Do you ever just stop and think
about what we do?
A bunch of people come together
on the Lord's Day,
and they all gather inside this place,
and they sing together.
I mean, you get words up here,
and we all try to vocalize
the words that we see
and we all try to do it in harmony
simultaneously.
We proclaim.
We sing and we proclaim.
We teach.
We proclaim truth.
We talk to each other.
Do you ever think about
what happens in these songs?
I know years ago,
we thought about all the different ways
that sometimes in the song,
we actually are talking to God.
Sometimes in the song,
God is talking to us.
Sometimes in the song,
we are talking to each other.
Do you ever notice that?
Can anybody think of a song that we sing
where God is talking to us?
(from the room)
I will strengthen you, help you,
and cause you to stand.
I was thinking of the same song.
Anybody think of one where we
talk to each other?
(unintelligible)
The classic.
How about where we're speaking to the Lord?
(unintelligible)
It's endless.
That fly...
(Incomplete thought)
Someone just recently was telling me
that Conrad Murrell had a fly
flying around his head
when he was preaching one time,
and he really believed it was demonic too.
I think I've mentioned that before.
Beelzebub is lord of the flies.
And he commanded that fly
in the name of Christ,
and it immediately went up to the ceiling.
True story.
But think of the other thing that we do
when we gather together.
You actually sit there
and you listen to a man who comes up front
and he talks to you.
If you really think about what we do
and what is it all meant to do?
It's all meant to strengthen our faith.
It's all meant to portray God.
It's a way in which we refresh
and we remind ourselves
about who God is
and what God requires.
It's a way that we see God afresh.
We see His glories.
We see His truth.
It's a way that the Word of God
is brought again and again and again
to the people of God
so that we might be built up.
So that we might continue in the race.
We put our eyes back upon the Lord Jesus.
It's a time when we use
our spiritual gifts
to help one another.
We gather together to stir up one another
to love and good works.
Brethren, we find ourselves
in the epistle written by the Apostle Paul
to the Ephesians.
You can turn in your Bibles there.
We'll read the passage this morning
and then we'll go to the Lord in prayer.
Ephesians 2, and I'm going to read to you
the first 7 verses.
"And you were dead in the trespasses
and sins in which you once walked,
following the course of this world,
following the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that is now at work
in the sons of disobedience,
among whom we all once lived,
in the passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the body
and the mind and were by nature
children of wrath,
like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy,
because of the great love
with which He loved us,
even when we were dead
in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you have been saved,
and raised us up with Him
and seated us with Him
in the heavenly places,
in Christ Jesus,
so that in the coming ages..."
When the Christian is discouraged
and wants to throw in the towel,
God sends verses like this at us:
"So that in the coming ages,
He might show the immeasurable
(or the exceeding)
riches of His grace in kindness."
The coming ages...
Think about an age.
We think of the Bronze Age.
Ages are segments of time
that we break up and we divide
by certain realities;
certain characteristics or attributes
that can be ascribed to that age.
Ages.
The coming ages.
There's no end to that.
Just imagine,
Christian, this is what you have
to look forward to.
Age after age after age...
of a God Who does not lack for power
or for wisdom.
Who is going to be intent
on showing you the unlimited,
boundless,
immeasurable,
exceeding riches of His grace
in kindness
toward us.
All this grace is directional.
It's coming at you.
Let's pray.
Father, this is Your Word.
This has been divinely breathed.
This is a message
from outside this world.
This is not simply
the intellect of a man at work.
This is an alien message -
foreign, outside.
These are words that are sent
from glory, from Heaven.
Divinely breathed.
Thy Word is truth.
Lord, confront us with the truth of Your Word.
There is so much here.
Help us just to fathom
something of the depths of these things.
Father, please help us today.
I pray in Christ's name,
Amen.
So, in the next several weeks,
I want to deal with v. 4-7.
Many of you know, you remember,
I hope you do if you were here,
first three verses.
I did five messages specifically
on, "How Dead is Dead?
the Five-Fold Fallenness of Man."
Now, I want to contrast that,
because there's a "but" here.
The "but" is a "but" of contrast.
So, what I want to do now
is start another sermon series
dealing with these four verses.
And I've called it,
"How Alive is Alive?
The Four-fold Risenness
of the Christian."
God helping us, today is part 1.
So you see,
verse 4,
transition.
We've come to the transition point.
Before this,
in this chapter - before this,
nothing but gloom and despair
and hopelessness and wrath.
You were, Christian. You were that.
But, with v. 4, we find out
what happens when God goes to work.
Notice.
I want you to notice a word here.
Go to v. 5.
And look at the word "made."
Now the subject that you attach
to that verb is God from the previous verse.
But, God made us alive.
I know the old King James says quickened.
That's the archaic word for making alive.
Quickened.
Don't you like that?
Quick.
Quickened.
God makes something happen.
God makes us into something.
Just grasp that.
That's what we're dealing with here.
When we come to these verses,
this is about what God has done.
That's what we have in these verses:
The making of a Christian.
And we want to notice this.
Why?
Because, brethren, you tell me
what is more important than being a Christian?
Tell me.
Because there's nothing you can put in its place.
There's nothing that rivals this.
There is nothing above this.
There is nothing beyond this.
Why? Brethren, because there's nothing
beyond verse 7.
And you don't get to verse 7,
unless 4, 5, and 6 are a reality
in your life.
Four, five, and six are past tense.
If you're a Christian,
they've already happened to you.
This is God making the Christian.
The only thing future
in these four verses is v. 7.
There's nothing beyond that.
There is nothing.
Look, what can be beyond
a God of all power and all wisdom
saying, you know what?
I am going to, from the depths of My power,
the depths of My wisdom,
the depths of My grace,
the riches of My mercy,
I am going to reach in;
I'm going to reach in
to the depths of My being;
the depths of My innovation,
and I am going to create ways
through all these coming ages,
to show My kindness.
And make no mistake about it,
God means to put Himself on display
in the so doing of this.
To be an object.
To be a vessel of mercy.
You understand, God's mercies
are not just like bestowed one time
and then that's it.
To be a vessel of mercy means
God is going to seek to fill you
to overflowing with His mercy,
again and again and again
and again and again
through all of the coming ages.
There's nothing beyond that.
There's nothing higher than this.
This is what we're dealing with.
And we're dealing with what God does
to make a person who actually
becomes one who is going to
enjoy all of this.
This is God making some people
into something that they were not before.
That's what we have.
That's what's before us.
This is the making of a Christian.
Do you recognize that?
To make alive is to make a Christian.
What we have before us
is God's Christianity.
And I want to emphasize that
because there's a lot
that purports to be Christianity.
A lot of name only out here.
But what we have here is the real deal.
This is what you've got to have
if you're going to be a Christian.
There's a lot of decisional stuff.
I just had somebody ask me,
"what do you think of altar calls?"
There's lots of people
making lots of decisions.
Listen, there is a place for that.
People decide for Christ,
but people decide all sorts of things.
People decide I'm going to go to church.
People decide to not do this
and to do another thing.
You know probably, most of you,
"decisional regeneration."
We're not talking about something
that men start.
Listen, no one goes down this process;
nobody goes through this process -
I shouldn't say "down" through this process.
I mean "down" in the way you read the text
but it's actually up.
There's a being raised up.
This is an upward movement here.
Maybe down in the page,
but up in the spiritual reality.
And it doesn't happen unless
it happens this way.
This is so important.
This is so essential.
This is it.
Some of you know,
we recently had a man,
like right over here,
you may remember,
he was here on a Sunday.
He stood up afterwards
and he just wept and he wept and he wept.
And he showed up at our conference.
Man who is right now
striving, seeking to pastor a church
out there in West Texas.
And he's striving to lay foundations.
And I talked to him on the phone this week.
Brethren, wherever you are,
whether you're out in Valentine, TX
or you're here in San Antonio, TX.
Whether you live today
or whether you lived 2,000 years ago
like these Ephesians...
There is no more important question than this:
What is true Christianity?
What is it?
Because I'll tell you this:
Satan means to deceive this race.
Most men at least have some concept
that we need to do something
about our sin.
And one of the most prevalent lies
that Satan loves to blanket this world with,
is that there is a way other than this
to, in the end,
miss punishment for our sin.
Listen.
Christianity is the only hope this world has.
There is no other.
Being a Christian is the only hope
in this world.
You know, I know we know that truth,
but sometimes we just need to really
be gripped with it.
Unless the people up and down our streets,
unless our children, unless our family,
unless this happens to them,
there is no other hope.
This is the hope.
There is none other.
There is nothing else.
We theoretically know this.
Brethren, we need to just stop
for a moment
and really let it sink in.
There is absolutely no other hope but one.
There are not five hopes.
There are not three.
There are not two.
This is it.
Period.
Or we might put the question this way:
Why am I a Christian?
Why is anybody if they are one?
Why?
What has happened?
And there's only one answer to that question.
That man, that woman, or that child
is a Christian
solely based on this one fact:
God made them one.
God makes.
This goes way beyond decisions.
People make decisions.
People make the right decision
only as a consequence of God
making something happen.
God makes.
Look at the text.
Brethren, you know, I'm looking at this
as I'm studying,
and there's a lot going on here.
There's a lot of places we could focus.
But, what I want to do today
right now at this moment,
I want us to try to peel -
not unimportant aspects of these verses,
but I want to peel back the adornments.
Paul loves to decorate his sentences.
You ever recognize that?
Oh, he loves all these expressions.
He loves all sorts of modifiers
and adjectives and qualifiers
and explanatory phrases.
But I want us to look past them.
I want us to peel them away for a second.
To where we have this:
the main subject
and the main verb.
Now actually, in this sentence
there are three main verbs
or predicates.
There's one subject, three verbs.
Look here.
Verse 4
"But God..."
OK, there is our subject.
What is the main subject of a sentence?
It is the "who" or the "what"
that is doing the action of the verb.
That's the idea.
The main subject is the one word
that tells us who or what
the sentence is all about.
And that's God.
But now, brethren, what's next?
Being rich in mercy.
Well, that's an adornment here.
Paul wants us to know
where this comes from -
the action that God is going to do.
It comes from God's mercy.
And he goes on to say,
"because of the great love
with which He loved us."
Where does the mercy come from?
You see, what he's doing is
he's wanting to look at here,
momentarily, at the very character of God,
at the attributes of God
that cause God to do what He does.
It's not what He does,
but it's the cause of why He does
what He does.
Now, look at v. 5.
Let's peel this away.
This has to do with when this takes place.
This is important to Paul.
Because again, it communicates much
about God's mercy and love.
It happened when we were dead in trespasses.
Not when we did good things.
OK, now here we are.
"...made us alive together with Christ."
Now you have a parenthesis.
"By grace you have been saved."
Let's peel that off for a second.
Now, here we are back to
the second main verb.
"...and raised us up."
KJV and the New KJV say "together."
It's implied - together with Christ.
The ESV puts "with Him" in there.
It's implied from v. 5.
He made us alive together with Christ.
Raised us up together,
and seated us together
with Christ is implied,
in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Just stop right there.
Here's what we're left with.
But God made us alive together with Christ
and raised us up with Him
and seated us with Him
in the heavenly places
in Christ Jesus.
You see that?
He did it.
He made alive.
The making alive is where we were -
we were dead - He made us alive.
And then there's movement.
He raised us up.
And then there's where He takes us to.
He seated us with Christ
in the heavenly places.
This is the action
that God performs.
Let it sink in.
You cannot be a Christian
apart from the truth that's contained
in these verses.
V. 7 is the only thing that's future
for the Christian.
Now get this,
let this sink in.
Christian, you are alive.
That's not something future.
That's not something that happens
when you die,
and then you go off into eternity
and God makes you alive.
You are alive now.
You are raised up now.
How high are you raised up?
You are raised up so that you are seated
with Christ in the heavenly places.
Every one of these verbs -
indicative aorist.
What is that?
Past tense.
Simply put.
You convey that over into the English,
it's a simple past tense verb.
These things have already happened to you.
Now, you need to recognize that.
You are alive.
You are raised up.
And you are raised up so high
that you are seated with Christ
in the heavenly places.
Only v. 7 is future.
And look, I'm sure those Ephesians
sitting there 2,000 years ago
when they first heard this read -
the actual handwritten - maybe by his hand
or by his secretary.
You know it was actually read
for the first time publicly in the church
at Ephesus.
Or if it was a circular letter,
whatever churches it was showing up in.
I can guarantee you this.
They didn't all hear,
you have already past tense
been seated with Christ
in the heavenly places,
and they didn't just think,
oh yeah, that's totally plain to us.
We have all of that figured out.
We see exactly how that is.
The same way that you say
what?
No, no, no... No, Paul.
That's future.
And he says no,
I'm under the inspiration of God here.
I know what I'm saying.
Or maybe Paul could even say,
I don't know what I'm saying.
But this is what the Spirit is leading me to say.
However, this is what God says.
This is what God has already done.
God seated us -
seated - the verb here
is caused us to sit down together.
Already.
Here's the thing.
As Christians, don't doubt it.
Let's all together just seek to comprehend it,
in the weeks ahead.
I'm not going to deal with that so much today.
Let's seek to comprehend these things.
Let's seek to comprehend what's being said here.
It's obvious that Paul is concerned
that we be very clear in our thinking
as to the great thing that God has done for us.
This is tremendous, folks.
This is tremendous.
And what we need to do -
here's what I want us to do.
Here's what I really feel constrained,
in these four messages to try to get at,
is brethren, this is not simply
some theoretical or hypothetical thought here.
There's reality to this.
These texts mean something.
They are experiential.
This has to do with our lives.
You don't go from dead to living
and have this just be some theory.
This is experience.
This is real.
This is transforming.
This has to do with things
that are observable in our lives.
And what I want us to try to do
is get our hands around this
in these weeks ahead.
So, let's dive in.
At least make some effort to explore
some of the riches here.
Let me just say this or ask this:
You want to know another name
for what God's doing here?
OK, one of those things we peeled off,
let's bring it back in.
Let's just read this.
V. 4
"God being rich in mercy
because of the great love
with which He loved us
even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ."
What's another name for all that?
Adoption would be one.
You go back to chapter 1,
you definitely see it there.
But immediately in Paul's mind,
notice what he says in the parenthesis here.
"By grace you have been saved."
I like that.
You know what he's saying here?
Brethren, let's grasp this.
What he's saying here
is that to be made alive
together with Christ
is to be saved.
You say, well, of course.
But let's think.
You know what I find?
Very often, being saved
is connected with being forgiven.
Now that's true.
Or being saved is being connected
with justification,
which goes right along with being forgiven.
It's being declared righteous.
No longer are your sins
imputed to you.
They're imputed to Christ,
and paid for in His Person.
But here's what I find interesting,
and I want to emphasize this.
Because what I found
when Brother Charles came out with his book,
"Justification and Regeneration,"
is I have found that in the reformed movement,
there is a great love and appreciation
for the doctrine of justification,
but I want you to see right here,
Paul bypasses forgiveness and justification -
now he doesn't always do that,
I'm well aware of that.
And in other places in this letter
he definitely deals with those things.
But right here,
when he wants to size up
what it means to be saved,
he's not so interested in the legal aspects
as much as he is in the experiential
transformation that takes place
by way of regeneration,
being made a new creation,
that's what it is to be born again,
to be made alive.
Whereas you were dead,
you are alive.
This is what it is to be saved.
Why emphasize that?
Because, look, to be saved
isn't merely walking through life
with this mental notion
that oh, my sins are forgiven.
Listen, time and again
in Scripture, the authors come back to this:
that there's no legal reality unless
there is this kind of transformation
in your life.
You must be alive.
There must be life
pulsing through you.
This is Christianity.
Christians are not just people
who say, oh, wretched man that I am,
but my sins are forgiven.
Yeah, I know there's nothing good in me,
but I'm forgiven.
I believe.
Listen, there better be something good in you.
There better be the seeds of life in you,
or you're not saved.
There better be the fruit of life.
That's salvation here in this verse.
Here's something else.
Don't miss Christ in these verses.
It's together - notice that reality.
Our being made alive,
it's not separate from Christ.
It's integrally tied with Him.
Being joined with Him.
Being in union with Him.
Being together - together.
We are made alive together.
Not separate.
Together.
This is essential.
This is unique.
No other religion has this.
No other religion has this essential
togetherness with Christ.
Nothing else.
Christianity is solely unique at this point.
Together.
This is what makes Christianity
and God's salvation entirely different
and apart from everything else.
Look, this is not man's effort
to rise up to God
and to get to God
and to seek God.
This is God making people
what He makes them: Christians.
In union, connected with Christ.
Never apart from Christ.
If God saves, if God makes alive,
it is always in this fashion.
Biblical salvation is all about
what God has done
through His only begotten Son.
Just think
about what Paul is saying here.
Again, I'm not asking you
to comprehend all this.
I hope in the weeks ahead,
we're going to reach down
deeper and deeper and deeper.
I'm not asking for full comprehension here.
But just try to absorb this truth
into your brains to some degree.
The Christian is together
with Christ.
Connected.
Even tighter than this.
Like the branch and the vine.
There's an organic union.
Integrally one with Him.
The thing is, it's everywhere assumed,
that in this connection,
that what's true of Christ
is likewise true of the Christian.
Now, we thought about that when we were
just a few moments ago baptizing.
Think of these truths.
Not asking you to fully comprehend them,
but think about them.
The Apostle Paul, his language,
especially in these four letters:
Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians.
He loves to use this language.
Galatians 2:20
You don't have to turn there.
Stay here in Ephesians.
But listen to this:
"I have been crucified with Christ."
Do we think like that?
Do we know that reality?
See, brethren, the thing is,
what Paul is doing here,
I'm made alive together with Christ;
I've been raised up together with Christ;
I'm seated together with Christ.
He talked this way.
I am crucified with Christ.
Or this, Romans 6:8 says,
"We have died with Christ."
So I'm crucified with Christ.
I have died with Christ.
Colossians 2:12 and Romans 6
say that we are buried with Christ
in baptism.
Colossians 3:3
"For you have died,
and your life is hidden..."
Listen, your life -
all that you areas a Christian,
is hidden with Christ in God.
Just take this in.
There's a mystery here.
I know it.
But what ought to be clear
is that Paul is teaching us
that what God does to us
spiritually,
has a parallel in Christ physically.
Because think with me here.
Think.
It's not a direct parallel.
It's not a one for one physical reality
where there's a parallel physical reality in us.
It's not a spiritual reality in Christ
that has a spiritual reality in us.
It's a physical reality in Christ...
(Incomplete thought)
It's amazing how God has designed
all that Christ would do
so that there are these
spiritual parallels in now what He does
in the life of a Christian.
Think with me.
Paul says I have been crucified with Christ.
Christ was physically crucified.
When Paul wrote that,
he had not been physically crucified.
But he had been spiritually crucified.
Or think with me here:
We are seated together with Christ
in the heavenly places.
Now Christ is physically there.
You and I are not physically there.
We are physically here.
But, that doesn't take away the reality
that there is a spiritual crucifixion,
there is a spiritual death,
there is a spiritual being made alive,
a spiritual rising up,
a spiritually being seated with Christ
in the heavenly places.
And these are the realities
that I want us to try to draw on
and try to get to the root of
and try to pull some of the reality.
Brethren, what does it mean?
Look, Paul's not mincing words here.
He's not wasting these people's time.
He recognized the people he was talking to,
struggling with the same kind of trials
our brother Mark is.
Being put in the fire.
Facing persecution.
Oftentimes ready to throw in the towel.
What do you say to 1st century Christians
who are facing a Greek-Roman society
that hates Christianity,
feeds them to the lions,
have their own set of gods,
calls the Christians atheists,
persecutes them,
in certain seasons murders
multitudes of them.
What do you say?
He says to these people,
you are already seated together with Christ
in the heavenly places.
Now look, if that doesn't have
some kind of real bearing on the life of people,
what good is it?
What good is it?
You know what?
If it means nothing,
it's like telling somebody that has cancer
and they're dying,
Oh, but you know,
you have the remedy within you.
It's like telling somebody,
Oh, it will all work out OK.
When the truth is it's not working out OK.
But if you tell somebody,
oh no, the remedy is at work inside you
and you're going to feel pretty rotten at first,
but shortly to follow,
the healing will start.
Paul's telling these people something
to get them through,
your husband leaving you for another woman,
your wife leaving you,
your child not being converted,
death close to you,
persecution,
when God's providences don't seem
to smile on you,
when it's hard.
If you haven't experienced
what Mark has experienced,
you haven't lived the Christian life very long.
I've had those seasons too.
And you know the seasons are not
where I wanted to go back to my old life.
For me, the throwing in the towel
was not that.
It's not like, oh, I'm just going to
go back to the old way.
I don't want that.
I don't desire that.
The throwing in the towel
is just pack the car
and let's go to Frisco, Colorado
for good.
And I'm going to hide away in a cabin
and don't anybody come looking for me.
That, for me, is throwing in the towel.
But that's not what God's called us to.
And you can imagine that these people
in Ephesus 2,000 years ago,
many of them - they wish they had wings,
just like David wished,
that they could fly away
and be at peace.
But we've not been promised peace,
not even in the confines of our own family.
No promise of peace.
In fact a promise of a sword.
So, somebody has a sword
piercing their own heart in their family.
And seriously, Paul, you're going to
come along and tell me,
I'm seated with Christ in the heavenly places?
Try again.
Get me something better than that.
And Paul would say,
Oh no, my friend,
there is nothing better than that.
You just need to grasp
something of the reality of it.
Because if you do,
you will have foretastes of glory.
It will change your whole mindset.
It will change your thinking.
Brethren, think with me here.
We're not dealing with being seated.
We're dealing with being made alive in Christ.
Let's try to reach down
into some of the realities.
Look.
Here's some of the reality,
"but" at the beginning of v. 4,
that's the contrast.
But - what?
You're alive.
And you were dead.
You're no longer dead.
Now you're alive.
That's the contrast.
You are no longer what you use to be.
You've put off the old man
who belongs to your former manner of life.
Right? Former.
You were formerly something.
You're not that anymore.
That is the opposite.
That's the contrast.
Brethren, we've got to let that grip us.
The truth is our life in Christ
puts an end to our death.
You're not dead any longer.
The Christian has come
to the end of the days as a dead man.
The word "but."
That's that stark contrast.
We are truly alive together with Christ.
Don't you see what this is saying?
Look at the contrast.
Brethren, you are alive.
You are not like you were.
You are no longer dead in sin.
That's no longer true.
You no longer follow the course of this world.
Listen! Listen, Christian!
You no longer follow the course of the world.
You are alive!
Put off the rags of death.
Put off the grave clothes.
Put them off!
Enough!
You're not of the world.
You're no longer following
the prince of the power of the world.
You're no longer among
the sons of disobedience.
You're no longer lusting
after all the things in the body,
in the mind.
You're no longer children of wrath.
You're no longer under the displeasure of God.
You live in His smile.
Be done with that.
It's no longer.
You're alive.
Brethren, alive together with Christ.
I'm amazed.
I'll be real direct.
My children showed me a thread -
something we just dealt with
in our elder's meeting -
my children showed me a thread
off of Facebook,
where Christians, some in this place,
are arguing for why it is appropriate
for a Christian to be entertained
by movies with filthy, foul language.
What in the world are you thinking?
Are you alive together with Christ?
Or are you following the course of this world?
There is a contrast here.
And if you can find no contrast
between your life and the world?
Fill in the blank.
Amen?
We're alive!
You know what?
I'm not in the course of the world,
because my desires are changed.
I love new things.
I've been made alive to God.
I desire God.
I desire to please God.
I desire to have the things in my life
that He loves, not the things that He hates.
Not the things that He forbids.
Not the things that I find in Scripture
that He despises.
Why in the world would you fill your life
with movies full of garbage?
Worldly garbage.
Unless that's what you love.
Unless that's what you pant after.
Brethren, we're the living ones.
There is an end to our death.
We no longer live like the dead.
We are the living ones.
We're alive.
This is not theoretical.
This is what God-wrought Christianity is,
and we need to be gripped by the contrast.
That the Christian is a total contrast
to what he once was.
Brethren, you get to the end of this letter -
we no longer follow the course of the prince of the power of the air.
You know what we do now?
We wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but who do we wrestle against?
We wrestle.
Why?
That's what living people do.
They wrestle.
They put off the former manner of life
or they put off the old man
which belongs to the former manner of life
and guess what?
Deceitful desires.
That's a deceitful desire
to want to go desire movies
that are full of filth.
Filthy, foul language.
What is that?
That's worldly.
That's ungodly.
That's filling your life full of companionships
that corrupt good manners.
Why in the world?
Look.
Walk worthy of the calling
to which you've been called.
What have you been called to?
You've been called to life
together with Christ.
Your life is hidden with Christ in God.
That speaks of children of light.
Not children of wrath.
Not sons of disobedience.
Children of light.
So let all that is true of light
burst forth from your life.
Put all filthy communication away.
Not only out of your mouth,
put it away.
It shouldn't even be named.
That's in this letter.
That's what living people do.
Look.
Don't let worldly professing Christians
be surprised when they wake up in hell.
Why?
Because this is true Christianity.
Being made alive together with Christ.
It's not theory.
You see, our whole position as Christians
has changed.
Position.
That's the where we are.
Where are we?
Well, we used to be dead in...
you notice the prepositions of Scripture sometimes.
Where were we?
Dead in... there's your preposition.
In trespasses and sins.
That's where we were.
Where are we now?
In Christ.
Where were we before?
In the place where we followed the world.
In the place where we followed the devil.
Where are we now?
Raised up!
Up!
There's position there.
We're not down there.
We're not in the darkness.
We've been raised up.
We used to be among
the sons of disobedience.
Among.
That's where we were.
Lust.
The lusts of the mind.
Wanting what's foul.
But that's not where we are anymore.
Where are we now?
You know how far up we are?
We're up there where He's seated.
That's where we are now.
There's a change of position here.
And there's a change of state.
I mean, that is the greatest
and most obvious reality
Paul's bringing out in v. 5.
This transition from death to life.
It's done.
For Christians, it all lies in the past.
The Christian above all other things
can shout it out:
"I am no longer dead!"
"I am alive!"
The days of my death are past.
They're gone.
There's absolutely nothing,
brethren, but life before us.
Physically.
What is that?
Death is so harmless now
that Scripture calls it sleep.
Rest.
To be absent with the body...
Christ said to that -
he wasn't a doomed criminal.
It's not doom to say,
"This day you will be with Me in Paradise."
What do I have to look forward to?
Christ never forsaking me.
Never leaving me.
Putting me in trials, yes.
But there aren't only trials here.
My son just got saved.
There's not only trials here.
And He promises that His grace
will be sufficient.
And He brings seasons of great joy here.
The suffering is but for a moment.
The sun will break forth
even in our darkened seasons.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel,
even when we can't see it.
This fullness of day.
Greater likeness of Christ.
Purifying, being made more and more
and more sinless.
More and more and more like Christ.
And then bang!
It's just going to grab us.
We are going to be hauled off into eternity
and gaze on His face
and be made like Him.
There's no more death.
You don't get eternal life when you die.
You don't get it at the day of judgment.
You have it.
It's past tense.
You've been made alive.
The Christian is done with death.
We are done with dying.
Don't you get it?
We are together with Christ.
You go to Scripture
and it says,
"In Him was life."
That's Who we're together with.
The Father has granted the Son
to have life in Himself.
We are together with Him Who is life;
Who has been granted to have life
within Him.
The last Adam is what?
He has become a life-giving spirit.
When Christ, Who is your life...
That's how Scripture speaks.
Christ. You're together with life.
Listen, Christ has come,
and He's put His arms around us
and embraced us.
But see, it's closer, it's more organic than that.
There's actually a connection now.
We have become one with Him.
We're one with life.
There's no more death.
You're one with He Who is life.
You're one with the One Who is
the last Adam,
who is a life-giving spirit.
He breathes nothing but life into you.
And we can suffer
and we can be in dark seasons,
but that life is very real.
Because even in the darkness,
even in that darkness,
our faith in Christ presses us through.
Even in that darkness,
that faith is upheld
by the mighty hand of God.
Even when we waver and we teeter all over,
when we feel like we're going to
throw in the towel,
and we're going to fail...
there is an unmovable hand
beneath us
that carries us through.
Some through the water, brethren.
Some through the flood.
It's true.
There's floods and there's fires.
But He is going to finish that work
which He started.
Have you ever heard Paul exclaim,
it is no longer I who live,
but Christ Who lives in me.
Do you know this?
He Who is life lives in me.
I cannot die.
Because Christ cannot die.
Because Christ is one with me.
And because in that union,
His life is my life.
My life is bound to His life.
And He can't die.
I can't die.
I'm one. I'm bound with Him.
Have you experienced this?
This is what it is to be a Christian.
This isn't what it is simply
to be a great apostle like Paul.
This is what it is to be the least Christian.
You have been made alive,
because God has made you alive
if you are a Christian.
This is a reality.
What does it mean?
We're alive.
We're no longer alienanted from God.
Have you ever read in Scripture,
alive to God -
no longer alienated.
What does it mean to be alive to God?
Suddenly, we recognize Him.
We see Him! We feel Him!
We experience Him!
There's reality to the living God.
We hunger for Him.
We hear His voice in His Word.
We long after, we desire after...
Desiring God.
Hungering for Christ.
Feasting on His blood.
Brethren, this is the reality.
This is life.
Life. Life.
Why would God do this?
Well, you see it there.
You see it there at the beginning of v. 4.
If we would find an answer,
it's in the character of God Himself.
Just think.
Paul's amazed by this.
Even when we were dead
in our trespasses...
that's the thing that just blows him away.
God did this when I was the way I was?
Even then? Even then?
Such riches of mercy.
Brethren, you look at the way
that this word has been translated.
Sometimes, it's tender mercies
or tender compassion
or lovingkindness.
Think about those words.
Those are like words...
tender compassion.
They're the kind of words
that humanly speaking we would expect,
like a wife to feel towards her husband
or a husband towards his wife.
Two people who love each other.
Attracted to each other.
Find much in the other
that is very desirable.
God comes along and finds us
absolutely an abhorrence.
This is what rocks Paul
to the core of his being.
Even when I was a blasphemer,
and even when I was an insolent opponent,
even then - even after the things that I've done,
rich, rich mercy
extended towards me.
Brethren, I fear that man seems to
find it almost impossible to harmonize
the God Who is sovereign;
the God Who makes alive
and chooses which ones to make alive
and which ones not to make alive;
the God of election,
the God of predestination.
Many find it very difficult to harmonize
rich mercies.
There is this idea that
the "God of Calvinism" -
He's cruel. He's distant.
He's out there.
He's cold. He's stoic.
He's unfeeling.
He's harsh.
Brethren, that's Allah.
That's not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
His mercies are tender.
Tender.
Riches of mercy.
And they flow out of a great love.
I hope you can see it.
Look, should we fear such a God?
Yes.
Oh yeah.
He is kind. He is full of tender mercies.
Brethren, we don't want to misread
those mercies.
If you go on rejecting His Son,
Oh, He is greatly to be feared.
Be sure of that.
These mercies don't mean that
this God is a pushover.
Listen.
What God presents Himself as in Scripture,
He's holding out His arm.
All day long even.
What's there?
He's offering these mercies.
Come take them.
This is how He portrays Himself.
Come take them.
Jesus can look to His Father
and say, "Father, I thank You that
You have not revealed these to the wise
and the prudent,
but to babes."
What's God's answer
to the fact that nobody comes
and takes these mercies from His hand?
Election.
Be made alive.
No man can come to Me
unless My Father Who sent Me draws him.
See, be made alive.
And suddenly, we look at those mercies
in His hands,
I want those.
I'm a sinner. I need those.
The Spirit convicts us of sin.
And there's the remedy.
Be made alive.
That's God's work.
God makes Christians.
That's the reality.
Have you tasted God's rich mercies?
Are you alive?
Do you have life?
Are you aware of such a reality
that has grabbed you?
Has embraced you?
Has changed you?
Has made you something you weren't before?
Do you see it?
I desire what I didn't desire before.
I don't desire what I did desire before.
That group of friends...
I can't fit with them anymore.
Why?
Because I'm alive and they're dead.
When I was dead,
well that was comfortable.
But I'm not dead.
Something has changed.
Do you know this?
A power in your life,
influencing you?
Moving you?
Directing you?
I'm talking about something
outside of yourself.
Not some ingenuity with yourself.
Not some decision you made.
Do you feel this?
Do you know this reality
of God Who is working on you
from outside?
Are you aware of this reality
like the songwriter was?
I was blind, but now I see!
I see!
Why? God has made me alive.
My eyes are open.
Sin: I'm no longer impotent.
I'm no longer in it as a slave
and dead.
And now, it no longer has dominion over me.
I may fall,
but I'll tell you this,
it doesn't have dominion.
Because it's not like I just jump up
and run back after it again.
I confess those sins.
He is faithful and just to forgive those sins.
There is a fight.
I don't follow the devil anymore.
I wrestle with him.
Oh, there's battles.
Yes, there's battles.
But see, there was no battle before,
because I was dead in sin.
I followed the flow.
Now, I'm seeking to move against it.
I'm walking the other way.
And I feel it.
And there's a power within me
that keeps my legs moving.
Step after step,
even though the flow is strong
to go back the other way.
I keep going in that direction.
Why? There's a power at work within me
that is not of this world.
It's supernatural.
It's divine.
Are you aware of this?
Brethren, are you aware of being made alive
together with Christ?
What a tremendous thing, is it not!
Brethren, to God... God makes Christians.
it's to God be the glory.
To God be the praise
as we heard it in the first hour.
Salvation belongs to the Lord.
Father,
We just bow our heads before You.
You are God and we are not,
and You are full of the most tender mercies
towards those who deserve them not in the least.
And we thank You.
Thank You. Thank You that Your love
was so great, so deep,
that You even offered up Your own Son.
He became sin.
All that punishment came upon His head.
That we might be made alive.
And that we might experience
the exceeding, the immeasurable riches
of your grace in kindness
through all these coming ages.
Lord, what have You done for sinners.
What an amazing thing this is.
We thank You,
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.