Alive in Christ
Sermon notes from Perry Duggar at Brookwood Church, part of Citizens and Saints: spiritual life rejected because of sin, received by God's grace, and reflected in behavior.
Gathering at Brookwood
Kristen welcomed those attending in person and online. Brookwood encourages connection because life is hard and faith grows deepest in community.
Connect Track meets Sundays at 10:15 in the upstairs chapel. Its four classes help people connect with Jesus, Brookwood, others, and their purpose, with someone personally helping them find a place to connect.
The ministry spotlight featured the volunteer worship team, inviting singers and instrumentalists with a heart to keep Jesus at the center to explore serving.
Worship and Generosity
The opening prayer asked God to soften hearts, prepare people to receive his word, and make everything said and done glorify him and build up his church.
Worship celebrated Jesus' death and resurrection, freedom from sin and shame, his power over darkness and fear, and new life because he lives.
Before the offering, the congregation prayed to honor God with time, talents, and treasures, giving from devotion rather than duty, with gratitude, compassion, and generosity toward those in need.
2 Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.
3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.
4 Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness as well. Indeed, sin is lawlessness.
5 But you know that Christ appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.
6 No one who remains in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has seen Him or known Him.
7 Little children, let no one deceive you: The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous.
8 The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil.
9 Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
10 By this the children of God are distinguished from the children of the devil: Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
11 This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain slay him? Because his own deeds were evil, while those of his brother were righteous.
13 So do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death.
15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that eternal life does not reside in a murderer.
16 By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
17 If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?
18 Little children, let us love not in word and speech, but in action and truth.
19 And by this we will know that we belong to the truth, and will assure our hearts in His presence:
20 Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things.
21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God,
22 and we will receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight.
23 And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us.
24 Whoever keeps His commandments remains in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He remains in us: by the Spirit He has given us.
Alive in Christ
Perry Duggar · Brookwood Church
Citizens and Saints
This message continues the study of Ephesians and focuses on chapter 2. Jaden Ballington, a high school junior serving as a middle school leader, introduced the Scripture reading about God's mercy and the life he gives through Christ.
What does it mean to be dead because of our sins when we are still living, breathing, and moving?
What Sin Produces
Wages are what we earn. Our sin yields spiritual death, beginning from birth, and ultimately physical death.
The Greek word hamartia carries the idea of missing the mark: falling short of a goal, standard, or purpose. Anything short of God's perfect standard is sin.
Who falls short? All of us.
God's Standard Is Holiness
God's standard is perfection because God is holy. Holy means set apart, distinct, other. It describes his nature, not merely proper behavior.
God also calls us to be holy. Peter repeats the command found in Leviticus. We are to be set apart from this world.
Leviticus
16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world.
17 The world is passing away, along with its desires; but whoever does the will of God remains forever.
Spiritually Unresponsive
Perry recalled inventorying the morgue while working at the Medical College of Georgia. The dead were insensitive, unaware, nonresponsive, and disconnected.
Spiritually dead people are insensitive to God's Spirit, unaware of his presence, unable to respond to his leading, and disconnected from his blessings.
This does not mean everyone is as wicked as possible. It means our fallen nature affects our whole existence and separates us from God.
Do Not Minimize Sin
The fact that everyone sins does not make sin a minor matter. Saying “everybody sins” can become an excuse that minimizes its deadly effects.
Sin includes immoral actions, but it also includes failing to glorify God. We may sin more through what we fail to do than through what we do.
Are you aware of sin in your life? Is your daily motivation merely to avoid wrongdoing, or to glorify God as opportunities arise?
1. Spiritual Life Is Rejected Because of My Sin
God's invitation is open, but because of sin we resist, refuse, and reject his offer of salvation.
Disobedience carries the idea of slipping, falling, stumbling, or going in the wrong direction. Paul's description reaches beyond individual sinful acts to the fallen nature from which they come.
Our Nature, Not Just Our Actions
Outside Christ, Scripture does not describe us as being on good terms with God while occasionally misbehaving. It describes opposition and separation.
We sin because we have a sinful nature. When pressure brings out harsh words or embarrassing actions, circumstances have not necessarily changed us. They have revealed us.
The Influence of the Enemy
Paul describes the devil's activity in the unseen world. Perry described heaven as an unseen dimension present around us, rather than simply a distant place in the sky.
Being outside Christ does not mean every person is possessed or as evil as possible. It means being subject to Satan's influence and sharing a posture of resistance toward God.
That influence often appears as doubt about God or the assumption that each person has the right to rule their own life.
Recognizing Rebellion
Before faith in Christ, we stand in opposition to God and under his judgment. Being created by God is not the same as belonging to him relationally through Christ.
Do you recognize rebellion within yourself? It may be the subtle belief that God has no right to direct your business, romantic life, or personal decisions.
Perry distinguished the seriousness of this message from a preacher's personal anger. Jesus did not direct anger toward lost people who were confused but interested in pursuing him.
2. Spiritual Life Is Received by God's Grace
Apart from Christ, our condition is hopeless. We need to understand that condition before rushing ahead to the answer.
Then come the words: But God.
God intervened when we were spiritually lifeless, unable to change ourselves, and unwilling to turn toward him. He turned toward us in mercy and love.
5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!
Grace Gives Life
Grace is undeserved favor and God's influence upon the heart. Perry also used the reminder: God's riches at Christ's expense.
A person who has drowned cannot restart their own breathing. Someone with life must intervene. Likewise, a spiritually dead person needs God to impart life.
Salvation, or regeneration, gives spiritual life. We cannot repair our broken relationship with God through our own efforts.
6 Each of us has become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
8 Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.
Not a Balance of Good and Bad
Our best deeds cannot satisfy God's standard of perfection. Acceptance with God is not earned by doing more good than bad. His standard is not merely that we are doing better now, but that we have never sinned.
Justice means receiving what we deserve. Mercy means not receiving the punishment we deserve. Before God, we need mercy.
Our sins put God's Son to death, yet God allows us to benefit from the very act our sins caused. That is mercy, kindness, and love.
Forgiven and Restored
Only the offended party can offer forgiveness, and forgiveness makes reconciliation possible.
Perry challenged listeners to revisit unresolved forgiveness when another person's presence still provokes tension. God does not merely forgive and then keep us at a distance. He restores us to his presence.
United with Christ
Though we still live physically on earth, we are also alive spiritually with God through Jesus Christ.
Jesus took our sins upon himself and was punished for them. Because he had no sin of his own, he rose from death, leaving our sins in the tomb.
In Christ, sin no longer has the right to control us.
New Life, Not Merely a Clean Slate
Jesus bore the reality of our sin, not merely an idea of it. His suffering involved taking sin into a sinless existence.
Being raised with Christ means being born again, regenerated, and removed from sin's control. Baptism symbolizes this movement from death to life.
Our perfection is in Christ. If we only want forgiveness so we can return to sin, we have missed regeneration: the new mind and the Spirit within us.
Examples of His Grace
Our salvation displays God's goodness and power. Perry compared believers to trophies that show what God has done.
A sinful past does not prevent a life from displaying his grace. The change itself brings him glory.
Have you considered not only others praising God for what he has done in you, but also your life bringing joy to God himself?
2 God did not reject His people, whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah, how he appealed to God against Israel:
3 “Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well”?
4 And what was the divine reply to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
5 In the same way, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.
6 And if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.
7 What then? What Israel was seeking, it failed to obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened,
8 as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear, to this very day.”
9 And David says: “May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution to them.
10 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.”
11 I ask then, did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Certainly not! However, because of their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous.
12 But if their trespass means riches for the world, and their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!
13 I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry
14 in the hope that I may provoke my own people to jealousy and save some of them.
15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
16 If the first part of the dough is holy, so is the whole batch; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root,
18 do not boast over those branches. If you do, remember this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.”
20 That is correct: They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will certainly not spare you either.
22 Take notice, therefore, of the kindness and severity of God: severity to those who fell, but kindness to you, if you continue in His kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
23 And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
24 For if you were cut from a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one that is cultivated, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not be conceited: A hardening in part has come to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove godlessness from Jacob.
27 And this is My covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
28 Regarding the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but regarding election, they are loved on account of the patriarchs.
29 For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.
30 Just as you who formerly disobeyed God have now received mercy through their disobedience,
31 so they too have now disobeyed, in order that they too may now receive mercy through the mercy shown to you.
32 For God has consigned everyone to disobedience so that He may have mercy on everyone.
33 O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?”
35 “Who has first given to God, that God should repay him?”
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.
Faith Is Reliance upon Christ
Belief and faith share the Greek word pistis. Perry's preferred description is reliance upon Christ for salvation.
This is more than believing God exists, Jesus exists, or even that Jesus rose from the dead. It includes trusting his atonement: Jesus took our place and bore our sins for our sake.
Our hope before God is not a list of our accomplishments. It is what Christ has done.
A Gift, Not Something to Boast About
Walking an aisle, raising a hand, or performing a religious action cannot become the basis of our salvation. Those are things we do.
Believing that Jesus' death is sufficient for our forgiveness is itself a gift of grace, revealed by the Holy Spirit. God gives spiritual life, calls us, convicts us of sin, and convinces us of what is true.
When the Spirit convicts us, we stop defending ourselves by pointing to someone worse and acknowledge our own need for forgiveness.
Have You Experienced God's Grace?
There was a time when the truth seemed distant, and then it became real and changed you. Your mind is different, and you have confidence in the eternal life God gives.
Have you experienced God's grace? Have you been born again by God's Spirit?
Spiritual life, if we have it, will be reflected in our behavior.
3. Spiritual Life Is Reflected in My Behavior
You are God's masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus for the good things he planned long ago.
Sin has misshapen us, but God shapes us into the people he designed us to be. He conforms our personalities and identities to Christ, not to one another. Our family resemblance is that we all favor Christ.
If you have wandered from that path, return to it. His Spirit guides, conforms, and shapes you.
Saved from Sin, Saved for Service
Good works are not a condition of salvation. They are evidence that salvation has occurred.
What is the evidence in your life that you have been born again?
Perry invited listeners to speak with those available to pray, answer questions, and help them understand.
Closing Prayer and Invitation
Father, teach us your word. Teach us what you, by your Spirit, want us to know, rather than merely what a pastor wants us to know. May our lives bring greater glory to you. In Christ's name, amen.
The online closing invited people to connect with Brookwood, grow in faith, join a group, serve, give, or receive prayer through the church website or app. Sunday gatherings were announced for 9:00 and 11:00 a.m.
