At the close of chapter 1, we saw that the job of the Church is to do the will of Christ – we are the body of Christ and he in turn is the Head of the church. And we are to seek that will in prayer and the study of the scriptures, and to pray for opportunities and boldness to share God’s love and Christ’s message of hope.
That followed the opening of the epistle, when Paul erupted with the praise of God for his gifts, in particular, salvation. Then he moved on to a prayer for the Ephesians, of both thanks and for the further refinement of their faith.
At the beginning of chapter 2, Paul zeroes in on “you,” dead in your sins. We are not on our deathbed and needing to accept medicine, we are dead and decaying. We are not drowning and needing to grab a life preserver, we are dead, bloated and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. We need the Father to do for us what he did for the Son – to raise us from the dead. We have no part in our justification – we were helpless to accomplish any part of it.
He uses the death metaphor, and then slavery. We are enslaved to three things – the course of the world, the ‘prince of the power of the air’, and the desires of our flesh.
The world of full of ideas and philosophies that are contrary to the truth of God, and we much be aware and on our guard against them. Likewise, the devil, the prince of the lower atmosphere, also at work in the “sons of disobedience” – not something we talk about a lot as a church, but maybe we should? Jesus did, and Paul will even more as we go through Ephesians.
So we have these outside influences, but ultimately we all have lived in our own passions and fulfilling our own desires. We have all broken faith with God and are “children of wrath.”
We must understand the hopelessness and despair that surround the status that God saved us out of, so that we are properly grateful for the greatness of our salvation.
This should also guide how we see others. Those around us are dead in their sins, and we have the secret of life.
-Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, August 23, 2020