Ephesians 2:1-10 | Death to Life

Owen Huard continues a series on the book of Ephesians. 

Transcript

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Hey, what's up, Summer Company? How we doing tonight? And you guys can find your seat. Find your seat, guys. We are so back. We are so back in the house. Spring break is over. Guys, we're ready to do it just attack the second half of the spring semester. It's gonna be good. Good rest of the semester. I can already see it for you guys. All four pointos for you guys. Hey, tonight is gonna be great. I'm assuming there's gonna be some heartbreak in the room tonight as uh we do kind of go into the month of March. I know there's some 15 seed out there that's just destroying your bracket right now. Uh and it's uh not looking good for you. Guys, uh, if you joined our uh bracket challenge on ESPN, hey, good luck. If you didn't, that's a bummer. Um, but hey, right now, I I just checked. We have one perfect bracket uh in the salt company uh group right now, and he called the overtime defeat of North Carolina VCU wins in overtime just not long ago. Does anyone even know what VCU is? Like Virginia Christian, maybe? That'd be dope if it was. Uh I have no idea. Remisson has a perfect bracket in Renison. That's right, Renison knows ball, I guess. But seriously, March has got to be one of like the best months uh uh of the year. I mean, what what can get better? Like, what can get better than March? We especially here in Texas, man, the weather starts to warm up just a little bit. Uh we can see the light of the tunnel for classes. It's like, hey, there's a purpose uh to why you're going to class right now. Uh, and then also you just get to watch some great basketball uh the the entire time. Guys, I would go as far as to say that March Madness is the best sporting event of all time. Of all time. For the fellas that might that might strike a nerve, Vanessa is uh agrees with me in uh I like that. Better than uh the Super Bowl, better than the World Series, and I think we can all agree absolutely way better than the NBA finals because the NBA stinks. The NBA is terrible. We need to like, we need to change it somehow. Jeremiah says no, but we need to change the NBA, okay? Just no better, no better event than this. Like, like, where else can you watch future insurance salesmen and accountants just absolutely torch five-star recruits on the basketball court? You can't, you can't. Man, there's uh upsets, there's Cinderella runs, there's overtime thrillers, there's great comebacks in March Madness. Uh in I just think, man, comebacks are the best part. Okay, uh, of we we just saw it uh a little bit with VCU, you know, down a little bit, they come back and win. There's just something about comebacks that we love uh love to think, love to watch about it, right? I can think of some of the greatest comebacks uh of our generation. 2016, Cavs versus Golden State Warriors, back when basketball was actually good, NBA basketball was good, Super Bowl 2017, right? The the Falcons just absolutely choke uh against the Patriots. Maybe sports isn't your thing. Uh have you ever heard of Britney uh Britney Spears? It's like 07, she was down bad, okay? She buzzed her head uh and now she actually makes good music. Um, you know, maybe maybe music isn't your thing, and you're more into like the entertainment industry, like you like uh movies and stuff like that. Want to talk about uh a real David and Goliath comeback, man, Uzma Kappa against Roar Omega Roar in Monsters University. It's like, guys, we love this. We love this, okay. I I just I've seen this quote all over when when the dude from from that uh you know fraternity says, Man, everyone is gonna forget you uh when we just absolutely uh stomp you guys. And then what does Mike Zashi say? One of the best comebacks in all of cinema, he says, guess what? When we beat you, no one's gonna let you forget it. And it's just like it's peak cinema right there. It really is. Okay, stories, that's what we live for. The comeback story is really what we live for. Now, I don't know if any of you know this in tonight, but hey, if you're if you're a Christian, man, we might live for these comeback stories. We might love them, but we are an example of a great comeback story. We we really are. We are an example of it. And tonight, hey, we're gonna jump back into our series in Philippians uh chapter two, so you guys can open up uh to the book of Philippians before spring break. Uh we did uh chapter one. First week we looked at how God, his grace, uh and his authority chooses us to be sons and daughters before uh before time uh even began. Week two, we got John preaching. Okay, you say we're in Ephesians. Wait, what did I say? I said Philippians. We're not in a we're not in Philippians, guys. I was like, hey, I'm just gonna roll with it and okay, thank you for correcting me. Thank you for correcting Ephesians, not Philippians. Ephesians, Ephesians. You can go to Ephesians. Okay, week one, we saw how God chooses us as sons and daughters of the king. Before the foundation of the world, he chooses us. Okay, week two, uh, right before spring break, John came down and he preached a fire sermon on God's everlasting grace to us. Okay, how he wants to use us in ways that we probably don't even know yet. Okay, and then this week, we're looking at one of the greatest comebacks of all time. Okay, chapter two of Ephesians, not Philippians, of Ephesians. Get there in your Bibles, your phones, it'll be on the screen as well. Man, I'm excited to read this. Okay, let's do it. Here's what it says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you previously walked, according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts. We were by nature children under wrath, as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, he made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in trespasses, you were saved by grace. He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. And this is not from yourselves, it is God's gift, not from works so that no one can boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. You know, four and a half years ago, it was these ten verses that God used to actually change my life. I can still remember exactly where I read them in a Chick-fil-A. Where else but a Chick-fil-A? Guys, I know I bring up Chick-fil-A a lot, but that's just where good things happen, okay? These ten verses absolutely changed my life. Finally understanding everything that I had been taught from the moment I sat in church and I had no idea what they were talking about, to that moment, everything made sense. I just want to pray real quick that maybe God would do that for someone tonight. Can we do that? Lord, we're so thankful for how you use your word, how it's living and active. Lord, I pray that you would reveal yourself to us tonight. Show us your character, show us your love, man. Change hearts in the room, bring people from death to life. Amen. Okay, so what we got here tonight, probably one of the most influential pieces of scripture, not only in my life, but in the entire life of the church. Okay, you could go back, uh, people have been rereading this for a while now, okay? And it's it's nothing new, right? We've been using this piece of scripture to do a lot of things, right? It speaks of people going from death to life, dry bones, uh going from the dirt to breathing life into every single one of those. And guys, we are an example uh of those dry bones, once dead, now life. All right, tonight, here's what I want to do. I'm gonna walk, uh walk along each and one of each and every one of us, goodness gracious, each and every one of us down a trip, kind of down the memory lane, okay? We kind of like to reflect on the stuff of the past. Hey, we're gonna do that tonight, okay? If there's a biography written for every single Christian tonight, this would be a part of it. Okay, Ephesians 1 or Ephesians 2, 1 through 10 would be uh the general gist uh of our biography. Okay, we're gonna look at uh a couple things tonight. If you're a note taker, we're looking at the reality for all of us, the reality for every single one of us. And we're gonna look at a gift that God has given us. And then we're gonna look at the purpose that's given to us after that. Okay, here, let's go back. We're gonna read verses one through three again. Usually it says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you previously walked, according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out every inclination of our flesh and thoughts. And we were by nature children under wrath, as the others were also. So whether you choose it or not, these three verses, man, sum up the life of every single person in this room. Every single person. At one point, this was us. Okay, when I talk about the reality of all of us, this is it. What do you what are you talking about? Man, I think in our world today, especially in the age of social media, and just like we have uh a crazy amount of information just at our fingertips. Okay, we can go on our phone and we can get almost anything that we need. ChatGPT is going crazy, right? Uh Instagram is going crazy. I see people who are on Instagram, they probably shouldn't be, right? They're giving their opinions on Instagram. It's like, hey, why why are we doing this? You know, just because it man, it doesn't make much sense. Okay, but having all of this, I mean, the the general reality of it all is people who are going online and saying, hey, live your truth. Live your truth. Okay, people go on Instagram and say, hey, you should just live your truth. Have you guys heard this on Instagram? Like this is this is a real thing. Are people still saying this today? I think so. Okay. I'm getting a couple knots, but I mean, people empowering other people to just be themselves, right? Live your truth. Do whatever you want. Or suddenly we're a society of people who can do no wrong, right? We can do no wrong because why? Because truth all of a sudden is subjective. I mean, what do you feel in your own own heart? How do you feel about this certain thing? I mean, do you feel like shame for that? Do you do you have any conscience towards that? If not, it's fine, right? You can do whatever you want to do. Who am I to judge you? I mean, that that's the world that we live in. We look at the sin of other people's life and we just compare ourselves as well. We look at how other people are living their life and we're like, man, at least I'm not like that person. Okay, man, we we see this. We go on campus every single week. We really do. We go on campus every single week. We talk to people and they say, and we ask them, hey, how likely is it for you that you think you would go to heaven?

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Scale one to ten. Most of the time, people almost every time, it's never zero. Okay, it almost is never zero. And it's like, hey, you know, five, seven, maybe an eight, maybe a nine. We got a couple 9.9s out there. It's like, hey, why why is that? Hey, why are you a five? Why are you a nine? And say, well, you know, I try to be a good student, or I try to be a good person, okay? I I don't cheat, I don't use uh the AI. I go to church sometimes, that's how I grew up. I don't uh I still have a good relationship with my mother. I don't talk trash about other people behind their back. I mean, this is the world that we live in. Trying to just live the life that we want to, trying to appease our own heart. Ephesians 2 has something completely different for us. Completely different. You can notice who Paul he ropes uh certain groups of people into this reality, that we are all dead. This is the reality that we have. We are people who are dead. He ropes people into this. You can see this. Verse 1, it says, You were dead in your trespasses, in your trespasses. Okay, book of Ephesians, written to some some Christians back back in the day, right after Jesus walked, it's like, you people, you people who I'm writing to, dead in your trespasses. Okay, that's the that's to them, not to us though. Right? Not not to us. And it says in verse 3, we too all previously walked among them. Okay, now you're ropes in all people, getting a little bit more broad with things. And then he finally says this he says, We were by nature children under wrath, as the others were also. Even those who are Christians. I mean, at one point you were just as dead as the non-believer. Paul ropes every person into this category. At one point, every single person had this reality upon their life. Hey, you are dead. You are dead in sin, unable to walk out. Trespassing. We get grouped in, we get, I mean, if you're a believer in the if you're a Christian, we get grouped in the same one as the non-believers. What Paul's trying to say here is that we're all sinful. He goes as far as to show us how sinful we are in, I think, three distinct ways. And it's that we're dead, we're disobedient, and then we're doomed. And you can look at the first one, it's in the first words. It says, and you were dead in your trespasses in sin. Paul describes us as a people who are dead. Right now, obviously, this isn't like a physical death, right? We still have, we still have our skin. We're still alive, we're still breathing, we're physically alive, but what he's talking about is a spiritual death, a spiritual death, okay? This kind of idea uh of being physically alive, but spiritually dead. God takes me back to my childhood, okay? Uh guys, I can't remember, maybe like fifth or fifth or sixth grade. Uh I played tackle football for exactly one season. Uh, and there's a reason for this. Okay, I know like Texas, uh like football in Texas, especially high school, youth. Man, it's like a religion to you guys, okay? And if you saw me growing up, uh they'd be like, hey, you know, if football's a religion, you're an atheist, okay? Uh you are not fit uh for for this uh for this game. I played one year of tackle football, could be the worst decision of my life. And here's why. At the start of every season, the league that I was in, guys, get this, this is gonna blow some of your minds. We had every single dude in this league had to weigh in, like legit, weigh in. So people might people like me would not get hurt, okay? If you were over a certain weight, you had this red stripe on your how much that hey, you cannot carry the ball because you might hurt someone. Okay, and if you're under a certain uh under a certain weight, hey, you can't play because you're probably gonna get hurt. Okay, I was almost on that cuss. I kid you not. I was like 99 pounds in fifth or sixth round. I can't remember. 99 pounds. The the threshold is like 95, I think. I don't know why my parents let me do this. But first play, I I touch the field. Kid weighing 99 pounds, I touch the field, I touch the ball, and I'm literally on like all fours, like just sucking air. I'm like, I get the wind knocked out of me, and I think I'm dying. I'm like, I like tried to talk, I was like, coach, jersey pull right now. Like, get like get me out of here. And then from every single week onto that, it's like, mom, please let me quit. Like, I'm a quitter. Get me out of here. And she's no, she just watched me suffer the whole time. The whole time. And I was praying, like, coach, don't put me in. Coach, don't put me in, you know. But it was, man, it was bad. I don't know why my parents let me do this, right? But this is exactly what Paul is trying to talk about. Man, we are the 99-pound kid on the field. We are on the field, yet we are doing absolutely nothing. Okay? We are spiritually dead. Like we're physically alive, but we're spiritually dead. We are there, it's like lights on, no one's home. Okay? Seriously, this this is the reality of it. This is what Paul is trying to say, man. We are dead, unable to walk, unable to help ourselves. We cannot bring anything to the relationship that we have with God other than our sin.

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Paul goes on to say this. Then not only are we dead, but we're not even we're not even able to obey. We're people who are disobedient. Here's what it says in verse 2 it says, in which you previously walked, according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts. Right now, a lot of people they they see this and they're like, okay, Paul, what what do you mean by that? Like ruler of the power of the air. I mean, it kind of sounds like God, right here, right? Doesn't it? It's like ruler of the power of the air. And you know, God's power, like he's got authority over all heavens and on earth. And uh, yes, he does have that, but we're actually talking about someone else here. Okay, in the book of Job, as the devil goes up to to ask God, hey, can I uh test your boy Job? And uh God asks him, hey, where have you been all this time? And it's said that the devil admits, hey, I'm I'm on earth, I'm roaming around. I'm roaming this this place. And what is he doing? I mean, he's trying to find people to tempt, he's trying to find people to fall in to sin. And the ruler of the power of the earth. Man, this is the devil. This is the enemy working on earth right now. Maybe this comes as a surprise to some people on the earth. Hey, the devil has power here. It really does. Right through social media, through the stuff that we intake uh, you know, on our TV. Man, the commercials that we're gonna see during Marsh Madness, the podcast that we listen to, the devil has power. Man, he has authority over this earth. God limits it, but he has power here on earth. He's looking for people to deceive, looking for people to tempt, in our sin. We're dead people who are doing dead people things. The enemy's got us at one point. When we're dead in our sin, man, the enemy's got us. We're slaves to the sin. When it calls, when it comes calling, there's no other response that we can give except yes. When it says, hey, let's go spend our weekends on Fry Street, you can't say anything but yes. When it says, hey, I think we should talk bad about this person behind their back, not in front of their face. All you can say is, let's do it. Gossip. And we want to watch pornography every night because we can't fall asleep without it. It's yes every time. We're slaves to our sin, living in disobedience to the Lord. What does that get us? It gets us the assurance of doom in our life. Here's the last part of verse 3 that says this we were by nature children under wrath, as the others were also. We're children of wrath, because truly that's that's the only thing we are. A people deserving to feel the wrath of God, the weight of sin pressed down on us. I mean, many people think that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, I mean, they're separate, right? We see a God who's pretty wrathful in the Old Testament, he's calling down fire from heaven, but then we get to the New Testament, it's like, hey, he's kind of like Mr. Rogers, you know, he's he's pretty friendly, he invites us in, he's got patience, he's got mercy for us. But guys, that's that's not true. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament, he's the same uh yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He doesn't just sweep our sin under the rug. He doesn't just disregard it. He's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Here's what Hebrews 10 says about this. It should humble us a little bit. He says it's a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. I mean, we when we are dead to our sin. It is a terrifying thing for us to fall into the hands of a living God because we know that he is just. We know that he still sees our sin. And that there's a consequence for it. I mean, we're dead, we're disobedient, and we're doomed. This is our reality. The characteristics of someone who is dead. Assault Company, at one point we were all dead. Right, thankfully, our road, our trip down memory lane doesn't stop there. We can continue reading, and we're gonna run into what could possibly be the big the biggest butt of uh of the entire Bible. The biggest butt. Here we go, verse four. It says, But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, he made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in trespasses. We were saved by grace. He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Like, man, what what Paul Paul has so much intention when he's writing this thing. It's like there's not like he is thinking about every single word that he's gonna put on the Babel because man, in the first three verses, we get a picture so clearly, and we literally get the worst of it. We get a picture of our reality, the state of which we were in. And then he so graciously goes to verse four. You can see it there, God, who is rich in mercy. I mean, he's rich in it. Mercy. Holding something back that we deserve. We deserve the punishment for our sin, yet he holds back. He's willing to lavish it on us. His mercy, he doesn't hold back not one ounce. Like, I don't know what what your spring break might have might have been like or the past week, but it could have been the worst week of your life. Like, seriously, it could have been the worst week uh of the year, worst week of your life, the time where you fell back into the sin that you said, man, I think I'm free from it. I I think I am. God's granted me the grace uh you know to be free from this. But I mean, you you fell back into it. You feel you feel defeated. Maybe you resonate with those first three verses more than you do with these. Here's what I'll say to you. I mean, someone who feels like that, man, there's hope for you. There's hope for the person that just feels weighed down by sin. God wants to use you. He wants to use you. He has a plan for your life. You might say, Owen, you don't know what I've done. Like, you do not know what I did over this past week. And guys, I don't know what you did, but God does. Okay? That's a reality. God does know what you did. He knows the worst sin in your life, the thing that you would never want anyone to know. The most embarrassing thing that you could ever do. He knows it. And here's the truth. I mean, you're never too far gone. It does not matter how deep in sin you are. You are never too far gone. You can never fall so far that God can't pick you back up. You can't run so fast so far that God will never track you down. He does every single time, and here's the truth in it. God does not wait for you. God does not wait for you to run to him. I mean, you can look at verse 5. He made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in trespasses, you were saved by grace while we were still sinners. While we were still stuck in our sin, stuck in the quicksand of sin, unable to move. God, while we were still sinners, that's what it says in Romans 5. God does not wait for you to clean up your life, He does not wait for you to get out of the addiction. Ladies, He does not wait for you to break up with a guy who causes you to. Sin. He pursues after you. I think Luke 15, verse 20 is a great picture of this. If you've been in church before, you've, I'm sure you know this. Um, but Jesus tells a parable in Luke 15. It's of uh that this father, he has two sons, okay? And one of the sons, he comes to his father and he says, Hey, uh, I would really like uh my portion of the inheritance early, right? That's a big like slap in the face for a lot of people, okay? Basically just spitting his dad's face, hey, I can't wait for you to die. Can you just please give me my portion uh of the inheritance right now? Okay? That would have been uh a big thing. Okay. Well, the father, he gives it to him. Okay, he gives, he gives him what uh you know he's gonna get when he dies. I mean, he he just goes and he he goes all out. Okay, he does. He's living the life, the expensive life. I mean, he's got all the food, he's got all the drink, he's got all the ladies. He doesn't hold back. I mean, like, where does that get him? End of the story. Skip a couple years in this guy's life, and he's he finds himself laying next to the pigs. He's got no roof over his head, he's got no pillow under his head, he's got no food in his stomach. He squandered it all. And ashamed, he goes back to his father. He goes back to say, hey, maybe, maybe he'll let me be like one of his servants. Maybe he'll let me be like one of the guys he works out in the stable. Maybe I'll have a roof over our head, so ashamed he goes back. And honestly, exactly like I would expect, exactly like you would expect, you're like, okay, you know, this father's probably gonna be pretty mad. Hey, you took everything that I had and you just squandered it, you threw it away. But he's walking up the driveway. Here's the scene that we get from Jesus, okay? Luke 15, verse 20. So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. Right? This father is so happy that his son would return to him. And he goes on to say, hey, let's throw a party. Right? Let's kill the fattened calf. Let's have a celebration, my son has returned. Like that, that's the that that's the the receiving that he gets. The son who has disobeyed his father, the one who spat in his face. He says, Hey, come be my son again. And yes, that that is good. Like that that is a good message, but I want you guys to see something. I mean, at the end of verse 20, it says that the father he ran. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, kissed him, hugged him. I mean, I don't know if you're like me. Uh I I don't know much about Jewish culture, okay? But I had to look this up. And at the time, uh, for a Jewish man, an older guy, to like run was a little weird, okay? Jewish men don't run, okay? But in here, we specifically get uh the idea that he ran after him. Okay, he ran after his son when he saw him coming home. It would have been undignified for a Jewish guy to run. Yeah, he doesn't hold back. This father sees his son coming and he runs after him. He says, I don't care who sees. Throw the cultural norms out the window. Who cares what the other guy see? My son is back. He runs after him. In Soul Company, God, he runs after us. In his mercy, his great mercy, his great grace, he runs after us that we might be saved. The greatest gift from God is this the undeserving gift of salvation. That he would see us in our sin and that he would run after us. We were dead in our trespasses, yet we're made alive in Christ. I mean, he pursues after us. He pursues after us so much that he would die on a cross for you. I mean, our lives are a display of this grace to everyone around us. We're used as an example to the people around us to be the good news of the gospel. Or if you're new to Christianity, you don't really have like the clearest vision of what this is all about. This is exactly what it is. Jesus in our place. We've been made alive in Christ. Okay, let's read. Let's keep reading. Paul kind of doubles down on this idea of being saved by grace. Here's what it says, verse 8. For you are saved by grace through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it is God's gift, not from works so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. Man, I thank God for verses like Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10. I thank God for it. Right? It's refreshment to my bones. It really is. Pieces of scripture that remind us of where our salvation actually comes. Helping us understand in the ways that which God is working in our lives that we'd be drawn close. Right? Paul, he finishes this of the Christian life by focusing in on us. You can see one through three, man, we're dead. Four through seven, we're alive. And then eight and ten, we can see the instrument in which we have been saved. What God uses to save us. Okay? Let's just break it down logically. Okay, verse eight. For you're saved by grace through faith. This is not yourselves, it's God's gift. Right? According to Paul, we're saved by grace. By grace through faith. Not according to Paul, according to God. That's how we're saved. Grace, receiving something that we do not deserve. Trust me, we don't deserve the salvation that we have. A true relationship with God, yet in his grace he saves us. It's a gift from God. The fact that we have faith in him is a gift. Okay, then he makes sure we know who's responsible for this. Verse 9, not from works, so that no one can boast. The only thing that we contribute to our salvation is the sin which makes it necessary. There's absolutely nothing that we can do in order to make ourselves right with God. In fact, if we tried, it'd only make things worse. Trust me. And we get to this last verse. Verse 10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. This is the final stop on our journey. Okay. Final stop down the road of uh looking at our past. And for a second, we get to look to our future. Okay, the idea of workmanship, not something that people are like using very often these days. Okay, like the the normal bros aren't really just pulling out workmanship in everyday conversation. But here's the idea for it. Okay. Basically, hey, the idea of workmanship is this. Hey, what is the quality of the product that is made? Okay, the like a workman creates something with his hands, whether it's a carpenter, an uh you know, ironsmith, whatever they're creating something, workmanship is hey, how is the quality of this product? Does it do what it's supposed to do? Right? Does the water bottle hold water in it? If it doesn't, that's pretty poor workmanship. It's not doing the thing that it's cost to do. The workmanship is saying, hey, does the thing do what it's supposed to? Does it complete the job? Well, the way that Paul chooses to close his argument, man, is he refers to us as God's workmanship. That we were created in Christ Jesus. The workmanship of God, created to do what? Good works. Created to do good works, to perform at the greatest potential that we have. Because, guys, God does not just call us from the grave just to stand at the entrance waiting for something to happen. We were dead. We've been made alive in Christ. We've been called out of the grave. And guys, we are not called just to stand at the entrance of the grave. We are called to take the next step forward. Okay, this reminds me of a story that's recorded in the Gospel of John. Okay, in John 11. Jesus is alive, he's doing his ministry uh on earth, and he's doing, he's in the region of Judea, and there comes a coup there comes a time where one of his good friends uh becomes sick. Okay, people reach out to him and say, Hey, uh, your boy Lazarus, he's not feeling too good. Uh and Jesus, he kind of takes his time going back, and eventually on his way back, Lazarus dies. Okay? They would have wrapped him in uh the barrel of cloth, right? They did that back in the day. They would have put him in uh like a cave, rolled a stone in front of it, and it says that he would have been dead for four days, okay? I don't know if you know I have too much experience with dead bodies. I hope you don't. Um, but uh, you know, if you know anything, it's like, hey, the body starts to decompose a little bit. They didn't have uh anything, they didn't have uh, you know, uh cremation back then. So this dude is just sitting in this grave, and it would start to smell a little bit, okay? And it sets the scene for what Jesus walks into. Here's what it says John 11, we'll start in verse 38. It says this. Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Remove the stone, Jesus said. Martha, the dead man's sister, told him, Lord, there's already a stench because he has been dead four days, right? Martha points out the obvious, says, Hey, it's gonna be stinky. Are we sure we want to do this? Here's what Jesus says He says, Didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you heard me. I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here, I said this, so that they may believe you sent me. Say, Hey, I hope that these people would know that I am who I say I am, that I am the Messiah. Use this moment. Here's what he says. After this, he said this. He shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The dead man came out, bound hand and foot with linen strips, with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, Unwrap him and let him go. Okay, so so what happens is Jesus, he uh opens the tomb and he says, Hey, dead man, come out. Right? He puts breath in this dead man's lungs. He gives him life. And it's hard to read this story and to see the story of Lazarus and not be, hey, that seems pretty familiar to what we just read in Ephesians 2. It'd be hard to deny that. It really would.

unknown 32:36

Right?

SPEAKER_00 32:36

A man who is unable to do anything, unable to help himself, dead in the tomb, is called to life by Christ. The words of the Lord, even just him saying, hey, get up.

unknown 32:47

Right?

SPEAKER_00 32:47

We've seen it with uh you know, people who have disabilities, right? I mean, they don't have uh, you know, don't have ankles, they can't walk. People who are sick, I mean, even just the words of Christ say, hey, get up, walk, you're healed. I mean, but here for a dead man to be called to life, something special. In a way, we're the ones who are Lazarus. We are the dead people now living in Christ. But notice what Jesus tells him to do here. He walks out of the grave and he shows that Lazarus, I mean, he's still bound in his burial cloth. The things that would have wrapped him with, the cloth they put over his face, he's still wrapped there. He stinks. He's been dead for four days. Jesus says, hey, unwrap him. Man, I wonder how many people tonight have been raised from the dead in a spiritual sense, raised from the dead, and they still stink like death. That's what I wonder. How many of us have been raised from the dead and we're just standing at the entrance of the grave, honestly, waiting to go back, still reeking of death. Because God does not call us to life, only to stand at the entrance of the grave and to reek of death. He calls us to take the next step. He calls us to be the work of Christ, to do good works, to be the potential of Christ, to be the salt and the light in our city, on our campus, in our dorms, in the apartment, on the football team, on the swim team, in the inner mural, in the science lab. To not reek of death. Okay, I don't know, fellas, if you have not used deodorant in the past couple days, you'll start to stink. Okay? That's just the truth. I mean, do we still stink? Do we still reek of death? You might not be able to smell it right now, but I'm sure it makes it. I mean, people will be able to see it. Here's what 2 Corinthians says it says, for to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. Hey, we are a fragrance. We smell. Okay? We might not be able to smell with our nose, but people can see it. He says, to some, we're an aroma of death leading to death, but to others, an aroma of life leading to life. I mean, have you been raised from the dead and you still reek of death? Still participating in the actions of death, in the pleasures of the world? Or have you been raised to life? You're an aroma of Christ, noticeable by the people around you. Are you stuck, bound in the clothes that you've been buried in? Jesus calls to unwrap Lazarus. In Hebrews 12, we say, hey, throw off every weight in sin, to run fast towards Jesus. We're called to be his handiwork, to be the good work, the work that only the Spirit can do. So I don't know who you are tonight, where you're at. For some of you guys, I can guarantee the call is to just walk out of the grave. Some of you guys are still dead. You still relate with one through three of Ephesians 2. You say, That's me. I can't stand over the weight and the shame of my sin. Guys, Jesus is at the entrance of that grave, calling you to life. Get up. It's through faith in him that you can have it. I mean, for others of you, you're just still wrapped in your burial cloth, still reeking of death, standing at the entrance, waiting to do something. Still bound by sin. I mean you need to confess the sin that's in your life tonight to God, to someone else, to be set free from that because you have been through Christ. I pray that you would that God would open your eyes to what that is, and that you would take the faith to take that next step, to be the handiwork of Christ. Let's pray. Lord, again, we're we're thankful for your word. God, it's living and it's active. You use it to pierce right to the heart. You use it in our life to call us out of the grave into life with you. Lord, what a gift that is. Lord, don't let us forget it. God, I just pray that we'd be able to notice the stench that we're given off. Lord, is it of death or is it of Christ in life? Lord, I pray that you'd make that known to us. Is there a sin in our life that we you know we can't shake? Are we still wrapped and bound by the burial cloth? Lord, you tell Lazarus to get up out of the grave and you tell the people around to unwrap him, to throw it off. God, I pray that you give us the courage tonight to throw off the clothes that we were once buried in. To throw off the weight and the shame of sin, to come running to you like the Son. Who says, Maybe my father will take me back. Lord, you run after us. You pursue us. You throw aside everything and you run to us, you pursue us. Lord, we're so thankful for that. For that as we leave here tonight, that we would be a people who you know reek of life, that the smell that we give off is life, not death. Lord, use us to be salt and to be light in a flavorless, in a very dark world. Your name I pray. Amen.