R350 The Making of a New Person

God is at work doing some remarkably new things, and that's Dr. Wilson's topic today called The Making of a New Person. Let's study the Word. As we open God's Word together, know that we're open to pray with you and for you, both online at tewonline.org, and 866-899-WORD.

That's 866-899-9673. Let's connect. And now today's teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. Please open your Bibles to Paul's letter to the Ephesians chapter 2. Now friends, from time to time, people ask your pastor questions.

And some questions that I'm asked from time to time are rather interesting. One of the questions that I've been asked is, pastor, what frustrates you most of all about being pastor of a church? First Baptist Church or Bethel or wherever, but what frustrates you about being pastor of First Baptist Church?

And I've had to think about it. And perhaps I would say that the number one thing that frustrates me about being pastor of a local church is my inability to be able to visit with and minister to every person every week. I find that frustrating because I'm a people person. I love to be among people, love to be in homes, and I just love to fellowship, and I love to be able to pray with people. I find that frustrating, and I think that all pastors would say that to you.

It's just impossible. But then on the other side, people say, well, pastor, what do you find most joyful about being pastor? Now, I've got no hesitation in telling you that. The most joyful thing that I can experience about being a pastor is seeing a person's life changed completely because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, in my ministry, I have seen many a grown man in the grip of alcoholism, in the grip of sin, come into a direct communion with Jesus Christ and his life completely turned around. I've seen dads become dads again. I've seen moms become moms again. I've seen what Jesus Christ can do in a family. I spend a good deal of my time counseling with people in varying different circumstances and difficulties. And friends, I'm going to say to you that you can go to counselors ad infinitum.

You can take all the prescribed medicine that you want. You can turn over all the new leaves and make all the new resolutions that you want. And these things all certainly have their place. But there is nothing that is supremely important than the making of a new person in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the Apostle Paul put it like this. He said, Therefore, if any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a brand new creation. All things are passed away and behold, all things have become new. Here in Ephesians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul in the first 10 verses talks about this very subject.

I want to read it for you. We ended off last week in verse 23, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Now I'm going to stop a couple of times this morning as we read God's Word, but look at it.

Ephesians chapter 2, beginning at verse 1. As for you, excuse me, as for you, I say back there, as for you, he's talking to all of us. Listen to what he says and note the tense of the verbs here. It's remarkable. It's all written in the past tense.

It's wonderful news. He says, As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. In the King James version and the original version, they use the word there, the children of disobedience.

It has remarkable, remarkable significance because the Apostle Paul is going to begin to talk about the very nature and the character of man who is outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to what happens, verse 3. All of us, excuse me, just for a minute if you don't mind, excuse me.

All of us, everyone, did you get that? All of us, he's talking here to the church at Ephesus, he's writing to the believers. All of us also lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts like the rest, we were by nature the objects of 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 transgressions, it is by grace you have been saved and God raised us up with Christ and seated us, I beg your pardon? God seated us? Well in chapter 1 the Bible said that God seated Jesus.

Is he trying to tell us something? This is overwhelming, is it possible that we could be seated together with Christ? Is it possible that we can share together in his resurrection? Is it possible that we can be quickened and made alive in him? Is it possible that we can be spiritually exalted to be seated with the Son at the right hand of the Father? Let's see what the Word says, verse 6. And God raised us, you and me, up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. In order, why?

Why did he do this? In order that in the coming ages. And we're dealing with the coming ages, the Bible has a lot to say about it. What's going to happen? Where are we going to be? How's it going to happen?

Who's involved? Well listen to what Paul says. In order that in the coming ages God might show the incomparable, excuse me again, incomparable, didn't we hear that word before?

I think we did, if you look over to chapter 1 and verse 19. He says, and his incomparably great power. Now in chapter 2, as he's talking about the making of a new person, he says this.

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 yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast. And then in verse 10 we have an apparent contradiction.

He just said it's not of works. Now listen to verse 10. For we are created as God's workmanship.

Why? Created in Christ, Jesus, for what purpose? To do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

May the Lord write his word upon our hearts this morning. I think that we might already have begun to discover that chapter 1 deals with the all-embracing scope of God's divine purpose. And in chapter 1 it would seem to me, my friends, that Paul takes us back into the inner councils and chambers of God. And what we see is how he purposed from eternity to call out a community redeemed unto and for himself. So what happens in chapter 2? In chapter 2 as we begin with verse 1, we discover that God is actually creating ongoing continuous present. He is creating this redeemed society that came out of the inner councils of Almighty God.

In fact, I'm going to tell you something very interesting. Do you know once again that verses 1 through 7 is one long continuous sentence in the Greek text? And if you study it very closely, my friend, you're going to discover that the main verb, which is in verse 5, hath quickened or has quickened, that's the main verb of those verse 7 sentences, my friends. It sits right there in the middle, only comes in verse 7. And as a consequence, I think it would be very safe for us to be able to say that this whole paragraph is a kind of a spiritual biography of someone who has been made new in the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you please, businessmen, this is the kind of thing that you get on your desk when someone's applying for a job and you put your resume on their desk. The Apostle Paul is putting forth right here the resume, the personal biography of one who has been made brand new in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what does he do in order to try and describe this newness? He looks at it in three ways.

Number one, he looks at what they were. The first section, what they were, in verses 1 through 3. Now I want you to notice in verse 1 through 3, my friends, as Paul tries to describe the new person that has been created in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, that he begins to set forth the pre-Christian state of mankind and particularly of the church at Ephesus. He talks about what they were and by emphasising what they were before they gave their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, he begins to emphasise both the magnitude of the power and mercy of God.

He provides a foil, if you please, against which the amazing power and grace of God stands out in brilliant relief. Paul says, listen, if we're ever going to understand what it means to be made brand new in Jesus Christ, you've got to understand the background. You've got to understand what you were in order to know what you have become. And the Apostle Paul is going to make it very clear, my friends, that you can never become unless you are willing to accept what you are and what you were. You cannot be saved unless you're willing to acknowledge your sin. You cannot be saved, my friends, unless you're willing to accept your fallen condition because the Bible says, in Adam all die, but in Christ Jesus we're all made alive. And so he begins to describe this and he does it in three different ways. First of all, in verse 1, talking about what they were, he says they were dead. Can you imagine that?

Look at verse 1. As for you, you were dead. Have you ever gone up to somebody and talked to them and said, you're dead?

Now, Clint Eastwood does that from time to time. You don't walk up to people today and say, you know, you're actually dead. You think you're alive, but you're dead. Well, Paul says just that.

Can you imagine the audacity? Paul looks at these people and he says that I want you to know that what you were is you were completely dead. You were lifeless as far as God is concerned.

And by so doing, he's emphasizing their total alienation from God and their total helplessness and hopelessness to be able to do anything about it. I remember when I was a boy in Africa. We used to go swimming in the Caledon River, C-A-L-E-D-O-N. It's a big river in Africa, beautiful river. And this thing used to flood often like it's just done because of Hurricane Fran. And I mean it was tumultuous. And when we were young boys, you know, 9, 10, 11, 12 and so on, we used to go for vacations up into this area and we would always, as little boys, we would go and jump into these tumultuous rivers like the Caledon River.

And I mean the dirt and the muck and the filth and I mean dead cows and fences and poles and posts and everything else would be just come floating down and sheep and goats and everything else in between and it would just be rumbling down. We thought this was great. I mean this was it. How can a boy of 10 resist something like that?

We didn't think of the dangers. Do you know one day I will never forget, I must have been 10, 11, 12 whenever with my brothers and we had a friend with us, I remember jumping and we used to wait for a big old log to come by, you know, a big old tree that had fallen down and been spent. Here it comes tumbling down and we'd jump on that thing and it would have branches sticking out and we'd ride him cowboy, you know. I mean we'd get down that thing and we'd ride what seemed like for hours. I remember one day in particular, I went down a whole series of rapids. I mean there I was going down, just having the best time, you know.

I mean having a wonderful time. I got down to the bottom of the rapids and what I didn't know was that the power of the water was so strong that it hit the bottom of the river and then it just churned underneath like that and I will never forget being pulled off that log and pulled right down to the bottom of that river bed. Well, one would think that the swirl of the water would bring you up but what I didn't know that there was another tree that had been rammed into the bottom of the river bed just like that and my body came tumbling along and I got wedged between the tree trunk and the bottom of the river bed and I can still feel myself so trapped in there that there was nothing that I could do and to this day even at my ripe old age I can still remember the panic that came over me and I can still remember trying to take a breath and going and all I took in was just water. I was way underneath and folks I was beginning to drown. There was no way for me to get out and to this day I'll never understand it but I will always remember it. An unbelievable power of water came. An extra swirl just came around and went boom!

Just hit my tail end and my feet and just popped me out and I went shooting up to the top and my friends had to drag me onto the side and my life was saved. Do you know what Paul says? Paul says that our condition is no different. He says it is though the whole world were one graveyard every gravestone has written upon it the inscription dead through sin. It can be seen in the moral decay. It can be seen in the spiritual blindness. It can be seen in the indifference to God.

Therefore the Apostle Paul is saying here in these opening verses my friends that the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is as great as the difference between a living person and a corpse. Forgive the interruption. We'll be back in just a moment with the rest of today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. But our prayer is that you would understand that it's not just about this podcast, this broadcast, this radio connection, but there are also wonderful resources that can help you trust God more.

You'll find them online at www.tewonline.org. As a matter of fact, this latest one also has a wonderful video with Ruth Bell Graham. Thank you for standing with us. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton here on The Encouraging Word. There is no semblance of spiritual life in someone who's dead. You can't be sort of lost as far as God is concerned.

You can't be sort of a Christian either. Have you ever gone to somebody and said to them, are you a Christian? They've said, well, it's kind of sort of. Well, have you ever given your life to Jesus Christ?

Well, now maybe sort of kind of. The Bible says there's no such thing as sort of lost and sort of saved. You're either saved or you're lost.

No man can serve two masters. And so the Apostle Paul here focuses in on what they were and he says you were dead. Secondly, he says you were enslaved to sin and he uses four pictures here to try and illustrate that. Number one, he says they were walking in sin. This is from verses two and three. He says you are in bondage to sin. You are walking in sin.

Look at verse two. He says this is the way you used to live when you followed or walked in the way of the world. What was he talking about? He was talking about the walk of life. He was talking about the manner of lifestyle.

He was talking about the very atmosphere in which they lived. They walked in sin. They didn't only walk in sin, but number two, they followed the ways of the world. They followed the ways of the world in the second part of verse two. He said you lived according to the worldly fashion of the day.

You lived according to the standard of right and wrong that the world dictated upon you. They were swept up and they were caught up in the pleasures and the practices of a world without Christ. That's why I'm so proud of our teenagers. Aren't you proud of our teenagers, folks?

I'm so proud of them. And it's not easy for a teenager today at a Dorman High School or a Boiling Springs or at Spartanburg High or wherever they are to be able to stand up and go to a poll and say, listen, I'm someone who belongs to Jesus Christ. Folks, let's not kid each other. That is not easy for a young person to do.

That is one of the most difficult things that anybody can do. The Apostle Paul here says not only are they walking in sin, not only are they following the ways of the world in which they are swept up in its pleasures and practices, but thirdly, they are ruled by Satan. Look at verse two, the third part of verse two. He says, and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air.

He's talking about being under the power and the control of Satan. Why does he use the word the kingdom of the air? Well, if you go to England today, you go to Kent, which is right on the bulge on the east coast of England near Dover where you cross over to France on the French side of England if you haven't been there. You're going to find many old airfields from World War II. In fact, the maps that they've got up there are extraordinary.

You can travel all across the coasts of France. You're going to see memorials to incredibly amazing men and women who gave their lives and who fought for the cause. There are so many of those people in our congregation today and we honor them. I tell you, it chokes me up when I see what other people did in order that we can have our freedom today. But you know, friends, in 1940s when they brought in the Spitfire, the one thing that Winston Churchill wanted to do more than anything else was to gain the ascendancy of the air. President Clinton talking about what is going on with Saddam Hussein at the moment doesn't forget to pray for our country.

We're saying that the most important thing we can do last night is to be able to make sure that we've got control of the air. What is the Apostle Paul saying? The Apostle Paul is saying when you're outside of Jesus Christ, you are under the rule of the one who has control of the very air that you breathe. You are completely infiltrated by His rule and by His power. That's why in the original language he uses the word the children of disobedience.

Why? Because he's pointing to the fact that their very nature and character is one of disobedience. It is in the heart of mankind.

But there's a fourth way he describes it. He says you're dead because you're at the mercy of their passions. In verse three, all people outside of Christ are governed and dictated to by their passions. The word there in verse three, the cravings of our sinful nature, the word there in the original text is the word lusts.

It means that you have a bent toward that which is forbidden. They were dead. They were slaved in sin. But thirdly, they were the objects consequently of God's anger.

That's what Paul says you were. He says you were the objects of God's anger. He says in verse three, like the rest, we were by nature objects of God's anger. Now folks, I've had many people say, don't preach about the anger of God.

You cannot do that. As much as we talk about the love of God, we've got to talk about the anger of God. Why? Because lost people lie under the dreadful judgment of God.

Why? Because God cannot tolerate sin. His anger is a permanent and consistent element of his nature. That's what the Bible says. The Bible says it is the reverse side of his holy love. It represents the divine hostility to all that is evil. It is a personal quality without which God could not be fully righteous. That's what the Word teaches. The anger of God is the purest representation of the holiness of God. It is the very essence of his holiness, what they were. Now I'm so glad Paul didn't leave it there. In fact, I'm going to say to you, when I began to study this passage, I said, you know, I'm just going to say a few words by way of introduction about what they were and I don't like that section.

But you know something? Paul doesn't leave it there. He moves on to the glorious, wonderful news. He moves on to the reason for the season.

That's right, he moves on to the positive. He talks about what they were and he says, we need to tell you what you were because if you don't understand what you were, you'll never understand what you've become. And before you can understand what you become, you've got to know what you've received. And so we looked at what they were.

What did they receive? You see, here Paul, beginning from verse 4 through 6, begins to talk about the wealth of divine grace and love that God gives to his children. Man's sin and God's wrath provide the background against which the brilliance and the greatness of God's love is seen.

And he does this in several ways. First of all, he says they were the recipients of divine mercy. Now look at verse 4 with me again. But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, Paul gets right down to the heartbeat of the matter. Paul says, wait a minute, your salvation has nothing to do with anybody outside of God. We are what we are by the grace of God.

God alone is the author. And this change that we undergo when we receive Christ is grounded in God's boundless mercy and love. He says they, you, we are the recipients of God's divine mercy. But secondly, he says they were resurrected to new life.

Now wait a minute, there's something interesting here. Look at verse 5 and 6 with me. Look in your Bibles. God made us alive in Christ even though we were dead in our trespasses and in our sins. And what Paul does here at this point, beloved friends, is he begins to expound, if you please, on the benefits of those who have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. And he does it in three ways. He says that their experiences linked to God's divine mercy carry with it three benefits. Spiritual quickening, number one. Spiritual resurrection, number two. Spiritual exaltation, number three. What an unbelievable statement.

It is unbelievable that he could have said this. Spiritual quickening, we made alive in Christ. Spiritual resurrection, we're going to fly in Christ. Spiritual exaltation, we're going to sit in Christ. If somebody ever says to me, what do you get from being a Christian?

I'm going to say living, flying, and sitting. And the list goes on and on and on, but oh, it starts with a single choice to say yes to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Before we get away, closing thoughts from our pastor. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today, I repent of my sin, and by faith, I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name. My friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.

This is exciting news. Welcome to the family of God, or perhaps the better phrase for some of you is welcome home. Welcome back to the family of God.

Many of you, I believe, have been praying with the pastor quietly in your own heart to refocus your life on Jesus as he was praying seconds ago. If so, Dr. Don would love to put free resources in your hands to help you grow in your faith, to root yourself in God's word. You can call us right now and ask for your copies at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. Or connect with us online at tewonline.org. That's tewonline.org. We are here to encourage you.