Ephesians 2:1-10 Direction

After graduating from College, my wife and I moved to Minnesota to guide dogsledding trips for Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge. My job was primarily to take groups on excursions through the Boundary Water's Wilderness. After teaching guests how to communicate with the dogs, handle the sled, and be comfortable in the cold, I would strap on my x/c skis and be chased by teams of dogs for up to 20 miles each day.

The first season there we had to learn the area we would be sledding in. We studied the maps and cleared the trails, but we could not really learn the terrain until the snow began to fly. As a first time guide, I had only a few days after the snow came to learn the trails, and thus begin's my story. You see, on my first trip out I got totally turned around, but I did not know it. I was asked on the radio where I was and I said I was going North on one trail, when in reality I was going South on another. I was throughly convinced that I was where I thought I was, until I ran right into my friend, Jesse who was actually guiding teams North like he said he was on the radio. There was no room to go by their sleds, so we had to take dogs off lead and turn around which caused numerous dogfights and was an absolute disaster.

I tell this story because I think it illustrates a huge point that Paul is making in the first 3 verses of Ephesians 2. As N.T. Wright says in his book Paul for Everyone, the Prison Letters, "We live in a world where human beings, left to themselves, not only choose the wrong direction, but remain cheerfully confident that it is in fact the right one."

Our culture believes that if there is a desire or aspiration that people find deep within themselves then it is obviously right and worthy of being followed. Last week in our state senate committee hearing room the announcement was made that gay marriage would pass in the state of Washington. This is one of many examples of this concept that people think that things are right because they want them to be right. But let’s read what the Bible says about what people are naturally inclined to:

Ephesians 2:1-10

• "1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast.10 For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

So our Jr. High adult leadership team has been talking about how we can help our group understand this passage, that may be the most important passage in all of the Bible. We were going to do a drama to help us all understand it, but there was a conference that did a better job than we could do. Watch this video and then consider how it fits with today's passage.

When you're done watching that, here's another video that will help you as you think about it.