Stronger Than Death
I lived in the Mississippi country during high school. I was outside as often as possible: swimming, hunting, fishing, riding motorbikes, playing football, baseball, or basketball, and even practicing my trumpet. The trumpet can be a really loud instrument, so rather than sit inside and bug my entire family with playing scales or practicing a particularly difficult phrase of music over and over and over, I would take a chair and sit outside to practice.
One day as I was just playing through some fun music, I noticed a funeral procession coming down the road. You have to understand that roads are often long and straight in Mississippi. Without thinking about it, I stood as the funeral procession drove by our home. I lifted my trumpet and quietly played Taps, also known as Day is Done.
I thought nothing about it until years later when a neighbor was talking to my parents. He said he loved to hear me play my trumpet outside and remembered one day seeing me stand for a funeral procession and playing taps. He said it really touched him to see such a show of respect for the dead.
There is something that hangs over our heads throughout our entire life: death. It is said that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. Stories and movies of cheating death have been written, but, while some have survived death for a period, all, except for Jesus, have eventually died and stayed dead.
All around us we are reminded about death. Even our years have a season of death. Throughout school I often spent hours daydreaming in class. Call it ADHD or boredom or whatever, but I eventually started to use that time to write poetry or songs or both. This one was about the effects of winter on life.
Although the wind outside is cold It's warm inside with a blazing fire
I hear a fierce and mighty gust And see some leaves of red and gold
As gently they fall, then rising higher Descend to a shifting grave of rust
The wind will speak a stronger wail Like music of an aspen branch
As death continues on beneath it And then the snow I know won't fail
To plummet forth in a flashing lance As death continues on beneath it
In places high atop Grand Teton The white may lap to Mark Twain high
As death continues on beneath it While children tromp and slip upon
The white beneath a placid sky New life begins unseen beneath it
1And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. (Ephesians 2:1-3, HCSB)
We Have New Life
Today, as we continue our series in Ephesians, I want you to know that there is something that is stronger than death: new life.
Paul is reminding us in the first 3 verses that we were all spiritually dead. Our sins had separated us, alienated us from God. We walked and lived according to our own desires, which were based solely on what our flesh and selfish thoughts wanted. Nothing was wrong to do in our eyes, because our eyes were filled with nothing but the darkness of death.
In verse 4 we see a shift from the focus on our past to look instead at what God has done for us. While death continued on beneath. All the struggles of life piled up on top of us, but death continued on beneath it. We were just walking around like the dead that we were. Spiritually dead, hopelessly lost.
4But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, 5made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens, 7so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7, HCSB)
But God
But God. I love that simply phrase. Take any problem that you have ever faced and then add “but God” after it. Take a look at any situation that you are currently going through and add “but God” to it. But God, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive. He gave us new life.
Even though we were dead, God made us alive. Even though we had screwed up everything, God saved us. Even though we…insert your worst possibly sin here…God still loved us. Even though. Even though. Even though. But God.
There Paul goes again. Reminding us of just how much God sees the potential in us to be something greater than we are. Remember last week we learned how God considers us to be of great worth? We make God rich because of what He is able to do through us. Look at verse 6.
God, together with Jesus, who God has raised up into heaven, God did this for us so that…now verse 7…He can out us on display for the whole world to see. God wants the world to see what a change He has made in us. God takes pleasure by letting others see how He has shaped us, molded us. How God took us out of the rubble and purified us into gold. This allows others to see God’s mercy and kindness because of what He has done in us.
Why does God get all the credit for us? Because He does all the work. I know, many of us are independent enough that we think all of the good changes in our lives are because we worked hard. That is what the world tells us. Work hard enough and you can become whatever you want to be. Work hard enough and you can lose weight, gain muscles, grow wealthy, etc.
The reality is that God found us in the deepest darkest place imaginable, that He cleaned us up, and that He displays us so that others can see what He has done. It is His work in us and through us that brings Him honor and glory. It is because of this great work that God can use us as lights to shine into the darkness so that we can be a part of bringing others out from among the dead.
8For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9not from works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9, HCSB)
Verses 8 and 9 let us know that our salvation comes from God. It is because of His grace and has nothing to do with us. We cannot work our way into heaven. We cannot be good enough to get God’s forgiveness. It is all about Him. We cannot boast about what we did to get to heaven. But God. But God. But God so loved the world. But God loved us. But God called us. But God forgave us.
10For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10, HCSB)
It is All About God
If we want to be stronger than death, we must recognize that it is all about God. We are His creation. We are created in the image of God. When we accept God’s grace and forgiveness, we are created in Jesus for the purpose of doing good works. The works don’t save us, it is because we have been saved that we do good works.
Notice that this passage ends reminding us that even the good works are not our own. These good works were prepared before time even began so that we could honor to God as we obediently did the good works because our boss, God, called us to do them.
People may fear death, but it has no power over God. Death could not hold Jesus down. Death could not keep God from bringing new life to us. Death could not stop the plans that God made from before time began. Death is nothing compared to God.
We cannot cheat death. Even God has proclaimed that. He gave each of us a death sentence because of our sins. But God…because of His great love for us, sent Jesus to die in our place so that we could have new life. Our bodies will still die, but our spirit has eternal life because of what God has done in our lives. Now, not even death can hold us down. Death cannot keep us from spending an eternity with God.
Paul emphasizes this even more in his letter to the church in Corinth when he wrote, “Death where is your victory, grave where is your sting?” As followers of Jesus, we have a strength that is greater than death because we have already died to our old life, died to our sins, and have come alive in Jesus. Through Jesus we can be stronger than death.
Comments