Death, Life, Work

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

• Welcome and Honoring Wayne
• Ephesians 2: Made Alive
• Spiritual Death
• But God: Mercy and Grace
• Alive Together with Christ
• His Workmanship: Good Works
• Closing Prayer
• Baptism Testimonies

Welcome and Honoring Wayne

For the baptism those that are getting baptized are going to share very briefly. So we’re going to hear some testimonies. Yeah All right, so before we get into the word I wanted to mention that 40 years ago in August I got saved. It just so happened that the man preaching when I got saved is actually here today. So we want to honor Wayne Carson, Wayne and his wife Carolyn, and stand up. And so all of my best licks you’ve heard over the years I probably got from Wayne. [audio unclear] So we’re excited to have him here with us today. And I encourage you all to take a moment after the service and greet them if you haven’t been able to talk to them already today. Okay, so we’re going to look at Ephesians chapter 2 if you open your Bibles there. If you have a Bible or an iPhone or an iPad, whatever you use these days. Ephesians

Ephesians 2: Made Alive

chapter 2 starting at verse 1. It says, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses” [audio unclear] “just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” And he raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, thus anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Recently, my daughter, Lydia, took a new job, and believe it or not, she’s a brain trainer. I was supposed to get a laugh. But that’s really what they call a position. She’s a brain trainer. And not only children, but I think adults come in the program too, right? And if you want your brain, I guess it’s a muscle, you work it out, you wanna get better, you wanna get smarter, you wanna get sharper. They come in and they do a battery of exercises with these people. And she was explaining some of these things to me. And one of the exercises would be like a series of words, like let’s say colors, red, blue, green, yellow.

But the red word wouldn’t be red, it would be yellow. And the green word would be blue. You get the point? So then the instructions, okay, start, and there’s a timer. You hear it’s a ticking thing going. And then they’ll say, read the words. So you have to say red, blue, green, okay. Then they’ll say, okay, now, now, say the color. So you’re looking at the word red, but you have to say green or blue or whatever it is. And then they’ll say, okay, now, now we’re going to do the first one you say the word color. You see, you see how that is? Yeah. Yeah, I know. It’s not easy. It’s really hard. That’s why they call it brain training, because you have to train your brain to do it. So we’re going to do some brain training today. All right? You ready? Okay, so we just read this passage, right? So we’re going to come up with three words, because if you have an outline, you have three key words that will help you remember the sermon, right? Right? So I came up with three words that we could used because this is a passage that is a passage that is easy to outline, fortunately. So I gave you an easy one, so I came up with three words problem that’s in verses one through three there’s a problem we’re dead in trespasses and sins etc then then the second word is solution Ot’s in verses four through nine god’s mercy love grace in Christ Jesus he saves us, that’s the solution to the problem You got that? So you got problem, you got solution, and then you have a result. And that’s in verse 10, that we’re created in Christ Jesus for good works. So what are the three words I just said? Okay, who wants to stand up and say those three words? No, not you. All right. Well, that was too easy. Alright, so let’s come up with three different words. What do you say? Alright, let’s try this again. How about the word the word separation, unification and production? Those are bigger words. Separation, in verses one through three says that we’re dead in trespasses and sins, we’re separated from God, right? Then in verses four through nine it talks about us being in Christ made a life together with Christ, so there’s unification. And then in verse 10, there’s the result, as we said, of that, and that is a life of good work, so we’re producing, right? So there’s production. So there’s separation, say it. Unification and production. Okay, who wants to stand up and say, those three words? And not Jordan. Man, you guys are… Say it again. Very good, give them a hand. I like “-tion” words.

I do. Separation, unification, production. I like “-tion” words, but they’re a little pretentious, don’t you think? So we can really make this simpler. We need words that are a little more descriptive than production, or what does that mean, right? So let’s come up with three more words. How’s your brain doing? Okay, do you have your coffee today? No? Tough crowd today. Alright, we’re going to come up with three other words. We’ll make these words simpler. Each word is going to have one syllable. I’m going to make this easy for you. And so if you can remember these three words, you will have the outline to the sermon, and you’ll be able to remember this better. You won’t forget it by the time you go to lunch today. Alright? You ready? Three words. Death, verses 1 through 3. We were dead in trespasses and sins. Then life, in verses 4 through 9, because it says we have been made alive together with Christ. And then the third word is work. In verse 10, we are created in Christ Jesus for good work. How’s that sound? Is that easy? It’s easy. One syllable and it’s descriptive. Death, life, work. All right, can you all say that together? Death, life, work. Now who’s brave enough to stand up and say those three words? All right, give them a hand. Very good. So you know the three words, I actually gave you nine, but you only have to remember three. death, life, and work. So let’s talk briefly about this passage before baptism today. The problem, as we said, is death. That’s in verses 1 through 3. Let’s read it again. “’And you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince, the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and children of wrath, just as the others.

Spiritual Death

The plight of mankind, humankind, of all men, women, and children is that of spiritual death. The reason in one of my outlines I use the word separation because the root idea of death is simply separation. When the soul or the spirit leaves the body, we have what’s called physical death, right? There’s a body, but we know that’s not the person. The person was the soul or spirit that inhabited that body. And so when the soul or spirit departs or separates from the body, we say we have physical death. Well, there’s such a thing as spiritual death also, and this is where the soul or spirit is separated from God. It’s not in communion with God. It is not in fellowship with God. The soul does not have a relationship with God. And the soul that is not in communion with God is dead. You know, we have a modern fascination with zombies, don’t we? All programs, The Walking Dead, and you know, there’s all these crazy movies about zombies. And this is interesting because a zombie is kind of like a good picture of what we are. Because a zombie is dead but it’s alive, like, well, how can something be dead and be alive, you know, the living dead. Well, how can the dead be living if they’re dead, right? Well, we’re the living dead. Because we are physically living, but the scripture says we’re spiritually dead. It says here, here, that we’re dead in trespasses and sins. But we’re alive. Wait, are we alive or are we dead? Are we the living dead? What are we? Are we zombies? Well, the Bible speaks of life in two ways. It speaks of natural or biological life, and the word there in the Greek is bios. That’s where we get biology. Bios. It’s natural life. It’s animal life. We have animal life. We have natural life. When we’re born into the world, we have bios. But there’s another kind of life, a spiritual life, an eternal life that the Bible speaks of, which is called Zoe. And Zoe life we are not born with. In order to get Zoe life, we need to come into contact with God. God is life. God is eternal life. And he is Zoe.

So we’re alive in one sense, we have bios, but we’re dead in another sense. We don’t have zoe because we’re separated from God. And the reason is because, as the text says, of our trespasses and sins, because we’ve sinned against God, we’ve violated his law, we are separated from him. His holy law requires that he punishes sin. His holy character is such that he cannot fellowship with sin, so there is separation between us in our natural state and God. That’s our natural condition. And Paul says here at the end of verse 3 that we are by nature children of wrath, just as the others. By nature, meaning naturally. This is the condition of all men, women and children by nature. You don’t have to do anything, you just need to be born. So this is a bad place to be, right? I don’t know about you, I don’t want to be a zombie. I know you think I’m a zombie sometimes when I’m preaching, but I’m really not a zombie. I want to be truly alive in every regard. So we- we’re spiritually dead and separated from God by nature, but God has not left us in that condition. Amen? Hm. The solution is life. Look at verses 4 through 9. Let’s read them again. but God who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And he raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of

But God: Mercy and Grace

God did not leave us in spiritual death but God through his son Jesus Christ came to rescue us and his motive for doing this was his mercy God’s mercy is his innate disposition to show pity on those who are suffering in any way. God cares about the pain and suffering of humanity so much that he would become incarnate in his son Jesus Christ and enter this veil of tears that we live in, this shadow of death that we live in. He would enter into our condition in in every way in order to rescue us. And so God was moved by his mercy. God was moved also, it says here, by his grace. This is his voluntary and his unrestrained and unmerited favor toward guilty sinners. Unmerited favor for guilty sinners.

Whereas mercy looks at our suffering, Grace looks at our guilt. And grace is a free bestowal of kindness. Do you hear what I’m saying? A free bestowal of kindness on those who have no claim to it. Paul goes out of his way in this passage to make the point that our salvation is not by works. He says it over several times. It is not by works, it is by faith. It is not by works, you were saved by grace. And when Paul repeats himself like this, as he does in many passages, it’s because why we are slow to hear. We need the repetition, like in the brain training, over and over and over. We are not saved by our works, we are saved by God’s grace. We are not even saved by our faith, we are saved through our faith. God’s mercy and grace is the motivating, initiating movement to our salvation.

It’s not in us. We don’t do anything. We receive what God has done for us in Christ Jesus, and we receive it by faith. Faith is the empty hand that takes what God is offering us. That’s all faith is. empty hand. God, it says here, is merciful, he’s gracious, and he loves us. And so he sent his son Jesus Christ. And the sin that you and I committed, the Bible tells us, was placed on Jesus Christ. So when Jesus Christ died, the punishment, as Paul says here in This wrath, it was placed on Christ, so it wouldn’t be placed on me.

Jesus endured on the cross what I should have endured because of my sin. That’s grace, amen.

Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. And how does He do this? He does it through our union with Jesus Christ. Here in this passage, Paul says that we are made alive together.

Alive Together with Christ

Here, let’s read it again. Look at verse 5. It says, even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ, for by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. He says together three times here, because he’s trying to drive home a point that our salvation is inseparable from our union with Jesus Christ.

If you read the book of Ephesians, and I wish we had time because I would like to read the whole first chapter, but we won’t. But if you read the first chapter, and this is just one chapter of one book, you’ll see that Paul repeatedly uses a phrase. He says in Christ or in Jesus or in Christ Jesus, he says it over and over and over. We’ll just look at one or two verses. Chapter one. Blessed, verse three, blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, how? In Christ. Just as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. And he goes on and on. And he says in Christ or by Christ over and over and over and over. Why? Because our salvation is not something that is given to us outside of Christ or something we receive apart from Christ, But our salvation, listen, you listening? Say yes. We’re training your brain. Our salvation is Christ. It is Christ. The gift of salvation is not something that can be separated from the gift of Jesus Christ as a person. It’s not, possible. He’s not the wrapping on the gift. He’s not even the box on the gift. He, Jesus, is the gift. Amen to that? Jesus is the gift. He not only shows us the way, Jesus is the way. He not only gives life, He is life. He not only teaches truth, He, He is the truth. Jesus said, I am the tthe way. I am the truth. I am the life. And no man comes to the Father but through me. I am the bread of life, he says, he says. I am the good shepherd. I am the light of the world. I am the resurrection and the life. The gift of life that we need because we were dead is not just comes with Christ, it is Christ. He is the resurrection, he is the life. And when you are joined with him through genuine faith, you receive that life because you receive him. You receive Zoe, spiritual life and eternal life.

The Christian life is not something we do for Jesus. It’s something we do in Jesus. Jesus said, I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears what? Much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing.” And I think much of the frustration and the discouragement that comes to many Christians is a result of trying to live the Christian life apart from the life of Christ. And the truth is there’s only one person that could truly live the Christian life and that’s Christ. Only Jesus can truly live in such a way as to fulfill God’s law. Only, Jesus can truly love God with all the heart, mind and soul at all times. Only Jesus can do this. But Jesus is in us. Do you understand what I’m saying? Jesus is in you and you are in Him. If you are saved, if you’re a Christian, It means that he is in you and you are in him. And by being in him, by being united to him by faith, you have this Zoe life. You’re no longer in sins. You are now spiritually alive. The Christian life is impossible. Hear me now. Apart from him, apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. Well, I shouldn’t say that. Not from Jesus, we can do a lot of things. We can be religious without Jesus. We can actually have church without Jesus. That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? But it happens. You can have church without Jesus. You can do a lot of good things. They look good on the outside without Jesus. But that’s not what the Bible is calling us to. He’s calling us to a life in Christ in which the life of Christ flows through us, other people. The world doesn’t need my righteousness. The world doesn’t need my religion. The world needs Jesus. Amen? And being united to Him, He can then work in me and He can work through me. What was my last word? Good job. Who did that, Greg? I’m glad. He’s a pilot. I’m glad he’s sharp.

His Workmanship: Good Works

In Ephesians 2, verse 10, it says, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,” which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

You know, I’ve been sharing the gospel for many years, as I shared earlier, I came to know Christ 40 years ago. And when you tell people that God will give them eternal life, and they don’t have to work for it, they are usually flabbergasted. I mean, they really don’t believe it. [audio unclear] He defeated sin, He defeated death, and He came back from the dead. So it was costly to Jesus, but it’s not costly to me in the sense that there’s nothing I do or can do, there’s no works that I can do that I earn this gift of salvation, this gift of life. And when you tell people that, they’re like, what? You mean I can just believe in Jesus? Please do whatever I want? Well, not exactly. Because you see, when you truly understand what happens when you come to Christ, when you truly understand there’s a uniting literally of your soul with Jesus, that in transformation which is called the new birth, This affects every aspect of your life. When you’re born of God’s Spirit, you’re changed on the inside. Your heart is changed. And it’s your heart that controls your life. Hear me? The religious solution to sin is to work from the outside in. God’s solution is to work from the inside out. God changes the heart And he changes the heart by giving us new life. That new life is in Christ. He actually gives us his Son, and his Son comes to dwell in our hearts. And his Son resurrects our hearts. He quickens our hearts, and now our hearts are different. Things that we didn’t like before we begin to like. Like the Bible. gathering with the saints. You begin to love worship, you begin to love praying, you begin to, your heart is changed, your desires are changed, and so therefore your actions and your behavior then begins to change. A sure road to frustration is to work from the outside in. Because until you deal with the motivation, you haven’t dealt with the root problem or the root issue. And when you deal with, you change the fruit. If you want apples on your tree, you need to put an apple seed on the ground. If we have roots in our heart that are producing bad fruit, we can trim the tree and look good on Sunday morning, but that’s not the solution. The solution is not keep on trimming the tree. The solution is you need a new tree. It means you need new seed, you need a new root. And so God gives us a new seed, the Word of God, amen.

Which regenerates our heart, gives us new life, a zoe life, eternal life. We are changed on the inside, and then we begin to change gradually on the outside. Our heart changes, our behavior then gets the change or family changes, the church changes, the culture changes, God works from the inside out. And so the believer doesn’t work for salvation. He works as a fruit of salvation. Right? So if there’s no good works in the believer’s life, then the believer has to ask himself, am I a believer? If there’s no good fruit, then the believer has to say, well, I need to take a look at the root. So we’re saved apart from works, but we’re not saved without works. It’s just that the order of salvation is that you believe in Christ, and what He did for you, it is faith, then works follow. Not works plus faith, but faith causes us to be born of God’s Spirit, we receive Zoe life, and then as a result of that internal transformation of saving faith, then our life changes and we begin to walk in good works. That’s what James is trying to tell us in Chapter 2 of James, that we don’t have time to look there. The perennial problem is always been to misuse grace and to say, because I’m saved by grace I can live as I please. This has been a problem from the very beginning in the church when Paul began to preach the gospel, it’s a problem today. Because that’s human nature. Easy believism, cheap grace, right? Profession without practice, faith without works. And this was a problem then, it’s a problem now. What’s the solution? It is to understand the nature, the true nature of grace. The grace of God is not only his attitude toward us, oh it’s that. His grace is His favor and His disposition to bless us even though we don’t deserve it. We’re guilty by nature. But His race is not only that, His grace is also His power that works in us. His power that works in us. So God’s grace is both, you could say, objective and it’s subjective. Or it’s external and it’s internal. And they must go together. If you truly believe in God’s grace objective, then you will experience God’s grace subjective.

And the grace of God that works in us is the grace of God that causes us to walk in good works. You see, when we are saved, we are not only saved from, we are saved for. You hear me? We are saved from the wrath of God. We are saved from spiritual death, but we are also saved for something. And it says here in Ephesians that we are saved for good works.

For good works that God has prepared for us to walk in. And we need more than a negative Christianity. A Christianity that simply says, I don’t do this, I don’t do that. We need a Christianity that is displayed in what we do do. Amen? In the lives that we live. In the transformed behavior. In the godly conduct. In other words, in the good works that God has created for us to walk in. One final word. These good works, Paul says, in verse 10, he says, We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. So you have to be in Jesus first. That’s by faith, right? Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. The good works, the policy we’re referring to here, are not the works that we choose. They’re the works that He has chosen for us. So God has a purpose for your life. God has a plan for you. God has a mission for you to fulfill. And so what you need to do, what I need to do, is we need to get in tune with the heart of God.

Lord, what are the works you want me to do? That is the question that each of us needs to ask the Lord. And as we ask that question, He will answer us. If you truly want to know why you are here, and if you ask the Lord, Lord, He will tell you.

Amen? And let me say this, whether you’ve been saved six weeks, or whether you’ve been saved 60 years, if you are still on the earth, God has work for you to do. We live in a time of religious professionalism where we pay the staff and they can do the preaching and they can lead the worship and they can do the visiting and they can do the calling and then the majority of us can just observe and spectate. That’s not biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity is every believer is a priest unto God. Every believer has been called, every believer has been commissioned, every believer has been gifted, every believer has a mission. Every believer has a work to do for God while they’re on the earth. Whether you’re eight, eighteen, or eighty-eight, it doesn’t matter. If God still has you here, there’s things for you to do for the kingdom.

Amen.

Closing Prayer

So let’s get about God’s work. Let’s get about His work. If you ask the Lord sincerely, Lord, what is the work you’d have me to do? He will tell you. He will tell you. Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that microbiota, our forgiveness, our life, the eternal life you grant us is all by grace. It’s a gift that we simply received by faith. We thank you for that. But we thank you also that you don’t just save us for later, you save us to use us.

That you give our lives purpose, you give our lives meaning, you give us a mission, and we thank you for that. And I pray that each one of us, Lord, each of us that know your son Jesus, each of us would understand as we seek You, that we would understand those good works that You have prepared beforehand for us to walk in. And we pray this, Lord, so that You would be glorified in our lives as we fulfill Your calling. We pray it in Your name. Amen.

Baptism Testimonies

Hold on. So before we have the baptism, we have… where’d they go? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You’re not getting out of this. They’re coming up here. They’re coming up here. If you’re getting baptized, come on up. Got a microphone? I need a microphone. I have your microphone. All right. No. Oh, you have a microphone, man. You’re ready. She’s, ready. All right. You are Mary. Yes. All right. Is it on? See, she needs mine. All right. Mary, you want to share briefly? Okay. So, yeah. I’m Mary Vanneer. I’m a very good person. I’m a very good person. I’m a very good person. I’m very good. I’m very good. I’m very good. I’m very good. I’m very good. So yeah, I’m Mary Vance. I’ve come here since January of this year. I actually go to Christian High and Laura’s my choir teacher.

And she’s been mentoring me and she’s like, you need to come to IGY, you need to come to our church.

And so I finally was like, okay, I’ll go to your church. And the first night I went, I was really afraid because I didn’t know anyone, Happens to me all the time, trust me. But it really spoke to me at that time because I remember Faith actually came over to me and she’s like, “Hi, I’m Faith, I’ve never seen you, do you want to talk about God?” I was like sobbing because I was just really overcome by God’s presence for the first time in my life and I was like, yeah I want to talk about God! So Faith took me aside and she talked to me and I prayed and accepted Christ on that day So yeah, and I’ve been here ever since.

Awesome. Thank you Mary. Give it up for Mary. All right, we love you and we’re looking forward to getting baptized. You know where to go? I do. All right. Manisha, right? Manisha. Don’t sit down. Look, she’s here. Hi, I’m Anishah Pabtani and I actually grew up in different kind of churches like Hindu temples, Catholic, Presbyterian. And I was, I mean one day I was just not living my faith and I just like did not like my life and how it was going. But I remember I was looking at Facebook and I saw Jordan’s post and Jordan has changed tremendously. And I was like, if she could change like that, I want to change like that. And so I started asking her about it. I went to this church and I saw how genuine and devoted people are in here. And I just started going and going. And then I went to camp and Lydia, who’s like such a hardcore Christian, and she’s real.

No, she’s so real, like, love her. And also, Hannah, both of them talked to me and was like, Hannah talked to me and was talking about how you may have to let go of your past and let Go of what was hurting me. And I called my mom and my dad and I apologized for everything. And Mike Bond also helped me out. And after that, like letting off the pass and just like following through prize, everything has changed. It’s been the most amazing thing ever. I started becoming more positive and everything. Yeah. I just want to keep on clapping. It’s awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Does she need an introduction? No. I’m Jordan Arnold. I said yes to the Lord last year in July, I think.

What have you been waiting for to get baptized, huh? And I like fully surrendered my life to God at the Foundation’s conference. And it’s been great ever since. The Lord is real. But before I like come to realize that I needed Jesus, I was just like an angry person.

You guys know you didn’t want to talk to me. It’s cool, it’s cool. Well, yeah, and like every time I kept saying yes to Jesus Like before I was completely saved or saved I had like I felt like empty and side and stuff So like every time I said yes to Jesus, I just kept getting more fulfilled and more fulfilled Yeah, yeah Jesus saves Jesus said amen. All right, give it up for Jordan Alright, well they’re going to get ready for to be baptized. They’re going to get ready, and we’re going to worship while they get ready. Alright, let’s stand together.