The Full GospelSample

A Masterpiece of Grace // The Gospel According to Ephesians

In today’s reading, we’re taking a closer look at Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. In this letter, he’s encouraging Christians by showing them how their redemption and adoption has been God’s plan from the very beginning. He writes:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. … Ephesians 1:3-4 NIV

Being holy means to be unique, different, and set apart. God is holy. He is totally unique. There is no one and nothing like Him in all of creation. That’s what it means for God to be holy.

Before God formed the heavens and the earth, before He brought order out of chaos and spoke light into the dark, He chose us to be holy. And He has called us to be set apart for a special purpose. He created us to be fully devoted to Him.

This is what it means for us to be holy, and that’s the good news. But in chapter two, Paul shares the bad news:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. Ephesians 2:1-3 NIV

Before being redeemed by God’s grace and adopted into His family, we were dead in our sins because we rebelled against God through the way we lived, the choices we made, and what we chose to worship. Instead of devoting ourselves to God, we became slaves to our sinful cravings and desires. As a result, we deserved justice, described here as “wrath.” But thankfully, God’s justice is never without mercy.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV

God is holy, and His love is big enough and good enough to hold justice and mercy, and grace and truth, together. It’s true that we deserved the death sin brings. But by His mercy and grace, we did not receive the punishment we deserved. Instead, we were given a gift we could never earn.

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:6-7 NIV

God elevated us to a position of honor in His kingdom next to Jesus, our Savior King, so His kindness could be put on display for all to see.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

And in case we didn’t get the point already, Paul clearly reminds us that the salvation, redemption, and adoption given to us through Jesus is something we receive when we believe. It is not something that we achieve.

Grace is God’s offer of forgiveness. Faith is our choice to accept it. Now we come to one of the most famous verses in all of Scripture:

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10 NIV

We are God’s handiwork. We are His masterpiece. The Greek translation for “handiwork” or “workmanship” is poiēma, which is a poetic statement of His love and affection for us. We have been made new to work with Jesus to accomplish His good plans for the world.

We are not saved by good works, but we are saved for them.

It’s also important to recognize that Ephesians 2:10 is about who we are as God’s family, not just as individuals. It is true that you are immensely valuable to God and that you are made wonderfully in His image. But we, as the church, are God’s handiwork, His masterpiece.

God’s greatest work of art is the joining together of divided people into a united family through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

This is what the rest of Ephesians is all about. Without Jesus, Jews and Gentiles were doomed to remain divided in their hostility toward one another. But because of Jesus, the barrier between them has been destroyed.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. … His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. … Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:13, 15-16, 19-22 NIV

Yes, Jesus gave His life to save you. And He gave His life to save as many people as He could, so that, out of what was broken and stained by sin, something new and beautiful could be built: a family holy and blameless in God’s sight.

This family is set apart for the purpose of displaying His grace and goodness for all to see so that those who are still dead in their sins could see the path back to life.