While it is not as popular at Cornerstone as used to be, paintball is still an activity that many here at Cornerstone enjoy from time to time. Paintball is actually a glorified game of tag combined with simulated warfare where paintballs are fired from an air-powered gun with enough velocity that the ball breaks when it makes contact with another person, tagging that person with paint. If they are tagged, they are out of the game. As I said, though, paintball is simulated warfare. Players generally wear camouflage, paintballs are like bullets, and being hit with a paintball means you are dead. Of course, one of the great things about paintball is that it is only simulated warfare; players are not really killed when they get tagged, they are simply out of the game. Unfortunately, this has created a small problem in the world of paintball. You can spend five to ten minutes patiently sneaking up behind the other team and skillfully tag one of the other players, at which point he calmly stands up, declares himself out of the game, and then shouts to all of his teammates “Look out, Kyle’s hiding over there.” Suddenly, all your hard work of staying hidden has been for nothing and you now have the entire other team shooting at you all because someone you tagged out told them where you were. To counteract this, people have added a simple rule: Dead People Do Not Talk. Sadly, in a real war, a dead soldier cannot tell his fellow compatriots who shot him or warn them that someone is sneaking up them because the Dead Do Not Talk. Since Paintball is supposed to be like a simulated war, we use the same rule. If you are tagged, you are dead and you cannot talk to your teammates because Dead People Do Not Talk.

We have a similar situation here in this passage before us in Ephesians 2. The Apostle Paul says in verse 1: You were dead. Of course, Paul is not speaking of being tagged out in paintball or even of being physically dead, but of our being spiritually dead, and just as in paintball and real life Dead People Do Not Talk, spiritually dead people Do Not Talk To God. They do not follow after Him; they do not look for Him; they do not seek Him. They do not look to Him for salvation; they do not cry out to Him to save them. Instead, Romans 8 tells us that spiritually dead people are hostile to God, they want nothing to do with Him. They do not submit to God’s law, in fact they cannot submit to His Law. Those that are spiritually dead have no spiritual tendency in them whatsoever. And Paul tells us that this is what we were. We were not mostly dead or sort of dead or just pretend dead, we were totally dead, entirely incapable of Talking to God or Crying out to Him to save us.  We were like that pile of dry bones which we read about earlier in Ezekiel, So dead we could not even ask God for help, because the Spiritually Dead Do Not Talk to God.

And yet, Paul’s whole point in this passage is that in spite of all that, God in His grace saved us. In verse 4 Paul says: But…God (Pause and Repeat) But…God. We were dead, but…God. At last, a glimmer of hope, not coming from ourselves, remember, we were dead. Instead, the hope comes from God. We were dead, but God saved us. By His grace He saved us from our spiritual death, not because of who were, but because of who he is, in order for us to be who we are. We did not deserve to be saved, but God did not save us because of who we were, but because of who He is, so that we can be who we are now.

Paul spends the first three verses of Ephesians 2 making it crystal clear beyond any possible doubt that God did not save us because of who we were. This first point is crucial to Paul’s presentation of the gospel because to fully understand God’s graciousness, we must remember that God could not have saved us because of who we were. He did not save us because of who we were because we were the exact opposite of what He requires.

First, Paul tells us in verse 1 that we were walking in the opposite direction, walking in sin and trespasses. Paul is especially fond of this idea of walking. He uses it quite frequently throughout Ephesians and his other epistles to carry the idea of lifestyle, the way we act, the pattern of our behavior, the way we conduct ourselves. One commentator says that “walking is a choice of steps in a given direction.” We were not walking in righteousness, but in sin, we were walking away from God and His holiness. We were hostile to God. Every deed, every action, every moment of our lives was tainted by the fact that we were spiritually dead. Every part of our us was poisoned by our spiritual death and decay. God could not have saved us because of who we were because we were walking in the opposite direction, we were walking in sin.

Not only that, Paul also says God did not save us because of who we were because we were servants of the opposite kingdom. Paul says in verse 2 that we “followed 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.” There is no neutrality when it comes to what spiritual kingdom a person is a part of. Every person on earth is either a part of the kingdom of Light, which is God’s Kingdom or the Kingdom of darkness, which is the Kingdom of Satan. There is no middle ground. Prior to God saving us by His grace we were not a part of His kingdom, but Paul says in verse 2 we followed the prince of the power of the air. We were, by default, a part of Satan’s team. We were a part of the sons of disobedience through whom Satan is at work and through whom Satan operates His will. We were enemies, at war with God. God could not have saved us because of who were because we were a servants of the opposite kingdom.

Third, Paul says that God did not save us because of who we were because we followed our opposite nature. We had no inclination to follow God, no desire to serve Him. Instead, Paul says in verse 3: “we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind.” Our nature, our desire was to gratify the flesh. We had no desire to be saved from our sin; we liked our sin, we enjoyed it. Unfortunately, that part of our old nature often still lingers on. The flesh was our master. We had no inkling of turning to God, no inner turmoil of wanting to please Him. Everything we did was motivated by our old nature, our desire to serve ourselves. We were completely selfish and depraved, seeking to gratify our flesh. God could not have saved us because of who we were because we followed an opposite nature; we served only our fleshly desires.

Finally, not only does Paul say that we were walking in the opposite direction, servants of the opposite kingdom, and following our opposite nature, we deserved the opposite reaction of what God gave us. Paul tells us in verse 3 that we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. We stood condemned. We deserved eternal separation from God; eternal punishment; eternal death. Our sin, our dead flesh, our being part of the Kingdom of Darkness stood in stark contrast to the perfect holiness of God. We were far short of His perfect glory. Everything about us deserved the flames of Hell and God’s eternal judgment. God in his justice could not save us because of who we were because we stood deserving the opposite of His grace: we deserved His judgment.

Nothing in us deserved God’s grace. If it did, it would not be grace; it would have been a reward. We deserved judgment, not salvation. If you are here this morning and you trusting in your own good deeds to get you to heaven, don’t. We were wretched, spiritually dead, inwardly decayed. Some of you may be thinking “It wasn’t that bad. I mean, I didn’t kill anyone. Nobody is perfect but I occasionally served in soup kitchens, I didn’t even cheat on my taxes. Paul seems to be overstating the case. We may not have been Christians but we were still good people. The problem with this way of thinking is that if I not that bad, I don’t need God’s grace that much. Although painful, we need to fully grasp what we were in order to fully appreciate that God saved us only by His grace.

When I was 19 my grandfather, who was here visiting a couple of weeks ago, took me on a mission trip to Romania. We were all hosted by Romanian families, so my grandfather and I were hosted by a Romanian family along with a Physicians Assistant from Pennsylvania named Scott. At one point in the trip, my grandfather, Scott, and I were getting ready to eat dinner while the rest of the family was in a different room. The tradition in Romania is that guests like us eat separately in the dining room while the family eats in the kitchen. We were just about to enter the dining room when we noticed the rest of the family huddled around the family’s oldest son who had just returned from a mandatory military service in the Romanian army. They were all looking intently at a strange rash on the son’s foot. I’m not a doctor and neither is my grandfather, so we left the care of the rash to the care of Physician’s Assistant Scott and went ahead and started our dinner. A few minutes later Scott came into the dining room and we asked him what had happened. He told us that the son had pick up a nasty foot infection in the army by wearing used boots from a previous soldier. Scott told us that the family had no idea that the rash was serious and was simply putting some type of topical cream on it. I remember marveling at the family’s cluelessness. Even after Scott gave them the proper medication, the family probably only thought Scott had helped clean up a nasty rash. I figured I probably had a better grasp on the situation, so I asked Scott “If you hadn’t have been here, he would have lost his foot wouldn’t he.” Scott looked at me very seriously and said “No, actually with the type of infection he had, if I hadn’t not been here, he would have lost his life.” Only Scott grasped the seriousness of the disease. The family was thankful that Scott had saved their son from a rash, I was thankful Scott had saved the son’s foot, but Scott was the most thankful, understanding he had just saved the son’s life. The depth to which we understood the seriousness of the sickness directly affected how we understood what Scott had the done.

That is Paul’s point exactly here in telling us who we were. In order to fully appreciate what God has done for us by his grace we must first understand the seriousness of who we were. We were walking in the opposite direction, part of the opposite kingdom, following an opposite nature, and deserving the opposite response. God could not have based his saving of us on us because of who we were. When we understand that fact, we will remember that God did not save us because of who we were, but because of who He is.

Beginning in verse 4, Paul switches from discussing who we were to telling us who God is.

Paul first praises God in verse 4 for being rich in mercy. We were children of wrath, deserving God’s eternal punishment. We were spiritually dead, but instead of punishing us for being spiritually decrepit, he had mercy on us. He did not give us what we deserved. He did not punish us, instead He poured out his wrath and anger on Christ on the cross. He showered us with mercy forgiving us and not treating us as our sins deserve.

But not only is God merciful, He is also gracious. In verses 5, 7, and 8, Paul repeats the reality of God’s grace. If mercy is not giving us what is deserved, grace is giving us what is not deserved. Again, if mercy is not giving what is deserved, grace is giving what is undeserved. Instead of who we were, dead and spiritually decaying, God made us spiritually alive in Christ. When God raised Christ from the dead in verse 6, He raised us up as well, making us spiritually alive in Christ. Verse 8 says that God in His grace even gave us the faith to believe in Him. Look at verse 8: For it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. But what is “it?” “It” is the last thing mentioned, in this case, faith, but the gift that Paul has in mind is not just faith but the entire process of our salvation, including the faith necessary to believe in God. It is all a gift from God. As those spiritually dead we did not even have the faith necessary to believe, but God gives us that as well. His graciousness extends even to giving us the faith to believe in Him to save us.

And why did He do all of this? Paul says back in verse 5 that it is because of the great love with which he loved us. God is merciful, not punishing us as we deserved. He is gracious, giving us the reward for what Christ did. He is powerful, giving both physical and spiritual life. And all of this is because God loves us. Only love can explain why he did not punish us for our sins. Instead, he punished His one and only son for what we had done. Only love can explain why he gave us what we did not deserve, giving us spiritual life. He loved the unlovable. He, the spiritual life, loved the spiritual dead. He saved us, not because of who were, but because of who He is.  

Not long ago, there was a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who pulled into a service station to get gas. He went inside to pay, and when he came out he noticed his wife engaged in a deep discussion with the service station attendant. It turned out that she knew him. In fact back in high school before she met her eventual husband, she used to date this man. The CEO got in the car, and the two drove in silence. He was feeling pretty good about himself when he finally spoke: "I bet I know what you were thinking. I bet you were thinking you're glad you married me, a Fortune 500 CEO, and not him, a service station attendant." "No, the wife said, I was thinking if I'd married him, he'd be a Fortune 500 CEO and you'd be a service station attendant."

Both the wife and the husband believed that the husband’s success was because of them. We often do that same thing with God. We think better of ourselves than we should; we forget who we were. We trust in ourselves rather than putting our faith in God to save us through Christ. We often silently believe, although we would probably never say it, that God got a pretty good deal when He saved us. We lose sight of the fact that we are who we are today because of who God is. When we limit the greatness of our sin, we also limit the greatness of His love, his mercy, and his grace. By limiting our sin, we limit our understanding of who God is. He saved us because He is merciful, because He is gracious, because He is powerful, because He is loving. We must realize that He saved us because of who He is, not who we were, so that no one can boast.

Finally, Paul wants us to rejoice that God saved us to be who we are. And who are we?

In verse 5, Paul tells us first that we are alive. We were spiritually dead, but now in Christ God has made us alive. He has given us spiritual life. Romans 8 told us that spiritually dead people are hostile to God, they want nothing to do with Him. They do not submit to God’s law, in fact they cannot submit to it. We did not follow God’s law but our opposite nature, a nature opposed to God and His will. Instead, we followed the desires of our flesh. But now, having been made alive in Christ, we can submit to God’s law. We can seek after God. We are no longer hostile but now turn to God as a loving Father. God has given us a new nature, one that can turn to God and seek Him, a nature controlled not by the desires of the flesh but by the Spirit of God at work in us.

We are also free from the power of darkness. When God He exalted Christ, verse 6 tells us that He seated us with Christ as well in the heavenly places. When God exalted Christ over the spiritual forces of this world, He also freed us from their power. He made us a part of Christ’s dominant, all-encompassing, all-powerful kingdom of light. We are freed from our previous kingdom. And now, having been seated with Christ in His kingdom we are no longer under that former kingdom. It no longer has any power over us, we have been raised above it.

We once also walked in the opposite direction when we were spiritually dead. We walked in sin and trespasses. But now, Paul tells us in verse 10, we no longer walk in that direction. Instead, Paul says that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand, that we should walk in them. We no longer have to walk in the opposite direction. Instead, God has changed our nature and brought us into His kingdom, so that we can walk in His direction, walking in good works.

The topic of good works is a subject that Paul spends a great deal of time on in Ephesians. In fact, he spends the last three chapters of Ephesians talking about what these good works look like. Remember, chapters 1-3 set the stage for living out the gospel in chapter 4-6. Here Paul tells us that we do good works because that is who we are. Sin and trespass naturally proceeded from who we were, now good works naturally come from who we are in Christ. Now, we are a part of the kingdom of light. Now we follow a new nature, having been made spiritually alive in Christ. Good works, then, works that live out the reality of the gospel in our lives, are the natural result of who we now are.

But this is not supposed to be a divine pep-talk “Now get out there and do good works.” That would be putting the focus back on us and our effort. The Apostle Paul has kept the same focus through every one of these ten verses. Anything good, anything spiritual could not be because of us because of who we were. God could not have saved because of who we were; it had to be because of who he is. And who we are today is not because of who we were, but because of who He is. We do good works, not because of us but because of Him. Verse 10 is not a command “Do good works” it is a statement: Those in Christ do good works, that is the natural result of God’s mercy, grace, power, and love at work in our lives. It causes us to walk in good works. We are God’s workmanship. It is no accident that the word “work” occurs in the word “workmanship.” We walk in righteousness and holiness because of the work of God in us. Even our good works we do are because of who He is, because of His grace at work in us, giving us spiritual life. If we limit our understand of our sin, we limit who God is and the depth of His grace. If we take credit for our good works, we do the same thing. Instead, we should rejoice that even what we are is not because of who we were, but because of who He is.

I read something this week about a baseball card from 1982 that is currently worth over fifty dollars. There are three players on this card, all Rookies at the time. The first is Jeff Schneider. Schneider played only 1 year of professional baseball, pitched in only 11 games, and gave up 13 runs in those 11 games. The second player is Bobby Bonner, who played 4 years of baseball but only appeared in only 61 games, batted in only 8 runs, and never hit a home run. By now you are probably thinking why anyone would pay fifty dollars for this card. The reason is that the third player on the card is Cal Ripken, Jr. who played 21 years for the Baltimore Orioles and appeared in 3,001 games. He came to bat 11,551 times, had 3,184 hits, hitting 431 home runs, and batted in 1,695 runs. He is the reason the card is worth so much.

Schneider and Bonner, the other two players, have a baseball card that is worth quite a bit of money, but it is not because of who they were, but because of who Cal Ripken is. Cal Ripken has given Schneider and Bonner value. Whatever money that baseball card makes is because of Ripken. Schneider and Bonner have no room for boasting. Instead, they must recognize the greatness of Cal Ripken.

God could not have saved us because of who we were and we cannot produce good works because of who we were. Instead, God saved us because of who he is. He saved us from our spiritual death and made us who we are: those that are spiritually alive walking in good works. Just like Schneider and Bonner, the exact opposite of successful baseball players were made valuable by Ripken, God saved us, not because of who we were, but because of who he is, because of He is loving, because He is rich in mercy, because of He is powerful, and because of He is gracious. God saved us, not by works so that no one can boast, for we are God’s workmanship. Let’s remember then who we were, realize who God is, and rejoice that He has made us who we are.