The Dead Are Made Alive

                                                  THE DEAD ARE MADE ALIVE!

Our Pathway to Christian Living series taught us how blessed we are with every spiritual blessing in Christ. This pathway leads us through the apostle Paul's letter to the Church in Ephesus. As we learn these incredible spiritual truths, we appropriate them to our lives and hopefully become devoted followers of Christ. Our last stop in the journey unveiled three amazing things that happen to a saint who spends time in prayer. Through prayer, we will know God, find hope, and discover the abiding power of the Holy Spirit.

Wilma and I love the fall season in New England. It is gorgeous. Walking in the neighborhood, we are disturbed by noticing horrifying decorations of Halloween on people's lawns. A popular post-apocalyptic series, The Walking Dead, re-surfaces during this time. Particular Churches in Boston host events like Candle Light Halloween and Halloween Concerts. I cannot understand why so many are fascinated with Zombies, horror, and dead people.

My sermon is titled The Dead Are Made Alive. It is not about how to celebrate Halloween or about dead people. It is about the spiritually dead people, who they are, and how they can be made alive and live productive lives loving God and others. We will discover these spiritual truths and their impact on our lives in Ephesians 2:1-10.

I. The Dead Are Made Alive (Ephesians 2:1-3)

            The chapter opens with these words, "Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins." Who was the apostle Paul referring to here? Were they false prophets? Were they unbelievers and the enemies of Paul? No! They were God's holy people, faithful followers of Christ in the Church of Ephesus, yet he says they were dead people once.

Paul writes of the great gift God has given them through His Son. Because of Jesus, they are not merely bad people made good but dead people made alive. To fully grasp this truth, we must return to Adam & Eve's sin through disobedience and its ramifications on humanity.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they brought both physical and spiritual death into God's perfect world. Romans 5:12, "When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned." Without exception, we were dead spiritually because of sin. Though we are living, we are spiritually dead.

Before we surrender to the Holy Spirit's urging, our spirits are dead to the things of God. Romans 8:6-8, "So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws, and it never will. That's why those still under their sinful nature's control can never please God." How does a person controlled by sinful nature behave?

Here are a few signs to observe. They refuse to obey God. Instead, they obey the devil. They follow their passionate desires and inclinations of their sinful nature. Paul explains the behavior of the sin-controlled or spiritually dead people's behavior in his letter to Titus. 

Titus 3:3, "It wasn't so long ago that we ourselves were stupid and stubborn, easy marks for sin, ordered every which way by our glands, going around with a chip on our shoulder, hated and hating back." (The Message). We see so many people are controlled by their sinful nature.

            For that reason, we see so much evil, hatred, and crime by people, including Hamas's recent brutal acts. They are not just evil but pure demonic. According to Paul, the devil controls these people's lives. We quickly judge others and say, you see how sinful and wrong they are.

But wait a minute before passing judgment on others. Remember, before the Holy Spirit convicted us, we used to live the same way. As Paul notes, we were all subjected to God's anger by our very nature. Our spirits are dead to the things of God. We have no good within ourselves. Just as a corpse cannot do anything to help himself, we cannot save ourselves or make a move to cleanse our sins. We are dead spiritually and need a life-giver. That's where God comes in.

Vs. 5, "But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead." This was what the prodigal son's father said to his older son. Luke 15: 32, "We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!

Like the prodigal son, we were once lost, but now we are found. We were dead, and now we have been made alive in Christ. It is all His doing. Only by His grace have we been saved, not because of our good works. Where did God place us once He made us alive in Christ?

II. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 1:20, "This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms. Now, he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else not only in this world but also in the world to come." Ephesians 2:6, "For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus."

When we read these two verses together, we see the work of God. He raised Christ from the dead, made him sit in the heavenly places, and made us sit with Christ. Let us consider the implications of the word "Sit." Many of us work these days while sitting. In the olden times, people worked hard in the fields, and once their work was finished, they sat down and rested.

The word sit in these verses reveals the secret of a heavenly life. In the real world, a child doesn't start walking or running from birth. It learns to trust and depend on its mother for sustenance. Then gradually sits up and learns to walk. Similarly, our Christian life doesn't begin with walking immediately but with sitting. It starts when, by faith, we see ourselves seated together with Jesus Christ in the heavenly places. Most Christians make the mistake of trying to walk and run to be able to sit. On the contrary, we should begin our walking by sitting with Him.

Our natural reason says if we cannot walk, how can we ever reach our goal? What can we attain without effort? How can we ever get anywhere if we do not move? But in Christianity, it works the other way around. Christianity begins not with doing but with what has been done.

Paul's letter to the Ephesians began with, "God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (1:3). He has raised us to sit with Christ to enjoy what He has done for us, not work frantically to achieve it. Walking implies effort, whereas God says we are saved not by works but by grace. (2:8). Sitting is an attitude of trust and rest.

What does it mean to sit down? Listen to Watchman Nees's explanation. "When we walk or stand, we bear on our legs all the weight of our own body; but when we sit down, our entire weight rests upon the chair. Walking makes us weary, but sitting makes us rested and refreshed. We relax at once when seated because the strain no longer falls upon our muscles and nerves but upon something outside of ourselves. So also, in the spiritual realm."

            Being seated with Christ in the heavenly realms means believing and resting in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross. Realize that our good works won't save us, but we are saved by God's grace so that we might do good works to show the world God's care and love.

            Sitting with Christ also means transferring the weight of our burdens, a load of grief, anxiety, and concerns about our lives, present, and future to the Lord. We will let Him bear the responsibility and cease to carry it on ourselves. That is how God has always wanted us to live.

            Let me connect these two spiritual truths. Every human being in the world exists in one of two categories: spiritually dead or spiritually alive. Are you spiritually dead or alive today? Religion cannot make a spiritually dead man live, nor our good works. Only Christ can make a dead man live again. If you are spiritually alive, learn to sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary and many of his disciples did. Rest in Him. Learn from Him. Trust Him, and live for Him.