Grace-filled Zombies

Who here likes Zombie movies?

happen to enjoy a good zombie movie, one of my favorites is Zombieland.

There’s something about zombies that are so interesting to us.

They’re dead, but they’re still walking (the walking dead, get it?), but they crave life, which is why they kill people.

One of the most thought-provoking zombie movies I’ve seen is the movie Warm Bodies

It’s a zombie romantic comedy (which I didn’t know could even exist), in which a zombie (R) falls in love with a human (Jules).

See, he’s totally dead, but at least semi-aware of the fact that he’s still here, and then he sees the girl that he eventually falls in love with and it starts to wake him up.

The rest of the movie is about R becoming more human and him and Jules trying to get all of the other zombies back to their human selves, and it eventually works! (This movie came out over a decade ago, so you can’t be mad about spoilers)

It ends with R becoming human and showing the other zombies how to get there, which is love (so cute)

So, this guy was dead, but still moving, and then was brought to life by a force outside of his control.

Ephesians 2:1-10.

Scholars will point out that this passage is the most short and clear writing on salvation, maybe in the entire Bible.

This passage talks about us and what God’s done with us, and there’s four different stages that you and I walk through on the journey through faith from this passage.

Dead

The passage opens up by saying that we were, “Dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (1-2)

I know that we aren’t physically dead, that’s not what Paul is saying. What he’s saying is that you and I were spiritually dead before coming to Jesus.

We follow after the culture and what were told life is supposed to look like.

We follow after our “passions,” which really means everything that feels good but actually ruins us.

We were distant from God, the only thing we could know for certain

We had no true life, no true flourishing, and we had no way to get out of our situation!

We were exactly like the zombie in warm bodies

We are “dead,” but still walking. We have no hope, no way to get forward, no plan to get out of this situation on our own.

“BUT GOD.”

Ephesians 2:4–5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—”

Raised

We’re stuck in this situation, we have no way out, and then Paul starts talking about grace!

He even has to repeat that we were dead in our trespasses (5) because this is so incredible!

You and I, when we believe in Jesus as our God, are raised from death to life - we’re like the zombie that starts feeling again!

Here’s the really interesting thing though, WE DON’T DO ANYTHING!

At least in the zombie movie, the zombie had to be a zombie that was worth loving!

We are told that God is merciful and loving, and THAT’S the reason that we’re made alive.

We don’t do anything to earn it

We don’t get to tell God how we want it

We aren’t the main character in this movie, God is!

So, this new life that you and I are given is because of Grace

Grace

What is grace?

A church-y answer is unmerited favor (but it’s the best definition I’ve heard on the subject)

Unmerited favor is that you do nothing, but are given something incredible in return.

It’s like winning the lottery when you didn’t even pick up a ticket.

So, it is only by the grace of God that you can be saved.

It’s not that you read enough of your Bible or went to church long enough, it is that God loves you and wants you to be with Him.

We receive grace through Jesus’ sacrifice.

But then we have to ask how do we receive this grace? How do we get to pick up the grace that we’re given?

It can only be from Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

This is the same thing that we talk about every week, but it’s that God, in His immense love, sent His Son to incarnate, to become both God and human, and then die and be risen from the dead!

So, if you want to stop being dead and instead receive the gift of new life that you and I were promised, we have to acknowledge Jesus as God and accept that He’s saved us by dying on the cross for our sins!

But, what’s so cool is that we aren’t just raised from the dead, we’re raised to new authority, or we’re

Exalted

Eph. 2:6-7.

Exalted just means held in high esteem (like how a prince in a kingdom is looked at as important)

Once we’ve moved from death to life by the grace of God, Ephesians tells us that God raises us up and puts us, “with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”

We become exalted!

We, the humans that are sinful and in desperate need of grace, are then brought up to be seated with God over all creation.

If you believe in Jesus, you are brought in to that type of a relationship!

This grace that God gives is another way that He shows us, “the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (7)”

The Father shows His immense love for you in that He treats you with the love that He has for His Son, Jesus.

Now that we’re seated with God, that doesn’t mean that we just get to live it up and not do anything! God calls us to so much more.

Working

Once we were dead in our sin, but then by the grace of God we were brought to new life and seated with God in Christ, and then He gives us a job to do.

You are saved by faith, not by works.

Before we can talk about our works at all, we need to know that we aren’t saved or made whole by our faith, it is entirely because of the grace of God.

So, no one get’s to pretend that they’re better than others, because we’re all in need of the same grace that God offers us.

We serve God in our works.

When you look at vs. 10, it says that we were “created in Christ Jesus FOR GOOD WORKS, WHICH GOD PREPARED BEFOREHAND”

We were saved to do good works.

We’re not saved because of our good works, we’re saved by grace, but that grace of God also allows us to do good things!

So, we serve people, we get to be the church, we get to love other people and show them grace because God showed us such immense grace!

We do good because God made us.

Part of the reason that we do good things is because of vs. 10.

We’re called God’s workmanship.

I don’t really like that translation (It’s not bad, it’s just not as good as others). The NLT Bible uses that word workmanship and instead translates it as masterpiece.

The Greek word for it is the same word that’s used for really good poetry.

God looks at you as a piece of art that He lovingly made.

He cares for you immensely, and so we get to do the job that art does for the artist.

Art makes the artist known.

Whenever you look at art, that piece is doing the best it can to show who the artist is. That’s your job as a Christian.

Show the artist that made you.

The parallel.

There’s something really cool about this passage that connects it to last week, and that’s that every one of these stages is exactly what Jesus went through.

We were dead in our trespasses and sins (2), just like Christ was dead because of the cross

We were raised to new life by the grace of God (4-5), just like Jesus was raised from the dead by the power of God (1:20)

We are seated with God in Christ (6) because CJesus was seated above any ruler and authority (1:21)

We were created in Christ for good works (10) because Jesus was appointed as Head over the church (1:23)

This new life, grace, being raised from the dead, exalted with God in Christ, and given to have a purpose, all of that is because Christ died for you and rose from the dead to give you and I new life.

What is your favorite type of art?

What does it mean to you that we’re “spiritually dead?”

Read vs. 6 How are we “seated in the heavens” if we’re down on earth?

What can you do this week to make the Artist known?