Rich in Mercy; Great in Love
Notes
Transcript
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Incline our hearts to your testimonies and not to selfish gain. Open our eyes to see the wonders of your law, teach us your way that we may walk in your truth; unite our hearts to fear your name. Satisfy us this morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Introduction
Introduction
King Saul and his son Jonathan had fought against the Philistine army and lost. Both were killed in the same battle and on the same day. In a panic, the nurse who looked after Jonathan’s five-year-old son, Mephibosheth, picked him up and ran. Something happened along the way and Mephibosheth ended up falling; his feet were crippled from that moment onward.
It would not be too much longer before David officially took the throne. For the most part, the house of Saul had been enemies with the house of David. But not so with Jonathan and David. Scripture tells us that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Yet the rest of the house did not feel the same.
Rather than being threatened by the enemy, David sought to bless someone from the house.
And David said, “Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”
There was one such person: Mephibosheth. He called him in
And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.”
And he paid homage and said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?”
As we look at Ephesians 2:1-6 this morning, I want us to notice two lives about which Paul informs his readers. The first life is one that everyone is born into: natural life. The second is received only by a few: spiritual life.
The Natural Life
The Spiritual Life
The Hebrew word for kindness is “hesed.” Hesed means kindness, but it’s more than being nice. Hesed is often translated as steadfast love, mercy, and grace. Our English translation tells us that David showed kindness (love, grace, mercy) for Jonathan’s sake but the Hebrew would be more literally translated if it said that David showed kindness in Jonathan. In other words, David wanted to show grace in Jonathan. David’s steadfast love was knitted in the heart and soul of Jonathan and so his demonstration of that love to Mephibosheth was located there as well. It’s not simply that David wants to be nice to honor the memory of a dead friend. The covenantal love between David and Jonathan was still alive and well in the heart of David. Thus, David’s actions toward Mephibosheth were dictated and influenced by that love.
Does that not sound familiar? Does it not sound like what God does for us in Christ?
Brothers and sisters, in similar way to Mephibosheth, we were born as enemies of God, crippled by our sin, and revived and restored because of love for Another, and invited to sit with him forever.
The Natural Life
The Natural Life
The first life that everyone is born into is the natural life. Now it is important to understand that Paul is coming at this section of Scripture with the previous section in mind. We don’t want to detach chapter two from chapter one. For one thing, Paul actually attaches the two by using the word “and.”
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
That is literally the definition of starting in the middle of a thought if we don’t back up and understand the complete thought. As we saw last week, Paul pointed out that we are the Body of Christ and we express the fulness of Christ to this broken world that he is ruling over. We have to keep that in mind with our text today.
We are the Body of Christ! And we were dead in our trespasses and sins. Before we belonged to Christ—before he was given to us the Church as the Head—we were dead in our trespasses. And the emphasis is on the you. You were dead. Later he would change it to “we.” “We all once lived.” Either way, Paul is emphasizing that those to whom he was writing or those from whom the letter is coming were all in the same boat: naturally we are alive, but spiritually we were dead in our trespasses and sins. It’s humbling to think of ourselves as being spiritually dead. But that’s exactly the point. No one wants to think of their sins and trespasses—those moments where we step over the line of right and wrong—to be all that bad. Yet Paul wants the church to remember from where they came. It’s important, not only doctrinally, but practically as well.
Do you remember how Mephibosheth referred to himself after receiving the grace of David in Jonathan?
And he paid homage and said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?”
“I’m a dead dog.” What a humbling thing to say. In fact, it’s downright humiliating. Can you hear the humiliation—the shame—in those words? In ancient Israel, dogs were not kept as pets; they were scroungers and scavengers. To have a dead dog was worse—an overlooked, forgotten, rotting mess. Mephibosheth had nothing to offer to David for his mercy upon his life. All he could do was receive his kindness.
That’s what Paul wants us to see about ourselves: when God calls us to eat at his table, we have nothing to bring except our needy selves; all we can do is receive his mercy in our lives.
Physically alive, spiritually we were dead; and we walked around in such a state.
in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
In other words, Paul writes about our lives here an now. We are followers of the course this world—literally, the age of this world. Whatever happens to be the mindset of society, the current trend, or whatever is going viral, that’s how we live our lives. This world is itself a follower as well. This world—its nations, its people groups, its movers and shakers—are influenced by satanic or demonic forces. But lest we think it’s only the big wigs getting all the demonic attention, it’s not. These same spiritual beings are working on us little folk too. Notice what Paul calls those who are born only in the natural state: sons of disobedience.
What does it mean to be a son of disobedience? It means we live how we want to live. We give the heart what the heart wants. We allow our passions and desires—literally, the wills of our flesh and mind—to run wild, and we chase after every plan they offer. Notice that the sons of disobedience have three allies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. And every single person born naturally—Jew or Gentile—has these allies.
But I want us to see even more of what Paul has done in these few verses. I want us to see how he has gone back to chapter one and juxtaposed our lives in Christ and outside Christ.
Outside of Christ, we are dead in our trespasses and sins (2:1), but in Christ, we are forgiven of our trespasses (1:7).
Outside of Christ, we are sons of disobedience (2:2), but in Christ, we are adopted in love as sons (1:4).
Outside of Christ, we are enslaved by our own passions of the flesh (2:3), but in Christ, we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit (1:14).
Outside of Christ, we are under the will of our flesh and mind (2:3), but in Christ, we live according to the will of God (1:5, 9:11).
Outside of Christ we are children of wrath (2:3); but in Christ, we have a glorious inheritance of the saints (1:18)
Outside of Christ, it is spirit of darkness that is now at work (2:3), but in Christ we have the immeasurable greatness of God’s power at work in us (1:19).
Do you see how Paul is redefining who we are? He is showing our old identity that was outside of Christ and our new identity in Christ. So long as we remain only in this natural life outside of Christ, we cannot lay claim to anything in Christ.
Beloved, it’s so easy to dwell on these verses. They are here for a reason, but that reason is not to straddle us with condemnation or self-doubt. Guess what! And as great as these verses are to teach us the doctrine of total depravity, that’s not the main reason we find them in the text. These verses are here to remind us of who we were without Christ. Paul first tells us all that God has done for us and to us in Christ in chapter one, and now reminds us what life was like before being in Christ.
I said this isn’t simply a doctrinal matter, but a practical one. In the very near future of this letter, Paul will point out that the Father, through the Son, has broken down the hostility between himself and us—we who were dead in our trespasses and sins. But he also emphasizes that he took dead, broken sinners and made them united and broke the hostility between them as well. What better way to set up the unity than by reminding every member of the Body that before they were part of the body, they—each and every single one—were dead in their trespasses and sins. Each of us comes to the table as Mephibosheths, crippled by the fall—crippled by our own sin.
The Spiritual Life
The Spiritual Life
So the first part of Paul’s long sentence is about the natural life; the second part is about the spiritual life. Everyone who is ever born is born outside of Christ,
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
As king of Israel, David was rich in hesed—kindness, mercy, love, grace—toward Mephibosheth so that he restored to him what was meant to be his in the first place. He received all the land of his father—the head of the family. In other words, he received the inheritance that had been lost because he was a dead dog and enemy of the king. David would, for all intents and purposes, be a father to this young man. He would dine forever at his table and forever be under his care and protection. Likewise, God—rich in hesed—has restored us to where we were always meant to be.
We were made to rule this world as God’s priests and ambassadors. We were meant to live forever and spread across the land and have dominion over the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. We were the image-bearers of God meant to display his likeness over all creation. And, in Adam, we all fell, we all were crippled, we all died.
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Adam was dead; we were dead. None of us knew it yet. We were a dead dog, crippled—not in feet, but in heart. We lost our inheritance. We lost our standing. We became sons of God’s great enemy and thus enemies ourselves. But all that is past! “God, being rich in mercy made us a live together with Christ.” He has taken us removed the wrath and restored the inheritance. You see, we often remember the life given but forget what all comes with it. We give little thought to the blessings of that life—all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places.
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
When Christ was made alive, so were we. We were naturally alive but spiritually dead dogs. But God made us alive with Christ; to say it a little differently and perhaps even more clearly, Paul wrote that he raised us up with him. This morning is resurrection Sunday. We certainly remember and celebrate Christ’s resurrection today. Up from the grave he arose! But church family, so did we!!! God raised us up with him! How is it that we rose from the dead when Christ rose from the dead? Because we were and are in Him! We are so united to Christ that his resurrection is our resurrection. But that’s not all! Do you remember where Christ is seated? We saw in previous weeks,
and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might
that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,
Do you see the connection of 1:19-20 and 2:5-6? The immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe is the same power that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Oh! Paul says, “And incidentally, when he raised Christ he raised you with him and when he seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, he put you there as well.” We too sit with power over sin. We too dwell in true safety and security. We too have a place of fellowship at God’s glorious table. How? Because we are in his Beloved Son, united so closely that what God does for and in Christ, he does for and in us.
Why? Hesed. God is rich in mercy and great in love.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
Our sins, our trespasses, even our being dead would not be able outspend the riches of God’s mercy. Our failures and falls cannot ever overcome or overwhelm God’s great love. Because of God’s great love, we could even say because of God’s multitudinous love with which he loved us, he made us alive with Christ. That’s why Paul interjects with “By grace you have been saved!”
Do you know what we don’t ever see in Scripture? We never see the phrase “God, being rich in wrath.” We know that God has and shows wrath, but he is rich in mercy. So many Christians see God as a tyrant looking for them to screw up so he can come down upon them with lightening bolts. That picture of God resembles more of Zeus than Yahweh. In reality, we see handfuls of mercy more often than wrath.
God’s richness of mercy led to salvation by grace. But what is mercy without love? Mercy without love is common. It’s ordinary. God allows it to rain on the just and the unjust. But mercy with love saves! Because of the great love—the multitudinous love of God—with which he loved us. Us! The cause of our salvation is God’s love. The means by which of our salvation comes is God’s grace. The state of our salvation is God’s rich mercy.
And he takes a dead dog like us, restores to us our lost, forfeited inheritance, and seats us next to him at his heavenly table. As David wrote so long ago:
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Brothers and sisters, if we are in Christ and Christ is
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
What does this mean for us? It means that we too are above all rule and authority and power and dominion. There is no difference! It’s not a fantasy. It’s not hyperbole. It’s reality! This is what is means to have spiritual life! We are seated—being in Christ and being the Body of Christ—in the heavenly places. That is the spiritual reality; do not pretend otherwise. Don’t shrug it away as pie-in-the-sky thinking. That might be one of the reasons you fall. You don’t believe the truth of the matter, and so you believe the lie that you’re still under the mastery of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
But the reality is that you are above all of them. That does not mean that they’re dead; it doesn’t even mean that they are powerless. It means that you are above them and they are below you. You and I fight from the higher ground and they from the lower. They fight under us and hurl their darts and shoot their arrows and swing their swords from a position of disadvantage all in hopes of wounding us with their lies, distractions, and manipulations. But they do it, by God’s grace, under our feet—not over our heads.
So why then do we fail? Why do we fall?
In part, it may be that we disbelieve our position as I said a moment ago. It also might be that we forget our position. It’s not that we don’t believe what Paul is saying, but it is that we allow those darts of lies, those arrows of manipulation, those blades of distractions get the better of us and we forget where we are seated. Because we have forgotten, we fall prey to our enemies.
Still, it could be because we live in the tension of what many theologians call the already/not yet of our Christian walk. The reality—and it is a reality—is that we are seated in the heavenly places with and in Christ. That’s the spiritual reality. The physical reality, though, is that we are also walking in this broken and sinful world. Our bodies have not yet caught up to our spirits. There is still a natural craving in our bodies. We still long for that forbidden fruit, just like Adam. But our cravings are only cravings. They are not commanders who have charge over us. Christ is King! And the King has given us a Spirit—a Spirit who bears the fruit of self-control in us—if we will only partake at the opportune time. So when the flesh craves that which dishonors the God who has given you life, the Spirit stands ready, bearing fruit to answer the flesh: “You can thrash like a spoiled child all you want, but my soul longs for God’s righteousness, like a deer pants for flowing streams.” And by the immeasurable greatness of the power of God toward us, we have the power to drag these weary, broken, craving “not-yet” bodies of flesh into reality—the reality of our new identity and our new position with Christ in the heavenly places.
Conclusion
Conclusion
So as we close out this portion of Paul’s letter, we’ve seen two lives that are being lived: the natural life that is a reality for everyone who has ever been born and the spiritual life, for all who have received God’s gift through Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection.
The natural life is, in reality, death. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. But Paul did not write these words to send us into a downward spiral of self-pity, but to propel us into an upward expression of praise. We are no longer who we were, but God rich in mercy, because of the love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ—by grace we have been saved! And all that comes with that new life he has expressed in chapter one, and he reiterates it by reminding us that we too are raised with Christ and seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
This is the reality for true believers in Christ. However, if you’ve never put your trust in the finished work of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection from the grave, then only the first half of the sermon applies to you. You still are only alive in the flesh, but dead in the spirit. But God’s power never runs out. The power that raised Jesus from the tomb and raised many who are in this place out of their spiritual graves, has just as much power to save your soul.
For we who are in Christ, let us not doubt, let us not forget, and let us, by the immeasurable greatness of God’s power (not our own), drag our “not-yet” bodies to the spiritual reality of our “already” position. For God has truly taken our dead dog spirits, resurrected and restored to them their inheritances, and has seated us with him always and forever.
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
Thank you for being rich in mercy and great in love so that we are, even now, raised with Christ on high. Strengthen us with your immeasurable power to bring our fleshly body into alignment with our spiritual reality. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
