A Reality Check

Well, tonight I'm preaching from a favorite passage.

And let me give you a little history. I was with my daughter Abigail and her husband, and we were in the car traveling somewhere together. And out of the blue, Abigail said, if you could only preach one sermon, what would you preach?

And where would it be from? Well, that's like asking a kid in a candy store, what's your favorite candy, right? So, you know, I gave a couple of minutes thought to that, and I told her, I said, I think, as I'm sitting here right now and hearing that question cold, I think it would be Ephesians chapter 2, the first 10 verses. And I gave her some reasons why that was so, and since then I've had time to think about that and thinking, okay, now that you've had more time to think about it, is there anything else you would, and there's lots of places that you could never, I mean, you know what I'm saying, anywhere you go in the Bible, it's rich. But in terms of places that I would go, I still think, I still think I would go to Ephesians chapter 2.

And you say, well, why? Well, you know, it's a subjective thing, but there's some objectivity to it just as well. Number one, because it sets before us with clarity man's true spiritual condition outside of Christ.

And it has the order correct. It doesn't tell us about the love of God. It doesn't tell us about the purposes of God until it sets before us what our condition is outside of Christ. And we'll never appreciate, because it talks about the love of God, but we'll never appreciate the love of God until we understand it in the context of the bad news of what we are outside of Christ. I like it because it exalts God and humbles man. I love it because it sets Jesus Christ before us. In those first 10 verses, five or six times, Christ is mentioned or Christ Jesus is mentioned. And it takes us back to every blessing we know and have experienced and will experience is grounded and sourced in the person of Jesus Christ and what he did on Calvary.

So I like it for that. And the fact that it's such a God-centered passage, the man and his needs is there, but it starts with God and his deeds, not first man and his needs. It speaks to man and his needs and how God's remedy perfectly fits man's true condition. You know, a doctor is very handicapped if he doesn't have the ability to accurately diagnose the patient that comes to him for treatment.

He'd be the best doctor in the world, but if he misses the diagnosis, then that which he prescribes for the cure will be off. So man's true condition, his diagnosis is set before us crystal clear. And the beauty is that God's remedy for man's condition suits his need. He's dead in his trespasses and sins. So what's God's remedy? He makes us alive. We're dead.

We need to be made alive. So those are some of the reasons that this passage is so favorite to me and how rich it is in gospel-centeredness. I look back through my record of sermons and I can only remember or find a record where I preached this one time here at the church.

Well, if it's your favorite, you've only been here one time. Well, I've heard others preach from it and I've probably taught from it in Sunday school and made many, many references to it. But let me just set a very simple outline before you that really gets to the heart of these 10 verses.

And then I'm going to move away from that outline and take a different approach, okay? So in verses 2 to 3, we see the answer to a question. And what is that question? Who is man? Who we were. So if you want to write down Roman numeral one, who we were. And what were we like? What was our condition? Well, we were dead. We were disobedient. We were sons of disobedience.

We were deceived in that we were given to the lust of the flesh and following the courts of this world and taking orders from the devil himself. And the fourth D, we were doomed. We were doomed. We were children of wrath. The wrath of God was hanging over us.

That's what we were. Another reason I love this passage is the first two words of verse 4, but God. Not because of obligation, but because He wanted to, He willed to, He desired to do something about our sinful condition, but God. So verses 1 through 3, what we were.

Verses 4 through 6, what God did. So who we were, what God did. God made us alive. God raised us up with Christ. God, you see the passage there. Seated us in the heavenly places. Raised us up together. And then finally verses 7 through 10, not only who we were and what God did, but why. Why God did what He did. So that's just a simple outline.

If you ever get an opportunity to preach, street preach or wherever, I can't think of a better place to go. And I think it's fairly easy to remember that outline. Who, what, and why. But for our purposes tonight, I want to deal with the passage, but I want to do it in such a way that it has a confronting appeal to it. It's confrontational. It's a reality check.

It's a reality check. You know, I pretty much know who's going to be here on a Sunday night, but I don't know who's going to be listening by live stream. Or who may visit Sermon Audio and pull this up and listen. So as a preacher, you know, I have to think beyond just the audience that's present here.

I was thrilled six or eight years ago. A member of the church came to me and said, he said, you know my brother? I said, yeah, I've met your brother.

Talk to him. He says, God saved him. I said, well, praise the Lord.

Hallelujah. And he said, he used a sermon you preached here at Beacon that he listened to on Sermon Audio. God used that instrumentally in bringing him to Christ.

Well, that's humbling to know. And it's encouraging to know because the word of God has that kind of power, doesn't it? Has the power to save, has the power to transform.

It has the power to give life to those who are dead. So a reality check. I want to give you three grim realities that you need to deal with. And if you're a believer tonight, God in his grace has enabled you to deal with these three grim realities.

But if you're here tonight and you're lost, here are the grim realities. Number one, you've got a God sized problem. You've got a God sized problem, and I'll deal with that in a moment. Number two, you have a serious lack of power. Number three, you've got an inborn resistance to grace. Those are three grim realities.

And then I'll bring a concluding emphasis at the end of the message. But let's walk through these three grim realities. Grim reality number one, you've got a God sized problem. A God sized problem. You see, if your biggest problem is ignorance, then you can probably get some education.

If your biggest problem is inner conflict, relational conflict, you can get some biblical counseling to help with that. If you're drowning, you just might be able to claw your way and make your way to safe ground. But if you're dead, if you're dead spiritually, I think that's really a misunderstood idea. What does it mean to be dead in trespasses and sins?

I'm alive. It means you're dead toward God. You're a natural man. The Bible makes a distinction.

There are two categories. There's the natural man and there is the spiritual man. And everybody born into this world comes into this world as a natural man. And the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit because they're foolishness to him, neither can he know them. So in terms of his as a natural man, he's dead toward God. He can't relate to God. He can't do anything that pleases God because there is a barrier between him and God and it is a sin barrier. And that sin barrier needs to be dealt with. And our passage tonight, Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, speaks of the God-sized problem we have.

Let me read it again. And you, he made alive. You know, as you look through this passage carefully, you, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Verse 5, even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive. You see again the connection between our condition and God's remedy for our condition.

He starts with what God did for us. And you, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as the others. Now in terms of salvation, does that condition that's being described there for us, does it sound like you and I, outside of Christ, can do anything for ourselves spiritually?

Is there anything we can do to remedy this deadness that we have? Does it sound like you're a key player in your salvation? Are you a key player in your salvation?

If you've been around here long, you know what we do to take in members. They go through a discipling program with a discipler, render their testimony, come before the membership committee, render that, and then come before the congregation and render their testimony. And we don't write people's testimony for them. We listen to their testimony because God brings people to Christ through various providences and ways. We all have a journey in grace. But one thing we're looking for when we listen to somebody render their testimony, we're listening for I words.

I did this, I did that, I did this or that. And if that gets somehow confused with how they came to Christ, we say, wait a minute here. Now what's your part in this? I heard one man say, here's my part, I sinned and God saved. My part was I sinned.

I did the sinning, God did the saving. Now it sounds to me like we're not key players in our salvation because what is our condition? How bad off are you?

How bad off are we? I don't know a description more hopeless than being dead in trespasses and sins. Doesn't sound like a dead man can do much for himself. So left to ourselves spiritually, we can't even see our need, let alone grasp the wonder of the gospel. 2 Corinthians 4 says, the God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

Dead in our trespasses and sins, blinded by the evil one. We've got a God-sized problem. That is grim reality number one. Grim reality number two, you've got a serious lack of power.

You've got a serious lack of power. Because given the condition that we are in and is described for us in verse three, those words in verse four were not there, there's no hope for us. But God, had God not come to rescue, had God not sent his son to save, to seek and to save those who are lost, if God had not sent his son to give his life a ransom for many, if God had not sent him to redeem and to reconcile us unto himself, if God had not given his son to come and be the propitiation for our sins and to bear our sins in his own body on the tree, there'd be no hope for us. But God, who is rich in mercy, how rich in mercy is he? Well, rich enough to dispense mercy to every single one of us and not impoverish himself one bit.

Enough mercy for any and every one who will bow the knee and acknowledge their need and come to Jesus. God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. But why has God set his love on us? Well, the Bible tells us that God set his love on the elect before the foundations of the world. So that tells us logically that it has nothing to do with you or me. It has nothing to do with our performance.

It has nothing to do with our merits or our demerits. God loves because he is love. He sets his love on whom he wills.

It's his prerogative to do that. He's under no obligation. One thing that should grip us is the fact that God had no remedial plan for the fallen angels. They fell once, no second chance, no redemption, no salvation, no rescue, no hope for the fallen angels. Why weren't we treated similarly?

That's a good question to ask. God was under no obligation. His character, his personhood is not diminished one bit. His glory will be manifested in the just judgment of sinners.

So he was under no obligation. We should stand in awe of a God who would set his love on us and so love us. John 3 16, the emphasis is on the nature of that love. God so loved us that he gave his only begotten son. I can't comprehend it.

My love for my only son is so far below the love that the father has for the son, but just as a human father to think that I would give my son, and if the quality of my son and his ability was that he could save others, I still would be like, I'm not sure I'm willing to give up my son for you or for anybody else. But God did. And that's because of this grim reality.

We have a serious lack of power. There wasn't anything we could do to save ourselves. Listen to Romans chapter 5 verses 6 through 10. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Three things there in those few verses. Christ died for us, number 1, verse 6, while we were helpless. We were totally helpless.

Nothing we could do to help ourselves. Verse 8, while we were sinners, Christ died for us. And number 3, verse 10, while we were enemies, Christ died for us. Dead in trespasses and sins. You know, the condition of the corpse really makes no difference if we're talking about deadness, right? I mean, dead is dead.

A resurrection is needed in either case if there's going to be life restored. And it's no more difficult for God to save a big sinner than it is for him to save a little one. Some might think, you might think, that your sin is too great. Your past is too sordid. But listen to me, there's more grace in God's heart than there is sin in your past.

All right? There's more grace in God's heart than there is sin in your past. I don't care who you are.

I don't care what you've done. You say, well, that's an awfully nice sentiment. Is there any scripture to back that up?

Hebrews 7, verse 25 says, therefore, he is able to save to the uttermost, to the uttermost, those who come to God through him. That's good news, folks. That's good news. All of us have a past. I don't know anybody who has a clean past. I don't know anybody who doesn't have a past that in some respects they wish they could go back and relive.

We all have a past. But God is rich in mercy. So we're dealing with three grim realities. Grim reality number one, you've got a God-sized problem. Grim reality number two, you've got a serious lack of power. And grim reality number three, you've got an inborn resistance to grace.

And as I think about that, there's two categories of people I have in mind. There's a group of people who are so wracked with guilt and they just can't believe that God would forgive them freely in Christ Jesus for everything they've done. I've gone places that I'm ashamed to even mention. I've done things. I'm so guilty. I'm so ashamed.

I've so sinned. There's no way God would save me. There was no way God would show mercy to me. When you explain grace to them, they just can't accept it.

They can't receive it because they just don't see themselves as a candidate. You say, well, I have a hard time envisioning somebody who thinks that way. Well, let me come at it from another direction. I know a spouse who prayed for their lost mate for years and years and years. Endured a difficult marriage. Because what fellowship have light with darkness?

How can two walk together unless they be one? So here's a spouse who's a believer and here's a spouse who's an unbeliever. Toward the end of that unbeliever's life, there was strong evidence that God had mercy and saved that person. Now, what would you think would be the response of that spouse who prayed for that lost spouse for 40 years? You think they'd be rejoicing? I was dumbfounded when I heard they were angry. They were literally bothered, troubled, upset.

Are you kidding me? After all they did to me? Forgiving like that?

And I'm supposed to be happy about that? Have a difficult time believing that God could justify us, declare us righteous, despite what we've done or despite what someone else has done. And you know what that person is failing to acknowledge is God didn't sweep sin under the rug, right? All that sin that was forgiven was paid for by him who bore our sins upon the tree, right? So that forgiveness came at a great cost.

Therefore there's reason for rejoicing. A second kind of person who struggles with grace is a self-righteous person. They do volunteer work.

They've never been in trouble with the law. They've got a badge or a list of pins this long of every Sunday school class, perfect attendance for 30 some years. They're the kind of person that always returns the shopping cart to the place, never leaves it in the parking lot, never cheated on their taxes, never cheated on their spouse. They have a hard time with grace.

Why is that? Well, I've been a good person. Look at me compared to so-and-so. And I think we have a lot of folks like that around us who think that relatively speaking, they're in pretty good shape before God.

And the problem is twofold. They've not fully appreciated the holiness of God. I love these little glimpses in the gospels where men are encountering the Lord Jesus Christ whose glory is veiled by his humanity. But every few times, there's a number of times in the gospel accounts where his glory shines through. One of those times is when he's in a boat fishing with Peter. And you remember what Peter did when he realized who he was in the boat with? He hadn't just done some horrible thing that made him acutely conscious of his sin, but there in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, he realized he was in the presence of not just the person but the God-man. He fell to his knees in the boat and he said, depart from me, Lord, for I'm a sinful man.

That's what he did. Failure to appreciate the holiness of God. And until we do, we'll never be gripped by our sinfulness. So there's this pressure to bring God down and to elevate man. No, this inborn resistance to grace. The fact is, sometimes the more crippled we are by sin, the better our chances of seeing our need and being ready to receive the grace of God.

Because grace is the unexpected. It is the unearned love of God in Christ Jesus. Romans chapter 5, I made reference to this in Sunday school this morning where we were answering the question, why did Jesus come?

And we came up with 18 or 20 correct answers to that question. But one of the answers to that question, why did Jesus come, is he came to undo as the second Adam what the first Adam failed to do. And listen to Romans chapter 5, four verses there, and listen to the emphasis and the reference to the free gift or the gift. Romans 5 verse 15, but the free gift is not like the offense, for if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, for the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men resulting in condemnation, even so through one man, righteous act, the free gift came to all men resulting in justification of life. I've been thinking through a series of messages that I've thought about entitling urban legends.

Things that people say in Christendom in the church that under careful examination are really falsehoods, mis-caricatures of scripture. And the one that comes to my mind right now that would be in that series, and you've heard this, maybe even said it, maybe even believed it yourself, God helps those who help themselves. You're going to hear that from the guy you work beside. You're going to hear that from the clerk at the grocery store.

That's the way people think. God helps those who can't help themselves. And those are the only kind of people God helps. Titus chapter 3 verse 4 and 5, 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 what? The washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Many a man will fail to come to Christ in this life because he's hanging on to something he believes grants him merit before God. And that's why Augustus Toplady's hymn is so powerful when he penned these words, Not the labors of my hands can fulfill the law's demands. Could my zeal no respite know?

Could my tears forever flow? All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me Savior or I die.

That's it. And it's a frightening thing. It's a difficult thing to be in a place where we're shut up, we have no hope, there's nothing we can do where we must cast ourselves upon the mercy of God. I know a man who God was dealing with for a significant period of time. And he was under the conviction of sin, being exorcised by the Spirit of God. But he was really unsure of whether God had saved him. And he said that he finally came to this place, looked to God and said, Look, if I'm going to be saved, I'm going to be saved by trusting you the best way I know how.

I don't know, my faith seems deficient, I don't seem to have an assurance, but if I'm going to hell, I'm going to hell believing you the best way I know how. Well that's a work of grace in a man's heart and life. He wasn't presuming upon the grace of God. He knew he was shut up to the mercy of God. And if God didn't have mercy on him, he was doomed. He was lost forever.

So three grim realities. You've got a God-sized problem, you've got a serious lack of power, and you've got an inborn resistance to grace. And I can say more about that, in fact I may say just one more word about that inborn resistance of grace. It's seen in people who profess to know Jesus Christ, and they are confronted with the doctrines of grace, and they bow up. Don't you tell me that God's in charge of who is saved and who is not.

You know what I'm talking about. That is an inborn resistance to grace. Man's pride rises up. But let me deal with the last few verses here of the passage, Ephesians 4, because it tells us why God dispensed mercy, why he made alive those who were dead, why he gave his Son, verse 7, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. These couple of verses answer a very important question. Why does God save people if he's under no obligation to do so?

It gets to the motive, it answers the why question. The first reason God came to save us is to display his grace. God wants to put those that he's redeemed on display as trophies of grace. This is exhibit A of the manifestation of my grace.

God is saying. And he wants to manifest, he wants to display, he wants to show throughout all the ages, he says, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. So we're to be shown, we're to be manifest for whose benefit? Well, to angels, to demons, to humans, and anyone else who might catch a glimpse of God's generosity. So the first purpose, the first reason for God saving us is for his own glory, to draw attention to him, that we might be trophies of his grace. And regardless of how beautiful and how splendor the trophy might be, the trophy is only to point us to the one who earned the trophy, right?

So it's all about him. See, throughout eternity, people aren't going to be asking, who are the redeemed? Let me see them. When they see us, the redeemed, they're going to be saying, where's the redeemer? Where is the redeemer? I want to see the redeemer. Let me see the person who could take such broken, marred, scarred, sinful people and make them trophies like this.

I want to see him. That's what heaven will be like. And the second purpose of salvation, see, the first is more directed toward God.

The second is more directed toward us. The second purpose of God's salvation is directed to us, 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. Why did God stoop to save? Well, number one, to show the glories of his grace, but number two, in this realm, to do us good for all eternity, to do us everlasting good, to lavish grace upon us, to show divine favor to us. That's why God did what he did. And when God sets his love on a people and makes them his own, adopts them into his family, makes them heirs of God and joined heirs with Jesus Christ, what can we say?

What we can say is the psalmist concludes Psalm 23, regardless of how long we live, if we live long into our years, we're going to be able to say, you know what? Goodness and mercy has followed me all the days of my life, and I'm going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Goodness and mercy, that's the kind of God he is. He delights in showing goodness and mercy and doing people good, everlasting good.

And we say, well, what is the connection here to the Lord's table? Well, the application to this message tonight is to provoke you, to cause you to have a greater appreciation for what God has done for you in Christ, to deepen your worship, to review again, do this reality check, to realize who you were, what you were, what God did, why God did all of that. And I love what one of the great theologians of the past has to say. He says, gratitude follows grace. Gratitude follows grace, like thunder follows lightning. Gratitude follows grace, like thunder follows lightning. So if your heart hasn't been moved in gratitude, hasn't been moved in worship tonight, as we've thought about this and considered these wonderful truths, then as we bow and think and reflect on Christ and his crosswork, there's something amiss in your heart.

I don't know how you could sit here and be miserable, instead at the same time be a born-again believer. If you're a believer and you heard the preaching from this great passage, how can your heart not be stirred? How can't your heart not be provoked to gratitude and appreciation and love and a desire to say, oh God, I want to partake of these elements tonight. I want to remember the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to remember his body that he gave, the body you prepared for him.

I want to remember his shed blood, all that he did for me. And I want to reflect on my life and whatever life I have left that I want to live as an offering to God in gratitude for all he's done for me and to deepen our appreciation for what he's done in making us a part of this body and not some other body that we're a family. This is a family and the more you're here, the deeper the ties grow and we bleed with one another, we weep with one another, we rejoice with one another, we bear one another's burdens. All of that's tied up in communion.

We're one body, we. So let me bow and pray and Pastor B will come and we'll transition to the Lord's table service. Father, how we thank you tonight for the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. How your gospel is so fitted to our need and how your gospel so takes away any effort that man could bring to accomplish salvation so that in your presence no man can boast, no man will boast when we are in your presence we will be preoccupied in worship of you for what you did for us that we could never have done for ourselves. Thank you for your word that exalts the Lord Jesus Christ and humbles man and sets before us our savior in such wonderful ways. Cause your word to bear fruit in our lives we pray for Jesus' sake. Amen.