Ephesians 2 - Not Mostly Dead but Completely Dead
Tom Shrader examines Ephesians 2:1-3 to establish that humanity is spiritually dead, not merely impaired by sin. He emphasizes that natural man cannot understand spiritual things and has no ability to respond to the gospel apart from God's sovereign intervention. This foundational truth about human depravity sets up the need for grace in salvation and transforms how believers view God's work in their lives.
“It's not that we are sinners because we sin, but we sin because we're sinners.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Ephesians
Recorded: 2018
Duration: 50 min
Themes: grace, salvation, death, sin, depravity, wrath, faith, works, new believer, questioning salvation, struggling with worthiness, doubting faith, feeling spiritually dead, seeking purpose, young adult, pastor
Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10, Romans 3:10-12, Romans 5:12, Romans 6:23, Genesis 3, 1 Corinthians 2:14, John 6:44, 2 Corinthians 5, 1 Timothy 3, 2 Chronicles 6:36, Ecclesiastes 7:20, James 2:6, Acts 16:19, John 3:16, Revelation 3:20
Theological Themes: total depravity, spiritual death, human nature, sovereign grace, salvation by grace, faith alone, divine intervention, sanctification
Full Transcript
One last thing, as you open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians, I want to remind you that I've asked Brenda to bring in some reading material that will supplement what we're talking about in this series. That reading material has arrived. If you head over to the comments, I'll talk about it a little more in detail as we work our way through the series. But if you want to jumpstart that, I would say this is the best reading material and sources we've really ever had on this topic. There are probably eight or nine, ten books that are there on a table, set apart. Just go take a look at them, and it will be helpful to you as you're working your way through this series with us.
In the book of Ephesians, chapter two, verses eight, nine, and ten really become the point from which this series flows. We have titled the series Grace for Life and Grace for Living. Grace for life means there is that point in time in our life where we need to move from dead to alive, and that's a huge focus of what we'll talk about today. We're naturally dead, separated from God as a result of our nature, which is a sin nature, and our sins only verify that. The wages of sin is death. We're separated from God. We need grace to move into that relationship with Him, and then we need grace to sustain us.
The Foundation: Grace for Life and Grace for Living
Ephesians chapter two, verse eight: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." That's grace for life. That's that instrument that God uses, grace, evidenced by faith, that moves us from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive. Now we are, verse ten, "His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."
He's saying it's not just that all God wanted to do is get me to heaven. If that's all He wanted to do, then at the moment of conversion, He would have simply taken me there. At that moment I was as prepared and as ready for heaven as I'm ever going to be in one sense. Certainly my destination is now secure. My designation is now saint. If all He was concerned about was getting me to heaven, then at that moment He could have taken me. But God has left us here, and there's something that He has for us to do. His workmanship created for good works. So I need grace for life, and I need grace to sustain that, grace for living.
What we're doing in this series is unpacking that two-step process. How, indeed, do we move from somebody who the scripture calls, and we'll look at it today, a child of wrath? Certainly has an ominous tone to it, doesn't it?
Why We Need Salvation
I think it's so important we really make sure, because we're going to look at the very word in verse eight: "For by grace you have been saved." That's what we talked about last week, that we have been saved, delivered, removed, from what? Well, from the wrath of God, from the fact that God has to, and will, judge sin. Francis Schaeffer writes this: "Why do I need salvation? Because you're under the wrath of God. And why are you under the wrath of God? Because you have sinned."
That's what we looked at last week. The Bible declares, in Romans chapter five, verse twelve, that sin entered the world. Here's how Paul says it: "Just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned."
How the World Got This Way
What we did last week to provide an introduction into this series is to look at the world around us, and look at the hardship and the pain and the suffering. Look at the lure that drugs and alcohol have to us, and the lure of sex, and we're greedy, and we're fearful, and we see suffering and pain, all sorts of stuff in the world. There's a side of us that would say, why would God create a place like this? And of course, the answer is what? He didn't. That's what we looked at last week.
We looked at Genesis chapter three, in which we hear the account of how the world got the way it is. God created man. He told him not to eat from the fruit of the tree that's in the center of the garden. If he did, he would die. Then Genesis three becomes the account of the temptation and then Adam eats, he rebels against God.
Remember what we saw last week? His response to that was to begin to cover himself up. He grabbed fig leaves, he hid from God. We see guilt and shame as a result of sin. Then God intervenes and says, "How'd you get this way, Adam? What happened here?" Then God pronounces curse on the serpent, and then on the woman in childbirth, and on the man in labor. Then God takes away the fig leaf and replaces it with skins.
God's Provision Versus Our Response
We said wrapped in all of that is not only the explanation for how we got into this, but also our bailout. Our bailout position. Our response is what? Our response is fig leaves. Our response is religion. Our response to our sin is to try to come up with some way to cover ourselves up. But God says, "No, you can't provide your own covering. They're insufficient. They won't do what you want them to do. And there must be a shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sin." So it's a beautiful picture of the provision that we're going to get in Christ.
But now here's what God had said: "The day you eat from the fruit of that tree, you will die." Well, Adam ate. What happened? He begins the process of dying physically, clearly. Now death comes into the world. It was never designed to be this way. Now death comes into the world, but also it begins the process of immediate separation from God by his sin. He's spiritually dead as well.
The Condition of Man's Heart
Genesis three provides us not only the explanation for why the world is the way it is, but it gives us an explanation for the condition of man's heart. And that's what we're going to focus on today. When Adam sinned, and death comes into the world through Adam, and all...
All of us have sinned, all of us sin, fall short of the glory of God, the wage of sin is death. But there's also provision in that verse in Romans 6:23. The wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
You're in the book of Ephesians. Just look at the very beginning of chapter two. We're going to spend the bulk of our time right in these first four, five, six verses. You were dead.
Let me give you the background. Paul's writing to what he identifies in verse one of this book as the saints who were at Ephesus. So he's writing to believers. He's reminding them of God's majesty and sovereignty, beauty, he's reminding them of their previous conditions, and then God's provision for that.
Our Former Condition: Dead in Sin
So we pick up right there, verse one. You were dead in your trespasses and sin in which you formerly walked, that's the way you were living, according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. That's where we saw this work, in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived.
So he's talking about past tense. This is what you were. This is how you used to live. You lived in the lust of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Here's what he says: You were sinners and you acted like it. You pursued the desires of the flesh. You did what you wanted to do. You were concerned about you and yourself and nobody else.
And he says, as a matter of fact, here's the problem. We were by nature children of wrath. When Adam sinned, he plunged us into ruin so that our fundamental basic problem is this. In fact, let me just read to you what one author writes: "Man's basic trouble is not being out of harmony with his heritage or his environment, but being out of harmony with his creator. His principal problem is not that he cannot make meaningful relationship with other human beings, but that he's not in a right relationship with God from whom he is alienated by sin."
The Core of Who We Are
So we're going to get the core of who we are. The phrase in verse three, by nature a child of wrath. The author continues: "His condition has nothing to do with the way he lives. It has to do with the fact that he's dead even while he's alive. He's spiritually dead while being physically alive because he's dead to God. He's dead to spiritual life, to truth, to righteousness, to inner peace, to happiness, and ultimately to every other good thing."
We sin, we're separated from God. That's who we are. That's a result of our sin. So Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter five that we're new creatures in Christ and that was done as God reconciled us to Himself through Christ.
That word reconciliation is a powerful picture, isn't it? If I say that God and I are now reconciled, then what we know from that one singular sentence is there must have been some preexisting hostilities that had broken this relationship. I couldn't put you back together again, reconcile you if you hadn't first had some sort of a division here. And what Paul is teaching us is that we are lost in our sin.
But God: The Source of Hope
Now I'm going to take the rest of the day, 36 minutes, and I'm going to unpack that. But I want to just jump ahead just a bit, for just a couple of minutes, because I don't want to leave you in something that is so dark, when we talk about how helpless you are, and we don't quickly remind you, but you are not hopeless.
So though this is not where we want to go today, look at verse 4, because there's the hope. That's who we were, children of wrath, separated from God, dead in our sins and trespass. We're going to come back and talk about it. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive with Christ, by grace you've been saved. He raised us up with Him, seated us with Him in heavenly places. So we've been delivered, and then you see, by grace you've been saved through faith.
That's who we were. We were dead. We were dead in our sins and trespasses. That's what the world, that's what the word teaches us. The Bible says that by nature we are dead, but Christ moved.
Helpless but Not Hopeless
What I want you to see today is that there's nothing you could do, or I could do, to take our situation where we're dead and make us come to life. And yet it's the one thing that we need desperately. We are indeed absolutely helpless in our human condition, but not hopeless. See that? There's nothing we can do. We can't even begin to respond to the gospel because we're dead. But in spite of you and me, in spite of us, not because of us, in spite of us, God saves us.
Now the huge practical ramifications of that is immediately God gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and I get smaller and smaller and smaller. Most of the time, even among Christians, when we talk about God and we talk about man, I really think it's against the backdrop that we really aren't that bad, and He really isn't that big.
Understanding Our True Condition
Tozer said it this way: our theology never ascends high enough to embrace God and who He is, or descends low enough to allow us to be who we really are. The whole point of studying this theology, this understanding, what the Bible says, not what any human says, not what any theologian says, or contemporary author says. This is not about some systematic theology developed by man, but this is what the Bible says about man.
And the Bible says we're dead in our sins and trespasses, but God being rich in His grace and mercy, and because He loved us, He loved His people, He has this incredible passionate love for us that what He decides is not to give us justice, that which we deserve, but to give us mercy. And that mercy comes in the form of grace, and I know I'm a recipient of that grace because I now have faith to believe.
So that really is what we'll be talking about every week in this series. We really focus today on Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1, and really unpacking, if you will, that condition.
The Bible says that man, and we're going to use the term today also, natural man, and what we mean by that is all of us as we come into the world. This is our natural state. Our natural state is that we are alienated from God.
Let me again read to you the words from this author: We are spiritually dead, physically alive. We're dead to God, dead to spiritual life, dead to His truth, dead to inner peace, happiness, ultimately to anything that is good. We are dead to our sin and trespasses. The effect of the fall has been devastating on us.
God's Assessment of Mankind
Keep your mark right there in Ephesians chapter 2. Turn to the left to the book of Romans, would you please? Romans chapter 3. Paul in Romans chapter 1 and 2 leading up to this discussion is writing this indictment against mankind and ultimately against all of us. He deals with people who would say I'm not really into religion. He deals with people who say I'm into religion. He would deal with Greeks. He would deal with the Jews, the Gentiles, and then He provides us a conclusion.
Here is God's assessment, not man's assessment—here's God's assessment of all of mankind. So if you want to know what God's view is of all the people coming to this world, here it is right here. Romans chapter 3 verse 10: "There is none righteous, not even one. There's none who understands. There's none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There's none who does good, no not one."
The Heart of the Matter
Now for some of you, we get pushback right here, because you're going, wait a minute, that's not my experience. What do you mean there's nobody who does any good? I know all sorts of people who don't give a rip about church, or a rip about Jesus, who do all sorts of good things. They'll go and feed hungry people. They'll go on trips. They'll dig wells in drought areas to provide humanitarian response in need of people. When I'm gone on vacation, they mow my grass. They're doing all sorts of stuff.
Here's the problem, and this is really important. What we're looking for is not our assessment of each other, but God's assessment of man. We can get deceived as we look at the action. God looks at the heart. God's declaration is, the heart of every man is evil, and sin has permeated us, so that we're dead in those sins and trespasses.
One of our staff guys says it this way: if sin were blue, we would be a smurf. That's just a great description. It does not mean that we commit every possible evil crime that ever exists. Even Hitler didn't kill his mother. But it means that our heart is set toward evil, and inclined toward evil, and repulsed by good.
Our Spiritual Nature
Though, I want to add really quickly, though we will be spiritual at times. That's exactly what Paul wrote to Timothy in 1st Timothy 3. In the last days we will be lovers of self, lovers of money, and then He goes on to list them, but He said they will hold to a form of godliness, though they'll deny its power. They'll become spiritual. They'll make gods in their own image, but they'll deny the power. Well, the power is the gospel.
One author says this: man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory for idols. We're repulsed by the one true God. We're not attracted to anything that is spiritual, of a spiritual falling from the one true God. We are spiritual in the sense that we are prone to try to devise a God.
In fact, haven't you had that experience where you're talking to somebody, and you're talking about the God in the Bible, and you're talking about the God as He is in the Bible, and they would say something like this: my God would never. Well, that's exactly what they've just told you is what I'm saying. They've created a God in their own image, so they want to go, well, I don't like the God of the Old Testament, I like the God of the New Testament. That God of the Old Testament is like a God that was on probation, and He was figuring it out, and He was hateful and wrathful, and then He got it all figured out, so I like the God of the New Testament. Well, the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God.
Facing the Reality
This is God as He is, but the focus right now is not on Him, it's on us and our sinfulness, and we need to come to grips with His assessment being accurate. No one does good, no one understands, no one seeks for the one true God. They'll seek for God's made in their own image, and we do that by redefining terms.
I have two daughters, and this would happen more with Sarah than Haley, but we'd have experiences like this when she was in school. I'd come home, and she would be studying. Now, if she was studying, I knew one thing. I knew what? There's a test. So, I'd say, if she's studying, you got a test, yeah, and then I'd let a day or two pass, and maybe the next day I'd say, how was the test? It was really hard, and then I'd wait till they had results.
I would say this, and this didn't happen, this happened all the time with Sarah. I'd say, well, how'd you do on the test? She would say this: nobody did well. That's what she would say, and I would say, well, let's establish a baseline here. There's 23 kids in your class, 22 of them, I couldn't care less about it. How did, let me rephrase the question, let me emphasize this, how did you do on the test?
Wasn't fair. Really, why wasn't it fair? Well, here's what happened. Let me ask you this. Did He tell you you were going to have a test? Yes. Did He tell you the material that was going to be covered on the test? Yes. Did the test indeed cover the material that He said that He was going to? Yes. Did He teach the material in class? Yes. How was it not fair? No one did well on the test. We went through that circle over and over and over again.
Well, here's what I love about that. This is exactly what we do with this passage of scripture when God declares how we really are. We look at this and we go, wait a minute, God. Nobody's doing well on your test. It's not fair. Why? No one did well.
in school, and it took me a while, because when I was in grade school, we were trained by the nuns. So here's how this went. 93 to 100 was an A. If you got a 92.99999, that's a B. 85 to 92.99993 is a B. 78 to 85 is a C. And if you got anything under 78, they just beat you until you got to 78. That's how they did it.
Here's somebody truly bored with what's going on. They're playing with a ball. This is evidence of the depravity of man right here. This is how you know that the U of A people are in church today.
So here's what happens. I got to high school, and we had the priests. They were the same thing. When I got into college, I discovered this thing called grading on a curve. Pretty cool. So here's what they did. They bought Sarah's argument. Nobody did well. So they redefined an A.
The Problem with Negotiating Standards
Here's what happens, that permeates a lot of how we think and live. So all of a sudden, I want to go and buy a car, a house, or jewelry. I go, and I begin to negotiate. I know that's what you want, but I'll give you this. And then you have the term meeting of the minds.
Here's the problem. We come to God and say, hey God, here's the deal. I know you got that standard, but I'll only give you this. And He doesn't negotiate. This is His assessment of you and me. We all fall short. We all miss the mark.
The effect of Adam's sin is that our nature is hostile to God. 2 Chronicles 6:36 says, for there's no one who does not sin. Ecclesiastes 7:20, for there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. All of us sin. Why? Because by nature, we are sinners.
Understanding Our True Nature
This is really important. And this may sound like double talk, so you work through it until it isn't. It's not that we are sinners because we sin, but we sin because we're sinners. It's not because we've committed a sin and that makes us a sinner. It's because we are by nature sinners, and that's who we are by nature, and we validate that as we live.
Now, this is crucial. In teaching, there'll be times, I guess I say, if you grab this, it'll really change you. There's a couple of things. Like when we said, if you can understand your life is that of a steward, not an owner, it's going to change the way you live. If you grab this truth today, it's going to change your view of salvation, it's going to change your view of God.
How you see yourself is going to determine even how we see salvation itself. It'll even determine how you live. Our view of man and the condition of man even begins to affect the way we evangelize. Not that we don't, but the manner in which we speak, the manner in which we live, the sovereignty of God.
God's Sovereignty in Difficult Times
In moments like this, some of you this week, I will be one of them as well, we're going to get our statements from last month, and they are going to be ugly. Let me tell you something, and they don't count the last week and a half. However bad this is, here's my encouragement to you, it's going to be really bad next month when they come.
Well, how do you handle all of this kind of stuff? There's a sense of the sovereignty and the control and the authority of God. And it all begins for us, understanding the condition of man. What's the condition of man as he comes into the world?
Different Views of Human Nature
And there's all sorts of theories. When I was in philosophy class, there was one that used a term, a Latin term, tabula rasa, a blank slate. That you and I come into the world, a blank slate, and then the environment and the systems and the people around us form on what we are.
There's another view that kind of said man is essentially good, and basically good. And then there's another view that says man is sinful, though there's two categories, I think, of that. There are those that say man is sinful, and that sin has really kind of impeded him.
And then there's another view, I believe it's the view that the scripture teaches, that man is dead in His sin. And that all He does is sin. And that His heart is desperately wicked.
The Biblical View of Our Condition
It's so important for us to get this, because as we understand how lost and helpless we are, we're going to be able to see how big and gracious God is. How deep is His grace.
Chapter two, verse one, you were dead in your sins and trespasses. I'm sorry, back to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter two, verse one. You are dead in your sins and trespasses. You were dead and made alive in Christ through the great love that God has shed on us.
We are at the heart of the debate. What is the condition of man? What the Bible says is that we are like zombies. We are spiritually dead, but physically alive. The question becomes, what does it mean to be dead?
Dead vs. Mostly Dead
There is a gigantic difference between being dead and being mostly dead. It's always helpful to have a reminder. Let's take a look at this clip and see if this doesn't take us back and remind us.
[The transcript includes dialogue from what appears to be a Princess Bride clip about Miracle Max, but the dialogue cuts off mid-sentence at the end]
Very noble cause. This is noble, sir. His wife is crippled. His children are on the brink of starvation. Are you a rotten liar? I need him to help avenge my father. Murdered these 20 years. You first thought he was better. Where's that bellows cramp? He probably owes you money, huh? Well, I'll ask him. He's dead, he can't talk. Ooh, look who knows so much, huh? Well, it just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Please open his mouth. Now, mostly dead, he's slightly alive. Now, all dead, well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing that you can do. What's that? Go through his clothes and look for loose change.
See, that's really an important distinction. There's a difference between dead and mostly dead. And much theology that you and I experience today is based on the assumption that man is mostly dead.
What Does the Bible Say?
The question really isn't what some teacher, current or past, teaches. The question is, what does the Bible say? And the Bible says that man is—you've got it in front of you—dead in his sins and trespasses. That man's not mostly dead. That man is dead to the gospel. He has no ability or desire to be able to change that condition. He's enslaved and in bondage to sin. He is repulsed by good. No one does good, no not one.
It's not that he's sick and he needs medicine. He is dead and there's only one thing that a dead man needs and that's life. That's why Jesus said, "I've come that you might have life and have it abundantly." Jesus says to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, "Don't marvel that I say to you, you must be born again." Jesus declares this: you need life.
Even here today, maybe there's some of you that you didn't take communion. You're here for whatever reason. Somebody invited you and you're in town visiting and got corralled into this or whatever. Something brought you here today and you're coming and you're thinking, "Here's my problem" and therefore you're looking for the solution based on that problem.
Misdiagnosing the Problem
So here's my problem: my problem is booze or drugs or sex or addiction or temper anger or a broken relationship or I'm lazy, I'm worried, I'm a glutton, I'm greedy, I steal, I lie. No, those are all symptoms of the problem. The problem is sin.
So you and I live in a world that seems bent on trying to make everyone identical. We have misdiagnosed the cause of our problem, therefore we're endlessly throwing time, energy, effort and money at solutions. So one of the things—well we just don't know enough, he needs education. We are busting this country trying to fulfill something called the American Dream, which is based on total materialism thinking if you have a house you'll be happy. Ask those people right now that are upside down how happy they are in their houses.
We're constantly thinking, "If only I had her." I told this story in PL this week. It's an absolutely true story. A few years ago I'm having lunch with a friend. I have lots of friends that don't share my faith and this guy's lost, as big as a goose. He's just lost. He's turning 50. I said, "What are you going to do for your birthday?" He said, "I need a new wife." I said, "Really, you have a wife don't you?" And he said, "I need a new wife."
And I said, "You know, let me give you a little practical advice here. I've seen the new models and they're pretty expensive that are out right now, and the old one there ain't going to go away." But you know what he's thinking and it absolutely makes sense if you're apart from Christ. Look at her. I wanted to say to him, "You're no bargain. You need to staple your financial statement on your forehead—the only way you're going to get anybody to go out with you." But that's a different story.
The Endless Pursuit
But still, here's his thought: if I can get rid of her, I'll be fulfilled and happy. My problem is I'm unhappy with her. And statistically, here's what we know: second marriages fail at a rate higher than first marriages, third marriages higher than second, fourth marriages higher. We know this.
Our lives are filled with the pursuit of things that we think will solve our problem, and the problem is we've misdiagnosed our issue. Our issue is sin. Our issue is that we're dead, and there's only one thing a dead man needs and that's life. We're spiritually dead and we must be born again.
The Bible tells us that our problem is not circumstantial, it's relational. That our heart is dead. We're adverse to God. We're opposed to God. No one does good. And in spite of what you may look around and see, and your assessment of this, it's so important for us to get God's view of this, not our view. I don't care what Harvard, Yale, and all the other studies say. Our fundamental problem is our sin. And at the root of that, by nature, we are dead. What a dead man needs is life.
A Picture of Death
Physical pictures are always helpful in a spiritual realm, and for me, probably the earliest kind of profound moment really I remember—I remember things that go all the way back. I have a contention that I remember something that happened when I was six months old, but everyone denies it. But I remember when I was 12, my grandfather died. And we went to Sheraton, Iowa to Beardsley Funeral Home. And Beardsley Funeral Home was not an office building, it was a house that had been, pardon the term, converted into a funeral home.
And so there's this big porch, and then you walked in, and there were these individual rooms so that they could simultaneously have two or three or four wakes or whatever was going on there. So my mom and her sister and I were there. And we're going in, and we go into this little room, and there's a casket in the front, and clearly Grandpa's in it, and it's kind of spooky for me, so I'm kind of hanging in the back a little bit.
You know, even when my dad died a couple of years ago, I just—I don't need to see it for whatever, it's just me. Some people need closure, I like it open. I don't need a lot of closure. So we're all done, and we're
walking out, and my mom and my aunt are talking. I'm there—I'm this size, but I'm 12. I quit growing right then. But my mom and my aunt are talking, and my aunt says to my mom, "Didn't Dad look good?" And I remember thinking, I better go back in there.
So I went back in. I'm just a kid, so I went back in, and it just spooks me a little. I don't know why—kind of weird. And I'm looking, and I'm just—I mean, I can close my eyes and see him laying there. I walked out, and I remember thinking, he actually does look pretty good. He had on a suit, which he was a warehouse guy, worked in a warehouse his whole life. Rocking shelves—that's all he ever did. He had on a suit, he had a little smile kind of on there, which we didn't see a ton. His glasses were straight. And I remember thinking, he really does look pretty good.
But he has one overriding problem that I can see. And that is, he's dead.
The Futility of External Solutions
Now it's interesting, let's play this out just a little bit. Because my grandpa never had any money. We could have come by and thrown $700 billion in there, and it wouldn't have done him any good. He probably periodically had a beer or something. We could have come by with all sorts of booze, we could have put some crack in there—I don't think he was a crackhead—we could have put some crack in there, some meth in there, we could have done any of that.
We could have taken home mortgages and given him free deeds to property. I want to stay relevant to his day and age—we could have brought Patty Page by, or the McGuire sisters or whoever it was. All things that might have had an effect on him the previous week would have had no impact on him at this point, because what he needed was life.
And here's what the Bible says: you and I are dead spiritually, and we can try to fill that void with all sorts of stuff, but what we need desperately is life. Now I want to take you to the brink of despair. And there's nothing you can do, there's no decision you can make, in and of yourself, nothing you can do to bring life to death.
The Natural Man Cannot Understand Spiritual Things
Turn to the left, would you please? I'm going to give you two passages of Scripture—we've got about eight minutes—two passages of Scripture that have to become staples for you. They become absolutely central in this discussion of understanding God and His salvation and how we're saved.
1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14. Paul's writing to this church at Corinth—it's got all sorts of issues, all sorts of problems. He's talking about relying on the Holy Spirit, all that goes with it. He said we don't have a spirit of the world. Verse 14: "Natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, they're foolishness to him, and he can't understand them because they're spiritually appraised."
Here you go, look at chapter 1 verse 18, because there's kind of a real life example of it. "The word of the cross is foolish to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it's the power of God." Natural man does not get spiritual things—they're foolish to them. And then Paul says it even more strongly: he says they cannot understand them. Natural man is never going to understand a spiritual thing. Spiritual things require the work of the Holy Spirit in our life.
Now when we're talking about grace for salvation, grace for life, what we're saying is that natural man on his own will never understand these truths.
Jesus on the Father's Drawing
Now even the work of Paul here is wonderful, but what does Jesus say? And there's a section in John chapter 6, we'll turn there and we'll finish and complete with this today. John chapter 6, where Jesus talks about this very issue. John chapter 6 verse 44. Jesus is talking about salvation. He's talking about man's relationship with God.
He says in verse 44, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." No one can come to Christ unless the Father who sent me draws him. Now the word "unless" gives us what we would call a necessary condition. It means that something has to happen before something else can take place. No one will come to me. No one will respond to the gospel. No one will believe unless something happens.
What has to happen? Well you see it there in verse 44. The Father must draw him. The word literally means to compel. So this becomes even a whole view of God and who He is and how He works in our life.
The Problem with Popular Songs About God
When my girls were small, we were at another church and they were performing one of the Salty—remember Salty, the singing songbook? They were doing Salty the singing songbook and they had a song that they were singing called, "The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He always knocks before he comes in." Much like Revelation chapter 3 verse 20 and all that stuff.
Now here's the problem with that song. The problem with that song is it's heresy. That's a problem. So though our kids are grown, just so you have kids, we have to face these issues. So the issue was this: Do we let the kids participate in this show and absolutely propagate heresy to the entire church? Or do we take them out and make a stand, in essence nail them to the church door? So we decided to let them participate in the heresy. We decided to let them be in the Salty the singing songbook, because you know what? There's only so many hills worth dying on and Salty the singing songbook in that context was not one of them.
But I want you to see how ingrained bad doctrine is into the church. "Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling you all, come home, come home." Some of you, especially some of you are older, used to sing this song all the time. So the idea was this: He's wooing us, pleading with us, knocking at the door, but He's a gentleman, He'll never rush in.
The problem with it is this. The problem is that's not what the Scripture teaches. No one can come to me, no one's going to have—
The Father Must Draw Us
A relationship with me, unless the Father who sent me draws him." Again, the word means to compel. It's helpful sometimes to maybe see how else is it used in Scripture. The word that's translated there, "draw," is found two other times in the New Testament. James chapter 2 verse 6 and Acts chapter 16 verse 19.
James chapter 2 verse 6 says, "Is it not the rich who oppose you personally, here's the word, drag you into court." Acts chapter 16 verse 19, they seize Paul and Silas and they drag him into the marketplace.
Why We Need Radical Intervention
What happens in our life is that we need a radical response because natural man is spiritually dead. Natural man cannot get spiritual things. So when you're sitting at Starbucks and you're talking to somebody about the need of a Savior and you've got him and you're talking to him and all of a sudden you go, "You know what, I'm going to use that story, that anecdote, that verse that always worked on me" and you lay it out and nothing happens, you're going, "Is it my presentation?" No, the Spirit of God hasn't quickened their hearts to allow them to see that truth.
There's great freedom in that. It doesn't mean we don't declare the gospel. We declare it all over, but the only reason somebody responds is because God's working in their life.
Understanding Ability versus Responsibility
When you're talking about, I had a long conversation with a man who really understands a lot of theology, not long ago, about this very topic and we were stuck on this issue. And I was trying to say, "If you can find one verse, one verse, not two, not ten, one verse that says natural man has the ability, not the responsibility, we have the responsibility, not the permission." Boy, don't confuse permission and ability, right? We learned that early on. "Mrs. Gadian, can I sharpen my pencil?" "I don't know if you have the ability to stick that thing in that hole and crank it, I don't know about that, but you may give it a try." We understand the difference between permission and ability.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." What does that verse say? That verse says, "Whoever believes in Him has heaven." We applaud that, but it doesn't speak to ability, does it? It just simply says, "If you believe you'll be saved."
This verse, John 6:44, coupled with 1 Corinthians 2:14, give us exactly the picture of natural man. He does not have the ability, He has the responsibility.
God's Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility
Now we can all start to argue about what all this means. We can argue about maybe we don't like how that looks, but the reality is the Bible teaches these side-by-side. God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. And He says we don't have the ability. Something has to happen in us.
We have the permission. It's kind of like saying, "You know what? Whoever can jump high enough can touch the moon." Well, you have the permission. Knock yourself out. It ain't going to happen. We're dead in our sins and trespasses.
The Practical Ramifications of This Truth
We have to stop right there, but I want to give you encouragement in the middle of this. Why in the world are we slugging this out? Because this has huge theological ramifications, but bigger for me, hugely practical ramifications.
When all of a sudden I understand that I'm dead in my sins and trespasses, and there was nothing I can do, including making a decision for Christ. That the very act of me coming to Christ was a result of His work in my life. He causes me to be born again. He's the one who brought me to life. I'm dead, just like my grandpa was physically. I'm stone dead spiritually.
And you can preach, and preach, and preach, and throw four spiritual laws at me, and throw books at me, and all sorts of section of scripture at me. It ain't going to make any difference, because I'm dead. And until the Spirit of God opens my eyes and softens my heart, and then there was that moment in time when all of a sudden what I wanted more than anything else was the very thing that repulsed me the day before. "No, get that gospel out of here!" And the next day I'm clinging to it for life itself.
Did I get smart overnight? No. The Spirit of God opened my eyes.
How This Changes Everything
Well what happens to that is, all of a sudden you begin to appreciate the gospel, His death for you even more. You begin to understand praise and worship even more. You begin to see the cross for what it really is. His sacrifice to do for you what you couldn't do for yourself.
I hear people all the time, and I actually I think these are, I don't mean to be disrespectful, I just think they're stupid conversations. And I hear you all having them all the time. "Are you elect? Do you come and elect?" Why are you wasting your time with this? I think that is, I think it's arrogant and stupid to be having these arguments. And I hear people from our church, and I got to tell you it bothers me having these arguments with their friends about elect and who's elected.
Look at, are you a poor wretched sinner and do you know it? And if you do you need a saver, come and I'm going to tell you why you came, because God did that work. That's a really important truth. That's what I mean.
When God Gets Bigger
That changes everything doesn't it? If you're opposed to this right now, don't, I'm not asking you to buy it, I'm just saying when you begin to see this, this changes the whole deal doesn't it? When we talk about God needs to get bigger and bigger, nothing gets Him bigger faster than understanding this truth, because this is allowing God to be God and who He is in all that He does, including my salvation.
Isn't that a wonderful truth? I love that truth. Now what's clear is, man's dead, something has to happen to him. What happens to him? Well God moves, and that's what we'll pick up with and we'll look at next. So we'll continue in this grace for life, and then we're going to get to this point of salvation, and then we're going to go, "Now we've got grace for living. What difference does this make? What's our responsibility?"
Father, open our eyes to see this wonderful truth.
Closing Prayer
Would you please? God, allow us to be the men and women You've created us to be. For those that are here today and maybe even struggling with this, would You see that their argument is not with me, or it's not with some ancient author, but it is with You, the Word? Let's fight with Jesus. This is what the Bible says about our condition.
God, I pray that those with hurts and needs would feel comfort to come and talk to the pastors in the front of the room to pray with them. God, we would understand that You are God who loves us, and You evidenced that for us when You sent Christ to die on the cross. Father, thank You for salvation we find in His name, in His name alone, and we pray to You in that precious name of Jesus. Amen.
Have a great week, we'll see you next week. Somebody's ball, by the way, is up here. Come and get it. I'm going to put it right here.