"Dead or Alive?" Ephesians 2:1-10

 The 11th Sunday After Trinity   8/11/ 24

Sermon Text: Ephesians 2:1-10

Sermon Theme: Dead Or Alive? I. The Walking Dead (vs.1-3)

II. The Crucified Dead? (vs.4-7) III. The Resurrected Dead Living? (vs.8s-10) by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

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I.N.R.I. Dead men walking. Corpses walking into the Lord’s House to worship. Dead men gathering to pray. Two gather they are not alone, Jesus as He promised is in their midst. The Lord of Life draws near to dead men walking to His altar to worship. One of the dead men is revered by the congregation. He is the most honored in the community. Everything he does is wonderful. He is revered as the holy one, the savior of the congregation. The other dead man stinks. Literally and in the holy nostrils of the congregation. His vocation is less than honorable, for it reminds the congregation of their past failures – sins. How dare that dead man draw near with his stinking bloody offering at the Lord’s altar! The first dead man brings the best of his work to the altar it is delightful and delicious. This other noxious dead man brings only death and blood to the Lord of Life.

    Certainly the first dead man will be honored and the second dead man shunned by Jesus. Our Creator doesn’t see as we see – His vision cuts deep into our hearts and minds – He knows what we cling to – what we run to find help in time of need. He knows the God we really worship. The despised dead man is honored. The honorable dead man is rejected by he Lord of Life. How can this be?

     The honorable dead man rages against God’s grace. He had brought his finest gifts earned by the sweat of his brow – how dare the Creator reject the labor of his hands. The despised dead man bloody dead stinking gift was accepted honored received by the Creator – how could this be? The good dead man rages with anger. He will free the congregation of that filthy poor miserable sinner, even if it takes the sword. Anger turns to hatred, murder in the heart, and then into action. Honorable dead men justify the murder of their own brothers treating them like animals to be kept, instead of flesh and blood brothers to be shown mercy.

       Do these dead men sound familiar? Are they Cain and Abel in the congregation of Adam? The Pharisee and Tax Collector in Jesus’ Temple? Paul’s congregation at Ephesus? Or are they us here at Emmanuel, Tell City, Indiana on this Lord’s Day within our Lord’s House gathered at His altar? Are you here to give or receive? To lay your offering before your Creator to please Him, or to bring Him your filth, stench, and death to stain His white robes? Are you: Dead Or Alive? I. The Walking Dead (vs.1-3)

II. The Crucified Dead? (vs.4-7) III. The Resurrected Living? (vs.8s-10)

I. “  Two men went up into the temple to pray.” Jesus of Nazareth gives a picture story to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. We would never do that….would we...despise others because they aren’t doing what we know would work better?

      We identify with the humble tax collector as we hear Jesus’ Word. After all we aren’t crowding the front pews. What happens outside of pew sitting? Do you trust your brothers and sisters in Christ when they don’t do things the way you are certain will work best? Does your temper stir when your husband or wife, brother, sister, father, mother don’t follow your ways? Can’t they see all the good we’ve done, our sacrifices, how well we’ve lived in discipline for them? How dare they not act the way we want them to follow our wishes? Our old Adam is a Pharisee, like Cain we want to be praised, honored, listened to for all the good that we have done in our families, congregations, schools, and communities.

          Imagine the shame of being a member of a congregation whose pastor was a troublemaker. Now imprisoned - arrested an enemy of the state – after all when he began his work in your community he so irritated the good businessmen and tradesmen that they rioted demanding his arrest and death. Your good congregation would be scandalized by pastor Paul of Tarsus and his blunt preaching of the Crucified and Risen Jesus as the only Way, the only Truth, the only Life – apart from which not even the best man or woman can stand before God the Father.

         We walk in our father Adam’s footsteps from the moment of conception. Hear the Truth! (vs.1-3) Dead men made alive. Both religious Jews and pagan idolatrous Gentiles – we all were dead in Adam’s rebellion. We hear God’s Law thunder from our hearts, it is the voice of conscience, though clouded by spiritual deadness. We hear God’s Holy Ten Commandments boiled down by Jesus to their divine essence , when asked by a scribe, “What is the greatest commandment in the Law?” History records: Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mar 12:29-31)  We hear – we rebel - we don’t love our Creator the only True God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with all we are and possess. We certainly don’t love our neighbor as much as we love self. Just ask your spouse, parents, or siblings to be honest with you – and listen.

      We were dead men walking. The world applauded our walk we followed their way. A way the world flashes before us on screens, sings into our ears with its popular narcissitic hymns of self praise and indulgence. We were puppets of the fallen angel Satan whose lie pulls the strings of our old adam. He knows how to play our fallen flesh – turning us away from God’s life breathing Word and the love of God our Father to trust in our feelings. Our great spirituality apart from Jesus’ Word is darkness – we want to follow our lusts, fleshly desires, delusions of our mind – that we are wiser than our Creator and we know what is best for our life. But it isn’t life – it is death that we walked in – separated from the Lord of Life by our sin – under God’s eternal and just wrath and judgment on the highway to hell.

II. You were spiritually dead, applauded by the world as being progressive, empowered by the spirit alive in disobedient sons, doing your own thing as it felt and seemed right to you. Then the Lord of Life – Jesus of Nazareth found you in your filth, stench, and deadness. He made you alive washing you into His innocent flesh, pouring His sin cleansing blood upon you in baptism. Marking you as His own through His cross! Hear Him! (vs.4-7) Satan deceives leading you to suffer eternal death in hell. Jesus kills you in baptism by uniting you with His own flesh crucified for you on Good Friday – that He might raise you to new life with His living risen forever living flesh on Easter Sunday.

     God doesn’t save you because you are good. He saves you for He is rich in mercy. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are mercy and love. His mercy. His love. His sacrifice. His life is breathed into you who rebelled against Him. Nothing earned, His only begotten Son given for you. Jesus, the eternal only begotten Son, obeys the Father’s merciful and loving will to become your Brother by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He comes to bring life to our fallen creation through His sacrifice for all sinners upon the cross. Risen He ascends as our Brother and our Savior God filling all creation that here in His House He may breathed out His Holy Spirit to bring you peace through sins forgiven and forgotten by your merciful loving God.

        He has raised you up to sit with Him in heavenly places by grace through faith Jesus alone as your Sin-Bearer, your Life, your Salvation! Of the stinking shepherd Abel the Holy Spirit teaches, “Heb 11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”  Abel believed in the Father’s promise of His Son’s gift of redemption by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Promise. His blood cries out from the ground – for he lives in Jesus! Or have you not heard the Truth speak to mourning Martha, “Joh 11:25-27 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, (26) and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (27) She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

 We are now raised up to life eternal in Jesus. Yes, our bodies will rest in the grave, but only for a short while. Jesus is coming to receive you to Himself – that you may dwell in the House of the Lord forever! Life is never behind – it is always ahead of us – past present suffering, sorrow, the grave, decay – in the resurrection of the body – the life of the world to come – Jesus’ life eternal given to all who trust in Him as their sin Sacrifice, Mercy, and Love.

III.  How can this be? It is all gift. The false worship of the law demands that we bring our good gifts to God. The true worship of the Gospel is we bring nothing confessing our sins and clinging only to the cross of Jesus!

        Now we are the resurrected living! Hear the Holy Spirit’s work in you! (vs.8-10) By grace – God’s undeserved love to us real fallen sinners. His grace alone saves us through His crucified, risen, and ruling Son! This grace is made yours by faith. Faith isn’t your work, your choice, your decision – it it the ongoing gift of the God the Holy Spirit through Jesus’ Word assuring you of God the Father’s reconciling love for real sinners – like me – like you.

       Faith is God the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work for sinners as they hear Jesus’ Word at home, in our congregation, in our community.  He strengthens to live your faith in love. Made alive in Jesus you are freed to love your neighbor and enemies as God in Christ loves you.

      Two dead men walked into God’ s House to pray – one went Home alive in mercy, the other isolated himself. Are you dead or alive? I am both....100% dead in Adam, 100% alive in Christ Jesus. Amen.