By Grace You Are Saved

OPEN YOUR BIBLES TO NUMBERS 4:4-6 & Ephesians 2.1ff

1. There is DEFINITELY a lot of interest in the occult today…

· Movies are made, books are bought, experts are sought after.

· Many are shelling out millions of dollars to have their fortunes told, to gain insight on the future, to know the afterlife.

· Just a few weeks ago I came across a booth at the Park Meadows Mall advertising a man who will consult angels for you and tell you about your PAST… PRESENT… & FUTURE.

· There’s a big problem with that… he’s consulting demons.

2. Christians… we don’t need/want to consult the occultic realm.

· The occultic realm is OFF LIMITS to the Christian.

Deut. 18.10-14 "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 "or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. 12 "For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you. 13 "You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. 14 "For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not appointed such for you.

3. We have the truth… the Bible which tells us all we need to know about our PAST… our PRESENT… and our FUTURE.

4. This morning we get a look at our past in v1-3 and then our present in v4-6, and then a peek at the future in v7.

· This section is capped off with a wonderful picture of God’s Amazing Grace working in and through our lives.

5. But before we get to His Great Grace, Paul paints a very dark and sinister picture of our past life.

· Your life, my life was dark and dreary without Jesus Christ.

· Often we’ll look back and say, “Oh, my life wasn’t that bad.”

· “As a matter of fact, it was pretty fun & exciting.”

I‘m reminded of the Children of Israel. After they were delivered from bondage and slavery in Egypt, they began murmuring and complaining. NUMBERS 11.4-6

They forgot the work, the pounding of straw into bricks, the beatings, the rapes, the murders among their people…

· Lest we forget the horrors of life without Jesus, the Holy Spirit takes us on a journey of God’s viewpoint of our past…

BY THE WAY: It’s always good to take a spiritual inventory now and then looking back at what you came out of.

· Seeing how you’ve grown in the Lord.

· Enjoying how you overcame that sin and that that situation.

· Basking in the faithfulness of God!

· Let’s jump into God’s picture of our past…

I. (1:1-3) Our PAST

1. (1) Dead in trespasses and sins.

a. You and I were spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins.

b. Sin killed us, separated us, destroyed us.

c. We had no spiritual life in us at all!

APP: Of course that is the price to pay for sin. It offers and even gives pleasure for a season but the price to pay is separation.

Hebrews 11.24-25 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,

· Sin brings Loneliness, pain, isolation, agony, suffering…

NOW death in the Bible is defined as separation in 3 ways…

Physical - the separation of the spirit from the body

Spiritual – we can be alive physically but spiritually lifeless

Eternal – there comes a point in time when a person will be eternally separated from God if they refuse to accept Jesus.

NOTE: I believe with all my heart that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

· But the flip side to that is that Satan HATES YOU and has a HORRIBLE plan for your life.

· He wants you stale and ineffective in the spiritual realm.

· He doesn’t want you on fire for the things of God…

· So he’ll tempt and taunt you with sin trying to get you to fall.

NOTICE… we were dead in two things: Trespasses and sins.

NOW: Trespasses refers to a willingness to break the rules.

· IT reflects a willful act, a defiance, a rebellion.

· You see a sign that says, NO TRESPASSING and you go anyway.

SIN was an archery term describing the arrow that missed the bull’s eye. It means to ‘miss the mark’.