Amazing Grace
Ephesians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 8 viewsIt is only by the grace of God we are saved.
Notes
Transcript
Scripture reading; Psalm 119:105-112
Amazing Grace
Ephesians 2:1-10
Grace is what sets Christianity apart from every religion in the world. Every other religion teaches that mankind has to work as hard as we can to be good enough for God. Only Christianity teaches that mankind can never be good enough for God, but it’s okay because God is good enough for us. That’s grace.
Out of all of the concepts in the bible, one of the most important things we can understand is grace. Grace has been defined as God’s unmerited favor given to those who don’t deserve it, but, I want you to know grace is so much more than that.
I’ll give you an example, on an Indian reservation there was an old chief who had lived his entire life in sin. Then one day through the work of a missionary he gave his life to Christ. When those around him began to question him about what happened and why there was such a difference in his life.
He reached down and picked up a little worm from the ground. He placed it on a pile of leaves and then he took out a match and lit the leaves on fire. Pretty soon the smoldering leaves became a blaze and as the flames reached the center of the leaf bed, where that little worm laid, the old chief took his bare hand and plunged it down into the flames and grabbed that little worm. Then holding it out gently in his hand he said, “I am the worm.”
That’s grace. You see we can’t appreciate God’s grace until we realize the human condition. And that’s what the apostle Paul teaches us in this passage. He teaches us that we are the worm and that we don’t realize how close to the flames we are. But God reaches down in His grace, and He pulls us from the fire. That’s what we are going to talk about today. (Read)
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, 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 ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as 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 so that we would walk in them. (Pray)
In our passage this morning we clearly see that we will never know how great God’s grace is, until we know how great our sin is. In other words, we will never fully grasp the good news until we understand the bad news.
Someone once said, the darker the night the brighter the day. And it is not until we see how dark we once were that we can see His grace shining brightly in our lives. We can’t even scratch the surface of our salvation without exploring the depths of our sin. That is what we learn from this passage, it is only by the grace of God we are saved.
The first thing I want you to see is the necessity of Grace, Vs. 1-3. Paul begins by talking about who we really are as human beings, and the picture he paints is not good. What is important for us to understand is Paul is not talking to some disgraceful segment of society. He isn’t talking about murders and rapists; he is talking about you and me and everyone who is without Christ. He uses three words to describe the condition we are in.
First, we are dead. Vs 1 says we are dead in our trespasses and sins. Let me ask you this, what can a dead man do? The answer is nothing and neither can we. There is nothing we can do ourselves to satisfy the wrath of God and go to heaven. We need to understand something today and I don’t know how to make it clearer than this, good people do not go to heaven!!! Forgiven people go to heaven, and God’s forgiveness comes only through the cross of Jesus Christ!!!
Notice the little word “in” in Vs.1. We are dead in our trespasses and sins. That is our condition. The sin in our life that we love so much, has made us dead to God. Trespass and sin our virtually the same word. They speak of us not living the way we should and falling short of the standards of God. But notice how Paul uses them in the plural form. He says, trespasses, and sins, and that’s because this is not a one-time act but our whole lives have been nothing but rebellion against God and we don’t even realize it.
Now this is the opposite of what the world tells us about ourselves. The world tells us, we are all good people, and if we just believe in ourselves, we can do anything. While spiritually dead people can do great things in the world. They can sing, dance, be great athletes, they can be incredibly intelligent and make a lot of money. They can do great things for the poor. They can do absolutely nothing spiritually to be pleasing to God. That is what Paul is telling us here. It doesn’t matter how good you are, apart from Christ you are dead.
That’s what Jesus teaches us in John 15:5 when He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Nothing means nothing and without Christ we are dead men walking. We are alive in this world physically, but we are spiritually dead to God.
The second word Paul uses to describe us is disobedience. Vs. 2 says we walk in the spirit of the sons of disobedience. And he tells us we do this in three ways.
We live according to the course of this world. In other words, we simply do what everyone else is doing. We go with the flow. We give in to peer pressure. We allow the cultural norms to dictate the way we act and think. If it is acceptable and everyone else is doing it, we indulge, and it doesn’t matter if it is immoral or unacceptable to God.
We live according to the prince of the power of the air. This is talking about Satan of course and the power and influence he has over our lives. 1 John 5:19 says, “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” 2 Cor. 4:3-4, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving.” There will come a day when Satan and his demons will be removed from us but currently, if you don’t know Christ you are in the clutches of his authority.
Then Paul tells us we live in the lusts of our flesh. In other words, we allow the passions of our heart to control us. Jeremiah 17:9 says, the heart of man is wicked beyond measure who can understand it. Apart from God we don’t even understand how depraved our condition is. The deck is stacked against us. We are under the influence of the world, Satan, and our own sin nature. And unless God intervenes in our lives we cannot escape.
The third word Paul uses to describe our condition is doomed. He says, without Christ we are “by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” The disobedient in Vs 2 is now destined in Vs. 3.
We need to lose this image we have of God as some grandfather figure in the sky who looks down at our sin and says, “oh well, I love them anyway.” God is not like Mr. Rogers. He is holy and just and we will be held accountable for our sin.
The good news is, by the grace of God His wrath has been poured out on His Son. When Jesus prayed in the garden, “Father let this cup pass from me.” He was talking about the cup the bears the wrath of God. And now, because Jesus drank that cup of God’s wrath, we can drink the cup of God’s grace.
In every evangelistic program you are taught to ask one important question. If you were to die today and stand before God in Judgment, where would you go, heaven or hell? That is the most important question we can ask because it gets right down to the heart of the matter. What are you placing your trust in? And most people believe they will go to heaven because they are good people. In fact, that’s what the world teaches us. But one glance at the headlines from this past week will show you that is not the case.
For example, just the headlines from Monday alone read; (Tennessee soccer coach charged with raping players. Man on moped charged with shooting people at random, killing 87-year-old. Nurse fired for relationship with patient who died during sex in hospital parking lot. Miss Universe Netherlands crowns transgender woman as pageant winner for first time. 38% of Brown university students say they are LGBTQ.
And before you can think to yourself, well, that is them and that’s not me. Paul makes it clear in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” We can’t point our finger at other people’s sin and say we are not capable of doing that. (teleprompter)
So, I ask you what is the true condition of man? Why are we this way? The answer is we are dead. We are disobedient, and we are doomed, and it is only by the grace of God we are saved.
That is the necessity of grace. The next thing I want to show you in this passage is the means of grace, Vs. 4-6. Paul sets up the great contrast here. He says, we were lifeless, hopeless, and condemned, but God. Those are the two most powerful words in the bible.
MLJ is famous for saying thank God for the buts in the bible, because in a sense these two words contain the whole gospel. Notice it doesn’t say, but God and me, or but God and us, or but God and anything else, because it is just But God, and God alone. And then Paul gives us a description of just how good God is.
He is rich in mercy. In other words, God has an unlimited supply of abundant mercy. He has storehouses full. Mercy is compassion and it overflows from the character of God as He shows pity on us. Psalm 103:8 says, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness.”
Not only is God moved to save us because of His mercy but Paul says, it’s because Of His great love with which He loved us. It’s not just that God loves us, but it is an incomprehensible love. It’s as though Paul is struggling to come up with the words to describe it. “It’s a great love with which He loved us.” And this love is so great because, it’s not based on us or anything we did. We didn’t earn this love, but God loved us in spite of us.
Notice how Paul repeats Vs. 1 down in Vs. 5. He says, “Even when we were dead in our transgressions.” Just in case you forgot who you were. He reinforces it now. Remember who you were and yet God Loved you anyway. He loved you even when you were dead. He loved you when you were disobedient. He loved you when you were doomed. He made away through the death of His Son on the cross for you to be alive in Christ.
Notice three times in Vs. 5-6 he repeats the phrase “with Christ.” He made us alive with Christ. He raised us up “with Christ,” He seated us in the heavenlies “with Christ.” And He did all of it while we were lost sinners in the world. Romans 8:1, says, “Therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Apart from Christ there is nothing but condemnation, but because of His sinless life and his substitutionary death we have been gifted grace.
He has made us alive in Christ. I am reminded of the story when Jesus stood before the tomb of Lazarus. Whose body was dead, and Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth.” And in a moment. In the twinkling of an eye, life surged through the body of Lazarus, and he walked out of the tomb. That is exactly what happened to you and me when we are born again. God calls us and it is like a bolt of lightning striking a tree and we are a new creation in Christ.
Everything Paul is saying screams “amazing Grace how sweet the sound.” Because for all eternity we are the recipients of His grace, for all the world to see to the praise of the glory of God.
And that brings me to the third and final thing I want to show you in this passage. The reason for Grace, Vs. 7-10. Why did God do this? Well, Paul tells us why. There are two words that stand out to me in these verses, “So that.” We see it three times in Vs. 7, Vs. 9, and again at the end of Vs. 10. The words “so that” indicate reason and purpose.
Notice Vs. 7 says, “So that in the ages to come.” (In other words, throughout all the future) He (talking about God the Father) might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus,” So, God did this because it magnifies His grace, and puts it on display for all eternity.
The idea here is that if God would have chosen to save people because they were good people, the power of His grace would amount to nothing. But because He puts it on display in kindness toward those who do not deserve it, it becomes a trophy in the showcase for all the world to see.
The second “so that,” comes at the end of Vs. 9 but let’s read Vs. 8 because we love Vs. 8. It says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, (why?) so that no one may boast.”
I love these verses because not only do they elevate God, but they should humble us. God did this so we would have nothing to brag about. Why? Because we love to brag. We love to elevate ourselves every chance we get. But God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.
And it was God who chose us, redeemed us, and sealed us, and we were just along for the ride. We were no better than anyone else.
Then we see the third and final “so that” in Vs. 10. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
The word workmanship there is an interesting word. It is the word (poiema). It is where we get our word “poem” from, and the idea is we are God’s masterpiece. He has crowned us with grace. We have been born again, but why? Well, we have been saved by grace, through faith and for good works.
We are not working to be saved but we are working because we are saved. We don’t serve God to earn His favor we serve God because we have His favor. That is the purpose for which He has saved us. To carry out His plan for our lives. To join Him in His work in this world. Certainly, we are saved to spend eternity with God in heaven but in a sense that is a secondary reason. He has saved us to magnify His name in this world.
So, what does this mean for us? It means that humbly surrendering our life to Christ, through a heart of gratitude, is the only proper response to what God has done for us, because apart from Him, we are just fading flowers in the meadow of the universe. There isn’t anything good about us that hasn’t been given to us by God, and without Him we are lost and hopeless.
I heard a story this week about a family vacationing in the Canadian Rockies, and they drove up to the Athabasca Glacier. There were signs everywhere warning them not to walk out on the glacier. A ranger told them, the year before a German man ignored the signs and walked out there. He fell into a deep crevasse and before they could get him out, he froze to death.
Yet in spite all the warning signs, there were dozens of tourists that day, including families with children, walking out on the glacier as if they were strolling in a park!
I can’t help but think about how that reminds me of life. There are times that we are in danger and we don’t even know it. But the greatest danger of all is dying without knowing Christ.
The greatest threat we face is to be oblivious to the fact we need Him. The greatest threat is to think you are a good person and that’s enough to go to heaven.
The reality is we are just people strolling through life a heartbeat away from going to hell, and It never occurs to us that one day we will face His judgment. We need to wake up and see how great our need is, so that we can flee to the only remedy, God’s abundant grace in the cross of Jesus Christ.
