Sermon Tone Analysis

Now I know this video may not be more than a nostalgic piece for many of you, but I believe that it is a great Segway into what we are going to be talking about in detail today, grace.

Now before we get into that, how does this video clip tie in to todays message?

Well let’s begin by getting right into our passage.

So we have come to this passage that tells us we were once dead and now made alive in Christ.

We were present in body, functioning and seemingly on the outside living, but inwardly and spiritually were never really alive.

We were like an emeritus member of a board, but having no hold of a vote.

We were all a Pinocchio, functioning outwardly as alive, but the truth is, we were not a real boy, we're really not alive without God in us.

There are a lot of false narratives in the world we live in.

These false truth's will try to convince you that you are alive, when really you're dead.

The ideas that swarm around tell us that you need more of this to be made happy and alive, or there is no God and what you see around you is what you get, or if we keep progressing as a nation and society we will eventually real utopia.

We are drinking in these ideas with every commercial, with every TV show, with every movie.

Everybody is telling a story, and these are the most popular of the false narratives of our day.

As Christians, we’re going to tend to at times stumble back into these stories.

This is the air all around us.

Let me be very clear with you all this morning.

The story we believe as Christians is the only true story there actually is.

By God’s amazing grace we have been made alive in Christ, that is assuming that you have repented, asked for forgiveness, and taken Jesus as your Savior.

In our passage today we are going to highlight, what I believe, are three truths about Christ and grace showing us it is amazing grace.

The first truth we learn is ...

1. Apart, _we were dead_

Being dead in our trespasses and sins and following the course of this world, these shape an identity, and an identity really gives fuel, legs, and traction to everything we do.

How we see ourselves and how we understand ourselves affects everything.

Now if we look at the world and listen to what the world haas to say, we're okay people, basically good.

Sure there are some really bad seeds out there, but all in all, as a whole, we are pretty good.

Believe in ourselves and we can do anything.

Now I want to be clear before I refute too much here.

You know, to be honest, a person who is spiritually dead can still do some pretty amazing things.

There are a lot of amazing works done by people who are spiritually dead.

For instance they can make works of art, play sports exceptionally well, make money, or do humanitarian work.

But you know in all of those great things, and in many cases, extraordinary things, those people cannot do anything spiritually as long as the remain disconnected from the vine of life.

Humans face a very sad situation if you think about it.

We are not morally good.

We are not neutral.

To quote Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, we were not “mostly dead.”

We were totally dead.

And we needed a miracle that only God could perform.

If you’re a Christian, that is your story…the only story there is! Dead in trespasses and sins, which explains what’s wrong with the world, which explains where we’ve come from, would explain all that’s broken around us is wrapped up in this: dead in trespasses and sins.

But while we were still sinners, God performs this miracle in us.

This miracle is called grace and its given through Jesus.

Paul describes how we followed three forces outside of God instead of God Himself.

First, we followed the world.

We were so strongly controlled by the influences of the world.

How many of us, whether or not you want to admit it, have been swayed by attitudes, habits, and lifestyles that reflect the world and Not God?

Second, Paul says we followed Satan.

Paul talks about the power that Satan carries in this world.

following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

Ephesians speaks more about principalities and power than any other New Testament letter.

And it draws attention to the power behind them.

This is how Satan works in the unbeliever, disobedience.

They are not completely possessed by Satan, but they do live in the world of darkness in which Satan holds a lot of power and dominion.

Satan knows us well, probably better than we know ourselves for that matter, and he knows those weaknesses in us.

He lays out the bait, and as sinful people do, they take it.

Now we will talk about this theme much more in this book later on, but for now that should make sense to you.

Finally Paul says that we were chained to our sinful desires.

Paul actually called it the desires of our body.

Sins like anger, sexual immorality, idolatry, sorcery, jealousy and so on.

This was our sinful condition.

So how amazing is grace?

Our spiritual status could not be more tragic or hopeless.

How did God act to us then?

He did not act in revenge or an outburst of anger.

No God acted out of love for us.

We were lifeless, hopeless, and under condemnation.

“But God” ... The second truth we learn is ...

2. With, _we are alive_

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

This is the beauty of our story friends.

"But God".

This is what we all have in common.

It’s not by any works of our own.

You aren’t saved because your parents were good disciple makers.

You weren’t saved because God looked at your unique skill set and said, “Hmm.

Yeah, I could take some of that in my kingdom.”

No.

You weren’t saved because you used to get high and now you don’t.

You weren’t

This is what unites all of us, no after what our social class.

We were dead, and Jesus made us alive.

The world will continue to try and feed you another narrative, but the truth is, without Christ, there is no grace.

Jesus, just as sure as he called out to Lazarus to come out of the grave, he has called out to you and I, "Derek, come forth!"

The thing that saddens me is that there are people who actually believe they are outside of the saving grace of God.

We need to remember that no one is beyond the reach of God’s grace, and no one is beyond the need for God’s grace.

And then Paul goes on to say that we are seated with Christ.

This is the same Christ that Paul said in chapter 1 is exalted above all things, powers, and forces.

So now we are seated with Him.

This means we have the power to overcome all those things.

And then Paul reminds the reader that the grace of Jesus is immeasurable.

The grace continues on and on and on.

To be shown that kind of grace seems that we should be the demonstration of that grace as well.

We become demonstration of His work.

This leads us to the third and final truth and that is ...

3. In, _we are God's handiwork_

Paul tell us we have earned nothing.

We have only received grace because we have believed.

That is a hard concept for many people.

We should never ever think of grace as some sort of transaction.

I did this, so I get this.

You did nothing to earn or deserve it.

This is struggle for some people.

Some people don't want something for free.