EPHESIANS OUTLINE #15 of 34

ON DISPLAY (Eph 2:7-10)

I. Introduction

A. Beginning in verse seven we look beyond our present experience to the future.

1. We have been made alive with Christ, raised up from spiritual death and seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

2. But what is the purpose behind it all (7-10)

3. The answer is found in these verses - God in the coming ages plans to display His grace by making us His trophy case.

4. Did you ever go to a school and look at the display case? The trophies in that case represent the greatness of that school in certain endeavors. They are mementoes of that school's accomplishment.

5. That's exactly the thought here - God is going to display us as a demonstration of what His grace has achieved.

B. According to the Apostle, all of the kindness of God in the past is nothing compared to the future.

1. God has only begun to give.

2. Notice His kindness will continue throughout the ages.

3. How long is an age? So far in human history there has been only two ages.

4. One was from the age of Adam to the flood of Noah.

5. The other was from the Flood to the present day.

6. This age will end at the coming of Jesus Christ at which time a new age will begin.

C. Think of what this passage is saying - God is going to show His kindness throughout

the ages.

1. Notice the word is plural - God's kindness will continue toward us throughout all the future ages.

2. What we have already tasted is only a mere trickle of His grace.

3. If we could fully understand it, it would blow the fuses of our understanding.

4. Paul is saying God's grace is going to increase the more as the ages pass.

D. your thinking is bounded only by the womb If and the tomb what a brief Span of life you are engaged in.

1 God has invited us as believers to lift up our eyes from our present experience in order that we can contemplate what the future has for us.

2. Robert Browning poem Rabbi Ben Ezra takes on a new meaning in the light of this

verse:

3. Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.

4. In this age we are in a learning process God is doing this in order that we be prepared to be God's exhibit in the future ages.

II. Paul reminds us how this all came to Be:

A. (Eph 2:8-9) Grace is what makes this all possible.

1. Notice the tense of the verb - You have been saved.

2. This refers back to the threefold relationship of being made alive - being raised and being seated.

3. In other words you face every new day as a son of the living God.

B. Becoming aware of this truth will make all the difference as to how you see yourself

before God.

1. Psychologists tell us that if you do not see yourself as a worthwhile person you

cannot see anyone else that way.

2. You will have trouble accepting them as they are and you will have trouble with

forgiving others their failures.

3. But when we see ourselves alive in Christ and God Himself releasing His life in us it will bring a little touch of heaven on earth.

4. We can enter into a new attitude of love and kindness toward those who exhibit

hostility toward us.

C. God wants us to be seated in the heavenlies - we allow Him to work out the problems without anxiety and strain.

1. Remember, through grace we are now His responsibility.

2. We allow Him to work out the problems.

III. As a Result we have no room for Boasting

A. what is boasting - It is pretending you are something you are not.

1. If you think you can save yourself by your works you are making a boast of

being your own Savior.

2. Boasting in your faith would be like boasting in the fact that you reached out

to take a check from somebody. Suppose you have a tremendous debt but someone offers to pay it for you, and writes out a check for you for $500,000. and you reach out and take it from him. How absurd it would be if you then went around saying to everybody, "Isn't it wonderful that I had what it took to reach out and grab that check? They might say to you, "Wasn't it marvelous that he paid that debt for you?" If you said, " Oh, he didn't do anything much I took the check" - how silly that would be! It is the resources

of God which make all this possible. It is the greatness of God which supplies

this richness of grace to our lives.

3. Notice we are His workmanship. This word is translated from a word which

in the Greek means poem.

4. A poem is the writer's workmanship - his masterpiece.

5. We are God's poem - His masterpiece.

B. God in us is producing His masterpiece and He is so proud of it, He is going to put it

on display.

I. Because God thinks so highly of us we are meant to produce the kind of works

worthy of such a noble being.

2. God has prepared you for good works should He expect anything less from a

person in whom He has invested so much.

3. Let's determine to go forth and do those works which he has prepared for us.