SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.
SPEAKER_02: Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus, abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.
SPEAKER_02: Visit us online at theLookout.church.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Jesus, for Jesse.
SPEAKER_03: I pray your full love over him, God.
SPEAKER_03: I pray your anointing and your power over him today as he speaks.
SPEAKER_03: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
unknown: All right.
SPEAKER_01: I also would like to pray.
SPEAKER_01: You guys okay with two prayers?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, God, thank you for bringing us here today.
SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
SPEAKER_01: Have your way with us, God.
SPEAKER_01: Gracious Lord who gives when we ask.
SPEAKER_01: I just would like to ask, Father, that you would um bless my words and bless the ears that hear them.
SPEAKER_01: This is an important passage, Lord, that you've given to us.
SPEAKER_01: We've got uh a lot to cover in a short amount of time.
SPEAKER_01: So my request in Jesus' name, Lord, is that you would uh give me concise words, efficient words, but Lord, that in the Spirit you would unpack them, that you would multiply them, that you would expand our time and stretch our time so that these words can sink into the depth that they need to.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Our scripture today is Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, 10 verses, and here's what I'd like to do.
SPEAKER_01: We've been sitting for a while.
SPEAKER_01: Great testimonies.
SPEAKER_01: Let's stand up for the reading of the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Sound good?
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 2, starting in verse 1, 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.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_01: So I would like to have the scripture, the one on the white screen, too, just since I asked you to do one thing, you could do another thing too.
SPEAKER_01: You guys, Blaze does a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And he does a lot of stuff while he's doing other stuff.
SPEAKER_01: He does stuff, and then other someone else walks up and tells him to do stuff, and he does multiple things at once.
SPEAKER_01: So when the the slide comes up, you're gonna see we when we read the slide, it had we broke it down so you could see it, so that the font would be a good size.
SPEAKER_01: When it's all on one screen, it's kind of small, and it is what we call a run-on sentence.
SPEAKER_01: The 23 verses of chapter one was also a run-on sentence.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Luke covered the last couple weeks.
SPEAKER_01: In those 23 verses of chapter one, how many sentences do you think there were?
SPEAKER_01: Three?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's a pretty good guess.
SPEAKER_01: Two.
SPEAKER_01: Unless you count the greeting.
SPEAKER_01: The greeting could be one.
SPEAKER_01: So two versus three.
SPEAKER_01: The ten verses that I just read, also two sentences.
SPEAKER_01: Some scholars break it up into three.
SPEAKER_01: But this is what we call a run-on sentence.
SPEAKER_01: And we're in the series called The Fullness.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just gonna read a couple words from Luke, since he's not here and we all love him and miss him, so we're gonna hear from him a little bit by proxy.
SPEAKER_01: Paul doesn't begin with behavior or instruction.
SPEAKER_01: He begins with awe.
SPEAKER_01: He begins with God, what he has done, what he is doing, and what he is building through the church.
SPEAKER_01: Right out of the gate, Paul introduces a sweeping cosmic vision, heaven and earth united in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's bold, expansive, utterly drenched in grace, and it's full.
SPEAKER_01: The word keeps ringing throughout the letter, fullness, the fullness of time, the fullness of Christ, the fullness of God, the fullness we are invited into as his people.
SPEAKER_01: As we walk through Paul's letter to the Ephesians together, I want to invite you to catch the scale of the vision he's carrying, because it's nothing short of explosive.
SPEAKER_01: This sermon series is called the fullness, not just because that word shows up a lot, but because it, these texts are just bursting.
SPEAKER_01: They're just like a water balloon ready to pop, bursting with significance.
SPEAKER_01: Today, uh just gonna let you guys know, you get me.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm just showing up.
SPEAKER_01: I had little time.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Luke was feeling sick on Friday when I spoke to him.
SPEAKER_01: We were actually discussing the sermon he was preaching at that time.
SPEAKER_01: Um that was the plan.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so we were just kind of jamming a little bit on some of the content.
SPEAKER_01: Saturday, he lets me know he's not feeling very well and he might need to tap into me to preach.
SPEAKER_01: And then radio silence.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: All day Saturday.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, am I am I speaking?
SPEAKER_01: Am I not?
SPEAKER_01: Should I be studying?
SPEAKER_01: Should I so last night?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was, I think it was like five o'clock.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I had been thinking about the passage.
SPEAKER_01: I love the book of Ephesians, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I am prepared because I love this book.
SPEAKER_01: But I had little time.
SPEAKER_01: And that's not an excuse.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually kind of exciting to me.
SPEAKER_01: It's exhilarating to me.
SPEAKER_01: But you need to know as I set this up that before preaching the word of God, it is super important to me.
SPEAKER_01: A core value for me is one, that my heart is aligned with the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_01: Thankfully, this has been a good week for me spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: So check, I'm in a good space.
SPEAKER_01: And number two, it's very important to me to hear what God has to say.
SPEAKER_01: And that step of hearing what the text says happens before we extract any meaning.
SPEAKER_01: It's before designing application, it's before preparing illustrations and catchy, memorable phrases and stuff that preaches.
SPEAKER_01: So my time from last night till this morning has been in digesting the text.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna break it down for you, and we're gonna trust the Lord is gonna bring some meaning and application to you as we present it.
SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna get me.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm uh a bit nerdy, I'm a bit technical, and I'm just showing up.
SPEAKER_01: But the Lord is blessing us.
SPEAKER_01: We prayed, you heard my prayer.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna make it concise and simple.
SPEAKER_01: The order for handling scripture goes like this, and you guys can write this down.
SPEAKER_01: This applies to all Bible study.
SPEAKER_01: It's very important that we first ask ourselves, what does it say?
SPEAKER_01: Then, what does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: And lastly, what does it mean to me?
SPEAKER_01: See, too often we jump to that last part.
SPEAKER_01: What's this mean to me?
SPEAKER_01: How does this fit in my world?
SPEAKER_01: But it's an act of faith to let God say what he wants to say before we try to draw meaning.
SPEAKER_01: And especially before we act on it.
SPEAKER_01: We're so hasty, and the Old Testament's full of Israel going and acting, and then and God's like, and it doesn't go well, and God's like, We He didn't ask me, He didn't check in with what I said, or you didn't pay attention to what I had already said.
SPEAKER_01: For some scriptures, guys, this task is easy.
SPEAKER_01: You read it, you believe it, you do it.
SPEAKER_01: For others, it deserves a little more unpacking.
SPEAKER_01: And today we're gonna let God's word speak.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you guys will be faithful to join me in that?
SPEAKER_01: Yes?
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: The challenge and the blessing in knowing what this passage says is that Paul, who wrote it, was an academic dude.
SPEAKER_01: He was well educated, and he loved to speak in really long sentences.
SPEAKER_01: This is a challenge for us.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, most of your Bibles break this passage down into a lot of sentences, but that's not the way it was written.
SPEAKER_01: When Paul wrote those the sentence out on the page in the Greek language, it went on and on and on and on.
SPEAKER_01: And because that's what was inspired to be written, it's important for us to let it have that complexity.
SPEAKER_01: That's the complexity God put on the page.
SPEAKER_01: He did that.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason for that.
SPEAKER_01: And it's an act of faith for us to dive into that.
SPEAKER_01: It's a challenge, but it's a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: God chose to use Paul's personality, and he's gonna use my personality.
SPEAKER_01: Because these passages are packed with depth and richness.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you guys ready?
SPEAKER_01: Uh, quick little grammar lesson.
SPEAKER_01: When you take a really, really long sentence, what's the first thing you need to do?
SPEAKER_01: You need to find the main verb.
SPEAKER_01: I asked um Google to give me a fifth grade example of a compound verb.
SPEAKER_01: And it gave me Maria runs to the park and plays on the swings.
SPEAKER_01: Now remember in grade school when you had to underline the main verb?
SPEAKER_01: And you would all be like, yes, Maria runs.
SPEAKER_01: And then you get it back and it's minus one point because you underlined runs but forgot plays.
SPEAKER_01: Maria runs to the park and plays on the swings.
SPEAKER_01: The verb is runs and plays.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna show this scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe do we have it yet?
SPEAKER_01: The scripture with all the.
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then one more.
SPEAKER_01: This is small, it's okay.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just highlighting for you the main verb.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we start in breaking down this long sentence.
SPEAKER_01: The main verb is made us alive, but it's also raised us up, and it's also and seated us.
SPEAKER_01: It's a three-part compound verb.
SPEAKER_01: It is.
SPEAKER_01: It's really awesome.
SPEAKER_01: It gets better.
SPEAKER_01: You were dead.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, highlight that.
SPEAKER_01: And then highlight the next God being rich in mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, one more highlight.
SPEAKER_01: Ready, set, go.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: God is the one who made us alive, raised us up, and seated us.
SPEAKER_01: We were dead.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so you've got subject, verb, object.
SPEAKER_01: Bam.
SPEAKER_01: Just like that.
SPEAKER_01: That's your sentence.
SPEAKER_01: Everything else is a modifier.
SPEAKER_01: So can we just can we just pause for a second on that?
SPEAKER_01: You were dead, but God, being rich, made us alive, raised us up, and seated us.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
SPEAKER_01: We can pray and go home.
SPEAKER_01: The only problem, yes, thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You answered our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
SPEAKER_01: But God put a lot of other words on the page, didn't He?
SPEAKER_01: He could have just said that, but we need to let that hit us a little bit more deeply.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna do something fun.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna, I'm just gonna fill in the rest of the sentence.
SPEAKER_01: So let's get our slide, our chart.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I sent these slides to Blaze, he texted me back and he goes, I think there's something wrong with your slides.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a lot of myths.
SPEAKER_01: This is a very weird chart.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but all I've shown is just what was on the other side.
SPEAKER_01: We got our verb, made us alive, raised us up, seated us in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: You being dead, God being rich.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul, when he gives that sentence, he interrupts himself with this by grace you have been saved.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: So we just stick that in there.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, made us alive together with Christ, and by the way, by grace you have been saved.
SPEAKER_01: All right, next slide.
SPEAKER_01: Yep, and one more.
SPEAKER_01: One more?
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: These are gonna go pretty quick.
SPEAKER_01: So, because of that interruption, made us alive, by grace you have been saved.
SPEAKER_01: We usually, when we read the text, we miss that it's a compound verb, and I've already highlighted that.
SPEAKER_01: But there's something else we miss when translators try to smooth the reading out to make it uh uh readable, and depending on the translation, there's different degrees of that because speaking woodenly literal is is it's it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: We don't like it.
SPEAKER_01: So when it says, made us alive, raised us up, and seated us, we're missing a really important part, which if you just look at it in Greek, not even knowing Greek, you would notice those three words have these letters in front, soon.
SPEAKER_01: Each verb, soon, soon, soon, s-un.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And we're like, wow, interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Those three verbs have a prefix in front of them.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna make it easy in English.
SPEAKER_01: You should put co.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Co-made alive, co-raised up, co-seated.
SPEAKER_01: So fill in the rest of that slide.
SPEAKER_01: Together with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And that word co means what he did to Christ, he did to you.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't just raise you up, he raised Christ up.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't just raise Christ up, he raised you up.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't just do one and the other, he did it together.
SPEAKER_01: It is co-raised, co-enlivened, co-seated, together with Christ, should be filled in on all of those.
SPEAKER_01: So if you can even just, if you got your Bibles, you can just write in there.
SPEAKER_01: Co, co, co.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I like to do.
SPEAKER_01: All right, who did he do that to?
SPEAKER_01: He did that to us.
SPEAKER_01: Being dead.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, our verse says, you were dead.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a little sad to me because the being dead, it's the same verb as when it says God being rich.
SPEAKER_01: It's the being word.
SPEAKER_01: In Greek, it's ontos.
SPEAKER_01: You ever know, have you ever heard the word ontological?
SPEAKER_01: What the heck does that even mean?
SPEAKER_01: Ontological.
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, please.
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01: Ontological just means it's the state of being, it's the way things are.
SPEAKER_01: This table is ontologically hard.
SPEAKER_01: It's part of its nature, its character, it's what it is.
SPEAKER_01: So what you is is dead.
SPEAKER_01: How are you dead?
SPEAKER_01: Well, you were dead in trespasses and sins.
SPEAKER_01: When Luke and I were talking on Friday, we were like, well, what's the difference between trespasses and sins?
SPEAKER_01: So we looked it up.
SPEAKER_01: Trespasses are specific acts of transgression.
SPEAKER_01: This is like I'm doing something wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And sin can be like that too.
SPEAKER_01: But the nuance of sin is that's the idea of generally falling short.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so you can think of it like this.
SPEAKER_01: You weren't just flawed.
SPEAKER_01: That would be sinful.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm sinful and I'm flawed.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, poor me, I'm flawed.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not just that I was disobedient, oh, I disobeyed.
SPEAKER_01: You were um both flawed and disobedient, and it was as a result, totally dead in both your actions and your nature.
SPEAKER_01: So you are dead in your in who you are, and you are dead because of what you did.
SPEAKER_01: These sins are those things in which you walked.
SPEAKER_01: That's our next phrase, in which you walked, in which is referring back to trespasses and sins.
SPEAKER_01: When we get when we get a sentence, we start adding these modifiers.
SPEAKER_01: It's important to pay attention to what the modifiers have to do with.
SPEAKER_01: And if you read in English, you can usually just figure this out.
SPEAKER_01: In which you once walked.
SPEAKER_01: What were we walking in?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we were walking in sins and in trespasses.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the condition we were in when we were dead.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we walked in trespasses and sins.
SPEAKER_01: How?
SPEAKER_01: In in two ways.
SPEAKER_01: One, according to the age of this world.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, or in the the meaning there is according to the epoch, the current environment of the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we're walking in a way, we're walking in step with the times in which we live.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: This is all describing pre-salvation, pre-Christ, who you were, and maybe some of you who you are, if you have not received Christ as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: This is describing who Christians were and who unbelievers are.
SPEAKER_01: Walking in trespasses and sins, totally dead, walking according to the times, and according to the prince or the ruler.
SPEAKER_01: What ruler is that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's the ruler over two things.
SPEAKER_01: It's the ruler over the power of the air.
SPEAKER_01: Um, that's basically saying that um, you know, Satan is granting the authority over the air.
SPEAKER_01: What an odd phrase.
SPEAKER_01: Corinthians also tells us that Satan is the God of this age.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's important for us to recognize when we look at a world and we wonder how can God be good when there's so much crap going around.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible tells us that at this present time, there is a ruler over the authority of the air.
SPEAKER_01: And he's called the God of this age.
SPEAKER_01: And the um he's also ruler over the spirit, which is now working in the sons of disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: That's the proper breakdown of that sentence.
SPEAKER_01: There's a ruler, and he's ruling over two things uh over the power of the air and over the spirit that's now at work in the sons of disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: The devil controls non-believers both externally through their environment and internally through attitudes in spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I like to put it, I like to say it like this when I was uh writing this out, this hit me.
SPEAKER_01: We walked in sin and we walked with sinners.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Next phrase is among whom we all once lived, and that among whom that relates back to sons of disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: Another modifier.
SPEAKER_01: So we're walking among these uh sons of disobedience, and actually we're living or conducting ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Interesting little shift here.
SPEAKER_01: It was saying you, you, you, you, and now Paul shifts to and we all.
SPEAKER_01: So he's now including himself.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's because maybe he was starting to feel a little blamey, you know, you bunch of scumbags, dirt balls, and like, but we all, so I'm up here too, saying to you all, we all, me included, once conducted ourselves in the passions of our flesh or the lust of our flesh.
SPEAKER_01: We once conducted ourselves also in the carrying out of the desires of the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: That's easy.
SPEAKER_01: When we think about lusts, we think about lusts of the flesh, but I capsted all, or I capped the and because the text says, passions of the flesh in the flesh and the mind.
SPEAKER_01: Did you guys know you can execute passions of the flesh in your head?
SPEAKER_01: Of course you know that.
SPEAKER_01: And were by nature children of wrath as the rest.
SPEAKER_01: Earlier we had sons of disobedience, now we have children.
SPEAKER_01: Interesting switch.
SPEAKER_01: Also inspired by the Spirit, also worth paying attention to.
SPEAKER_01: A son can become a son through adoption, or in this case by being obedient to the the schemes and the the era of the devil.
SPEAKER_01: But children are offspring.
SPEAKER_01: A a children is a a child because of DNA, because of genetics.
SPEAKER_01: Whereas sons are sons because of an action.
SPEAKER_01: So again, got your basis covered.
SPEAKER_01: You're dead in nature and in action.
SPEAKER_01: But God.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But God being rich.
SPEAKER_01: So now you can see the parallel: being dead, being rich.
SPEAKER_01: It's a long run-on sentence, but there've got an actor who's God, and you've got the people being acted on.
SPEAKER_01: The people being acted on, totally dead.
SPEAKER_01: Being dead.
SPEAKER_01: But God, by contrast, what is his ontological nature?
SPEAKER_01: What is the essence of his being, his nature?
SPEAKER_01: It says, rich in mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Mercy, you guys know what mercy is.
SPEAKER_01: It's not getting what you deserve.
SPEAKER_01: These sinful people walking in all the kinds of sin are deserving of wrath.
SPEAKER_01: The rebellion we have against God.
SPEAKER_01: But God, He's rich in mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Why is he rich in mercy?
SPEAKER_01: Why is he doing all of this?
SPEAKER_01: Because it tells us because of his great love with which he loved us.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: Even when we were being dead in trespasses.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, so Paul's trucking along with all these modifiers, and he basically just repeats himself before getting to the main verb and just reminds us: okay, it's it's us who were dead.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about us being dead and all the attributes of what that means in nature and action.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about God and his richness and his great love.
SPEAKER_01: So now we're just going to recap.
SPEAKER_01: We being dead, even when we were in that state, God did those three things.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think about something.
SPEAKER_01: How did the Father feel about his son Jesus when he did those things for him?
SPEAKER_01: What magnitude of love?
SPEAKER_01: What wealth of kindness.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like for me, that's easier to accept.
SPEAKER_01: That, well, of course God loved his son.
SPEAKER_01: Of course he wants to raise him up and give him life again and seat him in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to tell you guys today, as real as that is for Jesus, that's as real as God made it for you.
SPEAKER_01: That's just the way this language is written.
SPEAKER_01: That is what these words mean.
SPEAKER_01: That is what this text says.
SPEAKER_01: It is done to us in Christ and with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: The next phrase.
SPEAKER_01: That's the explainer of all this.
SPEAKER_01: We know it's also because of his great love and the nature of God, but this so that is an explanatory, it's a uh it's called a purpose clause, if you want the technical word.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so that in the ages that are coming, he might show us the immeasurable or surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you guys for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for responding.
SPEAKER_01: We got riches again.
SPEAKER_01: Uh interesting to me, it just is a highlight to me that uh riches shows up twice.
SPEAKER_01: The first time it shows up, it's riches in mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's riches in grace.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, what's the difference?
SPEAKER_01: Somebody gotta know.
SPEAKER_01: Shannon.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy means what you did like you didn't get what you deserve.
SPEAKER_00: Grace means like what you didn't know.
SPEAKER_00: Grace would be like you get more than what you ever did deserve.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what I was gonna say.
SPEAKER_01: How did she know that?
SPEAKER_01: Um, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, mercy is not getting what you deserve.
SPEAKER_01: So you're deserving of a punishment and you don't get it.
SPEAKER_01: That's mercy.
SPEAKER_01: God has mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Grace is you get something you didn't deserve.
SPEAKER_01: Get a huge deposit in your account that you didn't see coming, and you didn't deserve it.
SPEAKER_01: God's rich in both.
unknown: Amen.
unknown: Thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It's because of his mercy and by his grace that we uh that we receive this.
SPEAKER_01: So, uh some highlights and recap of this passage so far, just some things that jumped out at me.
SPEAKER_01: We were in one state before, and we are have an opportunity to be in another state now.
SPEAKER_01: We were dead by nature and by action, totally lost, but now co-enlivened, co-raised, co-seated with Christ, in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ Jesus shows up twice in this passage, in him shows up a bunch of times, and with Christ shows up.
SPEAKER_01: I see the word mercy, I see the word grace twice, I see the word rich twice.
SPEAKER_01: And this is all just handed to us.
SPEAKER_01: It is a gift from God's wealth, from his abundance, his superabundance, he gives it to us.
SPEAKER_01: He accomplished it in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's how he made it possible.
SPEAKER_01: But it's it's not, hear me now, it's not your moral improvement that that saves you.
SPEAKER_01: It's not, this is not religious membership.
SPEAKER_01: This is not showing up to church on Sunday, it's not a set of thou shalt's and thou shalt not.
SPEAKER_01: Because you were dead in sins.
SPEAKER_01: We have all eaten of that fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, haven't we?
SPEAKER_01: Different kinds of fruit, but we've all taken bites.
SPEAKER_01: And a dead person is completely incapable of producing life.
SPEAKER_01: The best we can do is delay it, delay death.
SPEAKER_01: That's the best we can do.
SPEAKER_01: We can't produce life, we can't make ourselves alive.
SPEAKER_01: The best we can do is take some vitamins and live a little bit longer.
SPEAKER_01: The reality is the present evil age speeds up our decline.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but God um does all of this because of his great, great mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Then we got a couple more verses, and then I'm gonna close and give us a chance for uh for some ministry.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you guys for sticking around for a longer, longer service, but I think the testimonies were worth it.
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully where we're going with this is worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so we've got uh a couple verses at the end that start with the word for.
SPEAKER_01: These are just explainer verses, just to kind of uh explain and recap a little bit more about all of the previous verses.
SPEAKER_01: So, for it's by grace, and this by the way, I'll say now that we know what this passage says, we can start to ask what does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: And these verses tell us a little bit about what it means.
SPEAKER_01: For it's by grace you have been saved through faith.
SPEAKER_01: This is not of your own doing, it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
SPEAKER_01: And then this is also that's my girl.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
SPEAKER_01: We are not saved by good works, but we are created unto good works.
SPEAKER_01: We are his works workmanship.
SPEAKER_01: So we can start to reflect now, and I don't have time to start unpacking it for y'all.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna you're gonna need to let the Lord do some of this for you about what does this mean.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then we can also ask, what does this mean for me?
SPEAKER_01: So I think there's maybe maybe three different scenarios represented in the room today, and I'm gonna give you a chance to receive from from Holy Spirit what does this mean for you today?
SPEAKER_01: We I think we got a good sense of what it says.
SPEAKER_01: Do you agree?
unknown: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And uh we we know what the significance of this before and after, so there's some meaning there.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean for me?
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean for you?
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 5 says this in verse 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: Old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, indeed.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and if we jump ahead to verse uh, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna read the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: Uh all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ Jesus and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: That is, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.
SPEAKER_01: So basically reconciling, fixing that problem of us being dead, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: So the first group of people here today, and it might be a small group, it might only be one of you, but the first group of people is someone, is those of you who are still in a dead state spiritually, unable to produce life.
SPEAKER_01: Because maybe you've been coming to church, maybe you've been exploring God, maybe you've even been reading scripture.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're here today, so that's something.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a problem that just showing up to church cannot solve, and that's the problem of sin and death.
SPEAKER_01: And God has a gift to extend to you to make you alive and to raise you up.
SPEAKER_01: But if you've never said yes to that gift, it's not yours.
SPEAKER_01: It's like someone has given me a brand new iPhone 17 and it's sitting on the thing here in its box, and I'm looking at it, and I'm checking out the specs, and I'm doing Google videos, and maybe even sliding it and and and opening it and looking at it.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm even touching it, pushing some buttons, but I have not put it in my pocket and called it my own.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's where you're at today with salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm here to tell you, today you could cross from death to life.
SPEAKER_01: Today you could go from being dead to being alive.
SPEAKER_01: In a moment of acceptance, all things can become new.
SPEAKER_01: So therefore, we, and I'm gonna say I am an ambassador for Christ as though God were pleading through me, this verse says.
SPEAKER_01: We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_01: Be reconciled to Him.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna have a prayer team come up and spread to the sides of the rooms.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do some a lot of movement here.
SPEAKER_01: For that group, and I'm not gonna make you get up and walk across the room by yourself.
SPEAKER_01: If you're feeling this call to receive this gift of salvation, we're gonna let you move while the rest of us move.
SPEAKER_01: So there's two other categories.
SPEAKER_01: The next is those of you who have received that gift, having heard the word of truth, you received it and you became alive, you became sealed by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: For us, our commandment is to remember.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna take corporate communion.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to remember and just let it sink into our head what God has done to us through Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna believe the fact that God did it to Christ and He did it to us at the same time because we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take the blood and we're gonna take the blood, the cup, the bread, and the cup representing his body and his blood.
SPEAKER_01: Can we go just a little quieter on the piano?
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Um as you receive communion, there's a third group.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, this struck me when I was reflecting on this passage as I was going to sleep last night.
SPEAKER_01: The incredible kindness of God.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a verse in Romans that says, the kindness of God leads us to repentance.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't about um being good.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
SPEAKER_01: It should evoke feelings of overwhelmingly being loved.
SPEAKER_01: And it says in Romans that the kindness of God leads us to repentance.
SPEAKER_01: The accusation of the enemy does not lead you to repentance, it leads you to trying harder.
SPEAKER_01: And God doesn't want us to try harder, he just wants us to receive the gift that he has for us.
SPEAKER_01: So you may be in a place today where you need to repent of being too good of a Christian, trying too hard, doing the things, trying to earn grace.
SPEAKER_01: So let's go ahead and move.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna cue up the scripture for communion.
SPEAKER_01: We've got communion uh elements here, here, and in the back.
SPEAKER_01: So go ahead and rise and get communion.
SPEAKER_01: If you need prayer and you want to receive this gift of salvation, Dee Dee's over there.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where the rest of our prayer team is, but there's Dee Dee.
SPEAKER_01: That the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, he knew what was coming.
SPEAKER_01: Those poor disciples did not.
SPEAKER_01: The same night he was betrayed, he took bread.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, can someone grab me one real quick, please?
SPEAKER_01: Someone sprint over there.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Graham.
unknown: Go, go, go, go, go, go, go.
SPEAKER_01: He took uh the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_01: This is my body, which is broken for you.
SPEAKER_01: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_01: So I'd like to uh take this bread, this little square cracker, and I'm gonna pray, and we're gonna put this in our mouth, and we're gonna let it break apart and remember what God did for us in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you are so kind.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your son.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for his body broken for us.
SPEAKER_01: You can take the bread.
SPEAKER_01: This do, as often as you do, drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_01: For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes.
SPEAKER_01: You know, our passage said that the reason that God did this is so that in the coming ages that he might demonstrate or show off his immeasurable riches to us in Christ and in kindness.
SPEAKER_01: God wants to do this for ages upon ages upon ages, the rest of the ages of our life, the lives of our children and grandchildren, and all into eternity.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to keep pouring out riches to us.
SPEAKER_01: So we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes and we receive his life in this cup, which represents the blood.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, my savior, thank you for shedding your blood.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry that it had to come at such a cost.
SPEAKER_01: You were so kind.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for saving me.
SPEAKER_01: You could take the cup.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Can you guys give Jesse a big hand for jumping in at the last minute?
SPEAKER_00: So good.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you again for being patient with us with the little bit longer service, but wasn't it great?
SPEAKER_00: So much meat.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I just want to pray over you as you leave.
SPEAKER_00: That the Lord would bless you and that he would keep you.
SPEAKER_00: This week, he's gonna turn his face toward you, and he's gonna shine upon you and be gracious to you, and he's gonna turn his attention toward you.
SPEAKER_00: God is gonna give you his attention so that you have peace.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Love you.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_00: Have a good week.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you all.