No Room for Boasting

Martin Luther

It wasn't until the 1500s that the third branch emerged, led primarily by a passionately convicted and outspoken monk named Martin Luther.

He was born Nov. 10th, 1483, which means he would have been 500 years old when I was born 41 years ago.

In 1515, at the age of 32, Luther became a Christian.

He had been a monk for 10 years already, committing to the monastic life after getting caught in a storm one day.

For those 10 years, he lived a strict life of rigorous self-denial and extreme religious practices of fasting and self-mutilation.

Luther felt a deep sense of his sinfulness and the more he peeled away the layers, the more sin he would uncover.

It left him with intense despair and an anger toward God. "I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners...I was angry with God."

In 1515, while reading Romans 1:17 "The righteous shall live by faith" God showed Luther that the "righteousness of God" was not something he had, or could, achieve or earn, but that it was something revealed to us and given to us by God as a gift from our faith.

For the first time, Martin Luther started to see God's grace throughout the pages of the Bible and it transformed Him.

On October 31st, 1517, Luther famously posted his 95 Theses on the door of the church in Whittenburg, Germany, calling out the Catholic church for the sale of indulgences, which were ways to pay down punishment of sin for you or for someone else.

Luther was calling out the idea that we could do something to fix our relationship with God, to buy or to earn our own salvation from God's wrath.

Though it wasn't his intention, Luther had started one of the largest revival movements in the church history, which we now call the Protestant Reformation.

At the center of the movement was the idea that Salvation came only by the grace of God and was given only through faith in Jesus.

The very heart of this life-changing truth is captured in the words in Ephesians 2:8-9

Ephesians 2:1–9 CSB

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

Ephesians 2:1–9 CSB

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6 He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast.

Salvation comes...

When we hear the word "saved," we most often think about the future—about escaping hell and going to heaven.

And it certainly means that.

But here, Paul is using a past-tense verb: "you have been saved."

He is talking about a present reality.

Salvation is not just a promise for tomorrow; it is a present reality.

It has already taken place for every person who trusts in Christ.

You are not JUST going to be saved; if you are in Christ, you are saved.

This is a present, settled, and glorious reality that changes who you are today as much as it changes where you will go when you die

What does this present salvation look like?

1) By GRACE

Paul first tells us that salvation is “By Grace”.

He has already said this very statement back in verse 5 while explaining God’s mercy toward us in Christ.

Mercy and grace a interconnected ideas.

Mercy means God is withholding from us something that we deserve, namely His wrath from verse 3.

Because of our trespasses and sin and the corruption of the world we live in and our own hearts, both influenced by the dominion of the Devil, we are spiritually dead and deserving of the just wrath of God. (that’s verse 1-3 in summary).

BUT GOD! Because of His mercy, doesn’t leave us in that place. He breaks into our brokenness and makes life possible for us in Christ.

That is God’s mercy.

Grace on the other hand is God giving us something we do not deserve and could never earn.

It is the unmerited/unearned favor of God.

It is only when we understand how broken, lost, and hopeless we were before Jesus that we can understand the significance of God’s grace.

It is only when we understand that our only hope in life and in death is for God to be merciful and gracious toward us.

It is a truth that humbles us. It takes away any room for pride.

It means that the most righteous, moral, and upright person in the world is in the exact same position before God as the most broken and sinful person.

It means that every good thing we experience in life isn’t given to us because we deserve it or we earned it, but because God is a gracious giver of every good gift.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:3 “3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”

He doesn’t mean financially poor in this verse, but spiritually poor. Realizing their desperate need for God’s amazing grace.

When we are poor in spirit, we can be free from the constant struggle to feel like we are good enough, successful enough, or worthy of someone’s attention.

We can shed the wait of trying to prove ourselves, fix ourselves, or convince others we are good enough.

If frees us from feeling like we are owed something by others or by God because of what we have done or not done.

We are saved, right now and in the future, by God’s amazing grace.

2) Through FAITH

Secondly, we are saved “through faith”.

While our salvation is “by grace”, meaning it is made possible by the grace and mercy of God.

It is received “through faith”.

We are saved through believing in good news of Jesus, His life, death, resurrection, and return.

The word faith means “believing in something you cannot see and trust that God’s promises are true.”

Faith is our response to God’s grace.

It is the means or channel through which salvation is accessed.

It is an open and empty hand receiving a gift.

Biblical faith is not an intellectual effort to understand a set of facts. It is a deep, personal trust and reliance on Jesus Christ for salvation.

In John 6:22-29, after feeding the 5000 on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus had traveled to the other side of the sea.

When the people woke, they realized Jesus had left and so they decided to go looking for Him

This would have been quite a lot of work, even if only a portion of the 5000 had decided to go.

They had to gather boats, load the boats, paddle the boats across the sea, and then find Jesus.

But it was worth the effort to find the man who did such an incredible thing the day before.

When they finally get to Jesus, He says to them John 6 26

John 6:26–27 CSB

26 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. 27 Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.”

He cuts to the heart of their efforts. They hadn’t worked so hard to get to Him because they believed in Him, but because they were hungry for more free food.

He was a mean to an end for them, not the end, not the goal.

And then He offers them an invitation by means of a reproof.

“Stop working so hard for something that will never satisfy you. Instead, receive food that last forever.”

The people respond:

John 6:28 CSB

28 “What can we do to perform the works of God?” they asked.

What do we need to do Jesus? What do we need to stop doing? How much do we need to give? How long do we need to serve? What steps do we need to take?

John 6:29 NLT

29 Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”

Faith is “believing in the One He has sent”.

Believing that His Words are true and we read in this Holy Book.

Believing that His promises are true and that they are better than the promises this world has to offer, even if they don’t gratify the immediate desires of our flesh.

Believing that He is worth living for, worth giving your whole life over to Him, and that He is even worth dying for.

We are saved by His amazing grace, through our empty handed faith.

3) Without BOASTING

Finally, Paul concludes with a powerful and important warning: salvation is "not by works, so that no one can boast."

If we could be saved by our own efforts, then we would have something to brag about.

We could point to our good deeds, our piety, or our moral superiority.

But the gospel takes away all boasting.

It levels the playing field and puts us all on the same ground at the foot of the cross.

Yet, even in a world where the gospel is preached, we can find subtle and not-so-subtle ways to boast in things other than the cross. We can boast in our:

Religious Performance: We can boast in our church attendance, our Bible reading plan, our acts of service, or our knowledge of theology.

We can start to believe that our spiritual disciplines make us more righteous than others.

Moral Superiority: We can boast in our "goodness" in comparison to others.

We can look at those who are struggling with addiction, immorality, or other visible sins and thank God that we are "not like them."

We can pride ourselves on our family values, our clean living, and our respectable lives.

Material Success: We can boast in our wealth, our career achievements, or our social status.

We can subtly believe that God has blessed us more because we are more deserving or more faithful.

Intellectualism or Knowledge: We can boast in our knowledge, our education, or our ability to debate theological points.

We can rest our faith in a set of theological beliefs about God, rather than a loving relationship with a personal God.

Lack of Effort: And here’s a powerful and often overlooked form of boasting: the feeling that we are never doing enough.

This can be a form of negative boasting.

We can get so caught up in our inability to measure up that we are essentially still focused on ourselves.

We can say, "I'm not good enough, my prayers aren't long enough, I don't serve enough," and while this sounds humble, it's still rooted in a belief that our salvation depends on our performance.

It’s an inverted kind of pride, where our attention remains on our own works, even in their perceived failure, rather than on the perfect and finished work of Christ.

The problem with all of these things is that they are not the cross.

The cross is the ultimate equalizer. It is a symbol of God's radical grace and our desperate need.

When we stand at the foot of the cross, all our other boasts crumble into dust.

The only boast we are left with is the one Paul speaks of in Galatians 6:14

Galatians 6:14 ESV

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.

Who are we to boast.

We who were/are dead in our trespasses and sins.

Who were/are walking in the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the age, dominated by the passions and desires of our flesh.

And who were/are, by nature, children under God’s wrath.

It is only by God’s grace that dead people can be brought to life, that sinners can be forgiven, invited into a relationship with a great and Holy God, and showered with His kindness and grace.

It is only by God’s grace, and only through our faith in the only savior, Jesus Christ, that we can be saved and set free to live our lives in Him.

Have you received this gift through faith?

How it is influencing your life right now?

Who do you need to share this amazing grace with this week?