Thursday, January 5, 2012

But God!

"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 in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-7)

Have you ever messed up, beloved, and I mean really messed up big time? In the opening three verses that precede those posted above Paul describes in graphic and even painful detail how all of us as human beings have spiritually and in every other conceivable way "messed up" our lives. Just to summarize those verses, we have managed to find ourselves dead in sin spiritually and separated from the life of God. We have further accomplished as a result being bound in sin experientially and unable to extricate ourselves from that bondage. Not only that but we are also as mankind condemned before God and standing squarely in the path of His judicial wrath. And all of that is on our best day!

The good news is, however, that verse four begins with the glorious words "But God." You see, beloved, when you read such an awful description as we find of ourselves in the first three verses and then come to the words "but God," what you suddenly realize is that God Himself has in mercy done for us what we could never hope to do for ourselves! In verses four through seven we discover what the grace and mercy of God have accomplished for us and in us if we have truly put our trust in Jesus Christ. He has first of all made us alive spiritually with Christ. As God by His power brought Jesus forth from the tomb, so He has given to you and me eternal life.

As glorious as that is, beloved, it is only the beginning of God's grace at work. He has also raised us up with Him. As Jesus was resurrected so we have the promise of our own resurrection when the church is raptured and we will be caught up to be with Him. Thus, not only has God through the ministry of His grace given to us eternal life, but he has assured us of our exaltation with Him in glory.

And in raising us up with Christ, He has also seated us with Him in the heavenlies. We are thus enthroned with Him just as He promised that we would be. Eternal life, exaltation, enthronement because of the work of God's grace in us to bring us to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Finally, Paul reveals that all of this wondrous working of the grace of God is intended to show the surpassing riches of His grace that He has lavished upon us. The sense of the word here is that we are "put on display" for all to see for all eternity. In a word, we are the divine exhibition of His grace. And it all begins with two powerful transformational words - "But God"!

Because of the "but God" of His grace, beloved, all of that mess we have made of our lives so graphically described in verses one through three no longer matters. It is all washed away, scrubbed clean, covered in atoning blood, gone forever! As Horatio Spafford wrote in His touching tribute to the grace of God in Jesus Christ:

My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought -
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more!
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!

Ron