What We Were (Jake Enns)

This morning before I go into my sermon, I want to give a special

announcement. We have a wedding announcement

for this coming Saturday. Nick Friesen and Grace

Richardson are planning to join their lives and marriage this

coming Saturday. There you see them on the slide.

We're very excited for them. We wish them God's grace,

blessings, and much joy as they enter this new season of life.

And I encourage you to bless them and wish them well this

coming week and beyond. It's an exciting thing for a

young couple to enter this new life and wish them well.

This morning for a sermon, we want to continue with our series

in the book of Ephesians. Our title this morning is What

we Were, What We Were. When life is going well, it's

easy to forget the past. When life was not going well,

there's a tendency when things are going well to quickly adapt,

to quickly adjust, and to acclimatize ourselves to the

good times. And I'm not speaking in

judgement of enjoying good times and taking the light in the good

times. But it's important for us to

remember the past and to not take for for granted the good

times. Sometimes in life it's helpful

to take some time and just pause and take a look around where

we've traveled in life, in the far we've come, and so on.

I think I speak for most people when I say that most people's

lives there are stories and experiences that they would

never want to repeat and have to go through the second time.

Often times the stories we have lived through, we're not right

or wrong, they just were not good or bad.

They just were. Then there are good stories,

times of joy and gladness, the good life.

And then they're also stories of deep pain, hardship, and grief.

As we just mentioned our prayers, there's loss.

Then there's sometimes stories where sinful things were done to

us by other people, and there's not a thing we can do about

these things. But we can learn from those

events and we can forgive the ones who did the bad things and

we can move on. We can think about how it

affected us, how our lives have changed because of what others

did, and we continue on. But the most difficult stories

in our lives are the times when we send and caused pain to

others. The most painful stories in our

lives are when others suffered because of things we did.

There's this deep sense of pain, grief, and guilt that we caused

others. Even though God Forgives us when

we repent, the memory lives on because their lives are forever

changed and it will never be the same.

And God heals that and it's OK. But the scars remain.

Think of the scars of our Lord Jesus, the scars in his hands

and his feet. I truly believe when we get to

heaven, we'll see them for us as followers of Jesus.

At one time we all were without Christ.

But at some point in time, those of us who are believers, we

heard the gospel, we repented and received the gift of grace,

and we're saved. But as good as that is, and as

much as we need to remember and celebrate that and thank God for

that thing about this, even though our past is forgiven, it

is not erased. Yes, our sins are thrown into

the deepest sea, the Bible says, but the scars are there.

The reminders are there. Just like the scars in Jesus

hands. The deeds can be and are

forgiven, but nothing ever will make it go away or unhappen or

erase. It's forgiven, but not undone.

I think it's safe to say of the biblical writers that the

apostle Paul understood this better than anyone.

And we know that he remembered well his life before he was a

Christian, before he followed Jesus, how he persecuted Christ.

Paul always remembered what he was before he met Jesus Christ.

He talks about that in some of his letters, how he was living

in ignorance and how he persecuted the Church of Christ.

Last Sunday and Pastor Joel's sermon in Ephesians chapter one,

verse 15 to 23, we heard how Paul wrote of his gratitude.

Paul thank God for what God had done.

We heard how Paul's words to the Ephesians are an encouragement

for us today to pray for the knowledge we have in Christ,

that we have knowledge in Christ and that we are on.

To hold on to the hope that we have in Christ.

And how that hope then leads us to preach the gospel with power

and to submit to Christ's authority.

And all of that we heard was good and it's true.

But you know what really brings out and highlights that truth?

What highlights that truth and the God's goodness is when we

take and hold it up against the backdrop from where we have

come, the gift of salvation in Jesus, the gift of God's Spirit

in us, that he's raised us to life, that we can have

fellowship with him. All of that shines that much

brighter when we see and realize what we were before we had

Jesus. And so this morning as we

continue our series in Ephesians, we come to a part in

chapter 2 of the first 3 verses where Paul pauses and he quickly

does a little bit of a detour and he writes about what we were

before. Our passage this morning is only

three verses for this morning. In some ways, this passage, if

we take it just by itself, seems like a dark passage.

But really it's like a snapshot of what Paul, There's our title

of our type of a snapshot of what we have and what we had.

Compare the two. He says look what you were,

where you've come from compared to where you are now.

So this morning you want to look at this little passage here.

Look where we were in the past. The next thing I want you to

come back and listen for that. And then you're going to look at

where we are. Where we are today is not where

we were, at least we shouldn't be.

And so this morning we will talk about what we were, what we once

were. Let's read Ephesians chapter 2,

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

beginning verse one to the end of verse 3.

Ephesians 2 one to three. And you he made alive, who were

dead, and 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 all, whom 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 we're by nature children of wrath just as the others.

He kind of just plunks this little piece.

You're right in the middle of what he says in chapter 1 and

what he says onward from chapter 3 two verse 4.

And so next Sunday, as I said, we're going to go into it in

more in depth in chapter 2, verse four and on.

But it's kind of like he just plumps this just plump, just

plunks us right in there. As I've said before when going

through Ephesians, this is a very densely packed truth, and

we don't have time to unpack all of it, but want to look at some

of it this morning. It's a very densely little

piece. He just plunks right in there.

The whole thing is very dense, but he just takes a different

truth and just plunks right in there.

It's very interesting. One commentator says that the

way Paul writes this in the Greek and the original from

chapter 1 and chapter 2, we've divided into chapters and

verses. But the ancient scriptures were

not like that. And so for convenience or for

reference purposes, later writers, they put chapters and

verses in there. So now it's kind of divided.

But in Paul's writing it was not so.

He's writing what God has done for us in Christ, what we have

in Christ, in him repeatedly in chapter 1, his power, and so on.

Then suddenly, here's this shift for what is marked off only in

three verses. And that is where we want to

spend our time this morning. It's as if Paul is leading his

audience, his readers, up on a mountain Rd. on the journey of

life. And now he unexpectedly pauses,

stops the journey, says look back, look there, look, look in

the back. I like that.

I like riding mountain roads because I sometimes just like to

pull over where there's a pull out and just look around.

Look at the road we've traveled it.

It brings things into focus. He's been writing to them what

they have in Jesus, where we are now.

We're saved. We're predestined to be adopted

as sons in him, he says repeatedly, meaning in Jesus we

have redemption and forgiveness and God's power working in us

through Jesus Christ. It's like saying we're on the

mountain, but remember, we were in the valley, now we're on the

mountain. It is fitting and necessary that

we take time in life to look where we've been, what we were

like, the things we did, and how it's changed how we've grown.

It's easy to just want to keep going and we need to keep going.

But if we never take time to look back at what God saved us

from, and we don't take time to stop and look where we're at, we

may lose sight, we may lose perspective.

And we find repeatedly in the Old Testament how God told the

Israel's remember where you came from.

Remember what you were. You were slaves in Egypt.

Remember how I redeemed you, what I did to Pharaoh, what I

did to the Egyptians, the Red Sea, the desert journeys, and on

and on. Remember how you were delivered,

delivered. It is totally appropriate and

fitting to remember the milestones in our lives, the

journeys, the experiences and so on.

I'm not saying there's merit, salvation merit, and remembering

the days of our conversion and baptism in those histories,

there's no salvation merit, but it's a very good sign of what

has happened, a reminder. So in today's passage we find

Paul stops, looks around at the journey, verse one, and you he

made alive who were dead and trespasses and sin.

Why does he have to talk about that?

We've been brought from death to life.

It's our first point. Let's let that just sink in for

a little bit. We were dead.

I don't think we fully can grasp this.

To be made alive indicates the previous state of not being

alive. Before we were made alive, we

were dead. Think of it this way.

If someone walked up to you and said, oh wow, you're alive.

What do you think I was dead. Paul is saying here to the

Ephesians, you were dead, but you he made alive.

He's saying that then we're then we won't read it today before

verse 4 and onward. He goes into a lot of detail

what God did in making us alive, but here he's just kind of

stopped. He takes a look into the past.

He describes his audience spiritual state before they were

made alive before they got to where they are now and next time

this sermon as a sermon. As I've mentioned, we want to

continue on this chapter what being made alive is like.

But today we're spending our time on looking into the past,

what we were and this looking at the past at our record, at our

journey is something a lot of people are not interested in.

And the reason is exactly that because it takes us to our past.

The audience. Paul is writing to their current

state. Weird now was there were

spiritual living people. He says you were made alive.

I don't need to mention it, but I think we all know there's a

big difference between dead and alive.

I don't know for sure how to describe the difference between

dead and alive. I think there's no greater

difference than that and all of maybe the universe.

If the difference between dead and alive could be measured in

distance, I think it would be infinite.

Paul is talking to the Ephesians about a time when they were dead

and and what he's talking about is not dead as in corpses as not

breathing, hearts not beating. The word dead here does not mean

physically dead. He's referring to a human state

of existence where there was no desire for God.

There was. There was darkness, not the

heart had stopped beating. Not corpses, but human beings,

very much alive, possibly even healthy, totally healthy.

The best of shape may be even. But spiritually there was

nothing there, just darkness. He's describing living human

beings who are very much alive but dead in relationship to God.

This spiritually dead state, as Paul describes it here, is a

person who has no connection to God, no desire for God.

They are their own person, so to speak.

A spiritually dead person can be very smart, very knowledgeable,

very educated, very brilliant, and all those good things.

They may even be going church going people.

They may even believe God exists.

Some do. The apostle James writes that

even the demons believe in God and they tremble.

What does spiritually dead look like?

There are stories in the Bible that illustrate that.

There's a story in the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 10, verse 25.

Luke 10:25

I'll read that, have it on the PowerPoint here It says, and

behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying,

Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

He said to him, what is written in the law?

What is your reading of it? So he answered, meaning the

lawyer said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your

heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your

mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

And he said to him, meaning Jesus, you have answered

rightly. Do this and you will live.

Note the ending of Jesus response to this lawyer.

We'll go into the beginning, but first let's look at the ending.

He says do this and you will live.

Was the lawyer not alive? Now?

Of course he was alive, physically alive.

Obviously this was no doubt an occasion where Jesus was

teaching and people were sitting around and listening to Jesus.

It says one man, a lawyer, stood up.

That says a lot. And a crowd, a man stands up and

it says to test Jesus, to test him.

It tells us a lot about what's going on.

We know that often times when Jesus would teach, people would

come to listen, not to learn, but to listen.

And this guy had come to find fault.

He's a lawyer, making him one of the upper class in his day and

age, the upper class of society. He's obviously sitting and

listening. He has this idea he's going to

test Jesus, and he doesn't ask the question about eternal life

to gain understanding or seek guidance.

He wants to see what Jesus will say.

So he stands up, gets attention, and he asks him this question.

Now he's not a dead person physically, but spiritually has

no connection to God. The lawyer was dead toward God.

His attitude toward Jesus was one of opposition.

He wants to test him. He did know right from wrong.

He expresses it, but he was not in relationship with God.

He still knew right from wrong. He knew the Scriptures.

You see what makes a person alive in Jesus is when a person

hears the gospel, receives the gospel, repents of his sin, puts

his faith and trust in Jesus. That's the gospel in the in the

all the four gospels and the letters of Paul that makes a

person alive in Jesus. Knowing the scriptures did not

make this lawyer alive toward God, Jesus says to him, do this

and you will live. Did Jesus encourage him now to

earn his life by works of love? No, if one would read just that

portion in Luke, that's it, one might get that impression.

But that's not the whole story. We have many other passages that

teach us that what counts as a relationship with God through

faith is people have a relationship with God through

faith when they repent of their sin, walk with Jesus, and in so

doing express their loving and loving neighbors as well.

Knowing what to do is a good thing, as the lawyer knew.

Just knowledge, whoever doesn't save, just knowing what to do

does not give a person life. Life comes from God when there

is a relationship through faith. And again, next Sunday we'll go

further into that. But for today we're looking at

our human state outside of a relationship with Jesus.

So we were dead. We know that now.

But in what were we dead and what were we dead?

Well, that Paul tells us, he says we were dead in trespasses

and sins. Wouldn't it have been enough if

Paul had just said you were dead in sins?

Would that not have been enough 'cause that's the truth?

But Paul clarifies dead. He says you were dead in

trespasses and sins. We know sin is sin.

We know that. But what are trespasses?

Aren't trespasses sins? Yes, trespasses are sins too,

but they are a kind of or a type of sin.

You see, trespasses are sins that we commit by willfully

doing things we know are wrong, and we still do them anyway.

That's the trespass, he says. We're trespass dead, and

trespasses and sins. So let's look at trespasses for

a bit. Things people do wrong

intentionally. Spiritually dead people live

lives separate from God. They may still have Bible

knowledge, maybe all the knowledge possible, even as this

lawyer did. They may even have training.

They may go to church. They may even be members of a

church. They may be serving in the

church, but that doesn't make them alive.

Alive because the Pharisees were temple people and they did

everything in the temple and they were spiritually dead.

Another story that comes to mind is the story of Adam and Eve in

the garden. God had given them the Garden of

Eden to take care of and to enjoy, but He gave them free

will. There's only one command that

they had to choose to follow. Do not eat from the tree of

knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat of it, you

shall surely die. They were spiritually alive.

They were in relationship with God.

They were not dead toward God in the garden before they fell, but

they were tempted, and they chose to disobey, and then so

doing, they died in the relationship with God.

That was a trespass. Adam and Eve had all the

knowledge they needed, but that did not stop them from

trespassing God's law and taking from the forbidden fruit.

They had to choose to obey. There's a lot more than we can

unpack here in one morning sermon, but let me just say that

today, under God's covenant in Christ, when we're in Christ,

God's Spirit lives inside of us to guide us and keep us.

And nothing can take us out of God's hands, but we can choose

to disobey and walk away from him.

There's no outside force in the universe that can remove us from

God, but we can reject him or disobey him and trespass.

And Adam and Eve did so. They trespassed God's command

and the consequences were catastrophic.

They lost their relationship with God and opened the door to

a world of sin and brokenness. Their relationship with God died

when they sinned. Their sinful state of death

toward God did not erase the dead of sin.

Their sinful state did not now somehow make them dead as a not

being responsible for anything anymore.

They were still very responsible and now after they had eaten,

they were. They were responsible for what

they had done and so on. The word dead in Ephesians means

separation from God. Paul says here in the same verse

They were dead in trespasses and sins.

Well, let's also look at the word sins.

All trespasses are sin, but not all sins are trespasses.

All trespasses are sins, but not all sins are trespasses.

Sins come in different ways and different forms.

There are people who do things that are not trespasses, things

they shouldn't do, but do things they should should do but don't

do. Rather sins of omission.

For instance, remember the story of the Good Samaritan.

Those of you here were Friday night at this event where Daniel

Pollard was. He told the story of the Good

Samaritan. He fell among thieves, was

beaten up and left for dead. A priest comes by and knows the

good he ought to do, but doesn't do it.

Sin of omission I leave It walks by and doesn't do the good thing

he ought to do in another sin of omission.

The good, the Samaritan, he was a good neighbor.

Maybe the Samaritan didn't even know any scripture.

We don't know, but he did the right thing.

So there are sins are sins of omission and there's also other

sins simply sins of ignorance. A person may not have done

anything wrong intentionally, not even willfully ignored any

good deed. Let's say they sometimes just

didn't know, just didn't know. As parents, those of us were

parents. When our children grow up, we

know what that's about because we look back.

Oh my goodness, what did we do? We did not raise our children

right. Or we've made mistakes here and

we've made mistakes there. We committed sins by not doing

things right because now they're suffering for it.

And later, in hindsight, we realized what did we do?

We didn't know better, but still is wrong.

And even though there was no wrong intent, nevertheless we

are responsible. And if you don't agree with

this, just read Leviticus 1234 and five.

There's a whole list of sacrifices they're supposed to

do for certain types of sins, sins of categories by the way,

and Leviticus 1234 and five. I suggest you read it sometime.

There's this particular sin called the sin and and sin by a

mistake. They would call because if

somebody sins unintentionally, then he has to sacrifice for

forgiveness. That's really there.

It's in Ephesians chapter, I mean Leviticus chapter 4 called

Leviticus 4 · chapter mention

the sins of the when unintentional sin happens,

they're supposed to sacrifice for that.

Basically the definition of sin. Sins are things in our lives

where we missed the mark, whether it's intentionally

trespassing or it's something that we miss.

We don't understand it or we thought we did right and we did

wrong or we we just ignored something and it and it's and

then maybe even more yet, but this is what I've come up with.

What is important for us to know is that before we were in

Christ, we were in all of that. But then Paul expands his

thought. Notice verse 2.

He says 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 obedience.

That's what you were like, he says to the Ephesians.

So first we're dead in trespasses and sins.

Now we read we once walked that way.

We once lived in sin. Nobody who's of age of

accountability can say, Oh, I I'm the exception.

I didn't sin. I remember hearing a story many

years ago of a man who was presented with the gospel and

Jesus came to die for the sins of the world and it meant all of

us. He he said, he literally said,

well, on my account he wouldn't have needed to come.

He thought of himself that highly.

I think most people who claim to follow Jesus would not want to

view themselves as living in accordance to the course of this

world. There are many people who want

to be viewed as living for Jesus, but the lives don't

reflect that. So what values do we live by?

Are we following the Spirit who now works in the sons of

disobedience, meaning separateness from God?

And these people may be doing a lot of good things, but not

according to God's teachings. We're choosing our own path.

Jesus says the fruits of our lives show what's in our hearts.

We can always evaluate our lives by Scripture.

Is my life producing the fruit that Scripture talks about?

In the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 7, Jesus reminded his audience

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

of false prophets. There were spiritual leaders who

said one thing and did another. Let's read Matthew Chapter 7,

Matthew 7:15–20

verse 15 to 20. I have it on the slide here.

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing,

but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will know them by their fruits.

Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears

bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear a bad

fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and

thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you

will know them. Verse 19 is kind of a downer.

Every tree that does not bear good fruits cut down and thrown

into the fire. It's not based on the label,

it's based on the fruit. The teaching of Jesus here is

that what a person is will be revealed in how they live.

It's easy to say one thing of what a person does is the true

evaluation of what's in the heart.

These false prophets may have had good speeches, they said

right things, but their behavior revealed they were living in

accordance with the spirit of the age.

Paul goes on to say in verse three that we all at one time

live this way and he said how we conducted ourselves.

Let's read further. 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 the others.

Our lifestyle outside of Christ puts us in opposition to God.

Let's pay attention here. We can all say right things,

even do good things, but if the motive, the goal is still

selfish, is still self focused, it's still not good, it's still

wrong. And we may not be trespassing,

committing murder, stealing, adultery and those kinds of

things, but that does not exempt us from the category of

separateness from God's spiritual death.

When we live outside of a relationship with Christ and our

motivation is self focused as we as and we're all for ourselves,

then we're spiritually dead. The Pharisees were spiritual

people who needed to be made alive.

But I also want to be careful. I'm not saying that every time a

person has made a mistake or now you're lost or now you're now

you need to be made alive again. God knows the heart.

But there's a level here to which Paul drops the the

conversation that's very serious, and it's seldom

mentioned. Let's look at how Paul reminds

his readers that what they were This is our last point.

We were children of wrath. What is a child of wrath?

Children of wrath are people who intentionally reject God and

live in rebellion and defiance of his commandments.

These are people who are spiritually dead.

They have no relationship with God.

We don't have time to go into full detail what this all

entails, but a child of wrath is a person who rejects God.

The desire of a child of wrath is to use this life for self

gratification, self benefit at the cost of the one who they

give, who gave them, who gave them their life of Jesus, and

they have no regard for God. Paul's letter to the Ephesians

is a serious reminder for us in this category.

While we should not dwell on and marinate ourselves in our past,

we need to remember what God has saved us from.

And we should remember that God has forgiven us our past on the

cross when Jesus died for us. We will only see God's grace as

very good to us when we see our sinful state as God sees our

sinful state. I've sometimes said, if sin is

not very bad, then grace is not very good.

Our sins are paid for by Jesus on the cross.

Jesus died so we could live. That's a truth that we must

always remember. We were not just nothing outside

of Christ. We were enemies.

Paul writes in Romans and Paul writes in Romans 58.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

It is often tempting to pretend that we're walking with God when

really we're not. Again, a people group that came

to my mind as I was studying this passage was the Pharisees

of Jesus state. They knew the commandments of

Moses, and Pharisees would generally memorize the first

five books of Moses by heart and their young age.

They were very keen on doing good as far as the law was

concerned, but really they were enemies of God the way they

responded to Jesus. And I want to read a little

passage of Matthew of some people who would fall into that

category of being children of wrath.

Let's read Matthew 2315. Jesus says woe to you scribes

and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel land and sea to win.

One proselyte mean 1 follower, and when he is 1 you make him

twice as much a sun of hell as yourselves.

These are the words of Jesus. They're very hard hitting.

This he said to the best of the best of his time.

In that culture, the Pharisees were looked at as the cream of

the crop. They were very religious men.

They had mission programs, mission projects.

They went out to win people to their 'cause they knew their

scriptures, they would have been able to recite it all from

memory. Very focused on keeping God's

commandments. In reality, there was all

hollow. There was nothing there.

Again, let's read verse 3, Ephesians 2, verse 3.

Ephesians 2:3

Amen. Among whom also we all once

conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the

desires of the flesh and of the mind.

And we're by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

Paul is including himself, and rightly so.

And so should we all. Paul was a Jewish Pharisee at

one time. He was one of the very group to

whom Jesus said such hard, harsh words.

And we don't know, but it's entirely possible that as a

Pharisee, he would have been told, yeah, that rabbi, that

Jewish rabbi, Jesus, he told, he said this about us, called the

sons of hell. He would have probably known

that. But when Paul came to know

Jesus, he experienced God's grace, and he realized he had

nothing to hold up to as works of salvation.

And he realized it's a free gift.

He couldn't earn it. He got something he had never

understood. But now in writing Ephesians, he

understood it. And while a letter like

Ephesians is a great letter, to read a passage like we have

today before us can be a bit depressing.

But the reason is because in and of ourselves, that's where we

are. Without Christ, we are that we

missed the mark. But on the other hand, it should

not depress us. It should excite us that our

performances and accomplishments are already completed in Christ

when He died on the cross for us.

His standard for us is now accepting His work, His blood,

what He shed for us, not our performances.

Oh yes, we work and we serve, but that's not this.

That's not what we do to earn it.

All who repent of their sins, all who put their trust in

Christ, all of them are rescued and do not have to face the

wrath of God. There's no human effort or works

that can make it happen. It's God's work in us that makes

it possible. And what God requires of us is

to put our faith and trust in him.

And just to be clear, this is not a work, as some writers

would call it. Some say, well, if your faith

saves, if you, if that's the basis, then your faith is work.

It's not work. Faith is the channel through

which salvation comes. Jesus came, He died for the sins

of the world, all sins, trespasses and sins, not in

general, every sin. And it's fitting for us to take

time and reflect what we are, what we were, where we've come

from, and what we were. So we were spiritually dead.

We once lived in sin and we were children of wrath.

But today, as Paul writes, God's people are children of light,

children of life. We're not dead, we're alive.

I want to encourage us this morning to remember this and

live by this. What we were was not something

that gives God's people open grace.

What we were, no, we were sinners, trespassers, we were

dead. But when we have Jesus, we have

everything. So what difference does this

make for you and I today? There may be some people here

this morning who find themselves in this category of spiritual

death. It doesn't mean not knowing.

It means rebelling against God or ignoring God, walking away

from him. But there's hope.

The Bible says as long as it is day in Hebrews writes, we can

come to him, we can repent, we can receive the gift of eternal

life in Jesus. We who have been made alive, who

were once dead and trespasses and sin by nature, children of

wrath have become children of light.

So I'm trusting that most of us, for us, this is the reality.

We're alive in Christ. Next Sunday we want to continue

this sermon, but the second part and they want to look at what's

the result of what Jesus has done.

What are we today, what we were and next Sunday what are we?

Let us pray Lord, you know each heart in this building this

morning, Lord, You know where our internal struggles are, what

our fears are, what our hopes are.

I pray Lord, that we would all have an experience with you.

Not some human self-made just emotional experience, but the

sweet assurance and the confidence that in you we've

been saved. We've received eternal life.

We were once dead in trespasses and sin, but you saved us.

You redeemed us. Today we can pause, look back

where we've come from, the road we've travelled and look where

we're going together with you. I pray Lord, for all of us here,

everyone to get to know you, to experience your power in their

lives and help us to live in peace and love and goodwill

together. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.