Bethany Lutheran Church
Ephesians | A Transformed People
A good story teller tells the audience the truth. Chapter 2 opens with the truth. “Y’all were dead in your trespasses! Y’all haven’t always followed Jesus. Y’all use to follow a way that leads to death.” BUT because of Jesus you have been grafted into a new story. Paul keeps us in our proper place by reminding us that it was Jesus who brought us back to life from death. But he doesn’t stop there. He lets us know that we were brought back to life for a purpose… to do good works… which is good news!
Questions to wrestle through: How has the good news become boring news in your life? Do you really believe that apart from Christ you were heading for death? What does it mean to admit that you can’t save yourself? How does knowing that God has done all the action make you feel?
Ephesians 2:1-10 (ESV)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For 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. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
A good story teller tells the audience the truth. Chapter 2 opens with the truth. “Y’all were dead in your trespasses! Y’all haven’t always followed Jesus. Y’all use to follow a way that leads to death.” BUT because of Jesus you have been grafted into a new story. Paul keeps us in our proper place by reminding us that it was Jesus who brought us back to life from death. But he doesn’t stop there. He lets us know that we were brought back to life for a purpose… to do good works… which is good news!
Questions to wrestle through: How has the good news become boring news in your life? Do you really believe that apart from Christ you were heading for death? What does it mean to admit that you can’t save yourself? How does knowing that God has done all the action make you feel?
Ephesians 2:1-10 (ESV)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For 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. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.