[Transcript represents full sermon's text]

       We are moving along to Ephesians chapter 2 today. We've gone through chapter 1, we did a little bit of an introduction, and now we arrive at chapter 2. In the message, we will be covering verses 1 through 7, and this one I think is going to be a pretty good one. We've got a lot of cool stuff to cover, and I think this is going to be pretty enjoyable.

       Let's go ahead and read Ephesians chapter 2, and we'll read verses 1 through 3 to get us started. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (ESV).

       The first thing that I think jumps out at us in Paul's writing to the church in Ephesus is that he says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” So, "dead in trespasses and sins.” What does that mean? There are basically two approaches in Evangelical Christianity that we could take. I side with one of these approaches, but I think both are fair approaches. And the common and most prevalent approach would be that when we're born into the world, right from the moment we exit the womb, really from our growing up inside the womb, we're dead. And the idea is that when Adam and Eve fell in the garden all the way back at the beginning of time, that caused that sin nature that I talk about quite a bit to stem all the way from Adam down through every single person in the whole entire world who has ever lived. So we're all related to Adam. We all have the inner sin nature that is in us from the very beginning. We would say that's passed along from the man's side in a relationship. That's why when Jesus was born by the Virgin Mary, he didn't have the seed of fallen man, therefore he did not inherit the sin nature.

       Now this whole idea of this concept comes from St. Augustine. And a good cross-reference for this perspective would be Romans chapter 5. If I tap over there real fast.“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (ESV). That seems to insinuate at least me and many others that it all stems from Adam. Now, some Christians, even in the Evangelical world, think that we are born neutral and we did not inherit a sin nature from Adam and Eve, really from Adam. So the idea is we were born neutral or with a corrupted nature that has a susceptibility to sin. And that's what the Eastern Orthodox Christians would say, that we're not born with a sin nature per se, but we're born with the tendency to eventually sin. And so this second view would view sin as happening early on, sometime in the early time of childhood. I don't know if that would be as an infant. I don't know if that's age three. But at some point, everybody chooses to sin.

       In this second view, one thing that is said, a reason that people adopt the second view, seems to be that there is this idea that if we're born with an inherent sin nature, then how are we technically responsible for sin since we're guaranteed sin? So if we have no other choice but to sin because we're born with a sin nature then couldn't somebody just reply to the evangelist, the person who's witnessing Jesus to them and say, well, but I was born this way, I'm going to sin. It's just the way I am. So really, I'm not responsible for my sin. That's the concern in the second view. And a lot of street preachers, I've seen them where they like this second view because it gives them more argumentative power on the witnessing field, the field of evangelism out in the streets to be able to say, well, no, I don't believe we were born with an inherent sin nature. I believe that we chose sin individually. My position is I side with the first side, that it stems from Adam, the St. Augustine view, the inherent sin nature. That's my personal opinion. I certainly do not agree with a lot of what St. Augustine had to say, but on this one, I think he was right.

       Why do I side with the first perspective? Well, I think to me, it just seems like when we look at children, when we remember ourselves as little children and we see other children interacting, it seems like they have that deep in their core, that deadness, that sinfulness. I'm not saying that kids act in totally terrible ways. We know that they act fine in many circumstances, but there are some circumstances where we see that it seems like something's deep down in there that's causing this bad behavior. That's my opinion. And it logically makes sense from looking at Romans 5, from looking at the virgin birth. So I just, I personally think that the first position is more likely. And the other thing I would say is, in speaking of the word likely, if we look at it from a probability perspective, if the second view is true, then due to the way probability works and mathematics works, it would seem that there would be at least a few people that would live on this earth and never sin, that they would never choose to sin. That just seems like statistically it would have to work that way if we were born without a sin nature. Now, people can argue about that, but in my mind, just I'm not a super big person in the math. But from what I know about probabilities, that seems like it would have to be your conclusion.

       We can look at Colossians 1:21 because that's a good cross-reference verse. And I've mentioned how Ephesians and Colossians go together with really Colossians being written first, even though it appears after Ephesians in our Bibles. So 1:21 of Colossians, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death…” (ESV) so on and so forth. This one's interesting because Paul paints it as alienated. So not part of God's family, right? Or even not part of the original people of Israel, not in relationship with God, we might even say. And then he says, hostile in mind. So hostile to the things of God. That's an interesting way to put that. The second thing, going back to the Ephesians 2 passage that we're considering, Paul says “following the course of this world,” that's the second thing. So, “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world.” And if we were saved at a later age in our teens, 20s and beyond, we know what it's like to follow the course of this world first and then come to know God through Jesus Christ and be on a whole new pathway. We know that contrast. We stop doing just what everybody else was doing because we thought that's what we were supposed to do. And a lot of that involves sin, right?

       The third thing Paul mentions is after he says, “following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (ESV). Who is this prince of the power of the air? Well, we would say that's a reference to Satan. So Satan and his fallen angels, or demons, we might even say some Christians think the fallen angels and the demons are two different spirit entities. We're not going to really go into that, but following Satan and his minions, they're the ones that are technically and really truly behind the bad things in our world. They're the ones that promote and try to normalize and try to make comfortable and prevalent the bad things that God doesn't want us to do because they truly put our lives at a major disadvantage. And if we were to just name some, before we name those, let's go to the next part of this where he says, verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the patience of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind. So there we see that cross-references to Colossians there, bringing the mind in the picture there, where Paul said we are hostile in mind. Well, we all have flesh that has cravings, and there are proper ways to fulfill those cravings, and there are improper ways. There are ways that will ultimately harm us, that truly are destructive for us, and that also includes the mind.

       We can think of the prevalent ways in which this manifests itself if we go over to 1 Corinthians 6. That's a good passage to look at. And we'll go to verse 9. So, 1 Corinthians 6, 9. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (ESV). That's quite an abundant, thorough list there.

       We can see the cravings of the flesh and the mind. So we have fornication. In our day and age, a lot of people, couples, live together before marriage. You're not supposed to do that. That's not the way God intends things to be. Idolaters. Seeking to worship God in your own created way, in a religion or some pathway that isn't from God, that's been invented because somebody thought it was a good idea. Adulterers. So you got married, but you're not satisfied and happy with your one partner, right? And then you seek to have sexual relations with somebody else while you're married. That's wrong. That doesn't work. That causes problems. Of course, homosexuality, two people of the same sex. That's not natural, as Paul tells us in Romans chapter 1. That's not the way you're going to be fulfilled in every way possible. In a marriage, in sexual relations, whatever you want to consider, that's not the best way to conduct oneself. Or thieves, so stealing things that aren't ours, taking them by force, taking them secretly, whatever it is. Reviling: so being hot-tempered, being mocking, things of that nature, not good. Swindling, cheating people out of money. Being shady and in business transactions, whatever it is. We can see here, these are the kinds of things that are sin that we should not be participating in as Christians. And those were the things that we were involved with before we were a Christian in some way. Maybe not all of them, but we were involved with some of them probably. And now we're not. That's the thing. That's the goal.

       Going back to Ephesians, continuing along, Paul says, “and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (ESV). Here, he says that all mankind's destination is for wrath. That's going to be the end result of conducting ourselves in an offensive way, in a way that's not good for us. One thing I do want to note is it's not that God is in a wrath state all the time, like is often taught. It's not that God is just ready, just holding it in, ready to lash out at people. That I would say is not a proper view of God. I think it's often taught, almost universally in the Evangelical church, the penal substitutionary atonement, where God, where Jesus died on the cross to satisfy God's wrath, to prevent God's wrath came down on Jesus, and now that wrath that God had against us for sin is now satisfied, as if God's in this constant wrathful state. And I brought up last week when we discussed the end of chapter one, that book that can be read called ‘Christus Victor’ by Gustaf Aulen. So there's the position of the Christus Victor view. That's one view of atonement that can be taken instead of the Penal Substitutionary Atonement, where it doesn't deal with God's wrath on the cross, Jesus dealing with God's wrath on the cross in that way, but rather emphasizes Jesus' God's victory over Satan on the cross, and how God basically won back the world to himself. And that's why Jesus can gain all authority, there's more to it than that. I don't want to get in deep in this, but just something to note. But either perspective or whatever perspective you take on atonement, you have to realize that in the end, there will be wrath. Whether you're Penal Substitution, whether you're Christus Victor, whether you're something else. I think it's unavoidable that there's going to be wrath at the end unless you're really going down a progressive theological pathway.

       But we can look at Romans 2:4, which I think works well here. “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (ESV). I think that is a terrific verse to show God's current attitude toward sinners. You know, as John 3:16 gave us a glimpse into that as well. But this tells us here, Paul tells us in Romans, that the riches of God's kindness toward everyone, all right, and forbearance. He's not sending lightning bolts down usually to deal with sin, and patience. He's not up there just shaking, you know, dying to release that wrath. It's not sinners in the hands of, you know what I'm going to say. I have great admiration for certain people in our theological history and Christian history. With my studies in psychology, I'm not too much of a fan of picturing God in that just wrathful state all the time. I think seeing God in a different light and that maybe he's not that way can make people, especially in our current time, maybe be able to trust in God a little bit more as a Christian, maybe not treat it like it's some old, like dated, wrathful, fearful, religious thing that, “Oh, you know, I better shape up or God's going to get me.” He is going to judge sin, as Paul tells us in Romans, but it's not that thought we often get in our head where he's just in this constant state of anger and he's ready to smite anyone with the ruler that doesn't do what they're supposed to do. He is going to judge sin, but we need to have a proper view of God. And I think this verse is a good place to see a glimpse into that.

       Let's go to Ephesians 2 and look at verse 4. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (ESV).

       God loved us before we believed in him. And that's so important. So God loves us before we're a Christian. God wants everyone in the world to come to know him. He loves everyone. And he's rich in mercy by sending his son to die for our sins, who rose from the dead, who makes any of us possible of being reconciled to God. That's rich in mercy. God is rich in mercy when he sends preachers, Bible teachers, evangelists, whoever, just average Christians, whoever, to witness his truth to someone, to us who, if we don't know God, that's rich in mercy, right? And this is because he loved us before. And it says, Paul says, made us alive together with Christ. So we're from dead to alive. Jesus would call it in John chapter 3 when talking about Nicodemus, born again. You must be born again. Remember that? We have a new life. When we believe in God for the first time, when we become a Christian, when we're sealed by the Holy Spirit, when everything goes down, we gain a new life. We're born again.

       And then Paul says, “by grace you have been saved.” So it's due to what Christ accomplished on the cross. He doesn't say to the Ephesians church, “by your good works, you will be saved.” Or “by your obedience, you will be saved.” He says, “by grace you have been saved.” And that's important. Because it takes the performance mentality out of the picture. It takes the stress off of us. It's already happened. It's passed. Once you believe, certain things happen. And those things are permanent. When we're sealed by the Holy Spirit. When we're forgiven of our past, present, and future sins. That's a permanent thing. That's not something that can be taken away from us.

       So Paul says, “and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” And two other passages talk about how we were raised with Christ. We could consider Romans chapter 6 and verses 3 through 7. And the second one is Colossians 2:12-14. I'm going to go to Colossians since this book parallels so much with Colossians. So Colossians 2:12-14, “having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (ESV). So this is not water baptism, but this is spiritual baptism. This happens from the moment we accept what Christ accomplished for us on the cross. Water baptism is something that's symbolic of our decision to come into relationship with God. But what Paul's talking about is this belief that occurs when this process occurs when we believe for the first time. And he calls it the powerful working of God because we're born again. That's a literal, actual thing that occurs. These things that I'm talking about that happen when we become Christians, those are literal things in the spiritual realm. They're literal things that happen where our spirit inside of our bodies becomes made alive. Okay, that actually happens. It's not just language that sounds good.

       And Paul tells us here in Colossians that this is the powerful working of God, the same power that raised Christ from the dead. And Paul told the Romans that we were united in Christ's burial, so we in his death, so we would be united in his resurrection. So, we were made alive with Jesus. Just as Jesus literally came back to life, so we literally have new life now, for real. This isn't just some positive thinking, something to make us feel good. This is something that's actually happened. So, the legal demands. If we remember the Old Testament, you had to live perfectly and do every single thing the law demanded in order to be truly righteous before God. We believe Jesus did that. But see, when Jesus died on the cross, our sin debt that went against that Old Testament law is nullified because really when the cross happened.

       If we go to Romans 10:4, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (ESV). So when you believe, there's no longer that, there's no longer the Old Testament law can't testify against you saying, well, because remember, Jesus didn't come to abolish the old way, but to fulfill it. So the morality of the Old Testament of committing fornication, for example, or adultery, those things are still sins even after the cross. It's not like the cross occurred, all the law, including the morality, everything is just thrown out. The legal demands are that we live righteously. That's what the law attempted to point people towards was righteousness. Back in Colossians, and we're kind of getting off track, but when we believe any way we've violated the morality of God, which ultimately at the end will incur that wrath, that's been canceled. But it's not, I would say it's not that Jesus had to bear that wrath on the cross. I think that's kind of moving away from what Paul is actually talking about. But let's not get off track.

       Back in Ephesians. So, what is this Paul's talking about? “Raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (ESV). So what does that mean? Well, Paul said this same thing back toward the end of chapter 1 in verse 20. If I scroll up there, he says that he worked in Christ when “he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” (ESV). And then if we look at Romans 6:8, let's look over here because I think this will help us get some insight. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (ESV). And I think that is a good grasp, a good scope to understand what Paul's trying to get across to the Ephesians is. It seems like the idea is that we know we're physically here on Earth, right? But what's happened with us in our born-againness is as good as if now we were seated with Christ at God's right hand. That's how sure and guaranteed all this is. Not to mention that we can approach God's throne anytime we want, right? We have a relationship with God. We know God. So is there more to it than that that Paul means by that? Very possibly, but I don't think we can really grasp what that means outside of getting into more speculative things.

       I'm going to leave it at that, and let's read verse 7, “so that in the coming ages,” all right, that ties into Romans 6:8 there, “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (ESV).

       He's already done that in a lot of ways, as we've been discussing. But can you, I mean, it's just, it's an unbelievable verse. It really is. This is one of the best verses that we've read. So “in the coming ages.” We don't even know what those coming ages are in the eternal state. I mean, we know the millennial kingdom, right? But after that, we don't really even know what that means. He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. I mean, that's mind-blowing. This is the reason that the world was created, that people were created in the first place. This is what God originally intended for the creation. He intended for us to be in personal relationship with him. We weren't supposed to fall. Adam and Eve were not supposed to sin. That has been a whole sidetrack of what God originally intended with all this. And we can look at John chapter 14 just to kind of give us a physical picture. And we know this. This is a commonly quoted section. Jesus says, verse 2, “In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (ESV). So that seems to correlate, to kind of sound similar to what Paul's talking about in us being seated with Christ in the heavenly places, but this is the immeasurable riches. We have our own personalized, customized residence in heaven. That's pretty cool. That's pretty sweet.

       If we go to Revelation 21 and 22, that talks about the new heaven and new earth. I'm going to read just the first part of 21 , verses 1 through 4. John tells us, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (ESV). That's an incredible passage there. That is what John is telling us is the culmination of the whole thing through what God accomplished in sending Christ to the earth to die on the cross for our sins and the power of Christ's resurrection from the dead and this power of sharing the gospel message and people choosing to believe and the power of God doing all these things to bring people into correct relationship with Himself.

       This is what it all comes back to in Revelation where God is able to take all that was wrong and make it all right. That’s the point of the cross that God is getting things back on track from the several thousands of years that they've been off track because of sin entering the world because of Satan choosing to rebel against God and then tempt Eve and then Adam leading in, being led into sin to tempt Eve and then Adam choosing to sin and just the whole thing that went downhill. God's rectifying it all so that things can be as they were originally intended to be. The beautiful thing is that today, anyone out there who wants to come into relationship with the real God, the only God that there is, can choose to believe in what Jesus accomplished through his death, burial, and resurrection. And trust in that to have a personal relationship with God and to be forgiven and wiped clean of all sin and to know God for the rest of all time. It's incredible stuff. And anyone can have that relationship right now, today.

- Daniel Litton