Alive Together with Christ - Ephesians: Born for War

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior this morning, you're dead.

You got a dead heart.

You can try to resuscitate your heart all you can.

You can sit there and beat it against a tree to try to get it to beat right.

But if it's dead, it's dead.

And I can you can come to the road and I can do all I can to try to pump up your heart, but there's only one person who can pump up your heart, and that's Jesus Christ.

You're dead.

At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from pastor teacher Steve Holt.

Turn to Ephesians.

We're in the book of Ephesians, you guys, and the title over the last few weeks is Born for War.

Born for War.

Most Christians not only don't know they were born for war, they don't even know there's a war going on.

And the reality is, though, is as we see increasing work of demonic activity in our world today, we need churches that are filled with the Holy Spirit, understand what's going on and engage in a loving, humble, kind, joyful way.

But the reason I chose Ephesians is because it's such a powerful manual on who you are in Christ.

In other words, what you've been given as your inheritance by becoming a Jesus follower.

If you're not a Jesus follower today, then what I'm saying to you is just a theory, okay?

And I pray that by the end of our time together, you might want to know Christ.

You might want to experience him in your own life.

But let's let's review chapter one real quick.

We had Good Friday, we had Easter, we had 60 baptisms last week, and so we haven't been in Ephesians in three weeks.

So let's go back.

Chapter one.

Look at verse three.

Look at verse three.

Verse three says, Blessed be the God of our Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Now here's what's crazy.

It's kind of mystical, it's kind of a mystical concept that when you become a Jesus follower, in some mysterious way, you're actually raised up into the heavenly realm with Christ.

In other words, your spirit, your spirit man, your spirit woman, it comes alive in you, and you now have the ability to connect into all of the spiritual blessings that are in Christ.

That means the life of Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ is all yours.

It is a gift given to you.

Okay?

Now you're not experiencing it fully, but it is there.

And so each one of you in this room have been given spiritual gifts and talents.

But but there's more to it than just your spiritual gift and talent.

There's a wealth of spiritual treasures that have been given to you for every believer.

So what I mean by that is like, for instance, after the first service, there were a lot of people up here getting prayer.

And we didn't have enough prayer people, so I had to come down and pray for people.

So I'm down here praying for people, and I got words of knowledge for one particular person.

That was a word that I knew was right what that person needed, and by the reaction, I know it was accurate.

But I wouldn't say that on a regular basis, that's a gift of mine.

Getting a word of knowledge for someone.

I would say I'm more in the teaching, pastoring room, and leadership.

That's kind of my butt but I needed it then, I got it then, God gave it to me because all the spiritual gifts are mine.

So somehow there's this dancing hand of God.

That's the best way I can describe it.

It's like the dancing hand of God, and he looks around and there's nobody available but you.

Okay?

I walk by buckles and I'm available.

Okay, so I minister to these four ladies at Buckles, the dancing hand of God comes into buckles, Spirit of God's there, presence of God.

We're all in tears together as we share our hearts, and God shows up.

Okay?

So a kind of an evangelistic gift was in that too.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

But I'm not a capital E evangelist, I'm a small E evangelist, but I'm available.

And so what I think he means by the spiritual realm is that all of you can be an evangelist sometimes.

All of you can have words of prophecy sometimes.

All of you can teach God's word sometimes.

Now he's got tertiary gifts and he's got primary gifts, but those spiritual gifts are available to all.

Now look at verse 19.

And what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

There's that word again.

Heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

And he put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all and all.

And I've taught on this already.

But what he's saying here is that Christ, when he was raised from the dead, was seated in the heavenly realm with his Father.

So he had come to the earth, he died for us for the sins of the world, he was resurrected on the third day, and then after 40 days, he ascended to heaven, he seated at the right hand, and up in this, in this third heaven, we'll call it the third heaven, which is what Paul called it, that he was raised up into the third heaven, where the throne of God is, is above the second heaven.

The second heaven is the demonic realm.

And so there are demonic and angelic beings constantly battling all the time in the heaven.

When you pray, a battle gets released into the second heaven.

When you believe God for a miracle, you release light, you release Holy Spirit power into a situation.

That's what Jesus modeled for us.

So he could go into a village and hear someone sick, and he could call out the sickness and bring forth healing, he was breaking through darkness in that second heaven.

And so he's raised up.

Now, what he's gonna do in chapter two, and this is where we are today, he's gonna say to us, you're raised up with Christ and with the Father.

So there's it appears in Scripture that the Father is enthroned in heaven, that the Son is enthroned next to the Father, and that when you become a believer, in some, again, it's a it's a mystical, I mean, I don't understand it all, we are seated with him in the heavenly places also.

So look at chapter 2, and we're gonna pick it up there.

And the next few weeks we're gonna really dive into this.

This is just kind of a beginning, embryonic look at it here at the beginning.

So let's just read the first six verses.

And you, he made alive, who are dead in your 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 lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, and that's the key word, I'd circle that, highlight that, but God, because that changes everything, but God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you've been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together, here we go again, in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Now, guys, I don't understand this completely.

I just know that's what the scripture says.

That when you get saved, when you give your heart to Christ, in some spiritual sense, you are seated with Christ in the heavenly ramps.

He just said in chapter 1, verse 3, that in that rim are all the spiritual gifts.

And he just said in verses 19 through 22 in chapter 1 that we are above all principalities and powers, all demonic angels, all demonic forces in the heavenly realm.

And then he says, remember what he said in the last part of chapter 1?

He said, I've given all that to the church.

If the church was being the church today, we wouldn't have the mess that we have in culture right now.

But the church is more interested, quite frankly, most of the time, in being comfortable and being entertained than becoming the army that God created them to be.

So if we had a church, like the first century church, we'd be, what is it, Acts 17, 6, be turning the world upside down.

Or maybe a better way to say it is we'd be turning the world right side up.

Because the world's already upside down.

And so God wants to use you.

He wants to use you.

He wants to use you as a mechanic, he wants to use you as a housewife, he wants to use you as a husband and a father.

He wants to use you as an athlete.

He wants to use you in your high school or your grammar school or your college.

He wants to use you as a professor.

He wants to use you in politics.

He might want to use you on a school board.

He might want to use you as a lawyer.

Whatever field God has crafted and designed you to be, He designed it for you to make an impact there.

Not just take up space.

So with our kids, seven kids, we've always talked about we're not parenting or building consumers.

We are building producers.

So they all have to have a job.

And then that's the laugh.

That's the joke in our family with some of the jobs that we've asked them to do or made them do.

Like chickens and eggs.

You don't make, there's not a lot of wealthy chicken farmers.

I can tell you that right now.

So that's a big joke.

But as we learn to grow and we start to think in terms, God's got a mission for my life.

He's given me every spiritual gift in the heavenly realms.

Who knows what God can do through each of you wherever you are?

So let's start back at verse 1.

And you he made alive, who were dead in your trespasses and sins.

If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior this morning, you're dead.

You got a dead heart.

You can try to resuscitate your heart all you can.

You can sit there and beat it against a tree to try to get it to beat right.

But if it's dead, it's dead.

And I can you can come to the road and I can do all I can to try to pump up your heart, but there's only one person who can pump up your heart, and that's Jesus Christ.

You're dead.

Anybody know who Jeremy Bentham is?

Do we have any philosophers in the room?

Okay, Jeremy Bentham is the father of utilitarianism.

And when he died, he gave orders that his entire estate would go to the University College Hospital in London with one caveat.

That he would always be present on the campus.

So you can go to the University College Hospital in London and you can see his auto icon.

In other words, his skeleton is right there in the entranceway to the hospital with clothes on and gloves and a wax face.

And he sits there.

He's dead.

Isn't that interesting?

This is Iron Evanic.

Can you imagine the guy who was the creator of the whole concept of utilitarianism?

Wants his body, his skeleton, at the school doing absolutely nothing.

Is that lost on anybody here?

So you can go up to Jeremy Bentham, you can see him right there, and you can ask him a question, and I promise you, you won't get an answer.

He's dead.

Dead people, no matter how they look, are dead.

Jesus makes us alive.

Jesus comes into your dead spirit and your dead heart, and he can start a spontaneous combustion of the power of the Holy Spirit and bring life back into your body.

Life back into your spirit.

Christians should be the healthiest people in the world.

Christians should be healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

We should be the healthiest people in the world because we got the Spirit of God working within us and God's strength and his anointing and his wisdom is flowing through our brains.

We can think for ourselves.

You are alive, folks.

You're alive.

When you leave today and you walk out in that parking lot, you should scream as loud as you can.

I'm alive.

I'm alive in Christ.

And so he says, You're alive in Christ, and it's 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 disobedient.

Without Christ, we're dead.

In Christ, we're alive, but we're in a course.

Do you understand?

We're born into a course of this world.

Some of you have been to college, some of you have been to graduate school, and there's a course you take.

When I went to Georgia, you know, University of Georgia, there were courses I took.

When I went to Fuller and I looked at it, there were courses.

There's a course of this world.

There's a course you're on.

And guess who the principal is?

It's Satan.

He's the principal of the course of this world.

And so the course of this world is that you're walking, that's the word there in verse 2, you're walking as with the sons of disobedience, increasingly into sin.

It's called, write this down, don't miss this.

It's called the law of diminishing returns.

Write down the law of diminishing returns.

That is the course of this world.

If you're dabbling in drugs, it will lead you further and deeper.

What got you high before will not get you high tomorrow.

That's why we have all the issues we have with child pornography and the stuff that we're having with abortion and all that.

It's because somewhere along the line, somebody started dabbling in the course of this world, and you always need more.

You always need a bigger fix.

You always need to see more.

You need to experience more.

It's the law of diminishing returns.

And unless something stops that in its tracks, you're headed for big trouble.

You're headed for suicide.

You're headed for a dead spirit that's gonna lead you into all kinds of bad stuff.

And so he's saying that's the coarsest world.

And the principle, Satan.

He runs it, he's running it, he's been doing he's really good at what he does.

So we were in the kitchen before the service, and all the food was getting set for the roadmap.

And I was playing around with everybody because I sometimes I like to just play around to get my mind off the sermon so that I'm ready to go when I come in.

But I just said, you know what, you know what I love?

You guys?

I just love the fact that the media and the people of our culture, I I just trust them.

I mean, I I just believe that they believe in me.

Well what?

And I I just know that anytime you've got, you know, the entire say medical community and big tech and big gov and mainstream media all agreeing on the same narrative, that's best for us.

That is best for us.

You can trust that.

Woo! Yeah.

Come on.

You know my line.

I'm from Georgia, I'm not real smart, but I figured it out.

Okay, run the other way.

So here's the point.

This is the course of the world.

This is what they do.

They move in, it's demonic, it's the law of diminishing returns.

And I like what John Stott says.

John Stott, writing about Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, says this.

He says, Ephesians 2, 1 through 3 expresses a whole social value system which is alien to God.

It permeates, indeed, dominates non-Christian society and holds people in captivity.

Wherever humans are dehumanized by political oppression or bureaucratic tyranny, by an outlook that is secular, repudiating God, amoral, repudiating absolutes, or materialistic, glorifying the consumer market by poverty, hunger, or unemployment, by racial discrimination, or by any form of injustice.

There we can detect the subhuman values of this age and this world.

So in Isaiah, the description is given of Satan or Lucifer, Isaiah 14.

How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning.

How you are cut down to the ground, for you have weakened the nations, for you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven.

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

I will also sit in the mount of the congregation on the furthest sides of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.

You see that the MO of the enemy is always pride.

Listen, guys, listen closely.

Humanism at its very core is beautiful.

Because it humanism is about the dignity of the human being.

You are the highest creation in all of the world, in all of creation, the human spirit.

Men and women, you're the highest creation of all, and God has given you the blessing of being a co-creator in a sense on the face of the earth to make a difference with our lives.

But humanism has been co-opted by this philosophical concept that we are the center of the universe.

And so Chuck Colson in his excellent book, How Shall We Live, he speaks of humanistic philosophy as it is portrayed in the 1966 book by Robert Rimmer called the Herod Experiment.

The book sold three million copies and was instrumental in the free sex revolution of the 60s and 70s.

And here in the postscript of the 1990 version, Rimmer writes, quote, can we lift ourselves by the bootstraps and create a new kind of society where human sexuality and the total wonder of the human body and the human mind become a new religion, a humanistic religion without necessity of a God.

Because you and I and all the billions who could interact caringly with one another are the only God that we need.

I think we can.

You see, men and women, that's the essence of what is the co-opted humanism, not the beautiful Christian humanism, but a humanism that says that you're God.

Everything revolves around you.

And God says, no, everything revolves around me.

And if you'll start to line up your life with my life, I'll show you everything you need to know about your life.

I mean, some of you kids in here are really, really messed up.

Because all you think about is yourself.

And you're sad and you're bummed out and you're depressed all the time.

Because thinking about yourself and living in the world in which all you think about is you is always self-defeating.

But when we take our eyes off ourselves and we go back to the creator and we say, Jesus, I want to glorify you.

I'm gonna go to this worship conference, I'm gonna learn how to worship you, I'm gonna be a worshiper and a warrior in my life.

Joy comes because that's what you are created for.

So I

Drove in high school, I drove a 1962 red Volkswagen bug.

It was cool.

I put shag carpeting in my Volkswagen bug.

I thought I was really cool, okay.

8-track, baby.

8-track.

Boom! Put those in there, you know.

I did not take the Volkswagen bug to a Chevrolet dealer.

I didn't take the Volkswagen bug to a four-dealer.

I went to the Volkswagen place because the Volkswagen place knew about the engine being in the back and that little engine.

And oh, can you imagine somebody who doesn't know Volkswagen?

They walk up and they open up the front and it's it's where you put your luggage.

Wow, here's a car with no engine in it.

Some of you are doing that with your life.

You're taking your life to the wrong people, and they're looking and there's nothing in there.

And you can say, Well, I could have told you that.

You know, knock, knock, is anybody hum?

But Christ created you for a purpose.

He's your creator.

Come to him.

Quit being sad.

Be glad.

It's not hard.

Smartest decision you'll ever make.

Follow Jesus.

And he'll come and he'll restore what's been stolen.

Well, here's the result.

Verse 3 is the result of the selfish life.

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 were.

So you become, you're just a child of wrath.

And religion doesn't work.

Never has worked.

Doesn't work.

You ask someone, well, hey, yeah, I've been a Christian my whole life.

Well, tell me about your experience at First Presbyterian Church.

Or tell me about your experience at United Methodist Church or whatever it might be.

And they'll go, well, I was an elder there.

Oh, I was a deacon there.

Oh, I made meals for the elderly.

Wow.

Awesome.

I don't care.

And in one sense, God doesn't care.

If outward things are the way we're going to somehow find new life, I got news for you.

It's never worked.

But if you said to me, well, man, when I was going to that church, I found Jesus and I learned how to worship, and I'd never worshiped before, and I've discovered a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ by being there.

Now that's what it's all about.

Right?

So that's what this church is about.

Not how many things we serve or all the conferences that we do.

Those are just a reflection to equip the saints that we can make an impact in this world.

That's why we're here.

And that's the joy of it.

So I have these dreams from time to time.

Some of them are in the third heaven and some are in the second heaven.

And I had one last night.

And the dream was I was on the run.

And that's that people were after me.

Anybody ever had a dream where you feel like people are after you?

Alright.

That's not from God.

Not from God.

It's the enemy trying to create fear in there.

But I can recognize it now.

So I go, no, I rebuke that in the name of the blood of Jesus.

And if people are out to get me, which they probably are, come get me.

It's fine with me.

If I get to go to heaven early, then I'm ready to go.

So I'm not afraid of death.

Now listen, you guys, this is what changes us from being children of wrath to having new life, is when we become fearless in Christ and we break the power of the fear of man.

And religion always builds the fear of man.

And so what we do is we're comparing ourselves with all these things.

And like I said to you guys, you men, a wholehearted men on Tuesday morning, I said it's a seesaw.

Okay?

You either are fearing man or you're fearing God.

You're either fearing man or you're fearing God.

If you're fearing man, you're walking around just bummed out all the time.

If you're fearing God, you're pumped and excited because he's at the center.

He's lighting a fire in your heart.

Verse 4, but God, and this is really key, but God.

So whatever you're going through, but God.

You're depressed today, but God.

You got some addictions in your life, but God.

You got some issues with your relationship with your spouse, but God.

Everything changes with but God.

Because when you say but God, you open up the miraculous.

If you say but you, you open up the natural.

I don't want the natural, I want the supernatural.

And the only way we can have the supernatural is what he says right here.

Paul says, but God.

Because let's face it, you guys, you're all in verses one through three at some point in your life, right?

We're all in the course of this world.

We're all in the lust of the eyes and the lust of flesh.

We struggle with that.

But when God comes, and it's not a one-time thing, it's not just because we got baptized last week or we received Christ.

It's a discipleship, it's a process.

And sometimes what happens in our lives is we're doing great for a while, and then we, you know, we get off into some bad stuff.

And God wants to call you home.

Just say, you need to start saying, but God.

Say that.

But God.

Say it again.

But God.

I'm not a loser anymore.

Yeah.

I'm a loser.

I'm addicted.

I'm depressed.

I married her.

I married him.

I got a lousy job.

Yeah.

But God, listen to what he says.

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful here, you guys.

But God, who is rich in mercy, he's rich in mercy.

Because of his great love with which he loved you.

Even when you were dead in your trespasses, he made you alive together with Christ.

By grace, you've been saved.

And he's raised you up now together to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

So stand up.

So stand up.

Stand up.

Alright, all of your weight is on your ankle, your knees, your hips, and your feet right now.

It's all of your weight.

You're holding yourself up.

Now sit down.

But God.

You're seated with him in the heavenly places.

You're resting in him.

Some of you today have got to go home after church, go home and just sit down in the living room and just say, but God, I'm seated in Christ.

I'm going to quit worrying about that.

I'm going to quit fretting over this.

I'm going to rest in Jesus because He is rich in mercy.

He says, I'm beloved.

He says that I'm forgiven.

That's what it means to be in Christ.

So listen, six days, God creates the heavens and the earth.

Right?

He created man and woman.

Seventh day, what did he do?

He rested.

The first day of human beings was rest.

Some of you need to rest more.

You need to slow down, you need to calm down, and you need to rest in Christ.

I want you to rest today.

It's a Sabbath day.

I want you to rest in Christ.

Drop your worries, drop your fretting, and rest in Him and give it to Him.

Whatever it is you're worried about.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.

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Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.

Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.