Dead In Sin

0:16Thank you for listening to the Sermon Audio Podcast for Crossroads Bible Church in Rockdale, Texas. Crossroads Bible Church is a Reformed Confessional Baptist Church that meets every Lord's Day at 10 a.m. for Bible study and 11 a.m. for corporate worship. For more information about our church and for directions, you can find us online at www.crbcrockdale.org. Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Turn in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians. We have made it to chapter two. We're going to be covering verses one to three this morning. You picked a wonderful and also terrible Sunday to be here because we are going to be talking about our deadness this morning. And in that respect, our objective, or my objective then, this morning is that you may fully grasp the depth of depravity from which we have been saved. More specifically, that you come to the understanding by the Spirit that in our sin nature and in our sins and in our disobediences, we were spiritually dead. And to that end, you will hear this from me at least half a dozen more times this morning. And that is this we cannot understand the depths of God's love and grace until we understand the depths of our sin from which He has saved us. And so our outline then this morning is we are dead from the start. We are dead in our actions, and we are dead to the core. He has gone to great lengths to show the unending love of God, the riches of his inheritance, the heights of his wisdom, the greatness of his power. This has been from the start a God-focused letter. And when I say from the start, I do mean from the start, as verse 1, Paul says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus, by the will of God. He even further heightens the power and majesty of God in bringing us under the full weight of God's glory by crushing us under the weight of our sin. And that is what he does this morning. And he does this by not only exposing our sinful actions, and they are many, and those sinful actions in themselves would be just condemnation against us. But he presses us further this morning as we will see to expose our natures, our dispositions. And again I say, we cannot understand the depths of God's love and the depths of his grace until we understand the depths of our sin from which he has saved us. It's an age-old question, the ages-old question. Am I a sinner because I sin? Or do I sin because I'm a sinner? That question will be answered emphatically by Paul this morning in his articulation of the true nature of our sin. No one likes to be called a sinner, right? I don't think anybody likes to be called a sinner. And no one likes to talk about sin. The world expends all its energy denying sin, minimizing it, trying to bridge the chasm between them and God, trying to minimize the chasm between them and goodness. If we gloss over sin, if we just don't talk about it, we may perhaps just bring ourselves close enough to God in our own mind to actually get to Him, to actually choose Him, to actually seek Him, to actually be like Him. This is why so many people call themselves a Christian, but have no idea what that actually means. This is a grave danger, church. And I don't like talking about sin any more than you like hearing about it. But I believe Paul in his letters when he says to his listeners and to us how much he cares about the saints, how much he cares about those lost children of God. And then he proceeds to crush them in their sin. So that no sheep who is in his care would ever find themselves saying, Lord, Lord, I did this and that in your name. Only to hear the damning reply of our Lord, I never knew you. Depart from me, you that worketh iniquity. Again I say we cannot understand the depths of God's love and grace until we understand the depths of our sin from which He saved us. And in that way we don't have to fear the crushing weight of sin this morning. But rather accept its full weight, trusting that there is one who can roll that heavy stone away and call you from the grave. That's what we will explore then through these verses this morning. Please stand with me.

6:52Starting in verse 1.

6:59And 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, the 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 were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, we thank you for this terrifying word. We pray and ask, Lord, would you crush us this morning by this word? Lord, that we may be exalted by you alone. We ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. I've spoken in the past about this, uh, and this is the philosophical and theological argument of the myth of neutrality. If this is new to you, I will explain it, but I think we all understand, at least in some parts, the myth of neutrality. And this is simply our understanding that pure neutrality is false. Pure neutrality is false. There is no neutrality from an apologetics or a defense of the faith standpoint. Uh, this would fall under the this uh rubric or heading of uh presuppositional apologetics. That we all have a presupposition, we're all biased in some way, and there's no neutrality. So when the atheist says he has objectively considered the science, he's looked at all the facts, and he is convinced, based upon that, that there is no God, we say that such man is a liar. Maybe not intentionally lying, but Romans 1 says that everyone knows that there is a God. Because he is so clearly perceived in the things that he has made, that none is without excuse. So if that man were being honest and he went into his scientific exploration of God with a bias, he went in with a presupposition. And that presupposition for him was that there was no God, and that he was going to disprove God, because his wicked heart did not want to believe that he might actually find him. And it's important that you see that because it's important that I expose to us how often we hide behind neutrality. We do this by assuming or believing that we are all born or that we all begin in any given situation with a clean slate or a neutral scale. I'll give you some examples. Have you said this? Maybe I just started off bad. Maybe I just did some dumb things growing up. I've turned myself around. I've made up for it. I'm basically good, right? I do as much as I can to keep the scale neutral. Karma, by the way, which is demonic. It's what we do, though. Morality is defined simply as just not harming others, right? Or not hurting anyone else's feelings. I have legitimately heard that exact definition given for morality. Goodness then is defined as just trying your best. Heaven is a place that anyone can get to if they just do more good than bad. That is demonic, church. And I hope, as painful as it may be, that the word of God this morning utterly exposes your lies.

11:22Verse 1. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins.

11:34I could spend the rest of our time this morning lamenting on the total failure of the church to properly teach the biblical doctrine of sin, but for your sake, I will not do that. I will stick as close as I can to the text. However, I do want you to understand that everything that is wrong with the world today, and I do mean everything, is the result of sin. Everything that is wrong with the world today is the result of sin, and our failure to rightly understand the depths of sin. If you look at our present culture, if you look at our politics, if you look at our medical professionals, especially those in the fields of like psychology and psychiatry, counseling, they operate explicitly or implicitly under this principle that man is good or that man is neutral. Go down the list from how we treat one another, what we find offensive, how we handle policies in our country, how we treat people who are suffering from some personal or moral crisis. It is all from this presupposition that man is essentially good and that we are all victims. Even in the church, it is assumed that everyone is basically good. Just hit a few snags in life, right? Made some mistakes. We call them mistakes because we don't really call them sin. If you just clean your life up a little bit, if you just ask Jesus in your heart, if you just get yourself back on track, then it's all good.

13:25It's a lie.

13:30You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once swallowed. I'll get to the trespasses and the sins in just a second, but I want to make sure you understand what dead means. What does dead? What does that mean? In John chapter 8, Jesus is rebuking the Jews because they won't listen to him. They won't believe him. They want to kill him. And he tells them in verse 43 of John chapter 8, why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, he tells them, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character. For he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of my of sin? If I tell you the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. There's no neutrality there, is it? There's no nuance. Sin and the sinner do not exist on a spectrum. This is binary. This is one or a zero, on or off.

15:12Dead or alive. You were. We all were. Once a child of Satan.

15:25And he was our father. We were murderers. We were liars just like him.

15:36Wasn't that bad, you say? Yes, you were.

15:44And the only way you can get to, wasn't that bad, is to deny or minimize the glory of God and his goodness and his holiness. That's the only way you get there. And we know this because look again at those words that Jesus says to these religious elites. These are the holy men. These were men by the world standards who were keeping the law as best that they possibly could. They were almost certainly good fathers, good husbands, good men, at least better than most. But to these, Christ says they are whitewashed tombs. They're dead men. Dead men who only have the appearance of good, but are inwardly murderers and liars because they are children of Satan. That was once you. That is to say, they are bound by Satan. And death because they are dead. Their wills have been bound by sin and death, such that the Lord looks past any supposed virtue in them, as we talked about this morning in 1 Samuel. The Lord looks at the heart. He sees them for what they really are, not what they are externally. And the text then presses us further to see that we are dead by nature, children of wrath. We are spiritually dead in our sins because wrath was in our nature. The Bible makes clear that our nature was not good. It was not neutral. It was dead and full of wrath. Consider King David. A man after God's own heart. Following his affair with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, he confesses the reality of his sin. This is Psalm 51, starting in verse 3. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me, against you, and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, he says, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. The KJV renders this as, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. That is to say, the curse of sin and the justice of God through the curse that He put upon Adam and all of his offspring demands that we are all born in sin. We are born dead. And even more from conception. We are in sin. Not dead because we have committed sin, but dead because we are conceived in, born in sin. Totally lost, totally helpless, with the only hope for us being a new birth, a second birth. Because the first one, the birth of the flesh, it was corrupted. This is vital to grasp because what would be the point of needing to be born again, as Christ tells Nicodemus, if there wasn't something fundamentally wrong with the first one? So much so, Christ says, that unless one is born again, he will never see the kingdom of God. I read a story this week of a man who always assumed that people were basically good. He was an atheist, and he always assumed that people were good. As a result, he really had no need for God then. That was until he fought in World War II. And there he was convinced through what he had seen and what he experienced that there was a undoubtedly a principle of evil at work in the world. He said he could see in such a devastating way that there was a devilish corruption to man. He's dead now, but he was a Christian. Same is true today. Some people who you may meet, you may find them very pleasant. Even good. But tell them they have no right to murder an unborn child in the womb. And you very may very well see the devilish corruption of man. Define marriage. Uphold justice. Promote law and order. Tell the truth. And the wicked, unregenerate soul cries for blood. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. And walk in those sins we certainly did. Because we were dead in our actions. Because you were dead in sin and by nature a child of wrath, you were disobedient by nature. It's offensive. But it's obvious with eyes to see. Have you considered why it is that you don't have to teach a young child to be disobedient? Thought about that? I'm sure you have. Why is it that you don't have to teach a young child to be disobedient? Rather, from the time they can move and speak, you're under a constant strain to teach them to obey. How is it possible? That such an innocent or neutral soul immediately starts pushing boundaries, starts testing what they can get away with, starts displaying jealousy and throwing fits? The secular man will say that such things is just how we learn. Why does it always then go in one direction, right? That's just how we learn. Why does every child in every culture from every parent with every disposition always default to and apparently only learn through disobedience? Doesn't that logically call neutrality into question?

22:51Good.

22:54But it's obvious, right? The prince of power, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work of the sons of disobedience, was and is controlling us, or was. We were a slave to our sinful desires, even when we didn't know what sin or desires were. Our minds were corrupted from the start, and our thoughts and our actions were bent to sin from the womb. Are you thoroughly convinced yet? Just hold on. Genesis 8, verse 21. For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Ecclesiastes 7, verse 20. Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Romans 7, verse 18, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep doing. 1 Corinthians 2, 14, this natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. Even consider the words of Christ when the rich young ruler comes to him, calls him a good teacher. Remember that story? What is our Lord's response? Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. And this was a man who was good by all accounts. But just like with the Pharisees, Christ exposed his inward disobedience, his love of money, his love of the world, his pride in his possessions, his wanting to hold on to what he has, and the man walks away disheartened. I don't have to imagine how that conversation went when that rich young ruler talked about that exchange with his friends or his family. Because I think we've all heard and done this exact same thing. I'm not suggesting that this conversation actually happens, but just by way of illustration, who is this Jesus guy to tell me to sell all my stuff? I'm a good guy. Look at all the things I've done. Look at all the people I've helped. My kids are growing up and they're successful and happy. Who is this guy? Which his friends inevitably chime in and validate him. Oh, yeah, for sure, man. Don't beat yourself up. You're doing great. That guy's off his rocker.

25:39Just keep doing what you're doing.

25:45The point of that story was not to get the man to sell all of his possessions, but to get him to stop trusting in his false goodness, exposing his inward disobedience, and to get him to follow after the only one who is good, to trust in the only way of salvation. That is why after Jesus, after that exchange, Jesus offers some very pointed teaching to his disciples. And after that teaching, exceedingly astonished, the Gospel of Mark says, they ask him, Well, then who can be saved? Who can possibly be saved than Jesus? Y'all know what his reply was? Do you remember? With man, this is impossible.

26:43But with God, all things are possible.

26:48I'll give you one more illustration. That shows how truly dead in our actions we are. We, by nature of being created in God's image, we operate on a scale of equal and appropriate justice. Let me explain that. Say your child steals a cookie from the drying rack when you have asked them not to. I know this from experience. What is the punishment for such an act of disobedience? Maybe a stern talking to? And maybe they don't get any more of those cookies. That seems appropriate, right? Okay, now what if that same child in a fit of rage punches his sister in the nose? That I don't know from experience. That's a whole separate type of disobedience, right? It requires a far more severe discipline and punishment. Correct? Please say yes. So we can see then quite plainly that the severity of the punishment is equal to the severity of the disobedience. With that in mind, then I ask you, how severe must the disobedience have been for God Himself, to step down from timeless eternity, to take on our flesh, to humiliate himself, to subject himself to a life of ridicule and hatred and mocking, to receive brutal beatings tearing his flesh from his bones, to be stripped naked, to be forced to carry a cross up a hill to the point of utter exhaustion, to have nails driven through his hands and a spear thrust in his side? Dying a cursed death alone. Having the full measure of God's wrath poured upon him.

29:01What is the severity of your disobedience that would require God to punish his own beloved son like that?

29:17We must not think that it was someone else's disobedience and sin twelve o'clock. We must not ever think that it was someone else's disobedience and sin that drove those nails. Because I'm not that bad. Nor can we say, well, if you add up all the sins of all the children and you compound those effects, well then sure there's the cross. So really it's not that my sins are exceedingly bad, but it's just there's just so many of them, right? That's also false. Because we believe that Christ died for each of his elect personally and intentionally. So to say that Christ died for you, but not mean that he died fully and personally for you and your sins leaves me to ask, well, then which part of Christ died for you then? If his whole body wasn't given for you and it was amortized out over everyone, which part did you get? Maybe the small sliver of his toenail, maybe that was your sin. That's foolishness.

30:38We do it every week. This is my body given for you.

30:59Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers, it was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished. I know that it is finished. If you cannot come to the terms with the reality that it was your sin that put the beloved Son of God on the cross, then you will too walk away, disheartened, not having received the life that is offered by him. Finally, then I'll emphasize being dead to the core. This is the second half of verse 3. Among whom we all once walk, living in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body, and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. You may have heard someone refer to uh the noetic effects of sin. Uh this word mind, the desires of the body and the mind is the uh Greek word uh nos in O U S, if you're taking notes. To give you some context, then very quickly, this is the same root that's in our, or the same word that's in our word paranoia, right? You know, paranoia, noia, this is the same Greek word nos mean mind. So paranoia is a dysfunctional mind, irrational mind. So when we say the noetic effects of sin, we are reading what Paul is saying clearly to the Ephesians here that this sin, this curse of sin, it has corrupted our minds. It has disordered our thinking, our deadness is not just our actions, it's not just our disobedience, but the deadness penetrates like this cancer into our minds. Our essences, ourselves, we are corrupted. We're rebellious intellectually, we're rebellious with arrogance and pride, rebellious with our thoughts, our self-justifications, our ideas about God. To the point that John Calvin says, quote, the mind itself is a perpetual forge of idols. End quote. That is to say, we don't just need our sins covered, but we need our minds renewed. We need our broken brains healed, we need our dispositions altered, we need our nature changed. Do you see how much power it takes to bring that level of change in your life? This is nothing short of a recreation. Being made again, being born again, being changed. Why the doctrine of total depravity is so essential for us, because it gets to the root and depth of our state, leaving us in a position of total surrender, total dependency upon God. Without Him acting, without Him giving us new life, we are corrupted beyond salvation. Section 6.3, this is on the fall. It says, quote, they being the root and by God's appointment standing in the room instead of all mankind, the guilt of their sin, Adam and Eve, was imputed, a corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus sets them free. Here are also the words of John Knox. By this transgression, the first transgression, the image of God was utterly defaced in man, and he and his posterity became enemies to God, slaves to Satan, and servants to sin. Are you seeing then the full scope of this passage when it says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins of which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that has now worked in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and in our mind and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Do you know what that means now? We're dead from the start. We're dead in our actions, we're dead to our core. Radically corrupt from start through and through. And while I am tempted to leave you there this week to stew in your sorrow and misery of your sin, maybe I should. Let me give you a small glint of light. Actually, it's a big glint of light. The third or fourth time I'll say this, maybe the sixth time I've said it, I don't know. We cannot understand the depths of God's love and grace until we understand the depths of our sin from which He has saved us. So then, in understanding the depths of our sin, the depravity of our nature, then we can truly see the depths of God's love and grace towards us. Again, I'll quote John Calvin: we shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own. Let me be so bold then to rephrase him as we close this morning. When we know how truly unrighteous we are, how truly naked and ashamed we are, then and only then may we be covered by the blessed righteousness of Christ. Oh, that we may know at the revelation of our sin how truly amazing grace really is. That it was for the wretched and depraved that Christ came to offer himself, not for the righteous, but for the sinner. And in this wild and unimaginable redemption, the greater the sinner, the greater the grace. Surely my sin is great. Thanks be the God and Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, that his grace is always greater than our sin. Let us not then deprive such a good God of such a great grace by minimizing or dismissing our sin, but let us run for cover under his cleansing flow. Let us fly to him who knew our sin. And yet he who knew no sin became sin for us. That we might become the righteousness of God. That's good news. Amen. For the sin of our disobediences and our transgressions, Lord, the sin of our nature. We pray and ask that we are in a state of whole surrender to you this morning, Lord. May you further expose the depths of our own sin, Lord, the sin that still remains, that we may purge it, Lord. And that by your grace and through your spirit we may be holy as you are holy. Let us never go complacent or dismissive of our sin, either the sin that was in us and the sin that still remains. As difficult and as scary as that prayer is, Lord, please don't let us go. Please continue to expose our sin, that we may purge it from us. So that we may see you, we may see your righteousness, and we may receive your blessed righteousness in the name of Jesus. It's in his name that I pray.

40:04Amen.