It is by Grace

Please open your Bibles to Ephesians 2.

A sermon of review.

We come today to the heart of the gospel.

Read Ephesians 2:8-9- “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Pray.

Let’s explore our text one phrase at a time.

1. By grace you have been saved.

Here we find what Paul has been stating all along, over and over.

Ever since calling the believers Saints, Paul has been hammering in the idea that God’s people are God’s people because of God.

Throughout the first two chapters up to this point, Paul has repeatedly highlighted the action and prerogative of God.

Every word written by Paul concerning man apart from God illustrates him as both passively and actively rejecting the God and embracing sinfulness.

Salvation by grace means that grace is both:

Undeserved.

To deserve something means that who we are presently is good enough to merit something.

Our present status, apart from anything that we DO, entitles us to something.

For many, they think that our salvation and God’s love toward us are owed simply because we are human beings who on occasion make morally right decisions.

Romans 2:4-5- “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

Stated quite simply, we are not entitled to God’s love or salvation merely because we are human.

Rather, because of our humanity, we find ourselves sinners storing up God’s wrath. This is what we deserve.

Unearned.

To earn something means that we have accomplished a goal for which we are owed some sort of payment.

For some, then, they believe that their good behaviors and their holy habits will earn God love and salvation.

If salvation by grace is unearned, then it must follow that even our acts of what seems like righteousness may not be all that righteous.

Is it possible that we can do righteous works unrighteously?

1 Corinthians 13:1-2- “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

Absolutely possible to do great works that mean nothing.

Prophet Isaiah calls our works of righteousness filthy rags- why? Because apart from Christ, we are not righteous.

Aletheia wanting to wrestle. She convinces herself that she can take me, that she will somehow win. She won’t. It’s not reality.

In the same way, don’t we always try to make ourselves into something we aren’t when it comes to righteousness?

Oscar Joseph- “Men will glory in their virtues before God; they flaunt the rags of their own righteousness, if any such pretext, even the slightest, remains in them. We sinners are a proud race, and our pride is oftentimes the worst of our sins.”

Romans 11:6- “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”

Thus we are reminded this morning that our salvation depends on grace alone, not on who we are or what we have done.

2. Through faith.

We receive salvation by grace, through faith.

We are not saved by faith. Meaning, it is not our faith which saves us.

Remember, this is all grace, faith included.

If we were saved by our faith, then we would claim something to boast in. A stronger faith would cause us to well up with pride.

Instead, we are saved through faith. Faith is the vehicle.

Faith is like a syringe that delivers the medicine of God’s grace to us.

Faith is our aligning ourselves to something else. It is our ability to see our own emptiness and the power of God to save, made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Isaiah 45:22- “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.”

Turn to God, align yourself with Him, seek after Him. There is no other direction worth looking. Reminded of Peter- Where else would we go?

John Calvin- “Faith, then, brings a man empty to God, that he may be filled with the blessings of Christ.”

Faith in anything requires an emptiness of self, an end to our self-dependency.

Faith in Jesus allows for the receiving of the blessings of Jesus, the various graces of Jesus, if you will.

Thus, faith has everything to do with the object of faith.

3. This is not your own doing.

What is not our your own doing?

Grace and faith do not match the gender of the word for “this” so it’s likely not talking about either of those in particular.

Instead, “this” likely covers all of what happens in our salvation.

We are saved by God’s free gift of grace received through faith in Jesus.

ALL of this is not your own doing, ALL of this is a gift of God.

ALL of this cancels out our boasting.

4. So that no one may boast.

What would cause boasting? What would make us brag about ourselves?

If salvation was deserved or earned. Then we would have something positive to say for ourselves.

Interesting what is meant by boasting.

Word used to describe what happened in military bodies before going to battle.

Two armies standing on opposite sides- What is going to cause a person to run across the battlefield and fight? The prospect of victory.

This Greek word describes what generals would do to enliven their army.

They’d begin to boast about their own strength, their might, their size, their power.

They knew that if the soldiers didn’t believe they could win, they would not fight well.

Notice what happens in boasting of this sort- one person believes themselves to be over someone else, stronger, higher, smarter, mightier.

Boasting like this creates a disdain for others.

Those who consider themselves smarter naturally have a disdain for those who are less intelligent. Same with strength.

So, Paul says that we have no reason to boast because of who we are or anything that we have done.

Salvation by grace through faith leaves no room for boasting.

But…we are made to boast. We are made to proclaim greatness.

We are to rightly understand the rest of Ephesians, knowing that every day, spiritual battle is waged.

So what gets us into the battle?

Paul, in his theology and understanding of God, never says to not boast, he says not to boast in our own selves and accomplishments.

Galatians 6:14- “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

We boast in our God and His accomplishments.

We wage spiritual battles because God has gone before us, speaking truth over us. We are His, we are loved, we are saved, we are sustained, we are called, we are chosen, we are predestined, we are cherished, we are victors in Christ.

We join in with God boasting over all that God has done on our behalf and we find ourselves ready to wage war, to do battle, to spread God’s Kingdom throughout a world of darkness and chaos.

We may not boast in ourselves, we absolutely must boast in our God.

5. Some really great news.

God’s grace leads us to a life of praise.

Throughout Scripture, we are called to love God with everything, to honor and worship Him with all of who we are. It’s a very outward-pointing faith.

We struggle with such an idea of praising and honoring and worshiping another.

We crave praise. We are starving for it. But we know the danger- the more we get, the more we want.

We love to boast. Niece- “I don’t mean to brag...”

We correct it in our younger generations, in our children, and yet we find an addiction for praise within our own bodies and hearts.

When we rightly understand the grace of God, the giving of salvation to those who are undeserving and who have not earned it themselves, praise naturally flows toward God and what God has done.

Have you been around people who boast in others? People who don’t seek praise for themselves, but instead love to speak of who others are and what others have done?

There is something extremely satisfying about observing such people, something freeing about seeing the life they live.

This is because we were designed sing the praises of another. And we can live such a life. And we will live such a life, and that is really great news.

John Newton- “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise; Than when we first begun.”