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Ephesians 2:1-10
What's So Amazing About Grace?

What’s so Amazing About Grace? (Ephesians 2:1-10)

Ephesians 2:1-3 (NASB), “And you were dead in your offenses and sins, 2 in which you previously 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 previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest.”

  1. Without grace we are spiritually bankrupt (v. 1-3).

  1. Dead spiritually • “...you were dead in your offenses and sins” (v. 1)

  2. Dominated temporally • WORLD: “...the course of this world” (v. 2) • DEVIL: “...the prince of the power of the air” (v. 2) • FLESH: “...the lusts of our flesh” (v. 3)

  3. Doomed eternally • “...by nature children of wrath” (v. 3)

  1. By grace we are made spiritually alive (v. 4-9).

Ephesians 2:4-9 (NASB), “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, 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 boundless riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

  1. God initiates salvation.

• God made us alive together with Christ. (v. 5) • God raised us up with Him. (v. 6) • God seated us with Him in the heavenly places. (v. 6)

  1. We receive the gift of salvation through faith.

• “...by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (v. 8)

  1. Salvation is not by our works.

• “...not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”(v. 9)

  1. Grace puts us to work as God’s workmanship (v. 10).

Ephesians 2:10 (NASB), “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Illustration: The painting by Ivan Aivazovsky, called “The Ninth Wave,” hangs in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. It shows sailors clinging for their lives to the floating mast of the ship after an enormous wave sunk their ship. The mast is in the shape of a cross. This is an image of the Gospel. Those who cling to the cross will be saved from death. No one can save themselves. It is only by the grace of the cross that we are saved. Saving faith is taking hold of Christ’s work on the cross, and trusting Him for salvation.

John Newton, author of Amazing Grace: “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”