Please have a seat and open up to Ephesians chapter 2 again.
And over the next few weeks we're just going to be looking at a few verses per week.
So we're going to do a slow-mo replay of Ephesians 2, 1-10.
And today I want us to do a slow-mo replay of just verses 4 and 5.
Let me read them.
But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
I used to be on Facebook.
I'm not on Facebook anymore.
Sorry, you can't add me.
But when I was on it, I used to follow the Thames Valley Police Facebook page.
Don't ask me why.
And now and again, they would post recent convictions of criminals and describe their crimes.
At one time, a post came up of a criminal who had done some pretty disgusting things.
And they had caught and convicted him.
And a woman commented just below on the Facebook post.
And I saved these words.
This is word for word, copy and paste.
She wrote this.
I just don't understand how so many people not only have these thoughts,
but the urge is so intense, they know it's wrong,
and still feel the need to pursue the urge and break the law.
Surely there has to be a reason for it.
I just can't come to terms with the amount of people being born like this.
Something must happen to cause this.
It's just so wrong.
Now that woman has an excellent insight into the human condition.
And she asks a big question.
What causes this?
And we can look around at the world right now and be wondering exactly the same.
If you've been watching the news,
the names Constance Martin and Mark Gordon raises the same question.
What causes this?
Or you can look at the wars in the headlines right now.
You can look on the streets of Ealing.
You can wonder about this question in your office.
You can agonize over this question as you struggle with your family.
Or maybe you're here tonight looking into your own heart and wondering the same thing.
What causes this?
Well last week we saw what the cause of all this is.
It is something to do with the human condition.
That the cause is it's deep within.
Look at verse 1.
Without Christ, without God's grace, by nature we are what?
Dead in our sins.
So take away grace from the human condition.
And there is only spiritual deadness.
Only an opposition to God and his law.
That Facebook post was coming face to face with this deadness.
But Ephesians doesn't point the finger at the convicts in the headlines to say,
well that's the deadness over there.
No, Ephesians speaks to the Christian.
To you and me brothers and sisters.
And says, this is what we were like without God's grace.
You may not have been in the headlines, but our situation is far worse than we think.
Before Christ, we are by nature down to the very core, dead.
Running from God and following the world, the flesh and the devil and heading straight off a cliff.
So if you did a super powered x-ray of the human heart without Christ, we are spiritually, morally dead.
This is the problem of the world.
It's not a lack of role models.
It's not just a lack of education.
By nature, you can think of the world, it's a stinking corpse.
We are by nature a stone cold body lying in a mortuary.
So that Facebook post can actually be pointed to any one of us.
I just can't come to terms with the amount of people being born like this.
Yeah, that's me.
We are all born like this.
By nature, in all of us, there is a whole reservoir of evil ready to be unleashed.
But it's not good enough to just ask why.
It's no use to just ask what causes this and then leave it there.
We need to ask a just as perplexing question, but just as important question.
Not just what causes this, but how can you change this?
How can you even fix people like this?
These wars, these politicians, look at these thefts and burglaries.
Look at my colleagues and my family and my school.
Look at the way the world is going.
The world feels like it's going to hell in a handbasket.
How on earth can you fix something like that?
Something so entrenched and ingrained into who we are.
How can you fundamentally change the dead human condition?
Well, there's only one answer.
And Ephesians 2 couldn't be any clearer about it.
How do you change the dead human condition?
God needs to make us alive.
We have in these verses tonight the answer that you and this world is crying out for.
We're doing a slow-mo replay of Ephesians 2 over the next few weeks.
And this is the slow-mo replay of salvation.
The slow-mo of how this unfixable world can be fixed.
How the dead human condition can really be changed.
And as we watch this replay, we see something extraordinary.
The change has already begun.
In fact, it's already begun where?
Who's this being written to?
It's begun in the Christian.
How can you fundamentally change the dead human condition?
Well, Paul is writing here to say,
Christian, look to your own life.
And you will see God made us alive.
And this is my first point I want us to see today.
God made us alive.
It's my first big point and then two shorter points after that.
God made us alive.
Let's look at verse 4.
Verse 4 is the turning point of this whole passage.
In fact, this is the turning point of the whole human condition.
And can you see that turning point?
How does this verse start?
Verse 4.
But.
It starts with a contrast.
But is a turning point.
Not that.
But.
Instead this.
So you know when you see the word therefore in the Bible?
Have you heard?
When you see the word therefore, you need to ask,
what is the therefore?
Therefore.
Well, here's another one.
A but butts in.
Right?
A but butts in.
A but changes something's direction.
It's a turning point.
And so when you see the word but, you need to ask, what is it butting into?
What came before this?
What could have been?
Well, it butts into what we were before Christ.
It's the turning point of a fallen humanity by nature on its own.
And what were we like?
Verse 1.
Hear it again.
Leave this world on its own.
Step back and leave us to our own devices.
Let each of our lives just play out and run their course.
And we will just follow the devil off a cliff.
This is the way that the world would just flow on its own.
No hope.
No life.
Nothing.
But.
Something happens.
Something butts in.
Verse 4.
But.
God.
The world.
We were only going in one direction.
But God.
Did something.
But God.
Didn't leave a world on its own.
And what did he do?
What is the thing that he did?
Well, we need to jump.
Just jump ahead to verse 5 to see that.
Verse 5.
When we were dead in our trespasses.
God.
Made us.
Alive.
This is the turning point of history.
This is the turning point of the human condition.
You were lost.
Christian, you were following the world, the flesh and the devil.
Back to God.
Middle finger up to him.
But God.
Reached down.
Picked you up.
Turned you around.
Brought you to himself.
And made you alive.
Look again at the slow-mo replay of this world.
God has reached down and brought the dead back to life.
And as you experience the deadness of this world.
As you see it in the headlines.
And in work.
And at school.
And in your family.
And maybe tonight you even see it in yourself.
We know.
We know we need something drastic.
Seminars don't end wars.
Role models don't stop these urges inside of us.
No.
What do the dead need?
What does someone like Putin need?
Putin needs to be made alive.
Constance Martin needs to be made alive.
Your colleague you pray for needs to be made alive.
If you're not in Christ here tonight.
You need to be made alive.
And this is what salvation is.
To become a Christian.
It's not just a lifestyle update.
This isn't just a new hobby.
Christianity is not our attempt.
To get our lives back on track.
No.
To become a Christian.
To be saved.
Is God doing something in you.
It is God raising you from the dead.
When we were dead in our trespasses.
God made us alive.
If you're trusting in Christ here today.
Then something has actually happened to you.
There is a point in your life.
Where you were dead in your sin.
And God came down to you.
And he made you alive.
We often call this conversion.
From our own experience.
It's the point when we stopped following the world.
The flesh and the devil.
And we started following God.
And we don't always know when this point is.
It might have been in the womb.
Maybe it was when you were three seconds old.
You might look back at your life.
And you've always believed.
That's the case for me.
I can't.
I look back.
And I can't pinpoint a moment.
Of conversion.
Maybe it was in the womb.
I don't really know.
I can't pinpoint it.
Or maybe you can.
It was in the womb.
And you look back.
And you're pretty sure it was during that sermon.
Or you think, you know.
Yeah, it's probably when I was praying on that walk.
Or when you were just alone that one night.
Or when you were reading the Bible.
And the light bulbs just went on.
Or maybe you can't pinpoint it.
But you know it was kind of around that time.
It was kind of that year probably.
But you can't figure out the moment.
Things were kind of gradual.
But you know things weren't the same again.
Well, whenever it was.
Whether you know it or not.
There is a moment when something happened to you.
You were stone cold dead.
And then God made you alive.
And if you got a super powered MRI scanner on you in that moment.
At that point.
And you could scan your spiritual self.
You will see your inner heart go from no pulse to beating.
You will see that the texture of your heart go from stone to flesh.
You will see the temperature chart go from stone cold toward God.
To warmth and love toward the Lord.
And this is what the Bible sometimes calls being born again.
Remember that woman?
What she wrote on Facebook?
I just can't come to terms with the amount of people being born like this.
Exactly.
So what do we need?
We need to be born again.
Salvation.
It's not only about the forgiveness of sins.
And it is about the forgiveness of sins.
But it's not only about the record of our sin being wiped out.
But at heart salvation is about you being brought back from the dead.
Salvation is God reaching down into the mortuary and making you alive.
And so this means that for those in Christ, something has actually changed in you.
Because just think about it.
If we were dead, and deadness means, do you remember last week, following the world, the flesh, and the devil, being ruled by those things.
Our hearts went in that direction.
If that's what being dead is, then what does being made alive mean?
It means going in the other direction.
When God makes you alive, you begin to resist the course of this world.
This is why, Christian, this is why you feel the flow of the world push hard against you right now.
This is why standing up for Christ at school or at work, it's not only awkward, it's painful.
This is why, when the world is celebrating law changes and lifestyle choices,
that we're lamenting over.
This is why we don't feel at home here anymore.
This is why you cannot escape that deep down longing for heaven.
You are now not following the course of this world anymore.
And so being alive, it also means you've stopped following the devil.
The lies of the devil, the lie that we are fine without God, that's his big lie.
We realize how untrue that is.
We hear the gospel and we realize, no, that's nonsense.
And what about the desires of the flesh?
Well, that warmth that you saw in that MRI, those are new desires in you.
When God makes you alive, he puts new desires in your heart.
He gives you a new heart.
With desires now to love God and obey him and worship him.
To come to church and be with God's people and love and serve and forgive really hard things.
Things that you could have never done before.
That is God bringing new life into your heart.
So don't take that for granted.
Those desires that you have, that they may be small, you may be young in your faith,
but those desires are not a small thing.
That is God raising the dead.
Now, we do need to say that those old desires that pulled us away from God,
that those old desires, they don't disappear entirely.
This side of heaven, we will wrestle with sin.
And so if you're a Christian here tonight,
and you're struggling with desires that you know aren't right,
and you recognize them, and you're frustrated by them,
and you just want to love God and lead a faithful life,
but you see these desires and you think,
you think no Christian should have these desires that you're feeling.
I want you to realize, if there is a pull of desires in you,
don't think that's because you're dead.
It's because you're alive.
It's like a fish swimming against the flow of a river.
So think about that.
If you see a fish floating at the top of a river,
just going downstream, just going with it,
what do you know about that fish?
That fish is dead, isn't it?
It's floating, just going with the flow.
There's no fight in it.
But when you see a fish fighting against that current,
what do you know about that fish?
It's alive.
Well, to have the desire to even fight what you're fighting,
that is because God has made you alive.
When God saves you, something actually changes in you.
And maybe you can see exactly that in your life.
You look back and you can see that turning point.
You were completely lost at uni.
You were just going with the crowd.
You were heading down a scary road.
But God changed everything.
You were working the nine to five.
You didn't realize that there was anything else.
You were blinded to anything past this world.
But God shook you out of it.
You were in that relationship.
Your desires were pulling you there.
You didn't realize where you were heading.
But God made you alive.
And if you're feeling that deadness today,
if you're wondering if there is any hope for this world,
any hope for you, speak to any Christian here.
The answer is yes.
God can make you alive because he made me alive.
So what does this world need?
What does your school need, your colleagues, your family?
We need something to butt in.
God needs to make us alive.
The dead cannot make themselves alive.
Go to a graveyard and stand by a tombstone
and tell that body underground to make themselves alive.
But what's going to happen?
Nothing.
Well, what is going to happen to this dead world without God?
If God just stepped back
and there was no grace, no gospel, no God, no action, nothing,
then this world, every one of us,
would stay dead in our sins and fall off that cliff edge.
But God didn't do that.
He made us alive.
And how?
How did he make us alive?
He made us alive with Christ.
It's my second point today.
It's going to be shorter.
God made us alive with Christ.
There's something key
to how the dead human condition can be made alive.
Do you see that in verse 5?
God made us alive together
with Christ.
Now those two words,
with Christ,
this means what it says it means.
Along with Christ.
Side by side with Christ.
When I was made alive,
I wasn't on my own.
Someone else was made alive as well.
I was made alive
with Christ.
So have a think.
And this isn't a trick question.
When did that happen?
When was Christ
raised from the dead
and God made him alive?
This is talking about the resurrection.
That first Easter Sunday.
And Ephesians is saying
when Jesus' body
was laying still in that tomb,
when his heart was silent
and his veins were ice cold,
but then
his heart started pumping.
Blood
flowed through his veins.
Resurrection life
surged through him.
He took that
deep first breath.
He opened his eyes,
sat up,
folded those grave clothes.
The tombstone
rolled away
and he stepped out
into that Sunday morning light.
Ephesians is saying
when that happens,
you Christian,
you left the tomb there
with him.
You took those first steps
with him.
God made us alive
with Christ.
But you might ask,
how?
I wasn't there.
That was 2,000 years ago.
How was I with him?
Well,
when God made you alive
last year
or 10 years ago
or when you were 6 years old
or when you were in the womb
or whenever it may be,
when God made you alive,
that was you
sharing in Easter Sunday.
The same resurrection power
that surged through Jesus
on that Sunday morning,
that same power
is what surged through you
in that moment.
And in fact,
it's what's in you
right now.
And so when you look
at the Thames Valley Police
Facebook page,
how can those people change?
What do our leaders need?
What does Putin need?
What do your colleagues need?
What do your school friends need?
If you're not a Christian,
what do you need?
This world needs
to be with Jesus.
That is the only way
life comes into this dead world.
You need to be with him,
united to him.
So take it from someone
who was dead
but is now alive,
trust in the Lord Jesus
and you will be with him.
This is why we run
Holiday Bible Club.
This is why we have
Hope Explored.
This is why the language classes,
this is why your prayers
aren't in vain.
This world is so
desperately dead
and only in Christ
can the dead be made alive.
This is what salvation is.
This is how God
butted into this world.
He reached down
into the mortuary
and made us alive
with Christ.
But I want us to finish
by asking,
why?
Why?
Why all of this?
If we were dead
in our sins,
if we hated God,
if justice demands
that God's anger
should be on us,
if this is the natural flow
of this world
and in sin
we want this,
if this world is dead,
why is there
a but God?
Why doesn't Ephesians 2
just end
at verse 4?
Why does God,
why has God
done anything
at all
in this undeserving world?
Why isn't this world
in an instant
just plunging down
into hell?
Well, the reason
is found in God.
Look again at verse 4.
But God
being rich
in mercy
because of the great love
with which he loved us
even when we were dead
in our trespasses
made us alive
together
with Christ.
There is only a but God
because God
is rich in mercy.
And it's my final point today.
God is rich in mercy.
Now, mercy means
not giving us
what we deserve.
That's what mercy means.
Mercy means
not giving us
what we deserve.
So justice alone,
cold hard justice alone
demands that God
step back
from this world.
That we just live
our lives
and just let this world
head off that cliff.
That's fair, okay?
That's what we deserve.
But mercy,
mercy
is God
not letting that happen.
Mercy is God
not giving us
what we deserve.
Mercy is God
butting into our lives.
It is this
kindness,
this goodness,
a love
toward the undeserving,
the love
with which
he loved us.
so look back
at your life.
Why can I say
I was lost
when I was a teenager
but God found me?
Why can you say
I was heading down
a dark path
but God pulled me back?
Why can we say
I was going to hell,
I deserved it
but God gave me heaven?
Why any of this at all?
Why is there
a but God?
Well look what comes
after it
but God
being rich
in mercy.
You can look back
at your life tonight
and you can see
what could have been,
see where you were,
you can see
how you came alive
and you can know
that is because
God had mercy on me.
He chose
to love me.
He chose
to not give me
what I deserve
but instead
give me everything
I don't.
And why does God
show us this mercy?
It's not anything
in us.
It's not because
we were a little bit
more deserving
than others.
No, the reason
is not in us.
No, look again,
God
being rich
in mercy.
We can only
be here today
because God
in his being
who he is
our God
is rich
in mercy.
And I want us
to notice
something about
this phrase.
Firstly,
do you notice
it does not say
despite who God is
he happened
to be merciful
to us.
It does not say
although it is
out of the character
of God
to be merciful
yet he had
mercy.
No, it says
God
who is
rich in mercy
made us
alive with Christ.
It is in the
character of God
to have mercy.
When God
reveals himself
to Moses
in Exodus
reveals who he is.
Do you remember
how God
announces himself?
Do you remember
those words?
He says
the Lord,
a God
merciful
and gracious.
Our God
is not
this mechanical
robot
who knows
all facts
and just
dishes out
justice
like a
maths equation.
No,
a God
like that
steps back
from a dead
world
but that is
not who God
is.
Our God
being rich
in mercy
reached down
to a dead
world,
reached down
to you
and me
and gave
the dead
life.
You are
alive
not despite
who God
is
but because
of who
God is.
So if you
know anyone
whose name
is Mercy
tonight
they need
to know
that they
are named
after a
wonderful
thing.
And secondly
notice how
merciful he
is.
God is
rich in
mercy
and that
is because
big sin
requires
rich
mercy.
The bigger
the sin
the richer
the need
for mercy.
And how
big was
our sin?
How big
was our
deadness?
Big enough
that the
Son of
God
needed to
die for
it.
The cross
is proof
that sin
is big
but that
means the
cross is
proof of
something else.
The cross
is proof
that God
is rich
in mercy.
If the
Son of
God gave
his life
for me
if that
is how
big my
sin was
then my
God is
rich in
mercy.
I was
speaking to
another
Christian once
about their
salvation
and they
were reflecting
on their
past and
how God
saved them
and they
just asked
why me?
Of all
people
why me?
it is a
good question
to ask
and we
can even
add
why any
of us?
Why did
God make
any of us
alive with
Christ?
Well do you
know?
Because God
is rich in
mercy.
How do we
have any
right to be
here, to be
alive?
We have no
right.
We deserve
none of this
and that's
exactly the
point.
we don't.
But God
is rich
in mercy.
Let's pray.