A Robust Gospel of Grace Ephesians 2:8-10 2/4/2007 Copyright by Mark Vaughan 2/2007 Many of you were expecting today s message to be the next in what has become a series on the lifestyle and process of church discipline. And I will return to that series next week but I want to cover another church distinctive as we celebrate communion today. As I ve mentioned, I am addressing one distinct core commitment of Calvary Memorial Church per month over this anniversary year. And today s topic is what I m calling a robust Gospel of grace. We are not the only church in Roanoke that believes what I ll say but our belief and practice related to this topic is a distinct commitment. And I thank God that there seems to be a revival of these truths in America lately. In pockets around the country, there is a move away from the cultural Christianity that so dominated the landscape. You see, many blessings can exist when the majority of people believe the Bible and there is a societal pressure to conform. But such times also allow a Phariseeism to breed that makes salvation a checklist of beliefs and behaviors. But that reflects a huge disconnect from the essence of the Gospel that we want to consider today. And at least one other problem arises from defining Christianity as a checklist of beliefs and behaviors. It reduces the Gospel to a point that counts any positive response as a supposed convert. That weak practice has cheapened God s grace and assured people of heaven when they don t evidence a life headed there. Such shrinking of saving grace has created a view of the Gospel that has no power to transform people. And that is another huge disconnect from the robust Gospel of grace that we want to see from the Bible today. The biblical Gospel is what Romans 1:16 calls the POWER of God unto salvation. And it is what Romans 3:27 says excludes all boasting. It is not a checklist to affirm while producing no change and it is also not a message that gives any credit to man. The biblical Gospel is a message that is all of grace from beginning to end, from eternity past to eternity future. And Jesus harshest words were always against Pharisees who congratulated themselves for their right beliefs and behaviors. Too often in America, Christians have pointed to those outside the church as the people who really need God s grace. And there s been an unstated self-congratulatory pat on the back that we re not like those people with defiled lifestyles. I know many of you know and affirm what I m going to say today. And I know you ve heard me say these things before. But today I want to remind us and renew us in our affirmation and celebration of a biblically robust Gospel of grace. 1
I want us to refresh ourselves in the depth and power of the Gospel and make applications that clarify why today s distinctive is so crucial. From Ephesians 2:8-10, I want us to see 2 descriptions of God s grace that transform everything about us as individuals and as a church. If you are new to Bible study or this church, then this is the central Good News of the Scriptures. These are the truths of eternal life. Everything from how we worship and witness to how we pray and preach is influenced by the depth and power of the grace we see in the Gospel. And it is a joy to consider this topic from a familiar passage that is memorized by children and prized throughout a life of faith. To begin, let s read the context beginning in chapter 2 in its celebration of God s glorious grace in the Gospel. Follow along with me as I read in Ephesians 2:1-10. [READ] 1 st today I want you to see that God s grace extends to every root of our salvation. God s grace extends to every root of our salvation. And when I say our salvation, I mean the eternal rescue from sin s punishment and power that comes to believers in Christ. Let s note how these verses teach us that God s grace extends to every source and basis and cause and origin of our salvation. Verse 8 begins with the word for because it is an explanation of verses 1-7. It explains the grace that is spoken of in verses 1-7 and particularly the surpassing riches of His grace mentioned in verse 7. Verse 5 has already included a parenthesis highlighting that salvation is by grace. And then the Apostle Paul came back to that parenthesis in verse 8 to further explain this grace-demonstrating salvation. Paul s words emphasize that true believers are currently and continually in the state of already having been saved by grace. The salvation spoken of is something that had happened in the past to the Ephesian believers and it had continuing results. They were not in the process of being saved by a little bit of grace day by day that somehow made them become saved. No. Their salvation was accomplished and done, all by grace. And grace, as you may have heard defined before, is unmerited favor it is undeserved blessing. Grace is God freely giving the opposite of what our condition requires. Grace is a gift contrary to what we actually deserve. And no matter how deeply we now appreciate God s grace, we have only begun to understand it. Verse 7 says that God s purpose in saving sinners includes future demonstration of the immeasurable abundance of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. What we grasp about grace now is only the start of what we ll see. And what we experience now in Christ is tremendous already. 2
According to verse 6, it includes a position with Christ in the heavenly places that has been granted through spiritual resurrection. That spiritual resurrection is what brought out Paul s first gushing forth that salvation is by grace in verse 5. Read about that move from spiritual death to life in verse 5. [READ] Our salvation is so rooted in God s grace that He had to raise us to life and make us alive out of spiritual death. Salvation starts in time by God s gracious spiritual resurrection that brings about conversion. God s grace acts on a dead soul to grant life. So the point is to praise God if He did not leave you dead in your sins! Verse 4 clarifies that this is all out of the richness of God s mercy and great love. All that love and mercy operate through His grace. And the product is new spiritual life in a formerly dead soul. It s no wonder so many songs are written about God s amazing, wonderful grace through Christ! This text has truth that teaches us to sing. And rescuing us from spiritual death was no small problem. Verses 1-3 explain this deadness in sins as a walk in the world s ways under the devil s power in a life of disobedience. Spiritual deadness is slavery to the flesh s lusts and the mind s cravings and the sin nature s wrath. It is a prison of destruction for this life and for eternity. And the Bible describes it as deadness because there is no selforiginating power to bring about life. Spiritual life cannot come from within a fallen human. The grace that Paul is extolling and celebrating throughout this section is so great that it reached down and turned death to life. God did not just respond to some move of us toward Him. He always was, has been and must be the initiator. His grace is so rich and powerful and amazing that when we were dead, He made us alive. That should overwhelm you with happy gratitude if you are alive. And this really is an amazing picture when you think about it. Think of the unresponsiveness of a dead body. The person who used to inhabit that dead body is gone and there is nothing we can do to restore life to that body. And that s why Paul chose the language of deadness to describe our spiritual state on our own apart from Christ. He did not describe us spiritually as what we call dead asleep like some people can be at various times of the night. You or your spouse or kids may be incredibly hard to wake up at certain hours but our natural spiritual state is far worse than that. We as humans are born sinners who are fully spiritually dead. 3
And we need more than a little help, more than a nudge or cold water or spiritual CPR or an electric shock to wake us up. We need a whole new birth into new life. As Jesus put it in John 3, we must be born again by the Spirit. To move from death to life we must be made alive by the Spirit And when the Spirit gives that new life, it is all and only by grace. Again, Ephesians 2:5 says, even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ. And to explain, Paul adds, by grace you have been saved. That s the extent of the grace of God in salvation. God s grace extends to every ROOT or source of our salvation even to the very source of life that begins the whole thing. And let me just remind you that this is why we pray. We pray because salvation is from the Lord and so we plead with God to grant the new life of salvation that can only come from Him. If humans were only partially dead or dead asleep, then we might have some hope of waking them on our own. If we pumped the volume up enough or cranked the guilt trip tight enough or played the music beautifully enough, we might arouse them. But we do not depend on ourselves because only God can save. And therefore we pray with desperate dependence on God to affect the spiritual new birth and do the internal heart-work that we cannot do. Since God s grace extends to every root of our salvation, we must be people who pray continually and fervently for God to work His spiritual wonders. Think about that the next time you are frustrated with your children or coworkers or relatives that need the Spirit to awaken them. Let it motivate you to pray and then let it motivate you to follow God s design for evangelism and trust Him for results. With God as the ultimate cause behind salvation, we seek it His way. We don t try to manipulate people into decisions or sweet-talk them into professions of faith. Leading sinners to Christ is not about how cool we are or how snazzy our church services can be or how smooth we can speak. Since God must save, then we trust God to save whom He wishes when He wishes as He wishes. Of course, that doesn t mean we sit back and wait for God to drop new converts from the sky. No. We trust God to work by the means He ordained and that is the faithful proclamation of the Gospel in public and private. We trust God to use Christians lives and lips to display the Gospel before others so He can save them. God only causes new birth by the spreading of His Word and He uses His people to do that work. So we need to be fervent in both prayer and evangelism to enjoy the thrill of seeing new life spring forth around us. I trust you see that the implications of God s deep, glorious grace are manifold for our lives and ministries. 4
For more thoughts, note the second part of Ephesians 2:8. Salvation comes through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Salvation comes into the life of a person through the instrument of faith, by means of faith. And biblical faith is abandoning of all trust in ourselves and receiving everything from Jesus Christ. The essence of faith is that we take no credit for salvation. So our faith even highlights God s grace. Verse 8 further deepens this grace emphasis by stating that even faith is not out of ourselves. Even faith does not originate from us. Yes, we are commanded to believe and yes we hear truth and respond with faith and those are actions that we are responsible to do. And faith is something we do, an act of trust from within us. But verse 8 points out that our faith is actually a gift from God. Saving faith does not ultimately start in human hearts it comes first from God by the work of His Spirit. Faith is part of the package of God s gracious gift of salvation. I think of it like God breathing new life into our dead souls and then the first breath we exhale is our first expression of faith. If that analogy helps you, then use it; but how God works all that out is beyond me and we shouldn t assume that we can figure it all out. His point is for us to be amazed by His grace, to be overwhelmed by His life-transforming blessings that are far beyond what we deserve. Far beyond what we could ever merit or drum up on our own, God s grace extends to every root of our salvation. And lest we dare try to take any credit or steal any focus away from God getting the glory, verse 9 presses on. Salvation is not as a result of works. It does not come from human effort or merit or any good we do and therefore no one can boast. No one can say, Look at me, look at what a great Christian I am, look at how I ve changed myself. No one should ascribe glory or credit or honor to himself for the transforming work of salvation. It is spiritual work, done by God, for which He gets all the credit. The right response to the Gospel is never one of pride. We should never feel that we are better than anyone else because of what we ve done or decided. That would be contrary to God s grace in the Gospel. Yet that s what some people do when they boast of believing all the right facts and getting their behavior better than others. Even if they thank God that they are better than others, they may be like the proud Pharisee Jesus condemned in Luke 18. 5
And don t quickly dismiss this because it is a subtle but easy form of blasphemous pride that we may nurture. But the Bible leaves no place for brother-better-than-you and sister-so-holier-than-thou. You may have made right decisions and chose right beliefs, but even those decisions and choices were God s grace to you. That s how deep the roots of God s grace go. So an appropriate response instead is what many of you have said before, Why me, Lord? Why show such grace to me? Why save me? Instead of boasting in ourselves, this should drive us to boast only in the grace that is ours in the Lord Jesus our Savior. We should glory only in Christ s work for us. The depths of God s grace should forever move us to celebrate and worship our God. The more we realize our own sin and the greatness of God s grace, the more we should jump up and down and sing and rejoice and praise God for His immeasurable grace. The more we realize that none of the rich blessings of the Gospel originated from anything in us, the more we should fall on our faces in praise of our God. Those who deeply grasp God s grace should be the most humble, thankful, happy and worshipful people on this planet. It s all about God s grace. And that s again why we pray for God to save others because He is the One who must show grace if anyone is to be saved. And that s why we can humbly ask each other to pray for us because the Christian life is not a show of self-effort. It s a life of dependence upon God for grace. And since God s grace extends to every root of our salvation, think of how we can feel about the security of our salvation. We can happily trust that if God was so gracious and powerful in starting this whole thing, then certainly He ll finish it. And that is a glorious truth to remember when you sin as much as I did in my attitude last week. Each time I sinned, I could go back to the Gospel and remember that our salvation is all of grace from beginning to end and I could take heart that God was still forgiving. I could remember that God still relates to me by His infinite grace. And what a relief and treasure and rest to have such grace! That is the power of God s grace in the Gospel. And those are just a few of the implications of this 1 st point that God s grace extends to every root of our salvation. For our next point, look at verse 10 and let s see that God s grace extends to every FRUIT of our salvation. Our 2 nd point is that God s grace extends to every FRUIT of our salvation. Read verse 10 with me. [READ] God s grace extends not only down deep into the root sources and origins and means of our salvation. 6
God s grace also extends out into the evidences, the results, the fruits of our salvation. It is God s grace alone that is credited for the good works of Christians as we serve and follow Him. Serving Christ is not about self-glory or taking credit. It is about God displaying His glorious grace through us. Verse 10 explains that first by stating that we are God s workmanship. He made us physically and remade us spiritually and therefore we are His instruments to play the song of His glory. Christians are new creations rooted in Christ Jesus for the purpose of doing good works for His glory. We are not made to do good works to earn God s favor or to gain spiritual merit. No. We do good works to show how powerful God s grace is. Everything from serving others and sharing the Gospel to using our spiritual gifts are generated by God s grace. God s gracious work in us is what produces those good works. God is the author not only of our salvation, but also of our sanctification, of our growth in holiness and ministry. And those good works were prepared by God from before time. It is our responsibility to walk in what God has planned. We are to obey Him and live and enjoy His fruit-bearing work. But all the credit and glory goes to Him. And that s what I mean by this 2 nd point that God s grace extends to every fruit of our salvation. Every evidence of new life and every good work through us must be ascribed to God s planned and powerful grace. God s grace is so powerful that He even produces the good works that result from and accompany salvation. And that is another reason to praise God for the infinite power of His majestic grace. When someone is blessed by a ministry you do or when your life bears the good fruit of the Spirit, it is a reason to give glory to God. We should thank God for every good thing we experience and every good work He enables us to do. And we can thank Him for the joy He gives us in being His servants. But this point brings another application by thinking of what it implies when there are NO good works. In that way, verse 10 urges us to ask ourselves whether God has evidenced salvation in our lives by good works. If God s grace extends even to the fruit of our salvation, then we should expect to see good fruit if you are a Christian. We should expect to see good works in your life as proof that you have experienced this grace-empowered salvation. Since such works prove that faith is there, James 2 states that faith without works is dead and useless. Without good works, there is no way to know that true saving faith is actually alive in you. 7
So you need to ask yourself whether God s grace has produced good works in and through you. You need to ask whether you have the fruit of a spiritually alive tree that proves that you are rooted in God s grace. And friends, here is where much of American Christianity has failed to follow through on the power of the Gospel of grace. Contrary to what some think, preaching grace does not mean that we never confront sin or that we don t expect change and obedience. Preaching grace means that we believe and preach that God s grace is so powerful that He sets people free from sin and changes us and enables us to obey. It does not help anyone to assure them that they are a Christian if they have repeated a prayer but never repented of a sin. It is not true that someone can be a Christian by walking an aisle and then never walking in obedience to God. It is a false and deluding message to teach that a Gospel of grace allows you to continue in sin that grace might increase. A biblically robust Gospel of grace extends to not only every root of grace but also every fruit of grace. And we as a church must affirm and proclaim this robust Gospel of grace in contrast to the easy-believism in much of today s Christianity. Our goal is to see God graciously transform people into disciples not merely to get them to make decisions. And we cannot attain that goal by human inventions or marketing or entertainment without a clear proclamation of the truth. The answer is not short, sports-themed churches for men or emotional, heart-tugging services for women or any other fad. We only see real salvation when God graciously uses His truth to transform people from the inside out. And I could go on with other applications about how we live and minister that relate to this centrality of God s grace. God s wonderful grace is the start and center of every counseling issue, every struggle with temptation, every mountain & every valley. We must preach this robust Gospel of grace to ourselves every day and we must preach it to other believers and we must preach it to the lost. God s grace extends to every root of our salvation. And God s grace extends to every fruit of our salvation. I pray that these truths chase away all of our pride and self-trust and self-reliance and replace them with humility and faith & thankfulness. And I pray that we are led to profound prayer and praise as we ponder God s deep and powerful grace. These truths of God s grace should bring us to our knees in dependence and to the clouds in worship. That is God s goal in His robust Gospel of grace for now and forever as verse 7 says. We want to see and sing of the surpassing riches of God s grace throughout this life and the life to come. Let s enjoy doing that now as we prepare for communion and let it continue forever. Pray with me. 8