When preparing this week, I learned of a psychological condition that I had not heard of before. The condition is something called “anhedonia.” When asked to describe the feeling, a person’s typical response might be, “I feel dead inside”. Though many of us may never experience clinical anhedonia, Scripture tells us that we all start out in a state of being “dead inside”. A spiritual anhedonia of sorts. Unlike clinical anhedonia, being spiritually dead inside cannot effectively be treated by therapy and medication. The Apostle Paul tells us that there is only one cure for spiritual death, and that that is salvation.

Earlier in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he greeted them by sharing the many blessings that they received from the Father, Son, and Spirit. He then moved into praying for them to have wisdom and understanding about the power of those blessings. Tonight, we are going to see him remind them about the power of their salvation and what had to happen for them to become saved by God. From this text we are going to answer the question,

What does it mean to be saved?