Welcome to the River City Church podcast and a message by our
lead pastor Jason Powers. Our prayer is that this message
would inspire and encourage you, build your faith and point you
to the life changing love of Jesus.
May you enjoy the goodness of God as you follow him today and
greet you church and greet you in the name of Jesus who is
risen and in the love of the Father.
And I greet you in the life we share in the Holy Spirit who is
with us now. Grace and peace to you.
A little bit of housekeeping, if we can upfront, just if you've
got space around you, if you can kind of scooch in to make room.
If we've got more people coming in or those who don't have a
seat yet, that would be helpful. So if you see room, if you can
just kind of move together and make a little room on the end so
that people can get in, that would be really cool.
Other housekeeping points. My name's Johnny Griffiths,
volunteer member of the teaching team here.
My wife Sarah, and I've been married for 21 years.
Celebrated that this week. Thank you.
Sarah's my favorite human. Just so you know, none of y'all
can have that spot ever. So that's taken.
And we have four other favorite humans that we get to shepherd
into adulthood. And and so that's our spot.
We've we've been here with River City for just over three years
and it's just a joy to be with you. 2 are the housekeeping
things. Number one, yes, this accent is
a mess. I can't help it.
I grew up in the UKI spent 12 years in Idaho.
I went back to England for some kind of accent reform for five
years, but then I moved to Texas.
And this is what you get. And because it was asked by
people after first service, and I don't want you to be
distracted trying to figure out the puzzle.
My T-shirt says thou. That's what it says.
If you were thinking, it said thou, you were correct.
You, you win the prize of feeling right about something
today. And it is it.
My Sarah designed it. My wife designed it, drawing
from some teachings from a theologian called Martin Buber,
who talks about the distinction between I it and I, thou
relationships thou, because every single one of us is a
sacred thou, made in the image of God.
And yet we get weeks like this, weeks where we're asking what on
earth is going on. It has been a heavy and complex
week. I leave later today to fly to
the UK to visit my dad who lives with Alzheimer's, and it's my
first time to go back to the UK since my mum passed earlier in
the year. So I found that grief was
already waiting in the wings for me this week.
And then Wednesday came when we were celebrating our anniversary
and I saw a message from a friend who said, hey, some days
you just got to stay away from the news.
And I wish that I had, but the news would still have happened.
And as my phone showed me the headlines, I discovered that the
news feeds didn't quite know what to do with placing certain
stories. Because how do you prioritize
which awful thing you put first? And so somehow another school
shooting was lower down as all of us had to wrestle with and
reckon with the events of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
A thou like you and like me, I want to say that my prayers are
with all those touched by these and other grievous events.
And some of you are carrying grievous events that are just
the part of your story and your life.
And they're not on the headlines, but you walk with
them today. And I want to acknowledge that
there's a range of possible reactions in the room.
Some are dealing with anger and fear and sorrow.
Some are trying to process shame that they may feel about some of
their responses. I got to tell you, some of the
community reactions have been deeply unsettling for me.
And as much as I feel the grief at this shocking murder, I also
know that that man has confessed his faith in Jesus.
And so I am confident about where he is.
And my prayers rest with his wife and children and family.
He's beloved not because he's perfect and not because he had
the right ideas and not because he raised his voice, but because
he's made in the image of God. And yet because we have as a
culture, come to a point of such polarization and dehumanizing.
I have heard reports, first hand accounts, and I've seen it on
the Internet, the celebration of his death, and it has wounded me
and what I found. I never thought that I would sit
at the dinner table and have my children tell me that they had
to decide what to do when classmates were celebrating an
assassination. Never thought that I would have
to figure out as a dad, how do I handle that?
And the words that almost automatically left my mouth was
what is wrong with those people? And then I realized, well, what
is wrong with me? Because as soon as I do that and
say those people, I have separated them and dehumanized
them in the same way they are. Thou's just as much as me, just
as much as you, just as much as Charlie Kirk.
It feels good to demonize those who dehumanize, right?
We feel like I got to say it. They got to get theirs.
I got to put the record right here.
And I feel the pull of culture that makes me want to respond
like for like. The problem church is that that
does not align with what the Scriptures say.
Not even close. See, Jesus didn't tell us to
tolerate our enemies. He didn't tell us to go and do
to them what they've done to us. He commands us in Matthew 5 to
love our enemies and there's no room for manoeuvre.
No one gets off the hook. So I feel so many different
things. And maybe you come to second
service thinking like they'll work the kinks out of the
message and it'll be like a little more on point and short.
I don't know what your choices are.
Maybe it's just you love brunch and it's like it's done and you
like 11:00 is cool. I came up here for the second
service feeling like I don't want to rob you with the
realness of the emotion that I'm feeling, but I'm also really
tired because I already put it all out there in first service.
I'm tired of feeling these things, but I have to give
consent and say, God let me feel what you want me to feel.
Because when our emotions are healthy, they reflect the heart
of God who grieves even over the death of the wicked, even over
the wicked. So I hope that today our message
is going to help give some understanding, some answers to
the question, what on earth is happening?
But I also want for us to get our eyes fixed on God's response
and what that means for us as a church.
It can be so easy to just breathe past and be like, I just
don't want to look at it, think about it, talk about it.
Some people ask, well, why are we so fixed on one tragedy when
there's tragedies every day? And I'm like, whoa, because my
little heart can only handle so much, but every single one of
them is tragic. And God cares for every person.
Before we get into the message, I think it's appropriate and
necessary that we come before our Father and make our weekly
confession our truth telling because the problem isn't those
people. The problem is all of us walking
in a way that doesn't reflect the love of God.
So our confession is a two-part statement that we make every
week. The frames the story of who we
are and how we understand life and what God's response is.
And so if you're visiting, if this is your first time here
today, I'm so glad that you chose to come.
You are so welcome here. I genuinely greet you in the
name of Jesus, and I call you beloved and a sacred thou made
in God's image. I also recognize none of us is
quite there yet. However long we've been walking
with Jesus, we've all got stuff in the shadows that we're
dealing with. And so we say this together,
that we are badly broken. We are deeply loved.
All right, Church, you know the series and this message was
prepped well in advance of this week happening.
And I find myself by God's Providence, being the one to
open the Scriptures today. And so we're going to continue
on with what we had because this is the Scriptures and this is
good for us, but it just happens to fall in a very timely space
with a message that we need at a heart level, not just
theological instruction, but soul formation.
And before we open these words again, I just want to give a few
pointers on big ideas that play out across Ephesians.
If you're first time in today, we began a Series A few weeks
ago studying the book of Ephesians from start to finish.
We're going to take 14 weeks to cover the whole material.
I wish we had like double that four times that.
It's the kind of books that no matter how long you give it for
teaching, you could fill it and more.
But we are just doing the 14 weeks.
Don't panic. There's not been a revision of
this. You're not going to live in
Ephesians for the rest of your life.
But some ideas will help as we work through the text.
One of those is around these phrases of the heavens and the
earth. What are we talking about?
What does Paul mean when he talks about the heavens?
In the time that he was writing, there was Hellenistic or Greek
thinking that considered the air.
I had space up there where now we watch planes and satellites
and everything go was the abode of demons kind of changes
stargazing a little bit, I think like what's going on up there.
But there was this idea that there was a spiritual reality
that was operating invisibly around us.
The Jewish thought had more kind of levels, levels of the heavens
and the air was the lowest of the heavens or the unseen realm.
I think we if we consider that there is a spiritual reality
that is as true as our physical reality, we think of them as
very distinct and separate places.
Much like in the physical we might think of Houston and Rome
as being distinct and separate. And the way you get from one to
the other is you get on a plane or a boat and you go there.
Whilst the heavens and the earth are distinct, they're also more
connected and interwoven than we tend to consider when we look at
it from a biblical perspective. Next up, the powers, not our
pastors. OK, just to be clear, it was a
kind of awkward when we got into the series and I was like,
there's some negative talk about the powers in the Scripture
here. And we just need to be very
clear when we talk about it. Paul talks about the powers, He
talks about rulers, Thrones, dominions and principalities.
These big words that were like, oh, what does that even mean?
There's definitely talk of spiritual created beings going
on and possibly talk of angels and demons makes you think of
outdated and redundant belief systems.
You may find yourself automatically translating these
terms into the realms of politics and culture and these
kind of forces at work in our life that we just kind of go,
well, those people didn't know better and we've got it all
figured out now. Modern psychology has told us
everything, right? And we dismissed the unseen
realm. Or maybe you're of a more
Pentecostal or charismatic theological background and
you're thinking about hierarchies of spiritual beings,
some of which are aligned with God and some are in rebellion.
And often times I think we have an either or mentality when
we're thinking about these phrases.
But in the biblical imagination, there's an interweaving of the
visible and the unseen realm so that the powers refers to
physical and spiritual beings, social and abstract structures
all operating in and through one another.
So was it Pharaoh or was it demonic forces?
Yes, right. The throne represents the human
authority going on through which other agencies are working for.
A great primer on this. We keep talking about the Bible
Project Classroom. It's a free resource.
It is a deep course that you can take on the book of Ephesians.
Eventually, I'm going to take a sip of water.
I promise I'm not going to hold this bottle the whole time
you're all wondering. You're like, is he going to do
it? I don't know.
Thank you. You just found one of my other
anxieties is eating and drinking in front of a crowd of people.
If you want to dig deeper, Bible Projects Classroom on Ephesians
has some great material on understanding the powers and
principalities. It will open your eyes in a
different way. So I just really recommend that
to you. So we've got the heavens and the
earth, we've got the powers, and then we've got the ages.
What are we talking about when we talk about the ages, when we
come across these phrases in the Scriptures?
Time is a big concept. I don't know if you've noticed.
And the Scriptures talk about the age now and the age to come
or the ages to come. And when we talk about this age,
we're discussing our ongoing experience of human history,
chronological from the from the garden until now.
Then the age to come refers to the coming experience of
restored humanity under Messiah's rule, right?
The age and the age to come. Now, back when Jesus was walking
and teaching and doing miracles, faithful Israelites who had been
waiting for the Messiah were expecting a very clear linear
progression. When Messiah comes, we will be
liberated from Rome. Spiritual oppression, injustice,
sin, wickedness, taxes. Here's the powers at work, this
whole conglomerate of different forces and systems, right?
That we would be liberated from these.
And the expectation would be that Jesus would finish the job,
usher in the age to come, and that we would be like, right
there We go from there to there in one move.
How bleak the first Holy Saturday must have felt because
it it wasn't just the Lord whom they loved buried in a tomb, but
all of their hopes of real time, real world liberation, what they
expected it to look like, were in the tomb with him.
But then the resurrection happened, and these things kind
of got weird with people's timelines, Like, theology books
needed diagrams to explain what on earth is going on here.
And over the millennia, we've come up with some theological
shorthand. And this one comes with two big
money words for you. OK, inaugurated eschatology.
If you can spell them, you can score well at Scrabble with
them. OK, They're big and long.
What we mean by this is the age to come has already broken in.
When Jesus says the Kingdom is near or the Kingdom has come,
he's saying that all of this promise of Messiah's rule and
reign, of Shalom, of peace with God and of unity with people has
broken into this point in our experience of time.
And the eschatology is the promise of the future when Jesus
the Lord rules and reigns and we are with him and under him and
living in freedom and true life. But it's been inaugurated, it's
started, it's now, but it's not yet.
It's it's like there's been the invasion of a force of
peacekeepers who have now taken up residence in occupied
territory and are living according to a different set of
rules and expectations. The coming age, which we will
one day fully enter, has already broken into this age so that
those who belong to Jesus are now living in between.
We're living in between, which explains why sometimes we're
just like what is happening. I feel turned around and
confused and conflicted and intention and some days I feel
disappointed, even disappointed in God.
Did you know that you can feel disappointed in God and that you
can tell Him and that He won't smite you?
Because there's a whole section of Scripture, the Psalms that
give voice to lament and sorrow and grief and confusion.
What you're feeling this week is acceptable to bring before God
and to hold it there in fear and trembling.
God, I'm, I'm wound up, I'm angry, I'm disillusioned, I'm
broken out. This is where I'm at.
And God says, come, sacred thou come.
So now to the text. Ephesians 2.
I'm reading this now from the NASB, which we're using as our
teaching text specifically because it is a bit more clunky
in the translation because it stays closer to the original
text in trying to express what's there and leaving us sometimes
going, what is this? Which is why we also are using
the message and the new living translation for our public
readings so that you kind of get the tip off ahead of time.
But then we're studying with this and a way to think of this
passage, which is like this wonderful condensed expression
of the gospel, is to think in terms of a medical process that
if you are not well, you may go to a doctor and the doctor might
give, may give you a diagnosis. And you might ask, what's the
prognosis? Here's what's wrong with me now,
what's likely to happen with this disease?
That's the prognosis. But then what you're hoping for
is that there is a treatment plan, and that from that
treatment plan there's a recovery plan that we don't want
to stay in sickness. We want to come into health and
life. And this passage provides that
sort of structure for us. But it starts with bleak news.
I remember Paul is writing to a church that is primarily made-up
of Gentiles, and he says, y'all a lot in the Greek, right?
It's official translation, y'all.
And then this is probably why I'm losing my British accent is
because I'm adopting y'all as like a really valid and
important word. Thank you, Texas, thank you.
And y'all were dead in your offenses and sins, right?
This isn't the start. How's it?
How's about that for an opener? You were dead.
And we're not just mostly dead. Not just mostly dead.
As Miracle Max says in The Princess Bride, there is a big
difference between mostly dead and all dead.
I knew my people were in the room this morning.
Come on. What kind of death could Paul be
referring to here? Because he's writing to people
that still, you know, all right. They didn't have their Keurig
and their croissant, but they had their, like, morning
routine, right? Like we were dead.
Pretty sure I had a pulse, did some stuff with my days, took a
stroll, went to the temple of Artemis, Right?
Like I did these things. You were dead.
Where were you dead in your offenses and sins?
And this immediately made me think of Genesis chapter 2, when
God has created this beautiful place, a Garden City in which
his people could dwell in union with him and exercise God-given
authority to steward the creation.
And he says you can have all of this.
There's so many good kinds of trees here for you, and you can
eat from every single one, but you can't eat from that one,
that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Do not eat from it because on the day that you eat from it,
you will surely die. That's what he says.
Didn't say they couldn't climb the tree, paint the tree, ask
questions about the tree. He said just don't eat from the
tree. And what did people do?
I ate from the tree. That's what we did.
There's one area that God said, trust me.
We said, Nope, pretty sure you're holding out.
I'm going to eat that fruit. And Adam and Eve didn't drop
down dead. They ate and then they went and
hid and they like, got themselves some new clothes made
out of fig leaves because they were suddenly aware they were
naked and that that was some kind of a problem.
They didn't drop down dead. So what did God mean?
God meant that they would enter in the separation between people
and him that was never meant to be there.
And Mark Roberts says it this way, that this death is to live
apart from God in a death saturated existence.
The biblical picture from the fall onwards is of a people
marked by death and slowly dying.
The diagnosis and the prognosis is you are terminal with this.
You were dead, cut off from the source of life.
Much as we, we pick flowers and cut flowers and we stick them in
a vase and we put them on the table and we're like, they're so
beautiful, but also they're dying right there.
And we're just going to keep them there as long as we can
tolerate the death, right? Eventually the day comes, you're
like there's mold in there. Now you're laughing because
you've done it. I know we are terminal, which
lets me say welcome to Zombieland.
Welcome to Zombieland. If you didn't know it, zombies
are in the Bible. They're right here.
You were dead and you were walking verse 2, which you
previously walked. And some of you who are here for
the opening of this series and we're like, Johnny, you said
that it wasn't that kind of dystopian future apocalypse
we're talking about. You're like, I knew it.
I knew the zombies were coming. I was certain of it.
And you've tricked us. And here we are talking about
zombies on a Sunday morning. What is happening?
Well, actually there's a kind of a cultural fascination with The
Walking Dead and I I wonder why to Mark Roberts, just as a great
analysis on this, he says cultural experts offer their
reasons for the popularity of zombies in our day.
But I have my own hunch. I agree with those who believe
zombies embody our fears about a world run amok with apocalyptic
dangers. But I think many people are
drawn to zombies because they themselves feel like zombies
much of the time. Zombies experience no pleasure
in life, but still they keep trudging on in search of
something that will never satisfy them.
They are driven, insatiable, unhappy, helpless and barely
conscious, just like many people in today's world.
You had a day that felt like that recently at all.
Ever. Because I still get those days
sometimes. And I kind of get stuck in the
mire and the muck of what life can be like.
And I just, like, head down to if I could just get to the end
of the day. Here's the plot twist.
So, yeah, zombies were coming, but the apocalypse isn't the
zombies are coming, it's that they're already here, and we've
been walking in them and with them for a long time already
dead and dying. You were dead in your offenses
and sins in which you previously walked according to the course
of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air,
of the spirit that's now working in the sons of disobedience.
How are we so stuck? Well, number one, we're dead.
There's no life in US to change this.
I'm just plodding along. And our way of life is a way of
brokenness. But not only that, Paul says
you're you're stuck. You walked according to the
course of this world or this, this cosmos victory, life being
stuck in a rut. Like when there's been heavy
rains, Texas, you bring the rain.
Good job. And then a heavy vehicle, you
bring those two drives through the mud and creates that Channel
that then Texas is really, really hot at times as well and
dries that mud solid, right? And now you've got a rut.
And if your vehicle falls into that rut and doesn't have bigger
tires than whoever made it, that's where you're going, baby.
You will stay in that course and follow it to its natural
conclusion. Paul's saying you were dead in
your sins and you were stuck in the course of this world, which
is like the whole of culture. Did you go on Facebook this
week? Did you go on there and find
yourself like, just want to throw up?
But also I want to say something, but I just want to
turn this off. But I have to, and I have to.
That you feel rise up in you is the tractor beam of culture that
wants to keep you in the course of this world.
See, we're in enemy occupied territory.
The enemy is on on, you know, is running away.
But we're still here and they're still marked by it.
And this is where we used to live.
But not only were we stuck in the course of the world, but we
were living according to the Prince of the power of the air,
which is like a biblical fancy title for Satan, Demonic force
at work. We like to think that we're
free, but we're not. Apart from Christ, we are
dominated spiritually. And Paul engages this idea
because he wants to stress that we aren't dealing with merely
human, tangible issues. This isn't merely a political or
a social situation, but equally we aren't talking about some
distant spiritual realm. It seems to me that one of the
apocalypses that Paul has and wants to invite us into is
around the idea of concurrency, things happening together at the
same time. The powers and principalities
are an unholy alliance between fallen spiritual, physical,
systemic and relational beings and structures and the whole of
humanity. All the nations have fallen
under this rule. John Chrysostom from the 4th
century wrote that humanity surrendered to the devil.
All are his voluntary and willing slaves, which dispels
the myths of secularism. Everyone is spiritual.
CS Lewis says that you have never talked with a mere mortal.
Right before that, he said there are no ordinary humans, which
gives you permission to turn to your neighbor and say, I knew
you weren't ordinary. I knew it.
Maybe some of you will do that. We'll see.
Since this spirit was working in the sons of disobedience.
You see, the issue isn't just that we do some bad things apart
from Christ, but we are completely stuck in the system,
enslaved to the spiritual forces to the point that it's our
spiritual DNA. We're in trouble.
And then just to show that this isn't at those people situation,
Paul says. And among them, we too, the
Jews, all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh,
indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
by nature children of wrath, just as the rest.
Paul diagnosis that the entire human race, all people, have
been subject to spiritual forces and a way of being that has
brought us into and will lead us to death.
We're stuck and we're complicit in it.
The lusts of the flesh, the desires of our thought, life,
and our bodies line us up with this brokenness.
We want more and more brokenness, which tells us not
only is everyone spiritual, but everyone is badly broken.
Gentile and Jew, like some dystopian family tree said about
as bluntly as I found it in any of the commentaries.
The ESV gospel transformation notes said that mankind was
dead, disobedient, demonic, and destined for destruction.
Who knows what would have happened if he got into words
beginning with E as well. I mean, we were just like, we're
going to hang out in D. We are caught up in a cosmic
battle. You didn't just wake up this
morning to a normal Sunday morning.
You woke up in the midst of cosmic battle going on around
you and, and in the forces of the world that we live within.
It's pretty difficult news. And then we get to verse four
and the treatment plan begins, because verse four starts with
these two words. But God.
But God to God is not surprised by or thrown off by any of the
events of this week or the whole some of human history.
God has had a plan and has taken action in the plan.
But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with
which he loved us even when we were dead, in our wrongdoings,
made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you have been saved. Divine interruption is the
response to our plight and the whole of humanity.
And there's enough to go around. The Scriptures tell us God is
rich in mercy. He's not just got like some
leftover in his pocket. He's rich in mercy, abundant in
his mercy. Why?
Because we're so great? Because we could be so great?
Is this all based on our future potential?
No. We were dead in our wrongdoings.
And God acted because of his great love.
The great love with which He loved us when we were at our
bleakest, darkest, most despondent, most depraved, is
the love that compels Him to act for our welfare, not to rub our
noses in the dirt, not to shame us.
But to say You are beloved, I choose you is what God says to
us in Christ. Our brokenness cannot outweigh
His love, and His love is powerful enough to rescue us on
a cosmic scale. I think there's a reason that
grand narratives like Lord of the Rings stir things up in us.
It's because it's actually reflecting some of the reality
of what's going on around us. There is a real battle going on,
and there is a real king who will come again.
And I need a real rescuer right now because the gates of hell
are here and the forces are invading, and I don't know what
to do. Come Lord Jesus, His love is so
powerful and it is the precedent.
God's love comes first. It's found in Jesus and that is
the only place that we find our rescue.
The treatment plan is him. Even when we were dead in our
wrongdoings, he made us alive. There's there's the outcome.
How together with Christ, the life of Jesus is made available
for you so that this ache and this longing and this struggle
can find peace and comfort and hope made alive so that your sin
can be dealt with. Not pretend it never happened,
but dealt with so that there never needs to be a day when
you're looking over your shoulder going.
What if God finds out about that?
He already knows and He already made provision, that in Jesus
you can be set free. The apocalypse is this, that you
are already loved and wanted. You are already loved and
wanted. There is no performance needed
to gain His attention or admiration.
You are beloved to the Father, but you cannot have it on your
own terms. You must receive it as a gift in
God's way in Christ. So we have a treatment plan,
Jesus. He is the treatment plan.
What does recovery look like? Verses 6 through 7 and raised us
up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in
Christ Jesus in the Greek, who would be in the heavenlies?
NESP in my Bible puts places in italics so that I know, oh,
we're we're adding a word for clarity here.
But the heavenlies, that's why we need to know what do we mean
when we say the heavenlies Jesus is seated above everything and
we have been seated with him and raised with him.
So this salvation, is it like a ticket that I cash in later?
Not at all according to Paul, because of God uniting us in and
with Christ, there are some present tense realities
unfolding. The not yet has broken into the
now. And as one who belongs to Jesus,
you have been raised with him, which means that resurrection
life is already a reality in you now.
This body has done just over 40 years.
Thank you buddy. I have You know I am part body
and soul and mind and will. Now it's all here, but this body
will be renewed and changed and hopefully my hip won't hurt when
I run. Yeah, that'd be cool like that.
No one says you're going to hit 40 and wish you'd done a bit
more physical activity. You know, just they don't tell
you that or or they do and you're like blah, blah, blah.
I'm not listening. I've been raised up.
I have resurrection life. Therefore, I already experienced
victory over death, which means you cannot take this from me.
You cannot take the life I have in Christ from me.
Which means I don't have to be afraid and I don't have to
respond to people in fear and hate.
I don't have to meet violence with violence because you can't
kill this and you can't kill the church.
You can't kill the love of God at work in our lives.
So being raised up has real present day effect for us, but
it also says that we've been seated with Him in the
heavenlies. And that means that we share in
Christ's victory over demonic powers and sin, the cosmic
forces and fallen flesh. Which means there is nothing
that can separate you from the love of God, and there is not a
single urgent temptation over which you cannot say no.
There's a lot of lies that go on that tell you you're bound up,
but actually in Christ you have authority to say no to the ways
that don't reflect the Kingdom. Why does God do this now?
Verse 7 tells us that in the ages to come He might show the
boundless riches of His grace and kindness towards us in
Christ Jesus. We will glory in Him because He
has been abundantly gracious and shown it in kindness to us so
that we would know His grace and actually as a nod forward to
chapter 3, so that we would display to the whole cosmos His
kindness. God's kindness raises us up and
shares significance and ruling authority.
Can you imagine what our world would look like if we weren't
ones who grabbed for power, but we gave it away for the sake of
the Kingdom? The greatest others are, and on
to them. And I see the state of Thou in
the image of God. Is it on display?
I see it. We're not just talking about the
future age. We're not just talking about a
later resurrection. Our ruling and reigning with
Christ is happening now and not yet.
So these big theological ideas are like inaugurated
eschatology. Why are we talking about that?
It's because I don't want you to be afraid today.
I don't want you to live in the shadow of hate and fear and and
just trying to hold on to something.
Nothing can be taken from you that wouldn't be lost anyway.
Nothing. Your life is both now and not
yet. And this matters because the bad
news was really bad, and we saw the effect of the bad news
played out in the headlines this week.
But the good news is even better.
We were dead before Jesus, and then in Him we've been made
alive and raised with him so that this experience of
resurrection life is happening now.
I can go into the secret place and sit in the presence of the
Father because I'm in Christ, and I can have a genuine
experience of the presence of God because of what Jesus has
done. The future reality of living
before his face is already available experientially to me
in prayer and communion with him.
We are never separated from the love of God because Jesus has
done it. The ultimate death of sin has
been overcome. We were dominated and enslaved,
but now we are seated with Him. Above all, we're no longer
victims to either the spiritual powers or our old natures.
We live from the victory of Christ and His finished work.
Therefore, the truth can be lived out, though we are not
controlled and can actively choose to resist sin, temptation
and the powers. That's good news.
You are free. You are free.
Much like the Israelites were liberated from the enslavement
in Egypt. And then they had to learn how
to walk that out because, man, those cucumbers were good.
And they kind of had days where, like, I don't know, I could
maybe we should go back and God's like, Nope, that's death.
Those are death cucumbers. And we're not going back there.
We're moving forward to the promised land.
We're moving forward into the life of the Kingdom.
Why? Because because we're not just,
you know, nice, nice little puppy dogs that the God is like,
oh, you're sweet. We're not his pet.
We're his beloved children who he has given purpose to.
And in Christ, we have been restored to our purpose.
Verses 8 through 10. And maybe some of you were
hoping there was going to be like a big long section on like,
what does it mean to be saved by grace through faith?
And are we going to plow through all of the theological
constructs? I'm like, you've got 2000 years
of church history to read if that's what you need.
That's not what we needed today. Now, in light of this week, by
grace, you've been saved through faith.
And this is not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not a
result of work, so that no one may boast, For we are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God
prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
So it is there. We are saved by grace through
faith, and there's a lot of different perspectives even in
this room on how that works out. But what we can agree on and
must agree on is that God is the one who takes action exclusively
in Jesus to rescue us from sin and death and to give us life.
And it wasn't because we were worthy, but because He is loving
and gracious and kind and merciful.
God acted on our behalf, but also we're not saved just to
twiddle our thumbs and squander it.
Tim Mackie from Bible Projects says that for Paul, the gift of
grace is unconditioned, but it is not unconditional.
It's not given on the basis of worth, but there is an
expectation that we will reciprocate by living for Jesus
through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I summarize that for myself by saying that salvation is given
freely but it isn't cheap. Some of us, we've left it on the
shelf and said I'll get to that later, thanks God.
Salvation is given freely, but it isn't chi Salvation is based
on love, not works. And we respond, So what?
He's saying you were saved through faith.
He was saved by grace, but it's not of yourselves.
It's a gift of God. It's not a result of works
because otherwise, what do we do?
We always do this. We're like, quick, I did
something cool. I need to get an Instagram
account, build a platform, let everybody know, let's hype this
thing up. And actually humanity's been
wanting to do that all the time. They wanted Jesus to do that.
And he was like, actually, we're going to go peace out from here
where all the cool stuffs happening and we're going to go
over there. Instead, Jesus resisted the
platform mentality. It's not about us and it's not
about boasting in us. We boast in God who has done it.
And then he goes on. He says, for we are his
workmanship. We've not been just saved from,
we've been saved to. We are his workmanship created
in Christ for good works which God prepared beforehand.
He already had a place for us as his people to walk into before
the treatment plan came. He knew what he was doing.
These words are so beautiful. We are his workmanship, like an
artisan crafting with intentionality.
We as individuals together are the temple now, right?
This temple language going on here, Just as God commissioned
artisans to craft things for the temple, God is the artisan who
crafted the church, us. And he says we were created,
which throws us back into Genesis 1.
We're in new creation territory, people.
We're back in the garden and we're back in the city and
dwelling place of God. Who you are is so significant
and wonderful and more than you imagined when you were eating
your croissant this morning, right?
I, I like croissants. I think they're thank you
friends and pastry chefs everywhere.
You are good and may your craft go on in heaven.
I'm not joking. This is nervous laughter.
Like, what if it's not? It's going to be we're good.
But you have been rescued to be restored and restored to our
true human vocation, union with God, partnership in his mission,
unity with people, stewardship of God's created order, but done
now from the place of spiritual life and victory won by Christ.
So this isn't actually primarily about your individual vocation.
I'm not saying the Lord has nothing to say about that.
We need accountants and we need artists and we need firefighters
and we need all the full gamma of ways that we work.
And God may have some specific things to call you into, but God
also has a great and glorious purpose collectively as the new
family of God, for us to live out as ones who build unity and
trust and love. And we cross borders both
literally and relationally in order to win people into this
family and share the love that we have received.
This is Our Calling. We haven't been commissioned to
kill zombies. We've been commissioned to
transform them. We've not been commissioned to
rehabilitate zombies so that they just act the right way and
stop eating brains. That's not what God is doing.
God is saying I'm taking zombies and I'm making people real,
full, truly deep, transformed human beings who live and love
in my image. And that's what.
We're called to participate. In and you thought you were just
like trying to get through the next tax return.
But no, you have a remarkable place to play in the mission of
God, and you do it from a place of victory.
And you get to walk now in the new ways of life, not in sin and
death and brokenness, but in life and love and goodness.
Mark Roberts says grace doesn't leave us untouched.
It leads to new creation, new community, and a whole new way
of living. And next week, Pastor Jason is
going to take us down the covenantal rabbit trail of the
rest of Ephesians chapter 2. You're welcome, pastor.
I'm glad that I dished that one your way.
But what do we do with this week?
Well, first, know the story. There's so many stories
competing in the media and in our communities outside of the
church, even inside the church. Narratives that form how we
think of ourselves and other people.
Know the true story. Know what this says?
This is God's word and we can know it front to back if we'll
just spend time every day reading.
God, Tell me the story again. Rehearse your story out loud
with other people. This was my life before Jesus.
There I was, Mr. Zombie, and then gone broke in and brought
light Into Darkness and life, and I was freed from addictions.
And then it took me a few years to figure out how to not keep
doing those same things. But He was patient and merciful
and He gave me more than I could have asked for.
And now I get to walk with Him. Tell your story of Jesus at work
in your life. And secondly, receive new life.
If you don't know Jesus, this is the option in or out.
You can say, yes, I put in my trust, my allegiance, my faith
in him, or I'm going to try and do this my own way.
If you know Jesus, every morning your eyes pop open, or maybe
they don't, but the inner man wakes up and it's like the body
will get there and you just go, Jesus, I'm yours.
I need your life today because it's wild out there.
Receive new life that's found in Him nowhere else, and then align
it all with reality that you would live in a way that is
concurrent with His Kingdom. Live in a way that displays the
kindness of God to other people when you are so rock solid in
His love. This way when that comment comes
out that just turns you sideways and makes you mad, you can go.
God, I'm so angry right now, give me your love.
OK? I've got your love.
Let me look and see the downness of that person in front of me.
Let me speak life over them. Let me try and liberate them
from the shackles that they're in right now.
Let me not add to the course of this world.
This is the summons. So much more than just to save
it for later salvation. We are called to be ones who
represent the Kingdom to come right now.
And church, I just know it's been like, it's been a tough
week until Jesus comes. There may be more tough weeks,
but this one's been especially difficult for a lot of people.
So talking with Pastor Jason, we just thought it was appropriate
to have a time as we close. And thanks for your patience.
I went. I have more on the tank today.
Thank you. You don't have to go.
Anywhere we're playing this probably a little before the
summer. And so we, Johnny and I talked
this week like, what do you do in a moment like this?
And always just senses the Lord knew.
And So what I want to do is I just want to affirm everything
and he said this is not you're not sermon Part 2.
You're like I got lunch man, I got to go.
Here's what I want to say lovingly, gently.
If you're angry, if you're sad, if you are lost, if you are
hopeless, are you listening? You are feeling what it means to
be dead in your trespass. You are experiencing a culture
of death. And what I want to say is the
hope in this is that's what we're saved from now.
And so here's the hope. These verses we memorized in
grade school, many as if you've been around the church for a
long time and you take this great personal like I got them
saved by grace through faith. And this is not myself right
into this like that's what we're saved from.
So here's what I say Church, this is our moment.
Are you listening? How are we saved from a culture
of death? By what grace we are saved from
that by grace anytime in any fashion that our worldview
breaks down into us. And then it will always, always,
always end. And what we saw this week, there
is simply no room in the Kingdom for us and them.
It is Jesus and those who are with Him and the the
demonstration of strength and grace that we find in the person
of Jesus as a towel and a wash basin as he cleans those who
betrayed them in the very shadow of the cross.
There is no space in the Kingdom and the church for retaliation.
And you go, but it was so. But he didn't listen.
Jesus at the foot of the cross said what?
Forgive them or they don't know what they're doing.
The fact in this matter isn't whether you agreed or disagreed,
because if you, you know that. Here's the thing.
You can look on the news. Charlie Kirk.
We grieve the loss and the passing of Charlie Kirk that
happened right in front of us. I grieve that my 14 year old has
those images in her head. It's not just Charlie Kirk, it's
Melissa Hortman in Minnesota. It's.
Children in Denver, Co whose names didn't even make the news.
I remember 1999, April 20th, 1999.
You know what's special about that?
That's the day that students walked into Columbine, Columbine
High School and started blowing things up.
I was riveted, couldn't take my eyes off the TV for weeks and
now that doesn't even make the news.
Church, this world needs salvation, and salvation comes
when we all, y'all and me, we feel our feelings to the depth,
to the dregs of them. We let them empty us, we weep
and we lament before God and go. How could you?
How could this? And then we walk out of our
prayer closet with a towel and a heart to serve.
And we love, and we forgive, and we pray.
By grace you're saved. So Jesus, I pray that you would
give us grace today, not that we would ignore or minimize our
feelings or our pain or our loss or our hurt.
I pray that we would enter in it to it by your Spirit, that you
would need us in the pain and the grief and the sorrow, that
we would tell you all the truth. And then I pray that we would be
transformed, that we would know. Father, you've defeated the
powers. You sit enthroned over them, and
when we forgive, we win. When we humble ourselves, we
win. Oh Jesus, I pray that you would
make us like you. Your name, Amen.
Wait, don't get up. They'll be fine as you go.
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May He make his face to shine upon you, give you peace.
May He lift his countenance, the smile of His eternal presence.
May He lift that to you and give you peace.
Thank you for joining us today. River City Church is all about
experiencing and expressing God's love in our lives and
community, and we hope that you've been able to experience
that today. As grateful as I am that you've
spent this time listening in this morning, this podcast is no
substitute for full participation in a local church.
I love it when River City people listen to other pastors, but it
is those who show up week after week faithfully giving their
support and time and resources that make all of this possible.
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Thanks so much for listening. May the Lord bless and keep you
in all grace and peace.