But for the Grace of God . . .

I. Formerly the Walking Dead

Three kinds of death

Physical death, which came about from Adam’s Sin. In it the Body and the Soul separate - the body changes from an animate living thing to a mere object subject to the already natural process of decay. The soul does not cease existing, but passes into the eternal reward. Gen 3:19; Heb 9:27

Genesis 3:19 NKJV

In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”

Hebrews 9:27 NKJV

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,

Eternal Death, permanent separation from God Rev 20:11-15

Spiritual death - the inability to respond to God which precedes and causes the other two. Rom 7:9-11.

Romans 7:9–11 NKJV

I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.

Spiritual death is the only kind that intrinsically involves your actions, so it is the only one in which you can walk - making all the Spiritual dead, the “walking dead.” We don’t just live in the world of the dead

II. Followed the Triumvirate of Evil

The Flesh - Our bodies, created to be good, when unrestrained by God’s moral law, inevitably motivate us to do evil.

The “passions of our flesh” means that sin is motivated by desires stemming from what we are, yet desires uncontrolled by moral principle 1 John 2:15-17

1 John 2:15–17 NKJV

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

Because we acted upon our needs, wants, and ambitions without regard to God’s moral law, we inevitably took the good things that God had given us, and the good body God had given us, and used it to produce evil. Because we did evil, we were innately deserving of God’s wrath.

The World - The world of people. God made the earth for man, he made a good world. He put social order in place to help mankind, like institutions like family, church, and country. He also gave mankind the right to organize themselves, which is where companies and social clubs come from. All of these social institutions are good. However, because the world is made up of people that are “of the flesh”, unrestrained by God’s moral law, they use the existing social order to do evil. Again, it’s not that the world is as bad as it could be - people, even unsaved people also do made relatively good things. It’s rather that the world is polluted, top to bottom, with people that use this or that part of society to further their own evil agenda. Thus, society as a system becomes to some degree set against God’s moral law. The people that make up society end up enforcing their evil agenda and trying to influence or sometimes force others to follow them in their evil ways. John 15:18-19

John 15:18–19 NKJV

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

The Devil - The evil world system, composed of fallen people who will not restrain their wants, needs or desires according to God’s Law, is made far worse by the Devil. He was the one who brought sin into the world to begin with, and still is the “prince of the authority of the air” meaning he controls what happens in this world. He dominates the world system and propagates the lies that make it seem plausible. The Devil is the one who energizes the “sons of disobedience” that is, worldly people who are characterized by their refusal to fully submit to God’s Law. I say “fully” because again I’m not saying that they are as bad as they can be, but only that everyone chooses to break God’s law on some points. But to be “disobedient” you only need to disobey once. The Devil is the one who works to continue this attitude of disobedience, the attitude that says to God “no, I don’t want to do what you say, I want to do what I want instead.”

III. Now Heavenly Beings by God’s Great Grace

This dismal picture is interrupted by the two most blessed words - But God . . . ! God’s Grace, his unlimited favor, changed our gloomy destiny as slaves to the triumvirate of Evil, the greatest miracle of all - he made the spiritual dead alive again.

But he didn’t just make us alive, it says he also raised us up to heaven and seated us with Christ. That might seem a bit strange to you. After all, I’m pretty sure I’m still down here on earth. So in what sense did he raise us up to sit with Christ on his heavenly throne? When God gave the Christian spiritual life, he didn’t just restore his ability to obey God, he accomplished this resurrection by uniting him with Jesus Christ, so that all that Christ has done and will do is shared with him. Because Jesus died for sins, Jesus’ dead becomes ours. That means the sentence of eternal dead is wiped away, because Jesus already paid it. Since we are now one with him, whatever he did is also true for us. So it is the same as if we bore God’s wrath. Because Jesus was raised up to heaven to sit on the throne of the universe, we too have a share in this authority, a share that Jesus promises will indeed be ours. In the meantime, our life and our authority is hidden away from us in heaven, because that’s where Jesus is. So our heavenly authority is real and is currently being exercised by Jesus. Someday when he returns the blessings that are now waiting for us in heaven will be brought down to earth, when Jesus returns, and we will enjoy them. But they are already ours. We already have this heavenly authority, we just don’t have possession of it yet.

God did this because of his incomparable love. God’s love is demonstrated in what he did - he did all this when we were still spiritually dead. 1 John 3:1

1 John 3:1 NKJV

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

IV. Grace alone - The Incomparable Wealth that Prepares us for good works.

The purpose of God’s Great Grace is to demonstrate the incomparable wealth of his kindness toward us. This Wealth is entirely bound up in our union with Christ Jesus. Grace is a wealth greater than all the wealth of the world, for it transforms us from children of wrath trapped in our sins into heavenly beings who act worthy of the great status of our calling. There is no wealth that can even begin to compare with this.

Grace is unmerited favor. God’s favor is never handed out to people because they are “good enough.” instead, it is only because they believe him, believe what he says. Grace can only be a gift, it cannot be earned - because if you earned it, it would be work. And if it is work, it isn’t favor, but justice. So God can only give grace freely without regard to what we did. In fact it’s not just the grace that is a gift, but the faith itself.

Think of it this way. How did you come to believe? Everyone has a story, a reason they heard about the Gospel. You were in that place and time where you could hear it. How did you get there? I’ll bet, there’s quite a bit that you didn’t choose. for example, I heard the Gospel because I grew up in a Christian home. I didn’t choose my home. So who did? God put me there. It was a gift to be in a place where I could hear the Gospel. Same for you. God put the things in your life that he did so you could hear and believe.

Therefore, no one can boast that they earned God’s favor. We, all of us, confess that we are citizens of heaven undeservedly, purely because God is gracious, merciful, and kind.

But though God’s grace is a gift, and though he gave us the faith to believe apart from works, God was not content to leave us in the awful state of sin. He created us as new creatures because we are one with Jesus. This new existence is there precisely to allow us to do good works that please him.

These good works are all part of God’s plan. He knew in advance what good things he wanted us to do, and he arranged everything so we get to do them. We, who were born in sin, and spiritual dead, are transformed into people who do good.

Of course, while we are his workmanship, his new creation, that doesn’t mean he’s finished quite yet. God is still working on us, which is why Christians sometimes sin. But he’s not done with you yet. He will not rest until you are actually perfect.