Ephesians: "You were dead... but God"

We're going to continue in our in our series through Ephesians.

Today we're actually going into chapter two.

So we've been in chapter one for like six weeks.

And so we're going to move into chapter two today.

Anyone excited to start a new chapter in Ephesians?

Let's go.

You're like, at this rate, we're going to be in Ephesians for the rest of my life.

But I'm going to read, I'm going to read our passage for today.

I'm going to pray for us, and we're going to dive in.

So we're going to be in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10.

Ephesians 2:1–10

And it reads like this.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.

Some translations may say trespasses and sins, in which you used to live or walked when you followed the ways of this world, and of the ruler or prince of the kingdom or power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.

Like the rest of mankind, we were by nature deserving of wrath, or under God's wrath.

But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions.

It is by grace you have been saved.

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not from your this is not from yourselves.

It's the gift of God, not by work so that no one can boast.

For we are God's handiwork or God's masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

This is the word of the Lord.

Holy Spirit, we just invite you to come and have your way.

Lord, we know that in a room like this, we are all over the map when it comes to our relationship with you.

But Lord, we believe that you know each and every single one of us, you know every hair on every head, you know what we need.

And so, Jesus, we just ask for you to be and do what we need today.

And we trust you to do that.

Would you speak clearly?

Would our hearts be open to receive it?

And maybe walk out different than we came in.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So I'm revisiting, I'm revisiting a show that I watched a long time ago that I really like, really enjoy, partly because I just love shows that have to do with chaotic families.

For whatever reason, I'm I'm also have like a minor obsession with the Kennedy family.

I've seen every documentary, every movie.

I don't know what it is, just chaotic families.

There's just something about them that really stirs something up in me.

And but it's it's the show called Parenthood.

Anybody ever seen Parenthood?

Let's go.

It's okay.

Go watch it, guys.

So in Parenthood, it's this huge family, multi- multi-generational.

You see the family grow and expand over the course of you know six seasons of the show or whatever.

But there's a there's a particular family in there, Adam and Christina Braverman.

And I forgot about this part of the show, but in about halfway through the series, there's there's something that happens, and Christina gets gets diagnosed with breast cancer.

Completely forgot about this part of the show.

And and it kind of comes in like out of nowhere, and it really kind of, once you've been tracking with this family for a few years, or in this case now, it's like binging these episodes for a few weeks, you know, you kind of get hit between the eyes, you're like, oh my gosh, it just really disrupts you in a way that that kind of feels like it would be authentic to real life.

And but it but it sparks it sparks something in their home and in their family, and they begin to have a discussion.

She visits uh she visits the original doctor who who diagnoses this breast cancer and begins to create a plan for the surgery.

And he's not a very nice, he's not a very kind guy.

He's not very soft and warm, bedside manner, not that, you know, not that great.

He's very blunt, you know, very, very, very straight to the point, fact of the matter, kind of guy.

And the husband can't stand this because he's listening to his wife, his wife is scared, his wife is emotional, and she's she's feeling the weight of what she's about to walk through.

And this guy is just very blunt, very matter-of fact.

And so the husband can't stand this.

And he's like, hey, I think we should find a different doctor.

And from the beginning, Christina's like, this doctor's really highly recommended.

A lot of women have gone through him.

He's he's been really successful in this.

And he goes, I didn't like him, I don't have a good feeling about him, I want to go see someone else.

And so he ends up going to uh going to a different person, more of a wellness kind of approach to things, more of a natural approach to things.

And the woman is super kind, super nice, makes her feel very, she's very reassuring, she's very kind, amazing bedside manner, very warm.

And and and the husband loves her because she's just so kind, she's just so warm.

But the but the wife begins to get a hesitancy.

And eventually, through through a friend who also suffered from breast cancer and received healing from this doctor, she goes to Christina and she goes, Look, he may have this personality, but I'm telling you, the question isn't whether or not you need him to be nice or whatever.

The question is, do you want to be healed?

And if you want to be better and you want to be healed, this is who you need.

Because what you what you realize in in health and in life and whatever it may be is that if there's a problem and you need healing, you don't need your diagnosis to be nice.

You need you need your diagnosis to be accurate.

Right?

Like if something's wrong with you, something's broken, something's disjointed, and you need healing, you need an accurate diagnosis.

It may not be the warmest or the kindest or the softest way to say it, but the most important thing is that it's accurate.

What you need if there's something broken in your body is for a scan to be able to look at that thing and someone to be able to read that scan, diagnose that problem, be honest with you and tell you so that you can get that thing fixed and get that thing healed.

An accurate diagnosis may be hard to hear, but it's trying to ultimately lead us to healing and lead us to life.

And the reason I say that is because this is what Paul's doing in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

And you may read it, I mean, the first words are you were dead.

Like you may read it and go, man, bedside manner.

Not the warmest Paul.

Not the, maybe not the sweetest way you could have said that.

But what Paul's not trying to do is try to be the warmest or the kindest that he can possibly be.

He's trying to be accurate.

He's trying to tell you, hey, you know there's something wrong with you, you know there's something wrong in the world.

I'm trying to tell you what is wrong.

And you need this to be accurate.

Why?

Because you need healing, you need wholeness, and the world needs redemption.

And if that's the case, then what we need is to have an accurate diagnosis so that we can have the right approach to how we're going to find healing.

Because what's ultimately gonna happen is there's there's there's a way to healing, and then there's other ways that people try to find healing and try to find wholeness.

And and in the moment, they may feel more what the the actual path to healing may feel more difficult, it may feel harder.

It doesn't surgery doesn't feel great.

The healing process of that doesn't feel great.

But at the end of the day, you want to be able to stand there and go, I'm healed and I'm whole.

I'm making, I'm making strides to redemption and wholeness, not at the end of the day going, they were very nice, but now I'm dead.

You need someone to be accurate, you need someone to be honest.

And Paul loving you is trying to be very honest with the condition of where we're at, because the strength of the cure has to match the severity of the disease.

And so, and so if if if if Paul's honest about the severity of our problem, that hey, this isn't just a this you're not just bad, you're not just broken, this isn't just a minor thing that you can that you can fix by doing these little bitty measures, but that the severity is actually something very deeply wrong, and it's something that you can't fix or heal, and it's not something that's gonna happen automatically, or something you can do in your own strength.

And we have to have a cure that strength actually matches the severity of our disease.

Did you know that?

I found this so interesting that 31 to 39% of adults actually avoid going to the doctor or medical screenings due to a fear of receiving a serious diagnosis, bad news, or learning that something might be wrong.

People avoid going to the doctor because they're afraid that they might tell them the truth and it's going to be bad news.

So they'll actually stay in ignorance because ignorance is bliss, right?

There's nothing wrong with me because no one's told me that there's something wrong with me.

When in actuality, there could be something in your body that is breaking you down and killing you slowly.

But you need someone to be honest with you.

And 31 to 39% of adults actually avoid going and receiving a diagnosis because they would rather have happy ignorance than an honest diagnosis.

And we're this way with the physical, we're this way with the medical, but we're also this way with the spiritual, right?

Like we know, you know, that something is wrong, right?

As a pastor, I get to I get to have a lot of spiritual conversations.

It's not really that difficult.

People ask me what I do for a living, and then it either really crashes and burns and shuts that conversation down, or people are like, oh, that's interesting, and they tell me way too much.

And so those are usually my two options.

But you know, whether whether I'm at the barber or whether, you know, at a coffee shop or whatever it may be, uh, you know, sometimes I have a stack of books on a table and it leads to the conversation.

But but one of the things that's so interesting, it doesn't matter where I'm at, the kind of person that I'm talking to, or what situation I'm in.

I have never really had anyone push back on, hey, there's something wrong with the world.

Like no one's ever really been like, are you sure, dude?

Because like my experience is everything is phenomenal and going amazing.

Like everyone's like, yeah, dude, absolutely, totally agree with you.

And then honestly, you never really experience pushback when you say, hey, I think there's something wrong with us, too.

Like all of us have some aspect of our story or some aspect of our lives or some inner working of our mind or of our heart where we go, like, man, something's wrong with me.

There's a reason that therapy is one of the busiest industries in the world, right?

Is because people at this point, you know, there used to be this huge stigma, and now every, now there's not enough stigma.

You know what I mean?

Everybody's like, something's wrong with me, you know, everybody's like, I'm terrible, something's wrong with me.

And but but, you know, like people are starting to realize there's something wrong, and I need to get help for this.

You know, you look around the world and things are just broken.

Like, man, there's a there's something on the news that pops up every single day that crashes into you, and you're not ready for it, and it just like, it just kind of startles you with the brokenness that we live in.

And what's interesting about being alive today is not only are you inundated with the brokenness that's in your own life or in the people that are around you, you're inundated with the brokenness of the world.

It's the only point in history that we have to, that we have to carry the weight of the world's trauma and the world's burden and the world's brokenness.

And the reality is like you you have you have limitations, like you can't really do anything about the world's brokenness, but you can carry it.

And what we do is we get it into our bodies and we get it into our stories, and all of a sudden we we just carry the suffering around in us.

The hard part of that is that's a heavyweight to carry.

But the good part of that is it's unavoidable for us to see the brokenness of the world and realize that there's something wrong.

You know, I think, you know, I think brokenness in us and around us is evidence, obviously, that that something is wrong.

We talked about pain in our in our last series, and and and literally the definition or the idea of pain is that it's something that the brain gives you to tell you something's wrong with you.

And so this brokenness that we feel in our lives, the brokenness that we feel in our own hearts, the brokenness that we see around us is pain coming to the surface to alert us, hey, there's something wrong in the world.

But what we do with this is that we is that we try to diagnose in different ways, or we receive diagnoses from different people in different sources.

And so all of us, as we look at this and see the brokenness, because I can have these conversations and I can be listening to these conversations, and it ultimately gets to the point, so what do you think the problem is?

So what do you think the problem is?

And it's amazing the the litany of answers that you can have.

You know, a lot of times in in every story, you can you can watch something and and and they're always trying to pull you back to kind of the family of origin.

It's like, man, if this person would have gotten love better, then they wouldn't have you know started that cult that killed hundreds of people, you know, or man, there's this, you know, there's this background, there's this backstory.

Like, man, if this, if, if, if if the Joker would have had a mommy and daddy that really took care of him and loved him, he wouldn't have woken up to be at Arkham Asylum and, you know, torch the world.

You know, we we always try to like find villains and try to get down to the to to the to the nitty-gritty of their story and go, why did they turn out that way?

And we're trying to diagnose and we all have different ideas of how this happens.

The whole world does this.

Why?

Because we have to make sense of the story we're living in.

Every single one of us, you have to make sense of the story you're living in personally.

Why am I the way I am?

Why do I desire that?

Why do I do that?

Why is that that way?

We also have to make sense of the story we're living in as humanity and society.

Why are we this way?

What is happening?

Where are we going?

What is do what is, you know, where's this all taking us and leading us?

And what Paul is doing in this passion in this passage, he's not introducing a religious problem.

Like you read this and you go, oh, this is this is a religious issue.

Paul's teaching a religious, a religious problem.

He's not, that's not what he's doing.

He's actually diagnosing the human condition.

This is why this applies, it doesn't matter where you're at in faith today, like this applies to you because Paul isn't presenting a religious argument.

He's trying to diagnose the human condition.

He's trying to diagnose the world's problem because everyone knows something is wrong, but not everyone, everyone knows what is wrong or how to fix it.

And what Paul is trying to do is to come alongside and say, here's the problem, here's how we fix it.

And he starts out with this.

He says, You were dead.

You were dead.

He says, Hey, like if you want to just put it bluntly, the spiritual condition of everyone kind of walking around in the world today, apart from Christ, is this like you you're like they're dead.

Like you, before you encountered Christ, before you started walking with the like you were dead.

And he's speaking to this, he's speaking to the Ephesian church, these these disciples that have now multiplied and planted churches across Greece.

He found them in this Greek culture where they were worshiping all kinds of idols and they were experiencing a, they were experiencing death on the inside, but they were also experiencing a culture that was so far separated and hectic and chaotic when it comes to when it when it comes to spiritual things and the way they treated humanity that he's trying to say, how did you get there?

Why is your society the way that it was?

Why were you the way that you were?

You were dead.

The word the word in the Greek here is literally necros, and it means you it's he's literally said you were a corpse.

So he's saying, you're a corpse.

I don't know if you've ever been around a corpse.

I know, terrible like conversation starter here, but I don't know if you've ever been around one.

But what's so what's so interesting, what's so interesting is that when you when you do see that, it's it's it's so startling because you can look at it and you can see all the potential.

You can see the eyes, you can see the nose, you can see the body, you can see the hands, you can see every bit, their body's there, all the potential is there.

It's just lacking life.

The thing that makes this thing get up and go and do what it can do is missing, but all the potential is there.

And that's what Paul's trying to say.

He's like, he's like, man, the reality is that people are walking around and all the potential is there, but the reality is that they're walking corpse.

That there's no spiritual life within them.

There's all kinds of potential there.

They could be, they could be redeemed, they could experience wholeness, they could be used by God in a in an amazing and beautiful way.

There's a lot of potential there, but the reality is there's no spiritual life inside of them that can actually bring that to fruition.

They're just dead.

This is why Jesus talks in John chapter 3, and he's he's speaking to Nicodemus, and he says, He says, Look, you need to be born again.

John 3 · chapter mention

What's he saying to Nicodemus?

He's saying, He's saying, Look, man, I know you may be old, I may you, I know you may have experienced a lot of life and you may you may do a lot of things, but the reality is, man, like you're dead and you need to be brought back to life.

You need new life in you.

And so there's people around, and we say, man, what's wrong with people?

Why are they the way they are?

The reality is, like, man, there's no spiritual life in them.

There's no life in their corpse.

Because death simply means separation from life.

That's all this is.

Death is just separation from life.

And so it's not a moral accusation that Paul is making here.

He's simply, he's simply bringing to the forefront a condition and diagnosing it.

He's saying, look, you've been separated from life.

Why?

Because Jesus is the source of spiritual life.

And so if you don't have Jesus, you're in death.

Why?

Because you're separated from life.

That's what he's saying.

He's just diagnosing a condition.

He's not, he's not, he's not bringing you to the table to now, to now deeply offend you and wound you and say something really mean to you.

He's just saying, hey, you want to know why the brokenness exists in you and in your story and in the world?

It's because it's because you're dead, you're separated from life.

You're separated from the source of life.

Jesus tells us in the gospels, I've come to give you life.

And what so many people do is they think it's in religious duty, you know, that if I do enough religious things, if I take enough religious content, I can come to life.

And the reality is you can be, you can be a smart, intelligent, know a lot of religious things, and yet be dead.

Jesus makes this argument in John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

He's speaking to the religious Pharisees and they know the scriptures.

They're quoting them, they're saying them often.

And Jesus looks at them and says, you know, your problem is that you go to the scriptures thinking that it's the scriptures that are going to give you life.

He's saying, But look, apart from me, those are just words.

He's saying what the scriptures are trying to do is point you to me so that I can give you life.

See, some of us we know a lot of content, but you haven't come to Jesus.

And so you know words of life, you know information about prescriptive things.

You've read articles about healing, but you've never experienced healing because you're separated from life.

If you have a disease and you can diagnose that disease, and you've read articles on that disease, and you can write a book about that disease, and you can teach other people about that disease, but you've not actually received the cure so that you can find healing from that disease.

What are you doing?

And you say, and that's what a lot of us do.

We we learn a lot about it.

We can describe life, we can talk about life, but we've not received life because we're separated from the source of life, which is Jesus.

You know, physical death is separation from the physical source of life.

That's that corpse.

Separated from physical life.

And spiritual death is separation from spiritual source of life.

And so there's some of us, you are physically alive here today, but you're spiritually dead because you're separated from a spiritual source of life that is Jesus.

And so once again, Paul isn't saying that you're as bad as you possibly could be, because you might hear that go, dead feels really aggressive.

And what Paul's trying to do is not, he's not trying to, he's not this isn't a scale that he's working with to say, oh yeah, you're as bad as you possibly could be.

He's simply saying that you're unable to give yourself spiritual life.

Once again, it's not a morality issue, it's an ability issue.

You're not able to do this yourself.

You know, there's a there's I think three different times that Jesus brings someone back to life in the gospels.

And in one of them, it's it's Jarus' daughter, she's about 12 years old, and he does it like the same day.

She dies of a sickness.

Jarius comes and gets Jesus, says, Will you come to my house and heal my daughter?

Jesus comes in, says, Hey, she's only fallen asleep, raises her, raises her from the dead, she comes to life.

Same day.

There's another story, it's called He has an interaction with someone known as the widow at Nain.

And there's a funeral procession, and Jesus and his disciples are walking this way, and there's a funeral procession coming this way, and it's the funeral of a young boy.

And when Jesus runs into this widow who is weeping over the death of her son, Jesus is gutted to the core, and his compassion leads him to bring this young boy back to life.

Probably been dead two, maybe two days.

But then there's a third one, and that's Lazarus.

And Jesus brings Lazarus back to life after days.

Lazarus had been buried, he had been wrapped.

And when Jesus actually tells them to roll the stone away so that he can call Lazarus to get up out of the grave, they actually say, Hey, Jesus, you don't want to do that because he stinks.

The KJV literally says he stinketh.

It's a fun one.

He stinketh.

And uh and Jesus says, I know what I'm doing, move the stone.

And Jesus says, Lazarus, get up.

And even though the decomposition effect had begun to take place and he began to stink, Jesus reversed that curse and he came back to life and he came out.

Why do I why do I say all that?

Well, because you have three different people who were all equally dead.

But the way that death displayed on them, on them had different levels of severity.

They all three were dead.

And so I think I think what what happens is like we look at this and we kind of compare our death to other people's death.

Right?

We look at the person who's the serial killer and we go, we go, yeah, but he's he or she, they're dead, but not like I'm not I'm not dead.

And and you're going, what no, no, you that's a different level of decomposition.

They that that's taken a different route.

There's a different level of severity to their death, but you're still dead.

You may be same day, Jarius, 12-year-old daughter, hadn't been dead very long, nothing happened in decomposition, kind of dead, or you could be Lazarus been dead for a minute, kind of dead, but either way, you're dead.

Separated from life can't do it.

And so you could be a very moral, well-behaved, kind person in here and yet still not have spiritual life.

And so, once again, Paul isn't, Paul isn't comparing or trying to create.

He's just saying, look, man, the reaction this is the reality of our condition.

He's a man, like we're separated from spiritual life.

And when you're separated from spiritual life, that means you're spiritually dead.

And so what he begins to say, like, what does this begin to look like?

What does this death look like?

He says, he says, Man, you're dead in your trespasses and sins.

A trespass literally means a false step or a deviation.

It means crossing a boundary.

So this is wrong that we've done.

So for some of us, like our trespasses, you have trespasses in your life that you can think back on your life where you crossed a boundary, you did something that you knew was wrong.

You trespassed, you went on territory that you shouldn't go on, right?

So there's a trespass in your life, the boundaries that we've crossed.

And then he says, and sin, and sin is more of a failing to embody God's design.

It literally means to miss the mark.

It's a, it's a, it's an archery term where we're where we aim, we shoot, and then we miss the mark.

And he's saying, he's saying, this is what happens in all of us, is that we're dead in our trespasses, that we've actually done things and crossed boundaries that we knew were wrong.

We've committed these evils, but we've also just got sin where we've where we just can't embody the good and embody the design that God's created us to embody.

We just miss the mark.

And so we've both actively sinned, but we've also passively sinned in our in our inability to just meet the standard.

And so this is the boundaries that we've crossed, as well as the standard we failed to meet.

And so we once again we look at it, and this is Paul just kind of leveling the playing field, saying, Man, this is all of us.

Like all of us have stuff that we've done that we regret that brings us shame when we think about aspects of our lives, but we also just have good that we have not been able to do to the level that God's called us to do it.

There's sins of omission and there's sins of commission, right?

There's sins you do and then there's sins you don't, like that are from you not doing what you know you're supposed to do.

He's saying, Man, all of us have this.

And he begins to take this down even deeper.

And he says, he's he says that that you that you live in this or you walk around in this.

So what Paul's trying to paint is that is that this death is like a realm that we're in.

And so, and and so you may, you may, once again, you kind of may look at each other and you go, Yeah, I'm living and I'm able to do some good, but he's gone, he's gone, yeah, but the water you're swimming in is death.

He's like, it doesn't, it doesn't really matter kind of what you're doing in there, if the reality is like you're it's just death, like you're living in this realm of death.

It's the condition that we're under.

He's just saying, like, man, this is where you're at, this is what you're in, this is like this is just the reality and the gravity of the situation.

And then he he and then he he kind of names these three specific areas, these three specific areas that man, if we can get this, it's Like it's like revelatory because there are three areas that we've fallen short and that we've sin and that we've trespassed, but there are also three areas that that in Christ God begins to redeem and transform.

And the first thing he says is that you've been conformed to the pattern of this world.

He says, He says, You followed the ways of this world.

The translation is literally you've conformed, you've conformed to the world.

Like a lot of times when people, when when people look at other people's stories or they see bad things that happen and they want to try to make sense of it, once again, they try to think of like what could have happened.

And there's usually maybe three things that people think about as they go, as they go, yeah, like maybe they just hung around a bad crowd, man.

Like they just they made bad friends when they were 15, and that bad crowd just kind of developed something in their life, and then it led them astray.

They they kind of conform to that bad way of life.

They conform to the crowd.

And so we look at their story and we try to go, yeah, maybe that's it.

Like there was a social thing.

They just kind of socially conform to the pattern of people that were kind of going this way.

Or another thing, some people may say, nah, dude, that was something demonic.

Like there was something going on there.

Like, did you see their eyes?

Did you see?

I mean, did you listen to that?

Like, there's just something demonic going on.

Um, I just recently watched a documentary called The Yogurt Shop Murders, which I don't know.

I'm being very vulnerable before you today.

I was watching The Chosen.

I just go back and forth between the Chosen and Passion of the Christ, chosen, passion of the Christ, veggie tails, you know.

And so, and so anyway, this is gonna say my wife loves murder.

I don't know if your wife is like that.

Not like she commits it, but she just learns about it.

Huh?

What?

Oh, true crime.

Whatever helps you sleep at night, honey.

She doesn't commit true crime, she just, you know.

Well, anyway, so so there's this there's this documentary that been that that that you know I've been I've been watching and listening to.

And this is what they do the whole time.

Like they're trying to figure out this crime, and there's like, you know, they're like, maybe they were the, you know, they were these goth kids and they called the creek people, you know, and like and they're like, maybe they're hanging around the creek people, and then they did these terrible things.

And then they're like, well, maybe, you know, maybe they did this.

And you can literally see these detectives are trying to kind of piece together this story.

What's the motive?

How did they get here?

And and so, and so you kind of look at the social thing, like, oh, you know, there's these group of kids that do this over here, and there's something wrong.

Oh, but then you have these, you know, these demonic things going on over here in the creek, you know, these spiritual things going on over here.

And then there's also just like the internal story.

They're like, oh no, maybe they just once again kind of uh there's some own insecurity, their own shame, their own stuff.

People are trying to piece together this story and go, why did we get there?

And and and the beauty of this is like when people think about, when they think about the scriptures, they think about Christians, they automatically think that Christians go, well, you're just gonna say it's spiritual.

And what Paul actually does in this passage, he goes, No, no, no, it's all of it.

It's all of it.

Like what God is doing in us, like we're supposed to be the most rooted in reality.

That's what Christians are supposed to be.

Like that we're rooted in reality, that we acknowledge that there's a spiritual reality.

We acknowledge that there's a story that we're all living in, that you've experienced personal things in your own life.

But we and we also notice that there's a social impact, that the world has an impact on us.

And what Paul does is here is he breaks this down.

He says, he says, man, there's a social aspect.

You've been conformed, you've been walking in the ways of this world.

There's a spiritual aspect, you've been following the prince or the ruler of the power of the air, but then there's also an internal reality that you have these, the cravings of your own flesh, and you followed the desires and the thoughts.

And so he says, no, no, no.

It's spiritual, it's social, and it's internal.

It's all of these things.

Like you have this personal, you have the social, and you have the spiritual.

And Paul says, Man, it's all of it.

It's all of it.

What's interesting about the social thing is I I read a book not long ago on evangelism and apologetics, and it talks about plausibility structures.

And it says every human being has three kind of primary plausibility structures, which simply means what motivates their belief.

Why do people believe the things that they believe?

And they said there's really three key things.

The first, the first one is that facts and reality.

Like, man, people study and they they they come to believe and see facts and reality, and that motivates them to believe this thing.

Facts and reality.

The second thing is personal experience.

Like you personally have experienced something, and through the lens that you view life, you've come to believe something to be true.

Whether it's true or not, it's the way that you've come to believe this thing.

Maybe you read a book, and through through one source, you've come to believe this through what you perceive to be facts and data.

You see, you have another thing, you have a personal experience, and that's given you a different lens, and now you believe this to be true for this reason.

And then he said the third, they said the third thing is a social construct that that the people around us lead us to believe.

And when you when you read this, I want you to kind of maybe in your own mind, which one do you think would be the most plausible?

Like which one do you think would be the most common?

You know, and I read this and I was going, surely it's facts and data, right?

Like, surely.

And then I was like, well, you know, modern day, like, oh no, we got a lot of people, it's about their feelings, like probably personal experience, but actually, above and beyond, not even a close second, social.

Social.

The impact of people on what we believe and how we think.

A while back, there was a there was a study called the Ash Conformity Study.

And and through this study, it was so unique, but but they would they would put these different people into this study and they would go into a room, and there would be one person that didn't know the plot, and everybody else would know the plot.

And they would ask the room, they would go, they would ask a question, go, hey, which line is the longest?

And so you'd be looking at the room, and there'd be very clearly a long line over here, and very clearly a short line over here.

But the people who were in on the plot would would go to the short line and say, This line's the longest.

And the person who wasn't in on it was going, like, you know, they're kind of trapped and they're going, What is what is going on, what is going on?

And it said, after a couple of questions, it got to where this person every single time would just begin to follow because they began to get insecure and go, maybe there's something these people are on that I'm not in on.

Like, what's going on?

And so rather than answering the question and being truthful about it, they just began to follow the crowd because they it created a suspicion or an insecurity or a doubt and what they thought was even real.

And it got to where 75% of people would compromise conviction for compliance.

75% would compromise conviction, what they knew to be true for compliance, what other people were doing.

The social impact.

We can be conformed to the ways of this world.

There are things that are happening around us that you conform to.

And you know, you know it's wrong.

You know you shouldn't, but you just do it.

If I asked most of you in this room and I go, man, is technology really ruining your life in a lot of ways?

You would go, absolutely.

And I'll go, okay, throw that thing away.

You go, absolutely not.

And you would say, why?

Because I need it.

Why?

Because the whole world works on this.

And so I have to work on this.

That's compliance, right?

It's like, I've got to do this, I've got to be, I've got to be part of this, I gotta, I've got to have this.

And we conform to the ways of this world.

It shapes the pace of life, it shapes the way you think, it shapes the way you feel, it shapes the way you believe about things.

Because we all have this insecurity, and when enough social energy gets going one way, we're willing to conform.

We would compromise our conviction for compliance.

Then he says there's a like there's a spiritual reality that none of us, and I love the way he says this, he says, you're following, you're following the prince of the power of the air.

He's saying, look, man, it's not just the world, isn't just the world.

There's a spiritual reality behind this.

That there's a spirit.

You know, Paul, in when he's riding to the church in Corinth, actually calls the devil the God of this world, lowercase G.

Says, yeah, Jesus is seated and enthroned over all of human history, and he's enthroned over all the powers, but there's a there's a ruler in this air.

There's a ruler in this power that he's got some influence over the brokenness of society and these social constructs.

And he goes, he goes, man, behind these things, there's a power there.

So when you're conforming to the world, you're not just conforming to the world, but you're actually following a spirit.

You're following a spirit, that there's a spiritual reality to all these things.

And what's interesting about this is what Paul is trying to make clear is that none of us are autonomous.

Like you are following and being formed by a spirit.

The question is, is it the spirit of the power of this air, the God of this world, or is it Christ?

Is it Jesus?

And he's saying, look, the reality is we're all being formed, we're all following a spirit.

And he's saying, you used to follow this spirit, the ruler of the power of the air.

None of us are autonomous, we're all following and being formed.

And then he says, there's also an internal reality.

You have the cravings of the flesh, following its desires and thoughts.

That all of us are born in this broken body, and this broken body longs and hungers and reaches for things.

And the reality of the way that you're formed by sin and by brokenness is that you're always reaching for what is easiest, not what's best.

Right?

It's our condition.

Reach for quickest and easiest, most convenient, not what's best.

And what's interesting is the way Paul describes this, he says, he says you gratify the cravings of the flesh.

Like you, you want, you desire, you just go do it.

And then he and then he puts two qualifiers on it.

He says, he says you have the dis like your fleshly desires, and then you have thoughts.

And so what he's trying to communicate is that is that your flesh is this fallen human nature that you just have lust.

He's like, man, some of you guys, you just had this desire, this lust, and you did it.

You didn't think about it, you just did it.

You felt, you did.

And all of us have those moments in our stories, right?

Where you felt something, you did it, and then after the fact, you're like, why the heck did I do that?

Because you were you were just responding and gratifying the cravings and the desires of your flesh.

And then others of us, he says, he says, it's not just your body, your lust, your impulsive reaction, but it's also your mind.

He said, Some of you, you thought about it.

You thought about it and you did it.

He's like, Some of you, man, you just had flesh and desire and you did it.

He said, Man, others of you, you thought about it and you made decisions.

And he said, Man, all of us.

He's like, You got stuff in your story where you were captive to the desires of your flesh and gratifying kind of these emotions and these feelings, and others of you, man, you thought about it.

And you chose, you made a willful decision to do these things.

And then Paul does something every great communicator should do is he says, and man, this is all of us.

This is all of us.

You ever listen to somebody preach and they go, you, you, you, you?

And what Paul does is goes, he just goes, Man, and this is all of us.

This is me, this is you, this is us, this is all of us.

In Romans 7, Paul literally writes, he says, What a wretched man I am.

Like, who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

He's going, Man, this is in me, this is me, this is my story.

I need rescue.

And this is what he's trying to communicate.

He's going, man, there's something wrong with us, and here's what's wrong with us, and what we need is we need rescue.

We need rescue.

And he closes at the end and he says, he says a phrase that I know the moment that it was read, you're probably like, can't wait to get to that one.

Is he said, and we were under God's wrath.

By nature, under God's wrath.

You know, what's interesting about wrath is 20 years ago, like it was a taboo topic.

People just would not talk about it.

And now I think people are actually starting to get a little bit a little bit more open to it because they realize that they have a wrath too.

That there are things that you were in opposition to, there are things in the world, a brokenness, a darkness, a disgust that you hate.

Like there are things that have you ever seen someone who is angry for the right reasons?

You ever been angry for the right reasons?

Those are people, do those people make you, do those people scare you, or do those people make you feel safe?

You want somebody who's who's angry for the right reasons, who's angry at the right stuff.

We want, we want leaders, we want authority.

We we want we want to be around people who hate what is evil and love what is good.

We all want that.

We all want that.

And so this, and so, and so God's wrath is not a, is not that in opposition to his love.

It's actually a display of his love by hating what's evil and loving what's good.

And what's what's interesting is that you know, God's wrath, it's really God's settled opposition to sin, darkness, and evil.

And so that when we think about this, we think about, oh, it's reactionary, it's emotional.

Like, oh, we hear God's wrath and we think God's just flying off the handle in his anger, and he's just he's just reacting and and and pouncing.

But it's actually not how the scriptures communicate about his wrath.

It's character-based.

And so it's just communicating that God, that God has an opposition to what is evil and what is dark, and it's a settled opposition.

It's a conviction, it's a character quality.

He's just settled in this, that there are things that are dark, there are things that are dead, there are things that are evil, and he has a settled opposition to those things.

He's not emotional reactionary, he just has a conviction against them, and he's always going to be against them, and he's not gonna compromise on his conviction.

It's not emotional, it's reality.

It's diagnostic.

And what we see throughout the scriptures is there's two, there's two kind of emotional qualities when it comes to God's wrath, is that there isn't there is an opposition that's kind of in an anger.

The word wrath literally means to flare your nostrils, that there's anger there.

But what we see a lot of times is there's a grief.

There's a grief.

In the Old Testament, there's a couple of times where it says that God regretted, and people people flip out about that word because it's the way the writers are trying to define and translate that word, it's really difficult.

But it but it really means that God looked at humanity and he grieved what it had become.

And so God's wrath is this is this anger against darkness, death, and destruction, because that's what the enemy causes, and he's against the enemy, this death, this, this, this destruction, but he's also got grief when he looks at the way that it's impacting his creation.

And so God looks at it, and you I mean, if you're a parent in the room or you've ever seen someone that you deeply love make a bad decision, you know that feeling.

There's an anger, but there's a grief.

Why?

And this is the picture of God's wrath an opposition to death and darkness and a grief that we're caught up in it.

And what is and how does he respond to this?

A commitment to rescue.

God's wrath doesn't lead him to push away, God's wrath leads him to rescue.

His his anger and opposition to what to what is is death and dark and and destroys, his response to that is a commitment to rescue.

We see this throughout the gospels.

Jesus is the display of God.

And when he comes face to face with that which is death and dark, he does one of two things.

He opposes it if it's evil, or he rescues out of his compassion.

So the two reactions we see consistently every single time.

The cross itself is Jesus' opposition to what is evil and commitment to what is good.

That's where, that's where, that's where God's commitment to rescue and God's and God's opposition to sin and darkness collide is in the cross of Christ, where Christ sacrifices himself to make a way for you to be rescued and not destroyed as a result of death and darkness.

The reality is apart from God, we are in death and darkness.

This is the condition, and what we need is to be rescued out of it.

The reality of our condition is this death, slavery, and condemnation apart from Christ.

This is just the air that we live in, the water that we're swimming in, the condition of our reality.

And then Paul says two words that you have been longing for and desperate for as you read this passage.

As he says, but God.

And man, you can imagine when Paul writes this letter to these people and they're reading it aloud in the crowd.

That first part, it's all one big sentence in the Greek.

And it's just like you just it just kind of keeps feeling like you're getting punched in the face, punched in the face, and then it's just relief.

He says, But God.

But God.

He says, Listen, like this is your condition, this is the reality of where we are apart from Christ.

But God is committed to rescuing, but God is committed to displaying his love, but God is committed to coming after you, but God, knowing that you couldn't get yourself out of darkness, entered into darkness on your behalf so that he could go in and get you and rescue you.

Why did Jesus have to go into death?

Because that's where you're stuck.

The beauty of it is Jesus got up out of death and is able to pull you out of it with him.

What you see in this text is that is that it's almost like you're handcuffed, man.

And you can you can either be trapped to one of two things.

You can either be handcuffed to humanity, where he says it's death, it's slavery, it's condemnation, or you can be in Christ and you can be attached to him and you can receive life and hope and freedom.

He's saying that's what God's trying to do.

He's trying to rescue you and pull you out of where you are.

And what's interesting, what's beautiful about this is he says, but God, and he says two things.

He says, God who is rich in mercy, he describes his character.

God is mercy.

He says, He says, God has wrath, but God is mercy.

He has wrath, he is mercy.

God who is rich in mercy, this is who he is, is rich in mercy.

This is his character.

And what does he say?

Because of his great love, this is his motivation.

God is rich in mercy, it's who he is, and it's because of his great love, his motivation to rescue you.

His motivation isn't to punish, his motivation is to rescue, his motivation is to love, his motivation is to reach into death in darkness and rescue you and pull you out.

That's his motivation.

And he does it.

Why?

Because who he is is mercy.

N.T.

Wright wrote this: with this phrase, but God, the whole mood changes.

The whole mood changes from the darkness of rebellion and wrath to mercy, love, life, salvation, grace, heavenly session, and kindness.

In the ancient world of the Greeks and the Romans, people believed many things about the gods, whether the great ones, Zeus, Poseidon, Mercury, Ares, or the rest, or the local ones such as Athena or Artemis, but nobody ever imagined that any of these gods loved them.

The gods played their own games.

They sometimes showed favor to this or that human for their own for their own ends, or because the person concerned had offered a pleasing enough sacrifice or said the magic words.

People today, even good Christian people, still lapse into thinking of the true God as transactional, operating a strict system of paying people back according to their behavior.

But kindness, grace, love, and mercy tell a different story.

This is what Paul's trying to do when he's trying to form these people.

He's saying, look, this is who you were, this is what your story was like, but this God is not like those other gods.

He's like, This God is true, this God is real, this God has actually done this, this God has actually done a work on your behalf.

Those other gods that you pray to, that you can't that you can't see, that don't work, that have no real power, that have this idle statue that you go in and you try to figure out what they're gonna do or how they're gonna react.

He goes, No, no, no, this God is a living being who breathed breath into you, who who made you alive, who's now committed to rescuing you, loving you, and giving you life.

It's like this is who he is.

And so he says, he says, Look, you you were dead.

You were following the prince of the power of the air, you were conformed to the to the ways of this world.

This is who you were.

But he says, But God made us alive in Christ, raised us up with Christ, seated us with him in the heavenly realms.

If you look back at Ephesians 1, what we taught last week, what did we what do we read?

That Christ had been resurrected, that Christ had been raised up, that Christ had been enthroned, that Christ was head over the church.

And what and what what Paul is saying is here is like, because that's what Christ has done, if you're in him and with him, he's doing that for you too.

That when he raises, he raises you with him.

When he came to life, you came with him.

When he's seated and enthroned, he's bringing you with him.

Did you know that if you're in Christ, your seat in heaven is already there?

He's saying that you're already seated.

He's saying Christ's past work has already seated you with him in the heavenly realms.

Places secure, not going anywhere.

It's already there.

And so he's saying, because Christ has done that, you came with him.

Yeah, if you're in humanity where humanity goes and what humanity's destiny is, that's where you go and that's your destiny.

But if you're in Christ where Christ goes and where Christ's destiny is, that becomes your that becomes where you go and that becomes your destiny.

The question is, what are you in?

Are you in humanity?

Are you in Christ?

Are you in death?

Are you in life?

Who are you linked to?

Who are you could who are you secured to?

And Paul says the reason God has done this is so that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Why has God done this?

So that you have a story to tell that other people could be confronted with the kindness of God.

He's saying, why is God done that that the incomparable riches of his grace could be expressed how?

Through his kindness to you.

That people could be experiencing death and have and have all of this insecurity about the way God feels about them, this transactional attitude.

If I can do enough or work hard enough, maybe I can maybe I can get him to like me.

And what you get to do is come up to come up come up to them and say, Look, you were dead, but in Christ, you can be raised to life, and I know because he's been kind to me, and I can tell you what he's done.

He says, Man, it's it's by grace through faith that you've been saved.

This is not from yourself, it's the gift of God, not by work so that no one can boast.

There's some of you here who are dead because you you are clinging to something that you can try to get credit for.

Like it's it's actually the fact that you won't let go that's keeping you from life.

Because, can I tell you a secret?

The only requirement of grace is this you're not allowed to help.

You're not allowed to help.

Like what Paul's trying to get to here is like, look, you were dead, and guess what?

Dead people can't work their way back.

Dead people can't climb the mountain, dead people can't perform, dead people can't can't give can't give themselves CPR.

They need someone on the outside to do a miracle work and come in and rescue them and take them from death.

And he says, that's what Jesus has done.

And the only qualifier of grace is this you can't help.

You can't help.

This is why he says it's a work of faith.

It's a work of faith.

He's like, man, like, man, this is something that you have to believe, that you have to take your that you have to they have to reach your hand out and take hold of.

You have to receive it.

You're drowning, and and this has been thrown out to you.

And you're trying to swim in your own power, saying, No, I can make it, I can make it, I can make it, while being overcome by the waves.

And all you have to do is receive help, receive rescue, to acknowledge that you are dead, to acknowledge that you need life, to acknowledge that only Jesus is the source.

And he's come to give it to you.

C.S.

Lewis said it this way Jesus did not come to make bad people good, he came to make dead people alive.

And some of you in this room, you are stuck trying to be good.

And the scriptures are so clear the best deeds that you can do are filthy rags.

To the righteousness and the holiness of God, the righteousness of Jesus and the holiness of God.

On your best day, you can't make yourself alive and stand in the presence of God.

You can't do it.

And so, what does he say?

He says, Man, Jesus has come to rescue you.

And all you have to do is say, I believe.

And I receive, and I surrender to that help.

I surrender to that help.

What's the point of getting a diagnosis and being with someone who can help you and heal you?

And then saying, I think I can handle it.

And the reality is you're already in a gasket.

The gospel is this death to life by grace through faith.

That's the gospel.

Death to life by grace through faith.

You can go from death to life by the working of God.

And this is something you can receive by faith.

You're not allowed to help.

So how do we respond?

We trust, we receive, we surrender to what?

The loving rescue of God.

The loving rescue of God.

Anyway, you sit in the room going, hey dude, I've already done this.

Got it.

Got something for me.

There's two things I think as Paul's writing this.

Like you have the audacity to be someone who got rescued by the grace of God.

And then forgot.

And like when you do you remember the moment that grace overwhelmed you?

When's the last time you you were brought to tears?

Because you were confronted with the love of God in your deep need.

When's the last time?

When's the last time you said thank you?

Oh my gosh, thank you.

When's the last time you looked at someone whose life was falling apart?

And instead of having this arrogance looking at them, it brought back to mind of either what you used to be or what you could have been if not for the grace of God.

And what Paul does is he destroys ego, destroys it.

You were dead, and he came after you because you were impressive, no, because he is rich in mercy, and he was driven by his love.

It was actually your need that attracted him.

It was the fact, it's like the widow at Nain.

What was it that made Jesus respond?

It was there's death and there's weeping and I gotta fix it.

And he's looked at your story and he goes, There's death, there's brokenness and suffering, and I gotta fix it.

And he's calling you to respond and surrender to his help, to his rescue.

So, man, maybe you're in the room today and you've never done that before.

You need to do it today.

You need to do it today.

You simply talk to him, tell him, I want to receive your rescue today, Jesus.

I believe you are who you are.

I know, I believe your diagnosis of me is true.

And I believe your cure is the only cure, the only help, the only healing, the only rescue I can have.

And I surrender to that rescue.

I surrender to that healing to that help.

Man, others of you, you've forgotten.

And you just need to go, Holy Spirit, would you enlighten me again?

Would you give me a fresh revelation of what Christ has done for me?

And what Paul does in this passage is he uses personal pronouns.

He says, This is you.

He says, Yeah, this is us, but this is you.

And what you need is someone to lovingly come and say, Man, do you remember where you came from?

Do you remember?

Remember what he did for you?

And then what is he trying to do?

He's trying to produce a life that's lived in bold, proud testimony of the kindness and the riches of grace in God's life.

Some of you, you have a story to tell and you haven't told it.

Some of you, you're dead, you need to come to life today.

Others of you, you've forgotten and you need to remember.

Others of you, you have a story to tell and you need to share it.

Like today.

You need to testify to the kindness and the grace of God.

And so we're going to move into a time of response.

We're going to have a prayer team here.

Whether you're here and you need to put your faith and trust in Jesus, you need to come to life, you need to come to life today.

You have an opportunity to do that.

You can do it alone at your seat, but what I would encourage you to do is to do it with someone.

And have someone to pray with to come to have that moment where you stuck a stake in the ground and you told someone, and they got to pray over you and for you, and it sealed that moment in your heart.

Others of you, man, you need to remember.

And so you need someone to just pray for you, to soften your heart again, to open your eyes again, to give you fresh revelation of who Jesus is and what he's done, because you need to remember.

And others of you, man, you just need boldness and courage to tell your story, and you need someone to pray courage and boldness into your heart because there are people who are dead out there.

Christ has done everything necessary to give them life.

They just need someone to tell them and invite them.

And your story could be the thing that God uses to do it.

And so, Holy Spirit, we invite you.

We ask you to come and search our hearts, to come and do something in us that only you can do.

I believe in the name of Jesus right now, you are bringing dead people to life in the name of Jesus right now.

That they are reaching for rescue and finding rescue in you, Jesus.

So thank you, Jesus, for the death that you died for raising from the dead, that you're enthroned over all of human history and over our hearts in our lives today.

Lord, I believe right now you're opening eyes afresh to the work that you've done in their lives so that they can remember and bring a bring a heart of gratitude and praise back to their life.

And then Lord, I believe right now you've taken the pen of someone's story and you're writing it on their hearts.

You're igniting a fire in their hearts right now in the name of Jesus.

Holy Spirit, would you ignite a fire in the hearts of every person in here that they have a story to tell and may they share it in the name of Jesus?

Holy Spirit, come and do the work as we respond to you.

We love you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.