is to worship the Lord. The word worship means to bow down. It means to kneel down. And that's the heart the Lord gives his people, is to come to him and kneel down like you do a king, like you would to a king, to give him honor, to give him glory and praise. The Lord has given us a heart so that we won't Christ to have that glory. We want God to have that glory.

Now this letter in Ephesians is written to believers and it's just the Lord declaring, truly it's the Lord's word and it's the Lord declaring through Paul how he saved them. This is two believers and the Lord's declaring how he saved them and he's saying, preaching to each of us here tonight, declaring how he saved us. If we've been saved, this is how God said he saved us.

Now I just wanna read two verses to begin with here. Verse eight and nine, Ephesians two, verse eight. By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Salvation is entirely by the grace of God. Salvation is by the grace of God. If you need salvation, you need God to do all the saving. That's the only kind of salvation The word of God speaks of is salvation where we need God to do everything. That's how ruined we are. And salvation is by God's grace. By grace are you saved.

Salvation's through faith. Through faith in God's son. Through faith in the Lord Jesus. He said, for by grace are you saved. Through faith. Faith trusts God's works. Faith is looking to the Lord's works, to Him and His works and His accomplished salvation. That's what faith is looking to. Faith's not looking to self. We're not looking to ourselves. We're not looking to our works. We're looking to the Lord, to His works. Remember what we saw last week in Psalm 146? You read that Psalm. He said, we're gonna glory in your mighty works, Lord. We're gonna speak of your works. One generation's gonna speak to the next generation, and we're gonna speak of your works and how you did the saving.

And then faith is not of us. It's through faith, but faith's not of us. Faith is a gift of God. Look at verse eight. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Faith is the gift of God to us. Faith's not of us. It's not of us. We didn't muster up faith and just by our strength decide one day we're gonna believe the Lord. That's what it means. Faith's not of us. That's plain, isn't it? Faith's not of us. We didn't just decide we're gonna believe. It's not of us. It's a gift of God. God gives faith. God gives faith. We didn't have it. God gave it.

Why is it this way? Why does God do it this way? He gives faith, and no man earned that. It's a gift. No man earned it. Look here, not of works. See, he didn't give you faith because of something you did. It's not of works. Salvation's not of works. Faith's not given to you because of your works. Not of works, and here's why. Lest any man should boast. One thing God will not do, he will not share the glory that is his with anybody. He will not share his glory with another. He will not. He said this, I want to show you this. Go on and look over here at Isaiah 43, because this is so very, very important. He said, he's speaking to his people, and he tells us in verse five, fear not, for I'm with thee. I will bring thy seed. This is our brethren that he's gonna call, that are lost, that he's gonna call. I will bring thy seed from the east. I'll gather thee from the west. I will, he said, I will. I will say to the north, give up. to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth, even everyone that is called by my name.

Listen now, for I have created him for my glory. I have formed him, okay? I have made him. See that? This is the Lord speaking. Bring forth the blind people that have eyes and the deaf that have ears. Let all the nations be gathered together. Let the people be assembled. Who among them can declare this? Is there any other gods being preached that gives sight to the blind? He said, who among them can declare this? Let the people be assembled. He said, let them bring forth their witnesses that they may be justified or let them hear and say it's true.

You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no God. See, God won't share his glory. This is why salvation's not of works, it's by grace. Faith's not of works, it's the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

What would that sound like? How would a man boast? Surely a man wouldn't boast against God. I did such and such and such to be born again. I gave my heart to Jesus. I learned this and that and the other prayer. I gave my heart walk the aisle to the preacher or to the priest or to the, I said this and that and the other, I did this. Men will even say, at least I believed. Can't say that. Faith's a gift of God. Not of us, not of works, lest any man should boast. See, God's not gonna share his glory.

And when the Lord makes you understand what a sinner you are, each of you that believe him can say amen. When He made us know what sinners we are, that's when the good news of salvation being by grace, that's when it really became good news. Really became good news. Because to find out that the Lord did everything in our salvation, and He did it by grace, we didn't merit anything, we didn't work for it, He did it by grace, He did it sovereignly as the God He is, the God of creation, the God of salvation, the God of revelation, the God who speaks and it is, he did it all. And when he made you see that and know that, and know you are a sinner, that's when that became good news, that it's all of grace.

Now let me begin here. I just want to try to be as simple as I can be. I want to take mainly first off these two statements One point and two point, these first two statements, and then very briefly, I'll make a comment on this not of works lest any man boast.

First of all, salvation is by the grace of God. Salvation is by the grace of God. By grace are you saved. There are six major religions in the world. That's, you know, mostly. six, big, big six. Three claim that Abraham is their father. That's Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. All claim Abraham's our father. The other three are Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Now there's thousands of divisions under those headings, but those are the Those are the six major headings.

But you know, the truth of the matter is, there's only two religions. One is false and one is true. There's only two. It's works and it's grace. You can take all of the religions in this world, including Christianity, most of the folks who call themselves Christians fit in this same category of works. You take every one of them, they say that man, somewhere in salvation, man has to do something. Man has to do something. He has to put his hand to it. There's something a man has to do. Why are there so many different religions, then, if everybody's saying there's something man does to be saved? It's all just different flavors of works. This group fell out with that group, because they like this work. They don't like that work. But at the end of the day, they're saying, we have to do something. We did this. We did that. God said, if that's the case, you're going to boast. You're going to glory that you did it. God said, I'm not going to share my glory with anybody.

The only other religion there is, the only other religion there is, is grace. This is of God. Grace. Grace is free. Grace is the favor of God that's freely bestowed. It's bestowed upon us. We're sinners. Did you know you're a sinner? You are a sinner. I'm a sinner. We're sinners. God's holy God. God's righteous God. He said the stars are not pure in his sight. angels covered themselves, their eyes and their feet, and they bow before Him. We drink iniquity like water, Scripture says. We don't boast that we contributed to God.

What is the purpose of salvation? Well, it's that we don't go to hell. That's not it. Well, it's so that we go to heaven. That's not it. That's included, but that's not God's purpose, God's purpose is that his son have all preeminence. His purpose is that his holy name be magnified. His purpose is that his son be the firstborn among many brethren. His purpose is that his righteousness be set forth. Do you know about his righteousness? How can a sinner be just with God? That's the issue. How can you be just with God? In Judgment Day, on Judgment Day, this is gonna be the question. How will you justify? And if you say, I, that's it. You didn't contribute. I didn't either. God justified his people freely by his grace in the Lord Jesus. That's the issue. That's the issue.

Grace is bestowed. It's free. And here's the rub. Here's the rub. Grace is sovereign. That means God bestows it on whom he will. On whom he will.

Turn with me to Exodus 33. Now, whenever this gospel, when the gospel's declared, the first thing men do is they defend their will. What about man's will? What about man's will?

You know what I love to happen? I love to run into people where you start declaring the gospel. and they start defending God's will. There are some people that do that. They're called sinners saved by grace. They defend God's will. They say we're saved by God's will, not our will.

You can't keep yourself from catching a cold by your will. You can will it. You can do everything you try to keep from happening, but you can't stop it. The will in a man is the weakest thing there is, and why would a man boast in that?

Turn here, it's God's glory to be gracious to whom he will. That's God's glory. Moses asked to see his glory, and he wanted to see his glory, and God said right here in Exodus 33, 19, Exodus 33, 19, he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and I, will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

And we don't have to wonder what that means, because God gives us the commentary on it in Romans chapter nine. Romans nine and verse 15, He said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

So then, it's not of him that willeth. It's not of him that runneth. It's of God that shows mercy. Salvation's not by your will. Salvation's not by your works. Salvation is by God. being gracious, by God being merciful.

You know, we don't like it when we see somebody who's innocent, and some injustice is done to them. And they're treated harmfully, or their name is slandered, or anything, and they're innocent. And this is done to them wrongfully. We know it's unjust, and we don't like that.

God is holy, holy, holy God. And we've sinned against him. You don't talk about doing something that's unjust. You don't talk about an injustice. We've sinned against holy God.

Here's grace. Despite that, God is gonna show favor and save sinners that don't deserve him to do thing for us. That's grace. That's grace.

See, that's what a contrite heart of humble people talk about humility. And men don't get any more proud than they do when they're trying to show you how humble they are. Through humility, he's owning. I am the center. God It's saving me by grace alone. I don't deserve it. I do not deserve it.

We love that message. Go back with me to Ephesians 1. I want you just to, I'm gonna just read. I want you to see some context here. I don't wanna just take a verse out of context. I don't want you to take my word for this. I want you to see what's in the book. See what's in the book.

It says here, the first two verses, he says he's writing to the saints, those that God has sanctified, made faithful. But let's begin in verse three, where he starts praising, glorifying God and his son. He says in verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.

He blessed us with every blessing we could be given, every spiritual blessing. In writing to believers, he said he's blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ in heaven, in Christ, according as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

You know, when Adam fell in the garden, God set it up so Adam would be a federal head and a seminal head, and he did that to picture Christ. Romans 5.13 says Adam was a figure of Christ to come. He was a picture of Christ to come in headship. God set it up that he was the federal head and the seminal head, meaning he represented his children legally, and his children would be born of him and would have the nature that he passed on to them.

Well, we broke the law in Adam, and then we got his sin nature, Adam's sin nature. But when we did that, we were holy and without blame in Christ. in God's Son, because God had chosen us and blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Him, and He never looked to us. He looked to His Son to represent His people.

Why did Christ come? I'd love to hear folks answer that from a pulpit. Why did the Son of God come down? Did He come to give you a chance? I'm not a good gambler. I don't want this to be a gamble. I want it to be a sure thing. Did he come to put away sin? That's what the scripture says. He came to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Did he do it? Did he do it? Scripture says he did. He said he did. He said it's finished. Look what it says here. So when we fail, we were holy and without blame in him. Now look at us. Look what else God did for us. He 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 beloved. Look at that, God did all that.

In whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. See, my sins gotta be dealt with. When the Lord showed Moses his glory, he went on to say there, he said he reserves mercy for thousands. He reserves mercy for thousands.

For particular people, he reserves mercy for them. and he forgives them, the scripture said. He told Moses that. But then he said, and he will by no means clear the guilty. How can he do both? How can God save you and have mercy on you and totally forgive you and yet pour out the death penalty on you? See, he's got to do that. We've sinned. He's got to pour out the death penalty on us because he's a just God. He's a holy God. If he didn't, he wouldn't be just. If he just swept it under the rug and said, let's just not pay that any attention. No, he's a just judge. The purpose of the cross was to manifest God's righteousness, that he does everything just and right.

How's he gonna slay me and pour out justice on me and have mercy on me. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. God sent his only son, his only begotten son. He sent his son for men and women that didn't want his son. Because we were sinners. We were fallen. We were enmity in our minds against him. We didn't want him. And he sent his son, who laid down his life for his people, and satisfied divine justice for us. The scripture says, he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The scripture says, when he had obtained eternal redemption for us, he entered into glory.

Listen, all have sinned, Romans 3.23. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We're justified freely by grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. So it's grace, it's grace. I'm gonna be brief on this second point. How are we given this righteousness of Christ? How are we given? Through faith, through faith. By grace are you saved through faith. and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Faith's not of yourselves, it's God's gift. Faith could not be of us. You know why? Go back up here to Ephesians 1. At the end, it says there in verse 20, he raised Christ from the dead, set him at his own right hand in heavenly places above all principality, power, ever nameless name, And verse 22, he put all things under his feet, gave him to be the head over all things to the church. The church is his body, the fullness of him, and Christ filleth all in all.

That means if you have any gift given you, Christ gave it to you. He fills all in all. Look here, next word. And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sin. Have you ever seen a dead man do anything? Can a dead man believe? Can a dead man earn for God to give him faith? A dead man can't do a thing. If you have spiritual life, Christ quickens you. He gets the glory. It's not ABC of how to be born again. He gave you life. He quickened you.

Look, here's what we were. And in time past, you walked. You were dead in sin, trespasses in, and we walked in those according to the course of this world.

Everybody's the same, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit, and now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, just like everybody else.

What does that mean, children of wrath? When I said to you, Romans 8, 7 says, the carnal mind, I read it, Romans 8, 7, the carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to the word of God and cannot be. We hated God by nature. See, that's the corrupt nature we got from our father Adam. Dead spiritually, hated God spiritually.

We didn't hate the God we imagined, that could only do what we let him do and would settle for us giving our best attempt at keeping the law. We didn't hate that guy. You don't have to do anything to make men religious. Men are born religious. Men will get in religion and do whatever they have to do to try to save themselves, to soothe a guilty conscience.

But the God we hated is this God who's holy, this God who does all the saving, this God who saves by grace, this God who won't share his glory with another. That's the God we hated. And you know how I know this book is true? Because you and me wouldn't have wrote that about us. We wouldn't have wrote that, that we hate God and we can't submit to God's word. We want and we can't. We wouldn't have written that about ourselves.

That's the word God gave, and he gave it to men, and men wrote it down, because God gave it to them. This word is true. This word is true. The gospel's gonna exalt his son in God's grace, and it's gonna abase us. Look, what did he do? There we were, we're dead. Christ has done, he's come and done the work, but we're dead.

So what did God do, verse four? But God, who's rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, quickened us together with Christ, by grace are you saved. And he raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

You mean, it's saying, here's his rich mercy. When he raised Christ from the dead, he, This is a mysterious thing. He quickened us in Christ when he quickened Christ, because we were that one with Christ. And he raised us up in Christ, and his people sat down in him at God's right hand. He accomplished justifying his people, declaring God just and the justifier. He accomplished it, and he arose and sat down, and then God gave him all power over everything, as the God-man to fill all in all, to send the preacher with the gospel to us, to send the Holy Spirit to us and quicken our hearts and give us this gift of faith by grace. And he did that for us, brethren, and showed us the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

For by grace are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourself, it's the gift of God. It's not of works, lest any man should boast. He did it all. We were dead. We were dead. And he did it all.

You can, I hope you'll go home tonight and read out the rest of chapter two. And he says, he's speaking to Gentiles, which if you're one born in God's, that Israel over there, you're a Gentile. And this is our story. The wall that divided us. We were without God, without Christ, without hope. The wall that divided you from Gentile was the law. And Christ's son came forth and it all was given to picture Christ. He's the high priest. He's the lamb. He's the altar. He's the He's the ark of the covenant. In him was God's law, and he's the mercy seat, the propitiation, the reason God will have mercy to us. And he shed his blood, not the blood of bulls and goats, he shed his blood. And God said, I'll meet with you on the mercy seat. It's in Christ that God meets with his people through faith. And he showed you this, and he showed you that God had done it all. He broke down that middle wall of partition.

He had some chosen Jews and some chosen Gentiles, and we were using the law to say, I'm better than you, and I'm not like you, I don't eat that, I don't do this, I don't, I cut my hair this way. One of the Sikhism, that you gotta carry a wooden comb. I carried a wooden comb and you didn't. All these different, just, idle things. And God made you see. You're no different from that man over there. The man that thinks he's the most righteous and holy man by nature is the same sinner as the poor man in the ditch that has nothing, that's drunk, there's no difference. Sinners shall come short of the glory of God.

And here's how he brings you together. People are going around wanting to create unity and peace in the world. God does that for his people. You know how he does it? He makes you see you're a sinner just like your neighbor, just like your brother, thereby you not one whit better than him. But now by God's grace, giving you spiritual life and faith in Christ and granting you repentance to quit trusting you and trust Christ, you have the exact same righteousness of Christ. You don't pull a law out of anyone and say, look, I've done this. I do this and I don't do that. No, we're one because we have the same God and Father. We have the same Savior. We have the same faith, the same hope, the same righteousness, the same holiness. We have the same inheritance. He's made us to have salvation by him. That's what creates unity.

It, you know, you look in the Lord's church, we don't look the same. We don't come from the same background. There's just as much variety as you, you could imagine. But we all have this in common. We say we're sinners saved by the grace of God and God did it all. And we want him to have all the glory.

You know, that's, I don't like religion. I don't like phony religious folks. I don't like people acting like they have kept the law. You've never kept the law. That's why Christ had to come. Oh, you've probably been better than the next guy. But we're talking about God looking on the heart. We're talking about God saying, if you looked at that woman, you committed adultery with her, with lust in your heart. If you was angry with somebody without a cause, you've committed murder. We're talking about a holy, holy God that knows all. You don't even remember all the sins you've committed. Much less know about the ones you don't know about.

And we haven't, but I hate this phony thing of somebody saying they've kept the law. Brethren, God's people are honest. I'm a sinner. I'm not standing here trying to be something better than anybody. I am a sinner saved by the grace of God. All my eggs is in one basket, Christ only. If he don't save me, I won't be saved. If it's not all of God, I have no hope. But here's what God's people do. Because God's been merciful to you and he's been faithful to you, the Lord will give you grace. When that brother says something mean, you try your best to be merciful and put the best construction on it. He didn't mean it like it sounded. Why? Why are you merciful? Because God's merciful to you every day. When they do something and they're being condemned by folks, you forgive them. Why? Because you see, you deserve to be condemned, and God, for the sake of his son, Christ Jesus, had mercy on you and forgave you. You're willing to give everything you can to help them. Why? Because you see, God gave his only son. You see, Christ, who was rich, yet for your sake became poor, that you, through his poverty, might be made rich.

It changes everything about you because before you was religious and you was jumping through all the hoops and you was doing everything that you was told by the, you know, religion's got the clergy and the laity. Be respectful to those God's given you to minister to you, but we're just sinners saved by grace. It's not one above another. But there you was doing all that, and God saved you out of it and showed you what true religion is. Religion's not all a bad word. It's bad when you're talking about the Pharisaical religion. Those were the only ones Christ was harsh with. But true religion is of God and His grace through faith, trusting the Lord Jesus, God's Son, and giving Him all the glory.

And he said, and if it's by grace, then it's no more works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it's no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work. That means they're mutually exclusive. You're either going to be saved by grace and all grace. Or if you're trying to be saved by works, this is the curse of the law, Galatians said. Cursed is every man that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. How many commandments are there? 613. What's the 608th commandment? What's the 542nd commandment? What's the 330th commandment? I wouldn't come to God expecting to be received because I've kept the law if I don't know them all. There's more than 10. There's more than 10. Grace has one commandment, and he gives you the grace to do it and the faith to do it. His one commandment is, They come from over that sea after he fed that multitude and they come to Christ and they said, what are the works that we might work, the works of God that we might work? And Christ said, this is the work of him that sent me. This is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has sent. So you got 613 commandments or you got this one, trust Christ. And that faith is of grace. and it's not of you, and if God gave it to you, he's gonna sustain it in you. He's gonna keep you believing all the way to the end. That's, I don't want any other salvation. I want the one that gives him all the glory.

Now let me ask you this question. Be really honest with me right here now. If a man don't like this salvation, if he don't like this word that I'm preaching to you, it's the word of God. I'm not telling you this on my own. This word does not paint me in a good light. I got no motive to want to tell you this, that I'm a wretched, foul maggot, a worm. I got no motive to tell you that. It's not putting me in a good light, but it's giving Christ all the glory. Now, if a man doesn't like that, why? If a person doesn't agree with this stuff, why? If he's defending his will, Rather than bow and say it, amen, it's of God's will. Let me show you one last scripture. Go with me to Romans. Romans, one last scripture. I ended with this the other day. I'm gonna read it to you right here. Romans 1. Help me out here, y'all. Of God, through God, to God. Is that Romans? You know, this is bad. Here you go, Romans 11. Romans 11. And look at verse 35. Romans 11, 35. Who hath first given to him, and it'll be recompensed to him again. If you find a man that gave God something first, it'll be given to him again. No man's ever given God something first.

Look, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. Get that? That's the message I'm preaching. Salvation is of him, it's through him, and it's all to his glory. That's it, so with everything. And he gets all the glory. And his people say Psalm 115, one, not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. That's right.

Now, that's my question. If a man has a problem with that message, why? He's wanting glory. He's wanting the glory rather than want God to have all the glory. That's so.

All right, Father, thank you for this word. Lord, you've been gracious to show us favor that we've no way earned and no way deserve. Lord, you give faith, draw us and cause us to believe on your son, make us willing in the day of your power. You reveal to us how wonderful your son is, and Lord, we can't do anything but believe. Thank you for having mercy and grace, showing grace to sinners that we are. Lord, be pleased to do the same in all your lost sheep and cause each one to believe you and bring you to glory, Lord. Forgive us, Father. Forgive us for Christ's sake. Keep us for Christ's sake. Receive us for Christ's sake. Lord, magnify, honor him in the hearts of your people everywhere. We ask it in his name. Amen.

All right, brother.