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Sermon, Sunday April 26, 2020 What are You Wearing?

By Grace Alone – Ephesians 2:8-10

What are you wearing? Rather, what are you wearing spiritually?

More about that later.

In Ephesians 2:8 Paul writing to the church in Ephesus says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—”

You may have heard this said:

Justice is getting what you deserve.
Mercy is not getting what you deserve.
And Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.

Paul says that this saving grace comes to us through faith, and faith is the instrument that allows us to grab hold of the truth of the Gospel and be saved. But faith itself is a gift from God, we cannot muster up faith. Faith comes from God, for us to believe in God.

Everything is a gift; grace is a gift, faith is a gift and salvation is a gift.

We must never ever think of our salvation as a transaction, whereby I give my life to Jesus and he saves me. Rather God gives me grace, then He gives me faith to believe and He saves me.

Because grace, faith and salvation are divine gifts, we cannot earn them, nor do we deserve them. Every human being is equally lost before God grants them grace. We were dead in our sins, dead people cannot have faith in God.

Ephesians 2:9 continues, “not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Salvation can only be attributed to Jesus and what he did for us on the cross, and he deserves all the glory.

God sent Jesus to live the life we couldn’t live, to die the death we should have died, and rise from the dead on our behalf.

We really struggle with this in our culture, we as a culture loves accolades for doing something noteworthy. But in our salvation the glory goes to God (see 1 Corinthians 1:31).

Paul continues in verse 10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

After saying clearly that we are not saved by anything we do, Paul notes the importance of works. Works are not the root of our salvation, but they are the fruit of our salvation.

The Greek word for handiwork here is poiema, which is where we get the word Poem from. The word refers to a work of art or masterpiece, a piece of art created by a master craftsman.

This word is only used one other time in the New Testament, in Romans 1, referring to the glory of God’s creation.

We, as saved believers in Jesus, are God’s new creation (see 2 Corinthians 5:21)

But God does not create a masterpiece to hide it away, we were created to display the work and the glory of God.

As God’s workmanship people around us should see our works and say, “That is a work of God!” (see Matthew 5:16).

We should never be working out of duty or guilt. We do good works because we are walking in a new nature, and as a result we cannot help ourselves from being used by God to do good works.

But not only are we to do good works, we are told that God has prepared these works for us to do. God, in His sovereignty, had tasks in mind for us when He saved us.

We are not saved by faith plus good works, but by a faith that works

The believer has God working in him, and therefore his works are good. His works are not good because he himself is good, but because he has a new nature and the Holy Spirit works in him and through him to produce these good works.

We do not perform good works to glorify ourselves, but to glorify God. Paul wrote that we should “abound to every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8), and to be “fruitful in every good work” (Colossians 1:10).

Back to the question, what are you wearing?

In John 11 we read the account where Jesus raised Lazarus back to life after he had been dead for four days. Jesus stood in front of the tomb and in a loud voice commanded Lazarus to come out. Notice what Lazarus was wearing, he was wearing grave clothes, the embalming material that was wrapped tightly around his body.

As Lazarus comes out of the tomb, Jesus instructs those standing around to… “Take off the grave clothes and let him go” (John 11:44).

So, what are you wearing?

Are you wearing “grave clothes” or “grace clothes”?

Are you enjoying the liberty you have in Christ, or are you still bound by the habits of the old life of sin?

Lazarus was freed from the restrictions of the grave clothes and freed to do what he had been raised to do.

We were dead in our sins when God raised us up with Jesus, sadly many of us are wrapped in the grave clothes. Some of us are so comfortable in the grave clothes that we don’t know how to do the good works that God has prepared for us to do.

They are the grave clothes of addiction, anger, jealousy, lust, pride, fear, self-sufficiency and many more. All of these hold us back and restrict us from being and doing what we are created for. All these are clothes that were your grave clothes, and Jesus commands them to be taken off, for you to be set free. Why are you holding on to your grave clothes?

As a Christian, you have been raised and seated with Christ in the heavenly places, you have been clothed in righteousness.

Practice your position in Christ!

You are clothed in righteousness in Christ Jesus.

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Once Dead Now Alive Sunday April 19, 2020

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Ephesians 2:1-7

Are you alive?

The first seven verses of Ephesians 2 are made up of two sentences. The first sentence is a morbid description of being spiritually dead, and the second sentence proclaims the hope that we have in the power of God to raise us up with Christ to new life.

Paul begins by very direct statement in verse 1, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins”

We are all sinners and have a desperate heart condition as we see in Romans 5:12.

But we often hear the statement, “aren’t we all basically good?”

The Bible makes it clear that fallen human beings are not morally good. Some are able to make good moral choices and actions, but all too often these choices are motivated by our selfish condition and pride. Apart from Christ, we are spiritually dead.

In Luke 15 we read of the parable of the prodigal son. Remember what the father said when his son came back home, “this son of mine was dead, and is alive again”. That is the normal human condition.

As people, we are all followers; as Christians, we are followers of Jesus.

If we are not following Jesus, we are following the influences of the sinful world or we are following Satan himself.

Satan has been displaced from heaven, and he works his evil schemes on the earth influencing people to do horrific things. This does not mean people are necessarily demon possessed; but living in sin is the mark of following Satan’s evil schemes. Paul calls these “passions of the flesh” in verse 3. These sins are not only sins of action, they are also sins of thought.  Sin is conceived in the mind and the heart of man (see Jeremiah 17:9).

The problem with the sickness of sin is that we are so accustomed to sinful thoughts that we don’t even know we are sick. Our culture encourages selfish pride and we have no idea how desperately sinful we are in our human nature. Humanism in our culture tells us that people are basically good, but the Bible makes it clear that every inclination of the human heart is to rebel against God.

Even the good things that we do, our attempts at righteousness are utterly hopeless before the all-holy God.

God is holy, and pure, He must be true to His character and cannot overlook any sin.

What Paul is describing here is what is called the doctrine of total depravity. We are desperately ill and are unable to even reach out to God apart from His grace. The truth is that in our human nature, we do not want to reach out to God, He reaches out to us.

The good news is that God poured out His wrath on Jesus as we remembered last weekend. Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath and we get to drink from the fountain of the grace of God.

Paul uses the first sentence of chapter 2 to paint an awful picture. It is horrifying to dwell on the depravity of mankind. But the reason he does this is because it makes the good news so amazingly beautiful.

If we stopped today at verse 3, we would be all despairing. Thankfully Paul begins verse 4 with two incredible words of hope; “But God…”.

We were hopeless, lifeless and under condemnation, but God came to our rescue. We cannot fully understand the grace of God if we don’t understand His justice.

Romans 5:8 states this so clearly. “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the ultimate display of God’s mercy, love and grace.  

Verse 5 is the key to the passage; we were dead before becoming followers of Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit in our lives. We were dead, but now we are alive “with Christ”

Becoming a Christian is not about becoming a nicer person, or a better-behaved person, you don’t become a Christian by adopting a set of religious activities or rituals. Becoming a Christian, means becoming alive in Christ; moving from death to life.

In John 3 we meet Nicodemus, he knew a lot of theology and did a lot of good things in the eyes of the establishment. But Jesus said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

Ephesians 1:6 continues the good news, “and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” The Greek verb used for “seated us with him” is the word that we get the word synchronize from. Paul uses this word to show that “in Christ” we are synchronized with him. When we pray, Jesus advocating for us, Jesus is our Great High Priest.

Being seated with Christ, does not mean that we are divine, but we have access to power in order to resist the devil and his schemes. Seated with Christ is our positional salvation, we are in Christ.

The struggle with many Christians is that we don’t know our identity, so we continue to wallow in sin, fighting against Satan in our own strength.

The reason for all this grace and mercy is found in verse 7, it is for His glory.

God is showing off His grace and kindness to us for all the universe to see. The purpose of our salvation is the eternal purpose of God, that He is to be glorified and worshipped for eternity.

God pours out His immeasurable riches of grace and kindness on us. There is no quantifying the power of God, and there is no quantifying the kindness of God. Because we are in Christ, God the Father lavishes his love on us. We come as children to a loving Father with an open hand, because we are alive in Christ.

Are you experiencing life, being alive in Christ?

God’s grace and kindness is available to you today to become fully alive.

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Resurrection Sunday, April 12 2020 – The Power of God Displayed

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Matthew 27:62-28:10

He is Risen….!

Last week was Easter, normally a joyous time, but what an unusual and sad season. We celebrate our risen Lord Jesus, with a large shadow over our celebration in 2020.

This year everything is different. The familiar traditions have been set aside, because there is something more pressing. I am not saying that traditions are necessarily bad, but it is good for us to stop and pause and look at the real reason for the celebration, the resurrection of our Lord and savior.

Jesus disrupted traditions all the time, even good ones. The time and season of his crucifixion was the Passover week, one of the most important festivals and traditions on the Jewish calendar. It was a busy time in Jerusalem, as people were gathering and feasting to remember the time when God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt.

The fact that Jesus was crucified during Passover is obvious and crucial. Jesus the spotless lamb of God who was sacrificed for the sins of the world, so that we who place our faith in him, will be saved for eternity.

The Passover was a huge celebration, and Jesus disrupted it. On Palm Sunday, he came into Jerusalem with tremendous fanfare. The following day he turned over tables in the temple and disrupted the festivities. The trial and subsequent crucifixion of Jesus caused a major disruption to life in Jerusalem.  Then there were the earthquakes, the temple veil being torn, sudden darkness and even dead people coming alive and walking through the streets (Matthew 27).

Jesus was disrupting traditions; he was establishing the New Covenant.

Jesus is still upsetting traditions and challenging authority today.

The chief priests and the pharisees wanted Jesus dead because he was a threat to their power.

Satan wanted Jesus dead because he was a threat to his domain and influence on the earth.

But Jesus did the unexpected. He rose from the dead and defeated Satan’s plan!

The primary message of the early church was the resurrection, which became the hope and foundation for the church.

A few weeks ago we looked at Ephesians 1:18-21, and the Apostle Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus:  “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”

Someone being raised from the dead is pretty significant,  and there is certainly a lot of power involved in raising someone from the dead. But Jesus raised people from the dead and it didn’t seem like a tremendous display of cosmic power. He raised Jairus’ daughter by speaking two words, “Talitha koumi”, which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” (Mark 5).  

Jesus raised Lazarus by calling into the tomb for him to come out (John 11).

But Jesus was no ordinary resurrection, if there is such a thing. When Jesus died, Satan and his demonic legions, celebrated their assumed victory. The messiah, the second person of the Trinity had failed in his quest to come and establish the kingdom of God on the earth.

Satan thought he had won the victory and he was going to use every ounce of power at his disposal to ensure that Jesus remained in that tomb. Satan planned to hold Jesus captive.

This was the battle for the ages, the culmination of all of Satan’s evil plans and God’s redemptive plan.

God destroyed Satan’s plans with a never before seen display of His matchless power. Jesus was raised back to life by the greatest display of power in all of History. And all of creation felt the impact. There was an earthquake when Jesus died and an earthquake when Jesus rose from the dead. All of creation participated in the war that took place in the spiritual realm when Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead.

More than that, everyone who has ever been raised from the dead, has died again. But Jesus was raised in an imperishable and eternal body, the eternal body that we will all get one day

Jesus was raised to life; he took on a resurrected body and has been given all authority as he said in Matthew 28:18.

Ephesians 1 says that this power is working in us, do we fully grasp and experience this power?

As followers of Jesus, we have aligned ourselves with Christ, we have been born again, into a new life with new power as we read in Colossians 2:12, “having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”

In 1 Peter 1:3-5, we read that this salvation power is also the power that keeps us until Jesus comes again. This is the power of the resurrection working in those who follow Jesus.

Do you know the power of the resurrection in your life?

I am not asking if you are a Christian. I want to know, if you know the power of the resurrection in your life, the saving power of God in your life on a daily basis.

In these unprecedented days, you cannot go about life as usual. As followers of Jesus we need to know and experience the power of the resurrected Lord in our lives.

This is the kind of power that will enable you to thrive in this season, overcoming fear and doubt. Power to help you make the right decisions, and to display God’s glory to those you encounter.

Do you know the power of the resurrection in your life?

Spend time in prayer asking God to reveal Ephesians 1:18-21 in your life.

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Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020 Do You Know the Season?

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Luke 19:28-44

What a season to be living in this world! Who would have thought that the world would be so different four short months ago.

This Sunday we remember Palm Sunday and a week that began like any other week, but within seven days the world was completely changed forever.

In Luke 19, we read the account of the disciples who “stole” a colt for Jesus. Not only did Jesus know exactly what was going to happen, he even tells them the conversation that they were about to have with the owner of the colt.

But I know that the colt recognized his creator, and the reason for his existence. Jesus the creator God put all the pieces together for this moment. Jesus grew the thorn tree that was used to make his crown, and he nurtured the tree that was used to make his cross. Jesus had prepared for this moment.

If Jesus knew that a donkey was waiting for him in the next town, he certainly knows what’s down the road for you and me. Jesus knows how this global pandemic is going to play out. Jesus knows how you are going to be provided for. Though Satan would have us believe otherwise, living by Jesus’ words will never send you on a fool’s errand.

We as followers of Jesus can take tremendous encouragement in this. Do not let doubt and fear paralyze you today.  

As the crowd saw what is happening, their excitement began to boil over. Some of them had probably memorized the prophet Zechariah and what was prophesied in Zechariah 9:9.

Can you imagine the excitement? They were seeing prophecy fulfilled and Jesus was coming to establish his kingdom in Jerusalem. The promised messiah was here, and he was going to throw off the oppressive Roman rulers. But Jesus was focused on a much bigger battle, he was focused on defeating Satan, sin and death.

Jesus was surrounded by a crowd of people praising him, and many of them had been healed and touched by this amazing man. Initially Herod and Pilate did not take him seriously, otherwise they would have sent a garrison of troops to prevent him from entering the city.

The fact that the people were waving palm branches showed that they didn’t grasp who Jesus was, and why he was coming to Jerusalem. Waving palm branches was symbolic of the Maccabean rebellion that took place two generations before, against the Syrian oppressors. They were showing that they expected Jesus to be another warlord who would lead them to overthrow the Romans.

There are many times in our lives when we don’t accurately perceive the moment. We miss what is going on for lack of knowledge, understanding or simply because we have an unmet expectation.

But then the mood shifts, Jesus abruptly stops and bursts into tears.

As Jesus looks at Jerusalem and sees the eager faces of those around him, he was overcome by the awareness of their emptiness. They were empty because they had not heard the truth of his message and they did not understand the true purpose of his coming to earth.

Wherever Jesus looked he found a reason to weep.

As he looked back; he saw a nation that had missed his coming and had wasted its opportunities.

As he looked within the hearts of the people, he saw spiritual blindness and a hardness in their hearts. They had all the signs and the prophets to convince them, yet they still rejected him.

As Jesus looked around, he saw a lot of dead religious activity that was not accomplishing anything. The city was full of people celebrating the Passover but with little understanding of its true meaning.

As Jesus looks at our churches today, he sees a lot of dead religion. People going through the motions with no real knowledge of our savior. People who are content with going to a building once a week, when in fact Jesus offers a relationship and eternal life.

Finally, as Jesus looks ahead, he sees the City of David that was soon about to come under attack and judgment. Jesus knew that in 40 years, the city would be under siege by the Romans, and the total destruction of the city and the Temple, leaving about 600 000 Jews dead.

And all of this because the people did not recognize the time of Jesus’ coming. The tragedy of the national disaster could have been averted. But Jesus knew that judgment must come and that rejection of the Word of God, who is Jesus, ultimately leads to punishment.

But it grieved Jesus because of his great love for the lost, the people he came to save (see John 1:11).

God’s chosen nation did not recognize the messiah when he came into their lives, and because of that Jesus wept and mourned.

Jesus did not simply come to set the nation of Israel free from the Roman oppression. He came to die on a Roman cross, seemingly defeated by Satan. But God’s plan was to raise Jesus from the dead and in so doing, defeat Satan, defeat death, and provide a way for eternal life for all who would place their faith and trust in Jesus.

What about us today? Do we know the season?

We are living in a season that is unprecedented. There are predictions from every corner about the infection rates, death tolls and eventual end of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

But only God knows the end, and the purpose of this season.

The role of the Body of Christ is extremely significant in this season.  

This is the time for the church to rise up boldly and to be a place of prayer, truth and compassion.

How we respond in this season will determine the eternal destination of the people all around us. If we act as people who have no hope, then people will not listen to us when we tell them about our faith in Jesus.

To discern the season, we need to pray and ask God for wisdom and insight.

Through the Holy Spirit we will be able to see this season through spiritual eyes, with the lens (perspective) of Christ.