EPHESIANS OUTLINES #13 of 34

BUT GOD (Eph. 2:1-6)

Introduction

A. In the opening verses of this chapter we have mankind as God sees us

1 It is a gloomy picture - man is dead in sin and walking after the flesh with all its lusts.

2. In contrast to that gloomy picture the fourth verse opens with the statement "But God"

B. I don't think any of us can conceive what life would be like if God suddenly ceased

His redemptive processes.

1 The apostle immediately tells us what it is that causes God to act in the redemption of mankind (verse 5)

2. That verse tells us the condition in which God has found us - dead in trespasses and sins.

3. But it also tells us that God in spite of our sinful condition has acted in mercy to save us from our sin.

II What Is Mercy?

A. We bandy words around without understanding what they mean.

1. A little boy was asked in Sunday School to tell the difference between kindness

and loving kindness.

2. He put it this way: "If I ask my mother for a slice of bread and butter and she gives it to me, that is kindness, but if she puts jam on it, that is loving kindness!" That is great theological truth!

B. There is a difference between mercy and grace

1. Mercy has to do with God withholding a deserved penalty.

2. The Bible says; the wages of sin is death. That is what we all deserve.

3. Grace on the other hand is not a withholding but a granting.

4. Grace is the supply of God's undeserved blessing.

5. God's great love and compassion came to us in the form of God's grace.

6. Grace found a way to meet the demands of God's law.

7. Grace found a way to relieve us of a just punishment.

8. God would still be just and righteous if he sent us all to hell. No doubt about that.

9. But God is not only just, He is compassionate as well. As the song writer has it - Love found a way to redeem my soul.

C. Grace was that way. It was God's grace that was greater than all my sin.

1. The very misery of man has awakened in the heart of God the ~ mercy and grace we

all need.

2. He has already stated that by nature we are the children of wrath locked into slavish

obedience to the impulses of our flesh.

3. The result is envy, revenge, heartache, conflict and the frustration of life.

D. Sometimes our image of ourselves is better than what others see of us.

1. It is so easy to forget the nasty things we say and the thoughtless things we sometimes do

2. In spite of what we are and what we have done God is reaching out to us in love.

3. Love is not only benevolent, it is active. God not only tells us He loves us. He has

demonstrated that love in the giving of His Son.

4. That giving and Christ dying took place in order that God could deal mercifully but

justly with us.

5. Love is the active moving out to meet the needs of someone else.

6. God loved us and as a result did something about it.

E. Jesus went to the Cross in indescribable pain and anguish for no other reason than to pay

the penalty for our sins.

1. There is nothing in us that causes God to love us, on the contrary there is much in us that would naturally repel Him.

2. He is infinitely holy - we are finite and sinful.

3. It is our wonderful God who initiated the action, it is God who has broken through the

barrier of our sin.

III. God Wants Us to See This and Believe

A. Three things are brought out in this passage that takes place when we believe on Jesus

Christ.

1. God says; we are made alive together with Christ (2:5)

2. Secondly, we have been raised up with Him (2:6)

3. Thirdly, we are made to sit with Him in the heavenlies (2:6)

4. These things represent the realities that take place in us and for us when we receive Jesus as our Savior.

B. Let's concentrate on the phrase "made us alive together with" that phrase in the Greek

is all one word.

1. It could be translated - He enlivened us through Christ.

2. What Paul is saying is this to us. Difference between trusting Jesus and just being religious is the difference between life and death.

3. You are no longer dead when you trust Jesus Christ and ask Him to come into

your life. He at that moment imparts His life to us.

C. There is a simile that will help us to understand this truth: the process of birth. Becoming a Christian is likened to being born. But where does birth start? We know

that it doesn't start with the actual entrance of the baby into the world. It starts with conception. Conception takes place in an act of love when the ovum and the sperm are joined together. But the mother doesn't know anything about it - she doesn't feel that. Yet a remarkable thing has occurred within her body, something which she doesn't sense but which, nevertheless, will change her life and perhaps the history of the entire world, as many babies have changed the history of the world when they grew up. That is exactly the kind of thing Paul brings to our attention here. When we are born again in Jesus Christ we receive life from him. We're made one spirit with Him. We are no longer dead, no longer unresponsive to God, We are made alive in Jesus Christ.

D. You will not be the same person from that moment on.

1. The most immediate sign of the new birth is a hunger to know more about God and

the Bible.

2. You are a new creation and you have a new relationship with God. What is that

relationship?

3. A Father Son relationship - a friend to friend relationship.

4. It is a relationship of peace - Rom 5:1-2