In the sermon 'God of Great Love and Rich Mercy' by Jason Dohm, the nature of God as unchangeable and characterized by great love and rich mercy is explored through the lens of Ephesians 2:1-7. The sermon discusses the translators' decision to emphasize 'He made alive,' highlighting the desperate state of humanity into which God's action intervenes. Dohm stresses that man's sin does not have the last word; rather, God, through His mercy and love, makes us alive in Christ. The cross is presented as a declaration of God's anger against sin and His mercy that surpasses human rebellion. The sermon emphasizes that believers, once dead in sin, are made alive and seated with Christ in heavenly places, signifying spiritual resurrection and union with Jesus. This union means that believers share in Christ's victory and rest, having been saved by grace, not by their own merit. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to recognize their current spiritual position and the privilege of being examples of God's grace, urging them to live with a focus on heavenly realities.

The title of the sermon this morning is God of Great Love and Rich Mercy. This is a text about what God is like, who God is. And God from eternity past through eternity future can't be any different than who He is. He is unchangeable. So what is this God who is, what is He like?

He is a God of great love. He is a God of rich mercy. Last week I explained why our translators added, He made alive in verse 1. They added it because this is a long sentence. At least verses 1-7 are a single sentence as Paul wrote it in the Greek.

Our translators not wanting to break the unity of thought and knowing that the subject God doesn't even appear in the sentence until verse 4 and the first verb made Alive doesn't appear until verse 5 wanted to keep the unity of thought so they pulled those verses to To the front now. I said last week, and I stand by it. I don't love that Because Paul wanted to start by pressing on his readers the desperate condition. He didn't want to press on his readers from the start God's action, but the condition of mankind into which God's action enters. But we understand why the translators did it.

And what I do love about what the translators did in adding, He made alive, is it keeps God the subject. Man doesn't have the last word. Man's sin doesn't have the last word. God has the last word. God makes alive.

It is God. Every member of mankind is out of options. No member of mankind can work his or her way out of this desperate state. Because of his or her nature, and because of his or her acting on that nature. Not one time, but a thousand times acting out of that self-centered, self-loving, self-serving nature.

Listen to how Paul describes the original state of these Ephesians, and by extension it describes me, it describes you. Dead, not sick, but dead in trespasses and sins, having abandoned the way of truth and goodness and embraced the way of falsehood and wickedness, self-serving, having patterns in harmony with this world. Not the world as God created it, but the world in the new normal where Corruption reigns. Your ways were consistent with that, in harmony with that, having patterns in harmony with the devil himself, the chief of rebels. Conducting themselves in the cravings of their flesh.

Their flesh craves it, and so their conduct conforms to what the flesh cries out for. Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind. Not flesh bad, mind good, but every part of a man and a woman touched by corruption. That is where our text left us. So if you come to this week's text, let's ask the Lord to help us.

God, I thank you that our studies last week were not the end of the chapter, not the end of the letter, not the end of the Bible. We're helped so much by a contemplation of what we're like in our natural state. We do need to see it. Thank you God that this is not the last word. There would be no good news at all.

Thank you for this week's texts. Thank you for Christ. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the scope this week is verses 4 through 7, so I'd like to begin by looking at verses 4 and 5 together.

So hopefully your finger is still in Ephesians 2. Please follow along as I re-read Ephesians 2 verses 4 and 5. 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. In these two verses we have the essence of the good news.

The guts, the core of the good news in two words, but God. If you're taking notes on the handout that fills in the two blanks, but God. It is the essence of the good news. Think about this, What if things just play out? You are by nature a child of wrath.

So yes, you act out of your nature and you do sinful things, but it goes beyond that. You're just expressing who You are in your self-love, in your self-centeredness, in your rebellion against God, in your desire to be God. So just follow that track. That is a broad road that leads to destruction. God has to be angry against you because of His utter goodness.

God was not content to let rebels simply get what they deserve. This is the message of scripture. God has not been content to simply let rebels get what they deserve, but God. Oh friends, if you come to the abortion clinic, you will inevitably hear me say this. The Bible is a big wonderful truth, a big wonderful book full of all kinds of truths.

But if you want a summary of it, you look to the cross. Because the cross declares the two great truths of the Bible. First, that God's anger burns against sin. If God's anger doesn't burn against sin, There does not need to be a cross. No one needs to die.

Least of all, the Son of God. So the cross stands as a declaration that God's righteous anger burns against the rebellion that is in the heart of every man, woman, and child in their natural state. But it doesn't end there. The second great truth that we find in the cross is that God has not been content for that to be the end of the story, but that he sent his Son. It's not me dying on that cross, it is Christ dying on that cross in the place of all who would trust in him.

God is not only angry against the rebellion of mankind, oh it's a right anger, it's a right anger, he ought to be angry, But he is also full of mercy. So far from being content with sinners getting what they deserve, He has sent his own son, whom he loved from eternity past, from heaven, to die in the place of sinners. Mercy is a sympathy, a pity, which causes one to relent from insisting on what is deserved. You can insist, you take what you deserve, but mercy is a compassion, a pity, which causes you to relent to say you don't have to have what you deserve. In this case you don't just call this mercy, you call it rich in mercy.

Think of the ultimate unquestionable right God has to insist that every rebel against Him gets what they deserve. Who can question His right? Why is God rich in mercy? Paul tells us, because of his great love. God is love.

Because of his agape love. This love that is for the interests of the object of love. It's not a selfish love in any way. It is a selfless love that advances the interests of the object of love. It is out of this agape love which flows the mercy, which doesn't insist on the sinner getting what she deserves, what he deserves.

Look back at Chapter 1 verse 4. Just as He, God the Father, chose us in Him, God the Son, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. He singled us before the world was even made. He singled out a people to be the objects of His love. They were the objects of His love.

Even then, His mercy flowed out of this love. He had in His mind that the people would be holy and without blame before Him in love. So Paul has already started communicating all of this. Everything that is said about mankind in verses 1-3 of chapter 2, all that we studied last week, were true. It's all true.

It's true of me. I know in my heart of hearts that it's all true of me. But, God, is this a fair weather love? Paul makes it so clear. Even when we were dead in trespasses, he lavished this love on us.

Not in fair weather, but in bad weather. It started in bad weather. It's not a fair weather love. It is not loving the lovely, loving the lovable. It is Loving the enemy.

This is what God is like. This is what the God of Scripture is like. Listen to 1 John 4, 9 and 10. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, or displayed, in this the love of God was displayed, shown toward us. That God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.

In this is love not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. He sent Jesus to be the one who would satisfy his anger against sin. That's what it means to be the propitiation for our sins. The one who would appease God, satisfy him, make that right with God. Then If you follow on to verse 19, we get this famous verse, we love him because he first loved us.

If you have any love for God in your heart, there's a reason for that, because he loved you first. You never would have loved him. You never would have loved him. So Paul, in our text, is pointing at the same thing. He says, God made us alive together with Christ.

We were dead, God acted. God sent Jesus. God made us alive. I turn to Romans 5. I turn to Romans 5.

Romans 5 is Paul's wonderful commentary on Ephesians 2. It's the best commentary on Ephesians 2 I read all week. It's here in Romans 5 verses 6 through 10. Follow along. Romans 5, 6 through 10.

Romans 5, 6-10. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having 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. We were without strength. We were ungodly. We were still in our sins. We were enemies.

But God demonstrated His love for us in this. In that condition, even in our trespasses, Jesus came. Jesus laid down his life. And the argument that Paul makes here in Romans 5, if he did that for you, when you were dead in your sins, what will his power be towards you now that he's cleansed you? It's a glorious thought.

If he did that for us in that condition, In our new condition, having been cleansed and made right and brought into his family and children, what should we expect then, is the argument of Paul here. It's a wonderful track to Let your mind go down. And lest as believers we congratulate ourselves, Paul adds in our text, in today's text, adds this parenthetical phrase. He puts this phrase in parentheses, by grace you have been saved. It's grace.

Don't you say, I figured it out. I believed in Christ. It's by grace. It's a gift. It's undeserved.

It's not a reaction to something that you did, it's by grace He initiated it. He did it. So here we have the great love of God out of which flows rich mercy and rich grace. If you go back to chapter 1 verse 7, you find the riches of his grace. So now in chapter 2, we have rich mercy and we have rich grace flowing out of the great love of God.

Before we move on, let me quote Matthew Henry. Here's what Matthew Henry says, that love of God is great love. And that mercy of His is rich mercy. Inexpressibly great and inexhaustibly rich. His love is inexpressibly great.

His mercy is inexhaustibly rich. Oh praise God that He is like this. You don't get to choose what God is like, but this is what God is like. If you are keeping God at arms length, how can you? If you are not in Christ, if you are holding God off for another day, How can you hold him off for another day?

When his love is inexpressibly great and his mercy is inexhaustibly rich, why would you hold him off for another minute, second. Back to our text. Verse 6, follow along as I read verse 6. And raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In verse 6, Paul gives us the current standing of every believer.

Standing fills in the blank. The current standing of every believer. Two things are said to be true of the believer because of the believer's union with Jesus Christ, as a consequence of having been made alive together with Christ. So what comes out of that? You're a believer, you're you're joined, made one with Christ by faith, made alive together with Christ.

What comes out of that Paul says two things. First, believers have been raised together with Him. Believers have been raised together with Christ. Union with Jesus, being joined to Jesus by faith, means that His death for your sins is your death for sin And His resurrection from the grave is your spiritual resurrection the moment you savingly believed, and will be your physical resurrection when He comes again. Remember in chapter 1 verses 22 and 23, Paul said that God gave Jesus to be head over all things to the church, which is His body.

Jesus is the head, believers form his body. So the relationship isn't simply just that one has done something for another. It is closer and intimate. It is a relationship of oneness. And so, relationship of oneness.

Of oneness. And so, if He has been raised, those who are one with Him have been raised with Him. Listen to Romans 6, 8, and 9. This is Romans 6, 8, and 9. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead, dies no more.

Death no longer has dominion over him. Paul is making the same argument, but expanding on it a bit in Romans 6. Now if we died with Christ, you being joined to Him, He being your substitute on the cross, you dying with Him, God being satisfied in that death for your sins. If that's true of you, then you live with Him too. Death no longer has dominion over Christ, so Death no longer has dominion over Christ, so death no longer has dominion over you.

So that's first, believers have been raised together with Christ. Second, believers have been made to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Believers are seated in Christ, with Christ in the heavenly places. Let's let Paul provide some helpful commentary. Turn to Colossians 3.

We've been saying this week by week, Colossians is a wonderful place to go to better understand Ephesians because the themes so closely parallel each other. Colossians 3, follow along as I read verses 1-3. Paul writes, if then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Paul is making the same argument in the same order.

If you were raised with Christ, then you're seated with Christ. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Where is Christ right now? Paul says Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God. So if you were raised with Christ, that's where you are.

That is your spiritual position by virtue of union with Christ. He was raised, you are raised. He is seated at the right hand of God, you are seated in Christ in the heavenly places. That is your spiritual positions. And Paul here in Colossians 3 says that this should have profound implications for you as a believer.

This should shape your life. Get your eyes off of the earth and seek heavenly things. Set your eyes on heavenly things because that is where your spiritual position is. That is where you belong, not here. That's the implication of it according to Colossians 3.

Listen to what Martin Lloyd-Jones says on what it means to be seated. What does it mean to be seated? Lloyd-Jones says, sitting down is a sign of completion. When a man has finished his task, he sits down. And Christ has sat down.

What else does it mean? No longer labor, but rest. But still more important, victory. The work of your redemption is already complete. You need nothing further.

It has all been done. You are eternally safe complete Christ is seated because His work is done. Christ is seated because he can now rest. He has the victory. His enemies are being made his footstool.

And if you are in union with him by faith, then you are seated. Your work is done. Your rest is won, your victory is complete. You're entering into the completion of Christ's work, and His rest, and His victory. Jesus is seated, you are seated, and that's what it means.

Notice in our text, we're back in Ephesians, notice in our text everything is past tense. Verse 5, made us alive together with Christ. Verse 5, by grace you have been saved. Verse 6, raised us up together. Verse 6, made us sit together in the heavenly places.

Past tense, Lloyd-Jones says, this is not prophecy, this is not prediction, this is not a hope for future things, this is past tense. All of these things are the present possession of the believer. They are true right now. All of these things are true as we stand here, sit here, right now. Though you may or may not feel it at the moment, though there is a fuller experience of all of these things in the future, I don't think anyone would deny that, Every one of them is true right now.

I know we'll have a fuller experience of it in heaven, but it's not that it only becomes a reality in heaven. Do you understand that? If you are joined to Jesus by faith, you are alive, you are saved, you are raised, you are seated. Those things are not awaiting the future. They have already begun in the past.

And they continue today, and they will continue forever. No wonder they call it good news. Verse seven in our text. Verse 7 in our text. Paul continues, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

The exceeding riches of His grace. That word exceeding means surpassing. You should think of a river jumping its banks, overflowing its banks. His overflowing riches of grace. The banks of the river cannot contain the riches of His grace toward us in His kindness, toward us in Christ.

In verse seven, Paul tells us what awaits in eternity for everyone who is in Christ. In Christ, fills in the blanks. What awaits in eternity for everyone who is in Christ? This answers the question, why has God done all of this? Why wouldn't God just let things take their course?

You have these rebellious creatures that your holiness demands that you be angry, not just at what they do, but what they're like. Why not just let things run their course. The answer. To display the exceeding riches of His grace throughout all eternity. God wants to be known for who He is.

He wants to show that the riches of His grace jump the banks, overflow. He wants to show it for all eternity throughout the ages to come. Nowhere are the exceeding riches of God's grace more apparent than in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. God is faithful in a thousand ways, we know that, but where is God's kindness toward us more apparent than in the person and work of Jesus Christ. As Paul said in chapter 1 verse 3, God the Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

The blessings belong to the believers in Christ. The blessings are secured for believers by Christ. Believers acquire an interest in them as a consequence of union with Christ. It's all of Christ. It's Christ.

It's Christ. It's Christ. We have nothing without Christ. Now consider this. Consider how diminished your capacity is today.

What do I mean? Consider how the remaining corruptions in your body and mind cause you to view yourself more highly than you should, and not to view God as highly as you should, and therefore to undervalue the kindness of what Christ has done for you. Can you say this is not true of you? Can you say that the remaining corruptions in your body and in your mind do not have you so often thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to and shrinking God so that you undervalue what Christ has done because You think too much of yourself and not enough of God. So you've shrunk the gap And it decreases the value to do that the real value when Jesus returns when we have a new body a resurrection to body a body to go with our resurrected spirit.

All the remaining corruptions of the body and the mind are gone forever. And our capacity to understand the exceeding riches of His grace will be so vastly enlarged. Have you ever thought of that? All the overvaluing of me will be over. And all the undervaluing of God will be over.

And the gap will be the real gap. And my capacity to soak in the kindness expressed to me in Christ Jesus will be vastly, vastly enlarged. I can't wait. I can't wait. Listen to Revelation 7 verses 9 and 10.

Revelation 7 verses 9 and 10. After these things I looked, and behold, A great multitude which no one could number of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice saying, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. What is that if not a description of what Paul is saying in Ephesians chapter 2? And this isn't just an ancient history lesson. Heaven and our praises won't just be an ancient history lesson.

Remember when Christ did that thing and showed his kindness to us way back when, it will be what David said. You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forever more unending pleasures that's David in Psalm 16 verse 11 The exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus will not be a history lesson. We will be experiencing pleasures at His right hand forevermore and the riches will be growing.

It will be growing. It won't be past kindnesses only that will be in view. It will be the present pleasures of heaven that have been bought for us by Jesus' blood and they'll be adding to the exceeding riches. The river will jump the bank and keep surpassing. The exceeding riches of His grace toward us and His kindness in Jesus Christ will be ongoing forever and ever and ever.

Believers in Jesus, this is your God. He is rich in mercy. He is great in love. He is exceedingly rich in grace. Let me give you two applications.

One, ask yourself, Why is Paul teaching us these things? This isn't stream of consciousness. Paul is after something here. Paul is making disciples. So what is he after?

I'll offer two reasons. Paul is teaching us these things. There might be more, there might be better. Let me give you two. Number one, Paul wants us to understand the truth about ourselves, then and now.

You need to understand the truth about yourself in your natural unbelieving state. If you're a believer you need to understand the truth about yourself now. All the things that are present tense about you now, that are present possessions for you now. And the truth about God. Paul wants you to understand the truth about you and about God.

And when you consider you, all the things that were true about you then, but all the things that are true about you now. Calvin says, it's as if he lifted us from the lowest hell to seat us in the highest heaven. Isn't that right? Verses 1 and 3 of chapter 2 describe the lowest hell? How could your condition be any more desperate unless you were just out of seconds to live and repent.

It's the lowest hell. But Paul is actually saying you are seated in the highest heaven at the right hand of God in Christ. The truth about us then and now. The truth about God. What is God like?

This is what He's like. He's rich in mercy. He's great in love. He's exceedingly rich in grace. Number two, Paul is laying the groundwork for chapters four through six.

He's laying the groundwork. Since these things are true, This changes everything. Well, you have to receive that they are true. You have to remember that they are true. Or it changes nothing.

It could be true and out of view and it wouldn't change a thing for you. Paul doesn't want to leave us like that. Paul wants us thinking rightly about what we are, what we were as unbelievers, what we are as believers, and what God is like. So that it will change everything. Why is Paul teaching us these things?

That's why. Application number two. Let me quote Lloyd-Jones again. The last word is an obvious one, the privilege of it all. The privilege of being used of God in this way to vindicate his own eternal glorious character.

He wanted to show what he was like to somebody. But why you? Were you less like verses 1-3 than someone else? The answer is no. The privilege of it all, the privilege of being a trophy of God's grace, of Him deciding out of His own love that you would be the one He would display the riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Jesus Christ throughout the ages.

The privilege of it all. God, thank you for creating. Eternity could have continued forever. With you enjoying the sweet fellowship in the Trinity, in the Trinity. Thank you for deciding to display yourself, to show, to demonstrate the riches of your grace in Your kindness toward us in Christ.

The privilege of it all, that you would desire to make us the trophies of your grace, and to show us that you are a God who is rich in mercy and great in love. I Pray these truths would sink in so deep that we wouldn't be able to be separated from them. It would always be in our thoughts. Pray in Jesus' name, Amen.