What does First B Jackson teach about dead in sin?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on being dead in sin begins with taking Paul's words in Ephesians 2 at face value. Todd Lampa, an elder who filled the pulpit while Pastor Ray was away, pressed on the distinction that matters most here: a dead person cannot improve themselves. A common mistake about religion, Todd argued, is thinking God wants bad people to become good. What Ephesians 2 actually describes is something far more drastic. God wants dead people to become alive, and that is not something a person can work toward on their own terms. The opening verses of the chapter also describe the lifestyle that goes with that condition, a way of living shaped by a system set against everything godly, driven by the desires of the flesh, and ending in the same place for everyone regardless of background: under God's wrath.
Robert Lillo, a missionary who visited First B during the Ephesians series, brought attention to a single word at the start of chapter two that most readers pass over. Paul does not write 'but you were dead.' He writes 'and you were dead,' connecting the extraordinary heights of chapter one, every spiritual blessing, election, redemption, the seal of the Holy Spirit, directly to the valley of human lostness without letting readers skip past it. Robert's point was that Paul saves the great contrasting word for verse four: 'But God, being rich in mercy.' The structure is deliberate. Holding both realities together, the depth of what we were and the height of what God has done, keeps grace from becoming something we treat as though we had it coming.
Pastor Ray returned to these same verses to show that the condition Paul describes levels the playing field entirely. Jew and Gentile alike were dead, walking according to the prince of the power of the air. Paul includes himself. A Jew of Jews, pedigreed and zealous, he still writes 'we too all previously lived in the lust of our flesh.' There are no prior categories that give anyone a head start. Everyone was a child of wrath. That is precisely what makes the 'but God' of verse four as large as it is.
Taught from Ephesians 2:1-10 · Ephesians 2:1 · Ephesians 2:4-5 · Ephesians 2:2 · Ephesians 2:3
The passage taught · 1 John 5
1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him.
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments.
3 For this is loving God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous.
4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- April 8, 2018 Dead in Trespasses, Made Alive in Christ Todd Lampa walks through Ephesians 2:1-10, showing how Christians were once dead in sin, deserving judgment, and what God's mercy and grace mean for how we live now.
- June 4, 2017 And You Were Dead: The Valley Between the Peaks Robert Lillo, a Global Scholars missionary in Nigeria, opens Ephesians 2 and shows why Paul uses "and" to hold our blessings and our ruin together in one honest view.
- June 4, 2017 And You Were Dead in Sins Robert Lillo shares how God is using education and Bible translation in Nigeria to build up the church, drawing on Ephesians 1 and 2 to show grace in the valley and on the mountaintop.
Mentioned along the way
- March 22, 2026 But God: Rich in Mercy Ephesians 2 shows every person starts dead in sin, but God's mercy brings Jews and Gentiles alike into one body through Christ's blood, not our works.