Ephesians: Destined to Win In Christ! Part 3 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue – 12/02/2024

Praise the Lord. Friends, welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’re here today. We’re gonna be talking and sharing on the fact that we are destined to win when we believe on Jesus Christ. Actually, we become a brand new creation in Christ Jesus when we believe on him. So we’re gonna be sharing from Ephesians 2:1-10 some of the most powerful scriptures in the Bible. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today. And I’m so glad to have Aaron sharing. We’ve been sharing from the book of Ephesians, we’ve been talking about the fact that we are destined to win. And we started in Ephesians 1, talking about the fact that we have a new position, a new condition. We talked about that we have a new purpose in Christ Jesus, and we have a brand new way of praying. In fact, Paul, in his prayers, if you wanna know a New Testament way to pray. Study the prayers of Paul in Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3, Colossians 1, in Philippians 1. Paul never prays from a sense of lack, a sense of defeat, a sense of need. He prays in this way, know who God is, know who Christ is, know what he’s called you to do, and know what he’s invested in you so that you can get the job done. And when you start praying from a position of victory, it completely changes the way you pray. Now, he talks about how we received that position of victory, and he says, “We have a brand new condition.” Again, in Ephesians 2, the first 10 verses, we are saved by his grace.

Yeah, and these 10 verses are actually probably, maybe the 10, my most favorite verses in the Bible, I think. I think this explanation of the gospel is the just very compact, very powerful, very, man, look at what God has done. Look at who you are in Christ. Look at-

Amen.

It’s just right there. And if people could wrap their brain around these first 10 verses, you’d really understand. Just that power, that man, the gospel, it packs a punch.

Amen. Hallelujah.

So I’m excited to go through these verses right now.

So he talks about, first of all, who we were and who we are. And he says this in verse one, “You hath he quickened, you hath he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sin.”

Everyone sin. You know, there’s some people that today, some believers who kind of go off into a ditch where they just think, “Well, everyone’s saved. You know, just everyone’s automatically going to heaven.” It’s a kind of this deconstructionist type of thing. But you have to realize, yeah, you’ve been saved if you believe on Jesus, but you were dead in trespasses and sins. It doesn’t matter how good you think you are, how good you think you were, without Jesus, everyone needs a savior. Everyone needs Jesus, period. Without him, you’re dead.

Lawson That’s awesome.

Without him, you’re a sinner. Without him, you’re stuck in trespasses. You know, that means you’ve messed up.

You know, the Bible says that, “The wages of sin is death,” in Romans 6:23. But the gift of God is eternal life. So we were dead. But not only are the wages of sin, death, Romans 5 tells us in Romans 5:12, that just like Adam’s sinned in the beginning, that we have all sinned. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” So if we’ve all sinned, then we must believe to receive the grace of God and receive God’s righteousness by faith in Jesus.

And there’s really only two spiritual conditions. You’re either spiritually dead or you’re spiritually alive. And there’s only one way to be made spiritually alive. And that’s to have Jesus living on the inside of you, to believe on Jesus, to have him be your personal Lord and Savior.

Yeah. To receive Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. And so, Paul begins here, you know, saying, “You hath he made alive who were dead and trespasses and sin.” But he goes on here in the next three verses and talks about really who we were. And then God’s mercy says wherein in time past. He’s talking about before you receive Christ, “You walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power, of the heir of the Spirit, but now works in the children of disobedience.”

So spiritually, we were lost, we were sinners. We needed a savior. He says in verse three, “Among whom we had our conversation or our lifestyle, our behavior in time passed in the lust of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” So, you know, it’s not just our flesh and our mind. You know what? We had to be born of God, we had to be born again.

Well, we really see that in the world today. That’s really what drives these people who are outside of Christ. If you think something is right, then it’s right. Your mind is God. If you think something is right, if you think something is true to you, then it that’s it.

That’s not a godly mindset.

And the lust of the flesh, that’s just like, “If something feels right, that means just go for it.” Maybe as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. If it’s only you making that decision, then it’s fine. But that’s not God’s way. That might be the world’s way because they’re just into the flesh and into the desires of the mind. But that’s not God’s way. And that’s really the philosophy of the world today. It’s that spirit, you know, that works from the prince of power of this world, you know, working through the sons of disobedience. That’s that driving philosophy, If it feels right, if you think it’s right, then just go for it.

Right. You know, I had an employee years and years ago, and he did something really stupid. And I said, “But why did you do this?” “Well, because it felt good.” And I’m like, “That is not the response of a born again person.” That is not the response when somebody does something really terrible, right? Really against the scripture. Right? That’s not the response of a born again person. He says, “Who were by nature children of wrath.” You know, the Bible says that we were children of wrath and we treasured up wrath against the day of wrath and the righteous judgment of God. That’s what it’s talking about, even as others. That’s not the saved it, that’s not the response of somebody who’s, if I did something like that, person did, my spirit would grieve me. It would be hard for me to live with myself until I got that thing right with God. You know, you gotta stay.

Well, when you’re born again, your spirit is the same as Jesus, And that’s your navigational system. It’s always pointing you towards truth, pointing you towards heaven, pointing you towards the Father. And if you don’t have that in you, you need to get born again. ‘Cause your navigational system’s just spinning around in circles. Because there is no truth, there is no right, there is no wrong, there’s just…

So, that’s why Jesus said, “You must be born again.” Right? We’ve gotta be born of God. We’ve gotta become a new creation. And that’s what Paul’s talking about here. He says in verse four, “But God, who is rich in mercy,”

I love that, “But God.”

Thank God.

That’s where you see that shift in these 10 verses here that really explain the gospel. You need to know what happened, where you were before Christ. Where people are before Christ, They’re sinners, they’re in darkness. They’re sons of disobedience. You know, maybe you’re watching now, and you haven’t asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior and start living for him. You’re not right. You need a savior.

Amen.

You need to understand that. That’s part of the gospel. But the other part of the gospel is this, “But God.”

Yes. He says, “Who is rich in mercy for his great love where he loved us, even when we were dead in sins.” That was our spiritual condition before we came to Christ.

Saying there’s nothing you could have done to be translated, to be moved. Only God could have done this.

You have to believe on Jesus.

And it’s a complete shift. It’s a complete shift from darkness to light. It’s a complete shift from sinner to saint. It’s a complete shift from outcast to sons and daughters. It’s a complete shift and only Jesus can do that. You can’t do it on your own. You’re either spiritually dead or you’re spiritually alive. There is no middle ground. There is no yin and yang, You’re either going to hell or you’re going to heaven.

And if you’re going to heaven, it’s because you believed on Jesus and received him. And if you’re going to hell, it’s because you didn’t believe on Jesus. So he says this, he says, “Even when we were dead in sins, he quickened us together. He made us live together with Christ.” He says, “By grace, are you saved?” And he says this in verse six, “And has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” This is the true position and the true condition of every person who has believed on Jesus. Spiritually speaking. We have been raised up together, we have been seated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This is a work of the grace of God.

And I love that position there, seated.

Right.

You know, to be seated, spiritually speaking means it’s done.

The work is done.

It’s finished. You know, like I’m married, I have two young children. There’s always something to do. There’s always something to fix, something to clean up, something to put away, something to do. And you know, the husbands know what I’m talking about. If you sit down and turn on a baseball game or something, your wife might be like, you know, “Why are you sitting down? There’s work to be done.” But spiritually, we’re seated with Jesus. It’s done. It’s complete.

Amen. So we’ve been given new life. We have a new position, we have a new destiny. He says in verse seven, Ephesians 2:7 that, “In the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus.” God wants to reveal grace to us in the ages, to come in the person of Jesus Christ. Now, when you think about grace, you know the scripture says in James 4:6, that God gives more grace. There’s grace for life. There’s grace for salvation. There’s grace for growth. There’s grace for the promises. And here, it tells us there grace for eternity. And so we need to receive the grace of God. And that’s the only way that we can be saved. He goes on to say in verse eight, for by grace are you saved through faith. And he says, “That not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Thank God salvation is the gift of God. And God even gives us the faith to be saved when we hear the gospel preached. He said, “Not by works lest any man should boast.” We can’t be saved by our own performance. Only by the grace of Jesus Christ. Then he says, “For we are his workmanship in Christ Jesus created in Christ unto good works. Which God, before the foundation of the world was laid, chose, ordained for us to walk in there.”

That’s awesome. Well, we’re gonna take a brief break here. So stay tuned. If you want a call to receive prayer, maybe to become a partner, order some product, you can give us a call right now. But we’ll be back here in just a minute.

Hi friends. We’ve been teaching from the book of Ephesians and I’ve just written a new book from the book of Ephesians that I’ve wanted to do for years, “Destined to Win,” breakthrough revelation from the book of Ephesians. You’ll wanna get this book, and we’re gonna offer this book actually free to anyone who calls in and becomes a new partner this week. Blessings.

The world has tried to change the value of what is truth. So what is truth? Jesus is the embodiment of truth. Jesus said in John chapter 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except by me.”

Friends, we’ve been talking about what God did for us and the person of Jesus when he died and rose again. We’ve been talking about the grace of God. Thank God for the grace of God. And you know, Paul is talking about in Ephesians 2, the first 10 verses, “This is who you were. But now this is who you are. You were dead but now you’re alive.” And we’re alive. Why? Because of the grace of God. And we talked about we’ve got a new life, we’ve got a new position, we’ve got a brand new destiny in Christ. And it’s all because of grace. There’s a lot of different definitions of grace. You know, the most famous one is probably unmerited favor. You know what? We are saved by the unmerited favor of God, by the grace of God.

I love these, you know, Ephesians 2 first 10 verses ’cause it really just explains what the gospel has done. You know, where you were before Christ, where you were outside of Christ, and now where you are inside of Christ. You know, several years ago, I was teaching through Romans. And in Romans, Paul talks a lot about the flesh. And I define the flesh as this. And I remember you really love this definition. The flesh is anything outside of Jesus.

Amen. Anything outside of Christ, that’s the best definition. Bar none that I’ve ever heard for the flesh.

So outside of Jesus, that could be just not believing on him, not trusting in him. A lot of people define the flesh or think of the flesh as just being very worldly, very just, you know. Just very, very worldly. Just very lustful. They think of the flesh as that. But there’s also a type of flesh where it’s just like a very religious type flesh where you’re trying to accomplish things on your own. And I, as as an example, I use the Taliban in Afghanistan. You know, they are not worldly people. They don’t have social media, they don’t have television. You know, they’re very, very, not worldly, but they are very fleshy. You know, very, very driven by things that are very much outside of Christ, very against Christ. So the flesh really is anything outside of Christ. So when Paul writes Romans, he said, “When you were in the flesh, the motions, which of sin, which were by the law, the law actually empowered sin.” So he’s talking in that aspect, that’s in Romans 7. He’s talking about before we were saved. So there’s not only this worldly fleshly living that believers can do, right? There’s also this aspect of not being saved. That’s the flesh. Paul calls that the flesh. And now you’re saying there’s a religious type of flesh,

And we see that in the world. What I’ve kind of realized, even going to, you know, just secular universities, that there’s a lot of people, everyone has a philosophy, a way they see the world and a way they think they should live in it. And people try to push it on other people. And that flesh, it’s anything outside of Christ. It’s that idea that you can be made right, that you can be a good person without Jesus. You know, even here, you know, in the world today, there are people who really just pound different drums. Maybe it’s on being green, or maybe it’s the Black Lives Matter movement, maybe it’s, you know, gender equality, different things like this. They think that you have to do all these things to be right. You know, you have to have preferred pronouns. You have to wear, you know, wave certain flags. But anything without Christ is flesh.

Listen.

Any social justice movement without Christ, it’s flesh, it’s gonna fail.

Right. Absolutely. You know, so Paul says this, Romans 7:5. “When we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. He’s talking about before we got saved. You know, in Romans 6, Paul said, “Since we came to Christ, we need to be dead to sin.” We’re dead to sin, right? We’re free from sin, we have authority over sin, and sin will kill you. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus. But then he says in Romans 7, “Not only we’re dead to sin, but we’re dead to law.” And I think he’s talking about his own life as a religious person, before he received Jesus and was born again. And so he said, “We’re not only dead to sin, we need to be dead by the law.” And he talks about before we came to know Christ, sin, which was by the law, the law actually is the strength of sin. 1 Corinthians 15:56 worked in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. And so then he says in Romans 8:5, those who are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. I love, again this terminology that you use for the flesh, Aaron, outside of Christ Jesus. He says, “For they who are after the flesh, things outside of Christ, do think on things out of the flesh, outside of Christ.” So that works for any definition of the flesh. Whether you’re unsaved flesh, right? Whether you’re religious flesh that you were talking about.

Even Paul before, before he came to Christ, he was very not worldly, he said, “Concerning the law,” he kept it blameless.

Right, but he wasn’t born again yet.

No, and everything that he was trying to do, his zeal for God, it was actually working against God, working against, you know, because it was just pure flesh.

He’s killing believers. And so I love your terminology because this works. Again, if you’re not saved, that’s flesh, right? If you’re religious, that’s flesh. If you’re living in sin, that’s flesh. As a believer. If you’re not living right, that’s flesh. It’s outside of Christ. “Those who are after the flesh,” Romans 8:5, “do think on the things of the flesh, those who are after the spirit, things in Christ, the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded, to be minded according to the flesh is death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” He goes on. “Because the carnal mind, the fleshly mind.” Whether that’s a religious mind, whether that’s a worldly mind, whether that’s a self-motivated mind, “is an enemy of God, for it’s not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Those who are outside of Christ Jesus.” But he says this in verse nine, “You are not in the flesh, Romans 8:9, “but in the Spirit, if so be the spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” So he says, “And if Christ be you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is alive.” Because of righteousness so we’ve been made righteous in Jesus Christ. So we go back here to Ephesians 2. And he says this in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves.” It’s not our works, it’s not our performance, it’s not our goodness. It’s not even our faith God gave us the faith.

So where’s boasting then? No one can boast.

Right. Nobody can boast. It doesn’t matter how good you are apart from Jesus Christ. It’s excluded. By what law? Paul says that in Romans 3:27, by the law of faith, right? There’s only one way to be just before God. There’s only one way to be saved. And that’s by putting all of your confidence, trust, and hope in Jesus Christ.

I love that there’s no boast. You know, you’re either saved or you’re not. So it doesn’t matter if you’re Billy Graham, or you’re just a drug addict that just got saved this morning. There’s no boasting.

You’re either saved or you’re not saved. It’s like you said, there’s only two kind of people. People who know Jesus, people who know God through Christ, and people who don’t know God.

People have the spirit of Christ in them like what Roman thinks.

You either have the spirit of Jesus Christ living in you as a believer. You’re either born of God. Billy Graham said he thought over half of the people who claimed to be Christians didn’t really know God. They weren’t really born again. And so, you know what? You can be born again today because Jesus already did the work for you in his death on the cross. And that’s what Paul’s talking about in Ephesians 2:8 “For it’s by grace, are you saved.” What happened in Christ on the cross? He took our sins, he took the world sins. The Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 5 that God was in Christ not imputing the trespasses or the sin of the world to them.

I like that you said, you know, on the cross, Jesus took our sin. You know, but there’s something else that’s really powerful that a lot of people don’t realize that at the same time he took our sin, he gave us his righteousness. So it’s not that your slate was wiped clean, that your sins were forgiven. But he gave us his righteousness. You know, in the Old Testament, they were sacrifices that, you know, they would lay their hands on the scapegoat, You know, and that they would send the goat into the wilderness to die. And it’s like the sins of the people would die with that goat, but that goat couldn’t give them righteousness. Jesus is a better sacrifice. He’s that perfect sacrifice. He’s the sacrifice that has completed everything. Because he not only took our sin, but he gave us his righteousness. He gave us his right standing. He gave us that position.

That’s amazing grace. You know, and this is what Paul’s talking about, we’re saved by grace through faith that we would be a new creation in Christ. He says that, “Not of yourselves, it’s a gift of God. Not by works us, any man should boast, for we are his workmanship created. We’re a new creation in Christ. In Christ Jesus, under good works, which God has before, before the foundation of the world.” That was that again, that plan of God for humanity, that we should walk in them. And what you’re saying really fits in with 2 Corinthians 5 where it talks about God was in Christ not imputing the sin of the world to them before that. In verse 17, it says, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, the same is a new creation. Old things are passed away. All things have become new and all things are of God who restored us to write relationship with Christ.” And then in verse 21, and this fits in with what you’re talking about as sin. He says, “For God made him Jesus to be sin for us or a sin offering for us.” Right? So that we might be made, we didn’t do it, right? We were made the very righteousness of God in Christ. Jesus never did any sin to be judged as a sinner, but he took the world’s sin on himself. God laid on him, the scripture says, the iniquity of us all so that we might be made the very righteousness of God in Christ.

I love that scripture there. You know, the Bible talks about in exchange, there’s actually a Greek word there used called katallagē. And whenever you exchange something, whenever you give something to God, he always gives you something far greater.

Amen.

So you can give him your frustration, you can give him your anxieties, cast your cares upon him, and he’s gonna give you his peace. You can cast your disease over to him. You can give him sickness and he’ll give you his health. And he takes our sins and gives us his righteousness.

Amen. And if you need prayer today to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, to receive the Holy Spirit, to receive healing in your body, any of the promises of God, give us a call today, and especially if you’d like to partner. Thank you and God bless you.

Narrator When Jesus saved you, your destiny changed completely. He radically transformed us and brought us from death to life, from sin to righteousness, and from defeat to victory. Discover these life-changing truths in Pastor Lawson’s eight-part teaching, Destined to Win. $40 value yours free today. Download now at charischristiancenter.com.

Friends, in the last few months, we have heard from over 50 nations in the world. People from all around the world are downloading our curriculum, our syllabus, our downloadable audio and downloadable video teachings, our confession cards, and all of these great teaching materials. And you can go receive it too at charischristiancenter.com. Receive these resources and be blessed. Friends, we here at Charis Christian Center and “Grace for Today” believe in being good stewards of the resources that God has given us. So we pay a professional service that’s actually available to help you do that in a couple of ways. Number one, you can make a will, absolutely free of charge with professional legal help. And number two, you can go to Tax-Smart Ways of Giving. You can find them all on our website.

Narrator Thanks for watching “Grace for Today.” This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000 or to partner online, go to charischristiancenter.com/give. You can write us at P.O. Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace for Today.”