But God! (Ephesians 2:4)

The Riches Believers Have in Christ

And I wanna introduce here before our scripture reading our guest speaker today. He was in Sunday school today and taught on who were the Puritans. His name is Don Kistler and Don is the founder of Northampton Press.

He was the founder also of Soli Deo Gloria Publications. And in his life and ministry, he has published over 400 of the Puritan titles, focusing on the 17th and 18th English Puritans, American Puritans, and has done a great work in making those available.

So he was here as our speaker for our Reformation Conference and we're delighted to have him here to share with us today. Well, good morning.

We congratulate you on your very reverential worship service. Very encouraging to me and I hope it is to you. First, I wanna thank the church, the pastor, and especially the ladies who fed us for such a nice weekend.

If you have a Bible, which you should, turn to Ephesians chapter two. It has been the pattern and tradition throughout scripture and church history that when the word of God is read, people stand out of respect for it.

Now I see you already observed that tradition for which I am very glad. The second one is that when the sermon is preached, the preacher sits down and all the people are gathered and all the people stand.

I'll settle for 50 of that today, the one you've already done. But please stand for the reading of God's word. Ephesians chapter two, we'll read the first 11 verses. And you, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world.

According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love, with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. And raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

That in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Thank you, and you may be seated. The book of Ephesians was written to remind believers of the riches they have in Christ.

So often we act like spiritual paupers, spiritual beggars, instead of being what the Bible calls us, co-heirs together with Christ. If you're in Christ, everything that belongs to him belongs to you.

How's that for an inheritance? In all of Paul's epistles, it is common for the apostle to paint the worst possible picture of our condition before resolving the matter. And that's what Paul does here.

In typical Pauline fashion, he tells us of our dire condition as unbelievers. Follow along again as we read what he says. You were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath.

Doesn't pull any punches, does he? It certainly isn't your best life now material. You weren't floating in a sea of iniquity waiting to be rescued. You weren't, as Billy Graham used to say, in danger of drowning, hoping for someone to throw you a life vest so they could pull you to safety.

You weren't in mortal danger. You were dead. When Christ says that he came that we might have life, it's because that's exactly what dead people need. He didn't say, I came that you might have help. He didn't say, I came that you might have a fighting chance.

He didn't say, I came that you might have health, wealth, and prosperity. He didn't say, I came that you might have your best life now. He said, I came that you might have life. And he is the only source of it.

Nothing has the power of self-creation or self-alteration. Don't give me Michael Jackson. He went through surgery. Nothing has the ability to give itself life. As has often been said, you had nothing more to do with your spiritual birth than you did with your physical birth.

That was something that was done to you, something that was done for you. You can go to a cemetery that's undoubtedly full of unbelievers and preach the greatest evangelistic message of all time. You can threaten these corpses with eternal damnation.

You can tell them of the fires of hell until you are blue in the face. You can sing 96 verses of just as I am and tell them the bustles are away while they come forward. Those corpses aren't going to budge.

You know why? Because they're dead. Dead people don't do anything. Dead people don't get up, walk the aisle, sign the card. Dead people don't come forward. Dead people don't believe. Dead people don't do anything but stay dead.

Those corpses are dead and so were you and so was I. And not only that, but we walked according to the course of this world. In other words, you look like the world, you thought like the world, you behave like the world, you dress like the world.

You were 100 obedient to your father, the devil. You wanted to do his will, Christ said. You behaved according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.

If he wanted you to do something, you did it. You did it willingly. You never fought back. Paul says we conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh. The Greek word for lust there is not restricted to sexual desires.

It is strong inclinations of any kind. Thumeo is a desire, epi heightens it. It could be a desire of any kind. It refers to anything that we want, anything that we seek with great diligence. Paul says we fulfill those eagerly, whether they were desires of the flesh or desires of the mind.

We never resisted. You've never had one time in your whole life as an unbeliever where Satan said, do this, and you go, no. You said, okay, oh boy. We never strove against sin. We gave in willfully, joyfully, eagerly, gladly, and wholeheartedly.

And if there's anything we ought to admire about unbelievers, it's the fact they are much more committed to the will of their father than we are to ours. They're 100 committed. There isn't a person here who is committed to the will of God 100%.

And Jesus said to the people, you are of your father, the devil, and you want to do his will. What was the result of that? We were by nature children of wrath. We didn't become children of wrath. That was our nature.

We were children of wrath. Thieves don't become thieves because they steal. They steal because they're thieves. In other words, we need to be saved from what we are every bit as much as we need to be saved from what we've done.

We do what we do because we are what we are, so our nature needs to be changed. There's the problem. Or as John MacArthur says, the heart of the issue is the issue of the heart. In Ezekiel 36, God promises to take away our old heart and give us a new heart.

And in the prophecy of the new covenant, he says, I will put a new spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my statutes. Now, Paul uses two familial, not familiar, familial passages phrased in this passage.

Sons of disobedience and children of wrath. Sons of disobedience is a Semitic term used to describe those who were characterized by disobedience. That's the distinguishing mark of an unbeliever, disobedience.

Someone who is characterized by disobedience is not a backslider. He's not a carnal Christian. He's an unbeliever, regardless of what he pleads to the contrary. It doesn't matter if he's walked the aisle and signed the card.

It doesn't matter if he's prayed the sinner's prayer. It doesn't matter if he's all the assurance of salvation there is to have. That person's an unbeliever. That person's a child of wrath. According to John 3 36, he's the object of God's abiding wrath, not his abiding love.

The wrath of God's a subject that would take an entire sermon series to adequately cover, but let it be sufficient to say the only thing that's the equivalent of God's love is his wrath. Both are infinite.

The word used here, the Greek here is orge, the same one used in John 3 36. The Greeks had seven words for wrath. This word is the hottest. This one is the highest level. And from this word, we get the obvious word, English word orge or orgy, which is no restraints of any kind.

God's hottest anger, his most vehement wrath, limitless, unbounded wrath. In other words, God couldn't be angrier with an unbeliever than he is right now. How dare we tell people God loves them when he actually couldn't be more angry with them.

Psalm 7 11 tells us that God is angry with the wicked every day. Psalm 5 5 tells us that God is not only angry with the impenitent, he actually hates all who practice iniquity. I was mentioning in the Sunday school class how I used to teach intermittently at a Bible study in Glendale.

And I mentioned this one time during the message, there was a young man sitting in the front row and he says, that's not what that word means. Really? And on what basis do you say that? I'm doing my doctoral studies at UCLA in Semitic languages and I'm going to prove to you next week that that's not what that word means.

I said, okay, if you can, you got me, I'll recant and repent and I'll never say that again. So I finished the message and he came back next week and he had that Cheshire grin on his face. I got you now.

Okay, you obviously have something to say. So that word does not mean hate. Okay, what does it mean? It means to loathe, to detest, to find abominable, to be repulsed by. And he reads about seven or eight different letters.

Boy, you got me, pal. I'm so sorry I was wrong on this one. God hates all who practice iniquity. Isn't practicing iniquity the same thing as being characterized by disobedience? And those people are the objects of his unrestrained anger and so were we.

And so is every impenitent sinner while he remains in that state. God is an infinite God. Whatever he is, he is to the infinite degree. He's infinitely angry with the children of wrath. Paul isn't done with the bad news yet.

A few verses later, he continues his woeful description of us as unbelievers. You are without Christ. I don't know anything else that could be more terrifying than that. Aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Well, aren't you glad you came to church this morning? I can hear some of you thinking, this wasn't what I came to hear. I already knew what kind of person I was. I'd be willing to say that most people think like this.

I'm not that bad and God's not that mad. That would be terribly inaccurate. You are much, much worse than that. And God is much, much angrier than anything you can imagine if you are an unbeliever. We like to quote that passage of scripture that tells us, eye has not seen and ear has not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man all the things that God has for those who love him.

It's a wonderful verse. But if that's true, and it is true because God said it, God said it, that settles it. Eye has not seen and ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive of all that God has for those who hate him.

We could say it in the vernacular, you ain't seen nothing yet. Fortunately, Paul does not leave us there. Does not leave us with despair, without any hope, we're not up a creek without a paddle, and all of that because of these next two words.

But God in Mercy

But God, my two favorite words in the whole Bible. But God, there you have it. All the stuff that was said before is overpowered by these two words. It's all overshadowed because of those two words. No matter how desperate your situation is, no matter how dire the circumstances, no matter the depths of a person's depravity, in the final analysis, what really matters is this, but God, but God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us.

Notice the two superlatives. Paul uses here rich and great. Notice also the contrast here, you were dead, but God is rich. The Greek word means abundant or overflowing. When a person is dead, they can't be any more dead than they are.

You couldn't look at two people in the cemetery and say, well, I think he's more dead than he is. No, they're both equally dead. You're either dead or you're not dead. You can't be kind of dead. And one person can't be more dead than another person.

All dead persons are equally dead. Great sinners are just as bad as lesser sinners. But God is rich in mercy. He is abundant in his mercy. He's overflowing in mercy. A quote, another scripture passage refers to God giving according to the quote, riches of his grace.

That's significant. Bill Gates, pretty rich guy. If he gave you according to his riches, he could give you millions of dollars and not feel pinched at all. God gives according to his riches, not just out of his riches.

Bill Gates could give you out of his riches. Okay, yeah, here's five bucks. But if he gives you according to his riches, you're going to be pretty wealthy. And that's what God does. Just think of that, God is rich in mercy.

And out of that abundance, you and I, if we are in Christ, receive the overflow of his mercy. God is rich in mercy and his love is great. One Puritan writer said this, your sin, no matter how great is finite, but God's love and mercy are infinite.

In other words, Christ is a better savior than you are a sinner. You've never yet been all the sinner that you could be. And this is not a pep rally, so you'll try harder. But Christ has never been less than all the savior he could be.

The books of Romans and Ephesians were written to believers. So when it refers to God's love for them, it's speaking to them as believers, not unbelievers. Richard Sibbes was one of the early Puritans in England.

One of his best known books is called The Bruised Reed. You can buy that in paperback from The Banner of Truth. And in that wonderful book, Towards the End, he has an imaginary conversation between Satan and a weak believer.

If you've been a Christian for more than, let's say five seconds, you understand this dialogue. Satan says, you are a great sinner. And Sibbes says, don't argue with him, he's right, you are. But it's not the point.

You can say to him, yes, but Christ is a greater savior. And then Satan will say, but you have much sin. And Sibbes says, don't argue with him, he's right. But you can say this, yes, but Christ has more mercy.

You see, the point never was or will be how good I have been, but how good Christ was on my behalf. It's not how good I have been for him, but how good he has been for me. It's not how much I have pleased God, but how much Christ has pleased God on my behalf.

The Greek word there is huper, on our behalf. The point never was or will be how righteous I have been, but how righteous Christ was in my place. You know, the one nice thing about being a sinner is it's an absolute prerequisite to being saved.

If you're not a sinner, you can never be saved. In fact, Christ only saves the unrighteous. And that's all contained in those two words in verse four, but God. Paul has stated this earlier in Romans 5, and I'd like you to turn there.

Just go left, a couple of books. He does this bad cop, good cop thing again, beginning in verse five. For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die.

Here it comes. But God demonstrates his own love towards us, and while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God doesn't save a person when they're strong. In fact, only weak persons can be saved.

God, only the weak can be saved. Only the helpless can be helped. Only the unrighteous can be made righteous. That's why Augustus Toplady wrote in the second verse of that hymn, Rock of Ages, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.

And the reason you bring nothing is because you've got nothing to bring. Or as Luther's contemporary, Philip Melanchthon said, the only thing you bring to your salvation is the sin that makes it necessary.

But then if it were possible, in that Romans five passage, it gets even better. Verse nine, after saying Christ died for us, much more. Boy, oh boy. You mean it gets better? It gets a lot better. Much more, having been reconciled, having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath.

And then in verse 10, if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And then in verse 11, he begins another conclusion with these words.

And not only that, Paul, how much more could there be? You ain't seen nothing yet. It just keeps getting better and better. Not only that, he says, but we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So we've gone from being dead in trespasses and sins to rejoicing in God through Jesus Christ. So here in these two words, but God, you have the answer to any objections you might have. Well, you don't know how bad of a sinner I've been.

No, I don't. But God is rich in mercy. Well, if I were to tell you all the things I've done, you wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. I may not want to have anything to do with you now, but that's not the point.

But God is rich in mercy. Are you as bad as the apostle Paul was? He killed Christians. In infallible scripture, he refers to himself as the worst sinner who ever lived. But he also says this, but I found mercy.

There it is again, but God. You might be an elderly person today who's discouraged, thinking you're still not the person God has wanted to be. You may be one of Sib's weak believers. You might say, I am so weak.

That's exactly what the psalmist says in Psalm 73. He says, my heart and my flesh may fail. There's the bad news. That's an accurate description of most of us, if we're honest. But it's not the final word.

My flesh and my heart may fail. Here it comes. But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Whatever objection you've got to yourself, you've got to follow up with this, but God. Notice what it says.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is my strength. And how long is that going to be the case? According to the Bible, forever. We're getting ready to observe Thanksgiving. I might ask you, do you have anything that might be related to the theme of being thankful, of being grateful?

How about what we just heard? Is there anything in there to be thankful for? Is there anything in there you might find any reason to be grateful for? Can you be thankful that Christ is a better Savior than you are a sinner?

You'd be thankful for that. Can you be grateful that he has more mercy than you have sin? Can you be thankful that his love and mercy are infinite while your sin is finite? If you added up all the sins you've ever committed or will commit, it would still be a finite number.

Even if it were some astronomical number like 14 ,659 ,244 ,000, it's still a finite number. For some of us, like me, that's just the number of sins in a typical month, but it's still a finite number.

But God is an infinite Savior. That phrase, but God, is used 47 times in scripture. We even have the gospel all the way back in Genesis 3. We're told that Adam and Eve knew the sin and knew they were naked and they tried to cover themselves and it was a total disaster.

They tried to sew together fig leaves. What were they going to use for needle and thread? They just sinned. So Adam says, give me some of your hair, Eve. I'll wrap it around this twig. I don't know if you've ever seen a fig leaf.

It's huge. And it hadn't died and was brittle yet. They just sinned. Scripture says they sinned and they knew that they were naked. And here comes the gospel. But God, but God made them clothes. All our hopes ultimately can be found in those two words.

And in those two words, our deepest desires can be met. If you are in Christ today, if you have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's dear son, it is because of those two words, but God.

Thanksgiving, Barabbas, and the Love of Christ

Kind of makes everyday Thanksgiving, doesn't it? Donald Gray Barnhouse used to be the pastor at 10th Presbyterian Church. And he had a magnificent story that he told about Barabbas. Remember Barabbas?

He was in jail, in a cell. Jesus was on trial in front of Pilate. And Pilate asked the people out there, who shall I give you? This man, Jesus or Barabbas? And the people start chanting, give us Barabbas, give us Barabbas.

Now Barabbas can't hear what Pilate said, but he did hear what the people said. And then he hears the troopers coming down. They're coming for me. And then he hears the people, Pilate asked them, what shall I do with this man?

Crucify him, crucify him. That's what Barabbas hears. They get to the cell and they open the door. Come on Barabbas. He grabs on to the bars and he holds on. No, I won't go. Barabbas, it's okay. You're free to go.

How can I be free to go? Jesus paid for your sins. Barabbas understood what no man in history ever did, that Jesus paid for his sins. But God, I like choir music a lot. Choral anthems are some of my favorites.

My favorite is called My Eternal King. It was written by a lady named Jane Marshall when she was 19 years old. She just died recently at the age of 95. I love this hymn because of the words. My God, I love thee, not because I hope for heaven thereby, nor yet for fear that those who love thee not must die eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus, thou didst me upon the cross embrace. For me didst bear the nails, the nails and spear and manifold disgrace. Why then, O why, O blessed Jesus Christ, should I not love thee well? Not for the hope of gaining heaven and not to escape hell.

Not with the hope of gaining ought or seeking a reward, but as thyself has loved me, O ever-loving Lord, even so I love thee and will love, and in thy praise will sing. Here's where I tear up every time.

Solely because thou art my God and my eternal King. That's why we love Christ. That's why we love God. Because of those two words, but God. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the encouragement you give us in your word.

May our lives reflect our gratitude as we go from this place. And may the light of the glory of God shine in us and on us so that you will be honored and glorified for Christ's sake. Amen.