Ephesians 2:1-10 August 21, 2022
Introduction:
When I lived in Louisville, almost every Friday for 10 years, “The Price Is RIGHT” was part of my day. I’d try to make it into Lexington by 11 a.m. so I’d get to watch the show with my brother Sam and my mother – and then the 3 of us bid on the showcase at the end. One of our favorite games was PLINKO.
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Win the chips, drop it onto the board, let it bounce around and hopefully it will bounce into that $10,000 slot. I love it because it didn’t cost those contestants one cent, it doesn’t depend on your skill, but the reward can be huge!
Grace is a little like that first chip. It doesn’t cost you anything, it’s a gift, it doesn’t depend on how good you are or how skilled you are, but the reward is huge...the difference is...grace doesn’t depend on luck or chance. Grace depends completely on the one who gives it.
Grace is a word that’s used in a variety of ways. Time for lunch guys, let’s say grace. Did you see Dancing with the Stars? Mario moved with such grace. Have I introduced you to my daughter Grace?
It’s a word that’s been used as an alternative for prayer. It’s been used to describe how smoothly a person moves. It’s been used by many parents to name their daughters including mine. Karissa and Kari is the Greek word for Grace, Karissa means full of grace.
But these terms never seem to capture the true nature of grace. They fall short.
This morning I’d like to try to bring each of us to a closer understanding about the amazing grace of God and what it means for our lives. After all when it comes to grace – The Price is Right! Grace is the answer for our debt.
First of all
I. GRACE IS THE ANSWER FOR OUR PAST LIVES
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live, when you followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time.”
As you know I love testimonies – let me read you one.
I was born in 1725, and I died 1807. The only godly influence in my life, as far back as I can remember, was my mother, whom I had for only seven years. When she left my life through death, I was virtually an orphan.
My father remarried, sent me to a strict military school, where the severity of discipline almost broke my back. I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I left in rebellion at age of ten. One year later, deciding that I would never enter formal education again, I became a seaman apprentice hoping somehow to step into my father’s trade and learn at least the ability to skillfully navigate a ship. And I determined that I would sin to my fill without restraint, now that the righteous lamp of my life had gone out. I did that all the days in the military service and I further rebelled.
My spirit would not break, and I became increasingly more and more a rebel. Because of a number of things that I disagreed with in the military, I finally deserted, only to be captured like a common criminal and beaten publicly several times. After enduring the punishment, I again fled.
I entertained thoughts of suicide on my way to Africa. I decided on Africa, because it would be the place I could get farthest from anyone that knew me. And again I made a pact with the devil to live for him.
Somehow, through a process of events, I got in touch with a Portuguese slave trader, and I lived in his home. His wife, who was brimming with hostility, took a lot out on me. She beat me, and I ate like a dog on the floor of the home. If I refused to do that, she would whip me with a lash.
I fled penniless, owning only the clothes on my back, to the shoreline of Africa where I built a fire, hoping to attract a ship that was passing by. The skipper thought that I had gold or slave or ivory to sell and was surprised that I was a skilled navigator. And it was there that I virtually lived for a long period of time.
I went through all sorts of narrow escapes with death only a hairbreadth away, on a number of occasions. One time I opened some crates of rum and got everybody on the crew drunk. The skipper, incensed with my actions, beat me, threw me down below, and I lived on stale bread and sour vegetable for an unendurable amount of time. He brought me above to beat me again, and I fell overboard. Because I couldn’t swim, he harpooned me to get me back on the ship. And I lived with the scar in my side, big enough for me to but my fist into, until the day of my death. On board, I was inflamed with fever and enraged with the humiliation.
A storm broke out, and I wound up again in the hold of the ship, down among the pumps. To keep the ship afloat, I worked as a servant of the slaves. There, bruised and confused, bleeding, diseased, I was the epitome of the degenerate man. I remembered the words of my mother.
I cried out to God, the only way I knew, calling upon His grace and His mercy to deliver me, and upon His son to save me. The only glimmer of light I could find was in a crack in the floor above me, and I looked up to it and screamed for help.
God heard me.
Thirty one years passed, I married a childhood sweetheart. I entered the ministry. In every place that I served, rooms had to be added to the building to handle the crowds that came to hear the gospel that was presented and the story of God’s grace in my life.
John Newton wrote those words concerning his testimony and life. On his tombstone are these words:
My tombstone above my head reads, “Born 1725, died 1807. A clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he once long labored to destroy.”
Before John Newton’s death, he put his life’s story to verse – that verse has become America’s and the world’s most loved hymn.
”Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.”
Dead in our transgressions and sins. Completely lost, no hope, separated from God by a chasm so wide it seems impossible to span.
And our text says “All of us were here like the rest” we were by nature objects of God’s wrath.
Before Grace each of us lived to please one god – self. Satan the “ruler of the kingdom, of the air, the Spirit who works in our disobedient heart continually blinds our eyes to God’s love, He continually enforces our rebellious nature – and the chasm ever widens. Guilt, sin, fear and anger fills our lives – we are completely and totally lost.
“But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were, dead in transgressors – It is by grace you have been saved.” (v5, 6)
You see
II. GRACE IS THE REASON GOD CALLS AND CLEANSES
“Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.”
There is no logical reason God should care enough to come looking for us. It is impossible for us to understand why God would love people who hate him, or don’t even think about him.
I suppose it’s a little like the grandmother who calls me and says “Please, please talk to my grandson, He’s lost. He’s deep in rebellion, help him.” Or the sister who calls and says “My brother is dying – He’s so far gone, can you help him? There is always pain when someone you love is in the pig pen. People asked me “How did you change? What’s the formula to make it happen for my husband or my daughter?”
I can’t explain circumstances and God’s timing. I had several things that happened that made me examine death for real, and during that time the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin, that I was lost, if I’d died in that car wreck, or on that train track I would have gone to hell. God came calling – I didn’t know why here and why now – but as he came calling the first thing He did was use the Holy Spirit to convict me of my sin. He opened my heart and mind to how lost I was.
Much like on the day of Pentecost when Peter preached to the crowd, and said, “This Jesus whom you crucified God has made both Lord and Christ and their hears were cut and they cried out what should we do?” (Acts 2:36) God cut my heart.
Grace has God coming and calling you to Himself. As Jesus said pecado = sin, juicio = judgment and justicia = righteousness. It is impossible to come to God unless he calls you according to John 6:44. And the first thing God is going to do is show you your sin, the Holy Spirit will convict your heart in regard to sin, righteousness and judgment. You cannot be saved or desire to be saved until you experience a deep desire to be SAVED. The Holy Spirit is knocking on the door of your heart – now you have to decide if you let him in.
Because once the Holy Spirit has convinced you you’re lost, he is going to point you to a Savior.
EPHESIANS 2:6-9
We are not saved by our works. We are saved by the works of another, to do works in His plan “and God raised us up with Christ.”
That sin we were convicted of required a payment, a cleansing death. “The wages of sin are death.” That’s what I deserved – that is what my former life had purchased...death and an eternity in Hell.
But Grace enters the picture. Jesus, the perfect son of God was sent to pay my wages – He died for my sins on the cross, and then to prove his power over death and hell – he rose from the dead.
ROMANS 5:6-10
“You see at first the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possible dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners Christ died for us. Since we have now bee justified by his blood how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him. For if when we were God’s enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life.” (Roman 5:6-10)
Accepting the payment of Christ’s death for our sins, gives us access to Christ resurrection – that is eternal life.
Here is the essential part of Grace for each and every one of us
III. GRACE IS ONLY A GIFT IF IT’S ACCEPTED
I can offer you a million dollars, but you only become a millionaire if you take the gift and put it in your bank account.
I don’t know why you’d turn it down, but you can.
There is a great article that illustrates the concept of grace written by Charles Stanley:
One of my more memorable seminary professors had a practical way of illustrating to his students the concept of grace. At the end of his evangelism course he would distribute the exam with the caution to read it all the way through before beginning to answer it. This caution was written on the exam as well. As we read the test, it became unquestionably clear to each of us that we had not studied nearly enough.
The further we read, the worse it became. About halfway through, audible groans could be heard throughout the lecture hall. On the last page, however, was a note that read, “You have a choice. You can either complete the exam as given or sign your name at the bottom and in so doing receive an A for this assignment.”
Wow? We sat there stunned. “Was he serious? Just sign it and get an A?” Slowly, the point dawned on us, and one by one we turned in our tests and silently filed out of the room.
When I talked with the professor about it afterward, he shared some of the reactions he had received through the years. Some students began to take the exam without reading it all the way through, and they would sweat it out for the entire two hours of class time before reaching the last page.
Others read the first two pages, became angry, turned the test in blank, and stormed out of the room without signing it. They never realized what was available, and as a result, they lost out totally.
One fellow, however, read the entire test, including the note at the end, but decided to take the exam anyway. He did not want any gifts; he wanted to earn his grade. And he did. He made a C+, but he could easily have had an A.
This story illustrates many people’s reaction to God’s solution to sin. Some people look at God’s standard—moral and ethical perfection—and throw their hands up in surrender. Why even try? They tell themselves. I could never live up to all that stuff.
Others are like the student who read the test through and was aware of the professor’s offer but took the test anyway. Unwilling to simply receive God’s gift of forgiveness, they set about to rack up enough points with God to earn it.
But God’s grace truly is like the professor’s offer. It may seem unbelievable, but if we accept it, then, like the stunned students who accepted the professor’s offer, we, too, will discover that, Yes, God’s grace truly is free. All we have to do is accept it.
“For it is by grace, you have been saved, through faith – and that’s not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works so that no one can boast.” (v. 8 & 9)
Gifts are never earned. None of us can pass the test. We’ve got to accept the offer, sign the blank page of our lives and submit it into God’s hands.
But there is one final component of this amazing gift.
IV. GRACE IS FREE BUT IT’S NOT CHEAP
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
We are not saved by works, we are saved by grace through FAITH.
And James makes it very clear saving is absolutely observable. By grace through faith.
JAMES 2:14-19
On the other side of death there must be new life. On the other side of Savior there must be Lord. God has saved us through his son so we will become like His son – you cannot say I will accept the blood of Jesus’ death, but I reject the resurrection of new life. The cross and the empty tomb are especially as essential. (Jesus not only died for our sins he rose to give us new life). Don’t ask the question if you don’t know the answer.
Trying to win their case some lawyers have been known to ask some incredibly stupid questions. The Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyer’s Journal gave the following example:
Question: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
Answer: No
Question: Did you check for blood pressure?
Answer: No
Question: Did you check for breathing?
Answer: No
Question: Then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
Answer: No
Question: How can you be sure doctor?
Answer: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Question: But couldn’t the patient been alive nevertheless?
Answer: It is possible that the patient could still have been alive and practicing law somewhere.
A body without the brain is dead; likewise faith without works is dead. Dead faith does nothing.
Jesus living in our bodies transforms our purpose and direction. Loving others, serving others becomes the evidence of new life and without it “In the same way faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead.” Grace is amazing! And transforming.
The Price is Right – It’s the free gift of God, but it’s not cheap, you’ve been made a masterpiece by the hands of God, but that masterpiece is a living work of art bringing the beauty of Christ to a lost world.
Let’s pray.
