From Death to Life

There's something powerful about remembering where you came from. Not to live in the past or wallow in regret, but to recognize the magnitude of what has changed. When it comes to our spiritual lives, this backward glance is essential for understanding the radical transformation that defines Christianity.

Ephesians 2:1-3 paints an unflinching picture of humanity's spiritual condition apart from Christ. The language Paul uses isn't polite or softened. He doesn't say we were spiritually sick, weak, or simply in need of improvement. He declares that we were dead.

This matters more than we might initially realize. A drowning person can still reach for a life preserver. A sick person can seek treatment and take medicine. But a dead person is utterly helpless, completely unable to save themselves.

Before encountering Christ, we were:

• Dead in our transgressions and sins
• Following the patterns of a godless culture
• Under the influence of the ruler of the kingdom of the air
• Driven by the desires of our flesh
• Objects of God's righteous judgment

As Bob Dylan famously sang, "You gotta serve somebody. It might be the Devil, or it might be the Lord. But you're gonna have to serve somebody." When we're spiritually dead, we're serving the one Scripture calls "the god of this age"—and we don't even realize it.

The spiritually dead often think they're living their best life. They feel free, autonomous, in control. But they're completely blinded to their true condition, led along by cultural currents and internal desires they mistake for freedom.

Then comes the most beautiful phrase in all of Scripture: "But God..."

These two words represent the hinge upon which all of human history turns. We were dead, but God acted. We were helpless, but God intervened. We deserved judgment, but God showed mercy.

Ephesians 2:4-7 explodes with the initiative of divine love:

"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 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."

Notice the repeated emphasis on God as the subject of every action. Who made us alive? God made us alive. Who raised us up? God raised us up. Who seated us with Christ? God seated us with Christ.

The passage begins with this stunning phrase: "Because of his great love for us." Everything flows from this reality. God's love for you is the engine that drives His mercy and activates His grace toward you.

But how do we move beyond merely understanding God's love intellectually to actually experiencing it? Zephaniah 3:17 offers us a remarkable window:

"The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing."

Pause for a moment and let that sink in. God doesn't merely tolerate you. He doesn't grudgingly accept you. He delights in you. He rejoices over you. He sings about you.

God's love for you is higher than you can imagine, deeper than you can fathom, and wider than you can conceive. He is for you.

Verses 8-9 contain some of the most liberating words ever written:

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."

Grace means unmerited favor. You cannot do anything to earn it. It's favor you did not earn and do not deserve, but you receive it anyway. God was not required to offer salvation, but He chose to make it possible and then handed it to you as a gift.

Faith is simply the act of trustfully accepting from God what He has provided—even without fully understanding what you're receiving. It's giving up on being able to provide what you need for yourself and letting God give what He alone can provide.

Imagine receiving a Christmas gift and insisting on paying the giver back. The moment you pay for it, it ceases to be a gift. Grace can only be received, never earned.

This means you can stop trying to earn God's acceptance. You can stop measuring your worth by your spiritual performance. You can cease the exhausting effort of proving yourself worthy. Instead, you're invited to rest in the finished work of Christ.

The passage concludes with verse 10: "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

The Greek word translated as "handiwork" or "workmanship" is poiēma—the word that gives us "poem." You are God's poem, His work of art, His masterpiece. And masterpieces aren't shoved in corners unfinished. They're displayed openly to showcase the purpose for which they were created.

When God created apple trees, He designed them to bear apples. When He created pear trees, He purposed them to bear pears. Each plant bears fruit according to its design. The same is true for you. God designed you for a unique purpose. He rescued you from spiritual death and is actively transforming you to bear the fruit He uniquely designed you to produce.

The story of the gospel is not ultimately about what we have done. It's about what God has done. Your testimony isn't primarily about how you found God—it's about how God found you.

Maybe He found you as a child in a Christian home. Maybe He found you in a season of rebellion. Maybe He found you in crisis, loss, or brokenness. But wherever He found you, the hero of your story is the same: God.

This changes everything about how you live:

• You are not defined by your worst failure
• You are not defined by your greatest regret
• You are not defined by labels others have placed on you
• You are not defined by mistakes you made this week

As a follower of Christ, you are defined by what God says is true of you: made alive, raised with Christ, saved by grace, God's workmanship.

You don't work for God's acceptance. You work from God's acceptance. You don't obey so that God will love you. You obey because in Christ, He already does.

The Christian life begins with grace, continues through grace, and ends in grace. So don't simply remember what you once were. Remember whose you are. You are God's masterpiece, His redeemed child. And the God who made you alive is not finished with you yet.

This blog was generated with the help of AI, and is based off of Pastor Brian's sermon on June 14, 2026: Made Alive.