Thank you, John. Now let's open our Bibles together
to Ephesians, the second chapter. Occasionally,
some biblical words or concepts are attacked
as being outdated or no longer meaningful to
20th century educated, scientifically enlightened.
and religiously evolved people. I think of such
Bible truths as the historicity of Adam and Eve,
that is, that they actually did live as a man
and woman in the beginning of history. The flood
of Noah, the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
as the only means of our reconciliation to God.
his literal resurrection from the dead, his second
coming again in glory and the end of the world.
Truths like this are attacked as being outdated.
Such an example happened yesterday in the Minneapolis
paper in the letter to the editor by Howard Mills,
who was the president of the United Theological
Seminary of the Twin Cities in New Brighton.
Mr. Mills, among other things, denies the virgin
birth of Jesus Christ as being literal, denies
the literal resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and in fact says it's unnecessary to believe
such things because we have come beyond those
sorts of literalistic kinds of interpretations,
he says. It's unfortunate to see a man who is
a president of a theological seminary who is
an unbeliever, who does not hold to the things
which the Bible teaches most certainly and which
are surely essential, fundamental truths if one
calls himself a Christian. It may be a seminary,
but it's not a Christian seminary. Some words
are said to be outdated. Repentance. propitiation,
sin. Even the word salvation is thought by some
to be obsolete. But you know the Bible is living
and powerful. It is as relevant to this modern
generation as it has been to any of those in
the past. Its teachings and its words are still
fresh with significance to all people everywhere.
We look today at a text, Ephesians 2, verses
8 through 10, which contains one of those words
which is said by some people to be old -fashioned
and antiquated. It is the word saved. Our text
reads like this, For by grace you have been saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God. not a result of works that
no one should boast. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
beforehand that we should walk in them. Literally,
the apostle tells us here, you are having been
saved. That doesn't flow real well in the English.
That's why it's contracted just a little bit
to make it better in the English. But that's
literally what he says. You are, in other words,
you are living in a state or a condition perpetually,
continually, you are in a state of having been
saved. Notice he doesn't say you are being saved,
although that can legitimately and biblically
be said and is. He doesn't say here, you will
be saved, although again, that is a biblical
truth that can be stated. But here he is saying,
you are in a condition that can be described
as, quote, having been saved. In other words,
it is a settled, once for all fact. You are having
been saved, or as it says here, you have been
saved. abiding condition of the soul. It is a
condition into which one is permanently placed
when he trusts the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps
you have had the response, as I have on occasion,
when asking a person if he's a Christian or she's
saved, the response is sometimes, well, I certainly
hope so. Have you ever heard that? I am glad
that our salvation is not a hope -so salvation.
Ours is a know -so salvation. God has provided
and wants for us to know that we have been saved.
But if asked what salvation is, I wonder what
you would say to someone. If you would like to
see a brief summary of salvation, you're looking
at it right now. Probably one of the best, if
not the best, summary of salvation in the entire
New Testament. Salvation is here described in
three simple phrases. If you will write these
phrases on your mind, you will know how to answer
someone who asks you the question, what is salvation?
In the first place, we see that salvation is
By grace. Write that down in your mind, if not
underlining it in your Bible. Salvation is by
grace. By grace, you have been saved. This is
the basis of salvation. Literally, the apostle
says here, by the grace, you have been saved.
In other words, he's pointing to a specific concept
of grace, which he's already developed in his
writing in this epistle. He mentions it, in fact,
in just the previous verse. He says that in the
ages to come, God will show the surpassing riches
of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus. And he says, by that grace, by this grace,
you have been saved. You'll notice it does not
say that we are saved by love. It's true that
God loves us. But the Apostle writes here, by
the inspiration of the Spirit, I remind you,
by grace you have been saved, not by love. Lewis
Barry Schaeffer writes regarding the distinction
of the two, Divine love and divine grace are
not one and the same. God might love sinners
with an unutterable compassion. and yet because
of the demands of outraged divine justice and
holiness, be unable to rescue them from a righteous
doom. Divine grace and salvation is the unrestrained
compassion of God acting toward the sinner on
the basis of that freedom already secured through
the righteous judgment against sin that is secured
by Christ in his sacrificial death. Divine love,
my desire to save, yet be unable righteously
to do so. But divine grace is free to act since
Christ has died. God saves us by grace because
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ when he
died and rose again on our behalf. Because of
Christ's finished work 2 ,000 years ago, God
now can righteously Act at his love toward us
so that by his grace he saves us. Grace is further
explained in Ephesians chapter 2, as someone
has said, to exclude any possibility of self
-achieved salvation. Or to say it another way,
I believe that Paul explains more about grace
here so that he can carefully guard it against
possible confusion. Surely the Holy Spirit led
him to say some additional things about grace
that are important so that we can understand
what grace really is. Grace is defined further
as being not of yourselves. I left out the word
that for a moment, and we'll get back to that
in a moment. But right now I want you to concentrate
on not of yourselves because that further defines
what grace is. He is saying here that this salvation
that is by grace does not find its source in
us. There is not any inherent possibility in
the sinner for him to save himself. There is
no spark of divinity in him that can be fanned
so that eventually he can self -achieve his salvation.
He cannot inwardly generate salvation of himself.
Thus the apostle says, this salvation by grace
is not of yourselves. That rules out every man
-made religion in the world, including unbiblical
Christianity. And this article that I quoted
from earlier shows that there is that kind around.
Christianity professed, but which is not genuine.
Every man -made form of religion falls under
this category, for religion is man's attempt
to save himself through his own actions of some
sort. It is his attempt to get to God, but the
source of it is within him. You see, that's what
religion is. Religion is man seeking to find
within himself the way to God. Biblical Christianity
is God revealing himself and the one way of salvation
to man, for man to respond to. It does not find
its source in man. Secondly, he says regarding
the salvation by grace that it is not a result
of works. Now whether it be the works of the
law, as would apply to his Jewish readers, or
the works of fleshly and pagan religion, as would
apply to his Gentile readers, Paul wipes them
both out by saying it is not a result of works.
Now to us today, that means that salvation is
not the result of ritual. It is not received
by sacraments. One does not receive salvation
by baptism. by keeping the Ten Commandments,
by obeying the Golden Rule, or any other works
which a man may do. As the poet has said, not
the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law's
demands. We cannot work in any way to satisfy
the righteous law of God that demands perfection.
Salvation must be by grace, not a result of works.
In Romans 4 .4, the apostle clarifies that if
in fact we were saved by works, it would make
God our debtor, so that God would then owe us
something, and we would be in heaven one day
as a result of what God was indebted to give
us, and God will be no man's debtor. Salvation
is not by works. It is, on the other hand, a
third phrase, the gift of God. He uses the word
gift because salvation comes without any prerequisites.
There are no strings attached to it. Salvation
does not require one turning over a new leaf.
It does not mandate self -reformation. How many
times have you talked to someone about faith
in Jesus Christ and about salvation by grace?
And the response is, well, you know, I want to
do that as soon as I get myself cleaned up. There's
always, it seems, that idea, I have to do something.
But when we have that attitude regarding salvation,
it negates the very idea of a gift. This gift
is provided by God at infinite cost to him, but
freely to us. The cost to him, of course, was
the death and resurrection of his beloved son.
His work is complete. The gift has been paid
for in full. Now God desires to give it freely.
It is the gift of God. And then he says, fourthly,
in another phrase, The reason for all of this
is that no one should boast. Paul's idea is this,
that there is no place in heaven for self -congratulations.
No one in heaven can ever take himself by the
hand and congratulate himself on having achieved
this significant thing of getting to heaven.
Because God will have no boasting in heaven,
except the boasting that is in himself. And that's
the way it ought to be. God said through Jeremiah
of old, let him who boasts, boast in this, that
he knows me. Paul said, I do not boast except
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. My friend,
the only boasting done in heaven is in the Lord
Jesus Christ who is the Lamb, declared by all
of us one day to be worthy because he shed his
blood. and redeemed us from the tribes, the nations
of the world. That is the only boasting allowed
in heaven. Therefore, God has purposely called
the base, the despised, the poor, the zeros of
this world, as far as the world counts us. So
when we get into heaven, the only boasting will
be done is in the Lord. There is no place for
our boasting because salvation is by grace. Secondly,
we see that salvation is through faith. That's
the second phrase you need to write down in your
mind. What is salvation? Well, in the first place,
it is by grace. Secondly, it is through faith.
Here Paul touches on the means by which we appropriate
salvation. This preposition here, dia, through,
is the channel by which we receive this gift
that God has. One author put it this way. Faith
is the faculty by which we accept the free gift
God has procured for us. Never in the Bible is
faith viewed as a work or an accomplishment of
a person. It is not a quality to command. It
is not a virtue on the part of a man or woman.
It is simply that in us which responds to God.
Skevington Woods said it this way, it's a trustful
response that is itself evoked by the Holy Spirit.
Faith is more than an intellectual assent. It
is a reliance upon certain facts. Boy, that's
an important thing to get a hold of. Faith is
not just saying these things are so. It is saying
I commit myself to these things. Do you realize
how faith is woven into the very fabric of our
everyday life? Some people struggle with faith.
And they say, oh, I could never live by faith.
It's got to be scientifically proven to me. And
yet they overlook the fact that every day they
live, Again and again they exercise faith. A
person is thirsty, so he goes to the faucet and
he turns it on and gets a glass of water and
drinks it. When he does that, he is trusting
that there is an employee of the water department
of that city who sees that that water is pure,
or at least fit to drink. Furthermore, he is
trusting that somehow that water was never intercepted
between the water plant and his house so that
something was injected into it to make it unfit
to drink. In fact, he does not even think about
it. But it is an act of faith on his part, on
a very human level. A person goes to a restaurant.
He looks at the menu. He orders the meal. The
meal is brought to him. He eats it. As an act
of faith, he has never seen the cook. If he had,
he might change his mind about eating it. He's
never seen the kitchen. That, too, might influence
whether he wants to eat the meal. What has he
done? By faith, he has eaten food, trusting that
that cook has not only cooked the right food,
but has cooked it in a way that it's edible.
And he has trusted that somebody has checked
that kitchen so that it's sanitary. It is an
act of faith to eat that food in a restaurant.
You came in this morning and sat down in a chair.
Now you looked at that chair, maybe, to determine
whether it would hold you after all the Christmas
eating you've done. The chair looks sturdy. It's
made out of metal. It looks like the workman
who put it together did a good job with the wells.
So what do you do? You know the facts. Now you
rely on them. You sit down in the chair and it
holds you. You see, that's a very simple act
of faith. Now, folks, if we can believe the man
who works at the water department, if we can
trust the cook in a restaurant, if we can rely
upon a metal worker who put together a chair,
Can we not rely upon the eternal God of the universe,
what he says? That's all faith is. It is committing
oneself to, it is relying upon the facts as God
says them. Now we need to look at that word,
that. He says in verse 8, and that not of yourselves.
What does that refer to? Is it the faith? Is
it the grace? Well, theologians debate this,
as theologians are wont to do, because the language
here is debatable. It can go either direction.
Probably what the apostle has in mind is the
whole package of salvation, which is by grace
through faith. And so he's saying that that whole
thing comes as the gift of God, including the
grace, the faith as well. It is the gift of God.
This salvation that he's talking about that is
by grace, through faith, that is not of ourselves.
It is the gift of God. Some people have intellectual
problems with faith. I talked with a friend within
the last couple of weeks who said, in essence,
and he used the phrase, in fact, that faith is
such a blind leap. Into the dark. Is that what
faith is? No, not at all. That's ignorance. Faith
is depending upon what one knows to be true.
What God has said. It may go beyond what we can
observe, or beyond what we can rationalize with
our minds, but if God says it, that doesn't mean
that therefore, It does mean, rather, that it
is true, and we can depend upon it. Faith simply
takes God at his word. It is not a blind leap
into the dark. It is an enlightened leap that
trusts God. Intellectual objections to faith
really are not that at all. Intellectual objections
to faith are actually moral problems, not intellectual
problems. Because you see, the heart of it is
sin. The heart of it is unwillingness to turn
from self to trust God, to turn from rebellion
against God to depending upon Him. Intellectual
problems against faith are really, in their essence,
moral problems, sin problems. Others claim not
to have the gift of faith. They say, well, it
says here the gift is given by God and I have
never been given that gift. My friend, if you
would today believe, you may. The gift is yours.
It is not a matter of saying, well, I was never
given the gift, therefore I cannot believe. If
you would believe, you can believe. Does faith
save us? Well, yes and no. How's that for a good
answer? I'm running for political office in a
couple of years. No, that's not a political answer.
That is an honest answer. Faith saves us in the
sense that it is the channel by which we receive
God's gift. But faith is not our Savior. Christ
is our Savior. There are some who wonder about
their faith. They say, well, I'm not sure what
I believed. I'm not sure if I was old enough.
I'm not sure that my faith was sufficient back
then. You see, the important thing is not how
you believed, it's whom you believed. It is not
faith that saves us in that sense. It is Christ
that saves us. Charles Spurgeon put it this way,
it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee,
it is Christ. It is not thy hope in Christ that
saves thee, it is Christ. It is not even thy
faith in Christ, though that be the instrument,
it is Christ's blood and merit. You see, the
assurance of our salvation doesn't rest upon
the quality of our faith. It rests upon the quality
of our Savior. Whom we have believed. Paul said,
I know whom I have believed. I know that I have
believed. I know whom I have believed. And that
he is able to keep that which I have committed
to him against that day. Just as salvation comes
to us by grace, it is secured to us. by grace.
Now Paul says something more about salvation
as he describes it to us. What is salvation?
Well, salvation is by grace, it is through faith,
and thirdly, it is for good works. Very simple
concepts, but ones that will revolutionize a
person in coming to Jesus Christ. Salvation is
for good works. Here we have the purpose of salvation.
He tells us in verse 10 that we are God's workmanship.
That is, the saved, or to put it in the context
of Ephesians, he is saying the church, capital
C, all of the saved, we, are God's poema. That
is the Greek word, but you hear in that, do you
not, the word poem. That's the main thought behind
the word. We are God's poem, his workmanship.
His work of art, His masterpiece. We are God's
product. Only one other time in the New Testament
is this word used, and it's used in Romans 1
.20. Where there it speaks about the heavens
as being God's poem. He says, God has displayed
His glory through the things that are made. Now
that phrase is the same word, poema. There God
is writing a poem of creation in the heavens
so that reading the stanzas of the stars, people
are able to at least discern the deity and the
power of God. But God is writing another poem.
It is the poem of redemption. And my fellow Christian,
we are the stanzas of that poem. We are God's
poem, created in Christ Jesus, not of ourselves,
but in Christ Jesus, and that is emphasized here.
He has created us. God's work is the work of
creation. We are new creations in Jesus Christ,
Paul says elsewhere. He tells us that the stanzas,
which we are, are written in the good works of
our lives. Created in Christ Jesus for good works.
God has created us that we might walk in those
good works. And by that walk, he then writes
the stanzas in his poem. The walk here is our
lifestyle. That's what he's talking about. The
same word is used earlier in the chapter in verse
2 when he says, in which you formerly walked.
In what? Trespasses and sins. Before we were
saved, we had a lifestyle, a walk. Trespasses,
sins, two words that would describe the way we
lived. We missed the mark. We overstepped the
boundaries that God had set. And we were dead,
spiritually. But now he says we've been saved
by grace through faith. And the purpose is that
there's a change of lifestyle. There is now good
works which God has prepared beforehand for us.
That seems to suggest that God has prepared for
each of us a special life purpose. That he has
prepared a stanza for us to fulfill in his poem.
and as by the Holy Spirit we live for Christ,
good works flow out of us, and the stanza is
filled in. Only the saved can perform good works.
You say, wait a minute, I know a man down at
our office, and he doesn't even claim to be a
Christian, but oh, he's a good man, he does good
works. Well, the works that he does may be relatively
good, But they are not ultimately good in the
sense that it's used here. You see, when God
calls these works good, what he means is that
he is producing them in us and through us. Therefore,
he finds them acceptable. They are good works.
An unregenerate person can never know, however
relatively good his life may be, it is not the
Holy Spirit in him producing those works for
the glory of God. That's why I say only a saved
person can perform good works. There are other
kinds of works mentioned in the Bible. There
are the works of the law, Galatians 2 .16. The
works of the flesh, Galatians 5. The works of
darkness, Romans 13, Ephesians 5. The dead works,
Hebrews 6 .1. And even there it's talking about
religious works that are without life. The spirit
is not in them, therefore they are dead works,
as far as God is concerned. Good works are only
possible in those who have been saved by grace
through faith. These good works come after salvation.
Salvation is not a result of the good works.
The good works come after salvation as proof
of it. You see, one of the practical results
of good works in the life of the Christian is
that they provide for him assurance of his salvation.
Are you sure you're saved today? How do you know
you're saved? Do you realize that it's insufficient
to point back to a prayer that you said sometime?
And we're talking about the assurance of your
salvation. It is insufficient to write a date
on the cover of your Bible and to be able to
look back there all the time and say, well, that's
when I prayed the prayer. As far as God is concerned
in his word, the assurance of salvation comes
through the good works in our lives. I remind
you, not works that we produce in our own self
-effort, fleshly works. Not the Christian life
as we try to live it in ourselves. But our assurance
of salvation comes through the Holy Spirit producing
in us good works that are pleasing and acceptable
to God. Do you have assurance of your salvation?
You see, the purpose of salvation is a change
of life. It's transformation. Now our good works
are not perfect in this life. Because we are
not yet perfect. We still have sin dwelling in
us. We still have the flesh that is able to express
itself in ugliness and disobedience to God. We
can choose to follow the flesh. We can choose
to yield our members, our abilities, our capacities,
to sin, to be instruments of sin. We can do that.
How sad. When we do, by the way, when we do choose
to make that decision, we begin to lose the assurance
of our salvation. Have you ever noticed that?
I talked to a dear, dear friend of mine yesterday
in another state who has even been a pastor of
a church, been used of God in building a church,
but has been involved in sin in the last few
months. He's out of his ministry. now restored
to his family. He's made things right with God.
You know what he says? Because of the works in
his life, the way the flesh has dominated him
over the past period of time. He said to me yesterday,
you know, I've had to go all the way back to
my salvation. He said, I have had doubts as to
whether I am even saved. Now why is that? Why
is it that happens to you? and to me, after we
have been dominated by the flesh. It is because
it is the good works produced by the power of
the Holy Spirit in us that provides for us the
genuine assurance of our salvation. Not good
works to earn salvation, understand that, but
good works that come because we have been saved
and the Spirit of God is working in our lives
for the glory of God. It may be that you, like
my friend, have been making the wrong decision.
And sin has been expressed in your life. The
flesh has been dominating you. And as a result
of that, the works of the flesh and all of their
ugliness have been seen, exposed. And you today
are wondering, am I even saved? All kinds of
doubts can go through your mind. I can't tell
you whether you're saved. That's not my job.
But I can tell you this, that salvation is by
grace through faith. We are saved by grace. We
are kept by grace, thank God, not by our works.
But if you want the joy of your salvation, if
you want the assurance of your salvation, then
your life needs to be yielded to the Lord. And
you need to allow the Holy Spirit to produce
in your life works that are pleasing to God.
Now if that's not where you've been, my Christian
brother or sister, that's where you need to get.
And you'll find that the assurance of your salvation
will return. The church is God's masterpiece
through which he has designed to exhibit his
grace and his wisdom for eternity to come. Every
one of us who's a believer in Jesus Christ is
a part of that. As I've said, we are a stanza
in the poem of redemption that God is writing.
Laman Strauss remarks regarding the wonder of
this. He says, God takes rough, crude sinners,
dead in trespasses and sins, and produces vessels,
meat for the master's use. Sin -marred, defective
material is transformed by God into useful instruments
of righteousness. That's the purpose of your
salvation, by grace through faith. It is for
good works in your life. Is that the kind of
salvation that you profess? There is no other
kind of salvation. and the kind of salvation
that Paul describes in these verses. There was
a rather bizarre lady who lived at the turn of
the century. Her name was Sarah Winchester. Have
any of you ever been to the Winchester Mansion?
Yeah, some of you have. San Jose, California.
Mrs. Winchester was the survivor of the Winchester
who developed the rifle in the last century.
inherited a fortune. She was a woman who was
plagued by spirits. She was told by spirits,
she felt, that if she would keep building her
house, she would never die. You say, how can
anyone ever believe that? Well, how can people
believe what they do except by the deception
of Satan? The spirits told Sarah Winchester as
long as she built that house, she would never
die. And so she kept building for 40 years. She
spent, what was in that day, $5 million building
the house. The house is a rambling structure
that has 2 ,000 doors, 10 ,000 windows, 150 ,000
panes of glass. It has 40 stairways. some of
which lead nowhere. It has 47 fireplaces, 13
bathrooms. One day, Sarah Winchester died. When
she died, by the way, she left behind three storehouses
of materials, enough to continue building that
house for another 40 years. But she died. She
was sincere in what she believed. In doing what
she was doing, this would cause her to escape
death, but it didn't. You see, there is no salvation
except that which is by grace, through faith,
unto good works. Is that the salvation that you
know today in your own heart? Let's bow together
in prayer. If you do not have the assurance of
your salvation, I cannot tell you why that may
be the case. It is possible that you have not
been saved. You may be saved today, if you will.
Whatever your past objections have been, whatever
your hang -ups have been before this, will you
today say, Lord, I do trust you. I put aside
my empty works, my dead works, the self -righteousness
to which I have clung. I cast away. And I turn
to you and I receive you by faith. And I trust
you alone to save my soul. My friend, that salvation
is the gift of God. It's by grace. Will you by
faith receive it and through your faith make
it your own? My Christian brother, sister, is
God's purpose in your salvation being realized?
If it were possible to read God's poem of redemption,
And to skip down through that poem to your stanza,
to your life's stanza. Would you be glad for
the way that it reads today? If not, will you
confess to the Lord the mess that you've made,
the wrong decisions you've made? And then ask
him by his Holy Spirit to begin living his life
in you. So that your life can be characterized
by what God calls good works. Lord, to the end
that this invitation may be realized in our lives,
we ask your blessing upon it. I pray that there
will be not one go away today. without receiving
or having received your gift, purchased at such
a cost in the bloody and horrible death of your
son, but a death which was well -pleasing in
your sight, for your justice was fulfilled in
it, so that your grace could save the likes of
us. I pray that the good works you desire to
see in us as a people will be realized today
and this week. In Jesus' name, amen.