Once Dead, Now Alive! - Part A

The Bible tells us that we have a condition called sin. We are being drugged out in the undertow of life. We have a flaming future certain sea that is awaiting us is called being lost. God's law. In that condition took the penalty of sin upon himself and his son, and if we stand that and embrace that personally. We can be saved.

We have assumed conviction.

Only God can save us from today don't connect with Skip Skip please note God's plan of salvation for the world and for you. But before we begin, here's a resource that will encourage and challenge to fulfill your purpose to impact your world with the truth of Jesus Christ.

People find comfort in the status quo.

Others just can't wait to challenge it. If this were a recovery meeting, I would begin by saying my name is Skip and I'm a nonconformist about you go with the flow swim against the current truth is going against the status quo can be difficult.

Following Jesus requires that the account of Daniel shows how God can transform life by one person's willingness to define what's normal. I like to think of it this way when the ways of life came crashing down. Daniel decided to go surfing, to write these waves if these waves are the will of God for my life to learn how to master these things and I went to get propelled forward to soar above the status quo skip. I think the defined normal way of saying thanks for your gift of $35 in March to help connect more for the God part and when you get will also include the booklet 100 and I hear for Rick Warren. These two resources will help you stand out from the crowd for God's glory connectwithskip.com/comfort to get online securely today or call 892 1888 Ephesians chapter 2 gets into today's message. There's a lot of things that define who I am say that I am defined by the word, man. I am a man is another descriptor I'm a tall man. I'm an old man I mature man my origin, California and but the one descriptor that would define me more than anything else. As I am a saved man. I've been saying something has happened in my life that is altered the course presently and for evermore. We understand the concept of what it means to be saved if a doctor performs an operation on you pulls out a tumor like what happened to my wife 11 years ago. She had a very aggressive tumor in the very skilled surgeon took it out, I can rightly say that Dr. saved her. If you are in a recognition automobile accident and pinned under a fiery automobile and the firemen came in and pulled you out of the burning wreckage. We would say that he save you if you were out in the ocean and the undertow is taking you out into the sea and you are being pulled under, and the lifeguard saw you flailing went out and brought you back in same thing you been saved. The Bible tells us that we have a condition it's called sin. We are being drugged out in the undertow of life. We have a flaming future certainty that is awaiting us. It's called being lost. God saw us in that condition. He took the penalty of sin upon himself and his son, and if we understand that and embrace that personally. We can be saved at this topic of salvation and this is a series were going through 2020.

Understanding truth. Clearly, we look at the doctrine of God and Jesus. The Holy Spirit our humanity, we come to the most important subject ever which is salvation. It is the most important thing in the world. In fact, in 100 years from now the only thing you'll care about is this an hundred years you won't care about the election in 100 years, you will not care about the economy you you will not care about a virus in 100 years. You will care about MIs saved or not. So I'm at a date myself. I told you I was an old man. I grew up watching a program on television called Alfred Hitchcock presents. Does anybody remember that show look at. We have a few of us old folks together together today so and in that show.

I think it aired from 1955 to 1965 was black and white offered Hitchcock was the master of mystery stories and there was one particular program where there was a woman in prison serving a life sentence and she had become friends with the caretaker of the prison. The caretaker had many jobs, one of which was to whenever a prisoner died ringing the bell, letting the prisoner know that somebody had died. Take the body put it in the casket go and fill out the paperwork the death certificate returned to the casket nail the top shut nice and tight.

Put the casket on a cart take the casket outside the walls of the prison and bury it in a graveyard so she worked out a deal with the caretaker that the next time a prisoner dies in the bell is wrong, that she would sneak into where the casket was lying on top of the corpse get them lit nail down, she would have enough air to breathe, she would be taken out and buried with that the corpse later on. The caretaker would return. Undo the dirt and she would be set free so they had this worked out so as months went on in the middle of the night she heard the bell ring she figured out a way to pick the lock intercell got out she escaped and snuck into the room where the caskets were found. The corpse she fell for it.

She declined in the casket and waited until she heard footsteps of somebody coming down in putting the nails in the lid she felt being hoisted onto the cart being taken outside the graveyard and being buried heard the dirt as it was being put on the casket. She got all excited. She started laughing in the casket and so she decided while she waited to just light a match and see which prisoner was the died so she lit a match and looked down into her horror, it was the caretaker. So her plan was fully bold and the whole episode ends as it fades to black and she screaming in the casket. There's no way out.

Listen, you do not want to get this choice wrong. You don't want to hedge your bets on the wrong plan when the dirt is tossed onto the coffin. There are no other options.

It's too late to St. Luke's and yet most people do get this wrong you talk to people about salvation only.

I'm saved, really, how do you know your safe while because I professed it yeah I said some words therefore I'm say or I'm saved because I go to church rhyme say because I carry a Bible I'm say because I like Christians now and it's usually a performance reference. There referring to something they have done a ritual they have performed a prayer that they have said, listen, listen you are not saved just because you say you are you are only say because you received a savior somebody has saved you and declared that you are so with that in mind, I bring you to Ephesians chapter 2 and we can look at the first seven verses really I will redound verse 10 for context, and Paul has such a knack of giving us a panorama of salvation, past, present and future. He says you he has made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins 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 sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others but God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up together made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is Paul going from the graveyard to glory from death Valley to Graceland and what I meant to do with you a show use five different stages of salvation. These are stages. Everyone goes through who comes to Christ. Every human being goes through at least the first three redeemed one go through all five. Let's begin with the first one dead dead is the word that describes everyone, for he says in verse one, and you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. This is every single human.

You either are dead or you were dead. How did you get dead you were born that way, you were born dead DLA dead on arrival. That is separated from God. Possessing those spiritual life of your own. Unable to understand the spiritual things. David said of himself in Psalm 50 14 I was born a sinner. Yes, from the moment my mother conceived me know. We all know that we live in a troubled world and you have pundits and philosophers who tell us every generation.

What's wrong with the world and how to fix it. Some will say real problem with humanity as a social problem. We haven't figured out how to get along with each other. We have racial tensions we have to under stand each other socially and we haven't learned how to get along.

That's our real problem. Social issues others will say no, that's not really our problem. Our underlying problem is not a social problem but it's a psychological problem we have to understand ourselves before we can ever understand others. We have to get along with ourselves except ourselves have self-esteem and self-acceptance and then will be able to socially adapt. Others will say that's really not the problem. The problem is environmental issues. We have pressures in our environment. We have parents who told us will never measure up her uncles who were mean to us or teachers who put us down, and so we are victims of our environment. None of those are the problems they may be symptoms of the problems the problem is not a social issue. The problem is not a psychological issue.

The problem is not an environmental issue.

The problem is where dead. We were dead dead in trespasses and sins. Unbelievers aren't sick. Unbelievers are dead. There need a self-help course they don't need a personality adjustment, the need to be saved. That is the most important issue. If you put a person in the best schools in America, you will have at the end of the process. A very well educated sinner. You can put a person in the best therapy environment and psychological counseling in the city and you will have at the end of the process of very well adjusted sinner, you can put a person, or religious schools, religious institutions, churches, and you can have at the end of very religious center. It's only when a person is under the grace, mercy and love of Jesus Christ that you have a saved center. Now this is something that God said would happen way back in the book of Genesis, God told the first people on the earth in the day that you eat there of you shall surely die, the soul that sins, it shall die. The wages of sin is death.

So the moment Adam and Eve disobeyed God death happen immediately. There was an immediate separation with God, and there was that spiritual death and there was an eventual physical death know what Paul said is what happened then continue all the way until now for Paul says in Romans five through one man sin entered the world, and death entered through sin. Thus death spread to all.

This is why unbelievers do not understand spiritual truth that understand spiritual things. Paul said in first Corinthians to the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God.

They are foolishness under him, nor can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned.

So an unbeliever will say yeah you tell me about the spiritual things. I don't see it. I don't get it. I don't understand. Of course you don't understand it, you can't understand it. It's what Jesus described when he said, a sower went out to sow seed and some fell on the pathway, the wayside, and as soon as the seed went down on the hard path the birds of the air came and stole it away. Jesus said so is everyone who hears truth and Satan immediately snatches that from their hearts. It's hard and they don't get it. Just as a physically dead person cannot respond to physical stimuli.

A spiritually dead person cannot respond to spiritual stimuli. Listen a corpse cannot hear the conversation going on in the funeral parlor, a corpse has no appetite for food or water. Corpse feels no pain so that's the condition dead.

That's what Jesus said a man must be born again. There must be a spiritual birth that occurs because outside of Christ.

Everyone is dead. That's the first condition, the question is how do we get dead when there's two things are mentioned in verse one trespasses and sins. One is a condition that sin one is an action poser trespasses, our condition is the sinful condition that is part of our nature from Adam. The other are things we do trespasses. Let me describe that word sin you've heard this before some of you.

It's the word harm IT.

It actually means to miss the markets in archery term. It's a term used 173 times in the New Testament and it actually refers to aim at something and to miss it. You shoot your arrow but you fall short of the target. So here's one example were all standing today at the edge, let's say, of the Rio Grande River and the goal is to in one jump jump all the way across. Now let's say it's springtime because today he probably does walk across it, but if there's water in it.

The goal would be to jump from one side of the other know if you're a little child or an older person and you jump your only can make it a few inches or a couple feet. Perhaps that's about it for a little older child. You might make it a few times further than that. If you're very accomplished athlete, you can make it even further out. All of you will only succeed relative to one another, but you will all fail self included in reaching the goal to go from one side or the other we will all fall short of that goal. Now that sin.

We've all fallen short of the glory of God, look at this other word press passes, that's different.

That means to cross a known boundary that is a deliberate willful act of disobedience. That's when you put down the line and say don't cross the line. In summary, goes that's a trespass so the first time you ask for floors and you tell little Junior don't walk on the floors and he forgets and starts walking out there that sin. But when you correct him and then he looks at you with that little gleam in his eyes to see if you're going to do anything about this, that's a trespass or for example when I was a little boy. My parents took us to Disneyland.

This is when it first opened in history and I remember going to Disneyland are only just a few things and I'm kinda just walking around going right shouldn't go.

My parents had to bring me back.

That's sin.

But later on when I was a teenager and I jumped the fence at Disneyland by the five freeway and snuck into it's a small small world. Now that was a trespass we were dead separated because of sins and trespasses, or as he puts here in order trespasses and sins.

Stage I stage II. Not only that we were drifting verse two in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the year, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. This is a bit of a conundrum because on one hand, Paul says these people are dead and you were dead. But while you were dead you were walking so how does our The Walking Dead right here you're looking at an unbeliever.

They seem very much alive, very vivacious, very vibrant, intellectually stimulated very well accomplished.

Can we rightly say that those unbelievers are dead absolutely in the sphere that matters supremely, which is not the body, which is not the mind but is the soul. The spirit they have no life.

They are dead and they are drifting and that takes us to the word in verse two walked.

I want you to notice that in which you once walked, the word walked parapet 10 oh is a Greek word that means to order one's behavior or to move about, or to walk about, but one commentator suggests the best translation effect one translation uses the word wandering or meandering that the word means to browse or wander about loosely with no goal or purpose. You know the difference. If somebody is walking you see him walking on the street.

Navigate you again go that person's going somewhere. He knows right worries going with any of people who kind of saunter and they just kinda walk around and there meandering their browsing through got into a store with the intention of not buying anything and you walk out with two or three bags of something. You know what happened you browsed. You browsed your way into buying something now listen to how Isaiah describes our life before Christ. All we like sheep have gone astray.

We've all wandered and gone our own way. So not only were we dead, we were drifting and we were drifting. According to a pattern, a path of course, Paul calls it, according to the course of this world. Just a note about that word world word world hears cosmos and means ordered system, something that is ordered by the unbelieving world is very organized and ordered mankind is an organized creature so because Moss world ordered is the opposite of chaos, unordered. So the idea of of the world is a world system and organized world system, a world order a value system led by a common leader called here the prince of the power of the air. Anybody know that is it is Satan is another description of Paul for Satan so to walk according to the course of this world is to think and to live and to act according to the ideologies and standards dominated by Satan and demons skintight message from his series 22 Skip to tell you about how you can keep encouraging messages like this coming your way to help connect others to the good news of Jesus, God's truth is the best foundation you can build your life on in our goal here is to empower your life with his truth to these Bible teaching so would you please consider giving a gift today to keep the messages coming to you and to help more people build their lives on God's word here so you can give a gift to help more listeners like you build an unshakable faith: 800-922-1888 to give today 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com/donate.

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