Sermon25-25 Eph2 Guide

Ephesians 2:1-10 theme verse Ephesians 2:8

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this twentieth Sunday of 2025, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, we looked at the atonement of Christ, yet this week, we would like to look at the faith through which we can receive all the benefits which Jesus earned for us together.

1)    In today’s text, Ephesians 2, first, Paul says that since all people are dead in the trespasses and sins, we all have lost the knowledge of God (Hos 4:1) and could not seek God (Rom 2:11) nor believe in God (1 Cor 12:3) and have no ability to do good, (Rom 7:18) so that the Son of God, the Word came to this earth to become flesh and accomplished the atonement for us (Mark 10:45) and righteous, and then we could be saved only by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

2)    Here, ‘trespasses’, the Greek παράπτωμα (paraptōma) which means to deviate from the right path, such as illegality, wrongdoing, foul play, negligence, deviation, or corruption, etc., refers to doing things that deviate from God’s law or things that God has forbidden, while ‘sins’, ἁμαρτία (hamartia) in Greek which means to fall short of the target, refers to live a life that falls short of God’s righteousness and truth. So then we can think if trespass means doing something that is forbidden, then sin means not doing something that God’s people should do. Therefore, two words show that we human beings committed all kinds of sins and as a result, we are dead, I mean, spiritually dead, that is, separated from fellowship with God, and walk in the spirit of the prince of the power of the air, that is, the sons of disobedience, in death, following the course of the world, living in the lusts of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the heart, so it is said that we became the children of wrath by nature.

3)    But, in the grace of God, God made us alive together with Christ as verse 5 says, and raised us up together with Christ as verse 6 says, and seated us together in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus as verse 6 says. Here, these three words in verse 5 and 6, I mean, “making alive,” “raising up,” and “seating down,” refer to the resurrection, ascension, and sitting down at the right hand of our Lord, Christ, but these are also shown in the lives of Christians. I mean, for Christians, ‘making alive’ refers to our spiritual rebirth, that is, obtaining spiritual life through regeneration. And the words “raising up” in verse 6 means that Christians live a spiritual life in union with Christ, including the future resurrection And finally, the seating down in verse 6 can be seen that Christians will reign forever with the King, Jesus Christ and even from the life on the earth, involving in Jesus’ reigning over the earth.

4)    The key to receive and participate in all these amazing things is actually faith, yet, in fact, this faith is also said a gift from God. I mean, when we look at verse 8 of today’s text, there is a phrase saying, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Here, the demonstrative pronoun ‘this’, τοῦτο (touto) in Greek is neuter pronoun, yet since “grace” and “faith” are feminine noun, and also “to save” is a masculine verb, therefore, what “this” refers to is not one of the nouns, “grace,” or “faith,” nor the verb “to save,” but all the entire verse, that is, “grace,” “faith,” and “to save” all together. It means that grace is a gift, salvation is a gift and also faith is a gift. To elaborate it differently, Christian faith consists of knowledge, assent, and trust, where Knowledge, that is, knowledge of God, comes from the one who preaches the gospel, and even assent to knowledge also which as 1 Corinthians 2:13 says “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” And finally trust is also something that the Holy Spirit created in us, as in Matthew 16:15-17, John 3:5, and Acts 16:14 said. Therefore, we can clearly know that the faith that we have is also a gift of God.

5)    But then, in order to understand the reason why the faith only can save, we have to first go back to the first sin committed by human in Eden, I means, Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden which God had forbidden them to eat. Of course, this first sin of human beings is the sin of disobedience to God’s word, but many theologians characterize the core of this first sin in two ways, as Augustine focuses on pride, while Luther focuses on unfaith. I think both are correct, yet, I believe that as Luther said unbelief is the core of the first sin, even though he, following Augustine, identified pride as one of the main causes of the first sin, yet combined unbelief and pride which are the roots of all sins. And he said also this unbelief is the greatest sin because it ultimately leads people away from salvation, since this unbelief in Christ leads people away from salvation, as saying “only the Bible makes us see this ‘deepest unbelief of the heart… the root, sap, and main force of all sins,” and “only the Bible reveals this unbelief to people.” Thus, at the center of Luther’s theology of salvation is faith, while his theology of sin is rooted in an understanding of unbelief, or lack of faith. Since Adam and Eve’s unbelief produced offspring who were characterized above all by lack of knowledge, inability to understand, and unbelief, so that Luther’s theology of salvation focuses on the very opposite of unbelief: the faith. In other words, since Luther believed that the first sin was the rejection of God’s Word, salvation must begin with a clear understanding of God’s Word and its reception in faith, in other words, for Luther, since faith is his focus of salvation, so the Word of God permeates every aspect of the doctrine of justification (and sanctification), so the Word of God is the foundation of all of Luther’s thinking, just as grace is the foundation of all of Augustine’s thinking about salvation.

6)    Regarding this righteousness of faith, the Belgic confession article 22 confesses that “We believe that for us to acquire the true knowledge of this great mystery the Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts a true faith that embraces Jesus Christ, with all his merits, and makes him its own, and no longer looks for anything apart from him. For it must necessarily follow that either all that is required for our salvation is not in Christ or, if all is in him, then those who have Christ by faith have his salvation entirely. Therefore, to say that Christ is not enough but that something else is needed as well is a most enormous blasphemy against God - for it then would follow that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior. And therefore, we justly say with Paul that we are justified "by faith alone” or "by faith apart from works.” However, we do not mean, properly speaking, that it is faith itself that justifies us for faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ, our righteousness. But Jesus Christ is our righteousness in making available to us all his merits and all the holy works he has done for us and in our place. And faith is the instrument that keeps us in communion with him and with all his benefits. When those benefits are made ours, they are more than enough to absolve us of our sins.”

7)    Then, the first purpose of this God’s salvation in grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ is, as verse 10 says that “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them,” that we can do good works, that is, works that please God. That’s why, John 3:36 says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him,” indicating that faith and obedience are inseparable, like the two sides of a coin. In this way, obedience through faith can be seen as a fruit that is naturally produced by the Holy Spirit as the result of salvation.

8)    And the second purpose of His salvation is as verse 7 says that “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus,” to make us show the riches of God’s grace to the generations to come, as we have received His mercy, allowing us to enjoy eternal happiness. That’s why Paul also confessed in Eph 3:8 that “To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Therefore, I pray that this year, we all may realize the great riches of God’s grace of salvation, live good life to please God, and become witnesses to the riches of God’s grace to the whole world.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 Through today’s text, we became to know that the reason why the faith saves us is because the core of the first sin of disobedience in Eden was unbelief so that in order to be saved we have to show our faith to God. So, meditating on the meaning of the salvation and faith, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 And also we can know that the purpose of this salvation in grace was to make us live the life of goodness, I mean, life in His pleasing will and also to show the richness of His grace to the world. So after reviewing how we live in the life of salvation, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.