This morning I showed you all a clip from the movie "The Matrix". And in that clip you saw a man named Neo who disparately wanted to know what the Matrix is. And in his pursuit for the Truth about the Matrix he found out that he was a slave and in total bondage to a system of control.
This morning I stand before you like Morphus presenting you with the truth about our life and more importantly our spiritual condition. So this morning I present you the Red pill of truth in Jesus Christ.
So if you would look in your Bibles to Ephesians 2:1-10 as I read that for us this morning. And the focus of my message this morning will be verses 1-3.
Ephesians 2:1-10 "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 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. 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. 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. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 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. 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." (NIV)
In our passage of scripture this morning the apostle Paul gives a very strong powerful statement concerning the condition of everyone who has ever lived. And Paul’s statement has cause many people difficultly and frustration.
See the reality is we live in a world much like the Matrix that says, "That people are basically okay...We are in medical terms well or healthy." That is the first view of people. The second view states, "That man is not well or healthy."
And the final view, which Paul gives us here in verses 1-3 of Ephesians 2 states, "That man is not well at all. In Fact it is more serious than anyone believes and the diagnosis is simply this: man is Dead--Dead in his relationship with God."
Now that statement from the Apostle Paul is very strong and even sometimes even harder to believe. I would venture to say that for the most part many of us believe or believed at one time "hey I am a pretty good person."
But Paul description of us is very drastic. "And YOU were DEAD in Your TRESPASSES and SINS." This is one of the hardest truths to come to terms with in life the reality that we are all everyone of us are Spiritually DEAD!
Romans 6:23 states for us "For the wages of sin is death." (NIV)
John MacArthur states it like this: "Man does not become spiritually dead because he sins; He Is spiritually dead because by nature he is sinful.’
See when Adam and Even sinned in the Garden of Eden everyone after them was born with a sinful nature.
Listen to Romans 5:12-17 "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned: for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." (NIV)
This declaration found in Romans is our Spiritual Condition. Through one man Adam death came into this world but through one man Jesus Christ life has come.
For the Biblical Truth is this:
1. You are or were Spiritually Dead because of your sinful nature.
So what does this Spiritual Death mean?
Listen to this story I read this week about a Pastor and experience he had:
"One day a young boy come up and pounded on my office door. When I opened the door, I saw he was breathless and crying. He said, "Are you the Pastor?" When I answered yes, he said, "Come on. Please hurry." I ran after him for a block or two, and we went into a house. A young woman was standing inside, weeping uncontrollably. She said, "My baby is dead! My baby is dead!" Lying on a bed was the limp body of her three-month-old infant. She had tried to revive him, and nothing I could do proved to be of help, He showed no sign of life. The mother caressed the baby, kissed it, spoke to it, and cried tears over its little head. But the child made no response. When the ambulance crew arrived they tried desperately to get the child breathing, but to no avail. He was dead and nothing anyone could do had an effect or could bring any response. There was no life there to respond, not even to the powerful love of a mother."
And that is the way it is with Spiritual Death as well. A person who is Spiritually Dead has no life by which he or she can respond to spiritual things, much less live a spiritual life.
When we are born we are born with a sinful nature and that nature alienates us from God. We are totally separated from a relationship with God.
As many have depicted in many movies the image of a zombies. Zombies are people who do not know that they are dead walking around as mindless decaying corpses.
Dave this morning saying I need the video clip from Michael Jackson’s music video clip Thriller.
And the truth is that was every single one of us at one point or another with out Christ. Or as I like to put it the Light is on but Nobody’s Home!
Halloween trick or treaters. Illustration.
1 Timothy 5:6 "But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives." (NIV)
If you have never come to Christ you are Spiritually Dead right Now! You are in a sense Neo a slave in the Matrix. Because truly you are a slave to sin and your sinful nature.
So what is affecting you in this current state of Spiritual Death in which you resided? There are three components of evil that Paul gives us here in Ephesians let me give them to you briefly.
1. Environment: vs.2 "you followed the ways of this world."
There are three elements that most characterize our present world and they are:
-Humanism: this humanistic ideal places man above all. Man is the measure and the end of all things. Each man is his own boss for in short man is his own god!
-Materialism: places high value on physical things, money, possessions. You know, you have seen the bumper sticker: "He who dies with the most toys wins! There are many more to materialism as well.
--Illicit Sex: Sex has become a vice that is bring down the moral fiber of our society. But the reality is that is the conclusion of this Sinful world. This is the environment in which we live in.
Illustration of homosexuality on marriage in election. Kid growing up no homosexual teenagers.
Deuteronomy 32:35 "It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them." (NIV)
2. Our inclination towards Evil: vs.3 "the craving of our sinful nature."
The word Paul uses here for craving or lust is Epithumia--which gives strong inclinations of desires of every sort. And Thelema--or desires emphasizes on a strong willfulness, wanting and seeking something with great diligence.
Because of our sinful nature we have a strong pull and desire still to sin. We seek it out like an animals.
Romans 6:16 "Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey; whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (NIV)
3. Our other struggle is the ruler of this world "The Devil" Satan-- Vs 2 "the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient."
John 12:31 "Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." (NIV)
John 10:10 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (NIV)
And because of all these things we now stand as Children of Wrath before the Lord.
But God: 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.
