Deeper Still - Returning to Ephesians. (Eph 2: 1-10 Again)

This Podcast is part of a 10-year project to complete an in-depth, daily study of the entire Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. 

Episode Notes: Deeper Still - Returning to Ephesians. (Eph 2: 1-10 Again)

Today, we’re doing something a little unusual. We’re going back into the waters of Ephesians 2:1–10.  Back into one of the richest, most breathtaking passages in the entire New Testament. Because some passages of Scripture are like a shallow stream, refreshing, simple, easy to cross…. But others… others are oceans, and Ephesians 2:1–10 is such an ocean.

 We’ve already walked through this passage once, but the more you sit with these verses, the more you realise there is more here. This is a passage that refuses to be exhausted.  So today, we’re going back — not because we missed something, but because Paul has given us something so rich that it deserves to be savoured again.

 We’re going to linger, and we’re going to let the text speak again, and hopefully speak deeper.

 So, take a breath, settle your heart, and come with me again into the deep waters of Ephesians 2:1–10. Because sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is not press on with the project but to go back and listen again to what God has already said.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome back friends. Now today I'm going to do something a little unusual, but I believe something that's really important. We're actually going to go back. We're going to go back and look at two Ephesians verses 1 to 10 again. Back into what I believe is one of the richest, deepest, most breathtaking passages in the entire New Testament. Back into the gospel in its purest, clearest, most concentratedly declared form. You know, some passages of scripture, they're like a shallow stream. They're refreshing. You simply walk through them, they're easy to cross, relatively easy to pick up what's being said to you, but others, others, well, they're more like trying to cross a deep ocean. And Ephesians 2 verses 1 to 10 is such an ocean. Now we could have just stood on the shoreline and enjoyed the view, or we can actually try and go out, go a bit further, a bit deeper, and maybe even discover some of the treasures hidden beneath the surface that we never saw first time. Now we've already walked through this passage once, I grant that. We've traced a movement from life to death, from wrath to mercy, from bondage to freedom, and from where you were to where you are now because of the point at which God, but now God came and intervened. But the more we sit with these verses, friends, I think the more you'll realize there's more here, there's more depth to find, more beauty to see, more truth to reveal, more grace to discover, basically more of God. This is a passage that refuses to be exhausted. It is a well that never runs dry. I could keep with the illustration, a mountain range with even higher peaks in the distance to climb. Because it in that way it is like a never-ending horizon revealing itself. So today we're going to go back again. Not because we've actually missed something, that's not what I'm getting at, but because Paul has given us something that's so rich that it deserves to be savored again with a very slightly different perspective. So we're going to linger and we're going to let the text speak to us again and hopefully find something even more. I'm going to ask the question today, what does it really mean to be spiritually dead? And what does it then mean thereafter to be made alive in God? Understanding the fact that God made us alive. He didn't improve us, he didn't repair us, it's saying he resurrected us. What does it mean also to be that thing described as God's handiwork, his poem, his masterpiece? And what does it also mean that he has prepared good works for us before even the foundation of the world? These are not small questions, friends. These are huge identity shaping, life-shaping, worship-shaping questions. But the answers are all here in ten verses that have changed the lives of people for over 2,000 years. So take a big breath, let's settle in and let's come again and swim the deep waters of Ephesians 2, 1 to 10. Because sometimes you know the most spiritual thing to do is not simply to press on with whatever project we believe God has given us, but today I feel we need to go back and listen again to what God's saying here. So welcome to episode 7 of our daily journey through the whole Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. As for you, Paul begins, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, those in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 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. But because of his great love for us, God, in rich mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions. Because it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Jesus Christ. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast, for we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Now, a little extra lap picked out when I visited this again. When we look at this text again, it's worth noting something subtle but important in Paul's language. When he uses the term you, he's speaking primarily in this text to the Gentile believers who came to Christ from a non-Jewish background. And when he says we, he's speaking to those like himself who are originally his fellow Jews. Now, why does that matter? Well, because Paul is wanting to make something unmistakably clear here. That is that both Jew and Gentile were spiritually dead, and that both need rescuing. Both need this grace he talks about because both were lost without Christ. People from different backgrounds are in the same condition. That's what he's pointing out here. Even people with different histories have the same need, different stories, even in that individuals might have, we all need the same saviour. So Paul is leveling the ground for all humanity at the foot of the cross. Now we saw yesterday Paul just begins by describing the human condition within most translations two words, transgressions and sins. The word sin here is a sporting term, it's actually an archery term, simply meaning to miss the mark. So sin is failing to be what we ought to be, failing to do what we ought to do, failing to hit the target of God's plan, God's design, and failing to live up to the life that He has created for us. Then Paul adds this other word, trespasses, a word that carries the idea of actually slipping, stumbling, losing your footing, involving wandering off the right path. It's a picture of someone who's taken a wrong turn, following the wrong road and ending up somewhere that they never intended to be. Paul here is painting a picture of sin as failure, not simply moral failure, but failure to become or experience what life could and should have been. Sin is not just breaking rules. It is in fact deeper still than that. Sin is not just doing wrong, sin is missing what is right, missing what is good, missing what is beautiful in life, and missing ultimately what God intended us to do and who God intended us to be. And Paul says that is the condition of every single person, regardless of background or culture, who live outside of Christ. But he goes further. He doesn't say that this sin just stains us, he says it kills something inside of us. Now, sin kills things like our innocence. No one is quite the same after they sin. Psychologists will tell us that profound emotional experiences never fully disappear. They sink beneath the surface and they remain in what some call the subconscious, shaping us in the way we see ourselves. Sin leaves a sort of film on the mind, a sense that something has been lost. Sin kills our spirit and our ideals. Now, at first, when we do these things that we know are wrong, we perhaps even recoil from them a little. We'll say, Oh, I don't want to ever do that again. But then temptation comes and we fall again. We may feel ashamed the next time, but maybe it's a little easier, and it gets easier again and easier. What once horrified us can become normal. What once repulsed us can almost become routine. You see, sin kills the ideal, that ideal way of living a life, a sacrificial serving, holy life, the life that makes things beautiful and worthwhile. And sin also kills the will. At first we sin because we want to, but eventually we sin because we cannot stop doing it. What begins by a desire, a wrong-headed desire granted, becomes a habit. And what becomes a habit sometimes becomes a necessity, and when it becomes a necessity, it becomes a chain. Yes, sin enslaves, it creates addictions. And even when God forgives the sin, sometimes he has to allow the consequences of it to remain, but not as a punishment, but as a reminder of just how powerful it can be and how desperately we need to be free of it, and how desperately we need his grace to be free of it. Paul then gives us a sort of list here, doesn't he? A description of what life looks like when Christ is not at the center. A life lived by the standards of the world. You followed the ways of the world, he says in Ephesians 2 2. So he's saying it's a life shaped by culture, not Christ. A life driven by trends, by peer pressure, not by truth. A life where forgiveness almost can look like a weak thing, where holiness begins to look strange, and while serving others, you will actually think, actually, well that's just a little foolish. Because the world will tell you, look out for yourself, do what you feel is right, follow your heart, that's the other one. Live your own truth. But Christianity says no. Your call is to forgive, to love your enemies, and to serve one another, to take up your cross as it's described. The world's values and Christ's values are not the same thing at all. But also, life without the grace and forgiveness of God in Christ is a life characterized by disobedience. Paul says unbelievers are shaped by the ruler of the kingdom of the air. Now he's not saying people are outwardly necessarily worshipping Satan. He's saying that the whole world, its systems, its values, its philosophies, even its priorities, are influenced by the very enemy of God Himself. Now God will reveal his will, and he'll reveal it through our conscience, through Scripture, through the Holy Spirit, of course, but also through godly counsel, wisdom of other mature believers, and ultimately the example of Christ Himself. But a life without Christ chooses its own path, even when it knows that the path is not God's way. And thirdly, a life without Christ is a life driven by desires. Paul says we live a life which becomes all about gratifying the cravings of the flesh. A life without Christ is at the mercy of those desires. Now desires on the surface appear a wonderful servant, but they actually become a terrible master, because it leads to cravings, addictions, slavery, and even eventual destruction. And Paul says that was all of us, whether you're Jew or Gentile, religious or ilreligious, moral or immoral, that is all of us. So the text takes us deep into our humanity, but it's doing so to prepare us for the glory of what he's about to reveal next. And that came in that Free Verse thread where he says, In spite of that, but God, in spite of that, is rich in mercy. But God, because of his great love, but God who refused to leave us where we were, but God has made us alive in Christ. Now, when Paul speaks about the flesh here, many fall into the trap of thinking this is all about sexual temptation, and this is where a lot of people's minds go first. But Paul's understanding of the flesh is far broader, far deeper, and far more searching in that. In his letter to the Galatians, which we looked at a couple of months ago, Paul lists what he calls the works of the flesh, and yes, he begins with sexual sins. We're not saying that's not there, things like adultery, fornication, impurity, but then he moves into whole other categories of sins. Things like hatred, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition is mentioned, envy, divisions, strife, even heresies. So none of these are actually directly sins of the body, they are sins of the heart, sins of the mind, and sins of the will. The flesh is anything that gives sin its foothold, anything that gives a Satan a sort of beachhead, a breach, a point of attack into our spirit. And of course that looks different and is different for different people. For one person, the flesh may indeed be express itself primarily in sexual temptation, for another it might be pride, a sort of spiritual arrogance that hides behind religious language. For another it may be greed, the desire to possess stuff, to accumulate things, or to accumulate even control. For another it may be anger, a temper that flares up quickly and wounds other people. For some it is envy, a quiet resentment of others' blessings. For another it might be conflict, and they live a life marked by strife, constant argument and division. All of these things, friends, are sins of the flesh. The flesh is simply human nature without God. It's what we are when we're left to ourselves. It's the part of us that pulls us downwards and lowers our nature, our base nature, and lets the worst parts of us dominate the best parts of us. To live according to the flesh is to live in such a way that the lowest impulses of our drives and nature is the thing that sets the direction of our life. And Paul says that was you, this was all of us. And then he brings us to the great paradox at the center of the gospel. He says we're saved by grace, and it is grace itself that produces the good works in our lives. So these two truths are presented here to sit side by side, not in contradiction, but in harmony. Why? Because God is holy, God is perfect. But also, no amount of human effort can bridge that gap between a holy God and a sinful humanity who lives in the state of being driven by the flesh, as I've just described. We cannot climb our own way up to God. He must come down to us. It will always be God who creates and humanity who receives from him. And also because God is love and sin is not only a crime against God's law, it is a crime against love. It is a wound against the heart of God. Now the Old Testament sacrifices could atone for legal guilt, but they could not heal the relational breach. Only grace of God's forgiveness can do that. Only His grace in reaching out to us, and the love that inspired that is the thing that can do that. That's why salvation ultimately must be a gift, because the only way back to God is through His willingness, the path He has offered to create as a way to forgive us. And forgiveness by definition is something that cannot be earned. It is granted. The text is very clear here, as it is across in other New Testament writings, God's works, good works, have nothing to do with our earning salvation. But he is equally clear that there is something deeply wrong with a Christian life that does not produce good works. Now that sounds complicated, but it's not actually mysterious. It's simply the logic of understanding what love really is. If someone truly loves you, you know two things at the same time. You cannot earn that love, but you must try and live in a way worthy of that love. Think of your spouse, your parents, your children, even your closest friend. You cannot earn their love. Their love simply calls something, draws something out of you. It draws out gratitude, it draws out devotion, and it draws out a desire to honour that love that is being offered in grace. And if it's true and we recognise it's true even in human relationships, then how much more in our relationship with God? Good works do not put God in our debt. God's work good works are a grateful response, a love to that one who saved us. Grace does not make good works unnecessary. Grace simply makes good works inevitable. And Paul says beyond that God has in fact prepared good works in advance for us to do and to walk in. God has not just revealed his grace and left us to wallow in it, he's shown us the kind of life that brings joy to his heart. He wants us to live a life of forgiveness, a life of service, a life of generosity, a life of purity, of humility, a life of showing compassion to others, a life of obedience, a life shaped by Christ, a life described and exemplified by that we saw in Christ. And he also has prepared very specific works unique to you that he intends for you to walk in. He wants you to use your gifts, your gifts, your natural gifts, your personality, even your experiences life, your backstory, including the wounds, not just your strengths but your weaknesses. All these now can be part of the good works that God has prepared for you and in you from before the foundation of the world. That, my friends, is absolutely astounding, jaw-dropping, profound, and potentially life-changing. Good works, they're not there to earn God's love, but God's love in us produces them. We do not do these things to be accepted, we do them because we are accepted. We don't serve to gain God's favor, we serve because He has already given us His favor, and we are grateful for that. So grace doesn't lower the standard of what's expected to us, grace lifts it us. Grace does not diminish any good works in our life, it actually is the fuel that multiplies them. And then Paul now brings us to the magnificent, how shall I say, the crescendo of this passage. It's one of the most beautiful statements in all of Scripture, our closing verse today, where he says, For we, and let me rephrase it, for you are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared for you in advance to do. The word actually means a masterpiece. We are a masterpiece of his grace, a living, breathing, walking testimony to not only the creativity that he has placed within us, but also the mercy and the love of God. This is who you are now, not because of what you've done, because what God has done of you, and all the good stuff, the good works will by nature, if you live in that and receive it, bubble up and out of you. Born again in Christ is the term sometimes used, meaning that you're a new creation. You're not a renovation, because this is the new creation language. This is the language of the new creation, this is Genesis type language, this is resurrection language. God is not taking your old life and just fixing it and patching it up, He's giving you a new life with a new heart, a new nature, a new identity, and indeed, in this final verse, a new destiny. You're not just some renovated, broken down sinner, you are now a recreated saint. You're not a better version of your old self, that wouldn't go very far. You're a new creation in Christ. As he says in Corinthians, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. God didn't come simply just to forgive you and leave it at that. He came, forgave you, remade you a new creation, created in Christ to do these good works. And grace does not make the good works unnecessary, it actually makes them inevitable. Because when you truly understand the grace of God, when you grasp what God has done for you, your heart begins to. To ask something astonishing. To understand something astonishing. This fruit in your life is the very thing which God has prepared in advance for you to do. Before you were even born. No, before the earth was even formed. Before time began, God had already prepared a life of good works, of service, of blessings for you to walk in. He's prepared the opportunities, he's arranged them, he's even set up encounters for you to have with a purpose God has told you and will tell you exactly what he wants to do. And it's the same for all of us. He's revealed his will to and through us. And he's done that with his word, the Bible, his son, the life and ministry of Jesus, what we witness described in it, his spirit, the prompting and guiding, convicting of his own spirit within you and his people around you, the wise and godly counsel of other believers. He's given us the moral shape of how to live a holy life. And behind that all is also his providence, not just the miraculous, those break-in moments into the creation, but the everyday opportunities he places before us. God has not left us in the dark and guessing. He has shown us the kind of life that brings joy to his heart, and we naturally want to live that life, because it's a life simply living in his forgiveness, a life of service, a life of generosity, of purity, humility, compassion, ultimately a life shaped by God in Christ Himself, by the power of His Holy Spirit. And that's what he intends you to do and experience and walk in. Expressing those gifts of the Spirit, expressing your personality, taking those experiences from your life and utilizing them to help others, even your wounds and your weaknesses. All of these, all of them are now part of the good works God has prepared for you before the foundation of the world. You are God's masterpiece, you are his poem, you are the creation of his workmanship by the Holy Spirit in you. And you were saved by grace, and you are sustained by grace, and you are called to live a life that reflects that grace to a watching world. So walk in this good life he's prepared for you. And do it not because you're trying to earn his love, you already have that, but because you're thankful for the grace that he's given it to you. And next time we'll return and we'll press on through this book and we'll explore a new question and an important one. Because in Ephesians 2, verses 11 to 22, Paul will ask the church to remember who they were and remember what God has done and who they are now. So I'm asking, how is your memory? It's a passage that's rich in understanding our identity, the unity we have in Christ, and the scope of the reconciling power of what Christ has done. I'm looking forward to diving into it with you, but until then, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you, and may His Spirit and the example of His Son shape your steps in the days ahead. Full transcripts of every episode are now authorized by me and available in the episode notes, and at the end of each season, they will appear free for everyone who's following me on Patreon. Thanks for being with me today. Bye-bye for now.