Sinners

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following 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— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
-Ephesians 2:1-10

This was one of the passages that I was dwelling on the week of scatter. As we were dealing with the kids, I was tempting to judge them and I needed to preach the gospel to myself. I needed to remember that I am no different from them outside the blood of Christ. We had the tendency to pair the kids off into "good kids" and "bad kids." The gospel says there are no "good" and "bad" people; there are just sinners.

One thing I really like about these verses is that Paul tries to capture the wickedness of our hearts. It should be very sobering to read the first three verses. We were spiritually "dead." We "followed the the prince of the power of the air (Satan)." We were "sons of disobedience, living in the passions of our flesh." We were children of wrath. These are very graphic descriptions that Paul is giving trying to show how sinful we are.

Then we have the gracious words "but God". Paul heaps praises and praises upon God through His work, giving Him all the glory. As Paul shares the good news of salvation, he can't do it without trying his best (with our feeble vocabulary) to exalt God to the place he should be in our minds. It's all to glorify God. But the kicker for me was in verses eight and nine:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
-Ephesians 2:8-9

I have read these verses a million times and have known them from Awana, but this time it was different. Paul went from describing how sinful we are, to glorifying God, and then goes back to warning us about sin. He glorifies God, but he knows that we are so sinful that we will try to take credit for God's great gift! How wicked are our hearts to boast and be prideful of the change in our life, when it is God that is gracious enough to cause the change that happens at salvation.

I was hit with this especially when dealing with Tyler (for the story click here). It was very humbling to me. We go from sinning, into God's grace, then right back to sinning. God indeed in gracious to save a wretched people like ourselves. Praise Him and give Him the credit.