“Great Love, Rich Mercy and Grace” Ephesians 2:1-10

The history of the western United States is rich with stories. The settlers seeking to find a home, the natives trying to preserve their ways of life, the Spanish explorers—all are fascinating and tragic, rewarding and inspiring.

One of the important groups who helped settle the West were the prospectors, men (and women) who set out to seek their fortunes by finding gold, silver and other precious metals and minerals. Most of us are familiar with the old prospector, standing on the banks of a river, panning for gold. The purpose of the panning was to find gold in the stream, then follow the gold upstream until a vein of gold could be discovered. Finding a vein would offer great riches.

The greatest find was to find the mother lode. The mother lode was the largest vein of gold or silver or whatever the prospector was seeking. To find the mother lode was to have the richest find, the richest claim. Everything else didn’t matter.

As we continue our journey of discovering who we really are in Christ, it’s not too far a stretch to proclaim this passage, Ephesians 2:1-10, as the mother lode of God’s statements of how God relates with us through Christ.

Background

Paul began his letter to the Ephesians with one long sentence that proclaimed the glory and praise for God because of His grace and His plan from the beginning of time to save the world through Christ. Paul continues the theme through the remainder of the chapter and into the passage we see today.

It’s clear from reading the first chapter that this letter, though titled Ephesians, was written to a church that Paul himself had never visited (see 1:15). The fact that Paul spent two years at Ephesus tells us this letter was probably written to another church. Paul refers to his letter to the Colossians and refers to another letter in Colossians, so it’s reasonable to assume that the letter we know as Ephesians was written at the time of the Colossian letter and was written to a church near Colossae.

Regardless of who the letter was written to, the emphasis on God’s grace, mercy and love is seen throughout the letter, particularly in today’s passage.

Central Truth: God’s grace frees us from death and secures us in Him.

When we consider God’s grace:

We need to remember where and what we were (1-3)

Having written the wonderful words of praise and glory to God in all of chapter 1, Paul takes the time to remind us of our state before God’s grace touched us. If we look at this passage and compare it to a television commercial, the first three verses are along the lines of the “before” using the product being sold.

The Bible tells us we all at one time were dead in our transgressions and sins. These are not different states of being, just different ways of saying that we were dead to God when we chose to rebel against Him and follow our own ways. This season of rebellion, which is going on today in the lives of who do not hold Christ as Savior, is characterized by three things.

The first is described as following the ways of the world. This is in contrast with the ways of God. Think of Adam and Eve in the garden being tempted by the serpent’s words. The issue raised by the serpent was not that God had forbidden the eating of the fruit. He didn’t dispute that. The snake simply questioned the reason for the rule, the pointed out that they could become like God, knowing good and evil, if only they would partake. The serpent’s emphasis was that God had forbidden the fruit to keep a monopoly on being God. Adam and Eve could become God’s equal, not needing Him once they ate the fruit. That’s the way of the world—believing that we don’t need God, that we can do things for ourselves. In this state, we dismiss the things of God as trivial or peripheral at best, inconsequential at worst.

The second characteristic is what’s behind this sense of worldliness. The Bible says we gain this worldliness because we follow the “ruler of the kingdom of the air,” which is Satan. Going back to Adam and Eve’s fall, the serpent didn’t make Adam or Eve do anything they didn’t want to do. Instead, he used his guile and awareness of our weaknesses to lure us into wanting to do his will, not God’s. Satan, who is a liar and the father of lies, will say anything he can to make us feel as if we need something besides God. He will use our emotions to make us feel alienated from God, to make us feel unworthy of God, or, worse, to make God unimportant to our lives. Satan is very much alive and well and working on planet Earth, and we need to be aware of him always.

The third characteristic is that not only that we follow the ways of the world or are tempted by Satan, but that we had that same nature in us before knowing Christ. Before knowing Christ, we all had a spirit of worldliness and rebellion, of not needing God or His will.

The Bible says that this attitude is universal for all people. “All of us also lived among them at one time.” Paul goes on to describe what our lives were like: gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. That is, we sought to meet our own needs and to satisfy ourselves by thinking only of the things we wanted and thought we needed.

The result of this mindset was that we were all under wrath. God’s judgment awaited each of us at one time or another, and still awaits those who have not turned from the ways of our world to Him. We focus on God’s love, but we must not do it to the exclusion of God’s wrath. It is real and it is powerful. IT is reserved for those who fail to follow God’s will. The nation of Israel—God’s chosen people—suffered His wrath when they turned from Him to worship idols and ignore the laws given to them through Moses. If God will not spare His own from judgment, why should we think He would spare those who never knew Him?

This was our state before God’s grace, mercy and love intervened.

Makes us alive in Christ (4-7)

Having described the horrid state we all lived in at one time, Paul then radically changes the thought by introducing God’s intervening work. He starts by describing God: His great love, rich in mercy, extending grace. The result of God’s love, mercy and grace is to transform us from being dead in transgressions and sins into being alive with Christ. Because of His great love and mercy, God brings us out of the sinful nature and instills in us His nature by making us alive with Christ by His Holy Spirit. I like that Paul says we are alive with Christ. The phrase to me speaks of our close relationship with the Father through Christ the Son. We are not simply alive in Him; we are alive with Him. Think of where we are right now in our pandemic world. We are all still part of Mosheim Baptist Church; that is, we are in it. But there will come a time, hopefully in the near future, when we will be together again in worship—we will be with each other again. By God’s love, mercy and grace, we are with Christ right now. This is a truth of God’s word, a statement we can rely on each moment.

Not only are we with Christ, but we are also raised up with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly realms. This is a significant promise and statement of faith as well. We are raised up with Christ, seated in heavenly realms. Most of us enjoy the hymn, “When We All Get to Heaven.” The Bible tells us we’re already there! Seated with Christ in this heavenly realm, we are safe from Satan’s best efforts. No, we are not set free from temptation, but we find ourselves in a secure place, a heavenly place, seated with Christ.

And the reason we are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms is that we are given a taste of what will come to fruition when Christ returns in His glory. Right now, seated with Him and being with Him, we find security and peace. We will gain all that and more when He returns.

When I was growing up, it seemed every Saturday was grilled steaks for supper. Dad would sit outside, grilling our steaks, and we’d be with him, talking and enjoying the fellowship. Inevitably, Dad would say something about the steaks looking like they were about done, but we needed to make sure. He’d cut off an end piece, and let me have a taste. This little bit of steak was only the promise of what awaited me once we put the steaks on the table. We’d have the baked potatoes, the sausages, the sweet tea and the corn. This little bite of steak was the promise of a wonderful meal that was only minutes away.

God gives us a taste of what is to come by seating us with Christ in the heavenly realms. He does it to let us know what is to come, and He does it out of His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Is the gift of God (8-10)

There are few passages in the Bible more familiar or more associated with Baptists than these three. The emphasis is on grace and on grace as a gift—unearned, given freely and soley by God Himself to undeserving sinners. Paul has been writing of our fallen, sinful state before God’s love and mercy brought us to live with Christ. Now, the apostle wants to underscore where and how God’s marvelous grace was bestowed on His people.

“For it is by grace you have been saved—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (vs. 8-9). This verse is so rich in meaning and significance. It has three elements, the first being that God saves us by His grace.

We have heard the descriptions of mercy and grace as being “mercy is not receiving what we deserve, and grace is receiving what we do not deserve.” Both elements are stressed in this passage, but here the focus is on grace. Before time began, God had a plan. That plan was to bring salvation to a lost world (at that time, an uncreated world) through His Son, Jesus Christ. God knew that the price of sin was far too great for us to repay, so He sent His Son. Through Jesus’ willingness to go to the cross, our sins were purchased, according to God’s plan all along. This pardon of sins has then been bestowed on those who turn by faith to God through Christ and receive Him as Savior and Lord. It is God’s grace that enables us to be alive with Christ.

Paul also stresses that salvation by grace is only because God chose to give it to us—it is a gift. When we receive gifts for various occasions—birthdays, holidays, just because—the gift is almost always given freely without strings attached, only that the recipient will use the gift wisely and in the way intended. The gift is purchased by the giver and no mention of the cost is made when the gift is given. Even though we may have an idea of what it might have cost, we have no real way of knowing unless the giver tells us.

In the same way, we have been blessed with this marvelous gift of salvation with no strings attached and no real mention of the true cost of the gift. Yes, we know that the gift was purchased with Jesus’ blood, that He willingly gave up His rightful place in the Godhead, that He willingly went to Calvary aned there laid down His life for us. But even with all that knowledge, do we really know how much Christ paid to free us from sin? And while there are no strings attached, there is the expectation that receiving such a wondrous gift will also lead us to gratefully follow Jesus in obedience to His will, trusting Him to lead us in the best way. We have received salvation by grace as a free gift from God.

And the emphasis on the gift reminds us that we have no reason to stand before God with an expectation that God is obligated to us in any way. We did not earn our salvation; we cannot stand before God and say, “See what I did?” We receive this precious gift with humility and a keen awareness that God Himself decided to give us this grace. We have no cause to brag, either to God or to others. We have no right to see ourselves as better than others, because it is simply by the grace of God that we have been saved.

This gift from God of salvation by grace is to create us in Jesus Christ to do good works. Just as God planned beforehand how and when to save us, so also He planned the good works He wants us to do under the guidance of His Holy Spirit. While we receive God’s salvation as a gift, we also recognize that God saved us to make us more like Himself each day. Toward that end, we are truly God’s workmanship. Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will obey Me” (cf. John 14:15, 23-24). The act of obedience is not to prove we love Him, but a result of our love for and trust in Jesus.

Conclusion

We are a blessed people. We are blessed because God makes us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions. We are blessed God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him (that is, with God) in Christ Jesus. We are blessed because we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. These three truths must guide us, assure us, comfort us in trying times and times of doubt. Satan, who is a liar, wants us to feel otherwise.

But we know the truth. We are in Christ, seated with God in Christ, and being made capable of doing good works in Christ.

This must be our truth, and it must be our calling.