By Grace You Have Been Saved

Rapport

Background/Context

Reading of Scripture

Prayer

Introduction

1. By Grace you have been saved from death

Dead

And you were dead in the tresspasses and sins in which you once walked.

Dead.

That is the state of all humanity apart from Christ.

And today, that is either your current state or that was your state.

Because this text is universal to make sure no one can escape from its conviction but its also personal

Its looking directly at You,

YOU were dead in the tresspasses and sins in which YOU once walked.

And this is talking to Christians so primarily its talking to us who have been born again.

We were all dead, no matter if you were saved at age 6 or age 96 we all had the same state prior to Christ and that was death.

No matter how righteous you thought you were, no matter how perceivedly better you were than most people the fact of the matter is you were a walking and talking spiritual corpse full of death and rotting away.

That death was caused by our own sin, we all ultimately sin under Adam but we needed no help from him.

Romans 6:23 ESV

For the wages of sin is death,

Genesis 2:16–17 ESV

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

And Romans 3:23 says and so does our text that all have sinned.

Romans 3:23 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

So if the wages of sin is death and we have all sinned then we were all dead.

That sin as we see here comes from a variety of sources

World

Look back with me at the text,

We see in verse 2 us “following the course of this world.”

This world system we live in is constantly drawing us away from God and into sin. The whole thing is set up to be an idol factory because our hearts are idol factories so we create things that take away from God’s spot on the throne of our hearts.

We also see the devil.

Devil

Ephesians 2:2 ESV

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—

Satan is ruling with his demonic forces right now. Sometimes we forget he is there but he is the prince of the power of the air and is in authority ruling against every good and perfect thing from God.

The air here refers to the spiritual realm where the devil and his demons exercise their authority and tempt us to sin and lure us into sin.

I think with Satan or as it says here, the Prince of the Power of the Air we can fall into two main categories:

First we give him too much credit and take none of our own. The devil made me do it is not always true, as we will see in a minute we do a great job on our own of sinning. We don’t need his help but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t entice us or use this evil world system he set up to lure us into sin.

Or we give him none which is also dangerous.

1 Peter 5:8–9 ESV

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith,

Does that sound like someone we should ignore.

If you knew a lion was chasing you and your family don’t you think you’d try to do something about it.

There is a reason we are given tools later in Ephesians to protect against him.

Ephesians 6:10–18 ESV

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;

If the Lord is urging us here to put on the armor of God to withstand the devil then we should take his warning and put on the armor!

And we arent just tempted by the world and the devil but as we see in James and here we are tempted by our own flesh.

So the devil made me do it is not a valid excuse!

Flesh

Ephesians 2:3 ESV

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.

James 1:14–15 ESV

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

We see the word passions here in verse three and it literally means an evil craving or lust, or a self indulgent craving that displaces proper affections for God

And those desires and crvings come from our flesh or as a commentator called it our seat of sin and rebellion to God.

And we are carrying out what we want to do what our mind and body desire. This is ultimately contrary to everything God desires for us. When our flesh is leading the way apart from salvation we are always going to be living in sin.

But no matter the source it all falls at our feet and our head in wrath.

We have stored up wrath for ourselves and caused our own spiritual death.

We deserve to be punished ultimately for this sin.

We don’t just store up wrath we are seen in Ephesians as characterized by it or identified by it:

Ephesians 2:3 ESV

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.

Maybe move this up. Feels out of place

As Creator and King God is rightfully lawmaker and he has set limits to our freedoms not in order to keep us unhappy in any way but to keep us pure and holy for his names sake.

and the most commonly used word for sin in the bible is translated as “to miss the mark, fail in duty” when it comes to God’s commands

In some form or fashion sin is failing to meet God’s standards and that is universal.

God is infinitely holy God and we are called in Leviticus and 1 Peter to be Holy as God is holy which is a command that we have all failed at and apart from being as Holy as God you are deserving of death and spiritually you are dead from the moment of your first sin.

So why is this important to know well I think it is two fold and both should lead us as Christians to praise God more:

First, we need to truly understand what we have been rescued from. The evangelical church has diminished the power of the Gospel. We have turned the Gospel and our savior Jesus into a self help book for a better life. People now say, do you have anxiety Jesus is your peace. Are you tired? Jesus is your energy. Are you sad? Jesus can make you happy. And all of that is absolutely true! But it also falls short of our ultimate need for Christ.

You have sinned against an infinitely Holy God and because of that you not only deserve eternal death but you were dead according to this text.

And you are guilty of the whole law according to James even by one sin.

James 2:10 ESV

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

You didn’t need a therapist to make you feel better

you needed a sinless savior

You didn’t need a better life now

You needed a savior who lived the perfect life that you could never live

You didn’t need a recipe for success

You needed a sinless savior to die on the cross as a perfect spotless lamb to be your atonement

You didn’t need lessons on how to sin less

you needed a savior who knew no sin to be sin so that in him you might become the righteousness of God.

Thats what you needed. He didn’t give you a better life he gives you life itself!!!

The more we understand our sin and prior state and what Christ did on the cross the more we should love our savior.

Do you remember in Luke 7 where Jesus is eating with the Pharisees and a prostitute came in and began to clean jesus feet with ointment, her tears and hair and the pharisees were saying he must not be a prophet to let her do this and he looks at peter and says this.

Luke 7:41–48 ““A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.””

Remember your sins, not for discouragement but remember the mountain of guilt you have been forgiven, ask the Lord to show you how much those sins cost on the cross and stand at the foot of that cross where your sinless savior bore the wrath for them. See the blood running down his body, his agony and pain all because of your sin and the wrath you deserved.

If you do that, its impossible not to fall deeper in love with our savior!

And reason number two we need to learn about our sinful dead state apart from Christ is to understand that it is impossible for you to have responded to the gospel on your own.

As a Hunter, when you shoot a deer most of the time when you walk up on it you poke it with your gun or bow to make sure that it is indeed dead and when you poke it either does not respond to stimuli and is dead or jumps and runs and you need a new pair of hunting pants.

The point is, dead people can’t make themselves live, dead people can’t respond to stimuli.

Apart from Christ, you were dead, and as later in Ephesians 2 says Ephesians 2:12

Ephesians 2:12 ESV

having no hope and without God in the world.

You were a hopeless dead man or woman

BUT GOD

2. By Grace you have been saved to Life

No matter how much you reason or how great the preacher was without the spirit making you alive, opening your eyes to the gospel, take out your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh

Without the But and without the God who is full of grace, mercy and love you were hopeless but Praise God for the But amen?

You had no hope, but God in all his attributes before the foundation of the World, chose you, marked you as his own and said, I won’t let him die, I won’t let her die, And it has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with my mercy, my love, and my.

So lets look at all those attributes of God that led to our salvation and praise him for it.

Rich in Mercy

The definition of the Word Mercy here can also be translated as compasion or pity.

Mercy in the oxford language dictionary means compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or har.

Do you think it is within God’s power to punish or harm you, do you think you deserved that punishment or harm, well if you don’t by now then I may have missed the mark.

You are deserving of punishment but God in his mercy has reached down to you and given you Mercy

and says that he is being rich in mercy that means he is not just being merciful but he is actually characterized or has the quality of mercy

and its not just a little Mercy he is rich in it and my oh my he must be rich in it to forgive a sinner like me or you!

ADD VERSES ABOUT MERCY

Because of the great love with which he loved us

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

I shouldn’t have to say much more here Should i?

Our infinitely Holy God who did not need us to complete something about him he was infinitely happy apart from creation and in perfect harmony with the son and spirit in eternity.

But yet, God sent that son to die on a cross so that we might become Children of his.

If that isnt’ great love or remarkable love, I don’t know what is.

John 15:13 ESV

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

But those are friends Jesus is referring too. How much more are we love by God that he died for us while we were his enemies?

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Sin not only has killed us but it put us at emnity with God.

God cannot be friends with darkness. Because of our sin we were in rebellion and an enemy og God.

While we were sinners and an enemy God sent his only son. His perfect son to die for us.

Let that sink in.

If you ever question God’s love for you and you are saved then just think about that fact.

We too often think of ourselves as basically good. In God’s eyes you were his enemy.

Jesus Thank you, a great song, says “Once your enemy, now seated at your table, Jesus Thank you”

Amen, I was an enemy of God and he chose me to sit at his table not because of anything I had done but because he called me to himself and sees the righteousness of Christ instead of my filthy rags. His blood has washed away my win. Jesus Thank you!

That is love.

You deserved wrath, you deserved hell, you deserved death and yet God has sovereignly, loved you!

And now because of Christ loves you as a father and calls you children of God.

1 John 3:1 ESV

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

Amen! Our father loved us and rescued us from death.

By Grace you have been saved

Ephesians 2:5 ESV

even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

By grace you have been saved to life!

We have already established that we were dead and we needed salvation.

We have already seen that we are saved by his mercy and because of his love but most of all we are saved by his Grace!

Romans 5:21 ESV

so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So what is grace?

Most people give a simple answer.

Grace is unmerited favor. Praise God for that unmerited favor its true

We don’t deserve God’s favor we deserve God’s wrath.

but I think it falls short.

A definition I was given a long time ago has stuck with me more over the years because it resonates in my heart a little more true.

UPDATE THIS below

Grace is a settled determination in the sovereign mind of God to do eternal good to those who deserve eternal punishment.

Amen, we deserved eternal punishment and he has gifted us eternal good!

Another definition that stuck with me had a tagline at the end of it that resonated with me, “especially to the benefit of the recipient regardless of the benefit accrued to the disseminator.

We do good works for God as we will talk about later but we could never repay or truly benefit God apart from him.

we can’t repay him and thats why we call it Grace. See God expects your life in return but not to earn his grace, he expects it as a change in your heart state.

You could never have earned the grace of God.

He blesses us because he chooses too not because we deserve it.

Grace is a force that acted upon us outside of our will. Our will is to do the will of our father and our father was the devil as Jesus told the pharisees.

You had no hope and only by God’s grace did you come to know his son as your savior.

ADD MORE

Which brings us to point 3. By Grace you have been saved as a gift

3. By Grace you have been saved as a Gift

Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV

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.

Not your own doing. No matter how many times we hear that, no matter how many times we see that, we feel that, our pride still tries to tell us that we did something.

Let this next section destroy your pride and give praise to your savior.

As we talked about earlier, you were dead, there was nothing that you could do to save yourself. You can’t make yourself alive.

This clearly takes your salvation out of your hands. This is not your own doing.

Some ask whether the faith is a gift or the grace is a gift and I would say yes.

They both are a gift, you could never do anything apart from grace.

Romans 9:11–16 ESV

though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

add section about works done neither good nor bad.

Romans 3:24 ESV

and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

Romans 5:15 ESV

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.

Romans 11:5–6 ESV

So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

By Grace you have been saved for Eternal Life(Could probably include this in the one above,

By Grace you have been saved for Good works

Sin leads to death. It is a good work to put those sins to death.

Maybe add at the end that grace is also an influence or a force or power or an acting of God that works in us to change our capacities for work and suffering and obedience.