I. Our status apart from Christ.
In order to enter into the fullness of relationship our Lord desires to establish with us, we must begin with where we were before we came to know Christ.  Ephesians 2 tells us several things about our status apart from Christ.  First, it says we were dead in our sins.  He is speaking, of course about our spirits, not our physical bodies.  There are people all around us and certainly in this sanctuary who are physically alive, but spiritually dead because they have not yet come to faith in Christ.  It is impossible to fully understand this idea apart from the Spirit of God revealing it to us.  I wouldn’t go into a local night club and walk up to a table and tell the folks gathered there– you all are spiritually dead.  They wouldn’t have a framework to understand this truth.  But, for those of you who know Christ, before you came to know Him, this was the status of your spirit.  Can a dead man make himself alive?  No– which means we are hopeless on our own.

Second, the text says we followed the ways of this world.  We cannot expect people who have not yet met Jesus to look, talk or act like born again Christians.  They won’t.  You wouldn’t either if Jesus had not have saved you.  The problem is when Christians look and act like the world, which should never be the case!  The other problem is that too often, we expect the world to look and act like us before we will invite them into our midst and share the gospel with them.  This is the wrong order. We need to invite people into our homes and into this church who don’t think and act like us.  How else will they ever hear about and see the love of God which has been poured out upon us?

Third, the text tells us that before we came to know Christ, we followed the ways of the ruler of the kingdom of the air– meaning Satan– the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  You may ask, does that mean every non-Christian follows Satan?  Ultimately, that is exactly what it means.  Now, people who do not know Jesus do have the capacity to do outwardly good things and do so at times.  Whether they are aware of it or not, they are ultimately under control of the evil one, and unless they repent and come to faith in Christ, they will end up with Satan for eternity, reaping the same reward as Satan will reap.  Again, when I am speaking to non-Christians, I don’t lead with this thought, but it is true and in time, I may have this kind of discussion with a person.  I have had some people respond by saying, “Heck, I would rather hang out with Satan, who does the kind of things I want to do.”  Well, I pray that the Lord would change their hearts, because otherwise they are destined for what the Bible calls hell. 

I have had this kind of interaction with people before– a person will say to me, “I am basically a good person.  I haven’t really hurt anybody or killed anybody.  I do my job and volunteer at PTA.  So, what is the big deal about knowing Jesus?”  This kind of person is in a dangerous place, because they do not see the reality of their own sin!  We worship a holy God.  This means He is perfect in His purity.  He has created us for a relationship with Himself, but this will not work when we are stained by sin.  Perfect purity cannot mix with sludge and remain pure.  The only way for us to be in a right relationship with God is to be without sin.  None of us comes close to this apart from Christ.  We need Jesus to pay the price we cannot pay for our sin.  We need for the blood of Jesus to make us pure in God’s sight so we can have the relationship God created us to have with Himself.  The other point I would like to make here is the person who has no knowledge of their own sin is blind to it.  If they could go back and actually see every time they sinned against God and others, it would appall them.  If you could go back and look at every moment of every day and see the times you have sinned– your attitudes, motives, thoughts and actions would all be perfectly reviewed– you would be stunned by what you saw.  I believe this is true for every one of us.  The list would be so long we wouldn’t believe it!  Our guilt before a holy God is great!

The fourth thing we learn from this passage is that before we came to know Christ, we sought to gratify the cravings of our sinful flesh.  All you have to do to prove this is turn on the TV any given night, and count the number of advertisements which show skin, or seek to gratify the flesh, your appetites in some way– they all do.  Marketers are playing on your sinful flesh tendencies to get you to buy a product.  How many TV programs talk about, allude to or outright show you sex scenes?  Most of them.  It is easy to demonstrate that people seek to gratify the cravings of their sinful flesh.

The last thing this text says about who we were before Christ is that we were by nature objects of God’s wrath.  God’s just anger to judge sin comes naturally as a result of His holiness.  The person who does not know Christ is under God’s wrath– His judgement– at this moment.  Their only hope is to repent from their sin, believe in and receive Jesus Christ as their Lord, and as their Savior.  There is no other hope.  If you are not certain that you have eternal life this morning, I would beg you and urge you to be certain before you leave here today.  Any of our elders would love to share with you the good news of the gospel, and how you can have eternal life!

II. God’s initiative to reclaim us.

Verse 4 in Ephesians 2 is one of those great verses in the Bible.  We were in a hopeless predicament, as we just described in the first 3 verses.  Then you have these 2 glorious words in the Greek, “But God...”  When it was hopeless for us, God worked.  He did what had to be done because there was nothing we could do!  Then, Paul stumbles through language to describe the incredible character and work of God for us– the One who loves us with a perfect selfless love, the One who is rich in mercy– this great God took the initiative to save us!  Look at the subject and the verbs in the next 2 verses.  God is the subject, the One doing the action.  What did He do?  3 things: we were dead and God made us alive.  We were in the grave and God raised us up with Christ.  And then God seated us in a position of authority with Christ in the heavenly realms.  I am not going into all the implications of what God has done, except to note that God did this and we were simply the recipients of His incredible grace!

Now, when we preach to a person, we tell them they need to believe the gospel.  This is a choice they need to make.  With your will, you need to choose Jesus.  Even as we preach this, we know what the Scriptures teach– that no one will make that choice unless the Father draws that person to Jesus.  Faith which we need to respond to the gospel is given to us as a gift– this is what the text tells us in verse 8– “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith‑and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God‑  not by works, so that no one can boast.”  God has done an incredible work for me and for you!  I am still amazed at this thought– God loved me when I was far away, and sent his Son to die in my place.  Then, God drew me to Himself and gave me faith to believe the wonderful news of the gospel!!  It is all what God has done for us because He loved us.  He loves you now, today, in this very moment!

III. What our response needs to be.

Think about this a moment.  If God did all this for us, then what is our response to be?  Thanksgiving!  We are to respond to God’s love which has been poured out upon us by loving Him in return and thanking Him by our obedience to anything He desires for us to do.  There is an imaginative story told of the day the sun did not rise.  Imagine what this would be like with me.  Six o’clock in the morning came and there was no sign of dawn.  At 7, there was still no ray of light.  At noon, it was black as midnight.  No birds sang and only the hoot of an owl broke the silence.  Then came the long black hours of the afternoon.  Finally, evening arrived on the clock, but no one slept that night.  Some wept, other wrung their hands in anguish.  Every church was thronged with people on their knees.  There they remained the whole night.  After that long night of terror, millions of eager, tear streaked faces turned toward the east.  When the sky began to glow red and the sun rose, there was a loud shout of joy. Million of people blessed the Lord because the sun had risen after one day of darkness.  This is precisely how we should feel when we reflect on our sinful state apart from Christ, and then on the dawn of the Son of God into our lives!  Oh God, what a great work you have done for me!  How can I ever begin to love you enough in return?!

What is the Lord ultimately after?  He is after a love relationship with His people.  And in response to His love for us, exemplified in the cross, He calls on us to respond to this love.  Most of you know this verse, but listen again to what Jesus asks of us:  Mark 12:30, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”  Love is expressed in many different ways– verbally, “I love you Lord!”; in communication of love and care through prayer, and by obedience.  Jesus said it this way in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  His command is for us to love Him by loving one another in this passage.  What makes up a love relationship?  First, Communication is foundational, so we read His Word and listen to His voice in our heart of hearts, and we respond back to Him in prayer.  We invite Him into every aspect of our lives and invite His Spirit to enable us to pray.  Apart from this vital communication, the relationship will not grow.