Untitled Sermon (32)

Turn to Ephesians 2.

I presume some of you know who this man is. 

This is Martin Luther, who, after years of theological study and life in a monastic order, had had a gospel epiphany that was transformative in his life.

His story, quickly.

Had planned to be a lawyer.  That’s what his father wanted him to be.

Horseback, thunderstorm, lightning strike knocks him off his horse, prayer to St. Anne.  Save me and I will become a monk!” 

Luther thought his brush with death was a warning from God to get right.  So more out of duty than out of devotion, he joined a monastery. 

Luther was almost neurotically obsessed with the knowledge of his own sin and guilt.  He knew that in spite of his best efforts, he continued to have impure thoughts and impure desires. 

He did everything the church told him to do to try to deal with his sin.

He would spend hours in prayer and fasting, trying to somehow rid himself of his sinful impulses and appetites.  Nothing worked. 

Luther says “I saw Christ as a terrifying judge, who had the sword of judgment above my head, and I had no peace.’

His first Mass.  He froze.  He later wrote of what he was thinking at that moment.

“Who am I,

that I should lift up mine eyes

or raise my hands

to the divine Majesty?

The angels surround Him.

At his nod, the earth trembles.

And shall a miserable little pigmy say,

‘I want this, I ask for that’?

For I am dust and ashes and full of sin

and I am speaking to the living eternal and the true God.”

After many years of being burdened by the weight of his sin, Luther was preparing a series of lectures on the book of Romans when he found himself meditating on chapter 1, verse 17:

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

‘When I read those words,

suddenly it dawned on me that the righteousness of God,

of which Paul was speaking,

was not that righteousness

by which God himself is righteous,

that righteousness that makes God

so excellent and virtuous and transcendent in his holiness

that makes me terrified of him,

but rather Paul is expounding another theme,

not only the righteousness of God

by which God himself is righteous

but that righteousness that God makes available to us

who are not righteous;

that righteousness of God

that is granted to us as a gift in faith;

that righteousness that is given to us

through the righteousness of Christ,

an alien righteousness,

a foreign righteousness,

that is granted to us for our own possession…

When I understood that,

and when the concept of justification by faith alone burst through into my mind,

suddenly it was like the doors of paradise swung open

 and I walked through.”

That epiphany in Luther’s life changed him from a neurotic guilt-ridden man living in constant terror of God’s judgment to a joyful, gospel loving, gospel preaching monk who also began to see the problems in the church of his day – the Roman Catholic church. 

And Luther said “we have to fix these problems in the church so we can get people free from their bondage to trying to merit their salvation and merit God’s favor,

and instead help them see that the gospel is good news that the perfect righteous one – Jesus – paid the debt we owe and gives us new life by giving us a gift we don’t deserve and can’t earn. 

A gift that comes to us by grace alone. 

The gift of forgiveness. 

No condemnation. 

And eternal life with God.

Martin Luther was not the first person to have a gospel epiphany like that. 

There had been many before him.  In fact, the text he was reading, the book of Romans, was written by someone who had experienced a similar epiphany, a conversion from pursuing salvation by works and merit to receiving salvation by grace through faith.

The two verses that will occupy our attention this morning are two verses that summarize this core idea of the Christian faith. 

These are two verses that some of you know by heart – and in fact, I’d suggest these are verses everyone should commit to memory. 

What Martin Luther came to believe about salvation is summed up in these five Latin phrases that most of you have heard before.  They became known as the five solas of the Protestant Reformation.  Sola because each phrase includes the word sola which means “my itself” or “alone.”

Salvation, Luther taught, is sola gratia – it comes to us only by grace – by grace alone.

It is sola fide.  It is received through faith alone.

It is solus Christus – our faith is in Christ alone.  We’re not trusting in anything or anyone else to save us.

Salvation comes to us sola scriptura.  The Bible alone is our sole source of authority for how we are made right with God.

And finally, it’s all soli deo gloria – that is, the reason God saves anyone is because it brings Him the glory He deserves. 

We are saved by grace alone,

through faith alone,

in Christ alone,

based on the authority of the scriptures alone

for the glory of God alone.

And in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul drives this point home, as we’ll see this morning. 

Let’s go ahead and read the first 10 verses of chapter 2 again, and then we’ll zero in on vs. 8-9 this morning.

But before we do, let’s pray.   

The word of God for the people of God.

Ephesians 2:1–10

[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 flesh

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. (ESV)

Amen.  May God bless this reading of His word. 

The grass withers and the flowers fade but the word of our God will last forever.

To really understand verses 8-9, the verses that will occupy our study this morning, there are five ideas we need to consider.

· Understanding Salvation

· Understanding Grace

· Understanding Faith

· Excluding Merit or Works

· Excluding Boasting

Again, let’s set the context for these verses.

Back in chapter 1, Paul tells the Ephesians “I am praying for you.  Praying that the eyes of your heart will be enlightened.  I want you to come to understand all that God has done for you in Christ.

First, I want you to understand the immeasurable greatness of His power.  He has the power and authority to raise Jesus from death back to life, to bring Him bodily from earth to heaven at His ascension, and to place Him again in the seat of authority over all things.

Second, Paul says, I want you to understand how desperate your spiritual condition was before you heard and believed the gospel.

You were spiritually dead in your trespasses and sins.

You were spiritually enslaved to your own desires and passions, taking your cues from the world around you and under the influence and control of the evil one.

And you were condemned.  Children who rightly deserved to face the righteous wrath of God.

But God has intervened on your behalf.

In Christ, you were spiritually dead, now you’re spiritually alive.

Your identity was shaped by the world and your flesh.  Now you’ve been lifted up to a new home and a new identity.

And instead of facing the wrath of God, you now have been seated with Him, alongside Him.

All as a result of God demonstrating the immeasurable riches of – not His power, but His grace. 

God has saved you.  By His grace.  And that’s the context in which Paul drives home for his readers that all that we have in Christ, all the benefits he’s been talking about – these are all gifts of grace, appropriated by faith.

And all these benefits come under the general heading of salvation.  So let’s look at that.  Let’s get a better understanding of our salvation.

When we hear that word, most of us tend to focus on what we’ve been saved from.  And that’s a big part of what salvation is. 

But the word also encompasses what we’ve been saved to.

The word for salvation in the NT is a word that can mean to rescue or to heal.  And both ideas are captured in what Paul is talking about here.

Follow the flow of what Paul has been saying.

He started back in vs. 3 saying that in Christ, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.  That’s part of what we’re saved to.    

In chapter 2, he says before we were in Christ, we were in our sins.  And as a result, we were spiritually dead, spiritually enslaved to our passions and desires, and rightly facing eternal punishment for our stubborn and unrepentant rebellion against God. 

That describes what God has saved us from. 

But God, as we saw last week, has made us spiritually alive in Christ.  He has lifted us up into His presence to be a part of His family.  He has seated us at the table with Jesus, declaring that we will rule and reign with Him.

This describes what we have been saved to. 

You see the point? 

When we get to vs. 8 and read that we have been saved, that word which was introduced back in vs. 5 for the first time and comes up again here – that word is a word that means not just being rescued from coming judgment and from God’s wrath.  It includes what God has saved us for and the blessings that are ours because we have been saved.

When I think about what it means to be saved, three words come immediately to mind. 

Forgiveness

Transformation

Hope

When we talk about what God has done in saving us, the first thing He’s done is to forgive our sins – past, present and future. 

This is what He has already done for us on the cross.  He has taken away the penalty for our sins.  Actually, He paid the penalty Himself on our behalf.  He paid the price we owed.  He took the judgment we deserved.

He doesn’t just forgive our sins, He removes our sins.  They are blotted out.  Here’s what the Bible says about our sins and God.

If we are in Christ, God has placed our sins as far as the east is from the west

He has put our sins behind His back

He has put our sins at the bottom of the sea

The omniscient all knowing God has chosen to remember our sins no more.

The shame of our sin is gone in Christ.  The condemnation is gone.  There is therefore now no condemnation.

Salvation means that not only have we been rescued from wrath, we have been accepted into the beloved.  Our sin, which was the barrier between us and God has been removed. 

Charles Wesley said it this way:

No condemnation now I dread

Jesus, and all in Him is mine

Alive in Him, my living head

And clothed in righteousness divine

Bold, I approach the eternal throne

And claim the crown of Christ, my own

That’s what it means to be forgiven, justified and reconciled to God. 

Forgiveness.  That’s the first word I think of when I think about salvation.  And it’s a wonderful, past tense reality for all who are in Christ.

Have you experienced the relief that comes when you know and believe that your sins have been forgiven and your shame has been removed?

If you’ve read Pilgrim’s Progress, you know that the author, John Bunyan, depicts our sin as the burden we carry through our lives that weighs us down and leaves us exhausted. 

When his main character, who is named Christian, arrives at the cross on his journey to the celestial city, when he sees the, the strings that bind the bundle to his back crack and the heavy load falls off. It tumbles down a hill and into a tomb, where he never sees it again.

Have you experienced that kind of relief?  If you haven’t, it’s for one of two reasons.  Either you’ve never had your sins forgiven because you’ve never surrendered your life to Jesus. 

Or you’ve surrendered your life to Jesus, but Satan has somehow convinced you that you are supposed to keep carrying the burden around with you.  He’s convinced you not to believe what God has said about forgiving your sin.

This is why I find myself often singing the second verse in the hymn Before The Throne of God Above.  It’s the verse that says

When Satan tempts me to despair And tells me of the guilt within Upward I look and see Him there Who made an end to all my sin Because the sinless Savior died My sinful soul is counted free For God the Just is satisfied To look on Him and pardon me

Salvation means your sins are forgiven.  That’s the first word that comes to mind for me when I think about salvation.

The second word is transformation. 

If forgiveness is a past tense word, transformation is a present tense word.  This is what God is currently doing in the lives of all who are in Christ. 

He is conforming you day by day to more and more be made over in the image of His Son.  He is remodeling your heart and your life.  He has begun a good work in you, and He will be faithful to complete it.

There is no such thing as a salvation that does not include transformation. 

Another word for transformation is sanctification.  And whom God justifies, He sanctifies. 

The final word that comes to mind when I think about salvation is the word hope.  It’s a present tense word that is focused on the unseen and unknown future. 

In fact, you’ve probably heard Jeremiah 29:11, the verse where God talks about the plans He has for His people Israel.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you a hope and a future.

Salvation means the future we deserve is not the future we will experience. 

And it means the future we will experience if we are in Christ is a glorious future.

I remember hearing this quote years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.  It’s so true.

If you are a Christian, this life is as bad as things will ever get for you.

If you are not a Christian, this life is as good as things will ever get for you.

Paul is going to talk more about this idea of hope in what’s ahead.  Look at Ephesians 2:12-13

remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Salvation means going from having no hope to having a hope that we will spend eternity with Jesus.

Forgiveness.  Transformation.  And hope. 

When we talk about being saved, the Bible makes it clear that there is a future wrath that we’ve been saved from, but there is a present and future glory that we’ve been saved for.  Saved to.

And here in Ephesians 2, Paul makes both the saved from and saved for ideas clear in this letter.

In Christ, we have been saved.

That’s the first big idea in these verses.  The second is that we have been saved by grace.  By grace you have been saved.  That’s what it says.  And I would add “it is by grace alone.”  Because grace + anything isn’t grace any more.

Last week I referenced how JI Packer defines that word, grace. 

Grace is the unmerited favor of God.  JI Packer says

God’s grace is His love demonstrated toward those who deserve the opposite.  Grace is “favor bestowed when wrath is owed.”  It is “love freely shown towards guilty sinners, contrary to their merit and indeed in defiance of their demerit.”

This idea, that salvation is a gift from God, all a work of His grace, is an idea that Paul is passionate about for a lot of reasons.

First, he’s passionate about it because for years, before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and became a follower of Christ, he had pursued salvation by merit – the opposite of grace.  He had been convinced that his efforts to live a life pleasing to God would be what would ultimately cause God to award him salvation.

He talks about this in Philippians 3 where he lays out his resume of self righteousness.

Philippians 3:4–8

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: [5] circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; [6] as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. [7] But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. [8] Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Paul says elsewhere that his self-righteousness is rubbish, filthy rags, worth nothing to God.

He is zealous about the idea of grace because he knows law keeping and self-righteousness have no spiritual value.

He is also zealous about grace because he knows that there is something resident in our human nature that longs to be recognized and rewarded for our own goodness. 

We desperately long to get glory for ourselves. 

And even as Christians, we slip back into these patterns of self-righteousness.

All. The. Time.

Tim Keller drives this point home in his book The Prodigal God where he makes the point that self-righteous people obey God transactionally. 

They obey God to earn the rewards He has promised.  They don’t obey God because the love Him and want to bring glory to Him. 

Keller tells about a time when a woman coming to his church in NYC was hearing, for the first time, that she could be accepted not on the basis of her behavior but by God’s sheer grace.

Keller was intrigued by her response.  She said “That is a scary idea! Oh, it’s good scary, but still scary.”

When he asked what was so scary about unmerited free grace, she replied, “If I was saved by my good works—then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life.

But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace—at God’s infinite cost—then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.”

Paul wants us to be constantly on guard against the inner pharisee in each one of us that is all the time drifting in the direction of thinking that our goodness or our works will somehow obligate God to reward us with salvation.

And Paul wants to drive home the idea of salvation by grace alone because if grace is not alone, it’s not grace. 

Here’s the equation.

Grace + __(insert anything here) _ ≠ Grace

Here’s how Paul spells it out for the Galatians.  He says if righteousness comes by keeping the law, then Christ died for no purpose.   

A little leaven of self-righteousness leavens the whole lump.  You can’t mix in your good works with God’s grace and say you’re saved by grace.

That part of you that wants credit for some good deed you’ve done or good thought you’ve had?  Crucify that thought. 

Say along with the hymnwriter Augustus Toplady

Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law's demands; could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling;

You are either saved by grace alone or you are not saved at all.  You cannot earn the blessing of God by your good works.  It’s all grace.

And Paul says we are saved by grace that comes to us through faith.  Let’s look at what he’s talking about here.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what faith is.  A lot of people think faith means believing in something even though the evidence suggests otherwise. 

Actually, it’s the opposite.  It means making the decision to believe in what the evidence points to.

Does that sound odd to you?

I spent about 20 minutes this week on the phone with a best selling author who some of you have heard of.  His name is Lee Strobel.  He was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune years ago, and he was an atheist. 

What led him ultimately to faith in Christ was a rigorous examination of the evidence supporting the resurrection of Jesus.  And after months of doing research and interviews, he came to a place where he concluded that the evidence supports the claim of the resurrection.  He said “for me, it would have taken more faith to deny the resurrection than to believe it.”

Now there is always a gap between belief and absolute certainty.  This is where faith comes in. 

I’m about to take a drink from this bottle of water.  Am I certain that it is safe?  No one has poisoned it?  How can I know for sure?  Do I need to go have it tested to be absolutely certain?

No, I am exercising faith based on evidence that this is safe for me to drink.

I guess we’ll see, won’t we.

Now that’s a reasonable assumption for anyone to make.  And I understand that believing that a man was nailed to a cross, died, spent three days in a tomb and then got up and walked out in a new, glorified body – that takes more faith.

But the faith we have is based on evidence. 

And Paul is saying here in Ephesians 2 that in order for us to experience salvation, which comes from God as a gift of grace, we must take that step of faith. 

We must choose to believe what the evidence points to.  We are sinners in need of a savior.  Our condition is dire.  We are, as he has said, dead, enslaved and condemned.

Jesus died, was buried, rose again and is seated with the Father in heaven.  He is coming again.  And by being in Him, we can have new life, a new identity and hope for the future to be with him. 

But you have to believe that to be saved.

And let me explain the kind of belief he’s talking about. 

There are three elements necessary for someone to experience saving faith. 

First, you have to have knowledge.  You have to know what is being claimed before you can believe it.

Second, you have to affirm or assent to what is being claimed.  You must say “I believe that is true.”

And third, and this is critical – you must demonstrate trust in or commitment to that truth. 

Back to my bottle of water.  I have to first have knowledge that there is a claim that this water is safe and pure.  It says so on the label.

Second, I have to decide that I agree with that claim.  Based on the evidence I have, I’m going to affirm that I agree this water is safe to drink.

But third, it’s not really faith until I drink it. 

The only kind of faith that will save you is a faith that involves actually taking a drink.  Stepping out.  Living in a way that demonstrates that you actually believe what you’re saying you believe.

That’s the only kind of faith that will save you.

Two more things that are important when it comes to saving faith.

First, saving faith is something we continue to exercise every day.  It requires a first sip.  But you have to keep drinking throughout your life.  You keep re-believing the gospel every day, over and over again. 

As Steve Perry would say, you “don’t stop believing.”  You hold on to that feeling.

Second, you understand that it’s not having faith that saves you.  It’s the person in whom you have faith. 

Jesus saves you, not your faith.

Look at how this verse says it.  You are saved BY grace THROUGH faith. 

If I said “how did you get to church this morning,” you would say “I came by car.  My car got me here.” 

Now you had to get into the car for it to bring you here.  But it was the car that brought you here.  Getting into the car didn’t get you here.  The car got you here.  You got here BY the car THROUGH getting into it. 

You see the difference.  You’re not saved by faith.  You’re saved by Jesus.  You’re saved as a result of what He has done and then as a result of God, by His grace, extending the benefits of what Jesus has done to you, applying those benefits to you.

But you have to step in.  You have to say “I’m going to believe – really believe, in a way that changes my behavior and my life – that Jesus is who He says He is and that He really did die and rise again.”

Have you done that?  Or does your faith stop short of actually taking a drink?  Is your faith in Jesus just intellectual ascent – “yes, I believe Jesus died and rose again.”  Or is it the kind of faith that says “my belief in Jesus has changed my life, my priorities, what matters to me, what is important?” 

And do you keep on doing that every day? 

Are you ready this morning to take the first step?

Or do you need today to rebelieve and reorient your life around your belief in the good news that Jesus died in your place and rose again to give you salvation?

Two more points to consider as we wrap up this morning.  First, salvation – all of it, by grace through faith – all of it is a gift from God. It does not involve any works on your part.  You add nothing to the finished work of Christ.

Look at how Paul says this in vs. 8

This is not your own doing;

it is the gift of God,

[9] not a result of works,

The “this” that he’s talking about that is not your own doing?  That’s all of it.  Salvation is not your doing.  Grace is not your doing.  Faith is not your doing.

Now some people say “well wait, I believed.  I exercised faith.  I did that.  What about that?”

The Bible says that even the faith you exercised is something God enabled you to do.  You didn’t believe on your own.  God gave you the power and ability to believe, which you did not have in you.

Look at these two verses.

Philippians 1:29

[29] For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,

Acts 18:27

When he arrived (in Achaia), he greatly helped those who through grace had believed,

Saving faith is not something we conjure up from inside of us that we can take credit for.  When you step out in faith, even the faith you’re stepping out in is a gift from God.  He gives you the faith to believe. 

We have to recognize the desire of our heart to want to take credit for some aspect of our salvation.  And we have to put that desire to death over and over again.  No merit allowed.

And no boasting allowed.  That’s the last point Paul makes in these verses. 

Salvation is a gift of God so that no one can boast.  No one can say “look at me!  Look what I did.  Look at how special I am.”

There’s a kids book that came out years ago called You Are Special.  And there’s a right way to understand that idea.  You are special because you are an image bearer of God.  You have worth and value and dignity as a result of being created in His image.

But so does everyone.  So in that sense, you’re not special.  You can’t say “I’m better than you.”

By the way, this is what many of your non Christian friends think you’re saying when you say that you’re saved or that you’re a Christian.  They hear you saying “I’m better, I’m morally superior to you.”

We have to first of all make sure we don’t think that about ourselves. 

Do you think you are intrinsically morally superior to your friends and neighbors? 

You may make morally superior decisions – that’s likely.  But what they think you believe is that you think you’re a better person than them because you’re a Christian.

And we have to make sure we don’t think that.  And then we have to do our best to communicate clearly to them that that’s not what we believe.

We believe God has given us a gift. 

We’re all about to be opening gifts in a few weeks.  And when you open the gifts, you’ll express your delight at what you’ve been given – hopefully.

But you’re not a better person than someone else because you got a wonderful gift from a loved one.  You just have a wonderful gift.

And in this case, it’s a free gift that anyone can have, if they will simply respond to the gift and receive it by faith. 

Take a sip.  Get in the car.

No boasting allowed. 

1 Corinthians 1:28–31

[28] God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, [29] so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. [30] And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, [31] so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” And because of himyou are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Now I’m guessing that all of you are civilized and smart enough that you don’t go around boasting about being saved.

But we have to guard our hearts against the voice in our heads that whispers “you know, you are better than these other people.”

Or at least I have to guard my heart against that. 

This story sums up these verses for me.

In December 1662, a Scottish minister named David Dickson was dying.  A close friend, someone he’d known for more than fifty years, arrived to see how he was doing.

The eighty-year-old pastor told his friend this.

“I have taken all my good deeds,

and all my bad deeds,

and have cast them together in a heap before the Lord,

and have fled from both

to Jesus Christ,

and in him I have sweet peace.”

That’s a right understanding of what it means for someone to be saved by grace alone through faith alone.  No merit included.  No boasting allowed.

I trust that would be your testimony today as well.