Unmerited Grace

Trespasses and Sin

Paul has been blessed in his life. Many people will look at what Paul became, but they soon forget where he came from. Saul was a man determined to persecute Christians and was confident that God blessed his decision to do so. Paul sought the legal right to persecute Christians. You could say he had a zeal for service. But something happened to Saul to change him. (Damascus Road) God changes us when we least expect to be changed. My father used to say a hard nut is easily cracked.

Paul now reminds the Ephesians that they were once dead because of their sins.

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Eph 2:1–2). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

How is it that we can all get easily dumped into this basket. One might even say, don’t judge me. But isn’t it the truth that without grace we would all be lost? All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Eph 2:3). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. Paul speaks of it as though we had no self-control; did we? And here comes the grace. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through 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 ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Eph 2:4–7). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

The world wants to owe no one anything, and that means that they must, if they are to be saved, find a way to do it themselves, but you know you cannot earn your salvation. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Eph 2:8–10). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Several years ago now, I was approached by a young lady, a young woman I was familiar with. She told me about her desire to find religion, how she was convinced that God could be found in many forms of secular religion. I shared several scriptures with her and asked her to read them before making a decision. Then I shared with her that Christians do not make the claim that their way is the only way, but that Jesus Himself made these claims. 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jn 14:6). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

A year after sharing with her my thoughts she talked to another lady at another church and she was calling me at my work to share that she had given her heart to the Lord. She said that she had read the scriptures that I had shared with her and hadn’t given them much thought until recently when she attended a Christian church and a lady their had told her nearly word for word what I had shared with her.

What should we take from today’s message? We have all had our time of living in our lustful sins. But not one of us can save ourselves or anyone else. Never stop offering the grace that God offers through His Son because you may never know when the fruit will ripen.