For a sermon this morning, you want to continue in our sermon
series out of Paul's letter to the church, to the Ephesians.
We've been looking at how Paul expresses himself, thanking God
and making reference to what God has done.
And our title this morning is Remember what we are.
When sports players go on to the field, they wear the uniform of
the team they represent. They identify as the players of
the team they play for. The same holds true for God's
people. God's people identify with
Christ. They live their lives in honor
and worship of Christ. Paul has been reminding the
Ephesian Christians of what God has done for us.
God has saved us, He's blessed us, and He's predestined us for
adoption as sons. Last Sunday in Ephesians chapter
2, verse one to three, we saw how Paul paused a little bit in
his writing and took time to remind us of what we are without
Christ. So last Sunday we reminded
ourselves to remember what we were.
And it's helpful to do that from time to time to remember what we
were, where we've come from, and that we're not anymore where we
were. But then just as quickly, Paul
again moves on from verse 3. And today we want to look at how
Paul points out as to points us to US, points us what we are in
Christ now, what we are now, what we are in Christ.
And because of what God has done for us, we are saved.
He made us alive and now we're called to good works.
I want us to read Ephesians chapter 2 beginning verse 4
through chapter 10. Ephesians chapter 2 beginning
verse 4. But God, who is rich in mercy
because of his great love with which he loved us even when we
were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you've been saved and raised us up together, and made
us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in
the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his
grace and in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest anyone should boast for Weir's workmanship created
in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand,
that we should walk in them. Last Sunday I put a picture on
the PowerPoint slide of a mountain, of a mountaintop and
looking down into the valley below the trail or the the
pathway or the road where the person that traveled.
I use it as an illustration to look back where we've been to
take have a perspective. But what about a picture that
illustrates what we are in Christ?
There are numerous word pictures the Bible uses to describe what
we are in Christ. There's no picture that I can
imagine that would do justice to describing what we are in
Christ. I can't think of one.
But there are Bible stories that use word pictures to illustrate
what we what we do in Christ. And so I want to use one that's
the picture of a Grapevine, and I think it looks all right.
Do you see the vine and you see the branch?
Then you see the grape cluster. Jesus teaches us in John chapter
15 that he is the vine and we are the branches.
He says that every branch in him that bears fruit will be pruned
so that it will bear more fruit. In every branch that does not
bear fruit will be cut off and be thrown into the fire.
So Jesus is the vine. We as God's people are branches
that are attached to the vine. And if we're good branches allow
ourselves to be pruned to become productive, we will bear fruit.
The Bible teaches that. So in today's passage in
Ephesians chapter 2 verse 4 to 10, we want to look at our
position in Christ and what that means, what that entails for us.
And after having described our state of existence without God,
Paul now moves on in Ephesians chapter 2 four to 10, what we
are in Christ. So we are alive in Christ.
We're saved by grace through faith.
And lastly, were his workmanship.
So first of all, we are alive. Paul begins with God and
explains what we are in Christ. God is the reference point from
which Paul paints this picture, or our current existence.
Us being alive is directly connected to God, and without
God there simply is no life. Let's go through these verses
one at a time, he says. But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of his great love with which he loved us even when we
were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you've been saved. See, God made us alive.
We're alive. Remember last Sunday we were
dead in sin. That's what we read.
The message Paul is giving here in so many words is God made us
alive. That's the key phrase in these
two verses, explaining what happened.
It's an act of God. But what Paul does and telling
us that God made us alive is that he goes into quite a bit of
detail about God himself. He describes God and gives us a
description of what God is. He uses very vivid language to
explain God, his attributes, his character, and his love.
He says God, who is rich in mercy.
You catch that rich and mercy. He's rich in everything, but
he's rich in mercy and he shows us his love.
Can you imagine God running out of mercy?
He is limitless supply of anything he needs or wants.
He doesn't have to order another shipment.
Oh sorry, we're all on mercy now.
We'll have to wait. Because of who He is, He has
this. He has mercy on people because
of who He is, not because of who people are.
It is true that we can cut ourselves off from we can walk
away from him, but it's not because God has nothing or God
is impoverished. God is always rich in mercy,
seeking to save those who are lost.
Maybe someone at this point might ask, well, what is mercy?
If God's rich in mercy, what's mercy?
Mercy is one of those things it's a bit hard to describe
because you can't really fully envision it or you can't get to
the depths of it. It's it's so grand and it's so
big. Mercy from God is what God does
to people. Mercy from God is a response God
gives to people's request or to people's need.
Mercy essentially, in this passage is withholding judgment
from the person who deserves to be judged.
You see that mercy is never deserved.
Mercy cannot be deserved. It cannot be even demanded to
say someone, someone might have broken the law and gotten
arrested off to court and stands before the judge who's about to
pass sentence. Please have mercy on me.
That's a valid statement, a valid request, But you can't
say, well, you got to have mercy on me.
Well, I've I've deserved mercy. That's a contradiction.
If mercy was deserved, it would be a reward.
That's not how mercy works. To be given mercy is when a
person breaks the law and instead of having to pay, the
judge let's the person go free and does not have to pay.
That's when a person has been given mercy.
You owe a lot. You can't pay.
Have mercy in the person says, OK, I'll let you go.
The debt is canceled. I'll bear the burden.
You do not have to pay. That's mercy.
OK, let's extend this a little bit now.
So what then is grace? If mercy is not having to pay,
what is grace? Let me put it this way.
In a case of a person being guilty of having broken the law,
when there's grace, there's grace in that case first there,
because first there was mercy. In a legal case, mercy is when a
person is guilty and is let off the hook.
He's let go free. He doesn't have to pay.
Mercy then goes beyond that. I mean, grace goes beyond that.
Grace is when not only do I not have to pay the debt now,
instead of not having to pay that, I get treated as if I did
something good when it did nothing.
And that's a totally different story.
I get treated as if I had actually done what was required
of me. I get treated as if I earned a
reward. That's grace.
And this is powerful. This is so huge.
This is so big. As I was going through this last
week, I thought you can't really wrap your brains around this,
folks. And the story that came to my
mind is in the Bible. It's Luke chapter 15.
It's the story of the prodigal son.
You can read the story in Luke chapter 15, not the first part.
There's a story of the woman shepherd lost some sheep, finds
the lost 1 sheep, leaves the 99 goes and finds the lost one
woman lost the coin lights the lamp, sweeps the house and finds
the lost coin. And then Jesus tells the grand
story of the of the prodigal son.
A farmer had two boys, he said, and the youngest of the two
said, Dad, give me my inheritance that's going to come
to me when you die. He wanted it now.
The father obliged, took, took the money, gave it to the son,
and the son headed off into a far country, wasted his money in
righteous living. When it was all gone, of course
he had problems. He hadn't thought of that.
He had serious needs. So he now in this far country,
he gets hungry, starts to starve, and he hires himself out
to get a job at a pig farmer. And something Jews would never
do. And Jesus told the story to the
Jewish audience, You wouldn't work for a pig farmer.
Pigs run clean and he works there.
It doesn't satisfy. They don't even give him to eat
what the pigs are eating. It doesn't work.
His problems get worse and his mind starts to wander.
One day thinks to himself, my goodness, what about Dad?
At home, his servants, they eat better than I do.
So one day he says, you know what?
I think I'm going to go back to my dad.
I'm going to tell him I'm sorry I sinned against heaven against
you and just just make me a hired servant.
He's not asking for grace, barely mercy.
Let me work for you. I'll just work for you if that's
OK. He's not planning to be
reinstated as a son or nothing. He just wants to live.
He wants to eat. He goes, he gets up, walks back
home, finally gets to his close to his place and before he even
gets to his father sees him coming from a long way off,
obviously the father's watch and comes, runs, meets him.
Son starts to confess. Daddy says I've sinned against
heaven against you. I'm not worthy to be called your
son. He's going to ask him now to be
made a servant. He's going to ask dad just to
let him work for him to earn enough to eat.
He doesn't even get that far. And the father calls a servant
interrupts him, calls a servant says, hey, go out and get, get a
robe for, for, for my son here. Get get some shoes for his feet
and and put a ring on his finger.
All these are indicators of acceptance of welcome.
And the ring is a sign of authority.
You see, he was hoping for mercy.
He got that. He got mercy and grace.
That's a powerful story. To be forgiven for what you do
wrong is mercy. To be restored to relationship,
That is grace. I love art and paintings and
stuff like that and books. There's a very well known
painting by a Dutch painter named Rembrandt.
He lived in the 1600s and is famous for his artwork.
He painted a picture of a story of the story of the prodigal
son. And it's apparently it's in, in
Russia and Saint Petersburg in a museum somewhere.
And it's that painting. I couldn't make it very large
because dude, the whole picture wouldn't go on there.
The story of the prodigal son. Now, of course, we don't know
exactly how it really looked, but I think it does a does a
good job. There's a Dutch priest by the
name of Henry Nolan in the 1980s and 1990s.
He went there and looked at that picture, sat there for some
hours just looking at the picture.
It affected him very deeply. He went and wrote an entire book
on that experience, just sitting there looking at the at the
painting. The book is called The Return of
the Prodigal. I've got the book.
It's a very deep and powerful and penetrating story, a message
of the nature of the love of God, of the Father, of his mercy
and grace. When Paul wrote his letter to
the Ephesians, he wanted to convey that truth about God, to
help his readers understand what it is that they've been given.
So Paul writes God who is rich in mercy while we were dead in
trespasses made us alive. The story of the prodigal son.
In chapter 15 of Luke, we read how the older brother didn't
like what the father showed mercy and grace to the younger
brother. But the father spoke the
following words. Let's read Luke chapter 15 verse
31 to 32. And he said to him, to the older
brother who wants none of this, he said, son, you're always with
me and all that I have is yours. It was right.
We should make merry and be glad for your brother was dead and is
alive again. He was lost and is found.
You catch that He's dead. He wasn't dead dead.
He was not a corpse, but he was dead to the family, dead in
relationship. These are some of the most
penetrating words of scripture. And you know something else?
When did this happen? God was at work before even we
knew of him or before we even were considering coming to him.
God knew her state of being God was what behind the scenes at
work already. You see, you and I, we're in the
heart of the Father before we even want mercy.
What the prodigal son wanted to come home to get was far less
than the Father had planned for him when he would come home.
The son only wanted to come home as a servant so he could eat.
The father was watching for his son to restore him.
The father just wanted him back as a son to restore him to
sonship. Do we see the difference?
Do we want from God what God wants for us, or we just want to
get by Spiritually dead people are dead toward God, but very
much alive in their sinful ways. They're very much physically
alive. And even though they're dead
toward God, that does not mean they have no awareness or no
knowledge. They know.
The prodigal knew, and most people know there's, I think,
very few people who would have no concept, no moral compass of
any right and wrong. You see, the prodigal was lost,
but he was aware. He knew right from wrong.
He knew his father, he knew he'd rebelled.
He knew he'd sinned. He was under no illusions as to
what he deserved. And his father wanted him back
not to carry a justice. His Father wanted him back so he
could show him mercy and grace. And when he did come back, the
Father gave him so much more true sonship.
Paul understood this principle. Paul was very much aware of his
own sinful past, where he'd been, what God had brought him
through, and so on. And this is something that's for
you and I this morning, today. Now just say this gently but
firmly. Never allow anyone to suggest to
you that Jesus might not have died for you, that he may not
love you, that maybe you're not one of his.
If he's if you're under the word of God, then you're called.
This gift of grace is free to anyone who comes to the Father,
to anyone. The illustration of the thief on
the cross, and I'm sometimes reminded of this thing that
happened there, this thief. There's two thieves, one on the
other side of Jesus as he was hanging on the cross, one on the
right, one on the left. And it says in the Gospel was
the one of them had a change of heart while he's hanging there
and his dying hours. He noticed Jesus and he knows
Jesus innocent and he's committed no crimes.
And as he's hanging on the cross, he sees Jesus and he's
convicted of what he did. Yeah, I get what I deserve.
I I committed a crime and going to die now, but Jesus was
innocent. He looks at Jesus and he says to
Jesus, Remember Me when you come into your Kingdom.
Obviously he believed in life after death.
He knew he was going to die. He knew Jesus was going to die.
But says, Jesus, when you come into your Kingdom, Remember Me.
Just want to be remembered. What's so striking is Jesus
turns to him and says, today you'll be with me in paradise.
He came the final moment. He received mercy and grace.
Paul writes the last part of verse 5 says by grace, you've
been saved. By grace, you've been saved.
Let's read verse 4 to 5 again. Then let's continue down through
verse 7. But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of his great love with which he loved us even when we
were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you've been saved and raised us up together and made
us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in
the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of his
grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
This is so tightly packed and so dense, we just really can't seem
to get to the bottom of it or to the center.
God's purpose and giving us grace and mercy is so much
higher than just always save these people.
Saving us in itself is a great thing.
It's it's grand. It's already beyond what we can
comprehend. It's good, but then to save us
for a higher purpose. Yet saving us from judgment is
good, but for a higher purpose. He has so much more in mind for
us. He made us alive for more than
it's OK, I'll make sure they don't go to hell and that's it.
No, he has a purpose for us. He raised us up to sit together.
It says in the heavenly places with with Christ.
You know what this talks about community, fellowship,
relationship, position and standing in God's eyes.
We're part of his community. This year at LEMC, our theme for
the year's connections, and we see it so much as part of what's
happening here in Ephesians. God has connected with humanity.
We're connected with Jesus. We're supposed to connect with
one another. And as we go through the sermon
series, we'll see more of that. And all this in an eternal
setting here in Ephesians. All of this points to something
that is yet to come. Verse 7.
In the ages to come, He might show us the exceeding riches of
His grace and His kindness toward us in Jesus Christ.
In this life we may think we have an idea of what kindness
is, what love is, what grace is, what hope is, and so on, but we
really only have a very small grasp of it.
In the book of Hebrews, the writer to the Hebrews mentions
that what we have here in this life is merely shadows of the
things to come. Think about that for just a
moment. If everything we see and
experience in this earth is merely shadows compared to
what's coming, we have no idea yet what it's going to be when
it happens. Many years ago as a young man, I
had the privilege, privilege of teaching a teen class of
students, Sunday school students, teenage boys and
girls. And, and I remember Mustang cars
were the big thing, the Ford Mustang, that was the car to
have and everybody dreamed of owning one or driving one at
least. And so use it as an illustration
to explain that truth. And I said, what if the only way
you could explain the concept of a Ford Mustang is just what you
see in the shadow, its shape and form, and then you try to
describe its power or its beauty or its features just by shadows.
I said, how shallow is that? And I think it got through to
him a little bit. Shadows just don't do justice to
the real thing. That's a little bit what
happens. Well, that's very much what
happens in Scripture. The right of the Hebrews talks
about this in Hebrews chapter 8, verse 5, the the old past, what
we had, as great as that was and is, it's just shadows.
Here in the letter of Ephesians, we find the best is yet to come.
Not just a little better, not just a small improvement, a
little upgrade. No exceeding riches of his
grace, Paul writes. All of it happens in a setting
of grace. You see, everyone who's saved is
saved by grace. There's no one saved outside of
grace. All people are saved, are saved
through grace. Somebody had asked this well
known theologian, Dallas Willard one time, Will there be any
people in heaven who didn't know Jesus?
It's a hard question to answer because not everybody has the
same understanding and concept and grasp of Jesus.
For instance, all little babies go to heaven.
We believe that firmly and strongly.
Well, they don't know Jesus, but they're saved by grace.
I did say this and I may have repeated it somewhere in a
setting, and I know I've said it to many people.
I don't know if said it in a worship service, but Dallas
Woodard said this. He said if there's anybody in
heaven who hasn't heard of Jesus, he'll be only there
because of Jesus. It's all grace.
That's it. That's where why we have the
position we do. And why did God do all this?
He did it because of who He is, not who we are.
It works through faith. We're saved by grace through
faith. That's our second point.
We're saved by grace through faith.
Well, whose faith are we saved through His?
No, ours. It's God's grace that saves us
through faith. Whose faith?
The faith that we have in God. I know there are people who get
into arguments about this and well, then faith is a work.
Well, let's not go there. Let me just say this.
The Bible simply teaches that when we hear about Jesus and we
put our faith in Him, we receive salvation.
It's as simple as that. It's a faith decision.
It's a decision we make to put our trust in Him.
We can pray to God, asking Him, strengthen our faith, help us in
our faith. But the end of the day, I own
the faith. It's my faith through which God
extends grace to us. I believe God's word is clear
when He draws a person, when He calls a person, He convicts a
person. What however he does that,
that's the channel, that's the connection.
The faith is the connection through which this gift comes.
It's by God's grace and through our faith that salvation comes.
Again in verse 8. For by grace you've been saved
through faith and that not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God, not of works, as any man should boast.
You see here, it's a gift. Grace is a gift, not a payment,
not a reward. It's a gift.
There are many places in Scripture where we find that
Jesus tells people to have faith and when we do miracles, when he
would do miracles and he'll people would say your faith has
made you well. And Mark chapter 10, verse 52,
we read a man where Jesus talked to Jesus said go your way.
Your faith has made you well and immediately he received his
sight and followed Jesus on the road.
And I understand faith is a much broader concept.
Just saying have faith. I understand that.
And so I don't want to go too deep into this, but Jesus
addresses the people who he heals and who he talks to have
faith. Your faith is small or great is
your faith numerous times. And we depend on him to draw us
and to lead us, but the end of the day we must decide.
In Hebrews Chapter 11 verse 6, the writer says, But without
faith it's impossible to please God for he who comes to God must
believe that he is that he is a rewarder of those who diligently
seek him. It's a very powerful passage in
the book of Acts that illustrates this very clearly.
I won't read it this morning. Acts chapter 16 verse 31 and on
Paul and Silas are in are in jail for for preaching the
gospel, been arrested, beaten and putting the stalks in the
prison, the inner prison in fact, chained along with other
prisoners singing praises, worshipping God.
In the middle of the night there's an earthquake.
Prison is shaken, the fetters fall loose and the chains are
loose and the doors flew open. The jailer wakes up.
Go, what's going on? Draws a sword, wants to kill him
because he knows in the morning these prisoners are gone.
I'm dead, Paul yells. They don't kill yourself.
We're still all here. And he's never heard something
like that before. He calls for a light, runs to
the prison, falls trembling before them.
I'll read verse 2039. It's 29, it says.
Then he called for a light, ran and fell down trembling before
Silas. And he brought them out and
said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
He knew he was wrong, so they said, and believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and you'll be saved, you and your household.
That is how simple it is. It's hard, but it's simple.
It's not complicated. You see, to be made alive from a
state of being dead, that's mercy.
Becoming part of God's family is a gift of grace and it comes
through faith. Simply told, believe on the Lord
Jesus and salvation will follow. Faith is the connecting link
through which the grace of God comes to us.
Let's look again at Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8.
For by grace you've been saved through faith, not of
yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast.
It's a gift. At the end of the day.
It is about relationships, and this is mutual.
So let's recap here. Remain alive in Christ because
of God's great mercy and grace towards us, His riches.
He took the initiative, did everything possible.
He extends His grace to us, His mercy and grace to us.
It's for our benefit. It's a gift to us.
It's our responsibility to receive it, to accept it and
receive it. But this is not the finish line.
Let's read verse 10. For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared
beforehand, that we should walk in them.
There's something that follows. God has a purpose.
We're saved by grace through faith.
God extends mercy, saves us by grace through faith.
We're not trophies to put on a shelf.
We're actually coworkers with God #3 we are Christ's
workmanship created for good works.
We have a purpose beyond what we even know.
I'm reminded of the story of creation when God put Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden. God completed the project of
creation, but it was not finished, as if there was
nothing left to do. It was finished and complete.
God rested on the 7th day, but there was work to do for Adam.
God give Adam a job. As human beings, we need to
remind ourselves there's work for us in this world as image,
as God's image bearers, we have a role here as well.
God wants to live in US and through US, work in this world.
We do this by honor. We do.
We work for Him in honor of Him. We read of Paul in First
Corinthians chapter 3 of the work that he has described for
himself. He says in First Corinthians
chapter 3, he's a God's fellow worker.
The idea of becoming a believer, but then not being a service for
God, that's a foreign idea to Scripture.
When Paul writes that we are created for good works, he's
talking about what we've been gifted for and called to do.
Again, verse 10, we are his workmanship created in Christ
Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we
should walk in them. The beautiful thing about all
this is that God already planned this beforehand.
We should walk in them. We should live in them.
By the way, guys, there's no unemployment in God's Kingdom.
There's no unemployment rate that doesn't exist.
Every one of us is called to full time representation of our
Lord Jesus Christ in Word and deed.
So we do well to consider this and ask what kind of believers
are we? What kind of works are we part
of? As a pastor of this church, I'm
so thankful and so grateful. As I look around throughout the
weeks when I work here in the office and see people coming and
going Sunday mornings and at all the many countless hours that
volunteers put in. Then I hear of stories House.
People in the community at this church are serving the
community. It excites my heart and is a
delight to hear when I hear somebody volunteering here and
somebody volunteering there and somebody doing this and somebody
doing that for the cause of the Kingdom.
That's a joy to see and a joy to hear.
And those volunteer hours are countless hours when we pray the
Lord's Prayer. Our Father in heaven, hallowed
be your name, your Kingdom come, that part, your Kingdom come as
part of it. Those are that's being engaged
in the works. I see, friends, that's what it's
about. God is bringing His Kingdom into
this world through you and me. How we live our lives and what a
blessing it is and what a privilege it is.
We're saved. God extends His mercy to us.
We're saved by grace through faith in God, and we engage in
the works He's prepared for us in advance.
There's no better package, no better deal, no better
opportunity. So let's remember and live out
what we are. We are alive in Christ.
We're saved by grace through faith, and we are His
workmanship, prepared for good works by God's design, for his
purpose. What's it worth to us today?
What value does it have? My encouragement for us today is
to look at what we are in Christ.
I want to direct our thoughts to Jesus, His death on the cross
for our sins, His resurrection from the dead, and his gift of
grace that he extends to us through faith.
Today He's with us through Spirit, guiding us, leading us
into works of service that gives us to do which we have the
privilege and honor of being part of.
So May God give us what we need to walk in his ways and serve
Him and doing the works of service He's created for us.
Let's pray. Lord God, thank you for your
word in which you show us how much you love us and what you
want for us and from us. Thank you for your great mercy
and thank you for your grace. Thank you for being with us.
I pray that we'd be open to the voice of your Spirit when you
call us to yourself. Lord may be obedient to you and
respond when you call. Help us to have faith in you and
receive your mercy and grace in our lives.
Thank you again Lord for this day and may we live out and
express our love to you by loving others with the love you
have for us. We thank in Jesus name, Amen.