From Death to Life: Understanding Your Past, Present, and Future in Christ


We are currently in week three of our six-week journey through the first part of Ephesians, exploring the incredible privileges we hold as believers in Christ.

Before we dive into today’s text, let’s do a quick review of what we’ve uncovered so far. We've established that God the Father is absolutely delighted to:

  • Adopt you & Redeem you

  • Forgive you & Choose you

  • Reveal the knowledge of His will to you

  • Seal you with the Holy Spirit

Last week, we looked at Paul’s continuous prayer for the Ephesian believers. He asked that God would give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so they could know God the Father better. He prayed that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened to know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance, and the immense power available to those who believe. Finally, we learned a beautiful truth: as the church, we are a part of what fulfills Christ.

But in Ephesians 2, Paul changes direction. To truly appreciate the height of our privileges, we must first look down into the pit from which we were rescued.

1. The Believer’s Past: Spiritually Dead

"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air..." — Ephesians 2:1-2

Paul lists about six characteristics of our lives before Christ. The headline is startling: You were dead.

What kind of death is this?

  • It is not a natural death (we could still eat and drink).

  • It is not a rational death (we could still reason and discuss).

  • It is not a civil death (we could buy, sell, and trade).

  • It is not a moral death (people can still pray, meditate, or choose social good).

This death is a spiritual death. To be spiritually dead means to be condemned and utterly separated from God, possessing zero power to act for Him.

Who Is Your Daddy?

Before Christ, we lived to gratify the cravings of our sinful nature, making us—as the King James Version puts it—"children of wrath."

This begs a pop-culture question with a serious spiritual answer: Who is your daddy?

Jesus bluntly told the self-righteous Pharisees in John 8:44: "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire." Without Christ, our baseline nature is one of disobedience.

2. The Believer’s Present: "But God..."

The narrative completely shifts with two of the greatest words in all of Scripture: BUT GOD.

"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved." — Ephesians 2:4-5

Notice the catalysts for our rescue: God’s eternal love and His rich mercy.

When we were still His enemies, God gave. True to Jesus’ command in Matthew 5 to "love your enemies," God practiced what He preached. He didn't wait for us to clean ourselves up. While we were dead, He made us alive.

An essential note on how this transformation works:

  • Justification takes away our legal enmity and reconciles God to us.

  • Sanctification takes away our natural enmity and reconciles us to God.

3. The Believer’s Future: Raised, Seated, and Commissioned

God did not just pull us out of the grave; He elevated us to the highest heights.

Raised and Seated

God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms. Why? "...in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace."

Think of GRACE as an acronym: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.

Saved for Good Works

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." — Ephesians 2:8-9

Our salvation is a gift. However, we are saved for a purpose:

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." — Ephesians 2:10

We are His masterpiece. God the Father acts as the Master who distributes gifts for us to use, the landowner lending out the vineyard, and the Father planning the wedding. He has already paved the path of good works for us to walk in.

The Danger of Self-Righteousness

Because many of us live in societies founded on Christian principles, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking, "I’m doing okay." The ancient Jews made the same mistake, assuming they were safe simply because of who they were and where they lived.

But Scripture reminds us that anyone who claims they are without sin is a liar. Without Christ, we are exactly what Paul described: spiritually dead, chasing our own desires.

Moving Forward

In Christ, you are not just reformed—you are a completely new person. You are truly alive. As we go into this week, let us commit to three things:

  1. Seek to understand this reality more deeply.

  2. Seek to live like people who are genuinely alive.

  3. Seek to show others what Christ’s grace can do.

Let’s pray.

Originally delivered 2024.01.21

Location: Caldwell, KS 67022, USA

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