Ephesians 2:1-7 — From Death to Life

I recently heard a pastor narrate a story of when he knocked on the door of a notorious mob boss to share the Gospel with him and his wife. His wife received the Lord then and the mob boss did some time later.

If you had the opportunity to share the Gospel with that mob boss would you have done so?
God doesn't save people like that, right?
Is there anyone in your life that you think is too far gone to receive the grace of God?

I hear unbelievers sometimes say that the reason they despise Christianity is that it teaches that anyone can be saved. That shouldn't surprise us since by nature, we are prideful and think that we can earn our salvation.

What about you? Do you think someone has to be good enough to hear the Gospel?

If you have preconceived notions about who can be saved and who cannot, you are not only diminishing the infinite grace of God and the immeasurable redemption of Christ on the cross, but you are also hindering the growth of your witness and the effectiveness of your ministry, and are living in legalism and hypocrisy. You need to understand the exceeding greatness of God's grace!

Ephesians 2:1-7 says that we understand the depth of God's grace when we realize that we were completely separated from God with no hope of salvation until God made us alive. In Ephesians 1:20–23, the Apostle Paul explained the remarkable power which God manifested by raising Christ from the dead, and how that power exalted Christ to the right hand of God. He conveyed this after praying that the Ephesians saints would be able to understand and appreciate the magnitude of God’s power which He manifested for them and made available to them. Here in Ephesians 2:1–7, Paul explains specifically how God has used His power in their salvation.

The unbeliever is dead to God. Death here means that the unbeliever is completely separated from God. There is nothing he can do to be reconciled to a Holy God. The unbeliever is in bondage to the world, the devil, and the flesh. Consequently, he is under God’s wrath. However, because God deals graciously with us, those who believe gain a new position with God. Believers are made “alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5). That is why that horrible predicament of believers, before their union with Christ, can only be described as passing from death to life when they are united with Christ in His death and resurrection.

Every believer, who wants to grow less in their legalism but more in their evangelism, needs to internalize the truth of Ephesians 2:1-7.