Got about a minute, so. Just
give it a second. Let me get the bulletins up here
if anyone needs them. Scott, I put a letter that I
got out of the mailbox. It's just an insurance thing.
Probably you got it already as well, but I'm just putting it
there. so you can, it's probably two, three weeks old by now as
well. I think it was confirming the payment changeover that you
did, something like that. I think that's what it was about. We good now? All right. Okay, turn with me to our text,
Ephesians chapter two. I want to look at verses 1 through
7 in Ephesians chapter 2. Now this comes on the back of
what our God has revealed to us in the first chapter of what
He has accomplished for His people. And what the Apostle does here
by the Spirit is he highlights what we are, what we were, and
what we are in this flesh, what this flesh by nature is, so that
we see what our God did for us. It stands opposed, what God has
done for us in grace and mercy is completely contrary to what
we are in the flesh and what we deserve. in this flesh because
of our sin and our iniquity. And so the Lord's providing a
great contrast for us so that it's more apparent to us just
how great, how magnified the mercy and grace of God is toward
us in His Son, Jesus Christ. And it should excite us. It should give us great joy and
comfort to see how greatly our God and Father loves us who are
His people. It should really bring us to
rejoice and praise Him. Paul said over in 2 Corinthians
9.15, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. It's a
gift that can hardly be described by us and put into words and
conveyed from my heart to your heart, but the Lord does it by
his spirit for his children. So I've titled this, Quickened
from Spiritual Death. Quickened from Spiritual Death. And our text begins in Ephesians
2, verse 1. It says, you, you that hear and
believe, you hath he quickened, you hath he made alive, who were
dead in trespasses and sins. And so having provided this backdrop
of our shore provision, how that God chose his people, elected
his people. He chose them before the foundation
of the world. He did this in eternity. Before
Adam and Eve were even created, God had a people. He created
a people in their choosing, in their election. And with the
backdrop of what Christ has done in redeeming his people, in His
own person, He put away our sin. He put away the sin of His people
whom the Father chose, and then we see how that by His Holy Spirit,
He sealed us with the Holy Spirit of promise. After that, He revealed
that righteous fruit of faith in us. which enabled us to look
to Christ, to hear the revelation of God, to see what God was revealing
to his people. And he gave us faith to look
to his salvation and to believe, to receive that and believe on
God. And the scriptures say that then he sealed us with the Holy
Spirit of promise, testifying that God had done this work in
us. And then the apostle is directed
here to give attention to the death, just how great this salvation
is, to behold and consider, wait a minute, God did this for me
when I didn't even deserve it. Not only did he do this great
work of salvation for me, but I see how great the pit and the
darkness that I was in when God brought this salvation near to
me and blessed me to hear it and to receive it because he
made me alive when I really just did not deserve it. When all
I deserved was wrath against me. He says, you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. Look at the chasm, the
great separation that we are in self compared to the holiness
and righteousness of God, which we could never transverse, which
we could never bring the two sides together by our own works
or will. God had to do it. Our God had
to bring us near to himself. Our God had to reach out and
draw us to himself and bless us, making us alive when we were
yet enmity. enemies in our flesh, enemies
in our mind, enemies in our heart, enemies in our thoughts and works
and ways. God did this for us. So the death
that Paul is speaking of here is spiritual death. It's spiritual
death, right? There's physical death. There's
eternal death in hell. And there's spiritual death. And this is what Paul is speaking
of. And it harkens back, it refers
back to the death that Adam brought upon himself in the day that
he ate of the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. Over in Genesis 2, verse 16 and 17, this is where
the Lord tells Adam saying, the Lord God commanded the man saying,
of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat
of it. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die. You shall die. And we know that
Adam continued to live physically after that. You could make a
case that he began to die that hour that that physically his
his days began to be numbered in that time you could make that
case but in the day you eat of it you shall surely die and he's
speaking of that spiritual life that we had in Adam before he
fell, that we had with the Lord before Adam transgressed the
law, that fellowship, that knowledge of God, that friendship with
God was severed immediately. So that as soon as Adam heard
the Lord walking in the garden, he ran and hid. He ran and hid
because he was afraid and he was ashamed. When he heard his
voice calling for him, He didn't come running out to meet the
Lord who created him in fellowship. He hid because he was terrified
and ashamed. He knew he was naked now before
the Lord. And so the Lord is speaking of
our spiritual death. And Adam died spiritually when
he ate that fruit. when he died all we in him yet
remaining in his loins right as our seminal and federal head
right he's he's god god dealt with us deals with us in adam
right he dealt with us in adam and when adam transgressed the
law we being yet in adam's loins we transgressed the law and adam
was corrupted And that fellowship was severed, so that all the
seed that came forth from Adam, and that which is propagated
through our generation, as we give birth to children, that
corruption, that spiritual fellowship that was there originally when
God created Adam, is severed. And now we come forth enemies
of God. We are enmity against Him, and
it's called, it's the transgression described in what the old writers
called the Adam Fall. What type of fall was it? It's
the Adam Fall, when we all perished in our sins and became darkness
and became enmity against the Lord. Ephesians 4.18, Paul describes
us as having the understanding darkened. Ephesians 4.18. Having
the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God
through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness
of their heart. That's a description of all of
us in Adam. And we all do our part. We all
had our part in this rebellion so that we are all partakers
of the shame that's now upon man. It's our shame. And so the Lord now, he describes
in Ephesians 2, verse 2. Look there, Ephesians 2, verse
2. Wherein in time past ye walked. All right, this is speaking to
believers. He's not writing to the world. He's writing to the
church at Ephesus, to those who believe and confess the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says, wherein in time past
ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. All right, so when we were unregenerate,
we were unaware of the mercies and grace that our God had toward
us. We maybe thought we were children of God, but it was a
thought of ignorance and darkness. We may have been religious, but
we were worshiping the God of our own imagination. And so we
didn't know that we were really truly children of God. And when others perhaps who did
know the truth would look upon us, they couldn't discern whether
we were children of God or not, right? Even today, When we look
upon each other, we don't know what the mind of God is. We believe,
you that confess the Lord and the Lord gathers you together,
we believe that we're brethren. And we rejoice in the fellowship
that we have, but when we look upon another, we don't know whether
they're a child of God or not. And so we're to preach the gospel
faithfully. We're to bear witness and testimony
to whomever the Lord gives, crosses our path with. Because the reality
is, it's usually the one that we think surely they'll never
hear. Surely they wouldn't believe.
Surely they don't even want to hear what I have to say. Because that's how we judge the
external or we judge their actions or things they've said in the
past. And we don't know because we said the same things and we
did the same things. We may not acknowledge that readily,
but the reality is we condemn ourselves when we condemn another,
right? And the only thing we can do
is when we have declared the truth, if they won't hear it,
we don't judge them eternally, but we don't give them any comfort
in Christ either because they haven't yet acknowledged, they
haven't looked to Christ as their hope and their salvation. But
when they do, we rejoice, and as long as the Lord gives us
opportunity to speak to them, we should continue declaring
the gospel to them in the hopes that they will hear it, in the
hopes that they'll hear it. So he says that we walked according
to the course of this world, and that's referring, that walk
is referring to that continual practice of and partaking of
the sins of this world. And it's a broad, wide road which
leads to destruction. And many, many in this world
are going on that path. They walk in that way. They walk
according to the course of this world. And that's where we remain,
going over the edge, perishing in our sins, except the Lord
have mercy upon us. and arrest us in our way and
take us out of that path, that wide path of destruction, and
in mercy and grace put us on the path that is the narrow way
that leadeth unto life. And it's the Lord who does that
for his people. And so until that day, though,
we walk under the power and the direction of the evil one even. here called the prince of the
power of the air, right? So that we gladly hear his direction
and we fit right in with the world. We adopt their ways, we
learn their ways and it fits right in with our own heart and
our own mind and we pick up the customs and the manners and the
language. And what it's really saying there
is that we never consider We never consider the end of these
things. We never consider the God who
created us. We don't lay it to heart. Anything
that comes and reminds us of the truth that we may have heard,
we don't dwell on it for very long because it troubles us,
it bothers us, and we put it out of our minds quickly that
we may continue on in the way that we want to go, doing the
things that we want to do. And so we fit. the mold of the
children here described as children of disobedience, children of
disobedience. Now verse three, he goes on saying,
among whom also we all had our conversation. which is describing
our walk. We all had this walk, Jew and
Gentile, in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. We appeared to be children
deserving of wrath. You couldn't look on us and discern,
oh, they're a child of God. We like to think that when we
look at our children or our grandchildren or the children of those that
we love and our friends that we care about, we like to think,
oh, how precious. Surely they're a child of God.
We don't know that. We don't know that. They need
to hear the gospel just as we need to hear the gospel. And
so until the Lord manifests it, we appear to be deserving of
that wrath of God. Now turn over to Galatians 5.
Galatians 5, and let's go to verse 19. Because here, Paul
says that we're described as living in the lusts of the flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And in
Galatians 5, 19, right before Ephesians, verse 19, he says, now the works
of the flesh are manifest. We don't have to look very hard
to see the works of the flesh. We see these things manifested
in others in our dealings with them. We see them manifested
in our own heart and mind. The works of the flesh are manifest,
which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
right, just living with a very lustful appetite there, idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, right, where we continue in just
being at odds with others, right? Variance. Emulations, which is
trying to, I believe in the context, outdo others in their sin. Oh,
you did that? I'm going to do this. I'm going
to outdo you in this thing, right? And wrath and strife, seditions,
heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings, right? Gloring in
these wicked things. And such like of the which I
tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they
which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
Why? Because they continue walking
in the course of this world. Each one doing those things which
they're inclined to do. We don't necessarily partake
of all these things, You only need partake of one, and you're
as worthy of hell as the one who does all of them. And so
we have those things that we're inclined to do by nature. And when we do these things,
do you want to have light shine upon it? Do you want people to
see your sin broadcast before everyone and everyone to know
your shame? No. In nature, in our hearts, in our flesh, we
don't want others to know what we did and what we do and what
we practice, but when we come and hear the gospel and the Lord,
we hear His voice and He speaks the truth of these things into
our heart and reveals them, it does shine a light on our wickedness. It does bring us into shame,
into a knowledge of just how evil we are in the flesh. Just
how corrupt we are and how desperate we are for his grace and mercy.
And when he has delivered us and given us a hope in Christ,
we see, Lord, your grace is greater than I give it credit for. You
really are merciful and kind and gracious to your people to
deliver us. And the reason why the wicked
don't like to hear it, they don't want to talk about it, is because
it's shining a light on that which they want to keep, which
they hold precious and want to continue in and don't want to
bring light because then the Lord's dealing with it and it
troubles them in the flesh. John 3, 19 and 20 says this is
the condemnation, that light is coming to the world. The light
that came into the world is the Lord Jesus Christ. His very presence
here, the Son of God's presence in the flesh, declares to us
that we're all guilty before God, we're all sinners, incapable
of making atonement for our sins, incapable of working righteousness,
so that the Son of God must come and do that which His people
cannot do and which His people will not do, except He deliver
them from that bondage. They have no heart for it. So
this is the condemnation, that light is coming to the world,
and what it does is testify to us that men loved darkness rather
than light. They didn't run to Him and hug
Him and thank Him for telling the truth to them. They despised
Him for it. They hated Him. And we know they
did because they crucified the Son of God. When the Lord allowed
them to lay their hands upon Him, they crucified him, they
put him to death. The Lord's purpose being in it,
but the light declares that our deeds in the flesh are evil,
they're evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hated the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. Because the light of Christ,
his word, his gospel, When preached in truth, sometimes even just
reading a snippet of it, it shines a light upon that which we would
keep dark. But God, when he has another
purpose in it, when he purposes to be gracious to you, he'll
shine that light and cause you to fall upon your knees and confess,
Lord, you're right, and I'm unjust, I'm wrong. you're gracious and
merciful to show me have mercy upon me Lord save me right so
Paul tells us that we were by nature the children of wrath
and that's not our wrath but God's wrath which is just which
justly falls upon the wicked all right the wickedness of man
so We too, right, though chosen of the Father unto salvation
and redeemed by His Son, we remained, we walked in trespasses and sins,
and there we stayed until the Lord's time of love to deliver
us came, right, until He purposed to save us, that's where we stayed,
that's where we stayed in that path of that course of this world,
right, and we appeared to be heading towards wrath. We appeared
to be worthy of God's just wrath and punishment for our sins until
he delivered us, until he showed us what we are and gave us a
hope in his son, gave us faith to look to him and trust him
and believe him, ask him for mercy, ask him for forgiveness.
And he comforted us with his gospel word, right? He gave us
life so that we heard and then we began to seek him. We then
knew we were stripped. And we knew what sinners we were,
so that we began to cry out and ask Him for mercy and grace.
And we began to hunger to hear more and more of His gracious
words. Because though it was against
this flesh, yet being alive in the Spirit, we said, this is
what I need. This is what I need to hear. Feed me, Lord. Don't
let me go. Don't let me return back to the
way of this world. He's the one that gives us that
heart for that. So the Lord's wise purpose is revealed in having
Paul after showing us all that God had done for us. And the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost He brings us back to behold
what we were in self. Remember brethren, this is what
you are, so that we would see how glorious, how magnificent
the grace and mercy of our God is for us who are sinners. That the gift of God would be
magnified in our eyes, because then we speak of it. We declare
how great and merciful our God is to us. And we don't boast
of self, which is obnoxious to others, right? When we hear others
boasting of themselves, it really is annoying. But when we boast
of what he's done, they're wondering, well, who is this person? Why
do they boast and speak so highly of this Jesus Christ? Why do
they have such hope in him? and the Lord may use it to provoke
them. All right, verse four, Ephesians
four, verse four and verse five. But God, but God, I'm a wicked
sinner, a vile, dead dog, spiritually dead sinner. But God, who is
rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when
we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace,
ye are saved. So that the Lord is saying, when
as yet I remained in my rebellion and my enmity and had no knowledge
of how glorious, how merciful he is, God delivered me from
this prison of bondage. I was already marked out by his
grace and mercy, already determined by him that he would save me
and bring me to a knowledge of what he's done for me. And so,
what the Lord's bringing into our view is that while we yet
laid in the grave of spiritual death, He provided everything
necessary for our salvation. Right? And so, even when we were
enemies. And so, what we see in Ephesians
1 and so far here in Ephesians 2, we're beholding that God's
work of salvation is accomplished. It's done. And nothing can change
that fact. We can't undo it. It's already
done and the course of everything God has determined is already
done. He knows the end from the beginning
because he purposed it. perfectly and everything's unfolding
to us of what the Lord has already accomplished in Himself for His
people. The Father Himself, He chose
the church. He sovereignly chose and elected
a people to be merciful and gracious to. And having created them in
their election, He then predestinated all things. among the righteous
and the wicked, right? All things that nothing is outside
of his control or power. He's working everything so that
it glorifies him perfectly and we too shall see it and fall
down and worship him for all eternity and how he worked everything
gloriously and made us trophies of his grace. And his predestination
was to form us after the image of his son, and he even went
so far as to adopt us as sons and daughters. That's what Paul
says over in Galatians 4, verse 6, he said, because ye are sons,
not to make us sons, but because ye are sons, God hath sent forth
the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. It's because he's done this.
Purpose this and and we're just coming to a knowledge of his
grace and mercy being delivered from That lot there as it appeared
that we were just children of wrath and children of disobedience
But now we see no, this is not what I've planned for you I have
better things for you my people right and he saved us and brought
us into the inheritance of the sons of God right with the son
of God and and the son himself the Lord Jesus Christ and He
worked all righteousness for His chosen people. He came in
the flesh, the God-man, mediator, to be our surety, to provide
all that we could not and would not do for ourselves, right? We cannot do anything in this
covenant of grace. Thanks be to God, who laid it
all out, and the Son and the Spirit are in perfect agreement
with the Father, And Christ came and fulfilled everything that
we needed to do. Everything that was necessary
from us, Christ provided it all as the surety of his people in
providing all her righteousness. In purging his beautiful bride
of her stain of sin. We can't do anything to lift
that stain out, but Christ's blood is the very thing that
purges that stain, lifts it up, and takes it away. So that when
the father looks upon us, he doesn't see the stain of sin. He looks at his son, perfect.
And he looks at his son's bride and says, justify, she's just
like him. She's as righteous as he is,
and he smells the sweet savor of his son. who washed her and
made her spotless, without blemish, that she stand spotless and faultless
before the throne of God." That's what your God has done for you. That's what he's done for you
that believe on him and have no righteousness of your own.
Hebrews 10 14 says, for by one offering he hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. Christ did that, so that there's
nothing left to be accomplished. There's nothing left undone,
all right? Everything that is being revealed
in us is accomplished, because it shall be accomplished. It's
all unfolding exactly as the Father had determined it to be
done, all right? And so now we see the accomplishment
of the Holy Spirit in verse one, Ephesians 2.1, and you hath he
quickened, right? The Holy Spirit, you who were
dead in trespasses, sins right and and so he he accomplishes
this and in our well he gives us life and and he accomplishes
everything necessary. He calls us through this gospel,
revealing faith in us, revealing that hope and making us alive. We begin to hunger and thirst
and desire him and seek after him, right? And so he describes
this in Romans 8, 29 and 30. For whom he did foreknow them,
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover,
whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called,
them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. So our God and grace did all
this work for us, while as yet we were yet enmity against him. We were enmity, having no fellowship
or desire for him, right? He earned wrath and destruction. He walks in that consistent way,
which is contrary to the light and knowledge of God. So who
is it that maketh thee to differ? Verse four tells us, but God.
That's what the Lord shown us. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace
ye are saved. And the Apostle Peter, speaking
of what our God had done for us, describes what we are now
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says over in 1 Peter 2, 9
and 10, he says, ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,
and holy nation, a peculiar people that ye should show forth the
praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light. which in time past were not a
people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained
mercy, but now have obtained mercy. So I'm gonna stop there,
but brethren, I pray the Lord bless your hearts and comfort
you in beholding what God has done for you, his people, while
as yet we didn't deserve it. Our God is very gracious, very
merciful, and unlike us in the flesh, he's merciful to his enemies,
gracious and kind. All right, brethren, let's close
in prayer. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your glorious mercy, your glorious salvation, your
glory revealed in your Son, whom you sent to save your people. Lord, how perfect, how wonderful
he is, how superb, how perfect what he has done for your people. Lord, we thank you. We thank
you for the heart. We thank you, Lord, for a desire.
We thank you, Lord, to see and to behold how merciful and gracious
you are. Lord, we thank you that as needed,
you remind us of what we are in self, that we don't deserve
this mercy. We don't deserve your grace. We don't deserve your salvation.
We don't deserve the inheritance that you freely give to your
saints in your son, with your son. Lord, we thank you for that. And Lord, we ask that you would
continue to Bring before our view and our eyes just how glorious,
how wonderful, how precious your salvation in Christ is. Lord,
we ask that you would bless this people gathered here this day,
that you would bless us to hear your gospel, that you would prevent
the evil one from taking that seed away, but that it would
settle into rich, prepared soil by your spirit, and that it would
grow into a fruitful tree, Lord, that we would bear fruit and
righteous fruit of your spirit unto the praise, honor, and glory
of your name. And that we would be just ever
rejoicing in what you've accomplished for us in your son. Lord, that
you would be our great delight and our joy. Help us, Lord, in
our struggles and weaknesses and sicknesses. Help us, Lord,
to walk in that living faith which you reveal in your saints. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen. All right, brethren, we're gonna
stop there. And we'll just stop there for
today. All right? And then, well, I
mean, no, we're going to do it. All right. You're dismissed.