Till We Are Home

The two greatest words in the Bible for all of humanity are etched in Ephesians 2:4, “But God…”. It’s the phrase I want as my epitaph, the words that I love from my favorite passage in all of Scripture. I think I could write an entire book on those first ten verses, spending so much time on just these two words in verse four. If it were not for these words, for the reality that they represent, then we all would be without hope.

As I mentioned, these words are found in the middle of ten verses in chapter two from the book of Ephesians that lay out the gospel in such a beautiful and succinct way. Paul spends three verses explaining the reality that all people are in without Christ. It’s a dire picture of our condition outside of Christ when he uses words and images like:

• dead in the trespasses and sins
• following the course of this world
• following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience
• among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh
• carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, 
• and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

It’s a wonder – no, a mercy of God that anyone isn’t destroyed this instant for how heinous our sinful selves appear to a holy God.

We are dead, disobedient, and disastrous enemies of God according to Scripture. We have no hope, no excuse, and no way to save our own selves as depicted by such a picture. In the midst of this terribly bleak reality comes the greatest and outlandishly hopeful two words…

But God. 

But God intervenes when we cannot, and Scripture continues on in first giving us some things about who He is – “rich in mercy” and full of “great love”. And because of who He is, He then accomplishes for us what we cannot have done in our dead, disobedient, and disastrous state – He made us alive!! No longer dead, but alive together with Christ!!

Not only alive today, but He gives us an eternal future when He raises us up, seating us in the heavenly places with Jesus into the coming ages! Why? So He can show us “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” God will continue to lavish upon us His love, kindness, and grace for all eternity.

All from that moment when everything seemed hopeless and lost…all from that immeasurably amazing ‘But God’.

I’ve spoken with some friends and shared the gospel with them, but they turned away thinking they did too many horrific things in their life so how could God redeem and forgive them for those things? In this, they’re right to feel the burden of their sins, and that’s exactly how we all should feel – unless the Lord intervenes, we cannot save ourselves. 

We need that ‘But God’. 

We need that ‘But God’ to pierce the darkness enshrouding our lives because of our sin. We need that ‘But God’ to come in a better and fuller way that Gandalf riding on Shadowfax at the break of dawn when all seemed lost on the battlefield. We need that ‘But God’ to save the bleak and broken and beleaguered soul of ours crushed by our own rebellion. 

The greatest and most wonderful news in all the world is we have ‘But God’. Even when those circumstances of life drag us down, ‘But God’ comes to remind us of the greatest gift He will ever give us – salvation in Christ. It’s that ‘But God’ that calls to us when we are trodden under the weight of anxiety, depression, loss, and even attack from an enemy to remind us that because of Christ we have an advocate who fights for us to give us life in Him. And, ‘But God’ can lift our weary and drooping head to see and behold a future when one day He will wipe that last tear away.

Brothers and sisters, let us cling to the precious richness of those amazing two words, ‘But God’ today, tomorrow, and for all the days the Lord will have us here…

Till we are home…