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Pastor Brant Seacrist

JULY 7, 2019

"THE AGES TO COME"

TEXT:  TEXT: EHESIANS 2:  5-7
READING:  PSALM 119: 33-48

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SUBJ: The eternal aim of God in salvation witnessed in what we know now and what we may expect in the eternity to come.

AIM: That we might treasure what we possess in Christ now and what we shall as the eternal increase of blessedness and joy in Him.

INTR: As believers ours is the privilege of having preferred seating as to viewing the things of Christ. We understand that the motive of God in salvation is love. His aim in salvation is glory, His and ours together with Him.
1. This scripture is difficult in that we are functioning in the Kingdom of God while yet in this present world. But we have an inseparable tie to Christ and can anticipate that which is to come without full understanding – we walk by faith and experience joy in Him.
2. Paul laid the foundation for comparison in the first three verses of this chapter and then points us to the heights of Christian experience as we contemplate that which is to come.
3. As we realize what we were and come to see something of the glory of God, we often become frustrated that we cannot communicate it to others and yet we persuade men with the hope that God will reveal Christ to them the hope of glory.

THESIS: It is for His own glory and delight that God has raised us up together with Christ and it will be for His glory and our delight that we should have the riches of His grace revealed. It will not be merely “here it is; what do you think?” It will be an eternal unfolding of the wonders of riches and kindness of which we can only imagine.

I. Quickened together (v. 5)
1. The fact and the necessity of regeneration is ever before us in the Word of God but is not in the purview of many in this age.
2. It is essential that we understand that salvation entails being made alive in the sense of having an existence in which sin and sinfulness cannot be.
3. It is also essential that it is not of ourselves – it is wholly of grace (see the parentheses) – it is God’s doing altogether.
4. It is further to be understood that it is a vital connection with Christ.
5. There is reason that we declare without apology that “Ye must be born again.”

II. Raised up and seated together (v. 6)
1. Being quickened is what we experience of the grace of God; being raised up together ties us inseparably to Christ from the ordeal of His suffering and death to His resurrection and ascension back into glory and on to the ages to come.
1) It places us together with Him in this new life in which we walk.
2) All the characteristics of salvation are derived from Him and pertain to Him. Nothing is given to us apart from being together with Christ.
3) Consider the vine and the branches and be reminded of the common life!
2. Being seated speaks to us of the position of Christ. He is Lord and Christ (Acts 2)
1) Our position with/in Christ is as sure as He is there
2) Consider that John spoke in the present tense when he wrote: 5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, 6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Revelation 1:5-6.
3) It is a place of revelation even now as are taught of Him and learn of Him (from Him).
4) It is a throne that He occupies as do we. See again, Revelation 1:6)

III. Together In the ages (eons) to come (v. 7)
1. In verse 7, the Apostle comes to the eternal purpose of God in salvation – that He might glorify Himself in showing us the wonders of His grace and mercy.
1) Consider the superlative “exceeding” and that it takes beyond comprehension – Fanny Crosby described it well as the “foretaste of glory divine.”
2) Our minds experience limitations that our hearts and souls do not – we do not need to understand to know that it is glorious any more than we consider his majesty.
3) We are made to see the value, the beauty, the abundance, and the endurance of it all.
2. His kindness as like no other:
1) Do we pause to contemplate the things mentioned above both now and forever?
2) Nothing is free in the sense of no cost to anyone – free to us but
3) We think of kindness as being good to someone or as an expression of sympathy.
4) The Kindness of God was expressed in giving His only begotten Son and by being anything but kind to Him as we went to the cross.
3. The ever-increasing presentation of the riches of His grace to us took the blood of Christ to obtain – His was an infinite sacrifice; ours will be an infinite blessedness.
4. All of this is included in salvation and is magnified to us in verses 8-10.