Dead!

(Ephesians 2:1) “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins”.

The promises of God are steadfast and sure, they can never be breached. His treaties will speak into the ages of eternity, of this I am persuaded. It has nothing to do with the faith that I have been given to believe in my great Saviours finished work. His promises remain true, and only because God is who He is, the great “I AM”! Praise God for this certainty in a believers understanding, God will see His children through this life and into the next. Faith drives our hope which will be encapsulated for all eternity by the love of God. Faith and hope will pass away, but the Love of God will remain forever.

If honest, I suppose there is a thought that plagues my conscience as it looks for justification in and through my own works. When I am doing what I think is required from me I have peace with God, but when I stray onto the curb of God’s highway my faith is challenged. This is why we need the Word of God constantly reminding us of His truths which reveals His character. We serve an awesome Father who is filled with merciful attributes. However for us to understand the gravity of His mercy in our lives we first need to understand who we were and if unsaved who you are outside of Christ’s finished work on Calvary. Without this observation illuminated with extreme clarity we will miss God’s beauty altogether.

We serve an AWESOME GOD! And we are a privileged people who have His Spirit housed in corruptible flesh, which now entitles us (the Christian) to cry ABBA FATHER, Wow! This means “my Daddy”! God was willing and able to send His Son to die for those dead in their own trespasses and sins; opening a door that was once locked and impenetrable for pathetic sinful creatures like you and I.

I need you to stay with me now as I endeavour to unpack what Tyrell Hagg unpacked so well in our weekend’s morning service. The portion of scripture that needs unpacking is our understanding of Ephesians chapter two; these were some of his thoughts, with Ray Comfort’s deliberation of repentance interwoven into my understanding of the subject and then of course the greatest influence of all, the Holy Spirit, who quickens my brain cells in conjunction with the scriptures, without whom I would remain brain dead on all of Gods matters.

It would be good for us to spend some time here, so God willing we will break this up into a number of posts so that we do not miss the richness of God’s mercy.

The more desperate our plight the greater the rescue; the evidence of hopelessness begins to snuff the life from us. Most of us can relate to those types of experiences somewhere within our journeys here on earth. But in order to survive something needs to drive us towards a motivated mind-set. Whilst in the marines many years ago, I can vividly recall falling ill with Pneumonia and whilst being drilled I collapsed with my drill instructed having much to say about how pathetic I was. He assured me as well as the rest of the platoon that I would not qualify as a drill instructed, “I didn’t have the salt for it”.

When I arrived at Oudsthoorn Infantry School where I was to complete my infantry leg of my marine training and although I still had a note from the hospital excusing me from training because of my infection; a sick note excusing me from all strenuous activities for the next week but all I could visualize was my instructors mouth pronouncing off on how I would fail. It was enough to motivate me; “I’ll show him”, so I crumpled up the note and later finish the course with distinction. On returning to Simons Town, the marine head quarters I can recall the adulation I felt as I looked him in the eye as an equal. All I needed to motivate me was pride, which in itself is sin; in hindsight proof that I was dead in my sins.

This is the fact of our existence outside of Christ; “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins”. Prior to salvation everyone is dead, spiritually dead regardless of what we or others may think about our own spirituality. Religion as a whole lies to us on this matter. Until we understand our state before a holy God and until the hopelessness of our plight dawns upon us we will never appreciate the life we now have in Christ. “Born again there has really been a change in me”, is a song the Christian now sings with true understanding.

However until this reality births upon us, we will never truly understand what it is we have been saved from. We were dead and our sinful actions proved the fact. Hagg used this example which has thrown many off the true understanding of what that really means. We could be shark or spider bitten dead, one is easily seen because of the destruction to the corpse whilst the other a pin prick bite not easily seen and yet both just as dead. Prior to salvation we were all dead in our trespasses and our sins. Whether we were guilty of murder or whether we thought our lives were squeaky clean, with a minimal amount of sin attached to it. Both, in God’s reckoning, just as dead!

God willing we will unpack this in a lot more depth over the next few weeks.

Signing off

Tyrone