Those Confusing Church Words Series Ephesians 2:8-10 “Isn’t Grace What We Say Before We Eat?”
We’re talking about "Those Confusing Church Words."
Last week we talked about sin.
We defined sin as "any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature."
Today, we’re going to talk about another confusing church word - GRACE.
If you ask a child what grace is, you might hear him say, "Grace is what we say before we eat."
And that’s true.
We do call that prayer before we eat "grace."
But for many, that’s about as far as the definition of grace goes.
Most of us have heard that acrostic for grace "God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense."
That’s a nice way to remember the basics of what God’s grace actually is.
But grace is much more than that.
Some have called it "God’s unmerited favor."
One man said that "grace is what God does within you, without you."
Dr. J. H. Jowett defined it like this: "Grace is holy love, but it is holy love in spontaneous movement, going out in eager quest toward the unholy and the unlovely, that by the ministry of its own sacrifice it might redeem the unholy and the unlovely into its own strength and beauty."
This is really a concise definition of grace, but even Dr. Jowett realized how far short he had come in trying to define grace.
To simplify the meaning of grace we could say that grace is God’s undeserved blessing to an undeserving people.
Grace has its origin in God’s heart of love.
It is given to undeserving sinners.
Notice I said "sinners", not Christians.
We Christians get confused by God’s grace and often think it’s reserved for us.
It’s not. God pours out his blessing, his unmerited favor, his holy love, on sinners: saved and unsaved alike.
The Bible says that people who sin deserve death. (Romans 6:23)
Not only do we deserve physical death, we deserve to be eternally separated from God.
But God doesn’t send a lightning bolt down from heaven to zap us every time we sin.
As a matter of fact, God is quite patient with us.
Not only does he NOT zap us with lightning bolts, He blesses us.
Now, you might ask, "How can a holy God continue to give blessings to sinners who deserve only death?"
That’s where grace comes in.
God is a God of grace.
Grace is something that gives joy, pleasure, delight.
It gives God pleasure to bless us.
God delights in giving us pleasure.
Do you have any idea how extensive God’s grace is?
I. God gives us lots of things for no other purpose than to bring us joy and pleasure.
Look at nature.
Do you have any idea why God made so many colorful flowers?
And why did God give birds the ability to sing?
Look at God’s color scheme - blue skies with large fluffy white clouds; green grass; beautiful yellow dandilions and wild-flowers.
And what about those lightning shows when it rains?
And the rainbow that follows the storm?
God’s grace brings us things of beauty that we generally take for granted.
God didn’t have to give us all that beauty to enjoy.
We certainly don’t deserve it.
Especially when you look at what we are doing to God’s creation.
We pollute his air, we pollute his rivers and oceans, we destroy his earth; we are not very good stewards of his stuff.
But, the flowers continue to grow, the birds continue to sing, the sky is still blue, the grass is still green, and we still have all those dandilions.
I’ve often wondered if that hole in the ozone layer isn’t just God’s way of getting rid of all the pollutants we dump into the atmosphere, just so we don’t suffocate ourselves.
These things are reminders that the goodness found in all of His creation is due to God’s goodness and compassion.
That is grace.
II. God grace also allows us to have lots of material blessings.
Verse 1 says, "...you were dead in your transgressions and sins."
Dead people don’t collect much stuff.
Now, I realize that you might think I’m taking that first verse out of context, but here’s the point.
Verses 2 and 3 clarify what I mean.
They say that we used to follow the ways of the world.
Our desire, and this may still be the desire for some, is to gratify the cravings of our sinful nature.
One of the biggest desires of the sinful nature is to get stuff.
The more stuff we get, the better we feel.
But, who gets the credit for giving us all that stuff we have piled in the basement, and the attic, and in the garage?
We do!
We say, "Look at all the junk I’ve collected over the years."
When we think of material blessings we immediately think about all of our possessions.
We think about what we’ve earned and what we’ve bought with our hard earned money.
Ever notice that when you start listing your stuff it sounds sort of like this: "My house, my car, my job, my life"?
Who really gives us all that stuff?
God does.
Have you ever wondered why some people don’t have as much stuff as you?
God blesses us with all of our needs, and from time to time, even throws in some of our wants.
Here’s an example of how he blesses us: God allows the land to produce food for us.
He allows land to produce material for us to build houses and to make clothes and to enjoy some recreational activities.
Ya’ll know I like to camp and fish.
Who puts the fish in the pond?
God does.
Does he have to? No.
Do we deserve it? No.
In fact, the very air we breathe is a result of God’s grace.
God is not required to let us hang around to enjoy all of this.
The source of all true material blessings is God.
His grace allows you and me to continue to enjoy all those things, and He’s willing to give us more. Jesus said, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:11)
That’s grace.
III. Perhaps the most well know result of grace is salvation.
When you think of grace, that’s usually what you think of.
And it’s important that we realize that our salvation is the result of God’s grace.
In fact, it’s so important that Paul felt the need to tell us twice: once in verse 5 and again in verse 8.
"It is by grace you have been saved."
Just what does it mean to be saved, and how does grace fit in?
The word "saved" means to be delivered or rescued from danger or a place of great harm.
Verses 2 & 3 tell us that, because we followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air (that is Satan), and because we worked at gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and all the things that go along with following our sinful nature, we were object of wrath.
God’s wrath.
Well, you might ask, why is God so upset?
After all, we’re only human!
And that’s exactly why He is so upset.
We are his children.
How many of you are or were disobedient children?
Why were you disobedient?
It’s because you wanted your own way, even though that way might not have been good for you.
At some point you said, "I don’t care what my parents say. I’m doing it anyway."
How did your parents respond to your disobedience?
You became the object of their wrath.
You probably got grounded, or at least you got a good lecture.
James Dobson came up with a method for dealing with perpetually disobedient and defiant children.
He calls it "Tough Love."
Dobson says that sometimes the only thing a parent can do is kick the child out of the house.
It’s tough, but in some cases the child is so disobedient and so defiant that removing him from the house becomes the only alternative.
"Tough Love" is actually a biblical concept.
God does the same thing.
God’s house is a mansion with many rooms.
But God has also prepared a place for the habitually disobedient and defiant.
We call that place hell.
Here’s where grace comes in.
God does not desire to kick anyone out of the house.
Verses 4 & 5 show us that God loved us so much that, even though we are dead in our sin through rebellion, disobedience, and defiance, he sent Christ to make us alive.
"It is by grace you have been saved..."
Jesus Christ was an undeserved blessing to an undeserving people.
He is the gift of God.
