know, there’s work to do and there’s parenting and there’s being a husband or wife. All of that stuff is important, but the primary goal of our existence is to know Him better every day and to get to know Him that much more that we might grow to look more like Him. And at the end of the day, none of us can boast.
None of us can say, hey, look what I did to come to Christ. No, Paul says, You were dead and Jesus raised you from the dead. So you can’t boast about this. All you can do is say, praise God. All you can do is do what we just did a minute and say, I know a name, and praise God for that name who raises dead things.
Dead things come alive. Y’all think it’s accidental, the set lists? They’re not accidental. All right? They’re supposed to point you to the sermon.
Dead things come alive. How? Because of the blood of Jesus. So as we dig into this text, Ephesians chapter 2, we see Paul here teaching believers that in God they can have a transformed life that brings them not just from good to better, but from death to life. Hallelujah for that.
And when we understand that, we begin to have a transformation in Christ. And so let’s dig in. We’re in Ephesians chapter 2, 1 through 10. Let me read that for you. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.
Notice, dead, 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, don’t miss this, church, we all once walked. Paul’s writing this, so even one of the apostles says, hey, I was here too. We all once walked and lived in the passions of our flesh, Carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Here’s one of the best 2 words in all of Scripture, church: but God. Anytime you see but God, you get excited because it says here, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive.
Alive together with Christ. By grace you’ve been saved, and He raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. This is sounding good. For by grace you’ve been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is God’s word. Amen. Boy, this ought to encourage you today, believer. It should encourage you today.
If you’ve come in and you don’t yet believe, I pray this would move you towards life in Christ Jesus. That is my That is my greatest hope, that it would move you to greater life in Christ Jesus. There are 3 truths, 3 truths in this text about our transformation in Jesus Christ. Here’s the first. It’s obvious we are spiritually dead in our sins without Christ.
Now, I have to admit something to you. At times, I want to like decouple this word sin and try to explain it in some other ways to say it’s the mistakes we made, it’s our brokenness, it’s our guilt, and that is part of sin, But the Bible is careful with this word and mentions it a lot because sin is probably the right— it’s the most close word we can imagine to missing the mark of what God intends. This is an archery term in the Greek. It’s the idea of you aimed at the bullseye but you missed. This word hamartia means to miss the mark, and so it means everything that you do apart from God where you miss His mark for your life.
And that’s a lot of things. Sometimes it’s the things you think, sometimes it’s the things you do. And all of us are in that boat together because of the fall of man. We all enter this life spiritually dead. That’s a funny saying in and of itself, a funny statement.
We enter this life spiritually dead, but it’s what Paul’s saying. It’s what the Bible seems to describe. Okay, so here’s your diagnosis, church. Apart from Christ, we’re dead in our sins. Now, spiritual death, Paul makes very clear, does not mean you’re inactive.
It doesn’t mean you’re literally in the grave. Notice this, when you’re spiritually dead, you’re very much physically into some stuff. He says, hey, what it looks like to be spiritually dead is not to sit around and do nothing. It means you are into some things. And he lists really what the Bible describes most often being the 3 main areas of struggle.
Notice this in verses 2 and 3, He mentions that you once walked in the course of this world. So that’s one of our battles is the world itself is opposed to Christ, opposed to the gospel. If you watch the news, if you spend time in your workplace, you will notice people apart from Christ are very much doing something that is in opposition to the Lord. So the course of the world, that’s one opponent. And then he goes on to say, also following the prince of the power of the air, which is a fancy way of describing the evil one.
In fact, in Matthew 13, Jesus says this parable about the birds coming and then later says the birds are Satan, are the evil one, his minions. So, this power of the air, this prince, for the time being, is the evil one. So, our opponents are the world, the evil one, and then he mentions, verse 3, the passions of your flesh. So, you want to know what your opponents are? The world, the devil, and your very flesh.
Okay, those are some serious opponents. So when you’re spiritually dead, you’re not physically inactive. You’re very much active into some things that are an affront to God. Now, that’s not meant to make you feel guilty. That’s where we all are apart from Jesus.
Now, he’s not done there, praise God. He doesn’t leave us hanging there. In fact, he’s going to give us a list of 3 things that we have in Jesus. So to counteract the 3 opponents, we got 3 really good things. But let’s first dig into the spiritually dead thing.
He says, passions, carrying out the desires, and goes on to say, by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Okay, so here’s your position, and I would do you no justice to tell you anything less than this. I would do you injustice to not let you know that apart from Jesus Christ, wrath is your future. That is a fact. That is what the Word of God is teaching right here, that apart from Christ, like all of mankind, We are children of wrath.
And that might feel unfair to you, you might have reasons to think that’s unfair, but biblically it’s very clear. And if you would really think to yourself and really consider this, you know that a lot of what you think and do is in opposition to God. Even as Christians, we struggle with this, and we have to come often in a heart of repentance saying, hey, that wasn’t it. I missed the mark again.
So we come into this life as children of wrath, But God, in His sovereignty, in His wisdom, has made us alive in Christ Jesus. Now, here’s a few other passages just to help you with this. We are all sinners, missing the mark and falling short. This is how we come. Paul writes to the Romans in chapter 3, he says, as it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.
No one understands, no one seeks God, all have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Goes on later in Romans to say, for the wages of sin is death.
Now I’m leaving that dot, dot, dot there because there’s really good news right after that. But for the moment, for the moment, church, I want you to come face to face with this reality that apart from Christ Jesus, we are in big trouble. And we do no one any favors as a church, as Christians, and say, you’re going to be okay. We do them no favors because it’s not true.
In fact, Jesus very plainly says in John chapter 15, in the vine illustration, he says, apart from me, you can do nothing. We are desperate. We are desperate for him. Now, some of you have come in here with a pride like, I ain’t desperate for nothing. Buckle up, dude.
We are desperate for the Son of God. We are desperate for a Messiah. I was thinking this process through this week, just how wonderful this illustration is just by itself, that it’s not that we need to recharge. It’s not like, friends, it’s not like we’re batteries that just need a recharge every Sunday. It’s not like we come in here week to week and just say, hey, I just need to plug in for a minute.
No, we were once dead and we need to be raised to life. This isn’t a matter of like, I need to go to a physician, I’m a little bit sick, I’m a little bit injured. Now praise God for people who can fix stuff like that. I’m glad that I don’t have to suffer certain illnesses that used to kill people 100 years ago or more. I’m thankful for that, but that’s not what we’re dealing with spiritually.
We’re not sick, we’re not injured. We’re dead. There’s a big difference. I’ve noticed something. There’s not a physician— I’ve never heard of a physician that you bring the corpse to.
That might not sound— that sounds silly, right? It’s like, what are you talking about? There’s no one doing that. There’s no market for resurrection. In fact, I only know of one guy that ever did it, and he did it at least twice.
Once with a guy named Lazarus and once with himself. These are some pretty impressive statistics. And church, if this is the kind of thing you actually believe— like, I don’t know if it’s just you look at this on the page and you hear about it at Easter and you think, well, that’s pretty cool, all 4 gospels talk about this guy getting up— do you really believe that? Because if you do, you’ll know, man, that’s what I want in my life. I don’t want some halfway Christianity where I’m just kind of coasting.
I want the power of the resurrection of Christ in my life.
And I’m, I’m a dead man walking apart from it. I love what one pastor once said. I think his name was Richard Baxter. When he would go and take the stage, and I actually thought about this as I was taking the stage today, he would say, I am a dying man preaching to dying men. That’s so true.
Apart from Jesus, we are dying men preaching to dying men. Make Christ Lord, make him king. Because you’re not just in need of trying a little harder, of making better choices, of, of all the new year’s coming, let me, let me, let me have some better resolutions. That isn’t enough. But the great news is all of that work you had in mind— I got to do better, I got to try harder, I need to transform that, that amount of work I fought here— and just give just a, just a mustard seed, just a tiny amount over here to say, Lord, I want to walk with you closer this year.
What would that look like? What would it look like for my prayers to increase? What would it look like for my dependency on you to grow?
Christianity is not a behavior modification. We’ve done a real harm to people because there’s a lot of people in our, in our, in our city, certainly in our workplaces, that think this is a, a religion of rules and obedience and And that’s true, but only in one sense of that, because this isn’t a thing that works at all if it’s all about just behavior modification. It only works if we’re resurrected. So friends, yes, we should come to Christ in obedience. We should come wanting to do what He’s instructed us to do.
In fact, He says plainly, those who love Me will obey My words. True, true, but we can’t do it. Unless he gives us a new heart. We’re a dead heart, we need a new one. I’m not going to leave you hanging there, okay?
Because Paul doesn’t. Great news, even Romans 6 doesn’t end there. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift, the gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus. So here’s number 2. Don’t worry, I’m gonna let you up.
All right, everybody take a breath. We are made spiritually alive in Christ.
Hallelujah! Praise God! We’re spiritually alive in Christ Jesus. Now, I pray there are some of you that may have come today and you’re spiritually dead currently, and you might choose to walk out those doors today and remain so. I pray that would be— that would be changed, that God would do a move in you today, that you might be spiritually alive.
Notice verse 4, the coolest 2 words in the Bible: but God. We were busted, we were broken, we were in sin. You were stuck in your trespasses, but God— I’m thankful there’s been a lot of those in my life, a whole lot of those where God showed up— but God being rich in mercy, kindness, goodwill, great in love, not just any love, unconditional love for us. And Paul gives us a pile of 3 actions. That isn’t accidental.
Oh, you were following the world, you were following the evil one, you were following the ways of your flesh, but great news, God showed up with a Trinity of greatness as well.
Here’s what it says. Notice it in verse 5. Get them. Catch all 3. It says, He made us alive in Christ.
He raised us up. He seated us in the heavenly places. Now, some of you are sitting right there going, I’m pretty sure I’m sitting at 2020 Old Mill Road right now. I’m in these seats. And some of you are cold and some of you are hot.
It’s crazy. I’m scorched right now. I’m looking at some of you doing this. I’m not in the heavenly places right now. What is he even on?
This is this idea of already/not yet that I talk about all the time at church and Paul talks about in his letters, all the disciples do, that positionally in Christ Jesus, you are already positioned in heaven. There’s nothing you can do. There was nothing you could do to begin with to earn Christ’s love. He was rich in love already. And there’s nothing you can do to keep that love.
I’ve got to earn this. I got to— now that I’ve got it, I’ve got to sustain it and keep it. What? You have a new heart, a new heart that says, I just need more Jesus.
If you’ve been thinking, Christian believer in the room, if you’ve been thinking, boy, I’ve got to do better, otherwise God will not bless me. You got it upside down. I’ve got to do better because I love my dad. I love my Father. I love my Savior.
That’s why. Out of love, I want to obey. God being rich in mercy, he raised us and he seated us, so positionally, I am already well.
Some of you in the room, believers in the room, you keep carrying a whole lot of baggage. You keep coming around and you think, I’m not good enough. I can’t do this. I can’t believe Jesus would give me these opportunities. And sometimes it’s people that are rising to the occasion in ministry and they keep having self-esteem problems and it’s because they can’t do what Paul says in another passage, forgetting what is behind and straining forward to what is ahead.
They can’t seem to manage to put that off. And that might be you today. You’re bringing all this stuff in here and I want you to hear, Christ Jesus has seated you already in the heavenly places.
And verse 7 describes it: immeasurable riches, abundant grace and kindness.
Well, I like this Jesus, y’all. I like this God, this good God who loves us, this only God who loves us, because we were spiritually dead in sin, but God said, I got you. Colossians, Paul writes to them and says, you were dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh. That means your flesh was a, was a far was apart from God, but God made you alive together with him, forgiving all your trespasses. We do this wild thing here we call baptism too.
Some of you’ve been baptized right here in front of us. You know, that is meant to be an image for you of what has happened in Christ Jesus, that the old you is gone, the new you has arrived. In fact, our theme verse for baptism as a church is Romans chapter 6. Verse 4, where it says, we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. So friends, Christians in, in here today, you’re not just a little bit alive.
You’re not just a little— you just— sometimes I wonder if we’re thinking, man, it seems like the saints and the guys writing these books, boy, they got 100% dose of Jesus and I got like a 10% dose. I didn’t get the whole thing. That is false. The same God lives today. The same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead lives today and lives in you.
You didn’t get a partial gospel, friend. You’ve been raised to new life. You can walk in Jesus in fullness, just like the saints. I’m thankful for that. I’m praising God that I didn’t get a partial.
I got the newness of life, just like Peter, just like Paul.
I want to remind you of a story in 2 Samuel chapter 9. This is going to sound kind of random, but I thought of him not only because his name is so cool, and I like a lot of these crazy names in the Bible. This young man named Mephibosheth. Say that with me. Mephibosheth.
You like that one, right? Name your son that. It’s great. Mephibosheth.
It was a crippled young man in 2 Samuel chapter 9, and David has, at this point, King David has taken over as king of all Judea, and Saul, his predecessor, and his son Jonathan have been struck down in battle, and most of the house of Saul has been eradicated. And so it’s a sad time in one sense in the kingdom and a glorious time in another because The king which God had chosen has finally reached the throne, and God has orchestrated a lot of that. But, but David is a man that represents— he’s not Christ, but there’s a lot of these images in the Old Testament of like foreshadowings of Christ. We have it in Joseph, we have it in Samuel, we have it in David, we have it in some of the prophets, these little foreshadowings of the coming Messiah. And here he shows us one that I think is one of the clearest pictures of grace.
So at this point, he has overthrown the former king who had, who had tried to kill him, and it’s in this moment that David said, who is left? Who is left in the house of Saul? Because I want to show him grace. I want to show him grace. Has he earned it?
Absolutely not. In fact, most of the kings of this day would have fully eradicated their, their predecessor if they were opposed Like, no longer will this one ever sit on the throne. But that’s not how David operates because David is in the line of King Jesus. He’s meant to represent something here, a kindness. So he finds this young man named Mephibosheth who was a son of David and had been crippled because as the mother got the news that her husband had been killed, Jonathan, she, I believe if I remember this right, she dropped him.
And so he’s injured really in, in grief. And David comes to him and says, hey, I loved your father and I loved your grandfather even though he was opposed to me, and I’m going to show you grace. And he gave him back all of his land and title, and he said, all the days of your life you can sit at my table.
I’ll tell you why that’s such a good story, because what Paul is saying is when we come into this life We are operating under the banner of the Lord’s opponent. We don’t come into this life Team Jesus. We don’t. We come into this life, as Paul describes, following the course of the world and the prince of the air, spiritually dead.
But, but God being rich in mercy says, I know you once worked for the enemy, but I’m giving you eternity and you can sit at my table forever. I want you to understand how incredible that gift is. Believer in the room, if you’re feeling discouraged today, would you come to that text? Say, God, thank you. No matter what the problem is right now that I’m facing, it is incredible that you would show me that love.
Non-believer today, it’s not accidental that you’re in the room. God has given you an opportunity to move from death to life.
Praise him. Some believers are trying to live as though Christianity can be done in their own strength. That ain’t the case. We’ve been made alive. And here’s the third and final point, and I’ve left myself enough time to cover this.
Hallelujah.
This is probably the sweet maybe the sweetest part of this text. I love that he ends in verses 8 through 10 by describing how we are God’s workmanship in Christ Jesus. Now, I want you to hear something very clear this morning, and there have been huge divides in Christianity over these words I’m about to say, that what it seems to me Paul is most clearly saying is not that we have been saved by works, but we have been saved for works. And that’s important and very different. There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation.
In fact, Paul says it can’t be done. You’re spiritually dead, and if you think you can boast about that, you’re wrong. However, in Christ Jesus, He has saved us to be His workmanship for good works. Now, this happens through faith. Verse 8, it says, by grace you’ve been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing.
The word this is really important there. The word this is in a place of argument to where it’s saying not just the faith, but the grace by faith, all of that is a gift of God. So this big idea of salvation, before you start thinking this has something to do with God’s choosing and some sort of element of predestination, we covered that a little bit last week. You can go back and listen into that. Here it seems what he’s actually saying is, Salvation as a whole, the grace, the mercy, the faith, that is a gift of God.
And that’s a fact. And all Christian faiths believe that together. This is a gift of God, not a result. Verse 9, Lordy mercy, do you see it? Not a result of works.
Say it with me, not a result of works. I don’t work to earn my salvation. I work because I’m saved. Huge difference. And it’s more freedom too, because I work for King Jesus because I love King Jesus.
I couldn’t think of a better job on the planet. And I’m not alone, friends. It’s not a pastor’s job, it’s a Christian job. So call yourself a Christian, then you work for King Jesus. Hey, but I, I cut lawns for a living, Jonathan.
I, I go to the hospital for a living. I, I, I lock people up for a living. You do it for King Jesus. You didn’t know that, did you? I do that for King Jesus.
All of it, all of it to the glory of God, every bit of it. He says in verse 10 so plainly, and this is one of the most beautiful things, he says we are his workmanship. In Greek, that is the word, the word poema. You are his poema. It’s where we get the word poem.
You are the poetry of God, if you will. That poetry is not like any kind of writing. It is meant to be eloquent and beautiful. It’s not— God didn’t say, hey, I’m pinning this over here. I think, I think of Bob Ross sometimes when I think of God making him.
Let me put a little fancy tree over here and a little sweet mountain. But when he got to man, he made a poem. He took his time. He got more eloquent. It says he made us in his image.
There’s something different going on there. We are his poetry. We are his artwork. We are his masterpiece. We’re not like the rest of the planet.
We are His workmanship and He has a purpose for you. He has a purpose for me. Every single one of us created in Christ Jesus for good works by salvation which He has freely given. For good works prepared beforehand, verse 10, that you should walk in them. So see the beautiful picture.
This is the capstone. Stone of what He started. He says, you were once dead, you were once apart from Me, now you’ve been made alive. You once walked in the course of the world, now you walk in the good works which I have created you to do. See how He’s doing this perfect summary statement now?
And in every way where you were broken, I have saved and fixed you.
So now walk in Me. We’ve been saved by grace, by mercy, not by works. Paul writes to his disciple Titus in chapter 3, He says He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy. In another place in Titus, he writes, Jesus who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.
Zealous. I have to admit something to you. Um, I, I think art is pretty cool, but to be honest with you, I, I couldn’t look at like a Rembrandt or something like that and look at that and go, boy, that should be worth thousands of dollars. For me, it doesn’t work. Some of you are like, you don’t get it.
I’m like, you’re kind of right, I don’t get it. But when you go to an art gallery or you go to a museum or something and you see things on the wall and you know they’re worth a astounding amounts of money, and most of them aren’t even for sale. They’re priceless. They’re, they’re, they’re antiquity, right? And so you see these sculptures and things, and you find out, well, that’s Michelangelo, that’s Picasso, that’s— and what makes them valuable, what makes them valuable is not the quality of the work necessarily, because admittedly, I’ll look at it and scratch my head, especially Picasso.
That guy’s like, he’s on something. I’m like, what am I looking at?
But it’s priceless. Why? Because of its Creator, because of its author. Paul says we are God’s masterpiece.
Why then are we priceless? Because of our author, our creator. You have a high view of God, you ought to have a high view of self as a result. Not because you’re great, not because you do great all the time. You know you don’t.
I know I don’t, but I’m special because of who made me. I am the workmanship of Christ Jesus, created for something valuable. In fact, the God of the universe created me and set me aside separately for good work. So stop asking this question, do I have value in the kingdom of God? Do I have a purpose?
You are God’s masterpiece. Yeah. The question isn’t if, but what. It isn’t, hey, do I have— no, it’s, you definitely do. The question is, what has God set you aside for?
Be constantly saying, Lord, hey, I’m your masterpiece. Okay, what’s that look like? There might be a— you might be in a season right now where all that means in this moment is work in a different way in your company that expresses your faith. Maybe for a long time no one even knows in your workplace you’re a Christian. What if it looks like just a beginning of a change of how you work?
Maybe if it looks like being more Christlike as a husband, as a wife, there might not be some dramatic thing you’re thinking, boy, I want to do this dramatic thing for King Jesus. And maybe you will, but maybe in this moment it’s simpler than that. What would it look like for me to be the workmanship of Christ as a spouse, as a dad, as a mother, And quit asking this question of, hey, what do I do? What do I need to do to earn His acceptance? You already have it.
You couldn’t earn it, but praise God, you have it.
So as I close right now, I want you to hear this.
We weren’t just sick. We weren’t just injured. We were dead in our sins, all of us, me included. But God, God being rich in mercy, friend, if you’ve come here today and you know I’m spiritually dead, and I know that’s hard to hear, at the same time I pray you might hear that in Christ Jesus you can be spiritually alive, that something can happen today, that change is not just The next few days, the next few years, but eternity, something can change. A transformed life.
Believer in the room, this is meant to be an encouragement to you. You’re not a nobody. God loves you so much that he died for you. He loves you so much that he eloquently penned your existence, and he has a purpose for you that is better than you can imagine.
This is grace. We didn’t earn it. Salvation’s a gift. Now we’ve been saved by it. How will you respond?
Let’s pray now together, church. Heavenly Father, we, we thank you. We praise you that you’re a good God who loves us, that the story, the testimony of this scripture, as much as anything, is a God who is rich in mercy.
That loves us in spite of us, I would be first to say, Lord, I’m thankful for that.
I know, I know myself well enough to know that apart from you I can do nothing. Apart from a heart transplant, I was not going to be faithful. I was not going to love you in the ways you’ve called me. And yet you, being rich in mercy, have saved me. And saved your people.
Lord, I lift up that person today. Maybe they’ve been in church for a while. Maybe it’s been a while since they even tried this out, and now look at them. They’re here today getting this bold message. Lord, I pray that somehow, some way, you’d be stirring in their heart in this moment, letting them see that, you know what, I am— I’m not just spiritually sick.
I’m not just in trouble. No, I’m spiritually dead, in desperate need of a Savior’s resurrection.
Friend, if that’s you today, this is your day. This is your moment for Christ Jesus to, to wholeheartedly change your life. And you shouldn’t wait even another moment.
Already, your faith is growing already before you say anything. But Paul gives us an opportunity in Romans 10 to say verbally something that might give us assurance. Says that if those who confess Christ, confess Jesus as Lord, and believe that God has raised Him from the dead, they will be saved. So we take that opportunity every week Friend, would you join us in it? Praying the sinner’s prayer, simply this: Jesus, I believe today.
I believe that you’re Lord of all things, King Jesus. I believe that I am spiritually dead, a sinner distant from you, and I could not save myself. But Jesus, I believe today with all my heart. That you died on the cross for me and that you rose from the grave and that you, being rich in mercy, have saved me through that sacrifice. All I can say now, Lord, is thank you.
Help me to understand what it means now to be spiritually alive.
Put some people around me, Lord, I ask, that would disciple me. Maybe it’s the person I’m sitting with that brought me Maybe it’s a family member. Lord, would you give me the courage to, to fall under discipleship with someone that can mentor me? Would you send someone my way that can guide me in my early steps of faith?
Dear friend, welcome to the family of Christ.
Help us all now, we pray, as we close. Help us all to live as men and women spiritually alive in Christ. To the discouraged this morning, Lord, would You encourage and embolden their faith? Remind them in this message they are not nobodies. They are the poetry, the masterpiece of King Jesus.
And that, God, each and every one of us in the room have been created not for just casual, purposeless life. You have created every single one of us for kingdom work, for good work, that we, we are to walk in them. God, would you bring that to the surface in every believer today, that you’ve granted them many opportunities to be kingdom shakers, every single one of us? We pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Most people think of themselves as basically good people who need a little improvement. We may admit that we have some bad habits, some weaknesses, some things we need to work on. So we imagine Christianity as God helping us become a better version of ourselves.
But that is not how the Bible describes our condition apart from Christ. Paul doesn’t say we were spiritually sick and needed medicine. He doesn’t say we were spiritually weak and needed strength. He says we were dead and needed life. The gospel is not about self-improvement. It is about resurrection.
That means none of us can boast. If there has been any real transformation in our lives, the glory belongs to God. We were dead, but God made us alive, enslaved to sin, but God saved us by grace. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he taught believers how God had transformed their lives from death to life in Christ Jesus.
