Blessed Assurance – The Paradox of Following Jesus – Sermon – Pastor Dave

Can I just tell you, I think this is one of the great sections of the Bible about salvation? And much of this is not new to us but it’s so important to our understanding to go over these wonderful truths.

Understanding what you have in Jesus Christ is really essential.  What we see here in Ephesians is that when we have Christ, we have everything. We are made whole in Him.

We ask often the question—What does it mean to be saved? What does it mean to be a Jesus follower? What does it mean to be really born again?
Well, here in this scripture passage, is the definition of that. And I’ll be straight with you, there’s a lot of confusion about it. There are a lot of people, as we know, claiming to be born again today and it’s obvious that they don’t know the meaning of what they are implying.

Now remember that the book of Ephesians is concerned with what it means to be “in Christ”. What it means to be one with Jesus Christ.

What it means to be a part of His body, the church of which He is the head.
What it means to have been planned into the body from before the world began. We saw in chapter one through verse fourteen that Paul presents the master plan of God in eternity past. Then in verses fifteen to twenty-three, last week, he prays that we would understand it, that we would really get a grip on the meaning of being in Christ. What it means to be a part of God’s eternal plan. What it means to have hope, to be valued and granted an inheritance, in power, forever with God. We’ve talked about the tremendous mystery of our position. All that we have in having Christ is in chapter 1.

Now Paul moves from eternity past in chapter two into time that we live in now in chapter two. This is where we find the Apostle Paul describing the very process of salvation, the very act of salvation, the very miracle of salvation that drew us into realizing this eternal plan.

Don’t miss this, the plan is in one, how you get in it is in chapter two.

Now I want to share another thing before we jump off to far – something I want you to hold onto as we move through our discussion this morning, and we’ve discussed it briefly in the past few weeks. The Apostle Paul is very concerned that we understand that as Jesus followers we are possessors of the power of God. Hang on to that. It isn’t just that when you’re saved you get your sins forgiven plus nothing. Your salvation consists of so much more than that!! You receive all the power of God. It’s all there at the moment of salvation, that’s the message of verse nineteen of chapter one – last week- where Paul is praying that we would understand this incomparably great power for us who believe.

In other words, Paul is praying, may these chosen of yours know the tremendous power that is theirs in You. That’s what is on his mind. He wants us to understand this power. And so he gives an illustration of it in verse 20, you’ll remember we looked at it last time. It is the power with which He raised Christ from the dead and set Him at the right hand. It is resurrection power; it is exaltation power. Okay? That’s his first illustration Paul uses to understand this.

Now in chapter two, Paul keeps right on rolling with this understanding of power, it is the power that raised YOU from the dead and lifted YOU to sit you at the right hand of God with Jesus. In other words, this is Paul’s second point; to understand the power of God look at the resurrection of Christ and His exaltation, secondly, to understand the power of God look at your resurrection and your exaltation.

You say—What do you mean? Have I been raised from the dead? Have I been exalted? 

Yes, spiritually that’s already happened. Physically, it will happen in the future. Someday you’ll be raised out of this world physically. The redemption of the body, Romans 8 talks about it, and you’ll be with Christ. Someday the resurrection of the body, but the resurrection of your soul , you need to think about that in the past tense – if you’re a Jesus follower, God has accomplished the resurrection and elevation of your soul. And that’s the miracle Paul wants to talk about in chapter two. He presents us with this great picture of the doctrine of salvation which is also an illustration of the power of God granted to us as believers.

So, let’s look at it, I want you to see these aspects of salvation that Paul points out, and Paul is going to do that through the use of the 3 tenses:

• past, verses 1–3;
• present, verses 4–6 and 8 and 9; and
• future, verse 7 and 10.

For each of us, this is what we were, what we become as salvation takes place – in a very personal way…

First, salvation is from sin … from sin. Your Sin and my sin and this deals with the past.
Look at verse 1. “As for you,”

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live

— Ephesians 2:1–2.,”

Notice the word “you”. You are dead in trespasses and sin. Not other people, but you … you were dead …

You see, we all recognize that some people are bad, but we always think it is somebody “out there” who has the problem.

So we put security systems in our houses to keep the bad people out, and then locks on top of the locks and a dog on top of the security system and locks.

Whatever culture you’re in, you tend to look at people outside of that culture as bad. Other nations, other religions, they have the problems. So, we need a strong line of defence to keep all them out.

You know, for all our progress as Humankind, the bloodiest century of mankind was the 20th century. The Bible teaches that, as a species, we’re not getting better, if anything, we’re getting worse. It makes be believe in devolution as opposed to in evolution. I don’t for a second believe that we come from monkeys, but when I watch what went on in our own Country this week, I believe it sure looks like we are headed there.

My point is: there are no categories in the Bible. There’s not religious and irreligious; not primitive and advanced; educated or backwards; just sinners and Jesus. I wonder if I’ve just offended some of you?

Let me show you this one other way: Whenever we have a problem in a relationship, we usually think it’s the other person who has the problem, not us.

I have yet to do relationship counseling where a person comes in and sits down and says sincerely, “No, no, it’s not their fault, it’s me. I’ve got the problems.” No, it’s always the other person.

For so many of us, in every broken relationship of our past, we have this tendency to see ourselves as the victim – Your parents were idiots; your boss was a jerk; your peer at work was unreasonable. How often, is the common denominator actually us?

You know that conversation you have when you break up with somebody and you’re like, “It’s not you, it’s me.”…And this may be hard to hear, but God is saying to us “HEH, no, it’s not Me, it is you.”

We need to understand that all the problems, all the dysfunction of the world is not “out there,” most of the time it’s right in the mirror. You are dead. I am dead…

That’s Paul’s first point here, you are a sinner, and you are dead. That’s why earlier he tells us about God’s power, God’s power is best demonstrated in resurrection. And the resurrection of Christ was demonstration number one, and our resurrection from sin is demonstration number two. If you’re a Jesus follower, you’ve already been raised from the deadness of sin and maybe that’s a greater miracle than physical resurrection.

Now listen to me before we move on because you need to grasp this too if you’re a Christian… this is your past. If you’re not walking with Jesus this is your present. This is where you are right now, you’re dead.

In chapter 4 later on, Paul is going to say we are alienated from the life of God. So that our deadness is not deadness in the physical, it is deadness in the spiritual.  We are dead to God. Our body is alive but spiritually speaking, we are dead.

You know one of the things about our culture I don’t quite understand ….ZOMBIES….. Yeah Zombies, The Walking Dead….ZOMBIES, for some reason, our culture is fascinated with the idea that somethings going to happen to change all but a few of us on the planet to Zombies and there going to run around trying to eat any of us that might not get change into Zombies, movie after movie and video games portray this constantly.

Paul says folks, you don’t have to wait for that day – it’s here! Look at it, verse 1;

“dead in your transgressions and sins”

Now, you might be saying Pastor, you couldn’t be more wrong, I’m a good person. I mean, I do civic good, humanitarian good, I’m a wonderful parent, I love my kids, I take care of things, I’m very generous, very kind. Listen, nobody would ever deny that and that’s very wonderful. I mean, that’s a good way to be. Jesus recognized that.

In Luke 6:33, Jesus said, “And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.”

Jesus said, sinners do good to each other. That’s right. People do good to each other, but Jesus said people who do good to each other are still called … what? Sinners. Because sinning is not an issue of what you are doing to each other, it’s not relational, you can’t say—Well, I’m all right because I do good to people.

That isn’t the point. The point is it’s what you don’t do and the reality for all of us is that we don’t live a holy life. And we don’t live a perfect life. That’s the issue.

Let’s look at verse two again, and I’ll show you why this is true:

First thing he says—You are not only dead before you were a Christian, but you are functioning as a Zombie, doing sins and trespasses according to the course of the world. In other words, you are a victim of the world around you…

Now the word world – kosmos here doesn’t mean of a physical world, it more like the ideological world of sin. The system of Satan. The system which he generates.

The Zombie lives according to the world’s standards, the world’s values in his or her own time. The Germans called it the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. We just do what the world does. It is a life and time alienated from God.

What is the spirit of the age? You can see it around you. Three things would classify it to me, three things characterize our age; humanism, materialism and sex.

Humanism, that’s do your own thing, do it your way, you’re the boss, you’re the king, you’re the ruler. You know, McDonalds says—Have it your way. Watch the message of all those Superbowl commercials this afternoon. It’s all the same stuff. You are the one. You are the only one. Every commercial is going to tell you that in some way, that you’re it, man. That’s humanism.

And then there is materialism. And materialism says you’ve got to have it, you need this … more money, more goodies, more things. And we’re all so victimized that we can’t even help ourselves in that area.

And then it’s sex….look at how much today is promoted by sex. Everywhere, TV, billboards’, your social media feeds. It’s all over the place. We’re drowning in a sea of it.

Paul says — Ya know who’s behind it all? Verse two; “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” That’s whose behind it, Satan is behind it. The ruler of the kingdom of the air.  It doesn’t mean that everybody is literally indwelt by Satan, but it means Satan is behind the influences, he is behind the trends.

He and his demons carry out the objectives whether they are secular or religious, don’t you think for a minute he’s not up to his neck in religion as well.

And notice the little phrase—the kingdom of the air. What is this air?

We say there was an air of something or other in the room. There was an air. We mean more than atmosphere. We’re talking about an attitude. And the air is the same thing.

Satan is not only functioning in atmosphere physically, he is functioning in terms of an ideology. He is promoting concepts. He is breathing ideas. He is behind the whole system.

What is the first word of verse 4?

“But – but what?

Remember we’re talking bout Salvation. Salvation is first from sin. Secondly, by love.
By love, look at verse 4; Oh, I love this – here comes the power, are you ready? Here comes the power that’s going to raise us out of this death, turning the zombie into a new creation, full of life, eternal life.

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – BOOM!!!!

Wow, if we got what we deserved we’d be in trouble, wouldn’t we? So, He gives us mercy which is holding back what we deserve.

And why? “because of his great love for us.” You see, salvation is based on love – God’s love. God doesn’t look down and say—Well, there’s a good one, I think I’ll pick her. Oh, there’s another good one, boy, he’s a terrific person.

It has nothing to do with us, it’s His love. Your salvation is by love. God is love and His default attribute of love shows up to us in grace and mercy.

Love is His motive.

He’s rich in love, so
He’s rich in grace, so
He’s rich in mercy.

And He reaches out to love those of us who were dead in sin

That’s God. That’s God.

 that is precisely what God has done. God reaches out, by His plan – which is Jesus – and says I know you did that, but I offer you unconditional and complete forgiveness. Salvation is from sin – by love.

Here’s my last point – this is the paradox. Salvation is from sin/death by love, … into life, into life.
What’s the one thing a dead man needs most? Not a coffin, even more than that ? It’s life. Life, and you see, this is what Paul is trying to say here, Jesus is going to make you alive. And he says it in verse 5;

“Even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”

Now here’s his whole point here. His point is if you are doubting the power of God in your life then understand this – it is the power that raised Christ and it is the power that raised you. Do you see that?

And let me be really clear about something here because religion has done allot to hurt too many people in this discussion. When somebody comes along and says—Well, I’m sorry if you can’t speak in tongues, if you haven’t had the special baptism, if you haven’t had this little special thing, you don’t have the power. You say to them—garbage. The power of God that raised Jesus from the dead has already acted in your life and my life in raising me out of the deadness of sin. Amen? That’s Paul’s point.

To close this morning, I want you to look at verse ten; “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.,”

Listen, if in God’s plan, before creation, He ordained that you were created to do good works then believe me, He also gave you the power to do that when you were saved.

Listen, God’s power is at work in your life, shaping you and molding you into the image of Jesus Christ. You’re His masterpiece.

You say—I’m not much of a masterpiece.

Let me tell you something about Masterpieces – they take time – Remember my Rembrandt Painting – The Return of the Prodigal Son – it took Rembrandt more than seven years to finish that. You’re His masterpiece and through the power that is in you, He’s working on each of us, and none of us is done yet. But the shaping and forming is going on.

I always think about this story I read about years ago about an elegant dinner . A famous actor was there, and everybody was asking him to recite famous pieces of poetry and other readings and he had this unlimited repertoire and he kept doing it. And there was an old preacher there, I don’t know how he got to the party but he was an old preacher and so he yelled out to the actor—Why don’t you do the twenty-third Psalm? And the actor knew it and he said—That won’t be good for this occasion.

He said I want you to do the twenty third Psalm. And he said, all right, I’ll do it if you’ll do it and the old Pastor said—I’ll do it.

The actor began and his voice was flawless and his diction was masterful and he handled the twenty-third Psalm with dignity and grace and beauty from beginning to end – just like everyone expected….And when he was finished there was applause.

And then the old preacher got up and in a rough old voice, after years of preaching and not the best diction and not such variety in his voice he went through the twenty-third Psalm and when he was finished, there wasn’t any applause…. but there wasn’t a dry eye in the room either…. Tears came down the cheeks of the people.

And the actor turned to him and said—Sir, I see the difference. I know the Psalm, but you know the Shepherd.

And that’s the difference. A lot of people know the stuff, the religious stuff,  but knowing Jesus means to be alive – really alive and that’s the message Paul wants you to leave with today

Dying to life as our world defines it is being raised to life as Jesus defines it!

And Church, if you’ve been made alive in Jesus Christ you don’t ever need to question the power of God available in your life right now.

Next week another one of Paul’s long sentences – Ephesians 2:11-22