What's your story

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.

In these verses Paul is telling the storie of the Ephesian Beleivers . Paul isn’t giving details because everyones story is somewhat diffrent. Not all of them came to Christ in the same way. some of them came to christ in a dramatic way . some came to Christ as indivduals and some as families. How ever they came to Christ their story is told somewhat the same.

Now let me ask you about your story. We tend to tell our story somthing like this. I was born in such and such place my parents are so and so. I went to this school. i met my wife or my husband at such and such time and place. we talk of our children. The trials that we have faced in life . When we get to the end of our life someone else will tell your story. What will they say in your story?

what’s your story?

Like Paul, took the Ephesians back to the story of Christ changing their lives. I want to take you back to the moment Christ changed your life. There are two types of pepole in this room today. there are those that can relate to the story that paul is telling in these verses and they are those that have never experienced God grace that changes lives.

1. our former life in sin

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins. there’s some of you in this room now that are dead and don’t know it.

The bible is clear about our condition before we came to Christ. We are spiritually dead. The word for dead here literally means corpse. How did we get in this conditoin?

Genesis 2:15-17 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””

you know the story Eve ate the apple and here you see they died a spiritual death.

Romans 5:12 ESV

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

death is the end result and has invaded the present. Death now controls life. as a consiquence of sin, people have no relation to God and destorted relations with each others. This death is true in all our stories

When man sinned God turned the spiritual light switch off to all men and sin is ever present in his life. We are powerless to change and are being pulled down to destruction

dead is dead it doesn’t responed to anything only God has the power to wake something that’s dead.

Tell the story of Lazurus. Jesus waited 4 days to show that he had power over death

2. How we once walked.

Ephesians 2:1–3 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.

Do you remember how you once walked?

Do you remember following after the world?

Paul puts it like this in Romans 3:10-18 “as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.””

But when were dead we don’t see this we are blinded by sin because it now rules our lives

I get to hear the Ephesians story told every week at our church at Celebrate Recovery. Stories of dead people coming to life in Christ. Nathan green is a great leader at our church and also at Cleebrate Recovery. Nathan story before Christ demonstrates the power of sin and the flesh carring out it desire. Tell Nathans story of going to the liquer store against his own will.

Paul is telling the Ephesians look at your life before Christ! look how you once walked.

When we loose sight of how we once walked we will lose sight of why we now walk.

The opening verses should bring us to the place that we are speachless. We should be amazed that we are saved. the picture that Paul is trying to paint is one of beauty as God inervines in the following verses

Ephesians 2:4-7 “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— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

God is rich in mercy He is not poor when it comes to your mistakes

Lamentations 3:22-23 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Do you remember when God changed your story?

John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

God gave us life through Jesus! It’s because of his mercy and his love that we have life in our stories! It’s because of him that we are saved! We couldn’t change our postion only the finisded work of the cross makes us alive! God demonstrates this love through Christ and the cross!

God made away when it looked like there was no way for us.

We were dead and the lightswitch that was turned off in the garden has now been turned back on through Christ.

Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Not only has he made us alive through Christ. He has raised us up with him and seated us in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. One day our story hear ends and our eternal story begins with God showing the riches of his grace and kindness towards us. But we can have a taste of heaven hear because of the finished work of christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Paul said in Colossians 3:1-2 “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

Gods has not only changed our story through his grace he has left us with a work to do.

Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Grace is the work of God. Faith is God giving us the ability to see the work, believe the work and recieve it. the best illistartion of this is in Luke.

The man on the middle cross said I could come.

Luke 23:32-43 “Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” and he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kindom.’ And he said to him ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’

It’s the finised work on the cross that changes our story and it’s that same work that continuse writing our story.

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

God has a work for us to do and that to get back to loving him. God’s grace should bring us to a place of repentance and then to a place of worship for what the love of God did through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

our stories reveal our condition

What should I do? for some of you for the first time you have saw God grace in your life and it’s moved you to a place of repentance and you need to be saved!

For others in the room you’ve been trusting in Jesus a long time. But you’ve lost that moment in your story where the love of God changed your life and now you’ve lost that love and that fire that you had when his grace changed you.

If you need to be saved you come we will take the word of God and show you how to be saved

maybe your hear and you say I’ve lost that love that i first had when Jesus changed me i need to come and revisit my story and meet Jesus there and re ignight that love and passion you once had.