Getting to Know . . . Ephesians Chapter 2! (Part 5: Remembering What We Were!)

I will also be teaching Sunday School at Cedarcroft Bible Chapel on February 3.  The assigned section for that class is Ephesians 2:11-17.  Let’s look at that text carefully for a few posts.

You may have heard about the old gentleman who said, “My problem is not my memory.  My problem is my FORGETTER!”  We forget a lot, don’t we?  Here in Ephesians 2 Paul reminds his readers to REMEMBER!

1.  They are to remember who they were before they were saved!  Here’s a brief chart of that series of descriptions —

We need to be reminded that God established a covenant, not with a mighty and powerful nation, but with the small people group later called “Israel.” He chose them out of His mercy.  He became their God!  And the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 12) clearly specified that through that nation all the nations of the earth would be blessed.  Israel was to be a light to the Gentiles and attract others to the living and true God!

But Israel failed in many ways.  It fell into idolatry; it worshiped other gods; it presumed upon its relationship with God, thinking it had a monopoly on His favor.

The Gentiles were those outside the nation of Israel, loved by God yes, but they needed to learn of God through God’s covenant people Israel.

These Ephesian believers, Paul reminds them, were uncircumcised Gentiles by birth, not part of God’s covenant with Israel, and were “without hope and without God in the world” (v. 12).  What sad words!  And they are described as their being “once far away” (v. 13).

Unless you or I are Jewish, my friend, that’s an apt series of descriptions of us!  Aren’t you glad for the salvation that God has provided for us?

Prayer for today:  “Lord, please remind me of where I was before Christ stepped into my life.  Disengage my ‘forgetter,’ Lord.  Thank You for becoming my hope and my God.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.”