Grace in the Gospel

Ephesians 2:8-10

Welcome to Mountain View Baptist Church! It is wonderful to see you in church today. We are asking God to give us a wonderful day in the Lord. If you are first time guest, please be sure to stop by our welcome center to meet one of our greeters. Thank for being here.

It had snowed about a foot of snow and the kids were outside playing. The children’s pastor was struggling with trying to teach one of his Sunday School pupils about grace. Since school was out, he thought he would walk to this student’s home and explain grace to him. After he called and got permission to stop by from his mother, as he rounded the corner, the little boy threw a snowball at the preacher and hit him right in the face. Startled for a minute, he washed off his face as he knocked on the door.

His mother called him in to talk with the preacher. The preacher never said a word about the snowball which the little boy thought he would for sure. The pastor said, “You see that is grace. You don’t deserve it but you are given it freely.”

In this passage God shows us grace in the work of the gospel. We learned that the gospel is the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ two week ago. The gospel is a reminder of what Jesus did by dying on the cross.

These verses explain the exceeding riches of Christ’s grace (v.7). God in His divine power and wisdom chooses to use grace as the Biblical way of saving man. Grace has been called unmerited favor. God’s reward at Christ’s expense. This is counter to how everything in our world operates. Everything we acquire or achieve comes with a price tag. Our home, our clothes, our vehicles, and our jobs come with a price tag.

Paul shows us three ways here that grace works in salvation.

Way 1. . .

The basis of our salvation

Grace is what God the foundation of God’s work in our heart for salvation. If we have justice, we would be judged. This is why we learned What is the Gospel, that all the things we confuse to be salvation, cannot be salvation.

Years ago, a man who I was witnessing to said, “You cannot have something as good as salvation without paying for it.” It was paid for by Jesus dying on the cross, but you cannot pay for it. This means salvation does not have its source in man, but rather, its source is God’s grace.

We must have grace for our salvation. Grace means it did not cost you anything or any effort, it is given freely to us. I struggled with this concept of grace for about year after I became a Christian because it does not make sense. Why would the God of heaven love me so much that He would save me by His grace? Two reasons: 1. God’s nature is love and 2. Grace is the only acceptable basis for man being right with God.

Grace is how God chooses to operate in our lives spiritually because we are sinful and cannot pay for our sins.

Titus 3:5 “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;”

Galatians 2:16 “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”

Man at his very best state with all of his best goodness, he is still a sinner and unable to have enough goodness to save himself.

The Lord may not give gold, but he will give grace; he may not give gain, but he will give grace.

Charles Spurgeon

Nothing can be done aright without grace.

John Bunyan

Way 2. . .

The gift in salvation

While grace is the basis faith is the means in which God works. Verse 9 reinforces this work of grace is not by works or man’s effort. The first 10 verses demonstrate that though people were spiritually dead and deserving of God’s wrath, in His marvelous grace, He provided salvation through faith.

Since we have not been saved by our good works, we cannot be lost by our bad works. Grace means salvation is completely apart from any merit or works on our part. Grace means God does it all through Jesus Christ. Our salvation is a gift of God.

“Salvation is a gift and not a reward.” (Warren Wiersbe)

You don’t add works to salvation in order to be saved. Some think you have to be better to get saved, actually you get saved to get better. We are not saved by faith plus good works, but by a faith that works.

James 2:17–18 “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

Gift is not a gift if I try to pay it back. A gift is not given with the expectation of someone paying it back. If someone gives you a nice pen as a gift, you don’t try to pay them back by giving money or doing something as a payment back. God did not give us this gift of salvation so we can pay it back.

Salvation in its origin is by grace and in reception it is through faith.

Salvation is God’s gift to us because Jesus died for us on the cross. Discipleship is our gift to Him as we take up our cross, die to self, and follow the Lord in everything.

Warren W. Wiersbe

Salvation, for rich or for poor, is always a miracle of divine grace, always God’s gift.

Leon Lamb Morris

Way 3. . .

Workmanship from our salvation

Good works are not the roots from which salvation grows but the fruit that God intends it to bear. God has not saved us because of our works but He has saved us to do good works v.10.

Please notice because we are “in” Him, means we are transformed by the power of God through Jesus Christ. Because our life is in Him, we will live a different life. We have a different outlook on life.

Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Romans 8:4–5 “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.”

Our salvation is not the end; it is the beginning. We are a new creature transformed by the power of God working in us. God is forming us into the image of Christ Romans 8:29 “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? This means we turn from our sin and turn to Christ is our only personal Savior. Will you turn to HIm today?

If you are a Christian, are you allowing God to work in your life? Christ Jesus is working in our lives to bring glory to Himself through our good works. Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Christ is equipping us for our walk and work here on earth through three tools: God’s Word, prayer, and suffering.