Our great God, we thank you for
this day. We thank you for the ability
to come into your house and to worship Christ Jesus, our Lord
and our Savior. Father, we pray for our young
people. We pray for our brethren, our fellow mothers and fathers
and sisters and brothers. that you'd be pleased to teach
your people today and really magnify yourself in our hearts. Really cause us to be brought
to bow in faith and love by your grace and your mercy. Lord, we ask that you would exalt
Christ before us today in our hearts, that it might just overcome
us, overwhelm us with what great things you've done on behalf
of your people. Father, we pray that you'd be
pleased to bless each house here and give each one willingness
to to be used for the cause of Christ. We thank you that you have. We're
so thankful that you've provided each one here and that you have
caused that willingness. And Lord, we pray that you'll
continue to do so. We pray for our brethren in other
parts of the world and other parts of this country that
you'd bless their services this morning as well. Father, forgive
us our sins. There are so many. You've promised
if we confess our sins, you're faithful and just to forgive
our sins. Because we have an advocate with
you, Jesus Christ, our righteousness. It's in his precious name we
ask these things. Amen. Alright, let's look at
Ephesians chapter 2 this morning. Ephesians chapter 2. Our text is one that could be
used to test whether any doctrine that you hear is true or false.
You could take this text right here, and see what this text
says, and when you have what this text says, you could take
any doctrine, any teaching that anybody teaches you and bring
it right here and see is it true or is it false. Here's our text,
Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9. For 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. Now salvation is of the Lord
in its entirety. Do you hear that? Salvation is
of the Lord in its entirety. in every aspect, beginning to
end, so that God gets all the glory and the saved sinner has
no room to boast whatsoever. I've titled this Grace, Salvation,
and Faith. We're going to look at each one
of these words and see what they mean. Alright, here's the first
one we come to. God saves by grace. It says,
verse 8, by grace are you saved. Salvation is all of grace. Look at Romans 11. Romans 11. Salvation starts with God because
God elected a people to save. He chose a people to save. Romans 11 and look at verse 5. At this present time, There is
a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then
it is no more of 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.
You see, work and grace are exclusive. If it's of grace, it can't be
of works. And if it's of works, it cannot
be of grace. Now this text says clearly. What
does it say? By grace you are saved. That
means it's not of works. It's not of works. The stewardship
of every preacher is called a dispensation of the grace of God. What we're
preaching is the grace of God. We're preaching the grace of
God. If a man's not preaching grace, he's not preaching the
gospel. We're preaching the grace of God. The gospel we preach
is called, in Acts 20-24, it's called the gospel of the grace
of God. That's what it's called. Why? Because we're justified freely
by God's grace. Everybody that God gave to His
Son, His Son came to this earth and laid down His life for them
and His Son accomplished our justification. Justification
could only be accomplished by our death. That's what the wages
of sin is. You got to die. Christ came and
took the sin of his people upon himself so that God was just
to pour out the penalty upon him instead of upon his people.
And by that, Christ justified everybody for whom he died by
him laying down his life. He justified freely. We didn't contribute to that.
We're called by God's grace. We didn't know anything about
it. God calls us by His grace. It is grace wherein we stand. We stand in grace, in God's grace. That's where we stand. Every
believer is what he is by the grace of God. And if there's
any work of faith and labor of love that's performed by the
believer, that too is by God's grace. Look at 1 Corinthians
15 and verse 10. I'm not preaching this little
weakling, helpless idol that men call Jesus. I'm telling you
who the true and living God is. Now today you're going to have
heard the truth. Today is different from any other
day. You might not have heard the truth before. Today you're
going to hear it. And so, what you're going to do now? You're
going to hear it today. Look here, 1 Corinthians 15 verse
10. By the grace of God, this is
the Apostle Paul. He said, by the grace of God
I am what I am. It's grace that's brought me
here and made me a child of God. and his grace which was bestowed
upon me was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly
than they all. He called him to preach and Paul
said, and I preached, I studied, I went wherever God would have
me to go. And he says, yet not I, I didn't do this by myself,
but the grace of God which was with me. You see, everything
a believer is and everything we do is by God's grace. Alright, sin abounded. in Adam when he died. Sin abounded. It abounded over all Adam's race. That is, every human being on
the face of this planet. But Romans 5.21 says, that as
sin hath reigned unto death, it says, where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Alright, turn with me. Now to
Exodus 33. So what is grace? What is grace? You tell me all this is by grace.
What is grace? I'm going to give you a definition
of grace this morning that you may not have ever heard or maybe
not ever considered. We know grace is free. We know
grace is God's free favor. But I want to show you something
else God's grace is. Moses asked to see God's glory.
And three things were involved in showing Moses, his glory. First of all, in Exodus 33, 19.
First of all, he said, I'll make all my goodness pass before thee. God's goodness is his glory.
His goodness is his glory. And then secondly, God said,
I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee. God's name
is his glory. And then here's the third thing.
And I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious. and will
show mercy on whom I'll show mercy. God's grace is His glory. It's His glory. Look back at
Ephesians chapter 1 and look at this. Ephesians 1 and look
at verse 6. We're saved to the praise of
the glory of His grace. To the glory of His grace. Every
sinner that goes around boasting and says, well now God chose
me because he foresaw that I'd do something. He foresaw I'd
believe or he foresaw some goodness in me. You know what that sinner
is trying to do? Rob God of his glory. That's what he's doing. Every sinner that boasts about
his will and boasts about his works and boasts about his faith,
that sinner is trying to rob God of his glory. Everything
is by God's grace. God says, My glory will I not
give to another. It's His glory. It's His praise. He won't share it. It's God's
prerogative as God to choose whomsoever He will because God
is a sole proprietor. That means God owns everything. All human beings included. So,
he can do with his own whatsoever he will. Now, you do what you
will with your property, don't you? What would you do if your
neighbor came storming across the property line one day and
came over into your yard and just started accusing you of
all kinds of unrighteousness and all kinds of false accusations
because you were using your property the way you wanted to use your
property? You'd say, that's absurd. You're absurd. Well, that's what
it is for a sinner to accuse God of doing what he will with
his property. He can do what he will with his
property. God alone puts a difference between sinners, and he does
so by being gracious to whom he'll be gracious. God's reasons
for being gracious are all within himself. There's nothing in a
sinner that causes God to choose them. There's nothing about us
that causes God to look at us and say, I'll be gracious to
him. Let me give you one more thing that's very important to
understand about grace. This is very important to understand.
Everybody listen to me now. This is vitally important. It
is never said in the scripture, I will damn who I will damn. The scriptures don't say that.
God chose to be gracious to some without a cause in them. But God never condemns anyone
without a cause in them. God is just. And it would be
unjust for God to just randomly condemn somebody without a reason.
He does not damn anybody without a reason. God's damnation of
sinners is always a just wage that they earn, that the guilty
sinner earned himself. It always is. Grace can never
be earned by a sinner. Grace can never be earned by
a sinner. But damnation is always earned by a sinner. Grace is
unmerited, free favor bestowed according to God's own sovereign
prerogative to do with his own what he will. But damnation is
the just due earned by the sinner. If we're saved, God gets all
the glory. If we're damned, it's our own
fault. Alright, by grace you're saved.
Now let's look here at the second word. The second word is saved. Verse 8. It says, by grace ye
are saved. Saved. It wasn't enough for God
just to choose whom He would save. God also had to come in
person and do everything necessary to save us. And that in accordance
with His holiness. I love to think of how infinitely
wise God is. It amazes me how wise He is.
Because there was three things that God determined to do. He
determined to manifest His glory, to make His glory known. And
He determined for His Son to have all preeminence. And He
determined to save those chosen sinners. And all three of those
things, His glory, the preeminence of Christ, and the salvation
of His people are all accomplished in Christ and Him crucified.
in Christ and Him crucified. That's the one place where you
see God's glory of being able to show mercy to His people and
at the same time by no means clearing the guilty. Right there
in the same place at Christ on the cross. You see them both
manifest. And in that is God's glory. In that is Christ exalted to
all preeminence. And in that work His people are
saved. All three. Because The Scripture
says, in Christ mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness
and peace have kissed each other. Mercy, God can give mercy to
His people, freely justifies people because Christ took every
himself and paid the whole debt that we owe to God. He did it
himself. So that now God is just. He couldn't
show you mercy. He could not be merciful to you
if His law was just swept under the rug and disregarded. That
would make God unjust. He's perfectly just. You see,
everybody God saves have died already. You see, this is not
just a matter of, well, I don't believe in the doctrine of election,
or I don't believe in the doctrine of particular redemption. This
is a matter of the good news. You want the good news? You want
the good news of the gospel? Let me tell you about the good
news of the gospel. The good news is, every sinner for whom
Christ died has fulfilled the law from now until forever, so
that there's nothing else the law can say to us ever again.
It's fulfilled. Fulfilled. Completely. So that
not any blame can be found in one for whom Christ died. Not
any sin can be found in them. In us and in our flesh dwells
nothing good. But God doesn't see His people
in us. He sees His people in His Son.
He's looking at His Son, that spotless, holy, harmless, undefiled
One who forever put an end to the transgression and put away
the sin of His people so that they sit at God's right hand,
perfect, righteous, holy. And that's what every one of
His people is, right there. Righteous and perfect and holy
before God. Can you lay a charge to Christ?
Would you dare lay a charge to Christ? He said, would you dare
lay a charge to one of my elect? He said, I'm the one that justified
them. You going to dare charge one of them? You see those shows
where there's some little scrawny fella and he can't defend himself
and some big cat steps in the middle and says, you want to
take it up with him, take it up with me. That's my God. You
want to lay charge to me, you got to take it up with him. That's
right. Righteousness is freely imputed
to God's elect. Freely imputed to them. And God's
just because Christ paid all the debt. Alright? regenerates
his people. We're dead. We're dead. We come
into this earth conceived of our daddy's corrupt semen and
so we're dead in our mother's womb. And we come forth spiritually
without any understanding of who God is and how God saves
sinners. And we walk around boasting about
our will being free and how smart we are and how wise we are and
we're blooming idiots and don't even have a clue. Don't even
know it. until God gives you life. And when God gives you
life, He begins to teach His people in the heart. You see,
He saved us first and then He calls us and says, hey, wake
up, I've saved you. That's what the scripture says.
He saved us and He called us with a holy calling. 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 what? The glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is more than escaping
hell and going to heaven. Salvation is being made absolutely
as righteous as God is, so that God will receive you into His
presence and delight in you. That's what salvation is. Alright,
here's the third word. The third word is faith. Faith. God's gift of faith is the means
through which we receive this salvation that's already been
purchased for us by grace by Christ. Let me say that again. God's gift of faith is the means
through which we receive salvation already purchased for us by grace
by Christ. Verse 8. For by grace are you
saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God. I've heard preachers get on this
verse and spend a lot of time on it trying to figure out what
does the gift, what does that gift refer to. And it refers
to faith is what it refers to. And I was going to say because
faith is the one thing mentioned here that a sinner would boast
that he had something to do with. And I thought about it and I
thought no, sinners boast that they had something to do with
all this. Grace is a gift. It's from without. It's from
God to the sinner. Without any merit. And yet a
sinner will say, but he saw something good in me. That's why he chose
me. No, he did not see anything good in you. He did not. He did
not. He saw a piece of dung when he
looked at you. That's what he saw. Because that's
all you are. He saved you because he would. Grace is a gift. Salvation
is a gift. Salvation, justification, Christ
coming and working, putting an end to sin and working out a
righteousness for His people. That's a gift. And men will say,
but I had something to do with that. He's going to receive me
because of my works. No, He's not. He's going to receive
His people because of Christ's works. Faith is what it's referring
to, and faith is a gift given to His people. That's not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God. Always pay attention to
the context. I'm going to review this with
you just a minute. But back up there in chapter 1, verse 3,
everything God the Holy Spirit is teaching us through Paul is,
is that everything God's given you has been free. You didn't
do anything to get it. He said in Ephesians 1, 3, that
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ blessed us. He's
talking to believers now. He said, this is how come you
believe. Because God blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places 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. And then he goes on
down there and he says in verse 5, He predestinated us unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. He predetermined
the exact time when He would come to you and let you know,
I've adopted you, you're my child. He made us accepted in the Beloved,
verse 6 says. God did that. Verse 7 says, In
Christ we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of His grace. Then verse 8 says,
That God the Holy Spirit abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
having made known unto us the mystery of His will. He come
and taught us. And verse 9 says, He gave us
an inheritance in Christ. Verse 13 says, And you trusted
after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, and you were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.
Verse 19 says he compares the power to regenerate and to convert
us to the exceeding greatness of his power in raising Christ
from the dead. Then in chapter 2 he says, you
and I were dead in sins like every other sinner fallen in
Adam. And he says, Ephesians 2, 1, and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and in sin. Then here in our text,
in verse 8, he says, And even your faith is not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God. You see the context? Everything
here is saying this. Who makes you to differ from
another? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you
did receive it then, why do you glory as if you didn't receive
it? Everything a believer has is the gift of God, even our
faith. Why are you laboring this point, preacher? Here's why.
Here's why. Because a person has only confessed
he is a sinner when he confesses he can do nothing to save himself. Those who say they're sinners,
but then they speak of what they contributed to their salvation,
have not yet truly confessed they're sinners. A man will say,
well I believe salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone,
in Christ alone. And then he'll brag about his
faith and say it was my decision for Jesus that made the difference.
That man has not believed on Christ yet. He has not been brought
to see that he's a sinner incapable of the least of the work. He's
dead. He's dead. As long as a sinner
believes that something he did contributes to his salvation,
he has not believed that salvation is of the Lord. That's why I'm
laboring the point. Read the text again. 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. Faith
is given when God draws His child to Christ and teaches us in that
newly created heart who Christ is and what Christ has accomplished
for us. That's when faith is given. And
God will do this to every one of His children. Turn to John
chapter 6. John chapter 6. Did you notice this? John 6 verse
29. They were asking, What is the
work I can do that I might work the works of God? And Jesus answered
and said unto them, This is the work of God that you believe
on him whom he hath sent. He said the work of God is to
cast everything into the hand of another and trust another
to do all the work. Alright, verse 35. And Jesus
said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me
shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. This is what he's talking about.
Believe on me. This is the work of God. Verse 37, he says, All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. All of them. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. Now that's Christ's gospel. Christ
preached that. He said, all that the Father
gave to me before the foundation of the world shall come to me
because by grace are you saved through faith. Through faith. And when they heard Christ preach
this, they began to murmur. They began to murmur. Just like
people do when they come in and they hear me preach this gospel,
and in their heart maybe, Or maybe with a loved one, they'll
start to say, give all the reasons why they believe that God is
not going to call all His elect and give all His elect faith
in Christ. They'll start, because my denomination
don't preach that. Well, you need to throw your
denomination away. Because this is what God said.
Or somebody will say, they bring up all different kinds of hypotheticals.
Listen now. They're murmuring. That's murmuring.
That's murmuring in the heart or to somebody else. But they
don't have a good excuse because this is Christ's gospel and He
said it clearly. He preached it. He preached it
clearly. Look at verse 43. Jesus therefore
answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves.
I don't find it too insulting that folks murmur against what
I preach. They murmur against Christ, what
He preached, right there in their midst. And he said, don't murmur
amongst yourselves. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me. Draw him. And I'll raise him
up at the last day. Christ is saying, don't murmur.
Do not waste your breath and your strength and your getting
all upset about what I'm saying. You can't hear it unless my God,
unless my Father calls you, draws you to me. And he says, verse 45, now watch
this, it is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught
of God. How many of them? All of them. They shall be all taught of God.
Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the
Father cometh unto me. It says, they shall be all taught
of God, and it says, and every man therefore that hath heard
and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. That's why Christ
said, all that the Father giveth to me shall come to me. Because
He knew, my Father is going to teach every one of them, and
draw every one of them, and therefore I can rest assured they're all
going to come. Every one of them. Every one
of them. That ends my murmuring about it. Don't it? Don't it,
you? You know why it ends it? because He's drawn you. He's
drawn you and He's given you faith to believe Him. So you
just bow to what He said and say, I believe Him. You stop
making up these hypothetical, ignoramus hypotheticals about
how somebody might die before he gives them faith. Who appoints
the day of death? Our sovereign God does. The same
one that's going to give the faith to all and teach all. He's
the one that does it. So yeah, he'll bring them and
teach them. So, let's talk about what it is to have faith. I've
got about five minutes here. What is it to have faith? It
involves three vital things. First of all, faith involves
knowing Christ in spirit and in truth. Knowing Christ. And
this knowing is more than just knowing facts about Him. This
knowing is because you've been known of God. Remember when Paul
said, now that you know God, or rather are known of God. You see, God knows His people.
He knows them that are His. And He enters into the heart
and knows His people. He makes Himself one in the hearts
of His people. And when He does that, He makes
His people to know His Son. He makes them to know His Son.
This is a spiritual thing. It's a true thing. How will I
know? You'll know when you know. You'll
know when He knows you. That's right. And then secondly,
this thing of knowing is being persuaded that he's able. It's
being persuaded he's able to keep everything you commit to
him. Being persuaded. You see, faith is only as good
as its object. You see, you've got to be persuaded
in the object that you're looking at. Men will go around and say,
oh, I've got great faith. Well, if your great faith is
in a stump, your faith is worthless. But if your faith is in the sovereign
God of glory, then that faith is great faith. But not because
there's anything great in the faith, but because of the object
of the faith. He's the one I'm trusting to
do it all. That's what faith is doing, looking out of self
to Him to do everything. So great faith in a powerless
object is the same as having no faith at all. This persuasion
that he's able, though, is to know when the Holy Spirit makes
you to know him, that's when you'll be persuaded he's able.
When the Holy Spirit convinces you of who he is, that Christ
is God, that he came and accomplished the salvation of his people,
that he's exalted to the right hand of the Father because God's
pleased with him, that's when you'll be persuaded. And then
there's a third aspect to this thing, too. You see, up to this
point, if you just know him with the head, and you're persuaded
in your head that he's able to do mighty things, but you don't
commit everything to him, then you have a theoretical faith.
The works that James is talking about when he says that by Abraham's
works he was justified, he's saying that when Abraham Abraham
knew God because God knew him. And Abraham was persuaded that
God was able to raise his son from the dead. Now if he had
just said that and said, but now I'm not going to offer Isaac.
He would have said that's a dead faith. But you know what he did?
He put that boy on the altar and he reared back the knife
and he's fixing to kill his son. He committed the whole salvation
of his son to the Father. He committed it all to Him. That's
That justified his faith as being genuine, true faith. He was justified
legally by God, by Christ. But it's that work of going there
to that and committing it to Him. And so what I'm saying is,
He makes us to know Him, He persuades us He's able, and then what do
we do? We commit everything to Him.
We commit everything to Him. Everything about us, everything
about our salvation, everything about our day-to-day, everything
is in His hands. and we trust Him to keep us.
That's what Paul was saying when he said, I know whom I have believed
and I'm persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
committed to Him. Him. He is able. He is able. And then through that faith in
Christ, Christ our righteousness is received by us and God reckons
us righteous in Christ. He imputes the righteousness
of Christ to us. We don't earn a righteousness.
It's through faith that the person who believes in God's Son is
counted perfect before God in the Lord Jesus our righteousness. Now, let me just... I don't have
time to go through this last point, but let me say this one
thing. None of this is by our works. The last thing says, not
of works, lest any man should boast. Not of works, lest any
man should boast. Grace is not of works. I just
read that to you from Romans 11. If it's works, it ceases
to be grace. Salvation is not of works. 2
Timothy 1.9 says, He saved us and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His all-purposing
grace which is given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
The works were done by Christ. He put an end to sin. He did
the work. He finished the work. Now, grace
is not of works, salvation is not of works, faith is not of
works. Not of works, we just read, not
of yourselves, it's a gift of God. Now listen to this. Where
is boasting then, Paul said? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, by the law of faith. You see, faith, what it is, what
it really is, when you have true faith, it excludes boasting.
That's an evidence of true faith. A person who's going around boasting
about their faith, they don't have true faith. Because true
faith excludes boasting. It excludes boasting. Somebody
say, but at least I believed if a heart surgeon gave you a
heart transplant. Would you go around boasting
saying, but at least I made my heart beat You see, Christ entering
in, Christ the life, is the life of a believer. And when He enters
in, you're going to do what a living believer does. You're going to
believe on God. And that's as natural as the
heartbeat is to life. That's as natural as the breath
is to a natural man. Do I have to sit there and say,
you're going to take credit before God because you breathe? Are
we going to sit here and say, well I'm alive because at least
I'm breathing. No, you just naturally do it, don't you? But when God
takes it away from you, it's gone. What James said, as the
body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works, without
this surrender to Christ, is dead too. But when you've been
born of Him and He's entered in, He's the life. And so you
do what a natural, what a spiritual man does. You believe. You can't
help it. It's like your heartbeat. You're
not making it do it. You just do it because you can't
help but believe. And it's this way lest any man
should boast, because we'd glory, we'd glory, we'd glory if we
had any aspect of it ourselves. I think I gave you this a few
weeks ago. Let me give it to you one more time. God says that
no flesh should glory in His presence. Alright? Here's God
the Father in divine election. Of God are you in Christ Jesus. Here's God the Holy Spirit in
regeneration and giving us this faith. Who of God is made unto
us. And here's God the Son, wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And you and me
didn't have any place in there, did we? So what's the result? That according as it is written,
He that glories, let him glory in the Lord. We glory in the
Lord. Now, if you've got a problem
with this gospel, I bring you here every time, you've got a
problem with this gospel, what's the problem then? because you
know who's getting all the glory here? God is. You don't want
some of the glory taken from God and given to a sinner, do
you? I want God to have all the glory,
and that's what His people want too. His people want Him to have
all the glory. If this message bothers you,
anybody, and it makes you feel like it's not fair or it's unrighteous
or it angers you or you just have some sort... That's a good
sign. Maybe God's given you some life.
But you think about, why is it you're angry? You don't want
God to have the glory? Listen to this. Everyone that
is called by my name, I have created him for my glory. I have formed him, yea, I have
made him. It's hard to argue against that,
isn't it? That's what God said. That's what God said. By grace
you're saved through faith in that night of yourselves. It
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We'll
take this next time, but we're His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus. Amen. Let's stand together, brethren. Father, how we do thank You.
We pray You would bless this Word now. You alone know how to apply Your
Word and we just mess it up and do it the wrong way if we try
to. Lord, make it effectual. According to Your will, according
to Your eternal purpose, for the glory and honor of Your great
name and the preeminence of Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.
It's in His name we ask it. Amen.