But God – Ephesians 2:4
In Ephesians 2:4, Paul turns from the dark, hopeless picture of man’s depravity to the glorious intervention of God. After showing that sinners are dead in trespasses and sins, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, living in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and by nature children of wrath, Paul writes two of the most wonderful words in Scripture: “But God.” Salvation does not begin with man climbing out of the grave, improving himself, working harder, or making himself acceptable to God. It begins with God. Our part was death, sin, rebellion, flesh, guilt, and wrath. But God acted toward dead sinners, not because of who we were, but because of who He is.
Paul says that God is “rich in mercy” and acted “because of the great love with which he loved us.” Mercy means that God looks upon miserable, helpless, guilty sinners and moves toward them in compassion, not by ignoring sin, but by sending His Son to bear the wrath sinners deserve. God’s love is not measured by easy circumstances, earthly comfort, better health, or a trouble-free life, but by Christ crucified for sinners. God loved us while we were dead, guilty, and children of wrath. This leaves no room for boasting, only worship. The Christian life is one long testimony to the mercy of God. When we sing, pray, confess sin, share the gospel, and suffer, we do so as those whose hope does not begin with ourselves, but with God, who is rich in mercy and great in love.
FULL SERMON TEXT:
If you will, go ahead and turn in your copy of God’s Word to Ephesians chapter 2.
For those who are new with us this morning, who are visiting, or maybe it’s been a while so you need a reminder, we go verse by verse through the Scriptures to expose what God’s Word says to us. So we don’t skip anything. So we don’t miss anything. In order that we hear the whole counsel of God’s Word.
And so we have been making our way line by line, sometimes a verse at a time, sometimes two, or half a verse, but not skipping anything.
And so far in this book of Ephesians, in this letter of Paul to the Ephesians, we have made our way into chapter 2, and we’ve covered the first three verses of that chapter. And this morning we come to verse 4.
And I would remind you, in the last three verses, every Sunday that I preached one of those sermons, I started with this affirmation:
“Christian, you were a far worse sinner than you think you were.”
Amen.
“And you are a far worse sinner than you think you are. And Christ is a far greater Savior than you will ever, ever fully realize.”
And so far, that’s all we’ve gotten from Ephesians chapter 2. We’ve gotten, “You are a worse sinner than you think you are. You are a sinner. A great sinner.”
Paul has taken us down into the depths of the sinfulness of our sin. He’s told us the absolute truth about just who we were, how we were, what we were before and apart from Christ.
In verse 1, he told us that we were dead in our trespasses and sins.
In verse 2, he told us that we were, or called us, sons of disobedience. Why? Because we walked according to the pattern of this world, following the prince of the power of this world, who is Satan himself.
And then in verse 3, he wouldn’t just leave us there. In verse 3 he said, “It’s not the world and it’s not Satan that’s the problem, it’s you. You’re a child of wrath like the rest of mankind. You wanted to live according to the passions of your flesh. You carried out the desires of your flesh and the mind. By nature, you deserved God’s wrath, just like everybody else.”
And so Paul has described here the man apart from Christ in the absolute strongest possible terms.
Dead. Worldly. Satanic. Disobedient. Fleshly. Guilty. Deserving of God’s wrath.
I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t flatter me. It doesn’t make me feel good about myself. It didn’t paint a good picture of life apart from Christ.
But it’s absolutely true.
And if Paul had stopped at verse 3, then you and I have no hope whatsoever. If the story ended with, in this life, children of wrath, then there would be no sermon to preach today except judgment.
All have sinned, so guess what? We’re all going to hell.
No good news. No salvation. No mercy. No life. No hope.
Just guilty before a holy God if we stopped at verse 3.
And yet, verse 4 begins with two of my favorite words in the Bible, the most glorious words in all the Bible:
“But God.”
Amen.
These two words change everything.
It doesn’t say, “But we,” “but man,” “but religion,” “but me working harder,” human willpower, “but God gave us a second chance.”
No, no, no.
“But God.”
Because that’s where salvation begins.
We see the state that we are in, the hopeless state that we are in. We are lost. We are separated from the goodness of God. We are under His wrath. And if we die physically in that state, we have nothing to look forward to but judgment.
So, “But God” is where salvation begins.
It doesn’t begin with how worthy we are. It doesn’t begin with how great I am. It begins with the character of God.
Not our going towards Him, but His mercy towards us.
Not because we were lovable, but because He is love.
And so today we’re going to slow down and just look at this one verse, verse 4. Some of you thought we were just going to do those two words, didn’t you?
We’ll look at the whole verse.
But we want to slow down. We want to jump right into verse 5. And when we read all of it here in just a second, you’ll see why. But we need to slow down here. We need to see the contrast that happens between verse 3 and verse 4, to see who we were, dead in sin, children of wrath, and to see who God is, rich in mercy, great in love.
This is clearly what God wants us to see.
Father, this morning, as we come to these wonderful words, Lord, these last few weeks, we have been looking at just the utter sinfulness of our sin, the depths of our depravity, to see just how sinful we really were. We may not even have understood it before. We may not even have realized just how terrible we really were before you saved us.
But Lord, what a humbling reminder that’s been.
But that was the reality of our situation, God, and we needed to hear it. We need to know it, because what comes next is more glorious and more grand and more marvelous when we know just how terrible we truly were.
So Lord, this morning, as we cover this verse, as we look at the contrast between what we were and who you are, I pray, Father, that you would teach us, you would reprove us, you would correct us, you would train us in righteousness so that we would be complete, equipped for every good work.
Lord, would you open our eyes to see the truth, to understand it, and to carry it out, and do so by your Spirit alone. Without Him, we can do none of those things.
And Lord, would you do all of this for the glory of Christ, our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
So against this bleak, dark, terrible picture of man’s depravity, God steps in.
God reveals His own mercy and love to help helpless sinners.
Verse 4 begins, “But God.”
What a sharp contrast.
I mean, if you’re just reading through this for the first time, and some of us have read this so many times or we’ve heard this so many times that sometimes we kind of just go, “Yeah, but God.”
When you heard this the first time, I’m sure it was like, “Whoa, Paul, slow down. I mean, I know I was bad, but chill, dude.”
And then you get to these words, and while you are broken over your sin, and you are convicted by just how depraved we really were, because that’s how God defined us, that’s how God described us, when we come to these words, it’s like a relief.
But God.
And at the same time, it takes our eyes off of us and goes, “We don’t want to look at ourselves. There’s nothing good to look at.”
And it immediately focuses our gaze where it needs to be, on God.
That little word, “but,” matters so much because it makes us think about everything that we’ve just heard about and then sets God over and against our hopeless condition.
Let’s just walk through those verses again.
You were dead in trespasses and sins. But God.
You walked according to the course of this world. But God.
You followed the prince of the power of the air. But God.
You lived in the passions of your flesh. But God.
You carried out the desires of the flesh and the mind. But God.
You were by nature children of wrath. But God.
This is a contrast that can’t be really fully expressed. The Gospel is such a contrast for our daily living that it just smacks us in the face when we come up against it.
Our condition was so desperate, so hopeless, that left to ourselves, there is no future. There’s no goodness to look for. There is nothing but judgment.
But God intervened.
Paul didn’t say, “But you guys eventually figured it out. Y’all finally got your act together. Y’all, on your own, even realized just how sinful you were and that you needed Jesus.”
No, you did not.
We didn’t.
We were happy to live in that state. We may have been miserable, and we were, but we were happy to be miserable because we were doing whatever we wanted to do.
We didn’t even know we needed God.
We didn’t figure it out. We didn’t just start trying harder. We didn’t care anything about God.
So he didn’t say any of that.
He says, “But God.”
Salvation is not man climbing out of the grave.
Salvation is not man, as some people talk about out there in the ocean drowning, but only drowning, not drowned. Drowning and then grabbing onto the life preserver when it’s thrown out to you.
No, that’s not at all how it is.
If you understand your condition before Christ in those first three verses, you recognize you can’t do that. You can’t climb out of the grave. You can’t grab onto the life preserver.
Salvation is not those things.
Salvation is God giving life to the dead.
That’s why the subject of a sentence matters.
In the original flow of the passage, Paul begins in verse 1 with you. That’s what the whole focus of those three verses is all about. He doesn’t give us the main saving action until verse 5 where it says, “God made us alive together with Christ.”
But in verse 4, he introduces the subject that’s going to change everything.
He says, “But God.”
You’re not the hero of your story. The sinner is not the hero in chapter 2.
It’s God.
The world doesn’t rescue us. The devil doesn’t rescue us. Our flesh doesn’t rescue us. All of those things kept us captive.
Children of wrath don’t get to clear themselves of the sin debt that they owe.
God does.
And that’s why so many times I’ve stated in here that Christianity is not just a form of moralism.
Moralism says, “Here’s what you have to do to make yourself acceptable to God.”
That’s a works-based salvation. That’s where some of those other religions, other groups that I’ve warned you of in the past, that’s how they think.
“Well, if I just work hard enough, or if I pass out enough tracts, if I Hail Mary enough times, if I do this, if I do that, if I do these things, I will work my way into acceptance by God.”
No.
Spiritually, you can do nothing.
That’s what those first three verses made sure of.
Moralism says work hard.
The gospel says, “Here’s what God has done for sinners who can’t save themselves.”
This is why it’s so humbling.
God’s grace towards us, His move towards us, leaves no room for boasting.
God’s grace towards us does not allow us to say, “God did His part, now it’s time that I do mine.”
Right.
No.
Apart from Christ, our part in it was death, sin, rebellion, flesh, and wrath.
But God.
That’s the first wonderful truth of this section.
Salvation begins with God, not because we deserve it, because we’ve earned it, or because we were searching for Him, or because we were less dead than others, as I’ve stated in a couple of our other sermons.
God acted towards dead sinners not because of who we were, but because of who He is.
If you’re a Christian, this should humble you. You are not in Christ because you were smarter than your neighbor. You are not in Christ because you had a better heart by nature. You are not in Christ because you were more spiritually sensitive, more reasonable, more deserving.
You were dead.
But God.
That’s our testimony.
Now, listen to me. If you’re in this room and you’re not a Christian, “But God” is the only hope that you have. Your hope is not that you can improve yourself. It’s not that if you do enough good in your life, it’ll outweigh the bad at the end.
God will not lower His standard and pretend that sin doesn’t matter.
Your hope is God.
You need the God who makes dead sinners alive.
It says, “But God, being rich in mercy.”
Paul tells us here why God acted, because He is rich.
Being rich in mercy, not becoming rich in mercy. He wasn’t trying to get up enough mercy to cover all the sins.
Being rich in mercy.
Paul begins to tell us what God is like before he tells us what God has done.
That matters.
God’s saving action, what’s coming up in verse 5, what He does, flows from who He is.
He shows mercy because He is mercy.
In fact, it says He is rich in mercy.
We’ve talked about that word rich before when we talked about the riches of His grace at different times. What a wonderful term that is.
It doesn’t say being merciful. It says being rich in mercy.
“You think you’ve done too much?”
His mercy is more.
Mercy is God’s compassion towards those who are miserable, helpless, guilty, and unable to rescue themselves.
God’s mercy is not God looking at people and rewarding them for their effort. His mercy is looking at the miserable sinners and moving towards them in compassion.
So He doesn’t just say He has mercy. He says He’s rich in mercy.
He’s not poor in it. He’s not reluctant. He’s not holding it back. He doesn’t have barely enough to get by. He’s rich in it.
He’s not stingy with His mercy. He’s not holding back His compassion.
He’s like, “Hold on now, I’m waiting for you.”
No, no, no.
And He doesn’t have to be talked into giving His mercy. Somebody who is kinder than Him doesn’t have to say, “Hey, you need to be more merciful,” because there isn’t anybody.
He is rich in mercy.
Psalm 103:8–11 says, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
Skip down a little bit:
“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.”
That is mercy.
Mercy means that God does not deal with His people according to what their sins deserve.
Praise God.
Now, we need to be careful here. Just as we’ve stated previously, God being merciful doesn’t mean that He ignores sin.
Remember, He is holy, holy, holy, which means that His wrath towards sin is real.
God doesn’t set His justice aside to overlook our sinfulness.
Again, we just saw in verse 3 that we are children of wrath. We deserve God’s wrath.
God’s wrath is real because He is holy, but His mercy means that God Himself must and does provide the way for sinners to be rescued from the wrath that they deserve.
Romans 5:9 says, “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God.”
We’re saved by God from God, for God.
How are we saved from wrath?
What does it say?
By the blood of Jesus Christ.
Not overlooking sin.
Paid for.
God’s mercy doesn’t pretend that your sin is small.
God’s mercy sends a Savior.
God’s mercy sends the Son to bear the wrath that sinners deserve.
So mercy is not some sentimental thing. It costs something.
God’s mercy comes to us, flows to us through the cross of Jesus Christ.
Titus 3:5 says that “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy.”
Not because we deserved it. Not because we worked hard. But according to His mercy.
And so that’s what Paul is saying here in Ephesians chapter 2.
That’s what he’s saying here.
He’s saying God did not look at dead sinners and say, “They have done enough works of righteousness, so I’m going to save them.”
No, he said, “He saved us because He is rich in mercy.”
That’s who He is.
So this understanding of God’s attribute of mercy, the fact that He is rich in mercy, is a comfort to us.
When we feel weak or we’re struggling as Christians, and we are reminded of God’s great mercy, that He is merciful, it helps us in our weakness.
Sometimes, I don’t know if you are the same as me, but sometimes we have a tendency to think, “Well, I must have exhausted God’s patience by now. I’ve gone too far, failed too many times. Surely He is done with me.”
And listen, if He was like us, maybe He would.
But He’s not.
God is rich in mercy.
Now, don’t get me wrong. If you’re using God’s mercy and grace towards you as an excuse to sin, you better repent. Amen.
Mercy is not permission to play with rebellion.
But if you are broken over your sin, if you are weary, if you are ashamed, if you are crying out for grace, listen to me: God is rich in mercy.
He has not exhausted His mercy.
Your sin is not bigger than His mercy.
Your debt is not beyond His ability to pay.
Your failure is not farther than His compassion can reach.
Your need is not greater than His supply.
The old Puritan Richard Sibbes said, “There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.”
And that doesn’t mean that sin is small, like we have a smaller amount. That means His mercy is greater than we can understand.
“But God, being rich in mercy.”
Now he gives us the motive: “because of the great love with which He loved us.”
Mercy and love belong together.
God is rich in mercy, and He acts because of His great love.
Now, notice how emphatic Paul is here in the way he is stating. He’s not merely saying because of His love. He doesn’t stop there. He says, “because of the great love with which He loved us.”
He could have just said because of His love. It would have meant the same thing. But I’m thankful that he uses this language instead.
He’s piling it up here on us. He’s using all the adjectives and extra words that he can. I’m sure his English teacher was upset with him.
Ordinary words just seem way too small.
God’s love is not small. It’s not weak. It’s not temporary. It’s not little.
It’s great.
Amen.
But again, we’ve got to keep this love in context. It’s not just love as we understand it or love as we think it is.
What does it say here?
Who did God love?
“Because of the great love with which He loved us.”
Us.
Who is this “us”?
It’s the same people he just described in those first three verses.
You don’t love those kind of people.
They’re not worthy of love.
Dead sinners.
You don’t love sons of disobedience.
You don’t love children of wrath.
That’s crazy.
And that’s the wonder of His love.
God didn’t set His love on lovely people. He set His love on sinners.
And God shows, according to Romans 5:8, God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Not after we cleaned ourselves up. Not after we proved that we were worth it. Amen.
Not after we made ourselves lovable.
But while we were still sinners.
That’s the love of God.
You may remember back in 1 John when we went through that letter. In 1 John 4:9–10 it says, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us.”
How?
Tell me, John, how was God’s love manifest? How can we see it most clearly?
“That God sent His only Son into the world.”
And then he says, “And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
He didn’t send His Son just as a gift, like, “Hey, He’s going to be nice to you. You’re going to like this guy.”
That wouldn’t have been good enough, but that’s how most people think of Jesus.
That’s how most people think of religion.
That’s how most people think of Christianity, that Jesus is just the guy that came so that you could know, “Hey, I love you and I’m going to give you a big hug.”
No, He came to be the propitiation for your sins.
You were in a hopeless, desperate situation.
He had to come to do a job, to be the propitiation.
That’s how God showed His love towards you.
Not to come give you a hug, but to come and take care of the actual problem, to deal with your sin.
“And this is love, not that we have loved God.”
Again, that cuts the legs out from under us.
The gospel doesn’t begin with our love for God.
It begins with God’s love for us.
And the proof of God’s love is not that He gave us an easier life. It’s not that He came to give us better circumstances or more money or better health or earthly comfort.
The proof of His love is that God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, which means, propitiation’s just a big word that means that Christ bore the wrath of God in our place.
Amen.
God’s love, just like His justice and His mercy, His wrath, all of these other attributes we’ve talked about, His love is not separated from His holiness.
God’s love does not pretend that His wrath is not needed.
God’s love provides the sacrifice that satisfies His wrath and saves sinners.
That’s what God’s love does.
If you think that God’s love is about acceptance, you’re wrong.
His love is about sending His Son to pay the penalty that we deserve for our sin.
So that changes then maybe how you have understood the most famous verse in all of the Scripture, John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world.”
It wasn’t because they were lovable. It wasn’t because He just wanted to give them a hug.
He gave His only Son to do for the world what the world can’t do for themself.
God loved and so God gave.
Remember that. That’s what love is.
The love of God is a giving love. It’s a saving love. It’s a sacrificial love. It’s a love that sends Christ. It’s a love that takes care of our problem.
And so that’s why our definition of love over these years that I’ve been sharing with you, the shorter version, that love is giving of ourselves for the godly good of another.
Why is that our definition?
Because it’s based on the very character of God. He defines what love is because He is love.
You don’t get to redefine it.
Sorry.
And Paul says not just that He is love and that He has love, but this love of God is great.
Just like rich.
I mean, it’s inexhaustible. It’s big. We can’t measure it.
So then why do we try to when we’re going through the different circumstances of our life?
We think, “Man, God must not love me. Look what’s going on in my life here.”
That’s not how you measure God’s love.
“Man, my week is going terribly. God must be mad at me.”
You see, if that’s how you measure God’s love, then your assurance is going to go like this. You’re going to hit the mountaintops and you’re going to hit the valleys hard.
But if you measure God’s love by how He measures His love, by Christ crucified for sinners, then you have a standard. You have something solid. You have a firm foundation for your feet to stand on.
God loved us when we were dead, so you’re not going to change His mind this week because you did something dumb.
God loved you when you were guilty.
God loved us when we were children of wrath.
And God showed His love.
God has loved us by giving His Son.
That is great love.
So this verse is so powerful because of that contrast.
Who were we?
It says we were dead in trespasses and sins.
Well, okay, well then, how are we going to answer that?
Who is God?
Rich in mercy.
Who were we?
We were following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air who was over the world, Satan.
Well, who’s God?
He’s sovereign over all the world.
Amen.
Who were we?
We were following that prince. We were going right along with Satan, the one who has all authority, the power of the air, all that.
Well, who’s God?
He’s the one that raised Christ far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion.
Who were we?
We were living in the passions of our flesh.
That was fun last week, wasn’t it?
And who is God?
He is holy. He is pure. He is righteous. He is good.
Who were we?
We were children of wrath.
And who is God?
Great in love.
And you see, that’s why justification, our salvation from death to life, is not a cooperative project.
You didn’t help.
What did we bring to salvation?
Need, misery, sin, guilt, and death.
You added a lot. Good job. Well done.
Jonathan Edwards, the old, old preacher, said this: “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
And what did God bring?
Mercy, love, grace, life, Jesus Christ.
That’s the contrast that we need to see here.
This has got to transform the way that we understand ourselves.
Apart from Christ, in ourselves, by ourselves, we were not spiritually alive. We were not morally neutral. We were not basically good. We were not moving towards God.
We were dead.
And God, praise the Lord, but God is not like us.
That’s the good news.
He is rich in mercy, and He is great in love, and that should lead us to worship.
Because when you understand what you were and then you see who God is, you can’t boast in yourself anymore.
You can’t say, “Hey, look what I did.”
Really?
No.
All we are able to say then when we understand this great contrast is, “Look what God did.”
And that’s what the whole Christian life is all about.
The whole Christian life is not a big celebration of our contributions. It’s one long testimony in celebration of the mercy of God.
So when you sing praises, sing like someone who was dead and now is alive.
Amen.
Even if your voice doesn’t sound like you’re alive, make a joyful noise because you’ve been brought from death to life.
Amen.
When you pray, this changes how you pray.
When you pray, pray like someone who was a child of wrath but has received mercy.
When you confess your sin, confess like someone who knows that there is rich mercy in God.
When you share the gospel with someone, when you evangelize someone, do it like someone who believes God will still save dead sinners.
And when you suffer, suffer like someone whose hope rests not in the circumstances they’re in, but in the great love of God.
If you know this verse, sing it with me.
And when Satan tempts me to despair,
and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see Him there,
who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free.
For God, the Just, is satisfied,
to look on Him and pardon me,
to look on Him and pardon me.
Beloved, remember, your hope does not begin with you.
It begins with these two words:
“But God.”
Amen.