Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 2. And I'm going to ask also that you stand. We're going to read verses 1 through 10. I do read from the New King James, so it might be a little bit different if you're using the Pew Bible, the NASB. So Paul opens up in chapter 2, According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others, but God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You can be seated. Father, just as Paul prayed earlier in chapter one that even for believers here, he prayed for the church, that our eyes would be open. He prayed that we would have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, and that the eyes of our understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of your calling, and what are the riches of the glory of your inheritance with the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of your power. Father, I pray that you would open our hearts, open our minds, and Father, continue to teach us. And I pray that your Word would go forth this morning, and Father, that if there's anything that we may take Father, if our minds are not in agreement, I pray that you would correct our minds and change our minds to what your will is and what your word says for us. In Jesus' name, amen. We've been working through the book of Ephesians. We started that earlier this year, the beginning of the year, and we have been talking about sovereignty an awful lot. We found early on through chapter one that salvation is all of God's work and it is God's work alone. That came out in Sunday school again this morning when Pierre was going through the gospel. So again, we have this meshing and coming together of God's word where it just confirms everything that it says. So God, having chose us in Christ before time began, We also have learned, so that was election we talked about, but we've also learned the purpose for his creation was for his glory. We touched on that a little bit here this morning when I read at the opening here that verse six of chapter one says that all these things were to the praise of the glory of his grace. In verse 12 of chapter one, it's repeated here, Verse 12 talks about all this being to the praise of his glory. And again, it's repeated in verse 14 of chapter one, to the praise of his glory. So it's all for the glory of God, all for the glory of his grace. And I just read in my prayer, actually part of Paul's prayer at the end of chapter one, where he prays for the Ephesian believers. Now, we talked about this in class, when we pray, we pray about many things. We'll pray about people's health, we'll pray about circumstances, we'll pray for finances, all sorts of things. But Paul felt that the most important thing for the believers, for the church, was to continue and grow in the knowledge of God. That's why we gather here. That's why we come in the morning for Sunday school. That's why we come on Wednesday evenings. That's why pastor goes out to Wayside Cross on Friday once a month. That's why we come together so that we can encourage one another and that we can grow because you know what? We are going to have an eternity learning about God. It just seems that we should be doing that as long as we are here as well, right? So that was Paul's prayer, that you would grow in the knowledge of God's grace. That's not gonna change very much here as we transition into chapter two. Paul's gonna continue with the same theme here, but he's gonna go a little bit deeper. So chapter two opens up here, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. Trespasses and sins. Just so we understand, there's a number of churches that don't even like to talk about that word sin. And in fact, you might hear, oops, or a mistake, as if we all have erasers on the top of our head and we just made a little writing error, we can erase that, oops, right? But that's not what God talks about when he talks about sin. Sin is missing the mark. There's a bullseye out there, and it's God's will, it's God's way, and it's His perfect calling. We missed that mark. We failed in that regard. There's two other words that we also see that go together with that word sin. One of them is in the passage here, which is trespasses. And if you think about the word trespass, it's kind of like where you're misstepping here. It's a violation of a boundary. So man has trespassed God's law. We have stepped outside of God's law. We violated that boundary. And the other word that you encounter a lot in scripture is iniquity. We don't see it in this passage, but iniquity is a perversion of God's Word. And you don't have to look very far to see how God's Word is perversed, okay, perverted. But God says here that he made us alive while we were dead in our trespasses and sins. So Paul begins, he opens up here at this height of incredible glory. He made you alive. I mean, we should be jumping out of our pews here this morning just reading that sentence. And then he takes us to the depths of humanity and says, he made you alive, but you were in the deepest depths of sin and trespasses. You were dead. So he talks about the depravity of man, being dead, being dead in our trespasses and sins. So here we see the result of God's grace. First thing right here in the chapter opens up God's grace. He made you alive. But then we also see man by his nature, dead, dead. So we talked about Paul praying here and that our eyes would be open and our understanding would be enlightened. And Paul talked about, he gave us, out of all the demonstrations that he could have described as far as the power of God in chapter one here, you know, we talked last week about, you know, the creation, you know, we talked about the Red Sea parting, all these things, all demonstrative things of God, his power. And Paul talks about his resurrection, the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead. Being in Christ is how we have been made alive here. We have been resurrected spiritually by being raised with Christ and made alive. When Paul says that we were made alive who were dead in our trespasses and sins, Our Arminian friends, well, we come to understand and we, by scripture, by a literal understanding and reading of scripture, understand that salvation is all of God's work. Yet, we do have people in church, our Arminian friends, who think that they have a hand in their salvation. They think that man plays a part or has a role in their salvation. They think that God does most of the work, but we have to do our part, right? If you look at your bulletin this morning, I think Maya did an outstanding job here. You all may have heard this analogy or perhaps have even seen it, and it would look something like this without the red X. But you will see a hand coming down from heaven, and you see another hand rising up out of the ocean where a man is going down for the third time. And if you've ever been a swimmer or taken Classes that teach you how to be a lifesaver. I know Lisa has. She said, people who are going down, if you go near them, they will just scrape and scrap and bring you down with them, okay? That's because they know it's a losing battle. They're going down. But here we see God's hand going down to rescue a sinner, and we see that sinner's hand going up in the air. I don't know if you've heard this analogy or seen it, but Maya has made sure that we understand that that is an incorrect perception here of salvation. Because Paul tells us right here in Ephesians chapter 2, you were dead. You were dead. And when you think about this, can a corpse raise his hand to be rescued or saved? It doesn't happen that way. And in fact, I know that this is something that we do frequently where we just stroll through cemeteries, right? Walk down the paths of a cemetery. How many hands do you see raised and coming up out of the grave? Now of all places, it's filled with death. Corpses everywhere. You'd think that for sure you would see hands raised from the grave, reaching out to help God in his salvation. Right? In his salvation of man. Thank you, Maya, for making sure that we understand that that is not the case, because Paul says you are dead. Now, yes, we're dead, but we still see people walking around. Well, it's like the night of the living dead. What you see is a living death, because all men are dead spiritually. Man is incapable of reaching out to God. Now even though there might be, you know, some truth here in this analogy, you know, of a corpse, it still comes up short. Anytime we have, you know, a man-made analogy trying to express the things of God, we always come up a little bit short because you don't see corpses out there, you see men walking around, you see people walking around who are unsaved for sure, okay? They are spiritually dead. So they're dead men walking, but the other thing that they're doing is they are in very active rebellion against God. So when we think of man being dead, As far as the way that they can respond to God, it's as good as being a corpse because they are dead spiritually. So verse two also talks about the fact that, yes, these people who were dead are walking. So they're very active in this participation here of the living death. But what are they walking in? They walk in In verse two, they walked in their sin. Who are these people? And you he made alive who were, I'm sorry, who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked. So Paul is saying you church were once dead in your trespasses. You were all walking dead men. And then he continues in verse three, among whom also we, so now Paul is also talking about the fact that he and his heritage, which would be Jewish people, were also dead. So Paul has brought it in and made it more inclusive. And if you look now at the end of verse three, we find out that also it's just as the others. So now Paul has said the entire race, all of mankind, had been dead in their sins and trespasses. Everyone who was outside of Christ, they were all dead spiritually without the ability to come to God. That's something that we have to really grasp and we have to understand because if there is something in us that enables us to come to salvation, then God does not get the glory. And his grace won't be on display for what he has done because we have a role and thereby we would get the glory. But even in the Gospels, and again, when Pierre gets there, Jesus says, no man can come to me unless the Father draws him. And I've said this before, but that word can is a word of ability. Jesus did not say, no one may come to me. That's a word of permission. Jesus said, no man can come to me. No one has the ability. Why? Because they were dead. They're all spiritually dead. And that shows us the depravity of man, the extent of the result of what sin did to mankind. He no longer has the ability to come to God, have fellowship with him. It's not within him. So man is dead in trespasses. That's that violation of a boundary. We have violated God's law. He's dead in sin. We've missed that mark. So being spiritually dead, chapter 4, verse 18 in Ephesians talks about the fact that we also were alienated from God. We were spiritually dead. We have no fellowship with God. when you are spiritually dead. So life apart from God is though a living death and understand that the only way that we can have life with God or fellowship with God is to be in Christ. And I've, going through chapter one, I've asked our morning class to go through all of chapter one and look at all the times and note that phrase, in Christ, in him, in whom, everything relating to Jesus here, in Christ. And what it means to be in Christ is to have faith in his saving power. And if you are not in Christ, then you don't have that. You are spiritually dead. So, these people who are spiritually dead are walking in accordance to the course of this world. So they're walking in according to the world, I'm sorry, to the world, but they are also walking according to the ways of the devil. And they are also walking in terms, according to the lust of our flesh. So we have, Paul says that these dead men walking walk according to the world, the devil, and the flesh. And we're going to open it up a little here. So dead men walking is not a countryside stroll, to understand that. They are walking in captivity. They are in bondage to their sin. They're in bondage to the world. They're in bondage to the devil and they're in bondage to the flesh. The course of this world is the things that we see out there in regards to the system of the world, which is materialistic. So you have materialism out there. You have this understanding of social inequality. out there in the world. There's all sorts of things. We have sorrow. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. But the ways of the world are opposed to the ways of God. And this is how dead men walk. They walk in opposition to God, according to what the world holds them captive to. The other thing that comes up here is the fact that they are walking according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once conducted ourselves. So the devil is the prince of the power of the air. John 12.31 calls him the ruler of this world. Adam was supposed to have dominion, and when he was created, chapter 1, he was given dominion. And when he sinned, he handed that dominion over to the devil. So the devil has become the god of this world, the ruler of this world. He's the prince of the power of the air. Okay? Adam handed it over to him. And we also see here that we have principalities and power and dominion are also mentioned in chapter 1, verse 21. So power, these principalities would be the demons, and you have the power of the demons, and you have this dominion, which belongs here to the devil, right? So the devil is also the spirit of the one who works in the sons of disobedience. Pastor going through the book of 1 John here has shared with us that we actually encountered the name Antichrist in the first epistle of John. And we saw that the spirit of the Antichrist also is alive and working in this world today. That is according to the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. This is in accordance to the devil. So, dead men walking are again now in bondage, not only to the world, but they're in bondage to the devil. When you read the creation count in Genesis chapter one, you see that God created all things, and you have the list, you have the sea, all the creatures in the sea, the land animals, man, and even all the vegetation, but you see that God had blessed it and given it the ability to produce after its kind, okay? So you have an apple tree that's not going to produce a fish. It's not going to drop a seed in the dirt and a fish will come out, okay? It's going to produce another apple tree. And if you have a land animal, if you have a monkey, a monkey is going to produce a monkey. It's not going to produce a human being, okay? I heard this phrase and I'm going to use it. I stole it here, but it's not goo to the zoo to you, okay? A monkey is going to reproduce a monkey. Likewise, mankind is going to produce mankind. So what we want to do here is we want to take a look at this phrase here, sons of disobedience. When Adam fell, his nature had changed. Adam and Eve did not reproduce prior to falling. So when they fell, their whole nature changed. In Adam's disobedience, now he will reproduce in disobedience. And that was every one of us. That was every person born of Adam is a son of disobedience because we were walking in accordance to the world and the devil. And then the next thing here is the flesh, which is certainly our desires. The desires of the flesh and the desires of the mind, So we're bound by our nature. We're sons of disobedience. We're rebels. Oh, well, wait a minute. What about free will? We do have free will after all, right? I mean, the Armenians think that we have free will enough where we can obtain salvation along with God's help. Yes, we do have free will. But free will does not operate outside of its nature, your nature. So whatever nature you have, you have free will to go anywhere within the bounds of your nature, but you're not going to be able to go outside of the bounds of your nature. So we have free will. But our free will is going to operate within our nature, which is going to be responding to the world and the devil and the desires of our heart and our mind, which we know is not going to be in accordance with God's will. It's going to be the opposite of God's will. So this is the world and this is who we were once. We know that God must punish sin, and we also read here that not only were we fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, we were by nature children of wrath. The whole world, all of mankind, were sons of disobedience and children of wrath. God must punish sin, and he punishes sin with his wrath, which is his righteous anger. For those of us in the church, that wrath fell on Jesus Christ in our place. So we don't face the wrath of God because Jesus bore that wrath. He took on our sin. God judged our sin on the cross on his son, Jesus Christ. A little rabbit trail here. I like going on rabbit trails. I do it frequently. But you have to understand what wrath is. And you also have to understand what those seven years of tribulation is that is coming up, by the way. It is not meant for the church. It's for unbelieving Israel. So the church does not face the wrath of God. we will not be here when his wrath is poured out during the tribulation. So that's just a bonus here, okay? We're not subject to his wrath. Moving on to verses four and five here. So God's wrath and love, are they incompatible? Not by any stretch. Not at all. Paul moves from the wrath of God directly into the love of God without any hesitation, without any hiccup, without any explanation. He just moves right into it. But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love, which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, even when we were dead, subject to wrath at that time, he made us alive together. Did you hear that word together? With Christ? Paul links us with Christ. This together is gonna come up two or three times here in the passage. But we were sons of disobedience, we were children of wrath, we were subject to God's righteous anger and punishment, his justice. But Paul made us alive together with Christ. He raised us up together with Christ. He seated us in the heavenly places in Christ, with Christ. And the power of God that Paul spoke about earlier, that resurrection, the power of raising Christ from the dead, Immediately at that time, when we came to faith in Christ Jesus, we were spiritually raised as well. God gave us the ability to have faith so that we can respond to his grace. All this at the moment of our salvation. But God is a merciful God. He's rich in mercy, and he demonstrated that love for us, Romans chapter 5. I don't know how many times you may have gone here, but you can't go here too often. But in Romans chapter 5, beginning in verse 6, for when we were still without strength, guess what? You had no strength because you were dead. You were dead and you didn't have the ability. So when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man, somebody would even dare to die. Verse eight, but God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So God demonstrated his love for us while we were still sinners, while we were dead, unresponsive to him. Christ died for us. So did God's love save us? Well, I'm not gonna separate love from all of the attributes of God, but we're gonna see that it's grace that saved us. It's love that compelled Jesus to go to the cross to provide a means of salvation, a means of redemption, a means of forgiveness. That was God's love that compelled Jesus to do that. But we see that it is God's grace in verse 5 of Ephesians 2. But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, His love drove him to the cross, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. So God took the action. God intervened. He raised us up by his power. And those who he raised were those of his choosing, as we saw in chapter one. But God saved us then. So now we have been seated and raised up together, made alive, made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Spiritually, right now, we are seated with Jesus Christ. Where is Jesus Christ? He's on the right hand of God the Father right now, seated. I don't think he's in a pew, and I don't think he's in a folding chair. I think he's probably on a throne. Wouldn't you agree? If Jesus is on a throne, and we're seated with him in the heavenly places, where do you think you are right now? A lot of people Don't understand the book of Revelation. And Revelation explains itself as you go through it, really, for the most part it does. But all scripture explains scripture. But Revelation, I've told you this before, is a chronological book, because you always see this happens, and then after that, these things, and then this, and afterward that. So when you open up the book of Revelation, you have chapter one talks all about Jesus, and then you have chapter two and three, which is the church. You have seven periods of the church age in which we are right now. We are in that seventh church age. Yes, we are living in the church of Laodicea because there is an unbelieving church, an apostate church out there right now. So chapter two and three is the churches. Come to chapter four, chapter four follows three, right? It's a chronological book, okay? Chapter four, after these things, I looked and behold, a door standing open in heaven. So now after the church, John is up and seen in the throne room of heaven. Verse two, immediately I was in the spirit and behold, a throne set in heaven and the one sat on the throne, who is gonna be? God, right? Now that's interesting. This is going to be, on this side of heaven is going to be forever debated. But those thrones, those 24 elders represent the church. Okay? So what we have is we have the church age, you have the rapture, the church is gone, and now John, before the tribulation chapters here, John is seeing this vision in heaven of the throne of God, and around it is 24 thrones with elders sitting on it. Now who are these elders? That's going to be debated forever, this side of heaven. But when you read, you have 24 elders sitting clothed in white robes. Now when you go back to one of the churches, I have it in your notes here, chapter 3. Chapter 3, verse 4. If you have your books open, your Bibles open to Revelation, go back to chapter 3. And this is to the church at Sardis. Verse 4. You have a few names, even in Sardis, who have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white." Hmm. I saw 24 elders sitting clothed in white. That's the garments, that's the clothing of the church. And you have, they're wearing gold crowns. Crowns are the rewards for the church. We don't keep them. We'll find out later that we throw them at the feet of Jesus Christ, but we're wearing crowns. We're seated on thrones, okay? It doesn't take much. This is another bonus for you. You're going to miss the tribulation, okay? You are seated in heaven. A little bit later in Revelation chapter 5, which follows 4, but it's still the same scene. When you get to verse 9, you have these 24 elders who sang a new song. It's the song of the redeemed. Who's the redeemed? It's not the angels. These 24 elders are the church, okay? They sing the song. We sing the song of the redeemed. So we, Paul tells us in Ephesians, are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. So now that we know all this and now we've been going through this and we can't help but be in awe, why? Why did God do this? Well, I can't You know, the overlap is amazing because Pierre this morning was saying the same thing. It's not because of anything in you. You're not the prettiest bunch out there. We're not the smartest bunch out there. And we're certainly not the most humble, right? Why did God do it? Verses six and seven, chapter two of Ephesians. Raise us up. together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, verse 7 here, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." You know, a lot of people will talk about, oh, we're going to be sitting there in the clouds playing our instruments or whatever. Or some people say that, well, we're just going to be in eternity praising God forever. And while that's true, Did you know that when in eternity, God is going to be sharing with you all of his riches for all that eternity? I mean, it's not going to be exhausted, his riches, because it's going to go on forever. He wants to share the riches of his glory with the church, with his bride, forever. so that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward Christ Jesus. Verse eight. This is what you've been waiting for. A lot of people know verse eight, nine, and maybe sometimes 10. For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves. Again, it's not because of anything in us. It is all bound up in God's sovereign election. It is not in us, Romans 9, 16, He says, so then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but God, of God who shows mercy. Salvation is all of God's work. His alone, none of ours. And it's all because of grace, so that his grace can be on display It is His grace, which is a gift to us, as is the faith that allows us to respond to His grace, that allows us to come, which is that calling, the drawing of the Father to His Son. So verse 10 says that we are His workmanship, His creation. We're new creation, if you will. Okay? Brand new creation. If you are in Christ and you are created for good works, you don't obtain being a new creation because of good works, because we mentioned the fact that it is not in us. We cannot do that. Works do not grant salvation or earn salvation. In fact, our works are filthy rags, according to Isaiah. Our works are our enemies. Until we come to faith in Christ, then those works Those works become evidence of our faith, but it's also our testimony to the world. Because when we went through chapter one of Ephesians, Paul praised God after all the things he saw of God's work. He said, all these things, Lord, I see in the body of every believer. Ephesus and every one of you Bethelians, okay, I see the power of God in you as evidence of all these things that we have declared about God. So God has made you now, he's brought you to faith by his grace, made you a new creation But that's not the end of our salvation. If that were the case, we'd be gone, long gone, right? You're here so that you can demonstrate the power of God's saving grace. The works that we were saved for, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them, not walk in the ways of the world or the devil or the flesh, but to walk in the ways of the Lord and demonstrate and be evidence of the power that he raised us from the dead. Let's close in prayer. Father, we give you all the glory. If we were to continue reading in Revelation chapter 5, we see that there was one who was worthy to open the scroll. Father, we know that Jesus Christ, your Son, is worthy of our praise. because all of our salvation is all about Jesus Christ. It is your grace through your son, Jesus Christ, that has brought us from the grave and raised us to exaltation in heaven with your son, Jesus Christ. Father, let us never be Let us never take grace for granted. But Father, for as long as we live here, for as long as you leave us here on this earth, let us show and declare your grace through your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.