Life and Death: The Full Revealing of God

Amos 3:6-7 and the Lord’s Revealed Secret

The Old Testament scripture reading this morning we found in Amos chapter 3, we're reading verses 6 and 7, if you would please stand in honor of God's word. For the Lord God does nothing without revealing, excuse me, is a trumpet blown in a city and the people are not afraid?

Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets. The New Testament reading this morning will be in Revelation chapter 19, verses 6 -10.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. The fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, these are the true words of God. Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, you must not do that.

I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. You may be seated.

Good morning.

Ephesians 2 and the Need for Mercy and Grace

Open your Bibles to Ephesians 2, please, Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2, we'll read the first 10 verses. This is the word of the Lord. 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 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Let us pray. Oh Father, here's your word open up to us and I am reminded just like I am every time of how much we're in need of your mercies and grace so that your word would go from just simply being on the page to being intimately in our hearts.

Lord, there are those before me who have came to church not ready at all. Their night last night perhaps was filled with distractions and their morning this morning was filled with distractions and so they are here now with distracted hearts and minds.

Father, I pray that your mercies and grace would overcome that and their minds and hearts would be focused now in this moment upon your word, upon the word declared by me. Lord, and I know I'm an imperfect vessel used by you in weakness, but my weakness I pray would even show your strength now that Lord, despite my weakness, your word would still be faithfully declared and truth would be declared and so that hearts who are hungry and thirsty for Jesus would receive it and get benefit from it.

Lord, help us, Lord, for we cannot do it of our own. We need the spirit. So I pray that you would work in us so that we would see Jesus more clearly and look to him for all of our lives and obey him by his grace and mercy.

Thank you for Jesus, our risen Savior, in Jesus' name, amen. So my home is heated by a wood pellet stove, actually two of them now. And if you see the wood pellet stove, one of them in particular, you would see in the summer that it doesn't seem to have much use.

It might have minor uses and if you didn't know anything about wood pellet stove, you didn't know what it looked like, you didn't know its function, in the summertime as you looked at it, you might see that it's a big place to just put things on.

My wife is a good homemaker. It doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while, we need to put stuff on there while we're doing different activities in the living room. And so if you were there, you would see, okay, that item, that stove is just simply meant to have things on it, right?

And so a purpose indeed, there's a purpose, a revealing of its purpose there. But as you would then approach fall, if you're in the living room and it was a little bit cold, a little bit nippy in the air, and all of a sudden it would turn on and light up a flame and start burning the woods and the heat would come out, you would see, oh, I see a greater revealing here.

There's something better than I originally thought. It's not simply just to hold stuff on it, but it actually gives a nice comfort. This is actually nice to sit by here on a nice 45 degree day. But if then you perhaps go in the winter, now, if you remember before the new year last year, it got to like negative 5 ,000 degrees outside.

And I remember going out there to let my chickens and ducks out, which was silly because they didn't come out. They're like, nope, no, sir.

But I remember that wind.

I remember thinking if I were to just like for some reason, just pass out and no one knew, I would be dead in like minutes, seconds. It was crazy how cold it was. And as I did the thing I had to do real quick and got back in my house, that wood stove that was bursting out the heat, I had a greater appreciation of it literally is keeping me alive as it is so cold out.

And so if you were there then, it would come from a revealing of putting stuff on it in the summer of whatever to in the fall, a nice comfort where you appreciate it more to in the winter. This is actually causing us to survive in these elements.

There would be a greater revealing and a greater appreciation. This is exactly what God does for us. If you don't know, and I know I've said it before, and if there's something, if I say over and over again, your whole purpose in life is to see how God has revealed himself and respond in worship.

That is everything. If I could just say it over and over again, the reason for your life is to see how God is revealing himself to you today in your particular circumstance and respond in worship. Whether those worship are tears or joy, happiness, it doesn't matter.

God is revealing himself. You take that and you respond with worship. And this is what God is all about because this is for our good. And this is what God has been doing since the beginning. He has been revealing himself in different stages.

And we take those revealings and we get a taste of who he is more and more. And it fills our hearts with his goodness. Since the beginning of creation, God has been revealing himself and revealing himself more fully for our good.

And we see in Genesis, I want to spend a moment introducing this. It's fine. I hope you can be patient with me as we get to the text. But I think it'll help us look at the text in a little bit different, truthful way that might give more color, flavor to it.

And so just stay with me here as we're in Genesis. We see that God, at the very beginning, revealed himself. That's what he's always done. That's his purpose, revealing himself in his creation to his humans, to his creatures, to humanity.

And we see in Genesis, the beginning of it, we see him reveal himself as a provider, as a sustainer with abundant goodness. We see him, again, put that in your mind, a powerful provider, sustainer with abundant goodness to Adam and Eve.

Ever notice that Genesis 1 starts out with a chaotic blob? And the end of the week, we have fish in the sea, birds in the air, creatures creeping about and plants producing fruit. And then man is given dominion over that.

I just find that fascinating to see God's power revealed and his goodness revealed in the beginning of the week. He creates this blob that's chaotic and has no, you can't make any sense of it. And at the end of the week, you have life in all its forms.

And then he says, here you go, man, it's yours. God revealing himself as powerful creator, provider, sustainer with abundant goodness. He gives it to man in Genesis 1, 27 through 30. And we look at the goodness displayed in verse 31.

God saw, in Genesis 1, 31, God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. Look at the revealing there. And I'm jumping ahead, but I want your mind to be on it right now.

What if God would have just kept it there, right? Why in the world do we have to go through the rest of the pages of scripture with all.

The death?

Keep that in the back of your mind. Even the goodness is exposed to God, disposed to Adam and God. Because look at chapter two, verse one, you got to see the goodness coming forth here. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the hosts of them.

And in verse two, and on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

He gives an example. He gives an example to Adam of how to appreciate this creation. That is a six day work, one day rest. This is how you're going to appreciate what I'm giving to you. You see the goodness coming forth from God to Adam right here.

We see the goodness continues with his power and providential care. Look at verse nine of chapter two, and out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

And this is in the garden that God placed Adam in. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and.

Evil.

So you see, we hear God as being the sustainer, the provider. And it's not only that, but it's overflowing with goodness, revealing himself to Adam. And out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

We see God is revealing himself in very particular ways to Adam. And it just goes on. I don't want to belabor the point, but it goes on in verse 10, a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden. And so there he's being provided for by a river.

You can imagine Adam seeing that river, seeing how it provides all this goodness to him. And he would consider God is the one who placed this garden on purpose to fuel this garden. Oh, God is wonderful in his creation and his providential care and his sustainment and his abundant goodness.

This would be coming forth from Adam's heart. And not only that, and I'm going to finish with that, with this next point. There's an interesting thing in which all this is going on, but yet there's a realization now, not on God's part, although he allows it to be a realization, but certainly on Adam's part that God says, Adam needs someone, right?

He needs someone. There's a realization that Adam's in need of a wife, Adam, all these animals, these wonderful animals coming together and their contentment being created by God. And there is this understanding from Adam that, man, I would like to have my own companion.

And so it's like God allows that realization that I need something a little bit more here. And then what does God prove himself to be, reveals himself to be to Adam? I will give you what your heart longs for.

And he gives him the queen of Eden, Eve herself. He gives marriage. And we see, so that God is revealing himself here, that every single want that you have, I will provide. I'm your sustainer. I'm your powerful provider.

An abundant goodness comes forth from me. And see, if Adam would have obeyed, we would have his righteousness now and enjoy all that God has revealed. Can you just realize, think about that for a moment.

If Adam would have obeyed in the garden, we would have gained his righteousness, never with this fall, never with death, never with sin. It would have just been righteousness, and we would have seen that revealed as well.

But instead, Adam sinned, and the winter of death came to mankind, and which we talked about last week. If you remember in Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, I'll read it one more time. And you were, and again, think of Adam, think of the fall, think of the revealing of all the beauty, but then death comes, and so now you are dead, and the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, Ephesians 2, 2, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is not at work, and the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived, and the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and whereby children, by nature, children of wrath, like the rest.

Of mankind.

So we can see a sudden shift in all the revealing of God, that we would go from his goodness on display, and we grab hold of it as our life, and worship to him, and now mankind is dead in their trespasses, since their desires are not to respond to worship, but instead our desires are to respond selfishly for ourselves, to fit our own sinful ambitions, instead of glorifying this God.

Why did God allow that? Wasn't it enough to reveal himself beautifully in these other ways, to where he stopped Satan from tempting him? Stop that from happening, stop all the death. Now think of that for a moment, the next time you're watching the news and you see the most tragic news, the most sinful behavior of the world, why didn't God just stop Adam from sinning?

Think of that in your own heart, as you go towards sin again, and you think, why am I in this sinful state? Why am I here? Think about that, oh God, why didn't you just stop that and let the revealing of yourself be enough before the fall, before sin entered?

Why did death come? And the answer is because God had more to display about himself. God reveals, reveals, reveals, reveals, reveals, and it wasn't enough prior to the fall of.

Man.

He had more to reveal of himself, and our greatest good is to see all the revelation of God and respond in worship. And so if he wasn't to reveal everything about himself, we would be deprived of the greatest good, and God loves us too much to deprive us of anything like that.

And so God, and you've got to remember this as you're dealing with the things of the fall, God allows it for the purpose of revealing him totally to his saints. And this is his good to us. God was to display something about himself, not just in the life of summer before the fall, but especially in the death of winter after the fall.

You think about the fact that my wood stove revealed something about itself in the summer but it was really in the death of winter that it really revealed itself as being full of life and everything that we need.

Well think of God and an analogy in the same way. God was to display something about himself, not just in the life of summer or in Eden before the fall, but especially in the death of winter after the fall.

There's a lot of puns there. If you can tell me what it is, I'll give you extra credit. I put a lot of puns there, not even on purpose, it's there though. And so this is what I want to focus on moving forward, that we see in verse four, as we move forward in the text, we see who God is, think of revealing himself, who God is.

And then the second part, verse five and six, what God did because of who he is. And then think of the third part here in verse seven, and thus God is fully revealed. So let us start with who God is. Let's start with who God is.

Look at verse four of chapter two, talking about death, talking about the death of mankind, talking about the fall of Adam, right? Look at verse four, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

So that is who God is. He is rich in mercy. He has great love. But notice first that but God, right? He just laid out the death of mankind, the death of you without Christ. And then it can be hard for our minds to understand why he would allow such a terrible position, such a terrible estate.

But then there's those beautiful, glorious words, but God, and this is what needs to dominate your mind as a Christian, that anytime you see evil present, evil manifested, whether it's foreign or domestic in your own soul, there needs to be something crying out in you, but God has done something.

God does not allow evil to continue without there being a but God, he has done something. And that needs to be the hope of you, O Christian. The pagan has no hope because they don't understand what the but God part.

But we do have but God. He has done something. And so that answers every single crying moment of your heart, every single, oh, why is it like this? There is something that needs to cry out, even if you don't understand exactly what it is, but God has done something.

And that something is revealing himself even in such terrible states. And we see in verse four, it's based off of who he is. He is rich in mercy. Now, what does that denote, that God is rich in mercy?

What does mercy denote? What is mercy is what I'm asking. It is something that is, you deserve badness, but you don't get it, right? A creature deserves something bad to be happened to them because of their sin, and it doesn't.

Happen.

God is rich in mercy. And that was always from eternity past. Do you get where I'm going at? God didn't become rich in mercy when we became sinners. God was rich in mercy before we became sinners. And so we see, why does he allow us to fall into sin?

Why does that happen? Because he was always rich in mercy, and his desire was to reveal that he was rich in mercy. And so we see that he allows everything to come to pass so that what his nature is would be revealed.

And he is a God who is rich in mercy. So he allows it to happen so that it's revealed to us, which is our ultimate good, because then we see that, understand it, and worship. He is rich in mercy. It's not just he's merciful, although he is, but he's rich and abounding in it.

He's wealthy in it. And so, beloved, if he wants to reveal that he's not just mercy, but rich in mercy, he allows such a fall that wracks our brain. It's not like we're just a little bit icky. It's not like there's just a little bit of sin there, you know, like the Arminians want to tell us, or the Pelagians want to tell us, right?

Just a little bit of sin, just a little bit, or the Catholics want to tell us. No, the proper understanding is that God wanted to reveal the fact that he's rich in mercy. Therefore, you were dead in your sins.

Nowhere close to being anywhere close to the mark of where you needed to be. And God allows it to be such a terrible position, so that his richness in mercy would be manifested. Not just his mercy, but it would be rich.

So that when you are saved from that position, you see how terrible it is. You say, God, not only are you merciful, but you are rich in mercy. So as you bemoan the fallen nature of man and the brokenness of it, and it brings you to depression, may the answer be is that he made it to be this way by his hand.

He allowed it to be this way so that his richness in mercy would be revealed to his saints. Notice what he goes on to say who God is. He's not only rich in mercy, but in verse 4 of chapter 2, because of the great love that he has.

Because of the great love that he has. Now, no doubt, no doubt, you know, as we just saw in Genesis 1 and 2, God was loving to Adam before the fall. He didn't need the fall to reveal the fact that he's a loving God.

All that stuff. Again, read Genesis 1 and 2 and just marvel at the goodness of God displayed even before.

The fall.

He was revealing that. And he revealed the fact that he's a loving God before the fall, before the death of mankind. That was revealed. But notice, great love.

Great love.

Because of God's great love. God wants to express or reveal the fact that he has great love. The type of love that we can't even fathom.

Why?

Because of just, again, how dead of a state we were in, and yet he displayed love anyways. Not only does God want to display his love as he displayed to Adam before the fall, but he wanted to display his great love as he displays after the deadness of our fall to.

Us.

And so therefore, the fall, the deadness, the sin reveals he's rich in mercy and great in love. And notice it's, which he loved us. So there's a storehouse of it, right? This is who he is. He's rich in love.

There's a storehouse of it. And it is revealed in one particular people. The ones that he shows that to, his saints, his people. We can go on about, does God love everyone? Does God love all of creation?

And there's a certain sense in which we can say that God reveals his love to everyone in the fact that they're breathing his air and living on his world. But we need to make a distinction that God shows his great love only to one people.

And that one people are his saints from eternity past. It is us that he reveals himself completely to so we can see his full revelation in Marvel. One of the greatest tragedies of those who will be in hell in eternity is they will not see all of God's revealing of himself and they won't respond in worship.

And they'll instead be in eternity receiving his wrath. But thanks be to God, he has a people in which he revealed all of who he is to them. Now when I say all of who he is, all that he has chosen to reveal, we can never fathom all of who God is.

But all of his decided revelation of himself, we as his saints receive. So that's who God is. God in eternity past is and was rich in mercy and great in love and so therefore he allows what has come to pass so that that would be revealed to his people.

So that we would understand that in eternity so that that would create a worship to him in our hearts and minds. That is what's going on in God's mind. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us and then what has he done?

Look at verses five and six. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Even when we were dead, he had compassion on us. He had love for us. We were dead in our trespasses.

You remember what trespasses mean? Remember that sin is intimately connected with God. We are sinners and we sin against a most perfect and holy God. That is what makes sin so bad. It's not that it makes other people in a worse position when we sin against them, although that's part of it.

But what ultimately makes sin so bad is that we have trespassed against a holy and perfect and righteous and beautiful and good and dot dot dot God. We have went against him. And yet in that state of deadness, right, when he has displayed his goodness and we respond with desire in our own passions and flesh, as we read in the first few verses of Ephesians 2, in that state in which we had no love for God, no desire for him, didn't want to glorify him, didn't want nothing to do with him, God had an overflowing great love for us.

And he condescended and he gave us that love from within himself. Of course, this ought to draw our minds to Romans chapter 5. If you want to go there, remember what the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 5, verse 6, for while we were still weak, I think you can put it, while we were dead, while we were sinners, while we were helpless, while we were hopeless, while we were everything that made us not lovable by God.

While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his abundant love, if I may say so, his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This is one of the hallmarks of where we see in Ephesians 2, and this is all a God acting as the actor and we are simply passive receivers. And that while we were dead in our sins, he didn't wait for us to look the part, he didn't look for us to look just enough shiny, he didn't look for us to just kind of try to reach up to him like some people teach, but no, when we were the most deplorable in our state of sin and deadness, didn't desire him at all, God shows his love for us, sending his son to die, and then bringing in the work of the son in our hearts to make us go from dead to life.

This is the love of God that when he saw us in our nasty state, he had love for us. Now it should just rattle around in your brain and it should be hard to fathom how a perfectly just and holy God could have such a love for a wicked sinner like you and I.

That should create so much of a, I can't believe it, it's too good to be true it feels like, but yet in Jesus it is that causes you to worship each and every day of your life. And your leftover sin as it tarries in you until you're glorified should give you a reminder of that perfect love that Jesus has had for you.

That all the wicked sin I was in, a dead state, but yet in my fallen state, God loved me. This is what God has done. Because he's rich in mercy, because he has a great love, when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.

That means all of your desires that are for righteousness, all of your desires to want to honor God with all that's within you, I'm talking to saints here because if you're not a saint, you don't know what this is like.

But all your desires that are actually for good things, you know it's because Christ has made you alive. Because he has acted in your life miraculously and brought you to life. In fact, he goes on to describe that, he says by grace you have been saved, and this is underlining the fact that this is all a gift from God, grace is unmerited favor given to you, you didn't deserve it, you didn't do anything for it, God has just graciously given it to you because he is a God who's rich in mercy, abundant in love.

By grace you have been saved, and he explains in verse 6 what exactly it means to be in life in Christ. He says, and raised us up with Jesus and seated us with Jesus in the heavenly places in Jesus. We're gonna get to the fact that he just mentions Jesus over and over again in my conclusion, so just wait for that.

But nevertheless, right now, look at the fact that this is what life means, is that once we were dead in our sins and now we have been raised up with Jesus up into the heavenlies and we're actually seated with him in the heavenly places.

Now, my question to you is how does that make sense because we happen to be down here right now, right? So what is he getting on with that? Well, I think it's certainly a spiritual point that he's making.

There's that already not yet aspect, right, is that one day our home, our eternity is going to be with intimacy, with Jesus, we'll see him face to face, right? That's where we'll be at, we'll be risen up with him, we'll be there with him, that is our final destiny, right?

So that should rejuvenate us, that should encourage us to act like it, but I think there's more that's being said here, that as Jesus was raised up from the dead, we have now been raised up from the dead, right?

That now we are even sitting, reigning on high with Jesus in the heavenly places. I'm gonna go to Romans 6 in a moment, I hope this doesn't get too confusing, but I wanna make this point first, is that Jesus is reigning at the Father's right hand, right?

That's what he's doing. And if you wanna define, what does it mean that he's reigning? Is he like all the emperors and all the kings of the past in which they reigned with an iron fist and that they just exposed their power over everyone and they forced it?

Now of course that one day Jesus, in a certain sense we could say he has a reign like that, but the reign that we're referring to here is that his reign on high is one of giving of grace and conquering of sin.

The reign of Jesus at the right hand of the Father consists of his conquering of sin and righteousness reigning in his people by grace. And so we could see now as we are those who have been risen up and we have been raised up to him and are seated at his right hand, we're reigning with him.

What does that mean? Is that although you were once dead in your sins and you did it because that was your passions and desires and everything was there, now you are reigning with Jesus on high and now your sin has been conquered by the conqueror.

So you don't need to be in deadness anymore. You don't need to be enslaved to the passions of your flesh anymore. You don't need to follow those things anymore. This is what you need to tell yourself as you're tempted with sin, is to say, no, I am reigning with Jesus on high.

He has conquered my sin. I am a fellow heir. I am up on high at his right hand. So therefore, I have the power within me to avoid or go against this death of sin. If you are battling your sin in any other foundation, it is sinking sand and you will just have moralism.

It will bring you to your death. But the Christian conquers sin, fights sin. We talked about sanctification in our Sunday school class, chapter 13 of the second London. They conquer sin or fight sin or grow in holiness because we as Christians have been brought up to be with Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

As he reigns by conquering sin on earth, so we reign with him by that sin being conquered in us. So this is what he has done because he's rich in mercy, because he's great in love, is that even when we were dead in our sins, he has taken us out of our deadness and we reign with him now.

And so our sin is conquered. He raised us up with him. Look at Romans 6. He talks about that. I think we went to that recently, but he talks about that, what that looks like in more detail in Romans 6.

What does it mean that we're raised with him? Why does that matter to us? Remember, I think, again, it has to do with this already period in our life in which we are overcoming what made us once dead, and that is our sin.

Chapter 6 of Romans, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin? What's the end result of sin?

Death.

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound by no means? How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into.

His death?

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death. In order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self was crucified and with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Not if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also what? Live with Christ. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never again die. Death no longer has dominion over Jesus. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all.

But the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also, beloved, must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus because you have been raised with Jesus. So then, let not sin reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

In your deadness, you once obeyed your passions and you were dead to God because of those.

Passions.

But here Paul is saying, no longer be in that dead state anymore because you have been raised with Jesus. Do not present your members, your physical frame, to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. That's what the pagan does.

Their body is just simply an instrument. There's no freedom there. It's an instrument to unrighteousness. That's what they use it for. They're dead to God, alive to Satan, enslaved to Satan. No, the Christian doesn't do that because he's been raised with Jesus.