Salvation
Ephesians 2:1-10
By Pastor Jordan Hines

And sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of the world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, 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 the messiah, even though we were dead and trespasses. You are saved by grace together with Christ Jesus. He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus from works so that no one can boast.

For we are his creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you for this wonderful morning here.

We thank you for the blessed weather you've given us to enjoy this, this church outside in your wonderful creation, Lord. We pray that we will be able to learn much this morning from Jordan's message, Lord, and just enjoy a wonderful afternoon fellowshiping together. Pray this in Jesus name.

Amen. We've been singing about something called the gospel. And for those of you who are Christians, those of you who know Jesus Christ as your savior, you rejoice in that gospel.

And it's sort of a bad news, good news situation. If you probably heard that before, if you maybe go to a doctor's office, you hear the bad news. Say you have a cold.

That's the bad news. And I'm really glad that there's also good news. We have cold medicine.

It's not just a doctor's office. There's also a pharmacy that can give you cold medicine and take care of that cold. What we're dealing with today is far more serious than a common cold.

We're dealing with the idea of our eternal salvation, our eternal living situation. As we are looking to eternity, we know that there is only two ways to go, either to heaven or to hell. And as we look at Ephesians chapter two, we are really looking at how we get there and what it looks like to get that salvation.

I want us to notice something off the bat. As you look at this text, most of the time you think of this in the context of evangelism, giving the gospel. But as we go through the text, I want you to find anywhere in the text where it says, this is for unbelievers.

And by that I mean that this message. Yes, of course, the gospel is for unbelievers. But this message is written by Paul to the people in Ephesus who are believers, to remind them of their position in Christ, to remind them of what Christ has done for them.

This is not just to those who don't know this. This is to those who do know this savior. For those who are in the family of God, those who have the hope of the gospel, they need to be reminded.

And we find ourselves in that situation often. And allow me to read just a few verses. I'm going to read the first three verses just before I pray to give us an idea of the situation that we find ourselves in before we dive into the text.

And you he made alive, who were dead, in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And we were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Let's ask the Lord for help this morning before we get into his word.

God, as we get into your word, we want to be changed. We want to be humble. We want to know that God, we need to be incrementally changed.

We need sanctification every single day of our life. As believers and God, sometimes we forget just how amazing your salvation truly is. Sometimes we forget just how spectacular it is that we can wake up knowing that no matter what happens, we will spend an eternity in heaven with you.

Help us never to forget how amazing your gospel is. Help us never to forget the fellowship that we can share with other people as a result of that gospel. God, help us.

As we look at this text, help us to trust you and learn from this text. Today, in your son's name we pray. Amen.

So as we look at this text, I read those first three verses. Some key words that start really just standing, that stand out to me initially is they really point to what we were. The words that I'm going to point to here are describing who we were, and it's really hard to describe yourself sometimes.

So God is describing ourselves. For us, verses one through three say that we were dead. Now, most of the time when we try to describe ourselves, we don't like to describe ourselves in terms like that.

We like to use terms like smart, intelligent, something that's flattering. But the idea here is that we are seeing ourselves for who we really are through the eyes of God. You were dead.

Now, obviously, death is a reality in this world. But this isn't just talking about physical death, right? It's talking about spiritual death, because there's the physical things that we can see and touch and feel right now, and there's the spiritual aspect of ourselves, the immaterial part of us, the real part of us that will one day spend an eternity either in heaven or in hell. And we were dead.

Now, obviously, as Paul is speaking to these people, he's speaking to people. It's okay. Just let them go.

Not letting that go. 1 second. Thank you, David.

We're reminded of God's working right there. So as we look at who we are in Christ, we first have to look at who we were. Right? So he's speaking to believers, believers who are now alive.

So this is a joyful passage of looking back to who we were before. So who we were before we accepted Christ as we were dead, we were not alive in any spiritual sense. And we've talked about this before, but it's really a separation, a spiritual separation, meaning there's no relationship with God.

There's no attempt at a relationship with God, and we are not able to worship God. We're not able to be a part of his family. And the reason that we are dead is listed.

There's two reasons. First is we're dead in our trespasses. This is a very simple way of saying this, but I think Paul is being very clear on purpose.

So imagine you have a yard or a circle of grass that you are allowed to stay in, and you are not allowed to cross that line. Anybody who crosses that line is disqualified. If you cross that line, you trespass that rule.

Trespass that line, you're out. We trespass on God's moral character. We trespass on God's expectation.

We trespass on who God is. As in his essence, he is holy, righteous. He is eternal.

We are the opposite of that. We stand in violation of God and his character and his commandments. And this is normal, right? So you think of one Peter, chapter one, verses 14 through 16, as obedient children, not confessed, conforming ourselves to the former lust, as in your ignorance.

But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct as it is written. Be holy, for I am holy. And we see that the standard for holiness, the standard for our moral character and for our actions, is based on who God is.

The reason things are wrong is because God is right. And as man has messed up in Genesis three, you can look at the fall and how man sinned and curses came on this earth and on man and woman. The effects of sin are reality, and we have trespassed.

We have stepped beyond where we ought to. This point is challenging only if we really understand who God is. He is righteous, he is caring.

He is faithful. He is merciful, kind. He's unchanging.

We can't really understand the depths of our sin without understanding the glory of God. It comes together, and we can even think in our human flesh that sometimes we try to do what's right. We try to do what's good.

But without Christ, without the gospel in our lives, even our good deeds are not really good. Isaiah 64 says that. But we are all like an unclean thing.

All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. Even the good things that we could possibly produce, even all the charity work that we could produce, all of the good causes we could champion, all those things without Christ are filthy rats. We're dead in our trespasses.

We violated God's law. We are sinners. We are also dead in our sins.

We've missed the mark of God's holiness. It's like leaping across the Grand Canyon, an attempt to reach across and try to jump and make that leap. We're never going to make that mark.

We're never going to be able to leap across the Grand Canyon, because the depths of God's goodness and love and character are so deep that there's no way in our sinful corrupt that we could ever span that gap. We missed. Romans 323 says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

We're dead. And these sins that we once walked in are talking about our behavior. It's our patterns, it's our life.

It's not just something that we occasionally stumbled into. It's something that we abided in. It was our pattern.

It's what we did. It's our lifestyle. We once walked in these.

This is our manner of life. We walked according to what the course of this world, from verse two, the course of this world is really just how this world operates. So you know this world, you look around you, you live in this world.

This world operates under the presumption of selfishness, of hedonism, gaining everything that you can get for your own pleasure just because you want it. It's self centered, it's selfish, it's sinful. And our walks are controlled by this wicked world.

We walked according to the prince and power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, the prince of the power of the air here is Satan. It is the devil. He is working to dismantle the plans of God.

He is working in opposition to God, not overpowering God, as God is always in control, but he is working in opposition to God, in defiance to God. And the spirit that now works in the sense of disobedience is the human, the rebellious spirit that is outright disobedient, that is confrontationally against God. And I realized that as believers, as most of the people here know, Jesus Christ.

This is hard to hear. It's hard to tell myself, because this is not who I want to be. This is hopefully not who you want to be.

But this is the reality of who we were. And we need to be reminded on a regular basis that the people around us that we minister to are sinners just like we are. And that brings about a certain level of humility, that brings about a certain level of honesty with people and saying, you know what? I'm not good enough.

But my God is. Talked about hypocrisy a few weeks ago, and the idea that we are hypocritical came to light is that we are not perfectly in line with everything that God tells us to do, and yet God chooses to use sinful, warped people. And I'm so thankful for that.

Paul goes on to describe this spirit, says that among whom we once conducted ourselves, we were doing everything the world was doing. This is who we were. We were doing this in the lust of our flesh.

This lust is that overwhelming, uncontrolled, controllable desire that makes you do something, that impulses you to do something. And we were fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. We wanted something, so we pursued it until we got it.

And that's really what the world is going to tell you to do, is go chase your dreams, go find what you want to do, and don't let anybody tell you anything otherwise. But it also says in this text, we were by nature children of wrath. See, the system of this world is completely opposite of the system of God.

The system of this world is sin cursed. It is man focused. It is centered on sin.

It is centered on the opposite of God's righteousness. We were just like the others. This reminds me of one, Peter, where it talks about the people, the priesthood, who before they were not a people, but now they are people, the people of God.

Before they had not received mercy, but now they have received mercy. The New Testament is constantly pointing us back to this is who you were, this is who you are now. Therefore do this now.

Let's look even in the first verse, as we can get a precursor to the point here, the main point, what God has done, the first phrase, he has made us alive. That's the good news. Because we were dead, we were goners.

But now we are alive. We are alive in a physical sense. We're also alive in a spiritual sense.

Now we have a relationship with God that when God saves you, when you accept Jesus Christ by faith, the Holy Spirit enters you, enters your life and helps you to grow in Christ, to be more and more like Christ, so that one day we will all be glorified and all be united around the throne of God. We will be in the presence of God. God has made us alive.

He's quickened. It's the word that we get for animation or animated to bring to life God's work in our lives, brings us to life. And that work is really explained more thoroughly in verses four through nine when we see what God did.

And I love that verse in verse four. But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we're dead and trespasses, has made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us.

For by grace you have been saved through faith that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. It sounds like a run on sentence, right? And that's because really it is in the Greek, the first ten verses of chapter two is all one sentence.

Because Paul, as he goes through and talks about the grace of God and talks about the work of God in our lives, he's so excited that he is thinking about the grace of God that another idea pops into his mind like, oh, not only the grace of God, but he did this while we were dead. And then this idea pops into his head that even when we were dead, in our trespasses and sins, he rose us up together. And not only rose us up together, but also in heavenly places.

He's overwhelmed with God and he's so excited about what God has done that he can't help but think, oh, this means this is true and this is true and this is true. And how amazing is our goddess. He's having a kind of explosive conversation that you only get when you really care about something.

And that's what Paul is excited about. So we ought to be excited about, because God, starting in verse four, was rich in mercy. It was abundant, it was overflowing in mercy and the mercy of God.

This is leniency or compassion shown to. Shown to those who don't deserve it, the people who have offended a holy God. We have offended this God, yet he shows us mercy.

He looks upon us with compassion even though we have offended him. And God can show this mercy because he loves us, because of this great love with which he loved us. Now, is there a simpler way of saying that? Yes, there is.

But Paul wants to be very clear in his explanation of the gospel. He says, this great love that God has is for you. It's not just stagnant love that's put up on a shelf.

It's love that is in action in your life. God's love for us is great. Remarkably extraordinary.

The magnitude of God's love is out of control. We don't understand how far God's love goes because it's eternal. As God gives us his love, as God shows us his love, we can not help but just marvel at how good God is to us.

How great is this love in verse five, even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. We were made alive by the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And we are now in fellowship with Jesus Christ as children of God, as co heirs in the grace of God. It is by the grace of God that we are saved. I want to walk through those words very clearly because I just had a lot of christian words.

Grace is very simply said, the unearned favor of God. God is giving us something we do not deserve, and we are saved to be rescued from certain death. This is the idea that we find in romans 623.

The wages or what we earn of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life. In Christ Jesus our Lord, we have been regenerated.

We've been brought back to life. Regeneration is an inner recreating of the fallen human nature by the Holy Spirit. It changes the disposition from lawless, godless self seeking into one of trust and love, of repentance for past rebelliousness and unbelief, and loving compliance with God's law.

Henceforth, it enlightens the blinded mind to discern spiritual realities and liberality, and liberates and energizes the enslaved will for the free obedience of God. It gives us the idea that we not only are alive, but we are alive for a purpose. So God has brought us back.

But when anything is brought to life, it's brought to life for a purpose. It's brought to life so that we can do something. We are to exercise ourselves in the grace of God.

And by that I mean that we ought to not use the grace of God to sin against God or to go back into sin. If you want to look at the book of Galatians, you can look at the idea that God forbid that we should sin just to show the grace of God to others. We are to experience the grace of God, but also live as if we are saved, because we are.

Not only has God saved us by his grace, he has also lifted us up. He's raised us up to a position that we have no business even considering approaching. Look at verse six, starting back in verse four, though, just to get some context again.

But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. Now verse six, and raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places.

In Christ Jesus, he's raised us up. This means that because of Christ's resurrection, those who believe in him are given new spiritual life in this age. They'll be given renewed physical bodies when Christ returns, and the future resurrection will be raised with Christ.

Just as Christ was the firstfruits, or the one the first to raise from the dead, to be ascended on high, that he is the one who died for us, the one who died for our sins. And now he is the one who will be united with heaven, will also be seated with us and with him in heavenly places. God has allowed his people, even now, to share in a measure of the authority that Christ has seated at the right hand of God, will be seated with him in a position of power and a position of honor.

And therefore, because we have these things, we have access to God the Father through his son. We have access to the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal savior. We have access to the Holy Spirit as he indwells all believers.

We have hope for eternal life. And this is where we find our joy. We find our joy not in the fact that we were dead, not in the fact that we were walking according to the course of this world.

We find our joy in the fact that God did salvation for us, saved us by sending Jesus to die on a cross for our sins. And now, because we have hope in that son, we have an eternal future and home in relationship with God. And Paul continues to explain that the reason why God saved us is in verse seven.

It's really a wonderful reason. It's not a selfish reason for ourselves, the reason that rightly honors God, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ. God saved us to show himself to be glorious, to show his graciousness as his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

God shows who he is by saving us. Look at the timing here. This is a future looking event.

This is our focus. We are exalted here in this text, and God is glorified by his son's gift of salvation, reconciling the people of God back to himself. And then, lest we forget the main point of this message, Paul gives us Ephesians two, eight and nine, the very famous verses, for by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves.

It is a gift of God, not of works. Lest anyone should boast, Paul is doing something called argumentation, meaning he's answering questions that might come up in asking these questions and making these statements. The key words here, starting with by, by means of how salvation is accomplished, the means by which salvation is accomplished by the grace, the unmerited favor of God, meaning God did not have to do this.

You, me, everyone here around this pavilion, every single person on this planet are able to receive this grace, especially those who have accepted Christ as their savior. Only those who accepted Christ as their savior have been saved. They've been rescued from sin and death and they've done this through works.

No, they've not done this because they went to church. They've not done this because they've read their Bible. They've not done this through any means except faith.

Now, faith is confidence in God, is trusting God. It's full reliance on God. It means that nothing I am ever able to do is going to bring me closer to right standing with God.

The only reason I have right standing with God is because God is good, because he's extended his grace to me, because of the work of Jesus Christ and because of the work of the Holy Spirit in me. Salvation is by grace by God giving this unmerited favor to us and by faith, me trusting in that gift, trusting in Jesus Christ alone. Salvation is a process that happens to you, not by you.

It is by grace alone. It is by faith alone. Salvation is not by our works.

And the reasoning here is very clearly explained, it is so that we are not able to boast, so we are not able to say, I earn my way. I did this. This is by God.

Because we have no reason to boast in ourselves. Because look at verses one through three again. We were dead.

God called us. God saved us. God sanctifies us, and God will glorify us.

And now, instead of looking at who we were, let's look at who we are in Christ. Christ. Now that this miraculous work of salvation has been accomplished, what are we now? Look at verse ten with me.

We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works with which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. A workmanship is something that you create and mold. It's like a potter molding the clay.

It's something that is born to serve the function of the master. We're his workmanship, created for him so that we can glorify him. We are God's creation.

And a Christian, especially in more specific terms, is created by the salvation offered by Jesus Christ, being accepted by faith. So as a person who is dead in their sins accepts Christ as their savior, they place every ounce of confidence and trust in Jesus Christ, and that makes them redeemed, because their penalty has been paid, their sin has been paid for, the wrath of God has been satisfied, and we are created to do good works. Notice that Paul doesn't just leave the rabbit trail of good works and just follow the path of grace.

He wants to understand this is you are to do good works. This is how good works fit into the christian life. We're not to do good works to earn salvation.

We're to do good works because we are saved, because we love God. Because I love God so much, I am seeking to honor him. Because I love him so much, I'm seeking to praise him by what I say and what I do.

Not thinking that I can ever lose that salvation if I accidentally fall into temptation or if I'm not careful to guard myself against temptation. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, not not to do works to earn our salvation, but to demonstrate our new identity as Christ followers. And God has prepared good works for you to walk in.

That's an amazing promise. God has made something. Made a good work for you to walk into.

God hasn't accidentally started a plan and not finished it. God hasn't started, oh, this is the file on Jordan. And I'm not sure exactly what his life is going to look like, but he's going to do something no.

God has good works for you that he desires for you to walk in. He wants you to serve your community. He wants you to love the people around you.

He wants you to be a genuine Christian who loves people voluntarily out of the goodness of the heart that Christ has instilled in you. And we see that we are to walk in good works as we are motivated by the grace of God. We see that the relationship here is crucial.

Let's understand a very simple relationship that I think is in the text. Great love leads to mercy. Great love leads to mercy, that God's great love led him to be merciful to us.

God's great love in our lives leads us to experience the mercy of God. And therefore we know the love of God and we show the love and mercy of God to other people. It's impossible to show affection and to show genuine christian care if you don't love God, because he is the source of all love.

The next I want to turn to those who are believers as you read this passage. As you think of this passage passage, understand that this text is, like I said at the beginning, not just for those who are not saved. This is really thinking of those who are saved.

I want to read Colossians chapter three, verses one through four to you. And this text really hits home the idea that if we are a Christian, if we do have this identity as someone who has been transformed, our focus should be different, our life practices, our daily life should look different, and our desires should look different. Colossians chapter three, verses one through four.

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on things that are on earth. For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory, very simply, because we are made by God, because we are saved by God. As Christians, if you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ sacrifice alone, our view of life is different. We don't just look to the here and now, we look to eternity.

That's why we give the gospel, because the gospel is very long term, endgame focused of I want my fellow classmates, I want my people, my people in my house, the people I work with. I want everyone around me to be with me in heaven worshiping my lord and savior Jesus Christ. It's the long view, but also I want to give believers a challenge and that it's not just the long view, it's also the short view of Tirano, even the next verse, verse five.

Therefore put to death your members, which are on the earth. And then he goes through a very long list. I'll read a couple.

Fornication, passions, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. There's a very clear element of you are not like you were before.

You are not outside of the grace of God. You are not unsaved. You no different.

You know better. You have been transformed. And now everything that is in your life should be renewed by the Holy Spirit.

You should be desiring to walk with God, desiring to put to death the things that are hindering you from your walk with God being even more fruitful. And as believers, we are to have this short view of what am I putting to death today so I can walk closer. Christ.

But also, how am I viewing heaven? Am I viewing Christ's return as imminent? Am I viewing the people around me as in need of the gospel? And there are some of you here who maybe don't know the gospel personally. Maybe you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. And I would tell you that the grace of God that is clearly displayed in this text and Ephesians is for you as well, because the grace of God has not expired.

The grace of God is not tired, is not old. The grace of God is active and living today. And if you choose to place your trust in Jesus Christ and say, you know what? I am a sinner.

I am a terrible, rotten sinner because I have offended a holy God. And everything I do is walking according to the course of this world. And I'm carried about because I just do exactly what I want to do.

I don't really know why. Well, know that you are a sinner, but there is grace. There is bad news, but there is good news.

The illness is sin and death. The cure is Jesus Christ and the grace of God. And as believers, we can rejoice in that.

And as those of you who don't believe, you can look to that grace. And today you can know what it's like to be saved, to be secured for all of eternity. If you have any questions about that, please talk to myself.

Talk to the person who invited you. Talk to anyone from Northridge Baptist Church, and they can point you to the gospel. Let's pray.

God, I ask that you would truly change our hearts, even the believers here, that we would just be reminded of how good you are. Help us to never be bored by the grace of God. God, you transformed a life that was walking in sin continuously into a life that pursues Christ and will one day be glorious, glorified in heaven with you forever.

God, thank you for your goodness to us. I pray that if there are any questions that need to be answered today, any questions that need to be asked, that they would be raised. Give the people boldness to grow and to submit to the word of God.

In your son's name we pray. Amen.