Once Dead, Now Alive! - Part B

Were not literally right now and places were here on earth were in church this week and we are Jesus indeed ascended into heaven, but we are there positionally with him one day we will be there literally with him speaks as though it is already in place. There are many benefits that come with your life to the Lord to connect with Skip Skip shears about the future destination.

Jesus gives Hughes a resource that will help you pursue a life of faith purpose in an uncertain time to be thought of as normal basic human instinct which you believe the children as young as three years old already want to follow the crowd and fit in with the group of researchers found at Duke University study Bible we learn that some of the most impact have done self identifying normal here. Skip, I think.

I think the Bible calls us to a holy defiance of the status quo. Paul the apostle said, do not be conformed to this world but be trans formed by the renewing of your mind, so to go from transformed find out*it's fun to find normal thanks to you when you get $35 or more to help extend this type of ministry today with the booklet for direct line get your copies of these bold resources copies hundred 9288 or give online securely connectwithskip.com/offer. Okay, let's dive into today's teacher will be in Ephesians chapter 2 begins the step stage II. Not only that we were drifting first to, in which you want 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 it work the walking dead right your you're looking at a nonbeliever.

They seem very much alive, very vivacious, very vibrant, intellectually stimulated a 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 Tara Patapsco 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 wondering or meandering that 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 to go to that person's going somewhere.

He knows right where he is going with any of people who kind of saunter and they just kinda walk around in their meandering there browsing there 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 have 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 the word world has caused mass and means ordered system, something that is ordered 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. That is to drift meander browse in this world so dead drifting now gets worse takes us down with third stage doomed doomed. Verse three among home.

We also once conducted ourselves in the loss or desires or pleasures of our flesh fallen nature, fulfilling the desires of the fallen nature of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature here is children of wrath, just as others why Paul has gone from bad to worse, dead, and then drifting and then doomed children of wrath, or objects of wrath or sitting under the judgment of God sitting under the judgment of God.

John RW Stott, a commentator on this book said I doubt if there is an expression in Ephesians that has provoked more hostility than this. People do not like to believe that they are under the judgment of God that is a reprehensible thought to them. All human beings are either under God's judgment or under God's grace your under God's judgment because of trespasses and sins because you were born into it or your under God's grace because you were born again to it.

There is no middle ground that Jesus said you're already condemned John chapter 3 verse 18. He who believes in him that is in Christ is not condemned but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God, know all this does is serve to show how helpless we are without God's intervention. How lost we are and cannot save ourselves that we are under a death sentence as long as we reject God's solution. GK Chesterton once said hell is God's great complement to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human choice when it comes to heaven and hell. God is pro-choice, God will let a person determine their destiny based on what they do with Christ to receive him or reject him and God will honor that person's choice throughout all of eternity.

The person says I want nothing to do with God. Okay, you don't have to have anything to do with God forever.

So three dire stages dead drifting doomed, but now it gets good. Now it's think of it this way when a jeweler wants to display at particularly brilliant bright diamond he will often or she will often come out of the back with a little black velvet cloth and spread it out on the table and against that very dark background and you put that little diamond or that big guy Monica all the brilliance. In contrast, is stunning.

So Paul paints the worst background, darkest background possible and then he drops in the diamond in verse four is the diamond verse four is the next stage which is delivered verse four, but God, we did a whole series on those two words 45 times in the Bible, we find the words but God whenever you find them good things afterwards we're going this direction by God. We were this way, but God they did that, but God.

Everything good comes after that. Now the sun begins to shine. 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. Those two little words but God contain the whole gospel is one of the most eloquent inspiring transitions in all of biblical literature. Call it a holy conjunction, but got Avis on a license plate thing was a New Hampshire license plate they had on but God they understood the meaning you understand these words, it changes everything. Now what we have here beginning in verse four is conversion conversion. We go from dead drifting in doomed to delivered and this is conversion by conversion I mean our willing response to the gospel call that includes repentance and faith are willing response to the gospel call that includes repentance and faith. Now I want to drill down a little bit on this. There are a few components to this being rescued first component. Please notice God initiates it. It says he made us alive. He made us alive. You can't make you alive.

A dead person can crawl out of the casket.

A dead person can improve his or her condition.

He made you alive. This is regeneration.

This is where God animates you gives you spiritual life. He made us alive. So like yeah man, I had like my own epiphany. I reason my way through it. I figured this out. No, you were dead you are helpless you couldn't crawl out of the casket you had to be made alive. So God initiates a second component, not only does God initiated God's character enables it God's character enables it. He made us alive.

Based on what based on mercy. But God, who is rich in mercy. Boy, this is a good match because we are rich in sin, but God is rich in mercy, or we could say we are poor because of sin. Therefore God is rich in mercy, so mercy the idea of not giving you what you deserve, that you've heard this before. Grace is giving you what you don't deserve mercy is about, not so much as getting something is not getting something you deserve, judgment, punishment, mercy is God withholding that that's mercy and God's rich and install. I got runs out of it, or go to guy how much mercy got a lot of it. I'm rich in it. Lamentations chapter 3 to the Lord's mercies we are not consumed his compassions fail not.

They are new every morning.

It's also tied to God's love.

Notice it says God was rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, you know, if there's one thing I hope you never forget is that God really does love you and and I'm saying that because for a long time. I just thought God tolerated me. I was even sure if he liked me.

I find I knew we put up with me but love me but you know when you discover cannot possibly I'm the object of God's love and it's a great love. It says wherewith he loved us. It's amazing.

He does want to destroy you is not out to get you.

He wants to save you. God's love. So God initiates it God's character enables it to give you 1/3 component about this rescuing this deliverance. Only God can do it. Only God can do it it says even when we were dead.

He made us alive this and if if a dead person can fix himself and somebody on the outside has to resurrect him.

Only God can do it.

It wasn't when I was good it wasn't when I was lovable. It's when I was dead, so only God can do it. So God initiates it God's character enables and only God can do it when you give your fourth component of this conversion. This deliverance we must cooperate with, we must cooperate with, that takes us to verse eight, by grace you have been saved through with an expert faith than that's our part. That's where we latch on to his provision by believing we have been saved by grace you have been saved through faith and that even that faith is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. So we believe. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. This is conversion. This is conversion and the word conversion means a turning.

It is a spiritual turn. It is a complete turn. Think of it like this on turning from my sin and I'm turning to Jesus Christ in one fell swoop, one movement, repentance and faith are two aspects of the one act of coming to Christ and both occur at the same time is not like yeah I gave my life to Jesus Christ than 20 years later I repented know it's a turning it's a complete turning repentance and faith to aspects of one single act both occur at the same time to listen to this further. It is an instantaneous event to an instantaneous event, meaning one moment you're spiritually dead, having no life of God. The next moment you have spiritual life from God. You may not exactly know when that instantaneous change occurs, especially kids who are raised in Christian homes.

Those who attend church. Those who attend Bible study for years and gradually grow in their understanding of the gospel, but at some point it registers and it's like okay now it's real.

CS Lewis, who was very well known unbeliever became a believer I wrote these words he said I know very well when but hardly how the final step was taken I was driven to witness Nate.

It's a little town in England. One sunny morning when we set out. I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and when we reached the zoo. I did, and yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought nor in great emotion.

Now other people have a real dramatic experience that is far more punctuated and far more Martha than that. That is the relies center. They know they're separated from God to give their life to Christ they see immediate results. There is assurance of forgiveness and desire to read the Bible, the desire to pray a delight and worship, a longing for fellowship desire to tell others about Jesus. Whether you have a dramatic crisis or not the changes both instantaneous and eventual instantaneous because it's simple, authentic faith and that's all that is required but then eventual because fruit will be shown. If you have been changed by Jesus Christ.

If you truly believe others are to see it eventually in your life.

That's the process of sanctification we see the fruit so we have four distinct stages dead drifting doomed, followed then by delivered that's conversion. I'll give you 1/5 we could probably keep going but we don't have time to give you this one destined destined verse six and he raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly realms. Literally 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 now called us is turned from the past to the present. Now all the way to the future, showing that the present reality has a future destiny and notice the phrase I want to Skip it over to quickly happen to be one of Paul's favorite descriptions of believers.

He says you are in Christ Jesus. One of his favorite phrases to describe us. We are in Christ Jesus. He uses that 85 times in the New Testament, and that is associated with verse six, he made us sit together in the heavenly places. When he says that he's talking positionally, not literally, were not literally right now in heavenly places where on earth were in church this week.

Here we are. Jesus is indeed ascended into heaven, but we are there positionally with him one day we will be there literally with him so he speaks as though it is already taken place. What is true positionally one day be true eventually. Look at verse seven that in the ages to come. That's future he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus you know at some point after we come to Christ were truly saved. Wow, man I say I'm forgiven.

I have hope. I have purpose.

I have meaning it dawns on us. That's not the end the game's just the beginning. Now there's even something beyond this that extends into the next realm, and that is hope forevermore in heaven in glory with him. That's why Christians get excited talking about signs of the times, or is Jesus coming because Jesus promised he would come back and we should look for him.

And so that's why Christians get excited about the future. Titus chapter 2 looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. First Thessalonians chapter 1, you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his son from heaven. Philippians chapter 3 for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. How are we to wait for Jesus eagerly that passively I like Jesus coming cool this virus gets over quick and I mean yeah that's true but Jesus is coming, he's coming were living in these days and we look forward to his coming and we wait eagerly. Why are we so eager verse seven. Again, please notice that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in this kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Let me rephrase that for you. It's going to take God all of eternity to show you to reveal to you to disclose how much he loves you. That is as much as you know now and experience now and will be rewarded in heaven is still going to take God into the future eons to fully display how much he loved you all of eternity will be a continual revelation of God's love to you. No wonder we look forward to what's coming. And yes unbelievers accuse believers all the time you guys are your pie-in-the-sky you're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good. Listen, our hope goes beyond our economy are election of virus cure, a vaccine.

Our hope is fixed and we have a destiny that is Jesus saves us all the way to heaven. And this is what marks the difference between somebody dead and somebody was been made alive by Christ. Every single human being has experienced the first three conditions of dead drifting and doomed. Only those who have been born again, redeemed people have experienced the delivered and destined to be. There are or were dead and this is a lie. Princess bride. He's only mostly that knows all that you can be all alive all the reps of Skip a text message from the series 2022.

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That's connectwithskip.com/donate or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888. Thank you tomorrow Skip Heitzig six years about the new family. You are part of when you give your life to Jesus. You and I were at enmity with God, the Bible says or in the words of last week's text. We were by nature children of wrath as now things have changed. Now please say yes to Jesus Christ and we are saved, the relationship is