You were dead in your transgressions and sins
in which you once lived following the age of this world
This extreme language doesn't resonate with us. It seems too extreme. Dead in our sins?
All of us once lived among them in the desires of our flesh,
following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses,
and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.
What does it look like to be dead in our sins and slaves to the desires of our flesh? Is this really a condition that people experience? For us, if there was a time before we knew Christ, can we recognize this condition in ourselves? Can we see it in others who do not know Christ?
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”
This man is an example of one who, though he seems alive, is in fact dead in his sins. He is a slave to desires that will ultimately be rendered meaningless by death. Everything in this rich man is oriented toward death because it is centered around thing which do not last beyond death.
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God.”
There is no way beyond this predicament on our own. There is nothing for us to desire except to eat, drink, and be merry. There is no lasting hoping apart for Christ.
But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved)
God sees our predicament clearly even though we often do not. He sees that life and death are vying for every human soul. He not only refuses to surrender us to death but he wants to give us a whole new kind of life.
[God] raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
God wants seats us in heavenly places and makes us capable of good works, prepared in advance by God. These works last. They store treasure in heaven because they and the new life from which they spring are founded on love. Love seems to be the most transient and fragile of all things but faith, hope, and love are the only three things that remain in the end (see First Corinthians 13:13).
Maybe now we can look back and see this new life at work in ourselves and others. We see it stirring in people even before they know Christ explicitly. We begin to learn the difference Jesus makes in human hearts. Our desires for the treasures of this earth wane and we learn to desire the kingdom of God above all else.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
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