The Gift of Salvation

Transcript

GR 2315
5/9/2021
The Gift of Salvation
Ephesians 2:4-10
Gil Rugh


We're going to Ephesians 2, Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus, which was a church with which he had much contact. He had ministered there personally and had spent some time there in Ephesus. He sent Timothy to minister there, and he wrote two letters to Timothy while he was at Ephesus: 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul writes this special letter to the Ephesian church. Remember this is a letter that was written while Paul was a prisoner in Rome. It's recorded in the end of the book of Acts. Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians were all letters written while Paul was a prisoner in Rome, along with the little one-chapter letter of Philemon. So Paul made good use of his time. While his physical freedom was restrained and limited, he was still actively involved. We see he had personal contacts and ministry while he was under house arrest in Rome, and then he was writing letters. Little did he know that 2,000 years later, people in other parts of the world would be reading and studying these letters. These were letters inspired and directed by the Holy Spirit and were intended not only for the church at Ephesus but also for God's people at all times wherever they are.

So we are in Ephesians 2. We've come into this chapter and the first three verses are very crucial and foundational for understanding what Paul has to say. Basically, we can tie the verses together into the section where we are going by noting three connections. The first one says “and you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” Come down to the opening two words of verse 4, “But God.” Now come down to the middle of verse 5, “made us alive together with Christ.” That “made us alive” is the main verb in these verses. So you come all the way down to verse 5 before you get the main verb, but he is building here. He started, “You were dead in your trespasses and sins.” It's a rather hopeless condition. It's a spiritual death—cut off, separated, having no relationship with the living God. Paul elaborates on what it meant to be spiritually dead in verses 2-3. Then you have the subject given, God, and then the verb, made us alive. It’s important to understand what it meant to be spiritually dead. We “walked according to the course of this world,” verse 2. He wants to remind the Ephesians that this is what you were before God intervened, but God. “You were dead in your trespasses and sins;” you lived your life. So he is elaborating further. You were dead; you are spiritually cut off from God, you have no relationship with Him, and you walked according to the course of this world, the age of this world. That guided your walk and your conduct. We see that going on in the world around us. As the world becomes more open and defiant in its attitude toward God, more and more people just express themselves. That's where they are, and it comes out of the condition of the heart as we have looked at when we studied this.

You “walk according to the prince of the power of the air.” It gets worse. The devil directs your life when you are an unbeliever; you are his child. And we looked in John 8 where Jesus said to the religious people of His day, you are of your father the devil and you do what he wants you to do. People think they are free, but they are not free; they are enslaved to the devil and controlled, directed, and guided by what is going on in the world, this world's system, and their own fallen nature. “The spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” And you have here brought together that the devil, that fallen angelic being, moves in concert with our fallen nature and moves us along so we do what we really want to do. We're doing what he wants us to do as we are joined in rebellion against God.

We all “lived in the lust of our flesh, manifesting the desires of the flesh and of the mind and we were by nature children of wrath.” We were under the wrath of God. Romans 1:18 says, and we just finished studying Romans, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Wherever the truth comes from—the truth of God's creation that is available to everyone—they suppress the reality of what is clearly seen and that rebellious spirit continues on. What he is emphasizing here, what we don't want to forget, and what he wants to remind the Ephesians of is in verse 3, which said, “among them we too all formerly lived.” We were “children of wrath,” at the end of verse 3, “even as the rest.” It's important that we not forget what we were, not because that becomes an excuse for living a life that is not consistent with the Word of God, and not because that provides reason or excuses for us; but it reminds us of how great God's grace and power are. The danger is that we as individual believers and we as a church who are saved for a while think, I was never like the people of the world today. Look at what they do, it is… And it may express itself more clearly and more fully than it did in our days in some areas. When I was a young person many, many years ago, things didn't go on that are going on today. You would have been severely punished for doing what is taken as normal today. Remember how we looked into Jeremiah 17, it's the heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked, and in Mark 9 Jesus, during His earthly ministry, said it is out of the heart that all the sinful things come. The problem is God is looking at the heart.

So we as believers can't forget, and after we are believers for a while we think, I don't know what’s wrong with the world—it’s terrible. It is terrible, but we were just like them. Remember Titus 3. Paul told the young man Titus, you remind them that they were just like those people that they see as so repulsive. So, we don't want to forget. When the church begins to forget the true spiritual condition of the lost, then Christianity begins to become more and more shallow, and we become satisfied with superficial responses. We allow the course of this world to begin to influence our thinking. Remember Romans 12:1, “do not be conformed to this world”? The world thinks part of the problem is they have bad social conditions. That's what the world says the problem is—social conditions. It's racial inequity, social injustice, financial disparity, and all these things. Pretty soon the church is saying we have to get involved and be part of the solution. The problem is, that's not the problem, and that's not the solution. Here is the problem. So we must remember what we were because when we forget what we were, we begin to have a different perspective on what they are. They are just what we were, and it takes the intervention of God to bring to change. But God made us alive. What a radical transformation and change, from the worst condition! You are spiritually dead. You can't be any worse than that. And when you are spiritually dead, you are cut off from God. That means the world around you controls you. People's attitudes change for the worst, not the better. The devil works his purposes; and our own fallen hearts, our flesh, continue to move us in the wrong direction. How do we bring life to the dead? We can't. All we can do is bring the message that God can bring life to the dead.

So that's where we pick up, “but God.” Then Paul is going to add here because he doesn't lose perspective. He could just say but God made us alive with Christ, and that summarizes it. But you have to get something of the wonder of it. Remember back in Ephesians 1:19 where he's talking about the power of God that works in a believer, and he wants them to know. And these are believers who get their arms around this and their minds filled with it, so it's a reality to them. Verse 19, “what is the surpassing greatness of His power.” It's not just I want you to know His power, I want you to know the greatness of His power. But not just the greatness of His power—the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. “These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might.” You pile this up and then the example. It's the same power that worked in Christ and brought about His resurrection from the dead.

Now we come to Ephesians 2:4. You were dead in your trespasses and sins, “but God…made us alive.” First let me say, but God. I have to tell you more about God's action here. “Being rich in mercy.” Again, you don't just say “but God in mercy.” “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us.” Not just because of His love, but because of His great love—being rich in mercy and great in love. In that great love is a love with which He loved us. Mercy… That word mercy denotes pity or compassion on someone who can't help themselves. Now it may be the condition that they brought upon themselves, such our own sinfulness. We are sinners by birth, but we are sinners by choice. And so it is a word that would be used of showing compassion to someone who was not in a position to do something for themselves. That is us in our lostness. But when God came to us, our condition in verses 1-3 was hopeless. We were under the wrath of God, we were “by nature children of wrath,” we were “sons of disobedience” at the end of verse 2, and we lived our lives relentlessly in disobedience and rebellion against God. Not all in the same overt ways but coming from our heart and mind it was the same condition. Whether you went to church, whether you took communion, or whether you were baptized, it was all part of your life of rebellion against God until God intervened and made you alive. That all happens when you place your faith in Christ. That is His mercy.

And then His great love, and this keeps coming up in Scripture. This is the love, the agape, agapao love, that love which is self-sacrificing, which unselfishly does what is good and best for the other person. We must grasp this; it is an unselfish love. It is loving those who aren't loving you, and it's loving those who have done nothing to deserve your love. They may deserve the opposite. They deserve the wrath of God, and we deserve the wrath of God. But He loved us with a great love. It is personal.

We just finished Romans. Come back to Romans 5:8. We'll look at a couple of verses in the context here. Paul continually reminds us—as the Spirit directs him—that believers cannot lose their focus and their grasp on these truths. Look at Romans 5:6, “For while we were still helpless,” and that's the condition that described us in Ephesians 2:1-3, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were helpless. We couldn't do anything to rescue ourselves. “At the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” How amazing is that? He died for the ungodly, those people described in Ephesians 2:1-3. God didn't go through, and we'll see this emphasized in a moment, and pick out the best... When we go to the store and I go to help Marilyn do grocery shopping, which means maybe go and read a car magazine while we are there, but she goes to the banana counter and she sorts through bananas. Just pick out a banana and let's go. But no, this is too ripe; no, this has spots in it. God didn't bring His love to us in that way—I'm going to show My great love for those who are not too bad. You just say they are helpless, they are ungodly, they are dead, and they are children of My wrath. Now from among the most rotten group, which is everybody outside of Christ, Christ died for them. “One will hardly die for a righteous man, even though for a good man someone would even dare to die. God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners,” with all that that word means, “Christ died for us.” If we don't have that, we will begin to drift. You'll see it in yourself, so be careful. We want to look into the mirror of the Word. When I begin to look at other people, unbelievers, and I can hardly put up with it because it’s so disgusting—and their conduct is—but I'm no better than they. It's God's grace that has changed me. I was just like them. Maybe I was saved early in my life and I didn't have a chance to express what I was really like at heart; but as God looked at me, I was just like them. I begin to become a little frustrated with other believers. Wait a minute. We are sinners redeemed by grace, growing together. It’s key to see the contrast.

Come back to Ephesians 2:4. “But God,” but God. You had to connect that. So we started, “You were dead in your trespasses and sins.” We saw what that meant—it was when you were dead, cut off, and separated from God and the life that is in God. “But God.” Then “He made us alive.” But first we have to understand something about God. “God, being rich in mercy,” great in His love. Then we pick up with verse 5, “Even when we were dead in our transgressions.” It's like Paul just can't let this go. Do you understand how serious your condition was? He picks up what he said in verse 1, you were dead in your trespasses. So I've mentioned all this, and then verse 5, “even when we were dead in our transgressions” God's rich mercy and His great love worked to make “us alive together with Christ.” Then he makes a statement that he'll drop and pick up again. “By grace you have been saved.” We'll pick that up again in verse 8, “For by grace you have been saved.” He just mentions it. I want to say it now in passing, but later as a reminder. He'll come back to develop the greatness of that statement. “He made us alive together with Christ.” This is the first of three verbs, and it's the main one, but there are three verbs here. Verbs are the action words that tell us what God did. Three things it says that God did here. First, He made us alive, and that's together with Christ. Made us alive; secondly, down in verse 6, He raised us up with Him, Christ; thirdly, He seated us with Him in the heavenlies. He made us alive, He raised us up, and He seated us, all in context of our connection with Christ. All of God's work of redemption in rescuing us from the lostness, the deadness of our sin, takes place in Christ. Not anything, all the other things don't blur the picture. It's not by joining a church, and it's not by partaking of certain so-called sacraments. This happens in Christ. He made us alive together with Christ. It's in connection with the relationship with Him, and we talked about this in chapter 1 so we won't go back into that. It's when you place your faith in Christ that you are brought into a relationship with Him. You are said to abide in Christ. You now live in a relationship with Him. The life of God is now yours through Christ. “He made us alive,” spiritual life. And then by grace you have been saved.

If we are just talking about you need to be saved—from what? When I took lifeguard training so many years ago, they talked to us about saving people and how you save a drowning person. That word “save” means something in its context. You tell a person you have to be saved. Why? Well, God will put your marriage back together, or He'll make your life more meaningful. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. We haven't dealt with the issue here. Why do I have to be saved? I could go to a variety of places to be taught how to have a good marriage, and it may not be built on the biblical principles. I may learn principles to do better at my job. You can get on the news and they'll have a psychologist someplace telling you six steps to happiness. What are we talking about?

Sometimes we, even as believers, begin to adjust around in our thinking because we don't want to talk about sin because that may drive people away. There are churches that I could name but I won't, who have not been embarrassed to say publicly, we do not talk about sin in our service. One of the most popular preachers of the day says no, I don't talk about sin. People have enough problems in their lives, they don't come to church to hear me talk about more negative things. Well, what does God talk about? I think we come to church to hear what God has to say, don't we? These people don't know what they need to hear. It's not a matter of let me tell you that you are a sinner and you are as bad a sinner as could be and you are on your way to hell. I guess that's what I have to tell you. Now do you want me to tell you how you can escape? They may say no. I'm not saying you just have to come up…engage them in conversation. But I can't get to the Gospel if I don't tell them they are lost. People are filling churches and they don't have any idea that they are going to hell. Remember Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, many will say to Me on the judgment day, Lord, Lord, we did many mighty works in Your name. We really worked for You; we really did good things. And He'll say, I never knew you. Depart from Me. Their departure is where those under the wrath of God go. You don't want to make that mistake of we don't want to help people make it. We're not helping them. If I have some dreadful disease and I go to the doctor, I want him to tell me. I don't him to just paper it over and tell me how I can feel better about myself and my condition and go away—especially if he has a cure. Well, I know you'd feel bad if I told you you’re dying, and you'll probably be dead in three months. Nobody wants to hear that and so I'm just going to tell you what you would like to hear. We don't want to do that. So we want to be careful we understand.

“He made us alive together with Christ.” It's all a work of grace, and it didn't stop there. The next thing He did is He “raised us up with Him,” verse 6. So He made us alive. What are we doing now? Spiritually we are alive, but spiritually we have been raised up with Christ. We're back to the information at the end of chapter 1 where he talked about the power of God that works in the life of the believer, the same work that, Ephesians 1:20, was operating when “He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand.” So that's the pattern we are following. Just as Christ was physically raised and brought to life, raised to heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father, so we too have been brought to life spiritually and spiritually raised up with Him. Now there will be a physical resurrection that's future; the salvation is not done. But the part that we have experienced and is the assurance that the rest will be coming is the spiritual resurrection. “He raised us up with Him.”

Come over to Colossians, which is very similar in context. In Colossians 2, a warning in verse 8, “See that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men,” and so on. Believers shouldn't get confused; you better stay alert. “For in Christ,” verse 9, “all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.” Note verse 10. “In Him you have been made complete.” How did this happen? He's going to go on. “In Him.” You see the same emphasis we had in Ephesians? It takes place in Christ, in Christ. “In Him you have been made complete. He is head over all rule and authority.” Back in Ephesians 1:21, Christ is “above all rule and authority.” So, he is bringing the same point with a little variety in it as he writes to a different church. You have been made complete, He is head over all rule and authority, and we're going to be seated with Him, so that rule and authority connects to us. We'll talk about that. “In Him you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.” As the Old Testament talked to Israel about, your heart has to be circumcised. The sin has to be removed, cleansed, forgiven, and dealt with. That’s the picture. Baptism is the same, verse 12, “having been buried with Him in baptism.” And, “you were raised with Him through faith in the working of God.” It's a spiritual baptism. 1 Corinthians 12:13, “By one Spirit you were all baptized into Christ.” That's the identification, and we'll look at that in a moment. “You were dead,” verse 13, “in your transgressions,” but verse 12 says you were raised up with Him through faith. That happened when you were dead in your transgressions. So you see the picture, the clarity that must come.

Come back to Romans 6. Romans, as we talked about, is the unfolding of the Gospel in great detail. What we have in Ephesians is basically the same truth in condensed form because the Gospel doesn't change. If Paul had unfolded it in all the detail he did in his letter to the Romans, we'd have another 16-chapter letter with the Ephesians. It all goes together, but there is more detail. He talked about our sinfulness and the sin that we inherited because we are descendants of Adam, that was the end of Romans 5:12. But in Christ we have a new life. We now belong to Christ. We are identified not with Adam, but with Christ in our new nature. Romans 6 opens up, can we continue in sin because grace has now rescued us from our dead, lost condition? Am I now free to enjoy sin when I want to? No, and we're going to this point in Ephesians, so we won't come back here; but God has ordained a new life and a new lifestyle for us. Paul mentions that here. “How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know, all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” Not talking about physical baptism, which a portrayal of it like physical circumcision was to be an expression for Israel. But until the sin of the heart was removed, nothing was done. Baptism is to be a picture and declaration that I have been identified with Christ through faith. And that's identification in His death, burial and resurrection and new life. So the baptism he is talking about here is Spirit baptism. We have been “buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” This is key because when we get to Ephesians 2:10, he's going to tell us that God foreordained, pre-planned, the walk of the believer. You don't get saved and walk the old life; you get saved and you walk a new life. If people claim to be saved and walk the old life, they have just deluded and deceived themselves because God raised us from the dead for the express purpose that we would walk a new life. Romans 6:5, “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.” The old man was crucified with Him in order that our body controlled by sin would be rendered powerless and we would no longer be slaves to sin. That was the picture we saw in the first three verses of Ephesians. “For he who has died is freed from sin. If we have died with Christ, we believe we will live with Him.” And on he goes to elaborate and explain it; you can go back and read it to refresh your mind.

Come back to Ephesians 2. The third thing God did for us—He made us alive together with Christ; He raised us up with Him. He not only raised us up so now we can spiritually even know that we are received in heaven—He seated us with Him in the heavenlies. Now we have to go back to the end of Ephesians 1. This is the power that is working in us that he is talking about at the end of Ephesians 1. It is the same power “He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, far about all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named…He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over the body.” Now we have been seated with Christ spiritually. What does that mean? That means we share in His authority, His power. Now this is not like some of the charismatics going around supposedly giving orders to the devil because “I have all power.” That trivializes it. But in the context of where we are going, we have the power now to live the life that God has planned for us. I no longer have to live like the old me. Now be careful to follow along here because we are going to wipe out every excuse for any sin you ever do as a believer. There never is an excuse for me as a believer to sin. Well, you don't know my situation. I don't have to. God does and He tells us. We begin to adjust our theology according to our feelings and now we have a feel-good theology, but it's not biblical. There is never a good reason for me to sin. I never have to sin. Some of you are going to be tuning me out, but the point is, and I've shared with you before and I share again, we don't have to sin. Why? The same power that worked in Christ…

Come back to Ephesians 1:18. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know.” I want you to have a knowledge that grabs onto this and hold onto it. Verse 19, “What is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. This is in accordance with the working of the strength of His might.” Now this is working in us, that's what he just said. I want you to know the power toward us who believe in accordance with the strength of His might. And it's the same power and might and strength that worked in Christ and brought about His resurrection from the dead and gave Him authority. Now he is applying that in more detail to us. He seated us with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. What did it mean for Christ to be seated in the heavenlies? He has authority; He has power. Now all of that has not yet been realized, but it will be fully realized when He comes and establishes His kingdom on earth. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. But the reality of it is there, and the power is there and operative. That power is operative in my life and in your life if you are a believer. That's why people come and they talk about they are having this issue, that issue. A place to start is, well, are you a believer? Yes. Well then stop the sin. Well, I can't. Then you are not a believer; let's talk… No, I am a believer. In other words, God's power is limited. I mean, the practicality of good theology. He seated us in the heavenlies. What did that mean? Christ was given power and authority. Remember John 1, He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave power and authority—the word there is exousios—to become the sons of God.

Back up to Ephesians 1:5. “He predestined us to adoption as sons.” What does it mean to be a son of God? Waddling around in the puddle of the world from one defeat to another, struggling. I just can't be what God wants… I don't know, but it's in my job, it's in my family, it's with my parents, it's with my kids, it's with my spouse, it's… I just can't do everything God tells me to do; I'm just human. I am just human, too. We all are, but when the power of God works in our life we are changed. Why did He do this? For selfish reason, and I hesitate to use that word because it has such a negative connotation. But God is the only One who has the right to be perfectly selfish in the sense He is doing it for Himself. Ultimately, God works all things for His glory. That's why He says He will not give His glory to others. We share the glory in what He has provided for us, but ultimately, it all is to honor Him. It's not all about me. It's all about Him. It's amazing that He so works at what he does for me in such an awesome, powerful way that it brings glory to Him.

Look at Ephesians 2:7. He made us alive, He raised us up with Him, and He seated us with Christ in the heavenlies “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Again you see the piling up. Do you know why? Do you know what you are as a believer? You will be a trophy of God's grace into all the coming ages. You are to be an evidence of that right now. That word “ages” could pick up from day one. I am to manifest the power of God in making me new and now living new. This is a testimony of His grace and the fullness, the clarity, and the wonder of that will be fully realized in the eternal glory. That's why He did it, that in the ages to come He might show… And again you just can't say, show His grace toward us; you must say show the riches of His grace. But not just the riches, but the surpassing riches of His grace. We're not done yet. “In kindness toward us.” You can go and do a word study on each of these words, but we're not going to take the time to do it because every word becomes precious. Grace, it appears, it is unmerited, undeserved; favor; it is toward those who don't deserve it. How sad, people are striving to work themselves to heaven. God did it all, and you can't do anything. Stop and listen to what God says—I have a gift for you. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. How amazing is that.

His kindness—don't reject the kindness. Back up to Romans 2. In all these things, God's grace, God's mercy, God's love, and God's kindness are being offered. Look at Romans 2:4, “Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness?” You think lightly of it by ignoring it, or by treating it insignificantly. “His tolerance, His patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance. But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath,” in Revelation, “of the righteous judgment of God.” This love, this kindness, and this mercy are all displayed and offered to the world. That's what we have as a message to tell people. It's not that God that has you under His thumb and He is looking forward to sentencing you to hell. He is expressing His kindness and His generosity. This word, and they come up with words to try to explain it… Goodness, kindness, and generosity. But don't reject God's kindness. Don't mistake His kindness, His mercy, and His patience because judgment will come and it is so terrible. So often people say, I just don't think God could send people to hell. Well, why would you want to go to hell? I don't want to go to hell. Why do you continue to reject His kindness? Then it comes out, because I will do it my way. Wait a minute, you can't be God. God will not allow you to replace Him. Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. Do you know why? Lucifer, whom we know as the devil, thought He could replace God. The penalty for that is eternal hell. Now you have made the same error, but God is patient. He has brought you to today, and you don't have to go to hell. God has kindly brought you to today. Well, I might do it tomorrow. I'll give it some thought. Don't be a fool. God doesn't say He gives you the same opportunity tomorrow. He gives today. Today is the day of salvation. Today He is expressing His kindness and patience. Some of you have heard it again and again and again. Have you believed it?

Come back to Ephesians 2. So crucial here. It's all in Christ Jesus. I'm not going to take you through to circle all the “with” and “in” and so on here, in Christ. Nothing in salvation happens outside of Christ. Verse 8, and we're going to do these because they are just a summary. “For by grace you have been saved.” That's the same thing he said at the end of verse 5, remember? “For by grace you have been saved.” That means it excludes all your works. What about the sacraments? You can't be saved by taking communion, you can't be saved by baptism, you can't be saved by confession to the priest, and you can't be saved by joining Indian Hills Community Church. It is by grace. We won't go to Romans, but it says if it's by works, it is no longer by grace. You cannot mix some works with grace. Then you don't have grace. You have corrupted the purity of grace. “By grace you have been saved through faith.” Here we go again. That's it. If you are unfamiliar with this, go back and reread Romans 4. Circle all the words “faith” and all its uses there, again and again and again. Abraham believed God—had faith in God. That's just the verb form of the noun faith. He believed God, and God credited it to him as righteousness. Period. Romans 4, go back and read it and reread it. We are saved by grace through faith. Faith is not a work. If you walk up and give me $500 and I put out my hand and you give it to me, I say, well, I earned that. No, I gave it as a gift, that's all I did. I didn't work for it, I didn't earn it, and I may have not deserved it at all. In fact, I may have done something that was a great offense to you. The pictures all break down because God's grace is so overwhelming. But it is by grace through faith. The simplicity of it… How are we going to say to God that it wasn't understandable? You know what happens—corruption. The devil corrupts it—yes, faith is good, but it's not enough. You also have to join the church, be baptized, then go through the sacraments regularly. Who gives men the authority to add or take away from God's Word? You know how the Bible ends at the end of the book of Revelation. The curse of hell will be upon those who add to or take away from what God has said. This is it. Now, the good thing is it's by faith. You can have it wherever you are. Maybe you are sitting in your living room listening. God, I believe I'm a sinner, I believe Christ died for me, I want to trust Him alone and what He did for me, placing my faith in Him. It's just that simple. No, I'd rather work on it, I'd rather work my way through.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” He's repeating that if it's by grace, it is not by works. So it is not of yourselves. Now there is a discussion, some of you are familiar with it, that word “that”, the pronoun “that”, this faith, this salvation, what is it? This grace? Reformed people, some of them, like John Calvin, did not hold that. John Calvin thought that that word “that” referred to the sole subject of salvation which he is talking about. That's what it is, and you have it in the margin of your Bible if you are using New American Standard as most of you are. They say in the margin, in other words, “that salvation”. That salvation is not of yourselves. The means is faith, but it is not saying God gives you the faith. The faith is your subjective response to what God offers. I believe that it is the Spirit of God who so works in your heart and moves you to believe, but faith is not the gift. Faith is always the response of the individual to what God has done. In spite of the sometimes confusing discussion over synergism and monorgism, for those of you who are in it, just so you know I have read some of that. I believe here faith is not a gift and it is never considered a work in the Bible. I don't want to belabor it because all the modern exegetical commentaries—I don't know all of them, but the half a dozen I'm using—all take it as “that salvation”. I think it has become a pretty standard observation. There are grammatical problems we won't go into, such as the noun agreeing with the pronoun that goes together with… Some of you have taken some of the language studies.

He is talking about how the salvation itself is a gift. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ. That's it. So what he has been talking about in verses 4 down through here, you are saved by grace through faith and that salvation is not of yourself, it's a gift of God. Ephesians 2:9, it is “not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” It's humbling. People spend their lives doing the best they can and being as religious as they can be and helping the church as much as they can. They’re like the Jews. Paul said, I'm the Pharisee of the Pharisees. You couldn't get any better Pharisee than me. The Pharisees prided themselves in meticulously keeping the Law and all the rules they had added on to be sure that you did keep the Law. He said I was lost. You could classify me as the greatest of sinners, and I thought I was the most righteous of men. We don't want to delude ourselves.

“For we are His workmanship.” He's the craftsman. He's the carpenter is the idea. “His workmanship”, and that's where we're back, remember, we are to be testimonies of His grace through the ages. That ought to start now. Has God done a work in your life? Then you ought to be a new person and it will reflect itself in every relationship you have and everything you do. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.” That's the work usually used for creation, like the creation of the world. God created us new. Do I understand all that went into that? No. God did something supernatural when I placed my faith in Christ. How do I explain that? He has talked about it here, but it's something that only God could do, and He used the same power that He used to raise Christ from the dead. So if you want an example, there is the example of that power. He brought Him out of the tomb and elevated Him to heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father with all authority. And then when I placed my faith in Christ, He seated me right there with Christ. Now Christ has all authority, but I have authority as one who is in Him, and that authority is for living His life, my new life. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus,” note this, “for good works.” Get it right. People take the good works and put it up at the beginning. No, that's a result of having a new life, being made new in Christ. That's why some people struggle so long and so hard. I'm trying so hard to be what God wants me to be and live how He wants me to live. Well there’s effort that goes in, but be careful. Am I trying to make myself what I am not? Only God can create you new; you can't make yourself new. You can grow up in this church and have all the answers and know everything about the Bible and be trying to conform your life. And sometimes, some of those young people finally can get free from the fetters and feel like it is a breath of fresh air. I don't have to live under that bondage. Right, it is a terrible bondage to try to live like a Christian when you are not one, because God has to make you new, and then it just flows out. I don't have to tell you that you have to keep working at being a human being. Keep working and you'll get more human. What are you talking about? But people are trying to do that with their Christianity. They’re trying to be a Christian. Well, let's back up here. There will be effort, work, and discipline, but the enabling power for that comes from the Spirit.

And note this, “created in Christ Jesus for good works.” It takes the workmanship of God, the creating power of God, for you to now live the life that God wants you to live. “Which God prepared beforehand.” Prepared beforehand, come back to Ephesians 1:4. “He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Verse 5, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Christ Jesus…that we would be to the praise of the glory of His grace.” Come back now to Ephesians 2:10. God prepared these works when He called us to be with Him. He had a purpose in it. He didn't say I'm going to save them and bring them new life and new power, but I don't know what I'm going to do with them. How are they going to live? They'll have to work it out. No, He “prepared beforehand so that we would,” here we go, “walk in them.” That carries us back to Ephesians 2:2, “in which you formerly walked.” You were spiritually dead, but you were walking in this world. You had a conduct and a character and a lifestyle, but now you walk in good works. As a result of the creating work of God, you are a new creature, a new creation. We're not what we were. One of the most extensive new grammatical commentaries, 900 pages, and he does a good job but sometimes it’s frustrating because he feels he has to cover every detail of everything, but it is still worthwhile… He does make the clear point—if there are no works, there is no life. And that's true. I don't want to make everybody doubt their salvation, including me, but the reality of it is, what's your life like, the walk? What do you mean? What areas? Do you know what he is going to do? He's going to take us into the detail. Here we should walk in these good works.

Come over to Ephesians 4, and what does he say? “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to,” here we go, “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” Down in verse 17, “This I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind.” You see the same contrast we had in chapter 2, but now he is explaining what a walk of a true believer looks like. Come down into Ephesians 5:1. “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” Do you see what your walk is to be like? You imitate God because you are His child, living with His power as His beloved children. You walk in love. We saw the greatness of God's love. When you are His child, you manifest His character. “Walk in love.” Down at the end of verse 8, “Walk as children of light.” Verse 15, “Be careful how you walk.” And on we go, we'll stop there.

You see it's complete. How do you walk? How do you live? I have four things that summarize this salvation—four things that are said that God does here in our salvation. The source of our salvation is God. That's the source—God. God made us alive, for example. The basis is grace. That's the basis of God providing His grace. The means of that salvation being applied to us is faith, the means is faith. The result is works. The source is God, the basis is grace, the means is faith, and the result is works. You know what happens; subtly we begin to move these things around. You put works up top, or you put works second, or you put works third. It is last. It is the result of the power of God making you new. It is a result of the power of God continuing to work in your life, and you will walk a new walk. You will walk a new life. He'll get into the details of that, particularly when we get into chapters 4-6. It gets very personal. That means I'll walk as God said I must walk in my relationship with my wife, and my wife will walk in right relationship with me and on it goes. It's very practical. This is just not theology to know theology. This is theology to live life.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the awesome truth that You, the God sovereign over all, Creator of all, perfect in holiness, righteousness, and justice has so worked to provide salvation for those who are so opposite to what You are; cut off from all life in You, without hope in the world, living as the world would have us live, living as Satan that would have us live as his children, fulfilling our own selfish lustful desires. Yet in grace and love and mercy and kindness, Lord, it's difficult to express in simple words the wonder and power of Your salvation. But we give You thanks. Lord, for any who are here who have yet to experience the wonder of that salvation, may the Spirit open their eyes to see and believe that Christ died for their sins according to the Scripture, and He is alive today to be their Savior if they will believe in Him. We pray in His name, amen.