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I made you guys kind of a promise with Ephesians. Here’s the promise is that Ephesians tells us how to live life right. It encourages us, strengthens us, builds us up for what the day to day of life is all about. Now I really enjoy the book of Ephesians. If if I could, I want to call it my favorite book in the Bible. I feel bad saying that like I’m being mean to the other 65 other books that exist. I don’t ever like to say that as my favorite, but it is. It’s my favorite and the book of Ephesians. I love going through this. I love just what it means for me in my own personal life. I can tell you if I could get one book right in my life. It’s the book of Ephesians. I mean, it deals with every, every relational aspect of life that you can imagine and and encourage us to do, how to do that. And, and the great thing about the passage or the excuse me, the, the book itself is that it doesn’t even deal with the relationships of life and how to handle those, and how to see the glory of God working in your life until you get to chapter four. The first three chapters of the book are really about our identity in God and who we are because of God and who God is. And the idea and the thought behind the book of Ephesians kind of works this way.
If you get God right, then you get yourself right. And if you get yourself right, then you live life according to the way that God has designed you to live it. And so before, before the book of Ephesians tells you how life should be lived and the way that looks, it tells us how that looks in light of who God is. And as we figure out what our relationship with God means to us, it encourages us to live our life in this world. It’s a beautiful book to to work through, and I’ve really enjoyed what we’ve gone through so far. And the challenge today is that we come to a portion of the book of Ephesians. If if we talk about the book of Ephesians and I tell you to to name a verse that you know from, from the book of Ephesians, more often than not, most of you are going to say, if you name a book or a verse, it’s going to be Ephesians two eight and nine, right? For by grace are you saved through faith? And that not of yourselves it’s the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. That’s what you’re going to say to me. And so we’re getting into Ephesians chapter two today, and I’m going to say that I’m going to say that verse and here’s, here’s my fear is that I’m going to say that verse when we get to that chapter, that portion of the chapter, just like I said it, now we’re going to hear it that way.
Ephesians 289. You say, I can I can preach the sermon today. And you know, what do I need you for? So, so this is this is what I’ve come up with today. I want to I want to go big, and I want to go in a way that you’re not going to forget this. All right. And so today. So this passage of Scripture is ingrained in your mind. Today we’re going to talk about we’re going to talk about butts. All right. Well I know some of you come. You’re thinking, man, we’re in church. Right. But but this is the reason I want to talk about it, okay? We’re not talking like the word butt. Like a proctologist, okay? We’re talking the word we’re talking about, like a clause within a sentence. Okay? There is a significant statement in Ephesians chapter two that’s important to us. And the compelling words that come after that, that are told to us in this chapter, follow the word. But okay. And so we’re going to think in terms of the word. But all right, I know I said, but I didn’t tell you what I meant. And you guys automatically started thinking wrong. All right. The word but is what we’re talking about. But all right. And it’s important to this passage of Scripture, it communicates to us the significance of what Paul wants us to understand in our relationship with God.
Because if we get God right, we get our self right, we get our self right, we get life right. And so in the book of Ephesians, Paul’s outlining for us. The identity of who we are in Christ. Now, before we talk about this word, what I want to do is talk about a topic that just fills churches on Sunday. And it’s not a but. It’s sin. Right. You can’t wait to talk about sin. Get me some church. I want to talk about how bad I am. I want to talk about sin in the world. And I just want to feel guilty and just weight on my shoulders. I’ll walk out. Please let the sermon be on sin today, right? That’s how you guys woke up, right? Okay, good, good. Well, this is what I want to go with this premise. You guys already know the most popular verse of the Bible or in the book of Ephesians, likely Ephesians 289 for by grace are ye saved through faith talks about the wonderfulness of God’s grace. Okay, here’s the great part about talking about sin. Before you talk about grace, it’s because the weightier you make the idea of sin. The more beautiful God’s grace becomes and the more beautiful God’s grace becomes, the more appreciative you are of the salvation you have in Christ. And so by not talking about sin, we delineate from the very message that Jesus wants us to understand.
It is beautiful. And it has nothing to do with what we’ve done. It’s everything to do with what he’s done. And so when you talk about saying, I know it’s getting popular today, not to say words like, don’t say bad words because you say bad words and people do bad things, right? Like, like that’s what does it right. We don’t want to think. We don’t want to think negative thoughts because we become negative people. That’s not we’re sinful because or we act sinful because we are sinful. And if and if you take away from that message, you take away from the beauty of God’s grace. But not only do you take away from that, you take away from from finding the solution that God has given you. When you downplay the idea of sin, then you take away from the cure of sin which is in Christ. There’s some something significant about sin. And I want to start off just these first three verses today, just talking about sin, okay? And we’re not going to we’re not going to go beyond three verses. We’re going to look at actually 12 verses today. So let’s say 25% of this is about sin. And then the last half is all about the solution, which is what we want to focus on. But sin becomes important because God’s grace is glorious. And so when we talk about God’s sin or we talk about God’s sin, we talk about our sin.
The book of Ephesians immediately opens up with the the magnitude of what sin is all about. And if I say to you, in this world, um, you know, the world is sinful. You don’t have to stop and be like, oh, man, let’s let’s contemplate. I don’t even recognize the world is sinful. This is new to me, right? It’s not rocket science. There’s a reason that relationships get strained in your life. There’s a reason you do things that you often regret. There’s a reason we have wars fought. There’s a reason there’s police officers that govern cities. There’s a reason for these things. And the reason is because there’s sin. And if you don’t recognize the idea of what sin is and what it does. We won’t often find the solution that God desires for us. And so when it talks in terms of sin in the book of Ephesians, it does more than just speak of what the results of sin are in our life and causing us to have military and police officers and whatnot in our lives. It it also talks about the aspect of sin between us and our relationship with God, not just how it’s affecting our life here on earth, but what it looks like in our relationship with God. And so when you turn to Ephesians chapter two and verse one, Paul starts talking about sin for us, and he does this in past tense. Okay? Now this this isn’t saying for us that this is referring to everyone.
Okay? The reason Paul is talking about this passage in past tense, because he’s written this, remember in Ephesians chapter one and verse one, to those who are faithful in Christ. These people turned the city of Ephesus up upside down for the faith. Their faith in the Lord and all of Asia. The Bible tells us. And he’s writing it to a group of believers. And so he’s recalling for them the beauty of what Jesus has done in their lives, so that they will never forget it. Because this is what I think is people we get comfortable in sin. Um, we think about sin in comparison to our neighbor and think, as long as I’m better than him, then I’m good enough, right? I’m going to make myself so lovable that God has nothing better to do than just accept me. Right? I just see no, look at this face. He does. He does. He know what he’s missing out on? And we don’t like to talk about sin because we really don’t think it’s that big of a deal. And we compare it to other people and it doesn’t look that bad. But when you talk about that sin in relationship before a holy God. And I don’t know what kind of word I could use here, but maybe say it’s repulsive. God is perfect. His kingdom is designed to have no sin, and no sin can come before his presence.
Before a holy God. My life is filthy. In fact, Isaiah 64 says it even your righteous deeds are filthy rags before God. And we there’s not a whole lot that we get right. And I realize, okay, here you’re doing that. You’re you’re making me feel guilty. This is exactly. I didn’t want to wake up. I want to leave church and be excited. But it’s important to recognize what it says about sin. Look what it says in verse one. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. When the Bible talks about death, the Bible typically defines it in two aspects. We often think about death as ceasing to exist. But when the Bible talks about death, it really means separation. Okay, so what the Bible says is one day time will run out for you on earth, and you will you will physically die. And what we mean by that is not ceasing to exist. What’s really intended by the word death is that your body is separated from your spirit. You’re divided. Death. There is separation. But not only does the Bible talk about separation in that sense, in death, the Bible also speaks about your relationship with the Lord. And the Bible actually says in revelation chapter two, and I believe in revelation 20 and 22, it talks about what’s called the second death. Meaning not only does your body separate from your spirit, but when your spirit goes into eternity, your spirit can be separated from your relationship with God.
That is the second death. And what Paul says about the significance of sin in this passage is Scripture is talking about not just your body leaving your spirit, or your spirit leaving your body, but about your spirit. And it’s division, it’s relationship with God. And so what it’s saying to us in this very first verse is you were dead in your transgressions and sins. Listen, the magnitude of what Jesus did is so important, okay? Because as it comes to your relationship with God apart from Christ, it is dead. It is separated. You think about maybe if you work at a desk at work, you require your desk to be plugged into a computer. It needs that source of energy in order for it to have life and work. Otherwise, you get really frustrated and aggravated, right? And it’s the same thing with our relationship with God. Literally, it is unplugged from the source of life. And unless it’s plugged into that socket, no life is channeling through you. And life gets frustrating because you were created to experience that relationship with God. You’re born in sin. Bible maybe creates one of the best pictures of that in Isaiah chapter six. I know there’s a few instances I could point to, but this is one of my favorites that exists in the Bible. It’s describing Isaiah. It tells us in the year that King Uzziah died, he was called up before the Lord, and he had this, this vision of God before him, before his very throne.
It tells us in the book of John, I think it’s in chapter ten, that this person seated upon this throne, this God in which he is sitting in front of, is actually Jesus. But Isaiah records for us the experience that he has in the presence of God. Now, keep in mind when you read this passage of Scripture, I’m going to say when I when I look at the Old Testament, if anyone had a relationship with God and had an accurately, it’s going to be a prophet, especially Isaiah. I mean, this man stood for God so boldly that history tells us that he was later sawn in two because he wouldn’t stop preaching the Word of God. He was martyred. And the experience that Isaiah has when he comes before God. It tells us in Isaiah six and verse three says this significantly marking the identity of who God is holy, holy, holy is the God of the angel armies. By the way, this is in the message. This is a paraphrase of Isaiah chapter six. So this is God before his army of angels. And it’s it’s clarifying for us something about his identity. It is holy. It is separate from us. It is beyond our description in comparison to who we are. It is it is just glorious and perfect. And it says the foundations trembled at the sound of the angel’s voices and the whole earth filled with smoke.
And I said, doom. You think about that? We’re created for I just said we’re created for a relationship with God. And you would expect Isaiah man, he’s he’s getting experience with God. And then he said, and I’m dead man. I see God and it’s it’s not good. It’s doomsday. I’m as good as dead. Every word I’ve ever spoken tainted, blasphemous, even. And the people I live with talk the same way, using words that corrupt and desecrate. And here I’ve looked. God in the face. The king God of the angel armies. Isaiah’s gathered this picture for us that he’s literally before a throne of a king who’s prepared to go to battle, and the battle that he’s waging is against sin. And Isaiah is saying, and here I find myself before this throne as a sinner. I am a dead man. Compared to one another. We don’t look that bad, right? Sin’s not that bad. I kind of live my life the way that I want, but as long as it’s better than my neighbor, it’s not that bad. Do you think of it in the perspective of God, who created a kingdom to be perfect and sinless, and now his creation, the crowning glory of of his his creatures, the crowning glory of his creation, now sin. And one day we will meet that maker. And say what? Sorry, God, for all the death. Isaiah says it’s doom. We were dead in our trespasses and sins.
Isaiah goes on and explains beyond just verse one, listen, our relationship with God isn’t plugged into its source. But he also says in verse two, 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. You know, I think verse two and verse three are an explanation of verse one. But but verse two really then begins to describe for us the scope of this effect of sin. Isaiah is not just looking at the city of Ephesus and saying, guys, this place is just this is lost cause you guys are living in sin, man. Corinth is a good place to be. But Ephesus, I ain’t going there, you know what I mean? Paul’s not saying that about the town of Ephesus. What he’s saying is in verse two, this the magnitude of this sin is affecting the whole world. It’s in everyone. Matter of fact, in Psalm 51, David said, I was conceived in sin, not that his mother had him in some sort of sin, but that David, at conception from the very conception of his life, was a sinner at heart. The Apostle Paul all perfect. Paul, the Apostle Paul, who just basically established the church on his own shoulders. Right. He says in Romans, O wretched man that I am, man! If Paul doesn’t get it right, what hope do I have? And he says in verse two, the sin that’s affecting your relationship with God is affecting the world’s relationship with God.
And there is this ruler of which we call Satan. Who’s ruling that kingdom. So in verse three says this. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. Bible is very clear for us. And. What happens in sin? God. Judges sin. We’re all sinful and God is judging sin. Now here’s the beauty of this statement. If by some chance. You aren’t on the side of God’s wrath. But you get to stand on the side of his presence and his glorious presence. And it’s not a doomsday for you, but it’s an enjoyment of your relationship with God. God’s judgment of sin is a glorious thing for you. You think about all the wrongs that you’ve ever suffered, all the pain that you’ve ever endured, all the hardships that you’ve ever gone through. Jesus. His desire is to wipe it off the face of this earth. The King of Kings wants to remove that which destroys. And if by some chance you can find yourself on the other side of sin. The statement of God’s wrath being poured out on sin is an enjoyable experience. Like I tell you, when you look at these first three verses, none of us should get to the end of this and say, man, that was great.
You know, like the theology at this point is really profound. You get to the first three verses and you can say to yourself, let’s see, what is Paul trying to say? Oh yeah, sin stinks, man. Sin bites whatever word you want to use, I mean expletive whatever. Sin is horrible, right? That’s all Paul’s expressing to us, this, this death that we experience in sin, this destroying of the world all, all that we’re gratifying in the flesh, this thing that’s contrary to God. Sin is just horrible. If you feel that about this passage of Scripture, it’s good theology you’re practicing this morning. Here’s what happens. A lot of times we get to a place like this. I know sometimes we don’t like to hear the solution as as it even relates to Christ, because sometimes people have used the idea of sin, especially been in a religious gathering, as a way to manipulate you to do what it is they want you to do, right? And and we’re not bringing up sin this morning to manipulate you or to make you feel guilty to do things that we want you to do. Okay. That’s the big difference in us talking about sin here. It’s not about manipulation. It’s not about guilt. If you walk out feeling guilty about sin, that does nothing for us. We don’t want you to walk out feeling guilty about sin.
There’s a solution to sin and it’s not feeling guilty. Okay, I think you guys. And so Paul is building this, this idea for us. We look at the idea of sin. We sometimes try to interpret our own solutions to sense problems. I, like some individuals know at church at some point, if it’s following the Bible, it’s going to talk about sin, right? We don’t like to do that. So let’s let’s just ignore sin. Let’s let’s ignore it. Let’s pretend like it’s not there. Let’s busy ourselves in our own world and and eventually the pain of sin will just subside. Or I’ll just become so callous to it. It won’t matter anyway. We can pretend like everything’s okay around us. You know, I’ve heard of this sin. I watched it on the news. It happened in, like, Darfur somewhere. But it’s not happening in my life. So let’s continue to ignore it. Or the power of positive thinking, right? If you just think better or build build a bigger Zen garden and and sin will go away. Man, right? It’s not that sin is the problem. It’s that I’ve created this delusion of sin. Sin is not even real. And so I just think positive and all of it will just go away. Other people, they the reason they keep falling back into it is they they’re not agreeing with my philosophy. If I could just share my Zen garden with them, everything would be okay, right? I say that kind of mockingly, but I’m serious.
We tend to think that way sometimes, too. We just try to think positive like it’s the solution or or religiously. We just try to do enough good to make up for the bad, right? I do good enough and then I’m acceptable, right? I’ll become so good. And some of the stuff I’ll do that the bad will be forgotten and I will just be so lovable. Because people can only only choose to love me because of the good that I’ve done, even though there may be some bad. So we’ll just do as much good as I as I can. As long as I’m better than my neighbor, I’m okay. And and and it’ll be great, right? Let me, let me just throw out a thought. Doom. What if your solution to life is do good? And what if your solution to life is positive thinking? And what if you just ignore the sin that’s around you? Manage to get through most of your life? And then what if one day a tragedy happens? What if one day your kid goes to school? And doesn’t come home. What solution do you offer to that? The reason I like the way the Apostle Paul brings up the sin is because when we talk about sin, the glory of God’s grace is far better. And no matter how good you do. You may not be able to stop something like that from happening. I like the war that’s happening right now in Washington over guns.
I’m not going to take a side. I don’t want to make it a political issue. But I want to tell you this regardless of what decision they make, whether they give us all guns to carry or they don’t allow us to have any guns to carry, it’s not going to solve the problem. It can it can defer the problem or it can curb the problem. It’s not going to solve the problem because this problem rests within us. Hearts are wicked and deceitful. Jeremiah tells us that in 1709. Deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked even even your children. I found out something happens. Something happens with kids when they get to the age of two. The devil enters their heart. They learn the word no. That’s what I meant to say. But the sin is a big deal for us to recognize. And no matter how positive you want to think, if something tragic like that happens in your life, if your kid goes to school but doesn’t return, I can tell you, no matter what philosophy you want to carry into that situation, none of it is going to is going to help and none of it’s going to heal. This is what I think Jesus’s solution does. And I want to talk about that as we look and build up into verse one. But here’s what Paul’s doing. He’s building this giant, but that’s what he’s doing.
He wants us to get to these first three verses and and just think, gosh, this is so stressful, man. This is so huge, man. Sin. Sin is horrible. I don’t even want to experience this in my life. I don’t want to be a part. If I could ignore it, I would. If I could do any of those solutions you talked about, I would. But sin, the pervading idea of sin is around me and it stinks, man. I’ve been affected by it. Sometimes I’m the one that does it. How in the world can I break free from it? And so it says this in verse four. Maybe click for me once. There we go. But there it is. That’s big. You think about how big that is. That is the biggest. But in Ephesians so far, you get to the first three verses and you see the enormity of sin and how vile it is before the presence of God, God calling us dead in our relationship. And then he says this, But God. I like that it’s not. But me. But there’s something you can do, right? It’s something that’s been done. And it’s not from me. It’s from God. But God. Being rich in mercy. Because of his great love with which he loved us. Mm. You think about the theology of the love. We’ve talked about it as we looked in Ephesians together. Ephesians chapter one tells us that God has loved you before the foundation of the earth.
Meaning out of love. He’s created you in for the purpose of experiencing his love. He has made you in this world. It has nothing to do with what you’ve done. God has chosen to extend his love to you because he is love. God loves you. Greater than any love you’ve experienced in this world. Nothing that you can compare to in this world. God desires to experience life with you and desires for you to experience life with him. And when we look at all the weight of verse 1 to 3 and we think of all the things we can do, and where all that stress when we’re thinking, how in the world am I going to get out of here? And then the answer comes to us it’s not even you, but God being rich in mercy is choosing to love you. God loves you. And so then he goes on and explains the the idea of what this love has caused him to do. It says in verse five, even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you’ve been saved. So not only does God just love you, but remember when he said that you’re dead and your relationship with him? Remember when he talked about he’s telling the Ephesians, who are Christians now? Remember, think about what God has done. Don’t forget the beauty of what God has done in your life. Remember when you were this way? God intervened and God loved you, and when you were dead in your relationship with him, what he did was just resurrect that relationship so that you can unite with him once again and experience life with him, both now and forever.
Do you remember when God did that? God loved you and God has also given you life. He seated you with Christ. So then it tells us in verse seven, just the magnitude of it. We see the magnitude of the way sin affects our lives. And so he says in verse seven, so that in the ages to come. He might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward you in Christ Jesus. You know, what used to scare me about heaven is how long I had to be there. I used to be a concern of mine. I would say the word forever and ever, over and over until it made me feel weird. Forever and ever. I don’t know. When I was a little kid, I thought I was going to eat popsicles every day. I was really excited about that. But when it tells us in verse seven when it talks about your experience with the Lord. It talks about what you’re going to experience as you grow in your relationship with God. It tells us that in the ages to come, you’re going to continue in the knowledge and growth of the surpassing riches of his grace. And you’re going to be experiencing that relationship with God to new depths and new wealth every day for all eternity.
God has chosen to love you. God has chosen to to lift you in a position with him, to take you from death to life. And God has chosen to just lavish his riches upon you for all eternity. This is what God desires for our lives. Not that we would talk about sin and walk out feeling guilty. Not that we would talk about sin and just feel bad about it, but that we would talk about sin, that we could see the beauty of what Christ has done. And rather than living life for ourselves, just run and embrace the one who loves us more than we really even care to love our own selves. God talks about sin so that you can see the solution, and the solution is found in him for which you were created to experience life. As part of Ephesians chapter two. And verse four is enormous for us to recognize, but we get so callous to it as believers. The weight of sin being lifted from my shoulders, that I may experience the one for which I’ve been created. And so he tells us this as we think about being honest with sin and what Jesus says as we look at this relationship with we have with the Lord, it begins to encourage us the way that we can live in this life, as we’ll see in Ephesians four through six.
But he goes on and gives us, you guys know this right click for me. I don’t know what happened to me. I’m out of power. In verse eight it says this, for it is by grace you have been saved. I will say this, grace, if you want to know a good definition of grace, I won’t even tell you what it is. Go to Romans for for Romans 11 six. Now I’ll tell you what it is nothing to do with you. Grace has no works of your involvement whatsoever. It’s everything Jesus has done. God has extended his grace to you through faith. It’s not of yourselves. It’s the gift of God. Now look at this. To those who think we make ourselves lovable to Jesus. It says in verse nine, not by works. So that no one can boast. We are in our favor before the Lord. The boasting becomes ours. But we understand the way that God has given it. The glory belongs to him. God has chosen to lavish his love. Up on you and he saved you through Christ. I saw a wonderful illustration of this passage this week. It was a pastor talking about an experience he had living in Dallas, Texas. I don’t know what goes on in Dallas, Texas, but apparently they have hailstorms in which hail comes from the sky. That’s the size of softballs. Apparently this happens quite often. I don’t know, don’t live in Dallas, Texas, as all it took from that.
And but but this pastor was, was watching these individuals that got caught in this field during a giant hail storm. And they they all started running for cover to get out. And these softballs were just falling out of the sky and just cracking skulls open. These things were really hurting people. And he said he said he saw the the most remarkable thing as he watched these people from his shelter scurrying across this field. Run. Yeah, I’d help you, but. Right. He said he said the people that were running across the field, they begin to realize that they weren’t going to make it and and that they were going to get severely wounded as they were going on this journey. And so the husbands did this, this interesting thing. As they were running across the field, these husbands turned and faced their wives. And they begin to lift their arms over top of their heads. And the. And the gentleman watching this said you could literally hear the the softball sized hail coming from the sky and cracking their skulls. And nailing them in the bones. And you could actually watch as these men protected their wives and were just rendered unconscious by the weight of these stones that were hitting them in the head. And many of them, as they went unconscious, fell forward over their wives to continue to protect them from the storm. He said that this storm was actually so bad that many of those guys who protected their wives were permanently disfigured from the scars that they have from the stones that hit them as they fell from the sky.
You think about that? As a husband. I know you guys hear that. You’re like, yeah, I’ll do that. I will do that, right? I love my wife, man. I’m in. Right? Give me the whole story. Chivalry. And then you think about it as it relates to Jesus. Looking over the earth. Watching the weight of sin fall upon us. Coming to this earth, grabbing us, looking us in the face and just saying I love you. I love you. And covering over you with his love. Taking the wounds of sin to the cross to die for you. And the Bible tells us in revelation five, when John sees Jesus, he sees him in heaven as a lamb who was slain. You think about the women. Who had their husbands protect them. And every day waking up and seeing a man who bears scars on his face that say to them, I love you. And the opportunity one day where you stand before Jesus. And you see the scars of the ones standing before you that says, I love you. The beauty of the passage says this. It’s by grace that he’s just extended his arms over you. He he he was the punishment for our sins. It tells us in Isaiah 53, and it tells us through faith we experience the salvation meaning Jesus has come.
Jesus is offering himself to you. Jesus has paid the penalty for your sins. And Jesus is just asking, do you want saved? Do you want rescued? Do you want my arms over you? Do you want me bearing your sin on the cross? Do you want that? Romans says this. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord. Is saved. I realize I bring up the word, but I don’t want to do it to be uncouth. I really want to do it just to saturate our minds to remember what this passage is talking about so we don’t forget it. We have to look at it in a new way or it’s just going to be said. Ephesians 289. Grace, are you saved through faith? Right. God’s grace in the midst of this storm has come into your life to set you free and to give you the opportunity to experience life in him. It’s beautiful. And so he says this in verse ten. Well, good bye, for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Forget the guilt of sin. Put your faith in Jesus. Jesus pays for it all. Now let’s put the past in the past and just look forward to our relationship with him. That’s Ephesians 210. God has created you for so much more than just feeling guilty, man. God’s got an answer far greater than just ignoring sin in this world.
It’s him. You were created to experience him. And his handiwork is upon you. I was trying to figure out this week. I have heard this verse a lot. I share it like every day in Utah, and I was trying to think this week how, how can this verse impact my life? How can God speak to me through this passage in a way that would just bring life to what God’s talking about here, because it’s such a big deal. What Paul is saying in Scripture. And then Wednesday morning happened for me. My. You guys know if you’ve been here for more than a month? This past Christmas, just before Christmas, my grandfather passed away and I got to go home and preach at his funeral. He was a believer in Christ and I was really excited to do it. I actually have another guy in my family. He’s my cousin who’s also a minister, and he kind of wanted to do it, but he’s my grandpa, so, so, so he he was asking me if I even wanted to do it. And I was like, man, I am so excited to do this. Not not because my grandpa’s passed or anything. All that’s sad, but but one of the things I regret or not regret, but I don’t enjoy about being away from my family is that I don’t get to minister to my family living out in Utah. You guys are my family now, okay, but but the family that birthed me and saw me grow up till I moved here, um, I don’t enjoy the opportunities that I miss and not getting in and not being able to minister to them.
And so when my grandfather passed, I realized, man, my whole family will be there. And so I get to talk about Jesus with him and it’s going to be great. And so we went in and shared Christ. And with my family and, and talked about how he’s such a glorious solution to our life. And at the end, people came out, were talking to me about how how great it was. And some people even told me they actually apologized. They said, you know, I’ve shown my backside to you quite often, and I just want you to know that I’ve given God control of my life and and I’m just in love with Jesus, man. That’s great. I don’t remember you showing me any of that backside, but. But I’m glad that you have that relationship with Jesus, man, that is just wonderful to hear. It gave me a great comfort in being able to do that with my with my family. And then this past Wednesday, I wake up and I get on Facebook. All right. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but first thing I do is I get on Facebook and I see one of my cousins had made a post and and it said all it said was rest in peace, sister.
I’ll miss you. He’s a younger brother of my cousin who I grew up with, grew up right next to my whole life. And and it turns out on Tuesday night, someone had found her dead in a hotel room. And immediately my thoughts were. For my grandmother, who just saw my grandfather pass, and now she’s burying her granddaughter and my aunt, whose dad had just passed, and now she’s burying her own daughter. What do you say to that? Just try harder. Do good. Right. I’ll build you a zen garden. Or just ignore it. Sin. Who cares? She’s dead. Who cares? Just ignore it. I mean, it’s just a figment of our imagination. Pain. It’s not even real. I mean, what can a solution do I give to a moment like that when hearts, you know, are just being ripped apart? And then you remember the promises of Jesus. Jesus knows this world can weigh on us. And Jesus knows this world is falling apart. And Jesus doesn’t want us to put hope in a place that there is no hope. And so I could say to her, Alana. Jesus can restore all of this. That pain that you feel. He wants to bring you into a kingdom of which it will pass away, and wipe every tear from your eye and take every pain from your life. Jesus doesn’t want your hope here. But God loves you and God is rich in his mercy.
And by his grace you are healed. And he wants to lift you up into a new life and give you a kingdom of which you can experience his riches forever. Nothing in this world can provide a better solution than Jesus. He heals the brokenhearted, the Bible tells us. And he brings us life. I like talking about sin. I like talking about sin because I know at the end of the story, my God kicks the crap out of it. Amen. And if we could get on the right side of sin, the one that’s not under his wrath, but in his grace. How glorious it will be when my aunt or all of us stand before the Lord, and he brings his wrath and justice on the things that have broken our hearts. So I say this. For by grace you have been saved through faith. It’s not of yourselves. It’s God’s gift to you. It’s not of works lest any man should boast. But God has created you in Christ Jesus for good works. And the Bible says this give me one more click. Remember church. Don’t forget the power of your message. Remember that you were, at that time, separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But there it is, twice. But now in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself. Is our peace.