Sermon Tone Analysis

*SAVING GRACE*

*Good News About Grace  *

*Part 2 of 3*

*Text: Eph 2:8-9*

                                                                                                                             1840 words

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Last week, if you recall, we looked at the acrostic G.R.A.C.E. and I said there were five aspects of ‘Saving Grace’ that we were going to look at, built around the five letters of the acrostic, and we were going to do that over three weeks.

Today is the second week.

We looked at ‘G’ last week.

Today we’re looking at ‘R’ and ‘A’ and not next week because, I’m going to be away in Ireland, but the following week, 3rd December, we’ll look at ‘C’ and ‘E’.

Who can remember from last week what ‘G’ was?

*G - GOD'S GIFT TO ME.  *Say it: ‘God’s gift to me’ That’s ‘G’

In other words grace is a free gift through Jesus Christ.

You can't earn it, you can't buy it, you can't work for it.

It has been done for you on the cross by Jesus.

He paid for your salvation; it’s already been done!

It's the greatest gift you're ever going to be offered.

And if you really understand grace, you will accept it because it is a priceless gift in your life.

‘God's gift to me’.

 

*R** - RECEIVE BY FAITH*

 

God's gift is received by faith.

Ephesians 2:8-9 that we’ve just read together says /"For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith /[circle that in your mind] /and this is not from yourselves.

It is the gift of God.

Not by works so that no one can boast."/

Faith is the key that unlocks the door to heaven.

It's just a gift but you have to receive it by faith.

If I have a gift for you and say, "Here's this gift for you.

It's £100.

Come and get it."

It will just sit there unless you come and receive it by faith.

You have to have faith that I'm going to give it to you.

He says because salvation is a gift, you can't brag about it.

If you could work your way to heaven, do you realize how miserable it would be in heaven?

Everybody would be bragging by how they got there.

We'd all be trying to "one up" each other with great stories of what great people we were on earth.

God says, "It's a grace gift, your salvation.

I just give you forgiveness free.

I give you heaven free."

So what do you do with a gift.

You can't brag about it.

You can only accept it and be grateful for it.

Romans 4:16 /"People receive God's promise/ [again circle the word "promise" in your mind] /by having faith.

/[This is the promise of salvation.]/

This happens so that the promise can be a free gift."/

Salvation isn't based on my performance.

It's based on God's promise.

It's not based on my goodness.

It's based on God's grace.

I'm getting to heaven not based on my merit but God's mercy.

That's why He gets all the credit, all the glory.

There's nothing I can do.

It's a free gift that's received by faith.

The Bible is full of stories illustrating the principle of grace.

There are many of them.

One of my favourites is in the HB.  2 Samuel 9 is a story of a young disabled boy named Mephibosheth.

Mephibosheth was the son of Jonathan, the grandson of King Saul in the HB.

Remember the story of David and Saul.

David was going to be the king.

Saul was the current king and Saul was jealous of David.

So most of David's life, Saul was trying to kill him.

He chased him all over the countryside.

David spent most of his time hiding from Saul, avoiding being killed out of jealousy.

But David never retaliated.

In fact, he became best friends with King Saul's son, Jonathan.

They made a secret covenant that if either of them ever died they would take care of each other's family.

Later on both Saul and Jonathan were killed in battle.

And David became the king.

All of Saul's relatives immediately were in fear thinking, "David, who King Saul has been trying to kill all of his life, is now in control and he's going to kill all of us."

They all tried to escape and hide.

One of them was the son of Jonathan named Mephibosheth.

As the nurse was carrying the young boy out in the escape, she dropped him.

His legs were broken and he became a paraplegic.

So here was this young disabled boy living in fear, frightened for his life that the man who was now king would retaliate against him.

One day David says, "Is there anybody still alive in Saul's household that I can show kindness to?"  (*Grace*)  They said, "Yes, there is.

There's one little boy.

He's a disabled little boy named Mephibosheth.

He cannot walk."

David said, "Bring him to me."

You can imagine the fear in Mephibosheth's heart.

Here's the king, inviting him to the court and he's thinking, "I'm going to be killed, executed.

It's over.

It's done."

But to his surprise when he arrived, David said, "I'm going to take you in, Mephibosheth, and make you a part of my family.

I want you to live here in the palace for the rest of my life.

I'm going to pay all your bills.

I'm going to meet all your needs.

You are to sit at my table each night and dine with me and I'm going to treat you just like you're one of my own sons."

*That's grace*.

The Bible says that God comes to us and we're broken, we're disabled in areas of our lives, crippled in some areas.

Our emotions are crippled or other things are happening in our lives and God comes and says, "I'm going to bring you into My family.

I want you to sit at My table.

I'm going to treat you like royalty, one of My own, simply out of My grace."

Remember the story that Jesus told of the prodigal son?

There was a man who had two sons.

One of them got a little anxious and was independent spirited.

He came and said, "Dad, I want you to give me my half of the inheritance."

And the dad said ok.

He split the future inheritance and gave half to the one son right then and the son took off.

He skipped town, went over to Sunset Strip in Jerusalem, started partying.

He's having a great time ‑- wine, women and song, living it up, blowing all the money.

One day he runs out of money and there's no ATM's in Jerusalem.