The Bible makes it clear that every single one of us is, by nature, spiritually dead, enslaved to sin, and condemned.
That's a pretty grave diagnosis, but today on Truth for Life weekend we'll discover the difference that two little words can make. Those words are, but God. Alistair Begg is teaching from Ephesians chapter 2.
We're looking at verses 4 through 6. Well, of course, humanity, as it confronts the predicament of the human condition, has all kinds of suggestions as to how it can be fixed. But that is in large measure because contemporary notions of the state of man are frankly unprepared to give any credence at all to this diagnosis, which is not only here in Ephesians but runs throughout the Bible, whereby the Bible tells us that outside of Christ we are dead, we are enslaved, and we are condemned. It doesn't sound very good and it isn't good. In fact, it is dreadful. And it speaks to the issues of our state. Every day that we live our lives, every newspaper that unfolds before us, every broadcast that comes across our screen confirms the reality of what G. K. Chesterton observed, that whatever else may be in doubt, man is not what God intended for him to be.
And so the explanations that are given are fairly routine. The trouble is that man is simply sad, or perhaps he is dysfunctional, or we may be prepared to acknowledge that he is sick. That's why he does these dreadful things, why he kills and maims and rapes and turns in upon himself. This is explained in terms of sickness.
The one thing that is almost wholesalely rejected is the diagnosis that the Bible gives here, namely that man is sinful. And the reason that this is so crucial is because a superficial view of the human condition results inevitably in attempts to fix the condition in similarly superficial fashion. So that, for example, we may try, if man is simply misguided, to cure the predicament by increasing the level of education. If he is sick, by increasing the amount of medication.
If he's just rebellious, then perhaps by legislation or even by indoctrination or domination. And the story of social and political history throughout our world this morning can be understood in terms of all these different categories, different ways in which society as a whole and towns and cities and families and sports teams and businesses and academic institutions try and do something about the fact that man is messed up. Now, that's why it's such a wonderful thing to have a Bible and to read it and to ask God to speak to us through it. Because the Bible declares that we are spiritually dead on account of our trespasses and our sins, and that only God is able to raise the dead. Paul then goes on to say, and that of course is good news, because that is exactly what God has done. And beginning here in verse four, he is going to explain to his readers, and we are his readers now, what God has done and then why he has done it. Now, let me remind you that what we are by nature in our fallenness in our sin magnifies what we are then by grace. And if we have a trivial and superficial view of what we were before we turned to Christ, then probably our expressions will bear testimony to that. There are three things in particular that we should note under this heading, what has God done?
And they're there in the text and I can point them out to you. First of all, God has made us alive with Christ, made us alive together with Christ. Now, don't worry about verse four, we'll come back to that later, but for now notice that little phrase made us alive together with Christ. The testimony of the believer is not that God has helped us to feel better about ourselves or somehow or another has improved our circumstances or our living conditions, because in actual fact, some of us having professed faith in Jesus Christ have found that our circumstances have actually got worse. Some of us would testify to the fact that it is ever since we began to take seriously the story of the Bible that we just have not enjoyed many of the benefits that we once knew. Some of the friendships that we'd enjoyed so much have gone away.
We used to be in absolute harmony within our home, but we have now become followers of Jesus and our spouse doesn't follow Jesus and we wish that he or she did and it is always there all day, every day as an underlying issue. So the idea that somehow or another Jesus comes simply to add to the sum of our total happiness, to clean everything up, to make everything absolutely better, we can't testify to that. We're not supposed to testify to that. No, the story of the believer is I was dead and Jesus has made me alive. We were so lost that we didn't know we were lost. We needed to be shown that we were lost before ever we were found, because you don't need to be found if you're not lost. So you come to a talk like this and you listen and you say, and you say, well, I don't know who this refers to, but it certainly doesn't refer to me until you understand that it does refer to you.
And then you say, I once was lost in darkest night and I thought I knew the way, but of course I didn't. You see, at that point in our experience, Christian things actually seemed pretty foolish. In 1 Corinthians 2 verse 14, the natural person, man by nature, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to them, to him, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. It's quite a statement, isn't it?
In other words, spiritual things, the thing that we read in the Bible, the story of Jesus, and particularly this notion that in his death there is life and that in him exclusively and solely there is life and peace and there is freedom from our enslavement and there is triumph over all that holds us in its grip. And someone says, no, I'm sorry, that just seems absolutely foolish to me. Well, why would it seem foolish? Well, because by nature it is foolishness to us. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.
Who are they? Everybody. But to those who are being saved, who are they? Those who have been raised up to life, it is the power of God. So in other words, when the Bible is proclaimed, when the gospel is proclaimed, it inevitably divides. It inevitably causes us to say, on which side do I find myself? As my mind at enmity with God, am I hostile to these things?
Do I naturally turn away from them? Do I believe this? Well, if you're in Christ, then you do, because this is what God has done. He has raised us up. Prior to that, we were both deaf and we were dead until God called us to our senses.
I say to you again, this is not a nice diagnosis, but it is the biblical diagnosis. Now, when you think about the idea of God calling to us, there is a call in creation, isn't there? There is a call also in our consciences.
Each of us by conscience is aware of God. There is also a call that comes in the preaching of the Bible. When the Bible is proclaimed, it is as if there is a knocking on the door of our hearts. But the real effectual call of God, the inner call of God is that which unlocks and opens the door of our hearts. That's why we often say, don't we?
I think I probably said it last week. I say it to redundancy, that my voice can unlock nothing, can unlock no heart. I can say to you, as I'm saying to you now, creation speaks, your conscience speaks, the Bible speaks, and you can still sit there and go, I don't think so. No, until God speaks, till God takes up his word and calls you by name, speaks into your life, says to you, I'm talking about you.
This generic description of humanity actually finds its focus in you. You know this to be true. That's something God does. That's what he did in the life of Lazarus.
He called him by name. He was deaf, but he heard him. He was dead, but he was alive. That is the transforming power of Jesus. And all of this is accomplished on account of the fact that Christ rose from the dead and sat down at the right hand of God. We have been made alive with Christ.
I spent too much time on that. Secondly, notice we have been raised with Christ, raised with Christ. Now notice that each of these verbs is in the past tense, in the past tense, because all of this has already taken place. All of this was accomplished when Christ rose from the dead and he himself then sat down at the right hand of the father. You see, what Paul is doing here is quite magnificent. He's pointing out the fact that Christ was dead and buried for our sins. And he was raised. He ascended.
He was seated. And now he says, in Christ, that is what has happened to you if you are a believer. First of all, you have been raised with Christ, past tense. Romans chapter six and verse six. We know that our old self was crucified with Jesus in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.
Here we go. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again and death no longer has dominion over him. And therefore death no longer has dominion over us. If Christ does not return first, we will physically die. But to die is to fall asleep in the arms of Jesus and to waken up and discover that we're home. That what we fear most we will never experience.
Why? Because our life is now hidden with Christ in God. Because when we died with him, we were then raised with him. And we have, as we're going to see in just a moment, been seated with him. That's our position in Christ. It's an amazing thing. And thirdly, and finally, what has happened here is that we have been made alive, verse five, and we have been raised, verse six, and I'm doing this from memory now because I turned to John, and we have been seated with him.
I think it's there, isn't it? In verse six still, yeah. Raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. What does that mean, the heavenly places in Christ Jesus? We're in Cleveland for goodness sake. How could we be in the heavenly places?
Well, we are both in Cleveland and we're in the heavenly places. What are the heavenly places? Well, the heavenly places is just another way of talking about the unseen world of spiritual reality. The unseen world of spiritual reality. When we did our studies in Daniel, we said there are evil forces that are at work in our world. If we could ever actually see the reality of this presence, it would be overwhelming to us.
We see the impact of this presence. People say, well, no, that's not why. But they have no real explanation for all the rape, for all of the hatred, for all the heinous crimes. Where does all this come from? Well, the evil one dragging people with him in his wake. And says Paul, having been made alive and raised, we are now seated with him in this world of spiritual reality. In verse three of chapter one, he said this is the place of blessing. We've been blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
In verse 20 of chapter one, this is what he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him in his right hand in the heavenly places. In chapter six, if we ever get there, he's going to tell us that it is in the heavenly places that we wage war. That the church engages in spiritual warfare.
Not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and the powers and the authorities against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. That's why you see to become a Christian is to be reconciled to God and to be antagonized to the evil one. We're now antagonized to the evil one. As long as we were simply going down Broad Street with him, he didn't really care one way or another.
As long as we were simply going down Broad Street and seeking to be as ethical as we could or as nice as we might, he was quite content to leave us on our own. But have you discovered now that since you started to read your Bible, since you started to say, I believe in Jesus, since you were baptized, since you decided to make a commitment to these things, since you discovered new life springing up within you, did you discover now that all hell has been let loose against you? Did you realize this?
Why is this? Because we have been placed in a realm and in this realm, he says, chapter three, this is the realm in which the church, the church that is the people of God, chapter three and verse 10, so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. You get it? That in the church, big C, God's people throughout the entire world, the manifold wisdom of God, the triumph over enslavement, the victory over death, the pardon over sin, the life that is really life might now be made manifest so that the forces of evil recognize that that is actually the case, says John Stott, and this is not a piece of meaningless Christian mysticism. No, it bears witness to a living experience brought to new life. We were dead, brought to a new victory. We were enslaved. Let me try and wrap this up in this way this morning because we're not going to have time to go to the why God has done this. Some of you will remember, depending on your vintage, that Jimmy and Carol Owens, who were songwriters in the United States, wrote two celebrated musical pageants, as it were, for the church to sing. One was called If My People, and the other from memory was called Come Together.
One of the songs that we sang together goes like this, and right out of this text, keep looking down. You're seated in the heavenlies. God's mighty power has raised us over all. Keep looking down above all principalities, for we have died and risen with our Lord. Now, we often say to one another, don't we, that we want to distance ourselves from a kind of superficial form of triumphalism, and we do, from ever suggesting to people that Jesus takes us into the realm of freedom from sickness and from disappointment and so on. We shouldn't say that because it's wrong to say that, and it's very unhelpful to say it because it just isn't true. So in distancing ourselves from a superficial triumphalism, we dare not stand back from what the Bible actually says is true concerning us, namely, that this is the case, that we have been raised, made alive, and seated.
The musical went on to these words. You are the children of the kingdom of God. You're the chosen ones for whom the Savior came. You're his noble new creation by the Spirit and the blood. You're the church that he has built to bear his name. And then came the refrain. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. And the hordes of darkness cannot quench your light. And the hosts of God shall stand and fight beside you till your king shall reign triumphant through his might. That's why we often sing at the end of a day, so be it, Lord, your throne shall never, like earth's proud empires, pass away. Why do we say that?
Because it is guaranteed to us. Part of this message this morning needs to say to some of us, let's get our chins out of our chests. Let us start to live in the light of what is true of us as individuals and as a church in a nation that largely has turned his back on God. In an environment where the hosts and the hordes of evil seem increasingly oppressive, move amongst the average church member.
You'll find them either angry or depressed. Why? Because we're not actually living in the light of the work of the Spirit of God within our hearts and lives. Keep looking down. You're seated in the heavenlies so that we might see now what God has done, sending his only son. His is the name of all majesty. He's the Savior of Calvary.
He's the source of all sovereignty. What God has done. And then he goes on to tell us why God has done it.
Well, we don't have time to go there now. Four words will encapsulate it for us. Mercy, love, grace, kindness. Well, when you think about the call of God and you think about the people that God uses in calling out to us, he doesn't always use the preacher, does he? He uses the preach word. That's his plan.
But he has his agents. Remember when Naaman, who was a mighty man of valor but had leprosy, read news from a little girl who had been snatched away from her family home and put in service of the king of Syria. When he heard from a little girl about the prophet who was the representative of almighty God, and so the little girl said to her mistress, if only my Lord would go and see the prophet. So he went to see the prophet, but he went on his own terms.
And he announced, I'm here. And the prophet didn't come out. The prophet just sent a message with one of his servants, said, tell Naaman to go and dip himself in the Jordan seven times.
And big smarty pants Naaman decided he's not up for that kind of nonsense. Obviously, the prophet doesn't know who he is. This might have a ring for some of you. I'm not sure Jesus knows how significant I really am. And so he went away in a huff, and the word of God came to him how?
Through his servants, my Lord. If the prophet had asked you to do something hard, wouldn't you have done it? And that rings for some of you as well. That's why you're a philanthropist. That's why you're an ethicist. That's why you're trying to make your situation as obviously wonderful as it possibly can be, because you've got the notion that God is just waiting for you to show how significant you are. And you don't want to hear any story about a dying Jesus being the only answer to your deadness, just like Naaman. All he said to you, Naaman, was, Go and wash, and you will be clean.
And Naaman heard the voice of God, and he was washed, and he was cleansed. Today, if you hear God's voice, do not harden your heart. You're listening to Bible Teacher Alistair Begg on Truth for Life Weekend.
And when Sunday morning comes, are you ever tempted to skip church and just worship online instead? If that's the case, the book we want to recommend to you today will encourage you to walk out the door and into the doors of your local church. The book is called Gather, and the subtitle is Loving Your Church As You Celebrate Christ Together. This book offers practical steps and advice to help you find renewed joy for fellowshipping in person with others. From listening to the sermon with your Bible open to creating special Sunday traditions, the book Gather will help you prioritize weekly worship, reframe it as the privilege that it is. For more information about the book Gather, visit our website, truthforlife.org. I'm Bob Lapeen. Thanks for taking time out of your weekend to study the Bible with us. Next weekend we'll find out why it's dangerous to demand justice in God's court. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
