"Unmerited Grace" Ephesians 2:8-9 Sunday Morning Worship Service

This is the word of the Lord I'm gonna read for us.

Verses eight and nine.

Ephesians two, verse eight and nine.

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your undoing.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

There is probably no more disputed area of theology in evangelicalism than what is often referred to as Calvinism.

I am even occasionally asked, are you a Calvinist?

And I'm usually cagey about my answer to that question.

I say, oh, whatever do you mean?

And the reason I'm cagey about my answer to that question is because people do mean different things by the word Calvinism.

Some people say Calvinism and they mean soteriology, that God chooses whom he will save.

Some people say Calvinism and they mean infant baptism or covenantalism.

Some people say Calvinism and they mean, do you believe in drowning Baptists in the river?

And I'm obviously opposed to drowning Baptists in the river.

And I'm fully aware that if I lived in Geneva in the 1500s, I likely would have been drowned in the river.

That being said, I also named my youngest daughter Geneva.

So I'm not keeping my cards that close to my chest.

A better question than are you a Calvinist is this.

Do you believe in the doctrines of grace?

That's what is called Calvinism now.

That's what it has normally been referred to throughout church history.

The idea that we are dead in our sins and trespasses and unable to initiate our salvation, that God, being rich in mercy, chooses whom he will save, that God sheds the love of Christ abroad in their hearts by regenerating them with the power of the Holy Spirit and then keeps them in their new life through the rest of time.

That's what's usually referred to as the doctrines of grace.

And if you were to ask me if I believed in the doctrines of grace, I would say, absolutely I believe in the doctrines of grace.

I would not be so cagey with that question.

And that's because of Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

Although there's certainly a myriad of other verses, but these two certainly stand out.

For by grace you have been saved.

This is a passage that highlights that the very act of salvation, the very concept of salvation, hinges on grace.

In fact, even during the Protestant Reformation, they often referred to the doctrines of grace using different Latin phrases, the different solas.

And Pastor Ryan and I preached a series on that, I think, last year or two years ago on the different solas.

But chief among those in my mind is the doctrine of sola gracia, that by grace you've been saved, or salvation comes through grace alone.

What sola gracia means is literally in Latin by grace alone, but what it means is that salvation is of God's gracious inclination towards us from beginning to end.

That salvation starts in eternity past with God's gracious disposition to us.

We encounter it in time by encountering God's grace to us in time.

And God's grace carries us all the way through into eternity future, that God has a gracious inclination towards us from beginning to end, and that our salvation does not depend upon our works, our church, or sacraments.

That's the definition from the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

That God is gracious towards us from the beginning to the end of time, and that our salvation does not depend upon works or church or sacrament.

And that can seem like a particularly technical definition, I suppose.

And so behind that definition is this question: who is ultimately responsible for your salvation?

If you're walking down the road with somebody and neither of you are saved, and the two of you hear the same gospel message, and one believes and the other doesn't, whom is ultimately responsible for that?

As I mentioned, the definition of solar gratia could be a little technical, but swap that out and put in your own testimony.

Think through your own testimony.

I don't frequently share my testimony from behind this pulpit, but because I'm nervous about how it might sound about my parents.

I wasn't raised in a Christian home.

I didn't grow up knowing the Bible or reading the Bible or knowing that Jesus was God in human flesh or understanding the cross, what happened on the cross.

And the reason I don't often share my testimony is because just saying that it might cast my parents in a negative light, but I don't mean that.

My parents loved me and cared for me and gave me a great childhood and a great upbringing, of which I'm eternally grateful.

Nevertheless, I didn't grow up knowing or being taught the gospel.

And it was my senior year in high school when a friend of mine in soccer, a teammate of mine in soccer, uh, started inviting me to church.

And I think back how he and I, Tommy was his name, how Tommy and I became friends.

It was very providential.

He was a sophomore on the team, I was a senior, I was the captain, and we were supposed to pair off into training partners that we would maintain through the whole season.

I got to choose my partner first as the captain, and so I thought it would be some kind of active leadership of some kind if I chose the youngest kid on the team.

That was my thinking.

So I chose the sophomore, and he and I became training partners that year.

I knew nothing about him.

I hadn't met him before that soccer season.

We had no overlap in our life as far as I knew, but I decided I would choose him.

We spent the semester training together, and I would often spend the night at his house Saturday night, and he started sharing the gospel with me.

And I started rejecting the gospel, and I started responding with all kinds of ridiculous objections to the gospel, and he started inviting me to church with him on Sunday morning, and I wouldn't go.

I would just sleep in at his house and go to lunch with him when he was back from church.

That was kind of how my senior year unfolded.

It was through the course of that time I eventually caved in and went to church with him.

It was Easter Day, my senior year in high school.

I thought, you know what?

I'm an American.

I should go to church at least once.

It's Easter after all.

And so I went to church with him.

And in church, the went to I went to youth group first, the high school youth group, and the youth leader asked us a question.

He read some newspaper article that said, psychologists say that people's ethics and personality and character traits are set in stone by age five or six or whatever the age was.

And then he asked us in our little youth group, what do you guys all think of that?

And I, not knowing the Christian art of the rhetorical question, said, That sounds reasonable to me.

And this youth leader looked at me with just like such a look of compassion.

It's like, oh, you poor child.

And he said, We believe in a God who can change a person's heart at any moment in their life.

And that rocked my little world because I knew Christians believed in God, of course.

I understood that.

I had that category, that much I had down.

But in my mind, their version of God was the deist God.

You know, he wound up the world and it's it's running on autopilot as he's out doing something else in some other world, who knows where.

But here I had a guy looking at me, telling me that he believed in a God that could enter into the world and change your heart at any point in time.

Not just affect the world, not just do some miracle in the world, but actually work on your heart.

And and that rocked me.

I went from there to big church, the main worship service, and it was Easter Sunday morning.

And you know, I had as a high school kid, I had a fear of death.

I wouldn't say it like that.

I don't think I would have said I have a fear of death, but I didn't know what happened to you after you die.

I remember asking my parents once what happens to someone when they die, and my dad said nobody knows, nobody died and come back, you just can't know.

And so I didn't understand eternity.

I didn't know if Ecclesiastes 3 that God has said eternity in the heart of man, but he cannot fathom what has done from beginning to end.

So this is in my mind.

And I go to church and the pastor preaches on the resurrection.

Can you believe that?

It was Easter Sunday, but he preached on the resurrection, that Jesus' body is not in the grave, that you can get on an airplane.

I remember him telling me this.

Pastor Edwin, you can get on an airplane right now and fly to Israel and go look in the grave, and his body's not there, and that one fact should change everything about your life.

And then he asked if people wanted to place their faith in Christ.

And that is when I got saved.

And I look back on that, and it's worth asking myself, who did that?

Who's responsible for what happened to me that Sunday morning?

Like, is Tommy responsible?

Certainly he was the one that was witnessing to me and evangelizing me, and he took the initiative, and I'm so grateful to him because you think back like, you know, some 15-year-old kid witnessing to the senior on the soccer team whom he barely knows.

I mean, there's a certain act of courage that I now appreciate is very unusual in doing that.

So is it there's something in me that I was like more open to Tommy because of whatever reason?

I mean, I don't think so.

Was I particularly desperate in life?

Not really.

Was I particularly teachable?

Is that did I have a teachable strand in me and that's what opened my heart up to the gospel that morning?

No, certainly not.

Anyone who knows me back then would rule that right out.

And what was it?

Why were there others on my soccer team?

Because there were no other believers on that soccer team.

How come I, by the end of that season, had become a Christian, but none of the others had?

Was that my doing?

Was I less dead than the others?

And there's no degree for that.

There's no degree.

There's no degrees of deadness, there's no degrees of hardness of heart.

And so I look back on that and I just wonder, why did the Lord save me?

And then you come across Ephesians 2, verse 8.

Ephesians 2:8

By grace you have been saved.

The Lord saved me because he's gracious.

He didn't save me because I'm gracious.

He didn't save me because I did anything at all.

He saved me because he's gracious.

The bottom line in this question about the doctrines of grace is who is responsible for your salvation?

Now people try to come up with mediating answers to this question.

They'll say, you know, you're somewhat responsible and God's somewhat responsible.

You're kind of like God chooses everyone, the devil chooses everyone, and you cast a tie-breaking vote kind of thing.

But you understand that in that kind of third-way approach to this, it doesn't work because you're if God's responsible and the devil's responsible, or God's responsible and sin is responsible, and then I cast a tie-breaking vote, who's ultimately responsible?

Me.

Which is not gracious.

It's not gracious to turn over sinners the keys to the kingdom.

I have a daughter that really, really wants to drive.

It wouldn't be gracious to you or her.

You would crash it into a ditch.

There's something gracious in the disposition of God that he desires people to get saved, and he desires them to be saved so much that he doesn't just say, You choose, but he actually and effectively works in human hearts to draw them to faith in Christ.

The truth is, the Bible has commands for people to choose all over the place.

Choose this day whom you'll serve, Joshua says.

And the people say, Hey, we will serve the Lord, we will serve Yahweh.

And Joshua understands the situation better than they do.

He says, You can't choose that.

Would that you could choose the Lord, he says.

Joshua weeps, would that you could choose the Lord.

I wish it so bad.

But praise be to God that it is ultimately his grace that wins.

This text, Ephesians 2, verse 8, should shine like a beam of light into your heart.

Ephesians 2:8

If your heart is a dark room, if your heart so quickly wants to hold on to works for salvation, this Ephesians 2 verse 8, this word grace in there, by grace, it should open up your heart.

Ephesians 2:8

That God is ultimately responsible for your salvation.

And I use the word ultimately so carefully.

God is ultimately responsible for your salvation.

You are morally responsible for your sin.

Absolutely.

God is not a sinner and he does not sin.

You are responsible for your sin.

That is a hundred percent true.

But God is ultimately, and by the word ultimately, I mean the chief cause of your salvation.

That's where Paul is getting in this passage where he begins by describing that salvation is by grace.

It is by grace.

By grace you have been saved.

Now, the word grace, it's often defined as unmerited favor.

All of Ephesians 2 is about grace.

Our titles all for the rest of Ephesians 2 will all hinge on the word grace.

Salvation is by grace.

Grace means unmerited favor.

It's, you know, if you deserve something, it's not gracious to give it to you.

Grace means unmerited favor.

You receive something that you don't deserve.

That's grace.

But grace means more than that because grace is not merely something that God does.

Grace is who God is.

God is gracious by his own nature.

God is a giver.

He gives himself, and so all that he does is gracious.

I just want to unpack a little bit in the context of Ephesians 1 and 2, what it means that God is gracious.

Understand, all the way back in Ephesians 1, God is giving himself.

The Father predestines us in Christ, and he gives us Christ to draw us to salvation.

He gives us his own spirit that draws us to salvation.

So in the act of the gospel, even the mechanistic features of the gospel, the Father sends the Son, the Father and the Son send the Spirit.

If you believe in the Trinity, you believe that you're encountering the gospel through the very giving of God.

He is literally giving himself.

But God gives himself to the world before he sends Christ to the world, even.

God is giving of himself even within the Trinity.

I mean, the Father is the image of the Son.

The Father is giving himself to the Son.

The Father is communicating or giving all of his attributes to the Son.

So the Father and the Son are identical to each other, and the Son's attributes are from the Father.

He gives himself to the Son.

That's what it means that the Son is the image of the Father.

The Holy Spirit is the Father and Son love one another and communicate to one another.

That Spirit is the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of love and affection and communication between the Father and the Son.

As the Father and the Son give themselves to each other, that is the Spirit.

And all of this is eternal.

There's no beginning to this.

The Father has eternally begotten the Son.

The Son is eternally the image of the Father.

That's why he's called the Son.

The Spirit is eternally the image, I mean, eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son, eternally the spirit of joy and communication and fellowship and love between the Father and the Son.

So do you understand that before God created the world, he was a giving God?

The Father has always been giving himself.

And now in creation of the world, the Father and the Son and the Spirit, their giving nature breaks forth into the world.

And I have said this last several weeks going through Ephesians.

You have to ask yourself, why did God create the world?

And the answer is God created the world to share himself with the world.

So he could be glorified in the world.

Do you understand that God is glorified in the world by him giving himself to the world?

He gives himself to the world.

The world can now reflect and radiate and magnify the glory of God.

This is why God has to be experienced through grace, because he gives himself to the world, so you are receiving from him.

The word grace and the word gift in Greek, it's the same word.

It's the same word.

Grace and gift are redundant.

They're synonymous.

You can't say this is a grace gift.

I know that word makes its way into the English into the English in Romans 14, but it's it's redundant in the Greek.

It is a every gift is a grace gift.

That's what it means.

That's why Santa Claus theology is just declares war in Ephesians 2.8 theology.

You know, Santa Claus theology, have you been naughty or nice?

Nice, okay, you get a gift.

That's not grace, that's not a gift.

That's wages.

If you have the naughty, nice theology, then you are taxed on that income right there.

You get a gift, you better report that.

You earned it, it's wages.

That's not the way gifts work.

Gifts are gracious from God, disposition from God.

And do you understand that everything God gives is gracious?

You don't deserve any of it.

None of it do you deserve.

So every single thing you have from God is by definition a gift.

It is by definition gracious.

God is infinitely giving, infinitely gracious, and that giving nature bursts forward into the world as it creates a world that can receive his grace.

Now we receive his grace in the world and we delight in it and we enjoy it and we reflect it and we magnify it, and so God is glorified.

He is glorified because he's gracious, he's glorified by giving us gifts of grace.

We receive them and we worship him because of his gracious disposition.

God is omnibenevolent, he is always giving.

This is why you have to experience God by grace.

You can't experience him through works.

Because if you thought you could work your way towards him, that would imply that he needs something.

That would imply that he created the world to get workers.

But he doesn't need workers.

He didn't create the world to get workers.

God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

Also, he owns the hills.

Also, he owns the whole hydrological cycle where the water evaporates and makes clouds and rains on the cattle and the cattle drink the water.

So he owns the whole cycle that gives water to the cows.

He owns the grass and the hills to eat.

He owns the farmers that kill the cows to eat the cows.

He owns the whole food chain.

He doesn't need workers for the field.

Nevertheless, he does send workers to the field.

He does raise up workers for the harvest.

Why does he do that?

And the Bible answers, because through us laboring, we glorify him as we spread the gospel of grace.

And so we, and this is for next week's sermon, but we work as a result of the grace that we have experienced.

We do not work in order to experience grace, or it would not be grace.

The only way you can relate to God is through grace.

You cannot relate to him through works because he does not need anything from you.

The Lord is not served by human hands, Paul says in Acts 17, as though he needed anything, for he alone gives all people life, breath, and all things.

So you cannot approach God with works.

He doesn't need them.

This is why when Moses is called by the Lord, look how the Lord introduces himself to Moses.

This is after giving the law.

God is giving the law to Israel.

Do you now relate to God through keeping the law?

And the Lord makes it clear to Moses, you shall not.

Exodus 34, verse 6, Yahweh passed before Moses and proclaimed Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast or covenant is that word, keeping covenant love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression.

Exodus 34:6

So the Lord kind of pulls the car over here with Moses out in the wilderness and says, Listen carefully, Moses, I am gracious, gracious, gracious.

Slow to anger, abounding.

Notice that kind of fountain language, abounding.

His graciousness is coming out of him in covenant love for thousands.

Of course he forgives iniquity.

Of course he forgives transgression.

Of course he forgives sin because of how gracious he is.

But there's not a period there where this goes on to the tension that is through the whole Bible.

Lord is gracious and forgives iniquity.

At the same time, Lord will by no means clear the guilty.

He will visit the iniquity of the fathers and the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

So both of those are true.

You cannot approach God through works.

You can only approach him through grace.

You can only have your sins forgiven through grace, which he is eager and generous and giving.

And at the same time, that doesn't mean he's going to overlook sin.

There is going to be a world with hell in it.

There is going to be a world where sinners are cast into hell because God is holy and he is just.

And for a simple reading of this, we wonder how can they both be true?

How can God be gracious and save people by grace, but also punish people in hell?

How can they both be true?

This is what's behind the question.

If salvation is really by grace, why doesn't God save everybody?

And the way the argument generally goes is if salvation is by grace, that means that nobody would be in hell because God is so infinitely gracious, he would just save everybody.

Since there are people we know are not saved, there is the reality of hell, therefore salvation must not be all of grace.

There must be some human component that is needed for salvation, that is missing, that God cannot himself provide.

But that's the wrong answer to this riddle.

If the riddle, again, to reframe it, is if God is infinitely compassionate and gracious and giving of himself, and you relate to him by grace, how come he still judges sin?

How come there is the reality of hell?

How come he visits the iniquity of fathers and the children and the children's children?

How come he by no means will clear the guilty if he's infinitely gracious?

This is just another variation of the question.

Why is there suffering in the world?

Why doesn't God save everybody?

Why didn't God keep the devil from the garden?

Why did God allow sin to enter the world?

And the answer is because God is more glorified.

His graciousness is more seen in the narrow way of the gospel than the wide road of universalism.

You learn more about God by being in a world with a cross and an empty grave than in a perpetual garden of Eden.

You learn that these are both true.

You only can be saved by grace.

But you are certainly condemned by works.

So if you want to relate to God, you have to relate to him through grace.

You cannot relate to him through works.

And chief among his grace to us is Jesus Christ.

He's the ultimate example of grace.

Because when you think of God being gracious to the world, of course, there's the common grace he gives the world.

There's weather and sunsets and milkshakes and some years professional sports you can watch.

Those are examples of common grace.

Those don't save anybody.

You want to talk about salvation, you have to get to particular grace that comes always through Jesus Christ.

Never far behind the word grace is the smiling face of the Father who gave us his son.

And so this is why when the gospel of grace goes to the world, it's magnifying God, who is the God of grace.

2 Corinthians 4, verse 15, a critical verse for understanding this.

2 Corinthians 4:15

This is all for your sake, Paul says.

So does grace extends to more and more people, it increases thanksgiving to the glory of God.

This is how critical it is to understand that salvation is by grace.

That as God saves more and more people, more and more people are coming to faith, it is multiplying exponentially the thanksgiving to the glory of God.

Why does salvation result in exponential thanksgiving to the glory of God?

Because it is by grace.

It is a gift He is giving.

And as grace goes around the world, the glory of God is multiplied.

Well, first, salvation is by grace.

Secondly, it is through faith.

It's by grace, and it is through faith.

Grace and faith are sort of the twin sisters here of salvation.

They operate together.

There is an order to them.

The grace is the door, and faith is the hallway.

You could say it that way.

Salvation is by grace, but it is through faith.

Faith is the channel in which you experience Christ.

You enter faith by grace.

You pursue Christ through faith.

The target of this, the goal of your salvation is both grace and faith, leading to Christ.

Christ is the object, He is the destination.

You're saved only through grace.

It's the only pathway to faith.

The only way that you cannot get to faith through works, you cannot get to faith through effort.

The only entrance, the only access to faith is grace.

And faith is how you meet Christ.

Because you cannot meet Christ apart from faith.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

So salvation is by both grace and faith.

It is gracious of God that he gives you faith, would be the best way to say it.

It's fine that God saves by grace.

He does save by grace.

He saves because he's gracious.

And the means by which he uses to save you is faith, which comes from him.

Verse 8 By grace you have been saved through faith.

Through faith.

And this is not your undoing, it says, and that this here refers to not just the faith, but also the grace.

It's a package deal.

That your faith and your grace is not your undoing.

It's the gift that God gives you.

He gives it to you graciously.

So much so that in Acts 14, when the disciples are preaching the gospel, they say that they are sharing the word of grace.

They're calling people to put their faith in Christ by believing the word of grace.

When people get saved, the Bible describes them as coming to faith in the gospel of grace.

Grace is the door, faith is the hallway, faith is the inseparable companion of grace.

When God gives you grace, he's giving you grace so that you have faith, so that you believe.

Both are a gift.

Romans 3.24 says we are justified by his grace as a gift.

What a grave, we know we're justified by faith.

Romans 3.24 says we're justified by his grace as a gift.

That's that redundancy again.

God gives you faith.

This is the work of the Father, Jesus Christ says.

The work of the Father is that you believe in the Son whom he sent.

Faith is a work, and it's a work that God does in your heart.

That's why it's gracious of God.

Philippians 3, verse 9.

Philippians 3:9

My prayer is to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but a righteousness which comes through faith.

A righteousness from God that depends upon faith.

That's how we're saved.

God declares us to be righteous because of our faith.

God declares us to be sinless because of our faith.

God removes our sins from us and gives us the righteousness of Christ through our faith.

Where did our faith come from?

It's a work of God in your heart.

It's the capacity to see the truth about God.

Faith is having the covers, the blinders in your eyes removed so that you see the truth of God.

Faith is the ability to see the unseen.

Jesus right now reigns in heaven.

Faith is the ability to believe that he's there and to live a life for him, to worship him, to believe that he's more valuable than this world.

That's faith.

You have cash in your bank.

You can withdraw it, you can spend it and get other things that you can touch or food that you eat.

And the Bible tells you that Christ is more precious than that.

How could anybody ever believe that except by faith?

This is why, if you don't have faith, you cannot be pleasing to God.

And how gracious is it of God to give people faith then?

Because they don't have faith on their own, they're dead.

This is not a New Testament concept, this is all over the Bible.

When God calls Noah to be a preacher, Noah is preaching a message of conversion.

He's preaching a message of faith, Hebrews 11 says.

Abraham, God graciously calls Abraham.

Abraham then demonstrates his faith when he goes to offer Isaac.

God graciously calls Sarah.

Sarah demonstrates her faith.

This is Hebrews 11, verse 11.

Hebrews 11:11

Through faith, Sarah received the power to conceive.

Through faith.

Moses expressed faith in the benevolence of Yahweh when he was willing to suffer with God's people instead of having the riches of Pharaoh's household.

That was by faith.

Rahab, the spy, show up at her door.

She takes them in and sends them out a different way.

Why would she do that?

Because of her faith.

Do you understand how through the Old Testament, pick a hero in the Old Testament and you're going to find somebody who is living a life marked by faith?

Even Samson, even a villain like Samson.

What a villain that guy was.

But he had faith.

He was God's villain.

He had faith.

He trusted the Lord and his promises over all the promises of the Philistines, over the promises of the Israelites.

He didn't trust them either.

He was everybody's enemy.

But he was God's judge because of his faith.

In the Old Testament, in the New Testament, you encounter God, you encounter God through faith, which he gives you graciously.

Romans 4, verse 16.

Romans 4:16

This is why it depends upon faith, Paul says.

What's the it there?

Salvation?

The gospel?

Everything.

It all depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace.

Do you see why I call them the twin sisters here?

They go together.

Your whole salvation depends upon your faith.

And your faith rests on grace.

The promise rests on grace.

It's a package deal.

You experience God's saving grace, and you experience it through saving faith.

You experience God's saving faith that comes to you through his particular grace.

Salvation is by grace, through faith.

Thirdly.

It is not, here's a negative word.

It is not through your own initiative.

It is not through your own initiative.

And really, you could substitute the word initiative with any other word.

It is not through your own works.

It's not through your own effort.

It's not through your own prayers.

It's not through your own fasting.

It's not through your own giving.

It's not through your own evangelism.

It's not through your own righteousness.

It's not through your own acts of mercy, your own deeds of kindness, it's not through your own baptism.

It's not through your own confirmation.

It's not through your own communion.

It's not through your own penance.

It's not through your own marriage.

It's not through your own burial.

It's not through being a pastor.

It's not through helping the poor.

It's not through your own anything.

Faith doesn't come that way.

Grace doesn't come that way.

Salvation doesn't come that way.

This is not your own doing, Paul says.

He could not say it more clearly.

The middle of verse 8.

This is not your own doing.

That word doing there, it's the word for initiative, effort, energy.

It's not your own exertion that does this.

It's not your own effort, not your own sweat, not your own labors.

It's not from you.

It's not from you.

So you can't say God chooses everyone and sin chooses everyone and you cast a deciding vote because then that would be your own doing.

That would be your own initiative.

That would be your own effort.

That would be you.

No, Paul says.

No, it is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God.

God is the actor, you're the responder.

God is the giver, you're the recipient.

The example we used last week.

This doesn't mean you don't have a role to play.

You do have a role to play.

You're like Lazarus in the grave.

What's Lazarus' role to play in this?

To come out when the Lord calls him.

What did Lazarus contribute to his resurrection?

The death that made it necessary.

What do you can contribute to your salvation?

The sin that makes it necessary.

And then God gives you the grace.

God calls you to come to life.

God raises you from the dead.

It's God's work.

This is a gift.

It is not your undoing.

It says not by works in verse 9, not the result of works.

You would normally in the Bible associate works with Old Testament lawkeeping.

That's not what true with the Ephesians.

With the Ephesians, he's not talking about Old Testament lawkeeping.

He's talking about just moral works.

I mean, he's talking about somebody who thinks they're going to heaven when they die because they try to be a good person, they try to lead a good life.

In that sense, the Ephesians probably have more in common with a typical American than a Jew.

I've never met an American that says I'm going to heaven when I die because I've kept the Old Testament law.

I'm sure there are some.

Never met one.

There is no shortage of people, though, that think they're going to heaven when they die because they've tried hard and God knows they have good intentions.

That's relying on works right there.

That's relying on works.

It's so hard for Americans to appreciate how dangerous that is.

It's such an intoxicating worldview because it's we're raised in it.

That's what our culture teaches and believes.

You know, just think of kind of the Protestant work ethic.

The American view of the world, that we all have kind of a level playing field.

Certainly some have more advantages than others, but that's not right.

We should all have kind of a level playing field, and that if you work hard, you can excel, and if you are, you know, through your effort, you can be rewarded by society, and you kind of experience what you deserve in our world.

I mean, that is just baked into capitalism, that is baked into the American worldview.

Certainly we recognize there's injustices and inequalities and all that.

We get that.

But nevertheless, your basic Americano worldview is that you all have an opportunity, work hard and make the most of it, and you get what you deserve.

And things that don't line up with that are injustice.

That's how we define injustice.

That person had a head start, doesn't count.

That person got more, doesn't count.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's the American worldview.

Do you understand that that just touches everything we have?

And it's so easy to bring that into our approach to God.

We say, hey, God kind of gives everybody the same start.

Everybody's kind of got the same chance at being a good person and doing good.

And when you die, God judges you based on what you did with the chance he gave you.

Some of you squandered it, and that's what hell is for.

And some of you made the most of it, and so God's going to recognize that you made the most of it.

He's going to recognize that you were a good person, that you tried your best.

He's going to recognize that and reward you for it.

If that were true, then salvation would be based on works.

It would be based on you.

You would be the determining factor in your salvation if that was the way you approached God.

And that's the way we want to approach God because we have great confidence in our means, don't we?

We have great confidence in our effort.

If I told you you had to do something for salvation and you believed me when I said it, those are the two keys here.

I told you something to do and you believed that it was true, then you would do it, wouldn't you?

If I said in order to be saved, you have to walk a hundred miles and you believed me that God would save everybody who walked a hundred miles, you would start walking to Richmond right now.

And a hundred miles later, you would be no closer to heaven, of course.

We have an appetite in us that desires to do works for salvation.

If I told you salvation would be yours if you were baptized, if you were confirmed, if you took communion, if you went to confession, wouldn't you trust those things and want to do those things?

But then salvation would not be by grace.

Romans 11, verse 6.

Romans 11:6

If salvation is by grace, it is no longer of works.

Otherwise, grace is no longer grace.

If you receive salvation because you worked, then it's not grace.

And if you receive salvation by grace, then it cannot be grounded in your works.

You cannot look to your behavior as the anchor or the basis or the initiator of your salvation or of winning God's favor.

Because none of those things can accomplish it.

The only thing that wins God's favor is Christ's perfect life, not ours.

And if you understand that, divine grace destroys the heart of the person who trusts in himself.

And this is so hard for us to believe.

So hard for us to believe.

We want to be responsible for our own salvation.

We want to look in the mirror and say, I'm a Christian because I did that.

One of my good friends got married a few years ago, and his new father-in-law, the father of his wife, is a professional auctioneer.

Kind of a cool job.

The wedding was in Nebraska, so apparently there are more professional auctioneers in Nebraska than here because I've never met one here.

And uh I got to sit with the guy at the wedding, and to take away your curiosity, he did the father of the bride speech in his auctioneer voice.

It was awesome.

So I asked him at dinner, what makes a good auctioneer?

Like, is it the voice?

Like, is it being able to?

And he said, actually, the voice is that's just for fun.

That's just to help sell it.

What makes a good auctioneer is the ability to convince people to go up in their price.

All right.

It occurred to me that I have the opposite problem.

I have to convince you to go down in your price.

I have to convince you that the works you have that you might be relying on don't help you.

The more you cling to works, the further away from trusting grace you are.

The more you think you're responsible for your salvation, the further away you get from the gospel of grace.

I don't have to get you to pay more.

I've got to convince you that there is bread and that there is wine to be had without cost, without price.

Just for the hungry heart who knows they need it.

It's our reliance on works, it's our reliance on trying to be a good person that ends up crucifying us.

In 1998, I spent several months in Ghana and I left the country later with all kinds of Ghanaian cash.

Thousands and thousands of Ghanaian dollars, which were worth even at the time, probably 20 bucks.

And I kept them in my bag and in my desk and in my dresser and in all kinds of random places for like 20 years.

Finally, two years ago, I got to go back to Ghana and I brought my old cash with me.

Turns out in those 20 years, Ghana had redone their currency.

Totally redone their currency.

And the old bills were worthless.

People didn't even recognize them.

I mean, they're in a good week that currency has like a life expectancy of five minutes.

They did not recognize that money.

And it's not like it had collector value anyway.

Like I couldn't go to some like memorabilia store and sell your money from 20 years ago.

No, it was worthless money.

Couldn't even buy me a Coke.

That's what it's like for the person who relies on works for salvation.

You approach God and you say, I have these works that I've done.

I have these works that I've done.

Will you receive them?

Can I pay for my salvation with these?

And it's not a currency.

He accepts.

It doesn't matter how much of it you have, it matters that you're trying to pay in something that's not recognized.

You can't bargain for it, you can't persuade God you deserve it.

May your silver perish with you.

You know what works are good for?

Works are good for showing how far short you fall.

Think of your work.

You feed the poor.

This is something more realistic.

You are a good dad.

You work hard to be a good dad and to provide for your family.

That's what you're doing in life.

And you know the Lord's gonna see that.

And so you die and you stand before God, and what do you say?

You say, I'm here's my work.

I have my work right here in my hand.

I am a good dad.

I've worked hard to give a good life to my kids.

That's what I'm trusting in right here.

Here it is.

Will that get you into heaven?

And the answer is no, because that's a work.

God's not approached through works, He's not impressed by your works.

Even just your meager work of being good dad right there.

Think of how far different that is from the divine work, that God is the perfect Heavenly Father.

Your work falls sh so far short of His.

Now I've done all these good things in my kids' lives.

Yeah, but not compared to the perfect life of Christ.

All your works do are showing you how far short you actually fall.

Your works are just convicting you of sin.

And yet you're presenting them as if they're the ticket to righteousness.

They only expose your sin.

So you're trying to pay with your good works in your hand.

And what do works do?

Well, works kill, works crucify.

So you're trying to pay with your good works, and instead Instead, you find your good works nailing you to the cross.

Your good works are exposing you for being a sinner.

They're showing how far short you fall.

And you say, Lord, these are my works.

And the Lord only sees someone whose own works are testifying against them.

Romans 3, verse 20.

Romans 3:20

No one can be declared righteous by works of the law.

You present your works, and instead you find the law is killing you.

The law is putting you to death.

The law is crucifying you.

The holiness of God is your standard because it's God's standard.

Your works show that you don't meet it, and then you try to offer it.

And you're there being nailed to the cross of your own works.

And your works are hammering you and hammering you and testifying that you are a sinner and you cannot be saved because you're a sinner.

And so what do you do as you're being crucified by your own works?

What can a person do?

He can only call for mercy.

And you beg your works now to show you mercy.

You beg your works to relent.

You beg your works to stop convicting you of sin.

You were trusting in yourself as a good person five minutes ago, but once that's exposed before God, you begin begging that the testimony of your life no longer convicts you of sin, and you beg your works for mercy.

And you know what works cannot do?

They cannot show mercy.

Works cannot show mercy.

And so now you found yourself convicted by your own sin, leveled by your own works.

You were trusting in them, and instead they turned against you.

And then perhaps at that moment you have a new appreciation.

For Titus 2.11, the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation.

For John 1, the law came through Moses, but grace and truth through Jesus Christ.

And you realize there's a different way of salvation that does not depend on works, it does not depend on me being a good person.

And then you hum to yourself, nothing in my hand I bring.

Simply to the cross I cling.

And then there's hope for salvation.

Because now you're approaching God through receiving what Christ has done for you.

You're the receiver.

When they nailed Christ to the tree, they dug a hole in the ground, they elevated the cross, and they nailed to Christ your works.

Your works didn't just kill you, your works killed Christ as well.

And as he's nailed to the cross, the ground is opened up, and out of the ground flows a fountain of grace.

A fountain of grace coming from the cross.

A fountain of grace at the very foot of Calvary.

That's where grace comes from into the world.

And that fountain of grace frees us from relying on our own works.

If you're here as a believer, if you've trusted Christ, what should you do with this passage?

Well, you should repent of trusting in works.

You should be on the lookout in your mind for places you trust yourself, places you trust works.

You should be on the lookout in your heart for little corners of your heart where you still think that you are a Christian because you fill in the blank.

And you find those and you crucify them.

So that you keep going back to grace.

And if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you've never trusted in Christ, then I pray this morning you would cry to Christ for salvation.

This morning you would call to him and tell him that you want to trust his grace.

And you say, Yeah, but I thought you said it didn't depend upon me.

Listen, who brought you here this morning?

I didn't drive you here.

The Lord is working on you if you're here this morning.

This depends on the Lord, and he brought you here, and he's convicting you of your sin, and he's letting you know you cannot save yourself.

That's him who's doing that.

And if the Lord is working in your heart, you respond in faith.

You get up and you leave the grave like Lazarus did, and you respond in faith.

Nothing in our hands we bring, Lord.

We have no work which we can hold on to, nothing which we can rely on.

We can only hold on to your cross.

We can only boast in Christ.

It's all of you.

It's not of us.

So we trust you, Lord.

We cling to you.

We rely on you.

Put to death any desire in our hearts to trust ourselves.

Cleanse us from that and help us be servants of you and you alone.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.