[SPEAKER_00]: Let's read together out of Ephesians chapter two or on chapter two today.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have a Bible, go ahead and open up with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians chapter two, we're going to read verses one through five this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: As for you, you are dead in your transgressions and sins in which you use to live.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you follow the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit, who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the rest, we were by nature objects of 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is by grace you have been saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the word of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, great.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, you guys have a seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want us to be mindful as we jump in here to Ephesians chapter two that there are no chapter divisions right in the original main use grips of this letter of any of the letters and New Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those things are put in much later obviously as we created our English translation so we can have chapter divisions just to help us find things and read things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're in Ephesians chapter 2, but really, again, as Paul is writing this letter to the church in Ephesus, he's not like stopping and going, okay chapter 2, you know, he's just continuing on in his thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, I say that to say, Paul is really, he's again continuing what he was talking about there as we call it the end of chapter 1, as he was really exploring and expounding upon the thoughts of that the Ephesians would know and experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hope of their calling, this is what he was praying for at the end of chapter one, that they would know and experience the hope of their calling, the riches of their inheritance, and the power of Christ's resurrection.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what he's praying for for them for, I believe, us by extension, that as we read this letter and as we walk through our faith and Christ Jesus, that we would know these things, the hope of the calling,
[SPEAKER_00]: The riches of our inheritance in Jesus and the power of His resurrection.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now what I think Paul's doing here is he's backing up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told you last week, Ephesians 1 is really, I think, this 30,000-foot view of the gospel and the glories of all that we are in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all that he is for us and in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like right now, Paul has already just said, and we ended last week with greatest Jesus, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We are adopted, we are redeemed, we are forgiven, we are airs of God in him, we are given hope and riches and power in him, greatest Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I think he's going, now here's what I mean by that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what I mean by that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me back up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me get on the ground with yous what Paul's doing with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's talk about what he's done for us, specifically in how we got to where we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, as for you, talking to the Ephesian Gentiles, you were dead, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that word dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I know this is, it feels like a pretty sharp shift here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like a pretty sharp turn from this glorious message that he gives to us at the end of chapter one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, just one continuous thought here, Paul is just trying to help us understand, really give us the backdrop of why God is so good, why he's so glorious, why he's so wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And before we really can grasp that wonderful news, what do we need to know?
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to know the bad news.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to understand why the good news is good news, why is the gospel good news?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good news because there's really, really bad news for every human being who has ever lived on this planet.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a death sentence and it's because of sin and he says, as for you, you were dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: That word is neck roast in the Greek, even that word is like, it's a gross
[SPEAKER_00]: You did, this is not hurt, not struggling, not suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what you just have struggling in sin, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we tried us off in these things a little bit, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul doesn't say we were struggling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then say we were suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then say we were just bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't even say we were mortally ill. Said you were dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Necros, not alive at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is not about physical reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is about spiritual reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul isn't talking biology here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking theology in our relationship with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are separated and if we're separated from him, who is life, what do we left with?
[SPEAKER_00]: Death, that's all.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all we have in separation from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, you were dead, spiritual death.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's to be unaffected by the things of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no desire for Him, no sense of Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the senses that we have, that kind of mean that we're alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have senses about us, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have senses, but when we are dead in our sins and transgressions, before we come to no Christ and our awakens, his glory, we have no sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about your senses.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no sight of God's glory in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no taste for God's goodness in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no smell of the sweet aroma of His mercy in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no hearing of the truth of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no touch of the saving hand of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dead sense is dead mind, dead heart, dead spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where did this come from?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nepal doesn't explain it in Ephesians, but thankfully, Paul wrote 13 letters in the New Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can look at some of his other letters.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go to Romeins with me for a second, because he explains in the book of Romans so back up a few books.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the book of Romans he explains to us where this death came from from our very earliest ancestor.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was not God's original design.
[SPEAKER_00]: He designed man to live.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean God didn't know all of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean God didn't always from even the very beginning have the plan of the cross and the salvation that he would bring through his son.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, he always had that plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: and yet in God's desire for mankind, it's not that we would die, it's that we would live.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he created Adam and he created Eve, two live.
[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis 1 and 2, we see that man has created in God's own image and woman has created in God's own image and own likeness.
[SPEAKER_00]: He called them very good when he made man in women, very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: The crowning achievement of all of his creation and God gave them himself
[SPEAKER_00]: and he gave them each other, and he gave them the world to rule over, and he gave them a paradise to enjoy, and he gave them commands, he told them be fruitful and multiply, he told them to rule over the earth, he told them to cultivate the garden, and he told them, do not eat from this one tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm giving you one thing to not do, to not have.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to have this, because on the day you eat of it, you will surely die.
[SPEAKER_00]: but they ate.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they die that day?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I many die on the day they ate the fruit?
[SPEAKER_00]: Answer is, yeah they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they did not physically die.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing, that's what they were scared of, but something far, far worse happened to them that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: They died spiritually.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were separated from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the first time, they knew what it felt like to not be in right relationship with Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had never experienced that before.
[SPEAKER_00]: You and I know what that feels like.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what it's like to not be right with God and not be right with somebody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's not foreign in aliens, it was alien to them, they didn't understand it, and then it happened to them, and they were instantly ashamed and afraid, separated from the God who is the giver of life, the sustainer of life, the fullness of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now that they're no longer walking in perfect fellowship with Him, all that they're walking in is what, it's death, that's what they felt, that's what they experienced, and that's why they hide.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in Romans chapter 5,
[SPEAKER_00]: The Apostle Paul, he explains this to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse 12, Romans 5.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this way, death came to all men because all sinned.
[SPEAKER_00]: So unless you think that the spiritual death is really only a condition that describes like truly vile and wicked sinners, not you, don't describe you, they describe everybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: It describes the worst of the worst kind of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul's talking to the Ephesians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, they lived in a literal cult.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they lived a life of vile wickedness, and practice witchcraft and all sorts of immorality.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were dead in their sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Paul blows that up here.
[SPEAKER_00]: in Romans 5 to say, all sinned in Adam.
[SPEAKER_00]: When did you become a sinful person separated from God?
[SPEAKER_00]: In the garden?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when it happened to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when it happened to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That in our humanity, because we are now born in his lines.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Matters, by the way, that we do really read the scriptures as historical truth,
[SPEAKER_00]: But because we have a real ancestor named Adam and we are born in his genealogy and because of that we are born into sin and we are dead in that sin, Paul says that death spread to all men because all sinned, all sinned, past tense when Adam sinned.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of our sin happened there.
[SPEAKER_00]: When did you become spiritually dead when Adam's sin in the garden?
[SPEAKER_00]: This became your inheritance that you would be born with a sinful nature separated from God and therefore into death.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says trespasses and sins here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: As you were dead, he says in your transgressions or trespasses or whatever version you're says their trespasses, transgressions and sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's two different words there.
[SPEAKER_00]: that Paul uses.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word stress pass or transgression in the Greek.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a word that literally means faults to step over the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a word that comes with a lot more intentionality.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see there's a line that I should not cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good needle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Add a minif.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a line.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a command.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a law.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I step over it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a transgression, I trust past, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not trespass, that's what it means.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stepped across the line, I did that, I thought about it, I will fully made a decision and chose, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So in our trespasses, in our transgressions, we're dead, and the things that we do, or don't do on a daily basis, that transgress against the law of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he also says in our sins, and this is where I think, again, we're coming back to the garden here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So why does he say both words?
[SPEAKER_00]: sins because sins is a word that literally just means to miss the mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an archery term.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually an archery term when the very first trans English translations of the Bible were created.
[SPEAKER_00]: They used this term.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a term called sin that was in archery and when they saw this word in the Greek hammer T, which means to miss the mark, it thought, okay, we have a word called sin and that's an archery term that means you're like you just can't hit the target.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to
[SPEAKER_00]: So we understand the word sin to me, we miss the mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's really more than you're trying to hit the target, but you just can't quite do it, like you're doing your best.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really comes with the idea that you're not even aiming at the right target.
[SPEAKER_00]: Target's over there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just shooting in your missing why, because this is your nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: My nature is the aim where God is not.
[SPEAKER_00]: My nature is the shoot where God's target is not like this is sinful nature and so when Paul says transgressions and sins, he's talking about transgressions are intentional disobedience and sin is really moral inability.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if I wanted to follow God, I don't have the moral ability to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't in my transgression in my sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: My nature in Adam is to turn away from God
[SPEAKER_00]: And I might hit the target every time, but if I'm not aiming at the right target, it's sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think as we think about this, it kind of helps us understand, sin is not just talking about the things that we do or don't do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sin is talking about the nature of who we are and the motivation from which we do all that we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know these two scriptures, Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the wages of sin, Romans 6, 23, is death.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the reality is this, a non-Christian, you don't have to be a Christian to live a relatively good and moral life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to be a Christian to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: A non-Christian can be charitable,
[SPEAKER_00]: and kind, and patient, and humble, and courageous, and loving you, probably all know, people who are not Christians, who are like that, who are pretty decent people, good people, maybe even more moral than some Christians are, a lot of times, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's that's true, but
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I'm trying to help us, and I think Paul is trying to help us to get out of the mindset of just, it's about what I do or don't do.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is about nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the nature from which a non-Christian person, a nature from which they do those things, is a nature that is fundamentally, Romans 3, 23, deficient of the glory of God, meaning even their good works are done in sin, because they are not done for God's glory, the very purpose for which they were created in the first place.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're made for God, you're made for His glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you are living your life in sin under the umbrella of sinful nature, you are living your life not for His glory, you're living your life not for the glory of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do all the good you want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're still in the nature of sin, and so you're still dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even in your best, most virtuous acts, apart from Christ Jesus, you are dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isaiah 64, six says that our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.
[SPEAKER_00]: Philippians 37, the Apostle Paul describes his life before he knew Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had everything you could have.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was as good as you could be, and he says, I consider it all a loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was all a loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a good guy, and it was loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hebrews 6, verse 1, calls them, dead works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Works done outside of Christ, outside of faith in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the good you want to do, dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what a person does or does not do in their natural state, here she is a sinner separated from the life of God and so dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can actually say, we are twice dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are twice dead because we are sinners by our nature and we sin in our actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, sin and transgression.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your nature is sin, your actions are transgressions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Twice dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Paul's point.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were dead and sin and transgression.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are dead because of willful disobedience and we're dead because of natural fallenness.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is intention and ignorance.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're dead both ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what does this look like practically?
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep your heating.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't get better for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep your heating.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says in which all of these things in which you used to live, used to live.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let me let me pause and say if you're listening right now, and you are in Christ rejoice that none of this applies to you today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're listening
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're not in Christ, mourn that you sit here amongst us dead today.
[SPEAKER_00]: and this absolutely describes you right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul's doing, he's trying to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's trying to help the Christians rejoice and he's trying to help those not in Christ's weep and see that they are dead and sin still.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says in which you used to live, when you followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who has now worked in those who are disobedient.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of us also lived among them at one time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, it's not just about the Ephesians being like Paul's putting himself, he's lumping himself in with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In chapter three, he actually calls himself the least of all God's people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how he describes himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just about like, I think I'm better than you or you're better than me or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all on the even playing field of dead in sin and transgression apart from Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anybody says in which you use to live, when you follow the ways of the world, the spirit,
[SPEAKER_00]: who is now the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobeying.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of us lived among them at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's sort of the Trinity that our sinful nature follows.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Christ, we follow Father Son Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity.
[SPEAKER_00]: In our sinful nature, we follow this unholy Trinity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's these three things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, the ways of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, when we followed the ways the world, the course or the age, or the way, however your Bible says that course of the world, age of this time, present time, or the ways of the world of describes a particular set of values and standards that are common to a place or a time, common to a place or a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world in which we live is full of these kinds of thoughts and ideas and philosophies and religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideas about who we are, ideas about where we came from.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideas about what will make us most happy and what will give us the most satisfaction out of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideas about who God is, the origins of the universe and of life, ideas about spirituality, ideas about morality, ideas about ethics, right and wrong, good and evil, truth and lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world is full of these kinds of ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world has no standard of truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: All is fair game in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys know this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys have probably heard this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your truth, what is true for you is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is true for me is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't step into my truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I won't step into your truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the ways of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so everybody's kind of left to their own devices to do what they want to do and live how they want to live and follow whatever truth they want to follow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in our sinful nature, this is what we want to follow.
[SPEAKER_00]: the ways of the world, the philosophies that teach us to just do whatever is right in our own eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, there's scripture on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Judges 17 and Judges 21 says the same thing two times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's following the ways of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's the common way of thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: You think it's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way that's what the world teaches.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Ephesians 414, Paul is going to tell us that in this sinful nature when we are not renewed in our minds and Christ we are like infants tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just tossed around by any new idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: That comes around and they've been coming around and they're going to keep coming around time and time again.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the first thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second thing that we are submitted to in our simple nature is the ruler of the kingdom of the air or the prince of the power of the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says the spirit, he qualifies this, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, he is describing all people here, not just the worst of the worst people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's describing all human beings who are separated from Christ Jesus and are then dead in their sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the second thing that they follow, the ways the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's describing Satan, he's describing the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are not just people who are Satan worshipers.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are not just people who are occultists.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are sweet little grandma's who baked cookies for their grandkids every single Sunday and do not know Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Following the Prince of the power of the air, the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: the whole system of earthly philosophies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why's he called that?
[SPEAKER_00]: The prince of the power of the air, think about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, we follow the ways of the world and the prince of the power of the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's saying the whole system of those earthly philosophies that we're believing those world views, those ideas, those false religions, all of that is founded upon the lies that he has whispered into the minds of men.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the original lie?
[SPEAKER_00]: Go back to the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this, God is not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do better.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's basically what he told Adam and Eve.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did God really say, don't eat that?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not gonna die.
[SPEAKER_00]: God just doesn't want you to be like him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do better than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do better than him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satan's behind it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you are following the ways of the world, you might think that you're neutral.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not.
[SPEAKER_00]: No such thing as neutral.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's floating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody is following one of two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ, with a prince of the power of the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get it right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And don't misunderstand this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus told the Pharisees.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are good, religious people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very good man in the eyes of the culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what he told them, John 842 through 47, that they are children of the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that he is the father of lies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talking to most religious men in the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a bold thing to say, if that'll get you put on a cross, and it did, but it was true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus taught us disciples to pray this way, Matthew 613, deliver us from the evil one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The literal translation, we usually say evil, deliver us from evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: We kind of neuter the Greek word there, but it's a masculine pronoun, deliver us from the evil one is what Jesus said to pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul tells the Ephesians, go, go to Ephesians 6, real quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at Ephesians 6, verse 10.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.
[SPEAKER_00]: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, the powers, the dark world against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, put on the full armor of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mentioned the devil by name there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think one of the tragedies of our modern world is that we no longer believe in Satan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even in many Christians, Satan's a myth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a fairy tale created to scare us into being good people.
[SPEAKER_00]: But ancient people, they believed in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew he was real.
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew there were spirits and angels and devils.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're modern people, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what ancient people believed.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're modern people.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're too smart for that, all right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're far too smart.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're far too sophisticated.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even that belief, if you really have eyes to see, you understand that that belief, that Satanism myth, it's a worldly philosophy designed as a scheme of, guess who Satan?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who you think whispered that lie into the ears of men?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who do you think convinced men that Satan's a fairy tale?
[SPEAKER_00]: Satan, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: For the same reason that Japan didn't call Pearl Harbor that day before they showed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the same reason that Osama bin Laden didn't eat male George Bush on September 10th.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you don't know you have an enemy, you're open to attack.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't think he's real, you don't think he exists that I will tell you this, your life is submitted to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, and you get in sin and transgression if you are following the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, say in Israel, he is a liar and a schemer and a murderer, it's the prince of the power of the air, and he's the spirit Paul says, who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is his most basic and what is his most efficient scheme?
[SPEAKER_00]: If he's a schemer, if he's a liar, we'll look at number three here of the Trinity that we follow in our sinful nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, all of us lived among them a one-time gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: And following its desires and thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cravings of our sinful nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ultimately, here's the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satan doesn't have to do all that much to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't make you sin, he doesn't make Adam and Eve sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Adam and Eve were by the tree they shouldn't have been by.
[SPEAKER_00]: They saw it, they desired it, it says, and they ate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: James I, 14 to 15, says this, that we are carried away by our own desire.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word is lust, by our own lusts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sin, when it is fully conceived in us, brings forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's our word again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Death, James says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satan makes promises to us of life and happiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he uses the philosophies of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he uses your own earthly desires to convince you and to tempt you and to entice you just to follow after what you want, what you really want already.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have to make you want it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In our sinful nature apart from Jesus, we are followers of these things, the ways of the world, the Prince, the power of the air, and our own selves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so by nature, we are dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath, or your Bible might say, children, children of wrath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does he use that word?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because again, at the end of chapter one there, like I said, no chapter breaks, Paul's just continuous thought here, he talked about our inheritance and Christ already.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have an inheritance that's children of God, in Christ Jesus, all things belong to Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are in Him and it's all our inheritance in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so here he's painting a very different picture for those not in Christ, your children of wrath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does he say children of wrath because children get an inheritance?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's your inheritance, if you're not in Christ?
[SPEAKER_00]: Raph.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the exact opposite of everything you will get every spiritual blessing in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get only wrath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only eternal separation from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are not innocent.
[SPEAKER_00]: neither am I.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are a sinner by nature, your transgressor of the love God, and as such apart from Christ, you are living under the ways of the world, the ruler of the kingdom of the air, and the corrupt desires of your sinful nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you are dead if you're not in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are in Christ, you were dead, and if you are now not in Christ, you are dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: don't ever stop reading Ephesians at Ephesians 2, verse 3, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 4.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of His great love for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: God who is rich in mercy, as made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead, insurance
[SPEAKER_00]: the gospel hangs on this preposition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all, it's important to learn prepositions.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's important to learn literature and grammar in school because the gospel hangs here.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that that we just talked about true of you of me of every human being you has ever lived on this planet dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Insurance, aggression, and sin, dead apart from Christ, dead in our lustness, our brokenness, our failure to glorify Him and all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The gospel hangs here.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that came before the but God is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all that comes after the but God is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And more true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And greater for us, the ways of the world, listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God, the ways of the world can lose their appeal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because above God, the prince of the power of the air can lose his influence, because above God, the desires of your flesh can lose their hold over your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the death and the wrath that you have earned as your inheritance can become null and void in the records of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: How could that be?
[SPEAKER_00]: You asked this question, and I asked this question because I've earned it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've earned wrath by action.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've earned wrath by nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've earned the wages of sin and death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely you have, but God is rich in mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: You hear that word rich in mercy?
[SPEAKER_00]: You owe it debt.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's rich enough to pay it.
[SPEAKER_00]: How does he pay it with the currency of the blood of his own son?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was his death.
[SPEAKER_00]: You earned death and he gave his death for you to give you life and you just trust you, trust in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no gospel without mercy's rich in mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no gospel without that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no gospel without love.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's great in love.
[SPEAKER_00]: His mercy and His love sent Jesus to this world, His mercy and His love paid our debt, our death, debt with the death of His own son.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He's rich in that mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could afford it.
[SPEAKER_00]: His mercy and His love now lead us to Jesus to make us alive with Him to lead us to repentance and faith in Him by the riches of His mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And His love, we who were dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: are made alive in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't earn it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is by grace you have been saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk more about that next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to start with verse four and go next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can receive it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, listen, if you have received his mercy already and you are in Christ, here's what I would encourage you to do today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Praise him.
[SPEAKER_00]: praise him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a story to tell, you have a testimony.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can, you can sum your whole Christian testimony up in six words.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: How?
[SPEAKER_00]: But God!
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of Jesus, by grace I was saved and let us continue to walk in repentance daily trusting in Christ, following upon His mercy alone, to forgive our sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to end today, we're going to sing a song called Mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a song we have not done here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one that we used to sing at a conference, our students would go to and see why.
[SPEAKER_00]: This song's called Mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just a great song to think about exactly Ephesians 2 1 through 4.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we deserve death.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do, I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not good in and of myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not righteous in and of myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've earned separation and death from God, but his mercy has come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you've already received that mercy, I think every day, every day we should again cry out for the mercy of God and know that in Christ Jesus we have it.
[SPEAKER_00]: and still cry out for, because here's the reality, y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: We still struggle with all those same things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You still struggle with the ways of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: You still struggle with the gratifying, the cravings of your sinful nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're not bound in those things anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not slave to those things anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because Christ has hit the mark, and you're covered in Christ, your life hits the mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because of you, because he can shoot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he shot, his shot, and he hit the bull's eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you trust in him, and you are in Christ, and you are right with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, today, today, if you have not received that today, receive your new inheritance today.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you sit, your inheritance is wrath, but it can change in a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's how you just call out for his mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus tells the story of the tax collector in the Pharisee.
[SPEAKER_00]: They come to the altar in the Pharisee.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's just bragging that he's not a sinful man, like the tax collector, and what's the tax collector say?
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, have mercy on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus said, it's that man who walked away justified.
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to walk away from here justified?
[SPEAKER_00]: A child of God, not a child of wrath.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cry out for the mercy of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know that you have it because of the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to sing this song.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a part in this song that's a Greek.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually a Greek term.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kiri A, Elesson.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that Greek phrase means Lord have mercy on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kiri A, Elesson.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to stand and sing, if you want to sit and listen, if you want to bow and pray, if you're on the prayer team and you want to come up here, I'll be down here as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, I specifically want to say to anybody in this room who has not confessed Jesus is Lord and Savior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, receive mercy today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Receive mercy today.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to come forward to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to, I'll be down here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be down here.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to talk afterwards, receive mercy today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just call out for the mercy of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much that you're rich.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're rich in mercy, you're great in love.
[SPEAKER_00]: in your son Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And pray this in his name, name him.