Calvary Church is dedicated to doctrine, and we want you to experience the life change that comes from knowing God's word and applying it to your life. So, we explain the Bible verse by verse, every chapter, every book. This is Expound.

We're in the book of Ephesians tonight, chapter 1 still, because it's just so rich. It's just so good. We don't want to move too fast. So yes, it'd be nice perhaps to go through one chapter a week or more, but why, when you can just always pick it up the next week? So, you just start when you start, and you end when the time's up, and you pick it up the next week. That's what we've been doing for decades now, going from Genesis all the way through the Book of Revelation. We finished Galatians, we started Ephesians last time, and there's a few things I need to fill in the gaps with as we begin our study finishing chapter 1 tonight.

You may not know, but Ephesus was the bank of Asia. It was not only a commercial center where roads went through and the port was there, and so goods from all over the world came there. Roman merchants would come to Ephesus to scope out the best goods and get them brought to Rome for those that sent them. But it was also the bank of the Roman province of Asia, and it's believed that the majority of the wealth in the bank was in the temple, the great temple of Diana or Artemis, as she is called in some languages. The Temple of Diana, a magnificent temple, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, also a place that concentrated the wealth of the Roman province of Asia.

I bring that up because Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians telling us how wealthy we are in Christ Jesus. He kind of shows us what's in the bank account because it would seem that his audience, the Ephesians who are reading this, had forgotten that as children of God, who they were, who they belonged to, what they had because they belonged to Christ. So, he is reminding them of their great wealth because they had forgotten or they didn't realize. It's easy to forget when you live in and out of the world like we do. We just sort of lose sight of spiritual realities, so he's reminding them.

I don't know if you've ever gone to your bank, your ATM, and you put your card in, you want to withdraw money, but that little statement comes up: insufficient funds. It's such a letdown when you read that: insufficient funds. I just put five bucks in last week, and so you wonder at that, and it bothers you. You're limited now in what you can or can't do financially because you get the little sign that says insufficient funds, cannot complete transaction. The Ephesians had the opposite problem. They had a huge spiritual bank account filled with spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, but they failed to recognize what they had.

I heard a story about a man who saved up all his money to go on a cruise. I don't think it was the Journeys of Paul cruise; it might have been. But he saved up all his money, barely made enough to buy a ticket, bought a ticket, got on board, was so stoked, but he brought with him two loaves of bread, a few jars of peanut butter, and strawberry jam because he thought, "I just have enough money for the ticket. I don't have enough money for anything else." So, he would go to his room, and he would spread peanut butter on the bread and put jelly on it and have breakfast that way, and lunch that way, and dinner that way, and did that every day for a few days until a porter came by who worked on the cruise ship and saw what this guy was doing and said, "What are you doing?" The guy told him, "I saved up all my money. I could only afford the ticket." The porter said, "Now, you didn't realize that when you buy the ticket, that includes all you can eat as well." Well, he was elated, but by the time he got the message, the news was almost over. So, he had been walking by all those tables with beef and with crab and with lobster and just drooling every time, going to his room and having peanut butter and jelly.

Some of us are just eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when God has steak and lobster in the spirit for us. One of the things Paul will do in chapter 1, when we get to it, and we will, is pray for them that they realize what they have. He tells them what they have, but then he prays that God would open up their eyes so that they could understand it and enjoy it.

Now, remember last week, one of the things we noted that Paul wrote to the Ephesians is that their election, their predestination, that they were chosen in Christ, verse 4 of chapter 1, before the foundation of the world. We talked just a little bit about how some people have a real problem with that. How could God choose me before I was me, before I knew me, before I even came into existence? That, we told you, is because God has a thing, an attribute you and I don't have. It's called omniscience. Omniscience means God knows everything, and one of the components of omniscience is that God not only knows all things, he's omniscient, he's precognized, he knows everything in advance. So, Peter writes in 1 Peter 1 that we are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God. God knew the situation we would be in, knew the families we would be born in, knew our needs, and formulated his plan to reach us.

In struggling with this idea of God choosing us has come a belief under the moniker of Calvinism, the teachings of a lawyer named John Calvin, lawyer-theologian named John Calvin, of something called irresistible grace. God's grace is irresistible. God chose you, and he's drawing you to him, and you cannot resist it. You have to be saved because it's irresistible grace. Along with irresistible grace in Calvinism is a thing called limited atonement. Some of you have heard of limited atonement, that when Jesus died on the cross, he didn't die for the whole world, but only those whom God knew he would elect to salvation. Why waste the blood of Christ? So, he only died for those whom he pre-selected for salvation. If God elected you to salvation, you will get saved. It's irresistible grace. He shed atoning blood for you and you only. If you are not saved, you can't be saved, or if you're not chosen, you can't be saved. It's limited atonement.

Now, I have a problem with that, and here's my problem. My first problem is found in John 3:16, which says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." Now, somebody hearing that says, "Well, I know it does say that God may love the world, but he doesn't save the world, and they're not all chosen, so Jesus didn't die for the sins of the whole world." Well, that leads me to my second problem, which is 1 John 2:2, which says, "Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins or the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world."

So, you may be here tonight, and you might think, "Well, maybe I'm not chosen," or you might think, "This whole election thing, that's not fair." My message to you is this: get saved, receive Christ, repent of your sin, believe in him, choose him, and when you choose him, you'll make an interesting discovery: you've been chosen before you chose him. It's like if you see a door in heaven that says, "Whosoever will, let him come," and you decide, "I'm going to go through that door," and you walk through the door, and there's a banquet table all laid out, ready for a feast. There you see on the table different name tags, and you're reading name tags, and as you go down, you see your name on one of the tags. Now, you just made a choice to walk through that door. Now, it looks as though they've been waiting for you. Just then, you hear the door close behind you, and you look on the inside of the door, and it says, "Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world." There you remember what Jesus said to his disciples: "You didn't choose me; I chose you."

So yes, I believe in election. Yes, I believe in predestination. But I also believe in choice because where we left off last week, verse 12, "that we who first trusted," now that's human volition, that's human choice, that's you and I choosing to trust and believe, "that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory."

Now, I want you to notice something. I like to point these things out because typically we may not pick them up right away, but I think it's intentional. As you read through chapter 1, you discover every member of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is active in your salvation. Verse 4: God the Father chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world. Then down in verse 7: "In him," that is, in Jesus, the Beloved, "in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." So, the Father picked you, the Son redeemed you, bought you, cleansed you, and then now in verses 13 and 14, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit.

What does it mean to be sealed? It speaks of two things: ownership and security. Ownership—I said that Ephesus was a seaport. Roman merchants would come to Ephesus, scope out the goods, decide which ones they want to bring home for their masters. They would lay down the money, they would finalize the transaction, they would then prepare the goods to be shipped. Here's how they would do it: they would take a wax seal, they would take wax, drip it onto the package, and then they had a corporate kind of a stamp or seal, an impression that they would stamp into the wax that basically said the name of the one making the purchase and now who owned it. So that when it got to port in Rome, they could identify whose property it is. So, God put his seal on you. He owns you. The Holy Spirit is this seal of ownership.

Now, I have a question for you. When you meet people, can they easily tell who you belong to? What impression do you leave with them? If God put a seal on you, his impression on you that he owns you, do you leave that impression on people when they come in contact with you? "Oh, that person is really into God a lot. That's all that person can talk about: Jesus this, Jesus that." What's a good sign? It shows what you're about. It shows who owns you. But also security, not just ownership but security. That's verse 14: "who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory."

Does anybody here happen to have, not many of you probably do, but just I'm going to shoot in the dark, anybody here have tonight with them the Old King James Version of the Bible? Oh, you do? Okay, so what is it? Doesn't it say in your version, "who is the guarantee"? What does it say? Earnest. Now, that happens to be a great translation. Ever heard of earnest money? That's where that term in the King James comes from: earnest money. So, if you're going to buy a house or a car or anything, if you really want it, they tell you to put earnest money into it. You put a percentage down on it, maybe 5%, 10%, 20%, whatever you can afford. When you do that, it's a guarantee in their eyes that there are more payments to follow. You just put an earnest amount down. You're in earnest; you really want to buy this thing, so you put a down payment on it. The Holy Spirit is God's down payment in your life. There's more to come. You've been saved, you have peace, you have purpose, all the benefits that you and I have in becoming a Christian, the feeling that you get of security when you came to Christ. That feeling may go up, may go down, but all of that, all that you have experienced so far is simply a preview of coming attractions. It's earnest; it's a down payment. What's going to follow is heaven, resurrected body, ruling and reigning with Christ, a whole list of things in the future. So, it speaks of ownership and security. He put his seal on you, you belong to him, he owns you, and security. He gave you enough that you can taste that the Lord is good.

I remember when I first got saved, how good it felt. I tried to explain to people what it was like, and I was telling my friends, "I can't explain what it's like, but it's like I'm, I'm, I'm..." And a friend of mine says, "Skip, have you been born again?" And I said, "That's what I feel like. Where'd you get that term?" I asked him, "Where'd you get that term? That's a perfect description of what happened." He goes, "Uh, Jesus said you must be born again." I didn't know that, but I thought he couldn't have come up with a more fitting description of what it feels like: I'm born anew. Well, all of that is simply earnest, a down payment. There's more to come. He's the guarantee of our inheritance or earnest of our inheritance, down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory. One day, you and I are going to arrive in the port of heaven, and his stamp of ownership is on you.

Therefore, verse 15, "Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints," what an awesome group of people the Ephesians were for Paul to make mention of the fact that he heard of their faith and their love for all the saints. "Therefore, after hearing all that good stuff about you," verse 16, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers."

Now, we have a great principle right here in the "therefore" of this verse. Therefore, because I hear all this awesome stuff about how good you're doing, I'm praying for you. Why is that important? Because typically, we reserve our prayers for people who are really doing bad. Let's put their prayer requests on the screen. They're not doing very good; we better pray for them. That's good to do that, but how about praying for those people who are doing good, who are having awesome days and growing in their faith? You know why you need to pray for them? They're a target; they're a bullseye for the enemy. So, Paul was right in saying, "Because you're excelling in all these Christian virtues, therefore I'm very thankful to God, and I'm praying for you." Well, that's good, Paul. What are you praying for them about? Well, he tells exactly what he's praying about.

Verse 17, he begins, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him." If I could sum that up, I would say this: number one on Paul's list, that they may know the person of God, that they might know God better. Jesus said in John 17, that high priestly prayer in the garden on the way to the cross, he said, "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." So, Paul prays that they'll know God and get insight and wisdom into knowing God better than they already know him now. They'll grow in an intimate relationship with him.

I remember when somebody first asked me, "Do you know God?" And I said, "Pardon me?" It was a weird question to me because we usually don't think of God on those terms, like he's that familiar, like, "Oh yeah, God and I, we're like this." But he said, "Do you know God?" I was flummoxed; I didn't know how to answer it. I think I might have said, "No, I don't. I mean, I know who he is." "Yeah, no, do you really know him?" And you know, I hemmed and hawed, and then I think I might have said, "Well, okay, I guess I do." Then his next question was, "How well do you know him?" And that's always a question for us, isn't it? How well do you know him? You may know things about him, but do you know him? Do you walk with him? Are you in fellowship with him regularly? Is there an intimacy? Do you refer to God as the big guy upstairs or the good Lord or my Father?

So, I'm praying that you'll get to know God better. God cannot be known unless he reveals himself. Well, we're in luck. God has revealed himself over and over again through the prophets, through the apostles, in the word. We have 66 books that reveal the character and nature of God. So, I'm praying that you'll know the person of God.

Second request, that they might know the plan of God. Verse 18, "that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling." Do you know what God has called you to do, to perform, to be, what gifts you have? "The hope of his calling and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." Let me unpack a few of these thoughts in that verse. First, when he says, "the eyes of your understanding being enlightened," the Greek word for understanding is "cardia" here in the text. It's the heart, the eyes of your heart, and it is translated in the New King James, your understanding, your ability to think through and understand something, speaks of your mind. Why is that important? Because here in Western culture, we think the heart is the center of what you feel, right? It's your emotional center; that's your heart. "Do you feel it in your heart, man?" The ancients didn't do that. Two thousand years ago, the ancients believed the heart was the center of your intellect, your mind, your will. The feelings, they believed, took place in the gut, the bowels. So, the Old King James speaks about "bowels of tender mercies," and you read that and go, "Oh, that's gross." But back then, they just thought you feel some mercy deep down in your gut for somebody. That's where the emotions take place. So, we want to feel certain things and call that our heart. The Bible talks about the heart as the center of your intellect. So, it's translated "cardia," heart, is translated "that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling." And look at this, this is awesome, "and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints."

Now, if you go back to—I'll find it, I just had it—what verse speaks about our inheritance? Ten, thank you. "That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ," 11, "which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. In him also," watch this, "we have obtained an inheritance." But that's our inheritance. Now, in verse 18, he's speaking about something completely different: his inheritance in the saints. Do you know that that's how God views you? You're his. You're his inheritance. Here's the crux of his prayer: Father, open the eyes of their heart, their understanding, that they can process through and really get insight into the fact that they are so valuable to you. May they understand their value to God. That's what he's praying for. You are God's inheritance. You need to understand your value before God.

You remember the story of the prince that turned into a frog, and what would break the spell? A kiss. A kiss of a beautiful princess. It's a beautiful story if you're a frog. Not a great story if you're the princess, but for the frog, awesome. But that was like her inheritance, that prince, and all she had to do was, you know, just get enough nerve to bend down and kiss that frog, and what she'll get is a super reward, a handsome prince. It's a great story. It happens to illustrate the truth of what happened. You and I are the frog that was turned into something special because of the touch of a savior, and now you belong to him. Now you are his inheritance, and now you are valuable to him.

Jesus gave a parable and said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls," Matthew 13, "and when he found one pearl of great price, he sold everything that he had to buy that pearl." Now, I've heard that interpreted wrongly, that that's the believer, that's us. We found what's most precious, and that is Jesus Christ and salvation, and we sold everything, and everything that we get rid of is worth that pearl of great price, salvation in Christ. That's not what it's about. First of all, you don't sell anything to buy salvation. Second, you don't have anything valuable enough to merit salvation, even if it's all that you own. It's a story of the kingdom of God. It's like it's the story of Jesus finding you, and it was worth him leaving heaven to come to earth to pour out his life to death to purchase you. You're the pearl. You're the treasure.

Well, we don't typically think we're that. "I'm not that good." I hear Christians sometimes get down on themselves, "Oh, I'm not that smart." Stop deprecating God's property. You have no right to do that. You belong to him. He purchased you. He thought you were valuable. You keep talking down about yourself, you are depreciating what God values. He thought you were important enough to die for. So, I pray, Lord, you'd open up the eyes of their understanding that they could see the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

Third request in verse 19, "and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion." These are names of angelic beings, their rankings, like generals and colonels and sergeants, etc. "Far above all principality, power, and might, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age which is to come. And he has put all things under his feet and given him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all."

The third request is they might know God's power. I pray that you'll know God's person. I pray that you'll know God's plan. I pray that you'll know God's power. And notice something about his power: it is according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. Now, we as human beings, we respect power. The word, by the way, here for power is "dunamis," dynamic or dynamite. Dynamic is a better translation. Too many people are going to pieces already, so dynamic. It speaks of capacity. You have a new capacity. With God's calling comes God's capacity. If God's called you to something, God gives you the capacity to do it. God would never call you to do something you could never do. If he tells you to do something, go do it. "I can't do it." You can do it. With the calling comes the capacity. Lord, help them understand the power that they have. How much power? The same power that raised Jesus from the dead. That's pretty powerful.

If you ever went to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and you see those huge launching pads, and if you've ever seen a shuttle being launched into space or a rocket, the payload weight upon takeoff of that contraption is 4.5 million pounds. 4.5 million pounds. It sounds like they're not getting off the ground no matter what they do with that weight. They're earthbound, man. Gravity has a huge impact on 4.5 million pounds. But what they do is they apply in the rockets the equivalent thrust of 7 million pounds of pressure, of thrust. 7 million pounds can take something that weighs 4.5 million pounds up through Earth's atmosphere, given the gravitational pull, and launch it into space. That's power. What kind of power does it take to raise a dead person back to life? Much more power. And God is omnipotent, all-powerful, and he displayed his power in the resurrection from the dead.

So, Lord, I'm praying for your church at Ephesus. I'm praying for the church. I'll pray for the church in Albuquerque that they will understand your power. What power? You wrought when you raised Jesus from the dead that can work through their life in a new capacity to do what you've called them to do. That sums it up. By the way, please notice he does not ask God for more power, just that they will realize the power they already have. You know, sometimes, "Lord, we need more power." No, no, you don't. "Oh no, I need more power." No, you don't. You would be dangerous with more power. But you know, we used to sing a song even around here, "More love, more power." No, you don't need more power. You just need more of the power God has already afforded you. You need to know what that is and live in that capacity. You have all that you need. You have all-sufficient power. So, he prays for that, prays that they will realize that.

He closes off the chapter, "And he has put all things under his feet and given him, Christ, to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." Do you realize God's plan is the church? So, to all those people saying, "You know, I'm really not into church very much," then you're not into God's plan, which is the church. "Well, I don't like organized religion." What, you like disorganized religion? What you're saying basically is you don't want to be accountable to anybody else. You want the freedom to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it. You don't want anybody telling you, God or otherwise, what to do. Because one of the things the church, the body of Christ, does is in unity keeps us all accountable, keeps that power under control, keeps us all accountable and in unity, spreading the kingdom of God. So, the church is God's plan. Jesus said, "I will build my church," and Paul the Apostle says the church is the pillar and ground of all truth. It is God's plan in every generation.

So, that's chapter 1. Now, we have a few minutes to dip into chapter 2, and you'll notice that chapter 2 begins with your favorite subject: you. It says in verse 1, "And you." Now, you go, "I take umbrage to that. That's not my favorite subject." Well, if we took a picture, a group picture of all of us sitting here tonight, and at the end of the service, it was displayed in a huge format in the foyer, and you went up to that picture, who's the first person in that picture you would look for? It's who we are. This is why Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." It's not as some erroneously say, "Well, you got to learn first to love yourself so you can love people." No, the implication is you already do love yourself, and because you love yourself, and it's proven by the fact that you get up, look in the mirror, put a comb through your hair, put clothes on your body, feed yourself, love people that much. That's the idea of that.

So, he begins, and he begins in chapter 2, taking us now from the heights of chapter 1, the glorious alpine heights of the vista of Ephesians 1, down to the pit of darkness of your life and my life before Jesus Christ. And he says, "You and I, we were dead. We were dead in our trespasses and sins." If I were to paint a picture of my life, I'm not a good artist, but if I were a good artist, I can see what it would look like. I would choose all dark colors, very dimly lit scenes of childhood, teenage years, rebellion, where I grew up. I'd have those scenes painted, but it would be very dark, very dimly lit. Then in one of the corners up at the top, I would have the brightest white, tiny little speck of light that shines through the picture and gets bigger and bigger and brighter, and then eventually, I would take all the white paint I had and just pour it on the canvas. I went from darkness to light. So, he gives us a picture of you and I when we were dead and in darkness and stepped into the light of the gospel. And he says this, "And you he made alive." Now, in your Bible, is that little phrase "he made alive" in italics? It is in mine. You know what that means when it's in italics? It's not there. It's not there in the original. It is supplied by the translators of this version. It is a phrase lifted up from verse 5, where it says, "We were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved." The translators lifted that phrase out of verse 5 and stuck it into verse 1, probably because, you know, this is such a dark scene, they want to give you a little jolly up as you get into this darkness of your old life and let you know where it's going. But it really reads this in the original: "And you who were dead in trespasses and sins." The translators have added, and it's true, he did make you alive, but you don't get to that till verse 5. This is your past life. You were dead. Let's just start there. You were dead. You were born dead. You were born, you were stillborn spiritually. You were, when you entered this world, even though you look so pink and so cute, that's only on the outside. You had a sin nature. You were born DOA, dead on arrival, separated from God. You weren't just—the unbeliever isn't just sick. The unbeliever is dead, and because dead, incapable of change. It does take God's revelation and conviction before a person can change and regeneration, which is a work of the Holy Spirit. But you were dead in trespasses and sins. So, you and I live, we have spiritual life, but around us are zombies. We live in a world of zombies, the walking dead all around us. You can put an unbeliever in the best schools and give him the best education, and in the end, you'll have an educated sinner. You can send that unbeliever to the best counselor and psychiatrist and psychologist, and in the end, you'll have a well-balanced sinner. You can make that person successful and gain a lot of wealth, and you'll make him a wealthy sinner. We are dead apart from Christ. That is our condition. That's how dark the scene begins in verse 1. "And you were dead in"—two things I want you to notice. What are those two things? Trespasses and sins. Now, I know you're thinking, "What, is he repeating himself? Isn't one the same?" No, they're two different things. The word sin or sins is the Greek word "hamartia," and it literally means to miss the mark. It was a term in ancient Greek archery. If you would shoot at a target, if you missed that target, you sinned. You're a sinner. You missed the mark. You missed the target. So, let's say there's 20 arrows, and I have my 20 arrows, and there's a target in front of me, and I've got Pastor Eric up there. He's got 20 arrows, and Pastor Antonio on the other side of me, he's got 20 arrows. So, Eric goes up first. Eric, you're pretty good, right, at archery? Okay, so you fire your arrows, and you hit 19 bullseyes. Pretty awesome. But his last shot doesn't quite nail it, and he's shaking a little bit, and he misses the target. So, he's missed the mark. Antonio's up next. He fires the first one, hits the bullseye. Second one, bullseye. Third one, bullseye. Fourth, fifth, bullseye. Sixth, misses. Seventh, misses. And then hits a few more, misses a few more. Now, both have missed the mark. I get up with my bow and my arrow, and I miss every single one of them. Who has missed the mark out of all three of us? All of us have missed the mark. Some have missed the mark more than others, and it just shows I'm a better sinner than they are. They still sinned. They've still missed the mark, but I also have missed the mark in every shot. That's what it means to sin. We have missed God's mark. All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. That's the word sin. We've missed the mark.

Now, the second word, which is first in the list, but the second word I'm bringing up is the word trespass, and that means to cross a known border or line, to cross over into something. You can sin even though you want to hit the mark. We all want to hit the mark. We're really trying hard to hit the mark, but none of us was perfect at it. A trespass is different. You don't want to hit anything. You just want to do what you want to do, and it is a willful, deliberate act. You know better, but you do it anyway. So, the first time you wax your floors, your kitchen floors, and you tell Junior, "Don't walk on that floor," the first time he does, "Oh, I'm so sorry," that's a sin. Once he's been told, and he has that gleam in his eye, waits when you're not looking, and starts walking across the wax floor, that's a trespass. That's a willful, deliberate act. You and I, we were dead, separated from God at birth by two things: sin nature, we've all missed the mark, endemic in Adam's nature passed on to us, and trespasses. We are sinners by nature. We are sinners by birth. We are also sinners by choice, trespasses and sins.

Not only that, it gets worse. Verse 2, "in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." The word "walked" in that verse is the Greek word "peripateo." It means to walk about, to walk around, to stroll, to meander. You can tell if somebody's walking somewhere or if somebody's just sort of killing time, meandering. You and I, we meandered through this world. We were just sort of—we had no purpose. It's a purposeless going about. That's the idea of "peripateo." We once walked according to the course of this world. Have you ever been in a store, and you walked out of that store having purchased something, and then you get home, you go, "Why did I buy this? I don't even need this." Well, it could be that you had a good salesman. It could be that you were—typically, this is the real reason—you were just browsing. You were just browsing, and you browsed yourself into something you don't need. So now you go, "I'm going to take this thing back. I really don't need this thing." You know, you justified it at the time as you were browsing. It says, "Save 40%." You go, "Man, I'm saving us money. I need to buy this. This is an investment." But you don't really need it. And so, what happened? You browsed yourself into the transgression. You meandered. You browsed. And notice this: you walked, you meandered, you browsed according to the course of this world. From my reading, this originally has an idea of blowing with whatever way the wind blows. The course could be translated "weathervane." Which way does a weathervane point? Whichever way the wind is blowing. Wind is blowing from the west, it points to the east, and whichever way it goes, it just turns and moves according to—that's how we lived our lives. We just were sort of browsing, meandering, being caught up with the current, whatever the current is doing, whatever people are thinking, we get caught up with it, and we go in that direction. That's how we lived our lives. But notice who's behind [Processed]