Jesus Changes People

Welcome to our Women's Bible Study on the Book of Ephesians, which is called Finding Purpose, and today we're going to cover Ephesians Chapter 2. If you are a born-again Christian, then your life has changed. You are not the same person that you once were. So I've titled this message, Jesus Changes People. We'll reference that a few times. Let's start by remembering something about the Book of Ephesians. First of all, it was written by the Apostle Paul to a particular group of people. He wrote it to the people in Ephesus who had become Christians, but they didn't have a Bible to educate them about everything, all the nuances of their salvation, and this is what he wrote to them. This became part of their Bible, part of our Bible. In some ways, Ephesians is almost a great new believer's guide, and so it's going to help us understand our place in Christ. The other thing I want to remind us is that the Book of Ephesians is in two very nicely symmetrical parts. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 talk about what we believe, and chapters 4, 5, and 6 talk about how we behave. So we're still in the what we believe part, and for some people that's more challenging to continue talking about what we believe. There's not quite as much application in this, but I want to say, I want to remind us that getting such a firm foundation on what we believe has such a big impact on how we behave. So we need to continue to dig through this first portion. So chapter 2 now turns a corner from last week in chapter 1. We were all talking about how God has blessed us, and now this week in chapter 2, it is who we once were and who we are now. That is the point of it, and the Christians in Ephesus needed to understand who they were now in Christ and how they got there. How they got there. How did they get there? It was completely God's grace, and they needed to know that. What I'm getting at is some of them might have thought to themselves, perhaps a Jewish Christian might have thought to themselves, of course God would want me. I'm a son of Abraham. What's not to love about me? Of course he would accept me. And someone else might have thought, perhaps a Gentile Christian would have thought, of course God would want me. Like I haven't done anything that bad, and look, I've dedicated my whole life to doing good things. Of course God would bring me into his kingdom. And those things are true, but that's not how they got saved. And this is going to teach us how they actually got saved. So let's get started. Verse 1, we're in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1. I'm reading from the ESV that says,

So we'll stop there and pause for a minute because this chapter begins by expressing a great tragedy in the world, and that is people who were created by God, who were chosen by God from the foundations of the earth, living apart from God. That is a great tragedy. And so it tells us that we were spiritually dead. We were dead. That's verse 1. We were not sick, we weren't incomplete, we were not asleep, but we were dead. Why is that? It's because our representative, Adam, sinned against God. His imprint was passed on to all of his offspring, and so everyone had the same spiritual condition. I'm going to show you from Romans chapter 5 verse 12. It says, sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin. And in this way, death came to all people because all sinned. This isn't talking about just like all people die, physically die. This is the spiritual death was imparted to all people. Now you've heard people say, maybe you even once said, well, I actually believe all people are good. They're basically good. People just need an opportunity to express their goodness. And that's a real common thing. That's actually a very lovely thought to think, but it's not a biblical thought. And so this new believers class of ours is telling us, informing us, that actually people are spiritually dead. And that why is this so important? Well, it's foundational for a lot of reasons, but I want us to think back to the Ephesians again. And I want us to think about, it's been 10 years since Paul first went there. So moms and dads, they became born again, loved the Lord for what he'd done in their lives. Of course, they're gathering together, they're meeting together, their kids come along and time goes on. Is it not possible that that next generation could potentially think, what's not to love about me? I've been in church my whole life. Of course, God would want me based on the fact that I've just been coming along with mom and dad, right? See how those things can kind of start being cultivated in someone's mind. So this understanding is very, very important. That's not how it works. That's not how you get saved. That's not how you got saved. You were spiritually dead. So this instruction is very important. Paul went on to say, you weren't just spiritually dead, but here's who you were influenced by. You were influenced by this evil trio of things, which is the world, the devil, and the flesh. Look at this in verse two. He starts talking about the world. Verse two, you are following the course of this world. And that means the ways in which culture and society oppose God. Did you know that the culture and society opposes God? And there have been predictable ways that our culture around us and our society have opposed God for centuries and centuries and centuries. Materialism and worship of nature above God and some trend of paganism. And what I mean by trend is that there's nothing really new. The same paganism that was in existence thousands of years ago isn't in existence today. It's just been rebranded. It's a different fashion. It's a different trend. But that's how culture and society opposes God. And Paul said, that's who you were influenced by. So that's the first one. Next is the devil. Look at verse two again, following the prince of the power of the air. Now in ancient vocabulary, the word air that's translated here sort of meant, you know, the spiritual realm. And so the prince of the power of the air is Satan, who is active in our world. He has an organized army of demons and they are actively opposed to God as well, leading and misleading people away from the Lord. That is their goal in life. And thirdly, we were influenced by the flesh. Verse three, the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and mind. And by flesh, we mean this internal fallen nature that we have that wants to support us more than God, wants to gratify our needs rather than others or rather than the Lord's direction. So these are the things that we were influenced by. Now, I want to kind of package this into a chart. There's a chart in your study guide, but I want to put the first part on the screen for you to kind of compartmentalize what we have just learned in the first three verses. And I titled this chart, Jesus Changes People. What was our condition before Jesus changed us? Well, we were spiritually dead in our sins and transgressions. Who were we influenced by? The world, the devil, the flesh. And what was our relationship to God at that point before Jesus changed us? It said we were children of wrath, specifically verse three, we were by nature, children of wrath. This sounds harsh, doesn't it? This is difficult for us to take. We don't like to handle a word like wrath very much. And we certainly do not want to put it together with God. We can say God is love, God has grace, God has mercy, but God's wrath, we want to separate those two things apart. And the reason we want to separate them is when we think of wrath, we are thinking of what we know about human wrath, or the human aspect of it, which is unpredictable, undependable and uncontrolled anger, usually is what human wrath is about. But God's wrath is not that way at all because God's wrath is associated with his justice. It is associated with his holiness and therefore God's wrath is controlled and God's wrath is predictable. God always responds to evil in a predictable way. We do not. We might respond to evil by saying, I just, I want to push that off. I don't want to look at it. But God always responds to evil in a predictable way. So for us, rather than pushing away this idea of God's wrath, this passage should help us understand that because God's, should help us understand that God's wrath was actually satisfied in Jesus Christ. It was satisfied at the cross. It was satisfied in what Jesus did to be the substitute to bear our sins. So yes, we were children of wrath, but Jesus Christ has satisfied God's wrath for us. When I was studying this, I thought, there's a song, there's a song. And of course, for the last couple decades, we have sung that song, In Christ Alone, kind of a hymn sort of song. And so with this in mind, I want you to just hear these lyrics. Till on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied, for every sin was laid on Him. Here in the death of Christ, I live. So we don't have to be afraid of considering God's wrath, because God responds to evil in a dependable way. And Jesus satisfied the wrath of God on our behalf. All right, now here comes the great part of our lesson, okay? Verse four starts with two words that are actually used in some combination, 45 times in the Bible. It starts with but God, which indicates a great change for us. Verse four,

So after a sobering dose of the bad news in verses one to three, now we get to the good news here. And that is that Jesus changes people. God has made us alive now instead of dead. So I have another chart for us. Jesus changes people. And here is our condition after Jesus has changed us, which is now we are spiritually alive in Jesus Christ. The blessings of our new relationship are that we are seated with Christ. We are saved by grace, and now we are God's workmanship, which we'll get to in just a moment. But what I really want us to look at is that last line. Now what is our relationship with God? We're not children of wrath. Now we are children of God. What a transformation, what a change has happened to us. And how did it all happen? In just a minute, I'm gonna put verses eight and nine on the slide, and we're all gonna say them together, but I wanna say this about Ephesians 2, eight and nine. If you only have a handful of Bible verses that you have memorized, or if you only have a handful that you still remember of all the ones that you have memorized, this should be in your top three, okay? And so since we may have memorized in different translations, I'm putting this current translation up, and we're all gonna say it together. You ready?

So this verse teaches us what our part is in this transaction of salvation. Our only part, faith. Right there it is. Our only part is faith. In fact, I'm gonna put my third chart up there now about how Jesus changes people, and let's look at the components of change in this chart, because in these verses, you circled these aspects, these characteristics of God that affect our change. Look at his mercy, his love, his grace, and his kindness. They were all at work in changing us. Look at the right-hand column. What was at work in changing us on our part? What did we bring to it? Faith. That is all. We brought faith. Now, clearly, there are more details about salvation for us to uncover, but this passage is highlighting for us God's lavish character at work on our behalf. This is what he has done. And then the right column shows our part, which is faith. Now, you might say to yourself, if you're looking at that, and you're like, I don't think I have enough faith, and see, it's not a matter of quantity. It's not a matter of having enough. Faith is actually, in this context, the same as belief. It is a matter of believing. So I'm gonna take us back to Romans again. Let's look at Romans 10, eight and nine, which brings these two together. It defines the word of faith that we proclaim, and says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and look, believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. This is putting these together, saying faith means belief. You either believe or you don't believe, okay? So it's not a matter of, people don't usually go around saying, I don't have enough belief. It's either I do or I don't. And so faith is the same as belief. So we kind of summarize here what Paul has taught us in this first part. First, we have learned the universal condition of all people. All have offended God. All have sinned. All are spiritually dead. And then we've learned what creates the change. It's God's grace. It's only by his grace that the change has been affected. God's grace and our faith. And then the third component here is our purpose, because this Bible study is called finding purpose. So in the next verse, we are going to understand now our purpose in this whole thing. Look at verse 10.

All right, this is finding purpose right here. How have we been described in some different translations? We're described as his workmanship, his masterpiece, his handiwork. It means that God fashions us, he works in us, he equips us, he grows us to be and to do what he planned for us to be and to do. It's his work in us. And what type of work are we intended to give? It's as good works as that, because we're good? No, it's because God is doing a good work through us. It is God's good work through us. And when was this all planned? Oh, beforehand. We find out again that God is very organized. Isn't that weird to say it that way? But the things that God intends for you to be doing in this moment, God had planned this beforehand. And what is the point of all of it? To the praise of his glorious grace. The point is that God's grace would be highlighted among other people, would be highlighted in the world. And so in the scriptures, as we go through the Bible from time to time, we find a lot of unified purposes, good works that we are to do, and we find a lot of unique purposes, which is individual things that God has given us to do. I sent you a couple passages in the study guide, but I'm gonna put four different ones on the screen, and we're just gonna kind of roll through them as some examples of good works. And the reason I chose these is because it's either specifically stated or implied that these are good works that we are to do. So look at this list from James two, caring for the needs of others. From Hebrews 10, spurring one another on to love and good deeds, meeting together. Have you ever thought to yourself that simply the rhythm of life that you have in gathering with the saints and meeting together is something that is a good work that God has intended for you to do? overlook that, don't we? Encouraging one another. And because this is a women's Bible study, I added some things in the scriptures that are specifically stated regarding women. Bringing up children. Does everyone bring up children? No, not everyone, but some, some uniquely. This is a good work that is planned. Showing hospitality. Refreshing the saints. Helping those in trouble. Teaching what is good, from Titus 2. Training younger women. And being self-controlled. So those are just some, so see there is some application here in the what we believe part that affects how we behave. But we're gonna take a look at the second half of this chapter because the second half of the chapter all has to do with peace. Peace with God and peace between people. Remember, I wanna talk about why this was useful again in the moment to those whom this was written to. Because peace with people was still being worked out in the moment. Oh, it's still being worked out now, right? But look, before Jesus died on the cross, before Jesus came, there were unique distinctions between Jews and Gentiles. Legitimate distinctions. After the cross, those distinctions began to disappear. And Paul is highlighting that. He's instructing them that the distinctions between those who were born Jews and born Gentiles are now disappearing. And now the door was open for peace between people. And peace brings a sense of belonging. We all like to belong somewhere. We all want to have a sense that we are welcome. That we belong somewhere. Every one of you has experienced that. You've been in some kind of a group where you just feel like, I belong here. Every one of you has also been in some situation where you just feel like, I do not belong here. After lunch, I could go on down to the CrossFit place and I would have that feeling of, I do not belong here. And they would all look at me and they'd say, what's she doing here? Or I could go to a little knitting nest and as soon as I got out my needles and I had no idea what to do, I would have that sense of, I do not belong here. But we want to be places where we feel like we belong. So a sense of belonging is achieved when everyone understands, this is in the church here, a sense of belonging is achieved when everyone understands that all people enter into God's family through the exact same process. God's grace, the individual person's faith. Same process for everyone. So it didn't matter then to those people in that moment whether they had been Jew or had been Gentile. And it doesn't matter to us anymore, regardless what race you are from, how old you are or what you have done. Peace comes between people when we understand the process. Verse 11, remember therefore that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. That was all true. That was the condition of the Gentiles before Jesus came. You bracketed those four descriptions when you wrote out your text. Now, what Paul is saying to the Jews and the Gentiles who are Christians now, he is saying, see, this no longer exists. But as we read it, we also recognize in our world, those four things still do exist for anyone that's not in Christ. Anyone who is not yet born again, who is not in Christ, they are separated from Christ. They are alienated. They are strangers. They are without God in the world. So it's a good thing that we had the first part of the chapter to explain to us how Jesus changes people and how everyone has an opportunity to be changed and to become born again. So here comes the change part in this. Verse 13 is almost that same but God, except it says, but now in Christ Jesus, same kind of phrase. You who once were far off and have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace. And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. So there should have no longer been a sense among the early Christians of you belong and you don't belong. And anyone who was in him, in Christ, was now part of that one body. Anyone had access then. Anyone has access today. And verse 17 says, and he came and preached peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near. And I just wanna point out, you circled peace four times in there. In verse 14, it says, he is our peace. In verse 15, it says, he made peace. And then here now in verse 17, he preached peace. It's interesting that Jesus himself, I guess, preached peace in a way. After the resurrection in John chapter 20, we have this account where Jesus appears to the disciples two different times. And in the course of 10 verses, Jesus says, the first thing he says to his followers is, peace be with you. And of course, that was a greeting too, but I love how John recorded it to show us that this was the message. As soon as Jesus began speaking after the resurrection, the message was peace be with you. And then he equipped the apostles to preach peace. And do you wanna know what? Now he's equipping us to preach peace. Now it's our turn to preach that peace with God is possible, that we can reconcile the world to God. People can be reconciled to the Lord. This is our privilege now is to preach this peace. So if you ask somebody, if you went out and did a little survey down at Walmart or something, and you asked 100 people, what is peace? And you'd get a lot of interesting answers. You'd get some good ones. You'd get some lousy ones. But I think in the next verse is one of the best, and that is access to God. Access to God is peace. Look at verse 18.

So then you're no longer strangers and aliens. You no longer have a sense of not belonging. But you're fellow citizens with the saints. You are members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. So in all of this talk about the Jews and the Gentiles, really, there's a lot of that in the second half. Is there anything in this for us? Is there anything for us to take away? Well, I love this image here that's presented for us, this building that grows. And the components of this building are expressed here for us. The first thing that we see is the cornerstone, which is Jesus Christ himself. You may know that, especially in ancient times, the cornerstone created the plumb line from which everything, every other part of the building would be built. And that's what Paul said here. Jesus is the cornerstone. And then we come to the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, those whom Jesus chose and spent time with and equipped eyewitnesses who learned the lessons from Jesus and passed them on. And then who were, by divine revelation, given things to write that became part of our Bible. So we have the cornerstone and the foundation. And then the next thing that our attention is drawn to is the building itself, which is us. It's you and me. We form the entire rest of this building. Anyone who has put their faith in Jesus Christ. And so we have a very important place of belonging, and we have a very important place of purpose as we're joined together and we're growing together. So many differences. We're made up of different races and different age groups and different cultural backgrounds and different economic backgrounds and different spiritual giftings and even different interests. And yet each one now belongs in that building in a very, very important way. And each one has a specific purpose, just as God intended. And God has a purpose too. And this brings us to our very last. verse. God's purpose is to dwell. Look at verse 22.

Our purpose is to become a dwelling place for God. Well, we already are. If you're born again, you already are. But this is one of our purposes. This is what wants, a dwelling place. And I wanted to linger there for just a moment because of where we've been in Bible study, because we just spent quite a bit of time talking about God's dwelling places when we did Solomon and the house of the Lord. And we started off by saying God has always desired to dwell among his people. This has always been God's desire from the beginning. His first dwelling place was the garden of Eden, but that became corrupted by sin. And then when he brought his people out of Egypt and he brought them to the base of Mount Sinai, he said, build this tabernacle. I want to dwell in this as you go into the promised land. And that was God's dwelling place. And then David had in his mind that he was going to build a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem. And God said, that's okay, but your son. And so that's why we have Solomon then building the temple of the Lord, which became the dwelling place of God on earth, the specific place where God placed his name. But none of those are like this. Now, the body of Christ is his dwelling place. We have become the dwelling place of God for this season, this time that we call the church age. It says right here, we're being built together into a dwelling place for God. So much in this chapter for us to meditate on, so much for us to think through. Paul was teaching on Wednesday night about Isaac going out in the field and meditating. And he said, oh, we do so little of that anymore. And that is true. We do so little. Do you even take a walk without your cell phone? Do it this week. Take your walk, leave your cell phone and meditate on some of these truths that we have been given, because it will make us sturdy. It will make us strong. So Lord, we thank you for this particular passage that really instructs us with a lot. And Lord, as we said, there's not a lot of application here, but there's so much information and so much understanding. And Lord, so much beauty for us to understand about how you have applied your character and to offer to us this great change in our life, that we can go from being spiritually dead to being alive in Christ. And so Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for the truth. And Lord, I pray that you would help each one of us to really take this with us and really help us to, you know, ruminate on it and bury it in our hearts so that we are ready with an answer for anyone that asks us. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.