Sins: Sins Cannot be Removed by Good Deeds
Notes
Transcript
Last week we looked the letter “O” in our acrostic…Our sins separate us from God. Let’s review the acrostic once again...
G-God Created us to be with Him
O-Our Sins Separate us from God
S-Sins Cannot be Removed by Good Deeds
P-Paying the Price for Sin Jesus Died and Rose Again
E-Everyone who Trusts in Jesus Alone has Eternal and Life
L-Life, Abundant and Eternal Can be Yours Today
Today we will take a look at the letter “S” which stands for Sins Cannot be Removed by Good Deeds.
We are reminded of this truth throughout Scripture, but join me please in Ephesians 2 this morning and notice with me...
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
First we see that...
Salvation is by God’s Grace, Not our Goodness
Salvation is by God’s Grace, Not our Goodness
If salvation is by God’s grace, it’s important to know what grace is. Someone used an acrostic to describe GRACE this way:
G-God’s
R-Riches
A-At
C-Christ’s
E-Expense
Max Anders explains GRACE this way:
Grace carries with it the idea of benevolence being bestowed on someone without that person having merited it by his actions…In spite of the fact that our actions bring deserved judgment upon ourselves, God offered us an escape. He didn’t have to, but because He loved us, He wanted to. That is grace...
Did you get that? OUR ACTIONS have earned God’s wrath, not His mercy. It has earned God’s judgement, not His grace. Yet because of WHO He is, He has offered us His grace to be forgiven of our sinful ways. The ONE we have offended, rebelled against, dishonored, and displeased…the ONE who could justly cast us from His presence for all of eternity, INITIATED a way for us to be saved and reconciled to Himself!
I’t all about GRACE, not our GOODNESS.
Another thing we see from this passage is that...
Salvation is Received by Faith, Not our Feats
Salvation is Received by Faith, Not our Feats
Salvation is provided through grace, but it received by faith.
This is how God’s grace is experienced.
Daryl Ellis put it this way:
Faith is holding up empty hands to God to receive a gift offered entirely by grace. It is looking away from one’s own ability or resources and looking entirely to God to provide salvation. Faith is, by implication, a renunciation of one’s own powers to save himself, an acknowledgement of one’s own helplessness and absolute need for God to save.
Max Anders said something similar...
He [offered] salvation to you. You did nothing but stick out a hand and accept the gift. Faith is exactly that. It is trustfully accepting from God what he has provided..Faith is giving up on being able to provide what you need for yourself and letting God give what he alone can provide.
Faith is more than just saying “I believe” in Jesus, but it is actually embracing Him as Lord and Savior. Bock said:
[Faith] recognizes that if I am to be made alive, God must provide the new life…Faith involves the abandonment of any attempt to justify oneself...
We sing “Jesus paid it all...” and that is an accurate song. Jesus did pay it all and that leads us to our next point…
Salvation is a Gift Purchased by Christ, Not Earned by Us
Salvation is a Gift Purchased by Christ, Not Earned by Us
When Jesus willingly laid down His life on the cross He did so knowing why He was going and what it was going to cost. He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before His crucifixion, and looking into the “cup” of the Father’s wrath upon sin, He sweat as if it were great drops of blood and prayed for the cup to pass from Him, but also prayed, “Not my will but thine be done!”
As He agonized for 6 hours on the cross, He willingly “gave up the ghost” and cried, “It is finished!” “TESTELESTAI.” Paid in FULL!
After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
We cannot earn salvation because it’s a debt that sinful mankind could NEVER PAY! But the eternal, sinless, Son of God, paid that debt and paid it in FULL!
One commentator said:
When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn in two, from the top to the bottom, signifying that the way to God was now open. There is no more need for earthly sacrifices. One sacrifice—the Lamb of God—has finished the great work of salvation. God did it all, and He did it by His grace.
Salvation Gives all Glory to God, and None to Us
Salvation Gives all Glory to God, and None to Us
Think about our text again in Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
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