What does it mean to be alive in Christ? It’s not about who we are or what we have done, but who He is and what He has done. This morning we are coming to a passage that is going to wrap up what we have been talking about.
Even in the day of Paul, people are very much in the same mindset as we are today. People feel that if they are a good person and do good things, they will be seen as “right” or “saved” in God’s eyes. But Paul speaks to them, and to us now, that it is only through Christ can we be seen right by God.
Why would God send people to hell? He isn’t sending them, but in ourselves, we are on our way there by default. Over and over Jesus tells us that in ourselves we are dead, living in sin, and on our way to hell. We must realize the preciousness of the salvation found in Jesus Christ. The lie we see around us is that they are in some way OK without God. But the truth is that we are on our way to death, and that Jesus gives life.
The “ruler of the kingdom of the air” refers to Satan’s power over the world who reject God’s truth.
God loved us so much, that while we were sinners, He gave us life in Jesus. Grace speaks to the love of God. Giving us something that we do not deserve.
The idea of being “raised up with Christ”, this speaks that everything entitled to Christ is also entitled to us. We have an access, right before the throne, to all grace and mercy. There are no lingering unforgiving sins. We might have lingering struggles, but God does not hold back his love and forgiveness.
Paul is saying that we are seated with God in the heavenly realms. Do you realize what this means? It means that God is on our side against the enemy. But we have to make the decision to sit at God’s table. God wants us there, he has made a place for us, but we must take him at his word in faith.
The enemy wants to try and drag you away. The enemy will try to remind you of your past or failures. But God will remind us of His promises and our new life. God does this to show you off. To give an example to people of his transforming will in your life. God is working a masterpiece in your life.
Make your prayer be to find what it means to live in God’s hands, and know that the enemy cannot be successful when you sit at God’s table in faith.
2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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— 3 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. (ESV)
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— (ESV)
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (ESV)