Good morning, everyone. If you’ll turn in your Bibles this morning to Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10. And the Apostle Paul writes, and you were dead in the trespasses and sin in which you once walked. following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
You may be seated. Let’s pray. Father, we gather this morning as your people, your church. Lord, you’re called out ones. Father, we live and walk in a world, Lord, that is aligned against us. Lord, that wants to play on our desires, play on our mind. Lord, that’s designed, Lord, to have us rebel against you. And Lord, you have done great and mighty things in our lives. And yeah, Lord, we often grow dull. We grow cold, Lord.
Father, in the next few moments, open up the eyes of our hearts that we may know the power that you work in us, that we may know Christ. Lord, open up the eyes of our heart, Lord, that we may know your love. Lord, if we’ve been wandering from the majesty of these truths, Lord, bring us back. Lord, if these are things we once knew and we’ve forgotten, Lord, renew in us a vision and understanding of these things. Father, I pray for your work now. In Jesus’ name, amen. Good morning, everyone. For those of you that don’t know me, my name’s Mark Rivers.
I’m one of the elders up at Grace Presbyterian Church in Norwell. And over the past few months, I think most of you know, I’ve been down here when invited, and it’s always a privilege to be with you. I definitely don’t take it for granted. Maybe some of you groan and moan when you see me walk in, but I don’t take it personally. But no, I do appreciate being back with you this morning. It’s always a blessing.
I’m excited to see how God has worked in this church over the past few months. And so I’m excited to be able to bring the word of God to you this morning. When we come to this passage this morning, it’s familiar ground to us, right? If you’re like me, and you were somebody who, when you were 21 years old, somebody gave the gospel to, and God revealed his grace to you at that time, these verses might have been some of, they were some of the first ones I remember reading.
And Ephesians 2.8 is maybe one of the most quoted verses that you’ll find, Ephesians 2.8 and 9, when it talks about salvation. And so my hope this morning is that even though it’s familiar ground, that you will be reminded, and you will, like Paul does, at the end really of this section, or as a transitional part of this section, in 321, where you will have a heart that says, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the powers that work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever, amen. To have maybe a renewal of that kind of praise. when you remember and see all that God has done.
Earlier this week, my hot water heater decided it had heated enough hot water in its lifetime. And it let me know that by putting some water on the basement floor. And so, As some of you know, anyone that’s a homeowner, you know, when all of a sudden the major system or appliance that was working fine the day before, all of a sudden decides it’s done working forever. It’s always a little stressful, right? It’s definitely not a planned expense or anything like that.
At the same time, this past week, I came across an old documentary by a man named Charles Kuralt. For those of you that are older, you probably remember Charles Kuralt. He was a CBS News correspondent. He used to be on the night, he covered Vietnam pretty extensively when Walter Cronkite, if you don’t know who either, now that’s another name. I’ll just keep naming old news people, and some of you will just sit there lost. But he covered the Vietnam War extensively, and then he kind of transitioned into what were called Charles Kuralt specials. And in these specials, he essentially, we would call him a documentary today. He would travel around America into parts of America that usually didn’t get any news coverage. And he would just kind of go out and he would just interview the American people on what their way of life was like.
And this particular special that I happened to see at the same time my water heater was in full rebellion was a special called Christmas in Appalachia. Life among the permanently poor. And I, by the way, I would highly recommend, it’s about a 30-minute video, and you can get it on YouTube. I’d highly recommend you sit down and watch it. Christmas in Appalachia is a video that Charles Kuralt did in just, I think it was four or five days before Christmas in 1964, where he went into the most impoverished hollers of Kentucky and West Virginia. And he detailed what life was like there in 1964.
These haulers had been dependent on coal mining. And up until the early 50s, the people had lived probably a normal middle class, maybe lower middle class American life. But once the automation of coal mines occurred in the 1950s, severe poverty came upon them. There was no more work. There was no more income. There was no prospect of income. They had no means to escape, no money saved.
And it was really stunning to see, even though it’s in black and white, I think 18 or 16 millimeter film, they went in at one point to the schoolhouse. And the schoolhouse was heated by one stove in the middle of really just like a tar paper shack essentially served as a schoolhouse. And the boys had the job of shoveling coal into the stove. The girls would switch off going out to get water from the well because there was no running water in the schoolhouse. Part of the teacher’s job was to cook the one meal, usually the one hot meal that the children would get that day from government food.
They went into some of the people’s homes And the homes were usually, again, just one stove in the middle. You could see gaps in the boards in the wall from the outside. And the people would survive the winter by going and digging coal from the old mines. And even though these people were not necessarily that old, the age look on them was stunning, and the sadness in their eyes.
Now, I’m watching this video as I’m, you know, replacing a major system. And what you might expect occurred, right? Like all of a sudden, I realize I’m living in material abundance, right? I realized how good I have it. I’m shook back from my little world where I’m tempted to be frustrated with this repair I wasn’t expecting and all these things. And I’m brought back to reality that I live in massive, lavish, material abundance. Even though I’m not rich by any American standard, the truth is I live in luxury, materially.
When we come to this passage this morning, Paul has started out Ephesians 1 by saying that God has, he says in verse 3, 1-3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
He’s poured out all the spiritual blessings that he could pour out upon a created being. And he walks through all these things that he’s done, chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we’d be holy and blameless. In love he predestined us for adoption according to the purpose of his will. And he runs through all these things that God has done for us in Christ.
And this morning, I think we need to be called back to remember these things and recall these things. In the same way I needed to be brought up this past week to remember my material blessings, We continually need to be reminded that every spiritual blessing has been poured out upon us.
And so when we actually come to chapter two, Paul has been talking about God’s work both in us and in the church and in Christ and how he’s put Christ above all things. in verse 22, and he put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things in the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. And he prays at the end of chapter one that we would have the eyes of our heart enlightened to see what is God’s power that he worked in us. And then so in this section that we’re so familiar with in two, one through 10, he brings it home to us personally. Now whenever you study the book of Ephesians, you have to keep both horizons in mind and you don’t want to go too far one way or the other.
Yes, obviously these things are personal. We are the church. We are individuals. God works in us that way. However, it’s quite clear he works through his body. The church from which we are members and those two horizons are both in view as we go through this text, and we’ll talk a little bit more about that at the end. But this morning, what I want us to see, what I want us to recall in the hopes to return us to praise are three things. First of all, I want us to remember our previous government.
Look with me in chapter 2, verse 1, Paul writes this, and he says, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, in which are following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of flesh and mind, and were by nature The children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Now, there’s two terms that are used here. First of all, if you’re using an ESV this morning, it says, in which once you walked following the course of this world, however, the literal translation of that is more age. You walked according to the age of this world.
We also see the description of what is usually considered Satan, the devil. Paul actually will name the devil in chapter six in this book, but he says, of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. And we were children of wrath. As you read the book of Ephesians, you will find that there’s essentially two realms Now, Christ is Lord of all, of this age and the age to come and any age that will ever be. But we also understand that within that sovereignty of God that Satan has power.
We understand that he roams. We understand there is a world system that the scripture often puts up as a place without the spirit of God in the sense of like it’s not the influence, it’s not the driver, it’s not what controls people, it’s not what guides people. There is a world system. When John tells us to love not the world, we understand that there’s something that we’re not supposed to love that is the here and now, right? We hear in the scripture often of the world to come or the age to come.
And so we understand that all mankind, just like Paul says in verse three, he says, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. That mankind walks about according to an age that is governed by the prince of the power of the air, that is guided by a spirit that works in the sons of disobedience.
In fact, that’s the characteristic of those that are not in Christ. They’re sons, and that’s used generically there, sons and daughters of disobedience. They don’t obey God. And we forget that, don’t we? That this world is not designed in that sense, this age, the course of this world doesn’t lead us towards Jesus, leads us away from God. And that’s what governed us and governs people apart from Jesus Christ.
Now, you can often tell, it’s interesting that Paul, because this actually is something that he’s going to kind of play on in this passage, the sons of disobedience. You can often tell a son and a father, right? Have you ever watched a son and a father walk next to each other? It’s a good way that I horrify my sons. is to tell them they’re acting like me or they’re walking like me or they look like me, right? They don’t find that complimentary. I have no idea why. Do you know what I mean?
And this goes both ways too, although brave is the man that tells his wife she’s acting like her mother, right? But there’s a characteristic, right? If you, my father’s no longer alive, but Even I now sometimes look at a picture of myself and I say, man, I look like my father, right? And I have his traits, I have his characteristics. I probably speak like him to a point. I walk like him. We have similar body types. That’s what we were.
Sons and daughters of disobedience. Not walking according to the Holy Spirit, but rather influenced by unholy spirits. Later in this book in Ephesians 6, 11 through 12, Paul’s gonna write, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
One of the most clever tricks of Satan is something that sociologist Charles Taylor, and if you’re familiar with Dr. Carl Truman, he’s talked a lot about this, is the imminent frame that we live in. And really, just to simplify that, it means we live day to day in a world that no longer believes in the transcendent, and the metaphysical. We no longer take seriously things like demonic power, or even talk of Satan may seem a little like backwoods, like maybe I just came out of the holler, right? We live with things that are here and now material. What we see is what we get. We have forgotten that we live in a spiritual world, right? That there are forces and things of which we don’t see visibly with our eyes that are influencing, guiding, controlling, leading in the everyday world that we live.
I get it, right? If I go to work tomorrow, I start talking about satanic influence. People are gonna think I’m even more nuts than I already am because I’m a Christian, right? Even among Christians maybe it’s uncomfortable to talk about these things. Part of that is maybe because we’re not clear. And sometimes we know our flesh does things, we know it’s influenced by these things. I’m always struck when I read like Augustine or Luther. or really almost anyone before about 1800 in how freely they attribute things to demonic power or satanic power.
And it’s, maybe it seems almost comical to us. I mean, we’re at the time of Halloween, right? You drive around and like things like devils and witches and evil things are just kind of like comical, right? You know, you drive around, there’s a giant skeleton waving at you, right?
But we shouldn’t let that dull us to those realities. We once walked according to the course of those things, according to the prince of the power of the air. And those outside of Christ, these things are all still true. They’re in that realm. But you’ve escaped it.
The second thing I want us to see here this morning, we remember the previous government, but we got to remember the power of God. And when I say that, I just mean all of these things that God has done and is doing in our lives. These are the things I think we forget. And we lose sight of the glory of these things. In remembering the power of God, we need to first remember that we could not move.
And we couldn’t move because we were dead. Spiritually dead. Paul emphasizes that twice in the passage. 2-1, and you were dead in trespasses and sin. And then in verse 5, even when we were dead in our trespasses, you did not move toward God, God moved toward you. It’s his power. It’s nothing of you. In verse 9, not a result of works so that no one may boast.
We were dead. We were powerless. One thing about dead things, they’re really dead. You know what I mean? There’s no life in them. If you’re familiar with the Princess Bride, right? when Wesley dies, but he’s not totally, completely dead. No, we’re completely dead.
And then God moves. We see in this passage, first of all, we couldn’t move, but we see in this passage, we see the motives of God. Verse four, but God, and when I start talking about the motive of God, it’s not like you can put this all in a box and know it all, right? We’re talking about God. This is just what he’s revealed to us about himself and what is said in this passage.
But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses. Kind of the set off there. God is rich in mercy. He has this tremendous love for you. even though you’re dead, and a son of disobedience, even though you walk according to a rebellious world system, and even though your flesh and your desires are bent against him, and you have nothing that appealed to him to do it in the sense of your works, but God is just rich in love. overflowing with love and mercy.
He’s a lavish God in that he brings the dead to life in Christ. This passage here in this part, 2-5, Down through the end, this is mirroring what he says when he talks about in 1, 16 through 23, where he talks about raising Christ up from the dead. This is parallel to it. He raised Christ from the dead. He raises us from the dead in Christ. We’re spiritually risen. Someday we’ll be completely risen in that sense and united with Christ forever.
God is not stingy in love. He’s not stingy in mercy. Interesting, this morning, do you think God’s stingy in love and mercy? If you do, it may be your circumstances, right? You’re focused on material, physical. And that tends to be the trap we fall into, right? If we have a good day, God’s good. If we have a bad day, God’s being stingy. Versus seeing our lives as part of God’s plan to glorify himself, which includes suffering, includes things we’re just not gonna understand and aren’t gonna make sense.
But we know he raised us out of deadness to new life in Christ. In verse 10, Paul says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. We’ve been recreated. In chapter 4, he’ll talk about us now being created in the image of God. He says the likeness of God in true holiness and righteousness. We who were dead, we who were rebels have now been created in the likeness of of holiness and true righteousness.
God does this all, verses 2, 5 through 6. His means, it’s all by grace, through faith in Christ. He calls us out of the darkness. He justifies us. He sanctifies us. He adopts us as children. We went from being the sons and daughters of disobedience to the sons and daughters of God. His children, where he just says, all the spiritual blessings I got for humans, here they are. Every last one of them, I’m pouring them out. You don’t deserve it. You sure didn’t earn it. You earned quite the opposite. But I love you.
My love is, you can’t measure it, which is essentially the argument in three, the praise and the prayer at the end of chapter three. Paul says, I want you to know the height and the depth and the width, I want you to, of the love of God. John Calvin said in something of a paraphrase, basically like, you spend your whole life swimming around in that ocean of the love of God, and you’re never gonna exceed it. How much time have you spent thinking about how much God loves you? How much time have you thought about how merciful God has been to you?
Because you were dead and now you’re alive. So we remember the previous government, remember the power of God, and then we remember the purpose of God. In verse 2-7, I’ll start actually in 2-5 again. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. And then in verse 10 it says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in him. Your life exists so God can demonstrate to all powers his grace, his glory. Your life is a billboard that displays how gracious God is. That’s why you exist, so that from now till forever, as much as our human mind can comprehend eternity with Christ, your life is a demonstration of the grace of God, who takes dead sinners and adopts them as children. By the way, God works this all out in his church.
Like I said, there’s two horizons here, a personal one, but then the horizon of the church, in verse 20, it says that he worked, Ephesians 1.20 says that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. And then he ends this section in 321, as I already said, to him be glory in the church in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever, amen. He’s taking individual billboards and He’s bringing them all together. And the church displays His grace and glory. Displays Christ through all eternity. God loves you. He’s merciful.
You know, I talked a little bit about the kind of skepticism and maybe even cynicism that comes in with the eminent frame, when we no longer hold to the transcendent and just the material. Well, if you do that with the church, it’s going to be pretty ugly, right? I mean, you could just at once say, this is just a gathering of humans, much like at the Elks Lodge, only we read from the Bible.
And we all got sins. That’s not correct English, I don’t think, but it’s true, right? We grate, we irritate, we have jealousy, envy, pride, we hold grudges, we get annoyed, we remember something that happened 17 years ago, don’t forget it, we’re sinners. We live with the remnant, the depravity, right, of that time in the previous government. of our fallen human nature.
And if we lose sight of what God is doing in his church, we lose sight of the transcendent and of the power of God and the spirit of God and his work through the means of grace in the church. It’s gonna seem fairly pointless. Can’t lose sight of that. God is demonstrating his love through the church, which is us, a bunch of individual billboards that he brought from the dead and raised to life in Christ. I pray this morning that the Lord, if you’ve gone cold, if you’ve gone dull, the Lord will renew these things, basic truths of Christianity. Renew them in your heart and mind. Let’s pray.
Father, we’re just so prone to go blind to what you’re doing. Lord, we love the darkness, Lord. Lord, we so easily forget. But we don’t avail the means you’ve given us. Lord, we’re given over often to the things of this life and the things of this world. Father, renew our hearts, renew our minds this morning.
Lord, there may be some here that just the joy of these things has been long, long dim in their hearts and minds. Oh, Lord, open up the eyes that they would know your love. Recall your grace, be in awe of your mighty working. Lord, I ask all these things, in Jesus’ name, amen.