Grace Alone -- Ephesians 2:1-10. October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell

Transcription

1 Grace Alone -- Ephesians 2: October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell I want to invite you to open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2. I want to talk about grace this morning. So, I want to keep bringing you along as to what this series is about. This month, actually, October 30, 500 years ago, or 31 st, I m sorry, Martin Luther nailed a sheet of paper containing 95 protests of the Christian world and the Roman church on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, and that was the point that started this thing we call the Protestant Reformation. Now, what do you care, why do I care, why are we talking about this, a lot of stuff happened in the past? I want to try to answer that question. There are five Sundays in October and we re looking at these things we call the Five Solas. Sola is just the Latin word for alone or only. And the battle cry of the reformation and the significance of the reformation is because, and Danny did a good job, talking in the adult Sunday School class, the one I was in, that people didn t have the Word of God and really most of the world, the professing Christian world did not have the Gospel. OK, they did not understand the Gospel of grace, and so to recover that meant translating the Bible into people s language so they could understand, but yet there was a lot of religious leaders who were opposed to that and had started this big conflict. Now, I know that Christians get criticized for starting wars, people fight over religion. All that happened. It wasn t necessary though, but I want you to understand that one of the most significant things that comes out of that was this rediscovery of the Gospel, of what the Gospel was, and why it s important to understand it clearly. And the five solas through Scripture alone, by grace alone, by faith alone, for the glory of God alone was the battle cry of the reformation as basically western civilization or a group a mass group in Europe moved back toward the Gospel because, and it really flowed out of, because they started reading the Bible. It started, instead of listening to the church, and I know this is simplifying it, but, instead of listening to the authority of the church they began reading the Word of God themselves. And every, we need to learn this today. I think this is just as applicable today. And the thing that summed up their recovery of the Gospel were these five statements. That what got them back to a true knowledge of God was understanding, that it s the Bible alone, through faith alone, in the grace of God alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone. That defined the Gospel for us. And those are those five things I put in the But these five things, this is what every Sunday this month we are looking at. Last Sunday we looked at Scripture alone. And by the way, there s a lot competing for the Bible here. You know, it s interesting, they said not the authority of the church, its creed, its documents, its anything Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 1

2 else, it s the statements of the pope, and Martin Luther said no, it s the Bible alone Genesis through Revelation, and maps, maybe, I mean, right. All of it is God s revelation and nothing else counts. So, if we put anything else on the level of Scripture, we are violating this reformation principle. It is the Bible alone. And then today we are going to talk about that we are saved by grace alone. And I want to tell you the key word in all of this, what s common to all of these five statements and the one in Christ alone is alone. Have you ever walked into a room and people were having conflict? And for the life of you, you couldn t figure out what they were fighting about. Anybody every had that happen? And it s frustrating, like why don t you just get together. I don t understand what the issue is. Well, a lot of people have looked at the reformation and said, what s the big deal. Matter of fact, the Roman church was saying, you know, we all believe the same thing, what are you guys making such a fuss about? I want to tell you. Here s the heart issue that separated the reformers from the Roman church and it s that word. (Alone is shown on the screen.) You see, everybody believes in the Bible, everybody believes in grace, everybody believes you ought to have faith, everybody likes Jesus. As a matter of fact, all the world religions like Jesus. I guess, maybe, Satanism, is the only one that doesn t, but I mean everybody likes Jesus. And everybody believes you ought to give God glory, but here s the difference. When Luther came on the scene, he said no, it s not just that, it is just not that we look to the Bible as God s Word, but that it is our authority alone. It is not just that we believe in God s grace and mercy. It is that we are saved by that grace and mercy alone. With nothing of our works bringing any merit to it whatsoever. It s not that we just believe in faith, but that by faith alone to we receive and realize this grace that has come to us in the cross. It is not just that Jesus is a good, moral teacher or great guy everybody likes, but that He alone is the way of salvation. Do you see where I m going with this? That word alone is what separated everybody. And, that s really why the reformation occurred. Because of that word right there (the word alone is shown on the screen). Because, as a matter of fact, the Roman church, after Martin Luther s protest, after the reformation began stirring things up, held a council and they condemned the teaching of the reformers. They, basically, said they were all false teachers and they kicked them out of the church. And here is what he said in the council of Council of Trent Canon 9 and I ll quote to you. "If anyone saith, that by faith alone the impious (or the sinner) is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 2

3 movement of his own will; let him be anathema. (In other words, let that person be cursed if you say that.) CANON 12: "If any one shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ's sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified...let him be accursed" They condemned those who would use that word alone. I want to tell you the difference between religion and New Testament Christianity, a lot of cases, is whether you attached that word alone. Is this just one thing among many? Or is it the only thing. A pastor I like to listen to on the radio told a story about him witnessing to a guy from Asia who was a Buddhist. And he explained to him salvation and he said to him I want this Jesus, I want this salvation. And he goes through the whole thing and explains and he confessed the sins that he, he prayed and said Jesus I want you to be my Lord and Savior, and after all of that, and he got up and said now man where are you going to go with this? And he said you know what, this is great. I can add a little statue of Jesus with all my other idols. Alone. He s not going to compete with anything else. If He, if we add anything to the Gospel other than by Scripture alone, by faith alone, in grace of God alone, through Christ alone, for the glory of God alone, we mess up the Gospel. You turn it into something that will not save. You turn it into something that rather than helps people, deceives people. You turn it into something that is going to distort the teaching of the New Testament as they understood that. I believe today we have that same need because every generation they re wanting to add something to, they re wanting to tweak it. We want to make it apply more relevant to our age and we realize that the Word of God stands alone down through time and this Gospel message is one that cannot be messed with. Are y all with me on this? Alone is the key word there. I want us to answer this question. We talked about what is grace, you know. The second thing here is grace alone. So, I think we need to define our terns and I want you to, when you see this word, what comes to your mind? What is it you are engaging with when you think of grace. You know I remember the little Peanuts cartoon, I think it was Sally that said and they are in a choir singing, and she asks the questions, what did grace do that was so amazing. Who is this lady, right? Well, what is that? I think we need to be clear about what grace is. I want to give you four statements to help us understand. I don t know that one is really good enough and being a preacher, we got to have three or four points, right. So here we go. What is grace? Number one technically grace is God s favor, really that s undeserved. You might say it is given to those who deserve punishment. And 1 Timothy 1:14-15 Paul talks about Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 3

4 the grace of God that came his way. And he said I was the chief of sinners. He talked about all that he did to, and how he hated Christians and hated Jesus before Jesus met him on that Damascus road. And he said this is grace. In other words, God gave me His favor and blessing to probably the man that least deserved it in his estimation. That s grace. We get this? Grace is God s undeserved favor. It is God. Here is someone who has done things wrong that deserves punishment that deserved rejection that has not been and yet what God gives is not what they deserve, but God gives His favor. His grace. That s what grace is. Secondly, grace is something that is freely given. Now by free I don t mean it doesn t cost you anything or doesn t cost God anything, this is not an economic term. This is a term of the way that God gives it. And Exodus 33:19, Moses had interceded for the children of Israel after the golden calf incident in chapter 32. You can go back, we don t have time to go into all the details of that but many of you know the story. He s up on the mountain and, if not, just go watch the movie, right, it s there, he comes down with the tablets God wrote in and there they made an idol to worship and God s judgement was getting ready to come. Moses interceded for the people and prayed for them and God agreed to forgive them and give them, get this, grace. They didn t deserve it, right? I mean they repeatedly proved that they weren t getting it they were stubborn, they constantly complained, and they constantly griped moaned and were bitter and didn t believe, on and on you go and yet God gave them grace. But here s what God told Moses in verse 19, He said but Moses I need you to understand something. I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion. And that is a huge statement in the Old Testament that really teaches us this truth. That God s grace, nobodies got a formula, even Moses wasn t in a position to twist the arm of God to give it. God gives it freely or he doesn t give it. In other words, it comes out of his heart. You know what almost all the industry and the business of religion is in? Giving people something they want in exchange for something they do. And there s a lot, we ve seen that, there are preachers, even in America, that claim to represent Jesus Christ that are building massive fortunes and empires for themselves, appealing to the base nature of people and they re not preaching the Gospel. They use Bible words but they re not preaching a reformation Gospel. Why? Give people what they want and it s a service and they build this empire and they, and that exists. You see it on television. If you look at the Scripture and you go back and say these guys aren t doing this right. This is not what this is about. I want to tell you, nobody has got a secret formula, nobodies got a secret power, just because you send somebody some money doesn t mean that is going to plant a seed and you re going to have all this money come into your account. That s a false gospel, right? That is not what the Bible teaches. God has not obliged Himself to any man. Get that. That is central to the Bible. He s God and we re not. He not a vending machine, amen. I hate to Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 4

5 go off on this, but I think we need to say that. Where you just stick in your prayer and pull out your prize. He's not a dog you call in the back yard. He s the sovereign God of heaven. And so, we re going to bow before him, we re going to see Him for who He is and He give His grace freely. Nothing outside of God is the reason why He does that and there s nothing in us that compels Him to do it. He gives it freely. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I think this really hits us because what we want to do is say, well, if God doesn t treat everybody the same, in the sense, when it comes to His grace, what do we say? What do you say if you walk into a room of school children and you give two or three something and you don t give it to anybody else, what do they cry? It s not fair. Right. Jesus once told a parable of a guy that went early morning to the market place and found people standing around. Why are you standing there? Well, I don t have a job. Come work for me. I ll put you in my fields and go to work. And then he went back about 10 in the morning and found some more. Why are you standing there? Well, I don t have a job. Come work for me. And he did it at noon. And he did it one hour before quitting time. He went back out there and found people and he brings them into his field. And guess what he did. The first guys he said, I ll pay you what s due. In other words, what s normal, which was, you know, a denarii, which was the normal wage for a day s work in Palestine in the first century. And so, when everything come, he started with the guys who d only worked an hour, and he gave them a full day s wages. And he looked at the guys that worked half a day and he gave them the same thing. And when he got to the people who had been there all day and labored under the sweat and given everything, they were expecting more. They thought, well, man, if he is giving them a whole day s wage for the guy who worked an hour, man what are we going to get. You know what they got? The same thing. What do they say? It s not fair. What did Jesus say? You are all wrong at this. I gave you what was right. I gave you what you deserved, but these other guys, the 90% that made up came from my grace. The biggest problem that you and I are going to have with the grace of God is that we want to somehow say. He's got to do it according to our rules. And when it comes to grace there s no fair about it. You get that? If God was fair, we would all be in trouble. We would all be in trouble. You know what I mean? So, the grace and the mercy of God has nothing to do with whether you think you ve earned a little more than somebody else. Get rid of that. See what the Roman church had done was set up all these things that people did and they ranked each other depending on their gifts and their contributions to the church and their works and their labors and their merits. And Luther just tore all that down, he said, no, it is the grace of God alone. And that grace is a free grace that God gives. It has nothing to do with your worth or unworthiness. Does that make sense? I ve preached that here before, and that is good news. Because no matter how big your pile of sin is that has nothing to do to stop or halt the grace of God coming to you, but that s bad Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 5

6 news if you think somehow that your works put you in a special privilege. It doesn t work that way, right? Are y all good with that? It is free. I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. God gives His grace freely because He wants to and no other reason exists. So, third things about God s grace. It is realized by faith. In Roman 4:16 Paul said that it must be through faith or it must be by grace so that faith is rest in the promises of God. In other words, the weight of all this works is that it is realized by faith. And I want to change something. I hope that I challenge the way you think today. That faith is not, you re checking a box and you re doing a requirement so that God s waiting on you to believe so He could do. Let me tell you God s grace is already working. A lot of time when people being believing and trusting in God, they re just realizing what God s already been doing in their life. Now God commands us to believe in Jesus. There were times Jesus didn t do many great works because of their unbelief. But I want to tell you, faith for a lot of times in the Christian life is realizing what God is already doing. What He already has done. The Gospel is news. It s statements of fact. Right. It is telling us not what we must do but telling us what God has already done for us. Does that make sense? It is realized by faith. I don t believe that God is up in heaven over your life with a big bucket of grace saying, if you d just hurry up and believe me, I d pour this out on you. What God is doing is God in His Spirit is opening our eyes to see the truth and the news of what Jesus has already done for you. It is realizing that. So, the faith grace connection, don t think that that earns grace. Faith no more earns grace than any than giving a person s sight earn their way to walk down the road, I mean, it s just part of it that enables you to see what s already there, what s happening. It is not to your merit. And we made this out to be that way. I fear there are a lot of folks in church that feel like they have done this, therefore, they deserve heaven or they get their salvation. I want to tell you it is all of grace. There s nothing that comes from us. And the third thing (it is the fourth point) that we want to say that grace affects change. A person cannot receive, have the working of God s grace in their heart and in their life without it doing something in them. A beautiful passage that talks about that Titus 2:11-13 where he says that the grace that saves us has appeared to all men teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldliness that we should live soberly righteously and justly in this present age looking for and hoping the appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us. I mean Paul into Titus said when the grace of God has come to you, when it has appeared to you and God has poured out his grace in your life, it created change. You cannot be unaffected by grace. And grace teaches you. I want to correct. There are a lot of people teaching today that because there is grace it doesn t mean that we no longer need to obey the commands of God and that s not true. The grace of God causes us to be able to, causes us to want to, causes us to see that Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 6

7 living against God s will is death, is darkness, is misery. It is dishonoring to God it s not in fellowship with God and yet God s grace is rescuing us out for the same reason. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, I m sure he put off the embalming clothes of the tomb and put on new normal clothes and began to walk. And so, the person that s been raised to life through the Gospel, through the grace of God, is going to put off sinful habits and it going to put off things that are disobedient to the Lord God and out of a pure heart, they re going to begin to want to do what Jesus want them to do and their going to live like Jesus. Right. The grace of God teaches that. The grace of God empowers that. The grace of God coming into a soul makes that kind of a change. You got it. So, we were talking about grace. Grace is something that is God s undeserved favor, grace is something that He gives freely, it s not about fair it s about God freely giving it to people. Thirdly it is realized by faith the connection we have only comes through faith. And then fourth, it affects change. It does something in the lives of people to received it. And so, we re looking at Ephesians 2 where I think God, Paul, gives a very good explanation of the working of the grace of God. And it s going to ask and answer this question. Now I didn t put this in the bulletin but if I could go back I would. Ephesians 2:1-10 basically answers the question why grace alone can save. While there is nothing else that s going to save us, there s nothing else that going to rescue us from this present circumstance that we re in and humanity, members of a fallen race of people before God, the only thing that s going to save us is grace. You got that? So, when you think of Ephesians 2:1-10, think this is Paul s answer to why only grace is going to work. Are you ready? So, why only grace. Why only grace alone. Why doesn t religious stuff and Bible memory and all the stars being on the sheet on the Sunday school boards that you ve been there every, why all of that is not going to save your eternal soul. Only the grace of God can. So, let s look at that. One The reason number one that we say is that grace is the only solution to our desperate condition. That God s grace is the only solution for our desperate condition. Look at Ephesians 2 verse 1. Notice how Paul talks, and he s writing to believers, he s writing to a church, and he is explaining the Gospel. He is helping them understand what God has done to make them a people. To make them a people of God. And then he says in chapter 2, and you were dead in trespasses and in sin. I want you to stop. He said you re condition before grace is what? Dead. That s a pretty strong word, isn t it? That s a very, that s a very powerful image so say. And you know if you think about that, if you re condition is weak maybe you just need strength, if you are discouraged maybe a little encouragement would help you, but he calls it dead. D-E-A-D. Dead. Dead means dead, right. Or if you know Jerry Clower, graveyard dead right. Some of y all know Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 7

8 what I m talking about there. That s what Paul is saying, people are graveyard dead, but notice how dead. In trespasses and in sins. And so, we are described as being spiritually dead. And then he goes on to say and which you once walked. Now wait a minute. Dead people don t walk do they? Unless you are a zombie. Nobody, yeah, right. That s a thing now right. The walking dead. Isn t it amazing the movies. I don t know that I ve watched one of them. It just seems weird all these gross looking people coming. Y all know what I m talking about? All right. This illustration only works if you get the picture. You got the picture in your mind of the walking dead. They re dead and don t know it. You re mess up when your dead and don t know it. You think you re alive but you re So, what Paul is describing, it s a walking dead. Notice what he says in verse 2, in which you once walked following the course of this world following the prince of power of the air of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience in one in whom we all once lived passions of our flesh. And so, think so think about a zombie and our zombie condition expresses itself in the following ways. Notice what he says in verse 2, he says you once walked following the course of this world. Think of a stick floating down a river and just going where the current carries it. There s no resistance, there s no fighting against it, there s just going with the flow. Right. With the flow. However, you want to put that, plenty of people talk about that, you know, just going easy, whatever comes, just going with the flow. Well that s what he says spiritual death is, that we go with the course of this world. We re just kind of caught up in the world around us and the priorities of the world around us and the thoughts and beliefs of the world around us and we just kind of go with the way things are. He says that s being a spiritual zombie. He says to the Ephesians, you were once caught up in this. You did like others did. There was no difference between you and the community around you of unbelievers. You were all together, you were just flowing with the world. And then the second thing he says is that you are energized by a spirit of rebellion. He said you were following the prince of the power of the air. I don t think that s talking about TV signals, OK. If you know that deal. He said he s talking about Satan, who inhabits this biosphere that we are in, and he is energizing the sons of disobedience. He is at work, motivating, deceiving, and he says that this spiritual death means that you are following the prince of the power of the air. The original rebel against God that wanted God s throne overthrown. And so, he says that you are being energized by this spirit of disobedience by spiritual rebellion. That that s in every one of us. You know it s just like, y all know, y all seen this dynamic. If you paint a wall fresh paint and you put no signs up, nobody touches it. You put a thing up there that says, don t touch, wet paint, and everybody comes by and touches it. Why do we do that? We have in us, we all have this rebellious tendency to authority. I remember reading about a hotel down on the Gulf Coast that was having problems with people fishing off the balcony because it was right over the water Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 8

9 and sinkers and baits would come up, slam against the windows, and crack and break them. And they put all these signs up, absolutely no fishing and it got worse. You know what they did? They took all the no fishing signs down and people quit fishing. Isn t that interesting? If you know your own heart, you know this is true. And that s what Paul said. You know when the law came sin revive and I died. I think what he means by that in Romans 7 is that when I see a commandment of God, there is something in me that wants to push back, there is this spirit of disobedience, the spirit of rebellion, and the human race has this universally. And so, he says this zombie-like spiritual death that we re in causes us, when God gives a command, we want to say, no. Do I need to apply that anymore? Am I getting real personal? Zombie death. This spirit of rebellion that energizes us. Thirdly, we re enslaved to the desires of an unbelieving mind. He said in verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. We have a, when it comes to the things of God, when it comes to knowing the true and the living God, our minds are dark and we re kind of enslaved to this dark mind. So, this is the expression of our spiritual death that is universal among the human race, and Paul says, you were there. You were following the course of this world, energized by a spirit of rebellion, being enslaved to a dark unbelieving mind. Notice what else he says. These are truths about this and before we move off this point I want you to see this whole thing. Notice he says in verse, end of verse 3, he says and we are by nature children of wrath. You see that in your Bibles? You were by nature children of wrath. If you re by nature something, that means that you were born that way. Right? That you came into this world with a specific nature and that s what the Bible teaches. Although a lot of people and a lot of Christians kind of struggle with that and think that, what do they say, if I was born that way and I stand dead before God, rebellious before God, not deserving anything good, what are we going to say? If I didn t have any choice in the matter, then that is not fair. But you know what, our pushing back and saying, we ll that s not fair God, that s an expression of that spirit of disobedience. We don t want to accept God s assessment of us. WE want to reserve the right to say what we are. Do y all not get that we should not be surprised at the controversies that are going on in the human race. This universally true. WE don t want God. We don t want a sovereign king over us. We don t want somebody else saying this is what you should or shouldn t do. And yet, that is exactly what the Bible does. Are y all with me on this? So, you re getting the picture. This is spiritual death. To be inhabited by this spirit of rebellion. We re getting to the good news, ok. If you don t understand the need, then grace is not going to be all that amazing. If our sin is no big deal, the cross is no big deal. And if we don t see what Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 9

10 God says about us, then we re not going to understand His deliverance that comes to us. So, hand with me here on this. So, we were born with this. In sin did my mother conceive me. Is not talking about his mama was a harlot, all right. David was talking about his original sin in Psalm 51. So, we are born with this dead heart. Secondly, everybody s got this problem. Look at verse3 at the end of it. He says we were born by nature children of wrath, children deserving God s wrath like the rest of mankind. He s talking to Christians and he says you were just like all of them, there s no difference. You were made out of the same stuff, you were exactly like everybody else, all the pagan world, they re out there doing all these things that are immoral and vile and godless, who are worshiping idols, who are engaged in all this sinful behavior. You were once there with all of them, and that is exactly true. Now we may push against that and say well I was raised in church or my parents taught me better, I want to tell you, godly parents and being in church every Sunday, nine months before you come into this world and until this present moment doesn t erase your depravity. I said it in speaking to preachers. Ordination certificates on the wall don t erase our depravity. We all need the grace and the mercy of God. That doesn t change any of that. And he says you were, just like the rest of mankind, there was no difference. Do you, I want to ask you guys, do you believe that? Do you believe that as you sit here today in this church in Hill Creek Arkansas in 2017, I want you to think, can you honestly say as I look in my own heart, I realize that I am no different than any other sinner? I don t have a different heart. Now let me test you on this; than this guy who did what he did in Los Vegas. You say, well, no, wait a minute, Jeff, I m not that bad. What you re saying is not fair. Are you tracking with me? That is like the rest of mankind. Paul is writing to a church, he is writing to spirited fill born again believers, and he said before all this grace came into your life, no difference. No difference. You know what that means? WE have no business looking down our noses on anybody no matter what mess their life is in. Are you with me? If I believe the Gospel that means that I see other people, I don t see them any worse or any better than me. There are moral choices we may talk about they may not have believed and received God s grace, they might not be pursuing Jesus. And those are things they should do and we should encourage them to do and I want to tell you, all of that stuff we ve got is grace. Grace. Grace. I can t claim it, I can t tell myself that, you know what, I m glad that I didn t do that, I m glad that God moved in my life and didn t let me, right. Or that God intervened or God s grace was there. Like Paul said, by the grace of God that I am what I am. What would my life be if it were not for His grace? That s how a born again believe thinks. Just like the rest of mankind, there s no difference. Everybody has got this problem. Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 10

11 Genesis 6:5-8, you know this is a story of the Bible all the way through. I think it s interesting in light of some of the criticisms and skeptical things that are said about the Bible about the God of the Old Testament being different from the God of the New Testament. It s interesting that the Bible story opens with a perfect situation that tempted and fell into sin, rebelled against God, and then in chapter 6, after, and really honestly, from Genesis 1 to Genesis 6 is the biggest block of time in all the Bible. Did you know that? Thousands of years. We re not really sure, I don t think you can count to the day. I m not going to argue with anybody about a specific year on that, but that is the biggest block of time. Some estimates are as you look at the genealogies that are given in chapter 5 that the world population probably exceeded a billion people in the days of Noah. You understand that? If you were living, you were having children for 900 years, it doesn t take long to get lots of people. Some of y all are saying, nah, that ain t right, that s funny no, no! Right. And what does the Bible describe in the days of Noah? I invite you to turn there. And this is repeated over and over again in the story of Scripture as we look, as God has revealed His Word to us. Genesis chapter 6 verse 5. And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth. As more people filled the earth, more wickedness filled the earth. And that every intention of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually. I don t see how you can read that and not believe in depravity. Right? His thought was only evil continually. What were they doing? Well, Jesus said they were marrying and given in marriage, they were living their life apart from God, doing their own thing. That s exactly what they were doing. Without any consideration for their Creator. And you look at our world and you see all the mess that s it s in and very very similar. Verse 6, and the Lord regret that He made man on the earth and it grieve Him to His heart. The heart of God broke because of the sin that He saw on this earth. And the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land. I m going to wipe them out, I m going to wipe this plague out of the universe that I made. Was He just in doing that? Is that righteous and holy judgement? Yes. But what happens? Verse 8. One guy and his family, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The days before Noah there was only one possible solution for the mess that exist on planet earth and what was it? The grace of God. Unless God gives His grace, there is no hope. Unless the grace of God comes to somebody somewhere on earth there is no hope. And that s what Genesis starts with. What Paul is saying to the Ephesians in Ephesians 2 is listen, here s these situation, here s the diagnosis of the spiritual state of mankind on this earth, that their dead in sins and walk according to the course of this world, they re filled with this rebellious spirit that energizes them and that they re captive to an unbelieving mind that is rebellious and hostile to God that will not submit and will not fully link itself up in fellowship with God. He said everybody s like that and they were born that way and so what hope is there? Well just like Genesis 76, Noah finds grace in the eyes of Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 11

12 the Lord. And I want to tell you the only answer we have is found in verse 4. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, He makes us alive together with Christ. And early in chapter 1 in Ephesians, Paul talked about this great power that comes to us this great power that raised Jesus from the dead, God declares to raise a dead soul to life to have fellowship with him. Ladies and gentlemen, the only hope for planet earth is not anything the human government can do, not policies, it s not education, it s not even this church, it is the grace and mercy of God alone. There is nothing else that comes close to being a solution to the problem we are in. We have to feel that weight to realize that is the dire situation. And the reason Luther would say grace alone. Because if you think anything else could be added to what is the solution to our problem. If mankind comes up with something you have failed to appreciate the depth and seriousness and the depravity of the human heart. We haven t considered fully what our sinfulness means, if we think anything we do can fix this. This is a mess, right. This world s in a mess. Sin is real, the curse of sin is real and so Paul s first statement is that, really, only, grace alone is the only solution to our desperate condition. WE are guilty, we are hopeless and helpless in the face of this condition. In the most beautiful two words in all of chapter 2 is found in the first part of verse 4, but God. God in His mercy decided to act. So, the second point we wanted to share with you is that grace is the only solution to our condition and grace comes to us only because of God s love and mercy. Look at verses 4-6. God is rich, overflowing, abundant, He has way more than He needs, right. Way more than would be required. God is full of grace and mercy because of the great love with which He loved us. Because of this greatness of God that God has set His love on us and intervened for us in this situation. Even when we dead in our trespasses. Notice He makes us alive. When does He make him alive? What is the state before God acted to make you alive spiritually? Can y all answer that? What does he say. When was he made alive? When we were dead. How does a, what does a dead person do to raise themselves? I ve worked in hospitals the last 20 years, I ve yet to see the first case of self-started CPR. Have you? Do we sense this? That here we are in this horrible place and then hear comes God as a Savior, as a redeemer, and His grace comes and He awakens and He raises the dead. Just like Ezekiel 37 when he was preaching before this valley, where there was a battle and all these dead bones are laying there. And as he begins to preach they begin to rattle and flesh comes on and before it is over with, they re alive. Just like the power that raised Jesus from the dead. Christian salvation is the resurrection power or Jesus raising a soul from spiritual death to life in Christ. I hope we feel the weight of the awesomeness of this. That this what He s done for us. Something we could never do for ourselves. Something that we could never even begin to know how to approach and yet He s come down and raised us Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 12

13 while we were dead. I like Romans 5:8, while we were still weak in due time Christ died for the ungodly and He commands His love for us that while we were still sinners, He dies for us. While we are still a rebel, He comes out to change the situation on our behalf by going to the cross, purchasing our redemption and awakening us by the convicting power of His Holy Spirit. Ladies and gentlemen, salvation is not just a little thing you do at the front of the church. It is the Holy Spirit of God awakening a human soul from a state of death to a state of life. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says if you are in Christ you are a new creation. Do we believe that? And what I m afraid of a lot of people may not have that reality. Grace. It s something awesome and amazing. I ve looked back over my life and this is something the longer I live the more it pulls at my heart. I haven t got what I deserve. I have been richly poured all this blessing and grace and I think the more I look at that I almost want to say, God why are you doing this for me? What did I do to compel Jesus to come? What did I do? And God s answer is because I love you. Out of His rich love and mercy this where grace comes from. From the magnitude from the heart of God. And then because of that, number 3, I know I need to move forward here. Notice what Paul says as he develops this. While we were dead in our trespasses He makes us alive, He resurrects us, by grace you have been saved. You see the end of verse 5. Paul just didn t interject that. You need to understand this thing we call salvation is all about grace. Your church stuff doesn t earn it for you, you can pray and count beads and get baptized 50 million times. Are y all with me on that. You can come to this alter 24 hour 7 days a week. I m here to tell you, you are saved by grace. None of that moves God toward you. He comes to you while you are still dead and don t even know you need Him and begins working. By grace. He says this is all grace. This is all God s unmerited favor, God pouring out on somebody something they don t deserve. So, grace alone is going to receive the credit. Look how Paul develops this. Verse 6 that he raised us up with him, whose him? Jesus. And he sits us with him in the heavenly places of Christ Jesus. In other words, get this, that He takes someone who is dead, who s a zombie, whose walking in the disobedience, falling after this world, falling after the God of this age, and He is going to change them, resurrect them, lift them up into heavenly places in Christ. I want you to follow. This is awesome. And then he says but in the ages to come, verse 7, he might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ. Heaven will be a display of the grace of God. You will forever be declaring to the universe for all time this is what the grace of God could do. Here you are, God s rescued, changed you, resurrected you, lifted you up and there you are in heaven. When we get there we re not going to say, man I m glad that I did the right things. Nobody is going to say that. What we re going to say, we re going to throw our crowns down before the feet of the slaughtered lamb of God and say You are Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 13

14 worthy because You redeemed from every tribe, tongue, nation and people for your own possession and we re going to give Him praise and glory and we re going to testify to the grace of God. That s what heavens going to be. It s going to be a celebration of the powerful, the beauty, the awesome grace that God would redeem sinners and change them and make them this beautiful thing. A redeemed soul. You see that in verse 7. He s going to show this. He s going to show what all He has done. His grace is going to be on display in heaven for all eternity. See grace alone deserves the credit. Grace alone deserves the credit. Nowhere else. The efficient cause of any of us having fellowship with God is grace according to Paul s statement here in chapter 2. And then the last thing. Think this is what this means is where he gets to is grace that save must be alone and not mixed with works. Looks how Paul develops this in verse 8. For by grace you have been saved. Notice he said that twice right. Once in the end of verse 5 now the end of verse 8. What does that mean? Well he wants you to get that right. It is by grace you are saved. It is only by the grace of God that you are saved through your faith, through faith. And it says and this is not your own doing. What is this? Well I think that is the whole process. God s grace coming to you is not your doing, and I think also, you know, your faith is a gift. Here s why you can t claim it as a merit. Acts talks about God gave the gift of faith or God opened someone s heart to believe. Has it ever hit you that all of this, if you re here and you re a believer, I want you to think, all of this is not about your doing. Did you choose when to be born? Did you choose the influences in your life? Did you have anything to do with the Holy Spirit coming upon you and begin drawing your heart and convicting you of your sins? Would God be just as just as if He d left you alone? Do you feel the weight of this? Wouldn t God be just as holy and righteous if He d left men along or if He did like He did in the days of the flood and brought judgement on this earth. I have to believe that s the story line of the Bible and that s why the cross fails to have an impact because we sort of think, well why wouldn t God. We re all that, we re cool. I m fine, what s your problem. Right. Because we ve got this human spirit of rebellion. Our refusal to let God tell us where we are causes us to not see the glory of the Gospel. And so, He says that this is not of your own. This is not anything us did. That if you re here and you re a believer and if you read Ephesians 2, I think we re compelled to say thank God you saved me. And we fall on our face and worship and you realize ever moment of my life, every penny that I own, every possession that I have, every relationship I ve been blessed with, that is God grace to me. He would have been just as holy and righteous had he left me in my sins, but God saved me, delivered me, poured out His grace on me, drew me to himself, opened my eyes, opened my heart, and to feel the weight. Thank God you saved me. And to have that overwhelming sense. This what Luther was getting at because the church had become this Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 14

15 industry of all these things all these rituals, all these things that people do and they felt by doing that they d checked the boxes and everything was ok with God and He is saying, no. This is what Paul is teaching. It is not of you. It is not of yourself. Notice what he says, it is a gift of God not a result of works. Why? So, no one can boast. No one can say look here, right. This is God s grace. And grace cannot be mixed with works. We get that. Not of works. Paul goes out of his way to say this, by grace you ve been saved by faith. This is nothing that you did it s God s gift, it s not a result of works because it would cause you to boast, it would cause you to take confidence in your doing rather than the doing of Christ and that s not the Gospel. He says for we are His workmanship. IN other words, you don t work to get there, He works on us. To get us there. Does that make sense. We are His workmanship created by Christ Jesus for good works and the work he s doing on us is going to cause us to work for Him and walk in obedience to what the Bible says, right? Because He s redeeming us from sin. He is destroying the effect of sin in the heart of a human being that He made and redeeming it and making it to have fellowship with the God of heaven. This is His work in us. WE are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that God had prepared before-hand that we should walk in them. This was God s plan all along. Turn over to Romans chapter 6. I m going to show you one other verse. I m sorry Romans 11 verse 6. Paul talking about grace and works which is not only all over Ephesians but most of his letters. Romans 11 verse 6 he says very clearly if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. It s like oil and water, right. It doesn t mix. You cannot interject anything. If you say it is God s grace, but you ve got to do, x,y,z, that not s the basis of our salvation. That s not the basis of our justification. Now are we still commanded to obey the Lord and to follow His ways in the Scriptures? Yes, but the basis of our salvation is not those works. It is His grace apart from our works. So, let s be very very clear about that. A few more statements and we re going to wrap up. Here s something I want you to burn in your mind. The only thing we contribute to our salvation is our sin. We provided what Jesus bore on the cross for us. There s an old southern gospel song years ago that said this, I think in very beautiful language. They only thing in heaven that was made by man was the scars on the hand of Jesus. That s what it s talking about. The only thing we contribute really is our sin. And God does the rest. God saves. God delivers. That s how His grace works. I found this quote and I thought it was really good. I am convinced that God saved me by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. I did nothing to merit this salvation. There is nothing in me that turned God my direction. There s no message of goodness that compelled him to look my way. I wasn t seeking Him when He began seeking me. This was all of grace without the small bit of my merit, Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 15

16 I added nothing of my salvation, but the sin that made it necessary. That s a good summary of this. By grace you are saved through faith. So why do we talk about this. Well, I believe that we as Christians, this is an activity that you re going to battle your whole life. And that s this. It is to stomp out any idea in our minds that our obedience moves God to love and accept us. We need to fight against that. Our obedience doesn t move God to love and accept us. This is how this is applied. And I m probably talking to somebody here today, that you ve thought in your mind, man, if I could just get whatever. I want to tell you, you don t clean up to go take a bath. You know we say that. God s grace is there. Matter of fact, this is something that ought to be true. If you re concerned about your sin, God s grace is already working in your heart. Because left to yourself, you wouldn t be. You d follow that rebellious spirit that s infected all of mankind. You d be like the walking dead, the zombie. You know what I believe a lot of people experience the first stirrings of God s grace in their heart, is when they start coming under conviction. When they begin to start being concerned about their spiritual state. You know when the Gospel is preached in a message like this and people are beginning to be concerned and bothered and asking questions and you go home thinking about it and there s something that s nagging at you. You didn t ask for that to be there. It may be making you miserable. But I ve learned to see this. Not only in my own life, but in the lives of other people, that that sometimes the first evidences of the grace of God beginning to work a change in somebody s heart. When they begin to convict, when they begin to draw, things are stirring, the power of God has invaded the tomb of your soul. And light is beginning to penetrate and things are beginning to move as God begins to do a work. I believe this, that the new birth is a miracle of God by the Holy Spirit of God. Amen. You can t be saved without the Holy Spirit. You can t move without a miraculous moving of God and the Holy Spirit in your life. I think this is a lie right out of hell that we sort of reduce salvation into a ritual in a church. Is a miraculous moving of God in the human soul why He, where He bursts that soul while he comes alive and they re a new creation? It is a miracle, it is powerful, it is real And it is the only answer for the sinful condition that we have. But we need to stomp out anything in our mind that our stuff moves God to us. God comes anyway. God s grace moves. I want you to answer this question. I want you to think about this. I am saved because of what How would you answer that in light of today s message? What is it that your heart holds on to? And really that determines whether you are moving towards the cross or you re resting in God s grace or something else. And only you can answer this and it, you may not even right now be able to answer this. What is it that you are holding on to. What is it that if you were to press question, why do you think that you re a Christian and child of God. What it is that you are Grace Alone October 8, 2017 Jeff Russell 16