Shownotes
We were not sick—we were dead. Grace didn’t improve us; it resurrected us.And what God brings to life, He brings together.
In this episode, the focus is on what it truly means to be spiritually dead—and how God, through grace, makes people alive in Christ. Walking through Ephesians chapter 2, the teaching explores humanity’s natural condition apart from Christ, the radical intervention of God’s mercy, and the powerful reconciliation that reshapes identity, purpose, and community. The passage is not treated as abstract theology but as lived reality—one that transforms how believers see themselves, one another, and the church as a whole.
Top Topics
Spiritual Death and the Reality of Sin
The episode begins with the sobering truth that spiritual death is not a metaphor but a condition. Humanity is described as walking in the ways of the world, shaped by unseen influences and driven by the desires of body and mind. Apart from Christ, this is the natural state—marked by rebellion, fear, and separation from God.
“But God”: Grace That Resurrects
Everything changes with two words: but God. Despite sin and hopelessness, God acts out of rich mercy and great love. Salvation is presented as a gift—unearned, undeserved, and freely given. Grace does not come as wages for effort but as unmerited favor that brings life where there was only death.
God’s Workmanship and Purpose
Believers are described as God’s workmanship—His art, His poem. Salvation is not earned through good works, but it results in a life created for good works. Every person is seen as bearing dignity and value, reshaping how people are viewed and treated.
Reconciliation and Unity in the Church
The teaching then turns outward to reconciliation. In Christ, dividing walls between Jews and Gentiles are torn down. Those who were far off are brought near, forming one unified people. Jesus Himself is the cornerstone, aligning and stabilizing the entire structure of the church.
Key Takeaways
Grace is the foundation of everything—identity, salvation, and purpose all begin with God’s initiative. Life in Christ replaces death, freedom replaces slavery, and belonging replaces alienation. Seeing people as God’s workmanship changes how relationships are lived out, removing categories of “us” and “them.”
The church is not a collection of individuals but a unified dwelling place for God’s Spirit. Built together on Christ, believers are shaped, chosen, and fitted into something holy and purposeful. Recognizing this unity has the power to transform behavior, deepen mercy, and reflect God’s glory in the world.
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Transcripts
What does it mean to be spiritually dead? And how can we be made alive in Christ? That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
In Ephesians 2—boy, this is, like I said, a theology lesson—Paul is talking to a church he loves very much. It’s a deep message, and it talks about what it means to be alive in Him and what life was like before that.
We’ll look at what happens inside of a divided church. You have Jews and Gentiles, insiders and outsiders, who are brought together to be one holy people inside of the church itself.
Paul starts out with this reminder that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. It’s not a metaphor. It is reality. We were doomed. We were dead. There was no hope for us.
We were trying to do behaviors to earn our way. Maybe in the case of the Ephesians, they were scared of things, so they had charms and magic that they would use. And they were dead, walking in the ways of this world.
Paul says that we were walking in the ways of the powers of the air, referring to Satan, the demons, and this rebellion of the enemy out there. That’s the way we were walking in, and now we’re walking in something else.
It’s really kind of a weird phrase. I was wondering, like, why the air? Why does it refer to the air? And what it means is that it’s the thing that surrounds us—the invisible influences that are all around us.
It could even be things like our culture, our systems, or our influences that are out there. Spiritual pollution. You breathe it in and you breathe it out. What is it you’re breathing in?
Unfortunately, it is the air of this world.
Paul says that these sons of disobedience—this is the natural state of humanity apart from Christ. He says that we lived carrying out the desires of our body and our mind.
Left to ourselves, we’re petty. We want revenge. We’re selfish and greedy. We lust. And by nature, we are children of wrath, just like everybody else.
We see that around us in our lives, but we also see it in Scripture. How did Cain just instantaneously think, “I’m going to go kill Abel”? We are children of wrath. It is part of our nature.
It’s hard.
But God.
Then he says, “But God.” And there’s this amazing phrase. It’s a turning point. It’s saying that despite all of our rebellion and all of our sins, God is rich in mercy.
He made us alive together in Christ. Christ is seated with God the Father in the heavenly places.
We’ve gone from death to life. We have gone from slavery to freedom and from wrath to inheritance, which means sons and daughters again.
I love that—“but God.”
You’ve seen really good writers use that term. You know, this person was doomed, but God stepped in.
Because of His grace—we say grace is gifts that we did not earn, that we did not deserve—by grace you have been saved through faith.
Not by our own doing. This is a gift from God. Unmerited. They call it unmerited favor.
It’s not earned. It’s not wages.
Like I said, if I mowed your lawn and you bought me a gift, well, that’s kind of like salary, right? This is freely given, not because of anything that we did.
So we can’t boast. We can’t say, “Well, you know what? I’m one of God’s children—but you, not so much.”
You can’t boast in that, because it’s God’s workmanship. God’s doing.
The word that’s used here is poema. And we get the same word—poem—from that. We are God’s workmanship. His work of art. His creation.
We are made new in Jesus Christ for doing good works.
We’re not saved by doing good works. We were created to do good works, so that we could accomplish these things.
And it applies to every person. Everyone you meet is God’s artwork.
It gives you perspective when you think about people. There are people we like, and there are people we don’t get along with. But every single one of them—God’s artwork.
Paul repeats that idea. We are God’s workmanship. We are God’s poem. We are God’s art.
We are His creation, refreshed, made new. It was a creation that was tarnished, but now it is made new so that we could do good works.
Not because we are saved by good works, but because we were saved so that we could do good works.
This applies to every person. Every person you meet on the street is God’s artwork.
Then Paul shifts the whole conversation to reconciliation.
This church is no longer about Gentiles and Jews. The Jews were part of God’s promise and covenant. The Gentiles were alienated, distanced, didn’t understand God’s promises, His covenants, and were without hope.
But now, in Christ, those who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Christ is our peace. He didn’t just make peace for us—He is our peace.
He tore down all the dividing walls of hostility.
In the temple, there was literally a wall separating Gentiles and Jews. The wall is gone. Jesus tore it down.
Symbolically and spiritually, we are together in one church.
He abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances—not because God’s laws were bad, but because Jesus fulfilled them. He removed them as a dividing line.
Now we are created together in one new humanity.
Through the cross, both Jews and Gentiles are reconciled in one body.
I always wondered why, as a Jewish person, my family wasn’t evangelizing. If you believe in the true God, why wouldn’t you tell other people?
My grandma used to say, “Well, we don’t really want people to come in unless they really want to come in.”
It was a dividing line. We were born into it. We learned it. Others were born outside of it and didn’t understand it.
But now, in Christ, that dividing line is gone.
He came to preach peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near.
Through Him, we both have access to the Father in one Spirit.
The wall is gone.
That gives us a new identity. We’re not strangers. There’s no such thing as outsiders or foreigners. We are family.
We are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself as the cornerstone.
The cornerstone gives stability and direction. Everything aligns to it.
Jesus is that cornerstone.
I once heard someone say they have more in common with a believer halfway around the world than with someone in their own town who doesn’t believe—and that’s absolutely true.
There is a kinship among believers.
We are joined together and built into a holy temple of the Lord.
Not individual temples—one dwelling place for God’s Spirit.
The church unified.
God is building us together as His temple.
We are not random stones. We are chosen, shaped, and fitted together.
There is no us and them in Christ. There is only us.
If we really believed that, it would change how we treat each other.
God made us alive in Christ when we were dead. He broke down walls of hostility. He brought the far near.
Together, we are His workmanship. His artwork.
Ephesians 2:10 says we are God’s masterpiece, created with purpose.
That truth reshapes how we see each other and how we live.
It changes everything.
What I’m going to meditate on is that God is building us together as His temple.
That Christ is the cornerstone, and we’re not random stones in this. We are chosen, shaped, and fitted together.
There’s no us and them in Christ. It’s only us. We’re all us’s.
And what would change our relationships with each other is knowing that we are in one church, one witness together—true believers being built together as one sacred place for God’s presence.
That would change a lot of our behavior, I guess, or the way we think about other people, if we really recognized that.
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What I want to thank God for in this is His miracles of grace—making us alive in Christ when we were dead.
He’s breaking down these walls of hostility, bringing people who were far away near. And for those people who were near but didn’t quite see things the right way, He’s helping them see.
Together, in that unity, we are His workmanship. We are His artwork. And we hope that He can teach us to walk in this way—of being the church that He built.
That He dwells with us, holy and united with us, and that we want to prepare ourselves to be that kind of a temple.
What I want to share with others is this idea of workmanship. I love that whole thing. That’s Ephesians 2:10.
It’s the same concept—that we are art. We are the poem. We are created as masterpieces with purpose and calling.
We are meant to live in dignity and unity, treating each other with mercy and grace and forgiveness, because He wants us to walk in good works.
Not because it earns our salvation, but because it expresses the salvation we already have.
If that’s true for you—and it’s true for every single person you meet—then we were all meant to be one people by grace, for God’s glory.
Obviously, there are a lot of people who reject that. But every person is still God’s workmanship.
I think nothing makes me sadder in this world than when people say we’re all just chemical meatbags—that we don’t have meaning, we don’t have will, we don’t have intention.
What a sad viewpoint that is, when we are the workmanship of God.
What I want to share with others is the idea that these truths are meant to reshape how we see each other.
How we dig deeper with each other.
When we see that people are part of God’s workmanship, it changes everything.
It changes how we treat each other, how we see the world, and it puts everything, I think, in its right place.
Arduin, thanks so much. Appreciate you watching and listening.
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Thanks so much, and have a great day.