Opening illustration: I'm told that Mount Whitney, in the US of America, in the state of California, is the highest spot in the whole of the Continental US. There's not a higher spot or mountain or piece of land - it's 14,495 feet. As you stand on that precipice, you can see from that great height a panorama of the Sierra Nevada’s, the beautiful mountains snow-capped all around - and then in the distance you can also see the low lands of the desert plains panned out before your eye. On one side you can see clearly the crystal, indigo and turquoise lakes all around, glistering in the sun. It seems like the top of the world - as you stand there it seems that there could not be a higher point in all of the universe - as you look on God's earth, you look down at it all. But if you look carefully, about 80 miles southeast is what is called Death Valley, and although this great mountain - Mount Whitney - is the highest point in the US, Death Valley is the lowest point, 280 feet below sea level - and indeed the hottest place in the whole country with a record of 134 degrees in the shade. What a contrast: standing on one place, the highest point, the highest hill, yet able to see from there the lowest point in the whole of the country.
Ephesians 2 - which could be called the 'purple passage' of the 'purple book' of the New Testament - Ephesians - is a bit like that. For Paul brings us from where we have been - in heavenly places, blessed in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus with all those blessings that we've already thought about - and he has us on that mountain, that pinnacle and we've been on it. We saw that he was getting to a climax in the last verses of chapter one, talking about the power that rose the Lord Jesus from the grave and seated Him at the right hand of God, and he talks about how that power is available to you and to me. Now from that pinnacle, from that mountain, he wants us - just for a moment - to take a little glimpse into where we have come from. From the highest point that any human being or spirit can reach, to look down to the depths of depravity that we came from.
1. How/Why DEATH?
a) Came about in the garden of Eden – SIN
It didn't mean that Adam was carried out in a coffin, the minute he sinned against God - but his soul, his spirit, eternally was in a coffin, dead. And therefore, men are dead to God, and Paul gives the evidence for this in verse 1, he says: '...who were dead' - look - 'in trespasses and in sins...'. 'Transgressions' that word trespass means - and transgress simply means to have a line drawn, some law, some rule, some boundary, and for you or me to step over that boundary, to trespass, to transgress, to fall from that law. The word 'sins' simply means shortcoming - missing the mark - that's what Paul meant in Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and fallen short from the glory of God", missed the mark of God.
b) Disobedience
A lot of people go through times doubting their salvation, don't they? I went through a long period of my life doubting my salvation because I could not just believe God - that He has said 'Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved'. Well, sometimes I wonder ought some so-called 'Christians' to doubt their salvation a little bit more. To be sure that you are in the faith, to persevere that you may show works - the Lord Jesus says - meet for repentance, why? Because if you are continually feeding upon the spirit that now worketh among the children of disobedience, the likelihood is that you are a child of disobedience - a child of wrath!
c) Lust
We can limit lust to sexuality, but we may want to consider the larger area of sensuality. Sensuality is the craving for physical pleasures of all kinds. An inordinate desire to avoid pain, for physical and even emotional comfort, the best food and wine, the best-looking car, can all be forms of lust. Lust denies our spiritual nature and promotes the lie that "this is all there is." We try to make a heaven on earth, but instead we create a hell. Other people become ways of satisfying our needs. They are merely objects to service us, bring us food, run our business, give us pleasure. We want to reduce the population of the world, so we won't have to share, or we want more children, so they can carry on the family business. Everyone else becomes a means to an end.
ILLUSTRATION: LAZARUS, COME FORTH!
2. Who gave us LIFE?
Jesus Christ who loved us first and through His death and resurrection we have eternal life. Not through our works for we may boast but through faith in the grace of God.
3. How/Why LIFE?
a) Love of God
'The great love wherewith He hath loved us', why is it a great love? It's a great love because it's His love, and it's better to be loved by the sovereign Savior of the universe than by every human being that has ever been born. His love is a great love because of what it cost Him to love us, because it cost Him the blood of His only begotten Son - it is great also because of the wealth that it gives to you and me, all the riches in Christ Jesus! It shows what God had to do to bring us from the depths of the mire of the dirt, and the shame, and the darkness, and deadness that we were in. The deader we realize we were - that we are - the greater the cross becomes.
b) Grace of God
‘We are blessed with all spiritual blessing in heavenly places' - why? Because we're in Him, and He's up there, do you see it? Together with Christ - and Paul is so overwhelmed with the undeserved blessings that he has, that he interrupts his train of thought here in verse 5, and he just exclaims: 'By grace you're saved!'. It's all of grace, he gets so excited that he realizes what it was - and then in verse 6: '... and has raised up us together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.’
c) Mercy of God
God is the author but look what it says about our God: 'God who is rich in mercy'. What did the Psalmist say? 'He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us'. The mercy of our God is an inexhaustible mine. You can't plumb the depths of it, you can't measure the width of it, the riches of His mercy and then what does it say?
Application: We were death but now in Christ we are made alive … we are revived. God revived me by taking me out from my comfort zone and placing me in the Middle East. Until then, I was just a lukewarm and laid-back Christian. I saw the great need for the Gospel of Christ to be proclaimed to the lost souls there. They had no idea that they were perishing and there was only one way out – Jesus. Someone had to give them the word. In complete reluctance, I said I am here; I will go. I had to be Revived!
