EPHESIANS OUTLINE #14 of 34

ALIVE TO LIVE (Eph 2:4-6)

I. Introduction

A. Last Sunday we considered what "it meant to be alive in Christ. (2:5)

1. It means that we are no longer spiritually dead, we are no longer

alienated from the life of God.

2. God is no longer an enemy - someone to be feared.

3. He is now our friend and our Father.

B. Something happens when we receive Jesus Christ we are changed from that moment on

1. We have a different outlook on life and human situations.

2. A pastor tells how a package came in the mail, after they opened the package,

they were amazed to find that it was a package of birth control pills.

3. Here is what the card read:

Dear PBC: The prescription for these pills dates to October. They are still good. Use them if you like. I no longer need them, as I am reformed, though not married Praise the Lord! He is holding me up.

It was signed "The little toe of the Body." It was a sign of a basic change in a person who was made alive in Jesus Christ.

II. The Apostle adds Two Other Factors

A. They are fundamental to this new relationship

1. We are raised up with Him and we are made to sit in heavenly places.

2. That follows the parallel of what happened to Jesus.

3. What happened to Him is what happens to us.

4. Jesus died on the Cross. When they took the body down it gave every evidence

of death.

5. It was cold and stiff - rigor mortis had set in.

B. But on the third day the Father infused life into that dead body and Jesus was made alive.

1. That says the Apostle Paul is what happened to us when we were made alive

in Christ.

2. when Jesus comes into a person, He brings a new life and gives a new Spirit.

C Let me ask a question of you! Did the resurrected Jesus continue to live in the tomb?

1. Did he remain there holding counseling sessions with people who came to visit Him?

2. Nonsense! Jesus was raised up and put back into the business that God had

for Him.

3. That's exactly what has happened to us. We are raised up as Jesus was to go

back to the same people and same situation but with a new power in our life.

D. Resurrection power means that a Christian is able to do what he could never have done before.

1. We are now able to love the unlovable, and to forgive the unforgivable.

2. when singer-composer John Fischer was in Southern California, a few years ago,

he sang in the chapel of a certain Christian college. Afterward, one of the professors of the school wrote a scurrilous letter to the school paper in which he bitterly attacked John and his music, sarcastically labeling it "musical garbage." when John read the paper he was upset and angry. He was tempted to write this man off as obviously having no musical judgment whatsoever, and to feel resentful toward him for taking such a position. But then the Lord began to speak to him, and said, "It isn't right for you to feel that way. This man shared how he felt in all honesty. You may not agree with him, but never-the less you have no right to be resentful toward him." So John determined to take a Christian approach. The next time he was in the area he looked this man up and took him out to dinner. They sat down together in a rather strained atmosphere, at first, as you can imagine. The man didn't know what John wanted. But John asked him something about his background, and it wasn't very long before they found a mutual interest and began to explore it. This led to other topics. The upshot was that after two hours they felt as close to one another as though they were brothers. They enjoyed a wonderful time together, and the subject of the letter never once came up. They simply appreciated each other. Later on this man heard that John was giving a concert some distance away. To John's

surprise he showed up and listened to him play. He came to him afterward and told

him how much his son appreciated John's music! The healing had started.

3. That is the power of resurrection life.

III. The Third Factor Is that we are to sit with Him in the Heavenlies. what does that mean?

A. Several scriptures teach that Jesus was raised up and made to sit in the heavenlies.

1. Heb 1:13 Set at my right hand till I make your enemies a stool for thy feet.

2. In Heb 10:12-13 Jesus offered one sacrifice for sins and then sat down at the right hand of God to wait until His enemies be made a stool for His feet.

3. why is Christ said to be sitting in the heavens?

B. It surely doesn't mean He is sitting in a rocking chair for 2000 years does it?

1. what does sitting symbolize? Cessation of effort.

2. Sitting means the end of work and strain. It is a beautiful picture of what the Bible calls "rest."

It means dependence upon the work of another. If you were working away digging a hole, sweating and straining and tired and exhausted, and I came along and said, "Look, why don't you rest? I'll take over," what would you expect me to do? Would you expect me to exhort you to try harder, get a sharper shovel, dig deeper? No. If I meant what I said, I would want you to get out of the hole and let me take the shovel while you sat down and relaxed. I would do the work. And this is the picture drawn for us of what a Christian is to do. He is to live as seated with Christ in the heavenlies. The heavenlies, of course, is not some far distant spot in space where heaven is. It is the invisible realm of reality - the inner life, the place where we feel tension and pressure and anxiety and hostility. We are to rest

there. Having done what Jesus asks us to do, we are to sit down and rest, relax, and let him bear the pressure and the problems.

C. Jesus has patiently waited upon the Father to produce the results that will bring about

harmony with Jesus enemies. That result does not come quickly.

1. That is our problem. We struggle with this business of waiting upon God to act.

2. Our greatest struggle is with the slowness of God.

3. I'll be honest, I have found God to be incredibly slow at times. I get impatient with God.

4. I tell God exactly what He ought to do. If He would do it just that way all would be fine.

5. God utterly ignores me and goes on doing nothing.

6. I say to the Lord, look you had better get off the throne and do something. He goes on ignoring me.

7. He will work out the result in time - in the meanwhile we must learn to sit in the heavenlies.

8. When we begin to learn this lesson we are beginning to experience what true Christianity

is all about.

IV. What Do I Do When Temptation Occurs?

A. We remind ourselves - I am alive in Christ, I am not the same person I once was.

1. I may not be what I ought to be but thank God I am not what I once was.

2. I am alive in Christ - raised with Him and resting in Him.

3. To learn these principles means we are allowing God to be God in our situation.

B. This is the way Gods life is released in us and this is the life people are waiting to see.

I. Can they see Christ in you.

2. Gal 2:20 is to be our reality - I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I that lives, but Christ lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.