The letter of Paul to the Ephesians. I think it was last week we read
chapter 1, and now this week let's read chapter 2. And our
text and virtually all that we're going to deal with this morning
is going to come out of the second chapter of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2. Here is one of the plainest,
clearest statements in all of Scripture declaring that salvation
is of the Lord. Beginning to end, start to finish,
top to bottom, left to right, salvation is of the Lord. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now the apostle is writing to
a group of believers in a city called Ephesus. He himself was instrumental in
bringing the gospel to this place, God using him to convert men
and women and make them believers and worshipers of the Lord Jesus. And he's reminding them at the
opening statements in this chapter of what took place in that experience
of grace when the gospel was preached and the power of God
accompanied that preaching. Here's where we begin. This is
where we all are by nature. You cannot change this. We are
born spiritually dead. And here we're told that that
death is in trespasses and sins. And it is not true that I or
you were different from any other human beings. There is nothing
in us that caused God to pay any attention to us. It was all
in Himself, not in ourselves. All right? Verse 1. has he, that is God, quickened,
made alive spiritually. You have to be physically alive
to be made spiritually alive because after we leave this world
in death, there is no further gospel and no further salvation. Whatever state I'm in, when I
breathe my last breath, that is my state for all eternity. You has he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and in sins. We're in. Here's a description
of ourselves by nature. All of us. Now I know that some
people are criminals, some people are crooks, some people are immoral,
and other people are moral. But I'm telling you this is the
whole thing. It includes every aspect of human
society. from cannibals to the highest
educated people on the face of the earth. Wherein in times past,
this is talking about you and me, we walked according to the
course of this world, and we loved it. Some of us on the high
road, some of us on the low road, and some of us on the in-between
road. But this is where we start. This
is how the gospel finds us. This is where we are. According, this walking according
to the course of the world is according to this rule. It is
according to the prince of the power of the air. Now ladies
and gentlemen, that simply speaking is the devil, Satan. You tell people that we're everyone
born demon-possessed and people get up in arms. But I'm telling
you there are religious demons and there are irreligious demons. There are moral demons and immoral
demons. And I sometimes persuaded that
the religious demon is worse by far than anything else that
can be named. according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now works. We can bring
that word now to today in the children of disobedience. Therefore, all unbelievers are
under the rule and reign and tyranny of the devil. Verse 3. among whom also, among
these children of disobedience, who were ruled by the devil, we also, among whom also we all
had our conversation, I believe that word literally means our
manner of life, the way that we lived, All had our conversation
in times past in these things, the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature Paul referring specifically now
to the Ephesian believers. He is saying you and therefore
we're saying we. We who are in Christ. We're by
nature the children of wrath even as others. No difference. No difference. Now in verse 4. Here is a subject to which man
by nature rebels, and that is that God is pictured here for
us as butting in. But God. If God doesn't but,
then we will perish. But preacher, he can't do that
unless we let him. Right. Of course, that's the
most foolish idea, but you listen carefully. I believed it with
all my heart. And so did you, unless God has
changed us. And now we're thrilled to death
to read such an expression as but God. But God, who is rich
in mercy, For His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins,
has quickened us together with Christ. When Christ rose from the dead,
every last single one of His people rose in Him. has quickened us together with
Christ. By grace are you saved. And not only quickened us, but
raised us up together. That is, resurrected in Christ. When he was resurrected, this
word together appears, what is it, three times here in the space
of two verses? has quickened us together with
Christ, by grace you're saved, and has raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ. So believers
are already in heaven, but we have to live down here until
this existence is finished. Then we'll put this body aside
and our soul will unite with our Savior in heaven. At His
second coming, we will have these bodies resurrected into a new
body, made like unto His body. Why has God purposed to save
us in such a manner as this, that is so distasteful to us,
that leaves us as far as our doings out in the cold? Here's
the reason, verse 7. that in the ages to come, not
just in time but after time, in the ages to come, God might
show the exceeding riches of His grace, riches of His grace
in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. It is God's purpose
that His grace be honored and exalted and magnified. And that's
why he saves sinners in this manner. Now if you'll pay careful attention
to verses 8, 9, and 10. For by grace are you saved. Grace cannot be merited or deserved. For by grace are you saved through
faith. through faith, and that faith
not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For you see God's workmanship,
I'm sorry, for we are God's workmanship, Created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. So if believers have any good
works, and they certainly do, we do not manufacture them, God
gives them to us in Christ in His grace. Created in Christ
Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that
we should walk in them. Now I'll read the remainder of
the passage rather hurriedly. Wherefore, remember that you
being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, we who are called
uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the
flesh made by hands, that at that time, speaking of us Gentiles,
we were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having
no hope, and without God in the world. That's what we were, but
believers now, but now in Christ, in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes
were far off are made near by the blood of Christ. For Christ
is our peace, who has made both one, that is, peace between Gentile
and Jew, who has made both of those one, and has broken down
the middle wall of partition between us. This is a Jew talking
to us, Paul the Apostle. Having abolished in his flesh,
Christ having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law
of commandments contained in ordinances, and to make in himself
of two one new man, so making peace. and 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, that's the Gentile, and to them which were
near, that's to the Jew. And through him we both have
access by the Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore you are
no more strangers and foreigners, writing to the Gentile Ephesians.
but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household
of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone,
in whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto a
holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together for
an habitation of God through the Holy Spirit, capital S, through
the Spirit. All right. Now let's return to Ephesians
chapter 2. Let's see if we can work on verses
8 and 9 in chapter 2 of Ephesians with just a preliminary remark
or two, if I can make myself do that. Now before we begin to do this,
let's beg for God's mercy upon us. O Lord God of heaven and earth,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, To the degree that we're capable,
we bow our minds, our hearts, our understandings
at your feet. Lord, no matter how distasteful
your word might be to our flesh, you are infinitely more than
able to subdue that flesh and speak to our poor hearts. For if you don't, we shall leave
this world in exactly the same state that we entered it, lost, damned, without Christ, therefore without
hope. Lord, we have just read in your
precious word a glorious two words among a great many others,
of course. The two words in particular simply
says, but God. That is the dividing line between
what is awful and terrible in the first three verses and what
is glorious and wonderful in the following verses. Lord, here we are this morning,
whether we know it or don't know it, we're in your presence. You
see everything, you know everything there is to know about us more
than infinitely a million gazillion times more than we would even
dare to know about ourselves. Yet, in Christ, you have mercy for the vilest chief of sinners
on this earth. Lord, bless us with that mercy
and that grace this morning. May your hand be upon your word,
your blessing be upon your word, and upon your servant, and upon
our ears as we hear. Lord, take us. Do what you will
with us, but please do not leave us to ourselves. We beg these
mercies in our Savior's precious name and for his sake. The first thing I think we need
to help guide our thinking and our
understanding when we're reading a passage out of the Bible like
this, it's so simple, we've heard it a thousand times, but it's
so easily forgotten. Listen. Everything God does. In this case, it's called salvation,
and it covers a lot of ground. But everything God does must
honor and glorify every aspect of his being. Everything God does must be like
himself. perfect, glorious, gracious,
merciful. But it's mercy that belongs to
God. It's God's grace. Generally, the God that people
have is the God that we have in our minds, and He ain't even
close to the one in our Bibles. which, you know, it's further
than from here to the moon apart. So here's my point. In this salvation
that this passage along with a great many others declares
to be of the Lord, let's understand this. This is our introduction. Every attribute, every characteristic
that describes God must be like himself. It must be honored and
glorified by whatever God does, and in this case it is in the
business of saving sinners. And these attributes are revealed
in his salvation. Here's the first one, his foreknowledge. God knows everything beforehand. Everything that comes to pass
in time is simply the unfolding of the knowledge that he has
had. Never been a time he didn't have this knowledge. Therefore,
the gospel is a revelation of the knowledge that God has of
all men, all things, all places, all the time, and so forth. There
cannot be a surprise for him. There cannot be an emergency.
There cannot be even a contingency. There's no such thing with God.
These things reside with men and we understand them. We sometimes
think we don't have some and they show up that we had more
than we thought. The second one, the second attribute, the first
one being God's divine foreknowledge and the second one is His wisdom. His wisdom. God is infinitely, infinitely
wise. Therefore, His gospel in Christ,
salvation is of the Lord. The gospel is a reflection of
that aspect of God's being called wisdom. Thirdly, we may also describe God as being
patient kind that he is. And we have no clue that he is
until after we're saved. And then we have just a little
tiny understanding of what it is. But one day we'll know. God's patience endures our rebellion. We're all rebels by nature. So everybody in here is a Johnny
Rib spiritually. Fourthly, love describes God. This is a glorious, glorious
attribute. It would amaze us if we could
understand just a fraction what that statement means, God is
love. He doesn't begin to love, nor
does He end loving. He is love. He can't quit being
what He is. And the gospel is a revelation
of that love. Those people that God loves,
very same people that he gave to Christ in the covenant and
the very same people that Christ redeemed on the cross are the
very same people that God reveals salvation is of the Lord. The next attribute which our
generation knows absolutely nothing about until taught by grace,
that God is just, is justice, is justice. He does not bend
the truth. He does not set the truth aside.
Even Abraham knew better than that. When he was interceding
for Lot, who had gone down to Sodom, and Abraham was asking
the Lord, how many believers in Sodom would it take for him
to spare that city? And if I remember right, they
got down to ten. And Abraham gave up on trying
to find enough people to get God to change his mind about
Sodom. But he did say this, he said to the Lord, shall not the
judge of all the earth do right? Now that's a powerful argument
with God. Then there's the attribute of
power. We mentioned earthquakes earlier.
Today's preachers are scared to death to say God has anything
to do with an earthquake or a hurricane or a flood or any other kind
of, they talk about this non-entity
called Mother, Mother, Mother Nature, Mother Earth. God's power, infinite, infinite
power. The best illustration and the
greatest example of God's power is when He raised Christ from
the dead, ascended Him to glory, and seated Him at His own right
hand. That, my friend, is a miracle. And there ain't but one other
one close to it. And that's when God saves a sinner. Because right there in chapter
1 of Ephesians, right across the page in your Bible, in verse
19 and 20, we're told that this is a perfect description of what
it takes to make an unbeliever a believer. And anybody who has
no appreciation and claims to be a believer by their own will
and volition and works and whatever else you want to throw into the
mix is an absolute denial of that statement. Number seven is the attribute
of grace, undeserved mercy. It is grace indeed. described in this passage. Number
eight, it's kind of a hard word for some of us, it's called immutability. It simply means that God does
not, cannot, and will not change. Not ever. Not ever. Not then,
not now, not ever. He does not change. If this is how God saves sinners
in the first century, it's how He saves them in this century. It's how He saved them two or
three centuries before the Savior ever came incarnate in human
flesh. God is the same. Sinners are the same. Christ
is the same. His grace is also the same. It doesn't change. Immutable. Immutable. All right, let's see
if we can get some things covered here pretty quickly. If you'll
look at verse 8, and if it's not terribly inconvenient,
you do not have to do this. You don't have to do anything
as far as I'm concerned when I'm up here. Now, Curtis and
Ed and Doug, now they're a little harder fellows they might stick
to some rules. But if you want to turn, I'm
going to read you Spurgeon's version of a hymn in the hymn
book. It's on page 219, and it's titled, Grace Tis a Charming
Sound. So if you want to look at that,
I'll read you what is actually in that hymn. And there are dozens
of others like it in which the editor of that hymn book has
deliberately or blindly one or the other, removed certain stanzas
and portions of stanzas and changed words, seldom acknowledging the
fact, and printed it with this author's name or that author's
name in front of it. Anyway, you got the right authors.
Let's see, it's Doddridge and Toplady. And this thing has got
microscopic print, so let me see if I can read it. Grace tis a charming sound, harmonious
to the ear. Heaven with the echo shall resound
and all the earth shall hear. You got that one, right? Number
two, this one is missing, I believe. Grace first contrived the way
to save rebellious man and all the steps that grace display
which drew the wondrous plan. Now you have this one I think,
I don't know what changed. I didn't look at the other one
that carefully this time. In this one it's the third stanza.
Grace first inscribed my name in God's eternal book. It was grace that gave me to
the Lamb who all my sorrows took. Grace led my roving feet to tread
the heavenly road, and new supplies each hour I meet while pressing
on to God. Grace taught my soul to pray
and made my eyes o'erflow. T'was grace that kept me to this
day and will not let me go. Final stanza number six. Grace,
all the work shall crown through everlasting days. It lays in
heaven the topmost stone and well deserves the praise. Ladies and gentlemen, that's
a song. That's a song. All right, let's get to these
two verses. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. Here's the first thing. It simply
says, for by grace. That song beautifully expresses
and describes what that grace is. It's grace from start to
finish. The entire work from beginning
to end is God's grace in Christ to helpless, undeserving, hell-deserving
sinners. Second phrase in verse 8, For
by grace are you saved. You are saved and this is purely
and only and in our Lord Jesus Christ as our substitute, as
the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. He's our Passover
lamb, Paschal lamb by God appointed. Now the third thing says through
faith. Now before we look at that one,
let's put the three together. For by grace are you saved through
faith. Through faith. Now I want you
to carefully notice it does not say by faith, but it says through
faith. Faith is not our Savior. Christ is our Savior. And as
far as faith is concerned, He is the author of that faith.
He gives the ability and the desire to believe on Him to sinners
who have neither. And it is such a gift that it
causes them to act. Let's see if I can remember these
words. Psalm 65 verse 4 says, Blessed is the man, now listen,
whom God chooses, and causes to approach unto himself. You
look that up later and see if I told you right. But that's
how it is. That's exactly how it is. All
right, let's look at this thing now about through faith. This
is the only time I'm asking you to turn, which is a record for
me, I'm sure. 2 Timothy chapter 1, just one
verse. 2 Timothy chapter 1, through faith. Now the scripture plainly declares,
we won't trace it out this morning, but you've heard it a thousand
times. The scripture plainly declares
that you and I cannot believe in a Christ that we do not know. We cannot believe in an unrevealed
Christ. Christ must be revealed to us. I'm speaking now in spiritual
terms. We don't need to know how tall
He was, how much He weighed, or anything about His physical
features. But we need to know Him. We cannot
believe Him without knowing Him. Now look at this statement. in 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse
12. Is that what I told you? Okay. It's really the second half of
the verse, but let me read the whole verse. For the which cause,
that is the cause of the gospel that Paul preaches, I also suffer
these things. Nevertheless, watch this. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed,
not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed. Not being ashamed of Christ rests
on these three things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed,
for I know whom I have Now plenty of people can tell
you what they believe, but I urge you to be more acquainted with
whom we believe. We cannot know this Christ without
a divine revelation to our soul. God the Holy Spirit must visit
us in the power of God's grace and open our spiritual eyes to
see and behold our Savior, the Lord Jesus. All right, so the
first thing has to do with knowledge. I know whom I have believed. Second thing, and am persuaded
that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him
against that day. So the second word in defining
this through faith in verse 8 of Ephesians chapter 2 is not only
knowledge, but the second word is confidence. I am persuaded
that Christ is able. And without that persuasion,
We do not know the true Christ, nor the true gospel that is all
of grace. And then the third one is, to
keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. The
third thing is commitment. That is to say, when by the grace
of God and the miracle of grace, a man or a woman truly lay hold
of Christ to the saving of their souls, they have no room for
any other Savior. Not only I know whom, and not
only does it say I am persuaded, but it says that He's able to
keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day. Our
soul rests its entire hope on Christ. No room for any other
Savior, not even a helper, mind you. It's all Christ from start
to finish. It's all Christ. Now back to
verse 8 in Ephesians. The next phrase we run into in
verse 8, it says, and that not of yourselves. Now what is not of ourselves?
Well, the nearest antecedent, I think that's the right word,
to this not of yourselves is faith. So I think it's safe to
say that faith is not of ourselves. But preacher, somebody told me
you had to be willing for God to save you. Well, that ain't
right. God has to make you willing,
but indeed he does. See? You just can't get to a
time that it's you instead of God until you get to the sinning. Then we can take full credit
for that. That belongs to us. That, not of yourselves. It cannot be bought. It cannot
be deserved. Why? Next phrase, it is the gift
of God. And the first phrase in the following
verse, that's verse 9, says, not of works. Paul, why did you
have to put that in there? Because the Lord told him to. Because if we get any wiggle
room, we'll just wiggle out from under this thing one way or another. Well, the Lord saw what we would
do down the road to honor and glorify His name, Baloney. We know better than that, don't
we? If we don't, we better start over. Not of works, not anything
we did before, not anything we did during the time that salvation
was being applied, and not anything that we've done since. Everything we do has sin in it,
because we're sinners. And the final phrase is, lest,
now this is the real test, lest any man should boast. Now you've got to boast about
something, but salvation is of the Lord,
and the truth is We boast in Christ alone. In Christ alone. There ain't no
room for anything else. You don't have to be around religious
people but a very few minutes to find out who their God is. Let us remember that when we're popping off at the
mouth, especially when we're talking
about divine things. Salvation is of the Lord. And that's a glorious statement.
We ought to be pleased beyond measure.