Sermon Tone Analysis

! Title: Living in Light of God’s Grace

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Text: Ephesians 2:1-10

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Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on 3~/4~/2007

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www.goldcountrybaptist.org

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One of the things that has really blessed me in recent years is reading church history and

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especially biographies to see how God has used His truth to work through real people in the past.

One story that I first heard a number of years ago in a sermon on the very text we’ll be looking at today, has always impacted me in relation to the truth we’ll be considering today, and by way of introduction I want to invite you back with me briefly to the year 1725 where a boy was born to a godly young mother and a very ungodly father (/Below is adopted from messages by Chuck Swindoll, John Piper, and Iain Murray/).

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-         For the first few years of his life, his mother taught him the catechism and did her best to bring him up in the fear and training of the Lord.

But this mother, who was the only godly influence in his life passed away when he was just six years old.

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-         The boy dropped out of school after a few years, determined he was going to live his life to the full, sin to the max, threw off every restraint, indulged every desire of the flesh, walked fully in the course of this world, and at this time he was only 10 years old.

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-         The father couldn’t handle the lad, so he shipped him off to a strict military school.

The military school couldn’t handle him either; the military isn’t exactly known for its holiness but even they saw him as one of the worst.

He was a constant rebel, the discipline and authority didn’t break him, it couldn’t reform his heart.

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-         He deserted the military only to be captured like a common criminal and publicly humiliated, stripped, and beaten.

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-         He would later flee from there to go to Africa, to get as far away as he possibly could from his life.

Looking back on that later he would write that he tried to commit suicide many times but what kept him alive was his lust, rage, and hatred.

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-         He committed his heart to the devil, made a pact to live for him while he was a teenager.

In his own words he would describe himself as a wretch, an infidel, a libertine.

Through a series of events he ended up with a Portugese slave trader who had a very mean wife.

This woman took her frustrations out on him and would beat this young man.

She would force him to eat on the floor like a dog and if he refused, she would whip him like an animal.

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-         He fled from there and made his way to another area where he built a fire and in so doing a boat came by that was another slave-trading ship that brought him aboard and gave him an opportunity to be apart of the business.

Slave traders and sailors in those days were really the dregs of society, they were the lowest of the low, the outwardly most depraved group of people, but even this crew thought he was a wretched human being.

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-         No one could stand him and when he caused trouble they would beat him up and throw him down below.

One time after he got the whole crew drunk they threw him overboard, and when they realized he couldn’t swim, rather than letting him die the captain actually harpooned him right in his side and dragged him back on board, and till the day he died he had a scar the size of his fist in his side.

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-         This is all a true story.

Iain Murray, a biographer, quotes a secular writer who said: “This story enshrines one of the most fantastic fairytales that was ever a true story of a human being”

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-         He almost died many times and just when you think it couldn’t possibly get any worse, he got demoted down below on the boat where he had to go down and work with the pumps.

He ended up being basically the servant of the black slaves, he was the lowest of the low, a slave to slaves, humiliation upon humiliation, insult upon injury.

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-         There finally was a storm at sea where this man was certain he was going to die.

He was working feverishly under the ship and would later write that at that time he feared God for the first time in his life, and he began to think back on some of the things his mother had taught him.

It was dark down below, but there was a crack in some of the beams overhead where he saw a glimmer of light and as he remembered some of the verses he’d been taught as a kid, he cried out to God begging him for his grace.

He believed in Christ that very hour.

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-         God saved this man and transformed him.

He would later give up his life as sailor and slave trader and became a force for the abolition of slavery in Britain.

He became one of the most tender and loved pastors in his area, and was personal friend to Whitefield, Wesley, missionaries like William Carey, and many notable Christian of his day.

Every place he spoke was standing room only to hear the incredible testimony of sovereign grace in his life and the power of the gospel.

One of the sermons he preached later in his life relates to our message today, and he wrote a song to accompany this message which was his spiritual autobiography:

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/Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me/

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/I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see/

!! Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved

/How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed/

/Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come/

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His name was John Newton (I’m told there is a movie out now called “Amazing Grace” about Wilberforce and his relation with Newton)

 

The point of me telling this story is not just how amazing it is that God would save someone like him who was a wretch in the world’s eyes, but I want us all to be amazed that God would say people like /us.

/We may not seem as hopeless and depraved, but all humanity is hopeless and depraved sinners in the eyes of God.

My Goal today: I want to plead with you to be more amazed by God’s grace not just in people like John Newton but in saving people like *us* … so that we will glorify God by our humility, praise, and obedience.

*I.

OUR NEED FOR GRACE, v. 1-3*

I remember one time my family was together singing carols and hymns one holiday, and after singing that famous hymn by John Newton, one of our guests said, “That’s a nice song, but I really don’t like the part ‘that saved a wretch like me’ – I don’t really consider myself a wretch.”

And we tried to explain to her that that’s the whole point of the song, that’s WHY grace is amazing.

In fact if we don’t believe we’re ALL wretches (desperate sinful people) we can’t be saved and experience the truths of that song.

Notice with me first the *SPIRITUAL DEATH, v. 1 – *“/and you were dead in your trespasses and sins”       /

/            /

The way this sentence begins in the original is very unusual and emphatic – and it draws a lot of attention to the state of death, using comprehensive and plural terms for sin.

DEAD -> Not dead physically – v. 2 says we are walking around and v. 3 says we /live /according to our lusts.

-         When it comes to the flesh and our sinful choices, we’re very much alive and active.

-         But we’re dead /spiritually/ – no positive response to spiritual things, no movement to God, not doing good or seeking God by God’s definition, to use the language of Romans

 

10 as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; 11 There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; 12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.”

(Rom.

3:10-12)

 

In Ephesians 2, Paul uses a present tense verb to emphasize this was a continual state of deadness, which is the state of every human – he says “you all” in v. 1 and then “we all” in v. 3 –the language is universal

/ /

Some people try and downplay this metaphor, and say man is not really spiritually dead, “he’s only /mostly/ dead.”

Some theologians will object that Paul doesn’t really mean we’re as dead spiritually as people are dead physically, what Paul really means is just that sin is serious, it’s a struggle, it’s only death in the sense of separation, “the dead can still reach out.”

BUT READ 1:19-20, then 2:1 “/And /you were dead” -> The word and context is clear: just 3 verses earlier in Ephesians 1:20 Paul talks about Christ being resurrected from literal death, and then look at chapter 2, verse 5 “even when /we were/ /dead/ in our transgressions, He [God] */made us alive/* together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and */raised us up/* with [Christ]” – this is all about God’s great power toward us (1:19)

 

In 2:5, salvation by grace is sandwiched between 2 phrases: “God made us alive … and raised us up” – both of which make explicit this is a state of spiritual death as real as physical death.

The analogy and comparison is unmistakable, the physical resurrection of Christ is just as dependent on God as a spiritual resurrection of someone who is dead in their sins.

Being saved by grace requires a resurrection no less dramatic than a physical one

 

Just in case someone still thinks verse 1 leaves a little hope for us, look down at the verse 12  *“*you were at that time separate from Christ [LOOK AT END OF V.] /having no hope and without God in the world./”

Any human being without God and Christ is in a hopeless helpless state, spiritually dead

 

The reason grace is amazing is not just sin in general, it’s how desperate our sinful condition is.

The Bible describes mankind in a number of similar and un-flattering ways:

-         people being lost and we need someone to find us

-         we are ALL sheep going astray to our own ways (that’s where our free will gets us, the wrong way)

-         Scripture describes us as being in darkness and we need the light

-         or it talks about how we are in bondage and need someone else to set us free

-         or we are blind and need a miracle of being given sight

-         it says we are slaves needing someone else to pay the ransom price to set us free

-         we need someone else to adopt us, can’t make ourselves born again.

-         Every one of those is a pride-demolishing image.

-         But Ephesians 2:1 has arguably the most graphic picture of mankind – we are dead spiritually, no response, no movement, can’t raise ourselves.

2nd reason why Grace is amazing, not just spiritual death but *SINFUL DEEDS, v. 2 –* Not only is there nothing we can do in the flesh to please God, but the things that we /do/ in the flesh are *un*pleasing: /“trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience”/

*/ /*

Walking according to the world is the biblical way to describe our conduct, our deeds, in fact some translations have “conducted yourselves” instead of the word “walked.”

This is the image of dead man walking, a spiritual zombie.

Those types of movies scare us, especially as kids, but the truth of this passage is even more frightening – the fact that billions of spiritually dead people are walking around on this planet every day (perhaps some in this church this morning), who are active physically and outwardly, but are inwardly and spiritually decaying.

Like the Pharisees who Jesus said look like white-washed tombs, outwardly putting up a beautiful front, but on the inside is death and what is putrid and offensive to God.  MacArthur calls these the “/un/grateful dead”

 

Look at the end of the verse: SONS OF DISOBEDIENCE - “Sons of” is a Hebrew way of saying what their characteristic is, what they’re known by in very essence; disobedience is what characterizes us.

This disobedience includes the idea of “unwillingness to be persuaded”  

 

This is very bad news: We are dead spiritually to God, even if we could keep the whole law and just stumble in one point (none of us could even get that close, but even if we did) we would still be guilty according to James.

The verb tense Paul uses here in Ephesians emphasizes that we constantly walk in transgressions and sins (falling short – includes what we fail to do), we are bad enough ourselves but we also have the course of this world directing us, and to make things worse, the forces of the demonic world are influencing us too.

But it gets worse …

 

Not only spiritual death, and sinful deeds, but *SINFUL DESIRES*

/3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind,/

Even if we could control our outward actions (which none of us can perfectly), God can see our heart.

One teacher has said that the doctrine of depravity is the easiest doctrine to prove.

The evidence is all around us (your kids, news, people, etc.) but even more, the evidence is inside us.

If we’re honest we don’t need to point to others to demonstrate depravity, the strongest evidence to me personally is in my own heart.

It would be bad enough that our outward deeds are constantly sinful, but our internal desires are even worse.

Some people wonder how it can be fair that we are born sinful but still held responsible – we do inherit guilt from Adam but part of the answer is that we’re also doing exactly what we want in sin.

Humans /love /their sin with the strongest love possible – John 3:19 uses the word /agape /to talk about how much unbelievers love the darkness and their evil deeds and don’t want to come to the light.

Notice Eph.

2:3 says “lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind” – notice that the source of these desires, what produces them, is us – what’s inside, not anything outside the person.