Series: Born Again To Live Anew (An Exposition of Ephesians)
Sermon: "What Everyone Needs.. God’s Saving Grace"
Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10
By Rev. Tom Dooley
www.preachingtheword.com
I heard about an 83 year old man the other day who had lived his entire
life as a bachelor. One day this man gathered his four nephews and
announced that he was planning to be married. His nephews were in
shock. One spoke up and said, "Uncle are you getting married because
this woman is beautiful?" He said, "No." Another nephew asked, "Uncle
are you getting married because this woman is a great cook?" Again he
said, "No." The third nephew questioned, "Are you marrying this woman
because she is rich?" "Of course not," was his reply. The final nephew
said, "Uncle if your not marrying this woman because she is beautiful,
or because she is a great cook, or because she is rich, then why are you
marrying her?" With a wink he said, "I’m marrying her because she can
drive at night !"
I like a man who knows what he needs.
Do you intend on going to heaven? Do you know what you need in order to
experience salvation and make sure that heaven will be your destination?
Paul tells us in our text what it is that we need in order to experience
salvation and make our destination sure. Paul says that we
need............ grace !
We need God’s saving grace. Unfortunately many have no concept of what
God’s saving grace is all about.
>From this passage however, we can learn first of all of....
I. THE OBJECTIVES OF GOD’S SAVING GRACE
The objectives of God’s saving grace as expressed here in the book of
Ephesians are three fold.
First, God extends His saving grace to us that we might be...
1. Resurrected ( v. 1 )
Notice Paul’s startling announcement there in verse 1. "And you hath He
quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins."
Here Paul refers to a condition of death. Death in the scriptures
speaks of seperation. Physically when one dies there is a seperation of
body and spirit. Spiritual death, and that is the condition that Paul
is speaking of, is sinful man being seperated from God.
Without a personal relationship to Jesus Christ, you are living in a
condition of spiritual death. You are not alive to the things of God.
You need to be resurrected... made alive !
Then secondly, note that God extends His saving grace to us that we
might be....
2. Reconciled ( v. 4-6 )
Look again at verses 4-6. And I want you to pay attention to a word
that is repeated. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love
wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up
together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:"
Did you catch the repeated word? What was it? "Together..."
That is significant because it helps us to understand that God’s
intention in providing salvation to us is that we might be brought
"together" with Jesus.
Theologically Pauls point is that every person who has trusted Jesus as
their Savior is made alive... "together with Christ". That means we
share in His life. We are identified with His resurrection and we are
"raised with HIm"... that means we experience newness of life. And we
"sit together in heavenly places" with Christ. That means we are
enjoying eternity with Christ.
God wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him. However for
that to be possible we must deal with what seperates us from the Lord.
That which seperates us is our sin. The scriptures teach us that there
is only one thing that provides a solution to the problem of our sin,
and that is Christ death.
Romans 5:10 says, " For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to
God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be
saved by his life."
Christ work at the cross became a bridge between sinful beings and God.
Only what Jesus did can provide forgiveness. Only Jesus death could
reconcile man to God.
Then notice that God not only extends His saving grace to us that we
might be.. Resurrected and Reconciled, but that we also might be...
3. Redeemed ( Epehesians 1:7 )
We need to look back now to chapter 1 and verse 7 to see this. It says,
" In whom ( context= Jesus ) we have redemption through his blood, the
forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;"
Redemption is through the blood of Jesus and is possible because of the
riches of His grace.
What is redemption?
The term literally refers to purchasing something.
This past February (1998) I was in Jacksonville, Fla. at the Pastor’s
Conference at the First Baptist Church. I heard Dr. O. S. Hawkins
preach and he told about the time when he saw the word "redeemption" for
the very first time. He said that every afternoon his mother would go
to the store to buy groceries for their supper because they did not have
a refrigerator. He said that when she would walk in the door, it didn’t
matter what he was doing, he made a beeline for the grocery bags. He
would dig through them looking for a treasure that most folks today have
no concept of what I am about to say. He looked in those bags fot S & H
Greenstamps. He had been collecting those stamps for months. He had an
S & H Greenstamp catalog and in that catalog was a ball glove he could
get if he could collect enough stamps.
Well finally one day he collected the final stamp that he needed. He
took the catalog to his father and showed him the ball glove he had been
saving stamps for and asked his father if they could go down to the S &
H Greenstamp store and get the glove. His father agreed to take him and
off they went. Dr. Hawkins said that when they walked into the store,
on the back wall was a huge sign that said, "REDEMPTION". He opened the
catalog and showed the lady at the counter the glove and he handed her
the needed books of stamps. She opened each book and examined their
pages carefully making sure that all of the stamps were there. Without
a word she turned and went to a storage room and returned with a box
that held the glove. She sat the box on the counter and pushed it his
way. And he left... having redeemed that ball glove. He purchased it
and made it his own.
Friend, God extends His grace to us because He wants to redeem us. With
the blood of His Son, God paid the price to make salvation a possibility
for us. Christ’s blood was shed to redeem us.
The apostle Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 6, that the Christian is no
longer their own... but they have been bought with a price.
Oh what a thought. You and I can belong to God... because of His grace.
Paul not only teaches us about the objectives of God’s Saving Grace, but
secondly he teaches us about....
II. THE OPERATION OF GOD’S SAVING GRACE
In other words, Paul teaches how it is that God’s saving grace is
experienced. More specifically, he helps us see that if we are going to
experience God’s saving grace then we are going to have to do two
things.
1. Experiencing God’s Grace Requires A Rejection of Our Works (v. 8-9)
Look at verses 8 and 9 again. It says, "For by grace are ye saved
through faith; and it is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: Not
of works, lest any man should boast."
Anyone who believes that they are going to get to heaven by their own
works or merit is believing in the impossible.
Notice that Paul says, "..it is the gift of God." What is the "it".
Now I have heard some say that the it in that verse refers to "faith".
But from what little I understand from the greek language, that is
gramatically wrong. The "it" which Paul calls the gift of God, is
implied to be salvation. In Romans 6:23, Paul describes "eternal life"
as the "gift of God."
Salvation is a gift from God. He offers this gift to us because of His
grace. Because it is a gift... a true gift, then there is nothing that
we can do to earn it, or pay for it, or it would not be a gift.
Laura, (my daughter) who is sitting here on the front row likes cash,
don’t you dear? Would you like a little cash? ( I hold out a five
dollar bill.. still big bucks to a preachers kid) Now Laura if I said I
would give this to you to do believe I would do it? You do? OK, I am
going to give it to you. Here you go... don’t spend it all in one
place.
Now, I gave it to her no strings attached. Now, if I would have said,
"Laura you can have this money if you clean out my car", would it have
been a gift? No, because she would have had to have done something to
get it.
God offers us salvation. For us we can have it without cost to us. Now
that doesn’t mean that it is cheap. Our salvation was costly. It cost
our Savior His life.
If you are depending on personal accomplishment of any kind for
salvation, then let me tell you, you are going to be disappointed in
eternity. You must reject your works.
Then also note...
2. Experiencing God’s Grace Requires A Response of Faith (v. 8)
"For by grace are ye saved through faith..."
God offers the gift of salvation to us because of His grace. Before
that gift can become ours, we must accept it. We must take it. We must
respond to God’s offer in faith. We put our faith, not in anything we
have done, but in everything Jesus has done.
Jesus only is the worthy of object of our faith when it comes to
salvation.
The church is not a worthy object. The preacher is not a worthy object.
Your baptism, your membership, your involvement. Jesus alone is where
our faith must rest.
That is how God’s grace is experienced. By GRACE through FAITH !
Then finally, Paul tells us of...
III. THE OUTCOME OF GOD’S SAVING GRACE
In verse 10 we discover that there are two definite results or outcomes
when one experiences God’s Saving grace.
First.... those who have experienced God’s saving grace....
1. Desire to do the Lord’s Work
Notice that Paul states plainly that the saved person is "created....
unto good works." Again, he is not saved by good works, but because he
is saved he will do good works.
Remember me offering Laura that $5 bill. Wouldn’t it be nice if I came
home tomorrow and there she was cleaning out the car. I would say
Laura, what are you doing and why are you doing it? And she would say,
"Daddy I am doing this because I love you and I appreciate all the
things you have done for me." After the paramedics resusitated me, I
would say.... wow, thank you !
We experience God’s grace and something happens. We now have a desire
to do the Lord’s work. Not because we have to, but because we want to.
Frankly, if you say you are saved, and yet you have no desire to be
about the Father’s business, let me say that you don’t know the Lord.
When Jesus delivered the demoniac from the legion of demons that
possessed him, how did he respond? He wanted to go and travel with
Jesus. Jesus said, no.. instead go home to your friends and tell them
what great things the Lord hath done. He had a desire to serve the
Lord, and the Lord redirected that desire. He went back to his home
area, and the Gospel of Luke tells us that when Jesus came back to that
place, the people gladly received Him.
The first words, out of Paul’s mouth after he met Jesus on the road to
Damascus was, "Lord what would you have me to do?"
Friend, grace produces within us a desire to do the Lord’s work.
It also produces a ...
2. Desire to display the Lord’s Workmanship ( v. 10 )
Paul says that the believer is God’s "workmanship". LIterally we are
His masterpiece. Our lives are to be a display of the work of the
Master.
During the late 1800’s an English evangelist named Henry Moorhouse made
several trips to preach in America. On one of those occassions he was
taking a walk through a poor section of town when he noticed a small boy
coming out of a store with a pitcher of milk in his hands. Just then,
he slipped and fell breaking the pitcher and spilling the milk all over
the sidewalk. Moorhouse rushed to the childs side and found him unhurt
but terrified. "Mu mama’ll whip me," he kept crying. So Moorhouse
picked up the boy and carried him into the nearby store where the
preacher purchased a new pitcher. Then he returned to the daity, hd the
pitcher washed and filled with milk. With that done, he carred the boy
and the pitcher home.
Putting the youngster down on his front porch, Moorhouse handed him the
pitcher and asked, "Will your mama whip you now?"
A wide smile spread across the boys tear stained face, "no sir, cause
this is a lot better pitcher than we had before."
In grace God saves us. He doesn’t patch up our old lifes that have been
shattered by sin and satan into a million pieces. That would not do.
His reputation is at stake. We are His workmanship! He gives us new
life and a new nature. He makes us better than we have ever been before !!!!
