Welcome to Mill Creek Church in Belleville, Texas, where our worship service is in progress. Today, Pastor Monty Byrd continues with his sermon series on the Book of Ephesians. And now, Pastor Byrd. You know, I always loved that hymn, Wonderful Peace. And when you think of all of the things that we've been through here in town over the last two months, and all of the damage that people have endured, I can't imagine living life without Christ. And when you think about Paul's promise that we can have a peace that surpasses all understanding, we only get that through Christ, nothing else. Join me in prayer, please. Father, as we approach your word this morning, as we continue to study Paul's letter to the Ephesians, I just pray that you would open up our hearts and minds to understanding your word. I pray that we would embrace it. that we would live by it, stand on it. I pray that you'd continue to mold us and shape us by the indwelling spirit. In Jesus name, amen. Well, turn with me in your Bibles to the second chapter of Ephesians as we continue our study this morning. And I'm gonna read Ephesians 2, one through seven for context, and then we'll get along to our focal passage. But in Ephesians 2, starting in verse one, Paul wrote, in you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world. according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of the 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've 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 and his kindness towards us in Christ. In Hohner's commentary on Ephesians, he outlines chapters 1 through 3 as the calling of the church. And in chapter 1, which we've already studied, we see that it is an elective call, that we don't pick God, God chooses us. And only through the power of God are we called out. And if you recall from our study in Ephesians chapter one, the purpose of that calling is for the praise of God's glory. And as I've mentioned before, as we've gone through not only Ephesians, but also through Romans, I've fought this idea that Salvation is a token. And unfortunately, so many people look at their salvation as a token that you declare Christ and you hold that token until you get to heaven and there's this void between the decision and the heaven and you can kind of live your life however you want to. And to counteract that, I'll make this statement that salvation is a salvation of power. It's a salvation of power. And when you look at how Paul opens up the second chapter of Ephesians, it supports this view. And we'll see it today more poignantly in our focal passage. When you look at Ephesians 2, verses one through two, it says, in you, he made alive. He didn't say that we made ourselves alive. He said that he made us alive. Hey, we're dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. So as he opens up chapter two, it says we're dead. We're dead in our trespasses. We can't understand the things of God. And in fact, the Bible says that the natural man is at enmity with God, that the natural man views God as his enemy. He doesn't, he doesn't accept the things of God. He doesn't have the mind of God. Paul had also written that the natural man does not have the mind of God, cannot comprehend spiritual things. So we're unable to save ourselves. We're unable to comprehend. But when you look at verse four, God changes us. He takes us from death to life. In Ephesians 2, 4, it says, but God, who is rich in his mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Now we're gonna get down to definitions. What does alive mean? What does alive mean? Is it just intellectual acknowledgement? Is being alive in Christ recognizing the historical Christ and that's it? Do we have a kind of view of, let's call it Christian deism? where we believe that we acknowledge Jesus Christ and just like the deist believe that God just kind of spun the world up and then just sitting back and watching. Is that our view? Is it God's not active in our life on a regular basis and nothing's required of us and nothing's happening in our life? That's not the definition according to the scriptures. And in fact, In our focal passage today, Paul is going to describe what salvation really means in that salvation is a salvation of power. Let's look at verse four, and we're gonna read through seven again. But God, who is rich in his 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've 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 and in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. So not only did Christ make us alive, he raised us up. He raised us up. Now, when you first read that verse, when you read that he raised us up, the natural tendency is, is for us to look at that as a reference to Jesus. the second coming, our resurrection, that he raised us up. And there are verses that associate raising up as the second coming in our union with Christ. One of those is 1 Thessalonians 4. 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 16 says, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. So there is a second coming and there is a resurrection. And there are other verses that are similar in the same vein. However, how Paul wrote this, the wording is different. And the verbiage used in Ephesians 2 is constant. It's not written in the future tense. It's constant. So there's not a future reference. So what does it mean that we were raised together with him if he is not referring to the second coming? Well, we have a similar verse that uses a similar language and that's in Colossians chapter three. Colossians chapter three, starting in verse one, it says, if then you were raised with Christ, if then you were raised with Christ. Seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things of earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. So Paul in Ephesians as well as Colossians is not talking about a future resurrection. It says that we have been raised up. Let me read you Hohner's comments. He goes, when Christ was resurrected, all power was given to him. So too, Christians identified with Christ and those in whom Christ dwells presently have this same power in them. The new resurrected life demands new values. That blows the hole in the argument that I look at my salvation as a token that it's okay if you just intellectually acknowledge Christ and nothing else is required of you. That's not salvation. And it really irks me when you see television preachers say, you just say these few words and then you're just done. That's not salvation. Salvation isn't about an upcoming event when I'm hopefully 99 years old and die in my sleep. That's not salvation. Salvation has a continuing tense to it. Just the old Baptist phrase, I was saved, I'm being saved, I will be saved, which just is a easy way to refer to the doctrinal words of justification, sanctification, and glorification. I was saved in the fact that when I first came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and you as well, that we have the blood covering of Jesus. That in that initial moment of salvation, God looks at us and He sees us not in our sin, but He sees us with the righteousness of Christ. And then as we progress and as the Holy Spirit molds us and shapes us, then we have sanctification. We move from a positional justification or a positional holiness. to then a practical holiness where God is shaping us and we're pursuing the things of Christ. And then when we get to heaven, we're in our perfect state through the power of God and that's our glorification and we're absolutely made perfect. In other words, salvation is ongoing. And in that ongoing salvation, you and I have a connection with the Lord Jesus Christ and with that same power that caused Christ to conquer death and sin and rise from the grave, you and I have that as well. And that's why Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13, no temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. You and I, through the power of the resurrection, have the power to overcome sin. And unfortunately, over the last number of decades, the church has gotten soft on sin where that, well, we just all have clay feet. No, we just all have clay feet and it's okay, God understands. God does not understand because through the power of the cross, you and I have the ability to overcome sin. We have that ability. We can say no. When the believer falls into sin, the believer is choosing sin over God. It's as clear and simple as that. We choose to sin. On Wednesday night, we've been going through this repentance series. And it's absolutely wonderful. If you're not attending, I would encourage you to attend because I think it's the best study we've ever done on Wednesday night. But this last Wednesday night, we were talking about David post sin with Bathsheba. And it says that David married Bathsheba. And then it has this sentence that the Lord was displeased with David. And as I was preparing for my study, I thought about that verse, and of course, naturally taught it Wednesday night. And there's some other references that were relating to other people, where there's a sentence, the Lord was displeased. Now that kind of makes it personal, doesn't it? when you realize that the Lord, in looking at your life and how you're conducting your life, if you're not within the teachings and truths of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is displeased with you. I made the comment on Wednesday night that David was a believer. He was a believer when it says that he was displeased. See, God knows us personally, doesn't He? And if you take Ephesians one and two and you put them together and you realize that we were called out for a purpose, we were called out to glorify God. And when we, in our own life, because we've been given the indwelling of the spirit and we have the power over temptation, we have the power to live a godly life. When we choose to sin, we have to recognize that we are displeasing to God. See, it's easy to look at this category in our life of sin. You know, this is generic category, sin. But when you start looking at your life on a personal basis and you go, this is what I am doing in my life and it is not pleasing to God, it changes the whole concept. We have been given a salvation of power. And quite frankly, I think one of the reasons why over the last 30 or 40 years that the church has lost its influence among the society in America is because the church has stopped behaving like Christians. If you want the gospel message to have truth, there has to be an evidence. And the Bible says in Galatians 5, that if we walk by the spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh and we'll have the fruit of the spirit. We'll have fruits showing that God is working in us. And that's when the world looks at us and says, there's something different about those people. It's because we've been given the salvation of power and it has been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. And it is a sin for us to look at our salvation and go, Oh, I'm okay for heaven. God doesn't require anything else of me. I'm just on cruise control until I draw my last breath. That is not what God has in store for you. God has in store for you to live a victorious life in Christ, a life of victory, a life where we overcome temptation, a life in which we live according to the ways and truths of Jesus Christ, a way in which we can look at other people and say, this is what you get when you follow Jesus Christ. It's a salvation of power. He raised us up. So we're alive. We have power. We've been raised up. What else? Look at verse six. In verse six, it says, he raised us up and made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now that's one of those phrases that we can look at and we can read and we can just kind of gloss over, you know, made us sit in the heavenly places. But I want to give an anecdotal story about this and then I'll relate it to our scripture passage. And I've told this story before, but when I was in high school, me and a buddy, we went to presidential classroom in Washington, D.C. And there was a day you were supposed to go to your congressman's office and the congressman was supposed to maybe show you around or invite you into the office. And also me and my buddy, we went down to our local Congressman Ralph Hall from Rockwall. That was always his saying when he was running for election. So we went down and he said, well, how much time do you have? We got the whole morning. And Congressman Hall took us on a tour throughout the whole Capitol. And we got to go to places that most people don't get to go to. At the time, they didn't let you in the Sam Rayburn room. We got in the Sam Rayburn room. He sent his photographer down. I had my picture taken in front of Sam Rayburn's picture. It was really neat. But then we were there on the Capitol, and he said, I'm going to get you in the vice president's office. So we went in the Vice President's office that he used there on the Capitol, and there was the desk, and that particular desk at that particular time was the Secretary's desk for a number of years for the President of the United States in the Oval Office. And he said, now boys, I want you to look down here at the corner, and you look real close, and you can see where John F. Kennedy's signature is, where he signed some legislation. He goes, now I want you to get on your knees and look up underneath the desk, and you'll see where the tape recorder was that held the Watergate tapes. And you can see the court label of when they were going to subpoena Nixon. And he said, Monty, you have a camera? Yes, sir. Sit down at the desk. H.W. Bush was vice president. He said, sit down at the desk. Let me take your picture. And I thought, oh, my goodness. I said, I don't know if I should do that. This is the vice president's desk. And he goes, George won't mind at all. I thought, you just called the vice president George. And so I sat at the desk. I was a little squeamish. He took my picture, and then he took my buddy's picture. And so that was the neat experience. The point of that story is, is I never felt comfortable sitting at the desk. I was in a place that I felt like I didn't belong, a place of power that was not right for me. But when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ, he seats us in the heavenly places. He seats us in the heavenly places. You know, the Bible says that we're accepted in the beloved. Now, this idea of being seated with Christ, and I wanna point out something. It says, it made us sit together. When you read this, there is a present and a future reference. There's a present and a future reference. Romans 8.15 explains it this way. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by which we cry out, Abba, Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children then heirs, heirs of God and joiners with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him that we may be glorified together. We are co-heirs of Jesus Christ. Now, in the present tense, we can relate to that because it says, if indeed we suffer with him. In other words, as you and I face the trials and tribulations of life, as we live a Christian life in a world that is growing increasingly anti-Christian, we can relate to the suffering of Christ in our own small way. That's our present reference. Our future reference is that we will glorify Him in a future tense. In other words, as we stand before Him, we are co-heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Timothy 2, verse 10 says, this is why I endure all things for the elect, so that they also may obtain salvation, which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. This saying is trustworthy, for if we died with Him, we will also live with Him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. Coerce, right? If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself. Reminds me of Revelations 5, verse 10, where he says, you made them a kingdom and priest to our God and they will reign on the earth. See, we have this tie with the Lord Jesus Christ. So in our focal passage, it says that we have been made alive, we've been raised, and we've been seated. What's the purpose of that? I'll look back at our focal passage. In verse seven, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. That in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. We're not talking about just heaven. What we're talking about is ever since the church age has been established, each generation, each successive generation, God has exhibited his power by calling people out of darkness into light and then transforming them. And the culmination of that will be when we're with Him in glory. And you know, when you think about that, as most of our congregation is an older congregation and people get to retirement age and they go, well, I don't really feel like I have a purpose. A lot of times people say that in retirement, I really don't feel like I have a purpose. I can say that one of the best things that you can do for your kids and your grandchildren is to exhibit a godly life and leave with them a spiritual legacy. That's the best gift of all. And when you think about each generation has people who have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and we've seen the power of God ever since the cross and the empty tomb. We've seen people come to a saving knowledge. There's never been a generation without it. It gives you great hope. I remember when Kathy and I went to Israel and we were there at the empty tomb and I looked around and there were people from all over the world, all over the world. that were there to celebrate the empty tomb. And, you know, sometimes we can kind of get caught kind of with blinders on and we think about Christianity as almost a national phenomenon. And it was so wonderful to see people from all different parts of the world gather there to celebrate the risen Savior. And then one day he is going to gather all of us. Every Christian who's ever given their life to the Lord Jesus Christ from the beginning of the church all the way to the end of the church age will be gathered together. And it's one of my favorite verses in Ephesians 1. If you look at Ephesians 1, starting in verse 7, in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace which He made abound towards us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, in Him." Now, I've always read that verse and in my mind have just created this beautiful mental picture of Christ on His throne, seated on His throne, and all of the church, past, present, and future, will be surrounding His throne, looking at the risen Christ and giving Him the glory and honor that's due. Why did He make us alive? Why did He raise us up and give us power? Why did He seat us for His glory? And we have to ask ourselves today as we live this present life, are we living for the glory of God? Are we living for the glory of God? If he were to come back today, are you ready? Are you going to be running out to meet him or are you going to be hiding in the corner? We got to ask ourselves that. Are we prepared? Do we have our priorities right? Are we spending time in his word? Are we praying? Are we worshiping him? You know, what a privilege we have to every Sunday we can come into a church and worship Christ the King. It isn't about me, it isn't about you, it isn't about having a respite from society. The focus should always be on the resurrected Christ. It's a privilege. Reading his word is a privilege. Petitioning human prayer as he sits on his throne is a privilege. And it's not by our logic, our intellect, or our power. It is by the grace of God. Join me in prayer, please. Father, we just thank you for this morning. We thank you for your word and I pray, Lord, that we might examine our life and ask ourselves, are we ready? Are we prepared? I pray that we cling to you and that we might have peace in your word and truth. I pray, Lord, that we might share our faith with others. And I pray if there's someone that's listening, if they haven't given their life to Christ, that they might become a believer today. Lord, we give you the praise and glory in all things, in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for joining us as Pastor Byrd continues this sermon series. If you wish to hear more, you may find him at millcreekchurch.org or go to sermonaudio.com slash millcreekchurch. Prayer requests may also be left at millcreekchurch.org. Our church services are as follows. Sunday morning Bible study is at 9 a.m. followed by our worship service at 10 a.m. We have Wednesday night prayer meeting and Bible study and they are at 630 p.m. For more information and our mission statement please visit our website millcreekchurch.org