Sermon Central
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Saved By Gods Grace Series
Contributed by Mark Aarssen on Feb 4, 2016 (message contributor)
Summary: 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5
Saved by Gods Grace
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Message:
Last week I talked about how God has gone to great lengths to know us personally and how He has demonstrated His interest in each and every person He has created. God never intended for us to be separated from Him but because of what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden we are now born into a condition that labels us as a sinner.
A Sinner is someone who willfully disobeys God. That is who we are.
We have inherited this condition from Adam and Eve. Unfortunately it’s not the kind of inheritance anyone would want to receive.
The Bible tells us that we are born this way.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
I know what some people think how can a new born baby be a sinner?
Well that baby is a descendant of Adam and Eve and as a result sin is part of that baby’s DNA. The baby hasn’t done a thing to be called a sinner but sin has attached itself to that baby through its family tree. It is a condition of human birth.
God in His wisdom and mercy saw this problem for what it was and God set in place a system by which people’s sins could be forgiven.
That system was entrusted to a Chosen People called the Nation of Israel. In order to have sins forgiven it would be necessary for blood to be shed. So God instituted a system of sacrificing animals for the atonement of human sins.
Leviticus 17:11 King James Version (KJV)
11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
This forgiveness system established by God worked pretty well except that people would need to kill an animal time and time again for every time they sinned. It was a one for one kind of a system. But people being what they are do not stop sinning after one or two times.
Some of us do it time and time and time again until our sins add up to the hundreds and thousands.
To forgive all those sins for all those people would most likely wipe out all the earth's species of animals used for sacrifices. We would still be left with all kinds of people and all kinds of sin that needed to be forgiven but we would have no way to do it since all the animals would be gone.
So God in His amazing grace decided on a better way.
God would make Himself an offering for our sins. God would offer His blood. Such an offering would be perfect since God is perfect and such an offering would be Holy since God is Holy, Holy, Holy and such an offering would be complete in that it would cover the sins of the past the sins of the present and the sins of the future.
It could do this not for just one Nation of people but for every person who put their faith and trust in God’s grace to forgive them.
That grace was Jesus Christ as Ephesians Chapter 2 tells us. It is for whosoever believes.
