Sermon Tone Analysis

RECAP OF EPHESIANS CHAPTER 1

Ephesians 1:1-14 Our Calling is from Eternity to Eternity: Most people are too focused on this one piece of eternity and miss the greater inheritance we have been called to from eternity past to eternity present.

Ephesians 1:15-23 All things are being put under His feet and are in submission the immeasurable riches of His glory.

We try to control the things in our life like throwing the tennis ball in the air.

However, do we truly control anything at all or is it all about the fullness of His glory that is all in all or is it the complete dominion and glory of God alone.

We concluded last week with Paul’s prayer that the inward eyes of readers might be enlightened by the Holy Spirit to know the implications of God’s call to them, that the wealth of his inheritance which awaits them in heaven.

The sequence of events is clear: ‘Jesus Christ was dead, but God raised and exalted him.

And you also were dead, but God raised and exalted you with Christ.

I wonder if any culture in human history has ever been more depressed about the human predicament than they are today.

Of course every age has been in bondage to a blurred image or vision of its own problems, because it is too close to them to get them into focus.

Every generation has bread its prophets of doom and gloom.

However, the media enables us to grasp the worldwide extent of evil in the world today, and it is that which makes the world look so dark today.

We see this exploited in economic problems (population growth, inflation, unemployment, hunger, the spoiling of natural resources), partly the spread of social conflict (disintegration of family life) and partly the absence of accepted moral guidelines (leading to violence, dishonesty and sexual promiscuity).

Man has become the God of his own world and incapable of managing his own affairs or of creating a just, free, humane and tranquil society.

Paul begins in our text this morning plumbing out the depth of pessimism about man, and then rises to the heights of optimism about God.

Paul now paints a vivid contrast between what man is by nature and what he can become by Grace.

Why we need to be Born Again?

Jesus said this in John 3:7

And Jesus again said in John 3:3

Being born again is infinitely serious business.

Heaven and Hell are hanging in the balance.

We will not see the kingdom of God unless we are born again.

The question is Why?

Why is it so necessary?

Why will some other remedy not work, like turning over a new leave or moral self-improvement or self-discipleship?

This is why the all important radically spiritual, supernatural thing called new birth or regeneration is so important.

In Honest Moments of our Life all of us know what needy people we are.

Sin Is the Ultimate Problem

The root of the human problem is the dynamic disease of sin operating within the soul and manifesting itself.

We look at the dreadful things other people do and excuse ourselves.

Human beings are not unlike volcanoes.

Inside a volcano, the pressure builds until the top blows with a dramatic eruption of lava.

At other times, cracks slowly and insidiously appear on the side of the volcano, and the lava flows out in a different manner.

So it is with human beings.

We can never say that the circumstances in which a young person's character was formed did not have some impact on the way that he behaves.

But inside each of us, there's a thing called sin.

No matter what way our volcano was formed, whether we blow the top or leak streams of lava, it's the lava inside that's the problem.

The ultimate disease is the problem, and there's nothing human beings can do about it.

First, we must look at the Diagnoses of the Human Condition.

1. Man By Nature, or by Human Condition

(Write the Word Nature)

Who can know the Human Heart?

We know that according to Jeremiah 17:9 that “the heart is deceitful above all else, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

David said in Psalm 19:12, “Who can discern his errors?

Declare me innocent from hidden faults.

Basically we never get to the bottom of our sinfulness.

No one truly knows the extend or depth of their own sinfulness.

Even though we may not know truly how sinful we are the Bible does not leave us without clues as to how deep our sinfulness runs.

The Bible has a clear and devastating message for the state of our human soul.

And it does show us the depravity of our sinfulness so that we will know what we need and shout for joy when God gives it to us.

C.S. Lewis captures the language of the curse in his book The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe when he describes Narnia as once being a place of vibrant colors and warmth.

However, since the White Witch cursed the land, it is now always winter.

Through the high fantasy of a mythical world, Lewis was emphasizing the reality of the effects of sin on the natural world.

Diagnosis:

We were Dead

(write the word Dead)

The trouble with humanity is not that we are merely out of harmony with our environment and with other people.

We are alienated from a life with God’ (4:18), that is, with respect to our true spiritual nature that we are dead through “trespasses and sins.”

And “you were dead” referring to the Gentile readers and now “Among whom we all” now referring to both Jews and Gentiles

What is the Condition?

You are DEAD, you walked according the nature of this world, under the power of Satan, the prince and power of the air, you are now under the influence of living in disobedience.

Can the Spiritually dead Please God?

Romans 3:23 “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

1 Kings 8:46 “There is no one who does not sin.”

Psalm 143:2 “No one living is righteous before you.

1 John 1:8 “If we say we have not sin, we deceive ourselves.”

How are we dead?

We are dead in the trespasses of our sins.

What is a Trespass?

A trespass (‘paraptoma) is a false step, involving either the crossing of a known boundary or a deviation from the right path.

A ‘sin’ (hamartia) however, means a missing of the mark, a falling short of a standard.

Together the two words cover the positive and negative, or are both rebels and failures.

Basically there is no essential difference between these two nouns: the root meaning of missing the mark or slipping, or falling from the way, and both express the failure of people to live as they could and should.

We were made in God’s image to live as children of his family, aware of his presence, to rejoice in his direction for our lives.

Freedom was given, however, with it came the warning of the possibility of disobedience, and that disobedience would lead to death.

(Gen.

2:17).

The death that mankind experiences is not in the physical aspect of death but in the spiritual part of our death.

PROBLEM OF DEADNESS IN OUR CURRENT CULTURE

The biblical statement about ‘deadness’ of non-Christian people raises great problems for many because it doe not square with the current everyday experience of humanity.

Lot’s of people who make know profession of Christ in their lives whatsoever, who even openly refute Jesus Christ, appear to be very much alive.

Some have the incredible body of an athlete, while others have the keen mind of a scholar, or yet others might have the personality of a film star.

If you were to ask these people if they felt dead they would answer no, arguing that they feel very much alive.

In reality in the sphere that matters, not that of the body or the mind, but the living soul of a person without Christ’s regeneration of the soul they are very much dead men and women walking.

They have nothing in their spirit and soul which cries out Abba Father.

They are Blind to the glory of Jesus Christ, and deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

They have no love for God, no sensitivity or awareness of his personal reality and a deep longing for fellowship with his people.

They are unresponsive to him as a corpse.

The EKG reading on their live is flat lined as death.

So we should not hesitate to affirm that a life without God is a living death, and that those who live it are dead even while they are living.

Note: To affirm this paradox is to become painfully aware of the basic tragedy of the fallen human existence.

It is that people who were created by God for his glory alone should now be living without God.

This is our permanent position until the Good shepherd has found us.

We were Enslaved

Note: Now Paul fleshes this out even further by describing the extent of our sinfulness and former behavior and lifestyle.

By a ‘Lifestyle’ (ESV) of sinful behavior.

Paul also uses the word at the beginning of v.2 ‘Walked’ which in western mindset gives a picture of a leisurely stroll down the promenade in the countryside taking in the beauties of the surroundings.

Paul is giving a very different picture here showing that there was no true freedom, but rather fearful bondage to forces over which we had not control.

What were they?

If behind death lies our sin that we are held in captive to then Paul’s answer, when put into ecclesiastical language, is ‘the world, the Flesh and the Devil’

There are 3 former influences controlling and directing our pre-Christian existence.