Paul starts right out in Ephesians 1 telling us about how blessed we are in Christ. Beginning in verse 5, we learn that “In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” Because he loved us, he chose us to be a part of his family. That is what it means to be adopted—he selected us in to his family. This verse has much more meaning to me having recently adopted. I deeply love Tessa as my own. She has full rights as my child, just as we do as God’s adopted children. Verse 11 says that “in Him, we have obtained an inheritance.”
Paul is setting the stage here for the later chapters. He is showing us what it really means to be loved by God. We read words like “glorious grace, riches of grace, lavished upon us.” It was clear that this was not just a legal transaction. Not just a signing of papers. We were bought out of our sin through Christ’s blood.
Having set the stage that God loves us in spite of ourselves, Paul begins chapter 2 pointing out what a big deal our adoption is. Chapter 2 gets at the depths of our hopelessness apart from him. Verses 1-3 read, “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.”
These few verses get at why life is sometimes so hard.
1) Verse 2 tells us that we follow the course of the world-Look at the world around us. We live in a society where the value of marriage is rapidly dwindling. Upwards of 50% of marriages end in divorce—including “born again” couples.” For those who remarry, 70% of those divorce. In several places, there are recommendations that marriage licenses expire, making the process easier. I read something recently where someone recommended a “trainee” permit for marriage. In other words, if after a year, you are incompatible, you simply go your separate ways. This is the “course of the world” and it is everywhere. This directly contradicts Malachi 2:14, which tells us that marriage is covenantal, not merely contractual. It is a deep commitment.
In many regards, what we encounter in the media clearly demonstrates the “course of the world.” The average American watches TV about 4 hours per day. Compare that to the amount time most of us spend reading God’s word or talking with our spouses. What does TV tell us about the course of the world?
Sitcoms--Turn on your television set and you can get a good sense of the course of the world. What do we see? Sitcoms present less than bright or emasculated husbands doing really dumb things while the wives lead the families with grace. When the couples disagree with one another, which often occurs because it generates higher ratings, they pull up stuff from the past, they are accusatory, and can be downright mean. However, the nature of a sitcom is that all problems are resolved within 30 minutes.
Reality TV-Reality television has become a voyeuristic sensation. Americans look in on the lives of those will willing to live in front of the camera. We see divorces tragically unfold, couples screaming at each other, and shows where marriages emerge when 25 women are presented to a single bachelor.
The show John and Kate + 8 was a great tragedy as far as I am concerned. Americans were able to look in on a family of 10 dissolve, largely because of really bad communication.
News-Even news programming happily features the dissolution of celebrity marriages, yet rarely features those married couples living together with fidelity and love. Tiger Woods
Verse 2:3 goes on “We all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind”. Galatians 5 tells us what the works of the flesh are: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” To me, this sounds much like the way of the world we currently live in, at least the way it is presented on television.
To some degree or another, our natures desire these things. We’re hopeless sinners. We’re children of wrath. Our tendency is to follow the course of the world. Satan, through the passions of the flesh, serves as our tempter to act out of that passion!
In Ephesians 2:4-10, Paul again comes back to the answer. 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. God chose us. Even in our broken, dirty, fallen, sinful state, God chose us because he loved us. These verses really set the stage for what true love really is. He mercifully sacrificed because He loved us. It had nothing to do with our own goodness or “deservedness.” This has profound implications for how we should interact with our spouse. I think it is the key to marital communication. It is the cornerstone for marital communication, but why?
John 13:34 says that “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
Let that sink in for a minute—“just as I have loved you.” How does he love us? He loves us in spite of our sin. He loves us even though we are children of wrath. He loves us even though we follow the course of the world. He gives us mercy, grace, and kindness when we do not deserve it.
“Just as I have loved you, YOU ALSO ARE TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER.” We are to love others, spouses included, in spite of their sin. In spite of the fact that they are chasing after the world. In spite of the fact that they are “children of wrath.”
So are we.
I had a friend in graduate school who told me that he and his wife had a 50/50 marriage. He said, “because we have a marriage built on equality, we each give 50% to the marriage.” They are divorced now. 50/50 marriages are doomed for failure. Seek for a 100 marriage. You give 100%. Don’t worry yourself about the amount your spouse is giving. If you love sacrificially, as Christ loved us, it matters not the percent your spouse gives.
So Paul spends the first 2 chapters of Ephesians demonstrating for us how we are loved. He gives us context for what comes next.
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