“Jesus Changes Our Spiritual Condition (Ephesians 2:1-10)", Will DuVal | 9/15/24
Ephesians 2:1-10 | 9/15/24 | Will DuVal
Life is amazing, isn’t it? And death is appalling.
When I was 9 or 10 years old, we took a family trip to a “dude ranch” out in Colorado. On the drive home, the traffic slowed at one point and we noticed a line of cars parked on the shoulder, and a woman shouting and waving her arms. My mom rolled down the window and the woman asked if we had a doctor or a nurse on board. We had BOTH: my cousin Jenny was an RN, and my father, who is actually here visiting this morning, practiced GI medicine for over 40 years. He quickly pulled over the car and rushed to the scene, where we discovered a broken and bloodied man lying unconscious underneath his HANG glider, which he had presumably just crashed minutes ago.
I watched in disbelief as my cousin checked in vain for the man’s pulse… as my father began CPR and mouth-to-mouth, for what seemed like an eternity, until the ambulance finally arrived, and pronounced the man DEAD.
Death is APPALLING. Which makes LIFE all the more AMAZING. Especially when that life COMES… FROM death.
You know, there’s another story - a TRUESTORY, in the Bible - about a man who was also on a long road trip when he also encountered something SHOCKING along the way, that stopped himDEAD in his tracks. Or, I should say: “ALIVE, in his tracks”. Because - unlike MY story, where I watched on in HORROR as a man passed from LIFE to DEATH by the side of the road - in THIS story, on THAT road (to Damascus), the onlookers watched in AWE and WONDER as this man literally crossed from DEATH… to LIFE!
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You say, “From DEATH to LIFE?! Was he riding in the back of a HEARSE?”
Nope; not a hearse, but a horse. And he was riding under his own power too. He was PLENTY alive… PHYSICALLY.
But according to the Bible, it is possible - and not just “possible”, but “COMMONPLACE”; the vast MAJORITY of people “ALIVE” all around us today may be quite active physically (walking, driving…), they may be active mentally (reasoning, emoting…) - but while their BODIES and their BRAINS are alive, according to God’s word, there’s another part of us as humans - the UNIQUE part of us, in fact; the part that MAKES us humans, the only creatures God made in His OWN image - we HAVE a body and we HAVE a brain, but who we ARE, at the very deepest part of us, the Bible calls our “soul” or “spirit”. And according to God, MOST of the world’s population “alive” today physically, intellectually, emotionally, socially… they can be alive and well in EVERY other respect, but still be completely DEAD, spiritually.
And it’s the worst kind of death, because your brain and body are temporary anyway, but your SPIRIT is gonna last FOREVER. Moreover, it is our source of connection with GOD. “GOD is Spirit, and those who WORSHIP him,” Jesus said, those who CONNECT with God must DO so in SPIRIT” (Jn 4:24). So if you can avoid ANY kind of death - Yes: it’s scary to think about being brain-dead in a coma; Yes: it’s scary to think about being a quadriplegic, with no function or feeling from your neck down - but according to God, BOTH of those options are INFINITELY preferable to being SPIRITUALLY dead, with NO capacity for relationship with God, the One from whom and FOR whom you EXIST.
And yet, the sad, scary truth is that that condition - “spiritually DEAD” - describes MOST of the people who have ever “lived”, and in all likelihood, statistically speaking, it describes someone HERE, this morning.
You woke up, physically, just like the rest of us.
You perked up, socially, when you arrived and connected with others.
You may have even connected emotionally during the opening worship, with some of the songs, or the MUSIC - cuz we ALL want “hope” in life AND in death, hope BEYOND this life as well; we ALL want “heights of love, depths of peace, our fears to be stilled, our strivings to cease”; EVERYONE is moved by a good “minor 6th - minor 3rd - 4 - 5 - 1” chord progression.
But you could have connected emotionally, while still being DEAD spiritually.
But this morning, God is offering you LIFE - astounding, ETERNAL, spiritual life - in his Son Jesus Christ.
Would you STAND… Ephesians 2:1-10. Hear the word…
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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— 3 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.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
[This is the word of the Lord… Seated…]
Let me quickly remind you of the context of this passage. The author is the apostle PAUL, the guy from the introduction who GOT stopped “alive” in his tracks on that road to Damascus, who was spiritually DEAD when mounted his horse that morning but was supernaturally brought to LIFE by a personal encounter with the Resurrected Jesus, HE - PAUL - is now writing this letter, Ephesians, to encourage and remind fellow believers - others who, like Paul, have been spiritually REANIMATED, and brought from death to LIFE by Christ - Paul is writing to remind US of THREE absolutely FOUNDATIONAL truths:
Our spiritual condition BEFORE Christ.
Our spiritual condition now IN Christ. And third…
The REASON for the CHANGE, from 1) to 2).
Jesus Changes EVERYTHING; that is the subtitle of this series, the central unifying message of Ephesians. And this morning may be the most important of ALL the sermons in this book; indeed, this is arguably the most important passage in all of God’s WORD: Ephesians 2 – “Jesus Changes our SPIRITUAL CONDITION.”
FROM what?
TO what?
And FOR what (purpose)?
Those are the 3 big questions Paul answers for us here. Let’s consider each in turn:
First- “What was our spiritual condition BEFORE Christ?”
Answer: DEAD!!
God could not be more CLEAR or more directly to the POINT here; verse 1: “AND YOU WERE DEAD… in your sins.”
J.D. Greear points out how that one short phrase, just THREE words there - “YOU, DEAD, and SINS” - they fly in the face of EVERYTHING our society tries to tell us about our spiritual condition.
First of all, “YOU”. Who’s Paul writing to? Who’s spiritual condition needs ADDRESSING here?” – YOU!!
Our society says, “THEM”, doesn’t it. If you’re a Republican, it’s THEM; the DEMOCRATS. THEY’VE got all the problems. If you’re a Democrat, it’s the Trumpers.
If you’re poor, it’s the WEALTHY; they’re the greedy ones who rig and game the system for their own advantage. If you’re RICH, it’s the POOR, who take more than they give back to society.
But it’s always THEM; THEIR problem. “I may not be PERFECT, spiritually speaking, but at least I’m not like THEM.” And we can ALWAYS point to SOMEONE else: the murderers, the rapists, the pet-eaters…
But Paul says, “I’m not TALKING to them right now; I’m writing to YOU!” He says, “You wanna know what’s WRONG with the world? Where the spiritual PROBLEM lies?” Just LOOK IN THE MIRROR!
And what IS that spiritual problem? YOUR problem? MY problem? Our spiritual CONDITION?
Second key word: “DEAD”. “YOU were DEAD.”
Now, pause for just a moment, because Paul’s gonna go on for 3 LONG verses now about just how DIRE our spiritual condition was before Christ… because the more you appreciate just how DEEP the PIT was, that Christ pulled you OUT of, the more PASSIONATELY you’re gonna WORSHIP him for it. So we got 3 long verses to settle in for before we get to the glorious GOOD news in v4, and the two most wonderful words in all of the BIBLE - “BUT GOD” - but notice that even before we GET there, Paul gives us a GLIMMER of hope here in the midst of the DARKNESS of our hearts that he’s describing, with that MIDDLE word I almost skipped right over: “WERE”. You WERE dead.
And we all need to take a moment to breathe a collective sigh of spiritual RELIEF at the PAST TENSE verb conjugation we find there: you WERE dead. 1 Corinthians 6 says: “Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Adulterers, idolaters, homosexual offenders, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers… NONE of them! And such WERE some of you. [past tense] But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (vv9-11) – Praise GOD for the “WERE”!
But BEFORE we WERE saved… we WERE DEAD.
Our culture tells us at WORST, you’re just a work in progress, right. 20 years ago, Christian Smith coined the term “Moral Therapeutic Deism” to describe the prevailing worldview in our country today. America is NOT a Christian nation (btw, if you’re curious how we GOT where we are today, and what those of us who ARE Christians can DO about it, I encourage you to join the “Strange New World” Sunday class at 10:45.)
But the point is: MOST of the folks around us are ACTUALLY “moral therapeutic deists”. Here’s how Smith outlines their 5 core beliefs (as summarized by https://www.gotquestions.org/Moralistic-Therapeutic-Deism.html) :
“1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. [so far so good…]
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is absolutely required to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.”
Now does that describe the worldview of anyone you know? Probably MOST of the people you know, outside of this room.
Now if that’s what you BELIEVE, then the problem - your spiritual condition - isn’t all that DIRE, is it? Just try and be MOSTLY “good, nice and fair”. You can even pursue your own personal HAPPINESS as your main goal in LIFE while you’re AT it.
60% of Americans believe that people are basically good, and THAT was 10 years ago; I’m guessing the number has gone UP (https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/13436-world-more-good-people-than-bad ).
But friends, GOD paints a very different PICTURE for us in his word; HE says: “You weren’t a ‘mostly good person’ when I found you; I didn’t just encourage you to “keep up the good work” - being nice and fair. You weren’t even a morally NEUTRAL person, who just needed Jesus as a spiritual GUIDE, to show you the right way to live.”
You were DEAD!!! You didn’t need encouragement, you didn’t need guidance; you needed LIFE!! Not just resuscitation; you weren’t even a “really BAD” person on spiritual “life support” - they discovered after the fact that that hang glider had ruptured his aorta on impact and been DEAD for 15 minutes by the time my dad arrived on the scene; all the CPR and mouth-to-mouth in the WORLD wasn’t gonna bring that guy back…
You know what DEAD people need, friends? Not resuscitation; they need RESURRECTION!
Thirdly: 1) YOU… 2) were DEAD… in what?
3) Your SINS. Your TRESPASSES. The Greek word for “trespass” literally means a “MIS-step”. The word for “sin” was borrowed from the world of archery and meant to “miss the mark”. Why does that put us at odds with society’s prevailing worldview?
Because in order to “miss the mark” there’s gotta be an objective TARGET you were supposed to HIT. In order to MIS-step, there has to be a CORRECT path that you STRAYED from.
But the world today insists that there IS no objective right and wrong; that ALL paths are equally valid.
You see how OFFENSIVE this passage is - we’re still in verse ONE, just 9 words in - and already God has said:
“The problem is YOU…
The problem is DIRE (DEATH!)...
And the problem is not just a matter of OPINION, or personal PREFERENCE; No, I’m God, you’re not, and I have established a fixed, objective, immutable moral standard that YOU have transgressed; you’re GUILTY of violating MY moral law.”
And why’d we DO it? Why’d we “WALK in our trespasses and sins”, our missteps and misfires? Because instead of following God’s good, righteous law, His benevolent WILL for our lives, what did WE follow instead? And by the way, the Greek word for “following” used twice in v2 has a connotation of “being MASTERED by”. We were DOMINATED, enslaved by… what?
3 things. Our 3 great enemies: the WORLD, the DEVIL, and the FLESH.
V2: you were “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air [the DEVIL]… [and you were] liv[ing] in the passions of [y]our flesh”. – The world, the devil, and the flesh.
Think about how EACH influences us toward any particular SIN.
Take ENVY. Coveting what someone else has, that you don’t. What’s BEHIND that? Well, the WORLD certainly is. I look across the street and see my neighbor’s brand new ski boat, and I don’t JUST see the boat, do I? I’m daydreaming about the scene that the advertisers depicted for me in the commercials, with the babes in bikinis, or with my kids in tow on the tube, too busy SMILING and having FUN together to keep on fighting, and I’m smiling too… wind rustling through my hair (yeah, in the commercial, I’ve even got HAIR!). That’s the WORLD - it says, “You NEED this boat, to be happy. You DESERVE this boat.”
But then there’s the FLESH. There’s this part of me that CRAVES - Paul uses words here like “passions” and “desires of the body and mind” - there’s this seemingly insatiable hunger within me for MORE. That’s almost EVERY sin, isn’t it?
What is GREED? The insatiable desire for more STUFF.
Lying? The desire for more CONTROL.
Lust? More SEX.
Anger? More vengeance.
Pride? More of ME. More, more, MORE!
So my FLESH conspires against me as well, trying to convince me that - in the case of ENVY: I need what YOU have. Think about it: I didn’t even WANT a boat… an enclosed back patio addition on our house… a HOT TUB FOR that patio… I didn’t even WANT it until I looked across and saw the neighbor’s. Are we “grown ups” really all that different from our kids? I LAUGH at my 21-month old when he’s in the nursery, perfectly content playing with his ball… until some OTHER kid starts going up and down the SLIDE. THEN Bo decides that is HIS slide, and how DARE this kid - that’s the ONLY toy in the nursery, NOW, that can make him happy.
Isn’t that US, sometimes?! That’s the FLESH.
But then undergirding ALL of that diabolical colluding, there is a supernatural, personal force of evil - “the devil”, “Satan”. He is indeed “the prince of the power of the air”; Jesus identified him as “the ruler of this world” (Jn 12:31), because God gave US - humans - dominion over the earth in Genesis ch1, and it took us all of 2 chapters - Genesis THREE - to hand the keys to the kingdom over to SATAN instead. 2 Corinthians 4:4 goes so far as to call him “the god of this world [lower case “g”; Satan is a COUNTERFEIT god, but he is still exercising his authority nevertheless OVER this world] to blind the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ”.
Satan IS, v2, the “the spirit now at work in the sons of disobedience”.
If you’re a child of God this morning, you have a Spirit now at work within you - GOD’S Spirit, the HOLY Spirit.
And if you’re a son or daughter of DISOBEDIENCE, a “child of WRATH”, v3, then you’ve got a spirit - a very DIFFERENT spirit - empowering YOU as well.
And he whispers, not audibly, but to your heart:
“Go ahead, EAT the fruit.”
“You NEED this boat.”
“She’ll never forgive you, LOVE you, if you tell her the truth.”
“Don’t forgive him; he doesn’t deserve it.”
“How DARE she; who does she think she IS?!”
“Go ahead, no one will even know…”
Always whispering… prowling… seeking someone to devour.
The world, the flesh, the devil. And here’s the worst part: it was our NATURE, v3 says. Sinners aren’t sinners cuz they sin; sinners SIN, because they’re SINNERS. It’s their NATURE.
Why does my dog BARK? Does her barking MAKE her a dog? No, she barks BECAUSE she’s a dog. It’s her NATURE.
The DIFFERENCE is: with enough TRAINING, you MIGHT be able to get a dog NOT to bark. But according to God’s word, you and I needed more than just behavior modification; we needed a NEW NATURE. Because “without FAITH - and the supernatural gift and power of the Holy Spirit that comes WITH it - it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God” (Heb 11:6). To paraphrase Taylor Swift: “The sinners gonna sin, sin, sin, sin, sin…” - that’s all they CAN do; even a sinner’s “GOOD deeds”, apart from FAITH - without being motivated and empowered by God’s SPIRIT - they’re just self-interested, “filthy rags” (Isa 64:6).
We were - just like the REST of mankind; ALL of us started out in the same flooding boat - we were by NATURE “children of WRATH”. We were simultaneously children FULL OF wrath - cuz we HATED God for being God, and refusing to let US be god and be in charge, live however we want and determine our own fate.
But worse, we were ALSO children UNDER wrath. Children DESERVING OF wrath. GOD’S wrath. God is CLEAR in his word: that he HATES sin, and the heart that is full of it.
Paul’s gonna warn us later in ch5, he lists a bunch of different SINS, then he warns “because of these [sins] the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience” (5:6). John 3:36 - “Whoever believes in the Son [of God] has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
Now I promise we’re gonna get to the GOOD news here in just a minute, but again, in order to truly APPRECIATE it, we’ve gotta understand just how HOPELESS our former spiritual condition really WAS… as WELL as its CONSEQUENCE.
In his HOLINESS, God is too JUST to turn a blind eye and leave our sin unpunished. ALL sin will be punished; God either punished your sins already when Jesus took them upon HIMSELF on the CROSS, and bore the righteous WRATH of God in your PLACE… OR, you can spend the rest of eternity bearing that wrath for yourself. But make no mistake: when Ephesians 2 uses this “SALVATION” language, THAT is what we’re being saved from, friends: the WRATH of a holy GOD. Romans 5:9 “hav[ing] been justified by [Christ’s] blood, we shall be saved by him from the wrath of God.”
And that IS the good news now, Church: before Christ, we were DEAD. But now…
#2- IN Christ: we are made ALIVE (vv4-6)
“even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ”.
Death to life: spiritual RESURRECTION!
And now Paul’s gonna explain the “Who”, “Why”, and “How” of our salvation in vv4-6. 1) “Who”, 2) “Why”, 3) “How”.
First in v4: “WHO?”
He says, “But YOU … You WERE dead, but YOU finally wisened up and gave your life to Christ.” Is that what v4 says?
“But… THE PASTOR… he preached the gospel SO clearly and compellingly… he prayed for you SO hard, and BAM!” Is that it? “But your old SUNDAY school teacher…”, “But that speaker at youth camp…”, “But your PARENTS…”
Who gets THE definitive, effectuating, unrivaled CREDIT for YOUR salvation?
“But… GOD!” GOD gets all of the glory and praise.
And don’t miss the WEIGHT of those two simple words: “But God”.
Paul’s just spent SEVENTY-SEVEN words in vv1-3 trying to help us understand just how CATASTROPHIC our condition was. And all it takes is TWO words now, to fix it all: “But GOD”.
It’s kinda like watching ANY of the old action movies: Rambo, Terminator, Die Hard. It doesn’t matter HOW bad the odds are stacked against them - an army of 500 soldiers, with 30 rocket launchers, 20 tanks, 10 choppers, 5 fighter jets and a SPACE LASER… “But SLY. But ARNOLD. But Neo.” And you already know how the story’s gonna END. You’re not REALLY on the edge of your seat, are you? You may not know HOW he’s gonna pull it off just yet.
By the way, how did GOD pull off OUR salvation? Actually - I’m getting ahead of myself - we gotta answer the “WHY” first; that’s where Paul goes next. WHY’D God save us?
“But God... being” WHAT? “RICH in mercy, because of…” WHAT? “the great LOVE with which he loved us”. V5 says “by GRACE we’ve been saved”; WHY? v7: so that God could SHOW OFF “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us”.
Did God save you because YOU were so lovable? Or because HE was so lov-ING.
Because YOU were such a “good person”, or because HE is such a good, kind, MERCIFUL God, RICH in GRACE; grace is by definition an undeserved GIFT. If you DESERVED it - not “grace”. If you PAID for it - not a gift.
And just consider how each ONE of these glorious attributes of God - His MERCY, his LOVE, his GRACE, his KINDNESS - how they correlate to and COUNTERACT, they REMEDY - a different FALLEN attribute of US, from vv1-3.
WE were rich in SINS and TRESPASSES. BUT GOD was rich in MERCY - rich in forgiveness for our offenses.
WE were “children of WRATH”, full of great HATRED toward God. But GOD was full of great LOVE toward us.
WE were DEAD. Because that’s EXACTLY what sinners DESERVE - Romans 6:23 says “the WAGES of sin” - the PAYMENT, the rightful EARNINGS… of SIN… “is DEATH, but the free GIFT of God is ETERNAL life, in Christ Jesus.
Our God is “immeasurably RICH” in his grace - how do you measure, estimate, put a PRICE tag, on Jesus’s LIFE? On God sacrificing his ONLY SON… for YOU?
And He DID it while WE were “sons of DIS-obedience”; God poured out his KINDNESS on us. I left work early one day last week so I could pick the kids up from school. I went by Taco Bell and got them both $1 Happy Hour slushies, and nacho fries; they were PUMPED. We got home and got outta the car and Ellery gave me a big hug; I said, “ELIJAH, where’s my HUG?” He refused to give me a hug. So I tried ORDERING him to.
“No!”
So I said, “You know that when you’re MEAN and DISOBEDIENT, it makes me not want to do nice things for you…”
Cuz that’s the kind of dad I am, Church. But praise God it’s not the kind of father HE is. Praise God that while we were YET sinners… mean, disobedient REBELS - God, in his KINDNESS, sent JESUS to die for us.
Which just displays the riches of his kindness all the more VIVIDLY, doesn’t it? Cuz ANYONE can love a son of OBEDIENCE. Only GOD would love children of WRATH, and DIE in order to ADOPT us.
Which brings us to the HOW of our salvation now.
Who? GOD.
Why? Because he’s RICH in mercy, grace, love, kindness.
And HOW did he save us?
Well, Paul gives us a ONE word answer, and THREE word answer. Let’s start with the THREE.
According to vv5 & 6, God did 3 things to save us:
First, he RESURRECTED us; He “made us alive together with Christ”. We were DEAD in sin; imagine sin’s a POOL. A DISGUSTING pool. When Jesus found us, we were FACE down in the water, DEAD. He flipped us over, and REVIVED us.
Second, God “RAISED us up with [Christ]”. God pulls us outta the pool, of sin. Where is Jesus NOW? He’s in HEAVEN, where there IS no sin. Jesus dove INTO the pool to RESCUE us, but NOW he’s back in HEAVEN. But THAT means, according to v6, that those of us who are IN Christ have ALSO already been “raised - past tense - raised up WITH Him”.
Jesus didn’t LEAVE us in the pool; he brought us with Him OUT of that sin and that death. As Christians, we should NEVER treat sin as an “inevitability” in our lives. You don’t HAVE to sin; not anymore. It’s not even your NATURE anymore; God’s given you a NEW nature - you have been CRUCIFIED with Christ; it’s no longer YOU who live now, but CHRIST who lives WITHIN you. That’s your TRUE nature. Romans 6 declares “We were buried… with [Christ] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead… we too might walk in newness of life… Our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin [our old sin nature] might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” (vv4-6).
In other words, STAY OUTTA THE POOL! That’s not who you ARE anymore; Christ SAVED you from all that. Quit jumping back in. If you FALL in, then RECOGNIZE it, take his hand, and let him pull you back out again. You’ve been RAISED with Christ, out of that bondage.
Thirdly, God 1) RESURRECTED us… he 2) RAISED us… and then…
He RESTED us; God “seated us with [Christ] in the heavenly places”. Hebrews 10 points out how there were no CHAIRS in the OT temple - it had tables and lampstands, basins and curtains… but no CHAIRS - because the priests were always too busy slaughtering ANIMAL after ANIMAL, offering sacrifice after sacrifice, to ever get a chance to SIT DOWN. “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins [HIMSELF!], he sat down at the right hand of God” (10:12).
Jesus RESTED, because HIS work of salvation was complete: “It is FINISHED”, he said.
And that’s what it means for you and I to be “SEATED WITH him,” now, “in the heavenly places”, Church: we can REST, because in Christ, our salvation is ACCOMPLISHED. If we had to ADD anything to it - “Jesus + MY GOOD DEEDS…” - then we could NEVER “rest”; our salvation would never TRULY be SECURE. That’s why Paul paused in the middle of v5 to interject: “it’s by grace you’ve been saved”. If it’s up to YOU, even a LITTLE, then you better WORRY… you better WORK… but when you know it’s ALL up to JESUS, you can REST. Our salvation is SECURE. Jesus said, “I GIVE [you] eternal life, and [you] will never perish, and no one will snatch [you] out of my hand.” (Jn 10:28)
So that’s Paul’s THREE word explanation of our salvation: RESURRECTED, RAISED, RESTED.
Here’s his ONE word explanation: JESUS! How’d God save us? JESUS!
How’d he RESURRECT us? He “made us alive WITH Christ”.
How’d he RAISE us? “WITH Christ”.
He RESTED us - seated us - WITH Christ in the heavenlies… IN Christ! Paul REPEATS it so we can’t MISS it - Jesus gets ALL of the praise and the glory for our salvation, because HE did it ALL; by GRACE we have been saved… by HIM!
Which brings us to our third and final main point:
We were saved FROM death…
We were saved TO life, new life, IN Christ…
But WHY? What were we saved FOR?
#3 - Church, we were saved… For Christ’s GLORY (vv7-10)
It’s ALL for Christ’s GLORY. And here’s how he GETS glory; 2 ways in these closing but BREATHTAKING verses:
We’ve already mentioned the first: that God gets glory from SHOWING OFF, v7, just how IMMEASURABLE are the RICHES of his GRACE that is proven by his KINDNESS toward US… IN Christ. And the worse of a SINNER you WERE - the DEADER you were - the more RICH his GRACE had to be, the more KINDNESS he gets to FLAUNT.
The angels are like, “God, you bought THAT kid a slushie?!”
God’s like, “Yeah! Can you believe it?!”
“God, didn’t you see what she DID, that one night back in college? Didn’t you hear what he SAID about you, before you opened HIS ears to hear the gospel? God - you know that’s SAUL right? The one they put in charge of KILLING the Christians? ‘Chief of sinners…’”
And God says, “Not anymore. Now he’s PAUL. And I’m using HIM to write the New Testament, to reach half the known WORLD with the gospel… How GRACIOUS am I?! How MERCIFUL…”
“Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20), to the PRAISE of God’s GLORY.
Not OURS. We contributed NOTHING… except the SIN and DEADNESS! “YOU were dead… YOU were following the world, flesh, and devil… YOU were children of WRATH and disobedience…” - that’s all YOU brought to the table, in this “divine exchange”.
“But GOD… HE brought his MERCY, LOVE, GRACE - Paul’s already told us it’s “by GRACE you have been saved”; now he REPEATS it word for word in v8 - “for by GRACE you have been saved”; it’s almost like God is giving him a glimpse into the future, “You know, these people are SO sinful and self-centered, I bet they’re gonna find a way to CORRUPT and DISTORT this gospel such that 2,000 years from now, HALF of what passes for Christianity in the world won’t be all that different from every OTHER religion in the world anymore, where YOU have to contribute to your own salvation, through your “good deeds”. I better RE-EMPHASIZE for them: it’s BY GRACE!
“This is not your own doing; it’s a GIFT, from GOD!”
“NOT a result of your works, or else YOU’D get to boast.” Get to show off what a GOOD KID you were, deserving of the slushie. But you DIDN’T deserve it, you WEREN’T a good kid; you contributed NOTHING but the sin and death, and JESUS gets ALL the praise!
You didn’t even contribute your FAITH. We can bash on the Catholics, but did you know some Protestants have turned “faith” into a “work”? Something YOU do, that earns God’s grace.
“God says it’s ‘by grace I’ve been saved through faith.’ So HE brings the grace, but I’VE gotta bring the FAITH…”
No you don’t. The word “this” in the very next sentence - “this is NOT your doing” - it’s a neuter pronoun. Pronouns in Greek have genders - masculine, feminine, or neuter. But the word “grace” is feminine in Greek… and the word “faith” is ALSO feminine. Which means that the “THIS” in v8B can’t just refer back to the GRACE… OR just to the FAITH… No; this entire PROCESS of salvation - BY the grace… THROUGH the faith - NONE of it is your doing! It’s ALL a gift of God!
Paul puts it even more explicitly in Philippians 1 that even the faith to TRUST in Christ must come to us from GOD: “For it has been granted to you [by GOD!] that for the sake of Christ you should… believe in him” (1:29).
It HAD to come from God - you were DEAD! You couldn’t contribute good WORKS… you couldn’t contribute FAITH… you know what DEAD people contribute? …Me neither.
But just when you thought “good works” had nothing to do with it at ALL, look with me at v10 now, and the SECOND way that Christ gets glory from saving us: not ONLY does he get to show off his grace, but what does God expect us to DO now, AS his saved people? God “CREATED us IN Christ Jesus” - he made us “new creations”, we are born again by His Spirit, raised from death to new life… for WHAT purpose?
“...for good works”. Which God PREPARED for you BEFORE you were even saved, but he “SAVED” them til AFTER you were saved.
If you had “walked in” those good works BEFORE salvation, you might think you ADDED something to it. But when you “walk in” those good works NOW, POST-salvation, everyone gets to see what a DIFFERENCE - what a TANGIBLE, VISIBLE difference - Christ has made in your life… and once again give HIM the glory.
“let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:16)
God gets glory from His GRACE, without your works, to ACHIEVE your salvation. And now He gets glory from your WORKS - actually, they’re still “HIS” works; HE prepared them for you - and now He gets glory when you WALK in them, to DISPLAY his grace at work within you, changing you, making all things NEW.
“To God be the glory, great things He has done!
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
And opened the life gate that all may go in.”
Won’t you “go IN”, this morning? Don’t you wanna be ALIVE?! You can enter heaven - SALVATION! - this morning by the “life gate”, Jesus Christ. Whosoever trusts in him will NOT perish but have EVERLASTING LIFE.