Will you open your Bibles to
Ephesians chapter two? This portion of scripture is
often selected by the men who read scripture for us week by
week, and that's good. It indicates to me an understanding
of the gospel and a great appreciation for the simple and clear declaration
of the gospel that's given in this chapter. This is one of
those portions of scripture that if you had to choose like 10
or 11 verses, and that's all the Bible you'd ever get to read
again, this would be a good, maybe one of those you'd want
to choose. Ephesians chapter two, beginning in verse one,
as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins
in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this
world and the ways of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the
Spirit, who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All
of us also lived among them at one time, ratifying the cravings
of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts, like the
rest. We were by nature objects of
wrath. But because of his great love
for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even
when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been
saved. And God raised us up with Christ
and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable
riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ
Jesus. All right, this morning's message.
In verse Four, we read, but because of
his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive
with Christ. Now, in the King James Version,
which is the version that I use regularly until I came here,
it says, but God, Those are the first two words, but God, who
is rich in mercy because of his great love for us, made us alive
with Christ. Now, it's not as though one translation
is better than another. It's just the way it's worded
in the King James provides for an easier title to this message,
which is very simply this, but God. But God. If the Bible were simply a novel,
a book to be published so that people could read a story. They
might well title it, But God. Adam sinned, broke the one rule that God made
for him. Isn't that something? Only one
rule, that's all there was, one rule, and he broke it. Adam sinned
and rebelled against God. But God made a promise of one
who would come and bring an end to sin. Man corrupted his way
by violence on the earth and in so doing earned judgment
for the whole race. But God had grace for a man named
Noah and had him build an ark Abraham, living in Ur of the
Chaldees, worshiped idols. But God called him and revealed
himself to him. And Abraham became the worshiper
of the true and living God. Jacob was a scoundrel of the
worst sort, but God chose him before the foundation of the
world. loved him with an everlasting love and said, your name has
been Jacob to this point. From now on, your name is Israel. You were scoundrel. And yes,
even though that's still in your nature, I name you Israel and
shall deal with you as one who is high in the eyes of the Lord. Israel was in bondage, but God,
came down to deliver. Israel is blocked by the Red
Sea with the Egyptian army coming up close on their heels. But
God intervenes between the army and the Israelites and opens
the sea before them and makes them an escape. by multiple rebellions and apostasies
is finally sent into a captivity. But God has ordained that by
the decree of a king named Cyrus that they would be sent back
and their city and temple restored. Israel is a dry ground, but God
sends forth his son as a root out of dry ground. And he justifies many by his
work. Peter denies the Lord three times
in one night, but God forgives him and restores him. A man is
crucified for his thieving. But God intervenes in the middle
of his execution and gives him spiritual life and faith. And
he calls upon the name of the Lord and is saved in the last
hours of his life. Paul is a violent blasphemer,
a destroyer of the church of God. But God meets him on the
road to Damascus and said, that's all Paul. Now you'll serve me. The whole world lies in wickedness,
says John. But God has chosen a multitude
out of that world, which no man can number, and he has redeemed
them, and they shall be saved. If we wanted to give a short
description of the gospel, the gospel of God's grace, we could
say it's this, but God. if we wanted to give a summary
of our doctrine here at Grace Community Church. If someone
says to you, well, downtown church, what do you all believe? Just
say, but God, that's what we believe, but God. In the years that we have been
together, all that has been preached here by me or others who have
come to fill this pulpit could be put under the heading, but
God. And lastly, the testimony of
everyone who has been saved by the grace of God is this, but
God. Now, we don't do testimonies
like the church I was raised in. Particularly on their watch
night service, they would open the floor to anybody that wanted
to give a word of testimony about the last year. And the interesting
thing is, it became a litany of all that they'd done for God.
And I did some of that too. I was a good little church boy.
And I knew it made my mom and dad proud when I stood up. Made
me proud too. And I knew what things to say.
The interesting point is, it wasn't a testimony of what God
had done for me, it was always a testimony of what I'd done
for God. I knew how to couch it in words that made it sound
good. Well, I was enabled to lead so-and-so to the Lord. It
still comes down to I. I. I listened to testimonies
of those who had been, quote, saved during the last year. And
like Paul in describing the Gentiles, and if he'd have been describing
himself, he'd have used the same word, same sort of words, but
they described their sinful past. In fact, there was a certain
glory in having a more notably wretched past than others. It's
almost like, you know, well, I was a drug addict. Oh yeah,
I was a soldier, you know? Because that made the story better.
But when they get to the part that said, but, it all came down
to this, but I turned my life around. But I prayed a prayer. But I did this, I did that. Here is the hallmark of the testimony
of grace in the heart. But God, I ran, but God ran faster. I rebelled, but God reconciled. I hated, but God loved. I sinned, but God redeemed. I rejected, but God chose. But God. All the praise of heaven. can
be distilled to these two words, but God. That word but marks out a change
of direction and it actually forces us to look at what's gone
before so we can see what is being contrasted. And so, when it says, but God,
well, but God instead of what? Well, instead of what you'd expect
God to do to those who were dead in trespasses and sins, and who
purposefully and happily followed the ways of this world, and the
spirit that works in, or that spirit, or the ruler of the kingdom
of the air, the spirit that now works in the hearts of the disobedient, Instead of what you'd expect,
God did something else. God did something different.
God did something different to what we would do if we were in
his place. One of the reasons it's so difficult
for you and me to believe God and to fully rest upon his grace
and mercy is because we have so little grace and mercy ourselves.
And we cannot imagine that God would be so gracious and so merciful
as to treat people like us, as though we deserved to be blessed. We wallow in our sin and in the
fear and misery that it brings us because we hold other people
in the misery of their sin and won't let them go. That's what
our Lord meant, said, if you don't forgive other men their
trespasses, neither will the Father forgive you of yours. Oh, we are so ungracious and
so unmerciful. But the Father, God, is much
more merciful, much more gracious than we can imagine. Look at
what we were, dead in our transgressions and sins. Dead, dead judicially,
that is under a sentence of death that could not be changed. Do
you realize that the gospel is not a change of sentence? The soul that sins, it shall
die. That's what the Lord says. And that's got to happen. The gospel
is not a commutation of our sentence. It is actually simply a redirecting
of that sentence to someone else. The sentence was fully carried
out in the Lord Jesus Christ. We were dead judicially. We were
dead spiritually, cut off from the life of God. Having no living
spirit within us, no ability to know God or loving, can't
even understanding. Though there's testimony to his
existence and his character, even in nature around us, we
are spiritually dead and can't perceive the truth that's there.
And even if a preacher were to preach the gospel to us, we have
no natural ability to receive it. How often have we preached
the gospel now? Thousands of times. Here, on
the radio. And Isaiah puts it this way,
who has believed our report? Isaiah went around preaching,
he told the truth, just the same truth you and I tell. And he's saying, who's believed
it? Not very many. You do. But you do for only one reason.
God rebirthed you spiritually, gave you spiritual life so that
you could perceive things that others don't. They may think they do because
they grasp the doctrine. But while they grasp the doctrine
with one hand, the doctrine of grace with one hand, they hold
on to the doctrine of works with the other, proving they really
do not understand what grace is. We've been delivered, dead in
transgressions and sins, dead judicially, dead spiritually,
dying physically. A few people I talked to before
the church, before this worship service started, I made mention
to some of them that yesterday we were doing some work around
the yard. It was physically demanding work. When the day was over and Bonnie
and I were going to sit down, my back was hurting pretty bad. Since I'm not wearing a walk-around
mic, I can't show you how I was walking, but let's just say it
was real small steps as I went toward the refrigerator looking
for an ice pack. Now that's just a small thing, but you know what's
a sign of? This body's falling apart. 30
years ago, I could have done that. Wouldn't have bothered
me. I'd have been fine. Now I do
that, and actually, I'm going back and forth on different legs
because my back still hurts. It's unavoidable. Dead, dead in our transgressions
and sins. People look at sin and say, okay,
here's an opportunity to really live. They call their pollutedness
life and it's death. What pitiful things worldlings
hold on to and find their life in? It's death. Dead in your transgressions and
sins in which you used to live. You say, preacher, what's those
words you used to doing in there? Well, you know, we still sin,
don't we? And probably we think we still
sin in the same measure and degree as we did before. But that is,
I believe, because we are more sensitive to our sinfulness than
we were before. David said, remember not the
sins of my youth. Now, If he'd have had the same
attitude about his sins in his youth that he had in his old
age, he probably wouldn't have been saying that because he probably
wouldn't have done a bunch of them. You that have got some years
behind you, do you not sometimes just think, what in the world
was I thinking? How in the world did I think
that was okay? How in the world did I justify that? How could
I be so stupid? How could I act so wickedly? The grace of God forgives us
of our sins, and by creating anew that spiritual life which
originally belonged to man back in the garden, it establishes
some new principles which fight the old principles. Now I'm not
going to stand up here and say there's got to be a 25% reduction
in sin and you're sinning or you can't claim to be saved. In fact, I'm not even going to
advise that you try to figure it out because I guarantee you're
going to be disappointed. I remember when I was in music
camp, I believe it was the first year I was there, We were having
some devotions and one of the women that was on the staff was
giving the devotion and she said she was looking through some
of her old notes from years back. And she says, and what I noticed
is I've grown. Maybe what I should have done
was grown when she said that, but I was in the same opinion
as her. We've grown, haven't we? Well,
maybe we have. But not so much we're going to
notice it probably. Don't waste a lot of time trying
to examine yourself and compare yourself with what you were or
compare yourself with what somebody else is. Just be thankful of
this. If you belong to Christ, if but
God has happened to you, you are not what you used to be. You are everything you ever were,
but you are more by the grace of God. Something new has been
added. And in God's good time, all that's
old will be taken away. And you'll be nothing but new. We used to, actually the word
there is walk. And that kind of indicates something
to us. Yes, we still do the things we used to do, but we do not
find our happiness there anymore. It's a frustration to us that
that still goes on. Or maybe not in the midst of
doing it. Not in the midst of committing the old sin, we're
still having a good time. All but afterward. And we're back to, how could
I do that? That's not the way we walk. We stumble, we wander.
We don't walk that way. When you follow the ways of this
world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who's
now at work in those who are disobedient, and while that certainly
has application, to the moral corruption of the world's ways,
it also has application to here. And that's the world's way of
worshiping God. The world's way of approaching
God and finding favor with God and quote, getting right with
God and making peace with God. Because that indeed is the spirit
that works in the children of disobedience even now. It was the spirit that was at
work in you until God Even those of you, and I'm so
grateful to God for you young adults that are the age I was
when I came here, and you're just little kids when I came.
And sometime between then and now, but God happened to you. Because even though you were
raised in this gospel, you were still under the dominion of the
prince of the power of the air, you were still under the strong
influence for you irresistible influence of the spirit of evil
until God, who is rich in mercy, change things. You see, it is a great privilege
to grow up in a church where the gospel of God's sovereign
grace is preached. But just because you grow up
in such a church, doesn't mean you ever hear the gospel. For
many hear and yet never hear. Many have the words of the gospel
fall on their ears, but they never hear it in their hearts.
Throughout their lives, they live in rebellion against it
because they have been left to what they are. You see, God does
not have to blind us to the truth. We came into the world that way. God doesn't have to confuse us,
we're already confused. He doesn't have to deceive us,
we're already deceived. He must come and take an active
role in our salvation, that is the experience of it. He must
come and open our eyes and open our ears and open our minds and
open our hearts. And we go right along following
the ways of the world religious self-righteousness, the ways
of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, that spirit who's now
at work in those who are disobedient, disobedient to the gospel. And
Paul says in verse three, all of us also lived among them at
one time. Someone might've thought, yeah, Paul, that's just the way
you Jews think. You all know the truth and us Gentiles are
in error. And Paul say, no, all of us walk
that way. We walk that way until God takes us off that broad road
that leads to destruction and puts us, by sovereign grace,
onto the narrow road that leads to eternal life. That's why it's one of those
but God things. It doesn't say in the... or we should not apply the Lord's
parable there about the broad road this way. I was walking
the broad road, but one day I came to my senses and got on the narrow
road. That's not the way it works. I was walking the broad road,
but God grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and said, now you're
going this way. And when he pushed me that way,
I loved that way, but not till he pushed me. How many exits off the broad
road onto the narrow road did we pass without even noticing
it? The Lord said, few there be that
find it. But that doesn't mean that it's a hidden road. We don't
have eyes to see it. That's why we don't find it.
It was right there all along. We lived among them, gratifying
the cravings of our flesh, whether it be the cravings of our flesh
in the pursuit of corrupt and immoral things, or whether it
be the cravings of our flesh in self-righteousness. We followed
its desires and thoughts. Was that ever you? Can you look at that and say,
Must be talking about me here. I can find myself in this scripture.
If I don't find myself anywhere else, I can find myself right
there. In fact, some of you would be
willing to say, I'm sure, in fact, I imagine every believer
here would be willing to say, that was me. And all those motions
are still in me. That direction still has force
with me. And then like the rest, that
is just like everybody else, we were in our nature objects
of wrath. I remember hearing things like,
well, he's a good Christian. Or someone would be accused of
doing something wrong and they say, well, I'm a good Christian
person. Or, he's been a Christian all
his life. Like Brother Donnie Bell said,
that's too long. That's too long. If you've been a Christian all
your life, there's no but God in your experience. We came to this world, and I
almost hate talking about our children this way, because we
love them, don't we? You read Facebook, you think
everybody, everybody, grandkids, most wonderful thing ever walked
the face of this earth, you know? And I don't begrudge them. I
don't begrudge them. I write good things about my
grandkids. They're precious. I write good things about my
kids and I know them. That's just our nature, isn't
it? Young people that come to this
church, I think they're precious. I like them. I enjoy talking to them and teasing
them a little bit. But you know something? They
did not come into this world as good people. They did not
come into this world any better than you and me. Any better than anybody else
in the sight of God. Young people in this congregation,
as much as I know them, they're fine people. Like I said, I enjoy
being around them. But if God were to take the restraints
off of them, watch out. Just like if he were to ever
take the restraints off of us, watch out. in our nature, that is our natural
born nature. Children of wrath. Not simply
that we were headed to wrath, but that we deserved it. This
is confusing to those that have not been born again, because
they look around and they say, well I'm not like This guy over
here, they read in the newspaper about murderers and thieves and
rapists and those butchers over in the Middle East. I'm not like
that. Well, God's not letting you act like that. But let me
be honest with you. You are like that. It's in there. God just hasn't let it out. That's
all. God has some things that he uses
to restrain man from being wicked as he could be or acting as wicked
as he could. And all that it takes for a man
or a woman or a child to run wild, all it takes in order for
an entire culture to collapse in on itself is for God, so to
speak, just to step back and leave him alone. Objects of wrath. Part of me wishes I could understand
the awfulness of that phrase for a few minutes. What must it be? What shall it be? For those who
hear from the mouth of the Lord depart from me. I never knew
you." And according to the Lord's description,
which I assume was a, I take it as a symbolic description,
but nonetheless, bound hands and feet and cast into the lake
of fire. All that we had some understanding
of what eternal wrath is. I tell you, then our hearts would
be filled with thankfulness at all times that we are not heirs
of wrath. We've been not appointed, not
been appointed into wrath, but to receive salvation. Let me quote to you that hymn
that had such a profound effect on me when I first heard it way
back in my days at 13th Street Baptist Church. Tom Harding's
wife, Bridget, sang it one evening. Stay with me for days. That one
stanza, when I hear the wicked call on the rocks and hills to
fall, when I see them start and shrink from that fiery deluge
brink, then Lord, shall I fully know, but not till then, how
much I owe. And brethren, every one of us
was standing on that brink. But God, we didn't turn around. Though we may have looked, maybe
some preacher preached to us and got us scared. And we looked
in our minds into that fiery pit and wanted to draw back,
yet such was the draw of sin, such was the draw of rebellion,
such was the draw of self-righteousness. We could not even turn from the
face of hell to the Lord Jesus Christ. We were children of wrath,
and until we became children of God, we couldn't do anything
but embrace the wrath that lay before us. Oh, what a miserable
condition to be in. Thank God for but God. But God, who is rich in mercy. I'm glad he's rich in mercy,
because I'm awful rich in sin, aren't you? If I could change
my sins into dollar bills, I could retire wealthy. I could give Bill Gates paws Couldn't you? If we could turn sin into energy,
we could get rid of all our coal-fired plants. But God, rich in mercy, I would that I had the power.
I'm not going to put it that way because it's not my right
to have this power. So I won't even ask for it. Nonetheless, Wouldn't it be great to be able
to convince someone of how merciful God is? Just to be able to come to someone
so bound up in sin, so wrapped up in their own iniquity
and transgression, and be able to communicate to them how rich
God is in mercy. Wouldn't it be good to be able
to convince them of that? I wish I could convince me of that. I wish I could enter into 110th
of how merciful God is to sinners. But I can at least read the words, rich in mercy. And while I may not be able to
enter into them emotionally as I should, and find all the comfort
that I should, yet I will rest my soul, that is I will hang
my soul, and entrust my soul to the riches of those mercies
in Christ Jesus. Because I'll tell you this, I
know me, at least I know me well enough to know this, of all the
forms of religion I've been exposed to in my life, various versions
of Christianity and some pagan religions too that I learned
about. Not a one of them was suitable for a sinner like me. Who knows, maybe there's some
people out there righteous enough for the kind of Gospels that
I heard, for the sign on the dotted line, free will offers
of salvation. Maybe there are some out there
good enough that they can do enough good deeds to make up
for their bad deeds. Maybe there's some out there,
and I'm just saying that theoretically. You know good and well there
isn't anybody out there like that. But I know this, I'm not like
that. If I am weighed in the balances
like Belshazzar of old, I will be found wanting, and I will
be judged, and you will too. If God looks upon my actions
to determine what my destiny will be, then I'm lost, as lost
as a man can be. But I hang my soul on this and
its eternal destiny on this fact that God, the God who spoke the
worlds into existence, the God who ordains everything and controls
everything, He is rich in mercy. He sees poor sinners and pities
their lost condition. He sees those who deserve his
wrath and his heart is broken for the wretchedness of their
existence. Because of his great love for
us, I read a story back in the 1800s,
somebody had written that song, I am so glad that Jesus loves
me. It's a fairly new song. Somebody
had also written that song, Oh, how I love Jesus. And they were wearing it out
at some Bible conference, singing it night after night. Oh, how
I love Jesus. And some old man said, I'm getting
pretty sick of singing about my love for Jesus. Can we sing
that song about his love for me? Do I love the Lord? Unlike Peter,
I'll have to say, well, the Lord knows all things. He knows I
love him. Miserable love it is, but I guess that's what it is. But I take no comfort in my love
for God, but I take great comfort in his love for me. But God,
who is rich in mercy because of his great love for us, he
made us alive. We were dead. What's a proper
remedy for death? Life. God makes perfect sense,
doesn't he? We were dead. Religion looks
at people and says, you've got a bad life. Let Jesus come into
your life and fix it. God says, you don't have life.
Let me make you alive. Well, he doesn't even say, let
me make you alive. He just does it. I'm glad he never did say,
let me. You can't let God do something
unless you have the power to stop him. He's sovereign. He's sovereign over death, sovereign
over life. And he saw us dead in our trespasses
and sins, and he made us alive. Alive with Christ, even when
we were dead in transgressions. He did not say, all right, you
fix up your life and I'll give you life. Don't make any sense. How can you fix up a life you
don't have? He didn't say straighten up. and I'll give you life. While we were dead in our transgressions,
living in sin, loving our sin, wallowing in it, or as the scripture
is saying, sinning with both hands mightily, even then, when
we hated God, when we didn't want His grace, He gave it anyway. When we were not interested in
His love, He loved us anyway, and He made us alive right there
in the midst of our death. You see, it's by grace we've
been saved. It's been by God's sovereign
grace. We never have been saved in response to anything we did. It never has been God saying,
well, I know that they've sinned, but look, they're trying. The
only thing we tried to do was sin, and we succeeded. Grace. Pure grace, complete grace,
divine grace, omnipotent grace, rich, abounding grace. You say, how much grace does
God have? The Bible says where sin abounded, grace did abound
all the more. So you just try to tally up how
much sin you have. And we're just talking about
you right now. You individually, how much grace must God have
that he has more grace than you have sin? And then you multiply
that by the 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands and thousands in
glory. That's how much grace God has. Because of that grace and by
that grace, we've been saved and then God raised us up with
Christ as members of the new heavens
and earth and seated us with Him. You say, wait a minute,
seated us with Christ? He's in heaven. We're down here in a
church pew. Yes, that's true. So far as our experience is concerned,
we're still here. But in the mind of God and according
to the purpose of God, We are already in glory and it's just
going to take time a little while to catch up with what's already
happened in eternity. How secure is a believer? As secure as anybody in heaven
because that's where he is in the mind and purpose of God.
He is seated with Christ and for this reason in order that
in the coming ages God might show the incomparable riches
of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. The ages to come, however so
many there may be, however so long they may last, which will
be eternity, will be an eternity-long testimony of but God. but God. A testimony of His grace and I'm satisfied with that.
I don't think heaven ought to be about anything else than the
grace of God. I don't think the praise of heaven
should be about anything else other than Jesus Christ who loved
us and gave himself for us. I don't think there ought to
be any other subject in heaven but God.