Ephesians 2:11–13. Today we will be looking at the topic, “One New Man: Separated”. My task this morning is to remind you of this first part of Paul’s argument in Ephesians 2:11–22—your separateness. You should feel a longing at the end of this section to move on and be united in Jesus Christ, but you should also marvel at the grace of God that not only changed you, but moved you into a position of relationship with him and with his people.

Ephesians 2:8–10. For the last few weeks, we've been looking at the idea of "The Dead Alive by Grace", and today Ryan Eagy will conclude with thoughts on how we are called to a life as “A Beautiful Workmanship" from Ephesians 2:8–10 by grace through faith in Jesus Christ..

Ephesians 2:4–7. When we consider all the gospel has done, we conclude this gospel has very few limits! I want to spend this morning not restraining this gospel, but releasing it. As believers we are bankrupt by Ephesians 2:1–3, but we are blessed beyond belief by Ephesians 2:4. The bad news, the bleak news, the sobering news of verses 1–3 is the backdrop for the beautiful beyond belief news of verse 4.

Ephesians 2:1–3 | Before you knew God, you had no desire for God, you followed everything but God, and you deserved the wrath of God. Often theologians use the term total depravity to state this all-encompassing brokenness. And though the extent of our sin is not good news, we see that it paves the way for good news. We can have hope because God has overcome our total depravity in his Son.

Ephesians 1:15–23. What do you do when things are going well? It can seem like we get stuck in church discussions and sermons that are focused on how things aren’t going well. But, again, what do you do when things are going well? How do you celebrate and acknowledge what is going well and good in your life? What we find in our passage today is that Paul is writing to a people he believes already know the joy of salvation. Things are going well with them (spiritually speaking) because they know, love, and put their faith in Jesus Christ. And what does Paul do? In his joy at their good situation he 1) praises God and 2) points them back to the wonderful revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1:1–14. Who are you? Identity is a huge question, and it is a question we all ask at different points in our life, to varying degrees. We need to understand ourselves and our identity well to understand this world and everything that happens around us. To not know our identity is to be adrift in a sea of options and opinions, bobbing up and down and tossed to-and-fro, looking for a patch of land, an island of respite that will give us a firm footing to stand upon. Over the next several months we are going to be working through the book of Ephesians. We have titled our series “Who are you?” because we believe you will see throughout this book your very identity. Amazingly, your identity is wrapped up with Christ and his identity. To know yourself requires you to know God and to know Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:8–10 & Hebrews 1:1–3: The best news in all the world is that God came to us in the form of a man to save us from the curse of sin and death. Jesus, the light of the world, radiated through the darkness and dealt a decisive blow to every single terrible effect of sin by his atoning death on the cross. This is worth remembering during Advent and every other month of the year.

John 3:16. This Christmas, I pray you see in John 3:16 the amazing love of God, embodied in Jesus Christ, for you. God’s love is central and foundational to our faith and is not an old topic to just pass over. John 3:16 takes us directly to God’s love, but additionally, John 3:16 is packed with so many other amazing statements in such a short verse. God. The World. His Son. Whoever. Belief. Perishing. Eternal Life. It is not just the fact that God loves us that is amazing, but all the aspects that accompany this love.

Matthew 2:10–11 God has indeed created us to find joy. But everything outside of God himself will be a lesser joy. Joy is found in Jesus. In other words, you will find your spend your whole life searching for joy until you come to Christ.  And texts like Matthew 2:10–11 give us great confidence that this is why we were created.

Isaiah 40:3–5 I am so thankful that throughout Scripture God chooses to talk to us in these types of pictures and metaphors, because it appropriately grabs us in exactly the right ways to help us know how to prepare our hearts in our waiting. Whether we are preparing and waiting in remembrance of what Christmas was and is to us today, or whether it is in preparing and waiting for Jesus’s second coming, our preparation and waiting is best guided not by what particularly needs to happen, but rather, by what (or who) you are preparing and waiting for.

Isaiah 9:2, 6–7 Hope and promise drives much of our endeavors as humans. We hope that a certain school or college, outfit, sports team, job, friend, boyfriend or girlfriend, or spouse will bring us everything we ever hoped and wanted. When we don’t have everything we have hoped for, we look for promises. Promises that tell us if we just buy a certain item, say the right thing, engage with the right people, then our hopes will be fulfilled. Do you know and need the great promise of God found in the manger this Christmas season?