Life From The Dead Series

The Walking Dead Sermon Series (2 of 4)

“Life From the Dead” Eph. 2.1-7

October 13, 2013 Chester FBC Chester, IL Pastor Mike Fogerson, Speaker

Introduction:

A When a person dies there is severing of relationships/experiences in the physical realm.

1 If you stick a corpse with a pin they do not flinch because they are unable to respond to physical stimulus.

a The corpse doesn’t hear the conversations at their casket in the funeral home; doesn’t have an appetite for food or a thirst for water.

b A dead person has no sensitivity to the things occurring in the physical realm. (Incapable, impossible)

2 There is not a thing I can do to stop/reverse the direction of my body physically dying.

a Scientist are at work right now trying to “cure death” by manipulating a mysterious stretch of our DNA called telomeres. (Like the plastic tips on the end of shoelaces, Telomeres prevent our chromosomes from fraying.) -The Week, October 11, 2013, pg. 13

b As our cells divide over the course of our lifetime to renew the body, Telomeres become shorter/frayed until they can divide no more, grow old & die.

aa Scientist are trying to stop Telomeres from fraying in hopes to stop aging . . . cure death.

bb Multimillionaire in Russia spear heading the “2045 Initiative” whose goal is to cure death in next 30 years.

cc Heb. 9.27 tells me that unless the Rapture happens first, I’m going to die . . . I have no choice but physically die (and either does anyone else who hears this message.)

Hebrews 9:27 (NASB) 27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

c What choice we do have is to receive God’s grace in Christ, turn from death to life.

2 In Eph. 2.1-7, The Apostle Paul writes Gentile believers in the city of Ephesus to describe their state of being before they were believers by describing them as “dead.” READ TEXT

Ephesians 2:1-7 (NASB) 1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

a The spiritually dead have no relationship/experience with God or of spiritual things. (Incapable)

aa They have no feelings, appetite, fellowship with God until He gives them life.

bb Until a person is “quickend” or made alive, they are dead.

b This reflects a teaching of Jesus (John 5.24-25)

John 5:24-25 (NASB) 24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. 25 "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

aa When we die physically it is an event (day, occurrence)

bb Being spiritually dead is a state of being that ALL human beings exist in unless they are given spiritual life.

cc Paul in Eph. 2.1, 2 & 1 Timothy 5:6 tells us that spiritually dead people are THE REAL Walking Dead!

1 Timothy 5:6 (NASB) 6 But she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives.

c According to Jesus, a believer who dies physically will live forever spiritually AND take part in a future resurrection (v.25b); an unbelieving person who dies physically remains in that state with no hope of a future resurrection.

B A spiritually dead person lives in God’s world, sees God’s world, may hear God’s world, may go to God’s house on God’s day & does not know there is a God.

1 He may believe there is a God because he was raised up to believe it, but he isn’t cognizant of God. (Understand, know, perception of who He is.)

a Believing in God doesn’t make you a Christian.

James 2:19 (NASB) 19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.