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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) *Song of Adoration: Hymnal #100A “Shout to the Lord, All Earth” Song of Confession: Hymnal #132: 1, 3-4 “Lord, Our God, Remember David” Song of Preparation: Hymnal #446: 1, 4-5 “Be Thou My Vision” Scripture & Text: Ephesians 2:1-10 Message: A Tale of Two Lives Prayer of Application *Song of Response: Hymnal #265 “In Christ Alone” *Doxology: Hymnal #248: 5 “All Creatures of Our God and King” * |
Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
This morning we come to a special passage of scripture. Here we see the great contrast of two walks of life, two masters who rule, two destinies. The first miracle of our Lord Jesus Christ was turning water to wine at the wedding in Cana. The master of the feast, impressed said, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” (John 2:10) Charles Spurgeon illustrated this well in a sermon on that text. He uses a similar illustration. Let this be a parable of life in our text. There are two feasts. One is given by the Devil, the other by Jesus.
The Devil (and with him, the world and our flesh) brings out the good wine first, it isn’t until later that things turn sour. He first offers the that which intoxicates the senses. Gambling, sexual pleasure, narcotics. And one thinks, “I was foolish not to have tried these before.” The next glass comes and it warms the body and the one enjoying himself can speak eloquently of politics, religion, history, or anything else. But, the next cup comes, and the wine is poor. It lacks what was first offered, but it is still wine, so he keeps drinking. It only gives disappointment to go along with the addiction. The last cup is the cup of wrath and damnation. “Drink of that, says the devil, and the man sips it and starts back and shrieks, “O God! That ever I must come to this.” “You must drink, sir!” the devil replies….”Drink though it be like fire down your throat!...he who rebels against the laws of God must reap the harvest. This is the grim cup that is never advertised. The devil offers the best cup first knowing that in drinking, the final cup will come.
But how different is the feast of the Lord Jesus Christ. At Jesus' table, the feast of salvation, the bitter and difficult things come first, and to those who press on in faith the better things come. In this life, Christ’s people are often afflicted. Jesus brings the cup of poverty and affliction, and make his own children drink of it…This is the way Christ begins. The worst wine is first. In the gospel, the first cup is the cup of conviction of sin. The next cup is better, it is the cup of his forgiven love, filled with crimson on his precious blood. We receive comfort in our trials. As the believer drinks deeper from that cup of fellowship and love, the believer grows in communion with God. Finally Jesus brings the best cup last, the taste of which is incomprehensible in blessing to those who have yet to enter heaven. It is the cup of glory, the cup of resurrection life, that cup that makes us sing ‘You make known to me the path of life, in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps. 16:11) This is the great contrast of our text this morning. Our text addresses every soul who has ever lived. Our theme is we are delivered from sin by grace alone.
- The Nature of Sin (v. 1-2a)
- The Power of Sin (v. 2b-3)
- The Defeat of Sin (v. 4-7)
- The Freedom from Sin (v. 8-10)
I. The Nature of Sin (v. 1-2a)
Read vs. 1-2a. The apostle is not painting a rosy picture of sin in these opening verses of chapter 2. But, he is painting an accurate picture, warts and all. Notice that it there is a wordplay between walking and death. They were dead in sin, as they walked. The phrase used here for walk is a common Hebrew phrase describing life. It will be carried out throughout the text, ending with a walking in fellowship with God. But, that this point, those who are dead are walking.
I have seen some pretty grotesque Halloween displays in town. I saw a front yard with a small graveyard in it and an arm clawing out of the ground. Boys and girls, what do they call a made-up (they are fake), living dead person? A zombie. Spiritually speaking this is not a bad description of everyone naturally in sin.
We know the origin of sin. It is rooted in the fall back in Genesis 3. Adam represented us in that fall. But, how bad was it. There are a few different views of the results of original sin. The Arminians believe (most Baptists, methodists, Mennonite, Amish, etc.) that we are sick. They might describe the natural man on his sickbed, unable to help himself. The doctor comes in with the medicine, and all they have to do is to open their mouth and receive it. On the other hand, the Reformed and Presbyterian recognize that we are not sick, we are spiritually dead. We do not need medicine, we need a resurrection.
Notice also how sin is described. “Trespasses and sins” are mentioned. Literally, overstepping the boundaries and missing the mark of God’s standard. These are sins of omission and commission. This is the reality of who we are by nature. We are totally depraved. The entirety of our being has been impacted. We have the guilt of original sin and the pollution of it.
But, notice one last thing about this first verse. There is the good news. It is the word “were”. Paul is writing this to believers they were dead, but now they are alive. We will get there, but it is an important distinction. In grace, we are no longer dead in our trespasses and sins.
II. The Power of Sin
In verses 2 and 3 we see the pervasive nature of sin. What we learn here, is not that the these things are just potential sins. They are actually enslaving powers. Our catechism mentions our three mortal enemies, the Devil, the world, and our own flesh and they are seen here as well. The first mentioned is the “course of this world.” The world is a power that we so often underestimate. We are saturated with the world. The primary way is through media. Social media is first and foremost now. In previous years it could be news, newpapers, Hollywood, magazines, etc.
The course of this world is contrary to the new life in Christ. It has a value system alien to God. When we see unjustice, de-humanization-through poverty, hunger, unemployment, racism, or political oppression. A secular, amoral, and materialistic society stands opposed to God. The more we consent to it, the more like it we become. The church continues to grow more and more worldly.
Read 2b. This echoes the language in Eph. 6 describing Satan and his host. The power of the air is the spiritual realm. As we saw in our opening parable, he is a deceiver who has a firm grasp upon his followers. HC QA 1 describes our deliverance from the tyranny of the Devil.
The third power is our own flesh. Read vs. 3. The word flesh does not refer to our skin, but our desires of the body and the mind. Now, on the one hand, natural desires are good. Desires for food, sleep, sex, and fulfillment. But, when these desires become misaligned, then desire for food become gluttony, sleep becomes slothfulness, sex becomes lust, fulfillment become hedonism or greed.
Be on guard. That first glass of wine at the Devil’s feast looks and smells delicious. Richard Philipps said, “Sin always takes us farther that we wanted to go, keeps us longer that we meant to stay, and demands for more than we wanted to pay, even the price of our souls.”
III. Defeat of Sin (v. 4-7)
Verse 4 begins with possibly the two most beautiful words in the scriptures: “But God.” We were dead in sin, we are enslaved to the world, to Satan, and our own flesh, we were, as verse 4 concludes, children of wrath, deserving of condemnation. Period! That is a pretty hopeless scenario, “but God.”
But God what? But, God is rich in mercy. The wrath mentioned in verse 3 is not like human wrath. God’s wrath isn’t his annoyance or vengeance, it is not spite or malice. God doesn’t have a bad temper. The wrath of God is his just standard. It is personal and so is the grace of God. John Stott calls it, “God’s personal, righteous, constant hostility to evil, his settled refusal to compromise with it, and his resolve instead to condemn it.” God is not schizophrenic when we put his wrath next to his love. They are intimately connected. How else could God show his great love with which he loved us, but to punish sin in Jesus.
In Ephesians 1, we saw the glorious work of God through Christ Jesus and now we see the reception of that work. We see in verse 5 the connection once again to God’s electing love. He loved us. That is past tense. He loved us before we were born. He gave us to Jesus Christ while we were only in his minds eye.
Read verse 5. Here we are introduced to what I personally think is the most comforting and sweetest to my soul doctrines in all of scripture: union with Christ. All of salvation can be summarized in that inspiring phrase. The dead has been made alive. We have been raised up with Christ. We are alive together with Christ. And this is all of grace. By grace you have been saved will be repeated again in verse 8, just to remind us. As you think of verses 5-7, we see these works of God done for us in Christ, and you can see that they correspond to Christ’s live. Christ was dead and so were we. Christ was raised, and now so are we. Christ ascended and so will we. Christ sat down as ruler and so will we. Christ continues his work on earth and so do we. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Greater is he that in me, than he that is in the world. To live is Christ, to die is gain. You see, brothers and sisters, our life is Christs.
Notice also here that Christ gives us a task in verse 7. On the one hand, we can say that we are the visual aid of the gospel. We are trophies of God’s grace. But, we aren’t the kind of trophy you put on a shelf and dust off a couple times a year. We are living stones, we are permeating salt. We have the greatest message. Think about it, we are entrusted with the message from God that he raises the dead to life, he sets the prisoner free, and he offers forgiveness to the condemned.
Dave Ramsey, the financial planner and author has a call in radio show. People call in with their debt questions. I listen once in awhile. Someone will call in and lay out their situation and say they have $40,000 in credit card debt, and $25,000 in a car loan, and students loans and they make $60,000 a year. Dave is a realist and he often says, well, your situation is probably worse off than you realize. But, there are small steps going forward. His method is to pay off the smallest loans first with the high interest and then roll that money into other debts, etc. until you are all paid off. It takes time, discipline, etc. My neighbor is likely far worse off spiritually than they realize. They are drinking the wine of the Devil’s feast and it hasn’t totally soured on them. Their eyes are closed to the truth. But, the good news isn’t that if they follow these 10 steps their sin will be dealt with and they will have eternal life. Rather, “For by grace you have been saved.” That means it is a gift. Undeserved, but given nevertheless. By grace and through faith, we are united to Jesus Christ.
Also, don’t miss that important word in verse 7. “kindness.” If you use the Bible like a bully club and stand in self-righteous judgment against your unbelieving neighbor, you will only produce bruised and hardened neighbors. The message we have, is that God how shown the greatest kindness, not because of anything we have done, we were dead, but because he is rich in mercy, gives us everything.
IV. Freedom From Sin (v. 8-10)
In verses 8-9 we have the clear teaching of grace alone through faith alone. This was championed afresh in the Protestant Reformation, which we will celebrate next Sunday. We were not sick and opened our mouth to receive the medicine. God made us alive with Christ. Like Lazarus coming out of the grave at Jesus command, we are raised by Jesus, by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
However, Jesus told Nicodemus, that he must be born again. So, who is responsible? God sovereignly saves, but look at verse 10. God has molded us as his workmanship for good work. That is a purpose clause. We are renewed unto good works that we should walk in them. There is that language of walking describing our whole life. But why?
We are made more and more like Jesus, who did not sin, who walked in righteousness. We are called to do good works as a witness of God’s grace to us. We are called to do good works that we might glorify God in them. We are called to do good works so that we might be assured of our faith by its fruits. But, how can we do this? Aren’t we passive in salvation?
We are not passive in faith and sanctification. Even though these are also gifts and our text says God prepared them beforehand. We praise God that we have been freed. We were bound. Go back to verse 1. We were dead, we were enslaved by the ways of the world, and the Devil, and our own fleshly desires, but now, we are freed.
We have freedom from the tyranny of sin and Satan. Sanctification is progressive, that means we grow in holiness, we do not arrive until the end of our life. We must still struggle with the old life, but sanctification is also definitive. We are now in Christ. We have a new life, we are resurrected in Christ.
Dear friends, there are two banquets, two feasts. One is attended by everyone by nature. It starts out sweet, but ends in utter ruin. But there is another feast. The invitation is given because the master of the feast is rich in mercy. This feast does not promise all the delicacies of this world, but it promises great and eternal riches in the world to come. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You will be raised from the dead, united to him, and freed from the power of sin. Go then, live the new life, and truly taste and see that the Lord is good.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Steven Swets, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2023, Rev. Steven Swets
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