What Does It Mean To Be Rescued? || James Rankine

Vineyard Church Cardiff

Sunday 18th February, 2024 - West & North Sites Sunday 25th February, 2024 - Central Site AM&PM Speaker - James Rankine James continues our series looking at the book of Ephesians, moving on into chapter 2, and concentrating on verses 1 to 10. Here we read that we are-- spiritually speaking--dead, completely helpless, and in desperate need of rescue. James sets out his goal to communicate that we are saved from something, but also that we are saved to something--to uncover the forward-looking purpose for our salvation. James quotes John Stott's commentary on Ephesians, who says "Paul first plumbs the depths of pessimism about man, and then rises to the heights of optimism about God." Paul tells us that becoming a Christian is so much more than praying a prayer, or even being forgiven of your sins, or being made alive--it's more than that! It's that when God makes you alive in this mysterious way, He joins your spirit to Jesus Christ's Spirit. If you're a Christian, you are joined to Jesus so that all that is true of Jesus is true of you. Verse 10 says that we are God's workmanship--the original Greek uses the word poiēma, from which we get the word poem. How beautiful, James says, that you are God's poem. Put another way - you are God's artwork; His masterpiece. We have been restored from the ugly, defaced, corrupted artwork that we were before salvation, into the glorious masterpiece that God had always intended us to be. Not just to be His workmanship, but to fulfil a deeper purpose. As James reminds us--we are not saved simply to sit in grace, but we must recognise that God rescued us so that we should do the good works prepared in advance for us by Him.

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. ------- Recorded at North Site - 18Feb2024