This past Sunday, Pastor Earl began a six week study on the book of Ephesians. He suggested that members of the congregation go ahead and read through Ephesians so that they are prepared for the next six weeks. Today, we’ll start a 14 day journey going through the book of Ephesians, to better prepare ourselves for what Pastor Earl will be sharing in the next six weeks.

As we are doing this study, we will skip Saturday and Sunday, and pick back up again on Monday.

This study comes from the YouVersion Bible App…and can be downloaded to your phone. https://www.bible.com/

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God’s power in raising his Son from the dead can seem to be distant at times: when the land is dry, when you are dry, when life is dry. But Paul wants his readers to know how this power has worked to give them new life in an incomparably wonderful way. 

The language here is quite stark; literally, humans (all humans) are ‘dead-men walking.’ We are corpses who have no prospect of life (vs.1-3). It is the intervention of God – out of his will, his character of mercy and love – which exercises our resurrection. It is not a rescue, but a resurrection (vs.4-7). In Jesus (there is that postcode again) God deals with the judgment of our sin, and raises us to be acceptable to sit in his presence. From corpses to living people ‘in Christ,’ it is all God’s doing in Christ, as a gift, received by trusting him at his word (vs.8-10). The change is so significant that it affects how we walk, from ‘in sin’ to ‘good deeds’. What power! What a humbling gift!

Question:

What is so significant about how Christians have been changed from ‘corpses’ to people ‘holy and blameless,’ able to sit in God’s presence?

Prayer:

Dear Father, only you have the power to take a lifeless, sinful corpse and make it fit to dwell in your presence. Thank you that you have done all this in Jesus, whose perfect life is now mine, whose death paid my debt, whose resurrection shows your mercy. Help me to walk in this new life. Amen.

Ephesians 2:1-10

2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² 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— ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body^[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.^[b] 4 But^[c] God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, 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 coming ages he might show the immeasurable 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 your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.