1. "The most important service a doctor can do for us is to provide an accurate diagnosis. If the diagnosis is off, the cure has little chance of helping. But if the diagnosis is accurate, you're often a long way down the road of knowing what's best to do in order to help."

2. "Some people today think that spiritual is synonymous with good. But the Bible is not nearly so naïve. The Bible teaches that there is much in the spiritual realm that is predatory and abusive and even suicidally false."

3. "Satan is well called the spirit of this world. Even as the Holy Spirit's work is to enlighten, so Satan's work is to blind."

4. "Self-expression is taken by many, maybe most, as the core of what is authentic about each one of us. Becoming sensitive to ourselves and honest about our own appetites and desires is really discovering who we are. After all, what are we more than the sum of our desires?"

5. "So far should it be from surprising and disorienting us, it actually confirms the truth of what God has always taught in His Word about human depravity and sinfulness. For every story of heroism in history, there's a story that's horrifying."

6. "There is something internal to us which is part of us. Paul calls it here our nature. And it's getting this idea in place that lets us understand the first and perhaps the most shocking statement in our passage: we are spiritually dead."

7. "We are by nature attentive to so many things, from the ambitions of our hearts to the rumblings of our stomachs, but not to God. To the one true God, there is nothing natively in us, it seems, beyond polite interest."

8. "We will, it seems by nature, be disciples. It doesn't matter how powerful our job is, it doesn't matter how persuasive our personalities are, how carefully we plan, how loving our parenting, we will be disciples and followers and servants of either God or of anything or anyone other than God."

9. "Quoting only John 3:16 to an unrepentant sinner is not too different from a doctor telling a patient with cancer that they just have a temporary headache. There's much more that needs to be said to unpack what the problem is."

10. "There were no rebels against King Adam. None, that is, until King Jesus."

Observation Questions

1. According to Ephesians 2:1, what was the spiritual condition of the Ephesian believers before they came to faith in Christ?

2. In Ephesians 2:2, what two things does Paul say the Ephesians were "following" in their former way of life?

3. How does Paul describe Satan in Ephesians 2:2, and what does he say Satan is doing in "the sons of disobedience"?

4. In Ephesians 2:3, what does Paul say characterized the Ephesians' former conduct—what were they gratifying and carrying out?

5. What phrase in Ephesians 2:3 indicates that this spiritual condition was not unique to the Ephesians but shared by all humanity?

6. According to Ephesians 2:3, what were the Ephesians "by nature," and what does this suggest about their standing before God?

Interpretation Questions

1. What does it mean that the Ephesians "were dead" in their trespasses and sins, given that Paul describes them as actively walking, following, and living in sin? How can someone be "dead" yet so active?

2. Why does Paul emphasize that this sinful condition was "by nature" (Ephesians 2:3)? What does this teach us about the depth and origin of humanity's problem with sin?

3. The sermon points out that Satan is called "the prince of the power of the air" and "the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience." How does recognizing the reality of this spiritual enemy help us understand the pervasive evil and suffering in the world?

4. Paul uses past-tense language throughout this passage—"were dead," "once walked," "once lived." What is the significance of this past tense for understanding the transformation that has occurred in the lives of believers?

5. How does this passage challenge the modern view that human beings are basically good and that self-expression and following one's desires are the path to authentic living?

Application Questions

1. The sermon described how Christians throughout history have faced persecution for their faith. How does understanding that we were once spiritually dead and are now alive in Christ shape your perspective when you face opposition or hostility for following Jesus?

2. Paul says that before coming to Christ, we followed "the course of this world." In what specific areas of your life—media consumption, spending habits, career ambitions, or relationships—do you sense the pull to conform to the world's patterns rather than God's ways?

3. The passage teaches that we were enslaved to "the passions of our flesh" and "the desires of the body and the mind." What is one desire or craving in your life that you recognize as sinful, and what practical step can you take this week to resist it and seek God's help?

4. Knowing that all people share the same spiritual condition apart from Christ ("like the rest of mankind"), how should this affect the way you view and interact with unbelievers—whether coworkers, neighbors, or family members who do not yet know Christ?

5. The sermon emphasized that we can speak of our spiritual death in the past tense because of Christ. How can you share this hope with someone in your life this week, pointing them to the good news that they too can pass from death to life through faith in Jesus?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Romans 3:9–20 — This passage expands on the universal sinfulness of humanity, showing that "none is righteous" and all stand guilty before God, reinforcing Paul's diagnosis in Ephesians 2.

2. John 8:31–44 — Jesus teaches that those who sin are slaves to sin and that unbelievers have the devil as their father, echoing Paul's description of humanity following Satan and being sons of disobedience.

3. 2 Corinthians 4:1–6 — Paul describes how Satan, "the god of this world," blinds the minds of unbelievers, further illustrating the spiritual warfare and blindness mentioned in the sermon.

4. Ephesians 6:10–20 — This passage provides Paul's fuller teaching on spiritual warfare and the armor of God, which the sermon referenced as essential for standing against the schemes of the devil.

5. Colossians 2:13–15 — Paul describes how God made believers alive together with Christ when they were dead in trespasses, offering a parallel account of the transformation from spiritual death to life.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Reality of Christian Persecution Throughout History

II. Surprising Truth #1: The Spiritual Realm Is Real (Ephesians 2:2)

III. Surprising Truth #2: We Do Wrong—We Sin (Ephesians 2:1-3)

IV. Surprising Truth #3: We Are Wrong—We Are Sinners (Ephesians 2:1-3)

V. The Hope of Moving from Death to Life Through Christ

Detailed Sermon Outline

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Well then, let's leave aside the words for a minute. What about those sticks and stones?

Well, you could ask Stephen.

He was a believer in Christ whose faith was met with hostility, and so an angry crowd of people picked up rocks. And threw them at Him until He was dead.

You can read about that in Acts chapter 7.

Certainly the first Jewish followers of Jesus as the Messiah were met with hostility from their own people.

Or you can go forward to the third century in the North African city of Carthage and zoom in on Pastor Cyprian. He pastored that church through the difficult decades of the 250s. He led his church through many challenges including a couple of periods of persecution under Emporer Decius. During the first persecution, many of his church members were martyred. During the second of these persecutions, Cyprian himself was beheaded.

Over the first few centuries of the Christian faith, hundreds, perhaps thousands of Christians met their deaths that way. Of course, it only takes one terrorist attack to spread fear. But Christians have faced repeated attacks. Our persecutors have been committed atheists like the Communists, committed polytheists like the Romans, who committed monotheists like the Muslims. I remember asking an Afghan believer that I met in New Delhi, India, what it was like when he began to follow Christ in Afghanistan.

He explained it was very dangerous there. Multiple family members plotted to kill him. So he said he decided to move to India. I asked him how India had been for him. He said, oh, here it's much better.

They've only robbed my house and broken my legs. And he wasn't being morbidly humorous. He was being serious.

Such persecution has been frequent in Christian history. From the ancient world's Nero and Diocletian to the 20th century's brutal slaughter of Christians by Mao Zedong.

In China, to Al-Qaeda and ISIS beheading of Christians in the last couple of decades, people have been killed for following Christ. When ISIS took control of the Iraqi city of Mosul several years back, they let the Christians know, and these Christian families, many of them had been living as Christian families there since before Muhammad was born. They let the Christians know that within 24 hours they needed to either convert to Islam or leave Mosul, otherwise they would be beheaded.

Persecution sometimes is direct like that. Sometimes it's more indirect, like when Christians won't worship Caesar or swear to make party allegiance supreme.

But that's because they are following Christ. And so we Christians have often been persecuted by governments, even the governments of our own nations, by our own families, even by misguided fellow Christians. And these are just a handful of examples of persecutions of Christians. I've not mentioned the blind nationalism that led Germany to remilitarize the Rhineland 85 years ago today, or the dehumanizing racial hatred that brought us Bloody Sunday in the civil rights marches in Alabama 56 years ago today at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. I could go on and on and on.

Why are things so often so bad in our world?

And we just looked at a sliver of the totality of evil human actions, even that we know about. Our short passage today in the beginning of chapter 2 of Paul's letter to the Ephesian believers gives the answer. And it's a surprising answer. To many people in at least three ways. Let's listen to the passage, then I'll point out the surprises.

So let's dive in to this spiritually dark topic in chapter 2 of Ephesians, right at the beginning, chapter 2 verse 1.

And you were dead in your 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. You may think there's a very grim passage for such a sunny morning, but the most important service a doctor can do for us is to provide an accurate diagnosis. If the diagnosis is off, the cure has little chance of helping. But if the diagnosis is accurate, you're often a long way down the road of knowing what's best to do in order to help. Paul here, by the Holy Spirit's guidance, gives us an accurate description of the Ephesian believers' past.

And with that, a diagnosis really of everyone. You can see that in that little phrase in verse 3, like the rest.

Three surprising truths.

They're not going to tell you at school, in the classroom, or even on the playground. Number one, the spiritual realm is real.

Number two, we do wrong. We sin. Number three, we are wrong. We are sinners. Could this be why there's so much darkness in the world, even in our own lives?

Let's see what the Bible says. First, the spiritual realm is real. And the Bible teaches us that there is a real being who rules over it. This is made clear in verse 2. Some people today think that spiritual is synonymous with good.

But the Bible is not nearly so naïve. The Bible teaches that there is much in the spiritual realm that is predatory and abusive and even suicidally false. And the Bible's biggest example of that makes a brief appearance here in verse 2. You see that phrase in verse 2? Following the prince of the power of the air.

Following what? Well, it's not a what, but it's a who. Satan. Notice his authority, the prince of the power of the air. By air, Paul is just meaning the atmosphere.

It's the invisible realm that surrounds us all. It's a great metaphor for the spiritual realm. And here Paul refers to the one who is in power and authority in that invisible realm. He refers to him as its prince or ruler. Now this is the being that the Bible tells us a little about, but we do learn that he is a real self-conscious existing being that he is opposed to God as opposed as one could possibly be.

Notice not only Satan's authority, but notice here his activity. The Spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. What does that mean? Who are the sons of disobedience? Are they some exclusive group of Satan worshipers?

No, it's pretty clear from the verse that the sons of disobedience are everybody. They're all of us. The rest Paul says in verse 3, this is what Satan does. He's at work in people. He is at work in and through us, at least according to our nature, as Paul says in verse 3.

More on that in a moment. Let's just take a moment to appreciate the contrast that this is with what so many today tell us. Today we're told that everything is okay.

Or that everyone is basically good, or that there is no ultimate meaning to anything, so we shouldn't worry about categories like good and bad. The materialists, after all, tell us that life came from non-life, that something came from nothing. That's the atheist magic mumbo-jumbo. They're using our tax dollars to teach our children in our public schools and universities and museums these days.

Calvin called Satan God's executioner to punish man's ingratitude. And his punishment begins by leading us to follow him when he himself is only marching ultimately to the judgment of God. He's set here to be at work in the sons of disobedience. That is, He leads the human rebellion against the rule of God.

Friends, the Holy Spirit is good, but this spirit described here is evil. Later in our series, when we come to chapter 6, Lord willing, We find Paul warning the Ephesians in Ephesians 611, Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. That's this prince here, this Satan. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. When Paul is writing to the Corinthians, Christians, he actually contrasts this evil spirit with God's own Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 2:12.

He says, We have not received the spirit of the world, that's Satan, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. Satan is well called the spirit of this world. Even as the Holy Spirit's work is to enlighten, we saw that last week up in chapter 1, in verses 17-18, so Satan's work is to blind. We read in 2 Corinthians 4:4, the god of this world, that's Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.

So friends, the spiritual realm is real and it's not all good.

That's surprising truth number one. Surprising truth number two, we do wrong. We do wrong. We find that in our passage. Paul speaks not only of the work of Satan, but also the work of Satan's disciples.

Another simple word for this is sin, described there in verse 3. You see those two phrases? The passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.

Now here's how old I am. When I was young, those two phrases sounded bad.

In fact, bad enough to probably make some people blush if you had asked about them in a poll on the street. I mean, if you had walked up to a middle-aged woman in a mid-sized city somewhere in the Midwest and asked her what they thought about the passions of the flesh and carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, that would probably just assume that you were speaking about something immoral. That would take it to the textbook definition of lust. Today, this is how Netflix tries to get you to watch something. Self-expression is taken by many, maybe most, as the core of what is authentic about each one of us.

Becoming sensitive to ourselves and honest about our own appetites and desires. Is really discovering who we are. After all, what are we more than the sum of our desires? In the common view today, our desires for our gender identity or a certain sexual experience are no more morally fraught, it's thought, than our hair color or our food preferences. Maybe even less so.

But here Paul identifies these passions of our flesh and desires of the body and the mind as not merely selfish, he also calls them sinful. And this is the front line of the battle that it seems we are in the process of temporarily losing at the moment, at least here in America. You look in verse 2. And you see that Paul characterized Satan as working in those who are not merely self expressive, but what does Paul call it? Disobedient.

Assuming that they owed obedience even to God, and that in their living they were failing to meet that obligation. They were living not as God's friends, God's sons, but as those alien to God, as God's enemies. That's why Paul could characterize their actions in verse 1 as trespasses and sins, not meaning two different kinds of disobedience, but simply all the acts of living wrongly, not according to, but against God's will revealed in both the natural conscience and in His supernaturally given Word.

One more thing to notice about these sins. Lest anyone think that Paul is suggesting that it's just a matter of sometimes an otherwise basically good person tripping up, he says in verse 2 right there at the beginning, that such sins and transgressions in which you once walked. That is, they had characterized you, Ephesians, throughout your life, every year and every month, every week and every day, Every hour and every step, sin was the way that you walked. It was your normal way of acting. It was typical of you.

Some seem taken off guard that so many people want what is wrong today to be seen as right. But friends, if we've read God's Word, if we've seen His diagnosis of our actions before we were Christians, We can't be surprised at what we see around us. We can be grieved, we can be bothered and disturbed, but we can't act like we had no idea this was the case. So far should it be from surprising and disorienting us, it actually confirms the truth of what God has always taught in His Word about human depravity and sinfulness in places like this very passage.

I wonder if this description strikes you as true. Marilynne Robinson has one character in her novel, Gilead, summarize things this way: We human beings do real harm. History could make a stone weep.

Friends, I agree with that. For every story of heroism in history, there's a story that's horrifying. And we run across them when we don't even mean to be looking for such things. I remember once when my mother was visiting, taking her for a nice day trip out to tour a historic home. We went to Gunston Hall.

And we were in Gunston Hall, George Mason's house, and the tour guide was showing us around and we were in the dining room. And the tour guide held up a little gold platter about this size and said, what do you think this was used for? None of us knew. The tour guide said, this was used by the enslaved people to hand implements to the masters seated at the table so that they wouldn't have to touch the same thing with their hands that this enslaved person's hands had touched. And friend, when I heard that for whatever reason, the reality of the horror of that just in the smallest of ways just began to crash in on my soul as I saw how incredibly dehumanized that person would have been who even then was acting in kindness and love toward another human being to be treated in such an inhumane way.

Not once, but several times a day, not one day, but every day, not one week, but every week, not one year, but every year of their lives, until if possible they themselves would be convinced that they are somehow not in God's image in the way the people they were serving were. Does that not strike your heart?

As unutterably horrible? History could make a stone weep.

A lot of people seem to disagree today, but the truth is, we do wrong. We sin.

Here is the last surprising truth for us this morning, perhaps more surprising to many, today than was number two. Number three, we not only do wrong, we are wrong. This is the nature of human beings as Satan's disciples. We are sinners. Let me fill this out with five short, simple statements.

Number one, we are disciples of this world. All I mean by that is that these actions, these sins, are not random or accidental or unrelated to each other. You see there in verse 2, Paul says that they were following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air. Paul says that we are something, we are followers. That's another word for disciples.

Disciples of what? Of Satan. We see in verse 2, the phrase above the courts of this world. We are typical people of this age in history.

We also see here number 2, we are more than our actions. We are more than our actions. You see in verse 3, Paul says that all of this is what we were. And notice those next two words, by nature, phusis, by nature. So there's something to us which is more than the sum of our desires or opinions of ourselves, more than our self-perception.

In fact, something that may even be hidden to ourselves.

But which is more determinative of us than even the firmest physical restraints of cells or chains.

There is something internal to us which is part of us. Paul calls it here our nature. And it's getting this idea in place that lets us understand the first and perhaps the most shocking statement in our passage. This is number three, We are spiritually dead.

Look up at verse 1, how this passage begins. You were dead. Now, this is so central to this passage, we should spend just an extra moment here. Dead is not a description that we're used to in the past tense.

We're used to it in the future. You'll probably be dead by then. We're used to it in the present. But she's dead. But we're not used to thinking of it in the past in the sense that she was dead.

This is an odd way for us to encounter this word after the glorious introduction we've seen in chapter 1 to Paul's letter to the Ephesians in praise of our glorious God. And last week in consideration of Paul's prayer for these believers, when he turns now to describe them, his description begins in this most unusual way, by speaking of their death.

But understanding what Paul means here is essential to our understanding the basic message of Christianity, including what our hope is today. This death is a strange one. It's a death marked by such activity. We've seen it in these verses. You notice the words he used, bring these images to your mind.

The death described here is a going where you should not go, a trespassing. Doing what you should not do, a serving whom you should not serve, following whom you should not follow, obeying whom you should not obey, gratifying what you should not gratify, craving what you should not crave, desiring what you should not desire, thinking what you should not think. This is the death. That Paul says they knew. Taken together, it's quite a comprehensive presentation.

Dead, we read, in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked when you followed the course of this world, followed the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's now at work in the sons of disobedience. This death is marked by disobedience, not to the devil, not to even ourselves. But disobedience to God. We are by nature attentive to so many things, from the ambitions of our hearts to the rumblings of our stomachs, but not to God.

To God. To the one true God.

There is nothing natively in us, it seems, beyond polite interest.

Further than that, we find only loud and echoing apathy to any call to sacrifice ourselves in the service of another. No, this is a spiritual death toward God, toward the desires and thoughts He would call us to have. This death is a being lost. In striving to, as Paul says in verse 3, gratify the passions of our flesh and to carry out the desires of the body and of the mind. We will, it seems by nature, be disciples.

It doesn't matter how powerful our job is, it doesn't matter how persuasive our personalities are, how carefully we plan, how loving our parenting, we will be disciples and followers and servants. Of either God or of anything or anyone other than God. Jesus said it clearly in John 8:34, He said that, Anyone who sins is a slave to sin.

We read here, By nature, this death is a being left alone, bound to serve sin, well presented as a kind of spiritual rot, an inert decay, a death.

Two more short sentences about our not just doing but being wrong. Before we conclude, and these are important, number four, we are under God's judgment. We are under God's judgment. Verse three says that the Ephesians were children of wrath. What does that mean?

Well, that their fate, their destination, the end of the working out of their nature is to face God's good and right wrath against them as those who have disobeyed Him. This is why, friends, the constant repetition of John 3:16 and only John 3:16 is so harmful to people understanding what Jesus really taught. It's so harmful to understanding God's real diagnosis of what is really wrong with people. Quoting only John 3:16 to an unrepentant sinner is not too different from a doctor telling a patient with cancer that they just have a temporary headache. There's much more that needs to be said to unpack what the problem is, to unpack what God has done in Christ, who He is, and what He's done, and what belief means.

Which brings us to statement number five about the Ephesians having been wrong and why this is relevant to us today. Number five, we share this situation with everyone else.

We share this situation with everyone else. You've heard me saying we throughout, and you may have been wondering why. Well, the answer is right here in verse 3: Were by nature children of wrath, like the rest. The Bible here and elsewhere tells us that when the first man, Adam, sinned, he acted for all of us, and that ever since then, all of his children, have shared His guilt and ratified His sin by our own. Yes, we're all made in the image of God, but also, yes, we are all fallen in Adam.

There were no rebels against King Adam.

None, that is, until King Jesus. But that takes us out of this passage and we should conclude.

We are by nature spiritual beings who are spiritually dead. Friend, this explains so much. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, I hope you're beginning to see how the Bible would help you begin to understand yourself. And let me speak to you directly here. If you are a dead sinner today, if that's what the Bible calls you, I do want you to especially notice one thing in this passage.

It's two little words that suggest something else in our text. The words were and once. Did you notice them?

Chapter 2 verse 1, Were Dead. Chapter 2 verse 2, Once Walked. Chapter 2 verse 3, Once Lived. Were, by nature, children of wrath. If you can come back in a couple of weeks, you'll find that these Ephesians Paul was writing to were no longer by nature headed to face God's wrath.

They no longer lived according to their carnal passions. They no longer lived like the world around them. They were no longer dead. How strange for us to refer to someone's state of being dead as being in the past. They were dead, but now they are alive.

But then remember who it was writing this letter.

He first appears in the Bible in the passage in Acts where the Christians that I mentioned in the introduction, Stephen, was being stoned. Paul appears as someone who had held the coats while Stephen was killed. Acts 8:1 says, and Paul approved of Stephen's execution.

Was dead spiritually, but now he was in prison for being a Christian. The persecutor had become the persecuted. Why? Because of the same reason that hundreds of us are sitting here in the cold this morning, because we have moved from death to life spiritually, for the same reason that others of you here today could. The good news of Jesus Christ, because God sent His only Son to live a life of perfect trust and obedience to His heavenly Father, and then to give His life as a sacrifice on behalf of everyone who would turn and trust in Him, believe in Him.

And God raised Him from the dead. After He had been cruelly crucified and rejected, bearing our sins and His death, God raised Him from the dead. He ascended to heaven and He presented His sacrifice to His heavenly Father who accepted it on behalf of us all who would believe in Him. Friend, if you will turn from your sins and trust in Christ, you can refer to your own spiritual death in the past tense. You can have new life.

I'll stay around up here for a little bit afterwards, talk to anybody who wants to about this. Frankly, on a morning like this, there are not going to be a lot of people out here who aren't pretty committed. So you've got a great group of people to talk to right here.

Talk to anybody around you. What was it Jesus taught in John 5 24 truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed.

From death to life.

That's the life each one of us can have this morning. Let's pray together.

Lord God, we thank youk for the love that yout have shown to us in teaching us the truth about ourselves. Even in our rebellion and our spiritual death. We thank youk for not flattering us. We thank youk for your loving provision for us in the Lord Jesus.

We thank youk, Lord, for gifts of repentance and faith. And we pray that yout would spread those widely today. Lord, hear and receive our praise even as we remember Christ's sacrifice. We ask in His name, Amen.