Last week we talked about surpassing greatness, some of the amazing things God has done and is doing for us in Christ. How we have this amazing hope, and this amazing inheritance, and this unfathomable power at work in our lives when we believe in Christ. And this immeasurable power is the same great power which raised Jesus up out of the dead. And we should have slammed on the brakes right there. Wait - Jesus died? God died? Inconceivable! But God raised Him up! Truly unfathomable. But guess what - He raised you up too - if you are a believer in Christ! That’s what Paul tells us today - let’s take a look…!
[vv 1-3] - the way we were
AND you were dead, Paul says. YOU all were dead, too. All y’all. He says it twice (verse 1 and verse 5). The way we were. Dead. Jesus died, and you were dead too. But this was a different kind of death. Somehow we weren’t all dead. We were only "mostly" dead
[a la Mad Max in the Princess Bride :) ].
We were dead in "trespasses and sins". We were dead due to stepping over the line (God’s line), missing the mark. Off target, walking around in this disobedience and ungodliness we were. Off the path - off God’s path. And on the course, the paths of this world. In lock step with the world. And we were dead. The walking dead. What is a walking dead person is called? That’s right - a zombie.
[zombies] [picture of Rick Grimes] - do you know who this is?
This guy has been the star of a show called "The Walking Dead". It’s been the 2nd most popular series on TV for the past 8 years. The zombies (aka walkers) on the show - are the result of a pathogen which has infected the entire human race. Everyone is infected - when you die, you become a zombie. The walking dead. All you can do is stumble around trying to satisfy this uncontrollable unquenchable desire.
[from the comic] “How many hours are in a day when you don’t spend half of them watching television? When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something that we wanted? How long has it been since any of us really NEEDED something that we wanted?”
Zombies are a metaphor for this aimless mind-numbed existence, a search for something, anything more, a mindless pursuit of wants, almost to the exclusion of all else. But they are a perfect picture of what Paul is talking about here:
We were
-Walking dead
-walking (treading around) in transgressions, in the course/path of the world
-note: there is an outside force at work here, a malevolent spirit
-Sons of disobedience (unbelief)
-lived in fleshy lusts
-indulging wants of flesh and thoughts
-Children of wrath
Sons of unbelief. Paul is saying there really is a pathogen, a pathogen which has infected the entire human race. And that pathogen is unbelief. Lurks in the heart of every person. And the results are desires and wants and even thoughts out of control. And isn’t that somewhat of an apt description for our society? Desires out of control? Wants gone wild? Girls (and boys) gone wild? Out of control? Indulging our every thought and want and whim? Or most of them? Unable to say no, especially if left to our own devices. We have been given so much, there is so much prosperity in our society - and yet isn’t this part of the challenge before us? Because the more we prosper, the more we are free to indulge our flesh.
Now in the fictional, post-apocalyptic world of the walking dead, there is no cure for the zombie pathogen, no hope. Literally. You are destined to become a zombie, sooner or later. You become a zombie when you die. But in the real world, we become a spiritual zombie the day we are conceived. We are born infected with this spiritual pathogen of unbelief, and left unchecked it grows and festers into this infinite abyss of dissatisfaction and discontent. And we miss the mark, the glorious life God designed us for. The unbelief in our brains results in more and more indulging, wanting more, indulging the eyes and the flesh, but never being satisfied. Just like the fictional zombie, the walking dead, never satisfied. Never sated. Never enough. The only way to cure the mindless craving of the zombie is to destroy its brain. Thankfully for us, there is a different solution, a real cure - but WE have a plot twist…!
It turns out that there is an antagonist. Our deathly walk of unbelief is indeed egged on by a malevolent spirit. The prince of the power of the air, Paul calls him. The spirit now working in the sons of unbelief. In fact Paul tells us elsewhere that this spirit, this fallen angel (who the Bible calls Satan or Lucifer), is actually blinding people’s eyes. Spiritual blindness, which perpetuates and exacerbates the unbelief.
2Corinthians 4:4
…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
He is aptly called "the great deceiver". The "father of lies". We’ll delve deeper into overcoming this spirit in ch 6. But if you find yourself not yet believing, you are being deceived. Plain and simple. For all those who do not yet believe. And that path is a ticket straight to an existence which is worse than any zombie apocalypse. Your worst nightmare… Children of wrath.
Paul says, in that state of unbelief we were children of wrath. Like the rest. Who is that? Who are the rest? All of humanity. All these sons and daughters of unbelief. And what is this wrath? Isn’t that an old fashioned idea? Isn’t that rather victorian, outdated? Something reserved for the Old Testament? For the dark ages? That’s intolerant, isn’t it? Don’t people like to say that the God of the Old Testament was this God of wrath, but the God of the New Testament is a God of love? But here’s what God says about Himself: He doesn’t change. The fancy word for that is immutable. What He was He still is - and will always be. He is the same yesterday today and forever. We saw in our study of the Old Testament minor prophets that God has always been slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. But He always was and always will be holy and just and cannot let sin go unpunished. His wrath is naturally revealed from heaven against all wrongdoing and ungodliness. All unbelief. God’s wrath (and His love!) are real. Just as real in the New Testament as they are in the Old…
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…
And here it is, right here in our text. The wrath of God. Far worse than any zombie apocalypse. Something to be avoided at all costs. Literally. I’m not sure any of us could accurately describe this wrath, either. Simply unimaginable. Unfathomable. And so many people seem to get hung up here. Wrath seems so harsh. So unfair. These hangups stem from failing to realize three other unfathomables: that God is unimaginably perfect and holy and just, and that sin and unbelief are truly awful and justly deserving of consequences. (we naturally like to minimize our sin and dumb down God’s holiness). But there is a third thing these folks fail to realize. They forget that there is Good News. What we do get in the New Testament is Good News - Good News for zombies! The God of love and wrath showed out His love and poured out His wrath on a Substitute. Someone Else took the wrath of God which we deserved. In fact, it was God Himself. And in doing so, He simultaneously provided a cure for this zombie pathogen of unbelief. What we see in these first three verses is definitely bad news… Unfathomably bad. The zombie apocalypse. Next verse…
[vv 4-9] - But God…
-(Eternally) being rich in mercy, full of great (mega) love - WHAT HE IS LIKE
-(Past) loved us, made us alive (with Christ)(remember we were dead)(saved us), raised us up (in Christ) - WHAT HE HAS DONE
[Gene Wilder clip from Young Frankenstein - "It’s alive!" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VkrUG3OrPc]
--(Future) show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us - in Christ Jesus. The language here is basically a promise. - WHAT HE WILL DO
And isn’t it like us to miss these things? Or forget them? We forget what God is like. We forget what He has done. And we forget what He has promised.
But God. He saved us. From so great a peril of eternal death. Came to our rescue. What do we call the person who saves us? The hero. When (if) we stop in verse 3, we are tempted to look at God as the villain. We minimize our guilt, and transfer the blame to Him. But in our story, God is always the Hero. He is coming to our rescue - in Christ. He is saving us from an eternity of being separated from Him, our glorious breathtakingly good Creator. Our Hero!
And what part do we play in this great rescue mission? What do we need to do in order to be rescued, for all this to get cranked up in our lives? Faith (aka belief). You have been saved by faith, Paul says. That’s all. Saved through faith. We believed. We moved from unbelief to belief. The antidote to the pathogen of unbelief is belief. Faith. Trust. It is all about the object, that in which I am putting my trust. The default object of my faith is myself. My own works. My own efforts to make myself better, to improve myself, to somehow pay for or work off my sin, to somehow make myself more acceptable to God and to gain entrance into the heavenly realms. But this rescue is a gift. We are flailing around in this flood, this raging current of unbelief, destined to drown, and here comes the Hero. God is offering us a lifeline, a heavenly lifeboat- Jesus.
[story of flood victim who tells rescuers that "God will rescue me" - and when they die and ask God why He didn't rescue them God says, I sent you two boats and a helicopter...!]
And we can put our trust in Him, or we can continue to sink into the morass of unbelief and disobedience. Not as a result of works, Paul says. There is nothing, not one thing we can do to ever deserve to gain entrance to heaven. To merit one ounce of rescue. It's a gift, plain and simple. Ours is simply to trust in Jesus. Have you done that? Have you transferred your trust from what you are doing to what Jesus did? He said, it is finished. There is nothing more we need to do - just believe in Him. For God so loved the world, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. It is gift based on a divine promise. There is no need to wait. Don’t wait any longer.
Paul calls this grace. It is a gift we don’t deserve. Undeserved favor. We get this when we put our trust in Christ - this rescue, this forgiveness, all these blessings - all of them are underserved. But check out the promise - in the ages to come, He is just going to keep on showing us the surpassing riches of His grace, pouring out kindness on us, lavishing it on us. Here, have some more. It’s like we’re feasting at Grandma’s. Here, have some more. In Christ. Think about that. An eternity of God pouring out His kindness on us. Who wants a slice of that? Here, have some more. Unfathomable.
[vv 10] - the new you
Those of us who believe in Jesus, trust in Christ and follow Him - Paul says God has made us, has literally re-made us. We are a new creation.
2Corinthians 5:17
Anyone who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone! The new has come!
Verb Noun Noun-ee
Create Creator Creation
Produce Producer Product
Do Doer Deed
Make Maker (something made?)
Paint Painter Painting
When it comes to God, what He is making with your life - when you are following Him - is a masterpiece! And you know the truth about a tapestry, right?
Important point: He has re-made us FOR good works, not BY good works. Not a result of works. FOR good works, which God Himself prepared beforehand, before we ever heard of Christ, and He intends for His people to walking in these good deeds (as opposed to walking in unbelief and disobedience). He wants us to be living a life characterized by these good deeds, yet they are not means of grace but rather by-products of it. But wait, there’s more...
-Note also that while most English translations use the phrase ‘created UNTO good works’ or ‘FOR good works’, that is not what it says in the Greek. One would expect a different preposition (the Greek word eis) for that. But the word Paul uses is epi - meaning above or upon. When referring to creation, it means the place where the creator creates his creation, where he intends it to live. God created man upon the earth (is 45.12) - we were meant to live on, to inhabit the earth. (the very first command God ever gave to man speaks to this - gen 1.28). But now in this instance, God has created those who believe in Christ upon good works, intending for His people to live ON good works, to inhabit them, to live into them and fill them up, which is exactly what Paul says in the next phrase - in order that we should walk in them. The meaning is essentially the same, but the word picture is certainly more nuanced than what we get in the English. Good works are not just what we do, it’s where we live and who we are. It is as if God pre-formed this planet named Good Works, and He breathed the breath of spiritual life (His Spirit) into so much spiritual dust, spiritual zombies, and formed those who believe in Christ Jesus to live on planet Good Works. We are now Good Work-lings. Greetings, goodworklings. Good works are our life, they are where we live, we live into them, inhabit them, and fill them up. It is as much about identity as it is about function, if not moreso. And again, good works are not any kind of rocket ship that takes us to said planet - they are the skin in which we live having now been born onto that world. Good works are not the means to the destination - they ARE the destination. They are the by-product. All these things are the expected inevitable result of trusting in Jesus. We breathe in Jesus, and we exhale good works. If you are breathing in Jesus, there will be these good works. Greater works, in fact. Which ultimately are intended to show off the breathtaking goodness of our Hero. Jesus. Making Him famous. Have you breathed in Jesus yet?
Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, 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 ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as 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 so that we would walk in them.
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