Well, good morning to all of you. In front of me is actually just two elders, two church members, just four people. Of course, the live streaming team. And I’m aware that although you can see me, I cannot see you, but I trust that most of you are tuning in through this morning’s live stream worship service. Well, before we come to our message this morning, now let us open in prayer. Let’s pray.

“Father in heaven, we pray O Lord that as we consider Your words from the letter of Ephesians, we know that these are words that come from You. Now these are words that have spiritual meaning, and we, therefore, ask O Lord for spiritual help. We ask that the Holy Spirit would work in our hearts. Help us to calm our hearts down to focus on what You have to say to us. We pray O Lord that You’ll grant us humble hearts to accept lessons that so often would hurt our egos and indeed cause us to examine ourselves, the sin that we have in us. So we pray O Lord that You’ll help us this morning, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

Now turn your Bibles with me to the letter of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2, we’re going through Ephesians chapter 2. Now, this morning, the sermon text is chapter 2 verses 4 to 10, but let me read to you again all ten verses of, sorry let me read to you the first ten verses of Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians 2:1- “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”.

I know that some of you may be tuning in for the first time in this series of the letter of Ephesians, so let me again try to refresh your memory. Now the last time I preached on this series was about one month ago. And as mentioned in the last sermon, we are looking at the chapter of contrast. Chapter 2 of Ephesians is a chapter of contrast. Look again in verse 1, it says you “who were dead”. What is the contrast? Well, see verse 5: “Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together in Christ”. So the contrast is once dead; now alive.

If you look further down, you can see another contrast in verse 12: “Now at this time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”. What is the contrast? See in verse 19: “Now, therefore now, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God”. Before this you were strangers and aliens, now you are united. You are together with the household of God. So you can see the two contrasts here. It’s very clear once dead; now alive. Once separated; now united. And these are descriptions of who a Christian truly is.

A Christian is now alive. He was once dead, but he is now alive. He was once separated, but now he is united with Christ and the household of God. And today we continue to look at Ephesians, the first part of Ephesians which is verse 1 to 10, and we will focus more on verse 4 to 10, which talks about the great salvation of man. So remember in the first part, the contrast is once dead; now alive. You can see that this is a great transformation that has happened. Now there’s a lot to be said about these few verses, but I have summarized them down into just three points, and they are in the form of a question.

Now firstly, who is the author of this great transformation? Who is the author of this change (or in bracket who saved us)? Secondly, we will consider what is the method of this change (in bracket, what did God do)? And thirdly, we would have a look at what is the basis of this change (or in bracket what is the basis of salvation)? So firstly, who is the author of this change, or who saved us? Let’s revise again before we build up to the point from verse 1 to verse 3. Again look: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins”. So before this, you were dead. You were in a spiritual state of deadness. There was no life in you.

But when you look at verse 2: “In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience”. Now not only were you dead, you were also actively evil. You lived according to how sinful people lived, according to the sinful systems of this world. You lived according to the influence of the devil. You lived according to (in verse 3) “the lust of your flesh”. You fulfilled the desires of your evil heart. There was nothing godly about you. In verse 3 also it says that you were under the wrath of God.

Not only you were dead in your sins, you lived according to the evil desires of your flesh, the sinful lust of your flesh. You lived according to the evil systems of this world, under the influence of the devil. You, as a result of all of this, you were under the wrath of God because one day He will come and judge you. And when He judges you, He will find you guilty. Now can you see here the very depraved and helpless nature of man? Man’s condition, he is dead. Man’s practice, according to the evil systems of this world, according to the influence of the devil, motivated by the lust of the flesh. Man’s position, under the wrath of God. Man here is in a very helpless situation. By right we should cry for help because we are in danger of eternal punishment for our sins.

We need someone to save us. The natural thing to do in situations like this is to cry for help. The problem is man does not want to cry for help. We are dead in our sins. We are depraved by nature in such helpless and hopeless cases such as these. What is the next word we would like to hear? What is the next conjunction which would change this whole situation? Now if I could just use and bring up an example of our dear brother Aaron who has just or is still recovering from dengue. You know our dear brother Aaron has got dengue and he has high fever. He does not have any strength. He’s very weak, he has no appetite. Therefore, he laid in bed for forty days and forty nights.

Now is that conjunction word ‘therefore’ something that helps the situation? No, it just explains the result of his situation. Let’s try if we use a different conjunction. Our dear brother Aaron is sick. He has got dengue, he has high fever, and he could not take care of the kids. Now the word ‘and’ also does not help our situation here. The conjunction word that we are looking for is a word that would change the situation. It will change this (a bad and sad situation). How about we try another word? Our dear brother Aaron is sick. Now he has got dengue, he has high fever, now he does not have appetite to eat. But, now his dear wife Ern Huey was able to bring him to the hospital, and the doctors were able to treat him.

Aaron was very weak, his platelet count was going down, but the doctors were able to monitor him and feed him with nutrients and grant him the proper care. And therefore, he recovered. Can you see here the word that we are looking for? The word that we are looking for here is the conjunction word ‘but’. The word ‘but’ is the word that brings a hope and happiness. The word ‘but’ is the word that changes the situation, a depraved situation to a situation of hope. The word ‘but’ is the word that changes a sad situation into a happy one. And that’s exactly what we see here in verse 4: “But God”. “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)”.

You were dead in your sin. You lived according to the course of this world, according to the devil, according to the lust of your flesh. But God. Who is our great Saviour? He’s definitely not your pastor, he’s definitely not your family, not your friends, not your teachers, not your brother and sisters. Our great Saviour is God. But God. God is the One who saves us. He is the author of our salvation. He is the One who initiates this change. He is the One who brought this change in our lives. He alone has the power to make the dead rise again, and by His mighty word the dead become the living. Why did He save us? Is it because we were cute, or is it because we were good? Is it because we were worth saving?

Well, it says here in the verse: “But God, who is rich in mercy”. “Rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive”. Our God is someone who is rich in mercy. Mercy is showing pity with action. God withholds His judgment from us. By right we are supposed to receive punishment from Him, but God withholds that. He shows us mercy. And because of His great love, God’s love is something so mysterious that we cannot understand. He was willing to send His only Son, Jesus Christ down to this earth. He lived a perfect life. He did not do anything wrong, and yet He was the one who had to pay for our sins by dying on the cross.

Can you see such love from God shown towards us? Our God is rich in mercy. He is great in love. And if we actually knew how evil we are, you’ll never understand why God would ever want to save us. His mercy is just too rich to imagine, and His love too great to comprehend. Now, who is the author of this change? God. God is the One who saves us, but what did God do? What is the method of this transformation? Now if you have to bring out another example, you see a piece of land. Now the land is like a forest, it’s a very rural land. There are a lot of trees and a very few buildings. Now you leave that land. You go away to probably further your studies for about five years or so.

And when you return to this land, you see a new transformation. The land which was once like a kampung is now a modern city. There are highways, there are roads, there are tall buildings, shopping malls, and all kinds of other buildings. And you see wow, what a big change. And then you ask the developer or the mayor, and you asked him: How do you bring about this change? I see such a big change that has happened to this piece of land. What did you do? And the mayor said: Well, I raised some funds, I collected some money, and then I hired a project manager to help me oversee this whole construction project, hired some architects and engineers, and they did the design for me.

And then after the design was done, we called the contractors and they constructed the whole thing according to this wonderful design. So you see, the mayor was describing the method of how he changed this once rural and kampung area into a modern city. And we want to see right here that there is a change that has happened in our lives, and we see what did God do. What is the method of our transformation? What did He do with a dead soul? Now let’s look at verses 4 to 6 again. “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”.

Now before I break those verses down, I just want to make sure that you saw a repeated word, that is ‘together’. Now Paul emphasises again and again, actually not just in this verse but throughout his whole letter of the Ephesians and in many places of the Bible that there is a togetherness with Christ. See here: “in Christ”, “with Christ”, “through Christ”. And throughout the text, you see: “in whom”, “with whom”, “through whom”. This is one of the most profound statements of a condition and a position of a Christian. Now you may ask: What is a Christian? Some of you may say a Christian is someone who has faith, or a Christian is someone who prays, or perhaps a Christian is someone who goes to church. But at its very essence, a Christian is someone who has union with Christ.

We are connected with Christ as Christians. We have a covenantal relationship with Him. He is our federal Head. He is the vine, we are the branches. Life flows through Him and into us. He is the head of the church and we are the body, and there is a togetherness with Christ in terms of what God has done to us in this salvation. Now that was just a brief mention on the union with Christ, and perhaps it’s worth coming back again to this text to dig deeper of what this wonderful doctrine means to us. But let us focus on our point in this second point this morning, which is what God has done to us.

Now let me read again those verses, in case you did not catch what God has done to us, and I’ll read it in point form so that it is more clearer. Verse 4 again: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses”, number one, “made us alive together with Christ”. Number two, “raised us together with Christ”. Number three, “made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ”. Firstly, we see that God made us alive. He made us alive, referring to the impartation of life. Imagine an injured boy. The boy has wounds on his back, on his leg, on his head. The boy is so weak he cannot move. He has a severe wound, and he’s just there lying dead on the ground.

And me and my friend, we go near the boy and we try to see what’s wrong with him, or we saw that he is injured and we try to help him. We take him home, we take him to the hospital, and then we ask the doctors to treat his wounds, to nurture him back to full health. And after about two weeks, the boy finally gained his strength. He finally gained his strength and he was able to return home. Now that is not the impartation of life. The boy, even though he was injured, although he was lying on the ground, there was still life in him. What merely happened was that the doctors treated the boy, and in time the boy healed.

Now impartation of life means life was given where life was not found at first. If we walked to the boy who was lying on the ground again, and I see there was no life in that boy, we would not have considered the option to ask the doctors to treat him. We would have already planned a funeral for that boy. The impartation of life is not the strengthening of a life that is weak. It is not the nurturing of a life that is present. There was no life in us at first, but life came to us from an outside source. The source was God, and God imparted life to us. He made us alive.

Secondly, God raised us up in Christ. God raised us up in Christ, referring to the manifestation of life. Manifestation is the action of showing something, the proof, or the reality that something is true. Now we see the example of the boy again. We go to the boy who is now dead, and I looked at the boy and I saw supposedly an impartation of life. And I nudged my friend and I tell my friend excitedly: Hey, the boy has life! Look at that! The boy has been given life! But my friend beside me looks at me and he scratches his head: Woei Shyong, what are you talking about? The boy is still lying there. He still has not moved. Now he has not risen yet. Now if the boy were to be imparted life, surely there has to be some proof.

A person who was once dead and is now made alive will rise again. If the boy did not rise again, there will be no proof that life was imparted to that boy. And we see that whenever life is imparted to someone who is dead, the person will surely rise. A dead man will not remain motionless. We see the same idea in many places of the Bible where Christ risen, when He was resurrected from the dead in Matthew 28:6- “He is not here; for He is risen”. We see Christ telling His disciples to not just impart life to the dead but to raise the dead in Matthew 10:8- “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, and raise the dead”. And even in John 11:1-44, we see the story of Jesus healing Lazarus and raising him up from the dead.

And so we see here the dead who are given life will rise again, now proving that life exists. So first, God imparts life to us. Secondly, He raises us up from the dead. And thirdly, He made us sit together in the heavenly places. He made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, referring to the exaltation of life. Again we use the example of the dead boy who has been now imparted with life. And since he was now given life, he has been resurrected from the dead, the boy now stands up. He rises up, and then he goes home to his family who is supposedly missing him. And what do you think the parents would say? What do you think the mother would say? Ah, you again ah, I thought you’re dead already?

No, that’s not how the family would react. It would be a time of celebration and rejoicing. The whole family would be happy, and they would celebrate the resurrection of their boy whom they thought was already missing and dead. Similarly, now there will come a time where our salvation would reach a completion. We will come to a consummation, and our bodies will be re-joined back to our souls, and our bodies will be glorified, and we will return home to our heavenly home with Christ Jesus. Exaltation means that there will be a day of delight, a day of rejoicing, a day of jubilation after our short stay on earth. After all the pain, all the trials, all the tears, we’ll finally be home with heaven with Christ Jesus, and we’ll all be there celebrating and praising our God.

So what is the method of this transformation? What did God do? He made us alive together with Christ. He raised us up together with Christ, and He seated us in the heavenly places with Christ. And finally, we come to the third point. What is the basis of this change? What is the basis of this salvation? We know that God is the one who initiated this change from dead to alive. He is the author. He is the One who saves, but we know He does not save everyone on this earth. There will be some who will end up in hell, and there will be some who will end up in heaven. Now, but what is the basis that He saves some? Now with regards to this question, you’ll find that basically, they are only two answers.

Firstly, there are religions in this world that teaches that the basis of salvation is works. Whether you’ll end up in heaven or hell is totally on the basis of what you have done on this earth. For example, probably you’ll think God looks down on this earth and He sees if there are any people praying. And if He sees this group of people praying, then He will come and save you. Or He looks down on this earth and He sees who goes to church, and those who goes to church will eventually be granted access to heaven. Or maybe, even worse, some of you say that whoever is baptised. If you are not baptised, you go to hell. If you are baptised, then you enter into heaven. All these are considered works-based salvation. All these are considered works-based salvation.

But as we have read all day in our text, we know that this is not true. We know that this is not true because man by nature is dead, and man’s desire by nature is evil. And so the second answer or the alternative answer is found right here in our text, and let’s see again from verse 4 before we build up all the way to verse 8 and 9, concerning what is the basis of our salvation. Verse 4 again: “But God”. “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)”. By grace, you have been saved.

But some of you might say: Okay, I agree that I see clearly in this text that it is God’s grace that we are saved. I grant that you are right here, but could it be it is a combination of grace and works? Maybe God did ninety percent of what is required to save us and bring us back to heaven, and the rest of the ten percent we contributed in our prayer, in our baptism, in our church membership. Now look again in the following verses. Verse 6: “and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”. What is the goal in verse 7? That He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, not your works. What is the essential nature of our change? From dead to alive. Verse 8: “You have been saved”, not you will be saved. You have been saved before any works. What is the principle cause? Verse 8: “By grace”, by God’s undeserving favour which He bestowed to us in Christ Jesus. Not deserving favour, undeserving favour. What is the instrumental means? Verse 8: “Faith”. By faith. We receive grace by faith. Now you say: Aha. Well, you see here it is grace and works.

But Paul knows that some of you might have been thinking that, and he says: No, faith is not a work for salvation. Faith is a means to receive it. The source of this means? Verse 8: “The gift of God”. Faith is a gift from God. The false cause? Verse 9: “Not of works”, and the false end, verse 9: “lest anyone should boast”. Can you see here how Paul structures this so clearly for our understanding? You are saved by grace, and there is a means of how you receive this grace. Yes, the means is through faith, but faith is not a work. It is not of works, lest any of you should boast. The answer here could not be any clearer. We are not saved by works, we are not saved by grace and works.

We are saved from our sins. We are saved from our position of the wrath of God. We are saved from eternal punishment by grace alone, and Paul summarises it so clearly here in verses 8 and 9, wonderful words which we should all memorise. Now I just have two concluding points before we close. Again God is the source of our salvation. God is the One who initiates this change. And in this great work of salvation, God imparted life to us. He raised us up, and He seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And the basis of this salvation is grace, grace alone. If salvation is by grace alone, then this doctrine should give every sinner hope.

Some of you listening are so discouraged at times because of something wrong you have done in the past. Perhaps you have committed adultery. You have not been faithful to your wife. Now perhaps you have been angry with someone, and that anger was sinful. And therefore you’ve committed murder in your heart. And some of you perhaps have committed repeated sins, and you are just so discouraged in your heart. You wonder: Is God even able to save a person such as me? Well if God should deal with us by our works, then yes there is reason to despair because your works are going to cause you to go to hell. But our God, because of His great love, because that He is rich in mercy, He is someone who deals with us in grace.

Our God is someone who deals with us in grace, and He is willing and able to forgive us all our sins. Our sins are not an impediment for salvation. We committed, whether is it one sin or is it a thousand sins, our God is still willing and able to forgive. And secondly, my second concluding point is I want to urge you to come to Him in faith and repentance. Do not try to buy salvation. Do not try to work for salvation. Your sins are just too many and too great. The payment for salvation is just more than you can afford. Do not try to give offerings or burn sacrifices to the Lord. Even if you burn down the whole of Malaysia also it would not be enough to pay for your sins.

Come to God. Come to God and ask for faith and forgiveness. If salvation is by grace, then plead for grace. Plead with God that you are a sinner. Plead with Him that you are helpless. Plead with Him for mercy. Plead with Him that you are a person who is evil and vile. Do not promote your righteousness to Him. Plead with Him. Tell Him that you are miserable. Tell Him that you are undone, and then plead for God to come down and grant you the gift of faith to trust in Him, to trust in Christ for salvation. Plead for true repentance, that you may turn away from your sins. With that, now let us close in prayer.

“Our Father in heaven, we thank You for Your great message of salvation by grace. We know that whatever we do, it will never be enough to merit salvation. Help us O Lord to humble our hearts to confess that we are sinners, we have walked according to the course of this world, according to the influence of the devil, according to the lust of our flesh. Teach us O Lord not to be arrogant. Help us to come to You as someone who is already so miserable, someone who has lost all hope in ourselves; lost all hope in the works of man.

Help us to come to You, to seek forgiveness from You, to ask from You the gift of faith that we may be able to trust in Christ alone, to ask for true repentance that we may turn away from our sins. We pray O Lord for friends who are still outside Your kingdom. We pray that the Holy Spirit will open their hearts and cut their hearts. Help them to see how a terrible sinner they are. We pray O Lord that You will turn them to Christ alone, for all these, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.