Scripture referenced 21 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Ephesians 2:1 dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world
1 You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins,
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Ephesians 2:2
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit working in the sons of disobedience
2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience;
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Ephesians 2:3
all previously lived in the lust of the flesh, children of wrath by nature
3 among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
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Ephesians 2:4-5
but God, rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ
4 But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
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Ephesians 2:6
raised us up and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus
6 and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
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Ephesians 2:7
in ages to come he might show the boundless riches of his grace and kindness
7 that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus;
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Ephesians 2:8-9
by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves, the gift of God, not of works
8 for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, that no one would boast.
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Ephesians 2:10
we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works prepared beforehand
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.
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Ephesians 2:11-12
Gentiles formerly called uncircumcision, separate from Christ, excluded from Israel
11 Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “uncircumcision” by that which is called “circumcision”, (in the flesh, made by hands);
12 that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
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Ephesians 2:13
those far away brought near by the blood of Christ
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ.
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Ephesians 2:14-15
Christ is our peace, broke down the dividing wall, abolished the hostility
14 For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition,
15 having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace;
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Ephesians 2:16
reconcile both into one body to God through the cross
16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby.
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Ephesians 2:17
Jesus proclaimed peace to those far away and those near
17 He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near.
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Ephesians 2:18
through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father
18 For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
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Ephesians 2:19-22
no longer strangers, fellow citizens, built on foundation of apostles and prophets, Christ the cornerstone, growing into a holy temple
19 So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,
20 being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone;
21 in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord;
22 in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
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John 17
Jesus praying that they would be one just as the Father and Son are one
1 Jesus said these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you;
2 even as you gave him authority over all flesh, so he will give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
3 This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
4 I glorified you on the earth. I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do.
5 Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.
6 I revealed your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word.
7 Now they have known that all things whatever you have given me are from you,
8 for the words which you have given me I have given to them, and they received them, and knew for sure that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
9 I pray for them. I don’t pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.
10 All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
11 I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are.
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you have given me I have kept. None of them is lost, except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
13 But now I come to you, and I say these things in the world, that they may have my joy made full in themselves.
14 I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15 I pray not that you would take them from the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one.
16 They are not of the world even as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.
18 As you sent me into the world, even so I have sent them into the world.
19 For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.
20 Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word,
21 that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.
22 The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one;
23 I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me.
24 Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25 Righteous Father, the world hasn’t known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me.
26 I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
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John 3
Nicodemus told he must be born again, cannot be good enough to enter
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
2 The same came to him by night, and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.”
3 Jesus answered him, “Most certainly, I tell you, unless one is born anew, he can’t see God’s Kingdom.”
4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can’t enter into God’s Kingdom.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Don’t marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’
8 The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus answered him, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and don’t understand these things?
11 Most certainly I tell you, we speak that which we know, and testify of that which we have seen, and you don’t receive our witness.
12 If I told you earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.
14 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
17 For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him.
18 He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
19 This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil.
20 For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn’t come to the light, lest his works would be exposed.
21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”
22 After these things, Jesus came with his disciples into the land of Judea. He stayed there with them, and baptized.
23 John also was baptizing in Enon near Salim, because there was much water there. They came, and were baptized.
24 For John was not yet thrown into prison.
25 There arose therefore a questioning on the part of John’s disciples with some Jews about purification.
26 They came to John, and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, the same baptizes, and everyone is coming to him.”
27 John answered, “A man can receive nothing, unless it has been given him from heaven.
28 You yourselves testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before him.’
29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. This, my joy, therefore is made full.
30 He must increase, but I must decrease.
31 He who comes from above is above all. He who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.
32 What he has seen and heard, of that he testifies; and no one receives his witness.
33 He who has received his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true.
34 For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for God gives the Spirit without measure.
35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.
36 One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
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John 4
Samaritan woman, cannot be bad enough to be excluded
1 Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John
2 (although Jesus himself didn’t baptize, but his disciples),
3 he left Judea, and departed into Galilee.
4 He needed to pass through Samaria.
5 So he came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph.
6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
8 For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. So where do you get that living water?
12 Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, as did his children, and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again,
14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You said well, ‘I have no husband,’
18 for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father.
22 You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews.
23 But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers.
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.”
27 At this, his disciples came. They marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, “What are you looking for?” or, “Why do you speak with her?”
28 So the woman left her water pot, and went away into the city, and said to the people,
29 “Come, see a man who told me everything that I did. Can this be the Christ?”
30 They went out of the city, and were coming to him.
31 In the meanwhile, the disciples urged him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
33 The disciples therefore said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.
35 Don’t you say, ‘There are yet four months until the harvest?’ Behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already.
36 He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit to eternal life; that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.
37 For in this the saying is true, ‘One sows, and another reaps.’
38 I sent you to reap that for which you haven’t labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39 From that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman, who testified, “He told me everything that I did.”
40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed there two days.
41 Many more believed because of his word.
42 They said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
43 After the two days he went out from there and went into Galilee.
44 For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.
45 So when he came into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also went to the feast.
46 Jesus came therefore again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water into wine. There was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum.
47 When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him, and begged him that he would come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
48 Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will in no way believe.”
49 The nobleman said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
50 Jesus said to him, “Go your way. Your son lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.
51 As he was now going down, his servants met him and reported, saying “Your child lives!”
52 So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. They said therefore to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him.”
53 So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” He believed, as did his whole house.
54 This is again the second sign that Jesus did, having come out of Judea into Galilee.
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John 14:6
no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, eliminating all roads lead to heaven
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
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1 Corinthians 1
I am of Peter, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Christ, setting up factions
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 to the assembly of God which is at Corinth; those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both theirs and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I always thank my God concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus;
5 that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge;
6 even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
7 so that you come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ;
8 who will also confirm you until the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
10 Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11 For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are from Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you.
12 Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,” and, “I follow Christ.”
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?
14 I thank God that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and Gaius,
15 so that no one should say that I had baptized you into my own name.
16 (I also baptized the household of Stephanas; besides them, I don’t know whether I baptized any other.)
17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good News—not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ wouldn’t be made void.
18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.”
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21 For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.
22 For Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom,
23 but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks,
24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble;
27 but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong;
28 and God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are:
29 that no flesh should boast before God.
30 Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
31 that, according as it is written, “He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.”
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Matthew 5:28
looking upon someone with lust is already doing it, Jesus as the greatest example
28 but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Pastor Ray walked Ephesians 2 from beginning to end, pressing on what it means that God saved a people, not just a collection of individuals, and that the unity of that people is not optional but essential to God's plan.
What was said
Paul opens Ephesians 2 by leveling the playing field completely. Every person, Jew and Gentile alike, was dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the prince of the power of the air. Paul includes himself in that group. He was a Jew of Jews, pedigreed and zealous, and he still says "we too all previously lived in the lust of our flesh." There are no prior categories that give anyone a head start. Everyone was a child of wrath.
Then come two of the most important words in the chapter: "but God." Not because anyone was righteous or brilliant or spiritually intuitive, but because God is rich in mercy and great in love, He made dead people alive together with Christ. The word "together" is not incidental. Pastor Ray kept returning to it. God did not simply make a series of individuals alive one by one. He made a people alive, joined to Christ and to one another.
That salvation comes by grace through faith, and Pastor Ray took time to separate out what those words actually carry. Grace is receiving something good you do not deserve. Mercy is not receiving the punishment you do deserve. Faith, from the Greek pistis, has to do with persuasion, trust, and confidence, and it only works when it is placed in something actually faithful. God is faithful. Auburn and the Falcons are not. Your faith wavers, but placed in God's faithfulness, it holds.
Verse 10 gets overlooked in arguments about faith versus works, and Pastor Ray said so plainly. We are God's poema, his workmanship, his masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He prepared beforehand. The point of Ephesians 2 is not simply to win a theological argument against earning salvation. It is to show that we have been remade as a body, and that body has a purpose in the world.
The second half of the chapter moves into the specific hostility between Jew and Gentile. The dividing wall was not just a metaphor. There was a literal balustrade around the temple in Jerusalem, with letters painted red so they could be read while running past, warning that any foreigner who crossed it was responsible for his own death. Christ abolished that wall in his flesh. He made the two groups into one new person, establishing peace through the cross.
The application ran wider than first-century Jews and Gentiles. Pastor Ray named Pentecostals who consider themselves varsity Christians because of a second blessing, and Reformed Christians who feel their theology puts them a level above. Both, he said, are doing the same thing the circumcision did to the uncircumcision. All factions within the body of Christ are, in his word, heretical. The isms should fall away because Christ is all in all, and the body is called to be one just as Jesus prayed in John 17.
The closing image Pastor Ray came back to was the one he had raised two weeks earlier: if every Christian on earth acted the way you act, would the body be unified or would it be fragmented? His point was not that any one person has it right, but that we need each other, and that God's will works through obedience to that unity, not in spite of division. The church is the dwelling of God in the Spirit, and it is still being fitted together, still growing into a holy temple in the Lord.
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- Pastor Ray opened Ephesians 2 by saying 'all of y'all were dead in your offenses and sins' and that God uses sinful people 'because that's the only kind there are.' How does it sit with you personally to hear that the playing field is completely level, that no one comes to Christ from a position of being less bad than anyone else?
- Pastor Ray described mercy as not getting the punishment you do deserve, and grace as getting something good you do not deserve. He said the verb tense in verse 8 means 'y'all are having been saved,' pointing to something God did that is ongoing and not dependent on what you are doing now to stay in. What difference does it make in daily life to think of salvation that way rather than as something you have to maintain?
and 3 more questions in the guide
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