Ephesians: God’s Poetry | Associate Pastor: Matt Armstrong

A couple weeks ago, I uh brought our oldest child, our daughter Zoe, back to college.

She's at SCAD in Savannah, and it's just fun to see her growing and maturing.

And I've been checking in with her the last couple weeks.

She's she's taking a few classes.

She's got uh her favorite class is one of her core major classes in illustration.

She also has an elective and a core class that she's not as excited about, but it fills out your education, right?

As I was studying Ephesians chapter 2 for today's sermon, I realized that's a that's kind of a way of looking at different chapters of the Bible.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Some chapters are like electives, they're kind of fun and interesting, and uh, you know, they take us to unexpected places.

There's some core uh core parts of the Bible that it's good for us to know, but but sometimes they can be a grind.

And then there are major chapters, major classes of the Bible.

And Ephesians chapter 2 is one of these major chapters that delves deep into the theology of salvation.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

And I'm excited for us uh to get into that this morning.

In fact, Russ kind of touched on this.

Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of this book of Ephesians, we basically break into this deep theological teaching that Paul is giving to these Ephesian Gentiles and how and why they were saved.

And then chapters 4, 5, and 6, Paul transitions into how does that affect the way we live?

This deep and rich theology, which God wants us to understand, will then affect the way we live our day-to-day life.

Back in chapter 1, he began this letter by praising God for this incredible salvation he had brought to the Ephesians through Jesus' death, resurrection, ascension, and session that he is seated with the Father in the heavenly places.

And the mystery that's been revealed is that it's not just the sons and daughters of Abraham, but God's salvation has been opened to include the Gentiles.

Biblically speaking, there's only two groups of people: there's God's people, the Israelites, the Jews, and the Gentiles, which is everybody else.

And it was kind of a shocking revelation that God's love was so deep and so wide that it was actually meant to encompass all the peoples of the world.

And so Paul is writing this letter especially to these Ephesians who were Gentiles, so that they might know and understand the depth of God's love and the depths of the effort that he went through to save them.

And that's the same, most of us are gent, would be considered Gentile Christians.

So, let's jump in and see as Paul peels back the layers here for our understanding.

Look at verses one through three.

He says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 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 body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Our first point, Paul is outlining the problem that required salvation, and it's this that apart from Christ, all of humanity is dead in sin.

Paul writes to the Ephesians to remind them this was your spiritual state prior to Christ, and it was stark and desperate.

First, they were spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins, which means that they followed the course of this world, which means that they followed the prince of the power of the air, who is the spirit that is now at work in the sons and the daughters of disobedience.

And what does that look like?

It looks like living according to the passions of the flesh, and following the desires of the flesh, and a mind corrupted by sin.

And all this made them children of wrath, along with the rest of mankind.

But this was not unique to the Ephesians or even to the Gentiles.

Paul tells them that this is how we all once lived, whether Jew or Gentile.

And in this recitation, what we see is are the three main enemies that the Bible teaches us about as children of God.

That is the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The world is kind of like the common way of thinking, of culture and mankind separated from God.

The flesh is not really our skin and bone, it's not the flesh, the body is composed of the spirit, but it's it's a way of talking about our fallen human nature that is by nature opposed to God.

And Satan, uh, right, the prince of the power of the air, who has rebelled against God and has been ruling over God's good creation since the fall.

This was our state apart from Christ.

To be separated from God is to be separated from the source of life, and so being spiritually dead.

And it teaches us about the true nature of sin.

Sin is not just error, it's not messing up or making mistakes.

Rather, sin, again, is being separated from God.

It's a state of being, separated from life.

But there's more.

To be apart from Christ is also to be apart from his kingdom, to be part of another kingdom, the kingdom of darkness, led by the prince of the power of the air, Satan.

This is the one underlying message of the gospel, that Jesus is the rightful king returning to restore God's rightful rule over his good creation.

If you're familiar with the gospel messages, when Jesus came on the scene, he announced his ministry by saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And we pray in the Lord's Prayer that God's kingdom would come here on earth as it is in heaven.

That's the same idea that Paul is talking about here.

And Paul will say later in this passage that what this means is that we were all without hope and without God in the world.

Sin is serious and to be taken seriously.

In his book, Gentle and Lowly, Dane Orton says it like this.

He said, Christ was not sent to mend wounded people, nor to wake sleepy people, or advise confused people, or inspire bored people, or to spur on lazy people, but to raise dead people.

This is so important for us to remember because, spiritually speaking, prior to Christ, we didn't feel dead, if you can remember that time.

But when we put our faith in Christ, when we heard this gospel message, and we pledged allegiance to King Jesus, Paul says, we were made alive.

We were given the Holy Spirit.

Let's look at verses four through six.

He says, 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.

But God.

One commentator says these are the two most important words in this whole letter.

And maybe they're the two most important words in the New Testament.

In spite of our state of being spiritually dead, even being children of wrath, God chose to make us alive, together with Christ.

And he raised us up with Christ, and we are seated with Christ at the right hand of God the Father even now.

Now, what Paul's language is teaching us and pointing us to, Lord, is a foundational theological truth called union with Christ.

And it is it is the underlying framework for understanding our very salvation.

You see, our all of humanity was originally under the headship of Adam, our first father.

When he and Eve rebelled against God, sin entered the world, it corrupted creation, and it also entered the human heart.

And both of our spirit parents became spiritually dead.

And now all who descend from our first parents are dead in sin.

But now, when we hear the great announcement of the good news, the evangel, that King Jesus has come to defeat the Prince of the Power of the air and to free us from slavery to sin.

When we hear that message and we receive it, we assent to it, we put our faith in Jesus and say, Yes, Jesus is my king and my savior.

God takes us, spiritually speaking, out of Adam and places us in Christ.

He unites us with Christ.

And what that means is that whatever happened to Jesus happens to us.

And so, Jesus died among the cross.

I think we have a slide.

Is it there?

There it is.

Jesus died on the cross.

And so when we are united to cross, we have died with Christ on the cross, and our sins are paid for.

And just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so we in him are raised to justification of life.

And finally, just as he is seated at the right hand of God, so in him we are seated in the heavenly places.

Now, just like we didn't know or understand that we were spiritually dead prior to Christ, so often today it doesn't feel like we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, and yet Paul tells us, this is what is true of us in Christ, and it is very good news.

By grace, we have been saved through faith in Christ, through this union with Christ.

And the Bible uses many different metaphors to help us understand what God has done.

We have moved from the king from darkness to light, from one family to another, from one kingdom to another.

But the question is, how did God do it?

That's point three.

What was the power that saved us?

Paul tells us it came from God alone.

Look at verses eight and nine.

He says, 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.

In these few verses, Paul is going to great lengths to communicate this very important point.

How did God save us?

The answer in a word is grace.

And we typically define that word as unmerited favor.

It is favor, it is love, it is affection that you have received that you did not merit, you did not earn, you do not deserve.

It is simply a gift.

That's what Paul is communicating here.

It is given freely by God's choice, not because of anything that we have done to persuade God, to placate God, to earn it from God or to deserve it.

So he says it is by grace as opposed to our own doing.

Right?

We are dead, we're dead in our trespasses and sins.

There was nothing that we were able to do, spiritually speaking.

And so just like God breathed life into that hunk of earth that became Adam, so he takes us in our deadness and he breathes recreation life through the Holy Spirit to make us alive again.

Amen?

Hallelujah.

Let's get a little Baptist up in here.

Come on.

But Paul, here he anticipates an objection, right?

But Paul, what, you know, we remember prior to this message, prior to Christ, we did good things.

We helped people, we loved our spouses and our children.

And even now we do good things.

Well, Paul says in verse 10, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Okay.

Now, I rarely and never want to critique Bible translation.

Right?

We have very reliable English translation from ancient, you know, original language texts.

We have reliable Bible translations.

And I don't like this word workmanship.

Does anybody know what workmanship means?

Every time I read this verse, I'm like, what are you saying?

I've never used the word workmanship in a sentence.

I have never heard another person use the word workmanship in a sentence.

So what is Paul saying?

Well, it comes from this Greek word poema, which is the noun form of the verb uh po'e'o, which means to work.

So a poema is the result of my work.

So if you're an artisan, if you're a painter or a sculptor, and you you paint a beautiful picture, that's your poema.

It's the result of your work.

And so what Paul is saying is that we are God's work.

When we do good works, we are simply living in the works that God prepared for us to do before eternity past.

Now, this gets us to a point that Paul taught uh Paul Russ talked about last week, which is uh this debate or this issue or this uh tension between predestination and, or God's sovereignty and free will.

Now, we're not gonna rehash that this morning.

Go back, listen to his sermon.

There are plenty of books.

It's an issue worth looking into.

It's fine, especially if you're a college student.

That's what college is for, to wrestle with this question of predestination or free will.

Um, what we want to focus on this morning is what is Paul getting at?

What's his point?

Why is he addressing this issue of even our good works are God's work?

Paul wants us to know this one thing that our salvation from beginning to end is God's work for us.

It's not a result of anything we have done, it's the result of God's gracious kindness.

Literally, a gift, a better gift, even if we cried out to God for mercy, it's a better gift than we even imagined that we needed.

And it came from God.

I love the way Malcolm Guite talks about this verse.

If you don't know Malcolm Geite, you can look him up on YouTube.

He's this old Anglican priest, uh, which is hilarious that he has a YouTube channel.

I think I've uh mentioned it before, but um, I just want this guy to be my granddad.

He uh he's got a big white beard, he looks like a hobbit or Santa Claus or something, and he he quotes a lot of Tolkien and C.S.

Lewis and stuff.

Well, he he and he's a poet.

He's he's he's a professional poet.

He's produced multiple books of poetry.

And he he uh he said that we get the English word poem from this Greek word poema.

And so he says we could translate this verse that we are God's poetry.

And I love that sentiment, and I think it it kind of cuts through this this sovereignty free will debate because Paul's point here is that if you are in Christ, if you belong to him, you are his beloved.

And not only that, you are the result of his artistic work.

You are his unique poem that he is writing and sending out into the world that through you people might see the riches of the depth of his love and kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Which brings us to our final point.

Uh, the problem, sin, the solution is God's work in us.

The power is from God alone.

What?

Paul gets here to this fourth point.

Why did God do all this?

And why did he do it in this way?

The reason is that he wanted to reveal a specific aspect of his character to us, to creation, to the heavenly beings.

And he gives the reason in verse 4 and verse 7.

In verse 4, he tells us that God was rich in mercy towards us because of the great love with which he loved us.

Why did God save us?

Because he loved us.

And this is an incredibly important theological point, because it is not the case that God the Father was angry at us and full of wrath, and it and it took the Son to come and change God's mind.

No, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit from all eternity put the plan of redemption together.

It was always the heart of the Father to love us.

And it was always in his heart to save us in this way, because he wanted to reveal that love to us.

We were created in love, and now in Christ we are recreated in love.

Now in verse 7, Paul gives a second reason for why he saved us this way.

He says, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

As I studied this passage over the last week, this is the verse that jumped out to me, and I just, I could not get over it.

I couldn't get around it.

Not only did God did God save us because he loves us, but he saved us specifically in this way, graciously, because he wanted to reveal an aspect of his character to the world around him.

And what did he want to reveal?

The immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness to us.

God is so rich in grace.

It is immeasurable.

Scripture tells us that God is holy, that God is just, that God is good.

And we should never diminish those things.

But what Paul is telling us in this passage is that there was one thing God wanted to reveal about himself through our salvation.

And that that is he is a God of grace, a God of love, God of kindness.

As I read this, it reminded me this old story I read in Philip Yancey's book, What's So Amazing About Grace?

Let me recount it to you.

He says, during a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith.

They began eliminating possibilities.

Was it the incarnation?

Well, other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form.

Was it the resurrection?

Again, other religions had accounts of returning from the dead.

The debate went on for some time until C.S.

Lewis wandered into the room.

What is this rumpus about?

He asked.

And he heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among world religions.

Lewis responded, Oh, that's easy.

It's grace.

It's grace, beloved.

World religions, the religions of the world, they have, they contain much truth.

But no other religion in the world captures the heart of the one true God, which is that though we fall short, though we introduced sin into the world, though we are the source of the corruption and the evil, yet God loves us still.

And he gave up of himself that we might become again his cherished possession.

And beloved, that is the truth that we rest in, that we are free to rest in God's love.

But we also are free to love out of the rest we have received in Christ.

Beloved, may we rejoice and celebrate our God who is love and who wanted nothing more than for you to know how much he loves him.

That is his heart toward you.

Loving kindness.

If you have any questions about this sermon, or if you need prayer, I'll be down front after the service.

Please come see me.

Let's pray.

Our Father and our God, we simply rejoice with Paul.

We we are we come to the end of human language.

Simply to celebrate your immeasurable riches and grace toward us in Christ.

May your name be lifted up, and may we be lifted up in your love.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.