WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.700 our teacher. I introduced him last night, but just I'll briefly do that again for those of you who 00:00:04.700 --> 00:00:12.599 weren't here. The Reverend Dr. Esau McCauley, he and I go back to seminary back at Gordon-Conwell, 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:19.359 and since seminary, Esau has gone on and studied and gotten a PhD in New Testament under N.T. Wright. 00:00:19.359 --> 00:00:27.080 He has begun to develop as a writer, working on a couple of books. He is doing a lot of work in the 00:00:27.079 --> 00:00:32.640 ACNA in terms of leadership development, which we're very excited about for lots of reasons. He's just 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:37.920 joined the faculty at Wheaton as an assistant professor of New Testament there, so very excited 00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:44.439 about that transition for Esau, and most excited that he gets to be here, most excited that we get 00:00:44.439 --> 00:00:48.459 to sit under his teaching. So welcome Reverend Dr. Esau McCauley. 00:00:52.459 --> 00:00:54.000 Do you want me to hit this button here? 00:00:57.079 --> 00:01:03.859 Thank you, Tommy, for that introduction. I have just started working at Wheaton, I think, 00:01:03.979 --> 00:01:09.140 maybe a month ago, and I think I arrived in late June, and one of the things I'm realizing is that 00:01:09.140 --> 00:01:16.379 there's a Wheaton grad at every evangelical church in America. Even here, I think I've run into two 00:01:16.379 --> 00:01:21.840 Wheaton. How many Wheaton grads are in here? It's amazing. This is Illinois. Okay. So welcome. 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:28.920 If I say anything bad, please don't email my boss. They get enough emails about me already. I'm already 00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:33.880 on the list. So just like, this is recorded, but just like, I'm going to review it. All right. 00:01:34.740 --> 00:01:42.320 I have a low filter when I'm tired. Okay. So Tommy said that I could speak about what I wanted to speak 00:01:42.320 --> 00:01:46.280 about, and then he said, actually talk about Ephesus and Ephesians. And so I'm going to do that. 00:01:46.280 --> 00:01:55.299 I said, can I talk about black people? He said, later, Ephesus. Okay. You know, this is my time, 00:01:55.439 --> 00:02:01.740 Tommy. This is my time. You're not the pastor right now. Just sit there. Okay. A little bit, 00:02:01.740 --> 00:02:05.840 a little bit about Ephesus, because I'm actually going to focus is on, I'm going to focus mostly 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:09.860 on chapter two, hopefully in chapter three, but just to kind of set the stage. I think you did a 00:02:09.860 --> 00:02:15.219 sermon series on this a few years ago. Oh, like, no. Okay. So those of you who are here, 00:02:15.219 --> 00:02:19.039 this is a review, but for those of you who weren't here 10 years ago, this might be new information. 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:25.780 Ephesus is actually particularly relevant to people in DC, or at least my imagination of DC 00:02:25.780 --> 00:02:33.419 as someone who's never lived there. Ephesus was a port city in the ancient world. And anyone who 00:02:33.419 --> 00:02:39.460 knows about port cities recognizes that port cities tend to draw an international population 00:02:39.460 --> 00:02:43.400 because of trade, right? And that most of the time when you want to get out of your life in the 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:48.620 countryside, where do you go? You go to the city. And so Ephesus was a center of commerce, 00:02:48.740 --> 00:02:54.939 a center of trade. And because of that, it prided itself on being cutting edge and cosmopolitan. 00:02:55.420 --> 00:03:01.340 One of the other things that's interesting about Ephesus as it relates to DC is that the governor 00:03:01.340 --> 00:03:08.240 of the province lived in Ephesus. So it was a center of politics in the area. I think you guys 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:11.740 have politics, right? That's accurate. Okay. I'm learning a little bit about you all. 00:03:12.659 --> 00:03:21.920 They worshiped in Ephesus. There was this temple to Rome and the divine Julius. And so different cities 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:29.379 in the empire received the right to put a temple up to the ruler. And so you showed your faithfulness 00:03:29.379 --> 00:03:35.719 to the government, the Roman empire, by the offerings that you did in this temple. And not 00:03:35.719 --> 00:03:41.219 every city got one of these. So you'd kind of apply to say, can we put up a temple to worship the god of 00:03:41.219 --> 00:03:49.280 politics? And so in Ephesus, there was this huge temple devoted to the empire. The god, the divine 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:55.900 Julius was there and the divine Rome. And so there was this real sense in which part of being a good 00:03:55.900 --> 00:04:04.500 citizen meant paying proper deference to the empire. The other god who was there was the god 00:04:04.500 --> 00:04:08.400 Artemis, also known as Diana. There was a temple to Diana there. And if anyone's read the book of Acts, 00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:16.540 you know, there's kind of a riot that breaks out around Diana. And the Diana was known as the goddess 00:04:16.540 --> 00:04:24.439 who controlled fertility. And so anyone who had problems with children or who wanted to understand 00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:28.759 kind of the female person, this is the person, this is the god who you went to. So you prayed to Diana 00:04:28.759 --> 00:04:36.939 and she took care of your fertility. And so they were gods devoted to sex and politics and a cosmopolitan 00:04:36.939 --> 00:04:43.680 city devoted to worshiping the empire. I don't, I'm not going to say that's DC. I don't live there. 00:04:44.319 --> 00:04:48.040 But as I throw rocks from abroad, this is what I say, from Alabama, this is what it seems like. 00:04:48.040 --> 00:05:00.120 But we know, we know that Paul spends two years in Ephesus lecturing about Christianity and debating 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:06.200 with the different philosophies of that he spends two years there. And if you ever want to read Paul's, 00:05:06.200 --> 00:05:13.820 Paul's final, final kind of charge to the church in Ephesus, you turn to Acts chapter 20. 00:05:13.819 --> 00:05:19.040 And in Acts chapter 20, and I can't read it because I only got 45 minutes and I've already used five of 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:29.939 them, but he, he entreats the, the elders in Ephesus to guard the faith because he knows that because of 00:05:29.939 --> 00:05:35.199 the hostility towards Christian faith and the culture, they're going to be subject to consistent 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:43.219 and perpetual slander. And he said, I have done everything that I can for you. I've laid out to you all 00:05:43.220 --> 00:05:50.800 as clearly as I can, the counsel of God. And he said, when I leave, things are going to go sideways. 00:05:51.580 --> 00:05:58.580 And so he writes, he sees Ephesus as a church that is under consistent pressure to compromise. 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:02.300 And we don't, we don't, once again, I'll say one more thing about this, the story in Acts. 00:06:02.540 --> 00:06:06.300 One of the things you see in Acts as it describes Ephesus, and then we'll get into the chapter. 00:06:06.860 --> 00:06:11.820 In Acts, there is this tendency towards syncretism. And so the people came and saw that the ministry 00:06:13.220 --> 00:06:17.200 was pretty popular. And then they said, oh, this is, this seems to be working in the city. 00:06:17.380 --> 00:06:22.360 So I'm going to come and I'm going to say, I'm going to cast out a demon in the name of Paul and 00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:27.080 the God that he worships. And so there's this tendency in Ephesus that if you see something that 00:06:27.080 --> 00:06:32.440 works, rather than adopt it, this kind of added into what you do. And so that's just like Christianity 00:06:32.440 --> 00:06:37.900 as an addendum to an already existing ideology that seems to help you get what you want. 00:06:37.899 --> 00:06:43.579 And so this is the reason that Paul wants to make sure that they're clear about what the gospel is, 00:06:43.699 --> 00:06:50.099 because he knows that it's possible that in a culture like Ephesus, they will make a series of 00:06:50.099 --> 00:06:56.139 small compromises and they will look up and the faith that he delivered to them will no longer be 00:06:56.139 --> 00:07:02.859 the same, which is the reason why he says, if I have in any way left out something in the gospel, 00:07:02.860 --> 00:07:10.480 let me know. So now to the letter of Ephesus itself, and I'm going to have to try to summarize 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:15.580 chapter one again really quickly and then jump into chapter two in a little bit more detail. 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:23.240 Paul opens the letter to the church in Ephesus in chapter one with a statement about blessing. 00:07:23.939 --> 00:07:27.420 And one of the blessings he talks about, which is going to become a theme throughout the entirety of 00:07:27.420 --> 00:07:31.939 the letter, is the blessing of being adopted into God's family. One of the things that happens when I 00:07:31.939 --> 00:07:37.660 think about adoption, I think about, in my mind, the missionary videos that they have when people 00:07:37.660 --> 00:07:40.819 kind of come and they want to give you money, they want to give you money to the church, you know, 00:07:40.860 --> 00:07:45.079 and so they have usually African babies. And so here's the video and there's like Stephen Curtis 00:07:45.079 --> 00:07:50.779 Chapman, because this is the 90s. So Stephen Curtis Chapman is playing in the background and then they 00:07:50.779 --> 00:07:54.680 say, well, here, give some money to these little African babies because they're in an orphanage and then 00:07:54.680 --> 00:07:58.100 we'll raise them and things will be great, right? And so this is my image of adoption. 00:07:58.100 --> 00:08:04.140 African babies, you know, what's it? Is it Summers is her name? The video? Sally, whatever her name is. 00:08:04.360 --> 00:08:12.580 The white lady who held babies. Okay. Yeah. So you think of adoption as picking up this little kid 00:08:12.580 --> 00:08:16.580 and bringing them into your family. Some of us probably here have adopted or have gone through 00:08:16.580 --> 00:08:21.160 the adoption process. But in the Greco-Roman world, and this is important, babies weren't adopted. 00:08:22.100 --> 00:08:28.040 Adults were adopted. And adults were adopted based upon what the adult could do for the children. So what 00:08:28.040 --> 00:08:33.620 the adult child could do for the older parents. So you're getting ready to die and you don't want 00:08:33.620 --> 00:08:38.259 your name to perish. And so you say, this looks like a promising young citizen. I will adopt you 00:08:38.259 --> 00:08:43.240 into my family so that when I die, my name goes forward. This is actually how all the emperors 00:08:43.240 --> 00:08:48.560 were chosen. So it wasn't a biological, this is my son, therefore he gets to be the next emperor. 00:08:48.800 --> 00:08:53.440 You saw someone who was promising. You adopted him, made him your son, and then he kind of received 00:08:53.440 --> 00:08:58.700 the inheritance. So when Paul talks about us being adopted into God's family, the thing that makes 00:08:58.700 --> 00:09:04.280 this so radical in Ephesus is that we had no CVs that made us worthy applicants for adoption, right? 00:09:04.280 --> 00:09:09.520 So we weren't the cute baby who had all of the things going for us. These people were adults who had 00:09:09.520 --> 00:09:17.680 no prospects, who nobody wanted, who were broken and sinful. And he says, God has adopted you into 00:09:17.679 --> 00:09:25.439 his family and given you an inheritance. Now we as Christians, according to Paul, despite the fact 00:09:25.439 --> 00:09:30.500 that we weren't nearly as impressive to God as other people might be to the person who adopted them, 00:09:30.839 --> 00:09:37.120 God has brought them into their family. And we now share, stand to inherit that which belongs to God. 00:09:37.319 --> 00:09:41.059 And the question becomes then, what belongs to God? You guys should have to answer this when I ask you 00:09:41.059 --> 00:09:48.739 but I'm a teacher. What is it that belongs to God? Everything. Everything. So he says, now you 00:09:48.739 --> 00:09:55.979 have this inheritance in God. And how do you have it? And this is the last thing he says in chapter one, 00:09:56.359 --> 00:10:03.979 and then I'll actually nine minutes in begin my actual passage. How does God bring us into his family? 00:10:04.739 --> 00:10:11.039 According to Paul in chapter one, God brings us into his family through the power, the same power, 00:10:11.059 --> 00:10:16.199 that raised Christ from the dead. So like how much strength was exercised in bringing you from 00:10:16.199 --> 00:10:22.739 where you were into God's family? The same power that God the Father used when he said to Jesus, 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:30.179 come forth from the dead. So that means our status as adopted children is as secure as the resurrection. 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:38.000 After that, Paul then moves into the subject of our time today, which is Ephesians chapter two, 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:42.279 verses one down to 22. And I'm going to have to read it because I believe that like reading the Bible 00:10:42.279 --> 00:10:46.259 is important. So I'll read a little bit, talk a little bit, read a little bit. Since we're recording, 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:49.220 I was going to have some of you all read it, but I'll read it so it's captured in the mic. 00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:53.840 So we'll just read Ephesians two, one to three. Is that fair? Okay. 00:10:54.139 --> 00:10:54.700 Okay. 00:10:55.960 --> 00:11:02.519 You were dead. This is a great way to start the evangelistic process. You were dead. 00:11:02.519 --> 00:11:12.079 This is not an encouraging message. You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you 00:11:12.079 --> 00:11:18.559 once lived, following the course of this world, following the rulers of the power of the air 00:11:18.559 --> 00:11:25.939 and the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived amongst them 00:11:25.940 --> 00:11:33.400 and the passions of their flesh, following the desires of the flesh and the senses. We were by nature 00:11:33.400 --> 00:11:43.300 children of wrath like everyone else. So Tommy told you that we both went to Gordon and Conway together. 00:11:43.700 --> 00:11:51.860 I came in as a Baptist right about to become an Anglican and Tommy was in the PCA. And I think that 00:11:51.860 --> 00:11:59.519 the influence of the PCA probably still exists in Tommy's system. So, and it's not a bad thing 00:11:59.519 --> 00:12:03.320 because I'm not about to come for the PCA. But when I remember being at Gordon and Conway, 00:12:03.419 --> 00:12:08.720 my PCA friends loved Ephesians chapter two, verse one. I mean, this is like a life verse. He's nodding it. 00:12:09.259 --> 00:12:12.800 They love this part because they get to talk about the sovereignty of God. Because this is what it 00:12:12.800 --> 00:12:17.300 says. This is what they say. They love this part. Though you were dead in your trespasses and sins. 00:12:17.299 --> 00:12:23.699 They say, like, these heathen Arminians who think they can save themselves, you're dead, right? A dead 00:12:23.699 --> 00:12:30.419 person can't do anything. But God, in his sovereign power from all eternity, made you alive, right? And so 00:12:30.419 --> 00:12:38.519 it's this great opportunity to talk about God's sovereign call of us from death to life. How many of you 00:12:38.519 --> 00:12:45.959 heard this interpretation of Ephesians? Now, I'm not here to yell at that. It is true. It is accurate. It is a 00:12:45.960 --> 00:12:51.240 wonderful thing to say about God's sovereignty. But, and when I was at Gordon and Conway, I was like 00:12:51.240 --> 00:12:55.540 super impressed by this. And then I did this strange thing. We're never going to get all the way through 00:12:55.540 --> 00:13:01.960 this chapter. I did this strange thing. I read the second half of verse one. 00:13:05.160 --> 00:13:10.180 And I love, I love my Reformed friends. They're like, buddy, let's do some contextual interpretation 00:13:10.179 --> 00:13:19.299 here. Okay. You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once, what does it say? 00:13:19.939 --> 00:13:28.099 Lived. Wait a minute. Wait, you see it? You see it? And if you actually look in the Greek, it's the 00:13:28.099 --> 00:13:35.659 language of walked. Which, you know, like you actually walked around as dead. And so I'm not actually 00:13:35.659 --> 00:13:41.600 denying the statement about divine sovereignty calling dead things into life. I'm talking about 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:50.259 the complicated description of human existence that occurs in verse one. Because he said that you're, 00:13:50.259 --> 00:14:02.240 in some sense, living while dead. That is a description of the habits of life that you actually engage in 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:07.720 that are ultimately meaningless. And so if you kind of, it's almost like, you talk about the zombies. 00:14:07.860 --> 00:14:11.580 I don't know if this is a walking dead congregation, but like, you know, you remember this TV show? 00:14:12.100 --> 00:14:16.440 And so the walking dead, when you see these zombies, they're like dead, but they're alive. And, but the 00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:22.639 zombies are stupid, right? And so if the zombie hears noise, anyone seen walking dead? I'll use two 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:31.240 saved for that. Okay. Thank you. You heathens like me who are like barely saved. Okay. So in a zombie movie, 00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:34.879 for those of you who are watching like VeggieTales, even though you're grown, okay, I'm gonna tell you 00:14:34.879 --> 00:14:43.879 what happened. In the, in, in the zombie movies, when the zombie hears noise, he just runs to it and 00:14:43.879 --> 00:14:49.240 feeds. And so the zombie is easily manipulated because it's completely driven by its passion and 00:14:49.240 --> 00:14:56.060 desires. It has a few small things working in its brain. It needs to eat, and it wants to survive. 00:14:56.059 --> 00:15:01.799 And so it's a system which is living, but it's also dead. And so what Paul is arguing, 00:15:02.019 --> 00:15:08.039 and he's going to get to like what Christ does, but Paul is giving an analysis of their life before 00:15:08.039 --> 00:15:12.699 they became Christian. And one of the things that, that, and we'll get to this later, they don't know 00:15:12.699 --> 00:15:17.639 this at the time. They think they're just living. Then he says this, and this is once again, talking 00:15:17.639 --> 00:15:25.899 about, talking about their experiences, you're following the course of this world. So he is 00:15:25.899 --> 00:15:32.019 saying that the world has a particular culture that is ultimately fruitless, rooted in death, 00:15:32.199 --> 00:15:42.439 that you as a human being followed. He then goes on to talk about the ruler of the power of the air. 00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:47.540 So you then have like, and you guys, you baptize people here, right? Okay. So when you're baptized, 00:15:47.740 --> 00:15:50.600 when you're baptized, when you're baptized, it's just good. I don't know what y'all do. I've not 00:15:50.600 --> 00:15:57.600 been here in a while. So when you baptize someone, there's these threefold negations that you, 00:15:57.700 --> 00:16:06.320 that you reject. One of them is the world, right? The other one is the flesh, and then the devil. 00:16:06.320 --> 00:16:13.460 So this is Ephesians, right here. Look, you are following the course of this world, 00:16:14.900 --> 00:16:23.660 following the ruler of the air. In verse three, all of us once lived amongst them in the passions of 00:16:23.660 --> 00:16:34.040 our flesh. The world, the flesh, and the devil. So the world here, or this age, refers to the world 00:16:34.039 --> 00:16:40.079 in rebellion against Christ. When I was, before I was a Christian, or when I was like barely a 00:16:40.079 --> 00:16:45.039 Christian, I used to have this idea that we were, that we were free agents. So in a sense that like, 00:16:45.099 --> 00:16:49.759 I was, there was a time when I wasn't a Christian, but I was just kind of doing my own thing. And I, 00:16:49.879 --> 00:16:55.579 and I like left free agency and like signed up for Jesus's team. So I went from being an independent, 00:16:55.579 --> 00:17:01.899 you know, contractor to long-term contract with Jesus. But Paul makes the argument that there are 00:17:01.899 --> 00:17:09.220 no independent contractors. Like none of us are free. Paul fundamentally rejects the idea that 00:17:09.220 --> 00:17:15.160 there's the autonomous individual. He says, you're either being influenced by the world, the flesh, 00:17:15.160 --> 00:17:22.099 and the devil, or you're being influenced by Jesus. And so then the question becomes, 00:17:22.299 --> 00:17:29.379 if we look at the world, are there, so this is like the analysis of Paul's argument. If we look at the 00:17:29.380 --> 00:17:37.560 culture, has the culture set things up for us to follow? Are we given instructions by the culture 00:17:37.560 --> 00:17:42.860 that we unconsciously follow? One of the things, one of the reasons why I became an Anglican, 00:17:42.900 --> 00:17:49.360 we're never going to give you this verse. One reason I became an Anglican is I love the liturgical 00:17:49.360 --> 00:17:57.400 pattern of the seasons, right? I love Advent and Christmas and Epiphany and Lent and Easter, 00:17:57.400 --> 00:18:02.380 and even in a sense ordinary time. Because you have the saints who kind of pop up every now and 00:18:02.380 --> 00:18:07.560 then and say, pay attention to this, pay attention to that. And it wasn't until I actually became 00:18:07.560 --> 00:18:13.620 an Anglican and I began to think through the seasons liturgically that I actually began to 00:18:13.620 --> 00:18:20.759 notice the liturgical seasons existed in American culture. That we have our own secular liturgical 00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:25.920 calendar that tells you what to wear on certain days, what to celebrate, and what to buy. 00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:35.539 And these events on the calendar are also often tied to our gods. Now, please, do not men or women 00:18:35.539 --> 00:18:41.180 use this as an apology to like abandon Valentine's Day. So this argument is not going to work if you 00:18:41.180 --> 00:18:46.740 didn't apply it as I'm applying it now. So you can't say Valentine's Day is devoted to part of the 00:18:46.740 --> 00:18:50.320 secular calendar, devoted to the God of love, therefore I'm not getting you any candy. Like, 00:18:50.319 --> 00:18:59.619 that's a bad move. But if we had time, which we don't, we would start with kind of maybe the fake 00:18:59.939 --> 00:19:06.279 Christmas that replaced the actual celebration of Christmas, the secular Christmas, and the ideals 00:19:06.279 --> 00:19:12.399 that are folded to that that has its own goods and customs and events attached to it. We go through 00:19:12.399 --> 00:19:16.139 and we look at something like New Year's Eve, and they tell you exactly what to do and what to worship 00:19:16.140 --> 00:19:23.860 on New Year's Eve. And then we go from New Year's Eve into Valentine's Day and on and on and on. And we 00:19:23.860 --> 00:19:27.200 would talk about the clothes that we wear, the things that we buy, and the gods that we worship. 00:19:28.620 --> 00:19:33.040 We're being shaped every day with certain types of people. 00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:43.359 And if we're not conscious of that, we will begin to use that to become the basis for how we function 00:19:43.359 --> 00:19:47.599 in the world. And one of the things that the Anglican Liturgical Calendar does, and Christianity 00:19:47.599 --> 00:19:52.980 does more broadly, is to give you an alternative accounting of time. And that alternative accounting 00:19:52.980 --> 00:19:56.839 of time is rooted in the worship of a different God. 00:19:56.839 --> 00:20:07.959 So the last thing I want to say about this section is two. One is, I know, you all are at, 00:20:07.959 --> 00:20:11.599 you're in D.C., so I'm just going to assume you're sophisticated. Maybe that's wrong. 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:20.519 But when we talk about the spirit of the forces of the air, that strikes the modern intellectual 00:20:20.519 --> 00:20:25.699 as being a little bit too much, right? I don't believe in demonic forces and spiritual powers. 00:20:25.700 --> 00:20:29.460 It feels like that's, you know, like, I like the resurrection, but like, boogeyman, that's like 00:20:29.460 --> 00:20:36.519 two, you know, we've all passed that. But I want to say this, like, when we look, and I can't remember 00:20:36.519 --> 00:20:42.259 which author said this, when we look at the sum total of evil in the world, the actual evil that 00:20:42.259 --> 00:20:47.559 we do surpasses that. So if you kind of say, you get your standard level of human depravity, and you 00:20:47.559 --> 00:20:51.799 think of the kinds of things that should occur, every now and then it's something that kind of goes 00:20:51.799 --> 00:20:56.759 beyond it. And you see it in the media, right? When someone comes into a school and starts shooting 00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:00.899 at children, we know that there's something fundamentally, and I'm not, this mental illness, 00:21:01.019 --> 00:21:08.740 all of this stuff exists, right? But what I'm saying is that we in our society, sometimes even as 00:21:08.740 --> 00:21:12.919 secular as we are, come face to face with things that we can only describe as demonic. 00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:20.860 And it's not simply individual acts, it is a corporate evil that sometimes invades culture. 00:21:21.460 --> 00:21:27.759 And if you don't think that we're in a spiritual moment with the racial divisions, and if you don't 00:21:27.759 --> 00:21:33.160 feel this, it's more than, not less than, but more than a series of individual prejudices, 00:21:33.320 --> 00:21:39.140 right? Something's happening, and we feel the change in the culture. And Paul talks about this 00:21:39.140 --> 00:21:44.960 as the spirits of the air, because that's where they thought that the spiritual creatures inhabited, 00:21:45.040 --> 00:21:49.320 right? So we live here in the flesh, and in the Greco-Roman world, the spirits are in the air. 00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:55.540 So what I want to say to you is that if, as a Christian, your spirituality does not include 00:21:55.540 --> 00:22:00.740 the reality that we're engaging in a spiritual battle, then you fundamentally misunderstood the 00:22:00.740 --> 00:22:04.780 gospel. And whether that plays itself out, and this is not actually for the seeds, I say this all of 00:22:04.779 --> 00:22:09.700 the time. When we look at politics in the United States, we simply think that if we just change 00:22:09.700 --> 00:22:16.399 the person, then our lives are going to get better. Because it's all us, we're all in control of it. 00:22:16.639 --> 00:22:22.399 So if we vote for the right person, then we are going to change society, and culture will be better. 00:22:22.899 --> 00:22:28.279 Elections matter, trust me, right? I'm not going to doubt that. But what I am saying is that as 00:22:28.279 --> 00:22:34.539 Christians, we can get so caught up in what we see as the battle in front of us, that we don't 00:22:34.539 --> 00:22:39.740 recognize the reality of the spiritual oppression that exists in the world. The last thing I want to 00:22:39.740 --> 00:22:49.039 say just about these first three verses is that he refers to those who are in rebellion as the sons 00:22:49.039 --> 00:23:01.339 of disobedience. He uses familial language that we, before we were with Jesus, were actually a part of 00:23:01.339 --> 00:23:09.019 a dysfunctional family. And I will say that I think here, once again, Paul is accurate because 00:23:09.019 --> 00:23:12.480 whenever I wanted to do, I had like two sets of friends growing up. I don't know if you, once again, 00:23:12.539 --> 00:23:17.079 I'm not talking, this is my life. You can take what you want to from it. But I was raised in the church, 00:23:17.079 --> 00:23:21.839 and I had like two sets of friends. When I was trying to live right, I had like my Christian 00:23:21.839 --> 00:23:25.699 friends where I went, but when I wanted to do something stupid, I knew exactly who to call. 00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:34.679 I had like my stupid friends, like I had this bad idea, and they go, let's do it. Or I could tell 00:23:34.679 --> 00:23:39.419 by the phone call, in those days it was actually a page, but you know, that's way too far. 00:23:39.419 --> 00:23:46.500 When I got the page on my beeper, and I looked at it, I said, okay, this is my crazy friend. 00:23:47.079 --> 00:23:50.960 Because there are separate communities, right? I'm not saying when you become a Christian, 00:23:51.039 --> 00:23:53.919 you separate yourselves from the people who are not Christians. What I'm saying is, 00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:59.839 Paul talks about a family of people who exist in rebellion against God. But the family that 00:23:59.839 --> 00:24:05.619 exists in rebellion against God is a different kind of family, in that it is inherently unstable. 00:24:06.699 --> 00:24:14.099 Because the source of our relationship is our association with our Father, who himself is the 00:24:14.099 --> 00:24:19.059 Father of lies, who doesn't actually care about our flourishing. And so in this community, there's a 00:24:19.059 --> 00:24:25.439 lot of dysfunction and brokenness, because there's no common vision. We're all united by our desire for 00:24:25.439 --> 00:24:31.319 something that's ultimately destructive. And so I had tons of friends who I kind of liked, where every 00:24:31.319 --> 00:24:35.179 now and then we look at one another and go, what is the basis for this relationship? 00:24:35.180 --> 00:24:45.360 So what Paul has done in verses one to three is give a comprehensive analysis of the human condition 00:24:45.360 --> 00:24:50.759 apart from Christ, in which he makes claims about the world that demand an answer. 00:24:50.759 --> 00:25:02.879 Are we, or were we, indeed the living dead? Did we ultimately follow the course of this world, 00:25:03.099 --> 00:25:11.200 that we were driven by our passions, right? The world and spiritual forces. Is this an accurate 00:25:11.200 --> 00:25:19.019 description of the human condition? And did he say that this human broken family, that is all in the 00:25:19.019 --> 00:25:24.539 likeness of his Father, is ultimately consuming itself. And so when I take a step back and I look at the 00:25:24.539 --> 00:25:33.319 culture against, that exists kind of apart from Christ, this is what I see. Because, and I'm not saying the 00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:39.240 church doesn't have this function. What I am saying is, the only argument that the culture actually is able to 00:25:39.240 --> 00:25:44.900 make, like amongst itself, apart from Jesus, is we're right, you do it my way, and things will be better. And the 00:25:44.900 --> 00:25:48.960 people who disagree with me are ultimately evil, therefore I need to find something that allows me to 00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:54.559 hate them and dismiss them. Right? There is no, like we have lived, we've existed long enough to know 00:25:54.559 --> 00:26:00.000 that the culture is actually unable to create the community that it describes. Now the church may 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:07.100 ultimately fail in places, but what we're going to get to is what is the vision for the church's 00:26:07.100 --> 00:26:12.660 unity? But what we need to do is get to the place we can actually say, this is what the church says the 00:26:12.660 --> 00:26:18.759 human person is, and this is the basis upon which we build community. We need to contrast that with 00:26:18.759 --> 00:26:23.700 what we are told. Because what we are told, and now I'm going to go back into passages, what we're 00:26:23.700 --> 00:26:27.580 told is this, this is what we're told. This is the basis for kind of secular human community. I don't know 00:26:27.580 --> 00:26:33.660 why I'm into this now, but I am. We all have our desires. These are the things that we want. 00:26:34.420 --> 00:26:40.259 And no one should be able to tell us that we can't have or do what we want. And so we protect our right to 00:26:40.259 --> 00:26:45.759 want what we want, even if it's destructive. That's what we do. And so we create a bubble around one 00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:51.059 another that, in which we affirm all of the things that we want, the person wants to do as long as it 00:26:51.059 --> 00:26:54.960 doesn't harm someone else. So you can engage in destructive behavior as long as it's not destructive 00:26:54.960 --> 00:27:02.799 for someone else. And anyone who says, hey, that might not be the best idea, you then become a hypocrite. 00:27:02.799 --> 00:27:08.319 So I think you have this culture created of like, suppose a universal affirmation, 00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:22.720 you have all of the marketing that exists is based upon ideals of beauty and desire that few of us can attain. 00:27:22.720 --> 00:27:30.079 So they say we will affirm you no matter who you are and what you do, but we use an entirely different image 00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:34.559 to sell you all the things that you need. So we're actually telling you to be this. I was listening to, 00:27:34.559 --> 00:27:42.159 I was coming here, I think it was Delta. Delta had a commercial where it says, you know, we have 300 00:27:42.159 --> 00:27:49.119 cities. It could not be Delta, some airline. We have 300 cities across the United States. And we take 00:27:49.119 --> 00:27:53.919 people from all of these places. We don't just, we're not just an airline that flies you from place to 00:27:53.919 --> 00:27:59.279 place. We are an airline that shows you when you go from place to place, we're all not so different. 00:27:59.279 --> 00:28:04.960 And we're all one real family. And I go, that's a lie. You actually just fly planes to make money. 00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:05.759 Right? 00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:12.480 Right? Delta, Delta literally does not care if America is together, right? And they don't care. 00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:17.440 Like if we all hated one another and we just flew to different places all the time to escape one 00:28:17.440 --> 00:28:22.559 another, and they thought they could make money by telling you that, fly Delta. We will help you escape. 00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:27.359 They will do it. One of the things, sorry, I know now I'm on a rant time. This is, okay. 00:28:28.240 --> 00:28:33.599 I'm on a rant. I knew this was going to happen. So this is the last discussion about Delta. Okay. 00:28:35.440 --> 00:28:39.519 I don't know. I'm going to use some discipline. So use some discipline. We'll go on. We'll go on. 00:28:39.519 --> 00:28:46.000 Okay. Delta. They want you to escape, but they don't, they don't care about you. 00:28:47.039 --> 00:28:50.480 I will say that this is the thing that I've noticed because I'm, I am, I don't know if you noticed, 00:28:50.480 --> 00:28:57.039 I'm African-American and, and I've seen so much, and this is like, we're being lied to. This is the 00:28:57.039 --> 00:29:00.720 whole point. Like we're, the point of this is actually rooted in Ephesians. Ephesians talks about 00:29:00.720 --> 00:29:04.160 the deceptive stuff of the world. And these are the ways that we're being lied to. We don't even notice 00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:14.000 it. I've noticed the shift in the justice discussion in media as they sell stuff. Right? Now media is like, 00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:18.640 every company is progressive and they have all of these things and they're using it to sell whatever 00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:22.560 they want. But do you really believe that these companies all of a sudden believe that justice 00:29:22.560 --> 00:29:26.960 is the way that they're willing to go and it was in a sacrifice, the bottom line to have a more just 00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:32.160 society like Coca-Cola cares about black people. They do not. When, when it was good to be racist, 00:29:32.160 --> 00:29:37.280 they had like the, the, the, the nuclear white family that was blonde and blue eyed because that 00:29:37.280 --> 00:29:41.920 made money. And when it became financially profitable to have black people in the commercial, 00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:45.040 they put black people in the commercial. After the culture changed, 00:29:45.039 --> 00:29:52.879 it was not rooted in an actual idea about what it means to be human. The media is following this, 00:29:52.879 --> 00:30:00.319 the course of this world. And we're just marching along with it. Then Paul says, now I can go to verse, 00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:09.440 like verse four of 21, then I'm going to finish in 15 more minutes. But God, but God, I'm just going to 00:30:09.440 --> 00:30:14.480 read down to verse 10. But God, who is rich in mercy out of the love with which he loved us, 00:30:15.120 --> 00:30:19.920 even when we were dead and our trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace, 00:30:19.920 --> 00:30:26.320 you have been saved and raised up with him. And he seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ 00:30:26.320 --> 00:30:32.320 Jesus so that in the ages to come, he might show the immeasurable riches of his kindness towards us in 00:30:32.319 --> 00:30:38.079 Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, 00:30:38.079 --> 00:30:45.359 it is the gift of God, not the results of works, so that no one may boast. For all his workmanship, 00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:51.599 which he prepared beforehand to be our way of life." I have my like NRSV Bible and I'm already annoyed at it, 00:30:51.599 --> 00:31:00.559 sorry. It has the apocrypha in it. And so whenever I'm reading from it, I sometimes, but I have, 00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:03.279 you know, when you have like a different version of the Bible translated in your head and you're 00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:09.440 reading it again, I just have that cognitive dissonance. Okay, here we go. First, I think the 00:31:10.319 --> 00:31:19.119 the amazing thing about the gospel is its conjunctions. And so you can have in verse 1 to 3 this glorious 00:31:19.839 --> 00:31:26.159 kind of denouncing of culture and this glorification of human brokenness. And that can kind of become 00:31:26.159 --> 00:31:30.480 the tenor of what it means to be a Christian, to exist in perpetual opposition to the culture. 00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:36.079 And have nothing but critique. But that's not actually the point. Paul just puts these things 00:31:36.079 --> 00:31:41.680 down so that then he can get to his point. Because part of what the conversion process looks like 00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:48.720 is moving from the truth about who we are, and that's the hard part that we have to hear, to the 00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:58.079 gospel. So he goes, but God, and this is one of these, these, these, these Christian-y statements that we don't, 00:31:58.079 --> 00:32:05.519 we just lose the power of them. But God, who is rich in his mercy. So what does it mean to be rich in his mercy? 00:32:05.519 --> 00:32:10.720 Let me give you, let me give you an analogy. So my kids, my kids come to me all the time, 00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:16.399 and they, and they will ask for stuff. And they will know there's like a certain like level of reasonableness 00:32:16.399 --> 00:32:23.039 that I will agree to. So, hey dad, can I have, you know, an Xbox? No. Why? Because we can't afford it, right? So there's, 00:32:23.039 --> 00:32:28.720 they know there's a budget. And so they kind of save their big ask for these, these hinge point 00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:35.039 seasons, right? So dad, I've been good for weeks. I haven't asked you for anything. Today, can we have 00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:40.000 pizza, right? So they know, like, okay, I didn't ask for cookies every single day. Here's the pizza buying 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.799 time. And I go, okay, I do the financial analysis. Do we have $20? Yes, we do. Here's your pizza. 00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:52.639 And I think actually we, we can tend to think about God in a similar circumstance. Okay, okay, God, 00:32:53.359 --> 00:32:59.839 I haven't prayed to you in a very long time. I don't ask you for much, but I really need this job, 00:32:59.839 --> 00:33:04.319 right? Because you're thinking like, I'm saving this for the one big ask, right? Because like, 00:33:04.319 --> 00:33:10.440 I don't want to waste all of God's doing stuff for me on minor things, right? So the kids, forget them. 00:33:10.440 --> 00:33:20.820 But this job, God, I really need this. But Paul says that God is wealthy in mercy. He doesn't run 00:33:20.820 --> 00:33:26.980 out of it. There isn't like this limited supply that we can say, I've asked God for too much. 00:33:28.840 --> 00:33:39.019 We are made alive from his mercy. And one of the things that happens is that, 00:33:39.019 --> 00:33:43.579 at least in our house, there's four of them. And like, so we have four children. So like, 00:33:43.579 --> 00:33:47.460 they're perpetual hunger games. In the sense of like, they're all fighting. They'd like to be the 00:33:47.460 --> 00:33:52.799 one survivor. Because they want to know like, well, which one of us do you love the most? Maybe this 00:33:52.799 --> 00:33:58.400 is my dysfunctional family, but I'm going to share it. And so they're always competing for our attention. 00:33:59.059 --> 00:34:02.900 And you know, if I come, you come to one baseball game, you got to go to all the baseball games, 00:34:02.960 --> 00:34:04.559 the softball games, or you don't love them enough. 00:34:04.559 --> 00:34:14.719 But what Paul is saying is, God's mercy upon you does not exhaust his mercy for other people. 00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:22.380 So God's wealth then kind of has two aspects. One, he has sufficient mercy to save all of us. 00:34:24.599 --> 00:34:30.039 And he has sufficient mercy for us to return to him over and over and over again. 00:34:30.039 --> 00:34:36.840 But God, who is wealth, sorry, this is Exodus 34. Do you remember this? Remember this? 00:34:37.579 --> 00:34:40.800 Moses is in trouble. He's like, no, I don't remember it. It's okay. Moses is in trouble. 00:34:41.559 --> 00:34:51.340 Israel has sinned dramatically. And he asked God to show him his nature. And he tells Moses to go on 00:34:51.340 --> 00:34:57.259 the cleft of the rock. And I'll pass by you. And I will say my name before you. And it says, 00:34:57.260 --> 00:35:04.360 God passes by Moses, he speaks the name of the Lord to him. The Lord, the Lord, merciful and gracious, 00:35:04.660 --> 00:35:11.900 abounding in steadfast mercy. So God revealed his character to Moses there as the one who, 00:35:12.280 --> 00:35:19.840 despite Israel's sinfulness, abounds in mercy. And where does this mercy come from? And what I want 00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:25.120 you to contrast this with is a picture of what it means to be in community. He's talked about what 00:35:25.119 --> 00:35:29.980 verses one to three looks like as the basis for their community. This is what, this is what forms 00:35:29.980 --> 00:35:35.900 you. Now he's over here. But God, who's rich in his mercy, but where does the mercy come from? 00:35:36.599 --> 00:35:42.480 Right? Why does God tend to be merciful to us? Out of his love. So it like gets better. 00:35:43.480 --> 00:35:50.079 What's the basis for us being alive with Christ? Because he loves us. 00:35:50.079 --> 00:36:00.460 Once again, we are in the world of kind of Christian truisms, the wealth of his mercy and his love. 00:36:00.759 --> 00:36:07.840 One of the things that they talk about, um, uh, Christian music, and especially our praise songs, 00:36:08.139 --> 00:36:13.119 is you feel like the only things that we can say, right? God is love, love, love. And you just kind of 00:36:13.119 --> 00:36:18.340 say love over and over again. And like, you've worshiped. I remember when I, I come from the black 00:36:18.340 --> 00:36:23.880 church. And I remember when I first, when I first started like coming around, like contemporary 00:36:23.880 --> 00:36:29.340 worship, I was like, like, why, why do they say the same thing? And it feels so detached. 00:36:30.120 --> 00:36:34.320 So what I'm saying is, it's one thing to talk about God's love. And this is, this is between like, 00:36:34.360 --> 00:36:39.100 actually the African-American gospel tradition and like the, the, the worship tradition. It's one of 00:36:39.100 --> 00:36:44.440 the things that talk about love as an abstract thing. God loves me. But in the black gospel tradition, 00:36:44.440 --> 00:36:49.340 it's like, God loved me when he came and did this particular thing, right? The love becomes 00:36:49.340 --> 00:36:54.139 personal and it involves us and our narrative. And if you've ever been to a black church, 00:36:54.179 --> 00:36:57.039 which you haven't done, you should. Tommy, they'll still tie. It'll be fine. Okay. 00:36:59.039 --> 00:37:05.380 You'll sometimes see the woman or the man who is singing the song. And every now and then, 00:37:05.420 --> 00:37:10.220 if they're singing the song, you can tell that that song has ceased to be written by someone else, 00:37:10.219 --> 00:37:14.559 but they're now telling their story through the music. And you'll see her and she would like get 00:37:14.559 --> 00:37:18.980 caught up and she'll like stop singing. And then the other people will come in and they will hug her 00:37:18.980 --> 00:37:25.719 or they'll hug him. And there's this real sense in which the love described in the music 00:37:25.719 --> 00:37:32.619 speaks to their lived experience, which then manifests itself in worship because they're 00:37:32.619 --> 00:37:38.519 bringing their narrative into it. I had no ability to pay my bills, but God stepped in and with the 00:37:38.519 --> 00:37:44.360 great love out of which he loved me when my family abandoned me. So like, this is how black gospel 00:37:44.360 --> 00:37:49.980 music stands. Like there's this, there's this song by Kirk Franklin and the opening chorus is like, 00:37:50.039 --> 00:37:56.519 this would never happen in the evangelical context. He goes, the first line is the government keeps 00:37:56.519 --> 00:38:04.259 lying to me, telling me that it's going to set the people free. I need a strong, actually it opens up 00:38:04.259 --> 00:38:08.079 with Mayday, Mayday. That's the opening. The government keeps lying to me, telling me that they can set 00:38:08.079 --> 00:38:14.099 the people free. I need a strong God who's going to save me. You see the difference? So when Paul 00:38:14.099 --> 00:38:21.119 talks about love here, it is not love as an attribute of God, as the detached thing. It is a love that 00:38:21.119 --> 00:38:28.699 reaches into our lives when we were dead in our trespasses and our sins and brings us to a new place. 00:38:28.699 --> 00:38:38.159 And that to me feels like a much stronger basis of community to simply following the sons of 00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:45.899 disobedience. So we were, we were dead through our trespasses and sins, but because he loved us, 00:38:45.919 --> 00:38:50.439 because he loved us, he saw what the culture was doing to us and he came and he dragged us out. 00:38:50.440 --> 00:38:56.720 I'm going to just actually, I'm going to just go to verse 10 today. Is that okay? Cause I got like 00:38:56.720 --> 00:39:00.000 seven minutes left. I'm going to stop there. I'm going to say a couple of things about this. So 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:08.179 now I can take my time, which I was doing anyway. I did have in my notes, like it's only like two 00:39:08.179 --> 00:39:12.700 pages. I'm on like, just like note four. So I, this is just, and I hate this, this headphone thing. 00:39:12.699 --> 00:39:19.139 Yes. Thank you. Yes. Sorry. I told you I don't like these things. Okay, here we go. 00:39:22.419 --> 00:39:29.799 He says that he, through the, through, we were dead through our trespasses and sins. 00:39:30.519 --> 00:39:37.279 He made us alive together with Christ. And it's by grace you've been saved and you've been raised up 00:39:37.279 --> 00:39:42.299 with him and seated in the heavenly places in Christ. So one of the things that marks out 00:39:42.300 --> 00:39:47.960 Anglicanism as particularly unique amongst Protestants is our liturgical calendar in which 00:39:47.960 --> 00:39:52.280 we celebrate things like the Feast of the Ascension. And so sometimes we treat the Feast of the Ascension 00:39:52.280 --> 00:39:57.220 like the means by which Jesus exits the stage, right? He was stuck here. He need to get out of here 00:39:57.220 --> 00:40:00.519 because he, you know, he's not supposed to be here. So he kind of zooms into heaven, right? And so now 00:40:00.519 --> 00:40:07.039 he's gone. We wait for him to come back. But the consistent tradition, the consistent assertion 00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:15.920 of the New Testament is that the Ascension of Christ carries us with him. So Paul often talks 00:40:15.920 --> 00:40:21.739 about, and we talk about this a lot, especially once again, in churches that rightfully focus on 00:40:21.739 --> 00:40:26.659 the atoning work of Christ, right? You died with Christ. And so this idea of the justification by faith 00:40:26.659 --> 00:40:32.920 is in part affected by Christ died for our sins. So that when we are baptized into Christ, we experience 00:40:32.920 --> 00:40:37.159 his death, and then we're kind of raised in a new life. So we get the death and resurrection through 00:40:37.159 --> 00:40:42.860 union, right? This is a standard piece of Christian theology. But here, Paul is not talking about the 00:40:42.860 --> 00:40:47.320 death and resurrection of Jesus, right? You died with Christ, and now you live with him in chapters, 00:40:47.480 --> 00:40:53.019 like in Romans chapter 6. He talks about you be ascended into heaven with Christ. This is like part three. 00:40:53.440 --> 00:41:01.220 So you're not just dead to sin, and now you're living in a new life. You're actually ascended 00:41:01.219 --> 00:41:07.779 into the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. Why does any of this matter? Why does it matter that you are 00:41:07.779 --> 00:41:17.679 now ascended into heaven? Because now the heavenly perspective from which Christ reigns becomes your 00:41:17.679 --> 00:41:26.139 perception of reality. So before that, you're stuck down here, and you're responding to and reacting to 00:41:26.139 --> 00:41:31.359 all of the things that you see. And so the basis for your hope are the ever-shifting currents of 00:41:31.359 --> 00:41:36.019 society. So sometimes we look at the world and go, man, it looks like things are hopeless, or things 00:41:36.019 --> 00:41:40.379 are going well. Me and Tommy were talking about this. When we were in seminary, the culture felt 00:41:40.379 --> 00:41:46.460 different. This is 2002 to 2005. It felt a little bit different. And so we're like, oh, you know, 00:41:46.799 --> 00:41:50.199 ministry is going to be great. We'll just go and start churches, and people will love us, and Christianity 00:41:50.199 --> 00:41:56.119 is wonderful. But now it feels like something has changed. And that change can sometimes affect our sense of hope. 00:41:56.139 --> 00:42:09.099 But if we are actually ascended into the heavenly realms with Christ, we are united to the ruler of all 00:42:09.099 --> 00:42:18.000 things. And so that means things are never, ever falling apart. They're never falling apart. 00:42:18.859 --> 00:42:24.519 Even when it seems like in our personal lives, things are falling. You see the difference? 00:42:24.519 --> 00:42:33.400 We're saying, no matter what is happening in front of me, I am sick. I am dying. I am sick. I am dying. 00:42:33.519 --> 00:42:39.019 Right? We have friends who get sick and who actually die. And there's two perspectives on this. This is the 00:42:39.019 --> 00:42:47.719 great tragedy that this person who we love is now gone forever. And all that fills me is despair. Or this is 00:42:47.719 --> 00:42:53.299 someone who I love, I am not someone who I love deeply, whom I will miss when they die. But I will see them 00:42:53.299 --> 00:43:00.439 as the transformation of all things. And so the struggle then for the Christian is to actually 00:43:00.439 --> 00:43:07.939 consistently see the world from the perspective of Christ. People ask me all of the time how I function 00:43:07.939 --> 00:43:12.199 in the ACNA, which is, you may not have noticed, there's a lot of white people in ACNA. 00:43:12.199 --> 00:43:19.759 And I sometimes talk about multi-ethnicity in the ACNA. Or even multi-ethnicity period. Like, I mean, 00:43:19.819 --> 00:43:25.939 we in college. And like, why or how is this possible? Like, do you have any hope that this 00:43:25.939 --> 00:43:29.799 thing can actually be accomplished? And the thing, I say a couple of things. I say, first of all, 00:43:30.859 --> 00:43:35.239 the resurrection changes our plausibility structures. Right? It's like, once a dead person gets out of the 00:43:35.239 --> 00:43:40.679 ground, like, the things are impossible. Like, there's nothing. Right? So it's plausible. It's possible. 00:43:40.679 --> 00:43:45.019 The God who can raise dead people can make churches diverse. You know, like this. If you're 00:43:45.019 --> 00:43:52.739 telling me, which one is harder? The second one, the second reason, though, the second reason is 00:43:53.339 --> 00:44:05.579 eschatology. When I get to the end of the Bible, I see Jesus Christ as King. It tells me what's going 00:44:05.579 --> 00:44:08.960 to happen. The people from every tribe and nation are going to come together and we're going to worship 00:44:08.960 --> 00:44:14.000 around the throne. And that Jesus is currently reigning over that community. And if the Bible 00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:20.679 tells me this is true, this is what Jesus sees. When he looks at creation, then I am justified in 00:44:20.679 --> 00:44:25.539 saying, I want to see it too. I get it that it's only a foretaste, but I want a foretaste of it. 00:44:26.179 --> 00:44:33.079 So to be seated with Jesus is to allow Jesus to determine what is plausible. Now, what I don't want 00:44:33.079 --> 00:44:38.179 that, I don't want you to like, Jesus may see your resurrected body as like someone who 00:44:38.179 --> 00:44:42.340 can play in the NBA, but that might not be for you. Right? So it doesn't mean that you can just 00:44:42.340 --> 00:44:47.159 make bad decisions and say like, Jesus sees me as, you know, completely confident in everything. 00:44:47.279 --> 00:44:51.960 Well, no, like we all have our limitations. And so the resurrection of Jesus isn't this, 00:44:52.119 --> 00:44:57.759 this in kind of a plausibility structure, isn't an excuse not to properly plan and discern. 00:44:57.760 --> 00:45:05.540 Instead, it is a call for the Christian to not allow their particular circumstances to determine 00:45:05.540 --> 00:45:10.620 what we think is possible. And trust me, as someone who has waded through our culture 00:45:10.620 --> 00:45:14.620 in the last three years, this section has become particularly pertinent. 00:45:16.360 --> 00:45:21.540 Now, what is the purpose of all of this? This is in verse seven. 00:45:21.539 --> 00:45:43.539 Why is Christ taking us out of this world of disobedience, bringing us into this new community 00:45:43.539 --> 00:45:50.340 through his love and placing us with him in the heavenly realms? What is the purpose of it? 00:45:50.340 --> 00:45:54.440 And here I get the sound. This is why, this is why our reformed brothers love this. Here we go, Tommy. 00:45:54.620 --> 00:46:05.140 This is it. For his glory. So that in the ages to come, he might show the immeasurable riches of his 00:46:05.140 --> 00:46:15.720 grace and kindness towards us. So that people will see God's gracious goodness. So our transformed lives 00:46:15.719 --> 00:46:24.099 are witnesses to the coming ages of what God has done in Christ Jesus. 00:46:24.579 --> 00:46:30.159 So the transformed character of the church is a testimony to the watching world. 00:46:30.319 --> 00:46:34.439 Now, there's two ways to interpret this, and I'm going to interpret it both ways. I like both interpretations. 00:46:34.839 --> 00:46:37.839 And so you guys can go and look in your commentaries if you really care to see which one is right. 00:46:37.840 --> 00:46:44.820 The first one is, Paul is talking about the two ages. So you live in the present age where, you know, 00:46:44.880 --> 00:46:51.000 things are dominated by sin. So then in the coming age, right, when Christ comes in his glory, 00:46:51.320 --> 00:46:56.820 the church will be a manifestation to the coming age of what God has done, right? So when the new age 00:46:56.820 --> 00:47:02.840 comes, the testimony of the church has been towards God's goodness all along. So that we are, 00:47:02.840 --> 00:47:09.200 in a sense, like a testimony to the eschatological world of what God can do in the present, which is 00:47:09.200 --> 00:47:17.059 great. If that is the interpretation, then it means that our transformed lives are a record that 00:47:17.059 --> 00:47:22.860 would exist forever. So that in the new creation, when we share our testimony of what God has done, 00:47:23.100 --> 00:47:27.760 like the testimony of the church of the advent in DC in the year of our Lord, 2019, 00:47:27.760 --> 00:47:35.280 is a particular manifestation of God's glory. That's interpretation A. Interpretation B is that 00:47:35.280 --> 00:47:41.520 Paul is actually talking about, and less likely, the various generations that come. So that like one 00:47:41.520 --> 00:47:47.880 particular church becomes a testimony to like the future age. So like now the church in Ephesus is gone, 00:47:48.120 --> 00:47:53.680 but the testimony of the church in Ephesus remains, right? So that when we look back, and we talk about 00:47:53.679 --> 00:48:00.139 this a lot, one of the things I do is African-American interpretation. And sometimes you kind of wade 00:48:00.139 --> 00:48:06.299 through like people Bible reading in like the 1800s. Let me tell you, it was rough in spots, right? 00:48:07.299 --> 00:48:12.000 And so you see this testimony of kind of the distortion of the church's witness, and you're 00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:19.960 like prone to despair. But then you say, oh no, there was a Christian here who looked in the scriptures 00:48:19.960 --> 00:48:25.159 and said within those scriptures, we can see clearly that God wants his people to be free. 00:48:26.300 --> 00:48:34.420 And so that testimony remains. In either case, in either case, the point of it is all of this stuff 00:48:34.420 --> 00:48:42.260 matters. What we do as a church on a particular Sunday or Monday or Tuesday on a small group, 00:48:42.519 --> 00:48:48.480 in the grand scheme of things, may seem like something insignificant. But we really are, 00:48:48.480 --> 00:48:57.179 a testimony to God's character. And if we actually had time, and we were actually vulnerable, 00:48:57.599 --> 00:49:00.019 I'm not telling you all should put all your business in the street because everybody can't 00:49:00.019 --> 00:49:05.039 process it, right? It's true. You don't tell everybody everything. This is, my mama will tell me. 00:49:06.659 --> 00:49:09.320 You're not getting a whole testimony. You're getting a testimony that you can handle. 00:49:09.320 --> 00:49:18.360 But if we actually said, let's talk about God's graciousness towards us, and we shared it, 00:49:18.760 --> 00:49:25.740 and we all listened to it with sensitive hearts, we'll be overcome by God's goodness, strictly from 00:49:25.740 --> 00:49:33.019 the testimonies in this room. And we will come to a better understanding of who God's character is 00:49:33.019 --> 00:49:42.219 because of these stories. And so he concludes all of this then, right? So age will come, 00:49:42.300 --> 00:49:46.639 for by grace you have been saved through faith. So all the things that you now are, 00:49:46.639 --> 00:49:54.800 are not a result of you. So the end of all of this is not that you are boasting in your transformed life, 00:49:54.800 --> 00:50:01.500 like I am this wonderful Christian. But what you boast in is the fact that Jesus Christ has done 00:50:01.500 --> 00:50:07.620 these things in us. And then the new life, and this is the last verse that I'm going to do, 00:50:08.320 --> 00:50:15.420 the new life. For what we are, he has made us. That's an amazing account of the human person. 00:50:15.420 --> 00:50:22.200 Versus we are told that we create our own meaning and our own identity. No, no, no. What you are, 00:50:22.760 --> 00:50:30.400 he has made you. And he has made you in Christ Jesus for good works. So what is the purpose of all 00:50:30.400 --> 00:50:38.980 of this? The purpose of all of this is that God, God's grace in dragging us from death to life creates 00:50:38.980 --> 00:50:45.340 a new perspective on the world. This new perspective on the world leads to transformed lives in those 00:50:45.340 --> 00:50:52.320 particularly transformed lives are a manifestation of his glory. This is what it means to be a part 00:50:52.320 --> 00:50:54.860 of the Christian family. Thank you.