“Of Life Before Accepting Christ” Ephesians 2:1-3
A Life of Death…
A Life of Sin…
A Life of disobedience under God’s wrath…
Donald Grey Barnhouse, led the son of a prominent American family to the Lord. He was in the service, but he showed the reality of his conversion by immediately professing Christ before the soldiers of his military company. The war ended. The day came when he was to return to his pre-war life in the wealthy suburb of a large American city. He talked to Barnhouse about life with his family and expressed fear that he might soon slip back into his old habits. He was afraid that love for parents, brothers, sisters, and friends might turn him from following after Jesus Christ. Barnhouse told him that if he was careful to make public confession of his faith in Christ, he would not have to worry. He would not have to give improper friends up. They would give him up.
As a result of this conversation the young man agreed to tell the first ten people of his old set whom he encountered that he had become a Christian. The soldier went home. Almost immediately--in fact, while he was still on the platform of the suburban station at the end of his return trip--he met a girl whom he had known socially. She was delighted to see him and asked how he was doing. He told her, "The greatest thing that could possibly happen to me has happened." "You’re engaged to be married," she exclaimed. "No," he told her. "It’s even better than that. I’ve taken the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior." The girls’ expression froze. She mumbled a few polite words and went on her way. A short time later the new Christian met a young man whom he had known before going into the service. "It’s good to see you back," he declared. "We’ll have some great parties now that you’ve returned." "I’ve just become a Christian," the soldier said. He was thinking, That’s two! Again it was a case of a frozen smile and a quick change of conversation. After this the same circumstances were repeated with a young couple and with two more old friends. By this time word had got around, and soon some of his friends stopped seeing him. He had become peculiar, religious, and -- who knows! -- they may even have called him crazy! What had he done? Nothing but confess Christ. The same confession that had aligned him with Christ had separated him from those who did not want Jesus Christ as Savior and who, in fact, did not even want to hear about Him. J.M. Boice, Christ’s Call To Discipleship, Moody, 1986, p. 122-23.
Let’s review what we were called from and offer this to others on a continuing basis.
A Life of Death…
Ephes. 2:1 (NIV)
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
Today let’s give God glory for what He died to save us from.
Apart from Him we would be dead in our transgressions.
Do you remember what your life was like before?
The amazing thing is we are told that we were “nekros”-Gk., a corpse, dead.
God’s word tells us that we were dead in our “paraptoma”, Gk., our slip ups; our intentional or unintentional sins.
And in our “hermartia”, Gk., our offense or sin.
We all start in death because of intentional and unintentional mistakes--sin in our lives.
H.S. Miller says, “Death is the separation of a person from the purpose or use for which he was intended” (quoted by Lehman Strauss, Devotional Studies in Galatians and Ephesians, p.137).
God created us to know and experience Him.
The bible speaks of three separate deaths
Physical Death
“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:21-22).
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
Spiritual Death
“He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12).
And Eternal Death
“Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thes. 1:9).
Of course Christ died so that all who believe on Him would have eternal life.
So if you have not trusted in Christ you are spiritually dead—
dead to God,
dead even while he lives upon this earth.
Again, the passage describes our lives before we accepted Christ.
The major question then becomes: Have you accepted Jesus Christ as Lord?
A Life of Sin…
Ephes. 2:1-2 (NIV)
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, [2] in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
This means we simply went the way of the world instead of the way of Christ..
We are told that before Christ we lived in trespasses and sins and that we were dead
This indicates someone who...
·falls from the right way.
·slips from doing what we should.
·blunders and fails.
·deviates off the right road.
·turns aside from what is right.
·or wanders away from God and righteousness.
“To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19).
“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephes. 1:7).
Christ died to give you freedom from sin and its hold over you.
To sin simply means we miss the mark of righteousness and justice that is God’s standard.
God created us to share in a relationship with Him yet since the “Garden of Eden”, we have tended to go the other way apart from Christ.
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof” (Romans 6:12).
Sinners walk after the following:
the “course of this world”
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
under the power of Satan
“Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44).
and walk in disobedience
“And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:26-27).
“For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25).
“[The disobedient] have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness” (2 Peter 2:15).
A Life of disobedience under God’s wrath…
Ephes. 2:3 (NIV)
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
It’s hard for us to point a finger at the world when we remember that each of us were once alienated from God.
Do you remember when your walk was separated from Christ and God?
We see here that we walked apart from God trying to gratify the desires of our “flesh”.
“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).
“And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (Mark 4:19).
“For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death” (Romans 7:5).
We were by nature the children of wrath.
we acted against God;
rejected God;
ignored God;
denied God;
cursed God;
and did not serve God.
Because of this God’s wrath was rightly upon us.
Praise God Christ died to bring change into our lives.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).
“But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath” (Romans 2:8).
But to all who accept Christ…
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).
Have you believed on Christ today?
What does your life resemble today?
Does it look like the “old life” from which we are called?
If so, now is the time of repentance.
As a believer, we are called to walk in the newness of life offered in and through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Will you commit today to put off the “old life” and to allow Jesus to remake you in the “new life” that is in Him.
It’s the ‘new life’ that brings the “hope” we offer as we…”Go ye therefore”
