Dear God, we like people who look like us. You feel him; his presence is photographed upon your spirit; your very heart trembles with awe of him, and you say with Jacob, "Surely God is in this place." Series A: 2022 - 2023. Love is God's nature, but it is a sovereign prerogative in Him. There is a change somewhere;" and that change is from death to life, from darkness into God's marvellous light. The re:Worship survey on pandemic worship practices has been completed. If you haven't previously submitted something but would like to, you can find my email address by clicking on my name in the "About Me" section below. "The exceeding riches of his grace" are infinity itself; but they all come to us "through Christ Jesus." They were chosen in time. Here are some indexes that might be helpful. The unity in Christ produces Christians whose Christianity transcends all their local and racial difference; it produces men who are friends with each other because they are friends with God; it produces men who are one because they meet in the presence of God to whom they all have access. (There is no need to credit the re:Worship blog itself.). We come to prayer too rarely, and we ask of you too sparingly. The Lord is close to everyone who calls upon God; God hears our cries and will save us. suspicious of anyone who didnt look like us. Death may be universal over a certain number of bodies, and yet those bodies may look very different. This also answers to the grand doctrine of this epistle. Well, if you think I would think that, you don't know me. Thus we have had, first of all, the great spiritual reality which is always true of Christians, and of none else. Impossible that the new nature could countenance sin; the very essence of it is rejection and exposure of what is contrary to God. "There is none righteous, no not one." He went up after all the working of evil had been really defeated and destroyed in the sight of God. The son, who "was dead" to his father, repents and confesses his sin. Besides, there is love, the activity, as well as, the moral qualities, of His being. I would like to just commit to You." Any dead fish can float down the stream, it takes a live fish to swim against the current." Paul knew that he needed to repeat himself, or people would forget what he taught. If you are spiritually dead, nothing here belongs to you; but if he hath quickened you, you may take every single sentence of the chapter, and say, "That is mine, and glory be the grace of God!". All the good works in the world cannot put us right with God; but there is something radically wrong with the Christianity which does not issue in good works. Looking for something? They do not know that things are at a distance; they have to learn that fact by looking many times. Those who were once "dead in sins" are now alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:1-10); and those who were once "aliens and strangers separated from God" are now members of God's family (Ephesians 2:11-22). (Ephesians 5:19). But I confine myself now to the relationship of the Son to the Father from everlasting. Does he try to make life easier for his wife? Having walked in the will of God, I cannot understand why any man would fear it. The young man, as soon as Christ spoke to him, "sat up and began to speak;" but Lazarus, in his grave-clothes, lying in the niche of the tomb, could do no more than just shuffle himself out from the hole that was cut in the wall, and then stand leaning against it. [4] The full thought would seem to be "all kinds of sin.". I tell you, I would be so shocked if I had one of my sons come and say something like that to me. Sin, then, is a failure to comply with the will of God through choice or disregard. You that now commune with God at the mercy-seat, you that are now his favoured children, and have received power to become the sons of God, you were once heirs of wrath: "By nature the children of wrath, even as others." Naturally this prayer grows out of the two great truths he had been urging. Even though we may be trying our best to hit the mark, we've come short of the glory of God. in your case, if you are saved, you will have to join with even the worst in saying, "I have been quickened by divine grace, or else I had never lived." So I was once dead because of the trespasses and sins, but through Jesus Christ God has provided the forgiveness of my trespasses and sins. Not only were they called in time as we have been, but they were chosen in time, which we were not. It is not Jesus' purpose, however, that we should turn all men into one nation, but that there should be Christian Indians and Christian Africans whose unity lies in their Christianity. Just as the Canaanites tried to keep the Israelites out of the land which God assured Moses the tribes were to have for their possession, so Satan's great effort is to hinder the saints of God from realizing their blessedness in heavenly places. Hence it is said, "One Lord," which is precisely that which is owned in the common creed of Christendom. WebEvil Eyes Exaltation Exhaustion F Faith Faithfulness Family Father Fear Fear of the Lord Food Foreigner Forgiveness Freedom The Future G Gates Generations Gentleness Gifts I have been joined back together with God through the Spirit. Look back to what you used to be, to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged: "You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.". What I want to hint at is this: when a man is far gone into sin, Christ does this for him he breaks off his evil habits. , : , 196006, -, , 22, 2, . (v) It is the life which follows what the King James Version calls the desires of our flesh. Amen. He remembers his covenant forever, The Jews believed that only by keeping the Jewish law was a man good and able to attain to the friendship and fellowship of God. At the same time there is no exclusion of Gentile believers, but the reverse. I. I shall begin by noticing, then, first of all, THE CONDITION OF MEN BY NATURE. During Lent Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. all that is out to hurt and twist and destroy! in our homes and schools, in our church and in our world. When last evening trying to realize the thought, it utterly overcame me. But this young maiden is still caressed; so it is with many of you; you are loved even by the living in Sion; God's own people love you; the minister has often prayed for you; you are admitted into the assemblies of the saints, you sit with them as God's people, you hear as they hear, and you sing as they sing. (J) 6And God raised us up with Christ(K) and seated us with him(L) in the heavenly realms(M) in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,(N) expressed in his kindness(O) to us in Christ Jesus. He to whom I look up, by and in whom alone I can know God and the Father, is God Himself Let the notion of time come into the conception given of Godhead and of the persons Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and all would be falsehood and confusion. It is clearly not a question of righteousness here, or consistency with any known standard of judgment. And when a man is born into the kingdom of God, he has to learn everything; and consequently, if he is wise, he questions older and wiser believers about this and about that. So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners resident in a land that is not their own, but you are fellow citizens with God's consecrated people and members of the family of God. We are by nature drudges to the flesh, and to our corrupt affections, Ephesians 2:3; Ephesians 2:3. He uses therefore the highest terms in order to express it. A man shoots his arrow at the target; the arrow misses; that is hamartia ( G266) . When I lived in the country, I came up to look at the notabilities in St. Paul's Cathedral. It is used for a man losing the way and straying from the right road; it is used for a man failing to grasp and slipping away from the truth. By Gods grace, Christ not only died to bear the penalty of human sin, but he rose to glorious life in the heavenly world so that repentant sinners can have a glorious new life in him (4-7).This salvation is entirely Gods work. After his triumphs, the people came to Gideon and offered him the throne of Israel. The same "Beloved" who accounts to us for the counsels of God has brought in redemption. In Romans the sinner is regarded as alive in sins; and death, the death of Christ, is the means of deliverance. Nostrums and palliatives aggravate rather than allay the disease. Here are some indexes that might be helpful. How did Christ destroy them? What a deal of dead worship there is! Man by his very nature cannot bring perfection to God; and so, if ever man is to win his way to God, it must always be God who gives and man who takes. "[3] However, such a distinction is not corroborated by other New Testament use of the terms. thou art dead! in -- indicates the realm or sphere in which lost sinners exist. What it means is that these words were added by the translators. But the morning when it was reversed, then he came to the realization that it was God.And he blew the trumpet in Israel and gathered together 32,000 men to face the 135,000 Midianites. When God gives people a new life, they must live a new life (8-10). Ye have all that heart could wish for, except the one thing needful; ye have all things save love to the Saviour. If you haven't previously submitted something but would like to, you can find my email address by clicking on my name in the "About Me" section below. To illustrate, one may shoot an arrow and fail to hit the mark, or shoot an arrow and have it fall beside the mark. Ah! Ay, so it is with the young woman or the young man I mean to describe now. So we have many who are lovely, amiable, morally admirable, like him whom the Saviour looked upon and loved; yet they are dead for all that. In this passage Paul's thought flows on regardless of the rules of grammar; he begins sentences and never finishes them; he begins with one construction and halfway through he glides into another. But God who is rich in His mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead has made us alive. The first place where Christ is seen is in the grave whence God according to the mightiest action of His almighty power raised Him up. Observe, therefore, that what was the first in counsel is the last in revelation. There is his habit of swearing; how often will an oath come into his mouth, and he will have as hard work as he can to thrust it down again! Looking for something? These are the things that governed our lives in the past. And he would have to treat the rest of the fellows to the drinks. 2:4-10 Although we were all like that, I say, God, because he is rich in mercy and because of his great love with which he has loved us, made us alive in Jesus Christ, even when we were dead in trespasses (it is by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Christ, and gave us a seat in the heavenly places with Christ, because of what Christ Jesus did for us. Our world belongs to God! That is all the worship a great many render to God, just getting to a place of worship, and there sitting still, and thinking of nothing at all. It is the word used of bringing a sacrifice to God; it is the word used of bringing men into the presence of God that they may be consecrated to his service; it is the word used for introducing a speaker or an ambassador into a national assembly; and above all it is the word used for introducing a person into the presence of a king. They come to us, and ask, "What is this? Paul uses the word xenos ( G3581) for foreigner. Even now, though plainly made known in this epistle and elsewhere, how few Christians there are who rest in it as their assured portion! They are clearly identified in each blog post. The things that Paul has to say about you, so that they tried to sort of cushion the whole blow by giving you a peak ahead at what he is going to say about you. Oh, you did stutter and stammer over it! I fear that some people go to a place of worship because they get a better sleep there than anywhere else. (i) He says that that life was lived in sins and trespasses. Now note the next case. Were there an interval of one instant between the Father and the Son, did the Father exist in any respect before the Son as such, all the truth of God as revealed in the Bible perishes. For many of you it is your favorite subject. Not the law, but Christ. Could the apostle say that to you, and to me? the spring in your step to go where youre sent. The tendency is ever to set aside what is personal for that which is corporate. They said that they did not know. New International Version (NIV), In contexts like this, the Greek word for. You had nothing to do with this. Walls of prejudice still exist and barriers of racism still hold people back from reaching their true potential. It is not a conferred position, however blessed, but practical enjoyment even that Christ Himself might be habitually the object before them, now that all question of deliverance and blessing was settled in their favour. And he said, "I looked at all of the wealth and I said, 'How dies the rich man like the fool, this is emptiness.' Here we come to what is universal. Next the apostle turns to the boundless scene that lies before us, as in the preceding verses he had looked at what is behind us. As the old saying has it. The breast-plate means the practical righteousness of the saint himself. Call to Worship #2 L: Welcome to worship this morning. So that our business as ministers when the young lambs are brought in, is to remember the injunction, "Feed my lambs;" take care of them; give them plenty of meat. Copyright 2019 by Zondervan. We were living in the sphere of rebellion against God (cf. Not even Jesus can give a man back his lost innocence, for not even Jesus can put back the clock; but what he can do is take away the sense of guilt which the lost innocence necessarily brings with it. At its heart is a desire to rediscover and refresh the best of past Wesleyan hymns and write new congregational worship that is a call to justice, compassion, mercy, Such an one is the openly profligate, to whom we give wide quarters, lest we touch him. I do. They describe the Christians condition as an unbeliever before God justified him or her. If youre my age or older you may remember Homer and Jethro. God's choice of Israel was not favouritism, for it was choice not for special honour but for special responsibility. Nothing short of this suffices. Jesus reawakens the ideal in the heart of man. He came to tell us that no matter what we are like the door is open to the presence of God. In this order He gave them the body to be edified, and ministry carried on, but always the individual first. I have in my church and congregation and I dare to say what men dare to do I have in my congregation women whose ruin and destruction have been wrought by some of the most respected men in respectable society. They only have the "one hope of their calling." It is in vain to look for the church's prosperity, if saints individually do not grow up unto Christ. Are we as good parents as we might be? We lived in the actual commission of all those sins to which corrupt nature inclined us. Call number one is this: God calls you because God loves you, just 2) Call Number Two, hold your first finger: God calls you The next thing is that we take "the whole armour of God, that we may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. After he has paid the fine and served the imprisonment, as far as the law is concerned, the whole matter is over. God has called you to be His child. No preacher, however earnest, can make one hearer to live. It shines in full contrast with Israel. They had a distinguished place before the Son became man. Believe in Christ! young man, I weep, I weep over thee; thou art not yet so far gone, that they have rolled the stone against thee; thou art not yet become obnoxious; thou art not yet the staggering drunkard, nor yet the blasphemous infidel; thou hast much that is ill about thee, but thou hast not gone all the lengths yet. If we go on with our services in regular routine, a large number of our friends find it difficult to keep awake. He might have been pleased to choose none; but if we are to be brought into His presence at all, it is impossible to be there without having the divine nature, in a moral sense (and, of course, one only speaks of this). It was true that the Gentile was without hope because he was without God. (Ephesians 3:1-21) The closing theme shows us where and with whom are our true conflicts as Christians. He is arrested, tried, found guilty, sentenced to a term of imprisonment and/or to a fine. We have already seen how the Jew hated and despised the Gentile. They have tried everything. height; and to know the love of Christ." Isaiah had heard God say: "Peace, peace to the far, and to the near" ( Isaiah 57:19). Christ did not do the same thing with the young man that he did with the daughter of Jairus. Thus nature is the subject of verse 4, as relationship is of verse 5. It is neither the tabernacle, nor the temple, but His habitation in Spirit. Why was it not so with the young man? Vid. His sin is as yet a secret thing, kept to himself: as yet there has been no breaking forth of iniquity, but only the conception of it in the heart; just the embryo of lust, not as yet broken out into act. Of all the creatures that live and breathe, man is the only one on earth that became a living soul by the breath of the Lord God, who, as it is written, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. But what are difficulties to the Spirit of God? This application consists of two parts. "Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." What was it for? We cannot earn God's love; but we can and must show how grateful we are for it, by seeking with our whole hearts to live the kind of life which will bring joy to God's heart. But it is not said that we are love. The essence of the worldly man is, as someone has said, that "he knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." What a wonderful thing it is to have become sympathetic with God! We wish that death did not remain, the old nature hampering us; but, in perfect proportion as the new life is really in us, we now run parallel with God. There must always be something about him: "Having abolished in his flesh. (AM) 18For through him we both have access(AN) to the Father(AO) by one Spirit. This, then, was what was needed for the principalities and powers, and this is what they behold in the church of God. One of the tragedies of the nineteenth century was the career of Oscar Wilde. Oh, dear friends, let us never have a dead creed! You had nothing to do with this. Some kind of life, I acknowledge, does remain in us, while we are still at a distance from Christ; for unbelief does not altogether destroy the outward senses, or the will, or the other faculties of the soul. The work of Jesus is to show all men that God is their friend and that, therefore, they must be friends with each other. 5. One effect of this divine life is to put life into everything that we do. in Exod. "Among whom we all had our manner of living, or our lifestyles in times past." Others who are novices at swimming may swim a few feet and then go down. It involved the keeping of the law. The psychologists tell us that we never forget anything. But in Ephesians we are in presence of a new creation in Christ, where claim is out of the question. Of old they had forfeited every claim according to the law, and were spared and kept in God's mercy and faithfulness. And God, having these counsels before Him from everlasting, deigns to have a people, not only capable of enjoying Him as having the very same nature as His own, without which they could not enjoy glory; but, besides, if He has us in His presence, He would have us in the highest relationship into which grace could bring us. "He that loveth his wife loveth himself; . We were dead; but we are quickened by the Spirit of God. See, it is always Christ, his flesh, his blood, his life. It is an awful thing to have your conscience hardened, as in the very fires of hell, till it becomes like steel. What We Are - v. 4-7 (Alive with Christ), III. He is a man that is far gone. For the Jew It was possible to say: "Remember that you are a citizen of God, and that you speak to the people of God." Are you. Until he finally concluded that life was empty and frustrating, there was nothing worthwhile under the sun, that is, after it says, "and all that I did not withhold from myself anything that my heart desired." But the Son being before the Father as His supreme object of love and delight from all eternity, to bring us as sons before Him was as much a part of His counsels as to make us partakers of divine nature. The child has a thousand things to ask; it has to learn everything. The Lord impress this solemn truth on all your hearts by his own spirit; for Jesus Christ's sake! (ii) It is life lived under the dictates of the prince of the air. These are the two former points. Modern progress has made the world a neighbourhood: God has given us the task of making it a brotherhood. My life was ruled and dominated by the lust of my flesh and by the lust of my mind. As spiritual death is nothing else than the alienation of the soul from God, we are all born as dead men, and we live as dead men, until we are made partakers of the life of Christ, agreeably to the words of our Lord, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. (John 5:25). No God? When young people are converted who have not yet acquired evil habits; when they are saved before they become obnoxious in the eyes of the world, the command is, " Give them meat ." Not with equal footsteps, but with tottering gait, we follow in that selfsame path that God has marked out for himself. This old English word conversation doesn't really give you the true meaning of the Greek word, which is our manner of living. It is well to mark the difference. See how Paul keeps harping on that one string. According to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: He makes them to be his forge. The increase of immorality, the increase of pornography, the acceptance of abortion, and homosexuality, and these other trends that we see, Satan is behind them orchestrating as he is leading the world to hell. The, good for an Israelite, for a Gentile, for a man, is wholly different from the good for a Christian, because their relationships are not the same as his. No; the first thing he did was, he put his hand, not on him, mark you, but on the bier ; "and they that bare it stood still." But, during that week, I had made a great many experiments, and tumbled down a great many times, and the preacher took for his text, "O wretched man that I am! All those who are in their sins, are dead in sins; yea, in trespasses and sins, which may signify all sorts of sins, habitual and actual, sins of heart and of life. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so! P: Lord, open our hearts and let us share your Good News. The words hath he quickened mean, hath he made alive, or made to live; John 5:21; Rom 4:17; 1 Corinthians 15:36. Who were dead in trespasses and sins - On the meaning of the word dead, see the notes at Romans 5:12; Romans 6:2, note. Angels are not adequate judges of what pertains to us; they may be witnesses, but not judges. ", Do you think this devotedness too much? The rose and the lily breathe forth their fragrance around it, but the corpse perceives it not. ), Someone can be physically alive and yet spiritually dead at the same time. , . Death is a separation, physical death is a separation of the spirit from the body, and spiritual death is the separation of the spirit from God. "In whom ye, also [trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation." 2:11-22 So then remember, that once, as far as human descent goes, you were Gentiles; you were called the uncircumcision by those who laid claim to that circumcision which is a physical thing, and a thing produced by men's hands. The world is going down the tube. Could I just be me? Gideon's answer was: "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you" ( Judges 8:23). Nor dare I tell the character of some men present here. for who should be more above the feelings of jealousy than those who delight in that which shows the greatness, and the glory, and the perfect goodness of God in His greatest work? We don't want trouble, we dont do conflict here! (There is no need to credit the re:Worship blog itself.).