Sola Gratia (Eph 2:1-10)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please open it to Ephesians 2:1-10.

As you turn there, I’ll catch you back up to where we are in the series.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on a series through the Five Solas—statements that had become rallying cries for the Reformation and are still rallying cries for Protestant churches to this day.

With that said, we started the series with a lot of historical background to get us all into the shoes of the average person who lived during the Reformation era—we learned about the darkness of the time, the corruption in the RCC, the lack of Gospel proclamation because the Gospel had been hidden under a veil of works.

So far in this series, we’ve dealt with two of the five solas—sola Scriptura and sola fide.

We discussed what was meant by sola Scriptura—that the final authority in the Christian life is really Scripture itself. We talked about what is meant when we say that Scripture is inspired and the importance of recognizing Scripture’s sufficiency.

Last week we dealt with Sola Fide—that salvation is by faith alone. We learned that the term faith isn’t really hyper-spiritual or esoteric, but is rather defined as trust—trust in God’s promises, trust in Jesus’ ability to save, trust that the Holy Spirit indwells and seals us until the Day of Redemption.

This morning, we’re dealing with sola gratia (by grace alone). And like last week, I think it might be important to explain what exactly we mean by grace before digging in:

Grace is a word that we frequently mention and talk about in church settings, but rarely do we take the time to define what exactly we mean by grace; and yet, without defining grace, we can’t fully comprehend grace.

Often, the primary definition used is that of unmerited favor. I think that’s a fair definition, but I do think it could be a little vague.

We typically have a good understanding of what we mean by favor, but if you don’t, its concerns itself with God giving mercy, giving peace, or whatever else it might be—in the five solas mentality, it’s really tied into the idea of salvation—that God gifting us salvation is favor being shown to us.

I then think what needs to be focused on when considering the idea of grace is the concept of it being unmerited—so yes, it’s God showing us favor, but also, it’s Him showing us favor despite us not earning it; despite us not deserving it.

That’s the concept when we’re thinking of grace—that it is God’s kindness on us even though we don’t deserve it. It is His love and mercy shown to us even though we haven’t earned it. It is His favor on His people, not because of His people, but because of who He is.

Of course, that does mean that there is a connection between sola fide and sola gratia—in fact, when people teach through the Five Solas, they’re often combined to save time, but I think it’s worth reflecting on grace in a deeper way more often, which is why I decided to keep these two weeks separate.

With that said, let’s read Ephesians 2:1-10 together.

Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV

1 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.

As we study this passage today, we’re going to break the sermon into two parts: (1) Sola Gratia in Ephesians 2:1-10 and (2) Sola Gratia during the Reformation and Today. The idea that I hope you see this morning is that true Christianity is a religion of grace—and thus, give praise for Jesus’ grace over your life and live in light of the grace that He gives.

The goal for this morning is for you to understand God’s grace a little more and then allow that understanding of God’s grace to actually influence your life positively.

Prayer for Illumination

Sola Gratia in Ephesians (1-10)

Let me start by giving a little bit of historical background as we jumped into Ephesians without much background.

Ephesus was a large city in the Roman Empire that was known partly due to its large association with the Greek goddess Artemis, who was the goddess of the hunt and childbirth.

In fact, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Of course, knowing that there was such Pagan worship in the city of Ephesus explains why Paul would need to emphasize the new life in Jesus Christ and how following Jesus influences the way these believers were to interact in Christian settings as they are opposed to the Pagan rituals done in service to Artemis.

It also amplifies why Paul would spend time reminding them of how God has truly changed them and brought them from death to life, but we’ll come back to that idea later.

The church in Ephesus is mentioned several times throughout the NT.

For instance, the church in Ephesus is the church in which several new believers who had practiced magic brought their books to burn them in front of everyone in Acts 19.

It’s also where Priscilla and Aquilla discipled Apollos in Acts 18 and where Timothy pastored in 1 Timothy 1:3.

Of course, one of the letters in Revelation 2 was written to the church in Ephesus, who according to Jesus had left their first love.

Now, our text in Ephesians 2 starts by dealing with our previous state—dead in sin (1-3)—and there are really no ifs, ands, or butts about it—the text is clear on what we are prior to our salvation.

We were dead—and that’s dealing primarily from a spiritual perspective—spiritually, prior to salvation, we are dead.

And it was our trespasses and sins—the fact that we were chained down in sin—that caused us to be dead spiritually.

And in our walk in sins and trespasses, we were following the world.

I can’t stress how important it is to understand this concept of being completely dead in our sins and trespasses is—we weren’t on the death bed, we weren’t fluctuating between life and death, we were dead—and until Jesus regenerated us, we remained dead.

Prior to salvation, we all lived in our flesh and we all followed the desires of our bodies and our minds and that was the result of and it also resulted in us being “children of wrath, [just] like the rest of mankind.” In reality, the Bible says that prior to salvation, we were following the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

This clarifies the juxtaposition between who we were prior to salvation and who we are after salvation—and I do want to be clear that what the Bible is teaching here is radically different than what the world around us teaches and understanding this truth, helps to see why universalism is false.

The world will often teach one of two ideas: either (1) it’ll teach that all humans are born as tabula rasas (blank slates) and they live and behave based off of what they learn as they grow up or (2) the world will teach that people are genuinely good with some evil tendencies on occasion. Both of those ideas actually oppose Scripture:

For instance, Scripture teaches that we’re all born in original sin, not as blank slates—we’re all born predisposed towards sinful tendencies.

The Bible teaches that until we’re saved, we that we aren’t genuinely good with some evil tendencies, but rather genuinely evil and wicked—what we call the total depravity of mankind—not that man is as evil as he possibly could be, but that the influence of sin has corrupted every aspect of a person.

Or dealing with Universalism, universalism teaches that everyone regardless of repentance and belief is saved—a universalist coming from a pseudo-Christian position would say that Jesus is too loving to allow anyone at all to receive punishment for their sins.

Of course, that only works if you ignore the attributes of God concerning His justice and His righteousness and His truthfulness.

Coming back to Ephesians 2, because of the radical change done by Jesus through the Holy Spirit by grace, you have moved from one position described as totally depraved to another.

The illustration in Ephesians is that of going from death to life; and Ephesians isn’t the only book that uses this illustration, in fact, Jesus does in John 5:24–25 “24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. 25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, a time is coming and even now has arrived, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

And really, what we see throughout the Bible is the desperate need for God to do something for us on behalf of us.

Because until Jesus does something for us, we serve the “prince of the power of the air” and we are children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

There are no truly neutral persons—you either serve Jesus or you serve the deceiver.

Now, because of our deadness in sin, we need Jesus to revive us and He does this revival, this regeneration within us as an act of His love and mercy. We see this in vv. 4-7, which speaks about God’s love for us (4-7). “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ.”

Even though we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ.

In our salvation, we’re united with Christ in ways that change us in greater ways than we typically realize—and while time prohibits us from going into great detail about it today, it’s a topic that’s worth studying at greater length and if you’re interested in that topic, we can talk about it later or I can recommend some resources for it.

In uniting us to the resurrected Christ, we receive life through Christ who has saved us in an act of grace because of God’s love for us.

Again, I can’t stress how big of a deal this really is when you consider the concept of being dead. Dead things don’t receive new life in and of themselves—it’s God who gives that life to those who believe.

And, in doing so, He shows us the “immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

In saving His people, He shows us more of who He is—God reveals Himself at a greater level through how He saves undeserving sinners.

And in reviving us—in regenerating us, our ontological nature—who we are changes from death to life, from children of wrath to children of God, from those who were sons of disobedience to those who love Jesus as seen in their obedience.

We’re no longer dead, but rather in our New State—we are alive in Christ (8-10).

And again, note how the text highlights that this wasn’t through our own work or our own effort, but through faith in vv. 8-10. There are some significant implications when you consider this truth:

Because Jesus has saved us as a free gift we cannot boast in ourselves—as I mentioned last week, we tend to boast in our own accomplishments as we set up more and more celebrations of milestones in our own life, but salvation isn’t our accomplishment, it’s Jesus’ accomplishment in us—so, don’t boast in yourself, boast in Jesus Christ.

And because Jesus has saved us as a free gift our walk ought to be different as He has transformed us from the inside-out—we live in a Christian culture that emphasizes easy believism, which is the mistaken view that salvation is just saying a prayer and not actually repenting or just claiming belief but not actually showing any sort of fruit. The issue is that Scripture is abundantly clear that those who do genuinely believe are transformed and thus, should be growing and maturing as God through the Holy Spirit sanctifies us to be the form that He intended us to be.

Jesus regenerates us, saves us, and sanctifies us as a free gift not because of us, but because we are His and He is gracious to His people.

According to v. 10, “we are his workmanship” or His creation and we were created for the purpose of good works, which God had prepared before for the purpose of us walking in the good works.

Or, in other words, from before creation, God prepared our good works that we would do in Christ Jesus as His creation.

Not for our own desires and lusts but for HIs own purposes and He does this because of His love and in His grace.

Transition: Paul as he writes to the Ephesians church reminds the the Christians there that salvation is something that they didn’t and couldn’t earn—thus, they ought to live in light of grace itself. In the case of the Ephesians, that idea of living in light of the grace of God included concepts of living in unity because they were one in Jesus Christ, walking in love, and preparing for spiritual warfare.

Now, remember the Five Solas were coined as a result of the Reformation, so let’s talk about the Reformation and Sola Gratia. In the 1500s, the Reformers realized that our salvation was purely by grace alone, but that wasn’t being taught by the church; and that’s pretty significant because it deals with salvation itself.

Sola Gratia during the Reformation and Today

Sola Gratia and the Reformation

The reality is that any works-based religion is the exact opposite of a grace-based religion.

And the reasoning for that is rather simple—if you have to work or do something for your salvation, it isn’t something that is freely given—it’s no longer unmerited favor from the Lord.

The prime illustration to prove this point is that of a present that you would gift someone—if you expect them to pay you for that gift, it’s no longer a gift.

If you give someone something, but expect them to give you something in return (whether that’s money, time, or whatever else it might be), it’s not a gift, it’s a transaction.

Biblical salvation isn’t transactional between you and God, it’s a gift from God to you through Jesus Christ.

And there are many examples of works-based religions that fit this category. During the Reformation, while religions like Islam did exist, the primary focus from a western standpoint is the Roman Catholic Church, which is a works-based religion.

Now, on the flip-side of all that, if salvation isn’t by grace alone, we wouldn’t be able to earn enough favor for our salvation anyways.

Just think about it—we already start life with a bent towards sin due to our original sin, which was passed down to us from Adam.

None of us if we’re honest live perfectly without sin even if we think that we’re spiritually mature people.

Just that alone would disqualify us.

In addition, Jesus says in John 15:4–5 that we need to “4 Remain in [Him], and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

So there’s really nothing that we can do apart from Jesus anyways.

The Reformers realized that and fought to correct the false teaching of the Church.

Sola Gratia Today

Like last week’s sermon, there are plenty of churches and Christians that don’t live and act in the manner that they claim to—i.e., though they would say that they preach grace alone, they often don’t act like it:

I don’t think I necessarily have to work through those examples again this week as I did last week because I think most of us have ideas of churches and professed Christians who live in a way that’s graceless.

What I will say, from a Reformed perspective—if we truly understood the Gospel, Reformed theology, or whatnot—we would recognize that apart from grace, we have nothing and couldn’t do anything to change that.

With that said, if we believe that all that we have is really only due to God’s graciousness towards us, it should cause us to be gracious people, but I’ll come back to that in our application.

Transition: Christianity is a faith that is based on God’s grace. Anything contrary to this isn’t true Christianity. And knowing that our faith is by grace alone has several implications for us, but I really want to highlight two that I believe correlate directly with Ephesians 2:1-10. (1) Praise Jesus for His grace and (2) Start living like someone covered in His grace.

Application

First, Christianity is a grace-based religion, so Praise Jesus for His Grace

Again, we don’t earn our own salvation

And the reality is that we simply never could earn our own salvation.

So, with that in mind, though it’s a tendency to try and work for our salvation—we can really only rest in Jesus’ ability to save us.

And truthfully, if we try to continue earning our salvation, it really reveals a heart that doesn’t trust Jesus’ substitutionary atonement as being sufficient for us.

We’re given salvation as a free gift because of God’s grace

With that in mind—since we can’t earn it and yet God gives it to us, we really need to take as many moments as we possibly have to just give thanks and praise Jesus for His grace.

Really, if you truly understand how salvation works, you would understand that we often take grace for granted, which we shouldn’t.

We should give thanks and praise the Lord every opportunity that we can for His grace.

Give thanks and praise Jesus for His grace

Second, Christianity is a grace-based religion, so Live like someone covered by Grace—what that looks like is simple and includes the thanksgiving just mentioned. I’d suggest there are three ideas that are worth considering in conjunction with Ephesians; however, this isn’t comprehensive: (1) Keep rejecting sin and keep repenting, (2) keep following Jesus, and (3) learn to be gracious.

Keep rejecting sin and keep repenting from it

There’s a misunderstanding about repentance today in that many people seem to think that it’s a one-time thing—usually when they said a prayer or first believed, but that’s really not the case.

Repentance is a continual process in which the believer continuously needs to keep turning away from their sin and keep turning towards Jesus.

Because we cannot be perfected—without sin—on this side of eternity, repentance is a continuous process—and continuing to repent is part of living as someone covered by grace.

Keep following Jesus

This sounds like it ought to be common sense and yet, because of certain teachings in our modern era, there’s again, a false belief in which people think that just saying a prayer or just claiming to be a Christian is sufficient—even if you don’t actually show any of the fruit that grows as you follow Jesus.

But the NT repeatedly reminds us that if you’re truly a believer, there will be fruit that backs up or proves your belief—of course, some who wanted to push back against this idea would argue “well, what about the man on the cross,” but that’s really not as much of a gotcha moment as you think it would be—he died shortly after his profession of faith.

The vast majority in the US aren’t dying as soon as they make a profession of faith—so, what’s their excuse for not showing fruit?

Continuing to follow Jesus is part of living as someone covered by grace.

Finally, learn to be gracious—both to yourself and to others.

To yourself—we usually tend to be rather hard on ourselves in terms of life in general.

To some extent we ought to be—we should push ourselves

Occasionally, we might be harder on ourselves than we ought to be—it causes discouragement, depression, etc.

God has given you grace—learn when to be hard on yourself; and learn when to be gracious to yourself.

To others—we tend to be more gracious to others than to ourselves, except when we know them well.

To some extent, we can set expectations for other people.

Occasionally, we might be harder on others than we ought to be—this causes anger, discouragement, depression, possible disunity and disruption.

God has given you grace—learn to be gracious to other people.

Friends, Christianity is a grace-based religion. Anything less and anything more isn’t true Christianity.

Thus, learn to live in light of the grace of God—be gracious and love Him more because of His grace.

Pastoral Prayer