MCC Podcasts
Summer In The Scriptures Together - Ten Chapters We All Gotta Know: Ephesians 2 - It's All About the Grace of God | Jeff Mazzariello
you guys so good to be together. We are rapidly coming to the close of the 10 chapters that I think it was 11 chapters anyway. This is our sermon series this summer. And I think on I think we picked really well. I think there they are 10 chapters that we all have them that you can pass them along to people as a resource and that you could maybe, maybe, it's your content for studying for the rest of the year as we go through because you might want to go through them verse by verse by verse. Today you guys we're going to be in Ephesians chapter 2. It is a chapter that we all got to know. So I'd love to have you pull out a Bible and look at it. And the reason we're going to be in Ephesians chapter 2 is that it is all about the grace of God. If we were to argue, like, what are the most important words in Christianity? Somebody have a page number for me, by the way, Ephesians chapter 2? 1-1-7-4. Thank you, Linda. 1-1-7-4. The Ephesians chapter 2 is all about the grace of God. If we were to argue, like, what are the most, if we're trying to connect the dots, connect the words, like, what would be the important words when we come to talk about Christianity, whether it be Jesus and then they'd be grace, I think. And this is about this chapter. And as I was looking through the epistles, because we kind of went through it in order a little bit. Did you notice this summer? I was like, what chapter between here and here? And put your seat belts on because Ben's going to preach on Revelation next week. But the whole book for the... But man, as I got through this, I'm like, all Ephesians 2, it's about the grace of God. I may have told you this story, I'm not sure. In my senior year in high school, I was getting to the end of my last semester, and I don't know if they still do this now, but back then we had something called the California Scholarship Federation, CSF, did you guys have that? And if you got a certain GPA, you got a gold tassel, as opposed to just the colors of the school on your tassel, and you had to have a certain GPA to do it, but I got to the very end of my senior year, and I was on the fence, like, my grades needed to come in to see, so I had to go to all my teachers and ask them to give me the grades early, so that they could then calculate my GPA, therefore they'd figure out whether or not I got the level to get CSF, so they could order the gold tassel so that I could have it and be put in the program and all that kind of stuff. You follow my story here? So I go to my econ teacher, and I tell him that, "Hey, I need whatever whatever the GPA is, and so that means I need a B+ in your class," or higher. And I give him the piece of paper that he's supposed to put the grade that I have earned and sign it, so I can take it to the school counselor. And he opens that big old teacher old school grade book, back when it was all done by hand, like it's a big ledger, sort of like the book of life in heaven, maybe? I don't know. And he runs his finger horizontally, finds my name vertically, and then he runs his finger horizontally along all of the things, and you see all the assignments and the tests and the essays, and he's running his finger along like this, and he stops partway and he goes, "What do you need?" And I said, "At least a B+." And he looks back down and he runs his finger along. And friends, I could see upside down. The numbers were not adding up. He looks at me again, and he looks at the numbers. He looks at me, and he looks at the paper, and he goes, "Man, it's been a privilege to know you," and he puts B+ down and signs his name and gives me the paper. Now, my mom for the first time is hearing. I didn't actually earn California Scholarship Federation as is UC Davis, and that opens up, I know, a whole bunch of moral issues. But what a picture of grace that this guy's love for me and his joy in our relationship caused him to make up for the difference when the numbers didn't add up. Isn't that beautiful? That's actually a more powerful one that I didn't even know if I could share without being emotional, but I sat across literally, you guys, in 1980, 344, I sat across the table from Linda, my wife now, at a coffee's tea house in downtown Davis, and we had just reconnected. She had had good, appropriate boundaries because I had broken her heart more than once. And God had done a work in my heart, and I came, and I sat in front of her, and I said, "I think we're supposed to be together." Again, she had really good boundaries, and her dad was a hunter, so we had a lot of guns. But if you want thing you know about my wife, she has a deep heart from the Lord, and is very discerning, and she knew that God had done something in my life, and I asked for a second chance, and she gave it to me. And we've been married 37 years. Yeah. 39 years. I mean, really, at this point, the grace of God, when it looks like this theological concept, and I wanted to call this sermon, you know, all the theology we got to know, but friends, when you drag that, that the words and the concepts down from the theological footnotes in your Bible into real life grace, motivated by love, is the most beautiful thing that we were made to experience, and it is what the Jesus story is all about. And so it's a chapter we got to know, because this is all about grace. You know the most famous verse in this passage is Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, and it's just here. So if you need to check out and get some coffee or whatever, this is all you need to hear. This is for it is by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not from yourselves. It's a gift of God, not by work, so that no one can boast. This is what grace is about. And some of you are like, I'm making sure I know how to define grace. If you had a Bible with like color on every page and footnotes, you could read about it, but it really means this. Grace is unmerited favor, undeserved blessing. The numbers don't add up, but the love and the relationship and the forgiveness is all present. And so we receive the favor of God. That's what grace is all about. Well, you guys, why is it that this is a chapter that we all got to know? It is because there's some really important theological concepts that I don't want you to miss, and I'm going to zoom through them. This is Bible study. This is theology class. I want to say at the same time, it's graduate level theology, but it's also really, it's one-on-one stuff that we all got to know. So if you're a note taker, this would be a great time to take some notes, and we're going to go through four things, four things we got to know from this text. And then we'll parse it a little bit more in our app and our morning devotionals this week, and you can hopefully study it on your own. But Ephesians chapter 2, it's all about the grace of God. First, we got to know this, and this is really a foundational core thing. We got to know that coming to Jesus is a matter of life or death. Coming to Jesus is a matter of life or death. Do you have your text open in front of you? I hope you do, because I'm not going to be able to show every slide, every verse on the screen. Although I do have these verses right here. I want you to look at them. Coming to Jesus is a matter of life or death. Before we even get to the idea of the grace of God that's been extended to us, Paul lays down as a foundation of this chapter of our need for grace. He lays down this idea, by the way, much like my preaching on John 3 a couple of weeks ago, three or four weeks ago, whatever that was, that we either are or we are not born again. This text starts by saying there's two ways to be. One way is to be alive in Christ and one way is to be separated from God, spiritually dead. And he sets this as this black and white theological foundation to the rest of the conversation, and we got to know that. We have to keep coming back to that reality that every human being was made to be in a relationship with God and coming to know Jesus is a matter of life or death. I want you to spiritual life or death. I want you to look at the first three verses with me. As for you, the text starts, as for you, you Ephesians, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. Again, dead means separation from God, spiritually dead, unconnected to God the way we were designed to be when we were created. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. And everybody knows from Romans that all have sinned, everybody, and fallen short of God's glory. So we're all separated. That's our natural state now for all of you were dead in your transgressions and sins. Verse 2, "In which you used to live, when you followed the ways of the world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." Now we're just rested there. This is a brutal text. But it is so, he's like, look it. This is what people, us, before we came to know Jesus, this is what our natural state is. We're separated from God because of our sin and our transgressions. When we live that way, like everybody else, like the way the world lives, the phrase here is like, like the sons of disobedience is the actual Greek. Like the sons of disobedience, like the way in which everybody who doesn't know God lives. And according to the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work, who's that? This is the devil and his demonic forces. Like this just gets us right into, all right, this is a spiritual worldview and this is for real people and it is brutal and we're separated from God when we used to live like that. Verse 3, "All of us also, you and me, everybody, Jews, Gentiles, lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath, deserving of spiritual death." That's what that means. When you see the wrath of God, meaning because of who God you're like, whoa, why? Why would we be? Because he cannot approve of sin and still be a righteous God. He cannot approve of sin and still be a righteous God. He has created us to live a certain way and when we transgress those ways, he doesn't go, that doesn't matter. He goes, no, that matters and it creates a separation from us. You're not living life the way that you were designed to live. And so we by nature then, by experience, we all end up experiencing this spiritual death. This is the first three verses of this incredible passage about grace. And just like I said in John 3, it's trying to emphasize we either are or we are not born again. In this context, it's either we are alive in Christ and therefore reconciled to God, not dead, alive, or we are, and that's walking with him and living with him and experiencing him all because of God's grace, which we'll get to, or we are dead spiritually separated from him. That's the wrath of God. Now, it seems like terrible bad news and like, whoa, the way to start your letter, bro, or your chapter. But he goes down and, I mean, if you jump down, I don't have it right here in front of me but on the screen. But if you look at verse 5, this whole paragraph is one sentence, by the way. Actually, verses 1 through 10 is one sentence. Why? Because of Greeks different than English. But also because he's linking all these thoughts together. And the main verb in this thing is in verse 5. So there are some verbs and some verbally verbal clauses kind of in there. But what it really comes down to, the main verb is in verse 5, where Paul wants us to know this whole paragraph is about to tell us, but God made us alive in Christ. You see that in verse 5? So there is this death that all of us can live, but God made us alive in Christ. So we're getting to the good news. The spiritual death, you guys, is a reality. And we all got to know that truth. That coming to Jesus is a matter of spiritual life or death. That there is this choice for us to enter into living with him, or staying living without him. And where are you with that? We tell you that with all the heart and compassion in the world to say, come to Christ. It's where life is found. And if you persist in staying away from him, you're not living as God designed you to live. And you're separated from the spiritual journey, the spiritual life with him. And that's a choice that needs to be made. Deuteronomy at the end, Moses said this at the end of Deuteronomy. Listen to this, he said, this day, I don't have it on the screen. Deuteronomy 30, if you're taking notes, verse 19. This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses that I have said before you, life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life. Choose life that you may love the Lord your God and listen to his voice and hold fast to him for the Lord is your life. Isn't that good? At the end of Joshua, Joshua got all the Israelites together and he said, listen, choose this day whom you'll serve. It's a powerful, long passage and he goes on to talk about are you going to live the way everybody used to live across the river? Back when we lived that way, when we were without God, all those other people who don't know God are you going to choose to live that way? He goes, choose this day whom you will serve, either like those people. But then he says, remember this phrase? But that's for me, in my house, we will serve the Lord. This is a clear choice that each one of us gets to make. Oh, it's so good. And it's so good because it is the grace of God that comes on us that meets us in that place. So if we choose, we receive this life in Christ. Well, let's talk about the good news as we go forward. So first is this, we got to know this coming to Jesus' matter of life or death. And second, that's all about grace. But grace isn't just theology. It's the love of Abba. It's the love of Father of Dad. This is really funny, you guys. Actually, this is a typo for me. In my notes, when the Lord was speaking to me in studying this passage, grace isn't just theology, it's the love of Abba. Abba is the Aramaic term for Dad. Super familial like Dad. It's not quite Daddy the way we think, but it is. It's just like, it's my Dad. It's not Father, our Father who art in Heaven. It's Dad. Papa. Some people translate it Papa. It's very sweet. And when I wrote the notes about what the text was teaching, I wrote this language, "Grace isn't just the "ology, it's the love of Abba." I meant it's the love of God, and Abba got in my notes, and then I cut and paste it into my slides, and here we are. But I think that's the right thing to have on the screen. We got to know this. When we talk about grace, you guys, this isn't just some theological term. It's rooted in the love of God. You know, we're going down into the text. Look at verse 4, the next verse. After all that stuff, choose life. Like, we're spiritually dead. Do we want life? Then look at verse 4 and 5. But because of his great love for us, right? Because, but because. In other words, remember what verse 3 was saying? By nature, we've been objects of separation from God, of spiritual death. But because of what? His great love, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace that you have been saved. Isn't this incredibly beautiful? I'm just going to keep reading, too. You got it in your Bibles, and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. In order that in the coming ages, He might show the incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness toward us in Christ. I wanted to keep reading those verses, and you had to read the rest of them all the way through this section to verse 10. This is so amazing because this is all about love. When you look at the words that are used in this, I mean, my gosh, this is about because of His great love. He is rich in mercy, the incomparable riches of His grace. His kindness toward us, it's all of this crazy father, dad, love for His children, or mother, love, mom, love for her children. That's the picture that we have. We've got to know this, you guys. Grace isn't just theology. It's the love of an Abba to His people. This is why we harp on the love of God. This is why we harp on this because it's so hard for us to get our minds around that this is how God feels about us and longs for us. This is why Jesus, the most powerful story Jesus ever told is a prodigal son which we preach about twice a year every year for the whole history of the church at least so that we can hear the story of a son who walks away from the Abba. To live his own life is like, "I don't want you or your stuff or your authority. I don't want to be in your world." And he runs away and then he finds that he's experiencing death, spiritual death away from his father. And then he comes back, right, comes to his senses, comes back. And you remember the love of the father who has been angstily waiting on the edge of his property for a glimpse that his son might one day change his heart and come back to him. And he runs to him and embraces him with unbelievable grace and forgiveness, right, and tenderness, great cost to himself. That's why it's so powerful. Have you read the book of Hosea lately? Hosea is a prophet in the Old Testament and the Lord's like, "You know what? Israel's like an unfaithful partner who has gone away and broken one." "I want you to marry," he says to his prophet Hosea, "I want you to marry an unfaithful woman and have children with her." And then a couple chapters later he's talking about, you know, the Lord's talking to Israel, whatever. He comes back to the story and sure enough, like they had three kids together and Gomer's the woman and she runs off and is away again. He's like, "Now go back and get her and come and bring her in to your home." She has walked away from you again, but bring her in and love her and to be with her and tell her you'll never leave her. Like these are the stories you guys that show us the love of Abba for us. And so when we talk about grace, it isn't something a logical transaction, it is motivated by the love of God toward us. And then the rest of that section just goes on, right? It's that verse we just read for it is by grace. You've been saved through faith. This is not from yourselves. It's a gift from God. We don't deserve it. And it continues on. And I don't want you to even miss verse 10 in this, that even in this love he goes, and so in fact if you have your disciples, I don't have it on the screen, but look at verse 10 in the text. We are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. So this whole verse about the love of God that motivates the grace of God toward us so that we're saved by just putting our faith in Jesus, the nothing that we deserve. And then it's like, and you were to created to do these great works for God. What is it? How does that fit together? You don't want you to miss that piece of that last verse. You're God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for you to do. Do you hear the story of restoration in it? That we were designed from the beginning of time to be God's daughters and God's sons who were given a way to live in gifts, to exhibit in ways to love the world. We were able to bring his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven like the restoration that begins at the resurrection of Christ. And then we start to participate in when we say yes and are born again. We get to live the life that God has given us to live. And if we don't, we've missed out on that totally. And he just the end of this whole thing you've been saved by grace. Now go live the way you were designed to live. The good works that God prepared in advance for you to do. I know some of us just see that as like, oh, there's that Christianity thing. Do good deeds. Your boy scouts on steroids. You know, there's just more than that. It's so much more than that. It's out of the love of God for the life that he has for us. He said, now live this way. This is what I've given you to do. Would you enter into it and walk with me? Isn't that beautiful? So we got to know this. The grace isn't just theology. It's the love of God that not only saves us, but then gives us life with him. Third, we got to know this. Everyone is welcome to the gospel. Everyone is welcome to the gospel. When you now look at verses 11 and following in this text, he's starting to talk about the context is to the Ephesians. He's like, and guess what? And I'll summarize it. You can study it this week. I'll summarize it. He goes, guess what, Ephesians? Even you get to be children of God, even though you're not Jewish. And the Jewish Christians were like, what? That is crazy. We've been God's people. We have the covenant. We have the law. We have the promises. We've got the religion. We've got the temple. We have been trying to be faithful to God. We have upheld his name. Not so good all the time, but we've upheld his name for our entire history and the Gentiles get invited in to be part of this whole thing. And Paul's like, yep, that's the amazing news out of this whole deal. Everyone is welcome to the gospel. The key verse in that for me is verse 13. If you look at it on the screen here, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away, that's Gentiles, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Oh my gosh, I went down the greatest rabbit hole in this theological writing about this chapter that somebody said, you know, this language far away and brought near. It was actually language that the Hebrew teachers of the law, the Jewish teachers of the law in Hebrew wrote this language of far away and near. And they really made it sound like, not sound like, they applied it to the fact that the Jews were near to God and the Gentiles were far away. And they said that in their own self-righteousness and exclusion. And Paul goes, yeah, you know that thing about near and far? No matter how far away you were, you'd been brought near by the blood of Christ. That's grace. And it blew everybody's doors off. It was just a complete change. The implication for us, you guys, is that any and all people for the rest of history, not just Jews and Gentiles, but any and all people for the rest of history of this world can receive the grace of God in Christ and be reconciled to Him. Everybody, nobody is too far away. Nobody is too far away. You are not too far away. I don't care who you are or what you have done. That's the good news of the grace of God. You hear it? And I know there's somebody in this room right now. I know there's somebody in this room who goes, you don't know what I've done. But He does. And you, who have been far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. You hear that? This is why it's called good news. Anybody, we got to know this. Everybody is welcome to the gospel. Man, what do we do with that? Well, I'll tell you what we do that as a church. We let it rip. We're like arms wide open. We're like, oh, you? Come on. They're like, here's my life. It's so hopeless. And I look at people as humans. I hear your story and I'm like, I don't know what to do with that. But let it rip. Like, come on. Like the gospel will come and heal you. The gospel will reconcile you to God. Like God's love transcends all of that stuff. And so we have got to be those people who just embrace stories. We don't lose hope. We don't think somebody is beyond grace. We don't make a face when they're sure their story. We're just like, oh, you know what? And here's something I know the grace of God can meet you there. That's what the ministry of God's church is. It's the ministry of grace because we're God's church who all experienced grace. It's not a ministry of clean up your life and then maybe we won't look sideways at you. And we ought to be careful about that because churches are infamous, you guys. They're infamous for after a while after we've experienced grace and we've cleaned up. And now we know of the theology, we actually become crotchety, judgmental, old people. I don't just mean old, but people who are veterans now, we're like, we got it. But you, you got to pull your life together. That is just such a disregard for the grace that we've experienced. For the truth that grace is not a theological concept. It is the love of Abba reaching into every heart no matter how far away they are. And that's the kind of ministry we want to do. Can we say amen to that? And if you are not only being an anchor because we're going to model that as a church, you guys, in every possible way that we can think of, everyone is welcome to the gospel. This text says, I wish I had time to go through more of those verses, but I don't. But fourth, I want to get to this point, you guys. We got to know this as well. We're being built into a holy dwelling for God, the text says. Starting in verse 19, look at the text with me. I put a couple on the screen, but it's only verse 21. So start back at 19 with the Bible that you have in your device or on your lap. We are being built into a holy dwelling for God. So here's what it says. Consequently, he says, consequently, like you've been, you've been, you're now citizens of God. Oh, I just so want to preach on that center section. I can't. Everybody was brought into the, to be God's people. Consequently, he says, you are no longer foreigners and strangers. But you're fellow citizens with God's people. You're like foreigners and strangers. That's funny language, you know, because that's the Jewish language, right? I mean, there were, there was actually legal categories for people who were not Jewish and who were not part of the community. They were foreigners or they were strangers. They were people who were in some version of being on the outside. And he's like, you're not on the outside anymore. You're not foreigners or strangers, but you're fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household. This is a household that God is building. Isn't that beautiful language? Verse 20, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as what? The cornerstone. It's all anchored on him. It's at the corner. Everything is built up and straight and out from him. He designed the whole thing. It is built on the pattern of who Christ is and what he has done. And then the apostles and the prophets have come along and built on that. And now we are God's people. And now look at verse 21. Because now it gets crazy theologically. Look at this. And in him, the whole building is joined together, rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling. Are you looking at these words? In which God lives by his spirit. Because of the grace of God. Because we all are full members because of God's grace when we choose to receive that life. We are being built into a dwelling of God. Now formerly the Jewish people they knew they built the temple. That was the place. God lived in Jerusalem on the temple mount in the temple. Which is why it was so awful and destructive for them. I mean despairing for them when the temple was destroyed. But this is where he lived on Mount Zion. But now church ready. Now he makes his abode in the church. This is what the scripture teaches. We are being built into a holy dwelling for God. Think about it. He is in us. And so he is among us. And he is manifesting himself to the world through us. Wow. He is in us as believers. And so he is among us. And he is manifesting himself through us to the world. That is a holy dwelling for God. This is not just a group of people who hang out together who share a common ideology. This is the very presence of God in our midst. Now I want to get to an implication for that. Banned, why don't you guys come out. I think you're ready because we want to worship together. Because we have to worship in response to this good news. He is in us. And so he is among us. And therefore he is manifesting himself through us to one another and to the world. He is in us. He is in us. And so he is among us. And so he is manifesting himself through us to one another and to the world. Do we need to say it again? We got it? One more time. One more time. One more time after my own heart. He is in us. And so he is among us. And if he is among us, he is manifesting himself, the presence of God to us and to the world. That is the meaning of the church. And that is our mission, friends. And so as we wrap up this conversation about grace, that the end of it is, I love Eugene Peterson and the message translation, he goes, that is plain enough, isn't it? You are no longer wandering exiles. The kingdom of faith is now your home country. You are no longer outsiders. You belong here. And with as much right to the name Christian as anyone, God is building a home. He is using us all, irrespective of how we got here. He is building a home. He is used to the apostles and the prophets for the foundation. And now he is using you, fitting you, brick by brick, stone by stone with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone. And he holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day. Listen, a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. That's us. And that is our ministry to manifest that to each other and to the world. And we want you to be a part of that. Whether that's being an anchor or living like an anchor or not, if you're not a pro, I don't know what you want to do with that program. But this is a chapter that we all got to know because this is all about the grace of God and life, and that builds a community of grace that then reaches the world. And I implore you to lean into that with every fiber of your being and will be that church together by the grace of God and for his glory and with his help. Let's stand together and sing about the cornerstone Jesus who anchors all of this good news. [BLANK_AUDIO]