Untitled Sermon (7)

Introduction:

Sometimes, more often than not, we have the tendency to take God for granted. We seem to not put as much value in Gods work for different reasons, mainly I believe is because of our presumed familiarity with it.

“Oh I’ve heard it all before. It’s the same messages brought by different people.”

We have a Ho hummm approach to Gods word. But anybody who is operating in the Spirit, whether he/she hears the message one time or a thousand times, are able to appreciate Gods word and his work.

So let us pray that everyone here at the sound of my voice is filled with your Spirit right now Father. Clear our minds of whatever may distract us from hearing from you this morning. And that you use this broken vessel to communicate your truth into our hearts.

I wanna talk to you this morning about something that God has done that we tend to take for granted.

In Ephesians 2 we are reminded of the terrible state we were once in. It can be hard to appreciate what someone has done for you when you forget what that person did for you when you were down and out.

At one time brothers and sisters, we were a condemned people with a condenmed mindset headed for future condemnation, hells fire. We are reminded by Paul, Gods messenger and author of this epistle starting in verse 1 that

We were dead (1)

We were trespassers (1)

We had a corrupt lifestyle (2)

In the beginning God told Adam that the day he disobeyed Gods word, he would surely die. And when Adam disobeyed by eating the fruit of the tree, that God told him not to do, he surely died that day. Though Adam continued to walk this earth hundreds of years, he died the day he disobeyed.

Death brothers and sisters simply means a separation. When the spirit separates from the body, the body becomes totally unresponsive, unable to act or react to its surroundings, dead to the world. Because life is in the spirit.

Spiritual death is when sin has totally separated us from Gods presence. When a person does not have the love of God in their lives they are spiritually dead though they continue to live in the body. And that is what the author is speaking of in this text.

The author says we were all at one point spiritually dead, unable to respond to Gods truth. We had no ability to appreciate His goodness therefore we placed no value on the word of God nor did we appreciate the work that God had done on our behalf.

2. So because of our dead state spiritually we became trespassers, amen. Adam because of his unresponsiveness to the goodness that God had surrounded him with in the garden, had become a stranger in the very home that God specifically created for him. He had become an illegal alien on the very land that God gave to him to dress and keep. Because of Adams enability to love God back, and appreciate Gods work, Adam was no longer welcomed to live in the garden of Gods goodness. Adam had become a trespasser.

Google the word trespasser and it’ll tell you that a trespasser is a person entering someone's land or property without permission. In other words being in a place you do not belong. What happens to a person who is caught trespassing? They get kicked out. So God kicked Adam and his wife out of the garden.

The bible says that we were at one time trespassers due to our sin of disobedience, unable to receive or appreciate the good that God had stored among his people. Many people remain to be trespassers because we refuse to give value to Gods work and what he’s doing in our lives. If you are walking this earth absent of Gods presence in your life then you are trespassing. You are in a place that you have no business being in. Illustration: My clubbing days.

3. The bible is clear about what trespassers do. It says in verse 1 and 2

Ephesians 2:1-4

Ephesians 2:1–4 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 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— 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. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,

We were doomed brothers and sisters. And legislative law will not reverse the condemned state of this world. We had totally forgotten and devalued all that God had done on our behalf. We were a condemned people, with a condemned mindset heading for a future condemnation.

But God

Even though we were enemies of God, at emnity with his laws and commands. Though we were out there wilden out accourding to our own passions and desires, though we had totally forgotten about God, he never forgot about us.

Ephesians 2:4-5

Ephesians 2:4–5 ESV

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—