Who Do You Think You Are? You Are Alive Ephesians 2:1-9

Now, I have to pose a very simple but very important question to you and I here today. Here goes the question. Left to its own devices. What is something that is dead going to do? It's gonna stay dead. There is absolutely no hope in it whatsoever. There is absolutely no chance for it whatsoever. There is absolutely nothing good it can do to ever change the state of deadness. It's just dead. And left to our own devices, left to our own hope, left to our own ingenuity or goodness or awesomeness. All that one who is dead in trespasses and sins will ever do is stay dead in trespasses and sins. [00:43:33] (57 seconds)  #DeadStayDead

Look what the Bible says in verse four through verse seven. All of the badness that we read in verse one, two, and three. Like it's all bad, no hope, no rosy picture, it's all completely bad. And then we come to verse four. 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 in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [00:46:43] (45 seconds)  #MercyMadeAlive

We sing about amazing grace. We love to hear about amazing grace. We love it when we are preached to about amazing grace. We love it when the pastor preaches and reads words such as verse eight and nine that we read together. We love to hear. We love to sing and we love to talk about grace. Yet, I can't help but shake this very unpleasant feeling that somewhere along the way for all of our singing, for all of our talking, and for all of our hearing about this great thing known as grace, it has somehow someway lost its luster. We are no longer really amazed by amazing grace. Why is that? [00:39:03] (53 seconds)  #RediscoverAmazingGrace

Go back to verses one, two, and three. Where's the good? Where's the foundation that you or I are going to build our salvation platform on? Like, where where is it? It's not there. It's not mentioned because it doesn't exist. Scripture says, there is salvation in no one else. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. The name of Jesus and Jesus alone. [00:56:59] (51 seconds)  #SalvationOnlyInJesus

One one theologian, a guy by the name of a w Pink, kind of a grumpy old guy. He he made this statement. He said, in the New Testament, salvation is threefold in its scope. Past, present, and future. And it is threefold in its character from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin, and from the presence of sin. [00:50:30] (30 seconds)  #ThreefoldSalvation

You, you church at Ephesus, you believers in Ephesus, you church at Southside Baptist, you believers at Southside Baptist, you were dead in trespasses and sins. You weren't sick. You weren't infirmed. You were dead. Spiritually dead in your trespasses and sin. That is the language the Bible uses to speak about you and I apart from Jesus Christ. [00:42:51] (43 seconds)  #SpirituallyDead

If the scriptures are clear about anything, it's clear about this. Not only will anyone ever save themself, no one can save themself. If you or I could achieve this thing known as salvation with our own grit and our own determination and our own personality of perseverance, if you and I could claw and scratch and climb and fight and if we could achieve salvation based on the stuff we do, then god killed his only son for nothing. [00:54:10] (58 seconds)  #NoSelfSalvation

Christ died for nothing if salvation could occur. If salvation could be yours by quote being a good person. If salvation could be yours by I'm better than most. If salvation could be yours by church attendance or tithing or scripture memorization or this political party or that movement or this or that or anything else. If if salvation could be attained by anything else, then Calvary was for nothing and God is a monster. [00:55:08] (39 seconds)  #CalvaryMatters