I. The Plight of Man (1-3)
A. You were Dead
B. You were Deceived (2a)
C. You were Disobedient (2b)
D. You were Depraved
E. You were Doomed (3c)
II. The Plan of God (4-9)
A. "But God" Resurrected us (5)
B. "But God" Reconciled us
C. "But God" Reveals His riches through us (4, 7)
D. "But God" Regenerates us (8, 9)
A man named Smith was sitting on his roof during a flood, and the water was up to his feet. Before long a fellow in a canoe paddled past and shouted, "Can I give you a lift to higher ground?" "No, thanks," said Smith. "I have faith in the Lord and he will save me." Soon the water rose to Smith’s waist. At this point a motorboat pulled up and someone called out, "Can I give you a lift to higher ground?" "No, thanks. I have faith in the Lord and he will save me." Later a helicopter flew by, and Smith was now standing on the roof with water up to his neck. "Grab the rope," yelled the pilot. "I’ll pull you up." "No, thanks," said Smith. "I have faith in the Lord and he will save me."
But after hours of treading water, poor, exhausted Smith drowned and went to his reward. As he arrived at the Pearly Gates, Smith met his maker and complained about this turn of events. "Tell me, Lord," he said, "I had such faith in you to save me and you let me down. What happened?" To which the Lord replied, "What do you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter!"
I. The Plight of Man
A. You were dead
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
When a man sets out to make something, he usually starts with the best possible materials—the purest clay, the finest marble, the choicest wood. But God goes to the refuse heap and selects materials that are worthless. He begins with people that are dead!
Its amazing what modern medicine can do for a patient. Doctors can remodel disfigured faces, transplant kidneys, implant lenses, bypass arteries—as long as the patient is alive. Once the person is dead, doctors can do nothing more than pull a sheet over the body and transfer the corpse to the morgue. But God begins with people who are dead.
The unbeliever is not sick; he is dead! He does not need resuscitation; he needs resurrection. All lost sinners are dead, and the only difference between one sinner and another is the state of decay. The lost derelict on skid row may be more decayed outwardly than the unsaved society leader, but both are dead in sin—and one corpse cannot be more dead than another! This means that our world is one vast graveyard, filled with people who are dead while they live (1 Tim. 5:6).
In 1992, a Los Angeles County parking control officer came upon a brown El Dorado Cadillac illegally parked next to the curb on street-sweeping day.
The officer dutifully wrote out a ticket. Ignoring the man seated at the driver’s wheel, the officer reached inside the open car window and placed the $30 citation on the dashboard.
The driver of the car made no excuses. No argument ensued—and with good reason. The driver of the car had been shot in the head ten to twelve hours before but was sitting up, stiff as a board, slumped slightly forward, with blood on his face. He was dead.
The officer, preoccupied with ticket-writing, was unaware of anything out of the ordinary. He got back in his car and drove away.
Many people around us are "dead in transgressions and sins." What should catch our attention most is their need, not their offenses. They don’t need a citation; they need a Savior.
—Greg Asimakoupoulos in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership.
B. You were deceived (2a)
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Before we accepted Christ as Savior, our utter deadness to spiritual things was evident in our behavior. We walked according to "the course of this world." In other words, the spirit of the age held us in its iron grip.
The reference to "the prince of the power of the air" is deliberate and definitive. In our unregenerate state, we were completely deceived by Satan.
Many people think they just need more money to be happy. NO! People need the Lord!
One particular portion of Russell H. Conwell’s book "Acres of Diamonds," It was the story, historically true, of Ali Hafed, who, hearing about diamonds for the first time, determined that he wanted a mine of diamonds.
He owned a very large farm, orchards, grain fields, gardens. He had many investments and was wealthy and contented. One day he was visited by an ancient Buddhist priest, a wise man of sorts. They sat by the fire and the priest recounted the detailed history of creation. He concluded by saying diamonds were the most rare and valuable gems created, ‘congealed drops of sunlight,’ and if Ali had diamonds he could get anything he wanted for himself and his family.
Ali Hafed began to dream about diamonds—about how much they were worth. He became a poor man. He had not lost anything, but he was poor because he was disconcerted and discontented because he feared he was poor. He said, ‘I want a mine of diamonds,’ and he lay awake nights.
One morning he decided to sell his farm and all he had and travel the world in search of diamonds. He collected his money, left his family in the care of a neighbor, and began his search. He traveled Palestine and Europe extensively and found nothing. At last, after his money was all spent and he was in rags, wretchedness, and poverty, he stood on the shore at Barcelona, Spain. A great tidal wave came rolling in, and the poor, discouraged, suffering, dying man could not resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide. He sank, never to rise again.
The man who purchased Ali Hafed’s farm led his camel to his garden brook to drink one day. As the camel put its nose into the shallow water, this new owner noticed a curious flash of light from a stone in the white sands of the stream. As he stirred up the sands with his fingers he found scores of the most beautiful gems: diamonds. This was the discovery of the most magnificent diamond mine in the history of mankind—the Golconda. The largest crown jewel diamonds in the world have come from that mine." The Myth of the Greener Grass, p. 173
Eve was deceived. Jesus wasn’t.
C. You were disobedient (2b)
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Disobedience comes naturally. No one has to teach a child to be disobedient. Rather a child has to be taught to obey, and the lesson has to be reinforced often. Satan has an enormous advantage—our fallen natures are allied to his.
So complete are the results of the fall that we have no natural interest in obeying the gospel: our first inclination is to disobey God even after we accept Christ. (Eve; God said "don’t")
D. You were depraved
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
By the flesh Paul does not mean the body, because of itself, the body is not sinful.
The flesh refers to that fallen nature that we were born with, that wants to control the body and the mind and make us disobey God.
An evangelist once announced as his topic, "Why Your Dog Does What It Does," and, of course, many dog lovers came out to hear him. What he had to say was obvious, but too often overlooked: "A dog behaves like a dog because he has a dog’s nature." If somehow you could transplant into the dog the nature of the cat, his behavior would change radically. Why does a sinner behave like a sinner? Because he has the nature of a sinner (Pss. 51:5; 58:3). This sinful nature the Bible calls "the flesh."
Is it any wonder that the unsaved person is disobedient to God? He is controlled by the world, the flesh, and the devil, the three great enemies of God! And he cannot change his own nature or, of himself, overcome the world and the devil. He needs outside help, and that help can come only from God.
The lost sinner lives to please the "desires of the flesh and the wishes of the mind" (literal translation). His actions are sinful because his appetites are sinful. When you apply the word depraved to the unsaved person, you are not saying that he only does evil, or that he is incapable of doing good. You are simply saying that he is incapable of doing anything to merit salvation or meet the high standards of God’s holiness.
Jesus said that lost sinners do good to each other (Luke 6:33), and to their children (Luke 11:13), but they cannot do anything spiritually good to please God. The natives on Malta who kindly assisted Paul and his friends after the shipwreck certainly did good works, but they still needed to be saved (Acts 28:1-2).
Do you want to know if you are a liberal or a conservative? What do you believe about the nature of man? Is man a sinner by nature or is he essentially good and capable of improving himself?
If you are a liberal you think he sins because of his environment or ignorance and your answer is improve the environment and education. If you are a conservative you realize because he is a sinner he needs a savior.
Dead/Deceived/Disobedient/Depraved
E. You were doomed (3c)
Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
By nature, children of wrath! By deed, children of disobedience! The unsaved person is condemned already (John 3:18). The sentence has been passed, but God in His mercy is staying the execution of the sentence (2 Peter 3:8-10). Man cannot save himself, but God in His grace steps in to make salvation possible. "But God!"—what a difference those two words make!
II. The Plan of God (4-9)
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
But God..." is the gospel in a nutshell The word "but" is a conjunction...which tells us the story is not over
The word "but" speaks of a contrast...which kindles in us some hope
The word "God" points us to hope...which is found outside of ourselves
The word "God" gives us assurance...that the hope we speak of is a certainty
A. "But God" Resurrected us (5)
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
This means He made us alive, even when we were dead in sins. He accomplished this spiritual resurrection by the power of the Spirit, using the Word.
In the four Gospels, it is recorded that Jesus raised three people from the dead: the widow’s son (Luke 7:11-17), Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:49-56), and Lazarus (John 11:41-46). In each case, He spoke the Word and this gave life. "The Word of God is quick [living] and powerful" (Heb. 4:12). These three physical resurrections are pictures of the spiritual resurrection that comes to the sinner when he hears the Word and believes (John 5:24).
Sir Henry Rider Haggard provided an illustration of such love in his novel, Montezuma’s Daughter. His hero, Thomas Wingfield, found himself trapped among the Aztec Indians during the last stages of their empire. He married, half willingly and half by the sheer pressure of circumstances, the lovely daughter of Montezuma, the princess Otomie. He cared for her, admired her, and was more than half in love with her. But half his heart was far away in the England of his birth and with the sweetheart of his boyhood days.
Then the Spanish conquistadors forced the Indians into a desperate war. By virtue of his hatred of the Spaniards and his rank among the Indians. Thomas Wingfield was in the forefront of many fierce battles. The Spaniards, however, brought more than war and famine—they brought the plague. Princess Otomie contracted it in its most terrible form, but fortunately escaped not only death but also the terrible disfigurement the plague so often left in its wake.
As her husband nursed her through her illness and ravings, he learned of the depth of her love for him and of her secret fear that he might leave her. When Otomie recovered, she asked her husband to give her a mirror and she breathed a great sigh of relief when she saw that she was still beautiful. In telling this part of his story Wingfield said:
Supposing Otomie was now as many were. . . a mass of dreadful scars, hairless, and with blind and whitened eyeballs, should I then have shrunk from her? I do not know, and I thank heaven that no such trial was put upon my constancy. But I am sure of this; had I become a leper even, Otomie would not have shrunk from me.
God’s love was put to an even greater test. He loved us when we were dead in trespasses and sins. The apostle’s astonishment was expressed in that word even. "Even," he said, "when we were dead in sins."
But our spiritual resurrection is much greater because it puts us in union with Christ: God "made us alive together with Christ." As members of His body we are united to Him (Eph. 1:22-23), so that we share His resurrection life and power (Eph. 1:19-20).
B. "But God" reconciled us
Look again at verses 4-6. And I want you to pay attention to a word that is repeated.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
Did you catch the repeated word? What was it? "Together..."
That is significant because it helps us to understand that God’s
intention in providing salvation to us is that we might be brought "together" with Jesus.
Theologically Pauls point is that every person who has trusted Jesus as their Savior is made alive... "together with Christ". That means we share in His life. We are identified with His resurrection and we are "raised with HIm"... that means we experience newness of life. And we "sit together in heavenly places" with Christ. That means we are enjoying eternity with Christ.
God wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him. However for that to be possible we must deal with what separates us from the Lord. That which separates us is our sin. The scriptures teach us that there is only one thing that provides a solution to the problem of our sin, and that is Christ death.
Romans 5: 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
A childhood accident caused poet Elizabeth Barrett to lead a life of semi-invalidism before she married Robert Browning in 1846.
There’s more to the story. In her youth, Elizabeth had been watched over by her tyrannical father. When she and Robert were married, their wedding was held in secret because of her father’s disapproval. After the wedding the Brownings sailed for Italy, where they lived for the rest of their lives. But even though her parents had disowned her, Elizabeth never gave up on the relationship. Almost weekly she wrote them letters. Not once did they reply.
After 10 years, she received a large box in the mail. Inside, Elizabeth found all of her letters; not one had been opened! Today those letters are among the most beautiful in classical English literature. Had her parents only read a few of them, their relationship with Elizabeth might have been restored.
—Daily Walk, May 30, 1992
C. "But God" reveals His riches through us (4, 7)
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
A certain medieval monk announced he would be preaching next Sunday evening on "The Love of God." As the shadows fell and the light ceased to come in through the cathedral windows, the congregation gathered. In the darkness of the altar, the monk lighted a candle and carried it to the crucifix. First of all, he illumined the crown of thorns, next, the two wounded hands, then the marks of the spear wound. In the hush that fell, he blew out the candle and left the chancel. There was nothing else to say.
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
34 year old wife of a soldier from Fort Bragg, wasn’t offered a make over to display her beauty.
Suppose that you were called by one of those beauty businesses which specializes in "make-overs." If you were offered a free "make-over" should you feel flattered? Should you take pride in your beauty? I think not. The make-over is needed because of your lack of beauty. No beauty business is going to advertise its work by selecting a beautiful woman and then making only slight improvements on her beauty. They are going to take the most hopeless case they can find, and then take the credit for the transformation.
If a plastic surgeon called you, offering you free cosmetic surgery, so that he could use you for advertising, you should feel grateful, but not proud. (She did not want to look in a mirror) He did not choose you because you were so attractive, but because you were so ugly, and could demonstrate the marvelous skills he has as a plastic surgeon.
So it is with God’s grace. God sent Jesus Christ to the world, to suffer and to die in the sinner’s place. He did this because we were in such terrible shape. He did this so that He could demonstrate His grace, and His power in transforming a "dead" man or woman into a living sacrifice, a living testimony of His grace and power. God’s motivation in saving us should not flatter us, but it does glorify Him.
Christ’s death does not prove our great value — it is not a basis for self-esteem.
J.W. Jepson - "The fact that God gave His Son to die for you proves how eternally valuable you are."
No it does not!! It proves— "That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." (Eph 2:7)
Christ dying for you proves His great love and grace that He would die for such dead dogs as us. (worms)
Eph. 2:8-9 - "...that not of yourselves..."
Newton - "Wretch like me"
"Such a worm as I" "Slaughterhouse religion
Isaac Watts - "Alas and did my Saviour bleed? And did my Sovereign die? would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?"
Universal depravity, Rom. 3:23
D. "But God" Regenerates us (8, 9)
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death.
The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. "What’s the [commotion] about?" he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, "Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace."
The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of Karma, the Jewish covenant, and the Muslim code of law—each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional (Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion, pp. 116-117; citation: Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing about Grace?).
Olympic gold medalist Darrel Pace was to give an archery exhibition in New York City’s Central Park, and the event received coverage by all the news stations. Shooting steel-tipped hunting arrows, Pace punctured bull’s-eyes without a miss. Then he called for a volunteer. "All you have to do," said Pace, "Is hold this apple in your hand, waist-high." ABC correspondent Josh Howell took a bold step forward. He stood there, a small apple in his hand, a larger one in his throat. Pace took aim from 30 yards away as we all held our breath. Then THWACK-a clean hit that exploded the apple before striking the target behind. Everybody applauded Howell, who was all smiles—until his cameraman approached with a hangdog look. "I’m sorry, Josh," he said. "I didn’t get it. Had a problem with my viewfinder. Could you do it again?"
—Bob Teague, Live and Off-Color: News Biz
On April 30, 1976 Evelyn Mooers attached a rappelling rope to a drain pipe grating on the roof of the Mark Twain South County Bank. Mooers, an experienced climber, had once scaled 14,410-foot Mt. Rainier in Washington state. The rappelling exercise from the bank building would have been routine but for one miscalculation. The drain pipe grating wasn’t anchored.
Numerous bank officials and their friends watched as Mooers plummeted to her death. Her faith in the grating was fatally misplaced.
—Today in the Word, May, 1990, MBI, p. 16
The Plight of Man
The Plan of God
We could not save ourselves by works it must therefore be by faith.
