Okay, everyone. Hope you guys had a good time of discussion. Let's bring our attention up here to the front. We will take a moment to pray and then jump into our study. 745. Okay, let's pray together. Our God, we truly want to have our minds filled with your truth so that, Father God, we may be filled, Father Lord, with your love.

God, as we have been studying so far your scripture in the book of Ephesians, God, we can see, Lord, just how incredibly rich and deep your love is. And I pray, Father God, that in our hearts and our souls, there would be such an appreciation. Lord, I pray, Father God, that we would exercise our faith particularly here so that, God, we can experience just the incredible joy that comes from seeing, Lord, your work towards us, the incredible confidence and hope from seeing, Father God, what you have secured for us in Christ.

Lord, would you be with us tonight as we continue to study? We do ask for your Spirit's leading and conviction. We ask for eyes open to observe, to ask, and to continue learning, Lord. We thank you it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Okay, so let's begin with review.

It's always good to just follow the trail of thought from Apostle Paul as he is teaching this amazing theology, the amazing truth, just the amazing kind of praise of God and his work and love towards us. So remember that in the first, you can just think of the first half, chapter one, rather than thinking through like, "Oh, which verse?" Just think, okay, chapter, chapter, chapter, first half of chapter one, the overwhelming spiritual blessings of God in Christ, okay?

Remember that there was such an emphasis of all cross time, across like the, just the spectrum of the way that God has loved us. It was all according to his purposes. It was all in Christ and it was to his praise, okay? Now I have a bunch of blanks for you guys and stuff like that on there.

Just go ahead and jot those down just for your retention's sake. Second half of chapter one, remember Apostle Paul says, "So if there is this massive blessing that exists in Christ and I hear of your faith in it, I'm so overjoyed." So he's thankful and then he prays. He prays that every single person would have their eyes open and enlightened to know what is the hope, the riches, and the greatness of his power, okay?

The greatness of his power. Now from there, remember that those things are things that we could have just camped out on, but very specifically, Apostle Paul focuses on the power of God and begins to extrapolate. He begins to unpack, see the power of God that has placed Christ far above, and there was a lot of lists of various things that he did.

And then, so that's chapter one. Chapter two, what we studied last time, first half, right? First half, essentially verses one through 10, you could almost see it as, and there is then this great, magnificent display of the power of God and the gospel. Ultimately, if you summarize it, it takes you dead and made alive with Christ, right?

And so we began by saying, "Though you were dead, you were dead in your sins and your trespasses." And we described how that deadness displays itself in multiple ways. We described how, I said, one of the focal points of this too was that just like a dirty sock puppet with the hand of Satan in it, you are like a lifeless being under the control of the world, Satan, and your flesh.

Really incredibly bleak scenario. And I tried to give you that visual of a dead man, not just on the floor, but on the floor inside of a jail cell with many other dead people throughout the generations of time, right? So if you guys recall that picture I gave you guys, the scripture is teaching us about the state of affairs prior to knowing God, okay?

And then in verses four through five, oops, I think I have an error there. Chapter two, verses four through five, he says there's a great transition of the but, but God made us alive, and the context of that is all of God and his rich mercy, of his love, his great love, and then though we were dead in the transgressions, okay?

So today, let's take a moment to read our passage. We're moving forward from that review to this section of scripture, and I'll read it for us. It says, "But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, 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 ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness towards 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 as 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 so that we would walk in them." Okay.

So that's our passage, and as you guys know, that passage from in chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, is such an amazing summary of the gospel that we have received, right? If you're walking a non-Christian through the scriptures in order to share with them the gospel, that is one primary portion to show.

The incredible before and after. The incredible, this is you prior to Christ without the Lord in your life. This is you in Christ, okay? Now let's begin by going to the very first section, verses 4 through 6, okay, verses 4 through 6, and make some observations. We begin with the question that I asked as a suggested study question, which is, observe and re-observe what is the work of God towards us, right?

This passage and the passage before continue to talk about this is God's kindness towards you, this is his work towards you, well what is it? And what we notice is the three terms here highlighted, that he made us alive together with Christ, he raised us up with him, and he seated us up with Christ, okay?

Now when you think about this then, you have to start making, start asking questions. These three terms, is there a sequence? Is there any kind of relationship between those terms, right? And I'm pretty sure a lot of you guys perhaps kind of just felt the growing grace through it, okay, meaning there is kind of this like growing magnitude of what God is doing on our behalf, to bring us alive with Christ, to raise us up, and then to seat us, right?

There's this like rising element to that, and that's totally legitimate, totally good for us to think about, just to imagine like, you take an individual who previously was, again I use that term, a dirty sock puppet that's lifeless, and then you place this individual onto a seat of honor.

You place this individual in a seat of power. You place this individual in a seat of authority. That is incredible, right? Now for the sake of time, we can sit there and kind of meditate on that for a little bit, but what I want to contrast is, previously, Apostle Paul in the description of our deadness, he talked about actually the lowering that we had.

Meaning, previously, he described us by saying we were dead, and then you were oppressed, and then you were just indulging. You've been basically existing, rolling around in the mud, right, following your lusts. And then to contrast that by saying, and that he made you alive, he raised you, and then he seated you.

What an amazing, amazing work of God. Now another thing that we want to observe, we observe that some of these terms are actually, if you look at all these terms, it's like past tense. But there's something strange about that, right? You observe that being seated, like with him in the heavenlies, that's for future, isn't it?

Isn't that glorification? Something that's coming our way? But instead, it's talked about as in the past tense. Now when you think about this, as a matter of fact, there's a lot of scripture, there's a lot of things that we know that when we start thinking about sequence of time, it's kind of difficult to understand.

But there's something for us to really glean from all that, which is this. The way that God is perceiving his work towards us is not just simply sequence of operation, is it? We're talking about spiritual realities that are true for us. We're talking about spiritual realities that are true for us.

What am I saying? That in God's perspective, his work is already finished. In God's perspective, God's masterful plan, in God's perspective, the things that he has laid out, he has laid out already set in the distant past. He said before the foundation of the world. And the way that he thinks of it, it's good as done.

For us then, there can be this weird misconception that because we live in such kind of like a linear timeline, we're thinking, okay, we're justified, we're sanctified, and then we're glorified, and this needs to happen, and then that needs to happen, and we like to cut it clean. But actually when you think about it, including our sanctification, including our glorification, there is a sense to the already, these are spiritual realities that you possess.

Have you ever thought about this? Scripture says that if anybody is in Christ, he is a new man. Well, then therefore, the glorification, the sanctification that we're supposed to be progressively working on, those things are conceived to be already yours to some degree, right? So there's what I'm saying is an already, and also a not yet.

What am I saying that we should glean from this? Is man, when we think about appreciating God's work for us, take some time to meditate on that. For us, when we think about reasons to really worship, for us, when we're thinking about reasons to really praise, there should be in our hearts this overwhelming feeling of like, oh my goodness, I have already been blessed, right?

I've already been blessed. It isn't that the way pretty much that the whole book began, blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. But then there's a question for you and me. Are we experiencing, even in the sentiment, that kind of blessedness?

Are we experiencing this kind of the spiritual realities are already yours? This kind of the riches of the glories of God are already yours? And that's a question and challenge for us. Now I want to make a third observation within this, when there's this, within this section about the saving work of God, which is, if we notice one of the highlights of this section is a repeated idea, again, that all these works of God are to us in Christ.

Okay? So first was thinking through God has made us alive, raised us and seated us. Second is working through the idea that there is an already accomplished tense to the blessings of God, and then this third part is that is all in the union with Christ. Okay? The third observation for you is this is all in our union with Christ.

Please take some time to just meditate on this truth. Again, I'm going to use that term quite a bit that we need to meditate on these truths because the first three chapters of Ephesians is all about us understanding and knowing the truths that God has for us. But take some time to think about this, this amazing, perfect union that we have with Christ.

This is to us our salvation. This is to us our completeness. This is everything to us. All the blessings that we have is in Christ. Meditate with me on this kind of strange and weird statement. Whatever is true of Christ is true of you for salvation. Okay? If I say whatever is true of Christ is true of you, automatically we should be feeling a little bit uncomfortable because Christ is so far beyond us.

He transcends us. His holiness is perfect. His knowledge is perfect. His righteousness is perfect. Everything about him is perfect. And so for us to say what is true of Christ is true of you, automatically that should make us feel uneasy, and rightly so. Why? Because he is before us, he is far above and beyond us, and we are absolutely unworthy of him.

That is a truth. But think about this. To us in our salvation, the only way we were saved is to be saved in the person of Christ. There is a spiritual, miraculous, almost indescribable power of God exercised where you're united with him. And therefore, because Christ died, you die.

Because Christ has suffered, you have suffered. Because he rose, you rose. Because he pleases God, when God looks upon you, you please him. Because Christ is glorified, so are you. And I want you to think about that. You know, in our table we were just kind of thinking about how this is effective in the gospel.

Let's take a moment just to meditate upon the ramifications of how we even describe the gospel in certain scenarios. One, because of recent talks of the corruptions of different religions and cults or whatever it may be, because there's constant like talks of like, let's say, even pedophilia within Catholicism or whatever it may be.

There's lots of talks about the horrendous sins that even like, you know, religious people do. Okay. Now within that, there's this question. And God saves those people too? Well, think about this. When we talk about the gospel, we are talking about not just kind of sinners, we're talking about worst of sinners.

So we should be imagining the worst scenario possible. And what is that? If you take an individual who is a repeat offending pedophile, right? Which is like the worst, the absolute worst. To our human logic, that individual needs to pay. Is the Christian gospel for that individual? And our answer is yes.

How so? Because that individual in his payment, if he places faith on Christ, guess what? He's going to pay to the full. Why? Because he's going to suffer and die just like Christ suffered and died. The sacrifice of Christ is true for him. He died. He needs the worst, the greatest horrible pain and punishment possibly inflicted.

If he places faith on Christ, it's going to be true. The crucifixion is going to be true. Why? Because any man who places faith on Christ has died with him. Yes? Think about that. It's pretty crazy to think about that in our union with Christ, then we are truly afforded everything.

We're truly afforded everything. And that's why this whole series, in our study through the book of Ephesians, that's why I entitled it "Every Blessing in Christ," because it's such an emphatic point of the entire book. Now let's move on. Let's move on. Okay? Point two, or section two. In section two, one of the questions that I asked was, "What is the main objective or goal that God has displayed in this passage?" The grand purpose of salvation is another way to put it.

And what we see is, he says, "So that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus." Okay? Let's take a moment to really just kind of put a stake down and just meditate on that for a little bit, right?

He just says very clearly, "So that," this is the purpose, "that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace." If we were to put it into our own words, we can summarize that by saying that God is going to be glorified for his incredible love, right?

For his rich mercy, for his kindness, for the love that he lavished upon us. The goal of God is the glory of God. That's it. And it doesn't take a genius to extrapolate that from the passage. And so immediately, our question should be, if this is the goal of God, is this your goal?

If this is the purpose of God in his working and might, is this your ambition? Because truthfully speaking, this right here, in terms of glorifying God for his incredible salvation which exhibits his incredible sacrificial love, this is to us the foundation. This is to us the deep well from which we do everything.

This is to us the great treasure. This is to us the incredible riches. This is to us our everything. And the fact of the matter is, if, if for us, we lose sight of the incredible, glorious, surpassing mercies of God, if I don't have a stirring appreciation for the rich, rich, lavishing love of Christ, then I'm completely missing it.

I missed the train. I don't understand why people are in a hurry to go. I don't understand why people are in a hurry to come to worship. I don't understand why people are doing anything. I missed the whole thing. Now I want to share with you a thought. The pastors, we had like a, we had lunch on Tuesday and we were just kind of ruminating about this passage.

And we were thinking, if an individual in his first step, foundation, in his first primary heart condition, if he does not love and see the glory of God's grace towards us, then to love even the church is a most dangerous thing. I'm going to repeat that. To our community, one of the most dangerous people is not the guy going, "Hey, let's go worship something else," right?

"Hey, believe in this false theology." One of the most dangerous things that can happen to our church is somebody who literally just loves the church as their everything. This is their thing. They love church, but they don't primarily have a love for Christ. Why? Because that means if our Lord Jesus Christ takes our church a different direction, if that means the church is growing and changing, if that means the church is growing and moving without that person, guess what that person is going to do?

Out of their so-called love for the church, they're going to resist Christ's leading. Does that make sense? Out of their dedication, "No, the church has to stay the same. I love this thing." They could literally be at odds with the purposes of Christ. Another way to think about it is the most dangerous person is a person who loves theology, knowledge, and scripture with no idea of what it means to appreciate the love of Christ.

Why? Because then every time they are learning and every time they're gaining in knowledge, it goes into the wrong bucket. Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? It goes into the bucket of their own accolades, their pride. It goes into the bucket or their waist belt of weapons to use against people.

"What are you doing? What are you doing?" That's what happens when you do not have the first and foremost sight to see the riches of the grace of God. To us, our primary ambition should be the primary goal God has said is why he saves. It's for his own glory.

It's for his own glory. I want to highlight a passage to you. This passage comes from Isaiah 48, verses 9 through 11. God says this, "For my name's sake, I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." That repetition you find in this passage, I did not add it for emphasis.

Those are God's word. God acts in accordance with his glory, and therefore, ultimately, the incredible salvation that we see is not just because. It's for his glory. And so that to us has to be our great, great ambition. Now, moving forward to the next section, in section three, the logic then of God's glory.

Why do I say that? It's because when you observe this passage, notice how he has various statements that says, "So that," and then you have your purpose, right? You have your purpose. But then the passage begins to continue to flow, where in verse eight, he begins with the preposition "for," and then verse 10 also has that same term, "for." Which means what I'm saying is that grand purpose statement of God, that he might show his surpassing riches, is supported, or at least explained, right?

Supported or explained and extrapolated by those two thoughts. One, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Verse 10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them." So think about this.

If I were to summarize that, I would summarize it like this. The great purpose of God and the objective of God is for his glory, right? And what shows his glory is the believers understanding the grace of God and appreciating the grace of God, but what's more fulfilling, the work of God in us.

Let me explain. First section. In that first section, we have to understand the logic that God's grace, God's grace reveals his great glory. But oftentimes, what stands against that great glory is our pride. Where in our human eye, we want to see cause and effect, and the cause being us.

You recall the disciples regularly struggling with this desire that as God, like in Christ, as God is doing his work, as Christ is doing his work, they constantly want a piece of it, right? If you're gonna be exalted, can I sit there? If you're gonna be exalted, can I sit on the right side, right?

If he's doing his work, it's like, which one's greater though, me or him, right? There's always this constant vying for some kind of merit, right? But what we have to conclude is, as you do that, you are not glorifying God. Take a look at how emphatic this little section of scripture is.

To see the emphasis, what we see here is two repetitions of describing what it is and what is not. He says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves." It is the gift of God, not as a result of work. The reason why I say that's emphatic is because for us, every time we're trying to give, let's say something like instruction, the way that we make sure something is emphatic is by telling, "Hey, this is what it is, but also this is what it's not." If I were to tell you guys, "Hey guys, I want you guys to get under your tables." In order to make it emphatic, I say, "This is not a drill, right?

There's an earthquake right now." Likewise, in this passage, the Apostle Paul gives both, "This is what it is. You have been saved by grace and this is what it's not. This is not of yourselves and not as a result of works." And what's more, think about how emphatic this is.

There is another "so that." God as a design of His purpose, by the will of His power, as He has deemed it, no man is going to boast before Him. And what that makes me think about is the future. You guys, if you guys read Revelation, think about the future and the scenes that are to come.

What we're going to see in the book of Revelation is like incredibly epic scenes. Like these are cosmic scenes where the host of the world, every single person imaginable is going to bow the knee at Christ. And what's going to happen is like signifying figures, rulers, those with crowns are going to rise up and they're going to sing.

And you recall what they're going to sing. They're going to sing, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing." And they're going to keep crying out without end, "To Him who sits on the throne to be praise, honor, glory, power forever and ever, amen." And not a single individual is going to sit there and be like, "Yeah, we did it!" That's just not going to happen.

This was no joint effort to save mankind. Why do I bring this up? It's because I want us to really be reflective of that section. We're talking about the glory of God and the understanding for us that our salvation is truly and purely of God that is directly tied to us giving Him glory.

But for generations and generations, whether it be church history, whether it be you in your own life, we grapple and we struggle, right? We struggle within ourselves to truly understand that our salvation is by grace and a gift to you, right? Something innate within us almost reacts like, "It doesn't make sense.

How could it be just so free? How could it be that all I have to do truly is to trust and to receive?" And what that does is it challenges us. You have to start thinking the whole context of everything He said is because you were truly dead, is because you were truly wretched, is because this chasm that existed between you and God was unfathomable.

And you are absolutely incapable of doing anything else. It is by faith alone. And on the flip side of that, He says this. Okay, let me go to this part right here, the workmanship, right? The second part of that is this. If we're talking about the glory of God, okay, and the first portion of it is the grace of God that reveals, okay, and the second part of it, He says, "For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Now, there's a couple things to understand and highlight here, so let's walk through it together, and then we'll begin to start wrapping things up.

Here, in this second portion that supports God's purpose of showing and revealing His glory and His surpassing mercies, He says that we are His workmanship. So us being the handy work of God glorifies the Lord. Now, some people might say some things like, "You are a masterpiece of God." I think that's saying a little too much.

For those of you guys who did word study on that, good. It just means it's a fruit. It's a product of your work, okay? But think about this. We are, then, the handy work of God. That alone suffices. God doesn't have to make masterpieces. Why? Because what God makes, He perfects.

Now, think about this. There is a group of people who we've labeled free grace theologians, okay? Free grace theologians. I've mentioned them before in other contexts of preaching. Free grace theologians denounce lordship salvation because they believe if grace is free, all I have to do is verbally accept it, and we're done.

For you to expect of me to either bear fruit or show evidence is heresy. To call for change of life is to lay a burden on the saint. If I have claimed faith, God's grace is so free, even if you walk away for miles or for decades, you are saved no matter what.

So free grace theologians believe you can be apostate for some time, but eventually you'll come back, and God's grace should not be doubted. This passage right here, verse 10, absolutely contradicts all of that. Why? Because the scripture is saying the glory of God is revealed in His workmanship, which is you.

So if a free grace theologian was before me, you know what I would say? I would say stop meddling in all the technicalities of your free gift, but glorify God. You need to glorify God. That's the point. To say to the Lord that maybe, maybe I'll change. To say to the Lord in a certain manner, sure, I received the grace, but I don't have to actually change.

We have to ask the question, is that actually the purpose of God? Is that actually the goal of God? Is that what God was trying to accomplish? No, it is not. It is an amazing mercy and love for you that God is changing you. It is His absolute care and grace to you that God is transforming you so that you don't just say with words, but rather you are transformed in life.

And for you to think that you don't have to change, that means you don't get it. That means you don't get all the stuff we're talking about, about previous sins. That means you don't get the incredible work of God. That means you don't get the incredible purpose of God.

You don't see God. Rather it's kind of like this. Remember this scene? A man dead in the cage. That man can say, "Hey, but I said thank you and amen every time before a meal." Technically he praised God. Technically he thanked the Lord. Technically he said stuff that every good Christian should say.

But does that mean salvation? What am I saying? For us, we have to understand that the work of God in us to transform our lives, that is supposed to be supporting His amazing love and His amazing grace. And for us to think that that's somehow, that's somehow either optional, how dare you, right?

That is absolute arrogance. That is absolute arrogance. Now as a way to kind of start wrapping things up, you know that age old song that like, "He's changing me, my precious Jesus. I'm not the same person that I used to be." That's a good song. And as a matter of fact, if we just stop the moment right there, we should be able to say, "And thank you, Lord, that I'm not the same person.

That's your grace for me. Why in the world would I even want to be the same person? If I knew who I was, controlled by dark forces, if I knew who I was in the wretchedness of my state, why in the world would I volitionally choose not to change?" It just goes to show that we don't understand.

So by way of conclusion and wrapping things up, are we meditating and blessing the Lord? If God's incredible objective and goal is the showing of the surpassing of his grace, are we doing that to the degree where we're blessing God because we see it? If Apostle Paul's prayer was that our eyes would be open and enlightened to see the knowledge of him, to see the incredible calling, to see the riches of his glory, to see the inheritance and the blessings, are you meditating on that and seeing it?

Let me ask you a question. Have you thought about the incredible kindness of God and appreciated the breadth of the timing of it all? So far, Apostle Paul has been talking about a kind of thoughtfulness of God that's stretched beyond even the time that we know, time itself. We've been inundated with the fact that God is so intentional in his kindness.

We've been shown that the extent of his kindness goes to things that are even incomprehensible or even doesn't even make sense. Why would you honor something that was so decaying and dead? Why would you even raise him up? We saw the backdrop of his kindness. We saw the intensity of his kindness.

We saw the certainty of his kindness. We saw the glory of his kindness. And we can go on even more. The first several chapters of Ephesians is for you to dwell and meditate on the riches of Christ. And that is where at the heart of what we're trying to do, at the heart of what we're trying to say, that is powerful faith.

When you start to see, when your eyes are open and you are enlightened, and once you see and you're just gripped by it, then you've caught on. Then you're on board. Then you get it. Let's take a moment to pray. Heavenly Father, this passage of your scripture is so rich.

And God, you've shown us, Lord, that your work towards us is glorious. Now for us in a brief 30, 40 minutes to appreciate the glory of your riches, the riches of your mercy, Lord God, we recognize it's just a quick snapshot. But I do pray, Father God, along with your scriptures, that every single one of us would know the meaning and to see from different angles and to experience at different moments, Lord, your mercy in our lives.

I pray, Father God, that what grips every single one of us by faith would be your incredible holiness and your incredible love, that God, that's the thing we're attracted to. And Lord, I do pray, Father God, that there are so many things working against us to try to veil your glory, to try to keep us far, to try to keep us distracted.

But I ask that you'd give us strength so that we could fight against all of those things in our lives. And God, that our great, great ambition is to know you and your love more. Lord, we want to thank you and just pray that as we reflect and discuss, you would help us to continue to have that eagerness to grow and learn, but what's more, just to really edify each other in this faith.

We thank you, Lord, it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.