Join us as we dive deeply into the incredible themes found in Ephesians chapter 2 with Dr. John Kyle. This episode unearths the richness of God’s grace, mercy, and love and how these divine gifts transform us from being dead in our sins to being seated with Christ in heavenly realms. Dr. Kyle wonderfully elucidates the unyielding hope and eternal inheritance awaiting believers, encouraging us to live as citizens of heaven with a focus on God’s overwhelming kindness.
Welcome to Expository Truths, where we exalt Christ by bringing clarity of truth through the scriptures with Dr. John Kyle, pastor of Faith Community Church in Vacaville. As Christians, we’re called to know the truth and be able to proclaim it. We can know truth when we know the Word of God, which is precise, without error, powerful and effective for both salvation and spiritual growth. Enjoy digging deeply with Dr. Kyle as he takes us verse by verse through the powerful book of Ephesians, giving us a marvelous summary of the good news of Christ and its implications for our daily lives.
SPEAKER 02 :
Please turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2, verses 4 through 7. Ephesians 2, 4 through 7. The letter of Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul to the faithful saints living in the city of Ephesus. Paul wrote this while he was under house arrest in Rome in about AD 62, and he wrote it to lay a proper doctrinal foundation for these believers so they could then live out those doctrines for the glory of God. We’re now in the doctrinal section of this book that’s found in chapters 1 through 3, and it’s very interesting because this doctrinal section begins with two very, very long sentences. One that’s 12 verses long that’s filled with praise to our amazing God. And the other is a prayer that’s 9 verses long. And that’s chapter 1. What a chapter. What a chapter. Chapter 2 begins by telling us what we once were before we came to Christ. And what was that? Anybody remember? Dead. Right? We were dead. But now we come to the good news. Let’s look at that. Verse 4. But God… But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. We were dead, but God. We were enslaved, but God. We were trapped, but God. We were self-destructing, but God. We were lost in sin, but God. We were children of wrath and deserving of an eternity in the torments of hell, but God. It’s absolutely incredible. So what about him? Look, he’s rich in mercy. And that’s a very good thing for us, right? What else do we learn about God regarding us, his people? This, he displays great love toward us. Look, he’s rich in mercy because what? Because of His great love with which He loved us, oh, that this truth would sink deeply into our heads and into our hearts today. Think about it. This love gives us perspective. This love raises us above our trials. This love comforts us in our lonely hours and in our seasons of sickness and of sorrow. And this love inspires us to be courageous and to be bold and to be godly because God… like a god like this is worthy of our passionate love in return is he not yes he is so how do we see this love we see it in what paul says next look god has made us alive in christ even when we were dead in trespasses he made us alive together with christ and in that we see the unfathomable love of god for us remember Again, we were all born dead spiritually because Adam’s sin nature has been handed down to all of us. That means that while people are alive physically, they are born without the ability to seek God, to pursue God, to love God, to be saved apart from God’s amazing grace because they’re spiritually dead to God. Corpses, spiritually speaking. But look, just as God breathed into lifeless dust to give life to Adam, the Lord gives spiritual life to his chosen ones, to those who were once spiritually dead. This is something that God alone can do. We don’t have the ability to bring life from death. A dead person can’t will himself to breathe. A truly lifeless person can’t awaken himself up from the dead. And neither can we give life to a spiritually dead person, but God can do it. And He’s good at it. Anybody? These verses are very clear in what they are saying to us. Yet many Christians don’t really believe what they are saying to us. Many Christians today view salvation as a joint project between God and men. God has done all that He can do. The rest is up to the sinner. They don’t view him as dead, but rather as sick or wounded. Like a drowning man, there’s still life in him. He can grab the rope if we throw the rope to him. But if he refuses to cooperate, well, then even God can’t save that person. But that’s an unbiblical view of salvation. It sounds really good. It’s an unbiblical view of salvation. The biblical view is summed up in this, God made us alive. Or this, Jesus saves Jesus alone. As the angel announced to Joseph concerning Jesus in Matthew 1.21, he will save his people from their sins. He didn’t say he will do all he can, but he’s limited by the sinner’s stubborn will. He didn’t say he will throw a rope to everyone, but they’ve got to grab it to be saved. That’s not what he said. See, God isn’t frustrated in heaven, wishing that he could do more. Man, I’d like to save Saul of Tarsus, but man, that guy is so stubborn. What happened to Saul? God went after Saul. God opened Saul’s spiritual eyes. God knocked Saul down and made him blind physically, but he gave him spiritual sight. God did it. And the hope of the gospel is that God saves sinners. We were dead, but God, right? He has made us alive. Who? Who? god steve cole noted this we need to understand that salvation is not a matter of a spiritually sick sinner deciding to take medicine if it were we could perhaps talk him into making that decision it’s not a matter of a drowning man grabbing the life ring who wouldn’t grab it if he knew his desperate condition rather the sinner is a corpse this is what ephesians has told us right very clearly the sinner is a corpse floating face down in the water he’s dead God must raise him up from the dead. That’s right. But the good news is that God can raise the dead. He can impart new life to dead sinners. God made us alive even when we were dead in our sins. And all the glory goes to him. Fourth, God saves us by his grace. The end of verse five, by grace you have been saved. What does this mean? That our salvation is a gift of God and God alone. The word grace means undeserved favor. The undeserved favor of God towards us as children. This is an interjection by Paul, and it’s something that he makes sure isn’t missed. See, grace is everything for nothing. It’s helping the helpless and going to those who can’t come in their own strength. Grace sets aside my unrighteousness and my faults and gives me a righteousness that I didn’t merit. See, God owes me nothing, but he offers me complete salvation because of his grace alone. Man could do nothing whatsoever to plan his own salvation because he’s dead, but instead it was planned by God before the foundation of the world. Grace is a work of God for man and encompasses everything that we receive from him. The world, the devil, and the flesh separated me from God, but by His mercy, love, and grace, He saved me, He rescued me from wrath, and He delivered me from hell, and it’s all because of His grace. The grace of God is undeserved, unsought, and unbought, and yet God lavishes it upon us when it’s the last thing that we deserve. Look, it’s by God’s grace that anyone is saved. Not only in providing the only way to be saved, Jesus Christ, but also in doing the saving himself by making us alive and then by seeing us all the way through day by day until glory. All of it is… Goes to the grace of God. It says, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8, 9. So Jesus, God the Son, he left heaven and he came here. He took on human flesh and he lived a perfect life for 33 years. He then died on the cross and three days later he rose up from the dead. Why? To save undeserving and spiritually dead sinners like us. Because there’s no way that we were ever going to go to heaven and be saved and forgiven of all that sin without him. No, he’s the only one who could save us from the deadly and eternal wages of our sin. Jesus God the Son. One who is fully God and fully man at the same time. He’s the only one. And so he came and died on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for sinners. See, he was our sacrificial lamb who died so we who believe could live. The wages of sin is death. So he took our wages as believers onto himself and he died in our place on the cross so we wouldn’t have to go to hell forever, but instead so that we could be forgiven of all that sin and go to heaven. Why? Because our sin was paid up in full by Christ as a believer’s substitute. So he took our sin onto himself and he died on the cross so we who believe could go to heaven even though we deserve hell. That goes to the amazing grace of God. One noted, grace is God’s favor freely offered but expensively expressed. That’s right. I mean, Jesus, God the Son, died to purchase our redemption. He died. He died. But not only is God’s saving grace amazing, so is His daily grace, right? His sustaining grace, which is with us every single day of our Christian lives until we go to glory. So it’s by His grace that any Christian is saved, and it’s by His grace that we live day by day as well. In Ephesians 1.7, if you remember, Paul describes God’s grace as abounding riches. And it tells us that the one who possesses the riches of the universe, he doesn’t reach into his penny purse to provide a little bit of grace to cover a little of my sin. No, his grace is in accord with his vast riches. This means that the abundance of His heavenly goodness is raining down on us, immersing us like an ocean, washing us. And it’s abundant and it’s extravagant and it’s boundless every single day. Grace. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Fifth, God raised us up and made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ, verse 6. What does that mean? These are words of resurrection. Just as Christ was raised from the dead, so also are we filled with the life that’s from God. See, our spiritual death has been swallowed up in Christ’s resurrection victory. The guilt and power of sin has been conquered by the God who now resides in us. In chapter 1, Paul told us of the great power of God that all believers possess because God Himself, God the Spirit, lives in us. And here he tells us that we are not only united with Christ in His resurrection, but also in His exaltation in the heavens. But first, look, we’ve been raised up together, talking about real power. for every true believer. See, the resurrection power of God is in us, and it indicates not only that we are a forgiven people, but also that we are an empowered people since He lives in us. The sin that assaulted us yesterday can be met and overcome by the risen power of God in us. See, isn’t that good news? Tomorrow doesn’t have to be like yesterday for those who are in Christ. And while we battle against sin and the flesh and the devil, In a fierce way, we in Christ can overcome more and more, and we should as we use His means of growing in Christ, namely His Word, prayer, and godly fellowship. He gave us life, see? He raised us up from the dead. He made us right with God. He gave us true power over sin. He lives in us. That’s true good news. Not only that, but look, we’re also seated with Christ in the heavenly places. This tells us that because our sin is pardoned and because the power of sin is annulled, we are then counted as God’s own children with the right to heavenly thrones beside His Son. But look, this heavenly seating isn’t merely for some future day, no. For God has already seated them and us in Christ today in the heavenly places. We’re already there. How’s that possible? Here’s how. Because although glory is ahead for us, can’t wait, anybody? Glory, eternal glory? Look, our enthronement is already accomplished. See, all God’s children already have the status as his son. And so eternity, or daughter, eternity has been compressed into a present reality in God’s accounting. Look, I still see myself from the perspective of my present humanity in sin glaringly so, but God has so secured my eternal destiny that He allows me also to see that I am already an heir of God and a possessor of all the glories of heaven. How God does this for us is wonderfully expressed in these words. God made us alive together with Christ. God raised us up together. God made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And here we see the amazing benefits of our union with Christ. Look, we all true believers, we have life with Christ. With Him. We are spiritually alive when we were once dead. With him, we are raised by resurrection power to victory over the guilt and power of sin. And with him, we are enthroned in heavenly realms despite our earthly shell and shame. As one said, it’s done. We’re there. And it will be fully realized soon. One said, all the righteousness and glories of the Son of God are ours because we, by being in union with him, receive all the love of the Father now and eternally. And he did it all by his great love, mercy, and grace. In Romans 8.32, Paul asks, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? This tells us that God’s love is so expansive for those who are united with Christ by grace through faith in Christ alone, that all that is due to Christ is granted to us in Christ. So again, just as God raised and seated Christ in the heavenlies physically, so has God raised and seated us together with Christ in the heavenlies spiritually. And it’s from this position that the believer derives every spiritual benefit. Like what? Again, like a heavenly status with a heavenly power to overcome the power of sin and death. This should seriously impact the way we live down here. Why? Because while we were formerly members of Satan’s domain and darkness, we now live in a different realm as a part of God’s eternal kingdom, God’s heavenly kingdom. Question, where is our real home as Christians? Where is our real citizenship? Here? There, right? Our citizenship is in heaven and we should be living like it. We should be seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. This is where our true life is hidden. Let me ask you, do you live like you don’t really belong here? Do you live like a real pilgrim here, a foreigner, a stranger, like your true citizenship is in heaven? Do you? Because you should. I mean, this isn’t our real home. Why do we try to live like it is? One said, don’t drive your stakes in too deep here because we’re moving in the morning. And who knows when our moving day will come? So question, does your conduct give you away as a citizen of heaven? Is it clear that you’re a stranger and pilgrim on this sinful planet? Because it should be. Not because we’re so weird and we are a pretty weird group, are we not? Right? But because we’re like Christ more and more. Because we live differently. Because we have different values. Because we aren’t so worldly minded. Because we love and forgive and serve and honor God even when it’s hard. And we have a joy and peace that passes understanding. And we have an eternal perspective. And we don’t freak out in our trials and in our tragedies. And we fight sin. And we pursue holiness. And we have morals that honor the Lord. And we love so as to please our God in heaven, not to please ourselves. Because this sinful planet isn’t our real home. Heaven is. Are you clear? He showered us with divine mercy. He has displayed His great love toward us in ways that we can’t begin to fathom. He made us alive when we were dead and lost and hopeless. He saved us by His unfathomable grace. And He raised us up and made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ. And even though we aren’t there yet physically, we’re already in the heavenlies by virtue of our union with Christ. And it’s coming. Spiritually, we’re seated on the throne along with other believers. And the power of the spiritual realm has been brought to bear on our present life, and our lives should reflect all these incredible and soul-changing realities. Not mediocrity, but love. Not worldliness, but godliness. Not giving way to sin, but overcoming it more and more for the glory of God. Not in disobedience, but in loving, heartfelt obedience to our good God. What about you? Sixth, God will show us the exceeding riches of His grace. Verse 7. That in the ages to come, He might show us the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. This just keeps getting better and better and better. Look, the word that introduces a purpose clause, and it explains why believers have been made alive, raised up, and seated with Christ. Why? That He might demonstrate His grace in the coming ages. In other words, on into eternity. See, our salvation is first and foremost a demonstration of the glory of God. As Jonathan Edwards said, God created the world and put us here to further His glory, and that theme extends throughout eternity. See, Satan’s objective in tempting Adam and Eve was to detract from the glory and majesty of God. Oh yes, he wanted Adam and Eve, but more than anything else, he wants to stand in opposition to God, and he wants to diminish the glory and majesty of God. Now, God allowed sin to enter this world in part because his plan of redemption revealed certain aspects of his holiness, justice, wisdom, mercy, love, and grace that wouldn’t have been known apart from the cross. But look, we will play a part in displaying the surpassing riches of God’s grace throughout eternity. Martin Lloyd-Jones said, salvation vindicates the greatness and the character of God in a special way and in a manner which nothing else does. And so we in Christ will bask in God’s grace, His limitless grace, the exceeding riches of His grace throughout eternity. How cool is that? Throughout eternity. Sound good? What’s our part in this? Nothing. We were dead. This is all God’s. And He deserves all the love and glory and praise and honor and obedience from us as children. The word exceeding has been rendered to mean beyond throwing distance. So, throw your thoughts forward as far as you can and there will always be an immense beyond. Throw them as high as you can until they soar above the stars and there will always be an above. And let them sink forever and there will always be a beneath. So are the exceeding riches of God’s grace. Note also the word kindness in verse 7. It is kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Kindness… is God’s beneficial provision that meets the needs of sinful man in this life and also in the life to come. This tells us that through God’s endless kindness toward us in Christ, the Father glorifies Himself, listen to this, even as He blesses us. How good is that? He glorifies himself even as he blesses us. See, from the moment of salvation throughout the ages to come, we will never stop receiving the grace and kindness of God. We will be constantly overwhelmed by it every single day. Anybody excited? And so Paul just piles up the words to make a deep and lasting impression on our hearts. Let me ask you this. If there were one person in all the universe of whom you would like all the benefits of his kindness, who would it be? God, right? Right? And look, you might think of a million ways that you would want to receive that kindness, but then you’d run out of ways. But God won’t. No, he’s going to keep showing it to you throughout all eternity. Now, when eternity ends, God will have run out of ways to show you his incredible kindness. But when does eternity end? Never. See? So this just keeps getting better and better, and it shows us how amazing God is to us, His children. So, we went really, really low last time, deep into the death valley of the soul. But now, look how high we are. Look how high we are. God, what an amazing God we have. If someone asked me, John, how do I know what you’re saying is true? How do I really know that God is as loving and gracious and kind as you say He is? Well… The Word of God is very clear about that, but also this. I would point to us. I would point to the church as exhibit A. Because we are certainly a display case for the grace of God, are we not? Look at us. Look at us. Look at what we once were. Look at what God has done. Look at what God is continuing to do. And look at everything that lies ahead. Flawed, sinful, wretched, addicted, hopeless, faithless, foolish, rebellious. That was us, but look what God has made us into. No, we’re not perfect, but we are proof that God can indeed raise the dead and give hope and purpose and life and peace and meaning and joy. Are we not? Exhibit A. I mean, how else would a group of fallen men and women like us get together to do anything for the glory of God? But look what he’s done. And look at what he’s continuing to do. And all of it displays his great grace on one dead sinner. One said, God delights to show great grace to great sinners. God will display the trophies of his grace throughout the endless ages of eternity. Saints will be concrete demonstrations of the overflowing wealth of his grace. We have a lot to look forward to. In light of that and all the rest of these amazing truths, honor your King. Honor your King. Love Him with passion and conviction for who He is and for what He’s done and for what He will continue to do for undeserving sinners like us. He is certainly worthy. Lord, help us to live like we believe in Him.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thanks for joining us for today’s exposition from the book of Ephesians on expository truths with Dr. John Kyle. Continue on with us next week at this same time. And to find this sermon in its entirety as well as other sermons, visit vacavillefaith.org. Faith Community Church seeks to exalt Christ by bringing clarity of truth through the scriptures with a commitment to glorifying God through the pure, deep, and reaching message of the gospel through faithful exposition. Pastor John is the preaching pastor at Faith Community Church of Vacaville. a seminary professor and a trainer of preaching pastors overseas. Join Faith Community Church for worship Sundays at 9 and 1045 a.m. Located at 192 Bella Vista Road, Suite A in Vacaville. To learn more, visit vacavillefaith.org or call 707-451-2026. That’s vacavillefaith.org.
