Sin kills. The Bible describes people who are dead in their disobedience. How do these people live? They follow the ways of the world and of the devil. Thankfully, there’s an antidote for sin and alienation from God.
Christ makes us alive and saves us through the grace of God, but he doesn’t stop there. The Bible said that we can sit with him in the heavenly realms, and that God will lavish even more kindness on us. God really loves people, and he wants everyone to be saved. (See Ephesians 2:1-7.)
In last Sunday’s message, we talked about God’s amazing love for people. Here are the primary passages we covered.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions —it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?
