Eph 2:1-10

This is my outline for the Sunday school lesson for May 15. It also contiues which the book of Ephesians which we were doing for the Kent State Bible Study( which ended with the semseter).

Ephesians 2:1-10

SAVED BY Amazing GRACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Introduction: These ten verses show a sharp contrast. The contrast is our deadness, sinfulness, depravity and complete indebtedness to God to God‘s glorious riches he has bestowed to us in Christ. We can thank God that his love bridged the gap between our deadness and his life.

V.1-3 The Picture of our spiritual deadness
V.1 Before Christ we are dead! The verse says we are dead in our trespasses and sin. This is consistent with of course what we know from Romans 6:23 and 3:23. We are all sinners and are dead spiritually (that is the unregenerate man who has never been born again. The unsaved are walking corpses though their outer man is alive but the inner man is dead. Also note the ability dead people have to change their condition. They can not! This adds to the idea of depravity we looked at earlier. Dead people can not make themselves alive with out being raised from the dead by God! Without Christ we are spiritual zombies in desperate need of help we can not get from ourselves.
V.2 We walked according to the course of the world. No matter what state we were in before our conversion it was according to the deadness of the world. We were conformed to evil mold the world gave us. We were sons of disobedience. We are not all naturally children of God like the wants us to believe but until our conversion we are sons of the devil. Compare this verse with 1 John 3:8
V.3 This verse explains our actions during our time of spiritual deadness. Our motivation was fulfilling the lust of the flesh. We were only seeking the pursuit of self. This is the polar opposite of seeking the glory of God. Naturally then we were children of wrath. We were rebelling against the perfection, holiness, and lordship of God.

V4-10 Identification with Christ and God’s Rescue
V.4 This verse gives the God the agent of rescue from complete and total depravity. It describes his characteristics that allow him to come to rescue. He is rich in mercy. These riches were bought for us by Christ death on the cross. He spent his mercy on us because of his great love us! AMAZING! Question to ponder was it his love for himself or us or both. Consider Romans 3:22-26. It continues with which he loved us. This describes not him loving us but how he loves us. With his great love the phrase before says.
V.5 God made us alive in Christ when were dead in our trespasses. There could be no other way knowing our depravity. We saved when were “ready” because we were never ready due to our depravity. Yet God saved us when we were dead in our trespasses. Our salvation is completely dependent on God. Then Paul notes: for by grace you were saved. This should be obvious because there is none thing that we could have done to undo our deadness. It is not anything we have done. It was only grace that could save us.
Compare this verse to Romans 5:6-8. Also note how we made alive with Christ. His perfect life has been imputed to us 2 Cor 5:21. His death was our death and his life now ours. We are made alive. This refers to our regeneration. We now have to ability to have spiritual life because of Christ. We have been raised from the dead.
V.6 This verse continues to explain the benefits we have once are identified with Christ. Notice the tense of the verb. In English it is past tense In Greek it is an aorist meaning an already completed action. So we are not waiting to be sitting in the heavenly places we are already positionally in Christ.
V.7 The purpose of salvation is not man centered but God centered. God is getting the glory in our salvation by putting the riches of his grace on display. We are extremely blessed to be a part of God glorifying himself; in the process we have great benefits.
V.8 Our salvation is entirely due to God’s grace and him lavishing his riches on us. Note it is not our faith that saves us but grace. Faith is a gift of God that allows us to experience his grace. It does not say by faith you have been saved but through faith. Our salvation is dependent on God’s grace. It is completely a gift of God. The gift could only be given by God. It could not be earned due to our complete depravity and the necessary punishment for sin
V.9 This verse reinforces what we have seen earlier. It is obviously not of works. No work pays for sin. We were spiritually dead and unable to save ourselves. We had no room to boast we contribute nothing to our salvation. The only thing we can boast in is the cross of Christ.
V.10 This gives us God’s perspective on us. We are not people with out purpose walking aimlessly in life. We were hand crafted by Christ himself for specific purposes that God has ordained us to fulfill. Again, this points to the fact that we and our salvation are not for ourselves but for God and his glory.

Wrap Up and Review: Having looked at these ten verses we see that we are much like Lazarus raised from the dead by Christ. We were dead and completely unable to change our deadness. But God intervened! Hallelujah! God’s love rescued us and gave life and the life of Christ with all its benefits. Lastly, it was all by God’s grace! It is more than winning the lottery without buying a ticket. Let us now live our life in gratitude of the amazing gift we have been given, let us walk in the good works that God prepared us to do in gratitude and humility giving glory to God.