In Christ Made Alive, Raised, and Seated — Ephesians 2

0:00 Well, good morning. Good morning. Denzel said, it is nice. It feels like coming home. Some of you are thinking, I don't know this guy at all.

0:10 But that's alright. My name's Abe Edwards, and I was first invited to this church by Harry and Christa Garrant in 2006, which was twenty years ago. Am I coming through the speakers alright? Okay. That's good.

0:27 And anyway, I'm very grateful to them for that. And it was on this stage where I had my greatest acting triumph as Aquaman in Vacation Bible School many, many years ago. So thanks for having me back, and I also appreciate the fact that you let me pick a passage this morning. I just... I was not prepared to preach from Acts, so we're gonna look through a passage in Ephesians, which is Ephesians chapter two.

0:57 If you have a Bible, it'd be great if you could turn to Ephesians chapter two. We're gonna be, gonna be a little all over the place today in the scriptures, and that's alright, But we'll try to end on time. If you would pray with me. Heavenly father, please speak to us through your word this day. Speak through me any words that I say that are not of you.

1:31 I pray that they would just be forgotten. And I hope that you would pray that you would give us ears to hear what your spirit has in Jesus' name. Amen. So I want to start by asking a question. And I don't know if you can read that or not.

1:45 I picked the largest font size that I thought would work, and it still seems kind of small. But the question is, what does it mean to be a Christian? And I think that I've heard a lot of answers to this question over the years. And one common answer, what does it mean to be a Christian, is that you believe certain things. In other words, Christianity is a matter of belief.

2:04 I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. I believe that Jesus died for my sins and rose again. That seems like a good answer. I've also heard people say, Well, that's a good answer, but it's incomplete because it also means to be a follower of Jesus. I'm a disciple of Christ.

2:22 I try to imitate Him. I pattern my life after the life of Jesus. I try to obey Him. And that seems like that's part of the answer as well. And then the third answer, I think, that I've heard a lot is, To be a Christian means that you belong to a family.

2:37 Now this family is called the church. And it means, I belong to this church and I live my life with this group of people and we have a common faith and we build each other up. We have common practices and rituals and so forth. I think these are all biblical ways to answer the question, What does it mean to be a Christian? They're all incomplete in some ways, but they all contain some truth belief, following, obedience, and belonging.

3:03 But I think that the most common New Testament answer to what does it mean to be a Christian is this: A Christian is a person who is in Christ. There's over a 100 references, at least that I could find. There's over a 100 references in the New Testament to Christians being united with Christ or in union with Christ or in Christ. And we're going to look at one of the most famous passages today, which has to do with our union with Christ, and that's in Ephesians chapter two, verses one through 10, where Paul writes, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, that spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. 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.

4:47 In verse one, he says we are dead. We're spiritually dead. In verse four, he says we are alive. In verse three, Paul says that we are in bondage so that we live to gratify the cravings of our nature. We're not free.

5:02 But in verse five, he tells us that God has raised us up with Christ and seated us in the heavenly places. So instead of being in bondage, now we're in authority. Instead of dead, we're being alive. And Paul's reminding us that becoming a Christian, this is not just something that you add to your life. It's not a supplement.

5:22 It's not... A Christian is not somebody who tries their best to live like Jesus. It's not somebody who is marginally better off because they've got some faith in their life. Although, if you listen to a lot of people talk, that's kind of how they talk about religion. In fact, I was listening to the radio the other night and there was a song on the radio called The Spiritual Kind and I thought this kind of captures a popular idea about what it means to be religious.

5:50 I'm not going to sing it. I am the spiritual kind. I keep a cross in my pocket for some peace of mind. I hold on to it when I need a little faith. When I'm lost, I find I'm a spiritual kind.

6:03 That all seems great. All right. Now my friend Kathy is the spiritual kind. She jumps in her Jacuzzi to clear her mind. She keeps a statue of Buddha by her hot tub.

6:13 When her soul is cold, she gives his belly a rub. And that's it. That's what it means. That's good grief. There is more to becoming a Christian than just adding some spirituality to it to our lives.

6:24 Right? Paul tells us that the difference between being in Christ and being out of Christ is the difference between being dead and being alive. Now, how does this change happen? The answer is in this passage, but we kind of have to look for it a little bit. What is it that brings us from death to life, from bondage to authority, from slavery to freedom?

6:46 There's three things that happen to you. These are in verse five. There's three things that happen to you when you are made in union with Christ. And the three things are that you are made alive, raised up, and seated with Him. They're all in the past tense.

7:02 And there's something else that's interesting about these. And in some translations, it's easier to see it than others. So this is from the King James. Even when we were dead in sins, he has quickened us together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together with Christ, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Do you get the sense that these three things are things that we all do together with Christ Jesus?

7:29 And it's not just this passage. This idea of the union of the believer with Christ is like the motif in a symphony that keeps getting repeated throughout the New Testament. It's in Romans five and six. It's in one Corinthians 15. It's in two Corinthians chapter two.

7:46 We're going to look at that in a little bit. You think about Galatians two twenty. I love this verse. Paul writes, I have been crucified together with Christ, and yet I live. I live, and yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

8:02 Or this passage we have today, I have crucified together with Christ, I have been raised. When did this happen? When were you crucified with Christ? I don't remember that happening to me. You think that would be something that I would remember, don't you?

8:16 If I had been crucified at some point in my life, I would remember that. And where am I seated? I don't know. What is it? It's 11:45 a Sunday morning.

8:25 Most of us are seated here in Westlake. Where are we supposed to be seated? In the heavenly realms. What is all this all about? Well, I'll tell you what it's all about.

8:35 But it requires a theological term. Is that okay? Alright. I know. Here you got the math professor coming down to talk about theology.

8:43 So this is a little outside of my realm, but there's a theological term. But this is more than just an academic discussion. This theological idea that we're about to talk about, sometimes it's the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. I do not know how you can get out of bed on a Monday morning without realizing this thing. And it's the idea of a federal relationship.

9:27 Do you have a personal relationship with your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? And I have to confess that when people would ask that, I was always a little bit confused. So what do you mean a personal relation? Don't see... Where is in the Bible is this idea about a personal relationship?

9:42 So as a teenager, people would ask me this and I wasn't always entirely sure what they meant. Because I think as somebody who is, Okay, I'm a mathematician. I think about things maybe in ways that are not exactly touchy feely and emotional. And there always seem to be this touchy feely emotional side. Do you have a personal relationship with your Lord?

10:03 What does that mean? Does that mean I hear His voice? Does that mean I walk and talk with Him? And so forth. But that...

10:07 Okay. Anyway, I came to realize that's not a bad question. There's nothing wrong with saying, Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? That's a wonderful thing, but it's incomplete. It's incomplete.

10:18 Because... It's incomplete because if you have a personal relationship with Jesus, it's actually founded on something much deeper, which is your federal relationship with Jesus. Now that's the theological term. I know it doesn't sound as much fun as a personal relationship. In fact, I don't think anybody in my whole life has ever asked me, Hey Abe, do you have a federal relationship with your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

10:41 I've never been asked that question before. But this is at the foundation of any personal relationship that you may claim to have with Jesus. Now, in this passage in Ephesians, right, when you read this passage in Ephesians, wouldn't it have made more sense if Paul had said, Someday you will be raised with Christ. Someday in glory you will be seated with Christ in the heavens. Is that what the text says?

11:07 No. It says that you were crucified, you were raised, and you currently are seated. It's all in the past tense. And the only way that that makes any sense at all is if we have the federal relationship with Christ. It's relationship in which one individual represents a larger group.

11:24 And whatever is true about that individual, that truth is imputed to the larger group. Paul talks about this in Romans five, Just as sin entered the world through Adam and through the disobedience of one, many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one, many were made righteous. That's in Romans five. What is an analogy? What's a federal relationship?

11:46 Alright, let's say you belong to a workers' union and the union negotiator is going to go meet with the company. Now, if negotiator is savvy, you get a good contract and everybody benefits. But if the negotiator is a dummy, you get a lousy contract and everybody suffers. If I say, How is that fair? It's...

12:06 You're in a federal relationship with that person. Or marriage. I suppose maybe this works differently in different states, but my understanding is Megan and I both have our names on the deed to our house. Now, if I go out and I run up a bunch of debts through online gambling then I die and Megan can't pay those debts, what's going to happen? She could lose her house.

12:34 You say, How could that be fair? It's the law. She's in a federal relationship with me. It's possible to enter into a relationship with another individual so that whatever is true of that individual is also true of you. And this is exactly what God says has happened once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

13:15 And you're thinking, What are you doing given the sermon? I thought, What is this verse talking about? It says that on the cross, God made Christ to be sin. Does that mean that when Jesus was on the cross, God actually made him a sinner? When you picture Jesus on the cross, do you see sin?

13:34 Did his heart suddenly become full of pride and selfishness and corruption? It cannot mean that. I mean picture Jesus on the cross. What do you picture there? I don't picture somebody who is sinning.

13:49 I see somebody who is forgiving his enemies, who is caring for his mother. Christ is carrying out the greatest act of loving obedience to God that has ever occurred in the world and it will never occur again in the world. On the cross, Jesus depended on his heavenly Father who forsook him. That has never happened to anybody. And by the grace of God, it will never happen to any of us again in the future.

14:17 So when the Bible says that God made Christ to be sin, it cannot actually mean that Jesus became a sinner. So what does it mean? It means He legally became a sinner. It means He legally. He became the federal head for us so that our sin was imputed to Him.

14:34 Our punishment came to Him. God made Jesus legally to be a sinner so that we can become the righteousness of God. Now how can that work? Does that mean you are actually experientially righteous? Well, you know that's not true.

14:50 Right? We know that's not true. Deep down... Actually, it's not even deep down in our We understand that we are still selfish. We are still covetous.

15:01 We still deal with these things. It means that the moment you believe, you don't experientially become righteous, but you legally become righteous. Here's Colossians. The fact that we know we're not righteous makes some of the Psalms difficult for me to read. Here's one.

15:31 This is Psalm 26. You ever read this and just cringe a little bit? Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity. I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. And then later he goes on to say, Prove me, O Lord, and try me.

15:49 Test my heart and my mind. Now normally I think of the Psalms as very comforting, encouraging things, but this one is not comforting and encouraging to me because I'm thinking, Wait a minute. Vindicate me, O Lord, I have trusted in the Lord without wavering? Who could possibly say that? Prove me, O Lord, and try me.

16:08 Test my heart. I'm thinking, Don't do that. Don't test my heart. I know it's going to fail. I know that in my lived experience, I am not righteous.

16:18 Our pastor in Michigan has asked us this question a few times, What does God see when he looks at you? And I think that some of us are tempted to say that when God looks at us, he's kind of disappointed. Abe, you're basically a failure. At best, God tolerates me because of Jesus. But what does God see when he looks at you?

16:50 Does he see somebody who's unlovely? Well, on the cross, you see Jesus who is this picture of perfect devotion. He remained faithful to his heavenly Father even when his Father forsook him. Do you remember that verse from the book of Job? Job has all these wonderful prayers in it.

17:05 And one of the things that Job says is, he slay me, yet I will trust him. Though he slay me, yet I will trust him. Nobody in history has ever had to experience that except for Jesus. On the cross, Jesus literally experienced that. Though he slay me.

17:23 It's just faithfulness, obedience, it's incomprehensible love, perfection, heartbreaking beauty. Here is the thing. When God looks at you, that's what he sees. That's what he sees. It staggers my imagination.

17:46 On the cross, God made him sin who knew no sin so that you might become the righteousness of God. It doesn't mean you're experientially righteous. It just means that all of Christ's righteousness, everything that he has ever done, all of that beautiful heartbreaking perfection, it's yours. It's ours. It is hard to believe, isn't it?

18:09 It is so hard to believe. It's so natural for me to think Christianity means I ask God to forgive my sins and I try to live a life the way that Jesus would live. And there's nothing wrong with that. But that's incomplete. It is so unnatural to think I have been crucified with Christ.

18:29 God treats me as if I was crucified, as if I had paid every last debt. I mean, here's a verse that I have to remind myself of time and again. There is therefore... Now what does this verse say? Does it say, There will someday be...

18:49 No. It says, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. I would just say this especially if you are younger. Do not measure your Christian growth through your flesh. Pray that God would give you the eyes of the spirit to see your growth.

19:35 Remember this conversation that Christ had with Thomas? And Jesus says, I'm going away. I'm going to prepare a place for you but you know the way to get to where I'm going. And Thomas says, No, we don't. He says, We have no idea where you're going.

19:48 Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? I think Thomas is crying out for help here. He's saying, Lord, what do I... He's basically saying, What do I have to do in order to be with you?

20:02 And I think Jesus' response is similar to this. Thomas, you don't get it at all. There is nothing that you do. I do it all. I am the way.

20:14 Jesus just doesn't show us the way to righteousness. He is our righteousness. He doesn't show you the way to God. He is the way to God. You receive him and you stop.

20:24 You just give up trying to please God on your own. This union of the believer in Christ is so unbelievable that we have to rely on each other to help each other believe this. You notice something else about these verses when Paul's talking about this union, The great love with which he loved us and raised us up and seated us, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us. This is something that we do together. Few of us read this book, last year called Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

21:00 And in it, Bonhoeffer writes this, The Christ that's in your own heart is usually weaker than the Christ which is in the word of your brother. See, my heart becomes uncertain at times. But when you preach the truth of the gospel to me, you are sure and that makes me more sure. We have to do this together. So find ways to preach Christ to each other.

21:29 Alright, that's the message. But now I'm going to use the last of our time together. That's the main idea. That's the federal relationship. That's the introduction.

21:36 I hope you liked it. And in our remaining time together, I want to talk about four implications of this. There's an objection, an application, a warning, and a picture. So we'll start with the objection. The objection goes something like this, Now wait a minute, Abe.

21:57 Did I hear you right? You're saying you're already justified in Christ? Yes. You're already raised? Yes.

22:03 You're already seated? Yes, past tense. Well, that means no matter what you do, no matter how many times you fail, God loves you and accepts you as perfect. Well, you're going to have a fun life, aren't you? You can just live to gratify every sinful desire that you have and it doesn't make any difference because Christ has taken care of it.

22:25 Now, some of you already know the answer to this objection, but I'm going to go over the answer to this objection anyway. In fact, it's all captured in this verse, What then shall we say? Shall we continue sinning so that grace may abound? In fact, as an aside, somebody told me once, If you never get people to ask the question, What? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound?

22:46 If you never bring people to the point where they're asking that question, you probably haven't preached the full gospel to them. Grace is so unnatural, it should make us wonder this. Once you start asking these kinds of questions, you're finally starting to understand. But, of course, the answer to this is that if you've really experienced union with Christ, the doctrine of justification by faith, of the sinner who repents, the doctrine of complete grace and acceptance of adoption by the Father, it never leads you to live a sinful life. On the contrary, it gives you the only real motivation to live a life which is pleasing to God.

23:26 This actually connects with the application a little bit, which is how do you grow as a Christian? When the idea that you're completely saved, that there is therefore now no condemnation in Christ Jesus, when that love and that gratitude wells up in your heart, and by the way, when your fear of God's displeasure begins to fade, then you have real incentive to do good works for God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Whose workmanship are we? Yeah, thank you. Some people are still paying attention.

24:05 His. Yes, in Christ Jesus. Why? For good works that he prepared beforehand. Dane Ortland, some of you might be familiar with, he wrote a book called Gentle and Lowly.

24:17 That's an excellent book. He has another book, which I really liked, called Deeper. And he talks about how do you grow as a Christian. He writes, The first thing to note is the sheer intimacy and safety of being a Christian. Our Christian growth takes place in a sphere of wonderful inevitability, even invincibility.

24:39 I am united to Christ, and I can never be disunited from him. He continues, The logic of the New Testament letters is that in order for me to get disunited from Christ, Christ himself would have to get kicked out of heaven in order for me to get kicked out of him. We are that safe. Your Christian growth is a matter of divine grace. And I love this next sentence.

25:05 You cannot crowbar yourself into growth. You must be lifted into it. But the divine grace that brings about change is a divine grace that fuels and fills our efforts for we are in the sun. Look, throughout my life, there have been seasons, many of them, in which I have been frustrated by my lack of growth as a Christian. So what do I do?

25:31 I try harder. If I ran six miles last week, I'm running eight miles this week. I did four things for God last Sunday, I'm going do six for God this week. And maybe then he'll be pleased with me. Just stop it.

25:42 Remember that old Bob Newhart sketch? Somebody comes to him as a psychologist. She's got all these problems and he's got advice for her. Just stop it. If you haven't seen it, you should look it up.

25:53 I can tell by the lack of response, you didn't get that reference, which is fine. Anyway, he just said, Just stop it. You cannot crowbar yourself into growth. You have to be lifted into it. And I wonder if for some of us, the only thing you need to do this afternoon is to soak in the inevitability and invincibility of your position in Christ Jesus.

26:33 It's still there. But your sinful nature, once you're united to Christ, has been severely wounded. It's like an animal that's been wounded, but sometimes that can make your sinful nature even more dangerous. It's dangerous because it knows it's dying. Once the Holy Spirit has come in, it has dealt a mortal blow to your sinful nature, but it's still there and it's very angry.

26:57 We had the family out hiking in Yellowstone a couple of years ago. And we were coming down the trail. We come around the corner of the trail and there's a grizzly bear. What was it, a 100 feet? Off the trail up ahead.

27:13 Now that's kind of a frightening thing. So what do you do when you meet the grizzly bear? You just pause, you don't get any closer, you just back up a little bit and you see where the bear is going go. Well, that's what we were doing. Well, another family comes around the bend and they also see the grizzly bear.

27:29 Now this family's got... Let me see, there was a mom and a dad and the dad had the baby in the carrier. And the mom stops like she's supposed to, but you can tell that this dad, he wants to get a better view of the grizzly bear. So he starts walking forward, not real close, but he's got the baby, he's walking closer, he wants to see this grizzly bear. And the mom, now she's not going to walk up closer to the bear, but she goes off the trail into the woods and she brings back this huge log, a giant stick.

27:57 And I thought, Good grief. She's not going to try and hit that bear with that stick, is she? Because what's going to happen? That's just going to make that bear really mad. It's like when the Holy Spirit comes into your heart and it deals a blow to your sinful nature.

28:10 Sometimes you find your sinful nature is more angry than it was before. I shared this remark with Megan later that afternoon and she said, She wasn't going to hit the bear with that stick. That was for her husband if he took the baby any closer to that bear. That's true. That's probably true.

28:28 That is probably true. Finally, the picture. The picture. One of my kids' favorite books is The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. Anybody read that book?

28:40 Alright. The Princess and the Goblin. It's a fantasy about this little princess who lives in a castle, but she's surrounded in the mountains by these goblins who are trying to get her and make her come live in the mountain. Now one night, the little princess is exploring the castle and she comes across this secret room and in the room is her grandmother. The grandmother is a mysterious character in the book.

29:05 Powerful woman, full of almost supernatural majesty. And the little girl says, Grandmother, I know that if I'm ever in danger, I feel like if I could just find you, then I would be safe. How can I do that? And the grandmother says, It's very simple. Here's what we're going to do.

29:24 And she gives this little princess this ring with a thread tied to it. And the grandmother says, I'm going keep the other end of the thread. I'm going keep the ball of thread. I'm going keep it here in my drawer. And if you are ever in danger, you pull out the ring and you tug on the string and that's going to lead you to me.

29:40 And the little girl says, Well, is wonderful, grandmother. If I'm ever in danger, I will pull the string. I know it will lead me to you. I just know it. And the grandmother says this, Yes, but remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed and you must not doubt the thread.

29:59 One thing you may be sure that while you hold it, I hold it too. Now the first night that she's in danger, she's asleep in bed and she hears a noise. It's a goblin that's come to get her. So she pulls the ring out, she puts it on her finger and she tugs the thread. Now listen to what happens.

30:20 I know I only got five minutes, but it's okay. This is a good story. She expected it to lead her straight up the old staircase to her grandmother's room. But when she reached the door, to her surprise and dismay, the thread led her away from the stairs in the opposite direction and then to her shock, it led her out the door out into the night. And then a greater shock, the thread began to lead her up into the mountain and finally the thread took her right to a cave that took her down into the heart of the mountain and she plunged in.

30:53 She kept trying to say to herself, I know it's going to take me to my grandmother. I know it. I know it. She tried so hard to think of her grandmother, but her heart was tried dreadfully when the thread took her down steep path after steep path and pit after pit in the darkness deeper and deeper into the mountain where the goblins lived. Through one narrow passage after another, finally the thread took her through a tiny little cavern that she had to creep through.

31:23 Still on she went, obedient to the guiding thread. Finally it took her to a heap of stones piled in a slope against the wall of the cavern. Up on it, she climbed until she found that the thread vanished right into the heap of stones and left her standing on it. She felt that her grandmother had forsaken her. And then a thought struck her, she could always follow the thread backwards to get back home.

31:51 But the instant she tried to go backwards, the thread vanished. Forward, it led into a heap of stones. Backward it seemed to go nowhere. She burst into a wailing cry and threw herself down on the stones. I think we need to be honest with people that this is sometimes a picture of what it means to be united to Christ.

32:57 Forward, it seems to be leading you to a wall. Backward, there's nothing there for you at all. Union with Christ means you've got to go forward. I don't want to give the rest of the story away. But what the little girl realizes is this, her grandmother would not lead her to a true dead end.

33:16 And so she begins to remove the stones one by one from the pile. And I wonder if that's also a picture. When my union with Christ seems to be leading me to what appears to be a dead end in life, it's time to start removing the stones. But you've got to trust that Christ is there with you. You have to trust that.

33:41 Whatever those stones are, they're blocking me from seeing him. The thread of my union is leading me there. You've got to trust that he's there. You have to trust, as Psalm 26 says, My feet stand on solid ground. In the great congregation, I will praise the Lord.

33:57 You have been crucified. You have been raised. You are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. And in the coming ages, God will show the immeasurable riches of his kindness to us. His grace to all of you who are in Christ Jesus.

35:04 Give us eyes to see this through the spirit this day and every day until that day in the coming kingdom when we are together and we can sing victory in Jesus, my savior forever. In whose name we pray, Amen.