If you have your Bibles, we will be in Ephesians chapter 2 this morning. Ephesians chapter 2. And we'll be looking at Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 through 10. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 through 10.
And while you're turning there, I want to again give you greetings from the First Baptist Church of Provo, Utah, where I'm blessed to be a member and one of the pastors of the church. And God is moving in Provo, Utah. His historic triune gospel is going forth there through God's churches. And it's such a joy and be with Free Grace Baptist Church.
And it is my first time in Canada. And I've gotten to know Pastor Cam and Pastor Jim and what a joy they are. And I look forward to getting to know more of you throughout today. But I want to honor your time most by getting into the word together.
So if you're not there yet, we'll be in Ephesians Chapter 2, verses 1 through 10. And if you like sermon titles, and you're a note taker, you can title this sermon, The Joy of the Gospel. The Joy of the Gospel. I'm going to read the text, Ephesians 2, 1 through 10.
We'll bow for prayer once more, and then we'll get right into it. God's Word says to us and for us through the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2, 1-10.
Scripture Reading: Ephesians 2:1–10
And you He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins.
The Bad News: Dead in Sin
in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Verse four, but God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace, he even say. and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Grace on Display Through All Eternity
that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
Salvation by Grace Through Faith Alone
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Created for Good Works
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray together.
Opening Prayer
Father, as we think about the joy of your gospel this morning, help us to come away from this place, away from this gathering, more conformed to the image of your Son. Help us, oh God, to love you more, to love one another more. As you know, this dear church family has gotten to celebrate getting new members in. I pray that those new members that have covenanted with this church would grow to love your gospel even more through being a part of this church family together.
And I pray that this sermon would help this church family to do that. And would you bless the church that calls themselves Free Grace Baptist Church this morning through the preaching of your word. Help me to preach well, help the congregation to listen well, all to the praise of your glorious grace. We offer this time up to you as we continue our worship to you.
And we pray all these things in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen.
Introduction
So if you're a note taker, my outline for the joy of the gospel is quite simple. In verses one through four, I want you to see the bad news. Verses one through three, I want you to see the bad news in verses one through three. And then in verses four through 10, I want you to see the good news.
So verses one through three, you to see the bad news and verses 4 through 10 I want you to see the good news. How many of you have read Charles Dickens novel A Christmas Carol? Do you remember how it starts out? Starts out by talking about old Jacob Marley doesn't it?
And what does it say about this Jacob Marley? The very first thing we find out in the book, whoever Jacob Marley was, he was dead. But he wasn't just dead. He was, as Dickens would have us know, dead as a doornail.
It's become kind of an infamous phrase to say that somebody when they die, maybe they were a bad person. You might say of that person who was very, very wicked, that they're dead as a doornail. And there's oftentimes rejoicing over those people that are so wicked that we would say something like that about. Well, I would submit to you that biblically and spiritually, we are all dead as a doornail.
We're like Jacob and Molly except on the inside. Look at what the text says in Ephesians 2. And you He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. And although in these first three verses I told you I want you to see the bad news, There's glimpses of good news even in these first three verses.
In verse 1 we have the little phrase that God has made us alive. We'll get more to that later on in the text. Right now, I want us to focus on that we were dead in trespasses and sins. That past tense were is also a glimpse of good news because that tells us that we used to be like that, but we're not like that anymore.
But in order to really appreciate the gravity of the were in verse one, we need to consider for a moment What does it mean to be dead in trespasses and sins? Well, in order to do that, I want us to go over to the book of Romans. The book of Romans. And I want to read from chapter 5.
This is another letter from my dear brother, the Apostle Paul. As you well know, Chapter 5 starting in verse 6 down to 11.
Helpless, Ungodly, and Sinful
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. but God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. So there's lots of good news there, not unlike Ephesians chapter 2, what we read to start out with. But I want to bring to your attention these words. Paul says that we're without strength.
We are helpless. Paul says that we, in and of ourselves, we are ungodly. Paul says, in and of ourselves, we are sinners. Now, what does it mean, dear friends, to be without strength?
It means to be absolutely helpless, absolutely unable to do anything for yourself, spiritually speaking. It's as though, and I'm borrowing this illustration from another preacher, You had a paraplegic, and you were to drop him into a forest, and you gave him no map, no compass, and told him he's got to make his way out of the forest, but he's got a time limit to do it, because in just two hours, a big, massive bulldozer is going to clear the whole forest. He's helpless, isn't he? How much more?
Are we helpless before a holy God in our sinfulness? Paul says we are without strength. There's nothing you can do in and of yourself to muster the spiritual strength. to stand before a holy God and survive. We are helpless before Him.
We have nothing to offer Him. The Bible says in the book of Isaiah, our best of works are like filthy rags before this holy God. In my context in Utah, the LDS are very polite. lighter than I am sometimes, although that bar is not that high once you get to know me. And they seem so sweet, so precious.
They're willing to help you if you need it. A lot of them would give you the shirt off their back if you so needed it. And I oftentimes explain to people this. What that means that our best works are like filthy rags is that the LDS person can do the exact same thing and they can basically even do it better than the Christian.
So, if they did the exact same thing and did it even better than the Christian, their works even though well-performed, mean nothing to change their spiritually dead state. They are dead in their trespasses and sins.
What Ungodliness and Sin Mean
To be ungodly means to be opposed to God and His covenant and His law. You see, what Adam and Eve did in the garden, that was by definition ungodly, because Adam and Eve broke covenant with God. If you want to know what sin is, it's lawlessness. It's covenant breaking.
It is disobedience to the law of God. So to be ungodly is to be a covenant breaker and a law breaker and to basically be in your inner core opposed to everything that God stands for. And you may say, well, I feel like a pretty good person. Not according to the scriptures.
Friend, the Scriptures say that you and I, in and of ourselves, are ungodly. And if that's not enough, dear friends, the Scripture tells us that we are sinners. To be a sinner means to miss the mark. It means to be absolutely lawless in your being.
It means to go after everything God has ever said not to do. Job says that we drink iniquity like water. You think of yourself as a sinner, dear friend. Because in and of yourself, that's all any of us are.
We're sinners. That's our main problem. It's that we have sinned against the sinless one. We have sinned against the one who is perfect and righteous and good and just and holy.
And I could sit here and name all of his perfections and attributes, and you in and of yourself are morally opposed to all those things. You and I, we are not good. You and I, we are not just. You and I, we are not holy.
You and I, we are everything that God is not because of our father Adam who sinned in the garden. Romans 5, this very chapter teaches that in Adam we all die. That, dear friends, is what it means to be Dead in trespasses and sins. Not only that, but to be dead in trespasses and sins, verse 2 says that in and of ourselves, we walked in them.
And for those of you here today that are not yet trusting in Christ, trusting in this joyous good news, you could change the tense of that, and it'd still be true, in which you are walking according to the course of this world. If you've ever seen a zombie movie, maybe you've seen the show Walking Dead that's been going on forever and ever and ever. In a very real sense, spiritually speaking, we without the joyous gospel made a reality unto us. We are the walking dead.
And if that's not enough, There's an occultic element to it as well. There's a satanic element to it. If it's not enough that we ourselves are sinners, but there's also the satanic element that the scriptures talk about here. He says, we once walked according to the course of this world.
We followed after worldly desires, passions. But it gets even worse than that.
The Satanic Element in Spiritual Death
He says, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. There's really a satanic element to the darkening of the human heart as well. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 tells us that the God of this world hardens hearts. And the God of this world prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. There really is a satanic element to those who feast in sinfulness.
That they're not just doing it alone, They're doing it and giving joy to devils and being a part of satanic kingdoms, dear friends. This is what the unbeliever finds himself in. They're very much in league with Satan. You know, oftentimes when we think of Satan and his demons, We may conjure up images of our mind of everybody in hoods and bloodletting and things of that nature.
Although that does happen, there's devil worshipers out there. Oftentimes, the devil's chiefest acts come in those who wear suits and ties that look real prim and proper and they're just nice. We've got one quote-unquote so-called preacher down in the USA that will just smile at you from the television. and tell you that you're so kind, you're so special, you're so nice, and God just loves you just the way you are. And He'll smile at you the whole time.
I want to tell you, that's the work of the devil. That is satanic. What do people need to hear? They need to hear that before God, they're helpless.
They need to hear that before God, in and of themselves, they and we once were sinners. But God, as we will see, has changed our status. We're now saints before Him. Look at what the text says in verse 3.
Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. There's a tendency amongst the more Calvinistic and Reformed to sometimes think, I'm one of the elect, I'm special, and to turn their nose up to the center, especially around here, I'm told. But Paul would have us not have that mindset. Because every time he uses the word once in these first three verses, he's reminding the saints at Ephesus, this was you.
This was you. You once walked according to the course of this world. You once walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. I think I can say this with integrity in the text.
He could have said, of which you once were one. And then he goes on to say that we once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh. We were slaves to fleshly desires. We were slaves to our own sensual cravings, but now Paul says we're not anymore.
Now, I don't want to be naive and assume in a congregation of this size that everybody here is converted, especially among the young people, because I used to be a young person too once, and depending upon your age, you might still consider me a young person, and for that, I thank you. It's all relative. But with that said, teenagers, do you desire the lust of the flesh? Do you follow after your own passions?
Have you found the way to get outside of mom and dad's view and do what you want to do? To be just sexually deviant? I was riding this morning with the visitors to church and I saw some sign or something or another that just showed the sexual deviancy of Canada. And let me just say, as a citizen of the USA, it's not any better where we're at as a whole.
Our world craves selfishness and sexual sin. Paul says, if you're a Christian, that doesn't characterize your life anymore. Paul says that that wants ought to be true of you. And even, dear ones, if you do fight, do you hate your sin?
Are you disgusted by your sin? Well, I want us to go into the good news. Starting in verse 4.
The Good News: But God
We ought to pay attention to the grammar of our Bibles. In verse 4, there's a conjunction there, but. But God, who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved.
I want to stop right there. He goes on forever with this sentence. It's as though Paul was breaking out in joyous doxology because remember church, Paul called himself the chiefest of sinners. So you can imagine that this doxology, this transition where he says, but God who is rich in mercy, you can imagine as Paul is writing this, he's thinking about his own Damascus road experience. where God, in His rich mercy and lavish grace, saved Paul's murderous soul.
And you can see here, dear friends, just the worship that exudes from Paul, because he can't stop this sentence. And he begins the good news, not by talking about our salvation, but by glorying how good God is. That our God is a merciful God. Look at the text.
But God who is rich in mercy. I think we can say as well, his love towards us. Notice that the text says, he is great love. It's not just some nebulous form of love floating out in the ether, but it's his love.
Remember what John tells us? God is love. And it's that sacrificial love, John 3.16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that all the believing ones may not perish and have everlasting life.
That's that love of which Paul speaks here. It's the sacrificial death of his son. You've got to understand just how bad you are. And I've got to understand just how bad I am.
There are so many people all around the world, in whatever nation you go to, that's going to try to tell you, you're so good, you're so precious, you deserve to be loved. That's not true. You and I, dear friends, don't deserve love in and of ourselves. You and I are not precious in and of ourselves.
You and I are dead in our trespasses and sins. We're enemies of God. We are sinners. We deserve God's holy wrath.
That's why the text says that we're children of wrath. We're born into it. We are by nature, the text says, children of wrath. That means that sin is what we do.
It's who we are. And then when you think about that reality, that there's nothing good in us, there's nothing special in us, yet God demonstrates His mercy towards us. God demonstrates His love towards us. He says, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when We were dead in trespasses, even when, think about that, God loved you when you were divinely unlovable.
God loved you when you didn't deserve it. God loved you, dear one, when you were a sinner, when you were His enemy. That just simply means you're at war with God. And more horrifying than that, God is at war with you.
And His wrath is pointed at you. God loved you. If that doesn't bring an amen, if that doesn't bring a hallelujah to your soul, I don't know what will.
Regeneration and New Life in Christ
He goes on to say that God made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. I want to focus in on the with Christ here. Because we see in chapter 2 verse 1, he starts out, and you, the you there's plural, he says, and you all he made alive.
Well, down in verse 5, he brings up that idea. God has made us alive together with Christ. You know what he's talking about there? He's talking about the doctrine theologians like to call regeneration.
That's this supernatural event where God converts a sinner. And He takes out that old heart of stone that drank water of mechanicality. He takes out that old heart that's at enmity with Him. He takes out that old heart that's sinful to the core.
And He replaces it with a heart that longs for Him. Now, I'm not talking sinless perfection. The influences of the world are still going to be upon you. You're still going to fight.
And you're going to struggle. And you're going to sin. And when you sin, you're going to get up again. And you're going to keep following after the Lord Jesus Christ.
And until that day of glorification, that day when we won't sin anymore, that day when we will get brand new bodies. And may I just say this as a side note, a lot of people look at me and they'll oftentimes say to me, and they mean this well, they'll say, can't you, Just get excited about your new glorified body. You won't be in a wheelchair anymore. I'll say, yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
That'll be nice. Pastor Cam and I can do jumping jacks together. He won't have a broken foot anymore. And he won't ever break it again trying to dance.
But, dear friend, that's not my most glorious promise in the gospel. You know what my most glorious promise in the gospel is? Do you know what your most glorious promise in the gospel is? Communion with sinless, communion with the triune God of the universe.
That's what it means to be with Christ. That's what it means to have the promise of regeneration. That you were accepted in Him. That you were once an enmity with Him.
But now, dear friends, we are made alive. And we've got that glorious promise waiting for us. And every time you gather together in church, you're getting a little bit of a slice of that promise. You're getting to taste that promise in a sinful, ungodly, wicked world.
And that world is dead in their trespasses and sins, but yet you're here anticipating the great day and our great hope. Have you thought of church like that? Have you thought about every time the scriptures talk about our hope? Number one, it's always in the plural.
When he writes his letters, it's to the whole church. So it's all of our promises for those who are in Christ. Now look at what the text says next. It's a parenthetical here in verse five.
By grace you've been saved. We'll get to that more in a moment. Now, this with Christ causes us to be raised up together. And he says it's made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
One day that's going to be a reality. When we all gathered together around the throne room of glory. And we see God in all of his goodness and all of his mercy. And we're not incinerated because of our sin and thrown into hell for all of eternity.
We get to stand before him and we get to worship and praise and glorify him. Paul is speaking of that in the present because I believe that when we come together like this, we join the infinite chorus of the redeemed in glory in singing the praises to our triune God. That's why he can speak of it as if it's a reality right now. Because in a real sense, when we gather together, that is the case.
We are joining in something far more eternal. The pastor of theologian in Washington, D.C. says something that we all ought to hear. The USA is not eternal. It's going to crumble.
Canada is not eternal. It's going to crumble. God's kingdom is forever. And when we come together as his local churches, and we praise and glorify his name, we are living out these verses.
We're living out the joy of the gospel. So one of my applications, if I can give it early, and it always feels weird to give an application like this, because you are here. So I'll put it this way. Keep coming to church.
Do you realize how much you encourage one another when every one of you is here? Do you realize how much you encourage your pastors and deacons when they see you here singing your alums out to the glory of God and sitting under the preaching of the Word? We are preparing for the great day. of which Paul speaks. Look at what he says next in verse 7.
That in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. And as I've been thinking about this text, When we get to heaven, and we've been there for a million years, we're still going to be there because of the work of Jesus Christ. We're still going to be there because even in heaven, we'll be trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and we'll be thanking him and worship towards him for what he's done. And so even a million years from now, it's not as though in a million and one years from now, we're going to think, okay, now I'm the reason why I'm here.
No. in all eternity we will only and ever say we are with our God by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. So he talks about the riches of His grace, one for us in the cross of Christ and the kindness of Christ and dying for our sins. And then he talks about in verse 8 this idea that every Good evangelical Baptist seems to know, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
So we have here the same reminder we saw in verse 5. Paul says twice in this passage, by grace you have been saved. We will always sing of the grace of our God. We will always magnify in the grace of Him.
It is not of our own works. Nobody in heaven will be able to say, I got here because I'm special. Nobody in heaven will be able to say, I got here by Jesus, but I'm staying here by my own merit. No.
It is totally and purely by grace, and that grace for us is seen in the life death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. All of which was done, as was said earlier by Pastor Butler, on our behalf. 2 Corinthians 5.21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him, that is Christ Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God. One great theologian, John Calvin, put it this way. It is a great exchange.
Because when a sinner believes and trusts in Christ alone, not only is their heart regenerated, but they're given as a free gift, one for them by the death and burial and resurrection of Christ. the very righteousness of the God man, Jesus Christ. And in that righteousness, dear saints, we glory, because it's an alien righteousness. It's not our own. Remember I told you that we're without strength, we're helpless, we're sinners.
We've got no righteousness to offer God, but in the grace of Jesus, we have all the righteousness we will ever need. And that righteousness, that grace is given to us through faith. And that faith, even, is not of ourselves. that faith is the gift of God. God grants that we have faith.
God grants that we believe. So it's not this idea of pull yourself up by your bootstrap. God is the one who sovereignly bestows faith. God is the one who sovereignly bestows belief upon his people.
At the same time, we though, can call men and women, boys and girls, to place their hope alone, their faith alone, their trust alone in Christ alone. If you were here yesterday, you heard my Spurgeon lecture, and you heard Spurgeon say such things as, try my Jesus, try my Jesus. He was not bashful. He was not shy about calling men and women and boys and girls to repent of their sin and believe alone in Christ alone.
And that is the glory of salvation. by grace through faith in Christ alone. Then we see in the next verse that this is not of works lest anyone should boast. Again, We're not saved by our own doing. The faith, it's a gift.
Grace, it's a gift. We are saved and born again. We are regenerated. We are converted because God in his goodness and mercy through the preaching of the gospel has saved our souls.
And when you think preaching there, you can think a wide range of things. People get saved simply by the preaching of the Bible itself through the Word of God directly. Others get saved through the preaching of the Word by a pastor, a preacher, or perhaps an evangelist. Others get saved through the reading of a gospel tract that has biblical truth on it.
But however it may happen, whether it's through the personal witness of somebody, a preacher or what have you, nobody can say they saved themselves. Nobody can say they're ones that they were the initiators of their own faith in Christ. Now, why is all this the case? Well, we get that in verse 10.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Turn, if you will, with me to Galatians, Galatians chapter five. And this'll be the last little letter we look at from Paul that's not Romans. And I want you to see, starting in verse 19, the contrast between the works of the immoral and the fruit of the spirit.
Verse 19,
Works of the Flesh vs. Fruit of the Spirit
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, reveries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in times past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now look at verse 22. But the fruit, that's singular by the way. But the fruit, one fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Against such things there is no law. So all that to say, God saved us by His grace in a way that we cannot boast at all in order that we would exude not the works of the flesh, which by the way are what it means to be dead in trespasses and sins. I mainly spoke of it before through Romans 5 in your position towards God and Him towards you. But you want to talk about the position towards the fellow man?
That's the way it works itself out in the works of the flesh. But God saved you from all that. You once walked in those things. And now you're saved to the glorious sweet fruit of God's Spirit.
So let me ask you, is your life characterized? Not perfect. But are you known as somebody that is loving, joyful, kind, patient, so on and so forth? I've found it interesting.
I remember I was talking to Dr. Jim Renahan once and he brought up how interesting it is that self-control, self-control is an aspect of the Spirit's fruit. Are you known as somebody with self-control? Are you reckless?
The text says in Ephesians that we're His workmanship. He is the crafter. We're the pot. He's going to make something beautiful out of every Christian.
No exceptions. You may not have the world's best faith. Humanly speaking, you may fight, you may struggle with sin. If that's you, come back tonight.
I want to give you assurance of salvation. I want you to be able to say, I know that I know that I know that I'm a Christian. But here we see that Those who are truly Christians, their life is going to be characterized by the biblical fruit. So I ask you, is that you?
God prepared beforehand that we should walk in that fruit. Look again at verse two. When you were dead in trespasses and sins, you once walked according to all those things. But for the Christian, our life is completely different.
You're here this morning and you know you've never truly trusted Christ. You know that your life is lived like a devil and not like a saint. You can come to Christ today and live. You can come to Christ and no longer be a walking dead person.
You can be made alive as the text says twice. You can have the joy of the gospel ring in your heart. That's what every God-fearing church member in this building wants for you. Don't let anything or anybody keep you from knowing the joy of having your sins forgiven.
All you gotta do is trust. All you gotta do is believe upon Him. Believe upon the one who died for guilty sinners and rose again and ascended on their behalf. Because my gospel also says that He's coming back again one day to make all things new.
Are you ready? I want you to be ready. And so does every God-fearing Christian in here. Walk circumspectly in the Spirit, by God's grace, for His glory.
Let us pray together.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank You so much for Your Gospel. We thank You that in a way we'll never understand completely. that your son, your eternal son, assumed human flesh. And according to his human nature, he experienced everything that we do in the sinful world, and yet was sinless. We thank you that this sinless one died the death that we deserve.
And we ask and pray for those who have not trusted this one who died and rose again for sinners, that sinners in this room would not go out of this place without trusting in him. We thank you for the gospel and joy that you've given each one of us. Help us to live life in step with the Spirit, as I've said. And we pray all these things in the name of your Son.
Amen.