Christ our Life Part 1

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. When Adam and Eve chose to seek their own way in the Garden of Eden, mankind became a branch that essentially severed itself from the tree. We were dead in our sins, unable to restore our relationship with God or to appease His wrath, powerless to overcome evil or death but God. In His abundant love for us, He sent His Son, Christ, to rescue and restore. He conquered sin and death. In Him we find life. Let's listen in to this message from Ephesians 2, 1-10, titled Christ Our Life, Part 1, preached on June 11, 2017 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem.

We are tuning in to the second part of this sermon. Paul says, you are dead in trespasses and sins. You are dead in trespasses and sins. That's rebellion.

The word trespass is a word that speaks of rebellion. It's crossing over, away from God, away from His loving parameters and His design and purpose, into the realm of self-destruction. That's what evil is. We have trespassed God's loving, but God says, I designed you for this. And man in his rebellion steps over that line and says, I know better.

I'm going to go over here and pursue my own satisfaction. And that stepping over here is into the realm of darkness and evil. It is the realm of self-destruction. And that's why he says, you're dead in trespasses and sins, because the word sin, harmartia, means to miss the mark.

The Greeks would use it of a spearmen who would throw a spear at a target and he would miss the target. That's missing the target. Romans 3, for all have sinned and what? Fall short of the glory of God.

What is our target? It is the glory of God. It is to know God, to be with Him, to enjoy Him fully forever. That's the glory of God. Sin misses that mark and ethically, it means to fail at one's purpose.

Kenneth Wiest points that out. I think that's profound. It is to fail at one's purpose.

Do you understand why you even exist? Now, here's the reason why he says, you were dead in trespasses and sins, because it's because who you're following. You're following three things other than God Himself. Number one, you're following the course of this world. When it speaks of the course of this world, it speaks of the system organized without reference to God as creator, designer. It is the broad way to destruction.

I don't think that's a mistake, by the way, the broad way to destruction. J.B. Phillips says, you're drifting along the stream of this world's ideas of living, drifting along the stream of this world's ideas of living without any reference to God. I don't need God. I've got all these things that sustain me and I think will satisfy me. I don't need God. In other words, we're born with a tendency to just go with the flow.

Just go with the flow, right? Following number one, the course of this world, number two, the prince of the power of the air. He is the father of lies. He is the consumer of you. That's why he's the father of lies. That's why he lied to Adam and Eve. He is the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, and that word disobedience, very interesting word.

It means rejection of belief, refuse, one who refuses to comply. The prince of the power of the air, this is Satan, he is the one who refuses to comply and he draws others to do the same thing. And we are then blinded by the I'll do it my way mantra of life. And John tells us, the apostle John tells us that the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. My life, I'll do it my way.

I don't need God. So we're following the course of this world. We're following the prince of the power of the air. We're also following the passions of the flesh, the passions of the flesh. It says in verse three, we once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, the passions of the flesh. Our flesh is inherently self-serving and we are bound in it. It is the nature of rebellion.

It's where fights and wars come from. They come from my desires. This is what I want. I will have what I want. And then you encounter another human being who says, no, but I want what I want. And then you have people butting heads. That's where fights and wars come from because my desires are paramount in my life.

I will have what I want. That's the nature of humanity. You look around to all the struggles and wars and battles that are going on. That's where it all comes from.

I will have my way. And lest we think we can simply point at other people and say, yes, that's what they do. We need to take an honest look at our own hearts and admit that this is the way I am. Again, let me quote Simon Austin. He makes a very striking statement here.

He says, when we pause and think about it, none of us operates in the way we want God to behave. We do not like the thought of wrongdoing being unpunished unless, of course, it is we who have committed the offense. That's a very human way to act.

Let me translate this for you. I want there to be rules, but I don't want them to apply to me. That's human nature. I want other people to be punished. I want justice to be served for people who don't do who do wrong. But I want mercy and forgiveness. That's human nature. And we don't think we should operate in the way we expect God to behave.

Right? You see, this is operating in the passions of the flesh. So if we're following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air and the passions of the flesh, what is it that we're doing?

Well, he says it right there in verse three. We're carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, the physical impulses, the physical compulsions, just simply living for my appetites. And those appetites sometimes are intellectual. We make comparisons. And again, it is a very natural human thing to compare ourselves to each other.

But when we do that, we're using the wrong standard. And as we do this, as we carry out the desires of the body and mind, what we are doing is we are exercising a diminished humanity, simply living to satisfy impulse, whether that impulse is a cognitive mental impulse or a physical impulse. Now, again, it's very easy to, as we're going through this, to start thinking about other people. But remember, the apostle Paul is talking to believers here and he's reminding them this is where you've been. This is what you've come from. This is what God has rescued you from. OK, you didn't make the journey on your own from there. God has rescued you in this way. Now, understand this.

Listen to this carefully, please. Some of you in here have been to very dark, depraved and desperate places. But every one of us must confess that we, too, can go there and often have, at least in thought. Humanity is depraved.

This is why we need a rescuer. This is why we need a savior, because with this condition of humanity, what are we but children of wrath? This is our nature to be rebellious, to be self-serving, to be self-preeminent. It is our nature. And if that is our nature, then we are destined for wrath.

Why? Because there is a holy God. We are children of wrath. And this wrath is the necessary separation from holy God, who will in the end say, even to those who had a religious label, if they remained children of wrath, he will say, depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

Why? Because God is absolutely holy. When we speak of the wrath of God, the necessary wrath of God, let's not think of it as God having a bad temper and he's just flying off the handle. That's not what this is. God's approach to destructive evil that runs through every heart in this room, God's approach to destructive evil is as a surgeon's approach to a malignant tumor.

And he necessarily will remove it. You see, this is the necessary opposition to evil by the one who is absolutely good. God cannot, in his perfection, he cannot coexist with evil or he wouldn't be absolutely good. You see, this is the diagnosis of humanity. But the story doesn't end there, though it could have justifiably were it not for God's love.

The story doesn't end there. We have now first two words of verse four, but God. Aren't those tremendous words?

But God. You see, with this contrast, we see more clearly God's love and grace and power to transform and overcome evil even at the core of our humanity. And here is the truth that flows out of this contrast that the apostle is presenting here this morning. You are more evil than you would ever dare to admit. And you are more loved than you could ever possibly imagine. Folks, that is the gospel of grace.

There's nothing like it anywhere else in the world. That is the gospel of grace. But God who is rich in mercy.

This word rich is a word that means opulent. He has lavished compassion on us. Rebels who think we know better than he does. He has lavished compassion on us.

Why? We're made in his image. Why does a father love his children?

It's that sense. But even more specifically, for those of us whom he has known in Christ from eternity. He loves us with such a deep love. And it is a great love.

But God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. I love Wiest's definition of love here. He says, a love that impels one to sacrifice oneself for the benefit of the object loved. Now, Wiest died in 1960, but I think he took notes from me. He agrees with my definition of love.

Thank you very much. I feel very affirmed. We are called to love as Christ loved us. What did he do? He invested himself in me for my God-ward movement. That's what this passage is all about. You've been listening to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Visit our church website to see upcoming events or to listen to more messages at www.gbcwinston.com To discover how to live by grace, tune in on weekdays at 10 a.m.