In Christ we are blessed, in Christ we are chosen. [Using THE FAITH WE SING, p. 2080, "All I Need Is You", offer the following call to worship] L: Place your trust in the Lord. P: Cast away those things which detract from your faith in God. L: God will provide for all your needs. P: The love of Jesus Christ and his witness strengthens and sustains us. ALL: AMEN! "Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." "Like trying to get an octopus into a paper bag." Oh, to live in heaven, to dwell there, to let the heart be caught up from this poor life into the life that is above! Man." Does it not seem a strange thing, that you, who have walked to this place this morning, shall be carried to your graves; that the eyes with which you now behold me shall soon be glazed in everlasting darkness; that the tongues, which just now moved in song, shall soon be silent lumps of clay; and that your strong and stalwart frame, now standing to this place, will be unable to move a muscle, and become a loathsome thing, the brother of the worm and the sister of corruption? Aren't they perfect? Corruption has not yet done its work, and tender care has guarded the body as yet from what will surely come to it; yet is there death, sure, complete death, in the one case as well as in the other. Beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, I think that you and I can say, that to us the surest fact in all the world is that there is a God. Both are shown to have been alike guilty and in need of God's mercy. Web1 shout for joy to god, all the earth! who love our Lord Jesus with undying love , Liturgy for Holy Communion: All is grace!, Do I belong? A Dramatic Reading of Ephesians 2:11-22. God has called you to be His child. '', "no man is called a living man, but he who is in the way of truth in this world.----And a wicked man who does not go in the way of truth, is called, , "a dead man". For the mass subsequently brought in were Gentiles, and the gospel of salvation they forthwith received, without going through the intermediate steps that the others knew. I have in my church and congregation and I dare to say what men dare to do I have in my congregation women whose ruin and destruction have been wrought by some of the most respected men in respectable society. But Satan has so lied to people about God, about the nature of God, that it has caused people to oftentimes fear submitting their lives to God.Now, when I was a child growing up in church, so many times I would hear people say, "You be careful what you say you are not going to do, because that is exactly what God is going to make you do. We had no sense with which to comprehend spiritual things. He to whom I look up, by and in whom alone I can know God and the Father, is God Himself Let the notion of time come into the conception given of Godhead and of the persons Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and all would be falsehood and confusion. No God? Good works can never earn salvation; but there is something radically wrong if salvation does not produce good works. "For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation [administration or stewardship] of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words; whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ); which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed." I must come to my third point; for our time flies. True, he starts with adultery and fornication, but he goes on to idolatry, hatred, wrath, strife, envyings, seditions, heresies. 1.And you who were dead. What a wonderful thing it is to have become sympathetic with God! earth that looks fertile enough to bring forth life with but one living tear? When Peter realized who Jesus was, his first reaction was: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" ( Luke 5:8). So long as the object falls upon the retina. Do you remember when the new life came into you? Brilliant colors flashed across this black background. Reader 1 But now in Christ you who once were far away. It can never rise above its human source. "And when, after some forty-eight hours or so, he had quite slept off the fumes of that memorable Christmas debauch, he found that a sad thing had happened to him, and a strange! Somehow we have an impression that God is going to just get all of these dirty, nasty things that we have said we would never do and say, "All right, start here." This is pursued then first with reference to the Gentiles, for now the order is reversed. We wait for nothing greater nor its match; we await the results of this glorious power for the body and the creation; but we look for no new putting forth of power which can enter into competition with that which God has already shown in Christ. You have much about you that is lovely, but you have just begun to indulge in evil habits; you have not yet become the desperate sinner; you have not yet become altogether noxious in the eyes of other men; you are but beginning to sin, you are like the young man carried out on his bier; you have not yet become the confirmed drunkard; you have not yet begun to curse and blaspheme God; you are still accepted in good society; you are not yet cast out; but you are dead, thoroughly dead, just as dead as the third and worst case. You remember when you began to pray; would you like to have your first prayer printed? "The air is the house of the disembodied spirits." As a Christian you're going to have to learn to go against the current. "Among whom we all had our manner of living, or our lifestyles in times past." Now the word conversation is an old English word, and we have a new definition for that word today. He means far more than sexual sins. Not only so, but they had walked according to the course of that which is most of all offensive to God "of this world, according to the prince of the authority of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience;" for indeed they were, one as much as another, children of disobedience. When God made the world, it was a wonder, and the angels came from afar to see his handiwork. Of course that was all rubbish; it cannot be done to order. One man's weakness may be in his body and his risk may be sexual sin; another's may be in spiritual things and his risk in pride; another's may be in earthly things and his risk unworthy ambition; another's sin may be in his temper and his risk in envyings and strife. If you have been quickened by the Spirit of God, your prayers are living prayers. The main point then is that God has made believers alive, raised us up, and seated us with Christ. ! Unquestionably the Spirit of God does evermore dwell in the Christian, though I am not aware that He is ever said to dwell in our hearts. He made us at the first; he has new-made us. He wished to sing of Cadmus; but his harp resounded love alone; and so the harp of Paul resounds with Christ alone, Christ alone. There is the whole Trinity in that one verse, Christ, the Spirit, the Father. This cheek might mantle with a blush to tell the deeds of darkness which some of the ungodly of this world habitually practise. Paul uses two illuminating pictures. This is the great point to seize always throughout Scripture. Hence the apostle Paul, in what is by no means the simplest utterance he has given, writes in few words. All the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: There is no church without Christ, no temple without him as its cornerstone, its priest, its glory. But in times past you were just meandering through life. Deepen your knowledge of Scripture. How solemn to learn what the old man is in its most detestable forms, against all which the Christian is warned! But just as before, in the walk which shuts out hatred, and anger, and so on, we were warned against grieving the Spirit of God; so the power of the Holy Ghost asserts itself here. He is just as dead; they are both dead, and death really knows of no degrees. As He is outwardly called on, so there is everywhere the "one faith," which does not mean (alas! Transgressions (false steps, cf. I really thought it was worthwhile having. The imagery of death and life, as used here, is often used when illustrating fellowship issues with God. Contemporary Call to Worship Satan is behind the world's fashions, the trends, directing, orchestrating those destructive, damning forces that we see pervading our society. we confess our sins to the One who knows us best. Would God send out and bring in the Gentiles to fill their place? The effect of a great love is always a cleansing thing. And so "and you who were dead" really as the result of your transgressions and sins.The Greek word for sin, hamartia, is a word that means "to miss." But in that which comes before us in our epistle, it is not a question even of the highest creature on earth one that was called to have dominion on earth, and be the image and glory of God here below. This is the beginning of another extended sentence in the Greek (2:1-10). You are a living man. (i) We saw that sin kills innocence. Thus, first blessed, strengthened, and enjoying the grace and truth of God in Christ, we can then go out with the sword of the Spirit to deal with what is contrary to His nature, which Satan would use to obstruct our realization of our heavenly privileges. I have been looking through every book I have about the manners and customs of the East, and have not been able to get a clue to the difference between the young man and Lazarus. Christianity demands forgiveness, but the ancient writers said it was a sign of weakness to have the power to avenge oneself for injury and not to do so. for you, that you should still be dead! Sin kills the will; the thing so grips a man that he cannot break free. The glorious salvation that He has given to us. By grace are you saved.Now, not only has He made me alive. It is a question not of acceptance before God, but of resisting the enemy who would take advantage of loose ways and a bad conscience. (Ephesians 5:19). Let this, then, be held as a fixed principle, that the union of our soul with God is the true and only life; and that out of Christ we are altogether dead, because sin, the cause of death, reigns in us. It is not a mere aggregate of Gentiles into the well-known line of old blessing, but one new man, not merely fresh in time, but of an absolutely new order, never seen or experienced before. II. As the good Spirit works that which is good in obedient souls, so this evil spirit works that which is evil in wicked men; and he now works, not only heretofore, but even since the world has been blessed with the light of the glorious gospel. Isaiah had heard God say: "Peace, peace to the far, and to the near" ( Isaiah 57:19). The Son is as truly man as God, and as such gives gifts to men. The unity which Jesus achieves is not achieved by blotting out all racial characteristics; it is achieved by making all men of all nations into Christians. Even today, he continually seeks to be worshipped. Men by nature are all dead. 8. What does that mean? It was entirely unconnected with the world. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him does not perish but has everlasting life. But this young woman's death is in her chamber. The tendency is ever to set aside what is personal for that which is corporate. As to the first, he says that they were dead; and states, at the same time, the cause of the death trespasses and sins. [3] Alfred Barry, Ellicott's Commentary on the Holy Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), Vol. he has made us alive together with Christ, (for by grace you are saved;) ( Ephesians 2:5 ). (T) 10For we are Gods handiwork,(U) created(V) in Christ Jesus to do good works,(W) which God prepared in advance for us to do. It was God's gift to you. If we are alive unto God, every part of our worship should be living. Submissions: I am so grateful to those of you who send me your own material to post! The rose and the lily breathe forth their fragrance around it, but the corpse perceives it not. After he has paid the fine and served the imprisonment, as far as the law is concerned, the whole matter is over. It is not the wants of man in any sense, either positively or negatively. 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