Embracing God's Grace: Strength to Face Life's Challenges by Youth with a Mission (Author)

Chapter One

Rising Above Ephesians 2:1-10

John never rests. He is driven to be constantly doing, always busy, fearful of what he might discover within if he ever stopped and listened to his heart. He became a Christian several years ago, when he was twenty-one. No one else in his family has come to know God yet.

Jenna craves attention, especially from men. She dresses accordingly. Her friends led her to Christ last year.

Bob rarely takes a risk, even if it is God who is inviting him to do so. His fear of failure is too strong. Though he hasn't realized it, that fear is his god. His whole family is Christian. He can't remember when he accepted Jesus as his Savior, but he grew up knowing he had.

John, Jenna, and Bob are not abnormal Christians. They simply testify to the fact that "flesh" is present and active in the body of Christ. Even though God's Spirit is in these three, he is sometimes ignored. Instead, strong feelings rooted in wrong thinking form the basis of their choices. For example, believing the lie that "failure is deadly" leads to fear of failure, and that fear regularly affects the decisions Bob makes. The apostle Paul refers to this complex of feelings, lies, and habits as our "flesh." His letter to the Ephesians is written to help believers learn to walk according to the Spirit and thus to resist the flesh.

Grace, God's active presence in our hearts through his Spirit, is his solution to flesh. Our responsibility is simply to learn to keep on receiving the grace he freely offers. With that grace, we can resist temptation and rise above any situation!

Preparing Heart and Mind

What are cravings and how are they satisfied?

Paint a picture with words of someone striving for a cause.

Why is it difficult for most people to receive a gift?

Engaging the text

Read Ephesians 2:1-10

1. Using this passage, describe the essential difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. (Include the difference on what each life produces.)

2. Paul states that before the Ephesians were Christians they "followed the ways of this world" (v. 2). What kind of actions or attitudes do you think Paul has in mind? In other words, what drove them? (See also Setting the Stage.)

3. In verse 3, Paul indicates that he too was once driven by his thoughts and desires, yet he was a "good Jewish boy," not a pagan. (See Setting the Stage.) What do you think drove him before he became a Christian? Explain why his flesh was just as evil as the flesh of the Gentiles.

4. Which of the "ways of this world" did you follow before you knew Christ and that may even now be driving you? (See "The Ways of This World: A Flesh Inventory" on page 22 for suggestions.) Choose one or two and explain.

5. What did the "ways of this world" that you identified in Question 4 seem to promise you if you followed them?

When you made choices consistent with those "ways," were you ever satisfied? Did the drive or need go away? Explain.

6. Why do you think you are still tempted to follow these "ways of the world"?

7. In verses 5-6, Paul says that Christians have been "made alive" and are now seated with Christ. What practical difference does it make for you to know this, especially in relation to these ungodly drives or thoughts?

8. In verses 4-8, Paul concludes it is by grace that Christians are seated with Christ ("saved") and, by implication, are now able to deal with "the way s of the world."

Personalize verses 4-5: "Even though I was dead in my transgressions and sins, and I was driven ______________________________________(to get attention, to get approval, to get sexual satisfaction, to have my own way, to be better than, by rejection, by self-hate, by fear, by anxiety, or other), God __________________________." (Describe what God did for you and why.)

How might a heart revelation of what God did for you empower you to resist the lies and drives of the flesh?

9. Form your own definition for grace as you understand it from this passage.

10. Grace does not mean that Christians are passive while God does all the work, but we are to actively respond with faith (v. 8). What exactly are we to have faith about? (See the sidebar, "The Truth About You.")

11. In verses 8-10, Paul mentions two kinds of "works." Explain the difference between the two.

12. What is the relationship between grace and good works in your life?

13. Identify one way you need to be strengthened by grace in this season of your life. (What do you need faith for in order to believe?)

Setting the stage

The Talmud and Mishnah, books of Jewish Law, had meticulous instructions of what to do and not do in order to achieve acceptance from God.

For Paul to gain "legalistic righteousness" (Philippians 3:6) and thus be found acceptable to God before he met Christ, he had to strive continually to obey all these Jewish laws.

Most of the Ephesian believers came from Gentile (non-Jewish) backgrounds. Generally, people in this culture had no concept of the one true God and they indulged freely in such things as sexual immorality, greed, and idolatry.

The attempt of individuals to meet their most basic needs for identity and purpose apart from what God freely gives is called "flesh" in the Bible ("sinful nature" in the NIV).

Paul clarifies further that flesh is rooted in wrong desires of the body and the mind (Ephesians 2:3).

Activating Faith

All the members of his family gathered around Mark's hospital bed as he took his last breath. Neither they nor the best doctors in the world could save him. Death was just too powerful.

Apart from God's power, there is no greater force in the world than death. All of us were spiritually dead (separated from God) until we (Christians) were made alive in Christ. The only way out of spiritual death is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The gospel refers to God's actions in history, when his Son Jesus came to this earth as a tiny baby, lived an obedient life, and chose to die on the cross, paying the price for humanity's sin. Thus Jesus broke the power of death and was resurrected to offer new life, God's life, to all who choose to believe that he did this for them.

The unrelenting power of physical death from the dreadful disease called cancer won the battle for Mark's body, but death had lost its sting. Because of his faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, Mark was full of resurrection life. He simply shed his outer shell, free at last to be with Jesus entirely. That's the power of the gospel.

It takes a choice to become a Christian. Are you certain of resurrection life? Why?

The Truth About You

from Ephesians 1:3-14

I am blessed with what I need to overcome the flesh (v. 3). My way to holiness and blamelessness before God is through Jesus (v. 4). God wanted and was pleased to adopt me (v. 5). God freely gives his love to me. I do not have to do anything to earn it (v. 6). God does not hold my sin against me because Jesus paid my penalty for me (v. 7). God's Spirit is in me assuring me of who I am "in Christ" (vv. 13-14).

(Continues...)

Finding Your Purpose: Becoming...

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Lessons on Assurance

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Integrity: Living the Truth

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Daniel