Sermon Series: Ephesians: The Believers' Bank

Salvation is... Part One

Ephesians 2:1-7

PSBC

In a nutshell: Salvation is one of the blessings every believer has. But understanding salvation is important to being able to communicate it's message to someone else and having the proper sense of urgency for someone who does not have it. This passage tells us four things salvation is: It is from sin (this week); it is by love; it is alive; and it is with purpose.

I. Introduction

A. Under New Management

Illustration: My friends in the Salvation Army like to tell the story of an illiterate man who was converted through the work of the Salvation Army. He went regularly to the Salvation Army citadel. One day he came home rather dejected.

His wife said, "What's the matter?"

He said, "I've just noticed that all the people in the Salvation Army wear red sweaters, and I don't have a red sweater."

She said, "I'll knit one." So she knitted him a red sweater.

The next Sunday after he went to the citadel, he still wasn't happy. His wife said, "What's wrong this time?" He said, "I just noticed all their red sweaters have yellow writing."

They were both illiterate, but she said, "Don't worry about it. I'll embroider some writing on the sweater for you."

She had no idea what the yellow writing on the red sweater of a Salvation Army man said--Any of you know what it is? They have a yellow circle, and in it, BLOOD AND FIRE. That s their motto. (Unbutton the jacket of a Salvation Army man when he's ringing his little bells sometime; tell him you're just checking.)

The man's wife had no idea what the letters said, and she couldn't read anyway. So copying a sign from a store window opposite their home, she embroidered the words of that store sign onto his red sweater.

When he came back the next Sunday, she said, "Did they like your sweater?" "They loved my sweater. Some of them said they liked my sweater better than their sweater."

What neither of them knew was that the sign on the store window she had copied read, THIS BUSINESS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT.

That's what it means to get saved. That's what it means to get converted. That's what it means for you to enter the Kingdom of God: this business under new management.

B. Transition

Well friends, in the book of Ephesians, like no other book in the Bible, we have a concentrated list of all the blessings, all the things, all the benefits that belong to us because we have entered into the Kingdom of God, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Tonight, we are going to begin an in-depth look at the most important of all those blessings that belong to us–the blessing we call salvation. And we are going to answer the question, "What is it?"

So, with that in mind, let's look at the beginning of chapter 2...

II. Salvation Is From Sin

Where we're going to spend our time today, is on Paul's first point about salvation–which is this...Salvation is FROM sin. By making this point, he brings up three crucial things for us to consider when we think about our salvation from sin...

A. Condition of Sin

Ephesians 2:1
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,

The first thing he tells us is that sin is a condition. It is a condition with three characteristics...

1. The first characteristic is that when you have the condition of sin, you are dead. Dead, simply means you have no life.

Illustration: When I was in junior high, we had a dog on our farm named "Sam". Sam was a cross between a Newfoundland and a Great Dane. Sam was BIG! Out in front of our farm house we had a very busy country road, because three miles down the road was a huge Ford Motor Company metal stamping plant. And every day, between 3:30 and 4 PM, when the plant would let out, we had a lot of people going past our house, anxious to get home. One of the things Sam never learned was to stay away from that road. And sure enough, one day, a car hit him. He did some major damage to the car, but he also had some major damage done to him. He lay on the side of the road struggling to breathe and moaning when we touched him.

After my dad surveyed the situation, he did the only humane thing he could do, he got his rifle, and he shot poor Sam in the head, to put him out of his misery. After the shot, there was no more movement by that big dog. He no longer responded to our touch or our words. He was dead.

Well, the fact is that a dead animal or a dead person cannot respond to light, sound, smell, taste, pain, or anything else. Someone or something that is dead, is totally insensitive.

It's that way with spiritual death as well. A person who is spiritually dead has no life through which he or she can respond to spiritual things. No amount of love or care or words of affection from God can draw a response out of a spiritually dead person.

A spiritually dead person is alienated from God and therefore has no capacity to respond to God. As the great Scottish commentator, John Eadie said, "It is a case of death walking." People who are spiritually dead are people who are spiritual zombies–walking dead who don't know they are dead–going through the motions of life without possessing real life.

That was our sorry state before we our relationship with Jesus Christ, and that's the sorry state of the people we know who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their forgiver and leader.

2. This first verse also tells us that before we were saved, we were dead in...transgressions and sins.

Now what's significant is a very specific construction in the Greek language that God chose to use here. It tells us something of extreme importance.

That word "in" is the Greek case called the locative of sphere. You can see our English word, "Location" in that word, locative. The Greek case called locative of sphere simply indicates the sphere or the realm, or the location in which something or someone exists. In this context, it means that we are located in the realm of sin.

In other words, we were not dead because we had committed sin, but because we were in sin.

Let me put it this way...
--Paul is saying that a person does not become a liar when he or she tells a lie; that person tells a lie because he or she is already a liar.
--A person does not become a thief when he or she steals; He or she steals because that person is already a thief.
--And so it is with murder, or adultery or covetousness, or any other sin we can think of.

Committing sinful acts does not make us sinful or make us sinners. We commit sinful acts because we are already sinners–we are located in the Kingdom of Sin.

Jesus confirmed this when He said...

Matthew 15:18-19
18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart (the core of a person), and these make a man `unclean.'
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

And the words Paul uses...transgressions and sins are like bookends that encompass the totality of wrong that a person can commit against a holy God.

Transgressions means to intentionally go in the wrong direction. Sins mean to miss the mark, whether intentional or unintentional. So the two words together encompass the entire gambit of human beings falling short of God's standard of holiness.

And that's the sphere, the realm, the boat that every person outside of faith in Jesus Christ is in–not all to the same degree, never-the-less, still in that same state of being–not living up to the standard of holiness demanded by a holy God.

3. What about really good people?

But maybe you're thinking about a third issue..., what about "really good people"? What about the people I know who are really nice, or really helpful, or really kind? How can they be in this realm of sin? Aren't there any good human beings that God recognizes?

Let me give you this picture...

Illustration: Picture a very diverse group of people all standing along the bank of the Mississippi River, right by the Arch, in downtown St. Louis. There are children in this group, there are very old people with walkers and in wheelchairs. There are athletes, there are physically fit people. There are just average people. Each person in this diverse group has been given the assignment to jump from the arch side of the river, to the Illinois side of the river.

Some of the little children can old jump a few inches. The older adults can barely get off the ground. Some of the athletes take a running start and jump yards and yards. Jackie Joyner Kersey jumps farther than anyone else. But no one gets near the Illinois side of the river. Their degrees of success vary only in relation to each other. But in relation to achieving the goal, they are all equal failures.

Throughout history, people have differed in their abilities to be good. Some have been very good, some have been great humanitarians, some have been great social change-agents, some have been very helpful or kind or considerate or self-less. Many have been really good parents, loving spouses, honest workers. But in relation to achieving God's standard of holiness–perfect holiness–every person is an equal failure.

That's why the best person you can think of and the most wicked and heartless terrorist you can imagine, both need Jesus Christ to save them from the eternal condemnation of hell. They may not be equal in the degree of the sin in their life, but they are equally separated from God and from the eternal spiritual life.

Jesus said,

Luke 6:33
33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even `sinners' do that.

On another time he said,

Luke 11:13
13 ...you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children...

A person apart from God can do good human stuff. But as Jesus points out in these statements, those good hearted people are still sinful, still have a sin nature, and still operate at a level that falls short of God's glory. Good works cannot change the realm human beings are in. It cannot reconcile us to a holy God.

B. Act according to the rules of the realm

The second thing that Paul tells us about sin, has to do with who is calling the shots...

Ephesians 2:1-2
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

In other words, when you live in the realm of sin, you act according to the RULES of the REALM.

The term world in verse two does not simply mean this planet that we call earth. It is speaking about the world order–the world's system of values and way of doing things. And Paul makes a very clear statement that the world system or world order does not follow God, but follows the leadership and design of God's enemy–Satan–the prince of the kingdom of the air.

John Mac Arthur makes a very perceptive comment in his commentary on Ephesians...

"Sinful men have many different ideas and standards, but they are in total agreement that the network of things in this world is more important than the divine perspective of God. In this most basic world outlook they are of one mind. They resolutely work to fulfill the goals and values of their system, though it defies God and always self-destructs. Sinners are persistent in their rejection, and the worse their system becomes, the more they try to justify it and condemn those who speak the Word of God against it."

The three elements that most characterize our present world system are...

1. Humanism places man above all else. Man is the measure and end of all things. Each man is his own boss, his own standard of right and wrong, and his own source for authority–in short, his own god.

2. Materialism places high value on physical things, especially money, because money is a means of acquiring physical things. Money is also a way of keeping score and being able to compare your potential to acquire physical things, when compared to what someone else has, or what you happen to want at a given time.

3. Illicit sex dominates modern western society. Illustration: A recent survey in Mademoiselle magazine, titled "Generation Sex," claimed that "2,400 unembarrassed women and shameless men, single and between 18 and 30, go all the way in our ultimate sex survey." The findings? Half of the respondents had had six or more sexual partners; only six percent hadn't ever had sex; and more than half the men couldn't remember the first and last names of everyone they'd had sex with. Forty-eight percent of the men and 36 percent of the women said they had sex outside of a relationship that was supposed to be monogamous.

I don't think there are more than a handful of TV programs or movies today, which are the main influencers of our culture, that portrayed God's standard of marriage, fidelity and commitment as being the standard to be followed. Sex in any form, other than God's intended form, is the standard of the world system, today.

Humanism, materialism, illicit sex form the triumvirate that the prince of the power of the air is using today to influence people in the kingdom of this world.

Through these things, Satan keeps people from seeking a way out of their condition of sin and in reality, turning them to hate God and reject His plan of escape from the consequences of sin.

C. That Used to be Us

The third thing that Paul tells us about the condition of sin, is a reminder–we used to be in that same boat.

Ephesians 2:3
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

Epithumia (cravings or lusts) refers to the strong inclinations and desires of every sort to do what we want; and Thelema (desires) emphasize the strong willfulness to act on those inclinations and desires.

Just like transgressions and sins were bookends that encompass the sinful actions of people, cravings and desires are the bookends that encompass the sinful thinking process of people–basically a process of
-I want,
-me first,
-feels good.

And Paul says that because of this pre-disposition to convoluted thinking, which eventually produces wrong actions in some way, shape or form, we were objects of God's wrath.

To quote John Mac Arthur one more time...

"Rather than all men being children of God, as most of the world likes to think, those who have not received salvation through Jesus Christ are by nature children of wrath. Apart from reconciliation through Christ, every person by nature (through human birth) is the object of God's wrath, his eternal judgment and condemnation."

But that was then, and this is now. As a Christian–a person who has accepted Jesus Christ's righteousness in exchange for your sinfulness, and following His leadership for the conduct of your life and actions,–your realm has been changed... And here's how Paul describes that new realm we live in...

Ephesians 2:4-9
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions– it is by grace you have been saved.
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–
9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

We'll get into the full meaning of that incredible statement in the next message.

III. Conclusion

The great devotional writer, Oswald Chambers gives us something to think about in light of the fact that even though we used to be dead in our transgressions and sins, and just because we aren't there anymore, doesn't mean our task is done.

He wrote, "If I am a Christian, I am not set on saving my own skin, but on seeing that the salvation of God comes through me to others, and the great way is by intercession."

Don't forget to pray for the people in your circle of influence who don't yet know Jesus Christ. 

Amen.