By Grace Through Faith are You Saved
Ephesians 2:8-10
Primary Purpose: To emphasize that salvation is a work of God and is by grace through faith in Him.
I heard about a sermon that O.S. Hawkins preached at a pastor’s conference in Jacksonville, Florida. He told about the first time when he saw the word “redemption”. He said that every afternoon his mother would go to the store to buy groceries for their supper because they did not have a refrigerator. He said that when she would walk in the door, it didn’t matter what he was doing, he made a beeline for the grocery bags. He would dig through them looking for a treasure that most folks today have no concept of what I am to say. He looked in those bags for S & H Greenstamps. He had been collecting those stamps for months. He had an S & H Greenstamp catalog and in that catalog was a ball glove he could get if he could collect enough stamps.
Well finally one day he collected the final stamp that he needed. He took the catalog to his father and showed him the ball glove he had been saving stamps for and asked his father if they could go down to the S & H Greenstamp store and get the glove. His father agreed to take him and off they went. Dr.Hawkins said that when they walked into the store, on the back wall was a huge sign that said, “Redemption”. He opened the catalog and showed the lady at the counter the glove and he handed her the needed books of stamps. She opned each book and examined their pages carefully making sure that all of the stamps were there. Without a word she turned and went to a storage room and returned with a box that held that glove. She sat the box on the counter and pushed it his way. And he left. . . having redeemed that ball glove. He purchased it and made it his own. (Taken from a sermon by Tom Dooley).
In a similar way, God has redeemed us. He redeemed us not by our works, but by the gift that He gave. That gift was Himself. He did this because He loves you and me, not because you deserved it. There are three important words here that emphasize the work God has done for us: saved, grace and faith. They all emphasize that it was God who redeemed us.
First, we need to realize that salvation is first and foremost a work of God. The Bible emphasizes that God has taken the initiative to reach out to us by His grace. In our passage today, grace is called a gift of God. You see the word grace used here.
When I was teaching youth Sunday School several years ago, I asked the youth in my class what “grace” meant. All of these kids were church kids. They had all grown up in church. But, they did not know the basic meaning of the word “grace”. Grace is where the emphasis of these verses is. Grace means “unmerited favor”. It means that God decided to have mercy on us and love us when we were completely undeserving of receiving that mercy. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” A man named Manford Gutzke once said about this that “We often fall into the trap of thinking that the Christian life is some big effort on our part, something we do. No! It is something God has done and is doing, and will do in and through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (pg.45, Plain Talk on Ephesians, Gutzke)
The word here in these verses that I want you to notice is “saved”. This word has the implications of someone being rescued in it. It suggests that you were in danger and that God did something for you that you could not do for yourself. Ephesians 2:1 says that our state before we get saved is one of transgression and sin and spiritual death. This chapter goes on to use phrases like “God made us alive with Christ even when we were dead” vs.5. If you notice there the emphasis is on what God did. He quickened you, you didn’t just wake up on your own. Colossians 1:13 says it this way, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” Where is the emphasis there? Is it on God’s activity, not yours. This is something we should be forever grateful for, forever wanting to express love to God for. We can never thank God enough for quickening us for salvation. We can never thank Him enough for His love.
Therefore, because it is a gift, we should realize that salvation is not a work of man v.8-9. It is not a matter of effort. When I was a boy, I saw a stereo at Foley’s department store that I wanted. My father agreed to pay for the stereo on the condition that I pay him back with the money I received from mowing lawns that summer. It was my first real loan in some ways. I received the benefits of the stereo immediately. I wore that stereo out too. But, I paid my father off as fast as I could with the lawn mowing money. In time it was completely paid off. Some of us seem to act as though that is the same way salvation works. That God did something for us and now we are trying to pay him off with service or church attendance or good works of some kind. But, that is an insult to the grace of God. When someone gives you a gift, it is meant as a act of kindness. You only have to receive it So, how then do we receive it?
We receive it by this word “faith”. Curtis Vaughan has said that faith is the hand that takes the present of God’s gift of grace. It is the way we appropriate the things of God. It is not a matter of works, so that no one can boast before God. vs.9. Because it isn’t a matter of works, but was given to me on the basis on grace, then I cannot lose my salvation based on works. It was given to me when I didn’t deserve it. It was given to me by a God who knows me, my past, my present and my future. It was given to me to pay for all my sins, past, present and future.
The third thing that we should remember is that we are saved for God’s purposes. I know of one man who walked down the to the front of the church, prayed to receive Christ, was baptized and hardly ever walks into a church anymore. The only time you see him is Christmas, funerals and weddings. He doesn’t seem to understand that you are not just saved from hell. There is a work for you to do as a believer. Here it says that this work is uniquely designed with you in mind. He prepared this work in advance for you to do. vs.10
A lot of people think that being saved is a matter of works. But, here it says that you are God’s workmanship. It says you were created (kitzo) for good works. The word created means that refers to the work of God in creating you for a purpose. Think of it this way, if you have a apple tree in your front yard and it bears oranges what would you think? You’d probably be astonished. You might think you were seeing things. If the banana trees that my parents have in their backyard bear apples, I would be absolutely amazed. It isn’t right or natural. Likewise, a Christian will bear fruit also, good works. It is as much a sign of who you are as anything else. It is a by-product of who you are, not a attempt to try to become something you are not..
