Well, good morning to everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter
2, where our lesson will be from this morning. Ephesians chapter
2. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent, is your precious name. Father, we only dare come
before you in the name, the person, the righteousness, the blood
of your son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we come before you
begging this morning for the spirit of worship, that you might
enable us this morning to worship you in spirit and in truth. I pray, Father, that you would
cause the name of Christ our Savior to be exalted and to give
us here a hearing ear, an understanding mind and a believing heart that
we might see something of the glory of Christ our Savior. And
whether it's for the first time or the thousandth time, that
we might believe him, that we might find ourselves running
to Christ our Savior. Father, while we pray for ourselves
in this hour this morning, we pray for our children's classes,
Father, that you'd bless in a special way. How we thank you for all
these little ones that you've given to us, these young people,
Father, I pray that you take this time that they have in their
classes to teach them the scriptures and that you might use that time
to plant the seeds of faith in their heart, that you might be
pleased to reveal yourself to them in your time. Father, we dare not forget to
pray for the sick and afflicted of our number and your people
in other places. There are so many right now.
Father, we pray that you'd comfort the hearts of your people, that
you'd heal, that you'd that you deliver as soon as it could be
thy will. Father, all these things we ask
in that name, which is above every name is for the glory and
sake of the Christ, our savior. We pray. Amen. I've titled our
lesson this morning. One more time saved by grace. This morning, we're going to
look at one of our very favorite subjects, God's grace. And I'm
gonna try to tell you one more time what I try to preach every
time the Lord gives me an opportunity. That sinners like you and me,
we're saved by God's grace without any of our works at any time.
Sinners are saved by Christ alone, through God's grace alone, by
faith in Christ alone. That's what our text says, beginning
in Ephesians 2, verse 8. 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, one more time, you've heard
this before, but let me tell you one more time, sinners are
saved by grace. That's what God's word says,
isn't it? We're saved by grace. Now, unfortunately, we need to
define this word grace because men have perverted what the word
grace means. They perverted its definition.
Grace is not God doing his part. and then you doing your part.
That's not grace, that's worse. Grace is not man doing his best,
doing as much as he can do and then God picking up the slack
and doing the rest. That's not grace, that's worse. Grace means
this, that God did all of the saving, 100% of it, and the sinner
didn't deserve it. At any point, the sinner never
deserved any of these gifts that God has given, All the work that
God has done involving the salvation of a soul, God did it all, and
the sinner doesn't deserve any of it. God gives it to them freely. That's what grace is. God's grace
is free. It's unmerited, undeserved, and
it's unsought for favor from God to guilty sinners. God saves
a sinner even though they don't deserve it. They're not really
looking for it. We don't seek after it. Well,
we seek after after God first seeks us, but God had to start
the whole process, didn't he? That's what grace means. When
Paul says we're saved by grace, he means all by grace, 100% by
God's grace. He told us in the book of Romans
that salvation is one of two things. It's either all of works
or all of grace. Can't mix the two. What he's
telling us here is salvation. is all of grace, from beginning
to ending. God conceived the work, God began the work, God
accomplished the work, and in God's grace, he'll finish the
work. From alpha to omega, A to Z,
from beginning to ending, salvation is by grace and grace alone.
Now I want to show you that from scripture. Let's look first at
Genesis chapter six. Here's where the whole of the salvation of a sinner
was conceived. Salvation began, number one,
in God's electing love. Genesis chapter six, verse five.
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually. And he repented to the Lord that
he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth. both man and beast, and the creeping thing,
and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made
them. I'm going to destroy them all. But Noah found grace in
the eyes of the Lord. Now Noah was as totally depraved
as every other son of Adam. God didn't single out Noah here
because Noah was any better than anybody else. He wasn't. When
the scripture says that the Lord saw the wickedness of man was
great on the earth, he means mankind. every son of Adam, including
Noah. Noah was no better by nature
than anybody else. That's why Noah needed to find
grace. He didn't earn grace, did he?
He found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found something
that he needed and didn't have. He found grace in the eyes of
the Lord. He found grace. He didn't earn it by his works.
He found it. And you know when he found it?
When God gave it to him as a free gift. That's when he found it.
And the same thing's true of you and me. We are completely
sinful. I mean, here we sit, right, in
our Sunday best. We've got up on a Sunday morning
instead of sleeping in. We've come to the worship service
and, you know, think all these people laying out, they don't
care about God. They're not seeking God. They
don't want any religion of any kind whatsoever. And look at
us. We're just as depraved. Don't you ever think otherwise.
We're just as depraved. We are completely sinful as much
as anybody else. And what we need is to find grace
in the eyes of the Lord. And I'll tell you when we'll
find it, when God's pleased to give it. That's when we'll find
grace. And God's grace is electing grace. Of all the people on earth, I
don't know how many people were alive at that time, but of all
the people on earth at that time, God destroyed Everybody, everybody
except eight souls, eight people. God chose Noah and his family,
those eight souls, put them in the ark and destroyed everybody
else. Now that's electing grace. God chose those eight people
to save from the destruction that was coming. That's God's
electing grace. Electing grace is the only way
a dead sinner could be saved. It's the only way. Because if
we're left our dead nature, we'll never choose God, will we? We'll
never choose God's way of salvation in Christ. We'll never seek God's
grace. We'll never even know we need
grace, because we're dead. The only way a dead sinner can
be saved is if God chooses us first. That's electing grace. And when God chooses a dead sinner,
I mean a dead, stinking, decayed, depraved sinner, there's nothing
in that sinner to move God to choose him, is there? That's
electing grace. We didn't deserve it, but God
chose a people to say, all right, now look at Exodus chapter 34. Here's the second thing that
we're guilty. God chose a people to say, here's
the second thing about God's grace. God's grace is pardoning
grace. Exodus 34 verse nine. And he said, this is Moses. Now
speaking to the Lord, he said, If now I found grace in thy sight,
O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us, for it's a stiff-necked
people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for
thine inheritance. Moses here asked the Lord for
what we all need, what we all need the most. We need God to
pardon our sin, because we're a stiff-necked people. I mean,
you think Israel was a stiff-necked people? They got nothing on us. We're a stiff neck people. And
Moses said, Lord, would you go among us and pardon our iniquity? And that word pardon means to
forgive. Moses asked God, would you forgive
the sin of this sinful people? Would you forgive our sin? Well,
really? I mean, will God forgive sin
in his holy nature? Will God forgive sin that's against
him? Is there a way that the holy
God can remain God and still forgive the sin of his people?
We'll look up at verse six. This is when the Lord is going
to pass by and proclaim his name to Moses. In verse six he says,
the Lord passed by before him and he proclaimed. Now the name
of the Lord is his character. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful
and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness. abundant in goodness. Now the
Lord says he's merciful. The Lord says he's gracious.
He's long-suffering. He says he's abundant in these
things. He's abundant in his goodness. He's abundance in his
grace to his people. He's abundant in his long-suffering
to his people. Sounds like there's hope for
a sinner here, doesn't it? Sounds like there's hope. The Lord's
gracious. Sounds like he's gracious enough
to forgive the sin of a sinner like me. But now read on. The Lord's not done finished
describing his character. He's abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. Visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's
children unto the third and to the fourth generation. Now the
Lord's abundant in mercy. He's abundant in his long suffering.
He's abundant in goodness to his people. But don't forget
this, God's abundant in truth too. Everything God does must
be true. It must be right, it must be
just. Everything God does is abundantly
right. Now can you reconcile those two
things? How can the Lord keep mercy for thousands? How can
he forgive iniquity and forgive transgression and at the same
time, by no means clear the guilty. Now how's that possible? How
can God forgive sin and never clear the guilty? Those who are
guilty of sin, how can he forgive their sin but never clear the
guilty? How's that possible? How can God pardon sin yet remain
true to his character and punish all sin? How's that possible? Now if God will show you the
answer to that question, you'll understand the whole gospel.
you'll understand how it is that God saves sinners. The word he
uses here in verse seven, forgiving, forgiving iniquity. That word
means to lift off and carry away. When God forgives, when he pardoned
sin, he doesn't just ignore sin. I mean, that's what we do. Somebody
wrongs us and we'll say, well, I forgive you. You know, basically
that means we try to forget it, but we really don't, but we just
don't bring it up anymore. You know, we just choose, okay,
we're gonna, we're gonna ignore this. It's still there, but we're
gonna ignore it. That's not how God pardons sin. When God pardons
sin, he carries it away. See, in order for the father
to forgive the iniquity of his people, he had to do something
with their sin. So he took their sin and he put
it on his son. He made his son sin for his people. And when the father made the
son sin for his people, he made him guilty. He made him guilty
of all of the sin of all of his people. Now Calvary is a clear
display of God's truth. God is true. Calvary is a display
of God's justice. Even when his only begotten son
appeared before him in sin, the father did not clear the guilty.
If that was one of my children, I'd tend to ignore it, wouldn't
you? I'd tend to declare the guilty, not the father. Even
his only begotten son, God remained true to his character and he
slaughtered his son. The father's the one that put
him to death. The father's the one that thrust
the sword of justice into the heart of his son. So that by
the time Christ cried it is finished and gave up the ghost, sin had
been fully punished. The price for all of that sin
had been fully paid by the blood, by the death of God's own son.
Now, because of the sacrifice of Christ, because Christ lifted
the sin of his people off of them and carried it away forever,
because the sacrifice of Christ put away the sin of God's people,
when God shows mercy and grace to his people, when God pardons,
when he forgives the sin of his people, he does it in justice. This is something that only God
could do. The gospel of God's grace that we preach is the only
message man has ever heard that satisfies both of these things
at the same time. How God can be gracious, how
God can forgive sin, and how God can always punish sin. How
God can always be just and right. How can God be God, not violate
his character, and forgive the sin of a sinner. is because he
punished it in Christ our substitute. He took the sin of his people
off of them and put it on Christ and Christ carried it away. He washed it away with his precious
blood so that it doesn't exist anymore. Now if sin's gone, God's right
to forgive it. If sin's gone, God's right to
accept that sinner into his presence. Now that kind of pardoning grace
where sin is lifted off of us and carried away. Pardoning grace. That's the only kind of grace
that'll save a guilty sinner. All right, now look at Romans
chapter three. Here's the third thing. Saving grace. God's grace is
justifying grace. Romans three verse 23. For all,
not just you and me, all, all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. Being justified freely by his
grace, through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at
this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Now God's grace, Paul
says here, justifies his people, were justified freely by God's
grace. Now that word justified, it doesn't
mean just as if I'd never seen it. It just doesn't mean, well,
there's sin there and God's just pretending like it's not, as
if I'd never seen it. Justified means this, to be made
without sin. to have no sin. Now that's a
miracle, isn't it? We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. How can a sinner have no sin?
Well, the only way a sinner like you and me can be justified,
the only way a sinner could have no sin is by God's grace. God's got to do something for
us that we can't do for ourselves and we don't deserve. He's got
to lift our sin off of us and carry it away. He's got to make
us without sin. Now that work must be done and
you and I can't do it, can we? Every work we do just produces
more sin, doesn't take sin away. So God sent his son in the flesh
to come as the representative of his people. He is born of
a virgin. He's a real man, made under the
law. But since he is born of a virgin, he did not have Adam's
sin nature. And he obeyed God's law perfectly,
always. Not just outwardly, but even
in thought, even in desire. He obeyed God's law perfectly. And his obedience as the representative
of his people, his obedience is the obedience of his people.
By the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, he made all
of his people righteous. Made them so that when God sees
them, this is what he sees, they've obeyed me perfectly. They've
obeyed my law perfectly. They've done everything it takes
to please me. We're righteous because of the obedience of Christ,
our representative. Now there, I mean, I fought and
fought and thought about this. There's only one explanation
that the son of God would do something so wonderful for the
likes of you and me. It's God's grace. That's the only explanation. And that righteousness that God
loves, It's not earned by our works. You always have to go
back and say it's by grace, not by works. Not by works. We didn't
earn it and we don't keep it. It's all in Christ and given
to us freely. And we receive that by faith. By faith. You don't receive it
by works. You receive it by faith. And you and I can't even produce
the faith it takes. to receive it. God has to give
it to us. See, it's all of God's grace,
isn't it? If you ever find a genuine sinner.
I'll tell you, they're going to love hearing this message,
salvation by grace, genuine sinners. They love it because a genuine
sinner knows this. I'm helpless. I'm helpless to
do anything that God requires of me. I'm helpless. So genuine
sinners love to hear salvation by God's free grace. He justifies
his people by the sacrifice of Christ. I now look over second
Timothy chapter one. Here's the fourth thing. Saving grace is God's calling. Grace calling grace being called
to Christ. Second Timothy one verse nine who has saved us. and called
us with an holy calling, not according to our work. See how
Paul often says it. Now grace means not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose in grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Now before
time was, when only God existed, the father chose a people under
salvation. That's his electing grace. And the son came, he suffered
and he died for those people. put their sin away by His sacrifice,
by His precious blood. He died as a substitute for God's
elect. He lifted their sin off of them
and carried it away. That's pardoning, justifying
grace. Now Christ has died. He's risen again on the third
day. He's ascended back to the Father. The great transaction
is done. When our Lord cried, it is finished,
that's exactly what He meant. The work's finished. The price
has been paid. The blood has been shed and it
never has to be shed again. Oh, what a work of salvation
that God has accomplished. Now God's got elect people, but
when they're born in this world, they don't know anything about
all that. All that happened before they ever got here. They don't
know anything about it. All they know is their own sin
and their own rebellion. All they know is their own Rebellion
against God their own self-righteousness their own way trying to earn
their way to God. They don't know anything about God's grace
They don't anything about the preciousness of Christ's blood
They don't know anything about God's amazing love that he could
love a sinner and they just Choose to save them and they had no
idea about that They think I cleaned themselves up and make themselves
lovable for God will you know love them? They don't anything
about what God's done. They don't anything about how
God saves sinners So in his time God lets him in on what he's
done for. He makes them to know it. And
here's how God reveals himself. Here's how God reveals how he
saves sinners to his people. It's through the preaching of
the gospel. By what we're doing right now, God sends somebody
a preacher that preaches this gospel of grace to them. And
that's how God calls sinners to himself. How is it the sinners
are ever going to come to Christ? Somebody's got to tell him who
he is. Somebody's got to show him how wonderful, how glorious
he is. Somebody's got to tell him about Christ before they
go to him. Somebody's got to know how righteousness is established. How can God be just and still
justify a sinner like me? Left to our own devices, we'd
never come up with a sacrifice of a substitute, would we? Never
would we. Somebody's got to tell us. And
that happens to the preaching of the gospel. That's what Paul
says in verse 10. Now all this happened before
the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of
our savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought
life and immortality to light through the gospel. Where unto
I'm appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the
Gentiles. God's got to send us a preacher
to preach the gospel, to tell us about Christ. You know, we're
so dead in sin. There can never be any salvation
without the preaching of the gospel. Can't be. Could God reveal
himself to somebody? You know, I reckon he could,
but he's not going to. He's not going to, because this
is what he says in his word. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. It's going to be done
by preaching. Now you think how gracious God
is. that he would send his gospel
to a bunch of stiff-necked rebels. He'd take a man, teach him the
gospel, and make him a preacher, just like he did Paul. And he'd
take that man that he's taught and send him to the stiff-necked,
rebellious people to preach Christ to them. They might think it's
foolishness at first. They might think, I hate that.
I'm not going to accept that. But eventually, If they're gods,
they do. Because through that preaching,
God gives them the gift of faith in his son, and they believe. The pattern, you see it? It's
so clear, isn't it? I don't know if you can say every
step, every aspect of salvation, it's all a step of grace. God
elected a people, he forgave a people, he redeemed a people,
he justified a people, and he called a people. It's all by
His grace, all by grace. Now if you're still there in
2 Timothy, look at verse nine again. Who 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
when? Before the world began. Here's
the fifth thing about God's saving grace. It's eternal grace, eternal. God purposed grace for his people
before time began. Before creation, when only God
existed, God purposed grace for his people. He purposed. He would
save a people by his grace. Now, since God's God, I mean,
this this fact has got to be established. God is God. He does
as he pleases. Since God is God, God's purpose
is just as sure as a past act, something he's already done,
something he's already accomplished. The purpose of God is just as
sure as history because God always does his will. Now this is why
salvation in God's purpose of grace makes salvation sure to
God's people. God's grace cannot fail. It cannot
fail to save God's elect because God can't fail. God cannot fail
to do anything he purposed. If God purposed grace for you,
my friend, you'll have it. You'll be saved. The grace of
God is eternal. It began before human time and
it's going to continue long after human time is finished. And I'll
tell you what that means to the believer. You don't have to worry
about God running out of grace for you. You don't have to worry,
oh, I'm finally going to outstand God's grace. I'm finally going
to commit a sin that is going to make God turn his back on
me and make God change his mind. He's not going to give me grace
anymore. This is so bad. God's changed his mind. No, sir. God's grace is eternal. It cannot
change. And I know we hate ourselves.
And we ought to, I mean, I'm sure we don't hate our sin as
much as we should, but we hate our sin. But listen, God knew
the sin we'd commit before he committed it. He's not gonna
change now. His grace is eternal. Where sin
has abounded, grace has more abounded, did much more abound,
and it always will. It always will because God cannot
change his purpose of grace because God can't change. God can't change. In order for God to take away
grace from his people, you know what God would have to do? He'd
have to change. God's character would have to
change. And why is it God said, you sons of Jacob, you stiff
necked, rebellious, sinful, cheating people. Why is it? that God won't
change his mind and you won't be damned. God said, because
I change not. Therefore, ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. Now, eternal grace, where God
cannot change his mind on account of my sin. That is the only kind
of grace that will save a sinner. All right, here's the last thing.
Look at 2 Corinthians 12. 2 Corinthians 12. God's grace is sufficient grace.
2 Corinthians 12 verse seven. And lest I should be exalted
above measure, through the abundance of the revelations, there was
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet
me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing
I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And
he said unto me, my grace is sufficient. for thee, for my
strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
I glory in my infirmities, that the power of God may rest upon
me. God told Paul, my grace is sufficient. And the first definition
of that word sufficient is enough. God's grace is enough. It's all
it takes to save you and to keep you saved without your works
in any fashion at any time. God's grace is enough. And you
know why I know for sure God's grace is enough, that it's all
it takes? Well, it's because another meaning of this word
sufficient. It means this, possessing unfailing strength. God's grace will never run out
of power to save his people. Now we can rest our souls in
God's sufficient, all powerful grace. We can rest in that. God's
grace is sufficient. It's of unfailing strength to
lead us through this world. Now this world, it's a tough
place to live. It is, it's a tough place to
live because we're living in this sinful world in a body of
sin. It's a tough place to live. And God's pilgrims, going through
this world, going home, it's going to be a tough trip. It's
just going to be a tough trip. Has God been gracious to you
so far? Huh, has he? His grace will be enough to lead
you home. It will be, it will be. See, the Lord promised in
this world we shall have tribulation. We shall have troubles and trials
and difficulties and afflictions, so don't be surprised. The Lord
promised us we'd have them. But he's also promised us grace
that's sufficient for every one of those trials, didn't he? So that you won't quit. When
God sends you a trial and it draws you closer to Christ instead
of making you run away from him, why is that? God's grace is sufficient
to draw you to Christ instead of drive you away from Christ.
God's grace is sufficient to see you through whatever it is
God's called you to hear blow to you arriving glory in the
presence of Christ in his likeness. Now that's the message of salvation
by grace. That's the only message that
gives hope and assurance of salvation. I mean assurance, confidence
of salvation to lost, dead, guilty sinners. Grace is the only message
that can give you any confidence. If it's by your works, you always
have to ask, always, did I do enough? And in your heart, you
know you didn't. You always have to ask, was that
good enough? Was it pure enough? Was my motive
good enough? And you have to admit it wasn't, don't you? Have
to admit it wasn't. So there's no confidence in your
works. But all salvation is by grace. That gives hope and confidence
and peace of heart to a guilty sinner, doesn't it? Thank God
he's given us this message of grace to preach and believe.
All right, Lord bless you.