Ephesians chapter 2. Let's hear God's Word. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. and this not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no man may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace. who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in the place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in our one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and preached peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access and one Spirit to the Father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place. for God by the Spirit. There we end our reading of God's Word. The purpose of this series is to encourage all of us in our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a sad thing that in the Church of Jesus Christ today there are many Christians who neither understand nor know who they truly are. and that's reflected in the lives that they're leading. It's amazing that there are churches in our land today where the membership role is in the hundreds, if not even the thousands, where those who attend worship on the Lord's Day morning are a percentage of that membership role. We're in many of those churches, as one of the ministers on our day told me about five or six years ago, it's not my worth, my wife turning out on a Sunday night There wasn't enough people to turn out. One of the largest churches in our time, membership roll of hundreds, morning worship of two or three hundred. It's not worth his while turning out on a Sunday night and ask for a prayer meeting. Well, what's a prayer meeting? It's amazing, absolutely amazing, that men and women who believe and say they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ have no desire to worship God on the Lord's Day twice. have very little desire to pursue with vigor a relationship with God which is manifest in their being at their prayer meeting, which have very little reality in terms of their study of God's Word on a day-to-day basis. And yet they wonder why the church is on its knees. Men and women who stand and take vows, vows of membership, professing they are a sinner, professing their love for Jesus Christ, professing their desire to forsake sin, pursue holiness, professing their desire to regularly attend the worship services, professing to develop and attain the habit of prayer, professing to grow in their relationship with God. And yet they're part-time, part-time hobby, a relationship with God. There's no vitality, there's no energy. This thing that this is the most important thing in their lives. Well, that may be the case, but there's no real evidence of that. Why is that the case? Why is it that good men and women do not pursue the relationship with God in the way that they should? Oh, there's loads of excuses. Loads of excuses. Oh, I'm too busy. Life's too full. Too much taken up with this. Too much taken up with my family. Too much taken up with my work. Well, we've seen in the book of Haggai that if you don't put the kingdom of Christ first in your life, then your work suffers. Your wife suffers. Your wain suffers. Everything in your life suffers if you do not put the kingdom of Christ first. But distilling it down and asking the question, what is going on that means that they don't get it? Now, we're not talking here about fools. We're not talking about what God calls those who do not have a knowledge of God. We're talking about those who are truly converted. What is it? What's going on in their heads, or a better question, what's not going on in their heads that means that they find a substandard way of Christian living acceptable? How is it that this mediocrity of a Christian life that they have, this apology for Christian living is so acceptable to them? Why is it that they don't get up in the morning and think to themselves, I am a believer in Jesus Christ today. I must pursue Him with thought, word and deed. Why is it that they don't see themselves needing to immerse themselves in the study of God's Word? Why is it that they don't desire and long to be with the people of God in prayer? Why is this the reality in their lives? There has to be something going on in their life that means that they find it quite acceptable to believe in Jesus Christ, to say they love Jesus Christ, and yet not to pursue and walk in the ways of Jesus Christ with the vigour that they should. I believe that one of the reasons why they find it acceptable is because they have not come to a true biblical understanding of their identity in Jesus Christ. They don't actually know who they are as a Christian. If they knew who they were as a Christian, then they would find it unacceptable to live the life they are living. It's because of the ignorance that they are happy to wallow in, that they are incapable of discerning the fact that the life that they are leading, far from bringing glory to God, is almost a denial of God. And Paul writing to the church at Ephesus speaks to them very clear, and his purpose is to encourage them, to encourage and encourage and encourage them to keep on doing what is right. And in chapter 2, you'll know I'm doing this in an odd way. Last week I began this series by preaching in chapter 3. This week I'm in chapter 2. Next week I'm in chapter 1. It's not the normal way of going about things. Here he begins in this chapter and he outlines to these believers who they formerly were prior to their coming to faith in Jesus Christ. And if as a Christian you want to truly understand your identity as a believer in Jesus Christ, then you must grasp the reality of your condition and position before God, before you became a Christian. If you don't have a true understanding, and a biblical grasp and a comprehension of your position and your status before God prior to your becoming a Christian, then the reality of the Christian life will be to you less than what it should be or could be. If you see yourself merely as someone who has had a moral change in your life, Someone who is taking religion a little bit more seriously. Someone who is sorting out the key principle issues in your life. If that is the height of your understanding concerning your condition and your position before God, then as re your identity in Jesus Christ, well that's merely just a glossing up of who you formerly were. And so you will find it acceptable to live a life that is marked by mediocrity. You will find it acceptable to live a life because all you're doing is getting the brasso out and just cleaning the knobs in the door. There's no real instrumental change in your life. You have not perceived the climatic, radical nature of what God has done in your life. You're not going to get down on your knees and beg for mercy and give thanks to God for grace if you have merely been using the brasso. So we need to know who we were before Jesus Christ changed our lives. And the more we know about who we were before we became a believer in Jesus Christ, then the more we will understand the new identity we have, and that new identity will give us a passion and a desire to walk for Jesus Christ. And in this chapter in Ephesians, Paul writes to these men and women, and he very, very clearly tells them who they were. He speaks to them of their deadness. He speaks to them of the fact that they were dominated. And he speaks to them of the fact that they were doomed. Now, he's talking to them about their life before they became a believer in Jesus Christ. He says in Ephesians chapter 2, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked." You were dead. Paul says to these men and women, you were not alive spiritually. You were dead. They were dead in their trespasses, in the stepping over the mark that God has marked out as righteousness. They were dead in their sins in their falling short of the mark that God says this is holiness. Every human being who is born is born dead in their sins. We sang together from Psalm 51, a Psalm of the Old Testament in which the psalmist David speaks of the nature of sin and the commencement of sin in our lives. He says in verse 5, reading from the Scottish Metrical Version, Behold, I in iniquity was formed the womb within. My mother also me conceived in guiltiness and sin. David is not saying there that when his mother had sexual relationships with his father, that act of sexual intercourse was sinful. What he is saying is that when his mother had a sexual relationship with his father and he was conceived, he was conceived as one of the line of Adam. And as such, He was conceived as a sinner. Sin is not merely the product of what we think, say or do. We are dead in our sin because of the fact that we are human beings born of the nature of Adam. Every human being who has been born into this world has been born dead in sin. Every human being who has lived their life in this world has lived their life as one who is dead in their sin. Romans 5, verse 12, Therefore just as sin commenced the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. Death is the product of sin. When God created Adam, He created him to live. Adam should not have died. The reason why Adam died was because when God said to Adam, you must not eat of the tree of good and evil. You must lay your hand of it. You may sure eat of every tree of the knowledge of the garden, but you but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it, for in that day you eat of it, you shall surely die. Adam then, following the example of his wife, took of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and he ate of it. When the woman saw that the tree was good for fruit, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. They hid from God. The consequence and the punishment of their wrongdoing against God was simple. God said, You shall die. And when God says, You shall die, He meant it. And in verse 19 of chapter 3 he says to Adam, By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you are taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. It's a theological lesson on why you will die. You will die because God said to Adam, Do not take of the tree of good and evil, for on that day you eat of it, you will die. the foot from the hand of his wife, he ate of that tree. God says, you've eaten of the tree of which I command you not to eat, therefore you shall die. But not merely was death brought to Adam, death was brought to all mankind. Because Adam was not merely representing himself, he was representing all mankind. What Adam did, re that tree, affects each one of us. and has affected every human being who has lived. For we read in Romans chapter 5, just as sin came into the world through one man, who was that man? Adam. And death through sin. So death spread to all men because all sinned. Death comes to all because all sin. Why do all sin? Because all are born in the nature of Adam. Each human being who is born is born dead. They live their life overstepping the mark of righteousness and falling short of the mark of holiness. That is why we read together Psalm 14 and then sang of it, when God looked out of heaven to see if there was any that was good, he saw no, not one. Not one. We were not good prior to Jesus Christ radically changing our lives. We were not even spiritually alive prior to Jesus Christ by His Spirit through the preached Word radically changing our lives. We were dead. Dead. We walked about, we talked, we thought, we spoke, we acted, But every word that proceeded from our hearts, through our brains, to our lips, were words that were the words of a dead man and a dead woman. Every thought that we thought were the thoughts of a dead man or a dead woman. Every act that we acted were the actions of a dead man or a dead woman. Everything about us smelled of the stench of death. Our minds were only hostile towards God. Our hearts were only evil all the time. Our actions were putrid and horrific in the sight of God. We deliberately and willfully overstepped repeatedly that line which God said, do not overstep. And day and day we fell short of that line which God says, you must rise up to in order to be holy. There was nothing good about us in any way. We were dead. Now we were decent people, friendly, affable, carry a good conversation, tell a joke, good company to be with. just like the people that we know today, just even like the ones we have in our family. We may even have been going to church. We may have been sitting in this church. We may have grown up in this church. But we were dead. Dead. Not alive. Dead. The second thing he says about the condition of those prior to the work of Christ in their lives is that they are dominated. Dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Isn't it great to hear that word once? The hope of salvation in Jesus Christ keeps bursting through here in every sentence. It's wonderful. Which we once walked. This was not a nice stroll. This was no freedom walk. We were held in bondage. We were following the course of this world. We were following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work on the sons of disobedience. There were external forces influencing our lives. The world was dictating and determining our thought processes and our actions. We lived our lives not to the beat of God's Word, but to the demands of the world. what our peers thought, what our contemporaries wanted us to do. We went with them. We thought like them. We acted like them. We conformed to what they wanted us to do. Why? Because we were under the dominion of the world. We were held spellbound. We were held captive by the influence of the world around us. A world that is marked by evil and darkness. A world that is marked by a society that is organized without any reference to God. I thought it was quite amazing this week when the MSPs were taking their oath of office. The number of them, I reckon 60% of our MSPs, in taking their oath of office, declined the opportunity to take their oath to God. In other words, they choose a form of words That meant they didn't have to vow before God that they would hold this office. They just vowed it instead to the Queen. It's more important to vow to the Queen than it is to vow to God. Of course, maybe some of them realised that they would be able to keep. Maybe it was a good thing. Let's think about it. Maybe it's a good thing that they were being honest. A world that is marked without reference to God. There are external influences. Then there are internal influences. There is the influence of the passion of the mind and the body. He says that among us whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the mind and the body, we were dominated by an internal desire, both of the body and the mind, to do that which God did not want us to do. We, because of the sin in our lives, were bound in a bondage. We were held captive by our minds and our body to pursue a way that was contrary to the Word of God. Paul talks about it even after his conversion. He says, I find myself doing the things that I know I shouldn't do, and I find myself not being able to do the things that I want to do. And he's even speaking there as a converted man. Well, before Christ comes in and before Christ breaks that bondage, the situation we were in was that our mind and our bodies were saying to us, go for it. Go for it. Do it. Do it. We were free from the control of righteousness. Paul writes to the Church of Rome and says, we had no interest at all in doing anything that would bring any joy to God, any pleasure to God. God was not on our radar. All we did was anti-God. He walked about with decent people, affable people, friendly people, maybe even certain of this church's people. Maybe he grew up in this church, came in, sang the Psalms, listened to the minister preach. But to peel back the layers of our life, and what did you find? The passion that was driving us was not the passion of God, but it was the passion of sin in nine word and deed. Bondage from external influences, bondage from internal influences, and held in this bondage in the captivity by Satan and his allies. Following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Held captive. And we've all seen in events of the past ten days What is it like to be held captive? Held captive, held against your will. Nothing you can do. Nothing parents can do to release the child is held captive. The captivity. And that captivity is nothing like the captivity that Satan exercises over the person who is dead in their sins. They are held in bondage. The manacles are on their wrists. They smile. They are affable. They are friendly. They may talk about church, but their hands are manacled and their feet are tied together. Their legs are tied together and they shuffle along to the beat of the world. The passions of their heart and mind being dictated to by the will of Satan. And that, Paul says, is the dominion in which we once lived. That was the dominion in which we once lived. He goes on in chapter 2 and he speaks of the resulting outflow of that bondage. He speaks in verse to chapter 12 that we were aliens and strangers from the commonwealth of Israel. He speaks in chapter 4 verse 18, we didn't read that one, about aliens from the life of God. He speaks of us being separated from the Messiah, verse 12, about separated from the kingdom of God and the rule of God's word. Strangers to the covenants of promise, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. And then he comes on in that last sentence of verse 12 and he says, having no hope, dead in sin, dominated by the external influences that we willingly submit ourselves to, dominated by the internal influences that we bend the knee to, held captive by the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, the course of our lives being driven and being pursued by the prince of the power of the air, And when it's all tied together, when it's all meshed in together, the resulting effect is that we were without hope and without God and the world. No hope. No hope. No hope. No hope. Heading for a lost eternity. heading for that place that we've been so graphically reminded of in recent weeks, that place of agonizing pain, that place of an awful presence in the wrath of God, that appalling prospect of being separated from God for all eternity. That's the reality of the bondage and the dominion in which we lived. We were dead. We were the walking dead. We may have even been the smiling dead. We may have even been the church-going dead. But we were dead. And we were dominated internally, externally, held captive, free from the law of righteousness, without hope and without God and the world. We may have been smiling under that dominion which we willingly subject ourselves to. We may have been affable and friendly, courteous in our dealings with people, but yet we were living our lives not as free men and women, but under the dominion, responding to the call of the evil one, living our lives not as God would have us to live them, but living our lives, following the inner passions of our lives, doing what we wanted to do, not doing what God wanted us to do, saying to God, you can take what you have and I will have what I will have and I will do what I want to do. Outwardly, presenting a face of religion even, but inwardly, the reality of that religion was nothing because we were under the dominion of sin and Satan. Responding to our contemporaries and our peers, what they thought was more important than what God thought. what my husband thought, what my wife thought, what my child thinks, what my mother thinks, what my father thinks, more important than what God thinks. We were held by a bondage that would not let us go. We were held captive and there was no way out because we were dead. A dead man cannot do anything about his circumstances. A dead woman cannot do anything about her circumstances. That which is dead is dead. There is no life. There is no change. There is no alteration. They are dead. They will be dead. They will never cease being dead. Under the dominion of Satan. Doing the dictate of Satan. With a smiling, happy face. Even church going while they are doing the will of Satan. Disobeying God. Refusing and denying the Gospel. The reality of our condition. The reality of our condition. My friends, we didn't just take out the brass to unripe up the brass. There was a radical change that took place in our lives, as we shall see next Lord's Day, by God's grace, by the power of the Spirit of God, through the work of Jesus Christ. And what a mighty work that was in the sending of His Son to die at Calvary. Only through the death of Jesus Christ could we who were dead be raised. Only through the death of Jesus Christ could that bondage be broken, that captivity be broken. We need to understand the reality of this. Because too many people in the church today are walking around as if they've just cleaned up the brussel. I've just made myself a little bit better. So I don't need to really engage with God. I don't need to give myself to the Kingdom of God. They don't realise who they were before Jesus Christ changed them. They saunter along as if it doesn't make any difference. You look in their eyes and you say to them, what are you doing? You were dead. You were dominated and you were doomed. Beware, he says in verse 3, by nature of children of wrath. Whose wrath? God's wrath. The wrath of a holy God. Not an arbitrary reaction. Not an impersonal response. God's wrath is personal. It's righteous. It's perfect. It is a constant hostility towards evil. It is a settled refusal to compromise with evil. He resolves all the time only to condemn evil. And we who are dead because of our descendancy from Adam, we who constantly stepped over the mark of righteousness, we who constantly failed to come up to the mark of holiness, we who lived our lives willingly accepting the external influence of the world around us, telling us what we should think, telling us what we should do, telling us what we should say, telling us how we should behave. You think about your friends and your relatives. who are not believers in Jesus Christ. And you talk to them and you ask them about their life. You ask them to come to the mission and they didn't come. Why? Because there was too much else going on in their life. Why was there too much else going on in their life? Because they were conformed to the world around them. They were walking according to the ways of the world around them. Do you know how that is spelled out? Spelled D-E-A-D. They may have been pleasant. They may have been nice. They may be unfriendly. They may even have come for one night just to please you. Just to please you. But the reality is they are D.E.A.D. And we were in that. We were giving ourselves to the dominion of the world. Internally we were pursuing it. Pursuing it. with vigour and every day of our lives we were getting up and our minds were only seeking to do that which was wrong. You see, it's called normality because the world is full of wrongdoing so we're just doing the things of the world. You see how the devil has taken that which is wrong and which he has translated into that which is normal? Everybody does it this way. Therefore, it's normal. Therefore, it's acceptable. The fact that God doesn't want you to do it that way, you don't want to step out of line with the world. God is up there. He is far away. The world is what you have to meet every day. God is in the future. The world is what you'll have to speak to today. God is up there. You don't need to engage with God. The world is what you have to interact with today. This is being normal. You don't want to be abnormal. You don't want to be odd. So we gave ourselves this passion to the things that were wrong. Trespasses and sins held. Held by a bondage. Oh, I'll come. I'll come. I'll come to God when it suits me. We hadn't a hope. We hadn't a hope. We hadn't a hope. We hadn't a hope of coming to God when it suited us because we were held. Held in bondage. Held in bondage by sin and by Satan. without hope and without God, and by nature, objects of the wrath of God. That wrath that will be revealed for all eternity, that will be poured out on those who are dead, those who have lived under that dominion, willingly and acceptably. poured out in that place called hell. Poured out day after day, week after week, month after month, for all eternity. That's who we were. That's where we were. Maybe that's still where you are. Huh? Maybe that's still who you are. Well, next Lord's Day, we will see what Christ did. What Christ did to make us alive, to break the bondage, and to lift us from out under that wrath. To set us free, not just for now, but for all eternity. We will see what Jesus has done. Now, can you stay away from hearing that? I doubt it. Amen. Lord God, these facts are astonishing. They are utterly amazing in their extent of what they would have left us in, dead dominated and doomed without hope and without God. Lord God, we thank you today that there is mercy and grace, and that you do love your people. And we look forward, Lord God, to the hope that will be revealed next Lord's Day. But we pray, Father, you'll help us to remember this is who we were, so that when we taste of what Jesus has done, we'll see the remarkableness of that, the phenomenalness of that, and so be stirred to the very core of our being to lay aside any sense of apathy and lethargy and to pursue Christ with all our hearts. Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.