pastor, his wife and family are
dear to me, have been for so many years. I always feel embarrassed thanking
folks. Not that I'm not thankful, but I never feel like I have
the right words or the words that need to be said to express
my appreciation for all that you've done for me, for my family. I'm thankful for your kindness
and your friendliness. That's a rare thing today, people
being friendly. for your unqualified faithfulness
to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, for your loyalty to the
truth, for your allegiance to the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As I was thinking about you this morning, I thought of the words
of our Lord to Simon Peter and his disciples in Mark 10. When
he said, Verily I say unto you, that no man that hath left house,
or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children,
or lands for my sake in the Gospels, but he shall receive a hundredfold. Now in this time, houses, and
brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands with
persecutions, and in the world to come, eternal life. That's how I feel every time
I come up here. I see my mothers and my sisters
and my brothers and my friends. And I'm thankful to the Lord
for his kindness to me and your kindness to me. If you have your
Bibles, turn to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. I'm going
to read the first ten verses. I'm taking my text from a very
familiar portion of Scripture, Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
8. And you, and the you he's talking
about, are those who are chosen by the Father, redeemed and forgiven
by Jesus Christ, regenerated by the Spirit, and given all
these things that they might acknowledge Jesus Christ in their
salvation, in chapter 1. and you hath he quickened, who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prints
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature, two very
important words, by nature, the children of wrath even as others. The elect of God were never the
children of wrath, but their nature was just the same as every
child of wrath. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
ye are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us to
sit together in heavenly places in Jesus Christ, that in the
ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ. For by grace are
ye saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it
is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For
we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. I read this phrase on the Internet
not long ago. I don't know who said it. But the phrase said, every great
revival or awakening in history has been founded upon singularity. And they said this was a solo
Christus, solo gratia, solo fide, solo scriptura, solo deo gloria. Now I said that, you might be
impressed with my heretofore unrevealed expertise in Latinese.
What that means is salvation by Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, revealed in the Scriptures alone, and for the glory of God
alone. By grace ye are saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. These
words are stronger than iron, and they are poetry. They are
poetry. And this line of the stanza is
as perfect as poetry gets. They have an indestructible quality
about them. By grace ye are saved through
faith, that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. What is
wonderful about them is you cannot read them and misunderstand them. There is no way to misunderstand
what is spoken here. They cannot possibly confuse
anyone. They cannot. And they cannot
be twisted or turned or said any other way. They possess such
absolute solidness and solidarity that to tamper with them is to
destroy them. They cannot be debated and are
not to be debated. They are either believed or avoided
or disallowed altogether, as is all of truth. You are saved through faith.
And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. And the language is sure. The
language is absolute. I love absolutes. I'm a fan of
absolutes. I remember many years ago, Dusty
Rhodes was on a radio show and was confronted with a fellow
who said, I don't believe in absolutes. And Dusty said, Are
you sure? He said, Absolutely. I'm a fan of absolutes. We find
this passage nestled in the middle of two chapters that leave the
reader in no doubt as to how God saves sinners. Be not deceived,
this verse and the context in which it is found is about sinners
having been saved, past tense, having been saved by the will,
the choice, the predestination, the power, and the grace of Almighty
God through the righteous death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
how it's accomplished. It is about sinners who are saved,
not might be. words here that speak of probability
or possibility, by grace ye are saved. It's about sinners who
are passive in their salvation because even their faith and
their works are a product of sovereign, predestinating, free
grace. This is the only thing that will
do for ruined sinners. Now, if you're just sort of sick,
I could give you all kinds of religious things to do that could
make you feel better, could salve your conscience. But if you're
ruined and dead in trespasses and sin, as those whom He has
quickened, this is the only thing that will do. Grace and grace
alone. It will mean nothing to someone
who feels that he has something to offer God. or that he possesses
a spark of the divine that only needs a little fanning to burst
into the flames of faith, or to someone who believes that
he can will himself from death to life, though he is a fool
to think so. For such a person, this means
nothing. This salvation spoken of here
is for dead, impotent, hopeless sinners And though they magnificently
benefit from its exercise upon them, in truth, their salvation
is actually designed and intended for something else altogether.
This salvation of dead, ruined, Satan-following sinners, who
by nature differ nothing from those who will spend eternity
in hell, this salvation is about and for the glory of God's grace. That's what it's about. God has
so ordered and performed this salvation that the saved sinner
is actually made to exist for God's glory. That's what it says
in verse 12 of chapter 1, that we should be to the praise of
the glory of His grace. that we should be to the praise
of His glory. Just roll that over in your mind.
What must have been our sad estate? How empty and useless we must
have been that the salvation wrought out for us, a search
that the singular reason for our existence as a saved one
is to glorify God's grace, His unmerited favor. Verses 5-7 of
chapter 1, it says, Having predestinated us to the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made
us accepted in the blood, and in whom we have redemption, through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. Then in verse 9 it says, having
made known unto us the mystery of His will according to His
good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself. Then in verse 14,
which is the earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of the purchased
possession unto the praise of His glory. It is all about His
glory. This world spends much of its
time and energy trying to find a reason Why men are here on
this earth? I remember, I think it was Evel
Knievel was interviewed one time and they asked him, was there
anything that puzzled him? He says, yeah, it puzzles me
three things. Why am I here? No, who am I? Why am I here and where am I
going? And men in philosophy puzzle about that all the time,
like figuring out how many annuals can dance on the head of a pin.
But that's a futile effort, an empty effort. It is time and
energy wasted in hope of discovering some paltry purpose for an insignificant
existence. The believer ponders no such
questions. He knows he is here. He exists. He exists in His faulty frame,
poor creature. He is saved so that no man can
ever question that salvation is by grace alone. If you are
saved, you are saved and you know. You are saved so no man
can ever look at you and say, anything other than salvation
must be by grace. to the praise of the glory of
His grace. This means that the one who has been graced by God
has no merit and can produce no merit before God ever. Ever. We know we are saved by
grace, but there are some who think then after you are saved
by grace, you progress in some kind of life and get better and
better and better and you merit something. What I'm doing here
this morning, standing here trying to proclaim the glories of God's
grace, has enough sin in it to send 10,000 worlds to hell. This
has no merit. My prayers have no merit. Giving
has no merit. Nothing has merit save Jesus
Christ the Lord. We are saved by unmerited favor,
kept by unmerited favor, and the last breath we draw on earth
will still be full of sin. And we'll shout grace, grace
unto it. This means that character and
conduct does not enter into the accomplishment of salvation,
nor does it merit anything after the believer finds out that he
is saved. grace alone. This means that
the one who has been graced is utterly ruined and hapless, and
has neither desire, ability, or even inclination toward anything
other than fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the
eyes, and the pride of life. If you are saved, you are saved
by grace, and if you are saved by grace, you had nothing to
do with your salvation. And if you are saved by grace,
it is not even about you. It's about glorifying God's grace.
Luther said that if a man attributes all of his salvation to anything
other than grace, he knows nothing of grace or salvation. It is not hard to believe grace.
It is impossible to believe grace unless you have been graced,
unless you've been saved by it. And if you've been saved by it,
it's impossible to believe otherwise. And our text begins in verse
8 with the word for. The word for. This means because. This means that there is a cause
of our being saved by grace. As I read verses 1 through 3,
it makes it painfully clear that there was nothing in us that
is the cause of this grace. This is our natural resume here. If you want to apply for a job
In grace, this is what you've got to offer. You are dead in
trespasses and sins. You walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the same spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
among whom also we all had our walk, our conversation, our life
in times past in the lust of our flesh. fulfilling the desires
and the flesh and the mind, and were by nature the children of
wrath, even as others. What do we have to offer? Dead
things cause nothing save for a stench, and they are passive
even in the omission of their rank and vile exudations. Everything about us that is described
here where we left to ourselves would necessarily require us
to wind up in eternal atonement, forever separated from God. Since
we are saved by grace, the cause of it is plainly in spite of
us, and most certainly outside of us, and also most certainly
without any regard to what we are. What we are by birth and practice,
what we are by choice and affinity and inclination and nature is
purely and entirely against God on any and every conceivable
level. We got our hands on God one time.
He allowed us to touch us fine, upstanding, fool ourselves up
by the bootstrap folk. And we spit on him. We plucked the hair out of his
face. We pummeled him with our fists. We hit him with sticks. We mocked him. We plaited a crown
of thorns and pressed it down upon his head. We stripped him
down naked and nailed him to a tree. And many of them that did that
were singing, Oh, how I love the Messiah. That's us. Everything about us
hates God by nature. Our course was like water poured
on the ground, ever going downward. is a lifelong, all-consuming
race to succeed at being number one in the failure hall of fame. Like an out-of-control, speeding
juggernaut, we careen at ever-increasing breakneck speed, ever downward
toward the abyss of the damned. We are not steering. We are blissfully
ignorant passengers driven to doom. by the prince of the power
of the air, and he's not asleep at the wheel. Nothing about us
or exuding from us is the cause of grace, because ye are saved
by grace. The Antarctic says, because by
grace ye are saved. The cause of grace is found in
the source of grace, and that's in the heart of God, the God
of all grace. But God, who is rich in mercy
for His great love wherewith He loved us. There is that blessed
minuscule descriptive conjunction that every believer loves, but
God. But God. We cannot be the cause of grace,
but God can be and is the cause of it. That grace comes from
merciful love. He is rich in mercy, filthy rich
in mercy, got so much mercy that it can never be depleted. His
mercy is sufficient, even exceeding excess, perfectly fit to meet
the required need. Where sin hath abounded, grace
did much more abound. He is so rich that no matter
how undeserving and how sinful we are, If he has marked us out
for that great sovereign mercy, mercy's account will never be
drained or overdrawn or even minutely diminished. Every morning
we get up, there will be new mercies and mercies of plenty.
My grace, he said, is, prism tense, active voice, sufficient
for thee. His love is great love for the
great love wherewith he loved us. And it's true love. It's
true love. And therefore, it is effectual
to the salvation of the loved one. That's the way true love,
sovereign love, must be. It's not the 50-50 love of human
beings or the unrequited love of an infatuated, angst-ridden
team. It is great love. And it will
be expressed, for great love must be expressed. Indeed, it
has been expressed in the salvation of those whom God has loved.
And if He has loved you, He has always loved you and He will
always love you. He has saved by grace. Unless
we think that we are somehow worthy, our Lord inspires Paul
to add one of those disclaimers, those heavenly disclaimers that
he often adds, as the cause of His grace. When did He love us? Even when we were dead in sins. Even when we were dead in sins. That's when He loved us. Even
when we were just a pile of corrupting, rotting, putrefaction. Even when the only thing fit
to do with us was to dig a latrine and toss us in and cover us up
like the scat that we are. He loved us. He loved us. In fact, precisely then, God
loved us. God raised us from the dead.
He quickened us together with Jesus Christ. This too serves
as a heavenly disclaimer. As to us being the cause of grace,
this declares that we rose from the grave when Christ did. We
rose when He rose. And as you well know, we did
not exist when Christ rose from the grave, except in the purpose,
plan, and election of God. And this is bookended by a proclamation
that this was accomplished by the grace of God. Even when we were dead in sins,
as quickened us together with Christ by grace, ye are saved. By grace, ye are saved. In a divine parenthesis. God's
predestinated purpose. God in search for our distinctive
and necessary education. By grace, ye are saved. Ye are saved. Are is a state
of being verb in the present tense. The state of being of
the graced one is that they are saved. You are saved by Christ. on Calvary, you are saved. What preachers do is get up and
tell you what God has done, proclaim it over and over again what God
has done. They don't tell you what you
need to do, save when God admonishes you in Scripture. They don't
tell you to do this or do that. They tell you what God has done,
and the Holy Spirit takes that blessed gospel and causes it
to find purchase in your soul. And you find out something. You
find out something that's already taken place. You find out when
you hear the gospel with the Holy Spirit. You find out, ye
are saved. Not you can be. You are saved. There is no future
walk down a church aisle, or decision to be made, or God acting
upon some foreseen faith. When we were raised together
with Christ, we are saved. We are saved. Not only has His
grace raised us together with Christ from the dead, it has
raised us all the way to heaven. That's what it says. Raised us
up to sit in heavenly places in Jesus Christ. Think about
that. Think about that. The beggar
has been raised from the dunghill and been made to sit among princes.
The believer is in Christ now, and where Christ is, the believer
is there also. The believer is not offered this
honor, nor does he barter for it. He is made to sit with Christ
at the right hand of the Majesty on high, with his Savior. And
that's a title. Remember, that term Savior is
a title. The word Redeemer is a title. It's not an assistant. It's one
who does something. Christ is not a Savior of unsaved
men. That is impossible. Nor is He
a Redeemer of unredeemed men. He is a Redeemer and He is a
Savior. Why? Because He has redeemed
and He has saved and He has earned that title. I cannot begin to imagine this
glory of this thing of sitting in Christ in heavenly places.
I say with David, it's too wonderful for me. on earth and in heavenly
places at the same time. Kind of smacks of the space-time
continuum. What Einstein wrestled with on
how to measure light, and how light years are time, and how
a person can be in one place and another place at the same
time. He tried to explain it by saying that somehow light,
which measures time, can be folded to where you have the present
over here in the past here, and it can be folded together, and
the two meet together where the fold is. That was his explanation,
and it's a pretty good explanation, I suppose. For God says in Ecclesiastes,
What hath been is already been, and is now, and what shall be
hath already been. What does that mean? I have no
idea. But I'll tell you what, I like
it. I like what it says. God has made us sit together
in heavenly places in Jesus Christ. God is the cause of grace. And
bless His holy name, He even declares the reason why He has
bestowed His grace on us. Verse 7, that in the ages to
come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness
toward us through the Lord Jesus Christ, that in the ages to come,
throughout the ages of the earth, through all eternity, He might
reveal the fact that saving us was an act of exceeding riches.
It was grace and kindness toward us in Christ. He showed us grace. Why did He show us grace? To
eternally reveal that our salvation is by grace. That's what it says. Because, verse 8, For by grace
are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is
a gift of God. By grace ye are saved. When all is said and done, that
will be our song, Saved by Grace. Saved by Grace. O mountain, who
art thou before Zerubbabel? He shall lay the foundation stone
and the cornerstone with shoutings of grace, grace unto it. For by grace ye are saved through
faith." That mysterious thing, faith, that causes grace sinners
to understand and rest in the inalterable fact that God alone
is the author and finisher of their salvation. Men speak of
faith as if it is their salvation. And when the Lord spoke of being
saved by faith, He spoke of believing that it was God who saved you
by grace. That's what faith believes. Faith is believing what God says,
and faith is God-given ability for the purpose of believing
God. Why are you given faith? So you can believe God. That's
why you're given it. And it's the only evidence of
salvation. There is no other. And that's why you can't prove
that you're a child of God. That's why you can't come up
with something that tells you, I'll show you I'm a child of God.
Because all you can say is, well, I believe. Well, what is that? What is that? Believing ain't
nothing. Yes, it is. If God gives you faith, it's
something. But that's all you can really say, don't you, can't
you? I know our tendency is to go right to the flesh, to the
things that are below, here on earth, and start quoting what
we do. Well, I belong to a sovereign grace church. I attend every
Sunday. I pray, I give, I read my Bible. All meritless things. How do I know I'm a child of
God? I can't prove it to you. But I know. Because I believe. Through faith. Through faith. Again, our Lord makes it clear
that faith is not something that is naturally found in man. That faith is not of ourselves,
that's clear enough. He said, For by grace you are saved through
faith, and that not of yourself. You mean I didn't come up with
it? I didn't work it up? Where did it come from? If I
have faith and it's not of myself, how did I get it? Well, it's
a gift. It's a gift from God. What does that mean? That means
it's given. It's not offered. It means you were given it. You
received it. God has given it to you. Gift
comes from the word give. You have it, you can say honestly,
God gave it to me. If you don't have it, you can
honestly say, oh, God has not given it to you. Because the
only way you're going to get it is if God give it to you. The source of faith is the same
as the source of grace. The cause of faith is the same
as the cause of grace. It is God. If you are a believer,
God alone has made you so. And yet another disclaimer, faith
is not a work. Verse 9, not a work, lest any
man should bow. Faith is not a work. It is indeed
the absence of work. Isn't that what it says in Romans
4 when it talks about Abraham, what he received? He believed
God and was accounted to Him for righteousness. He received
anything by natural means. This removes any possibility
of boasting, saving Christ. And even our works. And this
is where a lot of people like to come who believe in the believers,
has a relationship to the law and to works, and they like to
talk about their works. They'll come right here and say,
well, verse 10 says something about works. No, faith is not
about works. We know that. Grace is not about
works, but it talks about works here. Let's talk about some works.
Okay, let's talk about some works. In this Sovereign Grace Conference,
let's talk about works. Do you know how works come? By
sovereign grace. Verse 10, For ye are His workmanship. Poema. Poem. Here is poem. He writes in every
stanza of your life. The steps of a righteous man
are ordered of the Lord. For we as workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which those good works God hath
before ordained or prepared that you should walk in them. What
kind of language is that? First of all, it means stop looking
for your works. If you find something you believe
to be a work, as quickly as humanly possible, discard it. Here's
the truth, my brother and my sister. You have a life, an existence. for the glory of God's grace.
And your life is so ordained and everything prepared for it that there will be works for
you to do. Will you know what they are? No. But they're there. And God has
equipped you that when you get there for it to be done, you'll
do it. And you won't say that was a
work of God. You'll say something like, well,
you know, my brother needed a glass of water. That's what you'll say. I went
to the hospital the other day, saw my friend is sick. Went to
jail, visited him. You won't consider that a work.
You consider that nothing but living in this world as a sinner
saved by grace. Grace, you are saved through
faith. Is that not of yourselves? It is the gift of God. Not of
works, lest any man should lose. And we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained,
that we should walk in them. Grace, grace, wonderful grace. God bless you.