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Introduction: Think about all the things that you have to do on a regular basis.
All of your responsibilities.
From home, to work, to school, to your church.
What motivates you to get stuff done?
In any given situation there are different motivators.
Fear is a powerful motivator.
Sometimes this is fear of another person.
Other times this is fear of how something will make us feel if we don’t do it.
A subset of this is called FOMO or the fear of missing out.
We don’t want to regret missing out so we’re motivated to avoid regret.
Joy is a powerful motivator.
We are naturally motivated to do things that will make us happy.
Love is another motivator.
We are motivated to do things for people we love.
Compassion is another motivator.
When we someone in need, we are motivated to meet that need because we have compassion.
And while there are positives and negatives to each of these, they are all a part of our motivation to serve God.
We are called to fear God.
We are invited into the joy of the Lord.
We are commanded to love the Lord our God.
We are told to show compassion on God’s children.
Each motivation has a place.
But one that is often forgotten is the motivation of Thanksgiving.
Transition to the Text: Turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians 2:1-10.
For the last few weeks, we have looked what Paul tells us we ought to be thankful for.
Naturally we are thankful for our salvation.
We are thankful for those things that accompany our salvation.
We are thankful for God’s work in other.
Today we shift to our response and ask the question, what should our motivation be in follow Jesus?
Not to keep you in suspense I offer to you our Authentic Principle.
Introduce:
Authentic Principle: Let God’s grace motivate you to live for Him.
Read:
Ephesians 2:1–10 (ESV)
1 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.
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—
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Authentic Principle: Let God’s grace motivate you to live for Him.
1.
Because of Sin we are dead.
(Ephesians 2:1-3)
Explanation: Paul recounts the history of a Christian beginning in chapter 2. Chapter 1 ended with the glorious climax of Christians seated with Jesus in glory because of what Jesus had done for us on the cross.
Chapter takes a drastic turn back to the beginning.
Illustration: I often will talk about my days before becoming a Christian as my “BC” day.
Or before Christ.
Much like the world in the time before Jesus came into the world, the world was dark and dreary.
Sin was everywhere and hope was becoming harder to come by, so were my days before Christ.
Many of us when we think of our time before we became Christians, we don’t fully grasp the reality of our situation.
Most people think of themselves as generally good and Jesus just makes better what was already there.
But that’s not how the Bible describes a Christian’s BC days.
Paul, not one to pull punches, writes, “you were dead.”
Because of sin we are dead.
in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.
You followed the world over God
You were a servant of satan
You lived for the flesh, doing whatever felt right or made us happy.
You were children of wrath.
Sometimes when someone writes “you,” it can feel accusatory, but we know that Paul includes himself here.
He knows what he was like.
So what does this mean?
Apart for Christ, you are dead, no matter how alive you might seem.
What about people who’ve never had a chance to hear the gospel?
Dead in their sin.
What about your relative who was the most kind, loving, and generous person you’ve ever known (even more than any Christian you’ve ever met)?
Dead in their sin.
Because none of that makes you a Christian.
Only Jesus makes you a Christian.
Application: You might be thinking.
I thought this was about thanksgiving.
This is hard to handle.
You can’t be truly grateful until you knows what’s truly at stake.
If you are saved, it should make you truly grateful to God.
And it should motivate you to share the gospel with those who need to know they are dead in their sin.
They need to be warned, because most people believe that even if they don’t believe in Jesus, if they die, their good deeds will be enough.
Verse 4 begins with one of the most powerful words in the English language.
“But.”
Sometimes it is not a good word.
“You’re a great guy…but”
“I know you were hoping for a Christmas bonus…but”
“I went to the store like you asked me, but I forgot to get everything you asked me to get.”
“I love you, but I don’t like you right now.”
In vs. 4 we have a good but.
Because in spite of our sin and being dead,
But God....
2. Because of Grace we are Made Alive.
(Ephesians 2:4-6)
Explanation: But God, rich in mercy, because of His great love for us....made us alive.
Just like we need to truly understand our situation before Christ, we need to truly understand how the change takes place.
We can dive deep down into deep theology of whether or not a dead person has the power to choose Jesus or not.
We can sing a thousand verses of “I have decided to follow Jesus.”
In the end, it was always God.
God made us alive.
Not because of our worthiness.
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