The Lord or the World - Your Choice
Ephesians 2:1-10
Intro:
1. You are offered choices in this life all the time.
2. You reap the benefit - or suffer the consequences - of those choices. That’s how you eventually learn to make right choices.
3. Most of the wrong choices you make have only temporary consequences.
a. Your car runs out of gas - you walk.
b. You say something unkind or thoughtless - you have to apologize or lose a relationship.
c. ILL: Parenting using natural or logical consequences.
4. The one choice you must make, because it has permanent consequences, is what do you do with the Lord Jesus? You Must make a choice!
I. v1-3 - You Can Choose the World & Be Spiritually Dead
A. v2 - Satan - the ruler of the kingdom of the air - provides the temptations of the world.
1. The pressures of your non believing friends & associates tempt you to go the worldly route.
2. Rom 12:2 (Phillips Paraphrase) - Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within . . .
B. How do you respond?
1. v1 - You walk into a Satan controlled life.
a. Transgression (παράπτωμα) = to trip, take a false step, so - fall away.
b. Sin (ἁμαρτία) = a missing of the mark, an archer missing the target.
2. You simply let your desires control you. Jam 1:14 - . . . each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.
C. What are the results of the world controlled life?
1. We all sin - we all join the party!
a. Rom 3:10 - There is no one righteous, not even one . . .
b. Rom 3:23 - . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . .
2. v3 - As a result, we become objects of God’s wrath!
II. v4-10 - You Can Choose Lord Jesus & Be Made Spiritually Alive
A. God provides an opportunity for you to be His instead of Satan’s property.
1. What is the gift of God?
a. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. - v8-9
b. Τῃ̂ γὰρ χάριτι ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι διὰ πίστεως· καὶ του̂το οὐκ ἐξ ὑμω̂ν, θεου̂ τὸ δω̂ρον· οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων, ἵνα μή τις καυχήσηται.
c. Case endings solve this problem!
1. Grace (χάριτι), God’s unmerited favor, is dative. That’s the motivation behind the gift.
2. Faith (πίστεως), trusting Lord Jesus as Savior, is genitive. That’s the way of obtaining the gift.
3. Gift (δω̂ρον) & saved (σεσῳσμένοι) are both nominative, so - salvation is the gift of God.
2. v7 - What is the reason for the gift? God wants you to know His kindness!
B. How do you respond?
1. v9 - How not to respond. - You don’t respond by trying to do good things to earn salvation!
a. If life were a giant bookkeeping system where your merits would outweigh you demerits, you would be earning your way to heaven. Most people believe this is the way!
b. If this way were true, you could pound on the gates of heaven & demand entrance.
c. You could brag about how good you have been.
2. v8 - How to respond. You respond by faith.
a. Faith is committing yourself to Jesus as Lord & Savior of your life.
b. Faith is trusting that Lord Jesus will fulfill His promises to you.
c. Faith is commitment seen in a Holy Spirit controlled life.
C. v10 - What are the results of a Holy Spirit controlled life? - OR - What happens when you respond to God’s grace & accept His gift of salvation?
1. You become God’s workmanship - His created product.
2. You begin living the good works life God had originally created you for.
3. What’s the bottom line? - You do good works because of God’s gift - not in order to get it!
“In the time of my favor I heard you,
and in the day of salvation I helped you.”
I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.
(II Cor 6:2)
ILL: “Come as You Are - Now”
Now is the day of salvation.
Don’t put it off!
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