Children of Wrath

Could you please stand when you arrive to Ephesians chapter 2.

We're going to be in Ephesians 2, verses 1 -3. Please stand for the reading of God's Word. 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.

You can please be seated. Benevolence, Sovereign Father, we come before you this morning.

We ask God that you would help us to see the true condition of humanity today, not with our own eyes, but with the eyes of faith, the eyes of understanding, of revelation, and the knowledge of you.

Help us, God, to see the need that we have so desperately for the great and awesome

Savior that we have in Jesus. And help us, Lord, to look past our own deficiencies, our own faults, our own sins, our own trespasses, and see the glories that await at the cross of Jesus Christ.

And we ask these things in his name. Amen. Well, church, as you probably noticed from the title of today's sermon, the title being

Children of Wrath, and the verses that we've read, the songs that we've been singing, it's meant to evoke in us an emotion.

And what that is, it's not a, this is a preface that basically is to say, this is not going to be the most cheerful of messages.

This is not going to be ones of which you may feel or leave this place completely elated.

Some messages that come from God's word will evoke in us great joy and emotion and happiness.

Others may not evoke the same things. Sometimes it may leave us feeling maybe a bit distraught at the condition of our fallen state.

But I want you to know today that one of the things that we are to preach is the gospel that is what we are to preach, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the word gospel means good news. But before you can receive the good news, you have to know what the bad news is.

Because when you understand the bad news, the good news becomes all the more good and sweeter.

And so another way I could have named the topic of today's sermon could have been the bad news.

And so typically when you are sharing news with someone, you might say, hey, I've got good news and bad news.

What do you want first? And typically some people would prefer to hear the bad news first because that way at least there's something good after that.

And so that's the preface of today's sermon. This is a sermon of bad news, but I assure you good news is coming.

Amen. Well, again, in the previous chapter, we're going through the book of Ephesians.

In the previous chapter, the Apostle Paul reveals the grandeur, the bigness, the awesomeness of God's plan of election and the salvation of his people, the inheritance of his saints, and his plan to bring all things under the reign, dominion, and control of King Jesus.

And that he's bringing all things under his dominion in the fullness of time. So as Paul then transitions in his giving thanks for the

Ephesian church, he prays for their enlightenment and for their strength and confidence.

And he appeals to the risen, exalted, and ascended Savior, even the Lord Jesus Christ, who is above all rule and authority and is the head of his church and is the foundation and the wellspring of the church's strength and enlightenment.

And so after doing all that, after exclaiming the glories and grandeur of the gospel, of the fullness of time, he then in chapter 2, verse 1, begins to give us a different view of the reality of the situation for the

Ephesian church. And he says the following in verse 1, And you were dead in trespasses and sins.

You were dead. You need to recognize this about yourselves, dear brothers and sisters, that if you be in Christ today, what the

Lord did in your salvation wasn't merely make a morally faulty person or character a little bit more morally acceptable.

What God did in your salvation wasn't just make you a little bit nicer, wasn't just to make you a little bit more like Jesus, but instead what he did and accomplished in the salvation of man is that he brought someone who was spiritually dead and made them alive in Jesus.

You need to know that before Christ, B .C., you were dead. If you are today here and you are not one who professes faith in Jesus, the reality of your condition today is that you are spiritually dead.

Now what does that mean? To be spiritually dead? Or to be dead in the trespasses and sins?

Well, first I want to address this question. Who is Paul addressing when he says, and you were dead?

Again, that's how he opens up in Ephesians 2 .1. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins.

Well, he's addressing very clearly the Ephesian church or the Ephesian saints. You can write that in if you're following in today's insert in the teaching.

And you were dead is a reference to the saints in Ephesus. Paul, after exclaiming the glories of God in his plan of the ages and the authority of Christ over his church, he reminds the believers in Ephesus of what they have been called out of and the condition of their souls before the sovereign grace of the

Lord had been graciously lavished on them. And though the primary audience here is obviously the saints in the

Ephesian church, what Paul is describing is the state of every single person outside of Christ.

They are indeed dead. But in what sense are people dead before Christ?

Again, look at verse 1. It says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins.

If you're following along, the second part of that teaching, mankind is dead because of their trespasses and sins.

You see, the Bible tells us about our state in Romans 3, verse 23. It says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

You and I, every single person that you know, your grandfather, your grandmother, your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your cousins, your friends, your teachers, your coworkers, everyone who has ever drawn breath into their lungs is under the same condemnation of sin because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So great is our condition that the Bible says in Romans 6, verse 23, for the wages of sin is death.

There's a wage that's accompanied with our sin. Just like many of us have a job where we accumulate a wage, whether it be hourly or salary, we are accumulating by means of our works, by means of our efforts, a salary that is due to us.

And just by nature of our fallen condition, we are indeed working towards a salary of the outcome being death.

Death is the outcome of the salary of sin. And this is the condition of all human beings.

The Bible says in Psalm 51, verse 5, that even in iniquity, I was conceived in my mother's womb.

There is no escape from the condition of sin. It has been inherited by and through our father

Adam. When Adam sinned and transgressed the law of God in the garden, we, being his offspring, have now accumulated for ourselves that same nature and the same outcome that Adam received in the garden.

Paul in this text is reminding the Ephesian saints of their former condition and the reality that is apart from Christ.

And it tells us something that is true of all mankind in his fallen state, that he is spiritually dead.

So this is to say that a spiritually dead person is someone who is very much alive in the physical.

You can be alive. You can be drawing breath. You can have friends. You can have family. You can have work. You can have enjoyment.

But in our spiritual self, we are stillborn, dead, apart from God, apart from Christ.

What does it mean to be spiritually dead? Well, first, we must define what death is. And death is not non -existence.

Oftentimes, people think that to be dead means to be non -existent. It's the complete opposite of life, that if life there's experience, in death there must be no experience.

If in life there's feeling, then in death there must be no feeling. And that's not what the Bible describes about the condition of death.

Instead, we know that the Bible teaches that death is not merely non -existence of some sort, but it is a change in condition, or more accurately put, death is indeed being separated from physical life.

So again, rather, physical death is the state of separation from physical life.

It's a separation. Not non -existence, separation. And so likewise, then, the spiritual death is not a state of non -existence when it comes to the condition of man as if they were without a soul or spirit.

Rather, their spirit is separated from God and the life that he brings eternally in Christ.

And what resulted in that spiritual separation from God? Well, as we see in the

Garden of Eden, when God commanded the original couple, our father Adam and our mother

Eve, and he commanded them that of this tree you mustn't eat, but of all other things you can partake freely and enjoy and inhabit and have dominion over the earth.

And instead, they chose in that garden to separate themselves from the law of God, from the command of God.

And in that separation, God says, if you eat of this tree, you will surely die.

And when they took and they partook of that tree, the knowledge of good and evil, and their eyes were opened, they were able to see wickedness for the first time, what it looked like to be rebellious against the

Creator. At that moment, they were separated from God, completely separated from the life that God gives.

And then mortality crept into the creation. And through mortality came, of course, death, physical separation.

But God literally removed himself and removed Adam and Eve from the garden.

And God became separate from man, which is where we get the word holy. Holy means to be separate, to be other, to be of a different degree.

And God in his holiness separated himself from humanity in that garden because man had chosen sin.

And as a result of Adam's sin, we have all inherited that same nature of rebellion because what was the true sin in the garden was not simply the partaking or eating of an apple, as the world would put it.

And first and foremost, it likely, more than likely, was not an apple. It's probably a one -of -a -kind tree that is no longer in existence.

But when they partook of that fruit, what they were actually partaking was the fruit of rebellion, was the fruit of wanting to be like God, the fruit of saying,

God, here's your law, but here's what we want, and we will do things our way. It is a life apart from God.

And we all have inherited that nature. We all want to do things our way. We all want to do things that is pleasing to our eyes, to our sensibilities, to our desires, to our hopes and dreams.

And we have, in a sense, become our own little gods of our own little kingdoms and dominions, whether it be the house or homes or at the workplace or whatever it is that you may try to exert strength, power, or dominion over, you try to exert yourself as a little god.

And we know that all gods apart from the true God are indeed false gods. There is only one true and everlasting

God, and his name is Yahweh. And so, again, what we see in the garden is that we find that in Adam we are dead in our trespasses and sins.

Now, there's two words that are brought up here in the text, trespasses and sins, and there's probably no essential difference between the two nouns.

The root meaning of the first, trespasses, literally means missing the mark. So when

I was an addiction counselor in Canada, one of the exercises that we would do with the men when we would get into our circles is

I'd put a cup in the middle of the floor and I'd give them each a pen.

And I'd say, I want you to throw that pen inside that cup. And it's a fun little exercise. Everyone's having fun trying to get it in, and no one can get it in.

It's really hard. And even if you get it in with the force of the pen, it'll just tip over the cup, and no one is ever able to really hit the mark.

And as we're all having fun, and then I explained to them, I said, you know, I want you to know that this is you.

This is you in your addiction. This is you in your hurt habits and hang -ups. You are missing the mark.

And as hard as you may try and try and try to get that mark, you will always miss it because you do not have that which is required in order to get the mark.

And friends, that's true of us in our fallen nature. We will miss the mark.

We will trespass. It is in our nature. The second, the word that's used here for sin, means slipping or falling from the way.

And thus both expressions express the failure of people to live according to the law of God and to his eternal decree.

Adam and Eve, again, were created in God's image to have dominion, but instead of rulership, instead of rulership, they allow themselves to be ruled, falling into the trespass and sin of this obeying

God. And as a result, that very day, they died. But they died a spiritual death.

They were separated from the Lord God, then, in the garden. The text here also highlights the root of man's depravity.

It is something that is innate in him. Since we have inherited nature from our father Adam, the trespasses and sins are a desire and mechanism of our wickedly depraved heart and nature.

I want you, if you can, to turn to the book of James. James 1. James, the first chapter.

Notice where sin originates and comes from. Starting in verse 13,

James 1 .13 says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil.

And he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin.

And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. It is a desire.

It is out of your heart that originates all types of malice, wickedness, fornication, adultery, lying, thieving, blaspheming.

It all originates in the heart of man. The heart is the source of your volition to sin.

You know, there's another saying. Within Christianity, a lot of folks like to blame the devil for everything. Well, the devil made me do it.

Or the devil made me sin. Can I tell you that you can do bad all by yourself. You don't need a devil to make you to sin.

You choose sin. Not only do you choose it, it is in your nature to choose it.

You want it. You like it. It feels good. It is in our nature to desire this sinful life and course.

You don't need to blame the devil for your woes and troubles. Look no further than one's own desire, one's own hearts.

You see, the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. And it's the heart that needs to be addressed when we're talking about the nature of man and we're talking about a need for a

Savior in the person and work of Jesus Christ. As a result of our desire and our desire to sin, our desire for wickedness because we were dead in our trespasses and sins,

Ephesians 2. And our main text says, in which you once walked. Talking to the church in Ephesus.

He's saying you Christians, you who are redeemed, those who received an awesome report in chapter 1 of Ephesians, those same people, he says, you once walked this way.

This is what you once were. He's relating to them their former condition. And that they were once 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.

If you're following along in today's teaching, the sons of disobedience follow the world and Satan who is at work in them.

You must recognize this morning the truth about the depravity of man. And that is that the depraved nature of man is under slavery to its passions.

And are under the dominion of Satan, the devil who is the prince of the air. A title that's denoting the rulership over the other principalities that we see throughout scripture.

It is speaking of his fear of influence and power and authority that he has. Now the

Bible teaches us something about Satan that you must all know today. The Bible says this regarding him in 1

John chapter 5 verse 19. That the whole world is lying in the hand of the evil one.

Maybe when you were a kid you heard that old song that was taught to children. He's got the whole world in his hands.

He's got the whole wide world. You know, I hate that song. And the reason I do is because of that text. Because who's got the whole world in his hand?

The Bible says it's Satan the devil. He's got a level of rulership and dominion over the spirits of the air.

Not to go too deep into that expression, but I do believe that this expression is clearly in verse 2 that we find that those who once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, this is a clear reference to our enemy, the enemy of our souls,

Satan the devil, who is the prince. He's the principality. And he's over the power of the air.

And it's the spirit that's now at work and the sons of disobedience. This is to say again that Satan has authority and dominion specifically over other spiritual powers and principalities.

In the same book of Ephesians, please turn to chapter 6. And notice what it says in verse 12, a very well -known text.

This chapter it says, to stand against the schemes of the devil. It says, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil where?

In the heavenly places. You see, the Bible teaches us.

We see this in Daniel 10, verse 13 where you have Michael the archangel. He's clearly a spirit person that is sent from the presence of God.

He's a friend of God, not an enemy of God. And he's contending with the prince of Persia. Now this word, prince of Persia, it's often, most scholars believe that this is a reference to a spiritual ruler, a spiritual principality.

So it's not that you have Michael the archangel literally fighting an earthly prince, but rather the prince that's behind the earthly power.

See, all the nations are under the influence of Satan. The Bible teaches us that the whole world is under the hand of the wicked one.

The Bible also says in 2 Corinthians 4, 4 that the God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so they may not see the glorious light of the gospel of Christ.

But thanks be to God that through Jesus, in His life, in His death and resurrection,

He is binding the power of the enemy, giving His people, the church, the ability, the power to go forth into the present darkness and to push back against the kingdom of darkness and bring people into the kingdom of His beloved

Son, the glorious kingdom of light. But we see again in Scripture it is clear that there is powers and principalities in the heavenly places.

And so when Ephesians chapter 2, verse 2, tells us about the prince of the power of the air, it is a clear reference to the prince of the air, the principality of darkness, even

Satan the devil himself. And here's a teaching of Scripture that is very clear as well in this text and other places, is that Satan is a true, personal, spiritual being.

He's not a figment of our imagination. He's not just a picture of evil itself.

He is a divine, spiritual being who is opposed to the work of God and of His people.

He is the adversary. He is the slanderer of God's people. And so the sons of disobedience, that would be anyone and everyone apart from Christ, follow the world and Satan.

You've probably heard in commentaries and in books that there is what is referred to often, which is, I'm not a huge fan of this phrase, but the unholy trinity of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

And there's some utility in referring to these three aspects of which we find darkness and wickedness and evil, and that's of course in the world.

Now what does it mean when it says that they were following the course of this world? Don't we read in Scripture like in John 3 .16,

one of the most well -known verses of the Bible, that God so loved the world? Is the world a bad thing or is it a good thing?

Does God love it or does God hate it? Well the truth is that the world can have several different meanings according to the context of the text.

In this situation, what we see in Ephesians 2 is a negative connotation of the world, the overall spirit of the world, a spirit that is opposed to God, as opposed to the government of God, His kingdom,

His rulership. This world, think of it just today, is the world that we live in today ideal?

Perfect? Without sin? Does it miss the mark? Of course it misses the mark.

And those who follow the world and its trends are always, it's almost like a hamster in a wheel, right?

It's always trying to keep up with the Jones, trying to keep up with the appearances, trying to keep up with the modes and models and all the things of this world.

The Bible says that as Christians, we ought not to follow the course of this world, but be transformed in the renewal of our minds.

It goes on to say in chapter 2, verse 2 of Ephesians again, and it says, following the prince of the poverty, the spirit is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

Those who follow the flesh, those who are apart from the life -saving gospel of Jesus are walking as sons of disobedience.

Why? Because their father is Adam. Or more prominently so, they have another father.

You know, there's a saying in the world that we're all God's children. And though the sentiment is lovely and wonderful, there's, it's not a very biblically accurate statement.

We are not all children of God, we are all His creation. God has created every single one of us, we all belong to God, we are

His creatures. But not everyone is a son or child of God.

In fact, we see in John chapter 8, verse 44, Jesus tells the

Pharisees that they were children of their father, the devil.

Not everyone is a child of God, because you can only be a child of God by faith in Jesus. By being born again,

God gives you a new nature, and He adopts you, as we see in Ephesians chapter 1. He adopts His people,

He elects them, He gives them an inheritance that was not always theirs, but is now theirs in Christ.

This speaks of the condition of man, that we're not all God's children, we are all His creatures, but we're not all

His children because we often, in humanity, align ourselves with another, namely, even

Satan and the world. Again, there are sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ, and there are some who are sons of disobedience, who are sons of wrath and of the devil.

In our natural state, we are carnal, and children not only with the predisposition to a disobedience, but a nature conditioned to such disobedience.

Most people, however, fail to see the depth of their own depravity.

It's like someone who's become accustomed to their own stench. They find nothing wrong with it.

You know, I used to, one of my first jobs when I was 18, was I worked at Walmart as a cashier, checking people out.

And what would happen, at one point, there was a gentleman who would come into the store, and huge beard, huge coat, unruly hair, and he didn't have to tell me he was in the store.

You can smell him. He didn't smell very good. And what made matters worse is that he was the son of one of my co -workers.

And he just did not have a good smell. He had lots and lots and lots of cats.

And all that stench. And he walked around, and he was like, there was nothing wrong. Like, he could not see past, he could not see past his own stench.

It was pretty disgusting, to be honest. And anytime he'd come in, he'd always come to my register.

And I would, I don't want to be rude. I don't want to say, dude, you stink. So I just hold my breath, and just like, breathe through my mouth, but then you taste it, and it's just terrible.

Just terrible. But that's something of the condition of man, spiritually.

We are all, apart from Christ, literally the walking dead. We have a stench of death that follows us everywhere.

And I thought to myself, man, how could I just tell this guy, you know, in a really nice way, you know, that he stinks.

I was thinking, maybe I should just like secretly ring up shampoo or soap when he's in my line or something.

I had no idea what to do. But then there was another co -worker who wasn't quite as polite as me, who didn't worry about what this guy was gonna think.

And one day, my co -worker just says, you stink.

Go shower. And the guy was, he couldn't believe someone had the audacity to say that to him.

He didn't really respond, but you can tell in his facial expressions that he couldn't believe that someone actually told him the truth.

And friends, that speaks also of the condition of man, spiritually. We ought not to be afraid of preaching and declaring the truth about man's own stench, the stench of sin and death.

We all have gone our own way, the Bible says. There is no one righteous, no, not even one.

No one who seeks after God, no one who can find God on their own volition or will.

But instead we have to be of men of sincerity as we're going through the book of 2 Corinthians in our

Bible studies throughout the week. We have to be men of sincerity, preaching and teaching the truth about man's condition.

You know, there's no nice way of putting it that we are spiritually depraved, wicked, reprobate human beings, sons and daughters of Adam.

There's no nice way of putting it. That's the bad news. The bad news is that you are a sinner and you have no idea how bad and how wicked of a sinner you actually are.

You are so accustomed to your own stench. You are so accustomed to your own sin, to your own depravity, to your own way of thinking and doing things that you think it's normal, that you think it's okay.

The way that I live my life, the way that I do things, how I'm my own God. We see no problem with it.

Humanity sees no problem in it. But one of the reasons why Paul is bringing out this incredible truth out of Scripture to the

Ephesian church after commending them for their faith is to remind them of who they were and where they were when

Jesus found them. Jesus didn't find you all nice and neat sitting in the pew.

Instead, He found you in the midst of the depravity of your own heart.

When you were in the mud, in the manure, that's where Jesus found you.

Not when you were all cleaned and well presented, coming to church, being of good reputation, but instead

He found you when you were at your most wicked and most vile. And that is why the good news is so good.

It's because He found you in the midst of your depravity. To close up this teaching, we see in verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh.

If my word to you this morning is heavy, if it feels judgmental, that's not my aim this morning because I want you to know that we are all in the same boat.

We're all in the same boat. We're all spiritually born spiritually dead.

There's not even one except the Lord Jesus who came forth in true fullness and life.

We're all in that same boat together. Adam and Eve dropped all of us on our heads. We all have that deformity of sin.

That's why Paul goes on to say, whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

You see, Paul makes it clear that it's not merely the Gentiles who are under this fallen nature and state, but the

Jew also when he includes himself alongside the Ephesian believers. There's one scholar who puts it this way.

He says Paul the Pharisee would have hotly denied that the Jew was in these respects on a level with the

Gentile, but Paul the Christian had come to see that the possession of the law of Moses was no protection against the desires of the body and mind, prompting of instincts and false ideas.

The idea is clear. There is no distinction between Jew and Gentile in regard to our depravity.

Oftentimes the Pharisees and Jews, they saw the law as a protection, as a distinguishing mark against the filthiness and the wickedness of the

Gentiles, but Paul, seeing who he truly is in light of God's law, recognizes the truth that he himself and all the

Jews and all the Gentiles, all sons and daughters of Adam, were wickedly in that same boat of depravity.

So again, there's no distinction between Jew and Gentile. I want you to write this in the last bullet point.

As a result of our fallen state, we were by nature. It's nature. It is your nature in Adam to be children of wrath.

I want you to write that in there. As a result of our fallen nature, we were by nature. Our fallen state, we were by nature children of wrath.

There is truly no distinction between the fallen nature of a Jew and a

Gentile. We've all inherited Adam's sinful nature. And the

Bible tells us something in John 336 that should send shivers down the spine of every believer and non -believer.

And it's this. That the wrath of God abideth on the wicked.

The wrath of God abideth. It remains. It's on top of.

It's presently on the wicked. Which would include you and I, apart from Christ.

And to close this sermon, I want you to turn real quickly to Romans chapter 1. To see more clearly the truth of our state and the hope that is to be revealed in Jesus Christ.

Starting in Romans chapter 1, it says for His, God's, invisible attributes, namely

His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

So, they are without excuse. Can I tell you that every atheist who denies the providence and creation and existence of the one true and everlasting

God is not truly one who has been convinced that there is no

God, but is one who has fooled himself into thinking that there is no God. For the Bible says in Psalm 14 verse 1 that it is the fool who says in his heart, there is no

God. For His invisible attributes are clearly seen by creation.

So that no one is without excuse. Verse 21 tells us the true state of these individuals for although they knew

God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

This is the state of man apart from the life -saving gospel of Jesus. It's a state of foolishness, depravity.

Verse 22 telling us, claiming to be wise, they became fools. In exchange the glory of the immortal

God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creepy things as we saw from Pastor Conley this morning in our catechism.

The idolatry and the easiness of life to fall into the trap of idolatry which is to create other things after our own likeness and image and worship that as God.

And that is the heart of every human being. The heart of humans is a factory of idols.

Constantly turning and turning out things for their own self -worship and depravity.

Verse 24, therefore God gave up gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. Church, the reality of our state apart from Christ and the thing that should make us extremely weary and even tremble is when

God gives a people up to the desires of their hearts. And we see that in the culture today.

We see that in our nation today. A nation that has totally said to God, God we're going to do it our way.

It's the American way or the highway. And we all in this country are seeing the outcome of a nation that is being turned over to the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because, what is the root?

Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. They exchanged the immortal

God for mortal things. And God therefore has given them over to their desires.

To close this text in verse 28, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge

God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

They were filled of all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

They are gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them.

It's an incredibly sobering truth of the condition of man. Know this about yourselves, dear brothers and sisters.

If you be in Christ today, recognize and worship him for what he has saved you from and called you into.

From depth and depravity to a life heading towards hell, to now a life with a glorious hope and inheritance.

Being now called not children of wrath or sons of disobedience, but through faith in Jesus Christ you can be called a son or daughter of the

Most High God. May you make it your aim this morning. If you be in Christ, to praise him for all that he has done in saving you from your sins, but also do all that you can to live righteously and walk in holiness, knowing that God has not called us into that life of the proud, but he's called us out of it.

And if you not be in Christ this morning, you've not made that personal commitment of faith, or you've called in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ for your sins, repented of your sins, and trusted in him. Do so today, for tomorrow is not promised.

And while it is still called today, do not harden your hearts as the children of Israel did in the days of rebellion, but instead heed the words of this message, and heed the prompting of the

Holy Spirit who is reaching to you by means of his preached word. And if you are so inclined, please join me in prayer as we close.

Father, we're so thankful that out of darkness you called us into your marvelous light.

You've called us out of the dirt, out of the mud, out of the manure, of the stench of our own sin.

And you've called us to be holy, righteous, and to be cleansed of the water of baptism, and the water of the washing of the word of God.

Lord Jesus, thank you for saving us. Thank you for calling us out of darkness, into your marvelous light.

Help us in our weakness. Help us to worship you as we ought. Not according to our own imaginations, but as that which you have laid out in Holy Scripture.

God, we give you all the praise and all the glory. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.