7 Outcomes of The Gospel (Part 1) - Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Ephesians Series)

Ephesians chapter two. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, 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. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing it is 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 that we should walk in them. Amen. Father, again, we ask that this text would come alive In our lives, the revelation of the gospel would revive the saved, and it would save the lost. We pray that you would have your way. Bring us, Lord.

Bring us to our knees in light of the truths that we will hear this morning. May there be no emphasis on eloquence or insight, but, Lord, in the simplicity of the gospel delivered in the power of the Holy Spirit, may you be praised and glorified this morning. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. You may be seated.

There are two types of people in this world. There are two types of people in this world and only two. Those who are abiding in the light and those who are blind in the dark, those who walk on the narrow path and those who stumble on the broad, those who are delivered from sin and those who are bound to sin, those who are children of God and those who are children of wrath, those who are under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and those who are under the influence of the spirit of this world. The differentiating factor between the ones who are in the realm of victory versus those who are in the realm of defeat is that the victorious ones have tapped into a power that has transferred them from one to another. And that power is not something that is self worked.

That power is not purchased by one's own merit. That power is something that is freely given and is received by those who would humble themselves to accept it by faith. What is that power? The Bible is not shy to share what that power is. Romans one sixteen tells us, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

The power is the gospel, and that gospel produces a reality, salvation. What is salvation? Salvation means deliverance. It means preservation. It means safety.

Paul testifies that there is only one means and there's only one solution and there is only one possibility for possibility for salvation, and it is through the good news of Jesus Christ. And when you ask somebody what God has done in their life through the gospel, the number one answer you probably will hear is, well, he saved me. Will save you from what? And it is probably the number one answer, and it is he saved me from hell, which is true. But you and I need to understand this morning that the power of the gospel is greater, greater than just being saved from hell, though that truth is wonderful in itself.

Paul in this chapter, reminds the Ephesians of just how powerful the gospel of Jesus Christ is. He's about to explain in detail that faith in this gospel not only changed them in the life to come, but changed them in the life here now. And in chapter one, we spent time talking about the benefits and the blessings that come when we are united in Christ, of the things that we are destined to and the things that we are to experience in their fullness. But here, he's not speaking about the things that we are to experience in the future. He's about to explain and remind that there are experiences that you and I have in the immediate sense.

That the gospel is not just something for the future, the gospel is something for you and I today. And this text sheds so much light, hear me, on what it means to be a Christian. That is very important for two reasons. Number one, because people, many people, masses, have the false idea of what it means to be a Christian. And amongst many of the wrong ideas, one of them is this, is that I can identify myself as a Christian solely on the idea that I understand the theory of what Jesus Christ has done as a historical figure at one point in history.

An intellectual ascent, something that just reaches the mind, the intellect. And James criticized that kind of faith very sharply in chapter two nineteen in his epistle and he says, You believe God is one? You do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. And And so many people have a misconception when they identify themselves as a Christian, not realizing that your faith is not something that you just generate intellectually, it's something that you put your faith and trust in, and that changes your life.

But not only is this text important because it sheds light on wrong ideas of what it means to be a Christian, it sheds light on people who have a not wrong idea but limited idea. What I mean by that is there are those who understand the gospel but in a limited sense. Now when you hear salvation, a majority of people run to this idea that the gospel saves me from certain dangers and destinations. The gospel delivers me from these dangers. The gospel rescues me from a certain destination.

And that is partly true Because the full understanding of the gospel is not that he just saves you from something. When we understand the gospel in its fullness, we also have to understand that it positions us for something. It positions us for a certain blessing, for a certain inheritance, for a certain destination. So it's not just, Yes, I'm delivered. No, it's, Yes, I'm destined through the gospel.

So not just from, but I am saved for. And that's what he's about to share in these verses, these precious gems. He's about to tell us the beauty of the gospel. And if we were to bring it even in a visual sense, the gospel itself and its effect is like the cross. How?

The gospel has a vertical effect and a horizontal effect. When somebody is saved by the gospel, it changes their stance in the heavenly realms, but it also changes their walk here on earth. And so I have a vertical shift and a horizontal shift. The cross itself is a picture of what happens to a man when he puts his faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. And Paul goes on to share a wealth of information, and today he presents us seven powerful consequences of the gospel.

Seven powerful consequences of the gospel. And let me tell you on a personal level, when I was dissecting these consequences, there is no way we can cover all seven in one setting. It's just too deep. It's just too profound. It's too impactful to just glaze over.

So by God's grace, we will try to get what we need to get into. But let us take our time to study these things that Paul describes to what happens to a man when he puts his faith and trust in Jesus Christ. He goes on to share in chapter two verse one, And you were dead. You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. The number one consequence of the gospel in somebody's life, the result that comes about a man or a woman that says, I need Jesus Christ and his saving faith in my life is this, that you are delivered from the influence of the world.

Consequence number one, you are delivered from the influence of the world. Notice Paul's tense here. He's saying you were dead in the trespasses and sins. Not you are, you were. He's speaking of what happened and who they were prior to their faith in Christ.

And he says this very powerful statement, you are dead. Not you were bad, not that you were morally shifted in your understanding of ethics. No, you were dead. Dead in what sense? Not dead in the sense that you had inactivity and that you were lifeless, Dead in a specific way.

You were dead towards any relation to God concerning His Word, concerning His commands, concerning His Holy Spirit. You were dead to any association of fellowship with God and to any sense of obedience to his commands. Lifeless. Like a dead person, there is no response when it comes to God in your life. There is no eagerness.

There's no reflex. When you think of a dead person, what do you think of? Nothing separated from life. In the physical death, pay attention, when a man dies physically, his spirit is separated from his body. That's what happens.

If you've ever been to a funeral and it was an open casket, you can testify that when you see that body, it's like an empty shell. There's no life in it because the person, the soul, the spirit is not there anymore. It left its earth suit. But listen, that's the physical death. When a man dies spiritually or when a man is dead spiritually, his spirit is separated from God.

So in the physical, your spirit is separated from your body. When your spiritual man is dead, you are separated from God. That's what it means to be spiritually dead. And Paul says boldly, You were dead, but they were alive in another sense. They were alive in another sense.

They were alive because they were controlled and influenced by another source. There was something else that was keeping them somewhat alive because he says you walked. You were walking in the course of this world. So you know what that means? You know who you are before Christ?

You're a dead man walking. A zombie so to speak. Sure you're walking in this life, sure you're making decisions in this life, sure you're doing your day to day, but really you are lifeless and you are controlled and influenced and compelled by something else. And he says it's the world. You are walking in the same direction as the world.

And what does the world strive for? Let's just sum it up in this. This world, this antichrist system, this philosophy, is a life that is free from the pursuit of joyful obedience and intimate knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what this world is all about. It's free from a joyful obedience to Christ and a desire to pursue an intimate knowledge of Him.

The anthem of this world is this, eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. That is the anthem of this generation and every generation before and every generation after it lest the Lord comes back. It's a lifestyle that they choose to live and this is what the lifestyle is all about. It's your day to day activity free from Jesus being any part of it. It's your planning of the future with no inspiration to glorify God.

It is your emotions, thoughts, and activities directed towards anything else but Jesus, and your sense of purpose is found and grounded and anchored in entertainment and pleasure and money and the praise of man. This is what the world lives for, And Paul emphatically declares, you once walked that way. Pay attention. You once walked that way. You know, if a Roman citizen walked into church this morning from Jesus' day, he would be absolutely shocked.

You know why? Why do you think he would be shocked? He would be totally stunned by the fact that we have crosses hanging around in our buildings. You'd be shocked to see this pulpit. And the main reason why a Roman citizen or anybody in Jesus's day would be totally stunned by such a thing is because of the absolute horror that a cross turned a man into.

Some of us in here remember the time that we went away for just a couple days and we got to experience something that I never had to experience before. Maybe you've experienced it and it was a live animal being slaughtered before we ate it. And I thought the idea seemed normal because how else do you get your food but I never thought I would witness it. And when that lamb was purchased and it was brought in front of us and we looked at it knowing that it was gonna die, knowing that it was going to die, it was pretty disturbing. To see that its neck was slit and the blood coming out of it and then to see it tied by its legs and dragged over into a tree and thrown over that rope from a branch and pulled down and seeing that sheep hanging there, and seeing it obviously skilled in person with experiencing skinning that lamb and and then cutting it into pieces and letting the guts come out of it, it was a pretty gut wrenching sight.

But I want you to think about a man that was crucified. We've romanticized the cross, but there is nothing. If we actually had a picture of the cross, if we actually had a painting of what it looked like to be crucified, nobody would be hanging it in their walls. That's for sure. Think about a man that was scorched and beaten and slaughtered, and when he was nailed upon that tree, the open wounds, the blood, the the change of color in their skin because of the trauma, the open wounds depending on how badly there were scourge maybe even the entrails were showing.

And people would mock and look and would do anything to that person. You think about Jesus in Isaiah 5two 14. It says that he was so marred that he was beyond human semblance. He was so disfigured that you couldn't even tell he was a man. Now think about that.

How badly do you have to be beaten? How badly do you need to be tortured for people to look at you and not be able to recognize that you are a human being? It was hideous. It was a site of horror. It was nothing that you would be attracted to, and you would have to be the most hardened man to be able to go to a a site of a crucifixion and stay there with a stable stomach.

But you know what Paul said? He said one of the most profound statements in Galatians six. He says, but for me, far be it from me, to boast in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which, pay attention, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. In other words, because I had a revelation of the cross of Jesus Christ, you know how I see the world? I see it like I saw or I witnessed a crucifixion.

The same way that a man was totally deformed and hideously displayed on a cross is the same way that Paul saw the world in its course. It's totally unattractive to me. It's absolutely hideous. There's no sense of attraction in me towards the world because it's like something being crucified on a cross. Wow.

But not only that, if you had a friend or you had a family member that was crucified on a cross, you knew one thing for sure. They were never getting off of that cross in the sense that they were never coming off alive. Gone forever. And Paul says, the world is crucified to me. It's gone.

I have no relationship with it anymore. I have no hope that I will ever come into contact with the world again. That is how I see the world. You know what's fascinating? Paul says that's how the world sees me.

I'm crucified to the world. Total dissociation. No sense of attractiveness. No sense of beauty in it. No sense of being compelled.

You know there's so many profession Christians today, so many professing Christians today that are not crucified to the world or the world is not even crucified to them. The world's not crucified to most people today. You know what it is? It's compelling to them. Can you really testify this morning that the world is crucified to you?

Can you really say, I look at the world the same way a man in Jesus' day would look upon a crucifixion? Can you really honestly say that? Because that's the reality when you get a revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul says, By the cross, I see the world as crucified. In other words, because I received the revelation of the glory of Christ, because I received the understanding of his great love for me that God himself sent his son to reconcile me back to him in living relationship, the world is absolutely hideous in comparison.

Now I I dare you and challenge you to ask a modern Christian if they really see it that way and see what response you get. But Paul said it. Paul said it. When you get a revelation of the cross, when you truly put your faith and trust, when you really come into union with Christ, you see the course of this world differently. You see that this world is just a strip surrounded by flashy lights and distractions to keep you long enough not realizing that this strip is headed off a cliff.

It's a highway filled with pain, regret, and shallow pleasures. It's a desert path filled with thirsty people being deceived by faulty mirages of fantasies that will satisfy but leave you thirstier and thirstier than before. It's ultimately a one run road freeway to hell, heavily occupied by the masses from different nations, tribes, and tongues that are marching on their way into an eternal separation from God and from his presence. When you get saved, when this gospel becomes a part of you, you look at the course of this world and you don't walk in it anymore. You walk in the total opposite direction.

The number one consequence when you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ is that you are delivered from the course and the influence of this world. You don't walk in it anymore. And this truth of once being dead and walking in the direction of this world is painted so beautifully with the famous story of the prodigal son. You know what the father said when the prodigal son came home? He burst forth with joy.

Why? He said this statement. He said it in Luke 15. For this is my son who was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

And they began to celebrate. But But wait a minute, how was he dead? He wasn't dead. In fact, you know how it describes the son? It says that he came to his father and asked him for everything concerning his inheritance.

Give me what I deserve concerning my inheritance. And it says he traveled to a far country and he lived recklessly. Now does that sound like a dead person to you? Wealth, travel, spending on my own pleasures, that's the generation that we're living in. Acquire more so that I can experience more, so that I can live more.

And you know what the Bible describes you? Dead. Oh, you think you're living, but you're actually a dead man walking. You think you have life, but there is only life when, like the prodigal son, you run back into the arms of the father. Behold, he was dead but now is alive.

You will never experience life, true life, abundant life, pure life, satisfaction until you realize that your spirit man is dead and that no matter what you do in this life like the prodigal son, in reality, you're eating pig's food in comparison to what you can have in Christ. So don't envy the world. You shouldn't. Why? Because what you're looking at is dead men walking.

And Christ bids us to come to have life because he delivers you from the influence of this world. He delivers you from the course of this world when you have a revelation of the cross. But not only does he save you from that, the second consequence is that he sets you free from the authority of Satan. He sets you free from the authority of Satan because he says here you are 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. What a staggering truth.

This is what he's saying here, that those who follow the course of this world are in reality following the devil. That those who are walking in this course, whether they realize it or not, this world is being energized by Satan and his powers. That Satan and his demons and his kingdom are orchestrating these rebellious hearts into greater rebellion against God. And he says, when you're following this course, there's somebody leading this marching band and it's the devil himself. And he says, you were following the power of the prince of the air.

And because you were, this reality is not part of you. He is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Now we had a whole sermon on this, so we're not gonna spend too much time on it, but think about it. He is right now at work. What does he do?

He torments. He deceives. He lies. He afflicts. He blinds.

He misguides. He offers false truth. He's generating more and more for people to stay on this course concerning the world. Which should produce a holy anger in us. It should produce a holy anger in us.

Because before you and I were saved in light of this verse, you weren't really living for yourself. You were actually fulfilling his agenda. Say, no no no no no. There's there's no way that I would live for the devil. Are you kidding me?

I was just doing my own thing. No. You're just in the bottom of the pyramid scheme, friend. You think that you're living for yourself, but in fact, you're just generating something for the person at the top of that pyramid, and his name is Satan, Lucifer, the deceiver of the world. Hear me.

What does he say here? What does he say to the Pharisees? He says in John eight forty four, you are of your father who? The devil. You are you are of your father that he identifies the Pharisees, the most religious people in that day.

You know who your father is? Satan. Jesus was a kind preacher, wasn't he? First John three:eight, Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. Plain and simple.

That when you live outside of the will of God, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, whether you want to bury that truth in your conscience, does not matter. In reality, you are fulfilling Satan's nature and his agenda in this world. And what is his agenda? For you not to give glory to God and for you to do what Adam and Eve did in the garden, to be convinced that you are the God of your own life. Just control your own life.

Make your own decisions. Make your own plans. Spend the resources and your time how you want to. And once again that should produce a holy anger in you and me because before we were saved we were actually fueling his agenda. Before a person is saved, the gifts that God has given them, they were using it for their own glory.

But in reality, they were using it for Satan's glory. Robbing it from God's glory. The resources that we received and we were spending it on ourselves instead of praying into how God would use them, it was really just fueling Satan's agenda. And on and on it goes. And I wonder how many of us should be stirred by this truth Because if we've given those young years of our lives to him in an indirect sense, how much more should we give to God with the revelation that he is Lord of all?

It's amazing. You meet so many saved people. When they get saved, they don't get as radical. They were so radical in the world. They stayed up all night for the world.

They worked tirelessly for themselves. And then when it comes to the kingdom of God, they're lazy, and they're just, Oh, no. It's okay. I'm just gonna stroll along. Why?

You were radical for Satan. Be radical for God. It should stir us to know that he does work in the sons of disobedience and that at one point he was in some indirect way without us knowing because we're blind and we were blinded rather used us by robbing us from giving glory to God. But now we have a new purpose. While he works in the sons of disobedience, you know what your nine to five is every day?

To destroy the works of Satan. Now he uses you. He fills you with the spirit. He says, now go out into the world because that's why Jesus came into the world, to destroy the works of the devil. And now you go with that full minded understanding that I'm not going to waste my life living for Christ.

Saved from the influence of this world, delivered from the authority of Satan, but this is probably one of the most glorious truths of the consequences of the gospel. Number three, saved from the power of the flesh. Saved from the power of the flesh. He says it here, verse three, 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. He says you were living, you once lived in the passions of the flesh.

In other words, not only before Christ were you walking in the course of this world, not only were you a puppet for Satan, you're also a prisoner helplessly overcome by this body. Whatever the flesh demands, the flesh cannot resist. When there are urges, when there are temptations, we are easily so given over to it, And these desires of the carnal body overwhelm us, and the imaginations of our thoughts plague us. So words such as I can't help it or it's just a part of who I am is the common language of those who have not been delivered from the flesh. That's the common language.

That's not the vocabulary of those as we've learned last week who have the immeasurable greatness of power that God has given us in Christ. But for those who are bound by the flesh, I can't help it. I got to do it. I can't stop this craving. And it reminds me of a character in the Bible that's a tragic figure in two Samuel 13 verse two.

And Amnon, who was one of the sons of David, was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin and it seemed impossible for Amnon to do anything to her. He was tormented by the desires of the flesh. It was beyond temptation. It was obsession. He came to a place in which he was now so consumed in body and in mind that he needed to do whatever he needed to do ever he needed to do in order to fulfill that desire of the flesh.

And guess what? When he had the wrong friend in his life that fueled the idea, he went for it. And it's a picture of the man outside of Christ. Whatever impulse, whatever urge, whatever thought, there is no ability to fight it. You are so easily given to it, and you live in that pattern of defeat day after day and week after week and month after month and year after year for your entire life.

But it's not isolated to sexual sin. These passions can overwhelm us through anger. You can't control your temper. Just takes the right button to push, and there goes the wrath of almighty you unleashed on a person. These passions can come down to the love of money that drives you to make every decision.

You're so cheap. You're willing to rob anybody for yourself. You're so driven, you're willing to step on any relationship to get to that place where you can just have a little bit more. These passions can be experienced in selfishness where you are so irritated when the center of attention is not you. Oh, you are extra irritated when it's given to somebody else.

These passions of the flesh can be experienced, unfortunately, through drugs and alcohol, these substances that are really just symptoms of a deeper issue in which you are bound to something. And God has given us the ability to overcome it, but you are overcome by a substance. That's a pathetic state to be in, but it's the reality of the power of the flesh. It's a sad place to be in. But Paul makes a bold statement.

We all once lived in the passions of the flesh, not you are living. You once lived in that reality. Something happened Something happened to us in Christ concerning that. But how can it be? How can it be?

I mean, it's our nature. We were born with this Adamic nature. Adam and Eve from the garden took something that was outside of them which was the forbidden fruit and ate it and that very thing that was outside of them now became a part of them. And so the desires now for the rest of the human race are within us. We are enticed by the things that are in us and we have a craving for forbidden fruit.

That's just who we are. That's just our DNA. So how can it be that God delivers us? It's like asking a dog to act like a bird. Go fly.

Sing. It's contrary to its nature and so is it with us when it comes to being free from the power of sin, unless of course God gives us a new nature. That's the transaction that happens in the gospel, and he prophesied that in Jeremiah 31. He says, you know what I'm gonna do to you? I'm gonna make an everlasting covenant with you, I'm gonna put my law within you, and I'm gonna write it on your heart.

What does that mean? Just picture it. He reaches into that nature of yours, that heart that is graffitied with rebellion against God all over it, that is so hardened like picking up our stone from the side of the street. He takes that heart. He puts in a heart of flesh, but before he puts that heart of flesh in you, before he makes that transaction, you know what he does?

He takes your heart, and he takes the law of God, and he writes it on your heart. Every command, everything that is given to us, every standard, he puts it on your heart, and then he puts it in you. And when he puts it in you, you now throb to obey God. You now delight in what you read. It's no longer a taskmaster.

It's something that you pursue. It's something that you want to do because that is the supernatural transaction of the gospel. He gives you a new nature. And through that nature, you have victory over sin. Because of that heart transplant, you are delivered.

Now there's this story of somebody that I know very well, and they were away with friends on vacation to a well known beach. And part of this beach and its experience was that if you swam further away enough, you can actually swim with the sea turtles. But legally, because this beach was so precious with animals, and not just animals, with coral reef, there was this wall of rocks with different colors in the water. And it was literally a wall. And so you couldn't swim over it lest you touch it and make those things stumble off of their place.

So what you have to do in that beach is that you have to go to this little gap, this little separation between the wall, and you would come off the shore and you would swim to that gap and go behind the coral reef so you can go and see all those beautiful fish. And so this young man decides to go. He was convinced it was a long day but he was convinced by a friend to do so. So he gets into the water and begins to swim. And as he swims towards that little gap and finds himself on the other side, he quickly realized that he was more exhausted than he thought.

And so in the midst of that, he says, I think I'm just gonna turn back. It's not worth going out there because I am so tired. My body is so exhausted. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to swim with the fish, so I'm just gonna go back to the shore. And as he turned around, he quickly realized something.

He was trapped. He was trapped. The waves were so powerful that day that as he tried to swim back, the wave kept pulling him away. And his strategy was, I'm so far from the gap. I'm just gonna try to swim over the coral reefs.

I know it's illegal, but I'm gonna try to do it because I just need to get back. I'm so tired. And as he positioned his body towards the shore knowing that he had to overcome that wall of beautiful precious rocks, he thought to himself, I'm just gonna go with the waves, and the waves will push me over. And so he tried. The wave takes him, and as he goes, instead of going over it, it smashes him into the rocks.

And then the wave pulls him back. And then he tells himself, I'm just gonna wait for the next wave. And the wave brings him again and smashes him into the rocks. Now he's starting to scrape. And so he begins to think, well, this isn't working the way I thought.

These waves, I think, are are are pulling me deeper, and I don't understand why. I need to get over this. But the waves kept doing it, beating him and beating him and beating him. All he did was kept him more exhausted, more tired. He was trapped.

He was overcome. And so a second strategy came to mind. Okay. I think at this point, water is starting to come into my nose. Water is starting to come into my mouth.

I'm choking on salt water. I need to call out for help. I need to ask somebody from the shore to to come and rescue me. But you know what was blocking that? It wasn't waves or rocks.

It was pride. He was thinking to himself, if I'm gonna cry out, my friends are gonna make fun of me for the rest of this trip. If I'm gonna cry out I'm gonna be that guy in the trip that almost drowned and the parents are gonna find out and my parents are gonna find out. So you know what I think I'd rather die. So with this tension of being overcome by the waves and being smashed, with this desire of being delivered, but also with this pride of not wanting to call out for help, he stayed in that place, what seemed to be like an eternity.

What a picture of sin in somebody's life. Somebody that thought they can go out and do something thinking that it was going to please them but in reality it traps them. And when they realize that it traps them they think that they can get over it in their own power and their own strength when they only realize that it's overcoming them more and more and taking them down deeper and deeper. And instead of this person crying out for help, they think that they can do it in their own strength. Listen, you will never be able to overcome the sins of your flesh unless Jesus Christ delivers you.

You might be thinking, whatever happened to that boy, that teenager, while you're looking at him? Side note. In that moment, a prayer in my heart went out to God. This is before I was saved. I said, God, I don't want to die in this water.

And there was just a blur where finally a wave pushed me over those rocks. And within a few short moments, I realized my feet is touching the sand. And I dragged my body on that beach, and I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds. And I got into that beach, and I fell asleep like a baby. What a beautiful picture of deliverance that when God does save you, he gives you rest.

Rest. He saves you from the power of the flesh, but only when you realize that you can't do it on your own strength, only when you realize that he is the one that can take you out of that pit and set you on solid ground. Are you drowning? Are you overcome? You'll stay drowning, and you will die in your sin unless you call out to God for mercy.

Oh, these truths don't end. If God could save a reckless teenager from waves, how much more can he save you from the overwhelming powers of sin that crash over you day in day out? The fourth consequence of the gospel in somebody's life. The first three are glorious within themselves, saved from the influence of this world, delivered from the authority of Satan, saved from the power of the flesh. But the consequence of the gospel centers in these verses with this truth, that when you truly understand it, you truly experience the expression of God's love in your life.

He says what? Look at verse four. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. Now we know that we are made alive together with Christ.

We just talked about it the past few minutes. That is the result of the gospel. But we can't just focus on the result of the gospel. We have to understand the motive behind the gospel. We have to know why he sets us free.

We have to know why he brings life to us. And it says here clearly, because of the great love with which he loved us. And every single time I read something like that, I'm paralyzed in my thoughts because it never tells us the reason why he loves us. You'll never find that in the Bible. Not once.

It says he loved us with a great love, but the reason for his love Surely it was not because we were walking in his ways because we were doing the opposite. We were walking in the course of this world. Surely it was not because we were advancing his kingdom because we were, in fact, fueling and advancing a kingdom opposite to his. He did not love us because we first love his commands. In fact, the opposite is true.

We delighted in breaking them. So how can a holy, righteous God in heaven look down on this cesspool called earth with a bunch of humans that rebel against Him in thought and indeed and sense a great love towards them? There's only one answer. It's because He is love. That is the only answer that the Bible gives us.

The sun radiates heat. It radiates life. It gives us light. And we don't question it because it's the expression of its nature. That's what the sun does.

In the same way, God dispenses love without measure because it's just the expression of who he is. He is love. That's what he does. That's who he is, and nothing can ever change that. And the expression of his love is so crucial because it's not some sloppy sentimental romantic love.

It's a love that has action. It's a love that has blood behind it. It says, for God so loved the world that he gave that he gave. The expression of his love was he gives, And he gave what? The treasure of heaven.

He gave the beloved son. Now we all say yes and we nod our heads, but you will not experience that truth if it only reaches your mind. You will not experience that kind of a love if you just hear it like you just heard it and you let it reach here. The only way you will be able to really experience it as a consequence of the gospel is when you let it reach your heart. And the question is, well, how do I bring it from here to here?

How do I how do I take it from just, yes, I understand that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins to this? I would suggest this one truth. The way you will really feel and know that love in your life is when you understand that he died for you personally. Here in Ephesians, he's speaking generally. Right?

He's saying, he died for us. He loved us. He delivered us. But that's not the only vocabulary and revelation that Paul the Apostle had. When he goes to the Galatians, he says in Galatians two twenty, we all know it, For I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

And the life that I now live in the flesh by faith in the Son of God, he loved me and gave himself for me. So in Ephesians, he says us, but Paul walked around with this understanding. Yeah, but it's also me, And he gave himself for me. It's a personalized understanding of Jesus' sacrifice in your life. Your name, your life, that is who he died for.

And until you really ask the spirit of wisdom and revelation to make that known to you, it will always stay here. But when you can confidently say that Jesus died for me, fill in your name, fill in your address, then you will be able to know that love in your heart. And God wants us to know. People are scared to say this kind of stuff nowadays because they say it's so centered around man, and Jesus Christ died for God's glory. Listen, I know he did, but it's clear he died for you.

He loves you with a great love. And He wants you to know that not on a corporate level, not on a worldly understanding that He died for the whole no. For you, you personally. That He had you in mind when He died. That He had you in mind before you were even born, before the foundations of the world.

I'm going to die so that I can reconcile you and you and you and you back to the Father. And we got to take it from this to this. How can you go another day with discouragement when you have that kind of revelation? How can you walk around defeated when you know that God Almighty loves you personally? Took those nails and took those scourging and took all of that beating because he had you in mind.

Stop thinking just the world for a second. Think about you. You. This is kind of a humorous illustration to point this out, but it kind of elaborates it. Ben has a funny story concerning my mom.

Now one day when he was younger as well, he was laying in bed, and my mom kinda had a routine where she would come to our rooms and just kinda talk to us before bed. And my mother came up to Benjamin and began to just speak to him and talk to him. And one night, she said, correct me if I'm wrong, you know, Ben, I don't want you to tell this to your other siblings, but I want you to know that there's something special about you. There's something special about you. And Ben, as he explains the story as animated as he is, said that he was so warmed with that truth, that he went to bed so smoothly and so peaceably.

And as my mom is showering him with this love, my sister in the other room say, mom, mom, and now she needs comfort. And so she walks over into another room, and she failed to realize that the rooms are connected. And so as my mom is there, Ben is with his eyes closed, just basking in the revelation that he is the most special one amongst the siblings. And all of a sudden, he hears my mom through those thin walls saying, you know, Pauline, I don't want you to tell this to your siblings, but there's something special about you. And Ben's eyes open up in that moment.

It's humorous. It's funny. But there's some truth to that because I I think I know what her intention was. I believe that as a parent, she wanted us as children, her children, to know that though we are, yes, her children and she loves us because we are her offspring, she also wanted us to know that she loves us personally as individuals, that each of us had a special place in her heart, that each of us was something to her. Not that one was greater than the other, I'm sorry, Ben, But that each of us had a slot in her heart, that each of us had a place of meditation in her life.

And I believe God wants us to know the same thing with the gospel. He said, yes, he loves all of us. He died for the world. But you personally, as one of his children, there's a special place in his heart for you. You gotta know that because when you pray, your voice is unique.

Your problems are unique. Your calling is unique, and we gotta walk with that revelation. Paul said, he loved me and gave himself for me. You gotta know that confidently as well. We talked about four consequences, delivered from the power of the flesh, saved from the authority of Satan, rescued from the course of this world, and we are recipients of the expression of the climactic love of God, the cross.

You need to know that. And Paul, in this verse, makes a turning point because in these verses that we just described, he talks about who we were before Christ and what he's delivered us from. And next week, we're gonna discuss about how he not just saved us from, but he also saved us for. Let's pray.