Sermon Tone Analysis

The Power

Ephesians 2:1-10

Easter, April 8, 2007

 

Big Idea: When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, God will exert power into your dead body.

1)    We have the privilege to celebrate Easter!

This reminds us that we have hope for a meaningful life.

The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that can give us life.

We dread the opposite of life…death.

a)    Most people are afraid of death.

I have conducted many funerals.

Obviously, the overwhelming emotion is sorrow.

Death forces us away from meaningful relationships.

b)    Even though the idea separation is hard what is even more frightening is being alive and feeling dead.

We were created to experience life and when we don’t we become desperate.

We don’t want to be walking zombie’s.

Thoreau said “ Most people live lives of quiet desperation.”

c)    Our symbol for death today is this lump of clay.

You see all the characteristics of death in this lump of clay.

* Motionless.

No significance.

No emotions.

no relationships*.

No value.

How can this lump of clay have meaning?

How can this lump of clay become alive?

d)    Have you ever felt like a lump of clay?

Have you felt insignificant?

Have you ever felt like you lacked meaning and purpose in life?

Have you ever wondered if anyone cared?

e)    How can you lose that dead~/zombie feeling?

How can you get that alive feeling?

The answer is in Ephesians 2 

 

2)    When Paul, a disciple of Jesus, wrote this letter he was not addressing any particular problem.

He wrote to encourage, unite, and inform all believers of what they have “in Christ.”

We will see in Eph.

2:1 that these people were walking zombies.

The particular passage we are looking at today does not instruct the readers to do anything, it only states what God has does for anyone who is in Christ.

*/Read Eph 2:1-10./*

3)    What happens when *people try to create life outside of Christ*?        */READ 2:1-3/*

a)    They end up dead.

i)       A spiritual, emotional, and mental death.

It does affect us physically and can contribute to our death.

ii)     They committed transgressions (stumble and fall and can’t get up) and sins (thinking they were going to hit the bulls eye and missed the target altogether).

iii)   Why?

They were influenced by the ways of the world and the ruler of the world (Satan).

(1) The influence of our world tries to make us insensitive.

How much does it bother us to see people killed, tortured, abused, or act immorally?

Have we been desensitized to hunger of the world, genocide, and disease?

(2) The influence of the world tells us we have the right to be happy.

Fulfilled desires and passions.

(3)  With God out of the picture, the world is trying to connect with our desires and passions.

We are open for suggestions and options.

Our worlds offers us answers all the time.

*/(4)  /*But when we follow our passions and desires, it will always lead us to death.

*/The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us.

We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust.

Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer./**/

/**/James/**/ 1:14-15, The Message./*

(5) Trying to find meaning in all the wrong places.

How many times have we filled our life up with pursuing careers, or obtaining a bigger house, nicer cars, *new hi-def tv*(watch final four, the masters, movie) , nicer vacation, new clothes, people’s acceptance, or meeting a certain performance level and realize you are just as empty as you were before you achieve or acquired all these things.

There’s nothing wrong in and of themselves to have or achieve these things.

When you try to find life in them then you will realize sooner or later that you have spent your life climbing the wrong ladder.

iv)  All of us have lived there at one time.

Not just an occasional sin, we lived there.

Some Xns forget that and look down their noses.

NO.

b)    You see this lump of clay.

What can this lump of clay do to help itself?

I order for this clay to have life then it must be in the hands of someone greater than itself.

We are the same.

*/Michelle/**/ walks up/*

Transition: If we can’t do anything to create life, then we must turn to someone who is the giver of life.

4)    What happens when *we let God create life*?

*/READ - 2:4-10/*

a)    Life gives life.

Donating blood so that another can live.

You put yeast in a lump of dough and it will rise.

Life gives life.

b)    Christ is life.

He is living and active.

He loves people because he created each one.

He alone knows how to stop our thirst and hunger for meaning and eternal life.

c)    There are two key words that exert power for life.

i)       Mercy – God chooses to help us instead of giving us what we deserve.

ii)     Grace – God chooses to give us what we need even though we don’t deserve it.

d)    How does God give life?

*i)     **Galatians 1:4 (NIV)** 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,*

ii)   Romans 5:6-10 (NIV) 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.

8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

iii)   He raises people up with Christ and seated with Him.

(1) In essence when people are raised up they are “in Christ.”

(2) “Heavenly realms” - Conversion is a transfer from one sphere to the other, a change of lordships, and from death to life.

A person has a new address, zip code, and a different culture.

This new zip code is “in Christ Jesus.”....

(3) This lump of clay used to be in the earth.

Dead.

But now it has been raised up and put in a place where it can receive life.

 

e)    Why did God do this?