Grace In Christ
Text: Eph. 2:1-10
Introduction
1. Illustration: Put bluntly: the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works – but our lives refute our faith.
By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived. Too many Christians are living in the house of fear and not in the house of love.
SOURCE: Brennan Manning
2. We talk about it. We sing about it. However, do we really understand Grace?
a. What is Grace?
b. Why do we need Grace?
c. Why does God give Grace?
3. Read Eph. 2:1-10
Transition: First, we must understand...
I. What Is Grace? (8-10)
A. By Grace
1. In verse 8, Paul says, "God saved you by his grace..."
2. Grace (charis) means the undeserved favor and blessings of God. —Practical Word Studies in the New Testament
a. The word undeserved is the key to understanding grace. Man does not deserve God’s favor; he cannot earn God’s approval and blessings.
b. God is too high and man too low for man to deserve anything from God.
3. For Paul grace is the essence of God’s decisive saving act in Jesus Christ, which took place in his sacrificial death, and also of all its consequences in the present and future - (New International Dict of NT Theology. Pradis CD-ROM)
a. Therefore, the use of grace at the beginning and end of the Pauline letters is much more than a mere polite cliché.
b. "Grace" is not just a good wish for salvation; it is qualified as the grace of Christ.
4. Illustration: I once heard it explained in this way.
a. Suppose that someone breaks into your home, and that in the course of a robbery, that person kills your child.
b. If you hunt them down yourself and kill them, that’s vengeance.
c. If you allow the police to do their jobs and the person is apprehended and punished, that’s justice.
d. If you take them into your home and adopt them as your son or daughter, that’s grace.
5. Grace is the key ingredient and by necessity comes first; everything else flows from and builds on a theology of grace (Snodgrass, NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Ephesians, 103).
a. Grace means the completely undeserved, loving commitment of God to us.
b. For some reason unknown to us, but which is rooted in his nature, God gives himself to us, attaches himself to us, and acts to rescue us.
c. Though wrath should have come, saving grace comes instead.
6. Paul says in his letter to the Romans that we "all of sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," and that "the wages of that sin is death."
a. We deserved death, but we got life.
b. We deserved wrath, but we got mercy.
c. We deserved condemnation, but we got justification.
d. We deserved hell, but we got grace.
7. Paul also insists that we receive grace through faith.
a. Faith in whom? Faith in God!
b. Faith is relational, describing reliance on a reliable God.
c. Faith is a covenant word, expressing the commitment and trust that bind two parties together.
d. Throughout Scripture, God by his grace makes promises and commits himself to his people. They in turn are to trust those promises and live in light of them.
e. God shows himself faithful and people are to respond in faithfulness.
f. To say "I have faith" does not so much say anything about oneself; rather it says, "God is a trustworthy God." (Snodgrass, NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Ephesians, 105).
B. Gift of God
1. Paul also says that salvation by grace, through faith, "is not a reward for the things we have done, so none of us can boast about it."
2. The initiative always lies only and completely with him. No human action could remove us from the plight in which we are found (Snodgrass, NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Ephesians, 105).
3. Paul’s point is that salvation is a gift from the trustworthy God, whom we believe.
4. Illustration: Phillip Yancey describes grace in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace. He writes, “Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more—no amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries, no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous causes. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less—no amount of racism or pride or pornography or adultery or even murder. Grace means that God already loves us as much an infinite God can possibly love.”
5. Grace is the greatest gift that you will ever receive.
a. Paul is firm that absolutely nothing is of our own doing--not salvation, not grace, not even the faith exercised to receive salvation.
b. Instead, everything is the gift of God.
c. It is a gift to be thankfully accepted.
Transition: But...
II. Why Do We Need Grace? (1-3)
A. Dead In Trespasses and Sin
1. In verse 1, Paul tells us why we need grace, because we "were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins..."
2. We needed grace because we were dead.
a. Not weak, sinful, or lost, but dead.
b. This death is spiritual, not physical, for unsaved people are very much alive physically.
c. Death signifies absence of communication with the living. One who is dead spiritually has no communication with God; he is separated from God. —Bible Knowledge Commentary
3. For those who think life comes from God and is experienced in relation to God, separation from God is equivalent to death (Snodgrass, 95).
4. The reason we were dead is because we "You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God."
a. We lived like the rest of the world, referring to the world’s accepted, but immoral, lifestyles and godless motives.
b. People who live like the world that is full of sin cannot also follow Jesus.
c. We needed grace because we said, "everybody else is doing so it must be okay!"
5. We needed grace because we obeyed Satan.
a. The passage focuses on Satan’s reality as an evil power with a certain amount of control in the world.
b. The Bible pictures Satan as ruling an evil spiritual kingdom--the demons and those who are against Christ.
c. James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (ESV).
d. Make no mistake, you are either walking with God or you are walking with the devil and there is no middle ground.
6. We also needed grace because we "used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else."
a. By the phrase "sinful nature”, Paul is referring to our soulish nature.
b. The sinful nature has therefore a drive that is opposed to God. It not only occasions sin but also becomes entangled in it. - New International Dict of NT Theology. Pradis CD-ROM
c. Gal. 5:17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other... (ESV)
d. Everything about us was opposed to the things of God, and that’s why we need grace.
B. Because We Were Spiritually Dead
1. Illustration: When Thomas Dewey lost the ’48 election to Harry Truman, after everyone expected a Dewey landslide, Dewey later said he "...felt like the man who woke up to find himself inside a coffin with a lily in his hand and thought: ’If I’m alive, what am I doing here? And if I’m dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom?’"
2. When people need grace, they won’t admit to it because they do not realize that they are spiritually dead.
3. They think that they are just fine the way the are and don’t need any help from God. They say...
a. I’ve never committed murder, so I don’t need grace.
b. I’m basically a good person, so I don’t need grace.
c. However, there are many "good people" in hell today because they wouldn’t come to grips with the fact that they needed grace.
4. On the other hand, some people come from the other end of the spectrum. They think that they are too far gone for grace to do any good.
a. There are no sins that God’s grace can’t cover.
b. There are no sinners that God’s grace cannot forgive.
c. When it comes to God’s grace, there are no hopeless cases, only cases that won’t acknowledge their need for grace.
5. Grace can...
a. Save the worst of sinners
b. Set free the most addicted soul
c. Heal the deepest hurts
6. I can say this because I know that "amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found. I once was blind, but now I can see."
Transition: That leaves us with the third question...
III. Why Does God Give Grace? (4-7)
A. But God
1. The reason that God gives us grace has to do with His character.
2. Paul shows us this with the phrase "But God..."
a. In the Greek text God immediately follows “but,” thus placing it in an emphatic position.
b. “God” is the subject of the whole passage. Great differences are suggested by the words “But God”! —Bible Knowledge Commentary
3. Behind those two words lies a cosmic plan so huge in scope and so vast in love that the human mind cannot fully comprehend it--all we can do is humbly receive it.
a. Who would give something for nothing? But God!
b. Who would offer forgiveness to those who are obstinate and rebellious in all they do? But God!
c. Who would give His own Son in place of an ungrateful and undeserving creation? But God!
4. Paul shows the nature of God in grace when he says "is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much..."
a. The word "rich" indicates the bountiful nature of God’s mercy--beyond our comprehension, an inexhaustible storehouse.
b. What is "mercy"? It is an attribute of God, sometimes called "loving-kindness" or "compassion."
c. This word describes the outworking of God’s love toward people and is shown in his loving-kindness toward them even though they do not deserve it.
d. Since sinners are spiritually dead toward God, they have nothing to commend them to God. This is why Paul described this love as being “great.”—Bible Knowledge Commentary
5. Paul further shows the character of God in grace when he says, "even though we were dead because of our trespasses and sins, he gave us life when he raised Jesus Christ from the dead..."
a. Salvation exists because God created life in the midst of death. (Snodgrass, 101).
b. Rom. 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
c. He did not give us grace after we got it all together.
d. He did not give us grace when we stopped sinning.
e. He gave us grace when we were still in sin!
B. Because He Is God
1. Why does God give us grace? Because grace is a part of who God is.
2. Illustration: Suppose I gave you an automobile valued at $50,000. I say to you, "I’ll give it to you if you just give me $1." You say, "I thought you were going to give it to me." That’s not a gift. It might be cheap, but it’s not a gift. It is the result of your payment.
If I am saved by the grace of God plus anything else, it is no longer grace. It cancels out grace. Grace is an unconditional gift motivated by nothing within me. There is nothing within us that can motivate God to save us. The motivation is from within God alone. If it were the other way around, it would not be grace.
3. God gives us grace because...
a. God is love
b. God is merciful
c. God is compassionate
d. God is God
4. Grace...
a. Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
b. What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things (U2)
Transition: Why do we have grace? But God!
Conclusion
Proposition: Simply put, grace is God’s best for our worst.
1. Do you need God’s grace? Yes!
2. Has God offered you His grace? Yes!
3. Have you accepted God’s grace? That’s a question only you can answer.
