God's grace, God's grace So good to be back with you. Thank you again for your kindness and allowing me to come. And thank you guys, as I was saying, for the song, the prodigal. There is no clearer portrait of grace than that. And of course, again, just as Ephesians 2, that is also our story. You know, it's God's grace to us as we squandered all of his good gifts and then we returned to him destitute. And he doesn't just accept us as a servant, but welcomes us as sons and daughters. Ephesians chapter two. Let me just remind you as we begin this morning that this is in the first half, the first three chapters of Ephesians, and as Paul unfolds the eternal plan of God in redeeming sinners to himself, he doesn't give us any commands. Three chapters with no commands except in verse 11 of chapter two, remember. That's it. But when you begin chapter four, verse one, He begins a list of staccato commands, one after another. Those commands are built on our understanding of the gospel and God's eternal plan in the first three chapters. And it is only as you really understand who God is and what he's done in his redeeming of you that you'll be motivated to do the commands of the second half. That's why he begins in chapter four, verse one, I urge you to walk worthy of the calling with which you've been called. It's responding to that calling. It's responding to what God has done that we desire to obey and live in obedience to Christ. So this is not superfluous. What I want you to see is as we look at this text, this is the foundation for your changing. In fact, there's a book back there I would highly recommend to you that is offered you as part of the conference, Transforming Grace. And that's the whole point, is grace doesn't just save us, grace goes on to transform us. And in part, it's our understanding of that grace. Of course, there's more as well in sanctification. We'll talk about that before the morning's done. But just understand that it's rooted in this understanding that we're gaining in Ephesians chapter two. This morning we come to one of those passages that I hate to admit to you as a teacher, but you come to it and before you study it, you sort of think, yeah, yeah, I need to touch on that, but I want to get on to the really good stuff. Right? Have you ever had that experience in your own study? Well, pastors do as well. We come to a text, and when we do consecutive exposition, there's a temptation to look ahead and go, well, okay, yeah, I need to cover that, but, you know, that's just a passage to get through. The Lord will use it because he uses his word, but it's not gonna be as helpful or transforming as other passages. And I always discover, as I'm sure you do, Eric, as you work your way through the scriptures, those passages sometimes that you think that about end up being the most transformational. And that's the kind of passage we come to this morning. Before we look at it together, let me just give you some context. Our culture is defined by ancient philosophies, and our thoughts are shaped by ancient ideas. You understand, as Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun. It's not like we've come up with something new. We are still being shaped by ancient ideas, and no ancient idea more shapes our world than that of the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras. He was the father of agnosticism and consequently of moral relativism. If we're not sure God's out there, then there is no standard for morality. Just go ahead and do what you want. Morality is relative to you and to your circumstance. Protagoras wrote, of all things, the measure is man. Of all things, the measure is man. That is the ultimate statement of human autonomy. Man is the measure of everything. He determines reality, he determines morality. Man is, in fact, the center of the universe. The people of Athens, where Protagoras lived, were attracted, as we're reminded in the book of Acts, to all kinds of strange ideas and different philosophies. But even they saw the bankruptcy of Protagoras' ideas. In fact, they threw him out of the city and burned all of his works. Tragically, his ideas are still very much alive and well. And the stepchild of the philosophy of Protagoras is humanism. Humanism continues to assure us that man is the center of the universe. I think reduced to its simplest expression, we could put it this way, the end of all being is the happiness of man. The end of all being is the happiness of man. In everyday language, it really is all about me. We live in a world that is completely controlled by that idea. Although we move beyond humanism philosophically, there aren't a lot of people out there championing themselves as humanists, it is an idea that permeates our entire culture. And there's a reason that it resonates so deeply with us as human beings, because as fallen human beings, we like to think that the world revolves around us, that it exists for us. If you doubt that, just go look online. Everybody has their page and assumes in their social media posts that everybody in the world is just waiting breathlessly for them to post their next whatever it is. That's who we are. When we start with man as the center, we can quickly conclude that even God exists for us. That God's chief end is my happiness. We even conclude that the primary reason God saved us was for our benefit. Is that what you think? That the primary reason God saved you was for you. Scripture declares that God's chief end is His own glory. And even His salvation of you was motivated by the display of His glory. Go back to Ephesians chapter 1, beginning in verse 3. Paul begins another very long sentence in Greek, and it begins with this, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And then he lays out that great eternal plan and the role that each member of the Trinity played. You begin in verse 4, the role the Father played was to initiate it in election. The Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Then you come to the work of Christ. Verse 7, in Him, in Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. And the next section lays that out. And then you have, beginning in verse 13, the role of the Spirit. The Spirit has been given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession. So there are three stanzas in this hymn of praise, one to the Father, one to the Son, and one to the Holy Spirit, as he lays out the role each of them played in the plan of redemption. But notice how each stanza ends. If you look in verse six, the role of the father ends with this, to the praise of the glory of his grace. The role of the son ends in verse 12, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of his glory. The role of the spirit ends this way in verse 14, to the praise of his glory. So in each case, As Paul lays out the role of each member of the Trinity, the Father in initiating redemption, the Son in accomplishing redemption, and the Spirit in applying redemption to you, in every case it had one end, and that was to the praise of His glory. One of the other great themes of the Reformation besides soli gratia that we're looking at was soli deo gloria. God redeemed each of us in a way so that we would receive none of the praise, none of the credit, none of the glory, but all glory would go to God alone. In chapter two, Paul returns to that theme and develops it more deeply. What we're going to discover in the verse that we come to this morning, I believe, is absolutely mind-bending and life-altering in its implications and application. So let's look at it together. Again, we're looking at how God rescued us, a rescue that was entirely of God's sovereign grace from beginning to end. It was sola gratia. And as Paul develops that concept here in chapter 2, verses 1 to 10, he does so in three simple movements. Verses 1 to 3, what we were. We looked at that last night. What God did in verses 4 through 6. Remember God, but God, and then those three verbs. He has made us alive, verse 5. He has raised us up with Christ, in verse 6, to new life. And verse 6 goes on to say he's seated us with Christ in the heavenlies. It's as if in the mind of God, we are already there. Today we come to the third part of God's dramatic plan. It's why God did it in verses 7 through 10. Let me read that for you. I'll begin in verse 7 with the so that. God did these things. God accomplished those three verbs that we saw last night. Verse 7, so that. In the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in 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. Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them. Again, verses 1 to 10, a single Greek sentence. The subject, verse 4, is God, followed by the three verbs that we looked at. But notice that verses 7 through 10 is a purpose clause. Verse seven begins with a Greek word that means in order that. Here is God's specific reason or reasons for acting. These are the reasons behind God's plan. So in verses seven through 10, God tells us why he saved us and why he saved us by grace alone. This is, again, this is your life. This is your story. Here's why God did what he has done in your life. And here's the shocking thing. God's reasons in these verses for saving us is not primarily about us. They are not primarily about us. Of course, God has truly set his love upon us. Of course, God was moved by our need and by our misery. And yes, God has individually adopted us as his children. But when Paul explains here what lay behind God's plan, it was so much bigger than you and me. There were cosmic reasons God acted to save you and to save me. Reasons, frankly, hard for us to even fully grasp. Here in Ephesians 2, Paul identifies three reasons that God acted in sovereign grace to rescue us. Let me give you the last two. We're gonna look at them, Lord willing, in our last session, but let me just give you the last two. In verses eight and nine, to destroy all human boasting. That's why God saved you by grace alone, to destroy all human boasting. And then in verse 10, the third reason is to guarantee real change, to guarantee real change. This morning, I want us to look just at the first of those reasons, why God saved you by grace alone. And it's the grandest reason of all. God acted to rescue sinners. He acted to save you from that miserable condition we looked at last night. And to do so sola gratia, to display his own glory. To display his own glory. Shakespeare. In his play, when I was in college, I took a course on Shakespeare, and in his play, As You Like It, he wrote this, all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. As I think about that, I realize that Shakespeare was right. He was right in ways that he could not have imagined and never intended. This world is a stage. The whole world is a stage. This planet that we call home, this pale blue dot in the Milky Way galaxy, hurling through the blackness of endless space, it is a stage. It's the greatest stage in the universe because it's the stage on which the eternal God is putting himself on display. Look at verse seven. Here it is, to display his own glory, so that, here's why he made you alive, here's why he raised you up with Christ, here's why he seated you with Christ in the heavenlies, so that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Now the key word in this sentence is the word show. The Greek word that's translated show means to display, to give proof, or to put something on display. You see, God is engaged in a grand demonstration, a grand exhibition on a cosmic, universal, eternal scale. And he's doing it right here on this planet we call home. Now, as we look at this exhibition, this display, There are several questions I want us to ask and see Paul answer here in verse seven about this grand exhibition, this grand demonstration that God is on to display his glory. Let's look at it. The first question that we need to consider is when. When is this exhibition that God is making? Verse seven says, so that in the ages to come, he might show. Literally, the Greek text says, in the coming ages. Now, if you read the commentaries, there are three basic possibilities for what he means. Some say he means from the first century until Christ returns. Others say, no, he means in the future ages of eternity after Christ's return. And then there are most, and I have to agree with them, who say, no, it's both. It's both, a combination of the two. Literally, the Greek text says, the ages, the ones continually coming. This expression is a very potent picture. It pictures time as the shoreline onto which breaks wave after wave after wave. You've stood at the ocean and you watch those waves come in one after the other. So it's like the beach you're standing on is time and you look out across the waves and those individual waves don't represent days or decades or even centuries. Those waves represent age after age after age. And if you look out from the shoreline of time on which we stand, and you look out at the horizon to the vanishing point, all you see is more waves. That's what we're talking about. From now forever, wave after wave, after age after age. That's when God is putting himself on display. It started with the coming of Christ, it continues today in our time, and it will continue into eternity as one wave or one age hits the beach after another. F.F. Bruce writes this, in the limitless future, as age succeeds to age, the crowning display of God's grace will ever be his kindness to his redeemed people. Throughout time and in eternity, the church, this, I love this, this society of pardoned rebels is designed by God to be the masterpiece of his goodness. Think about that. God, when he saved you, he didn't have in mind your life here alone. No, God was looking into the distant future. If you look, I love the way that's described, if you look at the vanishing point, you know, if you think in your mind as far out as you can think into the eternal future, at some point you go crazy, right? Trying to imagine what that's like. But if you see the wave after wave coming, age after age, that's what God was thinking about when he saved you. When? in the ages, the ones coming. The second question that Paul answers here is what does God display? What exactly is this demonstration, this exhibition intended to show about its creator? Notice verse seven, so that in the ages to come, he might show, he might put on display the surpassing riches of his grace. The surpassing riches of his grace. I wish you had never heard the word grace, I wish you'd never heard it defined because let's be honest, most of us have a very puny, inadequate view of what grace is. You ask the average Christian, so define grace and what does the average Christian say? Unmerited favor. And that's okay as far as it goes. Favor or grace or goodness would be another way to say it. Goodness I didn't merit. Goodness I didn't earn. That's fair and that's okay, again, as far as it goes. But that doesn't go far enough because grace is not merely undeserved favor. Grace, listen carefully. is a quality in God. There is something in God that causes him to find great joy and delight in doing good to those who deserve, not only who don't deserve it, but who deserve exactly the opposite. That's the key. Think about that. Our God is such that there is in the heart of God, there is in the character of God, this quality that finds his greatest joy in doing good to those who not only don't merit it, who don't deserve it, but who deserve instead exactly the opposite. That's what God means when he says grace. G.S. Bishop writes this, grace is a provision for men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the acts of justice, so corrupt that they cannot change their own natures, so averse to God that they cannot turn to him, so blind that they cannot see him, so deaf that they cannot hear him, and so dead that he himself must open their graves and lift them in resurrection. And guess what? God not only does that, He finds joy and delight in doing that. If you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus Christ, and you wonder, will God receive me? Will He accept me if I humble myself and come to Him? You heard it sung a few minutes ago in the song, The Prodigal. And you see it here, absolutely. God welcomes the repentant sinner. He always does. Why? Because you deserve to be accepted? No, because in the heart of God, there is this attribute, this quality, and I say in the heart of God, I mean, permeating the entirety of his being, he is gracious. That means he finds joy and delight in doing good to you, even though you deserve exactly the opposite, if you'll come to him on his terms. When our governor issues a pardon, some of you have been through some of the areas where our state penitentiaries are, and you recognized, you know, there are people being held there on death row. They're going to die at some point for the crimes they have committed. And they deserve to die. They've been found guilty. Justice demands, Genesis 9, a life for a life. That's God's way. When our governor pardons a convicted death row inmate, that's grace. That's grace. Because not only does that condemned criminal not deserve or merit a pardon, but he deserves exactly the opposite. He deserves to die for his crimes. That is God's grace. And it is God's nature to regularly do things for his people that they do not deserve. So don't undersell grace. This is the character of our God. Exodus 34.6, the Lord passed by in front of Moses and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious. 1 Peter 5.10, he's the God of all grace. 1 Corinthians 1.4, the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus. The spirit in Hebrews 10.29 is called the spirit of grace. So God the Father is the fountain of grace, the Son is the channel of grace by which it reaches us, and the Spirit is the applier or the bestower of grace. You know, before regeneration, we all had the same standing before God. Romans 3.23, for there is no distinction, no difference. We were all the same on the same flat playing field, for we had all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Now, after salvation, Romans 5 too says we stand in grace. That means to be firmly fixed in grace. I love what Paul says later in Romans 5 in 521. He says we live in a kingdom where he says grace rules. Don't you love that? We are part of a kingdom where this quality in God rules. We constantly experience this attribute of God. God constantly overwhelms us with kindness and goodness we don't deserve. He not only accepts us, He delights to accept us, and He delights to bless us. But notice in verse seven of Ephesians two, it's not just God's grace, but it's the riches, our wealth of His grace. God has a lot of grace. And it's not just the wealth of his grace, but it's the surpassing wealth of his grace. The Greek word surpassing literally means to throw over or beyond something. So it's like you're throwing a ball, and you're throwing it farther than the other person who threw. That's the idea here. The Greek word is hyperbolo, from which we get our English word hyperbole. Used figuratively, it means the highest, the ultimate degree. It's something beyond comparison, beyond comprehension, beyond measure. What Paul is saying is the absolute wealth of God's grace can't be compared to anything else. You have never in your life seen anything like it. It can't be measured. It's incomparable. It's immeasurable. And God has put, here's the point in verse 7, God has put this incomparable, immeasurable wealth of His grace on display. That's the object of the display. That's true today. It's true in the coming ages. So that's the when and the what. Now that brings us to a third question in our text, and that is how. How does God display his grace? And I love this. Notice what he says. In kindness toward us. In kindness toward us. That is a remarkable statement. I mean, think about it. Four verses before this, back in verse three, we were the objects of God's eternal wrath. Now we are the objects of His eternal kindness. What is this word kindness? When the New Testament uses this word kindness to refer to things, it means that which is mild or pleasant as opposed to harsh, sharp, or bitter. For example, in Luke chapter 5 verse 39, it refers to wine that is mellowed with age. In Matthew 11 verse 30, it says, the yoke of Christ is easy as opposed to harsh. That's this word. When this word is used to people as it is here, it means kind as opposed to harsh or severe. Kindness is tender love in action. So get the point Paul is making. God displays his grace by not treating those who deserve his wrath with the harshness and the severity that they deserve, but instead by treating them with kindness. God demonstrated his kindness to all men in sending Christ. Titus 3, 4 says, of the coming of Christ as when the kindness of God our Savior appeared. So God showed his kindness in just sending Christ into the world. God is even kind to unrepentant sinners, his goal being to lead them to repentance. And back in Romans chapter two verse four, he says, God is showing kindness to sinners to lead them to repentance. But God especially shows his kindness to those he's chosen and set apart for himself. Romans chapter 11 verse 22 says, to those who've been rejected, to the Jews who've been rejected, severity, but to you, Kindness, kindness. This quality in God called kindness is not only something God showed us when we were sinners, it's not only what he showed in saving us, but here's the point Paul is making in verse seven. It shows how God plans to treat you forever. That's what he says. In the ages to come, he wants to demonstrate the surpassing riches of his grace by treating you with the kindness that's the opposite of what you really deserve. How can a holy God be so generous with those who've accumulated so much guilt? On what basis can he show us eternally this kindness instead of the severity we deserve? Notice verse seven, in Christ Jesus. I love that. Don't miss those three little words because they are the key to everything. Every kindness God ever shows sinners, whether unrepentant, or us as repentance centers was purchased at the cross. That's the only way God can show kindness instead of strict justice. And that reality that every kindness we are shown was purchased at the cross will not change for all eternity. The reason that I am accepted today is because I am in Christ Jesus. The reason I will be accepted by the Father the rest of my life here is because I am in Christ. But it's easy to get the idea that although I can never get to heaven without Christ, once I'm there, once I've been thoroughly forgiven, once I've been made perfect, once I've been made like Jesus Christ, somehow at that point, I deserve to be there. Folks, that's the devil's lie. From the moment I come to Christ, throughout this life, until the endless ages sweep on to eternity, the only reason I will ever be accepted is because I am in Jesus Christ. I am permanently united to Jesus Christ as my legal representative. That's the main thing in Christ means. It's not something mystical. You were in Adam. That is, he was your representative in the garden. He stood in your place, and you get the blame for what he did. Now before you get uneasy about that, understand that the same principle is how you get Christ. God made him your legal representative, the second half of Romans 5. He stands in your place, and you now get the credit for everything he did. You are in Christ. He is your legal representative. And that's the reason you get everything you get. If it were possible for that relationship to be severed, and thank God it's not possible, but even if I had lived in perfection for 10,000 years, if that relationship with Christ could be severed, at that very moment, I would be immediately damned and worthy of the eternal wrath of God. The fact that God continues throughout eternity to show kindness to us is not because we will ever deserve it, but because Christ deserves it, and we are in Him. He is our representative. God has appointed Him to stand in our place, and we get the credit and benefit for everything He's done. God's grace is incomparable. It's incomprehensible. It's immeasurable. And by treating us with kindness for eternity, God puts the wealth of that grace forever on display. Now that brings us to a fourth question. It's a question that's raised by our text, but not answered here. And that is, who is the audience? Whenever there is an exhibition, whenever there's a display, Somebody's intended to see it, right? You don't go into the local hotel or the conference center and see these massive displays set up and it's not there for somebody to see. So God has gone through all of this trouble to put the wealth of his grace on display. The question is for whom? Well, the answer to that is not in our text, but the answer is in other places in the scripture. Let me unfold it for you. For whom does God set us forth as the display of his grace? Scripture gives four answers. First of all, for all humanity. God's acts of redemption are always intended for all mankind to see. Go back to Exodus. Chapter nine. In Exodus chapter nine, of course, you have the plagues unfolding on Egypt, God's great redemption of his people Israel from Egypt. Why did God do that? Why did God act to redeem his people? Well, obviously to save them, but there was also this same great purpose at work. Look in Exodus chapter nine, verse 13. I love this interchange. The Lord said to Moses, rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him, thus says Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, let my people go that they may serve me. For this time I will send all my plagues on you and your servants and your people so that, notice this, you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. So this is designed not merely to redeem his people, but it's designed to be a display for Pharaoh and his people. Notice what he goes on to say, for if, I love this verse 15, for if by now I had put forth my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would have been cut off from the earth. God says, listen, I'm not looking to destroy you because if that had been my goal, you'd be gone. Verse 16, but indeed for this reason I have allowed you to remain in order to show you my power and in order to proclaim my name through all the earth. That, folks, is always God's purpose. When God acts, and when God acts especially in redemption, it is to put his name and glory on display for all of humanity. And that's part of the audience for this grand demonstration. Every intelligent human being will see. Secondly, the second part of the audience is all of redeemed humanity. All of redeemed humanity. In other words, God intends to put himself on display with us. He wants you to see the greatness of his grace. God rescues sinners to display His glory to the saints. Listen to 2 Thessalonians 1 10. When Christ comes to be glorified in his saints on that day, and listen to this, and to be marveled at among all those who have believed, God wants you to marvel at his grace. And he's going to put that grace on display in you so that you are forever, day after day after day, overwhelmed by the surpassing riches of his grace. Thirdly, he wants all the angels to see it. 1 Peter 1.12 talks about the angels looking into the plan of redemption, trying to determine who God meant and what was gonna happen. The angels are watching this plan of redemption unfold. Turn to Ephesians chapter three. I love the way he describes it here. Ephesians chapter three, verse nine. He says, part of what, well, let's go back to verse eight to catch up here with the context. He says, to me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things. Now watch verse 10. So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church. So in other words, God has saved sinners, he's put them as a part of the church to put his wisdom on display as well as his grace. Who's the audience of this? Notice, to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with literally the purpose of the ages, which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord. You realize what Paul is saying? There is an audience to redemption, to your salvation and mine. There is an audience to redemption that's unfolding here on planet Earth, and that audience is not only all of humanity. It's not only us, the church, redeemed humanity, but it is also millions of powerful, intelligent beings we call angels. God wants the angels to see the surpassing riches of his grace. Jay Adams writes, God's grand demonstration has been taking place and still continues to take place before hundreds of thousands of intelligent beings throughout the universe. But there's one more audience, and it may not be one you suspect. It is the eternal son of God. You see, in eternity past, God made a promise to his son. Look at Titus chapter one. Titus chapter one. Verse one, Paul, a bondservant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness. Now watch verse two. In hope of eternal life which God who cannot lie promised long ages ago. God made a promise ages ago. The question is to whom? Who was there long ages ago? You weren't, I wasn't. So to whom did God make this promise of salvation? It was to his son, that he would give his son a redeemed humanity. I wish I had time to take you to John 17, but work your way through John 17, the high priestly prayer of Christ. And again and again in that prayer, what does Jesus say? Those whom you've given me, those whom you've given me, those whom you've given me. You see, in eternity past, the Father made a promise to His Son to give Him a redeemed humanity who would forever reflect His glory and praise His grace. And so the audience for this grand demonstration, it's all humanity, it's redeemed humanity, it's the angels, but most importantly of all, it's the eternal Son of God. The Father made a promise, and He wants the Son to see that fulfilled. It really brings us back, doesn't it, to the theme of Scripture? My sort of encapsulating the theme of Scripture is this. God is redeeming a people by his Son, for his Son, to his own glory. God is redeeming a people by his Son, for his Son, to his own glory. Your salvation, listen, think about you for a moment. Your salvation is so much bigger than you. God saved you in order to display His love and grace and to display it to His Son for all eternity. As an expression of His love, God decided in eternity past to give a love gift to His Son, a redeemed humanity that will forever be praising the Son and forever bring Him glory by reflecting His moral character. Someday, your moral character is gonna be just like Jesus Christ and forever. You'll be just another facet of the diamond that displays the greatness of the glory and grace of God. It's amazing, isn't it? So what are the lessons for us? What are the lessons we learn from verse seven? Let me just give you a couple as we contemplate it. First of all, there's a lesson in humility. There's a really important lesson in humility because it's really not ultimately about us. God is doing something so much greater. We are so bound by time that it's really hard for us to think beyond our own lives, right? Our problems, our issues, our sins. But folks, there are almost eight billion people sharing this planet with us today, and every one of them has the same issues that you do, same struggles, same problems. We are just one generation like that of hundreds in human history. And guess what? They never thought of us. And we never think of them, except in maybe history class. If the Lord tarries, there will be hundreds or thousands of years more with the world filled with people just like us. And all of us, all of humanity lives and dies on a tiny cosmic speck of dust, hurling through space on the edge of a small galaxy, twirling among billions and billions of other galaxies. The universe, my friends, is not about us. God has a great cosmic plan, and that great eternal plan is to put his character on display before all of humanity, before the redeemed, before millions of angelic beings, and before his own son. And for those of us who are his, by an act of sovereign grace, he has made us part of that plan. Think about that, that's very humbling. God the father in eternity past promised to give you to his son as an expression of his love. And you are part of millions of others that are that love gift the father gave the son. Yes, he loves you individually. He knows you by name. You are his. He's adopted you as a son or daughter, but don't ever lose the fact that it is so much bigger than you. You are a small part of what God is doing. I love the way Paul puts it in just a passing comment in his sermon in Acts 13. Acts 13, 36, he says this about David. He says, David, after he had served God's purpose in his own generation, fell asleep. That's our story as well. God's doing something big, something grand, something sweeping. It's a lesson in humility. But there's another lesson here, and that's a lesson of privilege. Think practically about what Paul is saying in verse seven. He's saying in eternity, God is going to point to you and say to the angels and to every other intelligent being, Look at him, look at her, and look at how great my grace is. We will literally be trophies of grace. Martin Lloyd-Jones puts it this way, he says, this to me is the most overwhelming thought that we could ever lay hold of, that the almighty, everlasting, eternal God is vindicating himself and his holy nature and being by something that he does in us and with us and through us. At the consummation, God is going to open His last great exhibition, and all these heavenly powers and principalities will be invited to attend. And the curtain will draw back, and God will say, look at them. Through us, God is going to vindicate His own eternal wisdom, and His majesty, and His glory, and all the attributes of His holy person to the principalities and the heavenly powers. What privilege," end quote. We are so much caught up in such privilege. Often art galleries will solicit collections of a famous painter and they'll feature his work. I dabble in oil painting and they'll bring those paintings together and they'll display them under just the right lighting and just the right setting. But ultimately the point isn't the paintings. The point is what? The skill of the painter. through God's spiritual rescue of us, we have become God's masterpieces, displayed for the universe to see, to examine, to marvel at, as portraits of grace. Think about it this way, your picture will hang in the great art gallery of grace forever, and the great intelligent beings that we call angels will wander through that art gallery, looking at portraits of grace, and there will be your picture. Our salvation individually isn't the point any more than an individual painting in an art gallery is the point. The point is the skill of the painter, and in this case, not just the skill of the painter, but his character. The incomparable, incomprehensible, immeasurable grace of God. Our salvation is not all about us. It's all about Him. There's one more lesson, and I hope this will be the most encouraging to you of all. There is a lesson in verse 7 of assurance. A lesson of assurance. Although we have been made new, we learned that last night, the power of sin has been broken, we all still struggle with sin. Sin is a daily battle in our lives. I tell my own people, look, don't expect for a switch to flip and you to be suddenly holy. Don't expect to go to bed one night and get up the next day. You know, in some victorious Christian life, it doesn't work like that. It is a slow process and it happens foot by bloody foot. It is a battle. And it's easy when we look at ourselves and when we look at our failures to begin to doubt and waver in our confidence. And frankly, in some senses, it's right to do so because if our salvation was left up to us, what chance do we have? But here's our assurance. Our salvation is so much bigger than us. Your salvation is an expression of God's eternal love to his son. So do you think that the father is going to let that gift he's given his son, the love gift he's given his son, go incomplete? Do you think he's gonna fail in the end to give that gift to his son? Do you think he saved you to leave you and abandon you? No. Philippians 1.6, he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. Why? Because it's not ultimately about you. It's about the father's love for his son, and he will never fail to express that love, and he will never fail. Remember Titus 1.2? He'll never fail to keep the promise he made to his son long ages ago. That's our assurance. We sing a song in our church, perhaps you do as well, called He Will Hold Me Fast. That's our hope. And that hope comes back to this grand exhibition where he is putting the surpassing wealth of his grace on display. So it cannot, it will not fail. He will hold you fast. And your portrait, Christian, if you've repented and believed, your portrait will hang forever in the gallery of grace. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for the privilege, for the assurance, and even for the humility that this text brings into our lives. Lord, we thank you for your grace, but we thank you that You don't live exclusively and primarily for our happiness. Lord, forgive us for being humanists. Forgive us for thinking that you exist somehow for us. Remind us, oh God, that we exist for you and we exist to bring you glory and we bring you glory by being the eternal objects of your kindness and putting your grace on display forever. No wonder you had to save us by grace alone. Because if you hadn't, you wouldn't get that glory alone. But because you did, you alone deserve all the glory. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for the powerful reminder in this passage of what you've done. May it produce these things in us. Lord, help us to be humble. the reality of this, that you loved us for nothing in us, that you saved us, you showed us grace for nothing in us. Lord, that is incredibly humbling. You could have passed us by and we would have deserved it, but you set your love upon us and eternity passed and you gave us grace. Father, I pray that it would produce that sense of privilege but also that it would produce assurance. Lord, help us to see that you will hold us fast because we are swept along with a great eternal plan of redemption to put your glory on display and to express your love to your son. Lord, may we live in light of these things, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. God's grace.