There is a sticker I have seen on vehicles and on the back of laptops that I have seen just about every day since we moved into Cheyenne. The sticker did not capture my interest enough to google its meaning but every time I was forced to notice it at a stop light because it was affixed to the car in front of me, I would wonder about its meaning for as long as the light would last and then I would forget about it. Would you believe that I encountered this sticker for four years not realizing its significance because I never thought long enough about it to realize what it really meant?
It wasn’t until a year ago that while at a red light and another car with the same sticker I had seen dozens of times since moving to Wyoming that I realized that the number 307 stood for something; we even have a day each year in the great state of Wyoming to celebrate the significance of 307 every year on March 7th known as 307 Day to celebrate all things Wyoming.
I am not the most observant person on planet earth when it comes to the most obvious things around me, but I do realize that the 307 stickers were low hanging fruit. Of the fifty-two states that make up our nation, Wyoming is one of eleven states that can boast of a single area code. In case you did not know this, area codes are given based on the population and number of phones in a geographic area and not based on the states land mass.
As I thought about the significance of 307 and how that number was always before me for the first four years since making our home in Cheyenne before I ever realized what it truly meant, I cannot help but reflect upon how it is that so many can claim to be a Christian without fully appreciating what it means to be “in Christ.”
Saved Through Christ from Death to Life
I shared with you last Sunday that if you are a Christian, there are three reasons why you are, “alive together with Christ.” We, who were dead in our offenses and sins, walked in step with the prince of the power of the air, were disobedient, lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulged in the desires of our flesh and mind, and at the core of our nature were children of the wrath of God—are now, “alive together with Christ” (v. 5). The catalyst that moved God to, “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (1:4) was His mercy, love, and grace. The catalyst that made available the “redemption through His blood, and the forgiveness of our wrongdoings” (1:7) was God’s mercy, love, and grace. The catalyst that resulted in God sealing all who belong to Him by His Holy Spirit was the mercy, love, and grace of almighty God! However, it was not just any old mercy, love, and grace that we received from God, no it was His rich mercy, great love, and sufficient grace.
In what way is God’s mercy rich? Last week we went back to Genesis 2-3 to discover what Paul meant by stating we were all, “dead in our offenses and sins.” Today, to understand what Paul means by mercy, we must go to the place he drew the word from, and that place is found in Exodus 34:6-7,
Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth; who keeps faithfulness for thousands, who forgives wrongdoing, violation of His Law, and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, inflicting the punishment of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” (Exod. 34:6-7)
What you need to know is just before we come to Exodus 34, Moses requested to see God, but was warned, “You cannot see My face, for mankind shall not see Me and live” (33:20). God did promise that Moses could experience His presence, but Moses would have to remain hidden in a cleft of a rock as a way to protect him from certain death. The reason why Moses could not see the face of God and live was because Moses was sinful while God is holy. God promised Moses that while he was safe in the cleft of the rock, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion to whom I will show compassion” (see Exod. 33:12-23).
There was another man who found himself in the presence of God, but for him it was in the form of a vision. The man I am referring to is the prophet, Isaiah. It happened after Israel’s king, who had served for over 40 years, died. We are told about the prophet’s encounter in Isaiah 6, but what we learn in those verses is that even Seraphim had to cover their faces and their feet in the presence of God: “In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim were standing above Him, each having six wings: with two each covered his face, and with two each covered his feet, and with two each flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of armies. The whole earth is full of His glory” (vv. 1-3).
It was only a vison that Isaiah had, and yet his response was appropriate: “Woe to me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies” (Isa.6:5). So, of course Moses could not see the face of God and live, but he could experience His presence, and as he did, he heard Yahweh proclaim: “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth; who keeps faithfulness for thousands, who forgives wrongdoing, violation of His Law, and sin...” (Exod. 34:6-7a).
Let me give you four reasons why I am certain that the mercy, love, and grace of God that Paul refers to in Ephesians 2:4-5 was shaped by his understanding of Exodus 34. My four reasons are really four words God declared about Himself to Moses: Compassion (rǎ·ḥûm), merciful (ḥǎn·nûn), faithfulness (ḥěʹ·sěḏ), and truth (ʾěměṯ). The Hebrew word for “compassion” means mercy; the Hebrew word for “mercy” can be translated “kindness” or “goodness”; the Hebrew word for “truth” can be translated “trustworthy.” There is one more word God used to describe Himself, and that word is “faithfulness” which is the word used to describe God’s faithful and loyal love; listen, ḥěʹ·sěḏ is God’s covenantal and “great” love! What was revealed to Moses while he was in the cleft of the rock is the same God that Paul described… whose mercy is rich, whose love is great, and whose grace is sufficient!
But wait! God did not end His description of Himself there, of His rich mercy, kindness, goodness, or his covenantal and great love; for His also told Moses: “…yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, inflicting the punishment of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Exod. 34:7b). God cannot and will not compromise His holiness and justice so that He is able to extend mercy, love, and grace towards guilty sinners. His holiness and His justice will not permit Him to leave the guilty unpunished. This is why, after seeing and experiencing the holiness of God, Isaiah cried out: “Woe to me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies” (Isa. 6:5).
If God is God, then He must be just as merciful as He is just, He must be equally holy as He is a God of love. If God is God, then He is all that He is in equal measure with no character trait of His in conflict with the other. There is nothing about Him that is lacking and there is no room in Him for improvement. So, if God is God, then can He be rich in mercy and absolutely just in dealing with those who are dead in their offenses and sins (Eph. 2:1-3)? The Answer is found in Ephesians 1:7-8, which states: “In Him [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.” This is why Paul could write: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ…”. (Eph. 2:4-5). At the cross the rich mercy, great love, and sufficient grace of God was reconciled through Jesus who bore God’s perfect justice through the full measure of a wrath we all deserve. First and foremost Jesus died to satisfy legal demands our sin required, and this is why Jesus was, “Pierced for our offenses, and was crushed for our wrongdoings” (Isa. 53:5); this is also why just five verses later, we read these words: “The Lord delighted to crush Him, causing Him grief…” (v. 10). If you are a Christian, you are the recipient of a mercy that is rich, a love that is great, and a grace that is sufficient to address all your sins because of the Christ who, “redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). This is why we can sing:
Who could imagine so great a mercy?
What heart could fathom such boundless grace?
The God of ages stepped down from glory
To wear my sin and bear my shame
The cross has spoken, I am forgiven
The King of kings calls me His own
Beautiful savior, I'm yours forever
Jesus Christ, my living hope[1]
Raised With Christ to Show God’s Grace
As a result of being made alive with Christ, you, Christian, are raised up with Him, seated with Him, and united with Him. You were dead in our offenses and sins, but now you have been made alive with Christ! You were the spiritually walking dead and bound to a nature united with you, depravity, but now you have been set free by Christ and your life is now rooted in Him! You were once a child of wrath, but now you are a recipient of God’s great love—declared by Him to be His child!
We who were dead in our offenses and sins, God made alive by the same power that He was able to give life to Adam from the lifeless dirt of the earth. However, our lifelessness was worse in the sense that Adam’s lifelessness came from the dirt of the earth while ours came from the soil of our own sin and rebellion, and from that polluted soil, God brought forth life out of death. God did what only God could do, “even when we were dead in our wrongdoings…” through the same boundless power that raised Jesus from the grave, God did three things: 1) He made us alive with Christ, 2) He raised us up with Christ, and 3) He seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. Bryan Chapell, in his commentary on Ephesians said of these verses: “These are the words of resurrection. Just as Christ was raised from the dead, so also, we are filled with the life that is from God…. Our spiritual death has been swallowed up in Christ’s resurrection victory. The guilt and power of sin have been conquered by the Savior who now resides in us.”[2]
Oh, can you see it? Can you see that to be a Christian is not about being a more moral person, or a more religious person, or a nicer person, but about becoming a whole new person just as we are promised in the Bible: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, the new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17). Not only are we alive in Christ, but we have been raised up and seated with Him.
The Greek word that Paul used for “raised” is synegeirō, the prefix of this word is syn-, from which we get the word sync and is short for synchronize. God made us alive in Christ, and quite literally has synced us with Him. What this means is that if you are a Christian, your identity is not in an area code, your last name, the person you are married to, your employment, or what you are able to do or unable to do. No! Your identity dear Christian is synced with the living Christ; you are not only alive in Him, but now you are raised up with Him. This is why, in his epistle to the Colossians, Paul wrote, “Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). Your identity as a Christian is and always will be where Christ is!
But hold on, it gets even better Christian! Not only have you been raised with Christ, but you are also seated with Christ. What does it mean to be seated with Christ exactly? Remember the way Ephesians 1 concludes, for it is in the final four verses that Paul informs us where it is that Christ is: “…He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and made Him head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (vv. 20-23). Jesus is above all things and all powers, and one day, “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11). It is with that Christ that you are raised with and are seated with!
What this means is that Christ’s identity is now our identity and now we are seated with Him positionally. What this means is that Jesus’ victories are now our victories, and because His victories are our victories, death, sin, disease, persecution, hardship, the demonic, and any other front that threatens to undo us does not have the final word or say over all who are raise with Christ and seated with Christ! What this means is that you are the Bride of Christ and regardless of your past, you dear Christian are now the apple of His eye!
Christian, you were once dead in your offenses and sins, and now you are alive with Christ. Christian, you were once among the spiritually walking dead, but now you are raised up with Christ. Christian, you were once synced up with the prince of the power of the air and the spirit of the age, but now you are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Christian, when you were dead, you lived in the lusts of your flesh and indulged the desires of the flesh, and now you are the recipient of the “boundless riches of His grace in kindness in Christ Jesus” (v. 7).
Christian, do you know who you are? Because if you do, you will begin to live as though you are alive in Jesus, raised up with Jesus, and seated with Jesus. You will live with the confidence that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of you or has said about you because what matters most is what God thinks of you, and to Him, you are His inheritance and His trophy, demonstrating His all sufficient and infinite grace. Christian, you are a testament to the grace of God that is as boundless as is His power that raised Jesus from the grave and brought you from death to life. According to verse 7, for all of eternity you who were once dead will only know the unending benefits of His rich mercy, great love, and all-sufficient grace! For the “ages to come” we will stand together as God’s trophy of Grace that will forever serve as a reminder that there is no sin so great and no life so messed up that God’s mercy, love, and grace cannot overcome, redeem, resurrect, and put back together through the great serpent crushing, grave robbing, all-sufficient redeemer Himself—namely Jesus Christ! We sing as the Church not because of how we feel or what style of music we like, we sing because the words we sing are true like the words in the modern hymn, In Christ Alone:
In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
'Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live, I live
No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand
