The Character of Resurrection

Ephesians 2:1-10

I Like My God

Two nights ago, Dylan had a dream. He dreamed God created a Tyrannosaurus Rex. A T-Rex. He created a T-Rex so large that it ate God. Dylan was not upset by this, he was more impressed. The God of his imagination can create a T-Rex so large it can eat Him. Then all the other dinosaurs came running down the street and the T-Rex saved them. So it was a good dream.

Arabelle was offended. Nothing is more powerful than God! Even God can’t create something more powerful than Him… He is just too powerful. So that children’s church thing is wrestling with some deep theology.

And then they argue. And they argue as if it is at stake what God is and how He is. Arabelle has to defend the unmatchable power of God, Dylan has to defend God’s ability to create whatever He wants to create, including a God-eating T-Rex.

We don’t choose who God is. We don’t create who He is by how we imagine He is. He is.

God is how He is. He is who He is. We can only discover who He is.

Introduction and overall picture.

We have spent a couple of weeks so far in Ephesians chapter 2, but we haven’t hit the punchline yet. We read it, we briefly talked about it, but kind of skimmed over it.

We talked about how human beings are trapped in sin by our inherent nature, by our culture, and by our enemy. We examined a couple weeks ago how we can get mentally stuck in our transition from death to life in Christ… we can get stuck in “wretchedness” and not realize that we are amazing. Or we can grab hold of the amazing and think that we did it.

We aren’t really stuck, we just aren’t fully living in the new reality He has raised us to: to be His amazing workmanship, recreated and resurrected by grace alone by God to do good works.

That is a whole lot about us. Which is fine, because it really does say a lot about us here. But the main point, the punchline, is about God.

In order to see the full arc, we have to go further back and refresh our memories about what has come so far in Ephesians.

Ephesians 1:3-14

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…

This huge long sentence, containing all this truth and profundity about the nature of salvation and predestination. But what was the actual root of the sentence? Blessed be God.

Ephesians 1:15-23

17 I do not cease to give thanks for you… praying that God… may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him… (18) opening the eyes of your heart…

Following that passage, we hit another huge sentence. This one talked about Paul’s prayer for the churches, opening the eyes of our hearts… but centered on one key idea: “that God may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.” It was about God revealing Himself to us.

Ephesians 2:1-10

And then Ephesians 2 starts a new sentence. It picks up on the thread of Jesus’ resurrection, for it was just said that the power that God has for us is a resurrection Power. And then it talks about our sin and death… but this is preparation building towards one central idea:

4 But God… 5 raised us up with him (Christ) and seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

And that reveals the character of God, the revelation in the knowledge of Him. It links back to Chapter 1 vs. 17. What does it tell us about God? All around that statement, 2 before, 2 after, are explanation of the character of God that motivated God to this central act of salvation.

Being rich in mercy… loving us greatly, immeasurable in grace, acting in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

You are saved by grace through faith, revealing the nature and character of the God who is blessed, the God who Paul unceasingly prays will reveal himself to His church.

Just as our hope is Resurrection hope.

Just as the power God has for us is Resurrection power.

So, the character of God is revealed to us in Resurrection, in our inclusion in Christ’s resurrection. By this we know that God is merciful, loving, gracious and kind.

We discover who God is.

It was my conviction this week that we did not need to hear a whole lot more explanation about this. We don’t need to apply “God is merciful” to our lives… we need to get to know the God who is merciful. We don’t need 3 steps to “know God’s grace”… we need to meditate on the God who is abundantly rich in grace. So I am going to say a very few things about each of these and we will have time, led by the worship team, to meditate on the character and person of God.

During these times of reflection, do what helps you focus and meditate on God. If it helps you to sing, sing. If you need to close your eyes and sit, or lie down, please do so. If you need to write down your thoughts, whatever you need to do, let’s take time to seek the face and character and person of our God.

Word on Mercy

God, being rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.

For God is merciful. Even though the natural consequences of our actions as humanity and as individuals is death, and God is a God of Justice, He is holy but… He is also full of mercy, rich in mercy.

Humanity broke the world and entered into sin and death. Somehow we are still here. This is mercy.

This word is used during Israel’s covenant history. Every time they broke the covenant, and they did, again and again, God showed hesed, his covenant faithfulness, his mercy.

In the face of all the sin I can remember… God is merciful.

In the face of all the stupid things I have done… God is merciful.

In the face of all the little and large, the habitual and the purposeful, the things I don’t even remember doing… God is merciful.

I don’t get what I deserve, I get mercy instead.

Respond in Worship

Word on Love

The great love with which He loved us. Repetition.

If you have been raised in the church, you have probably heard this word for love: Agape. It has all these profound meanings and implications.

But before that, it is the blandest of words for love. The most vague, the most generic.

Eros, romantic love, is associated with the God eros. It is sudden and irresistible. It is passionate. When cupid shoots you with the arrow, you have no choice, you are in love.

Phileo, brotherly love, is mutual. I love and support you, you love and support me. Brothers in arms, my love demands your love in return.

Agape. It didn’t have much meaning, much flavor in Greek. But when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, they translated words with rich theological meaning and picked this word, agape, to capture it. And the New Testament picks up this language and layers on meaning.

Agape. Unlike eros, it is a choice. It represents God’s covenant choice, again and again, choosing His people. He chooses to love us.

And because He loves us. He agapes us with great agape, He loves us with great love. The strongest language of causality, because He loves us, He raised us up with Him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

There is no reason to expect this. No reason to anticipate it. Except that He says He loves us. Except that He acted and still acts out of His love. His always patient, always kind, never-ending, never-giving-up, always-forgiving, bearing-all-things kind of love.

Respond in Worship

Word on Grace

Grace.

It is the action of a superior being to an inferior. A king to his people.

Grace is the undeserved gift. In the grand sum of things, what in life do you deserve. You earn a wage at work, but did you earn your ability to work? You earned your education through hard work, but did you earn the intellect by which you studied? Did you earn capacity for memory?

Did you earn the breath you just drew in? Are you guaranteed the next breath of life?

Grace upon grace. It is by grace that you have life, it is by grace that you have the opportunity and capacity for knowledge of the Creator God who gave you life. It is by grace that you are saved and God’s grace to give you abundant life and gifts beyond salvation. Gifts for eternity.

It is inherent in the character of God to give gifts to His people.

5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

God is a God who gives freely and generously. God is a God of amazing grace.

Respond in Worship

Word on Kindness

Mercy, love and grace. These are huge theological words. Kindness is in a different category. It is less specific, more general, but it also has a whole different tone.

God is merciful… and so I get to live.

God is loving… and so He pursues me and resurrects me, He seeks and creates for my good.

God is rich in grace… and so He gives what I don’t deserve.

This reveals the person of God… but will I like this person? Will I enjoy the Presence of God for eternity? He loves me, He gives me, but He is also kind toward me. In the coming ages, he is going to show his immeasurably rich grace… in a very specific way. In kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

We taste that the Lord is good, that the Lord is kind… His kindness leads us to repentance… and in Kindness He will gift us from His immeasurably rich grace for all the coming ages.

Respond in Worship

Summary

This is who God is.

Ephesians 2:4-10

It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Blessed be God.