11 16 18

Chair Update

Thanksgiving Eve

7pm Church of the Holy Spirit in Battle Ground

Jab 1

Glitter…once it arrives, it never leaves.

Jab 2

Halogen light. Different resistance…but still light because of connection to the source…but once the plug is pulled…Nothing.

Jab 3

We notice the darkness of a room with a burned out bulb. No one is ever surprised that there is no light on the inside of a rock. You don’t think about it being dark, because that is the natural way of things. In the same way, we don’t think of a rock as being dead. We recognize it is not alive, but we usually wouldn’t use the word “dead” to describe it. Because there is no expectation that it should be any other way.

We however experience great discomfort at the best of times with death, all the way up to crippling grief when it is someone near to us. All this pain is a clue, a signal letting us know that this is not how it is supposed to be.

Transition

Last week we read about how awesome Jesus is. This week we go to the other side to evaluate who we are, or were without Jesus. Paul uses the language of death, not as illustration or hyperbole, but as an accurate description of the person outside of a renewed relationship with the father through Jesus Christ.

It is for our good and inspiration that we recognize the fullness of the great gift we have been given in Christ. If for you, it has been many years since you first trusted Jesus, I hope this will serve as a spark in gratitude and a renewal to continued transformation and passion for the mission of Jesus in this community and the world.

Text

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.

Pray

Dead in Trespasses

v. 1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

In this series…our identity…this week, we look not at who we are, but who we were…except, who we are is built on top of who we were. The great Pixar Philosopher, Tow Mater once said, “I don’t need to know where I’m going, as long as I know where I’ve been.”

It’s as simple as this…you were dead. You were supposed to be alive, but you weren’t. What went wrong? It’s right there in the last three words of verse 1. Trespasses and sins.

In what way?

Separated from God:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Like glitter

Dutch Bros. In order to open a location, you must be a manager who is already exemplifying the culture they have chosen.

God called us to be his image bearers…and we have fallen short. Every selfish action, every defiance against the goodness of God, every moment when our pride leads us to walk in our own way rather than his…and we all have fallen short and continue to do something. And here’s the problem with that according to Isaiah:

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,

    or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;

but your iniquities have made a separation

    between you and your God,

and your sins have hidden his face from you

    so that he does not hear.

God still has the power to save. He still has ears to listen. So why was a savior needed? Why did the sins and trespasses need to be dealt with? Because our iniquities have created a gulf, our sin has hidden his face…And that is for the best.

Moses was the meekest man who lived according to scripture, God called him friend, he was a part of the greatest miracles of the Old Testament…and when Moses asked to see God, he was allowed to see the back of his robe…anything else: for man shall not see me and live.

Cause of death?

So why is this death? In Genesis and John we see that God is the source of life, light, and all good things. (Cord for lamp) What happens when you disconnect from the source? While that spark is still there, and God’s common graces are still at work in the world, at a heart level we are in fact…dead.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Adam and Eve opened the glitter jar.

Imagine the world was perfect until me. Adam and Eve…perfect. But I blow it. What do my kids learn? More than that, how does my sin affect every person I come in contact with? The glitter keeps moving from one hand to another like an outbreak impossible to contain. Patient zero has passed on the genetic marker for death.

For the wages of sin is death…

It’s not simply a matter of disease. If our only fault was that we were diseased, then God might seem unjust in his ways. Paul in makes it clear that in the acting out of our sin we are earning death. Death is the payday of sin. We have earned separation from the God who created and loves us.

So what does sin look like in our lives?

Walking with the World

v. 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—

Walking is a great picture of relationship. Who you walk with says a great deal about where your love lies. As a couple of broke college kids, walking was the preferred date option in Monica and I’s relationship.

Walking with someone implies you are heading the same direction.

According to the world

Paul will express this more fully in

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

We are creatures built to fit in. My two youngest cousins spent a year in New Zealand when their dad, a middle school teacher, did a “teacher exchange”. We enjoyed a year of having a temporary Kiwi uncle and aunt, they had an amazing experience. And when they came back…they talked like kiwis.

In a youth group I worked with we had 2 sisters move to Cottage Grove from Texas…and they talked Texas y’all. For a month or two. Then they learned how to talk normal.

If there is no other force acting from the outside, we will adopt the culture, and the darkness of the world around us. And apart from Christ, that is what we are.

It is good to be culturally relevant for the sake of communicating the truth of the gospel in a way the world can understand it. It is a betrayal of the gospel to change the truth of the gospel in an attempt to be relevant.

According to the power of the air

It goes beyond an amoral culture however. There are spiritual forces opposed to the good plan of God. There is an enemy who actively seeks to turn God’s creation against him.

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Here it is worth noting a great truth pointed out by CS Lewis in his introduction to “The Screwtape Letters”

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

The dead will walk according to the world and according to spiritual forces opposed to God.

We don’t do this out of some compulsion however. We are not forced. The real problem is that it is what we want. Our desires are the problem (not that we have desires, it’s that they are for things far too small.)

Fulfilling desires of Flesh and Mind

v. 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.

We are not automatons carrying out orders from either good or evil programmers. We have desires. While we were created to desire relationship with God and freedom in his love, apart from intervention on God’s part, our desires have shrunk to small and worthless things.

Desires of flesh and mind

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 

All things which satisfy our pride. Our desire for power, prestige, and pleasure.

No exceptions

We may be tempted to believe that a “good” or “sincere” person is the exception. Yes, the world is full of nice and sincere people, but the problem is that even the best person on the outside is still dead on the inside. Like a glow in the dark sticker can give off some illumination after being exposed to light, so can we. It doesn’t mean it’s been plugged in to a source that can give it life.

Paul reflects on his own desperate attempts

though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

And yet for all this:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

You can not save yourself. Your own goodness can never plug you in to life. In fact, thinking it can will only make things worse, as you are plugging right back in to your own pride.

This is the reason Jesus dealt with the religious leaders so harshly. In trusting their own merits, they kept themselves from plugging in. Worse, they blocked others from plugging in as well.

So we know that we have a great and glorious God. We know he loves us. We know he desires relationship with us. At the same time we find ourselves dead, broken, trying to generate life without power.

Conclusion

There is good news. They come in the first words of verse 4.

But God…(plug back in lamp). This week we celebrate Thanksgiving…As our worship team comes back up, may we remember our state apart from Christ with gratitude for what he has done.

Going back to the passage in Romans, Paul answers his question: Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

If you would receive this gift this morning, we have a prayer team up front for you, or grab me or someone else after the service.

For the rest of us, let this gratitude grow. Let it transform you. Let it lead you to growing more in love with Jesus. Let it lead to hearts that feel compassion for those who have not yet been plugged in to the source of life. Let it lead to reaching out and loving them in the name of Jesus.

Pray