By Rev. Dr. Brent Russett – Asbury Free Methodist
September 17th, 2023 – Ephesians 2:1-10
It is always good to start off a sermon with a cartoon. So, I want to play you Francis Chan’s story “The Big Red Tractor.”
Ephesians 2:1–2 (NIV)
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
You were the big red tractor. But the problem is, while you looked like a tractor, you did not operate like a tractor. You were dead. If you have ever tried to drive a vehicle that was dead – you know it doesn’t get you very far.
Here is what you need to understand about how God sees people – and remember, he sees what is true. There are dead humans who are alive. There are alive humans who are dead. There are alive humans who are fully alive.
The reality is that we all started off as alive humans who are dead. Remember, he is talking to followers of Jesus.
Ephesians 2:1–2 (NIV)
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
They were dead. They used to be dead.
There are three characteristics of an alive human who is dead. They follow the ways of this world. In other words, they live their lives taking very little thought of God – or they choose to go their own way rather than God’s way.
The next characteristic is that they follow the ways of the ruler of the kingdom of the air. That is another way of describing Satan. He rebelled against God. They rebelled against God.
The third characteristic is that they are following the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. You might call it the spirit of the age. We know from other scripture passages that this spirit blinds them to the truth about God.
When you have alive dead people, they take little thought of God. They follow the ways of Satan and rebel against God instead of submitting to his Lordship. They follow the spirit of the age, which blinds them to the truth.
Paul says that is what you were. To emphasize this, he writes verse 3
Ephesians 2:3 (NIV)
3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.
Paul says all of us were there. All of us lived that way – following our own desires and thoughts. He describes that as the flesh.
Note that he says, “All of us.” He includes himself in that. You might remember Paul’s background. He grew up in a religious home. He studied religion. He zealously lived out his religion. He was a Pharisee. If you were to look at his life, you would say he is doing all the right things. But he includes himself in those who were rebelling against God and living in the spirit of the age.
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I meet a lot of really great non-Christian people. They are fun to be around. They are doing some pretty cool stuff. The problem is not so much that they are bad, but that they are dead – spiritually.
Ephesians 2:3 (NIV)
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
When you are dead, you are deserving of wrath. If you do a study of the wrath of God in the New Testament – it does not take the form of God coming out of heaven and smiting people with thunderbolts. When God’s wrath turns up in the New Testament – he backs off from people and lets them do what they want to do.
But when people together are gratifying the cravings of their flesh, when they are rebelling against God, when they are following the spirit of the age and are blinded to the truth – then they get what they want. A life without God. A society without God.
But here is the thing – societies without God inevitably gravitate to a world where the strong oppress the weak. Where everyone does what is right in their own eyes. We become a people who are devoid of love. We struggle to find joy – a sense of well-being. We struggle to find meaning and hope. We are left to our own devices, and we find that we don’t have what it takes. Then we approach death – because we know that death comes to us all – and we fear it. We run from it.
If you look around the world, most of our problems can be traced back to human hearts far from God.
Paul says, “We were by nature deserving of wrath.” We deserved to be turned over to our own devices. We deserved the world that we would create.
And God was under no obligation to save us from ourselves. After all, we were the ones who rebelled against him. We were the ones who said that we were going to do things our way, not your way. God would have been just to leave us to our own devices.
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Ephesians 2:4–5 (NIV)
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
But God didn’t give us what we deserve. Look at who our God is. He has great love for us. He is rich in mercy. It is God’s grace, God’s undeserved favour, that changes everything.
We were rescued from our own ourselves. We were saved from what we deserve – the wrath of God. We were saved from God turning his back on us. We didn’t earn that kind of favour – that is the love and mercy and grace of God.
Look at what he did – He made us alive with Christ. We were dead in our transgression and sin. But now, for those of you who have put your faith in Christ – he has made us alive with Christ.
We were people who were alive yet dead. Now, we have become people who are alive both physically and spiritually. The big red tractor has started up. All of a sudden, we have the potential to be what we were created to be.
But look, not only did God save us…
Ephesians 2:6–7 (NIV)
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
I don’t have time to fully unpack these verses. But God didn’t just save us. He didn’t just make us spiritually alive. He gave us a place of honour in the heavenly realms. That is the place where answers to prayer start. That is the place that defines who you really are. That is the place where joy starts and where, when we let it, it seeps into our souls.
When we look back from heaven’s shores, we will see that God didn’t just give us a little bit of favour – he was extravagant in his love. He took us from being spiritually dead to not only being spiritually alive – but we have been given so much more that we can ask or imagine in our salvation.
Now, we come to one of the most important verses to understand our salvation.
Ephesians 2:8–9 (NIV)
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
For it is by grace, you have been saved. You didn’t make yourself spiritually alive. Only God could do that. It was his undeserved favour that made you spiritually alive. You didn’t earn it. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t somehow make yourself more attractive to God. Dead is dead. You can’t start your own tractor. The fuel lines have been clogged by sin. The bearings have been ceased by false beliefs. The fuel filter has been clogged by the ways of this world. The only way that you could become spiritually alive is if God does it.
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I think that one of the saddest groups of people are religious people who are trying to earn God’s favour. It can’t be done. You can’t start your own tractor. All you can do is sit there.
But here is the thing. Unlike a tractor, you have a mind and a heart. You can do something to trigger the process of becoming alive.
What does the verse say? God’s grace is triggered by faith. It is by grace you have been saved through faith. It is like God is saying, I have this free gift of life for you. All you need to do is receive it from me. I can fix what is broken. I can clear the fuel lines and unseize the bearings. If you try to do it, I will leave you to yourself. But if you allow me to do it, I will make your tractor become fully alive.
Faith, in this context, is believing that God will do what he said he would do. Faith is believing that when Jesus died, he took my sin – the stuff that killed me spiritually – upon himself – and he offers me spiritual life. Faith is believing that he will give me life when I ask.
God has done everything to get the tractor working. Faith is the key that starts the tractor up. Without faith – the tractor is still dead. Faith triggers all the resources of God on your behalf.
When you turn that key of faith, then you are forgiven for all you have ever done wrong. You are made alive. You are adopted into the family of God. You are given his holy Spirit to help you to live for him. Jesus had done all the work – but you must put your faith in his work.
If you are here today, and you have never put your faith in Jesus, but you would like to – after I finish speaking today, we are going to celebrate communion. In communion, we remember that Jesus died for us. For us, communion is a symbol of the fact that we are trusting Jesus to do what he said he would do. If you want to receive Jesus into your life, if you want to put your faith in him – I would invite you to take communion with us as a declaration of saying Jesus – I want God’s grace. I put my faith in you. I trust that you will make me spiritually alive.
If you are trusting Jesus for the first time today, tell someone about after-service. Tell me. It is something worth celebrating.
*****
Let me take you all to the next verse – one of my favourites in this book.
Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
The New Living Translation puts it this way:
Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
When you become alive in Christ, you become God’s masterpiece. You become God’s work of art. When your tractor comes alive, then it can do the work that it was meant to do. It finds meaning in doing the work that it was meant to do.
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Paul is writing to people who have put their faith in what Jesus as done for them on the cross. Paul is writing to people who have experienced God’s grace.
What I want you to notice is the tense of the verb in this verse. You are God’s masterpiece. This is not written in a future tense – you are becoming God’s masterpiece. It is written in the present. You are God’s masterpiece.
I don’t know about you, but there are times when I wake up in the morning where I feel more like God’s calamity than God’s masterpiece. Even on my best days, I feel like a work of art drawn by someone in grade 2.
But God, through his word, declares those of us who have put our faith in Christ to be his masterpiece. In Ephesians, I am often left with a choice. Am I going to believe what God’s word says, or am I going to believe my feelings?
When I think of a masterpiece, I think of something that is really, really good. I know myself – I don’t think of myself as being really, really good. So, what is going on here?
If you know anything about art, you will know that often, great masterpieces have to be restored. They get marked by life. They get beaten by being handled too rough. It is especially true if they are not recognized for being what they are – masterpieces.
The fact that they are scared and marked and beaten up does not mean that they are worthless. If a painting from Rembrandt was found that was beaten and discoloured. It would still be valuable because of who painted it.
You are God’s masterpiece: You are valuable because of who made you. You are valuable because of who saved you. This is true even if you are a little rough around the edges. This is true if you have a few scratches and dents. You are still God’s masterpiece. Here is what I want you to know about God – He is the great restorer.
People, we are in the process of being restored. Life may have beaten you up. But God’s power and God’s love is stronger than what life can throw at you.
It would be a mistake to imagine a masterpiece just as a painting. I have seen some beautiful motorcycles that are masterpieces. I have seen some wonderful meals that are masterpieces. I read some stories, I have heard some music, and I have seen some plays that could all be described as masterpieces. The big red tractor is a masterpiece.
Look at the verse again.
Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
You are God’s masterpiece. You were created in Christ Jesus. There was something creative done to you when you received grace and believed that custom-built you to do something good. God knew the good that needed to be done around you. He custom-built you as his masterpiece to fill that role.
If you are alive in Jesus, you have a purpose. He wants to teach you what that is. He wants to help you live out of who you really are and how he has made you. If you don’t know what that is, ask him.
There are alive people who are dead. The only way that they can become alive is by grace through faith. Will you trust what Jesus did on the cross is for you. Will you ask him to deal with all the crud and make you alive? Will you trust him and him alone? Will you believe that he wants to favour you by giving you salvation?
There are those who are dead, but they are alive. Jesus said,
John 11:25–26 (NIV)
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
There will come a time if you have trusted Jesus, that you will look back from heaven’s shores and see the incredible riches of his grace.
There are those who are alive, and they are fully alive. They are God’s masterpieces. They have been purpose-built to fulfill God’s calling. That is most of you; I want to encourage you to live into that.
Sermon Questions
September 18, 2023
Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10
1. What are you celebrating and/or giving thanks for this week?
2. What are you praying about this week?
Digging In
3. Read Ephesians 2:1-10. Then pause and pray, asking that God would make a word or phrase stand out to you. Reread it. What word or phrase stood out to you?
4. Read Ephesians 2:1-2 – What does it mean to be spiritually dead? What are the characteristics of someone who is spiritually dead.?
5. Read verse 3. Who are the spiritually dead? What other characteristic does Paul give, and what does it mean?
6. The sermon talked about the wrath of God. What does the wrath of God mean in the New Testament?
7. Read verses 4-5. What do these verses tell us about God? What do they tell us about those who are in Christ?
8. Read verses 6-7. What are the heavenly/spiritual realms? (read Eph 1:3, 19b-22) What connection do you have with Jesus?
9. Read verses 8-9. Explain these verses in your own words.
10. Read verse 10. What does this tell us about those who are in Christ? What do you do when this verse and your life seem at odds with one another?