But God Made You Alive

Christian, how were you saved?  God Made You Alive

Ephesians 2:1-5

Before our conversion there was nothing in us to commend us to God, we were spiritually dead in trespasses and sins.  Not only that but we were worldly.  Our life was governed by the plan or the mold of this world.  This is humanity without God.  We were also disobedient, we were willfully disobedient to the word of God.  We were lost creatures.  This manifested itself in physical and intellectual desires.  By nature, by physical birth we were also damned, we were under God's wrath.  But that was in time past.  It was before we were saved that we were like that.  But Christians are no longer dead (in sin), or worldly, or disobedient, or under wrath.  You were that before conversion but it is all finished now. 

But (you might say) "what about so and so, they profess Christ but they disobey Christ all the time.  They don't have any spiritual hunger."  There is one answer, that person was not truly converted.  Ephesians 2:2 "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience."  Note the important words "in time past"  A past completed action is now over and finished permanently, it doesn't happen anymore.   If these things are not past then you are not converted.  You can't be. 

Christians before their conversion were in a terrible state and could do nothing to change it.  Was there any hope?  Is there any hope?  If there is any hope it is not in you or me.  There is not one shred of hope in humanity, not one.  But there is hope and there was hope and we are going to find out about it.
But God: V4 "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,"  the little word But means nevertheless, you were dead, you had no hope and you were much more, But God, nevertheless God, in spite of what you were, God.  This the But of difference and the But of hope.  But God.  

Please note the verse does not say that you were dead, you were damned, "but human free will" does it?  It doesn't say you were bound in sin "but a wee bit of religion" It doesn't say "but good works"  It doesn't say "but human free will" because your will was a slave and a servant of sin before you were saved. Ephesians 2:2 "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience."     Your will was not free.   It doesn't say "but religion" because religion doesn't make any difference.  It doesn't say "but good works" because before you were saved you didn't have any saving good works..  there is no good saving works before God.  It doesn't say any of those things because it was nothing in us.  It says that we were all those wretched things in V3 "Among whom also we all.....in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."  But God.  In spite of what you were, God did something.  But God.  Those two words are the difference between biblical Christianity and every other religion in the world.