Living In Grace
(Eph. 2:1-8)
Intro:
A. Once upon a time... There was a young illiterate couple named Dave and Carol. Dave and Carol had recently confessed faith in Jesus Christ and were baptized. And wanting to be more involved in the activities of the church, they regularly attended the Sunday school class for young married couples. And they learned that in this particular Sunday school class, the men all had the same shirts which they would often wear during certain group activities. Wanting to be part of the group, Dave was eager to get HIS matching shirt, so Carol made one for her husband. But after the next meeting, Dave came home with a look of disappointment on his face. He had his shirt, but at the meeting he noticed that all the men had little emblems on their shirts--Dave’s was plain. So Carol, undaunted by her inability to read, sewed three words which she copied from a sign in a store window across the street. Dave wore it at the next meeting. But this time he came home bubbling with joy. He said all the men really liked the inscription that Carol had put on his shirt. They said it so aptly described the wonderful change they had seen in his life. It turned out that his wife had written, "UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT."
B. You see, we all enter this world under management. We all live our lives under management. And we all die under management. Sadly, too many people are living their lives – and too many people are dying – under the wrong management.
C. It is a great to be a Christian. It is great to be spiritually alive. I understand that under this new management of God, I am called to live a life of repentance that desires to do the will of my father in heaven, and not my own will. Paul understood living in grace. He of all people had been shown great grace, but Paul also feared that some people would find within grace a license to sin. That cannot be.
D. When Paul writes to the church in Rome he shares with them in greater detail the same thoughts as he shares with the church in Ephesus. To the church in Rome he tells them how all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Then he takes his readers back to days of Abraham and recounts how God counted Abraham as righteous by his faith and not his works.
E. The goal that Paul has to help Christians realize what it means to live in grace. There are certain things that take place when a Christians lives in the grace given by God.
I. Realize Their Past
A. To the churches at Rome and Ephesus Paul walks them down memory lane. He takes them back to the good ol’ days before Jesus came into their lives. In that trip he helps them to realize that were all sinners. I have come to understand that many of us struggle with the admission of sin in our lives. We justify our sinful actions by blaming others or trying to convince ourselves that we really didn’t sin. That is a mind game that Christian need to beat.
B. Paul writes that we were dead in our sin. Understand that terminology. Sometimes we like to challenge the eternal weight of sin and say that my sin is not as bad your sin. So we start ranking sins in degrees and make sure our own sin is not among the worst. Paul challenges that idea and says that in sin we are dead. Now I realize what I am about to say is disgusting, but I believe it needed. When a rich person dies their body decays and returns to the dust just as much as when some poor homeless beggar on the street dies. The beggar is no more dead than the rich man.
C. Don’t think your little sin caused you to be less dead than my big sin. Don’t play the game that you are an okay person – you’re not – you’re a sinner. "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23)." Listen again to verse 3 of our text. Did you catch the word "all" in there? The point Paul wants to make is that there is no such thing as "good old days" before Jesus – they were death days. The reason he pushes Christians living in grace to realize their past is this wonderful statement he makes in Rom. 5:20, "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more." The point God is making is that he doesn’t care how great or little your sin has been, his goal is to save you from that sin. God’s grace desires to out do your sin. The problem is some of us Christians took that grace out of context and said, "I am going to continue to sin so that God’s grace might increase." WRONG!
D. We died to sin, we were buried with Christ in the waters of baptism and came up a new life. We are under new management. We cannot really understand grace, until we understand the depth of our sin and the wrath of God it brought upon us.
II. God’s Amazing Grace
A. I love verse 4 of our text. It begins by focusing on our past, and then verse four begins with the word "but." Even with past we have lived, we find God at work. Grace is God taking us from the depth our sins and transforming our lives into his workmanship and placing us along side Jesus in heaven.
B. What a picture. Here I am the very object of God’s wrath, and through Jesus I am made alive. That is amazing grace. Why would God desire to save me and lift me up into the heavenly realms? Because I am his creation, and I have always belonged to him, and even thought I ran away and lived in sin, he has always wanted me to come home. I was saved by grace and not works because God knew my desire of self glory and he wanted me to get over myself and start living for him in love because of what he has done for me.
C. Jesus had his feet washed with the tears of a known sinful woman. He didn’t kick that woman, push her away or act disgusted with her. Instead, to the Pharisee, Simon, who did have those feelings Jesus said, "He who has been forgiven little loves little (Luke 7:47-50)."
III. God’s Workmanship
A. Come back to our text and read with me Eph. 2:6-10, We are God’s workmanship. Do you understand what that means? It means when people look at me they should see the artistic hand of God and what type of creation God has produced.
B. If I am living in grace, I am living in the creation that God has made of me. In doing so, Paul tells us that part of that recreation is to do good works which God has planned for us to do all along. God has always had a plan for you life and mine. It is not his fault that we took a detour called sin along the way. When God finally gets us back on track through grace, he wants us on the track he had planned for us.
C. That means we need to be about doing. Doers are not sulkers who mourn all the problems of their life. Doers are not people who complain about all the things going on in their life, but praise God for good that happens to him. Doers are people who have the gift of peace within. Remember what Jesus told that sinful woman? "Go in peace." Read with me Rom. 5:1-2. We have a peace with God when we live in grace. I don’t overlook my sin, but I also don’t wallow in it. I repent and live in God’s peace. I can because of grace.
Conclusion:
A. Rejoice in your future. God is placing his children in the heavenly realms and showing off the riches he has bestowed upon us. It is great to be a Christian. If you are not a Christian, you have my sympathy. I know what it is like to feel dead and guilt ridden. I understand what is like to hate the very things you do. But let me tell you something, when you have the grace of God, you see what God does and you smile.
B. Christian friend. If you carry the weight of sin in your life, you don’t have carry it any more. If you are ready to start living in grace God is ready to give freely. It takes repentance, real, true repentance that changes actions and attitudes and let’s God remold you and give you purpose. I ask you fellow Christian – are you living in God’s grace? All God to do his work in you as we stand and sing.
