Ephesians 2:1-10
And you were dead in the 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. 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 in kindness toward 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.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation.
The Epistle reading for Sunday, March 10, comes from Ephesians chapter two, verses one through 10. And you are dead in the 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 we're 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, in kindness toward 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. Here ends the reading, oh, what a classic verse. This is a classic reading Ephesians chapter two, so much good stuff in here. I hope I can get it without doing a 20 minute podcast. Okay, let's dig in. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, fall in the course of this world, following the prints of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Okay, so this begins by addressing the Ephesians. Remember, Paul is talking to Christians. And he's saying, You were you used to be at one time, you were dead in your sins. And so he says, they were dead in the sins, they followed the course of this world, they followed the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Now, there's a lot there. So first, the metaphor is, you were dead in your trespasses and sins, and then you followed the course of the world. So you're doing the same thing as the rest of the world. And then you err on the side of the prints of the power of the air, or Satan, the spirit that is now working the sons of disobedience. So there's, there's a lot to say about what it is like to be without Christ, even for Christians before they heard this. They were dead. They were following the course of the world, on the side of Satan. And he continues after that, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind. And we're by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Yikes. Paul, don't you know that this is going to scare people away? So we lived in the passions of our flesh, we consider it up the desires of our body and mind and we were by nature, children of wrath. Yikes. Paul is not painting, a beautiful picture of our capacity apart from Christ, he saying we are dead on the side of Satan, by nature, children of wrath. Whoa. Now this is one of the passages that I use when I talk about the non Christians capacity to love and serve God. That there is no way for us to decide to follow God to reach out to Him and serve Him because we are dead. We are by nature, children of wrath, and there is nothing good in us. And then Paul says, what God does in response to that, he writes, but God being rich and 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. God's amazing mercy is that he reaches out to people who are dead, dead bodies and makes them alive. Now you have to ask, what kind of capacity? Does a body a dead one have to do? To do good works? Can a dead thing get up? Can it cry out to God? Can a dead thing, love and serve? Nope, it's dead. God must first reach out to us by the power of the Holy Spirit to make us alive in Christ by His grace. This requires God's action on us. And the only way to be saved is for God to work on us first to choose us to call us to gather us. And this is why when we explained the work of the Holy Spirit, in the third article, the Apostles Creed, Lutherans repeat what Martin Luther wrote when he said, I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, and lightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. Only God can reach out and make dead things alive. Only God can take a sinner and make him a saint in Christ. And that's what it means when he gets to this, this next phrase, by grace, you have been saved. And if it's grace, it's not a work. It's not a choice. It's not a decision. It's not a thing that I do to please God, it is simply God does it. And if there is anything that I can do, that are a part of me, reaching out to God, then it is no longer grace. And it continues and raised us up with Him and seeded 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 toward us in Christ Jesus. So what's amazing about us being made alive together with Christ is that our life, who we are everything that we have is placed in Christ. And so we're raised with Him, we ascended into Heaven with Him. And we are now seated at the right hand of the Father waiting for Christ to return, to show off the power and glory that Christ already has, by giving us new life by taking our bodies, which at that time might be dead, and giving them a new life, making them alive again, so that we can walk on this earth, and have physical bodies one more time, what a great grace that our God has for us. And then St. Paul 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. So God, he repeats again, Grace, you have been saved through faith. Now, what we have to be careful about is when we look at this, sometimes people want to turn faith into a work. And so the idea is, there's nothing that you can do to be saved, except to drum up some belief in your heart. And if you believe and trust hard enough, then God saves you. Which is then again, not grace. Even faith is a gift, a gift of the Holy Spirit, who calls us and grants us faith so that we can trust in God. And if it's not the Holy Spirit's work, you can't say this phrase, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. So even the faith that trusts in God is a gift from the spirit. It's Grace is not a result of works. So no one can boast when they say, I have decided to follow Jesus. No, you didn't. The Holy Spirit came to you and gave you that gift even that even our faith in Christ is a gift, so that we can't say look at how much faith I have, we can only boast in the Lord. Then it continues, For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in. And St. Paul often, he comes up with the answer to the question that Lutherans often gift when we get when we emphasize grace so much. We emphasize everything thing as a free gift, there's nothing you can do. You don't have to, to work to be saved, and you don't have to work to stay saved. And then people say, well, people are just going to respond to that by taking advantage going out, they'll sin and do whatever and then come back and say, Oh, I'm sorry. And we'll have to forgive them. And that'll be fine.
But St. Paul says, No, that's not how it works. If you are made alive in Christ, then you are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. And so if you're made alive in Christ, you have a new heart or a new creation, and then you want to do good works. And this is one of the things that has changed in my preaching, is that I realized that God's people don't need to be cajoled or threatened or like have their pastors fingers shaken at them, to tell them to do good works. They already want to love and serve their church. They already want to love and serve their neighbor. The Holy Spirit does that. We just need to know which direction to go and be excited and motivated to do it. God has made us new God makes us want to do these things. And we are His workmanship. Wow, so much to say about this passage, but we got to keep it short. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai