GRACE AND WORKS: EPH.2:8-9 9-29-07
Today I want to talk for a little while on, being saved by Gods grace plus nothing else added to it.
8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast.
I heard a person say one time that they didn’t believe any one could know if they were going to heaven for sure until we get there.
If we have put our trust in Christ, we can say, “I am saved.” Someone may say,
Lets be mindful that salvation rests upon the grace of God—not upon our faithfulness.
The bible says in PHIL.1:6 6Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
From time to time a child of God may wander from Him, but He will always make a way for us to come back because it is by His grace and that alone that we are saved to start with.
We have a finished salvation.
Sin is the real problem in the hearts of many saved people today. Many saved people don’t enjoy their salvation for that very reason.
There are a lot of saved people that hold on to their past sins and don’t really understand just exactly what being saved by Gods marvelous grace really means.
It seems that some folks are always remembering they’re past mistakes and failures, and by doing that they look to themselves instead of looking to Christ and trusting Him.
Listen dear heart it is because of what Christ has done for us and on the fact that the Holy Spirit has pointed us toward Christ and we have believed the Word of God and have trusted Him, that we can say, “we’re saved.” It’s not an “I hope so” salvation and it’s not an “I’ll try” salvation.
It is a salvation that is by the grace of God, and it comes by means of faith, and it is not of ourselves. It is a gift of God.
Love is one of God’s great attributes, we’re told in 1st john 4:8 that God is love but when this love is related to sinners, it becomes grace and mercy. God is “rich in mercy” we’re told in eph 2:4 and in “grace”(2:7), and these riches make it possible for sinners to be saved.
A lot of people don’t realize that we’re not saved by Gods love, but by God’s mercy and grace.
In His mercy He doesn’t give us what we do deserve; and in His grace He gives us what we do not deserve. And all of this is made possible because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
1st peter 2: 24Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
1st peter 3: 18For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit
God revealed His love for sinners. Rom. 5:8 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
John 3:16 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
The grace of God has been called “unmerited favor.” And rightly so but also it’s Gods “love in action.”
We’re told in Eph.2:5 that He quickened us . This means He made us alive, even when we were dead in sins. He accomplished this spiritual resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit, using His Word.
We read in the four Gospels, that Jesus raised three people from the dead: the widow’s son Luke 7:11-17 Jairus, and a young damsel in Luke 8:, and Lazarus in John 11:. And in all three accounts. He spoke the Word and this gave life. We read in Hebs.4:12: For the word of God is quick, and powerful,
These three physical resurrections are pictures of the spiritual resurrection that comes to the sinner when he hears the Word and believes.
Jesus said in John 5:24 24Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
But our spiritual resurrection is much greater than these physical resurrections because it puts us in union with Christ: God “made us alive together with Christ.”
As members of His body we are united to Him now Eph. 1:22-23 22And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
And since we are now united to Christ, we have been exalted with Him and we are now sitting with Him in the heavenlies.
Our physical position may be here on earth, but our spiritual position is “in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
Like Lazarus, we have been called from the grave of lost sinners to sit with Christ and enjoy His fellowship.
Lazarus if you’ll recall sat at the table and ate with Jesus after he was raised from the dead. John 12:1-2 1Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. 2There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
God has an eternal purpose for us to fulfill, and so He will keep us for all eternity. Since our good works has not saved us, our bad works cannot lose us. Grace means salvation completely apart from any merit or works on our part. Grace means that God does it all for Jesus sake, our salvation is the gift of God.
Salvation is a gift, not a reward. Salvation cannot be “of works” because the work of salvation has already been completed on the cross. This is the work that God does for us, and it is a finished work.
In the prayer of Jesus in John 17:1-4 1These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: 2As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 3And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. 4I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do .
We can add nothing to it Heb. 10: 10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
God did it all, and He did it by His grace. Sin worked against us and God worked for us.
Faith is the means of salvation. It is not our joy in Christ that saves us its Christ. It is not our hope in Christ that saves us; it is Christ.
It is not even our faith in Christ that saves us, although that is the way that we’re saved, but it is Christ’s blood and merit. His Blood & sacrificial death in our behalf, that is where the power is and that is where the salvation is.
There are all kinds of religion in the world that people have faith in, but that faith will not save them.
So lets not be like some folks that might say, “I hope to be saved when it’s all said and done.” If we have put our trust in Christ, we can say, “I am saved.”
Our salvation rests upon the grace of God—not upon our faithfulness.
Let me read once again Phil. 1:6 6Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
If you are a child of God, you may wander from Him, but He will always make a way for you to come back into fellowship with Him, because it is by His grace and that alone that you are saved.
We have a finished salvation. On the basis of what Christ has done for us and on the fact that the Holy Spirit has directed us toward Christ and we have believed the Word of God and have trusted Him, we can say, “I am saved.”
It’s not an “I hope so” salvation or an “I’ll try” salvation. It is a salvation that is by the grace of God, by means of faith, and it is not of ourselves. It is a gift of God.
The grace of God has been referred to as “unmerited favor.” But it is also Gods “love in action.”
In the book of Galatians there was the Judaizers that were going along behind Paul after he had left and had moved on to other churches to preach and teach that the gentiles had to keep part of the Mosaic Law in order to be saved. They were teaching that people had to be circumcised as the Jews were under the law.
Paul referred to them as foolish.
Gal. 3:1O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? 2This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? 4Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. 5He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Paul’s theological battle is against those who have mingled faith and works.
These Judaizers were a “party” within Christianity that demanded that Gentiles had to be circumcised, and follow the law.
They did not believe in Paul’s teaching about grace alone, and they underhandedly tried to destroy it. After Paul left an established church, they would move in and contradict his teaching.
We see much of the same thing today, some fall prey to a system of legalism and works righteousness that promises more but produces less.
Some fall prey to formalism, substituting external ceremonies for the internal reality of Jesus.
Some fall prey to legalistic systems of dos and don’ts, hoping to improve their standing before God.
Every time people add an obligation out of its context, and that has no basis in Scripture and institutionalizes it, we take the truth of God and twist it.
The church there at Galatia had the best beginning that could be had, but now they were turning away from it.
Our lives are to be characterized by grace. Remember our salvation comes by grace through faith.
And so does our Christian growth. our salvation nor our sanctification comes by keeping rules, doing good works and observing religious rituals.
The opposite of living in grace is legalism. And its result is a Christian life that goes backwards.
Its effect is that it nullifies the grace of God. If there had been any other way for us to be saved then Jesus died in vain, if we could have been saved by our good works, then what was the reason for Him to die on the cross?
His death on the cross should show us how hopelessly lost we are.
The cross of Jesus will stand forever as living proof that men cannot redeem themselves.
These Galatians had started off right but now they wanted to add works to it.
Do this and do that, hold on and hold out, when this happens, works then becomes the basis of the Christian life, and not faith.
Acts 16: -Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
