Immeasurable Grace – Ephesians 2:7
In Ephesians 2:7, Paul shows why God made dead sinners alive, raised them with Christ, and seated them with Him in the heavenly places: “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Salvation is not ultimately about making much of us, but about displaying the glory of God’s grace. From before the foundation of the world, God purposed to redeem a people in Christ, not by accident or reaction, but for the eternal praise of His grace. The church is a living display case of what God can do with dead, guilty, wrath-deserving sinners. Our testimony is not, “I found God,” or “I turned my life around,” but, “God had mercy on me.” Any testimony that makes us look big and God look small has missed the point.
Paul describes this grace as “immeasurable riches” because our need was so great. We were dead in sin, enslaved, guilty, and deserving judgment, yet God saved us, made us alive, raised us, and seated us in Christ. His grace is not barely enough; it is beyond measure, and believers will spend the coming ages marveling at it. This grace is also shown “in kindness toward us,” not weak sentimentality, but God’s active goodness toward those who deserved wrath. That kindness does not ignore justice; it provides Christ, who bore the wrath sinners deserved. Every drop of God’s saving grace comes through Jesus Christ. There is no saving grace, no saving kindness, and no eternal hope outside of Him. Therefore, believers must not boast in themselves, minimize sin, cheapen grace, or live for this passing age, but give God glory now and forever for the immeasurable grace given in Christ Jesus.
FULL SERMON TEXT:
If you will, turn in your copy of God’s Word to the letter of Paul to the Ephesians. And as is our practice here, we are going to pick up where we left off last time.
Last week, we looked at verse 6, and this morning we’re going to look at verse 7 of chapter 2.
Had a hard time coming up with a title for this one. So Miss Donna, I gave her a bunch of them and said, “Here, you tell me what sounds good.” And she’s like, “Well, what about this?” And I said, “Perfect. Let’s go with it.”
So, Immeasurable Grace. You’ll see why I had difficulty picking just one title here.
But in verse 7 of Ephesians chapter 2—
What’d I say?
Chapter 6?
Chapter 2, following verse 6. Seven comes after six. Six, seven. Yeah. I got it. You’re welcome.
That was for you, Caleb. Y’all still do that, right?
Yes.
Ephesians 2:7.
This part of the sentence that began in verse 4 answers the question that has been raised throughout the rest of those verses.
All that he has said so far in verses 4 through 6 have come to a culmination here in verse 7. And we’re asking the question, why did God do these things?
Why did God make dead sinners alive?
Why did God raise us with Christ?
Why did God seat us with Christ in the heavenly places?
And then verse 7 comes, and it gives us the answer.
And the answer is very plainly, and what we’ll spend this morning expounding upon, that God saves sinners to display His grace.
That’s why He has done those things.
Now, that does not mean that we are unimportant to Him, that we don’t have any part to play in this, or that He doesn’t care about us, that He’s only trying to display His grace.
But it means that salvation, God making us alive and raising us and seating us in Christ, is not ultimately about making much of us, but it is about making much of Him.
We are saved by grace, through grace, and for the eternal praise of God’s grace.
So if you will stand with me this morning, we’ll read this section that we’ve been reading every week so far as we make our way through chapter 2, verses 1 through 10. We’re reading the entire section every morning because repetition is how we learn.
And we want to hear these wonderful truths again and again and again.
Let’s pray.
Father, this morning, as we continue through this passage of Scripture, working our way line by line through Ephesians, mining out the riches that you have left here for us, Lord, we recognize, I recognize once again, that there is so much more that could be said and that might be said.
But Lord, this morning, let what is said be for the good of your church.
Lord, for your glory in your church. Display your grace through your Word this morning.
Lord, as we pray every week, use your inspired Word to teach us, to reprove us, to correct us, to train us in righteousness so that we may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Lord, do this by your Spirit and His illuminating work and His empowering work in us so that we might understand, we might see, might understand, and might believe and carry out these things that we learn this morning.
And do this all for the glory of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
So the main idea here this morning is that God saved sinners in Christ so that He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
So we come to the first two words, and we’ll stop there and expound.
He says, “So that.”
You want to pay attention when you see those two words in the Scriptures. And we do. Every time those words have come up in the Scriptures in our time through the Word so far, since I’ve been here at least, and I’m assuming that men of God have pointed out this “so that” in previous years as well.
But when you see those two words, you’ve got to pay attention.
What we see first here is the purpose of God’s saving work.
He says, “So that.”
Paul has told us what God did already. He made us alive. He raised us up and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and now he tells us why.
“So that,” because of that. Here is what is most important.
The reason for all of that is this, is what he’s saying here.
This is purposeful language. I don’t mean that he’s using it on purpose, though he is, but he’s telling us his purpose. He’s using this language to express the purpose for what he has just said.
Salvation then is not just random.
It’s not just about getting to that point. It’s not just about making sure we are made alive and raised and seated.
And it’s not by accident, and it’s not just happenstance. It’s not reactive.
Salvation has, as we’ve already learned, remember the context from where we are now, from beginning in chapter 1. When did that begin?
Before the foundation of the world, God had purposed to redeem for Himself a people in Christ Jesus.
And now here Paul is telling us the great end of that work, not meaning that it’s over, but the point of it all.
And the point of all that is the display of His grace, to show off. To show off His grace in this world.
The 1689 London Baptist Confession says that, “God governs all things to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.”
And so that is what Ephesians 2 here in verses 1 through 10 is really all getting to.
Again, in verses 1 through 3, he shows us the justice of His wrath against sin. It’s what we deserve. He’s displaying Himself. He’s showing who He is in our salvation.
He shows the justice of His wrath against the sin, and then in verse 4, he shows us the riches of His mercy and His love.
In verse 5, he showed us the power of His life-giving grace.
And in verse 6, he shows the glory of the union with Christ.
And now in verse 7, he’s telling us His eternal purpose, and that is the display of the immeasurable riches of His grace.
One commentator said that this is the final and true cause, the glory of God.
God saves sinners for His own glory, to show Himself, to reveal Himself, to show off, to show how amazing and wonderful and awesome He truly is.
And some of you might be thinking to yourself, “Well, Mark, that sounds like God is arrogant, that He’s maybe a little narcissistic.”
And I would say, in our mind, yeah.
But guess what?
You wrong.
And let me tell you why.
Because if we act like that as human beings, are we worthy to receive glory and honor and praise and worship?
No.
Why?
Because we read verses 1 through 3 already, didn’t we?
Who alone is worthy of all glory?
Who alone is worthy of all the honor and praise and worship and glory?
It’s God.
For Him to share His glory with another would be tantamount to idolatry.
He deserves worship. He deserves glory.
So He, in order to show just how wonderful and amazing He is, has done what He has done. He has saved the sinners to show off His grace.
So Christian then, your salvation is not a trophy.
“Whoo, look what I got.”
Your salvation is a display case for the grace of God.
So let’s take a closer look here then at God’s purpose in all this.
“So that in the coming ages.”
Look at the ages of God’s display here.
Paul says, “God will show His grace in the coming ages.”
Now He’s already shown grace in saving us. We know that. He’s already shown grace now as He preserves us in our sanctification, but He will go on displaying that grace in the ages to come, in the coming ages.
At that point when he’s writing, Paul is writing 2,000 years ago, so he’s pointing forward to where we are now. But he’s pointing past where we are.
He’s pointing to those heavenly places that he just talked about previously in the previous verse. That future glory, that future eternal, the forever that we’re waiting for, right?
And so God is going to continue to display His grace to the end.
It’s not just into the coming ages as if He’s going to display His grace until the end comes and the Lord returns, and then we’re cutting off that display.
That means for us that in heaven, in glory, in that eternal state, the glory of God, the grace of God, the immeasurable riches of His grace is not at some point in eternity future going to become old news.
We’re not going to get to a point in eternity in heaven, in the eternal state that we are in, and go, “You know what? I’m kind of bored of that grace thing.”
No.
The coming ages, which is forever. There’s no end here. Coming ages meaning there always is coming. There’s always more coming. It’s eternal.
So we will not be bored with it.
We’re not going to get to heaven and move beyond grace to find something better than God’s grace.
There is nothing better.
The redeemed of God will spend eternity praising the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
We’ve talked about this before. There is this tension of the already and the not yet, right?
We are currently under His grace. We’ve already been made alive, right? We’re already seated with Him. We’re already raised with Him, but it hasn’t happened yet, right?
There’s this already part of it, and yet verse 7 says, “In the coming ages,” there’s going to be more.
He’s already displayed His grace, and He is still displaying His grace. But there’s going to be a more fully displayed version of His grace in glory.
The glory of heaven will not replace God’s grace.
Our experience in heaven will reveal just how great His grace really is.
Another commentator said that Ephesians 2:7 shows God’s design to set forth the exceeding riches of His grace in man’s salvation, and that this grace is worthy in all ages to be celebrated.
Charles Spurgeon said this: “Eternity itself will not improve upon the Gospel.”
We will never get bored of it.
We’ll never get over it.
This age is passing away. The things that we’re going through right now will pass away. This temporary existence is going to pass away. All the pleasures and the different things that we go through now, the living for man’s approval, the things that we think are so important, all our troubles, all our suffering, all of those things are going to pass away.
Even our enemies, by the way, are going to pass away.
But the grace of God, it will be displayed forever.
It never ends.
It will not pass away.
So we don’t need to measure our life or God’s grace by this present one. We need to measure His grace by the eternity of the coming ages.
He says, “So that in the coming ages,” and we haven’t even got to what He’s displaying yet.
Goodness.
“So that in the coming ages, He might show.”
So here’s where we’re talking about. This is the display here.
He says, “He might show.”
Paul says God has saved us so that He might show us the immeasurable riches of His grace.
The word there “show” is the idea then of displaying. It is that display case metaphor that I used a minute ago. It is demonstrating. It is showing it off, right?
“He might show.”
God is not just giving grace privately to individual sinners so that you will enjoy it yourself.
He’s doing it to make it public, to show off who He is, not just to us, but to everyone and everything.
This is God’s purpose in all of creation.
One of my favorite writers, Jay Adams, called it “The Grand Demonstration.”
That’s what history is. That’s what our existence is. That’s what everything exists for, to demonstrate the grace of God.
It’s all about Him.
The whole play has been written so that He gets the glory at the end of it.
And He’s not just showing that off to us. He’s showing that off to the whole world.
In fact, the angels even are looking at what’s going on, and they’re like, “What in the world? God, why?”
Well, they’re not questioning God. Let me make sure I’m clear of that, but they’re in awe. They’re wondering at God’s grace toward those dead in sin, sons of disobedience, children of wrath.
God’s showing off.
And He’s going to do this. He’s making this public display, and He’s going to continue to publicly display His grace through us forever.
So the church now and into eternity is a living testimony to what God can do with dead sinners.
So this connects us to where we’re going to be in chapter 3, in, I don’t know, next year.
Verse 10, where God’s manifold wisdom is made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
He’s showing them. He’s showing off. He’s demonstrating.
We, the church, are impressive only as evidence of what God’s grace can do.
We’re not impressive because we’ve got everything put together. We’ve got the show and the lights and the stuff.
We’re not impressive because we’ve got our lives together. We’re not impressive because of anything in ourselves.
We are impressive because we show off what God can do.
It’s not about you or me. It’s not about the church. It’s about God’s grace being displayed to this world.
God determined to demonstrate the riches of His grace.
That means every single Christian is a testimony of grace.
So this then should change how you tell your story, how you are a testimony to this world.
Your testimony to other people is not, “I found God.”
Your testimony is, “God had mercy on me.”
It is not, “I turned my life around and finally got right.”
It’s, “God made me alive, wretch that I am.”
Any time your testimony makes you look big and God look small, you got it wrong.
But believer, we know the truth here.
God is big, and we are little.
And when we tell the truth about what God has done in our lives, that should make God’s grace shine.
If you receive glory for your testimony, something went wrong.
It’s to display His grace, to show Him off.
It says, “So that in the coming ages He might show,” what?
“The immeasurable riches of His grace.”
We’ve already done this many times just since verse 1 of chapter 1. Paul is, again, not just using simple terminology. Again, his English teacher would be mad at him.
“You got way too many extra words here, Paul. Just say grace.”
And so that He might show His grace.
No, Paul’s like, “Uh-uh.”
He shows the immeasurable riches of His grace.
In Ephesians 1:7, we have redemption through Christ’s blood according to the riches of His grace. We talked about the riches there in that verse.
And then back in verse 4 of this chapter, chapter 2, it says that God is rich in mercy.
And so now in this verse, we see the immeasurable riches of His grace.
He adds to it.
It is not just riches.
We talked about what riches means, right?
It’s not that He’s poor. He’s not lacking in any grace. He’s not got just enough to get by. It’s nothing like that.
It’s riches.
It’s not out of the poverty of His grace. It’s out of the riches of His grace.
And what do you think about when you think of the word riches?
You think of overwhelming.
Again, I think I’ve used this illustration multiple times. It’s like the duck guy.
Scrooge.
Thank you.
Every time I forget his name.
Scrooge McDuck jumping into his big old safe full of gold coins and everything, right?
It’s just so much. It’s overwhelming. You can’t count it all.
And of course, it’s an infinity times that amount when you’re referring to God.
And that’s what riches means.
And he says in here, in this verse, “immeasurable riches.”
He’s taking it even further. He’s straining this metaphor even further.
He wants us to recognize just how awesome and great His grace is. The greatness of it. The magnitude of it. The bigness of it. The infinity of it.
It’s not just a lot so that the measure would be great.
It can’t be measured.
That’s how big it is. That’s how much it is. That’s how great it is.
He wants us to feel that.
And of course, that makes sense in light of verses 1 through 3.
Who in the world would take dead sons of disobedience, children of wrath, and go, “You know what? Not only am I going to save you and bring you from death to life, I’m going to seat you in my Son and just put you on display for all eternity of how great I am”?
Wow.
Immeasurable.
And that would be immeasurable and great if it was just one person that He did that with.
But think of the multitude of the people that He has shown grace to.
Immeasurable riches.
God’s grace is rich because our need was great.
Listen, if our sin was small, He wouldn’t need much.
But we’ve seen the depths of our sin. We’ve seen the depravity of our nature.
We were guilty, enslaved to sin, dead children of wrath, and God saved us.
That’s why God’s grace is not just enough.
It’s immeasurable.
It exceeds the depth of our guilt. It exceeds the strength of the bondage that we were in. It exceeds the deadness of our condition.
Paul uses the language of mercy and love and grace and kindness because he wants us to look only at His grace.
And that’s the emphasis here. That’s why he over-exaggerates here. He wants us to look only to God’s grace.
It is grace alone.
It’s not grace plus works. It’s not grace plus how worthy you are.
It’s grace.
That’s why when we get down to the next verses, verses 8 and 9, he expresses this more fully.
We’ll talk more about what “by grace through faith” really means.
But the point here is this immeasurable riches of His grace is you will never, ever, ever outgrow God’s grace towards you.
You needed God’s grace when you were lost and dead in sin, and you needed His grace to make you alive, and you need, I know you know you need, God’s grace today.
In your sanctification, as you face trials and temptations and sin, you need God’s grace today just as much as you did then.
But you don’t just need His grace till you die or till the Lord returns.
You’re going to magnify His grace.
In the ages to come, you are still going to be praising the immeasurable riches of His grace.
He says, “So that in the coming ages, He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us.”
Now Paul shows us the kindness of God’s grace.
This kindness, and oftentimes when we think of kindness in our 21st century Western American culture, we think kindness is weakness.
That to be kind means that you are weak or that you are overly sentimental. He’s just an emotional person or something like that.
It’s ridiculous, and I know you all understand that, but that’s not what kindness means.
Because he’s talking about Himself.
God’s kindness is weak? Is that what you’re telling Him? That’s what kindness means?
No.
If God is kind and He is showing His kindness towards us, then it is not weakness or mere sentimentality.
God’s kindness is His active goodness towards those who deserve judgment.
That’s what His kindness is.
In Romans 2:4, Paul talks of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, and says that His kindness there in that section is meant to lead us, that is sinners, to repentance.
His kindness is meant to point us, to lead us, to repent, to turn back to Him.
In Titus chapter 3, Paul says something similar in verse 4. He says, “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,” speaking to the fact that this kindness is not just something God does, it’s who He is.
And because God is kind, He shows kindness to us, and God’s kindness saves. God’s kindness leads us to repentance.
God’s kindness acts.
It is shown.
Again, kindness is not just an emotional thing. It’s like, “Oh, I really feel for you guys down here. I see your situation, and oh man, I’m just torn up on the inside.”
That’s not the kindness that God has.
He’s like, “I see that, and guess what? I’m going to do something about it.”
He acts.
And notice the word here. He says, “in kindness towards us.”
Who is the “us”?
We’ve got to be clear here.
We already know the context. Again, he’s talking to Christians, so His kindness in particular is meant to lead us, His people, to repentance. He is kind to others as well. Let’s not mistake that.
There’s a common sort of grace that God shows to all people, right?
He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. He allows you to live, right? He gives you air for your lungs. He keeps your blood circulating.
There’s a kind of common grace and kindness and love that God has for all people.
But remember, he is talking to His people right here. He’s reminding His people who He is. His people what He has done for us Christians.
This is the same people, again, that used to be dead in sin, and sons of disobedience, and children of wrath. But He has shown His kindness towards us even though we didn’t deserve it.
His kindness is not like our kindness.
Usually, we’re kind to people who are kind to us.
God is kind to those who hated Him.
His kindness is toward sinners in and through Jesus Christ, and that’s where His kindness is seen most vividly.
It is in sending and providing a Savior.
He who did not spare His only Son, but gave Him up willingly as a sacrifice for our sins.
God’s kindness does not ignore justice.
Again, He wasn’t just kind up there and thinking, “Man, I see all you guys in a bad situation. I’m just going to save you all.”
No.
He recognizes that justice must be fulfilled. There is wrath that must be satisfied, and so God in His kindness gives us Jesus.
So, believer, don’t despise God’s kindness.
For us, His kindness continues to lead us to repentance.
There was a one-time event where we turned from ourself and turned from trusting in other things, and turned from trusting in the world and our sin and all these things to trust in Christ.
But we still through this Christian life need to be turning from old ways and turning to new ways, putting off the old self, putting on the new self.
So we continue in repentance every day.
So don’t despise God’s kindness.
If you’ve been living thinking, “Well, you know, I’m already one of God’s, so I’m just going to keep living like I want to. It’ll be okay. God will be all right with it in the end.”
You’re going to take advantage of God’s kindness like that?
If somebody took advantage of your kindness like that, how would you respond?
You wouldn’t be kind no more, would you?
Usually.
But God’s not like us, praise the Lord.
But don’t despise His kindness.
If you still have breath today, you’re still alive today, and you’re still living in the sin and stuff that you’re in, today is the day to stop that.
Today is the day to repent.
Today is the day to thank the Lord for His kindness.
Don’t despise God’s kindness. It doesn’t give us permission to delay repentance. It is the reason we should repent today.
“So that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Here is the mediator of God’s grace.
Again, this phrase has been said almost every line for the whole first chapter and where we are now. We’ve had to come to this again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
Why do we keep forgetting that all of this is only and always because of Jesus Christ?
Paul ends this verse where every blessing that we’ve talked about so far ends, in Christ Jesus.
There is no saving grace outside of Jesus Christ.
You will not find salvation through any other means.
There is no saving kindness of God outside of Jesus Christ.
There is no eternal display of God’s grace apart from or outside of Jesus Christ.
God is kind to us. He is gracious to us. He saves us. He will continue saving us. He will glorify us. He will keep us unto eternity in Christ Jesus.
Not because you’re worth it, not because you’re great, not because you got it figured out, not because you did good even after He saved you.
No.
It is in Christ Jesus.
His grace is not just niceness to people in common. Again, there is a sense in which He has that, but His saving grace is not just Him being nice.
His grace is covenant mercy purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ and applied to those who are united to Him.
Another commentator said, “No grace, no love must be expected by us from God except through His,” that is Christ’s, “mediation.”
He is our Mediator.
We have none of that from God apart from Christ.
You know, many people today, and not just today, throughout history since Christ came and in this age that we’re in, many people love to speak about God’s love while avoiding Jesus Christ, as strange as that may sound to us.
They want God’s kindness, but they don’t want the cross.
They want God’s mercy, but they don’t want a Mediator.
In fact, they’re excited to get to heaven whether or not Jesus is even there.
And nobody says that out loud.
But when your preaching is full of God’s love and kindness, but it’s missing Jesus and what Christ came to do to show that love and kindness, you know where people stand.
Paul says, “God’s kindness comes toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Spurgeon said, “All things come to us through Jesus Christ. He is the golden pipe, the conduit of eternal love, the window through which grace shines, the door by which it enters.”
Beloved, every single drop of God’s immeasurable saving grace comes through Jesus Christ.
You don’t get one drop outside of Him, or around Him, or apart from Him.
It’s all through Him.
So come to God, but you must come through Christ.
Don’t come just through being sincere about who you are.
Don’t just come through trying to be really, really good.
You can’t come to God through stepping into a baptistry, by signing your name on a church membership.
You must come to God through Christ.
And Christian, we must keep coming through Christ.
Your acceptance with God today is no less dependent on Jesus Christ than the day that you first believed.
It’s not like you needed Jesus to get in, but now you’re like, “Okay, well, Jesus, I’m going to take it from here so that I can get enough golden stars in Sunday school that you’ll accept me.”
No.
You’re accepted in the Beloved.
You’re accepted in and only through Jesus.
All the grace of God is in and through Christ alone.
So church, Ephesians 2:7 here tells us why God has done all that He has said in verses 4 through 6.
He made us alive. He raised us up. He seated us with Christ.
Why?
“So that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
God has saved sinners to display His own immeasurable grace.
So rise and shine and give God the glory, glory.
Don’t boast in yourself.
Don’t minimize your sin.
Don’t cheapen God’s grace.
Don’t detach what you have now in the church, in salvation, in God from Jesus Christ.
Don’t waste your time now living for this age as though the coming age isn’t really real.
You’re in Christ.
Your whole salvation is a monument to God’s grace, and God intends to point to redeemed sinners forever and ever and say, “See what my grace can do?”
But if this morning you are not in Christ, let me tell you, there’s no saving grace outside of Him.
You’re not going to find the answers to your problems anywhere else.
Your greatest need is salvation.
Your greatest problem is that you’re a sinner separated from God, and you need Christ.
And He has died for sinners. He rose from the dead for sinners, and Christ saves all who will come to Him by faith.
So today, repent and believe the Gospel, and you too will experience the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
Amen?
Amen.