THE REAL THING
EPHESIANS 2:8-9
I might ask this morning the question, ‘What does your life put on display?’
‘As people watch your life unfold moment by moment, problem by problem, circumstance by circumstance, what do they gain a deeper understanding of?’
EPH 2:7 So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
If is borrowed Bill Gates’ credit card for just 24 hours. I had both his and mine in my pocket. Visit a fancy restraunt(his), Woodland Hills Mall(his), local car dealer(HIS), buy a second home(for sure HIS).
Someone might stop me in the middle of all this madness, ‘Boy you sure are rich!’. Not at all but you are seeing are someone’s riches on display.
That is what God is interested in: His riches on display in our lives.
Literal idea is of a ‘TROPHY’, shows to all who see it a reminder of a great accomplishment.
ASSOC. GOLF CHAMPION – everything went right, I hit bad he hit good or vice versa, bounced one off a skinny tree limb and and ended up next to hole. Good Shot God!
Every moment of our lives we make a decision regarding whose resources we will dip into. God’s resources in our lives put Him on display.
There is a huge difference between our feelings and our choices. Those choices are there because of God’s Surpassing riches of His grace.
1) Look at Galations 5(fruit of the spirit) and you can see the new options for life that we all possess in Christ.
Sometimes I feel sad & depressed but I have the choice of JOY
I FEEL FEAR/choice of FAITH
FEEL ANGER but I have the choice of LOVE
I FEEL WORRY but I have the Choice of PEACE
FEEL overwhelmed in TEMPATION/choice of SELF-CONTROL
I FEEL like I want to LET THEM HAVE IT but I have the choice of GENTLENESS(strength under control)
THOSE ARE THE RICHES OF GRACE
· This morning I want us to think about Grace and our salvation. I want us to look at verses 8 & 9 and consider some wonderful truths.
(8) For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; (9) not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
1. Notice the three phrases in verse 8 which refer to our salvation: by grace, through faith, & of God.
a. Three things we can know about our salvation.
Lot’s of polls have been taken in recent years which have asks questions regarding people and their relationship with God.
· 57% of Americans believe salvation is earned through good character or behavior.
· 77% believe there is a heaven
· 76% say their chances of going are good or excellent
· 85% considered themselves to be Christians
USA TODAY: Man on the street survey asking ‘what do you think your chances are of getting into heaven’
· 50-50, the older I get the more my chances will improve
· 85%, I don’t think the entrance exam will be that tough
· 50%, you have to be a nice person so I think I am still in the running
60’s Song: Teenager after car wreck where girlfriend died, ‘Where, O where can my baby be? The Lord took her away from me; She’s gone to heaven so I gotta be good, so I can see my baby when I leave this world’.
That is the false hope of the world
When asked about certain celebrities chances of going to heaven:
O.J. SIMPSON 19% Dennis Rodman 28% Bill Clinton 52%
Mother Teresa 79%
Mother Teresa wins on good works but all miss the essential truths about salvation: BY GRACE – THROUGH FAITH – OF GOD
Tulsa Airport putting Josh & Katie on a plane to St. Louis.
Waiting at the gate when the gate next to ours had an announcement. ‘We have overbooked this flight so everybody still left in line ________ other arrangements, ticket is no good for this flight! Bought in good faith!
CHIEFS or ROYALS games in KC. As you near the stadium complex there are ‘scalpers’ along the roadside selling tickets. Save time, don’t stand line, buy below face value. PLAYOFF GAME VRS DENVER. Hundreds of dollars spent by fans who high-fived each other all the way up to the entrance gate: Sorry these tickets are fakes, bogus. FEEL BAD.
Going to happen to many at the moment of death: Trusted bad information,
REAL SALVATION IS ONLY: By GRACE, through FAITH, of GOD
BY GRACE – For by grace you have been saved.
1. The only way to be saved is by GRACE: God’s Riches at
Christ’s expense – unmerited favor – Undeserved honor or position.
Difference between GRACE & MERCY:
Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve but
Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve.
SALVATION –ETERNAL LIFE – SONSHIP – SPIRITUAL RICHES
Ours simply based on what Christ has done for us.
2 SAMUEL 9:1-7 Then David said, “Is there yet 1anyone left of the house of Saul, athat I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”
bThere is still a son of Jonathan who is crippled in both feet.”
So the king said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba(Saul’s servant) said to the king, “Behold, he is ain the house of Machir the son of Ammiel in Lo-debar.”
Then King David sent and brought him from Lo-debar.
Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, came to David and bfell on his face and prostrated himself. And David said, “Mephibosheth.” And he said, “Here is your servant!”
David said to him, “Do not fear, for aI will surely show kindness to you for the sake of your father Jonathan, and bwill restore to you all the 1land of your 2grandfather Saul; and cyou shall 3eat at my table regularly.”
Again he prostrated himself and said, “What is your servant, that you should regard aa dead dog like me?”
Then the king called Saul’s servant Ziba and said to him, “aAll that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master’s 1grandson.
You and your sons and your servants shall cultivate the land for him, and you shall bring in the produce so that your master’s grandson may have food; nevertheless aMephibosheth your master’s grandson bshall 1eat at my table regularly.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.
Then Ziba said to the king, “According ato all that my lord the king commands his servant so your servant will do.” So Mephibosheth ate at 1David’s table as one of the king’s sons.
UNEARNED – UNDERSERVED – UNMERITED – Based on the work of another GRACE!!!!
IN FACT: not just unearned but actually deserving the very opposite!
Came across the story of a man named Paul Leonard. Paying his way through OSU(Ohio State Univ) many years ago. He says,
My father had died my senior year in high school and my mother had become blind. Even in the midst of the great depression she encouraged me to go to college. By night I drove a taxi and during lunch and dinner hours I waited tables at the campus dining hall. I made just enough money to get by.
At lunch one day I was serving the table where the faculty members were seated. I took orders and then returned with a full tray of food when the unthinkable happened, I slipped on a spot of gravy and watched helplessly as the plates slid off the tray and spilled onto as especially well dressed man.
I tried to clean it off with a towel but only caused more damage, ‘Mr. Leonard, what are you going to do about this? He said. ‘I am so sorry sir, I will pay to have your suit cleaned’. ‘I don’t believe this suit can be dry cleaned, do you?’ ‘Whatever it takes I will do sir’.
Later that afternoon I sat before the same professor in an engineering class that he taught in a stained suit. Afterwards he asked to speak to me, ‘Mr. Leonard, I believe it is only fair that you buy me a new suit’. ‘Yes sir’. I agreed to meet him downtown at a downtown Columbus men’s store the following day. I recognized the name of the store and that it sold only expensive tailor made suits. To pay for a suit there would take months of payments.
The next day I walked in the store and the professor said, ‘Oh there you are’. He had arrived early and chosen the fabric and his preferred tailor and had already taken measurements. ‘Mr. Leonard will be responsible for the bill’, he said to the clerk.
As he started to exit the store he turned to me and said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Yes, sir…It will take time of course, but I…’ He interrupted me with words directed towards the clerk. ‘See that Mr. Leonard is fitted for a suit just like mine. And put them both on MY BILL’.
Not only a debt cancelled(mercy) but receiving what was not deserved(grace).
THROUGH FAITH – For by grace you have been saved through faith…
1. Faith is the channel and not the cause of salvation. It is the hand that reaches out and receives what is given.
2. Grace shows us that all the work has been done for us by Christ. ‘IT IS FINISHED’.
Faith is our extending ourselves upon that truth, resting completely upon what God has done for us and no longer trying to achieve our own salvation.
JOHN PAYTON was greatly used by God in the New Hebredies Islands. Islands filled with Cannibals. After much time there and when he had reached many on the islands for Christ, he was trying to put together New Testament passages in their language. PROBLEM: No word for FAITH or TRUST. They didn’t trust anybody in their lost world.
How can you translate the NT without a word for Faith?
One day some hunters returned from a tiresome journey while Payton was sitting under a shade tree. One of the men came and plopped down next to him and said, ‘Oh how great it is to stretch myself out here under this tree’. PAYTON jumped up, ‘What did you say?’ ‘What was that word’.
So he translated John 3:16 this way: ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever stretches himself out upon Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life’.
That is faith: trusting all that you upon all that He is.
3. Three elements involved in faith:
a. KNOWLEDGE: right facts, faith is not faith in faith but has an object. The object of our faith is Jesus Christ: His sinless life, His death, burial, & resurrection.
b. APPROPRIATION: More than just knowing He died as some historical event but knowing that HE died for me. I have a personal need to benefit from His finished work.
c. COMMITMENT: I personally accept Him as my Savior, I cast myself upon Christ and rest on His promises.
THOSE ALL ADD UP TO BIBLICAL FAITH
BY GRACE – THROUGH FAITH
OF GOD – For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
1. Salvation is a gift and the giver is God. It is His work in our lives.
2. The word for ‘gift’ in the NT is usually the word ‘charis’ from which we get the words charisma or charismatic. But here the word is ‘doron’ which stresses the fact that the gift is a gift. It is not a loan or anything to which a repayment is expected.
a. SALVATION IS A GIFT AND SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED AS ANYTHING ELSE!
Long days ago a very poor woman living in England near Windsor Castle. She lived so close that she could look over the palace gardens and see grapes growing there.
Her little child became very sick and she thought how good it would be to have a few of those grapes for nourishment. She took a single shilling and went to the Queen’s garden, ‘My little girl is sick could I buy a shillings worth of grapes’.
‘Do you not know that those grapes belong to the Queen maam and the Queen does not sell grapes’.
It so happened that one of the Queen’children overheard what was said. He came over and said, ‘My good woman, my mother does not sell her grapes, but she will give you just as many as you need’.
Salvation is not for sale, the price is too high. It is a gift or nothing at all.
BY GRACE - THOUGH FAITH - OF GOD
Verse 9 reinforces these truths by stating: not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
1. Boasting says I am my own creator, my own god. I have in myself what it takes, I am sufficient in myself. GOD GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE BUT IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD.
THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF PRIDE IS THE REJECTION OF GOD’S GIFT
2. If you want to boast do it like Paul did, ‘But he who boasts let him boast in the Lord’ I will boast of nothing except the cross of Christ’
