Deadness in Sin

Transcript

GR 2314
5/20/21
Deadness in Sin
Ephesians 2:1-5
Gil Rugh

We’re going to the book of Ephesians in your Bibles, Ephesians chapter 2. Remember when these New Testament letters were written, they were written just as letters, so as the church at Ephesus listened to this letter read to them on a morning when they gathered together, they didn’t have chapter divisions or verses. It’s a way that helps us to break down the letter and see well, we’re moving into chapter 2 now, but as they read it, it was one continuous flowing letter.

In chapter 1, Paul laid the foundation for what he will develop in the rest of this letter in verses 3 to 14, which we looked at. Remember that was one long sentence, and there he unfolded the purpose and plan of God in our salvation, a plan established and set by God before the foundation of the world. Verse 4 of Ephesians 1 told us, “He chose us in Him,” in Christ, “before the foundation of the world.” Then verse 5 told us, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.” You see the sovereign work of God, God the Father, in planning our redemption. Then God the Son coming to earth to accomplish that redemption by His death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. Then the work of the Holy Spirit, down in verses 13 and 14, who sealed us by identifying us with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection; and now indwells us, guaranteeing that God will bring to completion the work He began. Someday we will be brought into the glory of His presence.

Then we came to verses 15 and following, verses 15 to 23 in chapter 1, and that’s another long sentence. We noted there are a number of these long sentences in this letter. Here Paul talks about praying for the Ephesians, who have placed their faith individually and personally in Christ and are now brought together as a local church. He’s praying that they would grow in their knowledge and understanding, in their relationship with God now as His people. He prayed for them in verse 18, “That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” That overwhelming power works in us who believe. It worked to bring about our salvation, and it continues to work in our lives day by day to accomplish and bring about God’s purposes. It’s the surpassing greatness of His power, verse 19 says. “In accordance with the working of the strength of His might.” It’s demonstrated in that power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. That’s the same power that worked to bring you to new life in Christ. It’s the same power that works day by day to enable you to live that new life out according to the will of God. It’s amazing, the power of God that works in the lives of His people.

He concluded that first chapter by talking about how Christ was exalted by the power of God from death to life to be seated at the right hand of God in the glory of heaven. He is supreme above all creation, every name that is named, and He is head of the church, His body. Every person who places their faith in Christ becomes part of the body of Christ. That spiritual group redeemed by God’s grace, now brought together in a relationship of oneness with one another as God’s people, His church in this place.

When you come into chapter 2, that’s the foundation for what Paul’s going to say, and we’re going to open up chapter 2 with another long sentence coming down through the first ten verses. We’ll go through verse 7, but we look at it through verse 10. We’re not going to cover all ten verses today, but you’ll see he’s building on what he’s been talking about—the redemption that God provided and accomplished in the lives of those who have placed their faith in Christ—and he wants us to understand the greatness of that power. A danger for the church, the danger for us as individual believers, is that we settle down and we lose our perspective. We lose perspective in our thinking and the clarity of our thinking that it took the awesome surpassing power of God to work in our lives to rescue us from our lostness and to cause us to be made new.

He’s going to open up chapter 2 by reminding these Ephesian believers of what they were before God took hold of them. That’s an important reminder for us as believers in Jesus Christ. We don’t want to lose sight of the fact of what God did for me, personally and individually. How great was His grace, His mercy, and His kindness. That’s the way he’s going to talk about it. I have to remember what I was apart from the power of God. If the church begins to get weak in their understanding of how lost, how hopeless, how dead we were before God intervened in our lives, then we will become weak and shallow in our understanding of what God is doing in and through us today.

So first of all, you have to remember what it was like before you were saved; what you were. When you get fuzzy on that, thinking I wasn’t that bad, I was a pretty good person and I never did really bad things. I was saved when I was young. God’s grace intervened in my life but at heart, I was just as lost and spiritually dead as the worst, most vile person. There was no difference. We forget that and then we become hyper-critical of others. We despair; what’s going on in the world? What are people doing? What are they thinking? Why would people do foolish, stupid, crazy things? Well, they’re actually acting according to character. In fact, they’re just like we were! That’s what Paul is going to emphasize here.

Since this is one long sentence, let’s find the main verb first. I know you just love grammar. I wasn’t crazy about it myself, but it’s important. It’s not at the beginning. There’s an emphasis here. He starts out in verse 1 of Ephesians 2, “And you.” He puts that right up front, but he’s not going to talk about what happens to you just yet as he writes to the Ephesians. I think one writer, I didn’t count them myself, but he said there are 87 words before he gets down to the main verb. Down in verse 4 it picks up, “But God.” Then the main verb is in verse 5, He “made us alive.” That’s the verb, “made us alive.” So all these verses down through verse 7, perhaps through verse 10, which we’ll talk about later; all that’s the verse. God “made us alive.” He’s going to start out by saying here was your wretched and dead spiritual condition. You couldn’t have been any less worse off, and God intervened and made you alive; made us alive together. We never want to lose that perspective, to be thanking God for what Paul will talk about as His mercy, His grace, and His kindness in bringing salvation to our hearts. That keeps things in perspective. What is going on in the world around us? What things seem to be… People are acting according to character. They’re manifesting more clearly and fully their rejection and rebellion against God, the God with whom they have no relationship. They have no connection. They may be very religious, they may go to church several times a week, they may partake of what they call the sacraments, and they may go to confession. They may do good works and be involved in a lot of things, but they have no relationship with God. Their whole life is an act of rebellion against God. They say, I think you’re overstating, but this is what Paul wants to remind these Ephesian believers who would experience the wonder of God’s salvation. He wants them to know what God has done. The first three verses are going to show the seriousness of our sinful condition. Then beginning with verse 4, he’ll pick up with that wonderful opening, “But God.” But God.

You, verse 1, being “dead in your trespasses and sins,” and on he goes, then verse 4. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love.” Then you go on. You see the contrast, and we don’t want to forget that because then our appreciation dims. The wonder of what God did for me. Is that just as amazing the day you believed? How amazing it is that God loved me and in mercy He saved me? I couldn’t have been in a more desperate need. That’s what Paul wants to remind the Ephesians of. Not to discourage them, but to cause them to have a greater, deeper appreciation of the power of God. We want to have that, too. I know all of us believers would say yeah, I believe in the power of God. I believe in the power of God in salvation, but somehow it’s a shallow approach. Paul’s amazed. Here he has been ministering the word for these years after his conversion, but what is he going to do? Further along he’ll write… It’s just amazing God saved me, the worst of sinners, so He could show how He would save other sinners, as he wrote to Timothy. Timothy, by the way, was ministering at Ephesus when Paul wrote that letter to him. We want to have that same continuing appreciation and amazement.

So he starts chapter 2, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” You were dead, and you’ll note in the margin that word translated “were” is a participle. Mostly, our English participles we know as words that have “ing” on the end. So, you being dead in your trespasses and sins, I want to tell you what you were. You were those who were dead in trespasses and sins. Dead. Cut off from God, who is life, the living, life-giving God. You were dead. Now obviously he’s not talking about physical death here. He’s talking about spiritual death, because they hadn’t been physically dead and now were alive, but it was a spiritual truth. Just a reminder, there are three kinds of death talked about in the Bible. There is physical death, one everybody recognizes and acknowledges, and the key idea in each of these, starting with physical death, is separation. It’s not ceasing to exist. It is separation. We won’t look at all the verses that go with this, but I will mention them to you. James 2:26 says the body without the spirit is dead. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. He talks about that in Philippians 1 as well. When our spirit leaves our body, we as persons aren’t still alive and conscious and so on. This body has been separated from the spirit, which gives life to this physical body. So the body’s dead. It’s been separated from the spirit. The spirit has either gone into the presence of the Lord or into Hades, a place of suffering. We’ve talked about that on other occasions. That’s what physical death is. The Bible talks about it… For believers, it’s like the body is asleep. You’re not using it anymore, but you know, it’s dead. What’s a dead body like? Well, it’s not connected anymore. It doesn’t feel pain. If you’re not going to bury the body quickly, they’ll embalm it. But you know, they don’t have to give it some kind of a numbing anesthesia while they embalm it, put needles in and drain the fluids out and all. Why? Because it has no feeling. It’s not connected anymore. It’s been separated from the spirit; it’s a dead body. Sometimes you look at it and say boy, it looks like they could just sit up, but they can’t. They can’t do anything. They’re dead.

That’s physical death. Spiritual death is the same thing in the spiritual realm. We are separated from God. We are cut off from Him and we have no relationship with Him. That’s what he’s talking about here. You’ll note he says we were dead in trespasses and sins. That’s spiritual death, and we’ll be talking about more of what that entails. Because of sin, there is no relationship with God. Now that is an ongoing condition. We were born in that condition. We’ve just studied to book of Romans together. Sd a result of being the descendant of Adam, we were born in that condition. The psalmist David said in Psalm 51, in sin did my mother conceive me. It’s not the act of conception that’s sin, but as a result of that conception, the sin nature—we’ll be talking about that shortly—was passed on and that cute, little, innocent baby… It’s cute, but it’s not innocent. It’s born a sinner, and it will manifest that very quickly in a variety of ways. As it grows to adulthood and years go by, more quickly will its sinfulness be manifested in behavior. That’s spiritual death.

Eternal death, also called the second death, is separation from God for eternity. Spiritual death is being separated from God. The second death, eternal death, is separation from God for eternity. That’s hell. In the book of Revelation, the Great White Throne in Revelation chapter 20 in verses 11 to 15, where finally all unbelievers are sentenced to an eternal hell, cast into the fires of hell. We’re told in that passage this is the second death. There it’s talking about physical death followed by eternal death. Jesus in Matthew 25, in judging tells the unbeliever, depart from Me, cursed ones, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Revelation chapter 14 verses 9 to 11. We’re told that the wicked are cast into hell and the smoke of their torment arises into the ages of the ages, a Greek way of talking about eternity. Age after age after age with no end to the torment of hell. That’s final eternal separation.

So here he’s talking about spiritual death in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1. You were dead. Now if you’re spiritually dead and while you’re spiritually dead, you’ve experienced physical death, you are doomed forever to eternal death so it’s a serious condition. Paul speaks here, you once were dead in your trespasses and sins. It’s sin that causes this, that brings it about. It’s because of sin death came into the world.

We’ve studied in Romans, come back to Romans chapter 3. What happens in Romans, Paul has an expanded way of what we’re talking about in Ephesians. If you come to Romans 3, just back up to Romans 1:16. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel.” Note this, “For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” There you see the power of God bringing about salvation to the believer. That’s what we saw in Ephesians chapter 1. Then what does Paul go on to do beginning with verse 18 and through chapter 3 verse 20 of Romans? He expands and shows how everyone is a sinner and under the wrath of God. Verse 18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” That’s what he’s going to talk about in these first three verses of chapter 2—our sinful condition—and he explains and elaborates it.

Come on over to chapter 3 of Romans now as he wraps this up, which he has done to show extensively that all the Gentiles and all the Jews… Because the Jews agreed, oh, the Gentiles? Of course they’re sinners, but we Jews have the Mosaic Law. We’re the nation God has chosen. We go to the temple and offer sacrifices. We observe the holy days. We’re good. We’re okay. But the Gentiles? Of course, they need to convert to Judaism. What Paul has demonstrated is the Jews are just as lost as the Gentiles. So he summarizes in verse 9, “What then? Are we better than they?” Paul was a Jew. Are we Jews better than they Gentiles? “Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks,” non-Jews, “are all under sin.” And all means all. That’s all “all” means. So all are under sin. “As it is written.” Then he quotes from the Old Testament; this is not something new. God revealed it, and He revealed it to the Jews in the Old Testament. “’There is none righteous, not even one.’” Where did he get that? “’Not even one…There is none who seeks for God,’” the end of verse 11. “’All have turned aside,’” Verse 12. “’They have become useless.’” That’s how God sees me—worthless, useless. They’re in a state of consistent rebellion against Him. “’There is none who does good, there is not even one.’” We talk about sometimes, they’re good people. That means they conduct themselves properly and so on. They make good neighbors, whatever. But from the sight of God, there is no one like that until He intervenes to transform the person on the inside. It’s not what I say, it’s what God says. To reject this is to just demonstrate rebellion and rejection of God. God says it, but I don’t believe it. Well, you’re free to do that. You are not free to pick the consequences of doing that.

Down in verse 18 it’s put clearly, while we’re here. “’There is no fear of God before their eyes.’” God has done all this, as Paul wraps it up, to show every mouth will be shut. God will have the last word. This is the way it is, and he goes on to explain then how God provided righteousness in Christ. So that’s the condition.

Come over to Ephesians 2:1 again. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” That’s the way they were. “In which.” Now he’s going to talk and develop their condition here. “In which you formerly walked.” You once walked. That word “formerly,” literally, the Greek word “once.” There was the time in your life. Formerly gives you the idea. It was what you were then and now. Once it was this way; now as a result of the power of God bringing redemption to your heart, it is different. You can’t be the same. When that awesome surpassing power of God comes in and impacts your heart, your spirit, and makes you new, there’s a difference. There’s a change. You just aren’t the same person anymore. You’ve been made new. It’s the difference between being dead and being alive. You formerly walked, and that word “walked” is the word that’s used to denote the character and conduct of your life. This is where you lived. He’ll say it down in verse 3, “Among them we too all formerly lived.” That was the environment in which we were. It was the environment of death.

He’s going to bring three areas to our attention, and you’re familiar with them: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Three things operating in the unbeliever in these days, in the life of every unbeliever. He’s going to take them in this order. He’s going to talk about the world, then he’s going to talk about the devil, then he’s going to talk about the flesh. All three work together with one purpose and goal: to resist, rebel, and reject the living God. As we see when we get to chapter 6 of Ephesians, it is a spiritual war. God intervenes in a supernatural way to rescue and bring to life those who were dead, who were living before, who formerly walked, verse 2, “According to the course of this world.” The age of this world. People who are conformed and live under the authority and the environment of the world. This is what shapes them. Remember Romans 12:1? Writing to believers, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. This is what shapes the thinking of the conduct, the attitudes, and the behavior of those who were dead in their sins. They walk, their daily life is conducted according to the course and pattern of the world, this world’s system.

Come back to John 15. We saw this when we were in chapter 1 of Ephesians and talked about the doctrine of election. John’s gospel, chapter 15. Jesus said, and we noted this, verse 16 of John 15, “’You did not choose Me, but I chose you,’” and the goal is you go and bear fruit. You go into a world; I’ve made you alive and now you manifest what I have done in your life. Down in verse 18, “’If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.’” You note this, what has happened? Before, we were dead in our sins. We lived our life, we walked conformed and shaped by the thinking and attitudes and conduct of the world. It dominated us. When God’s power of salvation comes in, He rescues us out of that world and that life. It’s a spiritually dead life that’s lived in the sphere of the world.

Come over to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. I’ve just selected a few verses. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and look at verse 19. Important verse. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God.” We want to be careful. There are some very, very, very smart people in this world, very scholarly and very intellectual. They do amazing things. We’re in awe and say wow. They do not have godly wisdom. They do not have true wisdom. With the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, as we saw as we studied Ecclesiastes, and as the book of Proverbs tells us. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, but we read in Romans 3:18 that there is no fear of God before their eyes. They have no true wisdom. All their decisions, all their thought processes, are done excluding God. Go to the university or any of the great universities and see if they’re teaching the truth from God. That’s not even allowed. That has to be excluded from the classrooms of our public education. They have no wisdom. That doesn’t mean they can’t learn things that are helpful through this physical life. I’m glad for things that are done, but it’s not true wisdom in light of how the sovereign God is working and submitting to His will and His purposes.

One more verse on this; you have to go to 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2, all the way back now. Not the gospel of John, but 1 John. All the way back, almost to the book of Revelation at the end of your Bibles. Those closing little, short books, 1, 2, and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. 1 John 2 verse 15, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away…but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” So formerly, we lived in that realm. Our thoughts were all about this world, what the world considered success, what we had to do to fit into the world, what the world said we should do and should not do, and what the world said we should consider valuable and important and so on. We all formerly lived there.

Come back to Ephesians 2. We “walked according to the course of this world.” The next statement, “According to the prince of the power of the air.” That’s a reference to Satan, the devil, who rules over the world and those who are in it. The prince of the power of the air. The air, it’s everywhere. That talks about his domain. We don’t have time to look at the verses, but I’ll mention them because you can pick them up if you check later on the website, or you write them down: John 12:31, John 14:30, and John 16:11. Those three passages call Satan the ruler of this world. Then in 2 Corinthians 4:4, Satan is called the god of this age. Then in chapter 5, verse 19 of 1 John, 1 John 5:19, it’s said about Satan that the whole world lies under the control of the evil one. Satan rules. Now Jesus Christ was exalted, we saw at the end of chapter 1 of Ephesians, to the right hand of the Father, and all things are under His authority. But now, while He brings His redemption and the salvation He provided to the individual life, Satan still rules. When Jesus Christ comes to earth to establish His kingdom, then Satan’s rule comes to an end. He’ll be bound in the bottomless pit for 1,000 years, as Revelation 20 talks about.

The prince of the power. You’ll note as he further goes on, we not only walked according to the prince of the power of the air, but also “of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” In their spirit, the spirit of the devil is working. That’s a spiritual thing. You know, the people of the world think they’re free. They have all these ideas of freedom and how they can have power and authority and freedom to do what they want. Some of them are in a position where they can buy what they want, they can go where they want, and they can pretty much have what they want and do what they want; and they think they’re really free. But they are slaves of the devil. They are under his control, and they are doing his will. That is true of the most religious people in the world as well.

Come back to John’s gospel again, chapter 8. John’s gospel, chapter 8. Jesus is dealing with the religious leaders of His day, the Pharisees, and the Pharisees were very scrupulous. Immorality was terrible, and other sins were terrible. Compared to the pagan Romans, they were really good people, and they went to the temple regularly, and they offered sacrifices. Paul says of himself, he was a Pharisee. He said a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and he said I did everything that could be expected to live a life that conformed to the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law. But you know what he says about himself? What I already referred to; I was the worst of sinners. Well, you look pretty good to me, Paul, but I was in a state of persistent rebellion against God. He was a servant of the devil. Look in John 8. Jesus is speaking to these kind of Pharisees. Verse 31, “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had” claimed to have believed in Him. Fine, we’ll believe in You. “’If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’” Verse 34, “’Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.’” Verse 36, “’So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.’” You see how this coordinates with what Paul has written about in Ephesians 1 and 2? The power of God that makes you new, which sets you free… What does He say to them in verse 41? “’You are doing the deeds of your father.’” “’We have one Father: God.’” Verse 42, “’If God were your Father, you would love Me.’” Verse 43, “’Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of you father. He was a murderer’” and a liar. The end of verse 44, “’He is a liar and the father of lies.’” We wonder why people lie. You can watch T.V. and people stare into the camera and they’ll tell you a lie and they know it’s a lie and you know it’s a lie, but they still tell it. You say what in the world? Well, they’re doing what their father wants them to do. He’s a liar. This is truth here. Verse 47, “’He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.’”

The unbeliever’s not interested in what God has to say. It takes an intervention of God and His Spirit to change a person. I mean, why would a person want to come and hear the Bible to see what God says if he’s dead spiritually and has no connection to God? He could care less. Now he may want to go to church where it makes him feel like he worships. Some of you come out of more formal backgrounds before you were saved, where worship is more about the feeling that’s generated. It’s constructed in a way of awe. I remember saying wow, I don’t think we worshipped today. We didn’t say the Lord’s Prayer. There’s nothing wrong with the Lord’s prayer except just because you say that doesn’t mean you worshipped. We get to identify worship with taking communion, being baptized, going to confession, whatever. Just showing up on Sunday morning—that ought to be good for something.

The devil is very religious. Remember he offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world if You would fall down and worship me. So it’s all about worship. We’ll talk about this here on Sunday nights in a couple of weeks, but that’s where the devil wants to take us. Worship me. That’s the conflict in the world. Worship God or worship the devil. Those who are dead spiritually worship the devil, no matter what they’re doing. They’re obeying him, honoring him, and doing his will.

Come back to Ephesians chapter 2. He’s “the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” Sons of disobedience—that comes out of the Hebrew Old Testament. We’re familiar with the expression “son of.” That meant that’s the character of your life. Saul called one of his children “son of a worthless woman.” It could be said more graphically. We say you’re worthless. That’s where this “son of…” Son of disobedience means this is what you’re characterized by: disobedience. One commentator put it this way, “Unbelief is more than the absence of trust. It is a defiance against God.” The unbeliever is in a state of rebellion against God. It’s not just passive indifference. They may express that. Oh, I’m fine. You go to church, you go to a Bible-believing church. That’s fine; I don’t have any problem with that. I don’t have any particular conviction one way or the other. We think they’re just sort of indifferent. There’s no such thing as an indifferent person. They’ve either come to recognize and believe in Christ and worship the living God, or you are in opposition and defiance of Him. There’s no middle ground. You can sit here for years, but if you don’t place your faith in Christ, it is an act of defiance. I’m rejecting what God says. I will not bow. I will not believe. How do you express that? You are characterized by disobedience and rebellion. You know, it’s important because when the church begins to create all this like it’s a gray area, then our theology is weakened and washed out. If they’re good people and if we did more for them, it’s like the world trying to resolve it. The problem is racial tension, the problem is social injustice, the problem is financial inequities. They don’t understand the problem is the sinfulness of the heart and the devil is a terrible taskmaster. He is destructive and his children must do it his way. He has no compassion; he has no care. They’re just tools that he uses. Sons of disobedience.

Look at verse 3. “Among them we too all formerly lived,” once lived, “in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” That’s the condition of the world, the devil, and the flesh. The flesh… Again, that’s not the physical body. We express ourselves through our physical bodies, but the flesh is used to refer again to that nature, that inner person. You’ll note he says at the end of verse 3, “We were by nature.” By our very birth. David said, “in sin did my mother conceive me.” Conception is not sin, but sin was passed on. The sin nature was passed on. That bent to sin, that capacity to sin, that desire to sin, that selfish self-centeredness.

Come back to Jeremiah chapter 17. All the way back in about the middle of your Bible. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; those large prophetic books after the book of Psalms. We say turn to the middle of your Bible to Psalms. Turn to the middle of your Bible to Isaiah. Turn to the middle of your Bible to Jeremiah. But you get the idea—they’re those large books in about the middle. If you get to Psalms, keep going back. You’ll go to Isaiah the prophet. If you get to Jeremiah, you missed Isaiah. We’re going to Jeremiah 17. You could quote it, but it’s good to see it together. Know what he says in verse 9, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” That’s a rhetorical question. No one really understands how wicked and vile the human heart is, what’s going on within a person. The potential for evil and wickedness is frightening. We get examples of that from time to time when you see something and say how could one human being do that to another? They’re expressing what they are. It ought to scare you, the depths of depravity. The only one who knows is God, who searches the heart.

That’s what it’s important that these Ephesian believers in the church at Ephesus not forget what they were and how mighty the power of God is that reached down in that wicked, wretched, lost condition of deadness and rescued them. The danger is that over time, we just get to saying we’re good people. I never was that bad. Then we begin to think if we fix some of these things, then… We have Christians who are more concerned about what’s happening in the political arena and this area of the world than they are about the spiritual issues. You can’t fix the world. God says it’s not fixable; He’s going to destroy it. This world will be destroyed by fire, and He’ll make it new. Don’t misunderstand when I say it’s not fixable. It’s only God’s power, and right now, the only thing that can be done to help this world is that the gospel be brought to the lost individuals of this world. We’re not going to rescue the world. We’ve read the last chapter, the book of Revelation. This world is moving toward destruction. We may see the speed picking up, but that’s where it’s going. So the heart is deceitful. If the church loses this perspective, we’re just out there trying to do what the world does. Yes, this social program will help. Yes, if we could fix this. One of you passed along from a large liberal church in town. They’re having this seminar and everyone’s invited to bring in a speaker because the church needs to know its role in bringing about the green revolution. What role does the church have in that? We’re going to the redoing of the world by fire. You’re not going to fix it by the green revolution. I’m glad for clean air, clean water, and good sewage. That’s fine, but that’s not what our church is about. Other people can do that with just human intellect. The church is called to do something no one else can do—be the pillar and support of the truth, the truth that can penetrate the human heart.

Look at Mark chapter 7. Please go faster; we’re running out of time. Mark chapter 7. Jesus is speaking, and He’s telling what the condition of the heart is and He says don’t focus on the external things. Verse 15, “’There is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him.’” So it’s not all about the externals. Well-meaning Christians write books on dieting. Those aren’t the things that you know, they have a place you can eat funny if you like. You can eat however you like. But that’s not what defiles a person. We get caught up in these things that are sidetracks. The end of verse 18, “’Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart?’” You see some of the heart as the person, the spirit that dwells within here, not that physical pumping organ. We use it the same way; I love you with all my heart, and we put our hand over our heart. But we’re not talking about the pumping of the blood. We’re talking about the inner feeling, inner desire. It comes from within me. Verse 20, “’That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander.’” All these kinds of things proceed from within. If the church loses the perspective on the condition of the human heart and the sin of fallen man, what is there for light in the world? We just come out here trying to do what the world says is good. Since it’s racial reconciliation, now we have evangelicals having meetings on racial reconciliation. The one who reconciles us is God in Christ, and we’re going to get to that in Ephesians. We’re going to go across racial lines to bind people together, but that’s not done out here on the superficial level. That’s done in here, and we begin to deny the truth of God and the power of God’s salvation by beginning to replace it with what the world says, the world that has no wisdom. It’s inexcusable for the church to do these things. Jesus said it’s out of the heart… We get caught up in the physical things and going through the physical motions. You have to deal with the heart. Galatians 5, we won’t turn there. The works of the flesh, and he lists the same kind of things Jesus did in Mark 7. The only solution to that is the power of God’s salvation that places you under the control of the Spirit.

Come back to Ephesians 2. Note what he says at the end of verse 3. “And were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” Don’t forget we were just like them. The beauty of it, what’s the difference between you and the worst sinner who does the vilest things? Verse 4, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.” That’s the answer. That’s what the world needs. That’s what we as believers have. That’s what the church of Christ has that no one else anywhere has. We can’t back off, we can’t move away from that, and we can’t forget. The starting point can be subtle. I begin to forget how wonderful and amazing God’s grace and love are as they have been shown to me. What a sinner I was. Then I get taken up with the failures in your life, inconsistencies in your life, and the way people treat me or don’t treat me, the way the world around me is going, I expect better treatment. Wait a minute. I’ve lost sight of what I am. That’s what Paul didn’t forget, that God saved him, the chief of sinners. That’s what amazed him, so he could deal with sinners and not be overwhelmed and so shocked that he just didn’t want to be around them. That’s just proof God can save any sinner. If I keep in mind and remind myself that Gil, what did God do for you? How did God save you? Do you really understand that? Do you understand this described you as God saw you before He intervened? That puts things in perspective for me. I can say yeah, I can understand what they’re doing. I can understand why they’d do it. It’s what I probably would have been doing if it wasn’t for the grace of God. I might have been doing worse. So, the power of God’s grace.

Now be careful. You can sit and hear all this and do nothing with it, because until you recognize and accept the fact you are dead in your trespasses and sins, and God gives you the opportunity to hear the truth that Christ died for your sins, was raised from the dead, and you place your faith in Him, that moment, the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Not to everyone who hears, but to everyone who believes. So, have you believed in the One who loved you and died for you?

Let’s pray. Thank you, Lord, for the power of the gospel. We need to be reminded. We need to think again of what You have done for each of us individually, personally. It’s easy for us to settle in and Lord, to become somewhat self-righteous that we were not like other people. We didn’t do the dirty bad things that other people did, but as You saw our hearts, our true spiritual condition, we were dead. We were in rebellion against You, and yet in grace You saved us, provided Your Son, reached down, touched our hearts, and brought us into contact with the truth so that we might hear and by Your grace, believe. These truths guide and direct us, be ever before us. May we as a church never lose our perspective. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.