Grace of God
Notes
Transcript
Saved By Grace
Saved By Grace
What do I want them to know? It is worse than you think and better than you image; saved by grace
Why? It brings salvation
What do I want them to do? Believe and remember
Why? It brings salvation
ME/WE
How do we get right with God? (Pause)
How do we get right with God?
- This is a question that humanity has asked for hundreds of years, since the fall in the garden of Eden.
How do we get into right relationship with God?
The common two answers culture and some Christian believe consciously or subconsciously are
DEEDS: We believe the reason we are not right with God is because we have a debt that needs to be paid to God because we have disobeyed Him to bring us back into right relationship with God
TO PUT IT SIMPLY OUR DEEDS PAY OFF THE DEBT…Do enough deeds and the debt is paid…But I have two questions
1. How do you know if you have done enough good deeds to pay off the debt? How are you able to find it out? Does scripture point out what is and is not enough deeds??? Is there a deed meter???
NO
So what do we do? We make a deed meter up
For most people this is a lose, lose situation that causes anxiety, because for most of us we set the standard of what needs to be done pretty high…We look to MOTHER TERESA or that our grandma who seems to be perfect and say she’s the standard, and even if we lower the bar a little bit we are still out…our debts are bigger than our deeds. and we are in despair.
Here’s a little advice in general on any topic; When you compare it leads to despair. because you are always going to find someone better than you.
2. The 2nd question the more important question is this system of belief true, this religious system that every other major religion has and modern day religions have ? Is your deeds going to cancel the debt…out weight the debt to get you into heaven?
IS YOUR SALVATION BASED UPON WHAT YOU DO???? NO
YOUR SALVATION IS NOT DEPENDENT UPON WHAT YOU DO
2. The 2nd view is an old view from the late 300s to early 400s that has risen to life over the past several years.
What is that view? Pelagianism
What’s that? Pelagianism believes man was born good. I am good. I can achieve perfection, sinlessness if we wanted to.
I hear people pretty frequently saying this today “I right with God because I am such a good person. I am awesome. I do good things.”
I do no wrong
I am sure if we asked your friends or family members or enemies who can share some things when hav enot been so good. AM I RIGHT?
TENSION
How do we get right with God?
GOD is going to show in through the Apostle Paul in His letter to the church of Ephesians
IT IS WORSE THAN YOU THINK (the bad news is worse than you think)
IT IS BETTER THAN YOU IMAGINE (the good news is better than you imagine)
IT IS WORSE THAN YOU THINK
IT IS BETTER THAN YOU IMAGINE
Paul is going to show us 2 sets of 3 of reasons of why it is WORSE than you think and better than you imagine. Then Paul is going to conclude how we get it
GOD
WORSE THAN YOU THINK
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 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— 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.
What does Paul say here?
The first reason of why it is worse than you think is
YOU WERE DEAD IN THE TRESPASSES AND SINS....I looked up the Greek and the word is νεκρός, which means dead....It does not mean partially dead, sort of dead, DEAD MEANS DEAD....
Pretty bleak situation....I have not know anyone humanly speaking while I have been on earth who has raised.
Here’s the things the THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM WE DEVELOPED of DEED CANCELING OUT DEBT....Is partially right....we have a DEBT PROBLEM....but no amount of DEEDS WILL SOLVE OUR DEBT
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Here’s the problem our DEBT problem brought by SIN brings DEATH…and just like in real life there is no amount of DEEDS you can do to raise a DEAD MAN...
Once someone is DEAD, THEY ARE DEAD
WE KNOW THIS RIGHT NOW....WE’VE had loved ones pass away…I had a friend, a Cleveland firefighter die from Covid (no I have not interacted with him recently)
NO AMOUNT OF DEEDS RAISES A DEAD MAN
IT IS WORSE THAN YOU THINK
WE ARE ONLY DEAD
2. WE WALKED IN DISOBEDIENCE
How did we walk in disobedience?
Three ways
Followed the ways of the world, and not God’s ways.....We are seeing this on full tilt right now as we watch more and more Christians succumb to the pressures of the world and obey the world and not the word…and right now it much harder to obey the Word over the world because we as a country are more Godless than we have been in a long time.
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
We still struggle with this.
2. We walked in disobedience by following the desires of the flesh as Romans 7 says
I do the things I do not want to do because the flesh wages war in me…Our flesh wants to do things that are against God…as Paul “what wretched man I am”
We still struggle with certain things
3. We walked in disobedience by following Satan
This is what happened in the garden or Eden…Satan said, “did God really say you will die if you eat the fruit…Come one that’s not true....God is with holding from you....EAT THE FRUIT..
Have we not had this happen to us?
We quench the Spirit and we live in the ways of our old rebellious heart?
We do not forgive we God calls us to forgive....Satan says hold the grudge, pay them back.
We are quenching Holy Spirit and following the Devil
Paul is saying…you were dead, you walked in disobedience, and lastly you are children of wrath.
It is worse than you think
3. Children of wrath
Pelagianism was wrong…We are not born good. We are born in SIN.
Adam federal head; Adam’s actions in the garden fell on us he represents us… Adam sin brought death and separation from God into the world.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
We are all children of wrath…rebels against a HOLY GOD.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
IT IS MUCH WORSE THAN YOU THINK
IT IS MUCH WORSE THAN I THINK
IT IS MUCH WORSE THAN WE THNK
WE WERE DEAD
WE WALKED IN DISOBEDIENCE
WE WERE CHILDREN OF WRATH
BUT IT IS MUCH BETTER THAN YOU IMAGINED
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 Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Don’t you love the BUT GODs
SEE IT IS BETTER THAN YOU IMAGINED...
Do you see what God does here?
Because does God does 4 things in our lives, we get 3 things that are better than we imagined.
God freely gives us 4 things…what are those 4 things
Mercy…mercy is forgiveness and compassion to someone who does not deserve mercy or compassion.
Love....God love’s you…he doesn’t just like you…He loves you…Jon, Sarah....He came from heaven and earth for you to be in the family of God....What do we sing at Christmas? He is Immanuel “God with us”
Gracious....Grace is giving you unmerited favor, something you do not deserve
Kindness...
Do you know the number one referenced verse in the Bible?
Anyone want to guess?
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
God is loving, kind, slow to get angry, steadfast love
Because He is loving, so kind, so gracious, so merciful
He gives us 3 things
What are they?
Makes us alive
You were DEAD, but God who is so rich, so rich that He is able to make payment for sin that brought death that nobody else can pay.....Think about that…Nobody else in all of creation, history could ever or can ever make us ALIVE.
How does he make us alive?
By the blood of the lamb who was slain…Jesus
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
We can sing and shout
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
2. Raised up with him
Too many of are walking around defeated and we have been raised up
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Hallijuah
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
3. Seated with Him
What does that mean? What does it mean to be seated with Jesus?
It means the work has been done
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
We are able to be seated and not working because Jesus did the work on the CROSS....HE PAID THE DEBT
…Jesus paid the debt
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow
DO YOU SEE WHAT JESUS IS DOING?
It was worse than you think
you were dead
you walked in disobediance
you were a child of wrath
BUT IT IS BETTER THAN YOU IMAGINED
YOU ARE
ALIVE WITH HIM
RAISED UP INTO NEW LIFE…THE OLD IS GONE THE NEW HAS COME
SEATED WITH HIM
HOW DO WE GET THIS? WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO
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.
It is gift of God
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
IT IS WORSE THAN YOU THINK
IT IS BETTER THAN YOU IMAGINE
US
God is saying believe and remember
IT IS WORSE THAN YOU THINK
IT IS BETTER THAN YOU IMAGINE
One of the ways we are going to remember is by partaking in the Lord’s Supper
Communion, also called The Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist, is the family meal of Christians. We invite followers of Jesus Christ to partake of this sacrament: if you are not prepared to share in this meal, we encourage you to spend this time in prayer. We hope that this time is helpful to you as you consider your relationship with Jesus Christ and with His people, the church.
Apostles Creed (please stand)
(elders come forward)
COMMUNION
The minister shall declare the Words of Institution.
In full view of the people the minister shall take the bread and say:
The Lord Jesus, the same night he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks,
he broke it
The minister shall break the bread.
LORD’S DAY
and gave it to them, saying,
“Take, eat;
this is my body which is given for you: do this in remembrance of me.”
Lifting the cup, the minister shall say:
“In the same manner he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
In partaking of the bread and cup it shall be said:
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.