Staying Amazed at What God Has Done (Ephesians 2)

Introduction

After Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1, explored in an earlier sermon, Stéphane Guillet takes you a few verses further, into the beginning of chapter 2. Here Paul unfolds what God has done for those who were spiritually dead. Not a few adjustments, not a cosmetic improvement, a resurrection. A new creation.

The passage is short, ten verses, but dense. It opens with a hard statement ("you were dead"), and closes on a luminous calling, "good works which God prepared beforehand." In between, a pivot that changes everything : "But God." The sermon invites you to walk this path, not to tick off doctrinal boxes, but to rekindle your amazement at what God has accomplished in you.

Sermon outline

1. A text to take as a whole

• The preacher insists : to stay amazed at what God has done, you first have to look at the whole passage, not pick out a single isolated verse. Ephesians 2:1-10 forms a unit that God, by his Spirit, meant to give you as a whole.
• The text itself points to this. It is framed by the same verb. In verses 1 and 2, it speaks of the trespasses and sins you once lived in. In verse 10, it speaks of the good works you are called to live in today. A path runs from a "once" to a "now."
• This passage usually breaks into three parts : verses 1 to 3, verses 4 to 7, verses 8 to 10. And in the middle, verse 5 acts as the pivot. It sums everything up : "even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved."
• Three parts, then, and three statements to keep your sense of wonder alive : you were dead, you were made alive, you are saved.

2. You were dead (verses 1 to 3)

• These verses describe what's called spiritual death. Put that way, your capacity for wonder drops a notch right away. And yet the reminder stands : "you were dead through your trespasses and sins... following the course of this world... children of wrath by nature."
• The preacher suggests entering these verses through the theme of divine wrath, mentioned in verse 3. A difficult subject to broach at first, but an unavoidable biblical theme, found in both the Old and New Testaments. Right from the start of the great letter to the Romans, Paul speaks of the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all disobedience.
• Anger is something widely shared today. The news is full of it, and often it's justified anger. The anger of men and women who cannot understand why society failed to protect an eleven-year-old girl, and through her the 160,000 abused children in France alone. The anger of women who are victims of intolerable violence and cannot get themselves heard the way their suffering deserves. The anger of populations subjected to so much injustice. The list could go on.
• These expressed human angers, so rarely heard or taken into account, are not unrelated to the wrath of God. In one way or another, they echo that justified divine wrath against a system of this world capable of producing them, what Paul calls "the course of this world," "the prince of the power of the air."
• But this theme also calls for self-examination. It's not about pointing at others. You too have provoked your neighbor's anger at some point. Probably not on the extreme scale mentioned above, but you have committed injustices when you were, as Paul puts it, following the desires of the flesh. Because of you too, justified anger has been expressed.
• "We were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." This is what Paul calls spiritual death. Calvin summed it up in a striking phrase : we are all born dead. It's not the world God created that's at fault, but the world we produce through our trespasses and sins.

3. You were made alive (verses 4 to 7)

• "You were dead, but God..." That's how verse 4 begins. A great "but God" sitting right there. A phrase that rings out loud. It tells you God cannot resign himself to the sad spectacle of this world.
• Why not ? Because he is "rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us." Paul likes, in this letter, slightly redundant expressions, stacking adjective upon adjective to describe God, his heart, his being.
• What moves God to act is not, first of all, wrath, however justified. What moves God to act is a limitless love for those who are perishing. A love at the very heart of his being, at the heart of the Trinitarian reality : the Father's love for the Son, the Son's for the Spirit, the Spirit's for the Father, in every possible combination.
• "We were dead through our trespasses, but God...", and here, says the preacher, you can start letting yourself be amazed. God did not leave things in the state of death you were in. He made you alive together with Christ.
• This phrase "alive together with Christ" unfolds into two verbs in verse 6. He raised you up together, and seated you together in the heavenly places.
• This word "together" should be heard first of all as "together with Christ." He made you alive together with Christ, he raised you together with Christ, he seated you together with Christ.
• A little earlier in the letter (Ephesians 1:20), it says that God "worked" the immeasurable greatness of his power "in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places." That same power, God has also worked on your behalf. Like Christ, he raised you and seated you in the heavenly places.
• The life God raises you into is a share in Christ's glorious destiny. What happens to him happens to you too. His story becomes yours. You share the same inheritance with him.

4. You are saved (verses 8 to 10)

• "By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." Here, faith is not presented as a work.
• How to sum it up ? Faith is what this prayer expresses : "Lord, because I regret the wrong I have done, I entrust myself entirely to you. I fully trust your love. Do what you need to do." Faith is throwing yourself completely into the arms of this God who loved you with an infinite love.
• And through this faith, God saves you. But in the Bible, being saved is not just being forgiven. What God does is not only to forgive your sins. It's not only to escape his wrath, God does not want you to be merely someone who escaped something.
• To be saved, according to verse 10, is to be "created in Christ Jesus." It is to be a new creation. The Creator God, unwilling to leave you in that state of death, put his full creative power to work to make you a new being, in the image of his Son Jesus Christ, so that you would walk in the good works he prepared beforehand.
• What are these good works ? The preacher invites you to reread chapters 4, 5 and 6 of Ephesians : the description of good works in the church, in society, in marriage, in the family, at work. So many situations where you are no longer called to provoke others' anger by acting on the desires of the flesh, but to act as God acts, moved by the love God has re-created in you.
• This is the whole challenge of the Christian life, the walk of a disciple. A walk that isn't simple, but one Jesus invites you into : "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength... and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." Being moved, in this new life, by the love God has re-created deep within you, making you a new creature.

Key takeaways

• Ephesians 2:1-10 is not a catalogue of doctrines : it's a path, from a "once" of death to a "now" of good works. Reading it as a whole keeps the wonder alive.
• Spiritual death is real. It explains why divine wrath, like certain justified human angers, rises up against the injustices produced by "the course of this world."
• The great "but God" of verse 4 is the pivot. What sets God in motion is not his wrath, it's his Trinitarian love and his limitless compassion.
• The same power that raised Christ and seated him in the heavenly places acted on your behalf. You share his story, his inheritance, his glorious destiny.
• To be saved is not just to escape judgment. It is to be created anew in Christ Jesus for the good works God prepared beforehand, in the church, in society, in marriage, in the family, at work.

Personal application

1. When you read Ephesians 2:1-10 as a whole, which part do you most easily lose sight of : the death of before, the life given with Christ, or the works prepared beforehand ? Why ?
2. Does God's wrath against injustice shock you or relieve you ? What does your reaction say about how you position yourself before the injustices you see around you ?
3. Where this week did you provoke someone's justified anger by acting on the desires of the flesh ? What does the "but God" of verse 4 change about how you can go back to that person ?
4. Can you put your faith into the preacher's words, "Lord, I regret the wrong I have done, I entrust myself entirely to you, do what you need to do", or do you still frame it as a performance to achieve ?
5. Take one of the "good works" Paul mentions in Ephesians 4 to 6 (a relationship in marriage, the family, at work, the church). What would it concretely mean, this week, to be "moved by love" rather than by the desires of the flesh, in that specific area ?

Verses cited

• Ephesians 2:1-10 · "You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked... But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us... by grace you have been saved."
• Ephesians 1:18-23 · "The immeasurable greatness of his power... that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places."
• Romans 1:18 · "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men."
• Ephesians 4 to 6 · The good works spelled out in the church, society, marriage, the family, and work.
• Mark 12:30-31 · "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength... you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Further reading

• Why Do Small Groups Disappear?
• How to Prepare a Small Group Bible Study
• Home Group Themes: 30 Ideas

Frequently asked questions

Why read Ephesians 2:1-10 as one passage instead of isolated verses ?

Because Paul wrote it as a unit. The passage is framed by the same verb (to walk in), which moves from the trespasses of the past to the good works of today. It breaks into three parts (vv. 1-3, 4-7, 8-10), summed up in the pivot of verse 5. Pulling out one verse (for example, "by grace you have been saved") without the rest risks losing the path God traces from "you were dead" to "the good works which God prepared beforehand."

How do you talk about God's wrath without turning it into a caricature ?

The preacher ties it to justified human anger : anger at an abused child, at a woman who is a victim of violence, at populations subjected to injustice. God's wrath is not a fickle emotion, it's a right response to a system of this world that crushes people. And it also questions you : what justified anger have I myself provoked ? That's what Paul calls spiritual death.

What is faith, if it's not a work ?

Faith, the preacher sums up, is captured in this prayer : "Lord, because I regret the wrong I have done, I entrust myself entirely to you. I fully trust your love. Do what you need to do." It's not a performance you bring to God, it's throwing yourself into his arms. The salvation that follows is not just forgiveness, it's a new creation, being remade in Christ Jesus for the good works God prepared beforehand.