"In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.". Call to Worship #2 L: Though storms rage around me, I will clothe myself with the whole armor of God. Can I belong just for who I am? Oh, hideous spectacle! In this passage Paul makes a kind of list of the characteristics of life without Christ. But, during that week, I had made a great many experiments, and tumbled down a great many times, and the preacher took for his text, "O wretched man that I am! L: We gather to share our witness to Gods You can't be meaning me." It would be something like the minister's sermon which he "got up" beforehand, and upon which he wrote in the margin "weep here," "here you must show great emotion." He that descended is the same also that ascended." Perhaps you can scarcely, in the moment I can afford you, appropriate the idea to yourselves. fol. He came to take away the sense of estrangement and of guilt, by telling us that God wants us just as we are. There was Jesus lying in the grave; and from that grave God raised Him, and set Him on the highest pinnacle of heaven's glory not only of that which then was, but that ever shall be. Reader 1 There is a response in this reading. built on Jesus Christ himself, the cornerstone. Let no man think that, because he has escaped the grosser sins of the body, he has avoided the sins of the flesh. We are by nature the children of wrath, even as others. NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. It is not that our good works put God in our debt; rather that God's love lays on us the obligation to try throughout all life to be worthy of it. "Ay," she said, "I have. (iii) In the end sin kills the will. 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. Jesus reawakens the ideal in the heart of man. In this first part, Paul writes about humanitys reconciliation with God. Paul uses the word xenos ( G3581) for foreigner. The second picture Paul uses is that of a building. Oh, you did stutter and stammer over it! All the building that is going on is being fitted together in him, and it will go on growing until it becomes a holy temple in the Lord, a temple into which you too are built as part, that you may become the dwelling place of God, through the work of the Spirit. 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. And in the morning if it is wet and the ground is dry, then I will know that it is you." "Like trying to get an octopus into a paper bag." And what a wrong concept people have of what it means to surrender your life to the will of God.For once a person does, they find as, Jesus said, "I delight to do thy will, O Lord." God then brings out His own secret, after having kept it hidden from all past ages and generations, though, of course, it has been before Him from the beginning. these clothes protect us from all that is evil. When the believer is at his worst, he is better than the unbeliever at his best; his reasons for happiness are always transcendently above all the reasons for joy that worldlings can never know. (119) Classical writers employ the same metaphor, to denote not spiritual death, with which they were unacquainted, but the absence of moral principle, or utter ignorance of right and wrong. Introducing this great practical truth, he reminds them of what they had been, but also tells them what they are now. I pray you that are instructed, and have become fathers, never laugh at babes in grace, if they ask you the most absurd questions. It is well to mark the difference. This was always their comfort in the midst of disasters and troubles. "Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Are we in life where we ought to be? This is the moral nature which God confers on us who are born of Him. The Lord impress this solemn truth on all your hearts by his own spirit; for Jesus Christ's sake! Brilliant colors flashed across this black background. At first a man engages in some forbidden pleasure because he wants to do so; in the end he engages in it because he cannot help doing so. Thus we have had, first of all, the great spiritual reality which is always true of Christians, and of none else. Where these are made and kept right, we can then safely follow what God will show us in due time, but not otherwise. Notice what OUR PRESENT POSITION IS, if God has quickened us. And God throughout eternity is going to be revealing the exceeding greatness of His mercy and of His kindness, these things that He has given and provided and done for you through Jesus Christ. Do you not hear the noise of the infernal bellows when "the children of disobedience: swear, and use unclean language? (iii) Greater than anything else, Jesus Christ revives and restores the lost will. We were dead; but we are quickened by the Spirit of God. There is some perplexity in the language; but, if we attend carefully to what the apostle says about those two parts, the meaning is clear. In other words, the Son of God never was made the Son, He is never even called the child ( ) of God. Each sin makes the next sin easier. 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. height; and to know the love of Christ." ye are dead! You are peers of the court of heaven: "and the household of God. It will be as much as he can do to pull off his grave-clothes, to get rid of his old habits; perhaps to his death he will have to be rending off bit after bit of the cerements in which he has been wrapped. The Unity In Christ ( Ephesians 2:13-18 Continued). I know it on the best authority, and the truest, too. It was said of one eminent commentator that he could not find Christ in the Scripture where he was; but it was said of Cocceius that he found Christ where he was not. And if children that had a relationship with their parents in the flesh and under law did so (for it was indeed right), how much more did it become Christian children to pay them reverence? He is pouring out his heart, and the claims of grammar have to give way to the wonder of grace. HOMER: Jethro, if you had two big luxurious houses like those ones in the Beverly Hills and I was livin yonder under the bridge without no home, would you give me one of your big luxurious houses? the One who would calm our fears with peace and hope. It is a course that is leading to destruction. This text brings us Easter tidings; it sings of resurrection; it sounds in our ear the trumpet of a new life, and introduces us into a world of joy and gladness. Josephus, in his description of the Temple, says: "When you went through these first cloisters unto the second court of the Temple, there was a partition made of stone all round, whose height was three cubits. There is no place good enough for Christ the Son but heaven. Everything else in Ephesians 2:1-7 is of subordinate importance. It is affirmed here of those to whom Paul wrote at Ephesus, that before they were converted, they were dead in sins. There is not anywhere a more explicit proof of depravity than this, and no stronger language can be used. This was peculiarly needed. In these days of dividing walls of race and class and creed we must shake the earth anew with the message of the all-inclusive Christ, in whom there is neither bond nor free, Jew nor Greek, Scythian nor barbarian, but all are one.". He remembers his covenant forever, And so, looking from the outside in, they can't understand, but once we are on the inside walking in fellowship with God, experiencing His presence and His joy, we understand what it is all about. To illustrate, one may shoot an arrow and fail to hit the mark, or shoot an arrow and have it fall beside the mark. . WebCall to Worship: Ephesians 2: 11-22 We gather together in the name of Jesus Christ members of Gods family, and brothers and sisters to one another. Oh! III. You know I would. None of us can make it on our own. The barrier between Jew and Gentile was absolute. If we want to know what the holiness, and blamelessness, and love of God is, we must look at Him; but in the same way also, if we desire to know what are the relationships into which God puts those He loves, where shall we find the highest? hath he quickened, is not in the original text, but is supplied from Ephesians 2:5, where it will be met with and explained: here those who are quickened with Christ, and by the power and grace of God, are described in their natural and unregenerate estate. It is a divine spark, a light from the great central Sun of light, the great Father of Lights. In the Scriptural view, sin equals death; and there is no light or casual view of either in the Bible. dear friends, I cannot take you to see Lazarus in his grave. In Christ we are made new through his blood; In Christ we are forgiven, signed with the Spirit. I live in him. Then he adds the great exemplar and spirit of it all, according to the forgiveness with which God met us in Christ. Nothing short of this suffices. fol. Who just delights to spend pleasant days together with you. This leads toEphesians 3:1-21; Ephesians 3:1-21, in which the apostle unfolds things parenthetically. Also he counted on their loving desire to know his affairs as well as to have their hearts comforted through Tychicus. There are vast plans and projects, and the world is intensely active. When Aristotle is discussing bestiality, he says: "It is found most frequently among barbarians," and by barbarians he simply meant non-Greeks. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and raised us up together." Here he is drawing the contrast between the life of the Gentile and of the Jew. I must come to my third point; for our time flies. It is not, of course, a display of glory before men's eyes; yet is it most real a proper dwelling of God on earth, answering to, though not necessarily coextensive with, those who are constituted the body of Christ glorified on high. 2. l Caphtor, fol. [Note: Simpson, p. Although about to show us what the church is in its heavenly blessing, that is, in its highest associations, he always begins with the individual. It is a priceless boon to have the right to go to some lovely and wise and saintly person at any time; to have the right to break in upon him, to take our troubles, our problems, our loneliness, our sorrow to him. Hence, being "Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; [the apostle bids such remember] that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." For the Jew It was possible to say: "Remember that you are a citizen of God, and that you speak to the people of God." In Him we enter into favour, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences," not exactly according to the praise of his glory, "but according to the riches of His grace." What is the value of any other unity? Well, then, we have a new life. I remember the first week of that new life, and how, on the second Sabbath, I went to the place where I had heard the gospel to my soul's salvation, thinking that I would attend there. No matter whether Jews or Gentiles, principalities or powers, every family is derived from this universal source of existence "One God and Father of all, who is above all [there we find His supremacy], and through all [there we find His permeance, if one may so say, as the support, of the whole universe], and in you all" [His intimacy with the saints]. 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