Trophy of Grace

Acts 20:32 (ESV)

32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Acts 20:32

Ephesians 2:1-10 (ESV)

“2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Eph 2:1–10.

The Setup: Saved by Grace + Sanctified by Grace = Trophy of Grace

Grace, what a wonderful word! We all know it and have heard it at least a dozen times by now. So of course, we are going to talk about it again. We are all familiar with the idea that we are saved by grace right? Afterall, there is an entire song about Amazing Grace! But today, we are going to look at two concepts, sanctified by grace and trophy of grace. You might be thinking how does grace sanctify and how is it a trophy? And I would say, those are really good questions that we will begin to answer in Acts 20:17-32 if you could turn there in your Bibles.

First, some context. Paul is in Miletus and is on his way to Jerusalem. He has been away for three years preaching and building churches. At this point in Paul’s ministry, he knows that by going to Jerusalem he will be imprisoned. Before he gets on the ship he calls the elders of Ephesus to him. He gives them some last words of wisdom and encouragement. The verse that really pops here is verse 32: “And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”

Pauls commends, or entrusts, the leaders to God’s care and to the word of His grace which is able to help them spiritually grow in faith, otherwise known as sanctification. Paul is saying that not only does God’s grace save us, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but grace also sanctifies us.

Grace is defined as mercy, approval, favor, the disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency, unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification, and a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance. Grace does four things: grace shows us mercy and favor, grace saves us, through faith in Jesus Christ, and grace regenerates and sanctifies us, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

To start to bring this together, turn to Ephesians 2:1-10:

“2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Eph 2:1–10.

This is Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and he is writing this to them from jail. He starts chapter 2 out with a description of who they and we were, who we used to be. This is a description of the unsaved and unsanctified: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

This was us at some point in our lives. But through God’s grace we were saved, Ephesians 2:4-5 “4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—”

Grace brought Jesus and made us alive in Him. Grace saved us! Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God”. That’s only half of the meaning of grace. Through grace we are also regenerated, made new, and through grace we are sanctified. How does this happen? Since grace brought Jesus to save us, grace also brought the Holy Spirit to sanctify us, to make us holy. God desires us to be holy as He is, so He made a process for us to become holy.

That process is called sanctification which is the state of growing in divine grace as part of our salvation. We were and are sinners, that makes us not holy. So to dwell with God we must become holy. This is where the Holy Spirit comes in. Jesus’ blood washes us clean of our sins which opens the door for the Holy Spirit to come dwell within us. Grace made that possible. Without grace we wouldn’t be able to come near God or to live with Him. Now sanctification is not a one and done deal, although many of us wish it was. It's a process, God seems to really like using processes when dealing with us. I think that is mostly for our own benefit. We get beat down and hurt, wounded, etc. from our sin and the nature of a fallen world.

So it takes a process to heal and renew what is many times a lifetime of pain and sin. We probably wouldn’t be able to handle God knocking it all out at once. Again, that’s the grace of God. Because we are justified by this grace we have access to eternal life and to live a Holy Spirit filled life on this earth to fulfill the purpose for which we were created.

To undergo this process of sanctification through the Holy Spirit we must yield to the Spirit. When we yield to Spirit, we are regenerated into a new creation. Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

God has good works prepared for us. That is our purpose in this life, to do what God has prepared for us. The Holy Spirit, though the grace of God, equips us for every good work. To access those gifts and to be made holy, we must yield ourselves to the spirit. By doing so, we are changed and transformed. We are no longer the people we once were. We are no longer dead, but alive. We become through the process, a Trophy of Grace.