EPHESIANS 2:1-10
INTRODUCTION:
TWO COWS WERE GRAZING ALONGSIDE A HIGHWAY WHEN A TANK-TRUCK OF MILK ON ITS WAY TO THE DISTRIBUTOR HAPPENED TO PASS. ON ONE SIDE OF THE TRUCK IN BIG RED LETTERS WAS A SIGN THAT READ, “PASTEURIZED, HOMOGENIZED, STANDARDIZED, VITAMIN A ADDED.” ONE COW TURNED TO THE OTHER AND REMARKED, “MAKES YOU FEEL SORT OF INADEQUATE, DOESN’T IT.”
THE FEELING OF INADEQUACY IS A TERRIBLE FEELING TO HAVE. IT SAYS I DON’T MEASURE UP. THERE ARE FEELINGS OF HELPLESSNESS AND DEPENDANCY ASSOCIATED WITH IT.
WE ARE PEOPLE OF CONTROL. WE LIKE AND DESIRE TO BE IN CONTROL OF OUR LIVES. BUT TODAY WE ARE GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING THAT WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CONTROL OVER RECEIVING, BUT FACE A CONSTANT CHALLENGE IN LIVING. TODAY WE ARE TALKINGA BOUT THE CHALLENGE OF GRACE.
There are only two principles by which God deals with people—grace and law. According to the principle of grace, God deals favorably with people in a way they do not deserve. The only other principle by which God can deal with people is law. This principle requires Him to deal with people in a way they deserve. Since sinners deserve hell, they cannot be delivered from this penalty by law. The spiritual blindness of man is evident in that all their religions teach that people are saved by their works, the very principle which bars them from acceptance with God. No one can ever be saved from his sins apart from God’s grace.
In 1830, a man named George Wilson was convicted of killing a government employee while robbing the U.S. Mail. He was tried and sentenced to be hanged. Andrew Jackson, then the President, issued a pardon for Wilson, but Wilson did a strange thing: he refused to accept the pardon and no one seemed to know what to do. The matter went to Chief Justice Marshall, perhaps one of the greatest Chief Justices we ever had, and he concluded that Wilson must be executed. “A pardon is a slip of paper,” wrote Marshall, “the value of which is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon. George Wilson must be hanged.” And he was.
TODAY WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO DO, IS GIVE YOU A BIBLICAL DEFINITION OF GRACE, EXPLAIN FOUR DIFFERENT TYPES OF GRACE WE CAN RECEIVE AND BE INVOLVED IN, AND IN THE PROCESS TRY TO SHOW JUST HOW AMAZING GOD’S GRACE IS TO US.
DEFINITION:
IF I WERE TO ASK FOR A DEFINITION OF GRACE I MIGHT GET THE ACRONYM FROM THE WORD GRACE, “GOD’S REDEMPTION AT CHRIST’S EXPENCE.” THE PROBLEM I HAVE WITH THIS IS THAT IT’S TOO PAT AND NARROW. GOD’S GRACE IS ABOUT FAR MORE THAN ONLY OUR SALVATION.
Just what is the grace of God? It has been simply defined as the unmerited love and favor of God. This is true. But I like say it this way: "The unmerited love and favor of God acting on our behalf now and forever.." The grace of God not only saves us through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, but it also enables and empowers us to love and serve Him in every aspect of the Christian life.
*Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love. It is absolutely not determined on what we do, it is not earned.
GRACE Allows Second Chances
Modern day terms- Exams and Sports (softball- “if I could just have that pitch back”)
That’s how life is. But that is not how grace is.
Parable of the Gracious Father-Luke 15
Grace allows second chances, that is what God does for us.
To understand grace, we need to go back to an old Hebrew term that meant: "To bend, to stoop." In time came the idea of condescending favor. Donald Barnhouse said it best: Love that goes upward is worship. Love that goes outward is affection. Love that stoops is grace.
Grace is to extend favor or kindness to one who doesn’t deserve it and can never earn it according to Chuck Swindoll.
C.S. Lewis writes, “to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
POINT ONE: SAVING GRACE
This is a foreign idea because we live in a society that is based on earnings and rewards.
For example, we work tirelessly for a week or two, then anxiously await our hard earned paycheck. We are engrained with the idea: the more and harder we work the more we will receive in return. This however is the exact opposite of grace and opposite to the way Jesus presented it as he was here on earth.
IN FACT CHRISTIANITY IS THE ONLY RELIGION WHERE OUR ETERNAL DESTINY IS NOT BASED ON ANYTHING WE CAN DO.
Salvation is a GIFT for me to RECEIVE, not a REWARD for me to EARN.
“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
John R. W. Stott said, “The Gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales.”
A. SUBSTITUTION: Jesus died in my place.
1 PETER 3:18: For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,
B. JUSTIFICATION: Jesus made me right with God.
Rom. 4:25: He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Justification: God sees me just as if I had never sinned. I’m innocent, no longer guilty.
C. RECONCILIATION: Jesus made peace with God possible.
2 Cor. 5:19: namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Jesus is the bridge between God and man.
D. ADOPTION: Jesus made me a part of God’s family.
Eph. 1:5: He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
E. REDEMPTION: Jesus purchased my salvation with his blood.
The Greek word for redemption refers to slaves being purchased in the marketplace. In the spiritual sense, all of us were slaves to sin until Jesus purchased us out of the slave market and set us free from sin’s bondage. Because He bought us and paid for us with His blood, we now belong exclusively to Him.
1 Peter 1:18-19: knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ..
F. PROPITIATION: Jesus satisfied God’s justice.
To propitiate is to bring satisfaction or to fulfill a demand or requirement. In heathen circles it was a word that meant “to appease the gods.” The biblical sense of the word speaks of that which satisfies the justice of God so that mercy is given.
“He is the atoning sacrifice [propitiation] for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
G. FORGIVENESS: Jesus sent my sins away from me.
Eph. 1:7: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, 8 which He lavished upon us.
Rom. 3:23-24: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
POINT TWO: SUSTAINING GRACE
WE SURVIVE LIFE’S PROBLEMS BY GRACE. We know all too well that the road of the Christian life is not always smooth. We all have our ups and downs. Sometimes it seems we are more often down than up. We are not guaranteed an automatic answer to every problem. We are not promised immediate relief from every test or trial. We can all identify with Paul’s struggle with the thorn in the flesh. We cannot be sure of the specifics of the continuing crisis he faced, but we can be certain the Christ of the crisis provided the grace that was sufficient. We can be just as sure that by the grace of God we have access to the Christ of the crisis. His grace is still sufficient today for all of life’s problems.
The life of Paul and his contemporaries in the faith serve as positive examples of how the grace of God allowed them to respond to the problems and pressures of life. Paul may have been often knocked down, but he was never knocked out of the Lord’s service
The grace of God can turn problems to patience, vexation to victory and tragedy to triumph. Pressure usually produces and the production can be good or bad. Both the Old and New Testaments give many examples of the right and wrong ways God’s people have responded to pressure as they were tested in the crucible of crisis. The mere mention of names such as Job, Jonah, Joseph, Elijah, David and Peter immediately conjures up images of proper and improper responses to the pressures of Christian living. It is clear that the grace of God is the key factor in the proper response to problems.
POINT THREE SERVING GRACE:
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF GRACE TO BE NOTED HERE. THERE IS ONE THAT IS RAMPANT IN OUR WORLD TODAY. IT IS CALLED CHEAP GRACE. CHEAP GRACE IS NOT BIBLICAL TEACHING.
CHEAP GRACE
Cheap grace is grace we put on ourselves. Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance. Cheap grace is communion without confession. Grace without the Cross. Grace without Jesus the Christ. Every time we conduct ourselves as persons other than disciples of Jesus the Christ we cheapen what He did for us. Cheap grace finds us able to fit Jesus into our lives without having to change anything. Law and grace are like and life.
Chuck Swindoll said it well, “knowing grace is one thing, living it is another.”
SERVING GRACE
Similarly, we have been given this grace by God; therefore, it is our privilege as well as obligation as Christians to show this grace to others.
God created us to be contributors – not consumers; He created us to be givers – not takers. We’re created to make a difference. It doesn’t matter how long you live, but how you live. It’s not the duration of your life that matters, but the donation.
God has a special plan for each of us. He has called us to a ministry to the body and a mission to the world. We’re not here by chance, but by design. Yet, until I pursue His general call, I’ll never discover His specific call for my life
Jer. 29:11-13: ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,‘ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 12 ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 ‘And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
A A SERVANT HAS INITIATIVE.
Jesus was compelled by love so He got up and washed the disciple’s feet. They knew the custom, yet refused to do it for the others. Not one of them lifted a finger to serve the others – or Jesus b/c they were too concerned over who was going to be the first in God’s kingdom and thought groveling on their knees was beneath them.
I’m afraid this kind of behavior continues in the modern day church. People who attend wanting to be served instead of having a heart to serve.
This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could’ve done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about this, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
B A SERVANT HAS HUMILITY
Jesus took off His outer garment to wash feet. He performed a menial task reserved for slaves. He was willing to stoop down to lift others up – and so should we.
Mt. 20:28: just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
In Ph. 2, the Bible calls us to make our attitudes the same as Christ. Contrary to the way many people behave – God never intended for His people to act any other way that like Jesus. He says have a Jesus attitude and not a bad attitude.
A Man who joins a monastery where he can only say two words every ten years. After the first 10 years he says, “Hard bed.” 10 years later he says, “Bad food!” Finally, 10 years later he says, “I quit!” The other monks commented that they knew it was only a matter of time, he’d had a bad attitude since he arrived.
A Pastor’s daughter who was tired of bad church people wrote a song to Home on the Range – “Dead, dead on the vine, where they grumble and gripe and they whine. Where seldom is heard an encouraging word, and the Son is never able to shine.”
TRUE Servants aren’t in it for their own glory, but for God’s glory. They’re willing to make themselves nothing to give others something.
C A SERVANT HAS DETERMINATION
He’s not bothered by the misunderstanding of others, but is compelled to communicate and accomplish the mandate set before him.
When Jesus got to Peter, Peter became indignant. Peter couldn’t think of such a thing as Jesus washing His feet – so he argued w/ Him instead of changing places. In the midst of Peter’s debate, Jesus remained focused and intent on His task. He wasn’t going to allow anything to distract Him from setting an example and serving.
The same is true for those who give – they possess a tenacity that says I’m going to complete the task to which I am called. I will not be detoured, distracted, or delayed
1 Cor. 15:58: Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.
D A SERVANT HAS COMPASSION
Note: He is willing to care for all people, including his enemies and critics.
Don’t miss it. Not only did Jesus wash the feet of doubting Thomas and an indignant Peter, He also washed the feet of His betrayer – Judas. Jesus knew Judas had betrayed him yet He washed His feet and treated him w/ love to redeem Him.
A person w/ a servant’s heart holds no grudges and relishes the opportunity to shower grace on those who need it most. Why – because a servant serves because he is compelled and commanded, not because it is convenient.
. Paul makes it clear that we can only really serve God if we yield ourselves completely to Him. He also tells us that this can only be done by the grace of God.
Ro. 6:13-14: and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
CONCLUSION
Two guys in a church, Paul and William decided that they really wanted to become godly men. So they started meeting with one another to pray and encourage one another; they even set goals for themselves and their behavior, and then were accountable to the other one. Paul decided he wanted to break his habit of using profanity. He decided he was going to put five dollars in the offering for every time he swore during the week. In order to stay accountable, he would tell William how many times he’d failed. The first week cost Paul $100.
However, Paul didn’t stop his swearing. In fact, while he improved somewhat over the next couple weeks, he really wasn¡|t having the success he wanted and was losing a lot of hard-earned cash.
After the fourth week, William told Paul he had decided that the deal needed to be changed for the coming week, but he wasn¡|t going to tell Paul how it would change. He just said, “Trust me. It will cost you both less and more.”
When they met the following Sunday before worship, Paul admitted he¡|d failed again. William put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Paul, I told you this was going to cost you both less and more. It’s called grace."
William took out his checkbook, and made out a check to the church, leaving the amount blank.
He gave the check to Paul and said, "Your sin still costs, but for you it’s free. Just fill in the numbers. And next week there will be more grace."
William’s grace cost him $55 the first week; the second only cost him $20. There was no third week. Paul couldn’t bear to see what his sin was costing his friend, so he quit sinning.
Someone said, “Grace is something that costs the one who receives it nothing, but costs the one who gives it everything.”
