Alive and Risen by Grace

Well, again, good morning, beloved. It is so good to be here with you to bring forward the

Word of God to the people of God. And today, we're going to be examining

Ephesians chapter 2. If you can please turn to your

Bibles, we're going to be reading Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1 through 7. And as soon as you have that, please stand for the reading of God's Word.

Ephesians chapter 2, starting in verse 1. 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 of 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 and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

You may be seated. Merciful, benevolent creator, we thank you that this morning we can gather on the

Lord's day, on the new Sabbath, to worship you, to give you all glory and honor that is due to your righteous and holy name.

We thank you that while we were once dead, by the grace of God that has visited us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, you have made us alive.

We thank you, God, that once we were once blind, but now we see. We thank you,

God, that by means of the new and better and living way, the way that Jesus Christ opened by means of the sacrifice of his own flesh and the pouring out of his blood, we now have the right to be not children of wrath, but children of God.

We thank you, God, and we give you all the glory that is due to your name. In Jesus' name we do pray, amen.

Well, today's message is called Alive and Risen by Grace. And today's teaching is going to be centering around verses 4 through 7.

And so I want to again read verse 4. But before I do that, I want to set the stage for verse 4.

Last week, the sermon was children of wrath, and we learned that the Holy Scripture teaches us that our condition before God as sons and daughters of Adam, the fact is we are totally and utterly lost.

We are depraved, which means that our condition, our natural estate, is that not only are we predisposed to sin, but we are, in fact, conditioned to a life of sin, that we like our sin, that we love our affections in our sinful nature, and we are totally lost apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

As a result of this truth that we are totally and utterly lost apart from God, we find in verse 4, the tables are now turning.

While we were reminded by the Apostle Paul as he was reminding the church in Ephesus of the depravity of their soul, he then goes on to give us a glimmer, not even just a glimmer, but an incredible array of hope in verse 4.

So before I read verse 4, I want to read verse 3 again. 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.

He's reminding the church in Ephesus of what they were, where they were before Jesus.

And like the rest of mankind, they were totally and utterly lost. Verse 4, but God.

Now, what a way to start that. There could be no better way. When you're introducing bad news, you always want to hear that word, but.

And if you're hearing good news, and if you hear the word but, that might mean that something is missing, that maybe now there's going to be bad news.

But here's the exact opposite of that scenario. You get the bad news that you are lost, that you're wretched, that you're a sinner.

But God, being rich in mercy.

Think about that for a moment. God is rich in mercy.

I want you to write that in there if you're following in today's insert. God is rich in mercy.

And because of his great love, there is hope for the depraved children of wrath.

Brothers and sisters, verse 4 reveals to us a deep insight into the heart of God for his rebellious creatures.

He's given us insight that God would have been just as glorified, just as glorious, just as just in the damnation of the entire human race.

But instead of extending his hand of justice, of wrath upon the rebellious creatures,

God extends mercy. And not only does he extend mercy, he extends love.

We're getting insight into the person, the character, the nature of our creator.

That not only is he a God of justice and of wrath, but he is also one who extends mercy.

More mercy than you and I could even imagine. Because even though we preached last week the condition of man and told the poverty of our state,

I don't think you even begin to realize how greatly depraved the human condition is.

And so we fall short to comprehend the greatness of God's mercy as he extends it to the rebellious creatures.

We don't even, again, like last week, I talked to you guys about the stench that we all have. We don't even realize how bad it is.

We think we can cover it up with perfume, with Febreze or something. We can't. There's nothing that can cover that stench.

The stench of sin, the stench of death that we all carry around in our mortal flesh. But God being rich in mercy.

One thing that you should realize about our God is that he is rich in every sense of that word.

Which means that all the riches, all the mercy, that could be extended, that could be given, rightfully flows from the creator himself.

That in him is a storehouse of mercy. In him there is an abundance.

In chapter 1 of Ephesians, we saw how God lavishes his people with grace.

That word lavish is like a fancy word to bestow, to put upon, to reign upon, to overflow.

And God is overflowing, not just in grace, but he's overflowing in his mercy towards you in Christ.

What a beautiful hope that we have. Again, only when you know the true depths of your own depravity can you begin to have a true grasp in awe and appreciation for the mercy and the love of God that he extends towards us sinners.

But God, even though again, all mankind is justly deserving of hell,

God interjects himself into our story of rebellion and makes it a story of redemption.

God interjects himself into our story. Then God being rich in mercy, it's out of the abundance of his very attributes and nature of mercy that he lavishes it on us in his beloved.

And he lavishes it upon his elect people. You see, mercy is incomplete if it's not out of love.

It wasn't out of just pure, mere pity that the Lord had on us that he extended his mercy, though of course that is an aspect of it.

He did have pity towards us. But it was more than just pity. It was love.

Love is what motivated his mercy to be extended towards the children of wrath.

Again, verse four says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

Know that even though you are a rightful child of wrath and a descendant of Adam and Eve, and though you sin daily in your words, in your deeds, and in your thoughts,

God has great compassion and mercy for you and I.

Isn't that good news? Isn't that good? As we were just yesterday knocking on our neighbors' doors and extending to them the message of reconciliation, and maybe as we get to talk to more neighbors and more individuals in the life of our church, we can extend the merciful hand of the creator and say, while it is still called day, seek him.

While you are hearing his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the days of rebellion, but turn to Christ and receive the mercy of almighty

God. What good news, what incredible news we of all people on the earth have to not only believe in, to receive, but also to extend to an unbelieving world so that the elect of Christ may be called into his glorious church.

Verse five says, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved.

This is one of the first times where Paul uses this phrase. We'll hear it again next week in next week's message as well that we see in verse eight about this message of being saved by grace.

But I do wanna turn our attention to this word for a moment, grace. What's so amazing about grace?

What is grace? Why do we sing about it? Why do we live by it?

How and why are we saved by it? Grace is indeed amazing, and grace is incredible, and it is by grace.

I want you to write this in the teaching today if you're following along in today's insert. It is by grace that the dead are made alive together with Christ.

Isn't that what we see in verse five, even when we were dead in our trespasses? Again, part of the condition of our estate and our lowly estate as sons of Adam is that we are spiritually dead.

Though most of mankind, of course, that's living and breathing, they can have activity, they can read, they can enjoy, they can have families, they can do all these wonderful things that life has in its benefits.

But they are without spiritual life, and only in Christ can the dead be made alive again.

And it's not solely in Christ, but it's in Christ by means of grace, grace working out in the very outflow of His person and work in redemption.

Again, verse five, even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive,

God made us alive together with Christ. So what is grace?

Grace is God's unmerited favor, His undeserved kindness.

It is something that you cannot earn. It is not something that you are worthy of even being a recipient of.

There is nothing that can earn you grace, for grace is unmerited, it's undeserved.

You can't earn it, you can't work for it, you can't pay for it. No matter how much money you have in the account, nothing will be able to satisfy for the purchase of grace.

There is only one thing that was great enough to purchase for us grace, and that was the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross.

And because of that sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, God is now able to lavish this grace upon us.

Undeserved kindness, unmerited favor, undeserved mercy is now ours in the person of Jesus.

That's why grace is so amazing, why grace is so powerful, why grace is something worth pursuing and something worth living in.

In fact, so magnificent is this word grace that it became one of the defining slogans of the

Protestant Reformation. In the word sola gracia, which means by grace alone.

The doctrine of by grace alone was a response to the doctrine that is found in Roman Catholicism, which many mistake to be a doctrine that says that man can be saved apart from grace.

And that's not what Rome actually teaches. Rome teaches that you are saved by grace.

But the distinguishing factor here is in the word alone, alone.

See, Rome says you are saved by grace and other works of justification, other means of grace.

But the Protestant Reformers said, no, we don't see that in Scripture. The Scripture says, and we stand on the witness of Scripture in which it teaches us that we are saved by grace alone.

There's a sufficiency to grace that Rome was not teaching, nor do they accept even today.

Again, the Reformers were affirming the biblical teaching that we find in Holy Scripture.

The biblical teaching that we are saved by grace alone. And Rome, like many other groups, like the

Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, and essentially all other religious groups, they all teach that it's a mixture of grace and something else.

So codified is that even within the Mormon church that in their Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi, it says that you are saved by grace after all that you can do.

It's written even in the very statement in their Book of Mormon, that you're saved by grace after all you can do.

And that is essentially just an honest form of what many other religions teach and say as well.

That grace is kind of the midway point between you and God.

So God extends His hand only so far, while man now has to do the rest of the work to bring their dead hands out of that cold grave and extend and receive mercy.

But that's not what we see in the Bible. We don't see God just extending His hand halfway down to humanity, but instead

He goes all the way down into the depths of the grave and He brings us out and raises us with Christ by grace.

Amen? What amazing grace. It's not a half measure.

It's totally by grace and grace alone, which is sufficient to save us and to bring us new life.

And so again, like other religious groups, they all teach essentially the same, that it's grace and something else.

But we, as Reformed Baptists, with such a great cloud of witnesses behind us, we will stand with the

Apostle Paul. We will stand with St. Augustine. We will stand with Luther. We will stand with Calvin.

We'll stand with Whitefield. We'll stand with Edwards. We'll stand with Spurgeon in saying that it is by grace alone that man can be saved from their totally depraved state of sin.

It is by grace alone. So great is this call of being saved by grace alone, that it was in fact by grace alone that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ to accomplish for us an eternal redemption.

It is in fact by grace alone that God reached down into the dark, cold pit of Sheol to raise us up with Christ in His beloved.

It is by grace alone that the Scripture can say this in Galatians chapter two, that could be true not only of the

Apostle Paul, but of all of us today, that I have been crucified with Christ. And it is no longer

I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the

Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. It is by grace that we can stand on that great confession.

And that is the power of grace to make the dead live again.

Don't doubt for a second the power and the sufficiency of grace.

You know, we do that often, more often than we realize, when we sin and when we fall short of God's perfect state and glory.

Oftentimes we are too ashamed even amongst ourselves to go before Him in simple prayer because we think we can hide our face from Him.

And what we're showing in that moment is that we think our sins are bigger than His grace.

Can I assure you of one thing? No sin that you as a beloved in Christ that you commit can be bigger and greater than the grace that God can extend towards you.

His grace is sufficient. His grace is like an ocean.

It's inexhaustible in its application to you in Christ.

And so beloved, do not doubt the power of grace. It's unmerited, it's undeserved, and it's for you in Jesus Christ.

Now what do we see as the outworking of this amazing grace? I want you to look at Ephesians 2, verse six.

One of the results of this salvation by grace is what we see in verse six, and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

If you're following along in today's teaching, we are raised and seated with Christ in heavenly places.

See, in verses four, we see God's motivation for salvation, His mercy and His love.

And in verse six, we see the outcome and the purpose of His mercy and love as it's applied to His believers, to the saints in Christ, and then we see love in action to not only cancel the record of our debt through sin, not only to forgive us of our transgressions, but to change our lowly estate and transfer us into a glorious one by raising us spiritually from the dead with an eventual outlook, hope, anticipation of a resurrection from the grave, a full resurrection of body and soul, being gloriously joined to the

Lord Jesus Christ in glory. But in the meantime, we have this glorious expectation and, in fact, reality that we can enjoy in Christ today, which is that by means of God's grace working in you, by means of His saving redemption and the work of the cross applied to you, you are now raised up with Christ.

And so though you may have an earthly address, you may have a earthly citizenship, we are not to forget where our true inheritance is, where our true address is, and where our estate is even today as we speak, and it is in heavenly places.

Your address may be down here, but in reality, spiritually, you've already been raised with Christ because you were raised spiritually from the grave.

Is it not what we practice even when we baptize individuals who have made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ that we are demonstrating by means of the, to use the term of the ritual baptism, that they go into the water signifying their death to the old self, death to sin, the old cold grave, and coming out showing that they've been raised to a newness of life in Christ Jesus?

We do this as often as we baptize, but let's not forget the reality into which we were baptized into, which is that we are now seated with Christ in heavenly places.

You are seated with Him even now, not just in these pews, but spiritually, you are with Christ.

And the Bible teaches us that once we die in the flesh, we go to be present with the

Lord, and as where we are with the Lord, we enter into the reign of 1 ,000 years, and we are with the saints in festal gatherings in the heavenly

Jerusalem, the Mount Zion, and we are amongst the people, the living

God, living, ruling, and reigning with King Jesus until He returns. What a hope we have.

What a glorious inheritance we have as the people of God. But not only does

God raise us, again, spiritually from the dead, not only does

He, it's like He says to Lazarus, He says to Lazarus, come out, and Lazarus came out of that tomb, but did you know that Lazarus ended up dying again?

But in the promise that Jesus preached to Martha in John chapter 11,

He said before He raised and called Lazarus out of the cold tomb, He says that those who believe in Him, though they die, yet shall they live.

And He says, do you believe this? Because He went on to say even before the I Am, the resurrection and the life.

Those who are in Christ, who die in Christ even today, go into that glorious estate in heavenly places.

And though we may die in our flesh, yet we will actually be more alive than you can even fathom or imagine today, still awaiting, however, the future resurrection, bodily resurrection from the dead.

This story that we're being told here in Ephesians chapter two, again, that not only does

God raise us spiritually from the dead, but He then seats us in heavenly places. It's the ultimate rags to riches story.

Not only were you, think again of the imagery of Lazarus. Lazarus, when he was in that tomb, rags all over his body so that the full expectation was that he was dead and he would not be coming out of that tomb.

Wrapped in linen to keep his body as it decomposes.

That was you. You were Lazarus. And God, by His grace, extended to us in the personal work of Jesus, called us out of the grave spiritually.

And now we are joined to Him forever. It's the ultimate rags to riches story.

Not only does He call you out of that cold, dark tomb, but now He clothes you with His righteousness.

He clothes you with dignity and strength. He clothes you with His own majesty and His own glory and His own grace.

He clothes you in all those things. And He raises your estate from being in that cold, dark tomb to now being alongside

Him in heavenly places. What a privilege it is to know Jesus, amen? What a privilege.

What a joy that it is ours indeed to know the Lord, to be in Him.

Moving on to verse seven in today's sermon in Ephesians chapter two, verse seven.

It says, so that, so now we have an explanation. So that in the coming ages,

He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

We examine in verse how in verse four, we see God's motivation for salvation at work, namely

His mercy and His love. In verse six, we see the outcome of His salvation work to transfer us from darkness to light, to bring us from a lowly estate to a glorious estate, to bring us from the tomb into heavenly places.

Now we see in verse seven, we see the reason or the purpose for His saving work, that He may display the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

God is now demonstrating His grandeur, His greatness, the immeasurable. Think of something that is immeasurable, the cosmos.

Even the cosmos itself is measurable, numbers that we cannot fathom, but it is measurable. The sands of the sea and of all the beaches of the earth, you can't even fathom how much little particles of sand exist just on one beach, imagine them all, but yet it is still to a degree measurable, theoretically at least.

You can measure it, it'll take a long time to count, but sure enough, there would be a number at the end.

But God has such an immeasurable riches in His grace that not even in eternity could you exhaust it.

It is so immeasurable, so great, so rich, and it's the grace and kindness that He expresses towards us in Christ.

Isn't that amazing? See, I know we're not Pentecostal, we're not the type to get up and jump around, but this truth almost makes you wanna jump up and down because it's incredible.

This is great news. He loves you, He loves you. Now, maybe when you were a kid like me, we used to play a game where we'd take a flower and you'd play this game.

You'd say, if you're a boy, you'd say, she loves me, she loves me not. How many of you guys ever played that before, right?

Or if you're a girl, he loves me, he loves me not. Can I tell you that when

I was a Jehovah's Witness, my relationship with Jehovah was very similar to that game where I always felt because salvation was dependent upon me, salvation was dependent upon my performance, my works, there were days in which

He loves me because I got everything down, okay? I did all my witnessing, my knocking on doors,

I was holy today, I didn't sin, or at least I didn't think I sinned, right? So that day,

He loves me. The next day, I go and maybe I fall short and I sin.

Now, guess what? He loves me not. And that God's love was measurable because it was dependent upon my performance.

And if that's the way you view God today, please repent of that because that's not the God that we're presented with in Scripture.

Instead, the God that we're presented with in Scripture, in Christ, is that He loves me,

He loves me, He loves me, He loves me, He loves me. His love is immeasurable.

His grace is inexhaustible. He loves you in Jesus Christ.

And so why does God do this? Why does God decide to display the immeasurable riches of His grace and His kindness and His love towards us in Christ Jesus in this way?

Well, like with anything, you take great delight in, or you take pleasure in, you show it off.

You put it in a prominent place in your home or in your life. In similar fashion,

God is displaying and showing off His kindness, His mercy and love in His elect by means of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

God wants to demonstrate the grandeur, the greatness of His grace, the immeasurable riches of who

He is, not only through Jesus, but also in the way that He extends and administers

His kindness to you, His people. Now again,

God is displaying. He's showing off His kindness, His own glory.

So in other words, God does all things for His own glory.

So I want you to write this in there. God saves His people for His own glory, for His own glory and fame.

I want you to write that in there as well. He does all things for His own glory and fame in the administration of His kindness toward His elect in Christ.

God does all things for His own glory. I want you, if you can, turn to Ephesians chapter one. Very quickly,

I want to reexamine a few verses here that we went over several weeks ago, but it ties in so beautifully to the subject at hand.

In Ephesians chapter one, starting in verse five, He, even just a little phrase before that, in love,

He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which

He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace.

You see the connections that Paul is consistently bringing forward in the text, the riches of His grace, the riches of His mercy, the immeasurable, inexhaustible fount of all blessing.

He goes on to say, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us all in the

Beloved. And it says in verse nine, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose, which

He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Praise God. So why does God do anything? Notice what it goes on to say in verse 11.

In Him, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.

So why does He do it? It's the counsel of His will. So that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory in Him.

You also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, believed in Him, were sealed with the promise,

Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His what?

Glory. Now the word glory in the Greek comes from the Greek word doxa.

And doxa is a very simple word, but it has an incredible rich meaning.

And it's to have splendor, majesty, excellence, most blessed.

That's the meaning of glory. Now, some folks have, maybe you've heard this as well, have said, well, why does

God want all the glory? That makes God sound kind of narcissistic, doesn't it? Like, why should

He get all the glory? Just the fact that we even ask or contend with that question shows who the true narcissist actually is.

But in reality, the word glory, if we understand it to mean, again, splendor, majesty, excellence, most blessedness, who else could be deserving of glory?

Who else would be able to do all things onto His own glory but the

Lord God of Israel? Incredible, isn't it? God to His very nature and being is the most glorious and therefore is worthy of all glory and recognition.

Likewise, as the sun is the center of our solar system, and it's the brightest and most glorious object in the sky, and all life revolves around it, all the planets and moons are pulled into alignment by its gravity and its weight, so does the very essence of God and the splendor of His being attract all glory that is rightfully due to His name.

The Lord does indeed is worth all things onto the, work of all things into the counsel of His own will and for the fame of His own name.

So why does God do anything? It's for His own glory and for the fame of His own name.

Even as the Lord raised up Pharaoh for his own fame, as it is written in Exodus chapter nine, verse 16, for this purpose,

I have raised you up to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.

God raises both the wicked and the righteous, the saved and the lost, the elect and the unelect, for the purpose of making

His name known and to demonstrate His pleasure,

His kindness, and His glory to a watching world. So again, the

Lord desires His fame to go throughout all the ages in the administration of His kindness, which is expressed in the gospel of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, this is fantastic and great news that by grace, not only have we been made alive, but we've also been raised to a new and glorious estate and by which we are still waiting for the most blessed, physical, bodily resurrection from among the dead.

What a hope we have in Jesus. It is only by the blood of Jesus. Hopefully you were hearing as we were singing the words of these songs that we have picked out this morning for our worship service, all showing the need for our

Savior, all demonstrating that God is indeed worthy and glorious and worthy of all glory to be given by His people.

And today, I wanna leave you with this. The Lord is indeed kind.

He's extending His mercy today. He's inviting all of you, if you have not yet received the loving kindness of God, do so today.

Do not wait, for tomorrow is not promised. The Bible says that we are but a mist, but a vapor.

We're here one moment and gone the next. We're like the grass in the field that quickly sprouts up and then quickly withers away.

What is your life, old man? Consider this morning, this message of the gospel, that God has lavished

His mercy, His kindness in the beloved, in Jesus Christ, and He extends it to you today.

If you've not made that commitment of knowing and following Jesus Christ, do so today.

And if you are amongst His elect today and you are following the Lord Jesus Christ, may you be reminded of the grace of God that makes you alive, that keeps you going, that encourages you in the midst of your discouragement, and that empowers you, even when you feel like you can go no further.

The grace of God will bring you home. And so, friends, may you receive the extended mercy of God while it is still called today to repent of your sins and put your trust in Jesus, for He is a good

Savior. Let me pray. Lord, You are indeed a merciful

Savior, a good Savior, a Savior who loves us and has extended

His mercy towards us. Though we were undeserving, though we did not merit it in any way, shape, form, or fashion,

You've extended that hand of mercy to us. Oh, most blessed Savior, we thank

You for that mercy. Even while we fall short, even while we confess

Your name before men, You still meet us with grace. Lord, I pray that You would help us all to see the immeasurable riches of Your kindness that You have administered to us in Christ, that You have bestowed upon us in the

Beloved. Therefore, we too can be called Beloved. Lord, to You belongs all the glory, all the praise and adoration.

For You were slain for the sins of Your people.

In the Father, found with great pleasure, Thy sacrifice to be sufficient for the application of the redemption of Your people, to the praise of Your glorious name.