But God...
Notes
Transcript
Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church. Please turn in your Bibles with me to Ephesians 2, Ephesians 2.
Oh what a dark picture has been painted for us. Paul, after describing the glorious station of Christ at the end of chapter 1, has immediately contrasted His station with the condition of the unbeliever. And mark this - that their state would continue to be our state if not for the passage that we are going to be looking in to this morning. We mustn’t ever forget what we once were - not for a condemnation of ourselves but rather lest we ever forget what a truly amazing gift we have been given.
Paul has painted the blackest of backgrounds. Kyle did a great job of capturing the character of these verses as the state of the unbeliever, the inclination of the unbeliever and the reward of the unbeliever. Just as a master jeweler places a diamond on a black background to allow the clarity, the color to shine through - Paul is preparing the background that will allow the beauty of the Gospel - the choicest of diamonds - to shine. This passage that we are looking at in parts is really one of the most concise presentations of the Gospel in all of Scripture - Ephesians 2:1-10 contains the entire Gospel - and it hinges on the verses we’re going to look at in detail today. Please look into your Bibles as we continue to look at Ephesians 2. We’ll read all 10 verses, but we’ll be focused today on verses 4-7.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins
in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient.
We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us,
made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!
He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—
not from works, so that no one can boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.
This truly is one of my favorite passages of Scripture - and it all hinges on verse 4. These verses are all one sentence in Greek - another of Paul’s run-on sentences that hold so much depth and value for the believers. When you are struggling with assurance - this is a passage to turn to. We will examine the passage in four steps this morning:
First we will look at But God, then we will see whence it came, how it came, and why it came.
And of course all of this is for the glory of God - this is the theme, the chord that Paul has repeatedly struck throughout these first two chapters.
But God...
But God...
I know it is the sermon title and so to have a second slide that says the same thing is unnecessarily redundant - but I wanted to remove all the clutter, all the extra and allow each of you to focus on the beauty, the very majesty of two seemingly simple words.
De ho Theos - even the Greek sounds musical, majestic to our ears. Or maybe it is just to mine.
But God - the Gospel encapsulated in two words. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, commenting on these verses, said “These two words, in and of themselves, in a sense contain the whole of the Gospel.
But - a simple conjunction that says so much.
Speaks of hope -
In verses 1-3 Paul has painted the reader into a hopeless situation…but…there is more to come
Speaks of action
This current state of being exists - we were dead in our trespasses, lived according to the ways of the world, we were ruled by fleshly inclinations
But there is still action to take place - this story is not complete
God - salvation is God’s sovereign action
Monergistic
Mono - meaning single or one
Ergo - meaning work
Only through God’s sovereign action could this condition that Paul leaves us in be reversed
It is not but…you can do better
It is not but…you can keep the laws and save yourself
It is not even but…God has determined to partner with you
It is simply But God - what beautiful hope is offered. What more beautiful hope could there be. What two words combined in the entire body of languages could ever sound more sweet, could ever be more comforting to the oppressed soul. These are the words that when spoken would make Christian weep as the burden that is upon his back is released. These are the words that make the downtrodden, the desperate soul turn their weary eyes from the hopeless situation in which they find themselves and focus on the cross.
As hopeless as our situation was. As righteous as our condemnation might be. As just as God would be for allowing our condition to persist. He sovereignly acts to save us. But God. Oh Christian we should glory in these two words. And how simple that in any moment we can utter them and the darkness of our lives is dispelled under the glory of His marvelous light. But none of this happens in a vacuum - it is the result of the outpouring of God’s character and His work on behalf of His people. Paul now turns our attention to whence it came - from where does this sovereign action come?
Whence It Comes
Whence It Comes
It has been said, and I would agree, that the defining attribute of God’s character, the attribute from which every other attribute is measured is His holiness. Holy, Holy, Holy proclaim the angels around the throne in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4. Psalm 99 proclaims God’s holiness. It is precisely because of His holiness that the reward for the ungodly is to abide under God’s wrath. But here Paul reveals three attributes that most characterize God’s relation with respect to His people. His rich mercy, His great love and His abundant grace.
He is rich in mercy - Paul interrupts his flow of thought to highlight this attribute of God with respect to His people. Of course there is the condition that we all exist in - whether saved or unsaved - of being under God’s common mercy. The fact that we are not struck down immediately upon sinning is one example of this common mercy. Webster’s defines mercy as compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one’s power.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.
He will not always accuse us or be angry forever.
He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities.
God’s mercy is so great that you may sooner drain the sea of its water, or deprive the sun of his light, or make space too narrow, than diminish the great mercy of God.
Charles Spurgeon
Who is a God like you, forgiving iniquity and passing over rebellion for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not hold on to his anger forever because he delights in faithful love.
Our God abounds in common mercy but here the mercy that Paul has in mind is a particular mercy that is given to those who have put their faith in Christ - while there is the mercy that they have not been treated as they deserve - the Hebrew verb hesed which most accurately describes mercy can describe the covenant loyalty which God maintained towards the nation of Israel, but it can also mean an expression of love and generosity which is unexpected - for the believer there is the mercy that, not only is He currently passing over their sins and not treating them as they deserve but He never will. Because He has effected their rescue from the status Paul described in verses 1-3, believers are under the particular mercy of God - shown only to His people.
Both this mercy and the grace which Paul will speak of in a moment are the result of the great love of God that He holds for His people. This is a love that is bestowed only on His people. There is this notion in Christianity that God loves everyone. That hasn’t always been the case.
Calvin wrote
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Reformation God Begins to Love Us When We Are United with Christ
Apart from Christ, we are hated by God, and he only begins to love us when we are united to the body of his beloved Son. It is an invaluable privilege of faith, that we know that Christ was loved by the Father on our account, that we might be made partakers of the same love, and might enjoy it forever.
JOHN CALVIN
This is a hard truth for us to grasp. But it is Biblical.
As it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.
“I have loved you,” says the Lord. Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob,
but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
The idea that God loves the sinner but hates the sin isn’t one that is borne out in Scripture - and it is one that we should be careful of. Paul says here that God’s rich mercy flows out of His great love…for His people.
It is this love that is the driving force behind the words But God. It is this love that compels Him to action on behalf of His people. It is this love that ushers Christ to the cross - love for both His Father and the people who are His possession. The word here is agape - unconditional love. Despite all that we are, all that Paul has described us to be, God loves us.
300 Quotations for Preachers God Loved You before and Loves You More
He loves you more than you love Him, and He loved you before you loved Him.
BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX*
It is also out of this great love for us that His grace flows freely to us.
Paul says at the end of verse 5 - You are saved by grace!
Despite everything that we have done, we are redeemed through grace…an idea that Paul will develop further in verses 8 and 9 saying that it is not of works. In fact God’s grace is diametrically opposed to the efforts of man to save themselves. It is free and unearned.
they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities.
God’s grace is a miracle that both confuses our senses, drives us to our knees and raises our spirits to the heights in exultation of Him.
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Puritans “But by a Miracle of Grace”
Surely corruption is ingrained in our hearts, interwoven with our very natures, has sunk deep into our souls, and will never be cured but by a miracle of grace.
THOMAS BOSTON
It is from the attributes of His rich mercy and this abundant grace, underwritten by His great love, that drive the work of God that is promised in the simple words But God. It is the business of grace that Augustus M. Toplady speaks of
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Modern Church “The Business of Grace”
The business of grace is to lift us from the dust, to settle us upon Christ the rock of ages, to put a new song of free salvation into our mouths, and to order our goings in the path of God’s commandments. This it is … that enables us to rejoice in the name of Christ all the day.
AUGUSTUS M. TOPLADY
How It Came
How It Came
There are times in our lives when the English language is insufficient to describe what we desire to convey and so we must create words. One such word is injelititis - it means induced inferiority, the disease seen in those who intentionally attempt little and achieve nothing. Paul, in seeking to describe what God has done on behalf of His people, introduces three new words here that describe how God has gone about this marvelous work. In so doing he is going to combine the preposition syn - meaning together with - with three conditions that God has elevated the believer to.
Made us alive with Christ - Synzoopoieo
Note the contrast here - in verse one and restated again here by Paul - we were dead in our trespasses. ‘
Mortuary story - no one has ever gotten up off the table
Paul is describing what we were, our past, and what we now are, our present.
And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.
Commenting on this change from death to life, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said
Ephesians: An Expositional Commentary (All Things New)
“The difference between the sinner and the Christian, the unbeliever and the believer, is not that the believer, the Christian, has certain faculties which the other man lacks. No, what happens is that this new disposition given to the Christian directs his faculties in an entirely different way…He has turned in a different direction; there is a new power working in him and guiding his faculties. This is the thing that makes a man a Christian.
What implications this has for us as we live our lives.
I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
We have been made alive with Christ, through Christ and for Christ. How often do we navigate our daily lives with this reality in mind?
The thing is we haven’t simply been made alive with Him, we have also been raised with Him.
This next verb that Paul has created is synegeiro.
In raising us up with Him, Christ has shared His victory over sin and death with us.
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Reformation Christ Has Given His Victory to Us
Christ’s victory … is the overcoming of the law, of sin, our flesh, the world, the devil, death, hell and all evils; and this his victory he has given to us. Although, then, these tyrants and these enemies of ours accuse us and make us afraid, yet they cannot drive us to despair, nor condemn us; for Christ, whom God the Father has raised up from the dead, is our righteousness and victory.
MARTIN LUTHER
Some of us live as if that victory is still in doubt. If we have been made alive with Christ, if we have been raised with Him then we are, right now, victorious over all things. Yes, we are still subject to human governments. Yes, we are still in conflict with the human nature that would drive us away from God. But we can submit to the governments, we can carry out that battle knowing that we are in a position of strength and that our victory is assured.
Because we are seated with Him in the heavenly places.
This is the third and final verb that Paul creates to describe our current status. Synkathizo meaning to sit down with.
This is not at the right hand of God - the position of honor and authority that is only given to Christ.
This is a position of intimacy with God. It is the place where God opens up His heart to us, where we connect with Him as our loving Heavenly Father. Where we experience His nearness and build our emotional connection to Him. And the beauty is that this is not something we have to wait until we get to Heaven for. Paul uses all of these verbs to describe our current condition.
This is a position of intimacy with God. It is the place where God opens up His heart to us, where we connect with Him as our loving Heavenly Father. Where we experience His nearness and buile
Ephesians Exegesis and Exposition
The most unusual element about all three verbs is their past tense: here the Christian’s life, resurrection, and royal position with Christ are events that have already happened.
We are alive with Christ. We are raised with Christ. We are seated with Him in the Heavenly places.
We are no longer subject to the rulers and authorities, the powers and dominions.
We should be rubbing off on the world rather than the world rubbing off on us.
We have seen that it was out of God’s great love poured forth in His mercy and grace that we have been made alive with Christ, raised with Christ and seated with Christ. Now we come to why this has happened.
Why It Came
Why It Came
Paul’s theme throughout these first two chapters has been the glory of God realized in the work of Christ and delivered to the believer. And here he returns to this theme -
so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
This is the future state of the believer - to be a display of God’s immeasurable riches of grace through His kindness - that which was delivered to us free of charge will be most on display in us when we are in Heaven. Our current reality is that we are alive, raised and seated with Christ. It is these current realities that guarantee that this future state will come to be.
God’s kindness is most clearly on display through His grace
Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
Therefore, consider God’s kindness and severity: severity toward those who have fallen but God’s kindness toward you—if you remain in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Modern Church The Greater the Sinner
All that you have got to do is, to prove that you are a sinner, and I will prove that you have got a Savior. And the greater the sinner, the greater need you have of a Savior.
DWIGHT L. MOODY*
What an amazing thought that we are to be the demonstration of God’s kindness and His grace. Out of the abundance of His character and attributes God condescended to save one such as I.
Ephesians Summary
This demonstration of his character was not something that happened as a side effect of his gracious saving work, but was the very purpose for which he did this work. He rescued those who are in Christ from the domination of the world, the devil, and the flesh so that he might demonstrate forever the overwhelmingly gracious nature of his character.
But God…those beautiful words with which Paul started this section, mean nothing, are actually incomprehensible to us, without the work of Christ.