How would you feel if an extremely wealthy person took a liking to you for some unknown reason and because they liked you so much they offered you an extremely privileged position in their business, let’s say “Sr. Vice President of Public Affairs and their personal ambassador to everybody”? I’ve never heard of a position like that but just go along for the sake this discussion. Then they begin to use their wealth and influence to do things for you that are way outside of what bosses usually do for their employees. They treat you so well that it’s kind of embarrassing because you know you haven’t done anything for them that would facilitate this type of lavish treatment. Then you discover that this position is not only permanent but a lifetime appointment!

You begin to wonder what your friends and family think about all this and then you find out….some of them have the same position as you! It turns out this guy likes everybody! And he doesn’t mind using his wealth to bless anyone that decides they like him too.

Sounds to good to be true? Well, it is if your looking for a wealthy person that treats people that way but it is exactly how our Heavenly Father treats us. In fact, instead of a lifetime position it’s an eternal position and he wants to spend an eternity showing us how much he loves us. I’ll prove it!

Ephesians 2:4-7
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Anytime a verse starts out with “But God” you know it’s going to be good!

Without going into the whole “saved by grace” discussion (I’ll save that for another time), I want to concentrate on how much God loves us and how he has planned to show that to us. Notice it says that he has raised us up (out of our position of death) and caused us to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ. This is a position that God has elected to place us in simply because of his love and mercy toward us and it is a place of great privilege. I won’t go into too much detail with this but it’s like being in the top position in a large company. You sit next to the boss at every meeting, you have authority to carry out the bosses business plan, you can evict those that are causing distress or harm to those who are a part of the company and you can write checks in the bosses name! This is just a brief example but you get my drift on just how awesome it is to be in this position.

The best part of the whole deal is the reason he has placed you there, look at verse 7 “That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace”. Wow! That’s why he put you there, so that throughout eternity he can lavish the riches of his grace on you. God doesn’t just talk about his goodness he demonstrates it! Just in case you haven’t gotten the full extent of what we’re talking about, let me break verse 7 down a little further.

Paul says “in the ages to come”, the Greek word for ages is “aeon” and it’s where we get our English word eon. It means a vast period of time, sometimes referring to eternity. Most people think of eternity as the afterlife, when we get to heaven (or wherever your destination might be) but we are living in eternity right now! Eternity encompasses all of time past, present and future and God uses all the ages of time to demonstrate his goodness to us, it will never ever end! If you trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation then you are in position for the overwhelming goodness of God.

In verse 6 the phrase “made us sit together” is present tense, this is not in the sweet by and by, it’s right now! So don’t think of this as some reward in heaven for all your good deeds, this is a current position for the purpose of God showing his love to you and through you and it’s by the exceeding riches of his grace so it’s nothing you’ve earned.

There’s another great phrase “the exceeding riches of his grace”! I’ll barrow a term from the psalmist David, Selah! Just stop and let that soak in a little bit, meditate on it a while. Before reading any further, ponder what that means to you.

Ok, I hope you really did meditate on that, now let’s break it down in pieces. First we’ll take the word grace and since you may not have read any of my other articles on the subject I’ll explain that grace is unmerited divine favor, something we didn’t earn and don’t deserve but it is so much more than that. Strong’s dictionary defines it as “the divine influence on the heart and it’s reflection in the life”. Grace is not just favor or God’s forgiving our sin, it does something to us, it changes us and empowers us. Paul said that by the grace of God I am what I am. In other words it was grace that turned Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of Jesus and his followers into Paul the Apostle of Christ who took the gospel to the gentiles and wrote over half of our New Testament. That’s the power of grace at work! It’s not a weak excuse for weak people who invoke grace every time they wallow in the same sin that’s held them down all their life. Grace is a powerful medium of change!!!

Since we’re talking about the exceeding riches of his grace, we know what riches are, an abundance of possessions right? Lots of stuff. Well, God has lots of stuff! Not only does he have lots of stuff, he has exceeding amounts of lots of stuff!

I want to take a look at the Greek word for exceeding. It’s one of Paul’s favorite adjectives. Here he uses “hyperballo” in other places he uses “hyperbole” both are variations of the same word meaning to throw beyond, to excel, abundance. Our English word hyperbole is just a transliteration of the Greek. In other words we just use their word instead of coming up with our own and pronounce it in an english way. In many places that Paul uses the word it is a translated as abundance, meaning beyond measure. We use the English word hyperbole to mean something that is an exaggerated overstatement to the point being ridiculous.

To some people the goodness and riches of God’s grace may seem overstated, exaggerated, even ridiculous because they can’t imagine that God is really that good. They see him as an overbearing totalitarian that wants everybody to toe the line or else. They can’t imagine that he loves them so much that he wants to take an eternity revealing his kindness to them but the truth is that there is no measure to the riches of his grace, it’s beyond anything we can imagine. Paul uses the strongest language he has available to describe the goodness that the Father wants to lavish on you and he has positioned you in a place with Christ so that you can receive it.

The Father desires for you to take full advantage of the position he has placed you in, it breaks his heart when we don’t receive the grace prepared for us. Jesus went to the cross and died so that you could be there and to say that you don’t deserve it is to say that he didn’t do enough! Please receive the exceeding riches of his grace today!

Blessing,
Jeff