Restoration Series

INTRODUCTION

• VIDEO CLIP

• SLIDE #1

• WOW, that would be a strange experience to endure.

• Today as we continue with our Masterpiece in Progress series, we are going to focus in on the concept of restoration.

• When God created the universe, it was perfect, when He created mankind, mankind was perfect.

• Then sin entered into the picture and did a great deal of damage to creation.

• Today, we are still suffering the effects that sin has had on creation.

• Adam’s sin ushered in physical death; my sin causes my spiritual death.

• Something needs to happen so I can have the opportunity to spend eternity with God.

• Something that we should notice when it comes to the issue of restoration that restoration requires an outside force.

• My mother-in-law used to restore furniture, and she was good at restoring old junky looking furniture to something to behold.

• One thing I always noticed is that for the piece to look good again, Mary had to put her hands on it and work on it.

• Not one single piece of furniture restored itself, it required her hand and her skill to make the piece something of value, something that others would want.

• In the CNN story, whether it was a defibrillator or the hand of God himself, the county coroner called this episode a miracle.

• In any event, dead people becoming alive people is an act of God.

• But God doesn’t just do so for those who are physically dead. God reconciles us to himself by making us spiritually alive when we are spiritually dead.

• Today we are going to see how this restoration thing works.

• SLIDE #2

• Ephesians 2:1–3 (CSB) — 1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously lived according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

I. Old life.

• A couple of technical notes concerning this passage. Verses 1-7 are actually one long sentence in the Greek text.

• Second, Paul will refer to YOU and WE. YOU refer to Gentile Christians, whereas WE refer to Christians with a Jewish heritage as Paul had.

• The OLD self was DEAD.

• The death Paul refers to is SPIRITUALLY.

• When your spirit is dead. It ceases to direct our souls and bodies, so we end up walking to the course of this world.

• When we reach the point where we understand what we are doing (some call the age of accountability), the difference between right and wrong, our personal sin results in the death of our spirit.

• God designed us so that our spirit would function. If our spirit stays dead, this will result in one suffering another kind of death, eternal death separated from God.

• What causes this death? Trespasses and sins.

• Trespass is defined as falling aside, to deviate from the truth. Now for the Gentiles, what truth did they stray from? Romans 1:18-32 explains that God made Himself evident through what He has made.

• The word Sin means to miss the mark, a failure to be what one ought to be and could be.

• The word in the Greek language was used of a spearman missing the target he was aiming his spear toward.

• When we allow this to happen, we are living life the way the devil wants us to live.

• Verse two tells us the old life was marred by this deceptive practice.

• We gain a spirit of disobedience, or our bent is toward disobedience.

• The old standard that the old life followed was the standard of the world, the values of the world and the ways of the world.

• Everyone locked onto the old life is outside of Christ and is dead spiritually and is walking according to the course of this world.

• In verse three, Paul acknowledges that the Jews, before they were converted were living life this way also.

• We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

• A life that is living by worldly standards will allow themselves to be driven by their appetites.

• We give into physical desires, evil thoughts, and purposes which Satan stirs up within us.

• This ties into slavery to sin which we used to live by.