Sons of Disobedience – Ephesians 2:2b
In Ephesians 2:2, Paul continues describing what believers once were apart from Christ. We were not only dead in trespasses and sins, but we once walked according to the course of this world. That means we followed the values, assumptions, desires, wisdom, morality, fears, and direction of this present evil age. The world is not neutral, and it is not a harmless guide for life. Before Christ, we were shaped by it, counseled by it, and drawn to it because that was our nature. But Christians have been delivered from this present evil age, so we must no longer look to the world to define truth, parenting, marriage, counseling, success, sexuality, worship, or the Christian life. We need the sufficient Word of God to shape us because we have been brought from death to life and from the world into God’s kingdom.
Paul also says that we once followed “the prince of the power of the air,” the spirit now at work in the sons of disobedience. This refers to Satan, who works in this world through deception and disobedience. Satan is real, but he is not sovereign; Christ is above every power and authority. Still, apart from Christ, mankind is under the influence of Satan, shaped by the world, and characterized as sons of disobedience. Sin is not harmless, and rebellion against God is not neutral. This should change how we evangelize, counsel, parent, preach, and disciple. We do not flatter sinners by telling them they are basically good and only need a little help. Apart from Christ, sinners need mercy, new life, and regeneration. The hope of the gospel is that God saves dead, depraved, disobedient sinners through Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to save His people from their sins.
FULL SERMON TRANSCRIPT:
Go ahead and turn in your copy of God’s Word to Ephesians chapter 2.
I’m going to begin where I began last week. I’m going to say this again the next time you hear me speak, because these first three verses all remind us of this great truth, and by great I mean terrible and wonderful truth.
Christian, you were a far worse sinner than you think you were, and you are a far worse sinner than you think you are. But Christ is a far greater Savior than we will ever, ever fully realize.
I have been watching Facebook.
No, I’m just kidding. I’m not calling anybody out. I’m sorry. No, I’m kidding.
What I see a lot of nowadays out there is those who claim to be Christian. Let me be careful here. I’m not calling out anybody as, you know, saying these people are not believers or something like that. I’m not claiming that they are false converts necessarily.
But there are a lot of people that claim to be believers that are out there on the internet, and in the world, but on the internet is where I see them, right? That’s where they show themselves off. There are a lot of people who want to follow a generic Jesus.
We like the idea of a Jesus, but we like the idea of a Jesus that’s like us, that is generic enough that I can make him in my own image.
He’s the Jesus of love. He’s the Jesus of compassion. He’s the Jesus of justice. He’s the Jesus of whatever I like him to be. So he’s generic, and then I get to adapt him to my life in whatever way feels best to me.
And you see that in a lot of different ways. It expresses itself in a lot of ways. They’re not saying that. I’m not saying they’re going, “I like the generic Jesus, and I’m going to choose this one.” That’s not what they’re saying out loud, but you can tell by the way that they act, the things that they support, the things that they are excited about, the things that they share.
Well, you claim to be a Jesus follower, but it seems like the Jesus you’re following is different than the Jesus of the Bible.
We want a Jesus that’s not offensive. He won’t point out my flaws or call me out for my sins. He will just love me unconditionally, and that’ll be good enough.
That’s not the Jesus of the Bible.
The Jesus of the Bible, who is called the Word of God, will not contradict the Word of God. Amen.
He will teach all things for life and godliness. He will teach us everything we need to know. There is not one thing in Scripture that is not for us to know.
He doesn’t just want us to become, somebody called him out in Sunday School this morning, like Thomas Jefferson, where you tear out all the parts of the Bible that you don’t like.
Again, that’s the generic Jesus kind of religion. You can’t pick and choose what you like and what you don’t like.
Jesus is who He is, and He has given us His Word for His purpose, which means when we come to sections like this, where we have to call out something ugly about ourselves, this is what our Jesus wants us to know.
And so this morning, we come once again to this section.
Last time, we looked at verse 1 and the first few words of verse 2 and saw that we were dead in trespasses and sins in which we once walked.
We were not confused before. We were not just weak before. We were dead spiritually towards God, separated from Him spiritually.
And now, as we move deeper into verse 2, Paul takes us deeper. And as we know, this isn’t just Paul writing. We know, as I just stated, this is God’s Word to us.
So God takes us deeper. God wants us to know more. He could have stopped at, “And you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked,” and then jumped down to verse 4, “But God made us alive.”
But He didn’t. There are more words in between there. He’s not moving on that quickly. He’s not leaving the subject of sin behind that fast.
He wants us to see more. He’s digging deeper. He’s showing us not just that we were dead in sin, but how dead we actually were, how that spiritual death actually expressed itself in our lives.
So in other words, we’re digging deeper into what the Puritan Ralph Venning called the plague of plagues, or something more in our language, the sinfulness of sin.
In verse 2 then, the picture becomes clearer. It becomes bigger, it becomes wider, but at the same time the picture becomes darker.
What we are going to see here is that sin is not a shallow thing. It is more than just skin deep. It’s not just something we do outwardly, and it’s not just something that we do on occasion.
It’s not just, “Oh, I mess up now and again.”
It’s an ever-present reality, and sin by far is not harmless. There are consequences. It’s deep. It’s wide. Sin is enslaving.
And by the way, spoiler alert for next time, Paul still isn’t finished after what we talk about this morning. Next week in verse, or the next time in verse 3, he’s going to take us even deeper into the desires of the flesh and God’s wrath.
Oh man, talk about topics you don’t want to talk about with your generic Jesus.
So what we’re doing here then is not just skimming the surface. We’re not just passing by these verses quickly so we can get on to the good stuff.
We’re digging down because God’s Word says it. We don’t skip it.
We’ve got to dig down deep. We’ve got to dig down into the depths, lots of Ds, of our depraved condition, into the utter sinfulness of sin.
Why?
So that we will understand rightly how sinful we really are, how sinful we really were, in order that we can understand the greatness of the salvation that God has given us in Christ.
So if you will, stand with me for the reading of God’s Word this morning. I’m not sure it’ll be on the screen. We’re going to do all 10 verses like we did last time.
2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Father, this morning, as we once again look into this topic of just how sinful we were, just how sinful we are, Lord, this is hard. And I know it’s going to be more difficult when we get later on in the book and we start calling out specific sins.
But Lord, it’s still difficult, even in broad terms, to think about depravity, to think about wickedness, to think about our sinfulness.
But rather than being something we should ignore because we only want to stay positive, Lord, what understanding the sinfulness of our sin does is it greater magnifies how glorious and wonderful, how good and loving, how holy and righteous you are, and how great a salvation it was to reach down to the depths where we were to save us from our sins.
Lord, you are glorious and you are wonderful. And so as we go through these verses, Lord, teach us, reprove us, correct us, train us in righteousness that we may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Do this by your Spirit, his illumination, his power within us, and for the glory of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
So for those who were not here or maybe missed last week, let me just remind us of the context.
Paul is writing to Christians. This whole letter is to Christians, so if I ever forget to say that, just go ahead and assume it because that’s what this whole letter is to.
He’s writing to the saints who are in Ephesus. So he’s not speaking these particular words, these next three verses here, verses 1, 2, and 3, to unbelievers.
He’s saying this to Christians, those who have been saved from their sins, who have been given new life. They are no longer dead. They have life in Christ Jesus, who are already enjoying, experiencing the many blessings that we looked at in chapter 1.
Here in chapter 2, he’s still talking to Christians, but he’s not describing what they are, but what they were.
So after, “And you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked,” next he says, “following the course of this world.”
To better understand what that walk looked like, he describes it more fully.
A sinful man walks according to the age of this world, the course of this world, the pattern of this world.
The idea is that those who are unredeemed, fallen, lost men and women live according to the pattern, which means the values, the assumptions, the desires, the ways that the world thinks.
They go along with the direction of this present evil age.
This is not the only place that talks about this.
Galatians 1:4 says that “Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.”
And then we all know Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
Or more directly, do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of our mind.
What we were is we used to walk, and the way that we walked was according to the pattern of this world.
So what that means then, we need to define what world is, because the word world here, ooh, I almost got tongue-tied and I got through it.
That word is not neutral.
World in the Bible has three different definitions.
One refers to the physical world, the earth that we are on, this globe within the cosmos.
The second is the world of men. We’re talking about human beings. Oftentimes when you’re talking about the world, he’s not referring to the physical orb. He’s referring to all of the human race, all of the humans on the earth.
But he’s not using the word world like that here.
He’s using the third definition, which is the world under the sinful influence of Satan, that is fallen, again, as a result of the fall in the garden, the sin that exists, the nature of what we live in because of the fall, the existence that we are a part of.
That’s the world that he’s talking about here.
It is then particularly walking according to the age of this world.
Following the course of this world will mean then walking as all humans do in rebellion against God. We talked about what sin and trespasses were last week, so that is rebelling against God.
Just like the rest of the world. That’s the course of this world. It’s go after your own way, go against God. It’s go after your own wisdom, go after your own values and definitions of success, your morality, go after your own view of love, go after your own fears, go after your own gospel, go after your own cures for your problems.
This course of the world is what fallen man follows by nature.
In that sin nature that we talked about last week, this is the way the whole world goes.
And unfortunately, in our world today, especially in our part of the world today, in America, we’re proud to be free. We think of ourselves as free.
And we might be from a judicial point of view. We have a piece of paper that says we’re free. We think we’re independent of everybody else.
But Paul says here that all mankind, before they are redeemed, is just a follower of this world.
You’re not independent of anybody. You’re not free of anything. You’re just like everybody else. Sinful, rebelling against God. That’s what you are by your nature. You love it. You want it. You’re drawn to it, because that’s who you are.
The world is not neutral. The world is definitely not good. The world is fallen in sin.
And before Christ, we were following the course of this world.
Now, I know sometimes we have this idea that we are advanced. It’s 2026. We’ve advanced far beyond those people in the Old Testament and the New Testament. We don’t do the things like they do.
No. No, no, no.
We’ve just found new ways of doing these same old things.
The course of this world hasn’t changed. The form might have changed, but the nature has not.
We have the internet. We have all these gadgets. We can do lots of different things that they couldn’t do back then, but what all that has done is really just served to help us to sin even better. Amen. More efficiently.
I don’t have to try as hard to sin anymore.
And every generation, you youngins, thinks that they’re new, thinks that they’re going a different way than the previous generation.
Our clothes are different, our music’s different, technology’s different, slogans are different, words are different, political ideas or ideals are different.
But again, the course of this world remains the same.
It is living our life rebelling against God, not submitting to Him as God.
We were, as Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:10, and Paul was telling Timothy that Demas had left him. And why did Demas leave? Because he was in love with this present world.
That’s what we all were.
Listen, church, so what does this mean for us?
We need to watch ourselves. We can no longer be shaped by the world. We were saved from that.
If this used to be the pattern of our living, if this used to be the way that we walked and we are no longer, then we need to stop looking to the world for direction.
And some of you are like, “We don’t do that.”
Oh, yes, you do.
And you do it a lot more than you realize.
It comes up in a lot of different areas that we just think are neutral. There is no neutral.
That’s a lie. Amen.
There’s no objective truth out there. Unless it aligns with God’s truth, it’s not true.
And we walk in these kinds of ways.
We need to stop being shaped by the world. We need to be shaped by the Word because we’ve been saved from the world.
We don’t need to keep going back to it. He has delivered us, Scripture says, from this present evil age.
So we don’t need to make the world our teacher. We don’t need to be counseled by the world. We don’t need to be looking to the world as our model for how to best live our life, to look for what normal living is.
The world is not our master. We have been saved from the world.
So this means we’ve got to search our doctrine. We need to search our worship. We need to search our parenting styles.
There’s one where it pops up, and you may not even realize it. I’m going to say something and it’ll make, I don’t know, 90% of you mad.
Gentle parenting is not biblical parenting.
The other 90% are mad.
All right.
Marriage. This applies to how you are married, how you interact, what that marriage relationship looks like. Submission and authority, the roles, all those kinds of things.
This applies then to our counseling, to our entertainment, to how we use our money, to, here’s a big one, sexuality.
“Well, it’s just the way the world is.”
No. That’s the pattern of the world that we don’t need to be a part of.
What we think success is, is often determined and defined by the world.
Listen, the world is not neutral. It’s not objective. It’s not trying to help you. Any version of it that sounds like it is, is serving itself.
And if you are served by it, what do you need Jesus for?
See, the world only offers up other options.
“Here, you don’t need that Jesus. Let me give you a different savior. You don’t need that savior. I got a better one.”
They don’t say it in those terms. It doesn’t sound like that. But that’s exactly what the world offers.
We’ve got to be careful.
The world is not neutral.
We need the sufficient Word of God to help us be discerning.
So we, as the church, need to learn to think like people who have been brought from death to life, who have been brought out of the world to be a part of God’s kingdom.
We used to be those who are following the course of this world.
Second here, “following the prince of the power of the air.”
This helps accentuate what I was just saying. The world is not neutral. It’s following the prince of the power of the air.
“But the world has helped me in so many ways.”
They’re following the prince of the power of the air.
“But I feel better after getting what I got from the world.”
They’re following the prince of the power of the air.
Doesn’t the prince of the power of the air want you to feel better about yourself?
I don’t need Jesus. I’m feeling pretty good.
It’s dangerous because it feels right. But the way the world is going is following—
Oh, I guess I should define who this is. Who is this prince of the power of the air? Who is this spiritual ruler behind the course of this world?
It’s Satan. It’s the devil, the adversary, the enemy.
Paul here takes spiritual evil seriously.
Previously in chapter 1, he talked about that Christ was far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. Well, this prince here falls under that category.
Later on when we get to Ephesians chapter 6, he tells us that we wrestle against the rulers and the authorities, the cosmic powers over this present darkness, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
That’s who he’s referring to here.
So more than fallen man just being influenced by the society around them, there’s someone over that society. Fallen man is under spiritual bondage to Satan.
And I know we’ve talked about Satan before, and we’ll talk about him when he comes up. God put it here on purpose. Satan is a real being.
But let me remind you very quickly, Satan is not sovereign.
He is not all powerful. He is not sovereign over us, like we just sang about a minute ago about our God.
He’s called the ruler of this world in the sense that, again, the word world referring to the fallen spiritual nature of the world. But Ephesians 1 already reminded us that Christ is above all powers. He is above all those princes. He’s over Satan.
So this is not a, “Man, Satan’s fighting real hard against God, and there’s this cosmic yin and yang.”
No, none of that. We’ve squashed that before already.
Satan is not the dark version of God. He’s a creature. He’s a rebel. And according to Scripture, he’s a defeated enemy.
He’s very real. We don’t want to ignore him, but he’s not all that some people make him out to be.
Satan, according to Scripture, works in this world through deception and disobedience. It’s everything opposite of what God requires.
God is truth. We’re called to obey Him because He is sovereign over all things.
And what Satan wants us to do is he wants to lie to us and tell us to disobey God.
Now, I don’t want you to think here that what I’m saying is, or what Paul is saying, is that everyone who is an unbeliever is possessed by a demon. Okay?
There are some people who go way off the rails with demon possession and oppression and giving way more credit to Satan than he actually has.
So not every problem you have is you needing to be delivered from a demon that’s in you. You don’t need to be delivered.
And that’s true not just of believers, which are clearly not possessed by demons, but even unbelievers. Not every unbeliever is demon-possessed.
He’s saying that Satan is at work, that he is the prince of the power of the air. He is bringing in deception. He’s bringing in disobedience.
In fact, his influence started, the greatest influence he’s ever had over humanity was in the garden. And from that point on, we didn’t need his help.
Ever since he first deceived Eve, all of us are born with a sin nature, and we don’t need Satan to show us how to be a sinner. Amen. We do that all on our own.
So his influence is real, even though sometimes people don’t recognize it. It is out there, but he’s not sovereign.
He is not over all things. He is a liar, Scripture says. He blinds. He deceives. He’s the accuser of the brethren. He tempts, enslaves, but he is not sovereign.
What we need to see here though, brothers and sisters, is again, the pattern of this world is under his influence, and the pattern of the world is the sin and trespasses in which we once walked.
Sin then is not something to mess around with.
It’s serious.
Being worldly, being called worldly is not just like, “Ah, okay, I’m kind of worldly, and that’s not the worst thing you could say about me.”
Well, it actually kind of is.
Worldliness is not harmless, and false teaching is a big deal.
We need to be clear about what Scripture actually says, and what Scripture tells us is that rebellion against God is not neutral. It’s evil. It’s sinful.
So we don’t need to play or mess around with it.
Sin is sinful.
But if Satan is at work in unbelievers, deceiving them, over them as they walk through the pattern of this world, then what those people need and what we needed is not a different direction. We need to be plucked out of that.
We need new life.
Dead, remember?
So what we need to be doing as the church then is no longer walking in the world. We’re in the world, but not of the world, Scripture says.
And so we need to be preaching the gospel to those who are still trapped in the world, trapped under the deception of Satan, under his influence.
We must pray for those who are still lost.
We must ultimately trust in the sovereign God.
We must trust in Christ to save others.
We once were following the prince of the power of the air.
The spirit, number three, “that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”
That’s a fun phrase, and we’re going to get another one in verse 3.
Last week we used, “dead in our trespasses,” and “you were dead.” Man, that was a harsh term.
You were a son of disobedience. That’s even harsher.
Next week, you’re a child of wrath.
Paul, these are Christians. Stop it. You’re being mean.
It’s the truth.
The spirit, referring back to the prince of the power of the air, Satan, who is at work in the sons of disobedience. That’s who we were.
Paul is describing both the identity of and the character of those who were lost, who are lost.
Remember, he’s talking about, “And you were dead,” right?
You were a son of disobedience.
“No, I just did bad things. You know, I lied a few times. I stole some bubblegum. I kicked my friend off the swing, you know, whatever. But I wasn’t bad. I wasn’t a son of disobedience.”
Yes, you were.
A son of disobedience.
It might sound a little weird to our ears, but this is a Hebrew way of describing people who are characterized by something.
You remember the New Testament? Yeah, you all remember the New Testament. We’re in it.
There are a couple of guys who wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans. Why? Because they wouldn’t let them walk through their country.
Burn them all.
And Jesus gave them a nickname. You remember what it is?
Sons of Thunder.
Why? Was their dad’s name Thunder?
No.
They were describing a characteristic, right? They were known as these loud and kind of just out there and a little bit unruly kind of guys. They were given this nickname.
He’s saying that the nickname of every lost person is son of disobedience.
That’s what characterized you. That was the prime characteristic.
“But I had a good heart.”
You were a son of disobedience.
You don’t get to describe yourself.
Unlike the way the world tells us nowadays, “Just be true to yourself. You get to express your own identity.”
No, you don’t.
You are what God says you are, and apart from Christ, He calls you disobedient.
You’re welcome.
Our lives before Christ, those who are lost, their lives are not defined by submitting to God. They’re defined by rebelling against Him. We are known as disobedient.
And this disobedience is not just something outward. As we’ve discussed, disobedience begins within the heart.
Disobedience includes refusing to believe God. It’s refusing to submit to Him. It’s refusing to worship Him. It’s refusing to obey Him, and it is refusing to come to Christ for salvation.
But remember, sin is not just something we do. It’s something we were by nature.
I mentioned last week, we sin because we are sinners. We’re not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.
It was, Christian, our nature.
Romans 11:30 says, “For just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy.”
Ultimately, the issue is authority.
A heart of sin, a heart that is disobedient, refuses to submit to God’s authority. We want to be autonomous. We want to be our own god.
This, of course, as we just saw, is Satan’s influence. This is one of the powers that he has in this world. That successful temptation of Eve and Adam in the garden led to the fallen nature for all mankind.
Our sin nature refuses to submit to God as God.
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.”
Next time you tell your kids, “Follow your heart,” remember that verse. Don’t do that.
That’s why the gospel then is not just, “Hey, come find a better version of your own life.”
You need new life.
You need to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ so He can give you life, true new life in Him.
So once again, like we talked about last week, this should change how we evangelize. This should change how we counsel other people. This should change our parenting and preaching and discipling. It should change how we teach others to follow Jesus.
You don’t flatter sinners by telling them that they’re basically good and just need a little help. You’re not helping them.
Now, I don’t mean you need to slap them around and tell them, “You’re a dirty, rotten sinner.”
But they need to know the truth.
The truth is apart from Christ, we’re dead in sin. We are shaped by the world we live in. We are under Satan’s influence, and we are known by our disobedience.
Verse 4 is coming, but we’re not there yet.
You have to understand the bad news. It’s bad, but it’s not the end of the story. It’s not the end of the passage.
Hold on tight. We’ll get through.
But Paul is reminding us, God is reminding us, how desperate our condition was, again, so that we can see how great His mercy truly is.
So in this verse, Paul shows us that apart from Christ, man is not just dead in sin, he walks in it. He lives in it. He follows the pattern of the world like a pig wallowing in the mud.
He enjoyed every second of it. Longs for it, because that’s his nature.
So is the sinner after this world. He follows this world. He’s shaped by this world.
Apart from Christ, man is simply a son of disobedience. And sin is the defining feature of the unbeliever’s life.
Sin is not harmless. It has terrible consequences.
Unfortunately, many of those we will never even realize or know about.
Your rebellion against God is not neutral.
Sin is against a holy, holy, holy God.
Sin is what enemies of God do.
So we need to see the sinfulness of our sin so that we do not go back to the old ways. We don’t go back to the world for help to shape us.
We don’t go back to the world because ultimately we understand that the world is under the influence of Satan.
And to live like the world again is to live like a son of disobedience again, and that’s not who we are anymore.
The world offers freedom, but it’s slavery.
So Christian, don’t go back.
But this morning, if you’re not in Christ, I want to tell you as kindly as I can, you’re not good and you’re not even neutral.
You’re a sinner. You are a son of disobedience. You are what Scripture says, “an enemy of God,” because of your sin.
Romans chapter 5, listen to this. Romans 5:6–10:
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would even dare to die.
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.”
Listen to me. If you’re in this room and you do not trust in Christ, you have not trusted in Jesus as your Savior, you need more in your life than just better self-esteem. You need more in your life than just self-improvement.
You need mercy.
You need new life.
You need regeneration.
And that life is only found in and through Jesus Christ.
But let me tell you, that life is offered to you right now. Right now, fully and freely. Amen.
If you will receive it by faith. Confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that Jesus died and was raised from the dead to save you from your sins, and you will be saved.
That’s the promise.
As sinful and disobedient and rebellious against God as you are, God saves those kinds of people because I was those kinds of people, and so were you.
So church, remember, the passage doesn’t end here, and it doesn’t end with verse 3, although we’ve got to give one more week to this.
Verse 4 says, “But God.”
Oh, that’s going to be a fun sermon.
That’s our hope.
Our hope is not in ourselves or in this world, but it is in God, who is rich in mercy and makes dead, depraved, disobedient sinners alive.