Old habits sometimes die hard. A mother tenses when someone else’s baby cries out. We wake early for work even on a weekend. Spouses reach for the other at night even when they’re gone. Our hand flips the light switch even when the power’s out. A former smoker reaches for a pack in their pocket even when it’s not there. After a while we get so used to living one way it takes time and sometimes some concentration to live any other. For instance it takes time to learn to live alive after being dead.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ
Ephesians 2:4-5
We’re in the midst of a series on Ephesians at St. George’s. Within its chapters are incredible, foundational truths of the good news about Jesus and all he’s accomplished for us. The Apostle Paul, who wrote the letter, is laying out the Gospel for the church in Ephesus. And in chapter 2 he describes it something like this: You were dead, but God has made you alive in Jesus.
This, we’re told, is the difference between being a Christian and not. Alive and dead.
If they’re dead and I’m alive, why don’t I look that different?
That’s a big difference. It doesn’t get any bigger. But a lot of Christians hesitate here. We grow uncomfortable or a little embarrassed. We nod and agree but inside are a little confused and weirded out by this. Because, perhaps, we don’t really feel any more alive than we used to. If others are dead and I’m alive, why don’t I look that different? Why don’t I act that different? Why don’t I feel that different? What’s the deal? Either the Apostle was just using a confusing turn of phrase, or maybe I’m not actually a Christian after all! Maybe I’m not alive!
I imagine most of us have faced some version of this crisis at some point. And it can be unsettling. But, thank God, there is a very simple answer to it. The difficulty is not in the terminology, nor that you’re not a Christian–if you have repented of your sin, confessed Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. The mistake we’ve made is right near the beginning. The mistake was looking first to ourselves and how we “feel”. It’s an easy mistake to make. We begin with that word all the time, don’t we. How are you feeling? How do you feel about that? How does that make you feel? I feel good today. I feel terrible. I don’t know how I feel about that.
But in the Christian life we’re told to begin somewhere else and with a different word. In the Christian life we look first to Jesus and begin with the word “faith”.
To start, it doesn’t matter if you feel that extraordinary change. We’re simply asked to believe in it
Let’s ask ourselves this: Did we feel Jesus die on the cross? No. None of us did. It happened 2000 years ago. And yet we believe he did. Did we feel him pay for your sins? No. Did we feel him rise from the dead? No. And yet we believe him when he says he did in the Bible. In the same way, in the same book, from the same eye witnesses we’re told that every Christian was dead in their trespasses but God made us alive together with Christ. At this point it doesn’t matter if you feel the full weight of that. To start, it doesn’t matter if you feel that extraordinary change. We’re simply asked to believe in it, to have faith in it.
“Learn to preach to yourself rather than listen to yourself.”
– John Piper
We were dead in our trespasses, but God loved us and made us alive in Jesus. Christian, this is your condition. Right here, right now. It is not something that still remains to be done. It is not something in process. It is true and finished. Because it is what Jesus has done. It is fully and completely who we are in Christ. And we experience it through faith. Were dead – Now alive. When we really begin to get this it is life changing.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11
Okay, so now what? What difference does knowing that bring? This is the difference. Old habits die hard. One who thinks they’re dead will tend to act dead, even if they’re not anymore. But one who realizes they’re alive will begin to actually live.
In Len’s excellent sermon on Sunday he said:
“You were a corpse. And all corpses do is decay and decompose.”
If we suspect we’re still just the same corpse we always were we will have no reason to try anything new. We will tend to continue doing just what we were doing before; what corpses do. We’ll lie there waiting to decay and decompose. We won’t try to lift a finger or an arm or get to our feet or lift our heads or run or jump or dance. Those are things reserved for the living. And the dead don’t even bother trying them. How could they?
When we begin to know ourselves alive in Christ the Christian life will truly get exciting.
That is the importance of knowing through faith that you are alive. Because then, and only then, will you begin to actually live as a living person. Only then will we begin to have faith to live alive; to enter into the new life God has given us. When we begin to know ourselves alive in Christ the Christian life will truly get exciting.
But what does that look like? What does it mean to live alive? How is life as a spiritually living person different from a dead one? Well, this is what much of the Bible and most of the New Testament is all about. Most of the New Testament letters are the Apostles telling the early church about what we can and should expect the spiritually alive life to be like. Here are three major parts of it:
1. Has the Holy Spirit
First and foremost a living person in Christ has God’s Spirit in them (Rom 8:9). That is the mark of a living child of God. No Christian, no spiritually alive person, no child of God is without the Holy Spirit of God in them. And it is through the work– the guidance and empowerment– of the Spirit that an alive person lives out the new life. Without him it is impossible. With him all things are possible.
2. Bears Good Fruit
The results of having the Holy Spirit in you is that you will be able to do good, to bear good fruit in your life (Gal 5:22-23). God guides and empowers and is transforming you by the Spirit into the likeness of Jesus. And so you can and will manifest his goodness in your actions and your thoughts and your desires. This is a promise not a demand. It is the result of being a living person, like a living branch bearing fruit. It doesn’t mean we don’t still have sin in our lives. We are not free from that yet as long as we are in these mortal bodies. Sin remains and may trouble us. But it no longer owns us and it no longer dominates us. We have been empowered and given the freedom to live different because of God’s grace. We don’t need to passively lie in our sin and decompose, powerless to do anything else. We have been moved from death to life, from in the flesh to in the Spirit. God’s Holy Spirit can and will enliven us to good things (Rom 6:22).
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10
3. Fights Sin
When we were dead we couldn’t resist anything. But it’s a different story for the alive.
Along those same lines the alive person in Christ is able to wage war on the sin that still harasses them in their mortal bodies (Rom 6:12). The dead are helpless and defenseless. When we were dead we couldn’t resist anything. But it’s a different story for the alive. We have been freed from our captivity and helplessness and powerlessness to sin and the devil (Rom 8:2). The spiritually alive in Christ Jesus have been given the very Spirit of God in them, with his strength and authority and wisdom. We’re told we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph 1:3). And we’re told that we have access to the armor of God, even the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God (Eph 6:10-11,17-18). We’re told if we resist the devil he will flee from us (James 4:7). When we were dead we could not resist. The devil had freedom to do as he pleased to us. But now, in Christ Jesus our Lord, we have been brought to life, given power and told to resist temptation.
This is life as a living person.
“You are in Christ. If we but saw this as we should, we would really begin to live as Christians in this world. We would all hold up our heads, we would be able to defy sin and Satan, we would rejoice in Christ Jesus as we ought.”
– D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Friends, do not be discouraged. If your life does not yet look like this do not lose heart. Old habits sometimes die hard. If you have faith in Jesus as your Lord and Saviour you are born of the Spirit and truly alive. If you have yet to see yourself stirring and moving like a spiritually living person it is not because you are not alive. It is because you have not yet fully realized how alive you are. You have not yet tried to move, to lift your head, to stand on your feet and walk by the Spirit who is in you. And perhaps, if that’s the case, right now is when you start. God is going to get us all moving. He is going to finish the good work he’s begun in us, one way or the other. And perhaps for you his way to get you going is this article right now. Live alive. Live the new life you’ve been brought into. Walk in newness of life, friends. Eternal life has already begun.
Be who you are. Don’t keep living like a dead person, when you are actually a living one.
Here are some ideas to get started:
- Read the Bible and discover what we’re to believe for, and what this amazing life in Christ is to be like.
- Ask God to reveal to you more of Jesus and his life you have by the Holy Spirit.
- Celebrate and give thanks to God that you are not dead but alive and well.
- And preach to yourself every chance you get of these things: that you are forever alive in Christ Jesus and he is alive in you.
Look and step out in faith as the spiritually-living, Spirit-empowered, Christ-adoring, sin-fighting, child of God that you’ve been made into. Live the life you’ve been given. Be who you are. Don’t keep living like a dead person, when you are actually a living one.
Christian, it’s time to live alive!
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
Galatians 5:25
