Unveiling the Reason for our Salvation - Eph 2:1-3

So dad has gone to be with the Lord for over a year now.

But one of my favorite memories of him was the silly games that he used to play to amuse his kids.

When we were little children, dad used to sneak up to us in the living room,

hiding behind a small little throw pillow that we would keep on a couch.

Well, dad would stay crouched in the middle of the living room with this little

pillow pretending that he was hidden from us until we noticed him and say, we see you, dad.

Later, when I was in my twenties, I was reading the living room and he tried that same trick.

When I, you know, in the frustrated Hoffman groan that is so typical of a young

person, I said, I can see you, dad.

When dad responded, you can't see me, I'm hiding.

Although this is now one of my treasured and beloved memories of my dad.

And it's so amazing the memories that we treasure, isn't it,

of those who have had a past.

As I thought about my dad and his little games, I was reminded that just as

it was impossible for a man like my dad to hide behind that little pillow,

so also it's impossible for us as human beings to hide from the wrath of God

without being hidden by Christ himself through his sacrificial death and resurrection.

Here at Dillingham Arabian Church, we have been teaching through a preaching

series in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, which teaches about the unifying love

of God in the Holy Trinity, in God's church,

and how God's church can live out the unity of God amongst each other, but also in the world.

And today we're going to start a new chapter in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Now, as we go into this chapter, we need to understand that to describe the

wondrous and merciful salvation that God has bestowed upon us,

Paul needed to illustrate why

humanity had such a desperate need for that salvation in the first place.

And our desperate need is what we, you and I, are going to be studying about this morning.

So turn with me today to Ephesians 2, verse 1 through 3.

Ephesians 2:1–3

Ephesians 2, verse 1-3, where Paul wrote, And you were dead in your trespasses

Ephesians 2:1–3

and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world,

according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working

in the sons of disobedience.

Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh,

indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children

of wrath, even as the rest. Thank you.

As we study Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1 through 3, we have to realize that

Ephesians 2:1–3

Paul didn't just write about humanity's problem alone.

If he had to just stop there, man, what a depressing, there'd be no hope for life.

No, Paul wrote about humanity's problem in context of God's mighty solution.

And that's what we're going to do today. The first principle I'd like to show

you from this passage is that without Christ's intervention, in.

All of humanity was dead in their trespasses and sins, according to the evil

system rule by the ruler of the demonic realm, or by Satan.

Here in Bush, Alaska, our family had a number of instances over the years where

we have met dead animals.

Those include animals and birds which I've hunted, shot, and processed.

Animals that we have been called to pick up were being shot by others.

Even fish that we have caught commercial fishing in previous years or in our subsistence net.

My point is that each of those animals were, for a variety of reasons,

dead. There was no life in them.

Paul, in the beginning of Ephesians 2, declared that without God's miraculous

intervention into human history, where he invaded humanity as God himself,

Jesus Christ, coming to earth as a human to his blood sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection.

And without the faith response to Christ, the God's chosen children.

All humanity, including you and I, had no life of God's Spirit in us.

Paul taught in Ephesians 2, verse 1-2, and you were dead in your trespasses

Ephesians 2:1–2

and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world,

according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working

in the sons of disobedience.

There are three principles from this passage that I want to bring your attention to.

The first truth is that without Christ's loving sacrificial death on the cross,

on our behalf, all of human beings were dead in our trespasses and sins.

The word that Paul used for transgression or trespasses meant the action of

going beyond or overstepping some moral bound or limit,

meaning that the transgressions were when we break our laws or ordinances,

which God has set down in His Word.

The word for sin referred to an act or feeling that transgresses something forbidden,

or ignore something required by God's law or character, whether in thought,

feeling, speech, or action.

Now, there are folks who make a big deal about the differences between transgressions

and sins and what that entails, but Paul's point is that both fall short of

God's standards and are disobedient to the Lord.

And as a result of our transgressions or our trespasses and sins,

we as human beings, beginning with Adam and Eve, had none of God's life in us.

In Romans 3, verse 10 through 12, Paul wrote, as it is written,

Romans 3:10–12

there is none righteous, not even one.

There's none who understands. There's none who seeks for God.

All have turned aside together. They have become worthless.

There is none who does good. There's not even one. Yet we know that because

of God in Christ, there is fabulousness.

Paul in Colossians chapter 2, verse 13 to 14,

Colossians 2:13–14

said one of my favorite passages here, Verse 13, when you were dead in your

transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him,

having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate

of death consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us.

He'd taken it out of the way, having nailed it to us.

The second principle I want to show you is that all believers formerly lived

according to the evil system which the Bible teaches as the world.

The word that Paul used for the course of this word referred to the world system,

the people constituting the world

whose values, beliefs, morals are in distinction and rebellion to God.

The Apostle John in 1 John 2, verse 15 to 17 commanded, Do not love the world,

1 John 2:15–17

nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,

and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.

And the world is passing away, and also its lust, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.

It's important for us to understand that Paul was reminding the Ephesian believers

that they once belonged to this evil system, which all people in the world are farts of.

Yet they do not belong to that world system anymore. Praise the Lord.

Paul in Colossians chapter 1, verse 13 to 14 taught, For he rescued us from

Colossians 1:13–14

the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,

on whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.

What Paul was described in Colossians chapter 1 was that Christ Jesus rescued

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

or delivered or took us as the chosen children of God in Christ.

Out of the sphere of control of the darkness, and he transferred us or moved

us in the kingdom of God's beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

This concept of being transferred is similar to working for a large company.

I used to work for ICON, which is the photocopier company.

And I was in one location, and my boss one day came to me and says,

well, Simon, I want you to move

over to this, when we were to our main headquarters here for Fred Myers.

It's very similar to that, that I was moved from one location to another,

except what Christ has done for us is even more amazing, that while we were

in the realm of darkness under its authority.

When the Bible talks about being under its authority, means that we belong to

it, that we are enslaved to it.

We're compelled to live the way that that authority is compelling us to.

And we are compelled to live according to the ways of the evil world that we once lived in.

And yet God, in his great mercy, removed the believer from out of that evil

realm and placed us into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, this beloved son.

I want you to notice that the kingdom of God's beloved Son is characterized

by the freedom and forgiveness or the releasing of the captives from all the

responsibility for the debt of wrath of their sins incurred before.

I'm sharing all this with you because in Ephesians 2, Paul strongly alluded

to the Ephesian believers that they had been delivered from the realm of Satan's darkness.

They have been removed to the forgiveness and freedom of Christ's kingdom,

and they must not try to go back.

Or we must ask a question. If Jesus, the beloved Son of God,

is the King of His kingdom, which Christ's believers now live in,

who then is in control of the domain of darkness?

This brings us to the third principle we see in verses 1 through 2.

And that principle is the world system that we as redeemed, once lived in,

is controlled and run by Satan, who is the Spirit, who is working in the sons of disobedience.

Now, there are three words I want to bring your attention that can help us understand this concept.

The first word I want to show you is the word for prince, which meant the one

who has eminence and ruling.

He's a ruler. He's a lord. Prince.

Evil spirits whose hierarchy resembled human political institutions.

Have you ever noticed that?

How the demonic sphere closely resembles the human sphere as well.

The word that Paul used for power referred to the sphere in which power is exercised,

simply the domain of the air.

The air was seen as the demonic realm, the sky, understood as the realm where

evil spirits dwell and come from, where they exercise their influence from.

So in the ancient world, the sky was seen as the heavenly realm.

And it was from there, there's both the good from God and also from the demons.

So it was from there that they exercised their influence.

So this is where Paul is getting this here, talking about the prince of the air.

And thus Paul is explaining that there is a demonic ruler who has authority

over all demonic spirits who dwell in the sky, exercise influence from there.

And this ruler of demons also rules over the world system that we as human beings live in.

He works in the sons of disobedience, meaning those who obey or disobey God.

This ruler of demons is known by many names.

But the most famous and most common name for him in the Bible is Satan,

which means accuser, or the devil, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Satan.

There are many references to Satan or the devil in the prophets and in the New Testament.

But I'm going to show you just two today from Matthew 25, verse 41,

Matthew 25:41

where Jesus prophesied about the end times when Christ the King spoke to the

wicked whom he's preparing to send to the judgment of hell. And this is what Jesus said in verse 41.

Then he, meaning the Christ, will also say to those on his left,

depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which he prepared for. For who?

The devil and his angels, meaning that the devil was an authority over him.

Those angels belonged to him in some fashion.

Luke reported in Luke chapter 4, verse 5 through 8, when Jesus was fasting and

Luke 4:5–8

praying in the desert for 40 days, while the devil tempted him,

verse 5, and he, Satan, led him, meaning Jesus, up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world.

And the devil said to him, I will give you all this dominion and this glory,

for it's being handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.

Therefore, you worship before me. It shall all be yours.

And Jesus answered and said to him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord

your God and serve him only.

In Ephesians chapter 2, Paul was explaining to the Ephesian Christians that

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

they, like those who were still ensnared in the world system that Satan controls

were once dead in their trespasses and sin.

The strong implication that Paul was communicating to the Ephesian disciples

was that they were no longer dead in their trespasses and sins,

but now alive in Christ. Stay that way.

Stay in Christ. If you're here listening today and you've never responded to

love of Christ, by putting your faith in Christ as your only Lord and Savior.

And the Bible teaches that you still live within the world's evil system,

that Satan rules and controls.

Now, I understand that this is extremely hard to hear.

It was really hard for me when I first came to know the Lord.

I came out of a life, drugs, alcohol, and frankly, I loved my life.

I look back and it was terrible and awful, but I didn't want to come out of it.

God had to really work on me, open up my mind so that I could see the truth.

I say this out of a loving desire to see everyone saved from God's terrifying

and horrifying wrath against sin.

We have gentled the wrath of God in our collective minds.

That somehow the wrath or the judgment for our sins is, eh, we can handle it.

We can't handle it. God and Jesus Christ has offered you the only way out.

Salvation of spirit's life is only Jesus Christ.

Take God's hand that he is offering you by faith in Jesus Christ,

and God will pull you out of Satan's realm of darkness, and he'll make you into a new creation.

Amen. And he'll place you into the kingdom of his beloved son, Jesus Christ.

You have to lose when you have everything to gain?

So far, we've learned that Paul was teaching the Ephesian Christ believers,

and subsequently us, that they were once dead in their trespasses and sins,

and enslaved in the world system that Satan controls.

But due to Christ's intervention, the Ephesian disciples of Christ no longer

were dead in their trespasses and sins.

And before Paul went on to communicate what God had done in Christ Jesus,

he explained that Christians were once children of wrath like the rest of the world.

In Dillingham in March, we have our local celebration called Bieber Roundup

Festival. You all here know that.

One of the highlights of the festival is the shooting events at the Dillingham

Rifle and Shotgun Range.

Every year, the Dillingham Sportsman Club puts on the shooting events to bring

public awareness on the use of firearms and, frankly, just to have fun.

Dilling in Sportsman Club volunteers, they set up the range for the shooting

competitions where the contestants must aim their rifles and shoot their respective

targets consistently to win a prize.

The one who wins the competition gets a prize, usually.

I'm asking one of the leaders of it. And this concept of leveling our rifle

or our shotgun and a target and blasting it full of holes is similar to what

Paul was teaching about in Ephesians 2,

Ephesians 2:1–3

verse 1 through 3. Or verse 3 in this case.

Except that we, all of humanity, were to be targets, and God was the one leveling

the weapon of his terrifying fury straight at us.

Paul in Ephesians 2, verse 3 explained, Among them we too all formerly lived

Ephesians 2:3

in the lusts of the flesh, indulging in the desires of the flesh and of the

mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

In Ephesians 2, verse 3, I want you to notice that Paul was warning both the

Ephesians 2:3

Ephesian Christians, who were Gentiles or non-Jews, and the Jewish Christians,

to which Paul himself was part of.

Paul emphasized that they were all once children of wrath, along with the rest

of the world, who indulged in the desires of their bodies and minds.

According to one commentator, the expression children of wrath is a Hebraism,

like sums of disobedience, and means worthy to receive divine judgment.

We were targets of that judgment.

In this verse, Paul was strongly implying to the Ephesian congregations that

they were no longer worthy of receiving God's wrath.

And as such, they were no longer to indulge in the evil desires that those who

were still under the crosshairs of God's divine judgment committed.

Paul in Ephesians 5, verse 6-8 warned the congregation, Let no one deceive you

Ephesians 5:6–8

with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Therefore do not be partakers with them, for you were formerly darkness,

but now you are light in the Lord.

Walk as children in light. As we learned in the earlier illustration of like

shooters shooting with a rifle or shotgun at the target before them,

all of humanity, without the intervention of Christ's loving and brutal sacrifice

on the cross and his resurrection,

we were all targets.

Targets of the furious divine wrath of God because of our sins against him.

And the question we must ask is why?

Why was the ferocious fury of the most powerful being in all of this and every

universe directed at us as humanity?

To answer this most important question, I want to direct you to two passages

that will help us understand why God was so angry at us in our sin.

The first scripture that I want us to look at is from Hebrews 9, verse 18 to 22.

Hebrews 9:18–22

Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.

For when every covenant had been spoken by Moses to all the people according

to the law, He took the blood of the calves and the goats with water and scarlet

wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,

saying, this is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.

And this is what I want you to see here. Oh, in verse 21.

And in the same way, both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry,

he sprinkled with blood. In verse 22.

Another passage that I'd like to bring your attention to, and that can be found in Leviticus.

Leviticus chapter 17, verse 11, where the Lord instructed Moses,

Leviticus 17:11

for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the

altar to make atonement for your sins, for it's the blood that makes atonement by the light.

I want you to see here that from the very beginning, when Adam and Eve disobeyed

God and started this chain reaction that sin now has entered the world.

All of us are sinners.

We have all fallen short of the glory of God, and our sin is a whoring to God.

He absolutely hates sin.

And to atone for even one of our smallest sins, the justice of God demanded

the shedding of all of our lifeblood to pay for even that one small less sin.

And that's not all, including all the sins of us that we have or we to make. That's just one.

And yet God knew that in order for atonement for our sins to be paid,

every human being that ever lived and will ever live had to die.

But God loved the world too much to let that happen. And that's why he allowed

the atonement through the sacrifice of animals, so that their lifeblood would

atone for the sins of Israel.

And yet it didn't solve the problem. Israel kept on sinning.

Their priests kept on sinning.

And that was where Israel was when Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God,

invaded humanity and became God in the flesh.

The wrath of God was appeased. And God's goodwill obtained was through Jesus

Christ, Yahweh, Lord of all the universe, offering himself on the cross as the

sacrificial blood offering for the sin of the world.

And that is why God sent his only gotten son, his only precious son,

to pay the blood price for our sins, yours and mine, with his blood so that we didn't have to.

He sacrificed it. He paid our debt with his own blood on that cross.

However, for the debt paid to be added to our individual account,

each of us have to respond to the forgiven grace of Christ by surrendering,

by faith, to the Lordship of Christ over our lives.

Through his death and resurrection, Christ is the only way to be saved from

the wrath of Almighty God.

Now, what can we, as those who are saved by Christ, learn from this passage?

The first truth we can learn is that without the loving intervention of Almighty

God and Jesus Christ, we, you and I, were once in the same boat as those people

in the world who were still under the target of God's wrath.

Meaning that we, as Christians, must not view ourselves as better or more important

than non-Christ followers.

It seems to be a thing amongst the church that somehow we are just a little bit better than them.

It's very tempting for us to maybe even look down on them, and especially those

who are homeless, those who are in the depths of drug and alcohol.

Yet I love how the songwriter said, but for the grace of God, there go I.

If it wasn't for the grace of God, we all are the targets of God's wrath.

All glory and honor for what God has done in you and me must go to God in Jesus Christ.

Perspective as redeemed in Christ must be one of mercy.

As Christ Jesus had towards us, our view of those still lost without Christ

must be one of an overwhelming desire to go to them,

to share with them the life-giving gospel so that they too may be saved from

God's wrath and be given the good favor of our precious God.

The second truth I want to point out to you is that as saints of Christ,

because of Christ, we, you and I, are no longer ruled by Satan,

and we no longer have to follow his ways.

And thus Paul implied warning here encourages us to stay faithful,

to abide in Christ, so that we do not want to go back into that old dead light

that we were once enslaved to.

See, the temptation for us as Christ followers is to believe that since we've

never drunk drugs, or drunk much alcohol, or maybe we've never been involved in sexual immorality,

or that we've never murdered someone, we've never stolen someone,

or stolen anything, maybe we've never kidnapped anyone.

We haven't done any of these big, bad things.

And that makes us a good Christian, that we're doing well.

The very fact that we can believe that we're doing well in the Christian light

may very well point to pride.

Very careful that his pride is so sneaky because it'll then end up turning towards us and be about us.

Have you ever been focused on yourself? What about being frustrated or impatient

with your kids or your spouse?

Do you always trust Christ so completely that you live joyously at every moment

during every trial? Of course not.

My point is, is even the smallest sin that we don't think as bad is enough that

without Christ, our destination would meet the fires of hell.

You and I must be trusting in Christ's love and by faith obeying his word and

continue staying with Christ so that we do not live according to the ways of

Satan's kingdom anymore.

What is it that God has been teaching us in this passage? We have learned that

before being saved by the grace of Christ in Jesus Christ through faith in Christ,

we weren't once dead ourselves in trespasses and sins and enslaved to the system that Satan controls.

But due to Christ's intervention by him invading this world,

we as disciples of Christ are no longer dead, but we are alive.

Secondly, due to Christ's death and resurrection, we who are in Christ are no

longer targets of God's wrath.

And as such, we no longer need to indulge in the evil desires that belong to Satan and his kingdom.

I want to encourage you today that although the problem of sin in us and in

the world can seem unsolvable, it seems like we just can't win this fight.

And it's true, you can, but Christ has, he's defeated it on the cross.

Seems to be winning. But the truth is, is that Satan is on a leash.

His time is ticking, and he knows it. He's read the book of Revelation.

He knows that he is going to be grabbed by just a messenger of God, an angel.

He didn't even show him as a big, powerful angel either.

He's just one singular angel, and he's just tossed.

No fight, no nothing. Why? Because God ordered it.

I want to encourage you today that God has already won.

We seem like we're, and myself included, often feel like this battle we're losing.

That is Satan. That is his mindset trying to show us, into not believing that Christ has already won.

And He has given you and I the absolute energy-producing power God in the universe

to be able to live victoriously for Him. We must not give up.

Keep trusting in Him, friends. The power of sin has been vanquished.

We, you and I, along with the entire church, we've been made alive together

with Christ. and one day you will see him face to face in his glory.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the mercy, the love that you've shown us, and we're grateful.

Lord, I pray for us here at Dillingham Rating Church and also in the believing

churches here in town and all around the world,

that we would cling to the truth of who you are and what you have done in your

son, Jesus Christ, that you are victorious, Lord.

Yes, we were once dead in our trespasses and sins, but we are no longer.

You are our God, and you are victorious.

May we live by faith in you, clinging to you, trusting you at every moment,

believing your word, believing that you are,

so powerful beyond our imagining, and that your power is at our disposal so

that we can follow You and obey You through everything.

Thank You. I pray for us, Lord, that in the midst of the temptations that are

going to come, that we would cling to You in that, that we would believe that

truth, and we would trust You.

May we go out and share Your Word, Lord, because we love You,

and we love others in You.

In Your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.