Live on Purpose

Ephesians 2:4-5

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, 5 made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

I want you to know that you can be changed.  You can have your eternal destiny settled.  You can be saved from your sin.  It is all because of grace.

GRACE IS THE ULTIMATE BUT GOD WORD.  Grace is getting something that we don’t deserve.  

Let’s try to put into perspective why GRACE is such a big deal.  Grace is so magnificent  and I pray that you experience it.  

The reason is because of God Himself.  But not in the way you might think.  When we you read verses 4-5 it is beautiful.  But there is a reason that we needed that kind of intervention.

Look at the verses that came before.

Ephesians 2:1-3

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

Several truths are seen from the above verses…

SIN MAKES US DEAD

DEAD.  You and I are spiritually dead.  Before you meet Christ we have no spiritual pulse whatsoever.  There is nothing we can do to please God.  Just like a person who is physically dead has no pulse whatsoever – being spiritually dead means we are unable to respond to spiritual things.  A dead person – simply put – is dead! 

No function of life whatsoever.  What makes us dead?  Our SIN.  

Romans 6:23 

The wages of sin is death…

Isaiah 59:2

But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.

Before Jesus – before Grace – before BUT GOD who is rich in mercy – we are not just sick or in need of some help.  We are DEAD.  We don’t need resuscitation – you need resurrection!

I know this is heavy  but it is vital that we deal with it.

You see Ephesians 3:3 essentially tells us that we are doomed.  We are children UNDER WRATH!

John the Baptist said this of Jesus

John 3:36

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

The New Living Translation finishes that verse this way…”remains under God’s angry judgment.”

That is where the rubber meets the road for us.  In order for us to truly understand the love and grace of God –  we have to understand the wrath of God.  Now of course we don’t like to talk about this part of God but to understand God’s love, we must understand His wrath because it is real.  So what do we need to know?

GOD’S WRATH IS FAIR

God is holy and because of that he can’t associate with sin.  His holiness causes Him to judge sin completely.  Because he is holy he must judge sin in such a way that brings about glory to Him.

GOD’S WRATH IS TO BE FEARED

We have to fear his wrath because we are all guilty.  We are all under that judgment.  We can’t escape it.  We are doomed. (Remember Ephesians 3:3)

If you are without Christ, you are under the wrath of God because He is holy and He must judge sin.  

Pastor David Platt said…

“We can’t fully appreciate the grace of God without fully appreciating the holiness of God. To put it another way, we can’t know the greatness of our salvation without knowing just what we’ve been saved from. The Bible is very clear on this point: What we’ve been saved from, by God’s grace, is God Himself.”

Now let me get to the good part once again… BUT GOD.

Romans 5:8

8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

2 Corinthians 5:21

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

“BUT GOD” SATISFIED HIS WRATH AGAINST SIN IN CHRIST JESUS!!

Because of Jesus, we can experience the grace and mercy of a Holy God.  God through Jesus, did what we could not do and he has done what we do not deserve.  He saved us from His own wrath.  

He brought us to life.

We are dead in our trespasses and sins.  We were doomed to spiritual death.  We were destined to experience the wrath of God.   BUT GOD sent Jesus.

So, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God did something that we could not do for ourselves.   He made us alive.  This was not about “corrective behavior.”  This was about breathing life into the lifeless.

Jesus didn’t die to make bad people good.  He died to make dead people alive!  

Ephesians 2:8

8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.

I pray that you realize today if you don’t have a personal relationship with Christ, if you have never believed in what He did for you on the cross that you WILL experience this BUT GOD moment in your life. Believe that he took God’s wrath for you.  Believe that because of Him you can have life!

If you are a Christ-follower and have accepted Jesus by grace and believed that he took the wrath of your sin upon him so that you can become righteous, thank God today for that!  Don’t take it for granted.  Live like it!