May it please Almighty God to
bless us together this morning as we meditate in His Holy Word. Let's turn to the Epistle of
Paul to the Ephesians and the second chapter. We'll read verses
8 and 9. the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians,
chapter two, and reading verses eight and nine. 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. This is one of the principal
verses we might say in the Word of God because it speaks very
directly about the favour of God, the grace of God and the
need for faith and how we receive that faith. It is the gift of
God. And then just to remind us that
this is not through any wonderful thing that you and I have done
ourselves, not at works, lest any man should boast. And we
should always remember that the greatest blessing that you and
I can receive is that blessing of grace, the work of grace,
the favor of God in our souls to realize that you and I are
indeed born again by the Holy Spirit of God, and to know indeed
as the Apostle spoke to the Ephesians in the fourth verse of the first
chapter, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love, having predestinated us unto 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, when he hath made
us accepted in the Beloved. How wonderful it is to think
that the great God, the ruler of the universe, the creator
of the universe, has indeed in his wonderful grace, we refer
to it sometimes as sovereign grace, to have called us out
of darkness of nature. It's a great and wonderful blessing. And so here we have this grand
statement, as he has chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. Before the world was created,
you and I, if we are amongst those that this chapter describes,
were chosen by God. Chosen by God to be a follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Chosen by God to be a disciple
of the Lord Jesus Christ, chosen by God to follow his way, to
do his will, to be a testimony of those who he does, called
by grace, so that through our lives we might shine, we might
be a light in this dark world, and through that light bring
honour and glory to God, and to never be able to claim any
merit or virtue ourselves, but always to give praise and honor
and glory to God, remembering that that's the whole purpose
of your life and my life on this earth, to bring honor and glory
to Almighty God. I often tell you that, and it's
so relevant and so necessary. for us to appreciate. And so
we're thankful that we have such grand and glorious verses like
this recorded in the Word of God. And this particular verse
here, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God. It's the only place in the
Bible where it spells directly this statement out so very clearly. So we can recognize therefore
the relevance of such a statement and to praise God that it is
recorded that you and I can rejoice in it and bless God for it and
to realise that we cannot boast therefore in what we've done
but we can boast in what God has done. We can boast because if he has
come to us and graciously and gloriously called me, what a
mercy. We referred I think on Friday
to this statement that the Apostle made when he wrote to the Galatians
and he said, but when it pleased God who separated me from my
mother's womb and called me by his grace. We should be thankful
that here we have a statement by the Apostle with reference
to his own call He was called by God, by the grace of God,
not because of anything that he had done himself. It's the
only reference to that particular statement, again in the Word
of God. Called me by his grace. Now, every true believer can
enter into that and realise that they stand alongside the Apostle
Paul, shoulder to shoulder with him and able to say, yes, we
have been called by his grace. He's called us out of the darkness
of nature. He's come to us. Yes, we were
dead in trespasses and in sins, as the first verse of the second
chapter tells us. Who were dead in trespasses and
in sins. We were born like that. We existed
like that. Until God came and called us
out of darkness into his glorious light. And every true believer
is called by the grace of God. And the grace of God is the free
unmerited favour. Because you and I, by our own
lives, by our own situation, never deserved any favour from
God. Because we were born in sin and
shaped in iniquity, we walked contrary to God, We disobeyed
God, we pleased ourselves, we should have been cut off, but
God in his mercy calls us by his free unmerited favour. And that's why we can come and
recognise the wonder of this verse, for by grace ye are saved. through faith and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God. You see, God gives you and me
faith to believe. Faith is the gift of God. Again, the apostle gives us a
definition when he wrote to the Hebrews and in the 11th chapter,
that wonderful chapter about the examples of faith. He tells
us what it is, the first verse. For faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. See, so often you and I want
things to see, but we're told we walk by faith and not by sight. No, God gives us faith. And what
that produces is honour and glory to God. You see, if we were saved
by our sight, If we were saved because of what we did and what
we saw, that would not bring honour and glory to God. But
because it is not so, because we walk by faith, not by sight,
that brings honour and glory to God. Apostle, when he commenced
that 11th chapter, he just spelled it out a little bit, just so
that we can understand. He tells us, through faith, we
understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. That means that the world and
the whole universe was brought into being by just God Almighty
speaking the world into being. Again, it's a power which is
utterly beyond your and my comprehension. The truth is that the grace of
God which calls us out of darkness is also beyond our natural comprehension. Because it is not something that
you and I can conjure up. It's not something you and I
can produce. It's the gift of God. God comes
and he gives us this gift of faith to believe the great and
glorious truth of the Gospel. What a wonderful favour that
is and how thankful we should be this morning if
we have received that. And then we will understand very
clearly what the Apostle writes. For by grace are ye saved. It's his free unmerited favour. And what a blessing, therefore,
if again you and I can look into our hearts, look back in our
lives, and find and see a time when the Lord did come and called
us. He called us. Just like he did
to Paul. You remember Paul. We know the
Apostle Paul had pricks of conscience in his life. But there was, of
course, that amazing occasion on that Damascus road when God
called him, God struck him down, that bright light from heaven.
And it was such a bright light. He tells us when he gives a testimony,
it was above the brightness of the midday sun. And the midday
sun in the Middle East is pretty bright. And it was brighter than
that. It was so bright, it struck him
down. Struck him down. And he realized
it was God that was speaking to him. And therefore, he came
up with that prayer. What will thou have me to do? Prior to that, he'd been doing what he wanted
to do. What pleased him? What he thought brought honour
and glory to himself. Yes, he was pleasing himself. But then when that time came,
when God came, what a change it was. What a change in his
attitude. And it's wonderful when you and I understand the
change in our attitude from planning our own little life and working
out all the details and looking forward to the future with this
plan and that plan and to realize, no, it's God in actual fact plans
our lives. In actual fact, to be willing
to do His will, just like Paul, what wilt thou have me to do? Well, there was an amazing change,
wasn't there, in the apostle Paul's life. There is an amazing
change in all of our lives when God calls us, calls us out of
darkness into light, because we see light that we never saw
before. We see the wonder of the gospel,
which we never saw before. We saw the reality and the necessity
of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, which we never saw before. We see the value of the death
of the great and glorious Saviour, which we never saw before. And
we come to the understanding, as the Apostle spells out when
he speaks to the Ephesians, in whom we have, he's speaking about
the Saviour, in whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, wherein
He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having
made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to the
good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself, that, in a dispensation
of fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things
in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth,
even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance,
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will. that we should
be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ.
That's just one sentence I read to you there from the seventh
verse. And we should recognize sometimes
Paul writes long verses in his epistles, and it's just good
to follow the verse through, or the sentence through rather,
to get to the end of it to recognize what he's really driving at.
And here we have this very clear picture to realise that all the
grace of God, it comes from the wonderful favour of the Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that brings us straight back,
doesn't it, to this 8th verse in the beginning where the Apostle
says, For by grace are ye saved. See this makes the grace of God,
the free unmerited favour, very valuable to us and very precious
to us as we realise that without it we shall never be saved. And you may ask, well what do
you mean to be saved? What I mean is this, we need to be delivered
from the wrath of God and that wrath of God is to sinners. And
therefore we need to know that our sins are taken away because
we should never get to heaven while we still possess sins.
We need all our sins to be taken away. Heaven is a holy place. There's no sin in heaven. And
we can't think that somehow you and I will get into heaven with
sin. We all need our sins to be forgiven. What a great blessing it is then
if we have the evidence of God's favour toward us to realise that
we are indeed amongst those for whom Christ died. And again,
it is a tremendous blessing if the Holy Spirit reveals this
to you and me, that as utterly unworthy sinners we never deserved
God's mercy and therefore we never deserved God's grace. But what a blessing to realise
that we have received God's mercy, often unlooked for, unexpected, God has a set time, a divine
time, to reveal himself to us and to reveal the way of salvation
to us and to direct us to the glorious grace of God. Again, just ponder Back in eternity,
that plan was produced. And God's plans never fail. What God has planned comes to
pass. The unknown of time to us is
known to God. He knows. The Father knows when
the last day of time will be. The Lord Jesus told the disciples
it was a day only known to his Father. But it is a time which
is known. And it will come. And it may
come when you and I are on the earth. It may come after we've
left the earth. but it will come there will be
a time when time shall be no more and then eternity will be
there as it has been forever and will be still forever again
as such a glorious theme which is beyond us to think of eternity
but you and I will be there you and I will be there once we've
been born into this world we've received that spiritual life
that life which will never die and so what a mercy then to have
a concern to know that we possess this grace of God for by grace
are ye saved through faith and not of yourselves it is the gift
of God because this grace reveals to us what we are, reveals to
us the need we have, reveals to us the great and glorious
Saviour, reveals to us, therefore, the wonderful way of salvation. And it is then that we do truly
rejoice in it. We praise God for it. what a wonderful thing if you
and I have therefore come to this knowledge that we are saved
we have been saved by it's grace and everyone of us needs to enter
into that great and glorious experience it is a spiritual
experience and it's given to us through the glorious work
of the Holy Spirit that touches our heart enables us to praise
God from whom all blessings flow. You see, sometimes we may think
we wish we'd never been born. Job tells us, didn't he? He wished
at one time, he said, that he'd never been born. Well, the fact
of the matter is, if you and I had never been born, we would
never enjoy the glory of heaven. So let's just ponder that, to
realise that if we have been born, and if we've been born
under those whom God has determined to save, those whom God has blessed
with his grace, it is therefore the wonderful privilege of such
to be found in glory eternally. And that's a situation which
our minds again cannot comprehend. The happiness and the wonder
to be with all these saved Saints of God and with the Saviour,
with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit throughout eternity,
never to go out of that situation. No, it's an eternal blessing.
What a mercy, and therefore, if sometimes we may be tempted
to think, well, I wish I'd never been born, just to remember that
if you'd never been born, you would never go to heaven. You
would never enjoy the glory of Immanuel's land. The great desire
should be to know that you and I are amongst those who have
received or will receive the grace of God and to know it is
therefore and will be well with our souls. And we shall be by
His grace one day blessed with that eternal habitation in glory. You know the Apostle, as we read
this morning, as we came through towards the last part of this
second chapter, he tells us, in that he might reconcile both
unto God, in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity
thereby, and came and preached peace to you which were afar
off. All of us have been afar off. Far off from God. No desire for
God. Is that where we are today? Or
can we say, by the grace of God, I am what I am. I have a new nature. I have a new life. I've been blessed with the grace
of God. And therefore, the apostle goes
on to tell us, for through him, we both have access by one spirit
unto the Father. That's how you and I can come
to the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to remember
that. I think sometimes people just
don't appreciate the glorious plan of salvation. The Lord Jesus
Christ is our High Priest. He takes our prayers. Our Father
in Heaven cannot look upon anything which is unholy. He is righteous,
perfect. We can only approach unto the
Father through the merits of the Saviour. But we can approach
the Father in that way. We can come, our Father, who
art in heaven. But what a mercy it is, then,
to realise that we have a Saviour, a Lord Jesus Christ, who stands
between, in garments dyed in blood. For through Him we both
have access by one Spirit unto the Father. And then He says,
So he's saying, look, just stand back and view. Now therefore,
ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens
with the saints and of the household of God. Who is he talking to? He's talking to those who have
been saved by the grace of God. through faith they receive that
wonderful gift of God that's who the apostle is addressing
and what a mercy it is therefore if we receive the grace of God
my friends don't just stand and think well I'm really not sure
you and I need the wonderful evidence the positive evidence
that we are born again in the Spirit and it's God's grace that
has given us that new birth. And therefore we are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints
and of the household of God. And what unites us? Built upon
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief cornerstone. Is that the rock as your foundation? Is he the rock? Is he your foundation,
the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you have to come and say,
my hope is built on nothing less? The rock Christ, Jesus' blood
and righteousness. What does that mean? You see
that look into Christ, look into his glorious death on the cross. There he paid the price to atone
for our sin. Oh, my friends, it should be
exceedingly humbling as we think how utterly unworthy
we are of any notice. And yet the great Redeemer looked
upon us and loved us. and loved us so much, and loves
us so much still. It's wonderful, isn't it, when
you think of your sins, when I think of my sins. And sometimes
we sin willfully, know what's right and know what's wrong,
and yet listen to the old tempter, the devil, who pretends everything
is all right. And therefore we follow his evil
advice. And we think, we should think
the Lord would cast us off. But no, He's loved us. He's loved
us. He deals with us in love. What does He do? He shows us
the cost of our salvation. When the Lord brings us in life to our souls, to Calvary,
it puts everything in the right perspective. And it's then we
truly fall down, we bow down and we worship. We then worship our Creator. We then worship our Saviour. We worship ever-blessed God. What a mercy it is. And you know,
there won't be any difficulty in doing that. You'll want to
do it. You'll desire to do it. And you'll
realise the truth of those words, those that honour me, I will
honour. And those that despise me shall
be lightly esteemed. Your desire to honour Him, what
He's done for you, in calling you out of the darkness of nature
into the glorious light and giving you that glorious gift of faith
to believe the truths of the Gospel. Don't forget, you and
I have a continual fight against the enemy of our souls, the devil,
who will continually try and advise us that these things are
not true. And in any case, they don't apply
to you and to me. And sometimes we just need to
go back in our little lives and to look and see how God has led
us. And again, let me just say this.
Don't despise the day of small things. Don't despise the day
of small things. And let me give you this example.
Lydia, she heard the Apostle preach. There wasn't any great
demonstration of any outward performance. But what happened
in her life was this. the Lord opened her heart to
receive the words that the Apostle was preaching. Now you may not
be able to say great things like the Apostle Paul's conversion.
You probably won't be able to. There are very, very few who
could ever say anything like that. But can you look into your
heart and say, well, I believe. The Lord has given me grace to
receive the truths I've heard. And that's the evidence of God's
love to you. He hasn't cast you off. He hasn't passed you by. And
therefore, rejoice in that glorious truth a little that a righteous
man hath is better than the treasures of many wicked. Because that
which God gives, and it's the gift of God and it's the faith
that he's given to believe those truths that you hear, it's the
gift of God, it's the favour of God, And it's the indication that
you are a possessor of eternal life. That you are a possessor
of this grace whereby you are saved. You have to recognise
that it wasn't yourself. It wasn't because of your cleverness.
No, it was because of God's love toward you that enabled you to
believe. And then you come to realise
The necessity of such words, not of works, lest any man should
boast. We're not allowed to boast of
what we've done. We are allowed to boast of what
Christ has done. For we are His workmanship. It's His work in our soul. Wonderful, isn't it? Not something
you've done. It's God's work in our soul. For we are His workmanship. created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. We walk by faith, we walk the
path of following a despised and crucified man, that man who
has brought grace to us to rejoice in the wonder of it. Well, what
a mercy it is And because the apostle goes on, he tells us
that that time you were without Christ. All of us have been there. All of us have been there without
Christ. The great question is this morning,
isn't it? Are we still there? Are we still without Christ? And that time you were without
Christ, being aliens and Commonwealth from the Commonwealth of Israel
and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope and
without God in the world. But now, but now, has there been
a change? Has there been a change? If there
has, it's because of the grace of God. But now, in Christ Jesus. Ye who sometimes were far off
are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace,
who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of
partition between us. Access to God the Father. Oh, my friends, it's a glorious
gospel, you know. The problem is we so little appreciate
it. We so little understand it. But you know, God does come and
give us spiritual understanding. And he gives us that spiritual
understanding when the light of the glorious gospel in the
face of Jesus Christ shines into our heart. And there is before
us the great plan of salvation. And do we not rejoice when we have the wonderful evidence
that we are part of that plan? We haven't been cast off. We're
not outside of it. We're inside. And we're inside
because of his wonderful grace and his wonderful love. And surely,
therefore, we then can enter in to the truth of this glorious
verse. For by grace are ye saved, through
faith, and that none of yourselves It is the gift of God, and praise
God that he's given us faith to believe the gift of God. What a mercy, not a works, lest
any man should boast. Well, may we go on our way rejoicing
today. Thankful for the grace of God. Thankful for the love of God.
Thanks for the mercy of God. There's so many attributes you
can think of and ponder and rejoice in and realise how good is the
God we adore. Amen.