Amazing Grace

Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” – Amazing Grace

Easter is the only time when it’s perfectly safe to put all your eggs in one basket.

We celebrate what has happened. We worship our God because the tomb is empty, and our Savior is risen.

Our old history ends with the cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.

We live and die; Christ died and lived!

Yes, we celebrate what's happening. Yes, we worship our God because there is an empty tomb, our Savior is risen from the dead. He is alive. Luke 24:1-12 “Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!”

How Amazing that it! There was this man … born in 1725 … he was a mess of a man. Worked on a ship … was hated by all of his shipmates. He was wild, a raging drunkard, violent. His nickname was The Great Blasphemer. And it’s only God’s amazing grace that could take a rude, profane, slave-trading sailor and transform him into a child of God. And so this man named John Newton started again to read scripture and was transformed by the grace of God. And he put pen to paper and wrote the lyrics in 1772 to the hymn that we now know as Amazing Grace. The Great Blasphemer, who experienced amazing grace, wrote these words. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found, I was blind, but now I see.”

And that’s what I want to preach about on the Resurrection Sunday, Amazing Grace!

It’s found in the text of Ephesians 2:1-8, and this is where Paul rambles on about grace. Paul breaks all sorts of grammatical rules. His writing in Ephesians is kind of like my preaching when I get Texas happy; he gets so excited, he’ll start a sentence, and he won’t finish it; he’ll have run-on sentences, he’s so passionate that he can’t even get out a complete thought, he’s just putting his thoughts down on paper as fast as he can. This is how amazing God’s grace is.

Three thoughts to summarize this first section of Ephesians chapter two.

The first thought is; Paul tells us that WE WERE. If you’re a follower of Jesus Christ today, you are not what you once were. And if you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, you can become His follower today, and you then can be in that number. He says YOU WERE. And then he says BUT GOD. You were one thing, BUT GOD intervened. Everyone needs to know that because of a BUT GOD moment you don’t have to stay bound. YOU WERE, BUT GOD. And then Paul tells us how God intervened, God intervened BY GRACE. We didn’t deserve it but BY GRACE God intervened on our behalf. Grace is “the absolute free expression of the loving kindness of God to men motivated by the bounty and benevolence of God Himself; unearned and unmerited favor.”

YOU WERE, BUT GOD, BY GRACE. YOU WERE one thing, but you are no longer that thing if you’re in Christ because you had a BUT GOD moment, and it’s only BY GRACE, not by your power, not by your works, not by your goodness, but YOU WERE, and you are now new, because of the BUT GOD moment, you’ve been transformed BY AMAZING GRACE. Let me slice thinner so you can eat it.

YOU WERE, in Ephesians 2:1. Paul says, “as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” Listen, if you’re a follower of Jesus, you’ve been transformed. You’re forgiven, you’re new, YOU WERE dead in your sins. And verse 3 says, “all of us who lived among them at one time were gratifying the cravings of our flesh.” That’s our sinful nature. Our nature that is distant from God; we were living for the desires of our flesh, and we were following its ways. “Like the rest,” Paul says, “we were by nature deserving of wrath.

I know this doesn’t sound like a positive Easter message. I understand this is not a popular topic. In our culture today, many people would push back and say, no, no, no, you have no right to call me a sinner. Our culture today would say that’s “wack,” “cheugy.” They would say I’m not a bad person; I have a good heart, and I’m not nearly as bad as everybody else. Let me tell you something; and for you slang folk out there NO CAP; If you are without Christ, you are dead in your sins, and the Bible teaches that we’re deserving of wrath; That’s the truth of the matter. We’ve been called enemies of God because of our sin nature.

That’s why the apostle Paul says, YOU WERE, and then he says, BUT GOD. YOU WERE, BUT GOD. Think about Paul; what did Paul do? Lemme tell you what Paul did. Paul took the lives of Christians. Yes, he did. And if you’re not a church person, you may not know that. But the guy who wrote almost two-thirds of the New Testament before he was a follower of Jesus hated Christians so much that he took their lives.

This is the guy who is saying YOU WERE, BUT GOD. Paul would tell you “I was blind, but now, I can see.” And by the grace of God, this man Ananias baptized me and prophesied into my life, and told me, Paul, the one who had killed Christians, that I was called to go and declare the resurrection power of the man I used to persecute and hate. I was dead; I was the worst of the worst. I was the most brutal of the filthy sinners, BUT GOD, who is so rich in mercy. YOU WERE, BUT GOD.

And that’s exactly how he described it in Ephesians 2:4. He says, BUT GOD, who is so rich in mercy, loved us so much that even though YOU WERE, God intervened. BUT GOD. Even though we were dead because of our sins, God gave us life. When did He do it? When he raised Christ from the dead and we believe in Him for salvation.

But not only did He raise Christ up, He also “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” Ephesians 2:6

He takes dead folk and raises them. He takes enslaved folk and seats them with Christ in heaven. He takes condemned folk and saves them from judgment. Grace is God’s complete answer to the moral destruction of the human race. It is so complete that nothing else could ever be added to it. “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him” (Heb. 7:25). Kayla Newman might say, what Jesus did for us was ON FLEEK! His salvation is perfect in every way.

So Paul says YOU WERE, BUT GOD, and finally, BY GRACE. How did God do what He did? BY GRACE. Here is a verse that can completely change your life, if you are lost, if you are hurting, if you are desperate, if you are afraid, if you are angry, if you are dead in your sins. He say “For by grace you have been saved through faith...” YOU WERE, BUT GOD, BY GRACE. Not by religion, but BY GRACE. Not by human efforts, but BY GRACE. Not by your perfection, but BY GRACE. Not by your goodness, but BY GRACE. Not by your works, but BY GRACE. Not by your power, but BY GRACE. Not by your money, but BY GRACE. Not by your looks, but BY GRACE. No by your parents, but BY GRACE. Not by the preacher, but BY GRACE. It was BY GRACE. Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. ’Twas grace. ’tis God’s grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

And Jesus on the cross hung between two criminals. One hurled insults at him and said, you saved others, save us and save yourself. But another one, who knew he was guilty, looked on and said, this man has done nothing wrong. And Jesus looked at this man, who didn’t do a good work, didn’t join a local church, didn’t give an offering, didn’t be baptized, didn’t help a little woman cross the road, he looked at a man who didn’t do any type of religious work, who was guilty, and BY GRACE, Jesus said to him, today, you will be with me in paradise.

YOU WERE, BUT GOD, BY GRACE. I wish somebody came here to help me preach and not just look good in your Easter best. I know somebody here, you were dead in your sins, you were hurting, you were broken, but you've been changed by the grace of God. And I know there are others of you here, you're not just here just to watch an Easter service, you're here because, at this moment, you come to recognize there is something missing in your life, you are desperate for something more. Lemme tell you what it is. You're desperate for a but God moment. Because in one moment, one prayer, one Savior can change everything. When you call on the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus, he hears your prayers, he forgives your sins, you're made right with God, not by your good works, but by His grace. You are not here by accident. You are here by grace, for His grace, to experience His grace. Amazing Grace.