The Calling of God's Covenant Love

Over the past few weeks, we have marveled at the gracious, covenantal love that God has for his people. This covenantal love is not based in our ability. As we saw from Ephesians 2, we were dead in sin, following Satan, and by our very nature, children of wrath. This love of God did not begin with our change of mind or obedience, because there was none of that to offer. This love began before the world was ever formed. In the ages past, God the Father chose us in Christ and predestined us to adoption. In the fullness of time, God the Son accomplished our redemption through his shed blood on the cross of calvary.

All of this is wonderful, but, if we are dead in our trespasses, it doesn’t do us much good. We are dead, so how are we going to be made alive? We are in bondage to Satan, so how are we going to be set free? Our desires and will are set on the passions of our flesh, so how are we going to desire the things of God? Today, I want you to understand that God did not stop with his election of you. He did not stop with the atonement for your sins. God, by the power of His Spirit, effectually called you to salvation. The God who chose us before the foundation of the world and redeemed us by the blood of Christ came to us in time and, by his Spirit, raised us from spiritual death so that we certainly and willingly came to Christ by faith. To see that, let’s read Eph. 2:1-9. From this text, see two points: The Effectual Call of God Gives Us Life, and The Effectual Call of God Gives Us Salvation By Grace Through Faith.

First, from verses 1-7, see that the effectual call of God gives us life. I wanted to step back and read verses 1-3 to remind us of the context. Paul writes that we were dead in our trespasses and sins, slaves to Satan and our own desires, and by our nature, children of wrath. We cannot lose sight of this, because we have a tendency to think that, in our salvation, there is something we must do to deserve it. We tend to think of our salvation like the country artist, Jimmy Wayne, imagined it in his 2003 hit, “I Love You This Much”. The final verse of that song imagines Jesus, nailed to the cross with his arms opened wide, saying, “I love you this much and I’m waiting on you to make up your mind, do you love me too?” We imagine that God is passive in our salvation, and it is we who must act to gain it. And, once we do, God gives us salvation. That is not the way Paul speaks. It is quite the opposite. He says that we are, in fact, the passive ones, and God is the one who does all the work. We are dead to things of God. Imagine, if you will, that I have the cure for death. With one drop of my serum, I can make the dead come to life. This is a product that everyone needs, so I ready myself to make my billions, and I start an ad campaign. The commercial begins, “Are you dead? Have you struggled with no energy due to a lack of a heart beat? Does your family complain of your foul odor? Do I have the solution for you!” If I ran that ad on national TV, I would have zero sales. I could even come out here to this graveyard and offer free samples, and I’d still have no takers. Why? Because dead men cannot act. So it is with our salvation. We are spiritually dead. We cannot make ourselves holy. We cannot choose to be made alive.

Oh, but I want to show you, this morning, the two most beautiful words in all of Scripture! We find them in verse 4. They are “But God…” “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ.” Don’t those words make you want to shout for joy! We had no desire for him. We were under the power of Satan. We were dead in sin, BUT GOD loved us and had mercy on us and made us alive! God acted when we could not, and his actions accomplish the salvation he purposed before the world began. These actions address all of the problems our sin creates. There are three actions that God took towards us, while we were still dead.

First, verse 5 says that he made us alive together with Christ. God caused a new birth in us. As Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, “unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus, being the good Pharisee, asked Jesus, “How can this be? Shall I enter my mother’s womb a second time.” Jesus answered, “That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit, and that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” In other words, receiving a spiritual birth comes from the Spirit. It is not something that you can do in the flesh. It is something that God must do for you. And, Paul reminds us of this in verse 5, too. He says that God made us alive “even when we were dead in our trespasses.” In other words, God didn’t make you alive when you repented. He didn’t make you alive when you had faith. No, you repented and had faith because he made you alive. You can also tell this because of another caveat that Paul throws in at the end of verse 5: “for by grace you have been saved.” So, we aren’t saved because we made the right decision. We aren’t made alive because we took one step towards the savior. We are made alive by the grace of God alone. And, we are made alive “together with Christ.” Just as Christ is alive, both spiritually and physically, by the power of God’s Spirit, we too are made alive.

We see the second action in verse 6. God “raised us up with him and seated us in the heavenly places.” God didn’t just change our condition. He also changed our position. We were subjects of Satan, but God made us his children through Christ. He raised us up into his kingdom and made us part of his family. As Jesus promises in Rev. 3:21, “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne.” Heb. 2:11 says, “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctifies all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Rom. 8:16-17 says that we are fellow heirs with Christ.

Third, in verse 7, he shows us the immeasurable riches of his grace. Here, Paul covers the whole span of time, from eternity past, where God chose us, to eternity future, where he continually showers us with the riches of his grace. C.S. Lewis wrote a series of books that together make up The Chronicles of Narnia. In those books, he tells the story of four British children who pass through a wardrobe to a magical land called Narnia, and there they meet a great lion named Aslan. In the story, Aslan is a metaphor for Jesus Christ.  Through seven books, the children go back and forth to Narnia as they age. They fight great battles, expand the kingdom of Aslan, until, in the final book, The Last Battle, the old Narnia gives way to something new. As they travel into this new country, they discover that it doesn’t grow smaller or more confined. It becomes greater and more wonderful. They continually discover new country the further in they go, and there is a constant invitation: “Come further up, come further in!” What Lewis imagines is a picture of the immeasurable grace of God that we will discover for all of eternity. Every day will reveal a new measure of God’s grace, and we will revel in it.

With that, consider my second point: the effectual call of God gives us salvation by grace through faith, from verses 8 and 9. There are two things I want you to notice here. First, notice the progression of our salvation. Paul summarizes the whole of his doctrine with this simple sentence: “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” Notice that salvation is by grace alone. God acted when you could not. He purposed it, he purchased it, and he performed it. He did all of this when you were dead in trespasses and sins. That salvation is received “through faith.” Faith is not a work we do to earn God’s favor. It is the empty hand that receives a gift.

Second, notice the basis of our salvation. At the end of verse 8, Paul says, “And this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God.” What is not our own doing? Everything that came before. Grace is not of your own doing. Grace is unmerited favor, so you cannot earn it. Salvation is not of your own doing. It is something God works. Even faith is not of your own doing. You would not desire the things of God if he had not first made you alive. Phil. 1:29 says, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should… believe in him.” Acts 16 tells the story of Lydia’s conversion by Paul, and it says, “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.” Throughout the NT we find that it is God who awakens the dead and unstops deaf ears and opens blind eyes. It is only when this happens that we can believe.

Finally, in verse 9, Paul says that our salvation is not a result of works, so that no one can boast. There will be no one in heaven who says, “I am here because I understood things better than everyone else.” Or, “I’m here because I got baptized.” Or, “I’m here because I was obedient.” No, the only claim we will hear in heaven will be something like the words of the second verse of “Rock of Ages”: “Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands. These for sin could not atone. Thou must save, and thou alone. In my hand no price I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling.”

Friend, if you feel the call of God this morning, do not turn away. God is mighty to save. By his power, he will make you alive in Christ and set you free from the bondage of sin. Won’t you come in faith and repentance today?

Brothers and sisters, our salvation is completely the world of God. We have no boast in it. God acted when we could not, and so we will forever sing of his amazing grace.

The Redemption of God's Covenant Love

This morning, we will be back in Ephesians 1, as we continue to marvel at the great wonder of God’s covenant love. We saw, last week, that God is not trapped. He is not forced to love you. But, he is also not forced to hate you, either. God is free to love as he chooses. And so, Paul begins this beautiful hymn of praise to God by proclaiming his riches towards us from eternity past. Before you had ever taken a breath, before parents were ever born, and yes, even before the world was ever formed, God purposed your salvation. He chose you for the purpose of making you holy and blameless. He also predetermined that he would adopt you into the family of God. He did all this “in Christ”. God’s love for you is directed towards the ultimate good, and the ultimate good is found in his Son. So, he determined before the world began that he would unite you to his Son. You contributed absolutely nothing to this. You didn’t even exist when God made these plans.

Yet, God didn’t just come up with a plan to adopt you. He actually did what was necessary to accomplish it. This is where Paul leads us today, to the definite atonement of Jesus Christ for your redemption and union with him. This morning, I want you to understand that, in covenant love, God did not merely make salvation possible; through the blood of Jesus Christ, he accomplished our redemption and gathers his redeemed people. To see that, let’s read Eph. 1:7-10. From this passage, see two points: The atonement redeems us through the blood of Christ, and the atonement unites all things in Christ.

First, from verses 7 and 8, see that the atonement redeems us through the blood of Christ. Remember, this beautiful sentence of praise began back up in verse 3 with the blessings of God. All of the blessings of God are showered on us “in Christ.” This phrase, “in Christ” or “in Him” shows up throughout this passage. He blessed us “in Christ”. He chose us “in him”. He adopted us as sons “through Jesus Christ”. And now, in verse 7, “In him we have redemption.” Jesus Christ is the one and only source of our redemption. We cannot earn it by doing good works that outweigh our bad. We cannot find redemption in spiritual enlightenment. We will not find it in commitment to ritual or sacrifice. As Peter told the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:12, “There is no other name, given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

Oh, and do we need to be saved! We’ve already seen from Eph. 2, that we are dead in our trespasses, following after Satan, and acting on the desires of our flesh. Paul uses two words in this sentence that tell us how badly we need this salvation. The first word is “redemption”. Redemption comes from the Greek word, apolytrosis, which means to deliver from bondage for a price. You were in bondage to sin, a slave to Satan, and Christ ransomed you with his blood. Note, here, that Jesus did not redeem you with gold or silver. He redeemed you with blood. As Hebrews 9:22 says, “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Your sins can only be atoned for through blood. Abel recognized this, and so he offered a better sacrifice than Cain by offering a blood sacrifice. So, we are accepted before God through the blood of his son. Noah satisfied the wrath of God through the shedding of blood. We escape the wrath of God through Jesus shed blood. Abraham received back his son, Isaac, through the sacrifice of the ram that was caught in the thicket. We receive new life through the death of Christ. The people of Israel were delivered from bondage in Egypt through the blood of the Passover lamb. And we are redeemed from our bondage to sin through the blood of Christ.

The second word that shows us how badly we needed salvation is the word “forgiveness.”  Paul says that this redemption led to our forgiveness. Forgiveness is the Greek word, aphesis, which means “to be set free”. In Christ, we have been set free from the bondage of our trespasses. This is so poetic. Remember, in chapter 2, verse 1, Paul says that we were “dead in our trespasses and sins.” But here, he says that we have been set free from those same trespasses through the shed blood of Jesus.

There are two ways that Jesus’ blood redeems us and secures our forgiveness. The first is through a big theological word called “propitiation”. Rom. 3:23-26 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” In propitiation, Jesus Christ satisfied the wrath of God for our sins. We all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. As we saw from Eph. 2:3, that makes us, by our very nature, children of wrath. But, on the cross, Christ satisfied God’s demand for justice by taking the spiritual and physical judgment meant for us. So, Paul says, God is now both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The second way Jesus’s blood redeems us is through expiation. If the only thing Jesus did in his redemption is satisfy God’s wrath, that would be great, but it would not be enough. We would still be guilty, and we would carry that guilt with us into eternity. Jesus shed his blood to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He died so that we might be free from sin, purified in his righteousness. Heb. 9:26 says, “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Before we move on to the next point, I don’t want you to miss the certainty of Christ’s work of redemption. There are three phrases that reveal the certainty of our redemption. The first is the phrase “we have” at the beginning of verse 7. Paul says, “in him we have redemption.” Notice, it doesn’t say we may have or we could have. It says, definitively, we have redemption. This is in keeping with the theme of the broader passage, which is the excellencies of God’s blessings in Jesus Christ. God chose you. God predestined you. And God redeemed you in Christ. You didn’t do it. God did it. So, redemption is not something you can have if you can keep it. It is something you do have because the Father purposed it and the Son accomplished it.

Second, notice the phrase “according to the riches of his grace.” This is such a wonderful phrase. God isn’t stingy with his grace. He doesn’t run out of it. He doesn’t need you to meet him halfway with his grace. God is RICH IN GRACE, and his redemption and forgiveness for you were out of the abundance of that wealth of grace.

Third, there is the phrase “which he lavished on us.” God doesn’t regret saving you. He doesn’t think that you are squandering the blood of his son with your struggles and temptations. God lavishes redemption on you from the riches of his grace.

Now, to our second point: The atonement unites all things in Christ, from verses 9 and 10. The work of Christ for our redemption goes beyond his sacrifice. It extends to his revelation of God’s purpose. In verse 9, Paul says that God has made known to us the mystery of his will. There is a great mystery that runs throughout the OT. It begins in Gen. 12:1-3, when God makes his covenant with Abram. He tells Abram that through him, all nations of the world will be blessed. Yet, we are never really told how this would come to pass. As we read through the story of Abraham’s descendants, we have a few moments of hope. Perhaps Joseph would be the fulfillment of this promise. After all, through his wisdom, Egypt and the surrounding countries were saved from famine. But the good will earned through Joseph soured in future generations, until the Egyptians enslaved his people. No doubt there was hope in Solomon. The whole world seemed to come to him for wisdom, and Israel grew to be one of the wealthiest of nations. Yet, Solomon married foreign women and allowed their pagan beliefs to influence him, leading the whole nation astray. Could Daniel fulfill this promise? Daniel was a faithful witness to foreign kings, even rising to third in command of all of Babylon. But the nations of the world continued to rebel and war against God.

It was not through a throne or a palace that this promise would be fulfilled. Instead, the fulfillment began in a stable, where a young peasant girl gave birth to her firstborn son. The fulfillment did not swell with the great military might of a rebel king or with the political maneuvers of a cunning statesman. It grew with preaching and miracles in the countryside, among the rabble. At the moment that it seemed the fulfillment would finally go mainstream, the Jewish and Roman authorities conspired to kill this Son of David through crucifixion, a punishment reserved for rebellious slaves. His followers fled and hid. The soldiers sealed and guarded his tomb. Yet, on Sunday, he rose on the dawn of a new creation. Jesus Christ had taken our bondage to the grave, and in his resurrection, he set us free from sin and death. This is the mystery that Paul speaks of; a mystery “set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time.”

And, this plan was bigger than our own personal redemption. In verse 10, he says that the plan was to “unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” In the Greek, the word for unite gives the idea of bringing together that which is scattered. Because of sin, the earth was cursed, the family was divided, and the nations were handed over to Satan. But now, Christ is reconciling all things. So, Rom. 8:21 says, “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” The family is reconciled as husbands and wives love each other as Christ and the church, and parents raise their children in the love of Christ. And, the nations are now ripe for the harvest. So, Jesus commissioned his followers, in Matt. 28:20, to go and make disciples of all nations because he now has all authority and will to the end of the age.

Friend, Jesus is the only way to be set free from your bondage to sin and ransomed from the curse of death. He has done all that is necessary for your salvation. Won’t you receive it in faith today?

Brothers and sisters, our atonement is not a possibility, it is a certainty. Jesus has paid it all. Certainly, we owe him everything, but not because we must work to keep it or improve upon it. We work out of gratitude for the riches of his grace that he has lavished on us.

The Choice of God's Covenant Love

Last week, we began to work through a new section in our study of “The Love of the Triune God” - God’s Covenant Love. I explained that we experience God’s love based on our relationship. God’s love is ordered towards the good, and his Son, Jesus Christ, is that ultimate good. He has loved his son from all eternity past, and so, if we are in Christ, we experience the fullness of God’s love. The trouble is, as we saw last week, there is no one who deserves God’s love. As Paul says in Eph. 2:3, we are by our nature, children of wrath. We are spiritually dead, walking after the ways of Satan, and following the passions of our flesh. If this is our natural condition, then we have a real problem. How are we ever to be in a right relationship with God? How are we to ever be found in Christ?

The good news is that God’s love is not bound. He is totally free to love as he chooses. God in his mercy and grace chooses to act when we cannot. He chooses to bless us, redeem us, and seal us in Christ. This is the very nature of God, and it is a pattern we find throughout the Bible. God chooses to lavish his love on undeserving sinners. Abraham, the great man of faith in the OT, was a pagan living in the land of Ur when God called him. Neh. 9:7 says, “You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brough him out of Ur…”. The covenant did not begin with Abraham’s search for God. It began with God’s search for Abraham. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Both technically fulfilled God’s promise that the blessing would continue through his offspring, but God chose Isaac according to promise, not natural expectation. In Gen. 17:18-21, Abraham begs God to extend the blessing through Ishmael, but God insists that his covenant will be established through Isaac. God’s electing grace is even clearer in the sons of Isaac. Esau and Jacob were twins, and God promised before they were born that the older (Esau) would serve the younger. Paul points out in Romans 9:10-12 that God did this before the boys were born and could do anything good or evil. So, God didn’t do it based on the works of either man, but, Paul says, “so that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls.” Abraham had nothing that obligated God to call him. Isaac had nothing that required God to choose him over Ishmael. Jacob had done nothing at all when God chose him over Esau.

This theme of God’s electing love continues in the nation of Israel. In the book of Deuteronomy, God repeatedly reminds the Israelites that he did not choose them because they were worthy. Deut. 10:14-15 says, “God owns heaven and earth, yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them.”

Understand, God has not changed, and he did not suddenly do something different with Jesus. God is still in the business of making covenant, and, praise God, he has made a covenant with us that saves us and unites us to his Son, Jesus Christ. It is in this new covenant that we experience the gracious love of God as his adopted sons and daughters. But, how do we enter this covenant? Do we earn it in some way? Does God see something good in us and choose to save us? To see the answer to those questions, let’s read Eph. 1:3-6. From this passage, see three points: The Blessing of God’s Choice, the Beginning of God’s Choice, and the Basis of God’s Choice.

First, from verse 3, see the blessing of God’s choice. Verse 3 begins the longest sentence in the NT. In the original Greek, Paul does not pause to take a breath until he gets to verse 14. This is all one long sentence of praise to God for his marvelous grace. That praise begins with the blessing of his grace. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places through Christ. Last week, I gave the analogy of a beam of light. When you shine a spotlight on an object, it brings that object out of the darkness and makes it shine with the radiance of your beam. And, anything that is around that object receives the same beam and radiates with the same glory. God loves his son with an uninterrupted, eternal love that, like an unfiltered beam of light, magnifies his son. So, if you are in Christ, you receive the blessings of that glory. All of God’s blessings extend to us through Christ. If you are not in Christ, you cannot know the blessings of heaven. If you are not in Christ, you do not know what it means to be holy and blameless. If you are not in Christ, you will not experience the adoptive love of the Father. But, if you are in Christ, all of these blessings are yours.

That raises an obvious question. What have I done to deserve these blessings in Christ? The short answer: absolutely nothing. We established last week that we cannot deserve God’s love because we are spiritually dead children of wrath. There is nothing we can do, but praise God, he acted when we could not! In fact, God acted to bless you in Christ when you were least able to do anything to deserve it. He acted before the world ever began. To see that, consider my second point: The Beginning of God’s Choice, from verse 4. Paul says, “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” The blessings that God poured out on us began before the world was ever formed. Before God ever spoke a word of creation, he knew you and chose you. As 2 Tim. 1:9 says, “[He] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose of grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.” Notice that God doesn’t just choose us in our sins, though. He chooses that we should be “holy and blameless before him.” Before the world ever began, God chose to make you holy and blameless. Yes, he knew that you would be spiritually dead. Yes, he knew that you would chase after the passions of your flesh. Yes, he knew that you would be slave to Satan. But, in his love and grace, he chose you anyway. God didn’t look down through history and see the people who would make themselves holy and choose them. He chose them THAT they would be holy.

This brings me to my final point - the basis of God’s choice - from verses 5-6. Paul continues this list of God’s works for our salvation by saying, “In love he predestined us for adoption…” We are still in the eternal past, and Paul says that God acted in love towards us to predestine us for adoption through Christ. Understand from this that God’s love for you did not begin when you walked the aisle. It did not begin when you started going to church. It did not begin when you got your life right. God has always loved you. That love motivated him to “predestine” you. The word “predestine” means to determine beforehand. God loved you, and so before the world ever existed, he determined beforehand that he would do something for you. He determined that he would adopt you as a son or daughter through Jesus Christ. Oh what beautiful grace! It makes me want to weep for joy! Remember from last week, Paul said we were “by our very nature, children of wrath.” Because of our sins, we were sons and daughters of Satan. But even before we took the first breath, God had already determined that he would adopt us and make us children of glory!

But why? Well, maybe there was something he saw in us. But that can’t be. 1 John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us…” Perhaps he saw our potential. That can’t be either, because 1 Cor. 1:26-31 tells us that God chose what was foolish and weak and low and despised, “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” Paul gives us the reasons for which God predestined us for adoption. First, he did it “according to the purpose of his will.” God chose to adopt you because he is completely free to act. God does not owe a debt to those who work. You cannot obligate God to save you. God does all that he does according to the counsel of his will. As the London Baptist Confession puts it, God predestined us “out of his mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving him thereunto.”

Second, Paul says that God predestined us “to the praise of his glorious grace.” Before the world ever began, God set his love on you and chose you in Christ and predetermined that you would be adopted as a son or daughter of God so that you might be a testimony of praise to God’s glorious grace. If God saved you because you earned it, then who would get the praise? You would! If God chose you because he saw potential in you, who would get the glory? You would! But, he wasn’t motivated to choose you for any other reason but so that you might be a testimony of his grace, that you might sing with all the redeemed of his amazing grace!

Oh friend, if you feel now the call of God on your life, and you recognize that there is nothing you can do except to plead upon the mercy and grace of Jesus, know that he is mighty to save. He will not save you once you clean up. He will not save you when you start being more committed to church. He will save you now, because he has known you before the foundation of the world. Won’t you turn in faith to Christ today and be saved?

Brothers and sisters, you did not earn your salvation, and you cannot keep it. God did not save you because you were worthy or good. He loved you before time and chose you in Christ to be his child. There is a beautiful hymn in our Baptist Hymnal that most people don’t know. It’s hymn 289, “My Lord I Did Not Choose You”. I want to close with its lyrics. “My Lord I did not choose you, for that could never be; my heart would still refuse you, had you not chosen me. You took the sin that stained me, you cleansed me made me new; Of old you have ordained me, that I should live in you. Unless your grace had called me and taught my opening mind, the world would have enthralled me, to heavenly glories blind. My heart knows none above you; for your rich grace I thirst. I know that if I love you, you must have loved me first.”

Bibliography

London Baptist Association. The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. n.d. https://www.the1689confession.com/1689/chapter-10?utm_source=chatgpt.com (accessed August 8, 2026).

Southern Baptist Convention. The Baptist Hymnal. Nashville: Convention Press, 1991.

 1 The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 3, paragraph 5

 2 The Southern Baptist Convention, The Baptist Hymnal, 289

The Circumstances of God's Covenant Love

This morning, we come to a new section in our series on “The Love of the Triune God”. For the next five weeks we are going to examine the “Covenant Love” of God. We began with the complete love of God. God is love, which is to say that his nature is defined by that quality. He is good and merciful and gracious. This love is affectionate, but it goes beyond affection to will the good of another. We saw that God’s love is not deficient, and there was never a time that he was not loving, even before he created the world. He has always been abundantly happy in the relationship of the Trinity. The Father loves the Son, and the Son the Father. And the Spirit loves the Father and the Son. So, God did not create this world to meet some deficiency in himself but out of the overflow of his abundant love within himself. Then we saw that God expresses his love in and through his creation by revealing himself. The creation speaks of its Creator, and the Creator speaks through his word to his special creation, humanity. Finally, we just finished covering God’s common love for all humanity. Even though men and women are sinful and rebellious, God still loves them and gives them good things. He provides for them every day of their lives, allowing the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. He also sets protective boundaries around their lives. These boundaries are meant for their good, to constrain evil and promote human flourishing. So, God gives mankind government, culture, and the church.

Yet, throughout all of this, we’ve had this problem that keeps coming up. How can God be loving and just? How can he will the good of the other while still sending people to hell for their rebellion? I gave a solution to this by explaining that God’s love is directed towards the ultimate good, not our own personal felt needs. The ultimate good is found in Christ, the Son of God, because he reflects the glory and goodness of God. So, we experience God’s love in relationship to and union with Christ. As Psalm 2:12 says, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” It is clear throughout the Bible that God’s love is specially reserved for those who take refuge in the Son, and his wrath is upon those who rebel. God’s love is ordered according to relationship. The Son is the eternal and perfectly worthy object of the Father’s delight. Fallen man stands not in that relationship of delight but in rebellion and under wrath.

This is the problem we have before us this morning. How can we be reconciled to God? How can we know this relationship of delight? Some might say, well, God just loves me for me. I’m special, I have talent, I have worth, so surely God would love me. But, we’ve already established that this is a perverse understanding of love. We might also think that we can become deserving of God’s love, like the child of an austere and demanding father. We might think that we can work to earn God’s favor, checking off a list until we merit his love. This, too, misses the point. So, today, I want to establish one fact of God’s covenant love - we do not receive God’s covenant love based on anything in us or done by us to deserve it. We are unworthy sinners who deserve God’s judgment and wrath. To see that, let’s read Eph. 2:1-3. From this text, see three points: Because we are fallen sinners, we are spiritually dead, willfully disobedient, and deserving of wrath.

First, from verse 1, see that we are spiritually dead. Ephesians 1 and 2 are beautiful in their extremes. In these two chapters, Paul contrasts, in many ways, our inability and God’s great work. Over the next five weeks, I hope to work through all of those contrasts, but there is none greater than what starts here in verse 1 of chapter 2. Paul says that our condition before God, as sinners, is not one of sickness or deformity. It is one of death. There are some who would say that the problem of sin is a matter for reform. They would say that the problem with humanity is not something inherent in their nature, but something environmental. So, the Muslims, for example, believe that men are born Muslim, but through the influence of the unclean and impure, they become corrupted. The Liberal Secularist believes something similar. They would say that it is society that causes crime. Evil is caused by a lack of healthcare or poverty or poor education. There are others who would say that sin is a sickness that simply needs help to overcome. These would say that mankind needs a spoonful of the right medicine to awaken and follow God.

None of this is the language that Paul uses to speak of mankind’s sinful condition. He says, instead, that we are “dead in our trespasses and sins.” Now, obviously, he does not mean that we are physically dead, nor does he mean that we are completely incapable of any moral decision making. What he means is that we are dead to things of God. We cannot effectively act to do the will of God. We don’t even want to do so. In Romans 8:7-8, he says that the mind that is set on the flesh “does not submit to God’s law, indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” 1 Cor. 2:14 says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God… and he is not able to understand them.” Our minds and souls are so corrupted by the fall that we do not want to do God’s will or truly know him. Now, we all know people who are unbelievers, and yet they seem to earnestly desire to do good. They will even speak of wanting to know God. I can’t tell you the number of experiences I’ve had (some recently) where a person will hit rock bottom and want help. In those moments, they will quote scripture. They will speak of their relationship with God. But given time, they will fall right back into the pattern of sin that they claimed to want to escape. They do this because their heart is spiritually dead.

Second, in verse 2, we see that we are willfully disobedient. We could make the mistake of thinking, based on what Paul has already said, that we are innocent victims of spiritual death. We might say that our sin cannot be helped because we inherited this sinful nature from Adam. Paul does not leave room for that. We are dead, but we are dead men walking. He says that we walked after the course of this world, following the prince of this world, who is Satan. Notice that walking and following are action verbs. They are things we choose to do. In our spiritual death, we choose to walk after the ways of this world. We pursue our desires of greed and lust and idolatry. And, we choose to follow Satan. As we read from Psalm 14 in our call to worship, “There is none righteous, none who seeks after God, all have turned aside.”  We choose to walk in sin and follow Satan because our desires are for the things of this world. We are dead to the things of God, and our desires are for sin. So, Titus 3:3 says that we are “foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures.”

Finally, from verse 3, see that we are deserving of wrath. In our spiritual death and willful rebellion, Paul says that we are “by nature children of wrath.”   Here is where this connects to what I said earlier about the love of God. When we are outside of a relationship with God, we do not experience the fullness of God’s love. Instead, we experience his wrath. If you have never trusted in Jesus Christ, your default destination is not heaven. God does not love you just the way you are. You are, by your very nature, a child of wrath. John 3:36 says, “Whoever does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” This is an interesting verse because it is in the same chapter as John 3:16, which says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” In fact, verse 36 is offered as a commentary on 16-18. God does will the good of the whole world by giving his son to secure salvation for all who believe, but if you do not believe, the wrath of God remains on you. If you continue in this path of spiritual death and willful rebellion, you will be judged and cast into the depths of Hell where there is no love or mercy or grace, only wrath.

So, friend, repent and turn to Christ. Know the deep, covenantal love of God by being united to Christ through faith in his death and resurrection.

Brothers and sisters, we know the love of God, not because we have earned it, but because God, in his grace, rescued us from the darkness and blindness of our sins. He changed our hearts to desire the things of God. He showered us in the grace of Christ. In him, we have no boast. We can only marvel at his great love and rejoice in it.

God Loves Through His Church

For the past few weeks, we’ve been in a section of our study of “The Love of the Triune God” where we have focused on the common love of God. God loves the whole world, which is to say that he wills the good of all humanity. Even though we are fallen, sinful creatures, God still loves us and shows good to us. We see this in his providential care (“He causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust”). But, there are certain good gifts that God gives to all humans. We first saw that he loves all of mankind through human government. Government is given authority by God to restrain evil and promote human flourishing. Then, we saw that God loves all mankind through culture. The works of human hands are a good gift from the Creator who places us in an ordered, understandable world and makes us with desires for beauty and creativity. So, men and women are empowered by God to make good things that glorify him and do good for others. Today, we come to the final gift that God gives to the whole world. God loves the whole world through the church.

At first blush, this might seem like a strange claim. We live in a society that calls itself secular. In modern America, we claim to value a strict separation between church and state. Politicians are expected to have a religion; they just aren’t supposed to talk about it. I remember Hillary Clinton, in the 2008 campaign, claiming that her faith was very deep and very private. This is just the way mainstream America likes it. Some 70% of Americans are religious, but you will not find a character on TV that goes to church. Though our legal tradition was explicitly rooted in the Christian moral code, government officials can face legal action for displaying the Ten Commandments in public. This attitude is only a recent development in American life, though. The founding fathers believed that religion was an indispensable support to the nation. George Washington said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” John Adams agreed, saying “It is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.” Of the thirteen original states, nine had state-funded churches. That practice ended with Massachusetts in 1833, some forty years after the First Amendment was ratified, which shows that, in modern times, we have grossly misapplied this idea of strict separation of church and state.

The reason the founders, and all Americans until the middle of the 20^th century, saw religion as a public good is because they recognized that there are some things that cannot be done by the state or by culture. So, this morning I want to consider the good that the institution of the church provides to this world by studying 1 Pet. 2:4-12. From this passage, see three points: The church displays the beauty of God’s kingdom, declares the truth of God’s Word, and distills the goodness of God’s moral law.

First, from verses 4-8, see that the church displays the beauty of God’s kingdom. This statement by Peter is beautiful and profound, and it cuts to the heart of the church’s public witness in the world. He begins by defining what the church is. First, in verse 4, we see that the church is comprised of people who have come to Christ. The church is not an association or club. It is not a community gathering place. The church is made up of people who believe that Jesus is the cornerstone of their lives. They believe that Jesus Christ is the king of kings who died for their sins and rose again to defeat death and hell for them. Second, the church is a spiritual building of these people who have believed on Christ. In verse 5, Peter calls believers “living stones” that are being put together into a spiritual house. This is magnificent imagery, and the NT is shot through with this idea. In John 1:14, Jesus claims to be the temple of God. He says, “if you tear down this temple I will raise it up in three days… referring to his body.” By extension, the people of God are the true temple, too. 1 Cor. 3:16-17 says, “you are God’s temple.” Eph. 2:19-22 speaks of Jew and Gentile believers being built together into “a holy temple in the Lord.” Understand that there was never anything significant about the materials or location of the temple in Jerusalem. There is nothing that is inherently sacred about this building, either. The only thing that made the temple or this building sacred is the fact that the presence of God dwells here. Together, we are the temple of God because the Holy Spirit dwells in us. As the church father, Irenaeus, put it, “For where the church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the church.” Lastly, the church is a priesthood. Every member of the church acts as a priest in this world because we all offer sacrifices that are acceptable through Jesus Christ. We present our bodies as living sacrifices (Rom. 12), show hospitality and care for the weak (Heb. 13), and give to support missions (Phil. 4). All of these are sacrifices according to the NT.

But, a temple is a public place. It is a place where the world can experience the presence of God. This is why Jesus became so enraged over the moneychangers and merchants in the court of the Gentiles, which was the outer court of the temple. Remember, he said, “My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations.” The intent of God was for the world to be drawn to him through the glory of his presence in the temple. The same thing is true of the church. We are living stones in this spiritual house that is the temple of God, and when we gather, the presence of God is at work among us. This is a public witness to the world. 

Over the course of my life there has been a hot debate over what the aims of Christian worship should be. Some say that worship should be organized to attract the unbeliever who is seeking God. So, these “seeker-sensitive” churches will go to great lengths to make every aspect of Christian worship palatable to the world. On the other hand, there are those who say that Christian worship is only for the redeemed, and so it should only be concerned for that which is edifying to believers. My answer to this question is “Yes”. The NT is clear that Christian worship is intended to build up believers. We are to sing to one another to encourage each other in the faith. Pastors and teachers are to edify the flock. So, yes, Christian worship is for the redeemed. But, the NT also assumes that there will be unbelievers who are drawn to and by our worship. In 1 Cor. 14:24-25, Paul imagines an unbeliever entering the gathered church, hearing God’s truth, becoming convicted, and crying out, “God is really among you.” So, yes, Christian worship is intended to draw unbelievers to Christ.

Here is the thing, though. We do not build this temple. Christ does. We do not make God’s temple beautiful by offering our own flare or structural creativity. Christ builds his church. He has given the means by which he builds it, and it is not in gimmicks or productions or technology. He builds his church through three things: Word, Sacrament, and Discipline. 1 Cor. 1 says that it is through the foolishness of preaching that people are saved. God creates new stones through the proclamation of his Word. He also builds his church through visible elements of his grace. Baptism is a visible symbol of the conversion experience - we die to our old self and raise to new life in Christ. In 1 Cor. 11:26, Paul says that, in the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Church discipline is also a means by which God builds his church. As we will see shortly, the church is called to live out the law of God so that the world might see his goodness in us. That means that the church is the place where God’s law is applied to God’s people, and this witnesses to the world.

This brings me to my second point: The church declares the truth of God’s Word, from verses 9-10. Once Peter establishes what the church is, he then moves to what the church does. As a temple of priests, we have a responsibility to proclaim the excellencies of Christ. Notice the national language that Peter uses in verse 9. These Gentiles to whom he is writing, who “once were not a people but now are a people”, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people for his own possession. This is fascinating because it is the exact same language God uses for the people of Israel in Exodus 19:5-6. Like Israel, the church is the covenant people of God, bound together through faith in Jesus Christ. This makes us a nation in a real sense, because we are all citizens of the kingdom of God. We may be American citizens (and thank God for that!), but our greater and higher citizenship is in God’s Kingdom. This means that every church is an embassy of the kingdom of God. We are a visible representation of that kingdom on earth.

This means that the church has a real public presence in this world. We should never allow ourselves to be excluded from the public discourse, and regardless of censorship or persecution, we should always fight for our king. Yet, the instruments of our fight are not the weapons of this world. The church has not been given the sword - that is the jurisdiction of the state. The church has been given the keys of the kingdom. We fight with the Word of God. 1 Tim. 3:15 says that the church is “a pillar and buttress of the truth.” 2 Tim. 4:2 calls on the church to preach the word in season and out of season. Matt. 28:20 commands the church to disciple the nations.

Now, there are some who say, sure, we should preach the word to believers, but we have no business preaching out on the street corners or in the halls of congress or at the White House. They would argue that we shouldn’t use the Bible in our political conversations. We shouldn’t quote scripture when supporting a new law. But, there are abundant examples in Scripture of prophets and preachers who did just that. Nathan confronted King David. Daniel preached to Nebuchadnezzar. Jonah preached to an entire foreign city. John the Baptist rebuked King Herod for his affair. Paul was commissioned to carry the Gospel to “Gentiles and kings” (Acts 9:15). The apostles saw themselves as “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20). 

With this understood, let’s turn back to the idea of the separation of church and state. For the Christian, there can be no strict separation of church and state, in the sense that Hillary Clinton meant it. We cannot check our religion at the courthouse steps. This means that a Christian baker must run his business by the convictions of his faith. A Christian politician must pursue the public good out of his loyalty to Christ. A Christian teacher cannot keep silent when a student asks about Jesus. And, the church should speak truth to power. Pastors and denominational leaders should voice our opposition, grounded in Scripture, to those laws and social practices that are a reproach to God. We should also advocate for proper care for the poor, oppressed, and forgotten - from womb to tomb. As Charles Spurgeon said, “Christ is king of politics as well as theology.”

Finally, see my last point: The church distills the goodness of God’s law, from verses 11 and 12.  Peter gives us something else that the church does. It practices the truth of God before a watching world. This begins with God’s mercy to us. Back in verse 10, he reminds these Gentile believers that they once were outside of God’s mercy, but now they’ve received it. That is the basis for what he now commands in verse 11. So, he urges them to live moral lives both inwardly and outwardly, because in so doing, they display the goodness of God to the world. That starts with our inward passions. We are to “abstain from the passions of the flesh.” Christians are unique among all the peoples of the world because we believe that morality begins with the heart. So, if we are to be witnesses of the kingdom of God, we must, by the power of God’s Spirit, rule our passions.

But, again, our faith is not just a private affair. We should also practice the obedience of our faith publicly. Peter says, in verse 12, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God.” See in this that the church is a public witness of morality when we actually put the truth of God’s Word into practice in our own lives. For Peter, it is not enough that we proclaim the truth of God’s Word. We must also live it out before a watching world. What Peter says is almost exactly what Jesus said in Matt. 5:14-16, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father.” So, the church doesn’t merely argue that God’s moral order is good. It becomes a community in which the goodness of that order can be seen. The church is a community where marriage is honored, children are treasured, the elderly are cared for, widows are protected, sexual purity is practiced, the poor are assisted, enemies are forgiven, anger is restrained, racial and social unity are realized, and repentance and reconciliation are celebrated. Understand just how radically the Church has changed our world. The early Christian church opposed the Roman practice of infant exposure. In Rome, it was socially acceptable to place an unwanted child out in the cold to die. Christian widows began adopting these children, leading to the establishment of orphanages. The church didn’t just proclaim that abandoning children is wrong. It practiced the truth by adopting those children. William Carey, a Baptist missionary to India in the 1700s, witnessed the brutal practice of “sati”, where the wife of a dead man would be placed on the funeral pier with him and burned alive.  He and other missionaries petitioned the government, which eventually made the practice illegal. It remains illegal to this day. In the 1800s, William Wilberforce, a young Christian politician in England, campaigned to abolish the slave trade. But England went even further.  For the next hundred years, they devoted blood and treasure to stamp out slavery wherever they could.

Brothers and sisters, we are living stones in the holy temple of God, which means we are a witness to the world of the presence of God. We are called to proclaim the truth to a world that does not know it. And, we are called to live out that truth so that the world may see our good works and glorify our Father in Heaven. We are called to this because God loves the world, and he has given the church as a good gift to all mankind.

Bibliography

Adams, John. "John Adams to Cotton Tufts." Adams Papers Digital Edition. 2026. https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/ADMS-04-02-02-pb-0020?utm_source=chatgpt.com (accessed October 2, 2026).

Ireneaus. "Against Heresies." In he Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, vol. 1 of Ante-Nicene Fathers, by James Donaldson, and A Cleveland Coxe Alexander Roberts. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.

Spurgeon, C.H. "The First Sermon in the Tabernacle." In The Mtropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 7. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1861.

Washington, George. "Farewell Address." In George Washington Papers. Washington DC: Library of Congress, 1796.

1  Washington, “Farewell Address”

2  Adams, “John Adams to Cotton Tufts”, 2026

3  Ireneus, Against Heresies, 3.24.1

4  Spurgeon, “The First Sermon in the Tabernacle”, 174

God Loves Through Culture

This morning, we come back to our section on the common love of God for the whole world. Last week we saw that God loves the whole world by giving us human government. Government is intended to constrain evil and promote human flourishing, and we should support legitimate institutions with honor and taxes. Today, we move to the second way that God loves the whole world. God loves the world by giving us culture. To see that, let’s read Eccl. 3:9-15. From this text, see four points: In culture, God gives us a Business, a Beauty, a Benevolence, and a Boundary.

First, from verses 9 and 10, see that in culture, God gives us a business. I’m sure you’ve heard the story of the scientists that challenged God. One day, the world’s leading scientists made a discovery. They figured out how to create life. In their hubris, they called out to God, “Hey God, we’ve figured it out, and we challenge you to a contest.” Amused by this challenge, God answered, “What do you propose?” The scientists proposed that they have a competition to see who could create life the quickest. God smirked and said, “OK, on your mark… get set… go!” At that word, the scientists frantically set about gathering dirt to begin the process, but God quickly stopped them and said, “No no… get your own dirt.” This joke is cute, but it also gets to a fundamental truth about God’s creation. God has made a world from which things can be made, and he put into the very fabric of human existence this desire to grow, learn, and create. Solomon says, in verses 9 and 10, that God has given man business that he is to be busy with. The Hebrew word used for “business” in verse 10 means an occupation or a job. We see this in the creation story itself. Gen. 1:27-28 says that God gave man and woman dominion over every creature, and their task was to subdue the earth. In Gen. 2:5, we find that God places man in an immaculate garden full of trees and animals made for his enjoyment. Yet, even in this garden, God gives man a task - he is to work and keep the garden. Contrary to popular belief, the ideal human state is not a utopic society free of work. It is not universal basic income where the robots do all the work for us. It is not a heaven where we only sing and float on clouds. No, we were made to work, and we find meaning and fulfillment in it. Yes, God made a world full of plants and animals and rivers and mountains and fields, but it is man’s responsibility to subdue this raw creation into a place fit for the glory of God. Man is made in the image of God, and so like God, he is made to create. We take the stuff of God’s creation, and we fashion it to works of beauty and goodness that glorify God and benefit our fellow man. God made grain, but man makes bread. God made trees, but man makes tables and houses. God made sound, but man makes music. God made iron, but man makes tools. Culture is the image bearer unfolding the possibilities God placed within creation.

Now, certainly it is true that, after the fall of Adam, work became toilsome. Thorns and thistles grew up to complicate work. And, now there is a neediness to our work. Before the fall, the garden provided for every need Adam could have. After the fall, Adam had to bring it up by the sweat of his brow. But, that does not mean that work is now evil or simply punishment. The work is still good, even though it has been marred by the fall.

Second, in culture, God gives us a beauty. In verse 11, Solomon says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time… and put eternity into man’s heart.” If you’ll remember from our lesson on the goodness of God, I explained that the OT concept of beauty means “fitted to an order.” God has made a beautiful world that is fit for a purpose. One of the ways that we know this is by working in this world to make good things that benefit others. It fascinates me how every generation builds and improves on the last. I’ve told the story of the St. Marks Basilica in Venice, Italy, which took over 400 years to construct and crosses four different architectural styles. At one point, the church burned, and that generation built from its ruins something greater than what came before. This is what I think Solomon means when he says that God has made everything beautiful in its time. God raises up men and women with gifts for their time. He raises up great mathematicians and scientists who make new discoveries.  He raises up architects and builders to develop new and effective means of construction. He raises up engineers and artisans to invent tools. He raises up farmers who find new ways to grow food for the masses. He raises up artists and musicians to build on the genres that came before. It is all fit for its time, and it is given by a good God who intends us to make culture that is good and true and beautiful.

But, it’s important to recognize that, whatever we build and discover can never give us ultimate satisfaction. Only God can do that. So, Solomon says, “God has put eternity in man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end.” In other words, God has created us in such a way that we desire to create and bring up meaning out of the bare ground. Culture is good in this sense. It can speak truth to us. The high ceilings and ornate beauty of a cathedral can convey the loftiness and majesty of God, but that architecture cannot speak for God. The scientist can explore the mysteries of the universe and marvel at the complexity of creation, but those formulas will never save him. This hits at the mystery of what theologians call “Divine Hiddenness”. God has given us enough evidence in creation so that we know his nature and goodness, but there is enough hiddenness in creation that we need something else. Specifically, we need God to speak to us.

Third, in culture, God gives us a benevolence. In verses 12-13, Solomon wonders, if God has not revealed himself completely in the work that man has been given to do, what is man to do with his work? He answers that by saying, “they should be joyful and do good as long as they live… and eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil - this is God’s gift to man.” Here again we see that work is intended for our good. Solomon says that it is a gift from God to man. So, what should we do with this gift? We should enjoy it! There are three ways that we should enjoy the culture that we make in our work. One, we should “be joyful.” We should find joy in our work. Now, sometimes you have a job that is just not enjoyable. Perhaps your job is mondain or repetitive, and it is hard to find joy in it. That’s fine. It may be your job, but it is not your work. Your work is that which God has uniquely gifted you to do. Perhaps it is a talent you have (singing, painting, carpentry, leadership, caregiving, and on and on). It could be an interest you have (something that you daydream of, a problem you want to solve, a design you keep coming back to). Work is the task that you enjoy because it engages your mind and body to do what God made you to do. So, even if your job is mondain, you can still keep a vegetable garden or sing in the choir or write music or paint or a hundred other things. Many times, your job is your work, and praise God when that is the case. But, whatever your employment may be, there is work for you to do that brings joy.

Two, we should “do good as long as we live.” Work is the task that involves your mind and body in the pursuit of something good, whether it be the glory of God or the benefit of mankind. Again, that may be a hard line to draw directly from your mondain job and the benefit of others, but you have talents and interests that will do that, and you should nurture those things.

Three, we should “take pleasure” in the things that we make. Yes, Christian, you have permission to enjoy the good things of culture. You have permission to enjoy good things that people have made. You can even take pleasure in things like bread and wine and music and movies. You can be proud of your tomato crop and delight in it when you put that first slice of the summer between two pieces of white bread that have been covered in mayonnaise. You can savor a delicious BBQ sandwich from that Boston Butt you slaved over for four hours. The work we do is given to us by a benevolent God who wants us to enjoy his creation. God gives good thingsthat make human life rich and enjoyable. As we read from Psalm 104:14-15, he “gives wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen his heart.” God didn’t just make bread, but also flavor; not just sound, but also harmony; not just speech, but poetry.

This brings me to my final point: In culture, God gives us a boundary, from verses 14 and 15. Having said all of this about the joy and pleasure of work, there is a boundary to it. In verse 14, Solomon draws a distinction between God’s work and ours. Whatever God does endures forever and we can’t add or take away from it. This goes back to my joke at the beginning. No matter how great our culture might become, we will never be like God. We can only create from what he has created. We can only enjoy what he has given. And, God will judge what we do with the things that he has given us. This is what he means when he says, “God seeks what has been driven away [or what has been pursued].” God has made you with talents and interests, so what are you doing with them? Are you using them to enrich yourself and gain power, or are you bringing glory to God and blessing mankind with them? This is the cultural conundrum. Because of our fallen nature, we use our talents and interests for sinful things. In Genesis 4-11, we find men who build cities to escape God. They learn to use metal to make weapons. They discover bricks and build a tower to make a name for themselves. None of those technologies are evil. Cities can be places of unity and protection and commerce. Metal can make plows and scythes as easily as it can make swords. Bricks can build cathedrals. The technology is not the problem. The heart of the men using the technology is the problem. God will judge what we do with our hands, because he has given us work and culture for our good out of the abundance of his love.

In the time we have left, I want to address a common misconception that Christians have about work. There is a tendency within Christianity to devalue any work that is not directly connected to evangelism. Often times, when I tell someone that they can bring glory to God in their work, they will respond by saying, “Yes, I know I can be a witness at my work.” That’s not what I mean. Your work matters not only because you have the opportunity to be a witness at work, although that is good. Your work matters because any time you do something worthwhile, whether it is in building good products that make life easier for people or providing care for someone or administering an organization or building a house where a family can grow - whatever it is, it is good and glorifying. I want to leave you with four ways that our work glorifies God. One, our honest work is evidence of our repentance. Eph. 4:28 says, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” Two, our work is a service to Christ. Col. 3:17, 23 says, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus… whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord…” Now, when Paul says, “whatever you do… do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus”, he doesn’t mean that every time you drive a nail you yell out the name of Jesus. He means that you are to work as though Jesus is your master. Paul says this very thing to slaves in Eph. 6. They are to serve their masters, not out of fear, but in service to Christ. So, you are not driving nails for the foreman. You are driving them for Jesus. Three, our work is a public witness. 1 Thes. 4:11-12 says, “Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.” We should work and earn an honest wage because it is a poor witness to be dependent on another person. Now, there are certainly times in life and rough patches where we may need help. We may have a chronic condition that makes us dependent on others. But, as a general rule, Christians should not be dependent on the welfare of others. We should not mooch. We should earn our wages honestly, because our work witnesses to our character in the Lord. Finally, we should work to help the weak. In Acts 20:34-35, Paul tells of how he worked as a tentmaker to support his ministry and help others. Even as an apostle, Paul did not claim his privilege to be supported by the church, but rather, he set an example of work for the sake of others.

Brothers and sisters, our work matters because it is given to us by a loving God as a good to this world. We should work diligently and honestly because it glorifies God and benefits our fellow man. And, we should enjoy the works of our hands and the blessings of culture, because in them we experience the good gifts of a loving God.