God s Grace For Us Ephesians 2:1-10 May 1, 2015 Good morning, my name is David Pranga. I am Executive Pastor here at Brewster Baptist Church. We are in the middle of a very important series, Going Deeper in Faith. Each week, we are exploring a foundational belief we share as followers of Jesus Christ. In doing this, we want to help you to know, understand, and be able to share your faith. This morning, we are going to tackle the Doctrine of Grace. Now, the Doctrine of Grace may sound for many of you in the room complex or even complicated. For some of you, you are probably thinking, I should have slept in, went out for brunch, or maybe there is some yard work to do. Even though this is one of those complex issues The Doctrine of Grace. It is one of the most important beliefs we have as a Christian. My job this morning, is to try to explain to you, The Doctrine of Grace which we will simply call GRACE. That is a mighty order. Your job this morning is simply to stay focused, free yourself from distractions of later today, and to be open to what God has for you. See, God has this great amount of love for you. God loves each of you. God loves you more than you realize. This morning, we are going to see the great amount of love he has for each of you and he offers each you this thing called Grace! Grace is exciting in so many ways. If you have your Bible this morning, please turn to Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1-10. If you don t have your Bible, take a pew bible or it will be on the screen behind me. I had one person ask a while back if she could pull out her phone. She has a bible app on it. I told her that was fine. So, if you have a bible, phone, ipad, or other devices, open up your Bible or click on your phone to Ephesians 2 verse 1. Do you remember as a kid, when your parents shared with you that there is good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first? This morning will be one of those mornings. I have some bad news, then we will cover some great news, and lastly we will talk about the best news of all. Let me begin by reading to you the first 3 verses in Ephesians chapter 2. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh [a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. Wow, that is some pretty bad news. Paul is writing to the early church and he is telling them a very important truth. This truth still applies to us today. Paul says in verse 1 You were dead in your transgression and sins Paul begins chapter 2 by saying to you and to every one of us. We are dead. Paul is not talking about our physical nature. Paul recognizes that we are alive. What Paul is explaining to us, is that at one time we are all were spiritually dead to God. The question we may need to ask, Why does Paul say, we are spiritually dead?
Paul recognizes we are sinner. We all have transgressions. We have done things that are wrong. Do those words sound familiar? Does anybody remember the Lord s prayer we said earlier this morning. We asked God to do what? To forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Romans 3: 23 says For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God What does it mean to sin? Sin is one of those words we don t like to talk about. Sin is one of those church words. We typically only use it at church. What is sin? According to the Webster student dictionary #1: A breaking of a moral law #2: An action that is or is felt to be bad What Paul is sharing with us, is that we all have sinned. Anybody here told a little white lie? That is a sin against God. Anybody here shared some gossip about somebody? That s another sin against God. Anybody here been envious of someone else s good fortune (house, car, boat, maybe job). That s another sin against God. Anybody get angry with someone; maybe their spouse or child or sibling. That s another sin against God. Have you ever made a promise? A promise to a family member or a friend and did not keep it. That is another sin against God. Anybody ever steal anything? My dad had a basket of money. I used to take some of it. Another sin against God. Anybody, want me to go on? My point we are all sinners. We all have fallen short of God s holiness. What we need to understand is that God is holy. God is perfect. God measures us by high standard. By the sin we are committing. We have fallen short of God s holiness. Verse 3 it says, we deserve wrath. What Paul is writing to the young church in Ephesus, he could very well be writing to us at Brewster Baptist Church. We are all sinners. We are all spiritually dead. Our sin (whether it is gossip, lies, envy, anger, stealing, and the list can go on and on) has separated us from God. Paul continues and tells us that we have followed the ways of the world, the sinfulness of our flesh, and the ways of the devil. And we don t even realize it. We don t even know it. We are not even aware of how dead we are in God s eyes. It reminded me of a movie that was popular back in 1999. The movie was The Sixth Sense. Anybody remember that movie? It stared Bruce Willis as a child psychologist. There is boy name Cole Sear. Cole is a very frightened. He is very confused 8 year old child. Cole can see things that other people cannot see. Cole is going to finally reveal his secret. (Movie Clip at 50:00 Cole tells his secret to 51:15 Cole goes to sleep) Cole, a child reveals his secret to Bruce Willis Cole sees dead people. Cole s sixth sense enables him to see dead people walking around him like normal people. These ghosts wander the earth with no idea about their true condition.
When I was watching this movie, it made me think about how the people here on earth that are walking around spiritually dead. As Christians we have the truth in Jesus Christ. We should look at the world differently. Like Cole, we have that sixth sense of seeing things, people cannot see. Without Jesus, people are lost. I think this movie typifies what Paul is saying to us this morning. There are people here (maybe in this church, in the town of Brewster, and on Cape Cod) that are spiritually dead right now. They don t know it. They don t even realize it. They don t realize what they are need of something. Their eyes have not been opened up to see the truth. What Paul is sharing with this young church, at one time we were all spiritually dead. Because of our sin towards God. We are living with no hope. In God s eyes we deserve wrath and death. That is the some pretty bad news. Let me share with you the good news. What are the two most glorious words in all of scripture? But GOD! Anybody ever cry out to God! Anybody ever say to themselves, there must be more to our life on earth? But God Let s move on to verse 4. Ephesians 2:4 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, But God! These words are among the greatest in the Bible. God loves you. God does not leave us high and dry. God does not leave us alone. God is full of love. God wants a relationship with his people. God wants a relationship with you. We covered this a few weeks ago. John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. You are loved by God. That is God s character. God s love is Unconditional there are no strings attached. Constant never changes from day to day, week to week, or even year to year Forever God s love has no end; it eternal God s love for you is based on who you are, not on what you do. There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more than he already does right now. You cannot earn God s love by doing good deeds or by being a good person or by even giving money to the poor. Here is a cool thing as well, there is nothing you can do to make God love you any less. God s love is supreme! I want to read to you Romans 8:39 to show you God s love for you. Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord - Romans 8:39 God s love is supreme! God s love is there for us. Even though we are sinners. Even though we are on the wrong path at times. Even though we make mistakes that we wish we may have never made. Even
though we get angry at other people and at ourselves. God loves you! God still cares about you! God still values you. Let s go back to Ephesians 2:4-6 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, I was very fortunate child. I grew up with Christian parents and they did a great job modeling to me what it meant to walk with God. My mom shared with me countless times, that I needed to ask Jesus into my heart. As 18 year old teenager, I knew that I was sinner. I knew that I was carrying the weight of my sins on my shoulders. I knew that I needed Jesus Christ in my life. I can remember as 18 year old teenager, asking Jesus Christ to come into my heart. Sharing with him that I was sorry about the sins that I committed. I wanted to do my best to trust in him and start living my life for Jesus. When we accept Jesus Christ into our life. Something magical happens to us. God raises us up from being spiritual dead and give us a new life. God gives each new believer, us a new position in our life with him. These are three things happen we invite Jesus to part of our life. This is how much God loves us. 1) God made us alive with Christ. (we were spiritually dead, but now we are spiritually alive. God has breathe new life into all believers. God sees us in a new way.) 2) God raised us up with Christ. 3) God seated us with him in the heavenly realms. That is amazing. That is simply amazing! Let me say as a pastor it is pretty cool. Trust me. For most of us here, we don t even understand or may not realize what that means. I don t have time this morning to explain it. But trust me, it is cool. But that is God s promise to us. When we accept Christ. We have new life with Him. That is some pretty great news God is not done. I would say this is the best news of all. We need to read on Ephesian 2:5, 7-10 5 even when we were dead in transgressions it is by grace you have been saved. 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. What does the word grace mean? When I looked it up in the Bible dictionary I found Grace is the free and unmerited favor of God.
That is about as clear as mud. Unmerited favor of God. You got to love those theologians. This past two weeks, I have been thinking of words that help us understand the work of grace. The words I thought about are justice, mercy, and grace. Justice is getting what you deserve Mercy is not getting what you deserve Grace is when someone gives you a free gift; that you don t deserve. Let me tell you a story to illustrate these three words justice, mercy, and grace Illustration: I want you to imagine you have a son. This son is 17 years old. He has taken the car out. He is driving back home. On his drive back home, he is obeying the laws he s not on his cell phone. He is doing everything right. He will be getting back before curfew. He is a great son. He is driving back and listening to his radio. He is doing everything right. On the other side of the road, a person who had too much to drink, who had many previous DUI s, is driving illegally. The person has crossed the medium line. He is drunk. He slams into your son and the car. He is drunk. Instantaneously, your son is killed. The drunk driver is spared. Let me go back to those three words to help us understand them. Justice If you let the laws in our country play out, in due course then the drunk driver who killed your son, he will get justice and go to jail. Mercy If you plead with your judge to reduce the sentence of the drunk driver that would be mercy. He would not get exactly what he deserved. Grace If for some chance you were able to work out a situation, where you talked to the judge and you talked to the drunk driver, and you advocated for the man s freedom. The man would not go to jail, but the man would come into your home and live with you. You decided to give that person all the things that you saved for your son. His car, money for college education, and your inheritance. Instead of giving those things to your son, you decide to give it to the man, who killed your son. That would be an example of grace. Grace is when you give a gift that the person does not deserve. You know it. They know it. But you do it anyway. Because you can. Only the parents in this illustration can offer up grace. God is giving us something that we do not deserve at all. God who is love and rich in mercy. God who knows how sinful each one of us are. Even though, we are spiritually dead. God offers and extends to us his grace. God offers each one of us grace.
God gave up his one and only son Jesus. Jesus had to die on the cross. Jesus had to take our place. We deserved death because of the sins we have committed. Because Jesus died on the cross, God gives us grace. It is only God who can provide this grace to us. Do we deserve this grace? Do we deserve this free gift of grace? No. That does not stop God. Why? Because God loves us. To us, who live here on earth, this may sounds crazy. But we are not making the rules, God is. That is the Doctrine of Grace. Grace is a gift that God has offered to each of us. We need to have faith in Him. We need to be people who live in faith. We are only saved by God s grace. Let me repeat verses 2:8-9 Verse 8-9. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God 9 not by works, so that no one can boast In the church world, we often talk about doing good things. It is easy for us to do good deeds, because there are so many good things to do. For the most part we like doing good things. We like helping people. It makes us feel good. Here is the problem, as Christians it is easy to begin to rationalize and begin to believe that our good deeds or our works count for something more than it should. We begin to believe a little lie that our works are the reason, why have eternal life. We begin to believe that it is how we earn our way into heaven. It must be by our works and good deeds. That is religion talking. That is not what God had in mind. Do you know the difference between Religion and Christianity? Religion is all about obeying a set of laws or commands. It is about doing good deeds. And hopefully by doing enough good deeds or by obeying enough of the laws and commands, then one day God might just accept me. That is called religion. Grace and Christianity are completely different than that. First, I am already accepted by God. God loves me. I cannot do anything to earn my salvation or my way to heaven. It is all what God had already done for me. What has been done for us? God offers us grace God in his great love for us, sent his one and only son.jesus. To die on a cross. To take our place. We deserve death for our sins. Yet, God offers us grace. God offers us a gift. A gift that requires our faith in him. Why? Why would God offer us his grace? Simply, God was offering his grace because it brings him glory. Grace is a gift that God gives to you. God is looking down at us and is saying, I don t need anything from you. There is nothing you can do for me. I just want to give you a special gift. When you receive God s grace and understand there is nothing you can do. And that is when God is glorified.
That is the Doctrine of Grace. In summary, The Bad News: We are spiritually dead do to our sins (white lies, anger, stealing, envy). The Great News: is that God loved us. He had mercy on us. God made us alive God raised us up with Christ God seated us with him in the heavenly realms. The Best News: It is only by God s grace this is done. There is nothing we can do We cannot buy our way into heaven. We cannot do enough good deeds to get us to heaven. We cannot earn our way into heaven. The Bible says it is by grace you have been saved, not by works. The only way we can have salvation is by putting our faith in Jesus. It is by God s grace that we have salvation. Let us pray. Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, we cannot comprehend your grace for us. We are a mess. Literally, God we are mess in your eyes. We need to come to a place in our life, where we are not trying to earn your favor (by doing good deeds or being nice). This is so hard for us. We need to accept what Christ has done for us. We need to put our faith in you. You saved us! Your mercy is unbelievable. You are a God of grace. We are thankful for your grace. In faith alone are we saved. Amen.