WEEK TWO
Day Two
DAILY SCRIPTURE
Ephesians 2:8-9
LEADER GUIDE QUESTIONS
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Know: Read Ephesians 2:7-22
Note: Read slowly, carefully marking keywords- continue to mark the words from previous lessons—Mark keywords with a different color or with a symbol to differentiate them.
Continue to mark keywords: In Him, In Christ, grace, faith. Continue to add to your “In Him list.”
Ages
Workmanship
Gentiles
Law, Commandments
Observation: Study notes below for context. Journal your thoughts or questions.
What: In what way would you say that you are God’s workmanship?
“So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:7
When Paul wrote this letter, he was still living in the age of the Mosaic covenant, meaning the old covenant of law and the new covenant coexisted until the Mosaic Temple was utterly destroyed in AD 70. We live in the age Paul spoke of- the ages to come. God’s grace spans through all the time and will never cease.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8
The person of Jesus, the person who IS grace, died your death, was buried as you, and was resurrected to life as you.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
To hear by the word is to hear Jesus. When we have heard, believed, and received what Jesus has done,we awaken to the love of God. Before the cross, the requirements for righteousness were based on keeping the law.
Romans 5:17 says, “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”
“recieve” is the word “lambano” in Greek. It means “To take hold of, to take.”
“abundance” is “perisseia,” which means “superabound, gain, profit.”
“gift” is the word “dorea” which means “free gift.”
“righteousness” is the “state of him who is as he ought to be, the condition acceptable to God.”
“reign” is the word “basileuo,” which means to exercise kingly power.
We are supposed to reign in life. If our life looks more like defeat than victory, we may not have awakened to all Jesus supplied. Hope is awakened when we hear Jesus’ gift of grace- His salvation, forgiveness, grace, healing, deliverance, righteousness, etc.. Faith then takes hold of those promises as one’s own. When we have received Jesus’ righteousness as our own, we begin to reign in life. We exercise the dominion we have been given as sons of God. This is what we were designed for! It is not our works that make us righteous, but His work alone.
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10
When God created the cosmos and humanity, every detail was thought of. He breathed His breath into Adam to give him life.
We are not a product of science or fate, nor are we a mistake put in the wrong body or family. We were made in God’s image, the likeness of Him here on earth; wherever we are, we are designed to restore the value of those we are placed around.
Your purpose is to get Jesus out of you and into the world. Jesus did not die to get you to heaven but to get heaven into you. We cannot love what we do not value. Therefore, love raises the value of the ones around us. If you believe that you still have a long way to go before you are like Jesus, you will live a perpetually defeated and discouraged life. The reality is, you are already like Jesus. As He is, so are you in the world. The issue is not that we are “trying” to become like Jesus. The issue is awakening to the Jesus in you; stop living in the flesh and live by the Spirit. We mature in levels of this spiritual life as we experience His presence.
You are what you behold. We become love as we behold love.
How does this look in daily life?
When we encounter people in their sins, they should experience the same thing (through us) that we did when we encountered Jesus in our sins.
If someone were to sin against you in some way, think of what Jesus did on the cross. He took up your sin and gave you His righteousness. As He forgave, you are now empowered to forgive. Take up their sin against you, cast it away, and give them your forgiveness.
“Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:11-22
Paul is writing this letter to an audience made up of mostly “Gentile” Christians, meaning they were non-Jews for the most part. Paul reminds them of who they once were and then shows them who they are now. God’s heart was never that there be two groups of people. His intent was made a reality in Christ- that they have become as they always ought to have been, and then he points to their future hope.
This is how we, too, should live our lives. We look toward the past only to remind us of what we once were; we look to what we have become, which gives us hope for the future.
For the Jew, the standard for righteousness had been in keeping the law. For the Gentiles, their standard for righteousness had been in idolatrous worship. Now, the standard is based not on their performance, but on Christ’s perfect performance. We are all hidden in Him.