By Grace Through Faith
Ephesians 2:1-10 (Part 1)

Baxter T. Exum (#1792)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
July 13, 2025

Good morning and welcome to the Four Lakes congregation! If you are visiting with us today (either here in person or online or on the phone), we are so glad to have you with us, and we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in this way as well.

In terms of announcements and prayer concerns, let’s remember our upcoming clothing give-away. Last week, I tried to give as many cards to as many of you as I could. These are to share, not only with those who may need clothing, but especially to friends and neighbors who may have something to share. Give a card, and explain, “Our church has been doing this thing for many years, where we collect clothing, and sort it, and give it away, completely free of charge, to anybody who may need it.” Explain who we are, and then offer to stop by and pick up whatever they have. And by the way, if you’ve ever wondered what a “graphic design deacon” does, this is it right here! I asked for an update, something we could share in our PowerPoint announcements, and out there on social media, and on these cards, and Josh got it done in short order. We communicate with images and graphics these days, and Josh has done a great job with this.

Before we get to our study of God’s word, I’d like to give just a brief update on the situation down in Texas, and specifically, what God’s people are doing to help. Remember: The flooding happened late Friday night into the early morning hours on Saturday. By Sunday afternoon, a semi full of supplies intended specifically for flood relief had arrived at the Riverside Church of Christ in Kerrville, Texas. That semi was sent by Churches of Christ Disaster Relief, based in Nashville, Tennessee (so it took nearly 15 hours to get there, but they arrived by Sunday). I’ve said before that they have a huge base of volunteers and drivers who have a foot on the clutch just waiting for the next disaster. After Katrina, these guys were in New Orleans before FEMA, and they were all over it this time as well. The Red Cross reached out to the Kerrville congregation almost immediately, asking them to open their church facility to house linemen who were coming in, but the linemen weren’t actually needed, so when the Hill Country  Mental Health and Developmental Disability Center asked to set up their church facility for counseling services for first responders, the church was able to pivot immediately, and their church building is now being used not only as a distribution center, but also as a place where search and rescue professionals and volunteers can start to process some of the trauma from what they’ve dealt with over the past week. I noticed on their Facebook page that as the disaster relief trucks were on the way, some local electricians donated their time to add some electrical outside the church building for the RV’s and the mobile command centers to plug in once they arrived. And as you might be able to see from the lists, the supplies are exactly what has been needed this week. I don’t know about you, but I am impressed by how God’s people are responding down there, and I’m hoping we can keep these people in our prayers this week as they continue doing the the Lord’s work.

Giving away clothing is great, and it is so good to be able to help with flood relief, but even these good works have a mission, have a goal: Introducing people to Jesus! We have come together this morning to thank God for what he’s done for us. He sent his only Son to die on the cross in our place, giving his life for ours, and we share this good news, first of all, as a reminder to ourselves, as a reminder to be thankful, but we also share this good news as our invitation to the the world around us, an invitation to obey the good news. We obey God’s message of salvation by hearing and believing the message, by turning to God in faith as we have a change of heart concerning sin, we confess our faith in Jesus as being the Christ, the Son of God, and then we allow ourselves to be buried with Jesus in baptism, an immersion in water for the forgiveness of sins.

As usual and as our encouragement to you, we are sharing several examples of what this looks like, and we are starting this morning with an update from the Bellvue congregation down in Nashville, Tennessee. They posted a few days ago and simply say that, “We rejoice in Emely’s baptism last Sunday. We are so proud of her decision to follow Christ!” And I’m sharing this one, because it seems that Emely has a squad! It looks like they have quite a youth group there, and we certainly hope that these guys are able to encourage each other going forward.

This next one comes to us from the Shillington congregation, just northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This one has quite the story behind it:

Family, just wanted to share how God answered prayer and my neighbor, Sarah Good, was baptized this morning!  I want to thank Marcia Willman for helping me with Sarah and encouraging her and being there for her this morning. Sarah is 39 years old and has stage 4 lung cancer.  She and her Mom live 2 doors down from me.  For the last 10 months, I have tried to visit them both and pray with them and try to encourage them.  Her Mom, Rene, is very sick, is not able to take care of herself and is now, as of this week, in a nursing home.  So, when it came to the subject of God, Rene was strong in her faith but Sarah did not like to talk about God.  She allowed me to pray, but that was as far as I could get.  She began to weaken with the chemo and radiation treatments, I visited her in the hospital a few times. I asked her Mom why she struggled with God?  Her Mom said it happened when she was 7 years old and their home burned down.  They went to church that Sunday in shabby clothes, but the church said they smelled and were not wearing the right clothes plus they did not help them (NOTE: aren't you glad Jesus is not like that?  Boy, His church can make Him look bad!).  Sarah from that point forward did not want to talk about God. However, God began to soften her heart and eventually, a few months ago, we had some very powerful conversations on: death, eternity, heaven, hell, sin, Jesus, Scripture reading, and the Spirit of God began to draw her in.  To the point that last week, I saw her and asked, "Are you still thinking about following Jesus?"  She said, "I am ready."  And we know the angels in heaven and the Father were full of joy this morning as she was immersed.  All I can say is: GLORY TO GOD!  Wow, it is joy to watch Him change lives, amen? Pray for Sarah as her Mom and her are facing some housing issues (might be evicted as Rene is in nursing home now) and pray God will bring resolution and Sarah may be able to come to church as well (she is very weak).  What I love about this picture below is I texted it to her Mom and she said, "That is the first time Sarah has smiled in a long time."  Thanks be to God!
This next one comes to us from the Residence Park congregation over in Dayton, Ohio. They say that they are, “Giving God all of the glory and praise on the Baptism that took place this morning. Robbie Skipper Jr. responded to the call! Thanking God for our newest brother, Robbie, for being added to the body of Christ! Everyone please keep him in your prayers as he walks on this journey with Christ as a teen!” So good to see it!

Our last one today comes to us from the Lord’s church down in Colleyville, Texas. They say that,

This morning, the Lord’s church at Colleyville rejoices with Lisa Hopkins, as she decided to obey the gospel of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of her sins and to be added to the kingdom— the one true church. Lisa is the mother of a recent new convert, Larry Hopkins. He was baptized in November, and since then, he has been the reason for a couple of friends and a couple of family members visiting the congregation, including his mother. By visiting, our members writing cards, showing acts of love, inviting her to our Ladies Day and the gospel meeting, she had many questions — in particular, one concerning marriage, divorce, and remarriage. We were able to set up a Bible study to answer that question, but it would not be answered until we studied first about the Lord’s authority, His kingdom, and the solution to her sins, including her situation of an unscriptural [divorce and remarriage] situation. Grant and Lisa Puckett, John & Rachel Garza worked together to study with her to ensure she was able to study week to week. Booklet one was a breeze, especially because she already knew some of the concepts. However, booklet two took more time, because it challenged strong beliefs of an “undenominational” church — like one church, musical instruments, and the Lord’s Supper taken every Sunday. John and Rachel studied most of booklet three with her — up to Romans 6. She acknowledged that baptism is “more than an outward sign of an inward change.” In her words, “it is essential!” She was ready to be baptized. However, she needed to study about her marriage, divorce, and remarriage situation — which they did that night. At the end of it, she accepted the truth, and she knew what she needed to do concerning that topic. However, she was still not ready to be baptized. When John asked about baptism and recapped on why it was essential and what it was for, she still had question about it being the one church, and musical instruments. That being the case, yesterday — Grant and Lisa picked up the final study, where they talked about baptism again, and studied more about those topics. To which she agreed with the Scriptures, and with tears in her eyes, she made the decision to be baptized into Christ for the right reasons. To God be the glory!

What a great example of the whole church working together, and what a great example of someone taking God’s law on marriage so seriously in that process of obeying the gospel. As always, if you have any questions about this, if you are ready to obey the good news right now, if we can help with in any way, we invite you to get in touch. You can send a message to info@fourlakeschurch.org, you can give me a call or send a text to 608-224-0274, or you can simply pull me aside after worship this morning, and we would love to help.

This morning, I’d like to have us take a look at one of the sermon request cards that you guys have turned in over the past month or two, and this one actually came in last week. One of our members gives two scriptures, starting with Ephesians 2:8-9, where Paul says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith...not as a result of works,” and then James 2:14-26, where James says that “faith without works is dead,” and the card then says, “These feel weirdly contradictory. Are these ‘works’ different things?” And that is an awesome question!

Today, then, I’d like to have us start a short series of lessons where we take a look at Ephesians 2, and after we’ve spent two weeks in Ephesians 2, we will then take a look at what the people of Ephesus actually did, a “case study in salvation,” the application of this passage. First, though, we have to start by looking at the text itself. So, I would invite you to be turning with me to Ephesians 2 this morning (in our pew Bibles, the passage is found on page 1828). As we make our way to Ephesians 2, I should warn you that this is a deep passage. I think of what Peter said toward the end of 2 Peter, when he said that “our beloved brother Paul wrote some things that are hard to understand.” This is one of those deep passages. It’s one of those passages that’s hard to take in. In a sense, I’m reminded of the menu at a place like Laredo’s (a local chain of Mexican restaurants here in the Madison area). I walk in and open the menu, and it’s almost too large to process. I look at that book of a menu, and my brain is nearly overwhelmed. There is a short circuit that takes place. And if we’re there with friends and we’re talking, forget about it! It’s too much to take in, and so I almost always default to the steak chimichangas, knowing that this has been good in the past and that I’ll have leftovers for lunch the next day. Well, that’s the feeling of “oh no” that I get when looking at a passage like Ephesians 2:1-10. But let’s start by looking at the text itself. After an entire chapter explaining the value of being “in Christ,” we come to Ephesians 2:1-10,

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,  2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.  3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.  4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;  9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.  10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

As we process this passage and as we head toward answering the question from one of our members, I’d like to divide our study of this passage into two parts, basically under the headings of “before” and “after.” Today, we’ll take a look at the way we WERE (in verses 1-3), and then next week we’ll move on to the solution to the problem (in verses 4-10). But we start today by looking at the BEFORE picture.

And we might wonder: If these people in Ephesus had already obeyed the gospel (which they had, since they are described in Chapter 1 as being “in Christ”), then why does Paul go into such gruesome detail concerning how bad they were before that? And to me, the answer is that we are more likely to truly appreciate where we ARE right now if we truly understand where we WERE in the past. We might compare it to the value of seeing the “before” picture when we’ve lost a lot of weight. Yes, we feel good now, but sometimes we need to really appreciate where we were. I may need to look at the old me and say to myself, “Wow, that was bad.” Well, so also with sin. This morning, as I was making the sermon shorter down at Cottage Cafe, I overheard the server say to somebody at the other end of the counter, “Church people are the worst! They go to church to hear about how bad they are!” I looked at my notes, I looked over at the server, and I thought to myself, “Yep! That is basically today’s entire sermon in less than ten seconds!

And yet, Satan’s lie (going all the way back to the beginning) is that we are just fine the way we are, “Go ahead, eat the fruit, you surely will NOT die.” But God says otherwise. By the way, I sent today’s text to Josh a few days ago, and he went above and beyond in selecting today’s songs. This morning, we’ve been singing about us being wretched, lost, and blind, spurning God’s law, not caring that our Lord was crucified. After our study, we’ll be singing about our soul being one dark blot, and the fact that we ware poor and wretched (again), and then we’ll sing about being far from the peaceful shore, drowning, very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more, in danger of the angry waves. Josh might have gone a bit overboard with these! And yet, to appreciate being forgiven, we need to truly understand where we were before that forgiveness, and that’s what Paul does in these opening verses of Ephesians 2. We don’t have time to break it down word by word with a detailed explanation, so for the remainder of our time together this morning, I would just give a few bullet points…

    I. ...starting with the reminder (in verse 1) that we were DEAD.

We were dead in our “trespasses and sins,” Paul says. And so, the “before” picture is not very flattering, is it? In fact, it doesn’t get much worse than “dead.” Without Christ, though, before we obeyed the gospel, we were spiritually “dead.” Some of you know that we had a cop staying with us at our house this week. I had to be on my best behavior. He’s probably telling his friends the same thing about staying with a preacher! But it reminded me of those CSI-type shows where there’s always a murder, and a key part of solving a murder is determining the cause of death. Often, the cause of death is the key to the whole mystery. And if that is true physically, then it is also true spiritually. What is the cause of spiritual death? Paul says that the cause of spiritual death is sin. Immediately, in verse 1, Paul says that “you were dead in your trespasses and sins.”

By way of review for most of us, a transgression or a trespass is what happens when we step across a line that God has told us not to cross. The word Paul uses here can be defined as “a false step.” If we are out in the woods and see a sign nailed to a fence, and the sign says “NO TRESPASSING,” and if we step across that fence, we have transgressed, we have trespassed. Well, in spiritual terms, we can do the same thing to God. A spiritual “trespass” is when we basically say to God, “God, I don’t care what you say; I’m gonna do it anyway!” and then we step across that line. A transgression is what happens when we cross the line.

The word “sin” is the other word Paul uses here, and this is a word that commonly refers to “missing the mark,” a sin, a failure of some kind. And again, I know we’ve discussed this word a number of times through our years together, but the word carries the idea of taking aim at a target, and yet despite our best efforts, from time to time we will miss. I don’t know why, but I seem to enjoy the target sports. Maybe because it’s something I can do on my own. So, whether it’s a firearm of some kind, or a pellet gun, or darts, or a tomahawk, or a hatchet, or a bow and arrow, or even a slingshot, there is some appeal to aiming at a target. We know, however, that part of aiming and firing is missing! We don’t always hit the target, so we adjust and try again. Well, so also with sin. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we fail. We aim, but we miss. God has said to do this, so we try, but we fail.

So, I think we see that there is some slight difference between a trespass and a sin, but the bottom line is: Sin causes spiritual death. And this is where we were before we obeyed the gospel: We were dead in our trespasses and sins.

Often, people in the world will think of sin as a rather insignificant problem. They think of sin in terms of mistakes that God will simply overlook. They think of sin like a 3-year old accidentally knocking over a glass of milk on the kitchen table – no big deal – and if you just claim that it was an accident, everything will be okay. But that’s not what sin is. Sin is crossing the line. Sin is missing the mark. And the result of sin is spiritual death. As I understand it, death simply refers to a separation. Physically, death is a separation of the spirit from the body. Spiritual death, though, is the separation of the soul from God. Sin separates us from God. As we have discussed previously, it’s a bit like what might happen if you steal my car. If you steal my car and I know you’re the one who took it, we have a problem. And it’s not my problem, it’s your problem. You have done something to break our relationship. And that’s the way it is with God. When we sin, we have a problem with God. When we sin, we die spiritually. Sin separates us from God. When we sin, we die. And I should probably just briefly note here that sin is personal. Sin is not something that we inherit from our parents and grandparents, but sin is a choice that we make. Sin is a failure on our part. So, first of all, then, when we look at these first three verses here, we learn that before we obeyed the gospel, we were dead in our trespasses and sins.

    II. Secondly (as we move along to verse 2), we find that in addition to being dead, we were also DISOBEDIENT.

Let’s notice (in verse 2), when it comes to those sins from verse 1, we “formerly walked according to the course of this world.” So, we were dead, but we were also walking. What does that make us? It makes us the walking dead. We were zombies, weren’t we! We were the walking dead, walking in disobedience, and it is not a pretty  picture. We don’t want to be the walking dead, but that is what we were.  We were dead in sin and walking in disobedience. We were walking “according to the course of this world.” In other words, we were walking just like everybody else in this world was walking. We were going along with the crowd, headed down the wide path that leads to destruction, walking in disobedience. In a sense, we were using the world as our standard. We think of the excuse we might have given when we were teens, “But mom, but dad, everybody else is doing it!” Of course, it doesn’t matter what everybody else is doing, what matters is what God want us to be doing.  Anything else is disobedience.

And let’s also notice how Paul says that in this disobedience, we were walking “according to the prince of the power of the air.” Did we catch that? Satan is described elsewhere as the prince of this world, the idea that Satan still has some influence down here, and those who are disobedient are living under that influence.

    III. We come to a third description (in verse 3), as Paul explains that at one time we were basically ENSLAVED TO SELFISHNESS.

Notice: Paul says that we “formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” In other words, we did whatever we wanted to do! We were living by the flesh. If it felt good, we did it. And, of course, we felt completely free at the time; however, we were not free at all, were we? We were enslaved to ourselves. We were ruled by passion and desire.

We think about getting angry, for example. Back in those days before we obeyed the gospel, when something ticked us off, we used to just blow up at people. Maybe we would yell, maybe we would cut lose with some cutting remark against somebody, maybe we used profanity, perhaps we lashed out physically, we might have thrown something across the room. We did whatever felt good at the time. I think about these guys going 100 MPH on the Beltline with no concern for others. If it felt good, we did it. We indulged ourselves, Paul says. The same goes for food. Can we be enslaved by the food that we eat? Absolutely! Food is a terrible master. So also with intimate relationships. So also with alcohol or any number of things that God created to be good. Even good things have a way of ruling over us.

But sometimes as Christians, the farther we get away from that moment we obeyed the gospel, the more difficult it becomes to see how bad things really were. Paul, though, says that before we came to the Lord we were dead, we were disobedient, and we were enslaved to our own selfishness.

    IV. This brings us to the end for today, where we find (in the rest of verse 3) that we were DOOMED.

We were “children of wrath.” In other words, we were lost in that condition. And the “wrath” Paul is talking about here is God’s wrath, God’s wrath against sin, sins that we have committed. And I know we don’t always like thinking about God as a God of wrath, but God hates sin. Love and wrath are not mutually exclusive. God is loving and righteous, he doesn’t go around losing his temper, but his wrath is always a measured response to sin. He is consistent and right, all the time. God is perfect in every way and cannot allow sin in his presence. And so, when the line is crossed, when we miss the mark, we become “children of wrath,” we become lost in sin and subject to God’s punishment.

CONCLUSION:

Well, at this point, being dead, walking in disobedience, enslaved to our own passions and desires, and now sitting here as children of wrath, that puts us in a tough spot, doesn’t it? At this point, we are now very clearly in the “before” category. Something is wrong. Something needs to be done. We cannot fix this on our own. And that’s where we plan on pausing our study until next week!

I hate to leave it here, so I should give us just a bit of hope. After the doom and gloom of verses 1-3, after the “before” picture, verse 4 starts with the words, “...but God.” Next week, then, we are headed for a discussion of grace, and we’ll plan on digging into that question concerning the relationship between faith and works. This morning, though, let’s end with a question for us as Christians: Do we really appreciate how bad it was before we obeyed the gospel? To truly appreciate salvation, to truly appreciate the grace of God, we need to think about that sometimes. And for those who have not yet obeyed the gospel: This is how bad it is! Without Christ, we are dead, disobedient, enslaved, and doomed.

Before Josh leads us in another song, let’s go to God in prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

Today we are thankful for this message that has come to us through your servant Paul, and we are thankful for the mirror of your word, a mirror that reflects who we really are. We pray, Father, that we may be able to truly appreciate who we are without you, so that we can truly appreciate what you have done for us. We need you in every way.

This morning, we ask that you would be with Gary as he recovers from surgery. We ask that you would bless those who are looking for work. We especially ask your blessing on your people who are working so hard in Texas right now. We can hardly imagine the heartbreak, and so we ask for comfort and strength in the days ahead.

We come to you today in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

To comment on this lesson: fourlakeschurch@gmail.com