Sermon Tone Analysis

Misplaced Trust

Many of you remember the tragic story that occurred 13 years ago at Camp Chapman in Afghanistan.

The story was told in the movie Zero Dark Thirty.

A Jordanian doctor was believed to have valuable information regarding the enemy.

He was due for to be interviewed at Camp Chapman and when he stepped out of his car, he detonated his suicide vest, killing himself and seven Americans.

During the investigation it was revealed that the doctor who blew himself up had not been patted down or searched because he was a known and trusted source.

Americans trusted him enough, that meeting site included a birthday cake for the very doctor who ended their lives.

That trusted source, when it was over, was misplaced trust.

And it came with a high cost to American lives.

Misplaced trust.

We’ve all been there, though our lives have not been on the line.

Someone we trusted let us down.

Either they did not come through with a promise, or they broke the promise with lies or deceit, or an act of betrayal.

Misplaced trust.

We’ve also had misplaced trust, not just in people, but in circumstances, or material goods.

We look for happiness or contentment in a certain set of circumstances or in some “thing” or “activity” and it never happens or doesn’t quite live up to the hype.

Misplaced trust.

Entrusting our lives, our desires, our emotions, our dreams to people and things that cannot deliver on their promises or expectations.

What is that has let you down?

Where have you misplaced your trust?

What is it that you think will make you happy?

One of those diagnostic questions that is a fun exercise is “If I could change just one thing in my life, what would it be?”

Not only does the answer to that kind of question show us the deepest longings of our heart, it almost always shows us just where we have place our trust.

SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH

This idea of where our trust is placed is our subject matter today.

And it all has to do with the word “faith”.

We read our passage just a few moments ago, and there is a phrase that sticks out:

“you are saved by grace through faith.”

We’ve been talking about Jesus using the church to fill all of society with Jesus.

Bringing the rule and reign of Jesus into where we work, we live, play, and learn.

We’ve also talked about the gospel filling all areas of our life.

The story of Who Jesus Is, and what He has done for us and is doing for us.

What we haven’t talked about is how that filling all of life with Jesus functions in real time and space?

The answer lies in the phrase we are considering.

We are saved by grace through faith.

Few phrases in all of scripture are more important.

In fact, it was a little over 500 years ago that this phrase threw the world into great upheaval.

Martin Luther’s study and preaching of this phrase launched the Reformation.

The great missionary Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus and one of the big questions that this particular church has is: how do we make sense of the fact that Jews and Gentiles are both supposed to be worshiping Jesus in our congregation?

We’ve never done this before.

Shouldn’t we have two congregations?

One for the Jewish believers and one for the Gentile believers?

And Paul says no.

Both Jew and Gentile are one new man, one body in Jesus.

And the question is then: how has Jesus done this?

And Paul says you’ve been saved by grace through faith.

All of you.

Together.

Their entire life together as a community flows out of that phrase: saved by grace through faith.

Paul believes if they grasp what this means, unity is possible.

Filling all of society with Jesus is possible.

Love for each other is possible.

So it is necessary for us here at the Table to understand this phrase as they did.

All of Jesus’ promises are tied up in this very phrase.

This is where we find the meaning of who we are and what we do.

This phrase is a running theme throughout the entire Bible and Paul explicitly states it here in his letter.

The three main words help us:

All three words in this phrase are interconnected and super-important.

The first is

SAVED

We’ve been saved.

We have to ask: saved from what? You’ve been rescued, you’ve been delivered, you’ve been saved.

Not from self-destruction.

Not from having a bad life or a bad day.

Paul has already noted what we need saved from.

Saved from What?

The Devil

Death

Sin

God’s wrath at the final judgment

First, the devil and his followers.

Second, death, or the fullest effects of death in being separated from God.

Third, we’re saved from disobedience or the full bondage that comes from disobedience, and fourth, the wrath of God at the final judgment.

That’s what Paul means when he says “you’ve been saved”.

All of those things were in our passage just moments ago.

Before we were given forgiveness and new life, all of things were a threat to our soul, and now, none of them are.

There’s nothing to fear from the devil, there’s nothing to fear from death, there’s nothing to fear from sin, and we need not fear God’s wrath on judgment day.

And when I say “fear”, the devil and death and sin can cause us some temporary harm.

The danger is real.

We talked about it last week.

The devil does want us to doubt the Promises of Jesus.

But Paul says, we’ve been delivered from ultimate harm from any of these things.

We’ve been rescued from the ultimate harm… eternal life without Jesus.

That brings us to the next word:

GRACE

Grace simply means favor that is not merited or deserved or warranted.

God giving us what we don’t deserve in spite of us disobeying him.

God gives us His favor even though we don’t deserve it; in fact, we’ve done enough to deserve the exact opposite: condemnation.

So God’s rescue of us is not something that is deserved.

God’s rescue of us is something that we get even thought what we have done deserves the opposite of God’s goodness.

Saved from death and sin even though we are sinners deserving of death.

That’s grace.

This word grace sums up God’s favor and disposition towards us.

His love.

His steadfast or longsuffering love.

And that leads us to the third word, the main subject of our time this morning:

FAITH

We are saved by grace through faith.

And this is where Paul’s audience probably began to murmur a bit.

Even in our day, this word faith can mean so many different things that pretty soon, it’s just one of those nice words we use when we are describing something religious feeling or activity, but really, nobody knows exactly what faith is.