Ascension Presbyterian Lord's Day Worship

Good morning, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome to the corporate worship of our God. Please stand and hear God call you to worship through his word.

After these things, I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number of all the nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice saying, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb.

And all the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever, amen.

Corporate Worship, Confession, and Assurance of Pardon

Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we have come to worship and bow down and kneel before you, the Lord, our maker. For you are our God and we are the people of your pasture, the sheep of your hand. We come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He is our advocate with the Father. He is the only mediator between God and man. He always lives to make intercession for us. Through him, we come boldly to your throne of grace. In his name, we earnestly seek you.

Oh Lord, our souls thirst for you. Our flesh yearns for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Bow your heavens and come down. Inhabit the praises of your people. Remember your promise, oh spirit of Christ, to be present in the midst of your worshiping people when two or more are gathered in your name.

Condescend to us. Grant us the joy of your fellowship. Speak to us through your word and be blessed by our praise and adoration. And we ask this all in the name of Christ, amen. Please kneel as you are able for the corporate confession of sin.

Let us join together in confessing our sins. Jesus, forgive my sins.

Forgive the sins I remember and the sins I have forgotten. Forgive my many failures in the face of temptation and those times when I have been stubborn. Forgive the times I have been proud of my own achievements and those when I have failed.

Forgive the harsh judgments I have made of others and the leniency I have shown myself. Forgive the lies I have made and forgive me the pain. Jesus, have mercy on me and make me whole, amen.

Please stand and receive these words of comfort in our assurance of pardon. He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. For if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. Our sins, not the part, but the whole are nailed to the cross and we bear them no more. Praise the Lord, oh, our souls. My brothers and sisters in Christ, rejoice for those who are in Christ, your sins are forgiven, amen.

Amen.

Please take up the Trinity Hymnal and open to hymn 38. Immortal, invisible, God only wise, hymn 38.

Amen.

Please take the insert and look for our Psalm of the week, Psalm 78, as when wine makes the soldier bold and we will be singing this to the tune of how sweet and awesome, Psalm 78.

Amen.

Please remain standing for our public reading of God's word from Genesis chapter 10.

Hear now the word of the Lord, Genesis chapter 10. Now this is a genealogy of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Medi, Javan, Tubal, Meshach, and Tiras.

The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Repath, Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elisha, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these, the coastal peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba, Havlah, Sabta, Ramah, Sebteca, and the sons of Ramah were Sheba and Dedan. Cush begot Nimrod. He began to be a mighty one on the earth.

He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore, it is said, like Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Akkad, Chalna, and the land of Shinar.

From that land, he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth, Ere, Kela, and Resen, between Nineveh and Kela, that is the principal city. Mizraim begot Ludum, Annamim, Lehabim, Nephthuim, Patrusim, and Kasluim, from whom came the Philistines and the Kaphtorim.

Canaan begot Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth, the Jebusite, the Amorite, the Gigashite, the Hevite, the Arkite, and the Sinite, the Arvodite, the Zemrite, and the Hamathite. Afterward, the families of the Canaanites were dispersed, and the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as you go from Gerar, as far as Gaza.

Then you go toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Adma, Zeboim, as far as Lasha. These were the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands, and in their nations. And children were born also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth, the elder.

The sons of Shem were Elam, Asher, Arphaxad, Lod, and Aram. The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arphaxad began Salah. Salah begot Eber. To Eber were born two sons. The name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan.

Joktan begot Almadad, Shalep, Hazarmaveth, Jera, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimele, Sheba, Ophir, Havlah, and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan, and their dwelling place was from Misha, as you go toward Sephar, the mountains of the east.

These were the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their language, in their lands, according to their nation. These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generation, in their nations, and from these nations were divided on earth after the flood.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Let us continue our worship by confessing our ancient Christian faith in the singing of the Apostles' Creed.

He ascended the holy catholic triumph

Please take up the Trinity hymnal once more, and open to hymn 460, Amazing Grace. Hymn 460. Well, please now make preparations for the prayers of the people. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, after this manner, therefore pray ye.

Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.

Amen.

Pray that we may glorify God in all that we do, as we live and work in the creation that displays his power, and be pleased to dispose all things to his glory.

Lord, hear our prayer.

Pray that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed, and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it, and the kingdom of glory hastened. Pray that God, for Christ's sake, would freely pardon all our sins.

And we are encouraged to ask this, because by his grace, we are able from the heart to forgive others. Pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted.

Our Father, taking encouragement and prayer from you alone, in our prayers, we praise you, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to you, and to testify of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say together, amen.

Please stand and take up the insert once again, for the last time, our Psalm of the month, Psalm 148. From heaven, oh, praise the Lord. Psalm 148.

Amen.

The Radical Nature of Human Depravity in Ephesians 2

Well, please open your Bibles with me, and turn to Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Paul's letter to Ephesians. We are going to be looking at chapter two, and specifically, the first 10 verses. Ephesians chapter two.

These are the words of God. And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

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, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Well, let us pray. Our gracious God and Father, as we come to our consideration of this passage, one that is extremely important to us to understand, the radical nature of those who are in Adam. That you would fill us with your spirit, so that we may be able to discern what is right, see the way that you see, that we may think your thoughts after you, and incline our wills to yours.

And we ask this in the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Amen.

Well, please be seated. There are a few times when you come into a Sunday service, or come to the, what we call Sunday school, or the teaching hour, where everything just seems to align. Today is one of those things.

Providentially, the things which we have talked about in the teaching hour in Sunday school, the things which we have sang about, prayed about already, are all encompassed in what we're talking about today.

Providentially, we shouldn't be surprised, right? Because it's all of God, right? And we would expect these things to hold together. This sermon is a bookend to a sermon I preached last fall, regarding the Christian identity.

And you may recall that at that particular time, we looked at Ephesians 1, one through 14. That that particular section of scripture is absolutely breathtaking. And I encourage you, perhaps later today, to re-familiarize yourself with that section.

It describes our condition as Christians, that condition of our new nature and our new identity. At that time, we talked about the identity craze, which seems to be everywhere in our culture. And we noted that it is not unimportant, and that it is not crazy, but it is vitally important.

Yet the unbelieving world is looking at the situation completely wrong. And that really should not surprise us. When you start from the wrong spot, how could you possibly end up in the right spot? But they are correct that identity is important.

They know in some way that identity is the most important thing. But they are looking for answers to their identity problem in all the wrong places. They are looking to sexual desires, or gender, or skin color, or tribal relationships.

And just about everywhere they look, they're looking in the wrong place. Because our identity and theirs is not tied to anything physical, but spiritual. And we concluded by noting at that time that in the end, there are really only two identities.

Those people who are in Adam, or those who are in Christ. And while Ephesians 1 looks at that glorious state of our identity in Christ, our passage today in Ephesians 2 gives a glimpse of the nature of those who are in Adam.

And it is very important for us to fully grasp the spiritual condition of those who are in Adam. There has been very, there has been quite a bit of bad doctrine that has been spread about those who are in Adam, about those who are not Christ's.

And as we endeavor to establish this local congregation, as we look to have an impact in our community, we must know what we are up against. We must realize the situation clearly. We must see it as God sees it.

And the Apostle Paul gives us a clear description of those who are in Adam in our text today. So let us take a bit closer look at that text.

Excuse me.

The opening verse of this chapter may be the most important text that deals with the question of the sinful nature, the nature of those who are in Adam, the nature of those who are outside of Christ, the unbelieving community.

Paul is addressing this letter to believers. We know that from the beginning. He writes in the very first, Paul, an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints that are in Ephesus.

But those saints, he says, were once in Adam. They are now in Christ, but they were once in Adam. And he draws immediately a stark and dramatic comparison between the difference of their two natures, between those who are in Christ and those who are in Adam.

And this difference is the difference between life and death. This is an absolute difference. It is a dramatic difference. It explains the depths of human corruption. It describes the radical nature of the spiritual condition in Adam.

The term radical comes from the Latin word that means root. This is not a surface problem. It is a root problem. The radical condition underscores the absolute dependence upon the grace of God. The work of the Holy Spirit in bringing us to life in Christ.

Paul writes, and you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. As I mentioned, this opening statement by Paul is a stark description of the natural persons, those who are in Adam, their condition due to original sin.

Sometimes there is confusion by the term original sin. Some people believe original sin points to the first sin, that sin that was committed by Adam and Eve in the garden. But the doctrine of original sin does not refer to that actual sin, but rather the consequences of it.

Original sin describes the fallen and sinful condition out of which every actual sin comes from. Remember that the Bible tells us that we are sinners, that I'm sorry, the Bible does not tell us that we are sinners because we sin, it tells us we sin because we're sinners.

Original sin describes the falling condition of sinful man. And Paul uses the term dead. This is what he is telling us of the spiritual condition of those outside of Christ, that they are spiritually dead.

A Christian song written by Bob Dylan opens with these verses. I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined, stone cold dead as I stepped out of the womb. This is the nature of those who are in Adam.

And there is much controversy about this in the Christian community. And it is a very old controversy. It stretches back to the early days of the Christian church. There's a controversy that is maybe cast for the first time in history between two theological positions.

One commonly called Augustinianism or reform theology or Calvinism and semi-Pelagian or semi-Pelagianism. This controversy started with a debate between Augustine, who many of you know was one of the great theologians of the early church, perhaps second only to the Apostle Paul in the church at that time, who had a debate, so to speak, with a man named Pelagius, a monk from Great Britain, or what is now Great Britain, from the English Isles.

And this debate was about the nature of man before Christ. And it centered really around one question. Does man have the moral, spiritual ability to accept Christ, to see Christ as he truly is, to understand the things of God, to see his sinful nature and the perfections of Christ?

To see his absolute need for a savior or not? Augustine said that the Bible says that the unbelieving man cannot and does not have the moral or spiritual ability.

Why?

Because he is dead, spiritually dead. Pelagius, on the other hand, said, this is not his words, but it sums it up, that there is an isle of righteousness within man, that there is a part of man that hasn't been touched by the radical nature of original sin.

In a way, I guess we might be able to understand this point of view. After all, unbelievers are biologically alive. They walk around, they have minds that function, hearts that beat, wills that choose.

They have affections and emotions and all the rest. But what does the Bible say about their spiritual life? You or they were dead in trespasses and sins. Brothers and sisters in Christ, dead is dead. It is not mostly dead, it is not somewhat alive, it is dead.

And we can think, many of you may know this, some of the goofy ways that modern semi-Pelagians put it. Man is not dead, or dead means he's sick, like really sick, like desperately sick. Or he's drowning, he's going down for the third time.

Or whatever else they may give you, in order to give man an itsy-bitsy way to choose Christ. Simply put, they cannot, they are dead spiritually. Paul puts this differently in other places. In Romans 8, 7, he says, but the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

The carnal mind, the mind of the unregenerate man, is not blind to the things of God only, he is an enemy of the things of God. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2, 14, but the natural man, that is the unregenerate man, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The carnal mind, the natural man, cannot see the things of God. In effect, he hates the things of God, he thinks they're foolishness, because he is spiritually dead. Man is unable to, in his natural state, unregenerated by the Spirit of God, unable to cooperate with the grace of God.

But it gets worse. The situation that exists now is stacked against him. Paul continues to tell us that the world, the flesh, and the devil are all working against him. He puts it this way, in which you once walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, that first part, according to the course of this world, that's the world.

But notice what Paul is not saying here. He's not referring to the things, the material things in this world. So many make this mistake. You will hear sermon after sermon after sermon who says that if you want a nice house or material things, you're walking in the course of this world.

Well, you may be, if that's your orientation. But having material goods, those good things that God said in the creation account, that he created all things and they were good, and pietistic movements that we've seen throughout church history, keep pointing and say, we could just get away from the material things.

Everything will be all right. But Paul doesn't say that. He says, the course of this world. What he means is the world system, its culture, its values. The unbelieving man takes its counsels, follows its passions and fashions.

It watches its shows and movies. They talk about what we, or we may talk about what they talk about, and we may imbibe in what they imbibe in. That is what Paul is talking about. They're all swept up in it.

It's like a giant river, and it just sweeps everything along. And we have to admit that even though we're in Christ, it's tough not to be. We're very much swimming against the current. And from time to time, we may even be swept downstream by the course of this world.

But Paul goes on, as he mentioned, as I already read, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, that's the devil. John describes him in Revelation 12, nine, the great dragon that was cast out, the serpent of old called the devil, and Satan, who deceives the whole world, the great enemy of mankind.

In the Lord's prayer, there are some versions that say, to deliver us from the evil one, the devil, the deceiver who tempted our first parents in the garden, and through his enticements, they disobeyed God, and plunged the entire human race, the world, and the universe, into darkness, sin, and death.

The unbelieving man, the natural man, the man who are in Adam, they follow the devil. And not only some of them, all of them. Augustine put it this way. Man is like a horse. He'll either be ridden by the devil, or he'll be ridden by God.

Remember, we've talked about this before. When Paul calls himself a slave, he opens a lot of his letters. Paul, a doulos to the Lord Jesus Christ, a slave. He's saying, it's not whether you'll be a slave or not, but to whom you will be a slave to.

Either to God, or to the devil. And nothing is more natural to fallen man than to adopt, embrace, and walk according to the course of this world, in direct contrast to the things of God under the supervision and direction of the devil.

Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 4, three through four. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age, that's the devil, has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

The devil blinds the minds of those who do not believe.

Why?

So that they won't believe, lest they believe in the light of the gospel shining to his heart. But Paul goes on, he says this, among whom we also once conducted our lives in the lust of the flesh, following the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath.

That's the flesh. Not only does the whole world, the course of this world, the world system drag us along, not only are we under the power of the devil when we're fallen in an atom, but everything inside us is conspiring against it too.

He is saying that this is the mode of behavior of every man, woman, and child outside of Christ. This is the behavior, this is the lifestyle of everyone who is spiritually dead, those in atom. And that's pretty grim.

It shows the complete fallenness of man. There's a theological term for this, as there almost always is. In this case, it's total depravity. And you may remember this term that has come up. It started in the 17th century in the Reformation movement, where those who were in the Netherlands were responding to a teacher by the name of Arminius, and they came up with a response to him.

And we remember that response in the acronym TULIP, to which we are to remember that it came from the Netherlands, because that's where TULIPs primarily come from. But TULIP stands for total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and preservation of the saints.

Many people confuse total depravity to mean that we are as wicked as we can be. We are not when we're in atom. Pharaoh was not as wicked as he could have been. He was mighty wicked, but he wasn't as wicked as he could be.

Neither was Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or anyone else who was in atom. But it does mean that every aspect of their being was impacted by sin. For the unregenerate man, his nature is completely tied to the course of this world.

It is under the direct control of the devil and is in complete agreement with every lust of his flesh and of his mind. And there's controversy here too. You may have heard this. Isn't the unbelieving man basically good?

You ever hear that? After all, no one's perfect. Ah, my good deeds will outweigh my bad deeds in the end. Paul here is saying that the situation, as I've mentioned, is not a surface situation. We can't change our habits or our actions or our activities.

No, it is a root issue. It is a core matter. It is at the very heart. The problem is not that we lack the will or the desire to do it. The problem is our wills or those wills of those who are in atom and unregenerate are only evil continually.

But Paul goes on and he says that we were by nature children of wrath, just as the other. And Paul is saying this, and he's not referring to our created nature, but the nature of fallen man. Man is not born in a state of innocence, as humanism would tell you.

We're not a blank slate, not knowing good from evil, but we are born opposed to God. Back to that Dylan tune. Born already ruined, stone cold dead when we've stepped out of the womb. That is our nature in atom.

That was our nature in atom. That is the nature of those who are still in atom, justly being children of wrath. You know, some people will say we're all children of God. That is simply not true. Those who are in atom are sons of disobedience and children of wrath.

That's what we're up against. It's not that they just have the wrong information. It's not that just they have unbridled appetites or affections. It's not that they just don't have the, or they have an incorrect view of the world system, although they all do.

In some ways, they're like real zombies. The walking dead, spiritually dead, blinded by the devil, given to the course of this world, trapped in the lust of the flesh and of the mind and all willingly so.

That's a pretty desperate situation. Pretty grim. But notice the next verse.

Verse four.

Verse four is at the very heart of Christian theology. But God, who is rich in mercy, grace, mercy, loving kindness. This is part of what the reformers said in that soundbite that they came up in the Reformation.

Sola gratia, grace alone. But God and not man. Man is unable to do anything for himself. Paul here is telling us that man is not capable of anything spiritually, but God is. God, out of the depths and riches of his divine grace, because of his great love with which he loved us, there was nothing to commend ourselves to him.

We were totally unlovable. But yet he loved us. Even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive in Christ. As we've noted, many people, including many Christians, believe that man must take the first step to God.

But no man seeks after God. Paul puts it this way in Romans 3 .10. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside.

They have all together become unprofitable. There is none who does good. No, not one. It took, and it takes divine action. This work is a spiritual resurrection. Those who were in Adam were dead. We, when we were in Adam, we were dead, and he makes us alive.

He made us alive. And all this took place while we were dead. This is something I want you to grasp and I want you to hold on to. We worship a God who raises the dead. I don't know, think about where you may find yourself today.

What situations you may be facing. What difficulties you are. Are they as dead as Jesus in the tomb for three days? If so, be of good cheer. We worship a God who raises the dead. We can't raise ourselves.

Think back to that account of Lazarus. Lazarus was in the tomb for four days. And not only that, he started to decompose. You remember what his sister said when they were opening the tomb? He's gonna, he's gonna stink.

He does stink. He's rotting away. He was totally unable to raise himself. The power of God. And regeneration comes before faith. That's another controversial statement. But it is absolutely, biblically true.

The new birth comes before faith and it comes before we do anything. Yes, we believe, absolutely. We respond 100%. We choose God. We call that our conversion. But it is not until God has worked through his spirit and radically changed our nature.

He gives us spiritual life. He raises us from a spiritual grave so that we may be able to do something, particularly things which we'll talk about in just a moment. Then we have this parenthetical thing.

Perhaps the greatest thing written in parentheses in all human history. By grace, you have been saved. How could it be anything else but grace? We are utterly dependent upon a supernatural work. We were dead.

Dead people don't earn gifts. Grace is unmerited favor. We are not saved because we deserve it or earned it. We have not worked for it. We are saved by grace. But Paul continues. And he raised us up together and made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness towards us in Jesus Christ.

We are sitting right now. We remember this back from Ephesians one. We are sitting right now in the place where Christ sits in the heavenly places. Where is Christ sitting now? On his throne. He has dominion over all things.

And we who are spiritually resurrected have been given dominion over the world with Christ. Remember, he said that we were adopted as his children. And then later in chapter one, he says we are co-heirs with Christ.

That we're going to get this inheritance and the down payment on that inheritance was the Holy Spirit. We are co-heirs with Christ and we're not to do our own thing. We're to do what he tells us to do.

Do what he does. We have dominion through Christ establishing his kingdom through us, the church. And it's not just these four walls. When we go out here, that's Jesus's too. When you go down the street, that belongs to Jesus.

When you go across the country, that belongs to Jesus. And you get the idea, wherever we go. Christ, who at present is in the heavenly places, is extending his kingdom today through the church in the here and now.

But he says in the coming ages, right? In the verse here, that in the coming ages, he's going to show this in a way, the show is exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us in Christ. That's the kingdom.

The kingdom will be gloriously manifested before the world. His inheritance, his kingdom, his people will be extended to the ends of his domains. These are his lands. This is his universe. And it will become more and more evident throughout history.

The manifold wisdom of God will be made manifest so everybody can see it. And this work has already begun and will continue one spiritual resurrection at a time until the second coming when he will consummate the kingdom.

But now we continue. And Paul writes in verse eight, for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Another controversial verse. Many of you may know this.

What is the gift that is at the heart of this controversy? What's the gift that is given? Is it salvation or is it faith? And much ink has been spilled, we might say, in writing on this. And many words have been exhausted in debate.