Compass Point Church

Title: Our Total Transformation In Christ
Bible Text: Ephesians 2:1-10

Intro: Example of transformation – New Apps on phone. They can take your picture and instantly transform your appearance! No need to spend hours putting on makeup and costumes – It doesn’t cost you anything, its free! Let me show you some of the ones I took this week… Take your picture and it automatically transforms you. Take a look.

Wouldn’t it be great if when we became genuine devoted followers of Jesus we could transform that fast and that easy? From our life before we surrendered to Jesus to what we are today, New Creations in Christ!
When we cross over the threshold of faith into new life with Jesus Christ. Everything does change completely. We are brand new creatures in Christ. The transformation here on earth takes a life-time of obedience and learning to know Jesus more and more, but God sees us instantly as new creations, transformed because of what His son has done on our part.

Paul wants to make sure that the Ephesians understand that this new salvation to which they are called makes a radical difference in their lives! Its not just a change of status, but a transformation and a change of life! That’s what chpt. 4-6 are all about! How does this new salvation play itself out in real life? What does it look like? What difference does it make? You’ll remember that in chpt. 1 Paul has sought to motivate his readers towards that goal by reminding them of the REASON to live for Christ. . . “God . . . has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” AND by reminding them from where their POWER to change comes from . . .”I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” Now Paul turns to reminding the Ephesians of three other things: (1) their past (2) their present (3) their future.

I. What It Means To Be The Walking Dead.(Eph 2:1-3)
A. Before salvation we were spiritually dead. (v.1)
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Notice the language that Paul chooses to use . . . We WERE Dead. Do you remember your life before you came to know Christ? Was it anything like your life today?

Paul very much viewed life before Christ as spiritual death! What is it to be spiritually dead?
Does it mean that we know very little about the Bible or religion? No, that’s ignorance to spiritual and religious knowledge. Paul was a prodigy, a genius really when it came to all things religious and law. He was a good Jew (a “Hebrew of Hebrews”, he would refer to himself.), A good Pharisee, a keeper of the law, & zealous for doing what he thought was defending the faith! (Cf. Phil 3:4-6)

He may have known religious rules, laws and facts, but no matter how good he might have been at religion- from the perspective of his new life “in Christ”, all life “before Christ” he considered as characterized by death! In his letter to the Philippians he considered all his previous religious achievements as dung!
Paul says that he was simply ‘dead’ spiritually. Religion couldn’t give life. The Law couldn’t give life. Only Jesus could bring true life! “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the fullest! John 10:10

B. Spiritual death is obvious by what we follow. (v. 1b-2)
…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—
Death in the Bible is always a matter of separation. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they became separated from their relationship with God. They didn’t “die” as if poisoned by the fruit.
Their relationship with God was broken, it died, they were no longer in relationship. Spiritual death simply means to be out of relationship with God with no way of winning it back.

We can’t fix it. It is a state of being that cannot be altered in and of our own efforts. It is dead! Only God can breath life into a dead person or a dead relationship!
We are all born spiritually separated from God. We are born spiritually dead.
It isn’t until we accept the work of Jesus on the cross on our behalf that we suddenly have spiritual life.
And the way we can recognize this is by simply looking at what we follow. What has our attention and moves us and draws us along in life? Like a strong current in a river pulling us along. What motivates us and the decisions and actions of our life?

Paul says it is, “following the ways of this world.” Looking to this world for our spirituality. People today will say, “I’m not religious but I am a very spiritual person.” Looking to mother nature, mother earth, crystals, the many God’s of Hinduism, seeking Allah, or just to have the “force be with you”. Trying to satisfy that missing “thing” in their lives. That itch that can’t be satisfactorily scratched.
People are hungering for spiritual life but it can only be found in one place.
I realize this is totally exclusivist and narrow minded, and intolerant of other belief systems…But that is what the Bible says. Jesus said, Just before warning about “false Prophets”,

Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)
13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Paul also reminds us of just who is in control in this world, without mentioning his name. He’ll come back to it in chapt. 6, but for now its enough for us to make note that this ‘ruler’ has been handed over “authority” concerning the affairs of this world.
John confirms what Paul has said. I Jn 5:19 (NIV) - We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

This ruler, this spirit is at work in all those who are disobedient! What people find outside of God’s Word is pleasantly presented to the world in a well marketed manner by the devil himself. His only desire is for us to look anywhere but the Bible and Jesus for our spiritual life. But in the end, such pursuits are death.

Trans: Such a life of being spiritually dead rules our world! The popularity of Zombies and “The Walking Dead” is an interesting phenomenon of pop culture as it captures perfectly the state of those without life in Christ. Yet, while the movies use makeup and such to make it readily obvious who the “walking Dead” are, the “Spiritually Dead” while easily recognized, often require a bit closer look to determine their true status.
Some Walking Dead fake being spiritually alive and look alive on the outside, but inside they know they are just acting and pretending because they are really still dead.

C. The spiritually dead are recognized by what they crave after. (v.3)
3 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.
We WERE Worldly. This is the way we ‘used to live’ when we followed the ways of the world, the “ruler of the kingdom of the air”.

1 John 2:16 (NIV)
16 For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world.
This was our former way of life; the way we used to walk. And ALL OF US (Paul is including himself) lived among them! The problem wasn’t so much that we lived with them, but that we lived like them!
We were one of them! Following the pursuit of gratifying any desire that came our way! Slaves to our urges and impulses.

The result is that we were objects of wrath! Whose wrath? God’s? You might have thought of God as ONLY a ‘warm & fuzzy’ loving grandfatherly type; You might have thought of Paul as ONLY the Apostle of Grace & Mercy; but even in his letter to the Romans (the gospel of grace) he talks about God’s wrath. (Rom. 1:18)

Wrath is an important concept in the Bible. The Greek word here for wrath is orge (or-gay').
It means to have a violent passion or [justifiable] abhorrence); by implication punishment: KJV-- anger, indignation, vengeance, wrath.
Because of our sin we were at enmity with God! His wrath was against us! No hope of relationship; No hope of reconciliation, because we had broken it!
BUT, NO LONGER! Paul points out that God took care of that for us.

Trans: That was the way we were.
II. We Have Been Saved From Spiritual Death To Life. (2:4-7)
A. We have spiritual life because of his great love for us. (vss. 4 & 5)
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Paul points to our past only to emphasize how good we have it NOW! In the present! The stark contrast from the past is reflected here in Paul’s use of words.
It seems that he can hardly contain himself. Like a child that is just bursting out all over to tell mom or dad about their latest discovery.
Paul says, “Even when we were the walking dead spiritually, God made us alive spiritually!”
The good news is this….The dead can live again!
People everywhere can have their spiritually dead existence changed. They can come to life! Abundant Life! Our eyes can be opened!
This all happens, we are told because of God’s great love for us! It is not because we are deserving. It is not because of anything to do with us… it is all about God and His love!

We see in verse 5 that we are made alive with Christ. This movement from death to life has taken place as a result of God’s Love exhibited in His Son’s work on the cross. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins and transgressions so we could be saved. It is by grace – God’s Riches At Christ Expense

Trans: So we have spiritual birth because of God’s love demonstrated in Jesus. We also…

B. We have access to God for life to the fullest. (vss. 6&7)
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus

We are raised up from our life of death so that we are seated with Jesus in the heavenly realms. This will eventually be literal. For now it is representative. Jesus is our representative to God. Our mediator.
Because we were dead to God, we needed someone to come between God and ourselves and bring us back to Him. We needed a mediator who could represent us to God and represent God to us.
Someone to speak on our behalf. Like a trial lawyer who goes into the judges chambers to speak to the judge on our behalf.
There is only one person who could fill this role. God’s Word says it well in 1Tim. 2:5 – “There is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

1 Jn 2:1 - My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense-- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

In essence, we are seated with Jesus and we have God’s attention, his ear because of our association with his son.
Verse 7 goes on to say that all of this intimacy we enjoy with God through Christ in the heavenly realms is for a purpose.
It is so that others around us can see the truth too! Not only in the here and now, but God has a future plan for his church and it will be full of grace! What is that future?
Jump forward to 3:10 just a second . . . “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. . . .”

God’s plan for the church to reveal God. Show Him to the world. All that God has done for us through His Son is for the benefit of all those in the ages to come as they will be able to look at Christians and look at the church and say, “I want that too!”
It is God showing off His incomparable riches expressed in His grace to us!

Trans: So we see that we are the recipients of God’s great love both today and for eternity. Wow! But before anyone can construct some system of steps or formulas that a person can follow to earn this love and obtain this salvation, Paul goes on to explain the cost to us and the reason for the cost.

III. We Must Fight The Tendency To Make Salvation About Us. (vss. 8-10)
A. We are saved by grace through faith. (8a)
For by grace you have been saved through faith.

I’m not sure if you ever thought about this, but the Christian faith is the only religion with this concept.
ILL. 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. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods' appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. "What's the rumpus about?" he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussingChristianity's unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, "Oh, that's easy. It's grace."

After some discussion, the conferees had to agree. The notion of God's love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of karma, the Jewish covenant, and the Muslim code of law -- each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God's love unconditional.
So, salvation is a gracious gift given us, not by our merit, but because of God’s love and mercy. It is a free gift to all who will hear and receive it by faith. That faith part is important. It is not about weighing and measuring and comparing all the options. Certainly there is some of that. But in the end, eventually when it comes to the final matter, one must, by faith, believe what Jesus said, and did, and promised to us! It is a salvation given by grace but received by faith!

And I love that this is so radical and beyond anything any human could come up with. If we create a religion it would always include doing good works to get God’s attention and approval.

Trans: Paul knows this is true as he elaborates on this idea in verse 8b-9.

B. Salvation cannot be earned. (8b-9)
And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Only God would come up with a plan such as this whereby it is all His doing and nothing of us. We can’t bring anything to the table to negotiate with Him, to persuade Him, to win Him over to our side.

If we could, what would be the result? We would write books on how to win God’s approval by following these 2000 steps. We’d call it something like, the Torah, or Quran, or Sutras like the Buddhists or the Vedas like the Hindus. The Book of Mormon? The long list of cults… all of them are about doing this or that work to get right with God. Only the Bible and the Words of Scripture speak of the free gift of salvation paid for and offered to us by love and grace.

This eliminates any effort on our part to take credit for our spirituality, our rightness with God. All our boasting is removed!

TRANS: And look, this salvation is not just for kicks or to be proud of or wear proudly on our chest like a badge of honor we earned!

C. Salvation is for the strategic purpose of Good Works.(10)
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
You might be thinking, “wait a minute, I thought you said this wasn’t about works like all those other religions. It isn’t. All the other world religions have “Good works” as a pathway to salvation. Christianity says, salvation is given to us freely by God’s grace as we have faith and believe in Jesus His son! Then, the result of that new life transformation is going and doing good works that demonstrate the transformation that has taken place!
Saved by grace through faith, good works to demonstrate that truth and bring Him glory and praise!

We are certainly saved FOR good works. He created us in our mother’s womb; he re-created us in Christ– we are his creation, his ‘workmanship’ (poiema- from which we get poem) . . . we’re His work of art! . . . Sculpted, painted, crafted TO DO GOOD WORKS! A life being lived ‘in Christ’ is a life that is ’purposeful’ ...always on the lookout for good works. Prepared from before time for us to do! Predestined, if you will!

Conclusion: What a beautiful description of the transformation we receive as we come to believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord.
It is not as easy or instantaneous as Snap Chat or some other APP. It is, however, freely given but it also cost everything!

Jesus told us that being His disciple means we must take up our cross every day and die to self that He might be Lord of our day! And then do the things, the good works He has set before you for His glory, honor, and Praise!

What good news! Have you been saved from death this morning? Are you ALIVE with Christ? Are you enjoying the good works he has prepared for you?

If not, how can we encourage you this morning to leave your old life of death, take a step of faith today and commit yourself to being a disciple of Jesus Christ by being buried with him in baptism and raised to walk a new life!