Fresh Start
Notes
Transcript
Raise your hand if you made a New Years Resolution?
They are great right, because some of us might have said we are going to use technology less, maybe you decided you are going to stay off technology more, maybe you are saying you want to grow closer to God this year.
But whatever yours is its probably a good thing
But heres the issue because according to one study, 25% of those who make a new years reselution will give up on it… after one week
then after 2 weeks 29% give up
After one month 64%
After 6 months the number drops to 46%
And then finally after a year only 9% of people make it the full year.
So why am I telling you this? I promise I am not trying to discourage you, but the reason I am telling you this is that a lot of times we are a people where maybe we start something, but then a few days, weeks, months or even years later, we kind of slip away from where we are wanting to be.
And the truth is we do this in our walk with God because we might start out in our walk with God, but after days, weeks, months or years it is easy to catch ourself in a place where we are far from where God called us to be.
And so we are beginning this new series called “New Beginnings” and we are actually going to be going through this book of the Bible called Ephesians, and this a Letter written by a guy named Paul to a a church in Ephesis.
And This is a church that is full of new Christians, and what Paul does is He gives them instructions on how to keep their walk with God strong and more alive than ever.
And so my hope for us during this series is for us to look at this book of the Bible and see how we can grow in our walk with God, and make it so our walk with Him is stronger than ever.
And so we will be starting out in Ephesians 2:1-22
And we wont be covering every part of this book in this series, but I want to encourage you to maybe read through this book a few times during this series, because it is super short, but really powerful.
And so we will just be starting in the first few verses (verses 1-3). It says this:
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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— 3 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.
So its really interesting because one of the first things Paul does in this passage is He actually tells us where we were before our walk with God.
Because the truth is its really important to understand where you have been to understand where you are going.
And its interesting because Paul tells us we were lost, because He tells us we chased the wrong things,
And because of this we were not doing well,
In fact the things we were chasing were so often toxic for our lives and the lives around us.
And really God gives this image of where we have ran far from God.
But here is the thing because if your kid ran away what do you do?
I mean lets say Liam and Finn ran away, first off they probably would not get to far, they are cute, but skill wise not so much
But Arika and I would not just say, well thats to bad, we can always have more,
But we would go we need to find our kids, because we love them!
And this is what I want you to hear, because when our lives are far from where God has called us the beautiful thing is that God does not just go well thats to bad, but He pursures us!
In fact look at verses 4-10 because this is what is tells us about when we are far from God. It says:
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
God pursues us and I want you to notice what it says because Paul emphasis’s that we are made in a right relationship with God not because of what we do, but because of what God does.
I mean have you ever gotten stuck in the snow? Anyone get stuck last week?
One times I got caught in the driveway in my old Honda Civic because Arika told me to make sure I plowed the driveway and I told her no I can make it.
Well Arika was right…
But I ended up trying to do everything to get my car unstuck and could not, It took others helping to push me out to get out of this snow.
And really in life we can try to work ourselves back into a relationship with God or try to do good things for Him, but this passage is saying the only way you can get in a right relationship with God is through God.
And really through His Grace.
And even in verse 10 Paul gives probably the best tip for thriving in your walk with God and it is this.
He says that we need to walk in Christ.
Because the truth is most of us are people who say I am independent and want to be a person who does everything by my self.
But the gospel message is not work as hard as you can and depend on yourself, but it is have your full dependence on God and then be faithful to that.
Because when I have gotten stuck in the snow a lot of times other people come up and and they just tell me hey hit the gas, turn the wheel this way, reverse.
And I know that this seems so simple, but that is really what a thriving relationship with Christ looks like.
Where we are living in Christ and we are listening to how He is calling us to move.
And I want to jump down to verses 19-22 because this last part is really important.
Because look what it says:
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
So I want us to understand how powerful this last part of the passage is because in the Old Testament, after the fall of man the people believed they only had access to God through the temple.
And only the high priest was allowed in the temple once a year.
And so people could be close to the temple, but they would not be able to be in His presence.
But the beautiful thing is because God coming down which we talked about last week for Christmas right?
And because of His spirit coming we no longer need a temple, but Paul who wrote this actually says we are being built into a temple, meaning we are being built into a dwelling place for God.
And this is huge, in fact this would have been mind blowing for the people who lived in Biblical times because they would have heard of all these false gods and they were all far off, but here is a God that came near.
And not juist that but made us a temple.
And this means that first off we can give God our lives fully.
I mean if you are married, I want you to think about this because when you were dating your spouse, chances are your spouse probably saw you mostly at your best.
You never smelled bad, they did not see your annoying habbits,
But when you got married they saw everything right… And if you are like Arika you probably were thinking what did I get myself into…
And obivusly God already knows everything about us, but here is what I want you to get,
Because when we are being built into a temple for God, it means that we are giving God everything,
We are giving Him the good parts of our lives, the bad parts of our lives and the ugly parts of our lives.
And this is hard, but its beautiful, because God begins to use the good, bad and ugly parts to form something beautiful.
And not just this but this drastically changes our lives, because if we are a temple it means that other people should see us and go wow that persons life looks like a temple
It looks like the dwelling place of God and really it looks like Jesus.
I mean we are talking with our neighbor does our life look like a temple
I think I have said this one before but when we drive down the road, does our car look like a temple driving down the road
When we are with family do we look like a temple.
When we are by ourselves and no one is around is our life a temple
Because the truth is people should se our lives and go wow, that person looks like they are a dwelling place for God.
And as we close this morning maybe this morning you are in a relationship with Christ and you feel far off,
Your life is far from the dwelling place of God.
What would it look like to build our lives into who God has called us to be.
Because to often we build our lives on so many things
some of them that are not even bad things,
We build it our job
We build it on our house
Maybe on an addiction,
but what would it look like to start building our life on Christ.
And so as we close we are going to close on a song that talks about building our life and not building it on all these things that are so often our first inclination, but building our life on Christ.
Will you Pray with me?
