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 toward 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 works, 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.—Ephesians 2:1–10 

Introduction

Last week, I began by declaring that God is real and powerful and here with us though he is invisible! And my question was—and still is today—do you believe this? Are you in awe of the presence and power of God right now?

God is not to be ignored, but adored for the sheer fact that he is God. “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). He is also adored for the fact that he is the most powerful reality in the universe. Job 36:22 declares, “Behold, God is exalted in his power.” Psalm 62:11 states that “power belongs to God.” And the psalmist sings in Psalm 21:13, “Be exalted, O Lord, in Your strength! We will sing and praise your power.” This is the only proper response to the Presence and Power of God: singing and praise. Is this your response?

Last week we saw from God’s book that he has left two physical proofs of his powerful reality: Creation (Romans 1) and the Christian (Ephesians 2). Listen, the greatest proof on the planet of God’s almighty power is seen in the ordinary faces of weak, sinning, yet authentically transformed Christians. And the dynamic description of this powerful transformation is preserved for us in Ephesians 2.

Listen, the physical resurrection of Christ from the dead is the most glorious display of God's power in the universe. And this is the very power that God used to spiritually resurrect you from the dead, Christian—wow!

But before you can grasp the incredible heights of God’s power towards you, you must first feel the indescribable depths of your depravity and your deadness and your doom apart from Christ. That’s why God (through the Apostle Paul) begins in Ephesians 2:1–3 with the most horrific and hopeless depiction of our human condition in the entire Bible.

And so, all of us believers in the room were dead, sinful, world-loving, satanically energized, disobedient, enslaved children of wrath, and then verse 4 happened to us. These are two of the most glorious words that have ever been spoken. "But God!" What an eternally magnificent contrast.

“But God” is for the Christian. These two words changed your eternal destiny (and everything in between) for good forever. This is divine intervention in all of its sovereign might and mercy.

“But God”—God is the sovereign initiator of our salvation. God alone, all by himself. Listen saints, ours is a “single-handed salvation”! This is why the psalmist, in Psalm 98:1, celebrates the sovereign sweetness of God in salvation by shouting,

Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things!
his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him!

God’s Gospel Power Displayed Three Ways

But God, while we were dead in sin, showed up in power through the gospel and did at least three things here in Ephesians 2 that aim to stir our hearts to praise his power.

1. Made Alive (v. 4) 

First, He raised us and “made us alive.”

All of you in here who are truly in Christ, this is your gospel story. And listen, one person’s testimony, though different, is no less powerful than another’s.

“I have a boring testimony, I didn’t ..." What? Listen Christian, being raised from the dead is not boring. Like in Luke 15, some of you were the older, rule-keeping brother. Others of you were the younger, rebellious brother. But no matter which one you were, whether you were saved from parties and drugs or performance and good deeds, the details are not as important. Ephesians 2 is every Christian's story, no matter the specifics.

You were raised from the spiritual dead. Raised one, listen to how the living word of God in Old Testament describes your resurrection, your regeneration, your being made spiritually alive in Ezekiel 37:5, 12–14:

Thus says the Lord God, [to dead, human skeletons] "Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O My people. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O My people. And I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live. ... then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it," declares the Lord. 

And raised ones, here is the greatest illustration of our spiritual resurrection. In John 11, four-days-dead Lazarus gives us a perfect picture of what God does to dead sinners in making them alive through Jesus Christ, who is Himself, “the Resurrection and the Life.” Every resurrected believer in this room is a formerly dead Lazarus, But God!

Charlie Hall was right when he wrote of this new birth in his song "Marvelous Light": "My dead heart now is beating, my deepest stains now clean, your breath fills up my lungs ... now I‘m free, now I’m free!"

This is now your true story, Christian. You now have a breathing, walking, loving, living relationship with the God of the universe. Glory! Living ones, we are now, according to Romans 6:11, “dead to sin and alive to God." Aren’t those three words full of beauty and power? Alive to God!

Bless the Lord, all you who are alive to God. If you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and Satisfier, it’s because God has made you alive. If you desire to seek God in prayer, feast on the Bible, glory in the gospel, love the saints (and even your enemies), or tell the world of Jesus, it's because God has raised you from the dead and has made you spiritually alive. Bless His name!

Do you see how God’s amazing grace and power shine forth when you understand that you were not just drowning, but dead? O how we must sing praises to this all-powerful King!

But not only did God raise us from the spiritual dead and make us alive.

2. Saved (vv. 5, 8)

Secondly, when God showed up in power through the gospel, he saved us. This is all that will matter on your deathbed, I promise you.

A few seconds before you slip into eternity and face the Holy, Almighty God of the universe, to be saved will be the greatest thing—the only thing. Not your house, cabin, achievements, awards, family, friends, Facebook likes, iPhones, Twitter followers, ministry success, but will you be saved?

Saved in this context means rescued because remember (Ephesians 2:1–3), you were born a spiritually dead, lustfully enslaved, world-loving, satanically energized sinner! Your only hope in this fleeting life while you still have breath is that God would graciously rescue, free, deliver, and save you from death, self, sin, and Satan. But mainly, that God would save you from God.

Remember we are all “by nature children of [God’s] wrath,” meaning we have all rebelled and failed to live up to God’s holy, glorious standards. But God, just in the nick of time, the Son of man came to seek and save us through the cross.

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 

Just when the shot gun of God’s rage went off, Jesus died for us. Just when the train of God’s fury was coming, Jesus died for us. Just when the machete of God’s wrath was coming at our wretched necks, Jesus died for us. Do you see him hanging there for you? Naked and shamed, suspended between heaven and earth, in between two mocking criminals, with spit on his busted face and spikes through his bloody hands and feet, on a cursed tree, bleeding and suffocating to death ... for you and me.

God the Father condemned His Beloved Son because you were born dead in trespasses and sins, because you loved and followed the course of this world, because you followed the prince of the power of the air in wicked disobedience, because you lived in the passions of your flesh and in the fallen desires of your body and mind, and because by nature you were a child of wrath.

But the Father blamed it all on his holy and innocent Son, and Jesus willingly took our blame and drank the cup of wrath for us (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Unbeliever, look to Jesus and be saved, and Believer, keep looking to Jesus and keep being saved.

But God did not only raise us from the spiritual dead and save us.

3. Seated (v. 6)

Third, he “seated us with him.” Saved one, this at least means: that you have:

1. You have already, yet not fully (in a very real, yet mysterious, spiritual sense) inherited the conquering position of King Jesus over sin, death, hell, and the devil as a ‘seated one’ with Him.
2. You have already, yet not fully, inherited a royal place on King Jesus’s throne to co-reign with him forever over the New World because you are already seated there. Listen to this amazing promise from Jesus to everyone in here who is “seated with him.” This would be utterly blasphemous if not for the gospel! Revelation 3:21 says, "The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with Me on My throne, as I also conquered and sat down with My Father on His throne." This is just crazy glorious. We go from enslaved by sin to enthroned with the Savior. This is mindboggling majesty.
3. You already, yet not fully, have unimaginable intimacy with the risen and exalted Lord in “heavenly places”! And although your body is still physically on earth, your heart (i.e., your will, affections, and thoughts) is spiritually with Jesus in heaven.

I think that this mystical reality brings some biblical validity to the saying, “Home is where the heart is,” not where the body is. I was in a long distance relationship with my beautiful fiancée, Caryn Gilbert, from Texas to Illinois for almost 3 years, and although my physical body was in Texas, where there were many eligible (even pursuing) young women, my heart and my mind and my desires were all with Caryn in Illinois as I eagerly anticipated our wedding day.

Well, bride of Christ, this is a little pointer to the glory of what it means to be already “seated with Christ in heaven” but not physically with him yet. Although our physical bodies are still on earth, our Father is in heaven (Matthew 5:45), our treasure is in heaven (Matthew 6:20), our enrollment is in heaven (Hebrews 12:23), our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20), our inheritance is in heaven (1 Peter 1:4), our Lord and Savior is in heaven (1 Thessalonians 1:10), our new, holy city is in heaven (Revelation 21:2), and we eagerly anticipate our wedding day when we will enjoy our Bridegroom and our God forever when heaven fully comes to earth!

Until then, let us, with lava-hot love, set our minds and our affections on things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God!

So, the final questions is what motivated God to make us dead sinners alive and save us from his wrath through Christ Jesus. Well, seated ones, let’s be captivated by the heart of God as we taste and see what moved him to rescue us.

Three Reasons God Rescued Us

1. Mercy (v. 4)

First is his mercy. He is “rich in mercy” (v.4).

Mercy is the compassionate holding back of wrath that we deserve in order to show us sweet favor instead (because of the Cross). You and I don't deserve anything from God. We have to get this hard and shattering truth. Let it drive the arrogance and pride away. We deserve nothing from God as evil sinners! We don’t deserve life, oxygen, food, water, clothes, shelter, toothpaste, sunshine, rain, bright skies, family, friends, weekends, education, and health. Wait, there is one thing you and I deserve—we deserve to be caged inside of some kind of non–consumable body at the end of the world and thrown into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:15).

 Oh, how precious is mercy! And now, believers are not just children of mercy, but “rich” mercy (v. 4)! Like Bill Gates mercy, Donald Trump mercy—times infinity. This is a lot, a lot of mercy. Infinite oceans of relentless mercy have been poured out on us rebellious failures forever and ever. Listen, the Christian will be eternally drenched by unending waves of sweet gospel mercy.

 Because of God’s rich mercy, he raised and rescued us! As if rich mercy were not enough, what else moved God to raise us, save us and seat us with Christ?

2. Love (v. 4)

With a “great love...he loved us” (v. 4) This is love unthinkable—the very One we rebelled against, exchanged for dumb dead idols, and rejected, the One who should have poured his fury out on us forever is the very One who saved, raised, and seated us with Christ. And beyond that, this is the very One who gave his own precious Son for us. What amazing love!

A child of the Living God is not just a recipient of love, but a recipient of “great” love! Mighty love, large love, stupendous love, massive Mt. Everest love—this is supreme, unheard of, matchless, unparalleled, overwhelming love, but at its highest height and deepest depth, this is cross-love. 

No greater love than this than a man lay down his life for his ... enemies (Romans 5:10). There is no greater love in the universe than the infinitely outrageous love that God lavishes on rebellious dead sinners, in the giving of his Son to be slaughtered for us. Jesus is the Only One who can truly say, “I love you to death”!

The mocking, spit, thorns, shredded back, nails, and rage screams, "I love you!" “My Bride” means love me, follow me, and do not love this fading world. This is why we loved ones love to sing, "Amazing love how can it be that Thou my God should die for me."

Child of God, seated with Christ, God loves you forever! And finally, as if rich mercy and great love were not enough, what else moved God to raise us, save us, and seat us with Christ?

3. Grace (vv. 7-8)

Grace is God’s free, free, free, undeserved, unearned, unmerited, uninfluenced, unsought kindness that moved the kind and loving heart of God to rescue his hated enemies from his rage according to his own supreme power and eternal pleasure.

Paul takes the ‘Sword of Grace’ and wields it five times to put to death our innate works-oriented hearts! He wields it two times negatively in verses 8–9. This salvation is “not your own doing” (v.8), and “not a result of your works” (v.9). And then he wields the ‘Sword of Grace’ three times positively in verses 5, 7, and 8. This salvation is all of “grace” (v.5), “grace” (v.7), “grace” (v.8).

Child of God, our Father wants us to get this deep, deep, deep within our redeemed hearts. "I saved you freely by my grace, not by your works!" After all, dead people can’t work; they just rot, so it must have been all of grace. God wants this to be so, so, so clear: all who are saved are saved by grace.

Conclusion: Faith!

The only response to grace is faith. Two of faith’s favorite words are “Thank you,” because faith realizes that salvation from God’s wrath is a totally free, undeserved gift flowing from the mind–blowing kindness of God. Jesus-lover, because of God’s outrageous mercy, love, and grace towards you, he raised you and saved you and seated you with Christ—even when you were dead in your sins. Praise him alone!

So, loved ones, as we prepare to praise God’s power in song, may we always remember that all of this mercy, love, and grace flows from faith in and union with and intimate, eternal connection to one Man—Jesus! We are “with Christ” (v. 5), “with Him” (v. 6), “with Him” (v.6), “in Christ Jesus” (v.6), “in Christ Jesus” (v.7), and “in Christ Jesus” (v.10).

This Ephesians 2 grace is poured out on Christians because of Jesus, the glorious God–Man. Christian, can you now taste and see a little more of the immeasurably great power on display in your life?

Listen, you were dead, but God made you alive in Christ. You were following the world, but God caused you to follow Jesus. You were a sinner, but God made you a saint. You were empowered by Satan, but God has now empowered you by His Spirit. You were enslaved to sin, but God has now enthroned you with Christ. You were a child of God’s wrath, but God has made you a child of his mercy, love and grace.

The greatness of God’s power toward you in salvation is immeasurable, unlimited, undefeatable, unshakable, matchless, and infinite. Sin cannot touch it, death cannot conquer it, the devil cannot stand it, the world cannot overcome it, and believer YOU have it. The very power that raised Christ from the dead has been unloaded upon you through the gospel, so that, according to Ephesians 2:7, "in the coming ages, He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

It will take an eternity to fully display this amazing, outrageous grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus!