Lloyd-Jones has written that the weak condition of the church as a whole is in part related to two things. One, we don't realize how low we are when God comes and begins to work on us. According to Ephesians 2, we are dead in our trespasses and sins. And the other matter is that we don't appreciate how high God takes us in redemption. And in our passage before us this evening, it lays out for us that as we have been regenerated and converted, that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. So there, I think we have something of the depth and the height of the Christian life. The low point where God meets us, and that leads us to our first point of man's great need of salvation. Many years ago, preaching on Ephesians 2, verses 1 through 3, my heads were, you were dead, you were disobedient, you were damned. And those were all true. Then if we're asking the question, why does God go to work on us when we are spiritually dead, that brings us to point number two, God's complex motive. And in that complex motive, there's something of God's mercy and his love and his super abundant grace and his kindness. And Paul mentions all four of those. And then when we ask the question, what is it that God does for us? He meets us there. He's motivated by His grace and His love. What is it that He does for us? And that brings us to point number three this evening, God's complex act or His complex actions. He makes us alive. He raises us, and finally He seats us in the heavenly places. These verses of Ephesians 2 are very familiar verses to us, though my records say that I have not preached on this text since 2006, which I find it a little hard to believe, but we may think that these verses are so well known, what is there new, and there may not be much of anything that is taught to you this evening. But here's my confidence, and that is the message of verse 7. So then in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For all of eternity, we will be discovering more and more of our appreciation for God's wonderful grace. Well, with that as our beginning, let's come to Roman numeral one, man's great need of true conversion. And we find there in verse five, something of our spiritual death, as he repeats what he's already said in one to three, even when we were dead, in our trespasses and sins. And it's kind of as though... Verses 1, 2, and 3 are laid out so we'll see our bad condition just so that we can come to verses 4 through 7. Man's spiritual death, he can't do anything. You and I cannot do anything to change ourselves, to improve ourselves spiritually. But then secondly, B, God's kind intervention. All of verse 1, 2, and 3, you were dead, you were disobedient, you were damned, but God When we could do nothing, God in his omnipotence could. This whole section looks back to the kindness and the power of God that willed to save us from Ephesians 1. Roman numeral 2. God's complex motive for true conversion. Why is it? Why is it that God would bother to even consider those that are a stench before him? Why would he show love? Well, we find these complex parts or this complex motive for true conversion. First of all, A, God's rich mercy, but God who is rich in mercy. It doesn't matter that you're dead in your sins. It doesn't matter that you are children of wrath, even as the others that you deserve to be damned. He is rich in mercy. And mercy is God's kindness. It's his compassion that he feels for sinners. He is looking at us in that condition, And instead of being totally offended by it, there is this mercy that he has, he feels toward us. And we are not innocent victims. We are slaves of sin. And we're entrapped in that sin. You were dead in your transgressions and sins. You were disobedient. you were damned. But God's mercy is not miserly. God's mercy is rich. He looks at us in that condition and his rich mercy rises up. Peter says it a little bit differently as he's talking about how God has begotten us again to a living hope. What does Peter trace it back to? Well, 1 Peter 1 and verse 3, who according to is abundant mercy. Here it is rich in mercy, there it is abundant mercy. And here we see something of the heart of God in the gospel. There's no way that we can earn favor with God But we don't need to because God has this abundant mercy. He is the one who is rich in mercy. And so if you're here this evening and you're not a believer, then I urge you to go to the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer and to tell him what he already knows about you. Lord God, you have said, I am dead, I am disobedient, and I am damned in that condition. Look on me with mercy, and you tell me something about me, you tell me something about yourself. You say you are rich in mercy. Listen to David's familiar prayer of Psalm 51. Have mercy on me, O God. according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. There's his rich mercy. What's the second component of God's motive? Why he reached down to the lowness of us dead in the tomb. Well, secondly, be God's great love. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us. Why did he show mercy? Well, because he has this love. And what kind of love is it? Well, it is a great love. And who does the love focus on? It focuses on us. those who are dead in their transgressions and sins. And it is two different words here for the agape love. because of his great love, the noun form with which he loved us, the verb form. So here is the same love of John 3.16. God looks on that sinful mass of humanity and decides to do something about it. If God's mercy is something that looks upon us and feels something of pity toward us, God's love is active. And so as he sees us in our sin, what is it that I can do? Well, I can give my son for them. And this love, it is a great love. Someone may say, well, I'm glad that God will love sinners, and I'm glad that he will save them. But my sins are so great, God could never forgive the mountain of my sins. And we need to simply repeat back to God that this is a great love that he has for us. And if the Holy Spirit is coming and telling us that God has a rich mercy, and that's part of his motive, and the next part of his motive is this great love where he denies himself and he does something to help someone, and then you come and you doubt that God is willing to save you, please say what you're doing. You're saying, well, God, I don't think your mercy is that rich? And I don't think that your love is that great." And God wants us to take His Word and say, Amen, I believe it. Rich mercy, great love, is there anything else in this complex motive of God? Thirdly, his God's superabundant grace. Here we have it, latter part of verse 5, by grace you have been saved. It's again in verse 7, the exceeding riches of his grace. Grace is God's undeserved favor to sinners. Grace is the opposite of what a sinner deserves from him. And when we consider what about those in themselves who are dead, disobedient, and deserve to be damned, what is grace going to do for them? Well, grace is going to come and bring about the but God. Grace is the opposite of what we deserve. We were disobedient, the world, the flesh, and the devil just led us around as a slave. There's no excuse for us, but that's all right. because our God is rich in mercy, he has a great love, and he has this superabundant grace, the exceeding riches of his kindness toward us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this grace, it is by grace that you have been saved. You have been saved. It's again that form of something in the past took place in a very definitive way. And the results of that event abide on into the future. And from the point that you and I first believed in the gospel, we were totally justified. But sometimes in the ups and the downs of the Christian life, we may not feel like we have been always justified since that point. But here it is. Grace comes and once grace does the definitive work of saving us, the results of that are always going to abide. They're going to abide on into eternity. It's what Paul talked about in Romans 4 and verse 16. Therefore it, salvation, is a faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, those in the physical line of Abraham, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. So this is really a wonderful passage, isn't it? It's showing us God's complex motive. And if I asked you, why is it that God reaches to those who are dead, so low, they're in the ground, they're in the tomb, and you might respond with mercy, someone else, well, it's because of his great love, and someone else may say, well, because of his grace. You mean as superabundant grace? I don't know that I would necessarily give that answer or hear that answer. And so we think we've exhausted the passage, surely. But fourthly, D, we come in verse 7, and we want to see God's Christ-centered kindness, his kindness. The word for kindness is the opposite of severity. Kindness, severity is one looking at you and seeing that little blemish on your dress or something wrong with the way that your hair is combed or some blot that is on your shoe and there's a severe look that comes. Well, kindness is the opposite of that. I mean, after all, God knows what he's looking at. He's looking at those who are dead in their sin. It's Galatians 5 verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness. By our own efforts to win God, if we even had a heart to do it, we would be rejected. but we are accepted in Jesus Christ. Did you notice that in the reading of the text of verse 7, that it is kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. It's all the kind acts that Jesus has done for us. Jesus has loved us from eternity. Jesus has shown kindness in humbling himself to join true humanity to his deity. The kindness of Jesus leads him through hunger and all of the difficulties of a life of humiliation. living a perfect life here, dying that perfect substitutionary death for us, and then, oh, by the way, indwelling us by the Holy Spirit as he returns back to heaven. And all that Jesus puts up with us since that moment of our conversion. Well, there it is, man's great need, God's complex motive. grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. And now let's come to Roman numeral three to look at God's complex act. for true conversion. What is it that God does for us? For those who are in the depths of the tomb, those who are dead in their transgressions and sins, what is it that God does? Well, here it is, his complex act. First of all, A, God made us alive. God made us alive with Christ. It's the message of verse 5, made us alive together. with Christ. The term is often used of infusing life. It's in John 5, 21, for as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom he will. It's in John 6, verse 63, it is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. But notice here, it's even something more than he gives life. He infuses life. The message here of our text is he made us alive together with Christ. And it brings in this wonderful theme of union with Christ. The parallel epistle, Colossians 2 and verse 13, he has made us alive together with him. having forgiven you all your trespasses, formerly dead spiritually. And God says, I know what will fix your condition. What will fix your condition is if I take you in the death of your transgressions, and I'm going to unite you with my Son. and I'm going to make you alive through my son, through what he has accomplished. If you were making up the gospel, Would you ever dare to come up with that kind of bold concept? That God is going to reach down into the depths of the earth and get us in our dead condition and unite us to Christ and he's going to cause us to be raised or to be made alive with the Lord Jesus Christ. And here I want to think of the text there in Romans chapter 6 and verse 14, and here we have it, we were buried therefore with him by baptism into his death. It's not actually historically true that you and I existed back in the first century to come alive then, but it's talking this concept of union with Christ. Because when Jesus was raised from the dead, it did something for us as believers. We were united to him. And what is it? in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. This infusion of life is not talking about after you've been dead for 147 years and Christ comes again and God is going to take that little bit of dust that used to be your body and infuse life into it. That's true. That's going to happen. But this passage is talking to us about what happens in our Christian experience right now. You were dead in your sins. You were disobedient. But God, God comes in and he brings about regeneration. He brings about the spiritual change. So we must understand that this making us alive, it's true in the sense of Romans 6. When Christ was raised physically from the dead, it had a connection, not so much in this passage, not so much to my physical life, but more to my spiritual life. Union with Christ, what a wonderful concept. God takes us in our death and in our stench and he says, I'm gonna unite you to my son and I'm going to infuse life in you. And looking back in Ephesians chapter one, in that prayer, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that goes from verse three to verse 14, how many times do you think union with Christ is mentioned in that one prayer? 11 times. Ephesians has six chapters. And how many times do you think union with Christ, with Christ, in Christ, those concepts, how many times? 39 times in the six chapters of Ephesians. And here is another concentrated emphasis in these verses on our union with Christ. It will be enough that I was made alive. But God wants me to know that I was made alive with Christ, that God's gonna grab me and he's going to put me in connection with his son. Secondly B, God raised us with Christ. You say, wait a minute, you've just been talking about how God made us alive. What's the distinction between God making me alive in Christ and God raising us with Christ? You know my answer? I don't know. But that's all right. It's another aspect of the complex act of God. In the same way that there was something of God's mercy that may overlap into his great love and may overlap into his grace and certainly overlaps in his kindness. These are all things that are there in the heart of God, and these are all things, maybe it's different sides of the same coin, but it's in the passage. And he raised us up. Together is the message now of verse six. And raise is the common word for raising Jesus Christ from the dead. And once again, notice that it's not enough that I was raised, but it is that I am raised with, or the precise language as in the King James, raised us up together. It's not talking about the whole group of us, the whole group of the Ephesian church. They're all raised at the same moment. They're all converted at the same moment. But it's talking about how we as individuals were tied into Christ. And whatever point you were converted here, this year, that year, another month, Whenever it is, we've been raised with Christ Jesus, together with. It is our spiritual resurrection that is being underscored here. It's not that It's not that we're not going to be raised, it's just what's the teaching of this particular passage? If we want to know that believers are going to be raised bodily, then let's go to 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 16, and the dead in Christ will rise first. So, two sides of the same coin. God has infused life, and God has raised us with his son. It seems that what Paul is doing here is, the way I've got it on my paper is, regeneration is a work of God. God must do it. And then I put that in a box, and then I've got arrows that go, this is what God is doing here. He is saying, on the one hand, I infused life with my son, And now we say, I've raised you from the dead with my son, underscoring this tremendous truth. And if we've been Christians for a little while, it's easy for us, oh, I know that. I know that. It's old hat. But Paul is telling us it should not be old hat. If we really appreciate our deadness, Once we have been saved, for all eternity, we're going to be looking back and thanking God for what He has done in this work of regeneration. So, God has made us alive, that was A. B, God has raised us with Christ. Now thirdly, C, God seated us with Christ. Is he talking about us at the time that we die and we actually go to heaven or the time of after the great judgment we're glorified and we get to sit on the throne of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, no, it's talking about something now. It's talking about our conversion experience. It's talking about regeneration. It's talking about we were dead, we were disobedient, we were damned, but God, and this is what God did, He infused life, He made us alive, He raised us with Christ, and now He seated us with Christ. And it seems as though that as we are seated in the heavenlies, I'm not confused thinking that I am living in heaven right now. Are you? I mean some of the aches and the pains and the surgeries that we have to get. We're not in heaven. But what does this mean? We're seated in heavenlies. There's something of a union with Christ and one has suggested just talking more about our mindset. instead of living with our eyes down, focused on the things of this world, only on the things that we see, that as we are regenerated, as we're brought to life, as we're raised from spiritual death, and as we are seated in the heavens, we're seated in the heavens in which we begin to think a little bit more like heaven. Okay, well that makes sense. It's the sphere of blessing. If we think of Ephesians 1 in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, can you finish the verse, that we have in Christ in the heavenly places. We're living in this realm, but our thinking is impacted by heaven. In situations where we would be just totally dominated by the flesh, now as believers, we've got a heavenly perspective that is on it. Well, how do we get seated in heaven? It's not due to anything that we have done but by the merits of Jesus Christ alone. And the verse at the very least, is a picture of our future destiny. But it seems that the passage, the flow of the passage is talking about my present experience. It's not just some position that I have, that I'm going to experience, but it's something I'm experiencing right now. Roman numeral four. Roman numeral four are practical lessons from true conversion. And first of all, Regeneration is experiential. I grew up in a kind of Christianity that emphasized so much the positional. You are forgiven But it was a kind of Christianity that is not a great deal that is expected in the Christian life. But it's a view of reality that does not fit with the scriptures. This is an experiential relationship. When someone is spiritually dead and they are raised spiritually, they're going to know it. if in another picture of the regeneration is new creation. God speaks into us and gives us, he makes us come into being. And if anyone is a new creation in Christ Jesus, then the old things have passed away and the new has come. Regeneration is experiential. At one point before you believed in Jesus, you were dead. You were disobedient. You were damned. But from the point that you believe, there is a change that you feel and experience. Merely to believe that you are forgiven is not enough. if you truly believe there will be a change that comes over you. Listen to how Paul says it in Titus chapter three. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly. through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Regeneration is illustrated in various ways. Jesus can say to Nicodemus, new birth. Paul can write to the Corinthians Salvation is like God-speaking creation light in the midst of moral darkness. Ezekiel can talk about dead bones that God speaks to. And we've already referenced the new creation, the transfer of citizenship. So the question comes, do you see in your experience that God has done something radical, that God has taken you in your deadness and he has infused life, he has raised you, and your thinking is so radically changed it's as though you are seated in the heavens? Or is your religion nothing more than a ritual that you're just going through the motions here and you are hoping that God will be kind to you in the last day. Don't do that. Please don't do that. God's dealings are such that we experience the new birth. And when we are brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is the will of God that we would live in a present awareness that I am, you are a son of God, a daughter of God. If there is no evidence of the transforming gospel in your life, then you need to have dealings with God, not for some second blessing or third blessing or fourth blessing. It may mean that you need the first blessing, the blessing of believing in Christ, for by grace you have been saved. And once you're saved, you will always be saved. But you will also always persevere. If there is no spiritual life, then plead with God to save you. Regeneration is essential, secondly B. From our passage with this emphasis, the lesson we want to learn is that union with Christ is essential. Made alive with, raised together, seeded with. There is this repeated emphasis. And even in verse 7, We're going to focus in the ages to come on the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus, as we have been united with the Lord Jesus. Union with Christ says something about the way of our salvation. In ourselves, there is nothing that we can do to merit God's salvation. But it's easier for us to believe that God could truly forgive us. God could truly bring us into heaven if we understand the process is one in which God takes someone who is dead in their transgressions and sins, and as they believe in Christ, unite them to the Lord Jesus. Then it is, my sins go to him, his righteousness comes to me. Hebrews 9 and verse 12, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. If you're not a Christian this evening, then know that God in the gospel is saying, here's my son. You're in this bad condition. You're as low as low can be. And the way that you get out of it is simply to ask God to save you and join you to his son. But further, union with Christ says something about the Christian life. We can live the Christian life because we're seated in the heavenlies that we're so connected to Christ that something of his thinking filters down to us through the word, through the Holy Spirit. But we have a spiritual life toward God instead of that earlier death. Listen to Lloyd-Jones. We were in the kingdom of Satan. under the power of Satan, under the dominion of Satan. That is the position of the unbeliever. The world laughs at this and ridicules it. It is amazed that anybody still believes in the devil, thereby proving that it, the world, is under the dominion of the devil. It is so completely fooled and blinded that it is not even aware of it. if our gospel be hidden from them, says Paul. It is hidden to those who are lost, in whom the God of this world has blinded their minds so that they do not believe. Such people think that Christians, that they are not Christians, because they are so intelligent and learned. What is really true of them, of course, is that they have been bullied by the devil and so blinded by him that they cannot see spiritual reality. They are entirely under the devil's dominion. And we're not being arrogant and saying this towards them. That's where we were. We were dead in our transgressions, in our sins. And if someone told us when we're dead in our transgressions, you're just following the world and the flesh and the devil around. Who's the devil? You believe in the devil? Well, as we come to the table of remembrance, let us take delight as we put the elements to our lips. Let us take delight in the fact that our salvation is not due to us. God reaches down into the depths. He takes us, dead in our transgressions, and unites us to Jesus Christ. And that's how we can ever be saved in the beginning. Come to the table of remembrance and know that Jesus died in your place, the just for the unjust. Come to the table of remembrance and pledge something in return to Jesus Christ. Oh God, it is so wonderfully kind of you. so kind that if I think of why you saved me, I gotta think of your rich mercy, I gotta think of your great love, I gotta think of your super abundant grace, and I gotta think of all your kindness to me in Christ Jesus, just to begin to explain why you did it. Let me express my thanks. And as I take these tokens of the new covenant, a promise that is made with life and death consequences, I take this acknowledging that you, Lord Jesus, died in my behalf. But as I take this, as I commune with heaven, I am saying, I pledge to walk in the ways of your covenant, of your kingdom, for the rest of my life. and that's my thank you to you. Come to the table remembering that we were buried with him in baptism in order that as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. Let's pray. Father, there are so many times when we come to the conclusion of our private reading of Scripture, come to the end of a message. For me, just now, coming to the end of preaching through this message. And I, and I believe others with me, would have a profound sense of gratitude to you for the scriptures. Thank you that the scriptures are not just some 25-page pamphlet. We thank you for all the richness that is contained in your word. We're grateful, Holy Spirit, that as you were working through the Apostle Paul, inspiring the very words, it wasn't enough to talk about mercy or mercy and love or mercy and love and grace, but you prompted the Apostle to speak even of a mercy and a love and a grace and a kindness. to speak of your motives toward us. We thank you for what you have done. You're the one who has infused life. You're the one who has raised us from the dead. You're the one who has so radically worked in us in our conversion that you've seated us in the heavenly places. You've brought this radical change to our thinking. and we bless you for it. We do pray, our God, that even in these moments of silence as we reflect on our lives, we pray that in these moments of silence in our communion service that you, Spirit of God, would prompt us to think of our areas of weakness and deficiency and sin. and prompt that we will own these things, that we will determine to walk in the ways of Jesus Christ for all of our days. Help us in these minutes to hold special communion with you, our God. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.