Well, if you have a copy of the scriptures this morning, let me invite you to turn once again to the book of Ephesians. And if you've been worshiping with us, you know that on these Lord's Day mornings, we are in the midst of a series of expositions through Paul's epistle to the saints, which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, as he calls them in Ephesians 1.1. And today, we commence the second chapter. We'll be looking at Ephesians 2, verses 1 through 7. Ephesians 2, verses 1 through 7. Let me invite you, as you're able, let's stand again in honor of the reading and the hearing of God's word. And I'm reading from Ephesians chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, wherein the apostle Paul wrote. And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. May God bless, again, the reading and the hearing of His word. And let's join in prayer. Let us pray. Gracious and loving God, as we heard earlier in 1 Thessalonians about how Paul could commend them because they received the Word, not as the Word of men, but as what it is in truth, the Word of God. So let us have that Thessalonian spirit today as we read Thy Word. We need the illumination of Thy Holy Spirit. Give us light. By Thy light, let us see light. We ask this in Christ's name, Amen. You may be seated. Well, we're continuing today this exposition of Paul's epistle, again, to the church at Ephesus. He calls them, back in chapter 1, verse 1, the saints, the holy ones, which are at Ephesus. And he calls them the faithful in Christ Jesus. And as we've been Working through this epistle last time we saw that Paul was praying for the church And he said that he did this without ceasing in verse 16 of chapter one. And what was the content of that prayer? We can look back at it. Verse 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And so that prayer continued, and we talked about how this might inform how we pray for one another, that we would not pray merely for these bodies, but we would also pray that we would come to know Christ more, that we would have our knowledge of Christ enlightened, expanded, and improved. So Paul has been praying for this church. Now, when we come to chapter 2, Paul is going to pivot And he's going to begin describing in these opening verses of chapter two, the mercy of God and the grace of God in Christ that have come to these believers. And we talked last time, chapter 1 and verse 13, about how he reminded them of the fact that they had trusted or hoped in Christ. They had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. And now he's going to expand upon that again and remind them of the gospel that they have received, how they've received of the mercy of God, how they have received of the grace of God. Now, Ephesians 2. Verses 1 through 10, we're looking at verses 1 through 7, God willing, this morning. But verses 1 through 10 is really an important passage in the Bible. We have here really the heart of the biblical doctrine of salvation. We could call it the reformed doctrine of salvation, where Christ reformed Baptist Church. When we use that word reformed, it's just a nickname for biblical. We want to be conformed, reformed. We want to reform our theology to be faithful to Scripture, obedient to Scripture. So we really have here in Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, the heart of what we believe is the astounding doctrine of salvation that's in the Bible. That salvation is by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone as taught by the Bible alone or preeminently to the glory of God alone. And so this is a Mount Everest passage for Christians in understanding the biblical, the Christian doctrine of salvation. And we have this wonderful privilege this Lord's Day God willing, continuing into next, to walk through these 10 verses. And we're going to begin today trying to walk through the first seven. And so it starts off, look at chapter 2 and verse 1. Paul says to the Ephesians, and you have he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Now, if you have the authorized version, King James Version that I'm reading from, you will notice that the words half he quickened are in italic. If you happen to have the New King James Version, it reads he made alive and those words are also placed in italic. And when you see that generally in the King James Version or the New King James Version, What the translators are doing is they're telling you, we're adding words here that aren't in the original Greek that make this more idiomatically understandable. They're adding words to complete the thoughts that are here. So in the original Greek, even if you don't know Greek, you can look at verse 1, and you have the authorized version. It says, and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. The hath he quickened isn't there in Greek. So it literally reads sort of like a staccato. And you, you Ephesians, who were dead in trespasses and sins. You were dead in trespasses and sins. That's the gist of it. And why do they add those words? Well, they're making grammatical sense of it because if we just have a quick aside for a little bit of grammatical teaching, and this may mean nothing to some of you, that's okay. But the words here in Greek are in what is called the accusative case. And that's what direct objects are placed in the accusative case. But there's no subject, there's no verb acting upon them. But they're telling us, you, you've been acted upon, you who were dead in trespasses and sins. And the scholars, the translators who rendered these translations, they said, well, what's the subject and what's the verb? And in Greek, sometimes you can have complicated structures. And actually, the subject is in verse 4, God. The verb is in verse 5, hath quickened, hath made alive. And so they filled it in so that you know the subject and verb are going to come a couple of verses later. The point is, as it's rendered, you hath he, God, quickened, made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. That word, he quickened. Some of you know from things like the Apostles' Creed, that God will come and judge the quick and the dead. It doesn't mean, like, He's really fast. Quick is just another way of saying alive. And to quicken is to make alive. And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin. Paul is telling the Ephesian believers, those he has called saints, holy ones, and faithful in Christ Jesus, He is describing for them a reminder that when they came to the faith, before they came to the faith, when they were in an unregenerate state, an unsaved state, that they were spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. Some of you remember from the Baptist catechism, the definition of sin. Sin is any want of conformity unto, lack of conformity unto, or transgression of the law of God. And Paul is simply telling them, before you were saved, you were a slave to breaking God's law and ignoring God's law. We sometimes talk about sins of commission and omission. We do things that are unrighteous and ungodly, and we fail to do things that are righteous and godly. That's the heart of sin. Paul is telling the Ephesians, before you were saved, you were in a condition of spiritual deadness, and God brought you to life. What is being developed here, theologically, is an understanding of spiritual inability of man, using man there in the broadest sense, men and women, the spiritual inability of man apart from the mercy and grace of God in Christ. And again, it's the Mount Everest of the doctrine of salvation. It tells us something that is so important and will be lost, really, without this knowledge and information. We won't understand salvation. We won't appreciate it. Because the question really before us is, if you're converted, if you're saved, were you saved because of your movement towards God, or were you saved because of God's movement toward you? What was the tipping point? Was it your movement towards God? Or was it God's movement toward you? And again, if you read the Bible very much, it's a no-brainer, really. John says, we love him because he first loved us. But here is Paul, again, making this clear to the Ephesian believers. And he's going to make that clear by sketching in our mind's eye a before and after picture, a before and after picture. Sometimes people will do, you know, a weight loss ad. This is what you look like before, this is what you look like after. He's going to do a before and after picture and he's going to first sketch what were you like before, what were you like in your unregenerate, in your unsaved state before you receive the gospel of your salvation. So you're going to start that in verse 2. He says, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world. So he's saying to you, Ephesians, who are now saints, who are now faithful in Christ, there was a time in the past in which you walked or conducted yourself according to the course of this world. That is, you lived in the way that fallen men live in a fallen world. Worldlings are going to be worldlings. Sometimes one of our errors as Christians is we sit back and criticize unbelievers for not acting like saints. But what do you expect them to act like? They're unbelievers. They walk according to the course of this world. And Paul is saying, that's what you used to be like. You Ephesians used to be like. And then he expands upon this in verse 2. After he says, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, he says, you walked according to the prints of the power of the air. according to the prince of the power of the air. What is that a reference to? He's talking now about the headship under which we used to conduct ourselves in our unregenerate state. Really talking to the Ephesians. The headship under which they used to conduct their lives when they were unregenerate, before they had heard the gospel and believed it. And he says that they were under the power of this character who is the prince of the power of the air. Who is that? Well, this is Satan. This is the devil. And they used to be under the sway of his power. Can you imagine in the ancient world before Christianity came just how demonic the ancient world was? There were horrible, depraved things that happened. in the ancient world, things that are too shameful to name or describe. Terrible acts, infanticide, pagan rituals, debauchery, drunkenness. We think there's depravity. We're benefiting from 2,000 years of the light of the gospel being preached. The first century world was hellish. And people came to faith in Christ, and he's reminding them, you used to be under the sway of the prince of the power of the air. And that's a, we talked a little, I think about this last time, this sort of clashes with the modern view that people have that all people by virtue of their humanity are children of God. And that's not the way the Bible sees it. When you're in your unregenerate state, You're not a child of God, you're a child of the devil. In fact, Christ in John 8 verse 44 said to some Jews who were rejecting him, he said, ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. Paul is saying, that used to be your master. That used to be the one who had a headship over you. He's also described in 2 Corinthians 4, verses 3 and 4, where Paul writes, but even if our gospel is veiled or hidden, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded. who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them." So here the devil is called the prince of the power of the air. In 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 3, he's called the god of this age. And he glories in blinding people to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, blinding them to the things of God. There's a further description. Look at the last line there of verse 2. This is in apposition to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Now, that term, the spirit, it's in apposition to, it's another way of describing Satan, the prince of the power of the air. He is a spirit. He's an evil spirit. But it's also describing the spirit of the age, I think. of the age of living in a fallen world. And of course, one thing that comes to the fore here, sometimes we stress, and I think rightly so, that we're living in ordinary times and ordinary circumstances between the first coming of Christ and the second coming. But we should not become so cerebral that we overlook or forget that there is a spiritual battle going on all the time, all around us. Paul says the world is alive. It's conflictual. There's the cause of God. It's being adamantly, violently opposed by evil forces, by Satan. Satan does not want you to be here today. Satan does not want you to have an orderly home. Satan does not want you to be engaged in the spiritual disciplines. Satan does not want you to bend your knee to Christ, and he will put obstacles in the way to dissuade you from that, to subvert that, to deflect you from doing that. And Paul sees it as an active struggle that's going on. Later in this letter, we'll see he'll talk more clearly about this. when he admonishes Christians to put on what he calls the whole armor of God. But in Ephesians 6.12, he will say, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. So there's something that's being described here for us. Notice also at the end of verse 2, that he introduces a term or a title to describe what the Ephesians were like in their unregenerate state. And that description in verse 2 is children of disobedience. So in time past, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. And he's saying, that's what you used to be like. What is a child of disobedience? One who revels in disobeying, thumbing his nose at the things of God, at the glory of Christ. That's what you used to be like. You were an incorrigible child of disobedience. Now, at this point, again, all this is being directed to the Ephesians. Can you imagine people gathering for the Lord's Day worship and then come together? Oh, we got a letter from Paul. Awesome. You miserable people were dead in your trespasses and sins. It's unseemly what you used to be like. You were foul. You were slaves of Satan. It leaves me being pretty hard. I like verse 3, though, because now Paul expands it And he's not merely being harsh against the Ephesians, but he expands the description to make sure that they know that he's not talking about them as some kind of special case, but this is the universal state of depravity, of where men are apart from God in Christ. And he puts himself, Paul puts himself in that category. Look at verse 3, among whom Also, among the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation. In this case, it means conduct, not merely what you speak about, but your conduct. In times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Paul, the great apostle, Remember in Philippians, when he gave a survey of his life in Philippians 3.6, he could say that with respect to righteousness as a Pharisee, he was blameless in keeping the law. That's the way he thought of himself before he was converted. But now, writing to the Ephesians, he makes plain to them that he was no better than they. He was in the same category Even though he may have acted by human standards, what seemed to be in a more righteous manner, he was no different than they, among whom also we all, Paul the apostle also. Of course, he does this from time to time. He will say, I am the chief of sinners. And so he's putting himself in there. All of us, this is the unnatural state of fallen man. This is where we all are in our fallen state, and it's universal whether you're a Jew, whether you're a Gentile. This is the way we all used to conduct ourselves. In what way? We spent our time in the lusts of our flesh. fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. The lusts of the flesh, we were consumed by, what this means is, disordered desires. We were fulfilling the desires of the flesh, running after the flesh, and it wasn't just our bodies. Sin had not only enslaved our bodies, but also our minds, our thinking, our ideas, our rational capacity. Sin literally makes our bodies act in the way they should not, and it makes our minds think in the ways they should not. And the hard thing about this, because we're reading this, and this is a before and after picture, and he's drawing the sketch in our minds of this is what you were like when you were unregenerate. And what plagues the Christian who's living in this life is the fact that though we are saved, We still have remaining corruptions, don't we, until we reach the final state, the state of glory. And that's why a true Christian is always going to be struggling. His conscience is going to be struggling. I'm not living the way I ought. I'm not thinking the way I ought. But friends, don't lose perspective. You are not what you used to be. You used to not worry about it. And now, by God's grace, you do. And that's part of the change that has come about in your life. But Paul is stressing this before and after picture. Universally, this is where human beings are apart from God in Christ. He adds another title there at the end of verse 3 that's parallel to the title that was mentioned in verse 2, children of disobedience. The title he mentions here is children of wrath. He's saying in man's unregenerate state, we were by nature the children of wrath just as others. What does this phrase children of wrath mean? Well, it means that we were deserving of having the just and righteous wrath of a holy God poured out on us. The prophet Habakkuk says that God is too holy to look upon wickedness. And we deserved his wrath. We were children of wrath. Again, here's Paul undoing any of our romantic, idealistic notions of people being basically good, that being the default point of human beings in this fallen world. It's not. Our default state is we're children of disobedience. We are children of wrath. We are deserving of God's wrath. And all of this discussion in verses 2 and 3 is to illustrate what he said in verse 1. In our unregenerate state, we were dead in trespasses and sin. Now, we need to be clear. When Paul says there in verse 1 to the Ephesians, you who were dead in trespasses and sins, he's not talking about a biological state. He's not talking about them being physically dead. What he's talking about is a spiritual state. And here's an insight from the Apostle Paul. One can be physically alive. One can be in good physical health, but be spiritually dead. In fact, apart from faith in Christ, we might well say that we are all dead men walking. One can be physically alive. but at the same time spiritually dead. In fact, that's the case with every unsaved, every unregenerate person. The Apostle Paul here is drawing upon an inspired metaphor to reveal the reality of the spiritual state of men who reject Christ. And he didn't invent this. In fact, Christ himself used a very similar image when he told the parable of the lost son, or the prodigal son. You remember that account where there's a lost son, and he goes to a far country, and there's a famine in the land, and he comes to his senses, and he comes to the father, and the father runs out and greets him. It's a picture of the salvation of someone who was lost. And remember, the older brother resents the fact that the fatted calf was killed. And in Luke chapter 15 and verse 24, the father in the parable says, for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So Christ created this metaphor. To be apart from God is to be spiritually dead. is to be lost, another term we typically use in Bible-believing evangelical circles. To be lost means to be spiritually dead. The analogy that Paul uses here is powerful. We were dead. I've noted before that many evangelical Christians prefer the hospital analogy of sin and salvation. And that is, you'll sometimes hear salvation described like this, sin has made us very sick. Sin has made us very, very sick. There we are. We're on the sickbed. And Dr. Jesus, the great physician, comes. And he holds out to us in his hand the medicine of salvation. And he invites us to take the medicine of salvation. But we, from our sickbed, we must reach out our hand and take the medicine. What is that a picture of? That is a picture of salvation as synthesis. God does his part. He reaches out to us, and we do our part. We reach out to God. The problem with this analogy, of course, is that it puts far too much stock in man's ability. The Apostle Paul does not offer us a hospital analogy, but what analogy does he offer? He offers a morgue analogy. When I was in seminary years ago in Louisville, Kentucky, I spent a semester, one semester, working in a large downtown hospital in Louisville. And I did a semester of what was called clinical pastoral education. I was basically a chaplain in this hospital. And when we first started our rotation of serving as chaplains in this hospital, they took us on a tour of every area of the hospital, top to bottom. And in this case, in this hospital, the morgue was way down in a bottom level basement. And they took us down there because there might be some occasion we would have to be there to comfort someone or talk with someone. And there we were in the morgue with these bodies all around us. At least one person in our group got sick while we were there and had to sit down and the person nearly fainted. We went down into the morgue. Well, Paul says that in your undergenerate state, you're not in the hospital. You're on the slab. You're in the morgue. And the medicine can be extended to you all day long if you're a corpse. But guess what? You're never going to take it. You're not going to extend your hand off the slab and take it. This is what the Apostle Paul was also describing in Romans 3. Romans 3, a passage that we often cite to illustrate man's position of utter inability. This is Romans 3, verse 10. Paul wrote, as it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that understand it. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. There's no one seeking the medicine when they're spiritually dead. That's what the Apostle Paul is getting at. It's a much fiercer analogy than the hospital analogy. R.C. Sproul was a well-known preacher and only passed away in recent years, but he has a little commentary on the book of Ephesians that I've been reading. And in that commentary, he debunks the hospital analogy, but he also presents another analogy that I wasn't as familiar with. And he said that the hospital analogy and this other one both display a false teaching that is known by theologians as semi-Pelagianism. Pelagius was a British teacher, a false teacher, who said that salvation mainly depended upon man. Some modified that and said that it mostly depended upon God, but at least some part of it depended upon man. Thus, it was called semi-Pelagianism. Sproul then offered the second analogy, and he said it goes like this. He said, sometimes you will hear people say, describe salvation like this. They say, a man is cast into the sea who doesn't know how to swim. He is clearly about to drown. He has already gone under the water twice and is sinking for the third time. His head is beneath the surface of the water. All that is left above the water is his outstretched hand. And the only way he can possibly be saved is if God would throw him a life preserver. But God is so accurate in throwing this life preserver that he throws it right up against the man's palm on his hand. But for that man to be saved, he must close his hand upon the life preserver in order to be pulled to safety. Sproul says, that's semi-Pelagianism. That's teaching that man must cooperate with God in order to be saved, as if man has the ability to do so. And then Sproul said this. He said, the Reformed biblical view is that man is not going under the water for the third time. The biblical view is what? He's already drowned, spiritually speaking. He's at the bottom of the sea. He is dead. The only way he could be saved is if God himself dives into the water and pulls the corpse out of the water and brings him back to life. The problem with the evangelical hospital analogy or the analogy of the man grasping the life preserver and semi-Pelagianism in general is, quite frankly, it's not miraculous enough. It doesn't match up with what the Bible teaches really goes on in salvation. What really goes on in salvation is a sovereign God miraculously quickens those who were dead and brings them to life. As it says in Psalm 3, verse 8, salvation belongeth unto the Lord. All of this establishment that Paul makes in chapter 2, verses 1 through 3 of the Ephesians spiritual state, unregenerate state, and the unregenerate state of all men universally He's building all of this up just to say that our spiritual state is deadness. We are children of disobedience. We are children of wrath. We are at the bottom of the sea. And it all is leading to verse 4. Verse 4. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherein he loved us. He's got us, doesn't he? We get to verse 4. But God. But God. Some have said that those two words in verse 4 are among the most powerful in all of scripture. We were dead in our sin and misery, but God. But God. And it gives a proper emphasis to a great contrast. We were in a state of spiritual poverty, but God had all the riches of his mercy, and he gave it to us. Mercy, of course, is when we do not get what we deserve. We deserved wrath. He gave us life. My last quote from R.C. Sproul. He said, if you really want to understand the biblical doctrine of salvation, And if you really want to understand so-called Reformed theology, he said you need to read Ephesians 2.4 about 1,000 times. Read it about 1,000 times, and you'll find it is the thematic passage of the gospel. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us, verse 5, even when we were dead in sins, have quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved. After the attribute of God's mercy that is described there in verse 4, Paul proceeds to talk about the great love of God. for his great love wherein he loved us. And we can think of what Christ himself said in the famous passage John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. There's the great love of God, the great mercy of God. There's the great love of God. This is the way Paul described it in Romans chapter five, he said in Romans 5, 6, for when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. He proceeds to say in verse 7 of Romans 5, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man, some would even dare to die. Rare is the occasion where a man will give up his life for another person, but he might do it if that person is good. But that's not where we are. We're in this state of spiritual deadness, and this brings it home in Romans 5, 8, when Paul says, but God, there's another but God, but God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Also at the end of verse 5, notice it's in parentheses. Our translators have added as a parenthetical statement. By grace, ye are saved. He's talked about the mercy of God. He's talked about the great love of God. And now he talks, finally, about the grace of God. Even when we were dead in sins, have quickened us together with Christ. By grace, ye are saved. And of course, we'll talk a lot more about this next week, because it's going to be expanded out in verse 8, this concept of grace. If mercy is when we do not receive what we deserve, Grace is, of course, when we get what we don't deserve, and that is salvation. It comes as a gift from God. In verse 6, then, Paul proceeds to wax mystically once again. We talked about how drawing on D. Martin Lloyd-Jones that Ephesians is the most mystical of Paul's letters, and he waxes mystical again as he talks about the experience now of how we are in our regenerate state. Now we've moved to the after. We were at the before, we were spiritually dead. Now after, we have been saved by his grace, we have been quickened, and now he says in verse six, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The Christian status has gone from the morgue, from the graveyard, and now we have been lifted up into the heavenlies in Christ. As Christians, we identify with the cross of Christ, As Paul said in Galatians 2.20, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. We identify with the resurrection of Christ. We have been raised with Him to newness of life. In Romans 6.4, Paul says, even as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. And now, Paul says we can also identify with the ascension, the exaltation, and even the session of Christ being seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty in glory. And hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Did you know Christ is seated right now ruling in heaven at the right hand of the Father? And we are there with Him. because our lives have been hid in Christ. Our bodies at the moment are here on earth, and we know all our limitations, but Paul is saying there's a sense in which if you've been saved, you've already experienced exaltation, even before it's realized. You have been lifted up into the heavenlies in Christ. In Colossians 3, 1, Paul will write, If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Let's talk about dead in some different sense. You're dead to your old life now, and you're living a new life in Christ. Finally, in verse 7, Paul takes us to the end of the ages. Eschatological teaching. Why has he done this? Verse 7, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. And here he's saying that at the end of the ages, when Christ comes with power and glory at the end of the ages, we will be there, having been saved, those who were dead, who have been quickened, we will be there as displays to illustrate the kindness of God towards sinners. A couple weeks ago there when we had the Gunnup family stay with us, their boys stayed in Isaiah's room. And when they went into his room, they came down chattering. And they were really impressed with all of his baseball trophies that he had up there. And he has a bunch of trophies, still has a bunch of trophies in his room. And they were like, wow, these trophies are really cool. When I read this passage, I thought, this is what Paul is saying we are going to be like at the end of the ages. We will be trophies, trophies. that speak to the glory of God and what He has done and His kindness toward us, emblems to illustrate what He has done for us, trophies of His grace displayed for that purpose. Well, friends, we've worked through the passage. We've climbed a bit of the way up the Mount Everest of the Doctrine of Salvation. We're going to get to the top of this thing next Sunday when we get to verses 8, 9, and 10. But let's reflect a little bit on what we have looked at here. Well, friends, this passage must, of necessity, be one that is a passage we turn to often in the Christian life to understand how we were saved. to give us assurance when we encounter the realities of the remaining corruptions within us. We can be helped by looking and seeing that the victory has already been won. We're already seated in the heavenlies in Christ. And I think R.C. Sproul was right. It's OK if you read this passage 1,000 times and then read it 1,000 times more. And mark it in your Bible. And memorize it. And write it on the fly leaf of your Bible. And return to it. And when you have a friend who doesn't understand Christianity, and they have a distorted version of it, share it with them. Read it to them. And let the Spirit of God read it to your children. And let it come into their lives and hearts. It's hard to overcome semi-Pelagianism. It seems to be our default setting. And we have adversaries, including the prince of the power of the air, who are working against people really understanding it. Yes, man is responsible before God. We can give you lots of teaching about that. But when it comes to salvation, God alone gets the glory. All praise be to him, world without end. Amen. and let you stand together. Let's pray. Gracious and loving God, we do give thee thanks again for thy word and for the Apostle Paul, who was moved along by thy spirit, and for the saints at Ephesus who received this writing and were used as the means to preserve it so that future generations like us might profit from it. Help us as we consider these things. Help us as we consider so great a salvation that we might love and admire and serve thee more. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.