Raised And Seated With Christ Series

2022 saw some truly bizarre Guinness World Records. They include:

The fastest time to find and alphabetize the letters in a can of alphabet soup (2 minutes and 8.6 seconds);

The farthest tightrope-walk in high heels (639 feet, in four-inch stilettos);

The largest gathering of people with the same first and last name (178 Hirokazu Tanakas in Japan, beating the 2005 record of 164 Martha Stewarts); &

The fastest time to eat 10 Carolina Reaper chilies (Ben Hooper, “Odd 2022: The 10 oddest Guinness World Records of the year,” UPI.com, 12-13-22; www.PreachingToday.com).

Now, I don’t know about you, but I can think of a lot more significant things to do with my time, especially since Christ is risen! You see, if Christ had not been raised from the dead, then life would be full of meaningless pursuits like that. But since Christ is indeed risen, God has prepared so much more for you to do.

The question is: How do you live the life God designed you to live? How do you move beyond the trivial pursuits to significant accomplishments in your life? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Ephesians 2, Ephesians 2, where the Bible shows how Christ’s resurrection can impact your life today.

Ephesians 2:1-2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience… (ESV)

The Apostle Paul, a Jew, reminds his Gentile audience where they came from. And if you want to live the life God designed you to live, then you too must first of all…

REMEMBER WHERE YOU CAME FROM, as well.

Remember where you were before you knew Christ.

Remember that at one time you were dead in your sins. That means you were separated from God’s goodness and grace.

Death in the Bible always means separation. Physical death separates your spirit from your body. Spiritual death separates you from God relationally. And that was your condition before you trusted Christ.

You were separated from God, because you were disobedient to God. You followed the ways of this world and of Satan himself. In fact, not only were the pagan gentiles dead and disobedient. The Apostle Paul says that even all the so called “good people” were also dead and disobedient. Notice the subtle change in verse 3:

Ephesians 2:3a Among whom WE ALL once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind…

Even good Jews followed the sinful desires and thoughts of their own hearts. Now, that’s quite an admission for Paul, a so-called “righteous Jew,” to make. He’s basically saying, no matter what your background, if you grew up in a religious home or not, you were ALL separate from God because of your own sin. ALL of you were dead in your sins because of your disobedience.

As a result, you were doomed. You were destined for hell.

Ecclesiastes 2:3b [We] were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

That word, “children,” implies an intimate relationship with wrath. At one time, you were not close to God’s love; you were by nature close to His rage against your sin. That was your condition before you came to know Jesus Christ. And even the thoughtful unbeliever recognizes this.

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and the author of The Science of Good and Evil, writes:

I once had the opportunity to ask Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List, what he thought was the difference between Oskar Schindler, rescuer of Jews and hero of his story, and Amon Goeth, the Nazi commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp. His answer was revealing.

Not much, he said. Had there been no war, Mr. Schindler and Mr. Goeth might have been drinking buddies and business partners, morally obtuse, perhaps, but relatively harmless. What a difference a war makes, especially to the moral choices that lead to good and evil.

Shermer goes on to quote Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” (Michael Shermer, Something Evil Comes This Way)

Carl Sandburg put it this way: There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud (Richard Hansen, “A Good Mystery,” Preaching Today Audio, issue 253).

That’s where you were before you knew Christ. By nature, we were “children of wrath.” All of us were separated from God because of our sin.