Something About You

SOMETHING ABOUT YOU:
The Ravages of Sin on All Men (rewrite)
Ephesians 2:1-3

Introduction
Read Ephesians 2:1-9

It is rightly argued that Ephesians contains both, some of the richest theological assertions in scripture and at the same time it is possibly the most practical book in the New Testament. That detail alone should lay to rest that popular notion that doctrine is an indulgence of intellectuals that is unnecessary to the Christian life and practice.

In fact, I am of the opinion that upright behaviour is fundamentally the fruit of good theology and conversely bad behaviour is the product of faulty doctrine. The root of every sin committed by the Christian is always some misconceived doctrine.

So let’s look at the doctrine of human depravity with the aim of conforming our practice to the faith once delivered to the saints.

Today I want to focus on the first three verses of chapter 2:

Paul, with great courage and benevolence towards the Ephesians, shows no reservation in describing the state in which the gospel found them. This is the thing that very few people will ever have the courage to tell you about yourself- the truth about your sin.

Love compels Paul- love must compel us too. It can be our only true motive. I fear that self-righteousness, not love, is more often the motive of many Christians. Let us keep in mind Paul’s admonition in Romans 2:
Therefore, anyone of you who judges is without excuse. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things. We know that God's judgment on those who do such things is based on the truth. Do you really think--anyone of you who judges those who do such things yet do the same--that you will escape God's judgment? Or do you despise the riches of His kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? (1-5).

How sad for grace when Christians become more judgmental, more hypercritical, more unforgiving then those who have never heard of the grace of God. Those of you who judge and condemn others because they are not as righteous and perfect as you, let me ask you this: what do you have that you did not receive from Christ?

Have you heard the parable of the unforgiving servant? Jesus told it to teach us how to treat others in light of the grace we have received. The wicked servant was forgiven by his master a debt of 10 000 talents only to have a man thrown in prison who only owed him 100 talents.

This is what you do when you point fingers and gossip and condemn people because of their sin. Do you realize that your self-righteousness is far more grievous to God then the sin for which you condemn your brother? “Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received you” (Rom. 15:7).

So telling people about sin in not a matter of brow beating, it’s an act of love. A lot of today’s popular gospel methodologies miss that. They have censored the message about the sinfulness of sin with the effect of producing churches, both large and small, who are full of unregenerate members who have believed in an emasculated Universalist half-gospel that is void of any mention of the wrath of God.

Instead of the preaching a gospel to convert sinners to Christ, it is often Christ who is converted in our preaching to suit our therapeutic, self-absorbed felt needs. I don’t know which is worse, an angry self righteous church, or one that is full of people who have no concept of their own propensity towards evil. I am sure they are equally repugnant to Christ.

Yes the Bible says that we were created to reflect the image of God and when God had created everything he proclaimed it was good. But something has happened since that day- the image has been stained by sin. The creature that was designed to fellowship with God is now by nature and inheritance in rebellion against his Creator.

We are born to rebellion and therefore separated from the source of life- dead in trespasses and sin. If you don’t believe, just read a newspaper or take a course on human history.

The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see of there was any who understood or sought God. But he found none; they have all turned aside and become corrupt. (Ps 14:2ff). All we like sheep have gone astray. (IS 53:6). Even though they knew God and his righteous judgment, they chose to do wicked things and to approve it in others (Rom 1:18ff).

In verses 1 to 3 of Ephesians we learn three things about the condition of men before salvation comes:
1) They are dead in trespasses and sin:
2) They are in league with Satan;
3) They were by nature children of wrath- that is, destined for destruction apart from the grace of God.

The implications for this is that without salvation we are dead in sin; spiritually useless. Jesus calls it being in darkness. He said that unless we were born again by the spirit, we would never enter the Kingdom of God.

Also, without salvation we are all in bondage and blinded by evil, that is, our eyes are veiled by Satan. We are co-heirs with Satan like the Pharisees, whom he called children of Satan.

Another implication is that without salvation our sinfulness makes us worthy of hell. We are under a death sentence because we have sinned against an infinite God making our sin infinite and our finite nature makes it impossible to atone for it. Dead things cannot make themselves alive. So there is none who seeks God or tries to understand Him because we are in darkness and we love it.

Look what our darkness causes us to do:
1) Instead of the true and living God, our sin induces us to worship god’s that we create for ourselves. When Satan tempted Eve to disobey God, he told her she would be like God. Idolatry then is a veiled attempt to be like God because at best it reduces God to something of our own imaginations.
2) Another effect of our sin nature is that it drives us to earn our own salvation. It makes the offer of free grace repugnant because we think that we are good enough to earn our way to God through religious activity and our own righteousness and so we are never able to enter His rest.

3) The third effect of sin is that it devastates families. Children are disobedient to parents; parents provoke their children to wrath. Wives fail to leave their mothers and fathers to cleave to their husbands; husbands never find satisfaction in the wife of their youth. The family of the human race has been dysfunctional since the garden so that no one can boast about their family heritage or pedigree.

No wonder Jesus said that he didn’t come to bring peace, but the sword- to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

4) Sin has also resulted in murder. In fact, that is the pervasiveness of Adam’s sin. When he disobeyed God’s explicit and simple Law, he became the inventor of genocide because his sin resulted in death to enter the universe. Everyone who has ever died, died because of Adam’s disobedience- he murdered them.

And Jesus said that to hate a person is to murder them. Who here hasn’t hated someone? Raise your hands. We are all murderers- some are doing it right now.

5) Sin also results in adultery, fornication, rape, pedipephelia, homosexuality- everything for which God never purposed us and the fruit is more adultery, rape, pediphelia and homosexuality as well as divorce, disease, unwanted pregnancy and the murder of millions of unborn children every year.

There are people who intensely decry homosexuality and adultery and concupiscence who themselves covet their neighbours wife or are daily engrossed in pornography on the internet knowing that Jesus said that to look at woman with lust is adultery.

6) Sin results in theft. The worst of all is to steal from God. When Eve took the fruit she was stealing from God- He said, that’s mine- don’t eat it!

7) It results in lying and bearing false witness against your neighbours. Do you gossip about other members of your church and say things that you have only heard second hand.

As a pastor I have learned that Christians actually prefer to believe a negative report about me then to assume the best. Christians will right off a pastor for the smallest perceived transgression. Of all the members of the church, pastors receive the least grace from their brothers and sisters.

They hire him to lead their churches and when he does that they make his life miserable. I hope that this church will do a better Job with it’s new pastor considering all that it has taken to get him here.

8) Finally, and this is probably the most insidious effect of sin- it causes us to covet, to desire, to want what we don’t have, what we cannot have. When Eve was tempted by Satan to eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, she looked at it and saw that is was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise (Gen 3:4). Coveting is at the heart of the temptation that caused our fall.
• Coveting leads to idolatry because we want other gods like our neighbours.

• Coveting leads to murder because we will kill to take what we want.

• Coveting causes adultery because we see that beautiful man or woman and we want them regardless of the commitments we or they have made.

• Coveting leads to theft and lying- it is the heart of the reason why men are unable to fulfill the law- it was the heart of Satan’s temptation of Jesus.

That is the condition that God finds the human race. But it doesn’t end there. Paul writes some very good news:
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ… , 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Eph 2:4-9)

So what do we do with this?

First, if you are not a Christian it is very simple… Repent! Weep bitterly over the way in which you have grieved God by your sin. Ezekiel describes the kind of repentance that comes when we encounter the Holiness of God and our own depravity: “You shall loathe yourselves in your own sight because of the evils that you have committed” (Ez 20:43).

I’m sorry that’s not very therapeutic or seeker sensitive. But it’s the truth and my motive is not because I think I am so perfect, but out of a recognition that God is perfect- I am telling you this out of love.

But that’s not all- you must also believe. Believe the good news, that he can make you alive and give you life because His Son has done what you can never do- he died on the cross so that you can live. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

Second, if you are a believer, do not believe for one second that being justified by grace has made you sinless. That doctrine was conceived in the pit of hell. Yes God’s gracious gift to you is life to your dead spirit and the assurance of salvation.

But you must continue to resist the flesh with its predisposition toward sin and Satan will try to exploit that and accuse you. Perhaps God allows the sin nature to linger so that we don’t become self-righteous in this life.

You see, our own propensity towards sin should be enough to keep us humble in dealing with others. Do you know Christians who are quick to demand that other Christians be put under discipline for sin? Their desire is punishment, not restoration.

Church discipline is important, but it should be done with tremendous humility.

Be certain that you have pulled the sliver from your own eye before you attempt to pull a log from your brother’s eye. Be certain your motives are love and the restoration of the sinning Christian. Do it out of humility, not self righteousness because the self righteous Christian is a tool in the hands of Satan to divide churches.

Finally, keep short accounts with God. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:9).

This is not my opinion- it’s scripture. It’s not my suggestion, but God commands it. And here’s how we will know you are obedient to it:

the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (Gal 5:22-26).