One of my all-time favorite movies is The Sixth Sense. It stars Bruce Willis as a child psychiatrist working with a young boy played by Haley Joel Osment who claims to be able to see dead people. The kid figured out that the dead people, who he alone can see and converse with, don’t know that they’re dead. Willis’ character helps the boy solve the murder of little girl. What makes the move great is the ending. Just when you come to believe the story is about Willis’ character helping the boy with his unique ability – surprise! – the psychiatrist is the one with the real problem and the kid helps him to realize that he’s dead. Willis’ character was shot and killed at the beginning of the movie and only the kid can see and speak with him.
After this morning’s message you will be able to say, like the kid in the film, “I see dead people.” We live and speak and work with people who are dead, but they don’t realize it. They look very much alive, but inwardly they are dead. Their present existence serves no meaningful purpose. They may be religious, but they are apart from God. They may have plans and goals, but ultimately they are without hope in this world. Unless they awaken to new life, their drifting, zombie existence will continue for all eternity.
There’s even the possibility that you might make the same shocking discovery as Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense. You might find that you are, in fact, dead though you thought you were alive. Don’t be afraid if you do because, unlike the poor psychiatrist, God revealed your condition so that you can have life with Jesus Christ.
Let’s turn our attention once again to the book of Ephesians. Whereas chapter one instills confidence in Christ, chapter two begins by balancing that confidence with an appropriate humility. The believers at Ephesus like us needed to comprehend the truth: “It’s not about you. It’s about God.” Paul’s letter to the Ephesians brings us face to face with the truth of our situation before the Father intervened to rescue us through the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son and by the power of His Holy Spirit. He begins bluntly:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins …Ephesians 2:1a
We need to grapple with this statement. What does Paul mean by dead? We should start by altering our idea of transgressions and sins, the things that we’re dead in. We typically think of sin as doing bad things. That is certainly the outworking of sin, but we have to go back a step to figure out what makes sin sin. Transgressions literally means “false steps.” The picture is of one who takes the wrong road which will lead him to the wrong destination. “Sins” is a shooting term meaning “to miss the target.” Dead in transgressions and sins means more than doing bad things and going to hell. It has more the flavor of a life moving in a completely wrong direction and failing to live up to its potential by missing the mark. In other words, wrong path and wrong target.
In his book, The Reason for God, pastor Timothy Keller makes this observation about sin:
“The famous Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard … defined ‘sin’ in a way that is rooted in the Bible, but also is accessible to contemporary people. ‘Sin is: in despair not wanting to be oneself before God … Faith is: that the self in being itself and wanting to be itself is grounded transparently in God.’ Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get and identity, apart from him.”
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God, p. 162
Dead in trespasses and sins doesn’t mean hell bound, although that will be the outcome if something isn’t done. I don’t think it means an inability to respond to God or the things of God. Dead in this case is an identity separate from God. If we were created by God and for God then we are not truly alive apart from Him. St Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” Because we’re dead apart from an identity rooted in God we will seek life by trying to find ourselves in other things and other people. All transgressions and sins have their origin in our restless pursuit of identity apart from God. It’s a zombie-like existence. It’s the plight of the living dead. Your life will miss God’s mark if your identity is not grounded in Him.
A few years ago Starbucks launched its “The Way I See It Campaign:”
“‘The Way I See It’ campaign involves printing 63 quotes from writers, scientists, musicians, athletes, politicians and cultural critics on cups for company run and licensed locations. The idea is to ‘carry on the coffeehouse tradition of conversation and debate.’
“Pastor and author, Rick Warren, says he was moved to submit a quote to Starbucks after ‘seeing a Starbucks quote on evolution from paleontologist Louise Leakey.’
“His quote reads: ‘You are not an accident. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He wanted you alive and created you for a purpose. Focusing on yourself will never reveal your purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. Only in God do we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny.’”
Contributed by Brian Mavis at sermonnews.com
Until our identity is firmly in God we are the living dead. Our activity is essentially purposeless. Our destiny is more death. Sadly, you can’t always tell who is dead and who is alive. The key is to notice where people place their identity. I want you to honestly evaluate yourself as well. God may be calling you to arise from the dead today.
Signs of a Spiritual Zombie
1. A diverted desire for God
Let’s look again at our situation before faith in Christ. Focus especially on the latter half of verse two:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of … the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Ephesians 2:1, 2b
The ruler of the kingdom of the air is none other than Satan, the spirit being originally called Lucifer. Ancient people like the Ephesians believed that the atmosphere was the domain of demons. They viewed this realm as crowded with spirits who interacted with human beings. Here, Paul contrasts Satan with the Holy Spirit. The ruler of the kingdom of the air apes the Holy Spirit in the opposite direction. Just as the Holy Spirit leads people to base their identity in God by revealing His truth and His person, Satan leads people away from God with lies, half-truths, and insinuations. His goal is to persuade people to ignore their innate desire for God and divert it to something or someone else.
This is how he operated in the Garden of Eden. His M.O. has not changed over the eons of time. Notice how Satan questioned God’s goodness so that Adam and Eve’s natural desire for God would be diverted:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, ’You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Genesis 3:1-6
Adam and Eve died, not physically, but in trespasses and sins. They filled their desire to please God with a desire for forbidden fruit and the benefits they thought it would bring. Their identity shifted from God to themselves. From this point forward, humanity began its relentless quest to answer the question, “Who am I?” apart from God. The prince of the power of the air facilitated the slip into the world of the living dead.
That’s how he operates today too. Satan and his cohorts are not merely leading people to sin. They attempt to divert our natural desire for God. Satan’s work is to keep people from receiving the truth. He works through people to get others to deny the need for God. He attempts to erode trust in the Lord. He destroys people by getting them to place their identity, and thus their hope on anything but God.
We tend to think of demonization today in terms of the movie, The Exorcist. You know: spinning beds, gruff voices, invisible powers, scary face. The prince of the power of the air is much more subtle. Any person or organization committed to denying the truth of God and leading people away from Him is demonically inspired. This includes everyone from the politician saying “trust this law” to the National Academy of Science saying “trust natural selection” to Richard Dawkins saying “trust intellect alone” to a friend saying “trust me this is going to be so much fun.”
Once Satan has diverted a person from their desire for God they begin attempting to plug their identity into any number of things. The following three points are the ways in which the living dead try to find life apart from the God they’ve denied.
2. An accelerating pursuit of pleasure
Let me begin with a disclaimer here. I don’t believe God intended our lives to be pleasure-less. He created us with the capacity to enjoy life. We should have pleasure as long as the pleasant things keep their proper place.
The problem with people who don’t have their identity fixed in God is that good things become ultimate things. Pleasure seems to bring life in the midst of deadness. Therefore the living dead assume that the pursuit of pleasure is the pursuit of real life. It’s a trap. Paul describes it this way:
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Ephesians 2:3a
This is the lowest level, the most common way to try to find life apart from God. It feels good for a while, but then the law of diminishing returns kicks in. The initial pleasure is not enough, so more must be found, varieties of pleasure must be experimented with, and the pursuit of enjoyable experiences accelerated.
I once worked with a man who lived for pleasure. Good food, strong drink, and sexual gratification were the focus of his life. It was obvious that the pursuit of pleasure was accelerating because of the results I could see with my eyes. He was quite overweight and cared nothing for his physical condition. His love of drink fetched him a DUI which resulted in a wrecked vehicle, a police record, a fine, and community service. His sexual desires led him to massage parlors after the break up of his marriage. Though a skilled carpenter he could only find sporadic, low-paying jobs. He’s a dead man in the midst of deterioration. Where else can he turn without God as his identity? This is the path of the living dead which Paul describes in Galatians 5:
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21 (NLT)
“Vladimir Villisov, a 65-year old unmarried Russian man, is so attached to his stack of porn magazines, that not only has he decided to be buried with them when he dies, but has also designed a coffin with special space for them. Vladimir, who survived a heart attack, said that the experience had made him realize that the girls in the magazines had been his constant companions for years, and that he wanted them to be his companions in the afterlife too. ‘The girls in those magazines have been my companions for years, and I want them to accompany me to the next life.’”
Contributed by Brian Mavis at sermonnews.com
Sadly, they will accompany him for all eternity, but not in the way he imagines. The desire for them will inflame his corrupted, dead identity for all eternity. To quote Timothy Keller once more: “Hell is one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity.”
The third sign is not as obvious as the first and second.
3. Conformity to cultural standards
Even Paul’s description is vague. He tells the Ephesians that as the living dead …
…you followed the ways of this world … Ephesians 2:2a
The best way to understand “this world” is as the ways of our culture or norms of our society. The ways of the world can be good things, but if we base our identity on them and not in God, we’re the living dead. Maybe some examples will help here.
Let’s use something that everyone in our culture accepts as right. It seems reasonable to base your identity on being a good parent. That can only result in good things, right? What happens if something goes wrong with your children or your parenting? If you’ve based your identity on being a good parent and something goes wrong, you cease to exist. There is no more you. You were destroyed in your children’s foolish behavior or your own mistakes.
Just as with the pursuit of pleasure, conformity to culture when you don’t have an identity in God makes good things ultimate things. Think of the numerous things our culture calls good. Appearance. Beauty is a good thing, but if you base your identity on it what happens? Gravity wins and you lose. Career is a good thing, but what happens if you’ve based your identity on it and you lose your job? You’re lost. Economic security, a nice house, two cars in the garage, and 2.5 kids are good things. Some people call that the American dream. What happens if you take away any part of it and your identity is based on it? You get really nervous because your personhood is being threatened.
“A life not centered on God leads to emptiness. Building our lives on something besides God not only hurts us if we don’t get the desires of our hearts, but also if we do. Few of us get all of our wildest dreams fulfilled in life, and therefore it is easy to live in the illusion that if you were successful, wealthy, popular, or beautiful as you wished, you’d finally be happy and at peace. That just isn’t so. In a Village Voice column, Cynthia Heimel thought back on all the people she knew in New York City before they became famous movie stars. One worked behind the makeup counter at Macy’s, one worked selling tickets at movie theaters, and so on. When they became successful, every one of them became more angry, manic, unhappy, and unstable than they had been when they were working hard to get to the top. Why? Heimel writes:
“‘That giant thing they were striving for, that fame thing that was going to make their lives bearable, that was going to fill them with ha-ha-happiness had happened, and the next day they woke up and they were still them. The disillusionment turned them howling and insufferable.’”
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God, p.166-167
The fourth sign of a spiritual zombie is …
4. Enslavement to the in-crowd
An interesting aspect about the book of Ephesians is Paul’s shifting of the subject. Sometimes he writes in the second person plural, “you,” and at other times, first person plural “we.” Many scholars believe “you” was directed at “you Gentile Christians” and “we” at “we Jewish Christians.” In verses 1 through 2 he writes to “you,” but in verse 3 he writes “we.”
Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. Ephesians 2:3b
Although the Jewish people had God’s law and didn’t slide completely into Gentile godlessness they were still objects of God’s wrath. Though following the ritual standards of God’s Law it was still possible for Jews to place their identity in something other than God. Following the rules and regulations of Moses could make them look like they were spiritually alive, but they were really just as dead as the Gentiles apart from and identity in Christ.
A case in point is the Pharisees. People in this class of Judaism were scrupulous in following the Law. They made more laws to keep from breaking God’s Laws. The Pharisee movement was a good thing at first because it arose from a genuine desire to please God. The first Pharisees likely had their identity firmly rooted in the Lord. But, over time, their identity became rooted in Pharisee-ism, being in the that group and following that group’s regulations. Here’s what happened to them by Jesus’ day:
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone. Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.” Luke 11:42-44
“Woe” means “I pity you because of what’s coming.” The Pharisees, though maintaining the Law as faultlessly as humanly possible, were objects of God’s wrath. Why? Their identity was not in God. It was based in the group. The Pharisees provide an example of enslavement to the in-crowd. The outworking of such an enslavement is destructive. Listen to timothy Keller’s words once more:
“If we get our identity, our sense of worth, from our political position, then politics is not really about politics, it is about us. Through our cause we are getting a self, our worth. That means we must despise and demonize the opposition. If we get our identity from our ethnicity or socioeconomic status, then we have to feel superior to those of other classes and races. If you are profoundly proud of being an open-minded, tolerant soul, we will be extremely indignant toward people you think are bigots. If you are a very moral person, you will feel very superior to people you think are licentious. And so on.”
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God, p.168-169
Are you among the living dead? Is there a big question mark after the word identity in your book? God calls you to life today. The way you get there is by centering your life totally upon Him through His Son Jesus Christ.
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5
God freely offers you life. Why? He wants your identity firmly grounded in Him, not in your self-effort. If you’re trying to be good enough for God your identity is tied to your works and not to Him. The purpose in God’s free offer of life to the dead is this …
…in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:7
If your identity is based in God you will become like Him. What’s He like? Rich in grace, kind to His enemies, demonstrating profound love by sacrificing the perfect life of His Son for dead people like us. You cannot save yourself. You cannot find life by tying your identity to something else.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10
If you feel you have anything to boast about. You’re dead. You’re trying to prove your identity by tooting your own horn. The only way you can have life is by staking it all on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
INVITATION
