Ephesians 2:1-10 Amazing Grace

Ephesians 2:1-10

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Amazing Grace

Well friends, as we hit perhaps one of the most glorious passages in the scriptures today, although all scripture is glorious, since it is God speaking to us through all the scriptures…..since all scripture has been breathed out, spirited out by God………but still, this particular passage is amazing and as we look at it, we are going to consider two questions today.

Two questions which the apostle Paul answered for us in these 10 verses of Ephesians chapter 2.

The first question is this:

Why do some people chose to accept Jesus as Lord and saviour, and why do some people chose to reject Jesus as Lord and saviour?

Why do some people chose to follow Jesus and some people chose not to?

Is it just pure luck?

Are some people just better than others?

Are some people just able to think and feel more clearly?

Now, today I am going to do a little bit of an each way Albo………

Because on the one hand, it doesn’t really matter why people chose Jesus and some people chose to reject Jesus, because the most important thing for anyone in this world, is that they chose to follow Jesus.

It doesn’t matter if some people chose to follow Jesus because they have carefully thought through things, or some people just make a quick emotional decision- the most important thing- is that you chose Jesus.

When you chose Jesus- you chose life.

For the two thieves who hung on the cross next to Jesus, one to his right and one to his left, the question of why wasn’t the most pressing for those thieves, the most important choice they had to make was to believe whether Jesus truly was THE SON OF GOD or not.

One of them chose to believe in Jesus as Lord and saviour and Jesus promised him paradise that very day.

The other chose not to believe, and he wasn’t promised paradise with Jesus.

My prayer is that Jesus will always be the focus at Wingham, Krambach and Old Bar churches. Our motto is enjoying Jesus together. The most important choice you will ever make is not which church you will join, but whether Jesus is your Lord and saviour.

It is great that some of you have choose to join this church family, and it is great if some of you do chose to be part of this family, but…..that is not the most important choice you will make.

Jesus, he is the one whom you need to make a decision about. Other churches also have Jesus at the centre, they are good choices for a church family too.

It is in and through and by Jesus that we can do what created us all to do- Glorify Him.

And so a church that doesn’t have Jesus at the centre cannot glorify God, it may glorify it’s denominational badge, it may glorify its status in the community, it may glorify it’s church leaders, but it cannot glorify God, if Jesus is not at the centre- because as Jesus works in and through us, Jesus is Glorified and God is glorified, because Jesus is God.

So back to the question?

Why do some people chose Jesus and some don’t?

Well, as I said, on the one hand, the why doesn’t really matter, but on the other hand, the why really, really matters…..

Paul tells us in these 10 verses, the why really matters.

It is important, really important that I know, that you know, that I, that you, we didn’t chose Jesus because of something within us. Our choosing Jesus was nothing to do with us- and this is really important for us to know, because once we grasp that it wasn’t anything to do with us, it will bring us to a place of humility- it will tear down walls of pride, and that is a wonderful thing, because God brings down the proud, and exalts the humble.

Look at verses 8-9 with me:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. 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.

Your choice of following Jesus was a gift of God to you. Your choice to follow Jesus was not your own doing. It wasn’t the result of any good works.

Friends, I, you, cannot even boast in your choice you made to follow Jesus- that choice you made was a gift of God to you.

And yes, I know, I hear your objections, but Paul, it was my choice, I still made it- OK, yes I agree it was your choice, but why did you make the choice to follow Jesus?

Was it just luck?

Did one of the thieves just get lucky that day on the cross, and one thief was just unlucky?

If we are saying it is just down to luck, we are actually not believing whom God says He is, a God who sovereignly reigns over all things.

Did you chose Jesus and your friend didn’t, because you are just more intelligent than your friend?

You weighed up all the options and because of your superior logic, you made the right choice. This would mean that Jesus came really just to save those who are more intelligent than others, but he never said that- he told us he came to save sinners, and that includes both the intellectually challenged and the super genius.

May be you made the choice to follow Jesus, and your friend didn’t because you heard the gospel from the very lips of Billy Graham- you were there for the Billy Graham crusade, you heard the message powerfully proclaimed, and your friend didn’t- if only your friend had heard Billy for themselves, surely they would have been saved.

Doesn’t it all depend on how the message of Jesus is presented?

It just can’t be all down to the how the message is delivered, since when the apostle Paul himself presented the gospel, the apostle to the gentiles, some responded by belief and some responded by picking up stones and trying to kill him.

So why do some people chose Jesus and some don’t?

Well, I am going to look at the faith of the apostle Peter, to show you that your choice in Jesus is purely a gift from God.

Look at Matthew 16:13-17 with me:

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

I love this…..

There was Peter walking with Jesus, the Son of God, God in the flesh, in the city of Philippi, a city which had the great temple of Herod and was the home to many so-called gods, walking amongst all the perceived power of the world and in that context, Jesus asked Peter who he thought he was.

And when Peter tried to stall on his answer by going through the options of who other people thought Jesus was….some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say one of the prophets….Jesus asked Peter to make a personal choice about him.

That’s all well and good peter, do who do you say I am?

Friends, muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet, Buddhists think Jesus was just a good teacher, JW’s believe that Jesus was just another created god, but just like Peter, Jesus wants us all to make our own choice about him.

Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Messiah, the saviour, the king of this universe, you are THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD”

And then Jesus replied by telling Peter why he made that choice.

Jesus said, Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven

Jesus gave no room for boasting in the decision that Peter made.

Jesus never said, well done, Simon- Peter, you obviously had a good look around at all these so called gods, and then considered me, and then in your own intellect, you came up with the right decision, I am the Messiah, the promised king and saviour, well done you – Peter.

Nope, none of that, no pats on the back……. why did Peter make this decision?

It was a gift revealed to him by God.

This is what Paul emphasises here in Ephesians 2- Your choice in Jesus was a gift of God to you………

But, but, we had something to do with it you may say, we had our part to play…..well NO…….

Look at Ephesians 2:1-3 with me:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 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— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Paul says that before we chose to follow Jesus, we were dead in our sins, DEAD, not half dead, not barely alive, but dead, dead as a doorpost, just as the best mate of Jesus- Lazarus was dead.

Remember the story of Lazarus from John 11.

Lazarus had been dead for 4 days, his corpse had started to rot and in that state of deadness, Jesus spoke to him.  Jesus spoke to a dead corpse, and Lazarus heard his voice and Lazarus walked out the tomb.

Jesus cried with a loud voice to Lazarus “Come out”

And when Lazarus came out and his friends took off his grave clothes, Lazarus did not start to boast in the decision he made to hear the voice of Jesus and come out of the tomb. I am no doctor, but I am confident that dead people cannot walk, dead people cannot hear, dead people cannot pull themselves up out of the grave.

No, when Lazarus heard the voice of Jesus that day and decided to walk out the tomb it was a miracle.

Friends, when a person chooses to follow Jesus, it is a miracle, since Jesus has spoken to those dry dead bones and brought them to life.

Friends, this is why, the question of why people chose Jesus is so important.

You don’t meet Jesus half way- you can’t as a person who is spiritually dead. No Jesus comes and rescues those dry bones, he breathes life into them. You can’t help Jesus save you- he doesn’t need any help saving you.

The real danger of thinking that you had something to do with your salvation, is thinking that you somehow you saved yourself, and this brings no glory to Jesus, but to yourself. And when we take glory away from Jesus, we start doing what God didn’t create us for.

You don’t make a decision and then Jesus saves you, because that means you saved you, NO, Jesus miraculously brought life to your dry bones and so were able to chose Jesus.

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God

In verses 1-3, Paul describes our absolute hopeless state before Christ rescued us.

This idea, this notion, that we bargain with God before we chose to follow him, is just nonsense- God must laugh at our bargaining….

Remember when Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus and told Paul he was now working for him instead of against him. Paul never negotiated. He never bargained with God, he never met Jesus half way, he never said, well if I do this for you, you will do this for me, if I sacrifice this for you, you must give me this….No- none of that…….

Jesus rescued Paul on that road to Damascus and then Paul showed what it is like for all those who believe. For three days, Paul was physically blind, he knew he was blind, and then after 3 days, Jesus opened his eyes and Paul started to do the works that Jesus had prepared for him.

Friends, when by the grace of God we chose to follow Jesus, we must, must recognise our hopeless state, dead in our sins, spiritual blind condition.

People who chose to follow Jesus but haven’t acknowledged their wretched condition, have not really chose to follow Jesus. We never make the decision to follow Jesus thinking that we are OK, but Jesus will make us better. Jesus is not an add on of people who love you in your life, he’s not your mum, dad, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, who you add into your life…,.

We never decide to follow Jesus with the attitude that Jesus must be lucky that we chose to be on his team.

Nope, as Paul points out in verses 1-3 before Jesus rescues us, we are in a totally hopeless situation- dead in our sins, we must realise that our unrepentant sins will bring us eternal death, we are influenced by the devil, who is at work in this world, doing his darnest to stop people from following Jesus, and by our very nature, we are children of wrath, our sin doesn’t desire Jesus, our sin doesn’t want us to walk in God’s ways. We cannot muster something from within us, which will desire to follow Jesus. We are just naturally not wired that way.

Without the rescue of Christ, we are like a valley of dry bones, unable to help ourselves, unable to connect the dry bones back together, unable to breathe life into ourselves.

The gift of God to you brother and sister, is that you acknowledge your sinful, hopeless state, because then God shows us the saviour……….. and why does God save us?

Look at verse 4-5 with me:

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—

God chose to save us based alone on his grace and mercy, and his love, a love which he demonstrated for us, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

God’s mercy and love are not displayed to us in Christ based on any conditions that we have to meet, otherwise it wouldn’t be grace, it wouldn’t be a gift. No, our salvation is based on God’s grace and that is sufficient. Our salvation is initiated with God, it is carried out by God and it is completed by God.

But, but, but, you may say, what about our responsibility, don’t we also have a responsibility to live in the salvation that Jesus gave us?......Yes, we do, but we must acknowledge that the choice we make every day to walk with Jesus, is also a free gift of God to us.

Look at verse 10 with me:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Paul tells us that once God has rescued us, he rescued us for good works which God prepared for us- and here is one of the key, big differences to what we believe and what the Catholic church believes.

The catholic church teaches that you must do these good works, you must take mass, you must do penance and so on, and then you will be saved and then you will be able to boast in your good works.

The bible teaches that Jesus has saved you from your sins at the cross, in order, with the purpose that you will do the good works that Jesus has already saved you for, so that you cannot boast in any of your works.

We are saved to do good works, we are not saved by our good works.

And so as we serve Jesus, we serve with a grateful heart, knowing that he has already saved us and knowing that is only by his spirit working in and through us that we are saved.

And this brings me to the second question, which I will just take a moment or two to answer today?

Once we know that Jesus has opened our eyes to his glorious grace, how do we know what God wants us to?

Or let me put it more personally….

Friends, as a believer in Christ, how are you going to serve Him?

I don’t know, I’m not a prophet…….I do know this though, God has prepared works for you and it is only by his grace that you do what you do.

Just like the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15: 10 with me:

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Paul seems to do an each way albo here……

He says he worked hard, but it wasn’t him, it was the grace of God that was with him.

Friends, as a saved one, as one whom God has revealed his grace to, he didn’t save you to sit on a cloud, he didn’t save you to sit on your hands, he saved you to do the works that he saved you to do.

What exactly does that look like for you?

I don’t know, but I know it doesn’t look like nothing.

Whatever you do, do it for the glory of God, and so when people ask you why are you doing that, I hope we can also echo the words of the apostle Paul, “I am what I am by the grace of God, which he lavished upon me by sending his son to die for my sins, to save me from my wretched state, and now I do what I do, because God enables me to do it for his glory.  I do this because it shows God’s grace to me and it is God’s grace working through me.

Let us pray.