Ephesians 2

 

August 14, 2020

Title: Ephesians 2 Bible Study

Text: Ephesians 2

Introduction:

1. We’re doing a bible study on the book of Ephesians. Last week, we studied the first chapter. To review: Ephesians was written in AD 60-61 by the Apostle Paul during one of his three known imprisonments in Rome. Ephesians is divided into two sections. Chapters 1-3 describe the believer’s position: who we are in Christ, how much God loves us, and our relationship with Him. Chapters 4-6 is about our behavior and how we can apply the truths learned from chapters 1-3 to our lives. Once we know how much God loves us, our behavior can change if we work with Him. We will want to walk in His ways, seeking to do His will. But we must develop our relationship with Him first.

2. We are in Christ: God’s chosen one. We’ve been adopted into His family. As God’s child, we’ve been sealed with the Spirit who comes to live within us. His Spirit gives us the power to do His good works, which He set out for us to do, not just the Jews but the Gentiles. Paul ended Ephesians 1 with his prayers over the believers in Ephesus.

3. The first chapter is about who God is and all that He has done for us. Chapter two focuses on us and who we are as a result of His goodness, mercy, and grace.

Proposition: Saved by faith, created anew by His hand, breaking dividing walls and brought all into unity.

Interrogative Sentence: How does our pre-Christ life break down dividing walls and foreordains our walk with Christ to perfect unity with the Father?

Transition Sentence: Who we once were is not who we will be in the future. We were dead to sin, but have been raised to life. We’ll first go over the first three verses, discussing our wrong based thinking, and who we were prior to Christ.

1. Reading from the NIV, Ephesians 1-3 says:

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil-the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.

a. WRONG BASED THINKING

In this passage of scripture, Paul is saying that before we knew Christ, we were dead in our sins. We were just like the unbelievers, following our lustful passions, our sinful nature, and were obedient to Satan. Because of this, we were subject to God’s anger.  1 Peter 5:8 says that Satan goes about as a roaring lion seeking anyone whom he can devour. One of the ways he seeks to devour people is through our thoughts. Wrong based thinking usually starts small but grows bigger until it becomes a stronghold in your life. A stronghold is a thought that is contrary to God’s word and can be demolished by the Word. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 says as believers, we have the word of God to fight against Satan. When we humbly submit to God, the devil has to flee. Use God’s word against him. Speak to the devil. He’s certainly speaking to you.

b. WHO YOU ONCE WERE

Who you were before coming to Christ is not who you are today and who you will be in the foreordained future. You are a new creature in Christ. You were dead in your sins, but you have been made brand new, spotless to God. Don’t ever let your past determine your future. If you work with God, He makes all things new. He can open doors for you that you were convinced could never be opened. He can get people to show you favor, and they’ll have no idea why they like you; they just do. He will do anything for His children, have faith, and a heart of thanks. The world tries so hard to get rid of God, but anytime the world attempts to get rid of Him, the world gets worse. Why would anyone ever want to try to live without Him? Deuteronomy 31:6, and 31:8, as well as Hebrews 13:5 all say that He will never leave you nor forsake you. God doesn’t leave us; we leave Him. He’s always there, and He will wait for you to come back to Him. When a problem occurs, we need to run towards God, not away. Philippians 4:6-7 says to pray about everything. When you’re in need, be quick to pray to Him first, not others. Not that there is anything wrong with going to another Christian, but God should be first.

Transitional Sentence: I can’t imagine a life without God. I’m so grateful that we have been completely forgiven. Who we were is not someone I want to be. We’re saved by His grace and I’m grateful. We’ll now look at how God in His mercy rescued us from ourselves because of His loving grace.

2.  Pay attention to three words in the following passage from Ephesians 4-7: love, mercy, and grace:

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.

GOD RESCUED US

God wanted us, chose us, and graciously adopted us. In His mercy, He came to our rescue, saving us from our miserable lives. Because He is our loving Father, He would go to any extreme to save us. Just like you would do anything for your children if you saw one of them in trouble, so would God. He had our restoration set in place when He sent Jesus, His only Son, sinless, to take on our sins, die on the cross, and was resurrected to life. Because of Jesus’s selfless act, we now have eternal life with the Father. God sees us as He sees His Son: perfect, loved, and sinless. We have been stamped with the “not guilty” verdict. And it was a gift because of God’s grace. Because of God’s love, mercy, and grace, we have been saved, and we too have eternal life with Him forever. We are seated in the heavenly realms with Jesus, with all the spiritual blessings that Jesus has: we have to reach out and take them. To be seated in the heavenly realms means that we are united with Christ and our Father in heaven. Our works are done; there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation.

Transitional Sentence: Not guilty, forgiven, sinless, loved and chosen. These are the words that our Father says about us. He saved us. We are seated in the heavenly places with Christ, given eternal life. As God’s handiwork, we’re saved by faith and created anew in Christ Jesus. We’ll look at this next.

3. Ephesians 8-10:

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

a. SALVATION BY FAITH

We have our salvation by faith when we believe that His Son died on the cross for our sins. There is absolutely nothing we can ever do to make God love us anymore. He loves us as we are right now, at this exact moment.  So many people think they need to earn their salvation by good works, this is not true. We are saved by God’s grace; all we need to do is come in agreement that Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected to life. That’s it. Believe by faith.

b. WE ARE GOD’S HANDIWORK

We are God’s handiwork. Don’t ever think that there is something wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you. Psalm 139 says that we were made with God’s hand. Just think about this for a minute. I have two cats, and they get themselves into trouble quite often. One day, I found the skeleton of a small bird in my yard. You could see how God made something so little completely perfect. Every bone was perfectly placed. God’s creation is complete: our galaxy, the earth, and the animals. He certainly made us flawless as His chosen ones. So, don’t ever criticize yourself; you are perfect to the creator of the universe. You are God’s precious child. Change your thoughts to reflect how God sees you.

c. CREATED ANEW

God created us anew in Christ Jesus to do the good things He planned for us. We were once dead in our trespasses, but have been made anew. God sees us as He sees Jesus: flawless and sinless. God isn’t ever going to push His will on us; He’s given us free will. He wants us to align our will with His, His good plan that He has for us. It is a will that He planned for us long ago. He ultimately knows what will make us the happiest, and doing His good plan is what will bring us the most joy.

Transitional Sentence: Believe by faith that Christ died for our sins so that we might have eternal life with Him and our Father forever. He has created us anew by His righteous hand. He sees us just as He does Jesus: flawless. By God’s grace, we’ve been saved. His desire is for us to have a changed heart and that the dividing walls that separated the Jews from the Gentiles have been broken. We have been unified, joined together through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who lives in our hearts.

4. Ephesians 11-22:

Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death. He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us. So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit.

a. SAVED BY GRACE

The first part of this scripture has to do with the past Christians. People thought they needed to prove they were saved by being circumcised. In Galatians chapter 3, Paul was trying to prove his point to the Galatians that they received the gift of the Spirit by their belief in the message about Christ, not by obeying the law of Moses. That even Abraham, who was uncircumcised because the law didn’t exist during his time, was considered righteous in God's eyes because of his faith only, not because of his works.  Our salvation has nothing to do with our works. We are saved only by God’s grace. We do not need to work for our salvation.

b. CHANGE OF HEART

Verse 11 says their works only affected their bodies and not their hearts. God will change our circumstances if we ask Him to, but not always. He cares more about changing our hearts than our circumstances. I’ve prayed for situations to change, and He’s answered my prayer. But other times, He didn’t, but when I look back, I realized my heart was changed: the way that I looked at the circumstance.

c. BREAKING DOWN WALLS

The rest of the passage has to do with breaking down the dividing walls that once separated the Jews from the Gentiles. Jesus preached peace to both groups: the Jews and Gentiles. Jesus wanted unity among everyone. We don’t need to compete with one another: We are all equal in God’s eyes. God sees us all the same: united, one in Christ. There is a perfect union when we obey God’s commandments. When we do, we experience not only God’s protection but the perfect unity which is through Jesus. God wants all of His children worldwide to have unity with each other, just as He and Jesus were united. Unification with the Father is possible through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. At our salvation, the Holy Spirit comes and lives in our hearts, and brings us into perfect unity with the Father. We are God’s children forever, and He is glorified when His children are united. We show the world that we are united when we come together as a community to show love to one another.

d. GIFT OF THE SPIRIT

To seal the deal, the guarantee of our inheritance, He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit. God's Spirit comes to live inside our hearts when we accept Christ to dwell and never leaves. It is a gift to guide, teach, comfort, and heal: The Spirit intercedes for us, and bring to remembrance of all that God has ever said. 

Conclusion:

a. We are saved by faith. We are created anew by His hand. God broke down the dividing walls and brought all: Jews and Gentiles into a perfect unity through the indwelling of His Spirit.

b. How is your spiritual growth? Are you growing in Christ? Tell God every day that you love Him and need Him. Ask Him to show you anyone that needs your help. Tell Him every day to use you. We should tell God to prune away anything our lives that isn’t producing good fruit. Ask Him to mold you into the image of Christ. He will. Rely on the Holy Spirit to change you, speak to you, and teach you the things of God. Know your worth. You are a child of God, so you can walk with your head held high.