00:00:04 [Speaker 1] You're listening to audio from Faith Church Indy. 00:00:07 [Speaker 1] This fall, we're studying the book of Ephesians, learning about the new life that we find in Christ. 00:00:12 [Speaker 1] Now here's the teaching. 00:00:19 [Speaker 2] Good morning, Faith Church. 00:00:20 [Speaker 2] Good to see all of you. 00:00:23 [Speaker 2] I'm pastor Jeff. 00:00:24 [Speaker 2] Glad to be able to open God's word with you today. 00:00:27 [Speaker 2] Let me ask you, have any of you ever experienced like a just an amazing rescue, like something really significant in your life? 00:00:36 [Speaker 2] And if so, did it did it change you in some way? 00:00:40 [Speaker 2] When my mom was in her seventies, she suffered a brain aneurysm, you know, a little ballooning of an artery inside her brain. 00:00:48 [Speaker 2] Fortunately, it can be really serious. 00:00:50 [Speaker 2] Fortunately, the doctors caught it in time. 00:00:52 [Speaker 2] She had, this surgery, that was successful. 00:00:56 [Speaker 2] Kind of a lengthy recovery. 00:00:57 [Speaker 2] She didn't quite get back to a 100%, but she ended up doing pretty well, was in a nice assisted living facility. 00:01:04 [Speaker 2] But the doctors told her she was gonna have to make some changes because of this. 00:01:08 [Speaker 2] First of all, most importantly, no more smoking, because that would increase the risk of another aneurysm or maybe even a stroke. 00:01:18 [Speaker 2] So when my wife, Amelia, and I went to visit her in her apartment, we were more than a little concerned. 00:01:23 [Speaker 2] Smelled like cigarettes. 00:01:26 [Speaker 2] Mom, have you been smoking? 00:01:28 [Speaker 2] No. 00:01:29 [Speaker 2] No. 00:01:29 [Speaker 2] Not me. 00:01:30 [Speaker 2] The nurses come in here on their break, and I let them smoke in my apartment because they can't smoke out there. 00:01:37 [Speaker 2] And my wife, Amelia, leaned in close to my mom and said, are they smoking in your mouth? 00:01:44 [Speaker 2] Because that's where the smell is coming from. 00:01:49 [Speaker 2] Mom didn't really have an answer for that. 00:01:51 [Speaker 2] And we we, you know, we tried to reason with her and, what was underneath Oh, those doctors, you know, they don't they don't know everything. 00:01:58 [Speaker 2] I'm sure I'll be fine. 00:02:01 [Speaker 2] Mom had been rescued by this amazing intervention of a near miraculous surgery, And yet, she struggled to believe that she was in danger, that, there was a threat to her life, and that she needed to change because of it. 00:02:18 [Speaker 2] It's not just my mom. 00:02:20 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:02:21 [Speaker 2] That's kind of us. 00:02:24 [Speaker 2] There's just something about us that we we don't like. 00:02:26 [Speaker 2] Does it challenge us? 00:02:27 [Speaker 2] Things that tell us we need to change? 00:02:29 [Speaker 2] Things that tell us there's something wrong with us? 00:02:33 [Speaker 2] Something that we, you know, we may have to give up something that we've come to depend on, especially if we think our situation isn't all that bad. 00:02:43 [Speaker 2] Some people, you know, don't wanna listen to the doctor because, you know, all they ever do is give you bad news, and you can't really trust them. 00:02:50 [Speaker 2] And, and it was just kind of ironic because that's sort of their job, right, is to tell you what's wrong with you. 00:02:57 [Speaker 2] And in a similar way, that's kind of, in some sense, what a church is like. 00:03:02 [Speaker 2] The church is here to help us understand what's wrong with us and point us to where we can find and hope and life. 00:03:12 [Speaker 2] And I think there's something going on in this passage that we're looking at today in Ephesians two that that relates to that. 00:03:20 [Speaker 2] That you only appreciate the greatness of the rescue when you see the depth of the problem. 00:03:27 [Speaker 2] You only appreciate the greatness of the rescue when you really see the depth of your problem. 00:03:34 [Speaker 2] And right away in this passage, we come face to face with things about us that we don't like to consider. 00:03:42 [Speaker 2] Paul talks about sin, about trespasses, about guilt, about condemnation, about God's wrath. 00:03:50 [Speaker 2] And we don't wanna hear stuff like that. 00:03:54 [Speaker 2] But the reality is we can't really make sense of our lives. 00:03:57 [Speaker 2] We can't make sense of the world. 00:03:59 [Speaker 2] We can't make sense of ourselves and other people without sin. 00:04:06 [Speaker 2] But as soon as we start to hear the word sin, we, I think all our defenses go up. 00:04:11 [Speaker 2] We start to think of other right? 00:04:13 [Speaker 2] Whether it's based in politics or philosophy or ideology or worldview or or just dealing with, you know, neighbors and family. 00:04:20 [Speaker 2] Our tendency is to say what's wrong is those people. 00:04:25 [Speaker 2] The problem with the world, the problem in my life is them. 00:04:29 [Speaker 2] Whether it's the socialist or the immigrants or the rich who don't pay enough taxes or the poor who are taking too many handouts or or the elites or the unions or the radicals or the conservatives or the gays or the straights or the Christians or the atheists. 00:04:42 [Speaker 2] It's them problem. 00:04:45 [Speaker 2] Bible says we will never really find what we need. 00:04:50 [Speaker 2] We'll never really find the solution to our own problems until we accept what God says. 00:04:56 [Speaker 2] The problem with the world, the problem with me, is me. 00:05:01 [Speaker 2] I'm the problem. 00:05:02 [Speaker 2] It's inside of me. 00:05:03 [Speaker 2] And and there's no way out of that until we're willing to look inside and see the worst. 00:05:11 [Speaker 2] If we can't do that, we we won't find healing. 00:05:14 [Speaker 2] We won't find we we can't make sense of our lives. 00:05:17 [Speaker 2] We can't grow spiritually. 00:05:22 [Speaker 2] You only appreciate the greatness of the rescue when you see the depth of your problem. 00:05:28 [Speaker 2] So if you haven't already, go ahead and turn in Ephesians in your Bibles through Ephesians chapter two. 00:05:32 [Speaker 2] If you have your scripture journal, we're at the bottom of page eight, and we're looking at these first six verses. 00:05:40 [Speaker 2] And and first, Paul wants us to understand the depth of the problem. 00:05:45 [Speaker 2] And and he's gonna show us the reality of sin, what it is, how it works, where it comes from. 00:05:51 [Speaker 2] So let's look at that. 00:05:53 [Speaker 2] First is the operation of sin. 00:05:56 [Speaker 2] How how does it work? 00:05:57 [Speaker 2] What does it do? 00:05:59 [Speaker 2] In verse two, Paul talks about us following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit at work in the sons of disobedience. 00:06:11 [Speaker 2] And he's acknowledging the reality that, we live in a world that is in rebellion to God. 00:06:17 [Speaker 2] It's broken kinds of ways. 00:06:19 [Speaker 2] And because we're broken people, we create broken systems and institutions. 00:06:23 [Speaker 2] And even beyond that, there is a spiritual enemy of God, Satan, who is constantly trying to encourage us to separate ourselves from God and find life apart from him. 00:06:36 [Speaker 2] But the core of the problem is in this one remarkable phrase in in verse one, where Paul talks about the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. 00:06:50 [Speaker 2] And then in verse three, this picture of living in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind. 00:07:02 [Speaker 2] The the word flesh there is the Greek word, Sarx, which is often just the the description of, like, the the flesh that covers our skeletons. 00:07:12 [Speaker 2] But one of the great tragedies in the history of the Christian church is misunderstanding this word. 00:07:18 [Speaker 2] When Paul talks about the flesh versus the we sometimes are tempted to hear that as the body versus the soul. 00:07:25 [Speaker 2] And the really bad stuff are the things that we do with our body, and the things that we do with our spirit are not so bad. 00:07:33 [Speaker 2] And so we can tend to think of almost like a hierarchy of sin where things like sexual immorality is is worse than things like greed or gossip. 00:07:42 [Speaker 2] The drunkenness is worse than pride or racism. 00:07:46 [Speaker 2] But the flesh that Paul's talking about here is not our physical bodies. 00:07:50 [Speaker 2] It is the the bent of our inter nature. 00:07:53 [Speaker 2] Some of your translations may even say that, the the sinful nature, not just the flesh. 00:08:00 [Speaker 2] The flesh is the part of us that wants to be independent from God, that that wants to be our own lord and savior, that wants to draw on our own resources. 00:08:11 [Speaker 2] Every part of you, body and soul, has a fleshly reality to it. 00:08:18 [Speaker 2] And the way the flesh works is to take a good thing that God has given, a norm, and turn it into an ultimate thing. 00:08:28 [Speaker 2] To to be fleshly is to take the good gifts of God and turn them into strategies for managing life apart from God. 00:08:38 [Speaker 2] So for example, God created food and food is a blessing and our bodies need food to survive. 00:08:46 [Speaker 2] But you can live to eat and and the flesh will take eating and turn it into a strategy for comforting myself, for controlling how I feel, for responding to anxiety. 00:08:58 [Speaker 2] Sex is a good gift from God to to be celebrated in marriage between a man and a woman. 00:09:03 [Speaker 2] But some of you know what it is to be controlled by a desire, to be in it finding a try to find a way of life and fulfillment apart from God. 00:09:14 [Speaker 2] You can get hooked on it. 00:09:15 [Speaker 2] We can get addicted to hobbies. 00:09:18 [Speaker 2] We're made for comfort and leisure, right? 00:09:21 [Speaker 2] And rest. 00:09:22 [Speaker 2] But we can we can spend so much of our time and money on comforts and leisure and and hobbies that they become a way of trying to find life for ourselves. 00:09:35 [Speaker 2] We're made for relationship because God himself is relationship between father, son, and spirit. 00:09:41 [Speaker 2] But one of the things one of the ways my flesh works is to say, the worst thing that could possibly happen is somebody's disapproval, somebody's disappointment, somebody's disappointment, somebody walking out on you. 00:09:53 [Speaker 2] I have to be liked and and accepted. 00:09:58 [Speaker 2] We're made to to exercise authority under God, but then it becomes a way of needing to be in control. 00:10:06 [Speaker 2] I have to have the power. 00:10:07 [Speaker 2] I need to make the shots. 00:10:08 [Speaker 2] I need to call this. 00:10:09 [Speaker 2] I have all the answers. 00:10:10 [Speaker 2] I need to be the smartest person in the room. 00:10:12 [Speaker 2] I have to win every argument. 00:10:14 [Speaker 2] And if you're not one of those people, we will gossip about the people that are like that so we can exercise our superiority over them. 00:10:22 [Speaker 2] A sexually promiscuous person is under the slavery of the flesh, but so is a corrupt politician. 00:10:30 [Speaker 2] So is a greedy businessman. 00:10:32 [Speaker 2] So is a mom whose identity is in her kids. 00:10:34 [Speaker 2] So is a religious person whose identity and what they're performing for God. 00:10:42 [Speaker 2] The flesh says, if you have this thing, you can build your life around it, you can depend on it, you won't have to rely on God. 00:10:52 [Speaker 2] And so we we run after it, we we grab hold of it, We end up feeling like I have to have it. 00:11:00 [Speaker 2] I'll die if I can't have that thing. 00:11:04 [Speaker 2] And there's something in each of us deep down beneath the surface that you think, if I don't have that, life won't be worth living. 00:11:15 [Speaker 2] I can't go on if I lose this or if this happens to me, and so I have to protect that at all costs. 00:11:21 [Speaker 2] What is it? 00:11:23 [Speaker 2] It's probably something good. 00:11:25 [Speaker 2] It could be a job. 00:11:26 [Speaker 2] It could be a career. 00:11:27 [Speaker 2] It could be a title. 00:11:28 [Speaker 2] It could be money. 00:11:28 [Speaker 2] It could be a relationship. 00:11:31 [Speaker 2] It could be your family. 00:11:32 [Speaker 2] It could be having enough money. 00:11:35 [Speaker 2] The way the flesh operates is it takes something good and makes it ultimate. 00:11:42 [Speaker 2] Do you see how it's supposed to understand the depth of our of our problem? 00:11:49 [Speaker 2] We see the way sin operates. 00:11:52 [Speaker 2] Where does it come from though? 00:11:54 [Speaker 2] What what's its origin? 00:11:57 [Speaker 2] The answer Paul says is from our nature. 00:12:01 [Speaker 2] It's part of who we are outside of Christ. 00:12:07 [Speaker 2] Look in verse three, Paul says it twice. 00:12:09 [Speaker 2] In fact, he says, we all once lived in the passion of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. 00:12:18 [Speaker 2] And and just to make sure we don't misunderstand, he goes on to say, we were by nature, by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 00:12:35 [Speaker 2] We all have this disobedient will, this wrong bent to us that you don't have to learn. 00:12:43 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:12:43 [Speaker 2] Like, we're all kind of born with it. 00:12:45 [Speaker 2] Anyone who's raised kids can confirm the truth of this insight. 00:12:48 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:12:49 [Speaker 2] I remember one time, when one of our boys was, oh, maybe about one and a half, two years old. 00:12:54 [Speaker 2] We had a home with a fireplace in it, and there were some ashes in the fireplace that I hadn't cleaned out. 00:12:58 [Speaker 2] And he was standing over by the fireplace, and I said, don't go in the fireplace. 00:13:03 [Speaker 2] And he he looked right at me and smiled and just walked right over and grabbed the handful of ashes. 00:13:13 [Speaker 2] Nobody had to tell him to do that. 00:13:14 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:13:15 [Speaker 2] Nobody teaches us to lie. 00:13:18 [Speaker 2] Nobody has to tell us, take what you want. 00:13:21 [Speaker 2] That's what we have to learn to undo. 00:13:23 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:13:25 [Speaker 2] Sins are not just bad choices that we make. 00:13:33 [Speaker 2] That runs counter to to our own experience and to what the Bible says, to what Jesus says. 00:13:39 [Speaker 2] I mean, Jesus says, remember, it's not the things that go into a person that defiles them, but the things that come out. 00:13:45 [Speaker 2] Out of the heart comes all kinds of wickedness. 00:13:51 [Speaker 2] Sins are the outward external expression of a deep inward problem inside of us. 00:13:57 [Speaker 2] And when we look inside honestly, we know that it's true. 00:14:01 [Speaker 2] Because we can hear when Jesus talks about love and generosity and kindness and unselfishness and and goodness and forgiveness, man, we go, oh, that's what people should be like. 00:14:14 [Speaker 2] That's the society I wanna live in. 00:14:17 [Speaker 2] I wanna live in a world like that. 00:14:18 [Speaker 2] And as soon as we say that, we're cutting ourselves down because we know that's not me. 00:14:28 [Speaker 2] I don't live like that. 00:14:29 [Speaker 2] I don't love like that. 00:14:30 [Speaker 2] I don't forgive like that. 00:14:33 [Speaker 2] If we really hear what Jesus is saying, what we were created for, the life that God intends for us, we have to say, you know, I don't just break the rules. 00:14:44 [Speaker 2] My heart is turned the wrong way. 00:14:49 [Speaker 2] The origin of sin is my own nature, my my own orientation towards wrath and envy and lust and jealousy and pride. 00:14:58 [Speaker 2] It's not just disobeying and and breaking some rules, but what's wired in. 00:15:05 [Speaker 2] We'll never really see and understand what Jesus is saying until we believe and agree with him that there's something deeply wrong with me. 00:15:15 [Speaker 2] And then what's the outcome of this? 00:15:17 [Speaker 2] What's the outcome of all this sin, this disposition in us? 00:15:20 [Speaker 2] Look in verse one. 00:15:24 [Speaker 2] You were dead, dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. 00:15:32 [Speaker 2] The Bible does not say that we are sick, and and we need a little improvement. 00:15:38 [Speaker 2] We need more information. 00:15:39 [Speaker 2] We need a little help. 00:15:40 [Speaker 2] The Bible says we're dead in our sins. 00:15:45 [Speaker 2] And a physically dead body and a spiritually dead soul have a lot in common, just like a spiritually, physically dead body can't respond to stimuli. 00:15:54 [Speaker 2] So a spiritually dead body is unresponsive to God's work, God's truth. 00:16:01 [Speaker 2] You know, when I was, a young minister, I kind of naively expected that everyone in church must have new life in Christ. 00:16:08 [Speaker 2] They must be a follower of Jesus. 00:16:10 [Speaker 2] And and I discovered that's not always necessarily the case. 00:16:14 [Speaker 2] And sometimes, I I would meet with folks going through a terrible tragedy, you know, just because of the reality, the brokenness of this world. 00:16:20 [Speaker 2] I remember one dear older man in our congregation whose wife had suffered with arthritis for years, was crippled in a wheelchair, and then in her last year started to decline, in her mind and started forgetting her family, forgetting who she was. 00:16:39 [Speaker 2] I mean, it's just some of the worst stuff you can walk through. 00:16:42 [Speaker 2] And I remember meeting with him and, just opening up the Bible to John chapter 10, where Jesus says, my sheep listen to my voice. 00:16:51 [Speaker 2] I know them. 00:16:54 [Speaker 2] I give them life and no one can snatch them out of my hand. 00:17:01 [Speaker 2] And there was just it's like the words leapt off the page. 00:17:04 [Speaker 2] Oh, yes. 00:17:05 [Speaker 2] That's right. 00:17:06 [Speaker 2] It's not about her holding onto Jesus. 00:17:09 [Speaker 2] It's about holding onto her. 00:17:11 [Speaker 2] She belongs to Him and nothing can break the grip that Jesus has on her. 00:17:15 [Speaker 2] And it just brought, if not, you know, an answer to the reality they were going through, it brought peace and hope and reassurance. 00:17:26 [Speaker 2] You you meet people like that. 00:17:27 [Speaker 2] They're spiritually responsive, just like a physical body when when sounds come in our ears or when light hits it. 00:17:34 [Speaker 2] It we respond. 00:17:35 [Speaker 2] Something happens. 00:17:36 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:17:37 [Speaker 2] A dead body doesn't respond. 00:17:38 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:17:39 [Speaker 2] Like, you could kick it. 00:17:40 [Speaker 2] You can prod it. 00:17:40 [Speaker 2] You can alight on it. 00:17:41 [Speaker 2] Nothing's gonna happen. 00:17:43 [Speaker 2] Because there were other people who would go through similar kinds of tragedies, just horrible things. 00:17:48 [Speaker 2] And and, you know, I could meet with them and and read scripture and encourage them, and they'd say, yeah. 00:17:53 [Speaker 2] But why is God doing this? 00:17:54 [Speaker 2] And I'd say, well, but remember, we're His children, and He loves us, and He's good, and He promises that we will have trouble, but He's working for the good in all of it. 00:18:02 [Speaker 2] And one day, there won't be any more sorrow or suffering. 00:18:05 [Speaker 2] And they'd say, yeah, but that doesn't help me now. 00:18:09 [Speaker 2] So what? 00:18:13 [Speaker 2] The same truths that that would lift people out of darkness and and and discouragement into light and joy and peace would it was like bouncing off a wall for some people. 00:18:25 [Speaker 2] To some people, truth God's truth is thrilling and exciting and disturbing and challenging and life giving. 00:18:33 [Speaker 2] And and other people, it's just words on a page. 00:18:39 [Speaker 2] For some people, God is demanding and tight fisted and joy always displeased and always looking to find what you're doing wrong. 00:18:47 [Speaker 2] And for other people, God is a loving and holy father, a father who is joyful and patient and good and kind and intends our good. 00:19:00 [Speaker 2] Some people are alive and some people are dead. 00:19:04 [Speaker 2] And maybe it's hard for us to square that with, you know, kind of life as we experience it. 00:19:09 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:19:09 [Speaker 2] Because lots of people who aren't Christians seem to be very much alive, right? 00:19:13 [Speaker 2] Like physically fit athletes and sharp minded intellectual and a funny comedian. 00:19:20 [Speaker 2] Are those people dead? 00:19:23 [Speaker 2] Well, when you talk to them, you can find out. 00:19:28 [Speaker 2] There's some of them blind to the glory of Jesus Christ, deaf to the Word of God. 00:19:34 [Speaker 2] Their hearts are closed to the work of the Spirit. 00:19:37 [Speaker 2] They have no love for God, no awareness of His reality, no desire to know Him, no reaching out to Him to say, Father, Abba, Father, joy and gratitude, no longing for fellowship with God or with His people. 00:19:53 [Speaker 2] They're unresponsive as a corpse. 00:19:58 [Speaker 2] Sin will bring all of us to an end physically because of the outworking of the sin of our first parents, but it has killed you already spiritually unless you are alive in Jesus. 00:20:13 [Speaker 2] That new life that comes through the gospel assumes, tells us that there is no life here. 00:20:18 [Speaker 2] We cannot get there on our own. 00:20:22 [Speaker 2] We're dead and we're enslaved. 00:20:24 [Speaker 2] Paul talks about carrying out the desires of the flesh, which is actually a stronger word in the Greek. 00:20:32 [Speaker 2] It's like a craving, a strong desire, almost like an addiction. 00:20:37 [Speaker 2] And he's highlighting the fact that anything that we put at the center of our life other than God will ultimately control us, will enslave us, will tyrannize us. 00:20:48 [Speaker 2] Anything but God that you make your God will never ever ever satisfy you, will never give you life. 00:20:57 [Speaker 2] There's always another rung to climb in professional success. 00:21:00 [Speaker 2] You'll know like you've got enough money. 00:21:02 [Speaker 2] There's always going to be someone better looking or more fit if physical attractiveness is your thing. 00:21:08 [Speaker 2] Any good thing that we put at the center that you serve, you become enslaved to. 00:21:18 [Speaker 2] And because of all that, we are condemned, Paul says. 00:21:24 [Speaker 2] By nature, children of wrath, in the end of verse three, like the rest of mankind. 00:21:29 [Speaker 2] Now listen, God's wrath is not like ours. 00:21:31 [Speaker 2] It is not it it is not easily aroused. 00:21:34 [Speaker 2] He doesn't just fly off the handle. 00:21:36 [Speaker 2] It's not spite. 00:21:37 [Speaker 2] It's not malice. 00:21:38 [Speaker 2] It's not animosity. 00:21:39 [Speaker 2] It's not revenge. 00:21:40 [Speaker 2] It is God's righteous constant hostility to evil. 00:21:46 [Speaker 2] And that is ultimately good news for us because God's hostility to evil and injustice and wrong is because of His love, because He loves all the people that He has made so much that He hates do in abusing and dehumanizing and oppressing people made in His image. 00:22:10 [Speaker 2] And that's the path that we're on unless something happens. 00:22:17 [Speaker 2] It's a grim picture. 00:22:20 [Speaker 2] If all this is true, what we need is not renovation. 00:22:24 [Speaker 2] We we don't need inspiration. 00:22:27 [Speaker 2] We need transformation. 00:22:30 [Speaker 2] We need a new life from the inside out. 00:22:34 [Speaker 2] And that is what done. 00:22:37 [Speaker 2] Oh, look in verse four. 00:22:41 [Speaker 2] Sometimes there are just little phrases that are so beautiful and so succinct, two words that almost completely encapsulate the gospel, but God. 00:22:55 [Speaker 2] But God. 00:22:59 [Speaker 2] The good news is God has done something. 00:23:03 [Speaker 2] Us being dead, us being enslaved, us being guilty, us being us being unable to do anything to save ourselves, 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. 00:23:24 [Speaker 2] By grace, you have been saved. 00:23:27 [Speaker 2] And He has raised us up and seated Him with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 00:23:35 [Speaker 2] Oh, that is good news. 00:23:38 [Speaker 2] What done? 00:23:38 [Speaker 2] He's made us alive. 00:23:41 [Speaker 2] Why has He done it? 00:23:42 [Speaker 2] Oh, even more good news, not because we deserved it, not because of anything we've earned or done, but because He is rich in mercy. 00:23:51 [Speaker 2] And how has He done it? 00:23:53 [Speaker 2] He's done it through Christ, through his son, with Christ. 00:23:58 [Speaker 2] He has united us to Jesus. 00:24:00 [Speaker 2] What a packed sentence. 00:24:02 [Speaker 2] But but there it is that he's made us alive. 00:24:05 [Speaker 2] He's united us with Christ out of his great love. 00:24:09 [Speaker 2] All of this, I'm gonna try in the last few minutes we have to to unpack the the what and the why and the how by looking at a Disney movie. 00:24:19 [Speaker 2] Any of you know Beauty and the Beast? 00:24:21 [Speaker 2] Any of you guys seen that movie? 00:24:23 [Speaker 2] It is it's one of my favorite Disney movies. 00:24:25 [Speaker 2] It's it's a classic. 00:24:26 [Speaker 2] It's based on an old story. 00:24:28 [Speaker 2] It's a great story. 00:24:30 [Speaker 2] What is so great about it? 00:24:33 [Speaker 2] Do you remember the the setting? 00:24:34 [Speaker 2] The the the beast is a beast because his heart has been full of pride and selfishness and and green caring? 00:24:43 [Speaker 2] He's trapped. 00:24:44 [Speaker 2] He can't save himself. 00:24:47 [Speaker 2] And the whole idea behind the story is finding someone whose love is the love of grace, of undeserved goodness. 00:24:58 [Speaker 2] And that's not the way the world usually works. 00:25:00 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:25:01 [Speaker 2] Imagine a woman take someone like Belle at the beginning of the movie, say she's a nine or a 10. 00:25:06 [Speaker 2] The way the world normally works is I'm gonna go find another person who's a nine or a 10. 00:25:10 [Speaker 2] That's what I deserve. 00:25:12 [Speaker 2] I'm gonna build around that guy, right? 00:25:14 [Speaker 2] Like nobody chooses the beast over Gaston in the real world, right? 00:25:23 [Speaker 2] But in the fairy tale, what you have is this, can this woman love me in spite of who I am? 00:25:31 [Speaker 2] Can she love him not because he's lovely, but because she is and to make him lovely? 00:25:39 [Speaker 2] Can he love in spite of his beastliness? 00:25:42 [Speaker 2] Can she love him to make him lovely? 00:25:47 [Speaker 2] I mean, come on. 00:25:48 [Speaker 2] The the scene right in the ballroom where they're they're dancing around and here's this beautiful, amazing woman, this gorgeous gold ball gown, and she's got this seven foot tall, slobbering beast with fur and fangs. 00:26:01 [Speaker 2] I mean, when does that ever happen? 00:26:04 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:26:04 [Speaker 2] That's why it's a fantasy, of course, right? 00:26:08 [Speaker 2] No body. 00:26:10 [Speaker 2] That's like any of us, no human being is gonna walk around and choose the beast over a good looking guy with great career prospects. 00:26:18 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:26:21 [Speaker 2] But you see, this is what the gospel Jesus has done. 00:26:26 [Speaker 2] There is who is beautiful and perfect and good and glorious and who came and saw us as beasts and loved us anyway. 00:26:39 [Speaker 2] And in response to that love, that grace that's been poured out, his beastliness falls away. 00:26:47 [Speaker 2] The beast becomes a prince because someone loved him with a good and a gracious pure love, not of earning, but simply of needing. 00:26:58 [Speaker 2] You know, as Christians, we're kind of the only people in the world that can watch movies like that and go like, you know what? 00:27:04 [Speaker 2] That's actually true. 00:27:07 [Speaker 2] That is in fact the story of the world. 00:27:11 [Speaker 2] It's all going to come true. 00:27:12 [Speaker 2] Christians have an understanding of reality that says it's gonna happen actually something like that and even better than that. 00:27:19 [Speaker 2] The beasts the beasts are gonna get turned into princes. 00:27:22 [Speaker 2] The haunted houses are going to become glorious castles. 00:27:26 [Speaker 2] There's going to be thrones. 00:27:28 [Speaker 2] There's going to be celebration. 00:27:29 [Speaker 2] People coming from death to life. 00:27:31 [Speaker 2] People being set free from slavery that they couldn't rescue themselves. 00:27:38 [Speaker 2] It's we're going to look like beauty because of the beauty that has come into our lives. 00:27:46 [Speaker 2] And maybe there's some of you here that, you know, you're not sure what you think about Christianity and that, Okay. 00:27:53 [Speaker 2] Fine. 00:27:53 [Speaker 2] That just sounds crazy, right? 00:27:55 [Speaker 2] Like a loony. 00:27:55 [Speaker 2] You look around and you're like, These people look like they're beyond the second grade. 00:27:59 [Speaker 2] Do they really believe this stuff? 00:28:02 [Speaker 2] We know what's out there and we know what's in here and we know the bottom of our hearts, that because of the work that God has begun to do in us, because of what He says is going to happen, we're gonna shine like stars in the kingdom of our Father. 00:28:21 [Speaker 2] We're going to be prince and princesses. 00:28:23 [Speaker 2] We are we are kings and priests in God's kingdom. 00:28:29 [Speaker 2] We're gonna stand before His throne. 00:28:32 [Speaker 2] We're we're gonna feast at a never ending banquet of all the richness of God's lavish grace. 00:28:40 [Speaker 2] Because of his great love, his rich mercy, he's made us alive, but more than made us alive. 00:28:47 [Speaker 2] He doesn't just bring us from spiritual death to life out of his love. 00:28:53 [Speaker 2] He he he brings us from death to life through his love, so that we actually become the kind of people who can love like that. 00:29:02 [Speaker 2] It's the experience of his love that that just like the beast was changed, that anybody who experiences that kind of love is transformed. 00:29:14 [Speaker 2] Right? 00:29:15 [Speaker 2] It was the experience of this undeserved love that led him dare to hope I don't have to be a beast. 00:29:22 [Speaker 2] I can't change myself but but now I've encountered this self sacrificing love that is doing something in me. 00:29:32 [Speaker 2] If you don't understand and believe, you know, and the beast, but but the story of the gospel that is pointing towards, if you don't understand and believe that, there's nothing left but despair, but an endless cycle of trying to find some kind of life and meaning and relationship and purpose and power, significance in your life, hope, purpose, just in the stuff that's in front of you. 00:29:59 [Speaker 2] All human beings long to know that that story is true. 00:30:07 [Speaker 2] Because there's one story that is true on which all those fairy tales are based, and it's the gospel of God's rich mercy, by which He's made us alive in Jesus. 00:30:21 [Speaker 2] He saved us. 00:30:23 [Speaker 2] He saved us in verse five. 00:30:27 [Speaker 2] Made us alive and saved us. 00:30:30 [Speaker 2] And and the fascinating thing, just a few minutes left here, I can nerd out on on a on a little word thing here, that that he saved us is a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, 00:30:38 [Speaker 3] a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, 00:30:38 [Speaker 2] a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a the past that is continuing to happen and will go on into the future. 00:30:50 [Speaker 2] It's a way of saying we have been saved in a way that is continuing to be worked out in our lives. 00:30:57 [Speaker 2] We are being saved and and we will be saved. 00:31:02 [Speaker 2] And the way it happens is Paul again, and go goes off into kind of a he's inventing words here literally. 00:31:09 [Speaker 2] He takes normal Greek words and he puts this prefix with alongside them and, and just makes new words out of them. 00:31:18 [Speaker 2] He with raised us in Christ. 00:31:21 [Speaker 2] He with made us alive in Christ. 00:31:24 [Speaker 2] He with seeded us in Christ. 00:31:27 [Speaker 2] It's all because of what Jesus has done and and our being connected to him. 00:31:32 [Speaker 2] So that now not only are we alive, we have been taken to the place where Jesus himself rules over all of these powers and dark forces that are in the world and that and that want to draw us away from him. 00:31:47 [Speaker 2] What makes us new people is not just that we admire and agree to what Jesus has said, not that we even try to live by his standards, but but that we are people who know that by faith, because of our being connected with to Christ, we are actually alive. 00:32:05 [Speaker 2] We actually have been raised with Him, and we actually have a new power that we didn't have before. 00:32:11 [Speaker 2] We're gonna talk about that more next week as we, look at the rest of these verses up through verse 10. 00:32:19 [Speaker 2] But do you see do do you see that out of his great myrrh, his love, he has made us alive? 00:32:26 [Speaker 2] Are you alive? 00:32:29 [Speaker 2] Are you alive in that way? 00:32:33 [Speaker 2] Because if you've already known Jesus, there's still the ongoing work of growing more and more alive in him and allowing him to see the fleshly parts that still cling to everything that we do and touch and see and want. 00:32:48 [Speaker 2] To bring from death to life. 00:32:50 [Speaker 2] And if you've never come to the point of saying, I know that I'm alive in Christ. 00:32:54 [Speaker 2] Oh, don't today without knowing that that's true for you. 00:32:58 [Speaker 2] Without saying, I believe, and I wanna follow. 00:33:01 [Speaker 2] I want Jesus, and I want Him to be the source of my life because only He can save me. 00:33:09 [Speaker 2] He has made us alive with Christ, and he's made it possible for you to be alive with Christ. 00:33:18 [Speaker 2] That's the one fairy tale that's going to come true. 00:33:22 [Speaker 2] Is it true for you? 00:33:25 [Speaker 2] Let's pray. 00:33:30 [Speaker 2] Father, we ask that, you would help us, help us to see the amazing, remarkable mercy and grace that makes us alive. 00:33:41 [Speaker 2] Though we were dead in sins, Christ has traded His life for ours to bring us from death to life, more and more. 00:34:00 [Speaker 2] I pray that all people here who know that they are alive in Christ will see that it is the greatest thing in the world and that we would never lose our amazement of it and that we live it out more. 00:34:13 [Speaker 2] And for people who don't know whether they have that new life or not, I ask that you'd open their eyes, you'd draw their hearts to you and help them see what they can be in you, what only you can do, and and the love and the life that awaits them. 00:34:27 [Speaker 2] And we pray in Jesus' name. 00:34:30 [Speaker 2] Amen. 00:34:45 [Speaker 2] Sorry. 00:34:59 [Speaker 2] Sings 00:35:05 [Speaker 4] the And it sings the song of righteousness by blood and not by merit. 00:35:38 [Speaker 4] To every tribe and nation. 00:35:44 [Speaker 4] It's an all delight arc to enter in the joy of your salvation. 00:35:56 [Speaker 4] Salvation. 00:36:05 [Speaker 4] And now I freely walk into the arms of Christ, my Lord. 00:36:23 [Speaker 4] Your grace that I cannot explain, not by my earthly wisdom. 00:36:36 [Speaker 4] A prince of life without a stain was strained and for this sinner. 00:36:48 [Speaker 4] I, grace, I am redeemed. 00:36:53 [Speaker 4] I, grace, I am restored. 00:36:59 [Speaker 4] And now I really walk into the arms of Christ, my Lord. 00:37:16 [Speaker 4] And praise rise up over flow. 00:37:21 [Speaker 4] My song resound forever. 00:37:26 [Speaker 4] Forever. 00:37:27 [Speaker 4] -The roar grace will see me welcome home to walk beside beside my savior. 00:37:40 [Speaker 4] I am redeemed. 00:37:45 [Speaker 4] By grace, I am restored. 00:37:49 [Speaker 4] I'm not I am am restored. 00:38:09 [Speaker 4] And now I freely walk into the arms of Christ, my Lord. 00:38:19 [Speaker 4] And now I really walk walk into the arms of Christ, my lord. 00:38:36 [Speaker 2] What do you guys do with your failures? 00:38:42 [Speaker 2] I noticed my wife helped me notice recently. 00:38:45 [Speaker 2] I've been kinda snapping at her more recently, maybe just because of some extra stress in my life. 00:38:50 [Speaker 2] And, man, there's a couple of things I could do. 00:38:52 [Speaker 2] I can become defensive and self righteous. 00:38:54 [Speaker 2] I can point out the things that she did wrong that, you know, shouldn't have been that way, which, you know, maybe I tried. 00:39:00 [Speaker 2] But, but see, when I blow it, when you blow it, when we fail, if we know if we know that it's by grace that I have been redeemed and I am restored, I can own it. 00:39:13 [Speaker 2] It's the grace of God that makes it possible for me to be honest about the fleshly parts of me that still are too much in control, and then I take them to Jesus again and remind it again, he knows. 00:39:26 [Speaker 2] He knows, and his grace covers it, and and he's going to help me, not just forgive me, but he's actually gonna empower me to grow more and more into the person that can respond the way that love responds, that grace responds. 00:39:41 [Speaker 2] Oh, that's good news. 00:39:43 [Speaker 2] Because we're gonna go out into a week with challenges and failures and setbacks and disappointments. 00:39:50 [Speaker 2] God has made us alive in Christ, and his grace is what secures us. 00:39:55 [Speaker 2] Forgive heals us and changes us. 00:39:59 [Speaker 2] May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep. 00:40:08 [Speaker 2] May he equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever. 00:40:22 [Speaker 1] Amen. 00:40:22 [Speaker 1] Thank you for engaging with our community by checking out this podcast. 00:40:26 [Speaker 1] If you information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faith church indeed dot com.