Talk

BRO. BO SANCHEZ:

I came from Rome. I came from the Vatican. I came from the Pope. The Pope said, “Hi.”

He was far from me, but we waved at each other. He looked at me.

I looked at him. It was a beautiful pilgrimage. I hope you’ll join us one day.

I’d like to preach the message: You belong to God’s House.

You do not belong to the world. You do not belong to your sin. You do not belong to your crisis. You don’t belong to your trial. You do not belong to your anxiety, worry, or depression. You do not belong to whatever you’re going through right now.

You don’t belong to your debt. You don’t belong to your poverty. You do not belong to this that is weighing you down right now. You belong to God. You belong to God’s house.

We’re going to go through Ephesians Chapter 2. We’re here in our series,

No Longer Strangers. We talked about Chapter 1 last week.

Today, we’re going to talk about Ephesians Chapter 2.

Paul sums up the end-game plan of God and it is in Ephesians 1:10:

Right now, it doesn’t look that way. People are in conflict, especially in our country. Even in your personal life. Yet, ultimately, God wants to bring all things under Him.

The Word of God

Just to give you a little outline of our Talk. Ephesians Chapter 2 is divided into two parts.

The first part is about God’s Cosmic Plan.

It’s more meta. Same truth, same story, but two lenses.

The second part is more micro. The same truth, the same story, is being told from the lens of the Gentiles and the Jews.

We’re going to read a long passage and I want you to marinate your soul into the majesty of the Word of God.

Ephesians is so special. It is the queen of the Epistles where Paul uses very sublime language. That’s what we’re going to experience today.

Extend your hand to God’s Word. Expect God to speak to you.

Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet And a Light unto my path.

Let’s read Ephesians 2:1-2:

Talk Outline

I’m going to repeat my outline for today so you can follow. So, the outline is this:

First Part: Cosmic View or Cosmic Perspective. Then, we’re going to talk about two messages.

The first one is that Evil is Real.

The second one is Authentic Grace vs. Fake Grace.

Second Part: The second part, which we will not touch so much, but I will briefly talk about is:

Gentile vs. Jewish View.

We read 10 verses. Amazing truth. It starts with zombies. We’re not talking about these creepy creatures with very wooden and jerky movements that you see in movies. The message is about people who are alive on the outside, but are dead on the inside.

Verse 1 says:

People could be alive right now listening to me, but it’s very possible that you could be walking, talking, breathing, using your iPhone, drinking your milk tea, and scrolling through Facebook– and be dead. How?

When you reject the life of God.

Some of you will not be able to relate to this if you’re like me who came to know the Lord at a very young age. I came to know Jesus in a very personal way when I was 12 years old. I gave my life to God when I was 12 years old. Before that, I was raised as a Catholic.

How many of you had very religious parents? They taught you to pray the Rosary. You knew how to make the Sign of the Cross at a young age. You went to Mass every Sunday as a little kid.

Maybe, most of us in this room cannot relate.

From Pain to Purpose

If you can relate to this, you are like Oscar Sanchez. Not related to me.

That’s Oscar with me in a recent meeting. When he was four, his parents separated.

He lived in Mindoro. His mother became a domestic helper in Hong Kong. His father became a construction worker. He was raised by his grandmother.

Oscar prayed a very sincere prayer as a small boy, “Lord, give me a whole family.”

That prayer was not answered because his mother kept on working as an OFW in Hong Kong. Fast forward, at 15 years old, he joined a gang named, “The Vice.” He had it in his life. He rebelled against the Lord. He became an atheist.

This was what he said at 15 years old: “How can there be a God if life is this painful?”

Fast forward to a few years, he was already in Manila. He had a girlfriend.

The girlfriend was attending The Feast.

The girlfriend said, “Join me.”

Oscar went. It was the afternoon session in PICC. Bro. Alvin Barcelona was preaching.

Oscar was saying to himself, “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe in God.” Then, Bro. Alvin said: “For God so loved the world that He gave

His only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life.”

And then Alvin said this: “If God gave His Son to us, what else will He not give to us?”

It struck Oscar. The next week, he went back to The Feast without his girlfriend because she was taking up Nursing and could not attend.

He just kept on going alone.

Today, Oscar is in Vancouver with his girlfriend who is now his wife. They have two children. After 28 years, he and his mother reconciled.

The Lord answered his prayer of a complete family.

Oscar, a former atheist and a former gang member, is now leading our Feast in Vancouver. Oscar can relate to the verse we just read. Once upon a time, he was far away from God. He was physically alive but spiritually, he was dead.

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in Ephesians 2: 1-2, the zombies he mentioned are people who look alive but are really dead on the inside.

Messages of Ephesians 2

Like good Bible nerds, we have to go back to Genesis to understand the story. The story of Genesis is that the first people were enjoying the Presence of God in the garden.

They were enjoying the fruits of God. Then, they rebelled against the Lord and got separated from His path.

Let’s read that verse again. Verse 2:

Paul is saying something very real to us. We live in a world where everything has to be proven by hard science.

When I say the word devil, for many people, it’s a fairy tale. Like Santa Claus.

It’s a doodle. It’s a cartoon.

But as Christians, we don’t buy that. We have experienced the work of the enemy in our lives. The surest way to lose a battle is to believe there is no enemy. It will be so easy to be defeated by him. Scripture says it is real.

Paul says: “ruler of a kingdom.” What does that mean? Evil is a system.

A systematic gravitational pull that shapes our culture, our values, our actions away from God. Sometimes, we’re not aware of it, but that enemy, he tempts us. He tries to pull us away from God. He does all sorts of things.

He works on our culture. He works on our values. It’s a system that’s in place. This is what Paul is trying to say: In Greek, air means pneuma which means spirit which means breath. They’re all the same.

What Paul is trying to say is that

Kingdom of the Air means evil is something that you don’t see, but it is all around you. It could be like air that you breathe in and out.

When you live in a culture that is shaped and influenced by evil, it’s there. It’s there in what you read. It’s there in what you see on social media. It’s there in government. It’s all over the place.

For you to be aware and say, “I need to resist.”

Dark powers are like the air we breathe. We’re breathing in unseen spirits that shape our thinking, our attitudes, and our behavior.

Evil Is Real

Paul tells us there’s an invisible, malevolent force that’s working in our world to stop

God’s beautiful plan for our lives.

Our headlines have been overflowing, pun intended– flood control projects that are ghost, not real. Corruption taking place all over the country.

We have in mind these questions: How is it possible that a person could be so heartless that you could be living ostentatiously in a mansion from corruption and you continue to live in that way of life when there are people who are dying every year because of the flood calamity? How can people live and sleep every night in their luxury bed? How can people ride in their luxury cars when they know people are suffering out there because of their corruption?

Maybe, they don’t think about it anymore. It’s true. Do you want to know why?

Paul has the answer. We just read the answer in Ephesians:

There is a system of corruption. Behind that is the ruler of the Kingdom of the Air. There is a demon. It is demonic. The person behind it has a numb conscience. That state is the work of the devil.

Corrupt people are not just greedy. They’ve allowed the Devil to take over their consciences.

This is dangerous. Many people are asleep not knowing that there’s an enemy who wants you to sleep.

How many of you watched the movie, The Exorcist?

There are two kinds of demon possession.

The first one is what you see in the movies. The head that turns 360°, the levitation, frothing in the mouth, and cursing God.

The second kind of demon possession is the normal one.

The normal person who talks and walks and goes to church but whose conscience is dead and looks at evil as good, does what’s evil because to him, it’s good.

That is a worse kind of demon possession.

What’s On Your Mind?

Scott Peck, a very popular best-selling author, wrote a book titled The People of the Lie.

He talks about these kinds of people whose consciences are dead.

He calls them the people of the lie and this is what he says: “One of their distinguishing characteristics is the ability to lie to themselves as well as to others and to insist on being ignorant of their own faults and wrongdoing.”

You do not want to be part of this group of people.

Since the systematic gravitational pull of evil is all around us, be careful what you feed your mind. Be selective. Choose only the best. When you’re scrolling, choose only the best that will bless you. You have to be choosy when you’re watching Netflix, when you’re reading, and when you’re choosing the friends you hang out with.

Ask yourself: “Will this help me grow and be a better human being?”

You need to hear what I’m about to say– because you’re at war. This is not peace time. These are not normal times. You have an enemy and he is bent on stopping God’s plan for your life.

We’re not going to allow him to do that. There are dark forces but there’s also the good force.

Demons Are Not Strong

I just came from a tiny town in France. The name of the town is Ars. I led my pilgrimage group there. Their parish priest is Fr. Jean Vianney.

He has an interesting story. When he was a seminarian, he was almost kicked out because his grades were not very good, especially in the Latin class. If you want to become a priest, you should be very good in Latin. His Latin was bad. He also had a difficult time with public speaking — giving a homily.

The bishop did not want to ordain him. Through a lot of struggles, they decided to ordain him but throw him far away, not in the city. They were willing to let him go to a small town and be a parish priest there.

But this guy was holy. He loved God so much. He may not enjoy preaching but he really wanted to bring people closer to God. He would sit in the confessional box for 16 hours a day hearing confession. It was so powerful that people even from far away towns would visit his parish just for confession.

I took a picture of his room. It was so simple. He lived such a simple life.

I was not able to take a picture of his shoes because they were so old that his parishioners would go to him and give him new shoes. He would accept them but the next day, he’d still be wearing the old ones.

The person who gave him the shoes asked him, “Father, where are the new shoes?”

He said, “Oh, I met another guy.

He needed it more than I do.”

He would just give away whatever people gave him. He was such a man who was so detached from material things.

The reason I’m telling you his story is this: He had personal battles with the Devil. He would fight demons. He would wrestle with demonic forces. The Devil knew that this guy was so powerful in bringing people closer to God.

Fr. Jean Vianney would say this and I want to be encouraged you by it:

Sometimes, when non-Catholics ask me, “Are you saved?”

I say “Yes.”

They would follow with, “Do you go to Heaven by your faith or by your works?”

They like asking that question. I read them these two verses.

There is faith but there are also good works.

Imagine that it’s your birthday and you receive this gift from your friend. There’s a card that says: “Happy Birthday! I hope you enjoy my gift.

I bought it at Kim store for P1,575. Please deposit amount to my GCash.”

You’ll wonder if that is a gift or a sale, right?

Grace is charis. It’s a gift and it is free.

Salvation is a gift. You don’t earn it.

You don’t work for it. You don’t pay for it.

God’s love is given to you for free. You don’t earn His love by being good. He just loves you. Period.

I now end with my story.

I was a teenager walking on the streets.

I was already preaching and serving the Lord, when I met this girl begging on the streets. She looked about just

9 years old. But when I asked her age, she told me she was 12. In my mind, she looked smaller than a 12-year-old, probably because of malnourishment.

I asked her, “What’s your name and where do you live?”

She answered, “I’m Nene. I live with my aunt. My parents have already died.”

I felt so sad for her. We sat down on the sidewalk. We kept on talking and what she told me broke my heart.

She said, I get beaten by my auntie when I cannot produce enough money from my begging.”

I felt so sorry for her that I did a crazy thing. Please do not do what I did. I asked her, “Nene, do you want to live with me in my house?”

She said, “Yes.”

I brought her home. I asked my mother to feed her. We looked for clothes

that she could use and she stayed with us. She seemed happy until the second day. I was already planning in my mind how we’re going to send her to school.

On the third day, she disappeared along with my cassette recorder and the cash in my petty cash box. I was so sad. Not because I lost those things but because

I lost her. I knew she would never return.

My friends, let’s analyze that story. I was giving her a new house, a new life, a new future, a new family. By the way, she didn’t deserve it at all because she didn’t do anything for me to open my house to her and give her a new life.

I, however, was also at fault. I was very naive but it came from a pure heart. I really wanted to help her, but there was a requirement for her to do something good back to me. At the very least, she shouldn’t have stolen from me and ran away. It meant that she was not ready to receive that grace. She was not ready to receive the new future, the new home, the new family, and the new grace.

She wanted to remain in her old life.

Surrender

I tell you that story because today God wants to give you grace. A new home, a new house, a new future, a new life. He wants to give these to you.

You and I are like Nene. We’re starving.

We’re beaten by life.

God says: “Come. You belong to my house.

This is where you belong.”

Now, you can choose to say: “I don’t want to live in your house. I’m going away. I’m running away.”

Or you can say: “I’m ready. I’m going to leave my old house. I want to live in Your house. I’m ready for this grace, this new relationship.”

Is that what you want?

Jesus died for you. Jesus gave His life for you.

You might be like Oscar. You might be somebody right now.

You’ve come for the first time and you’re saying: “Hey, there was a time I didn’t believe in God, but right now, I want to give my life to Him.”

Let’s pray:

Lord Jesus, I’m ready to receive grace from you. I’m ready to receive your new house, your new family, the new life, and the new future that You want to give to me. I’m ready to respond. I’m ready to believe. I’m ready to trust You. In Your Name. Amen.

This story was first published in the Feast Family Online News Magazine
Published by THE FEAST (October 26, 2025)