Connect

Guest (Female): Welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We're so glad you've tuned in today. At Connect with Skip, we're passionate about helping you grow in your relationship with Jesus. That's why we make solid verse-by-verse Bible teaching that's both clear and practical available to you and others. Every message you hear is designed to strengthen your faith and help you live out God's truth wherever he's placed you.

And you can stay connected beyond the broadcast when you sign up for Pastor Skip's free weekly devotional. You'll receive biblical encouragement, exclusive content, and free resources to help you go deeper in God's word. It's all delivered straight to your inbox. Signing up is quick, easy, and completely free. And it's a great way to stay rooted in truth every week. Sign up today at connectwithskip.com. That's connectwithskip.com. Now here's today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig.

Skip Heitzig: "According to the working of his mighty power which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion." These are names of angelic beings. Their rankings are like generals and colonels and sergeants, etc. Far above all principality, power, and might, dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age which is to come and he’s put all things under his feet and given him to be the head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

The third request is that they might know God's power. I pray that you'll know God's person. I pray that you'll know God's plan. I pray that you'll know God's power. And notice something about his power. It is according to the working of his mighty power which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. Now, we as human beings, we respect power. The word for power here is dunamin. Dunamin, dynamic or dynamite.

Dynamic is a better translation. Too many people are going to pieces already, so dynamic. It speaks of capacity. You have a new capacity. With God's calling comes God's capacity. If God's called you to something, God gives you the capacity to do it. God would never call you to do something you could never do. If he tells you to do something, go do it. "I can't do it." You can do it. With the calling comes the capacity.

Lord, help them understand the power that they have. How much power? The same power that raised Jesus from the dead. That's pretty powerful. If you ever went to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and you see those huge launching pads and if you've ever seen a shuttle being launched into space or a rocket, the payload weight upon takeoff of that contraption is 4.5 million pounds. 4.5 million pounds. It sounds like they're not getting off the ground no matter what they do with that weight.

They're earthbound. Gravity has a huge impact on 4.5 million pounds. But what they do is they apply in the rockets the equivalent thrust of 7 million pounds of pressure of thrust. 7 million pounds can take something that weighs 4.5 million pounds up through Earth's atmosphere given the gravitational pull and launch it into space. That's power. What kind of power does it take to raise a dead person back to life? Much more power.

And God is omnipotent, all-powerful. He displayed his power in the resurrection from the dead. So, Lord, I'm praying for your church at Ephesus. I'm praying for the church in Albuquerque that they would understand your power. What power you wrought when you raised Jesus from the dead that can work through their life in a new capacity to do what you've called them to do. That sums it up. By the way, please notice he does not ask God for more power.

Just that they would realize the power they already have. Sometimes, "Lord, I need more power." No, you don't. "Oh no, I need more power." No, you don't. You would be dangerous with more power. But we used to sing a song even around here, "More love, more power." No, you don't need more power. You just need more of the power God has already afforded you. You need to know what that is and live in that capacity.

You have all that you need. You have all-sufficient power. And so he prays for that. Prays that they will realize that. And he closes off the chapter, says he has put all things under his feet and given him, Christ, to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the body of Christ, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Do you realize God's plan is the church? So to all those people saying, "I'm not really into church very much," then you're not into God's plan, which is the church.

Well, I don't like organized religion. What do you like, disorganized religion? What you're saying basically is you don't want to be accountable to anybody else. You want the freedom to do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it. You don't want anybody telling you, God or otherwise, what to do. Because one of the things the church, the body of Christ, does is in unity keeps us all accountable, keeps that power under control, keeps us all accountable, and in unity spreading the kingdom of God.

So the church is God's plan. Jesus said, "I will build my church." And Paul the Apostle says, "The church is the pillar and ground of all truth." It is God's plan in every generation. So that's chapter one. Now, we have a few minutes to dip into chapter two. And you'll notice that chapter two begins with your favorite subject: you. It says in verse one, "And you." Now you go, "I take umbrage to that, that's not my favorite subject."

Well, if we took a picture, a group picture of all of us sitting here tonight, and at the end of the service it was displayed in a huge format in the foyer and you went up to that picture, who's the first person in that picture you would look for? It's who we are. This is why Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." It's not as some erroneously say, "Well, you've got to learn first to love yourself so you can love people."

No, the implication is you already do love yourself. And because you love yourself, and it's proven by the fact that you get up, look in the mirror, put a comb through your hair, put clothes on your body, feed yourself, love people that much. That's the idea of that. So he begins and he begins in chapter two taking us now from the heights of chapter one, the glorious Alpine heights of the vista of Ephesians 1, down to the pit of darkness of your life and my life before Jesus Christ.

And he says you and I, we were dead. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. If I were to paint a picture of my life—I'm not a good artist, but if I were a good artist, I can see what it would look like. I would choose all dark colors. Very dimly lit scenes of childhood, teenage years, rebellion, where I grew up. I'd have those scenes painted, but it would be very dark, very dimly lit.

Then in one of the corners up at the top, I would have the brightest white tiny little speck of light that shines through the picture and gets bigger and bigger and brighter. Then eventually I would take all the white paint I had and just pour it on the canvas. I went from darkness to light. So he gives us a picture of you and I when we were dead and in darkness and stepped into the light of the gospel. And he says this: "And you he made alive."

Now, in your Bible, is that little phrase "he made alive" in italics? It is in mine. Do you know what that means when it's in italics? It's not there. It's not there in the original. It is supplied by the translators of this version. It is a phrase lifted up from verse five where it says, "We were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved." The translators lifted that phrase out of verse five and stuck it into verse one.

Probably because this is such a dark scene, they want to give you a little jolly-up as you get into this darkness of your old life and let you know where it's going. But it really reads this in the original: "And you who were dead in trespasses and sins." The translators have added, and it's true, he did make you alive, but you don't get to that until verse five. This is your past life. You were dead. Let's just start there. You were dead.

You were born dead. You were born, you were stillborn spiritually. You were when you entered this world, even though you looked so pink and so cute, that's only on the outside. You had a sin nature. You were born D-O-A, dead on arrival. Separated from God. The unbeliever isn't just sick. The unbeliever's dead. And because dead, incapable of change. It does take God's revelation and conviction before a person can change, and regeneration, which is a work of the Holy Spirit, but you were dead in trespasses and sins.

So you and I live, we have spiritual life, but around us are zombies. We live in a world of zombies, the walking dead all around us.

Guest (Female): This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. Your support helps reach people every day with biblical truth that speaks into real life, bringing clarity, purpose, and hope. And this month, we'd like to thank you with two resources designed to help you grow in your faith and understand God's plan for your life and relationships. When you give today, you'll receive the Expound Ephesians nine-CD series with digital download, along with Pastor Skip's book Beyond the Summer of Love.

Your gift helps extend the reach of Connect with Skip Heitzig, connecting more people to God's word. Request your resources when you give $50 or more at connectwithskip.com/offer or by calling 800-922-1888. Now, here's more from Pastor Skip.

Skip Heitzig: You can put an unbeliever in the best schools and give him the best education, and in the end you'll have an educated sinner. You can send that unbeliever to the best counselor and psychiatrist and psychologist, and in the end you'll have a well-balanced sinner. You can make that person successful and gain a lot of wealth, and you'll make him a wealthy sinner. We are dead apart from Christ. That is our condition. That's how dark the scene begins in verse one.

And you were dead in two things. I want you to notice what are those two things. Trespasses and sins. Now, I know you're thinking, "Is he repeating himself? Isn't one the same?" No, they're two different things. The word sin or sins is the Greek word hamartia. And it literally means to miss the mark. It was a term in ancient Greek archery. If you would shoot at a target, if you missed that target, you sinned, you're a sinner, you missed the mark, you missed the target.

So let's say there's 20 arrows and I have my 20 arrows and there's a target in front of me. And I've got Pastor Eric up there, he's got 20 arrows, and Pastor Antonio on the other side of me, he's got 20 arrows. So Eric goes up first. Eric, you're pretty good, right, at archery? Okay, so you fire your arrows and you hit 19 bullseyes. Pretty awesome. But his last shot didn't quite nail it and he's shaking a little bit and he misses the target.

So he's missed the mark. Antonio's up next. He fires the first one, hits the bullseye, second one, bullseye, third one, bullseye, fourth, fifth, bullseye. Sixth misses, seventh misses. And then hits a few more, misses a few more. Now both have missed the mark. I get up with my bow and my arrow and I miss every single one of them. Who has missed the mark out of all three of us? All of us have missed the mark.

Some have missed the mark more than others. And it just shows I'm a better sinner than they are. They still sinned, they still missed the mark, but I also have missed the mark in every shot. That's what it means to sin. We have missed God's mark. All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. That's the word sin. We've missed the mark. Now, the second word, which is first in the list, but the second word I'm bringing up is the word trespass.

And that means to cross a known border or line, to cross over into something. You can sin even though you want to hit the mark. We all want to hit the mark. We're really trying hard to hit the mark, but none of us was perfect at it. A trespass is different. You don't want to hit anything. You just want to do what you want to do. And it is a willful, deliberate act. You know better, but you do it anyway.

So the first time you wax your floors, your kitchen floors, and you tell Junior, "Don't walk on that floor," the first time he does, "Oh, I'm so sorry." That's a sin. Once he's been told and he has a gleam in his eye, waits when you're not looking and starts walking across the waxed floor, that's a trespass. That's a willful deliberate act. You and I, we were dead, separated from God at birth by two things: sin nature, we've all missed the mark endemic in Adam's nature passed on to us, and trespasses.

We are sinners by nature, we are sinners by birth, we are also sinners by choice. Trespasses and sins. Not only that, it gets worse. Verse two: "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." The word walked in that verse is the Greek word peripateo. It means to walk about, to walk around, to stroll, to meander.

You can tell if somebody's walking somewhere or if somebody's just killing time meandering. You and I, we meandered through this world, we were just sort of, we had no purpose. It's a purposeless going about. That's the idea, peripateo. We once walked according to the course of this world. Have you ever been in a store and you walked out of that store having purchased something and then you get home and you go, "Why did I buy this? I don't even need this."

Well, it could be that you had a good salesman. It could be that you were, typically this is the real reason, you were just browsing. You were just browsing and you browsed yourself into something you don't need. So now you go, "I'm going to take this thing back, I really don't need this thing." You justified it at the time. As you were browsing, it says "save 40%" and you go, "Man, I'm saving us money. I need to buy this. This is an investment."

But you don't really need it, and so what happened? You browsed yourself into the transgression. You meandered, you browsed, and notice this: you walked, you meandered, you browsed according to the course of this world. From my reading, this originally has an idea of blowing with whatever way the wind blows. The course could be translated weather vane. Which way does a weather vane point? Whichever way the wind is blowing.

Wind is blowing from the west, points to the east. And whichever way it goes, it just turns and moves according to, that's how we lived our lives. We just were sort of browsing, meandering, being caught up with the current. Whatever the current is doing, whatever people are thinking, we get caught up with it and we go in that direction. That's how we lived our lives. But notice who's behind it all: "According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who works in the sons of disobedience."

Satan is behind all of this meandering, all of these currents that are going on in the world today. People get caught up in, you and I were a part of, he's orchestrating that. "Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, just as others." We were going downstream. We were floating with the current.

Remember the old saying: any dead fish can float downstream. We were dead and we were floating with the stream, the weather vane, the current of this world. We did that because that was our nature. We were by nature the children of wrath even as others. The wrath that is spoken of is God's wrath, but we are by nature children disposed to the wrath of God even as others under the condemnation of this world.

So chapter two begins very dark. These are dark colors in the portrait that he is painting of our life BC. You may recall the fable, the story of the scorpion who knew he needed to get across a little river but he couldn't swim. So he had a conversation with a tortoise and he said, "Mr. Tortoise, I'd like to have you give me a ride on your back to the other side of this river because you can swim and I can't."

And the tortoise said, "I'm not going to put you on my back, are you kidding? Are you nuts? You're going to sting me when we're halfway across and then I'm going to die. I'm going to sink in the water." And the scorpion said, "Well, that's highly illogical. Why would I ask you to take me across the river only to sting you? Because if you drown, I drown." The turtle rather said, "You've got a point there." So he said, "Hop on."

And the scorpion gets on the tortoise's back and they go across the river. Halfway across the river, he raises that stinger, gives it all that he's got, stings the tortoise. The tortoise starts sinking down into the water feeling his energy go and he says to the scorpion, "I just have one question. You just said it was illogical that you would sting me and here you stung me." And the scorpion said, "Well, let me just tell you, Mr. Turtle, it's not about logic. It's my nature."

It's the nature of the scorpion to deliver that sting, to deliver that bite. Has nothing to do with logic. You and I have a nature, a sin nature, we acted according to our nature. We are by nature separated from God. By nature, sinners by birth and choice. Next verse, best part of all, best part of the story: "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 heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Do you notice that Paul loves that little phrase "in Christ Jesus"? 85 times Paul writes "in Christ Jesus" in his letters. He loved that phrase. He loved picturing you in Christ. Jesus died, you died. Jesus rose, you rose.

Jesus ascended, you ascended. Jesus is at the right hand of God, you're there with him in heavenly places. He's knowing you're eventually going there, so he writes positionally that you are already there as if it's already happened. And so he talks about us in heavenly places and we mentioned last week, it's not just a location that we're eventually going to go to, but it is a dimension, a dimension something we can turn into at any moment here on Earth.

We can connect with the power, the person, the plan of God in heavenly places. You see, that's what it means in Colossians: seek those things which are above. Where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. Live with that heavenly reality in mind. Live knowing God's power, God's plan, God's purpose, God's person. Live with that reality at all times. When you do, you won't sink. You won't get bogged down.

Guest (Female): We're so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, here's a reminder. When you give $50 or more this month, we'll send you the Expound Ephesians series along with Pastor Skip's book Beyond the Summer of Love as our thanks. These resources offer biblical insight and encouragement to help you grow in your faith and experience God's design for your life and relationships. Your support helps keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting more people to God's word. Give today at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time.