Sermon Tone Analysis
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Title
Good morning everyone.
If you would like a title for this morning I’ve called it,
“Death to Life”
Opening Thoughts
In a recent poll carried out by the Culture Research Center and Probe Ministries,
75% of so called evangelical Christians believe that people are basically good,
48% believe being a good person leads to salvation.
And 35% believe there are multiple paths that lead to God.
I disagree, and what’s more important is the apostle Paul disagrees too.
As we look at our text this morning we’ll discover that in fact man is inherently evil.
That Jesus is the only way to Heaven.
And being good is never good enough.
Only through God’s amazing grace can we receive salvation.
Scripture
So if you haven’t already, please turn to Ephesians chapter 2 and let's remind ourselves of God’s word.
Pray
Overview
Our passage this morning breaks down into three main sections.
Death
Verses 1 - 3
Which looks at what we were like before we were saved.
Life
Verses 4 - 9
Which looks at what God has done for us.
Purpose
Verses 10
Which looks at our new life in Christ.
The Story So Far
Before we get into the text, let's remind ourselves of whats happened so far.
The letter to the Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul while he was in prison in Rome.
Paul had previously spent three years with the church during his third missionary journey, and this letter was written about 6 - 8 years after he had moved on.
In the first chapter Paul has reminded us that,
We have been predestined, according to God’s will.
We have been adopted as his children.
And have received redemption through Christ’s death.
We have obtained an inheritance.
We have been given The Holy Spirit as our guarantee of salvation.
Also that Jesus was raised from the dead and seated in the heavenly places.
That God has put all things under His’ feet
And made Christ head over the church.
Now Paul is about to double-back and remind us again of His amazing grace.
Death
Our first point is looking at verses 1 - 3 which we’ll call ‘Death’.
So let’s not try and sugar coat this.
This is really bad news.
And to be honest, it’s also pretty offensive.
Paul informs us that we were dead in our trespasses and sins in which we once walked.
It’s interesting that Paul uses the words ‘trespasses’ and ‘sins’,
And in doing so he trying to help us understand our fall state better.
‘Trespasses’ means going against specific Bible ‘commands’,
like ‘you shall not kill’, or ‘you shall not commit adultery’.
So if you kill someone, for instance, you have trespassed against that command.
Where as the word ‘sins’, means the evil things we do, motivated by our sinful nature.
And these acts may not be explicitly written as biblical commands.
For instance the bible doesn’t say anything about watching pornography but clearly its sinful, evil and totally against God’s role for men and women.
So when Paul talks about us being dead in trespasses and sins, he means we are walking away from God, and living life our own way.
We are basically putting ourselves before God.
And therefore make ourselves idols for self worship.
In the Old Testament, God commands us to have no other gods before Him.
Be in our fallen state we are shouting back at God,
“No!
I am first,
I am most important,
my way,
my desires,
my pleasures,
all for my glory!”
So despite what 75% of people think, we are not inherently good.
Now I know that for anyone who isn’t a Christian, and maybe some who are, this is offensive.
You’re probably thinking,
“I didn’t come to church to hear this!”
“And I’m pretty sure I’m not dead like you’re telling me.”
So before we go too much further lets just be clear what I’m not saying…
I’m not saying that we were ‘physically dead’, like some crazed George Romero zombie movie, or The Walking Dead TV show.
And a far as I know, the Zombie Apocalypse hasn’t started yet, so I’m in the clear on that one.
And I’m also not saying we were ‘morally dead’.
I have many friends and family members who are not Christians but are good, moral, loving people.
However the Bible is saying we were ‘spiritually dead’ - dead to God.
So then you may ask,
“So, at what point did we become dead?”
Paul says in Romans 5: 12:
So we did not become spiritually dead at a certain time,
we were born spiritually dead.
After God created mankind He give him only one rule, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Our sin was inherit from Adam.
Adam choose to disobey God and his sinfulness was credited to us.
As we are descendants of Adam we inherit his sinful nature and are therefore born sinners.
Pastor and theologian R. C. Sproul said,
“We’re not sinners because we sin.
We sin because we’re sinners.”
R. C. Sproul
In the Old Testament David understood this when he wrote Psalm 51: 3
As we turning back to Ephesians, Paul continues…
All of us were following the course of this world, this present age.
Look around at the lies this world is selling us.
God’s authority means nothing to the world, thinks it knows best.
But look a little bit closer and you’ll see the world is in chaos.
This chaos is what we were following before we came to know God.
The only reason we didn’t notice what was going on was because we were spiritually dead.
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