But God

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4–7 ESV

I think the two most important words in all of Scripture that sum up the good news of the gospel are “But God”. We didn’t deserve any favor, but God showed us his kindness. We were unable to help ourselves, but God did the redemptive work for us. We rebelled against him, but God reconciled us. We were like dead men, but God made us alive.

God loves to show his character by stepping in when we are unable to help ourselves, when we are at our lowest, when all we can do is cry out “God help me!”. And He does this to show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us as Ephesians 2:7 teaches us.

I am truly humbled when I see how far God has stooped down to restore a sinner like me. I thought there is no way possible that God would redeem me, but God did. Hallelujah! And it is because of God’s great love in my life, I desire to share that with others. He reached down and took me from the pit and set me on a rock so that all may see the power and riches of his great love demonstrated in my life.

It doesn’t take much searching through scripture to see how God restored sinners for his glory. Moses, Abraham, Jacob, David, Jonah, Peter, Paul — they all testify to the great “But God” in their lives. God used them in mighty ways to lead his people. They were liars, murders, adulterers, thieves, and more but God redeemed them and restored them because of his great love. They weren’t disqualified for his service because they had failures in their lives.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his book The Brothers Karamazov, says this about our failures:

“There is no sin, and there can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God.”

And one of my favorite authors, Philip Yancey, puts it this way in his book, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters:

“We are all trophies of God’s grace, some more dramatically than others; Jesus came for the sick and not the well, for the sinner and not the righteous. He came to redeem and transform, to make all things new. “

But that reconciliation cost God dearly. He paid with the life of his only son because we couldn’t pay the penalty ourselves. Another great “But God” verse is Romans 5:8 which says, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We didn’t earn it or deserve it.

But God had a plan, and for that I will be eternally grateful. His plan is to work through all the brokenness of our lives to produce something good as it says in Romans 8:28. I may not always see it, but I am a living, breathing trophy of God’s grace on display for the world to see. I’ll bet it’s a pretty big trophy.