I want you to turn this morning
to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians 2, verse 8. For by grace are ye saved through
faith. And that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus under good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Now, 2016 has been the toughest year of
my life. I spent lots of hours in a hospital
room. I watched my wife die. I mourned and grieved over that. I've had a stroke. Lots of things
have happened to me. And in that time, I've had a
lot of time to reflect, to think, to examine myself. And I've come to one conclusion. I've come to this conclusion. There is only one way I can be
saved. And that is the title of my message
this morning, The Only Way I Can Be Saved. And when I say saved, I use the
word in a biblical sense. I'm talking about saved from
my sins. I'm not talking about made more
healthy, more wealthy, more wise. All these other things that people
attribute salvation to, but I'm talking about the salvation of
my soul. I'm talking about deliverance
from this evil world. I'm talking about being saved
eternally. I'm talking about being rescued. And I don't speak for you. I
don't speak for anyone else but me. But it could be, if your case is anything like
mine, it's the same. If you're a sinner, and the Bible
says that you are, that all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. that we all did sin in Adam. By one man sin entered in and
all have sinned. But I'm speaking for me this
morning. You see, I must be saved. I must be rescued. I must be delivered. Because I've proved time and
time again that I can't save myself. That I can't rescue myself. then I can't even do much lesser
things like quit eating too much, or lose five pounds, or quit
bad habits, or reform from various things and a thousand other things. By acts of my will, by acts of
my choice, by acts of my efforts, by acts of my strength, by works,
I just can't save myself. And the word salvation, as we
find it in the Bible, itself shows need. It shows the inability
to save oneself. We must be saved. And I know this too, I must be
saved by God. He's the only one that can save
me because my case is too great. Lesser God, lesser Savior won't
save me. My needs, my condition is such
that only God can save me. You see, my sins are against
Him. And God must be satisfied. The only one that can satisfy
God is God himself. The only one that can pay what
I need paid is God himself. The only one that can do the
work that I need done, the only one that could accomplish such
a salvation is God. And I'm sure of this, as Paul
says in chapter one, I'm sure of this, that it had to be his
choice to save me because I would have never chosen him. It had to be his choice that
was made without any consideration of anything in me and by me. or done by men, or, as a matter
of fact, that he was sure to satis- sure to satis- choose
me before time itself. If it had been in time, I would
have messed it up. When you turn back to Ephesians
chapter 1 and verse 3, Paul says, Bless me the God, and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us. We didn't bless
Him. I didn't bless Him. I wasn't any blessing to Him. Who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That's the only way I could have
all spiritual blessings. according as he hath chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. That's the only
way I could be saved, is for God to choose me. before I was
for God to choose me. And this is what Paul says also
in Ephesians, I mean, in 2 Thessalonians 2. 2 Thessalonians 2. Paul writes and he says, blessed
be the God And Father, we're bound to give thanks always to
God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. Because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. In other words, if I was not
chosen of God, I would have never chose God. If I was not the object
of His mercy and grace, I would never have chosen Him. And then
I know that He had to predetermine all things, everything concerning
me, all things concerning my salvation, every detail. Or something would have happened.
Something would have gone wrong. Some minor detail would have
messed up, and especially me. But thank God, he says in Ephesians
1 and verse 5. having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to
the good pleasure of his will. The reason that God has saved
me is simply because of the good pleasure of his will, and he
did so by predetermining all things concerning me and my salvation. I don't see anything about my
will there. Look over in verse 8. It says, wherein he hath abounded
toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the
mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he
purchased purpose in himself. No matter how I trace it, I can
only trace it back to the good purpose of God, which He purposed
in Himself concerning me. Grace. that in the fullness of the times
he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him, even in him
in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated
according to the purpose of him who works all things after the
counsel of his will. The reason that I have an inheritance,
the reason that I have an expectation and a hope, the reason all of
grace goes back to His predestination and His predestinating all things
after the counsel of His will. When I look at my will, I only
find unwillingness with the things of God. But his will supersedes
all wills, and I am predestinated according to the purpose of him
that worketh all things after the counsel of his will. And
I'm convinced that the only way he could do this was in Christ,
was in a man besides myself, was in a man outside of myself. It had to be done by man because
I'm a man, because I fell in a man, and a man must accomplish
my redemption. But the problem is I couldn't
do that. I couldn't in any way. And not
only myself, but all of the sinners were like me. So God became a
man. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Great is the mystery of godliness
that God was manifest in the flesh. And the only way that
was possible for a man to save me is for that man, a sinless
man, to die in my place. to be my substitute, to be my
savior in that sense. And the reason for that is because
the wages of sin is death. That's a very humbling thing,
to think that the only way that you can be saved from your sins
is for God to leave heaven, become a man, and come into this world
to do the one thing that he cannot accomplish from heaven, and that
is to die. But not just any death, and not
just any man. Not me, not you, because a holy
God would not accept our death. A just God would only not accept
our death. We need a savior. And that's why the angel said
to Mary, you shall call his name Jesus. because he shall save
his people from their sins. I'm convinced that the only person
that could ever save me was the one that is called the Savior
himself. And we read by Peter in Acts
chapter 4, he's saying, neither is there salvation in any other,
for there is none of the name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be saved. Not anybody. And that's why we read in Ephesians
1 and verse 6, it says, to whom, to the praise
of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the
beloved. What does that mean? Well, the
literal phrasing of that word means something like this, because
he has graced us in the beloved. The only reason that I can know
anything about salvation is that God, in grace, put me in Christ. He not only chose me in Christ,
He not only predestinated me to be conformed to the image
of Christ, but He put me in a grace union with Christ before the
world was. He attached me, if you would. He only views me in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And verse 7 says, in whom we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of his grace. Everywhere I turn and every way
I look, it is showing me that salvation is not only in Christ,
but it's also by his grace. Maybe you can be saved by something
you did or by something that you don't do, by your will or
your decision or by your experience or by your feeling, but not me. If he didn't do it, if he didn't
finish the work, if he didn't save to the uttermost, if he
didn't by himself purge my sins, if he didn't bear them all in
his own body, if he did not by one offering perfect me forever. In other words, if he didn't
do it all, I can't be saved. If when he came into this world,
if he left one jot or one tittle undone, if it is not true what
he said on that cross when he said it is finished, then I can't be saved. If He
didn't wash me from my sins forever in His blood, I'm not clean. If He didn't sanctify me all
by Himself, I'm not sanctified. If He didn't redeem me by Himself,
I'm not redeemed. If He didn't do it all, if I'm
not complete in Him, then I'm not saved. And that's what makes the words
of Paul to Timothy all the more important. He says, speaking of God, who has saved us? who hath saved us." What a statement. Who has saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began, but now. But is now made manifest. by the appearing of our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel. He's done it all. And I know this too. If God the
Spirit Does it come to me in the condition that I'm in? Blind. Deaf. Dumb. Dead. And give me life. And give me faith. And give me
repentance. I'm still lost. because I can't
do anything to produce any of those. I don't have faith myself. Faith, as we have read, is a
gift of God. I don't have repentance of myself. Repentance is the gift of God. I don't have righteousness. Righteousness
is the gift of God. As a matter of fact, our Lord
himself is called the unspeakable gift. Whenever Paul writes in Ephesians
chapter three, I mean Ephesians chapter one, He says that we should be, verse
12, that we should be to the praise of His glory who first
trusted in Christ. Any salvation, there isn't any
without trusting in Christ. But listen to this, in whom you
trusted after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, In other words, you can't believe on him of whom
you have not heard, and you have not heard unless you have heard
the gospel of your salvation. He said, in whom also after that
you believe you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise which
is the earnest of the inheritance of our inheritance until the
redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of the glory
of His grace. In other words, if the Spirit
of God didn't reveal it, If the Spirit of God didn't convict
me of my sin, if the Spirit of God didn't come to where I'm
at and rescue me and bring the gospel to me, the true gospel
to me, then I can't be saved. Furthermore, if He doesn't keep
me, If He is not faithful in me,
if He does not keep me by grace, I'll be lost. That's just the way it is. I think enough things in a day's
time, do enough things in a day's time, a hour's time, a minute's
time, to send me to hell forever. So if he doesn't keep me, I can't be saved. But the Bible says that we are
kept by the power of God through faith. We are kept by the power
of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time. We've yet a salvation, full and final and free salvation,
because Christ said, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall
never They'll be tried. They'll be
full of unbelief at times. They'll be weak and frail and
faulting and so many other things, but I give them eternal life,
and they shall never But this is what Paul says for
himself. And this is what he says for
all of God's people. This is the only way we can be
saved. To be saved by grace. For by grace are ye saved. And I'm thankful that that means
being saved. For by grace are you 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 under
good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them. Unmerited favor. Unsought favor. Undeserved favor. free and sovereign grace. Now that's not the kind of grace
that we hear about today. We hear about grace that gives
opportunity, grace that gives people a chance, grace that helps
people, grace that makes people savable, But such grace will
never save me. I cannot ascribe one single solitary
thing to myself except my sin. In my life, whenever it comes to an end and
whenever the whole purpose of God here on earth comes to end,
as it says in Zechariah, it will be shoutings with shoutings of
grace, grace. Whenever the last stone is set
into that building, It'll be with shoutings of grace,
grace. In other words, if God does not
do it all, if God does not do it completely,
if God does not finish the work, and I mean the whole work, then I can't be saved. And I'll tell you something else.
You can't either. If it's not of all of God, if
it's not all of His grace, if it's not all in this, we can't be saved. One man said, And rightly said, it will stop a lot of murmuring
and complaining if we remember, if we just remember, what we once were, what we still are, and what we
deserve. The only way that I can be saved is by grace. 100% free grace. God doing everything. Father, we thank you for the
revelation of this truth. to our souls, that we might cease looking inside,
looking for evidence, looking for evidence of being saved, when the only evidence of being
saved is that evidence that you put to our heart and enable us
to believe when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the Savior, that His death and life is the
saving work, that when we were yet dead in
trespasses and sins, You quickened us and brought us to that life
and knowledge and faith in Him. We praise you this day. We give
you glory this day. Because if we are not saved this
way, we cannot be saved. Thank you for doing it all. Thank
you for being our Savior. For we pray in our Lord Jesus
Christ. Amen. Amen.