I invite your attention back
to Ephesians chapter 2. The last phrase of verse 5 says,
By grace ye are saved. And the first sentence in verse
8 says, For by grace are ye saved. The catalyst of this message happened Wednesday night as I
was reading I was closing out the Wednesday
night sermon with reading of Isaiah chapter 53 verses 1 through
6. When Isaiah said, who hath believed
our report or doctrine into whom is the arm, the salvation of
the Lord revealed. For he, that is Jesus Christ,
shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness
that men should desire him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it
were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our sorrows
and carried our griefs. Yet we did extreme him, stricken
of God and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities.
Now all of that speaks of what Christ did on Calvary's tree
in the past tense. and then in the last phrase it
says here the chastisement or the chastisement due to bring
us to peace the chastisement of our peace was upon him and
with his stripes change of tense we are healed we are healed and
I was actually looking at Exodus chapter thirty four and verse
seven to preach this this Sunday morning but I couldn't get this
this present tense word out of my mind. And I remembered the
words here of Ephesians chapter 2. You are saved. This is spoken
to the believer who is the believer he is described in the verse
fourteen verses of chapter one as chosen in christ predestinated
in christ forgiven in christ all for the glory of god's grace
existing for the glory of god's grace and believing after he
heard the word of truth and the word of truth was the good news
that he had been saved the gospel of his salvation you are saved
this is what The Bible says, you're not going to be, you are. These words are stronger than
iron. They're stronger than iron. They are poetry, and this line
of the stanza is as perfect as it gets. You can't misunderstand
what's being spoken. Our Lord said, by grace ye are
saved. They possess such absolute substance
that to tamper with them is to destroy them. they either are
believed or disbelieved, they are either believed or avoided
altogether the language is sure, the grammar is absolute we find
it nestled in the middle of two chapters that leave the reader
in no doubt as to how God saves sinners and I invite you to read
these first two chapters of this book be not deceived, this verse
in the context in which it is found is about sinners sinners
having been saved by the will and the power and the grace of
Almighty God through the righteous death of the Lord Jesus Christ,
which we will celebrate after the service this morning in the
Lord's table. It's about sinners who are saved.
It's about sinners who are passive in their salvation. You'll not
find any participation of the sinner in any of this except
in sin. You'll find him participating
well in sin, but nothing in the grace of God, nothing in his
salvation. This is about sinners who are
passing their salvation because even their faith and their works
are not generated by themselves, but are a product of the free
grace of God. By grace you are saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. This is the only thing that will
do. If you are a ruined sinner, if you have something to offer
God, like these verses are for you. I'm not even speaking to
you this morning, but if you're a sinner, these verses, these
words are for you. It will mean nothing to someone
who feels he has something to offer God or if he possesses
a spark of divine or Some silly notion like that that only needs
to be fanned to burst into some kind of flame of faith. Or to
someone who believes that he can will himself from death to
life. Mind me, somebody can do that in a graveyard and we'll
start talking about salvation by man's worth. This salvation
is for dead people. impotent, hopeless sinners, and
though they magnificently benefit from its exercise upon them,
in truth, their salvation is actually designed for something
else altogether. This salvation of dead, ruined,
Satan-following sinners who by nature differ nothing from those
who spend eternity in hell, this salvation is about one thing,
the glory of God's grace. That phrase is repeated time
and time again in these passages of Scripture. The glory and the
wonder of His grace. Grace has so ordered and performed
the salvation that the saved are actually made to exist for
His glory. It's what it says in chapter 1 and verse 12 that
we should be that we should be to the praise of the glory who
first trusted in Jesus Christ Roll that over in your mind for
a few minutes. What must have been your saddest state and how
empty and useless you must have been that the salvation wrought
out for you in search of the singular reason for your existence
is to glorify God's grace. Think about it. You're glorifying,
if you're a child of God saved this morning, you're glorifying
the fact that you have no marriage. You're glorifying the fact that
you could do nothing about your situation. You're glorifying
the fact that you are helpless and hopeless. That's what it
is to be for the glory and praise of God's grace. That's what you're
saying. If you're saying I'm saved by
grace, you're saying you exist to praise His grace because you
have nothing and are nothing and can do nothing and can be
nothing that will move you one iota closer to God. The world
spends much of its existence trying to find a reason why people
are here on earth. I remember Evel Knievel many
years ago in a question and answer period on TV. They asked him
about life and he said, there's just three questions I have that
I won't answer before I die. Why am I here? Who am I? Why
am I here? And where am I going? That's
where people spend their time thinking about. The believer
ponders no such questions. We don't worry about that kind
of silliness. The believer is here, now, at this present moment,
and he exists in his faulty frame. He is saved so that no man can
ever question that salvation is by grace alone. Think about
that. People look at you. They see
you in your daily lives. See what you do and how you act
when you get mad? What if they were in the car
with you when somebody pulled out in front of you? What if they heard your language?
What if they saw your life, your real life, not the one you show
up here Sunday morning, but the real one you live at home, live
in your car. What about that life? What would
they say? Well, there's a Christian. That's what they mean. And of
course they wouldn't say that about you, but some people so
address their life and so dress themselves up that they look
like what people think as a Christian. But really what it is, is simply
this. For you to say I'm a sinner saved by grace, is to say I had
nothing to do with my salvation. Nothing whatsoever. God has graced
me. Poured out his favor upon me. And I didn't deserve any of it.
This means that the one who has been graced by God has no merit
and can produce no merit before God. Even now, as a child of
God, you cannot produce any merit before God. Because everything
you do and I do is tainted with us. Ourself and our flesh enters
into everything. Full of sin. This means that
the one who has been graced is utterly ruined and hapless. has
neither desire, ability, or even inclination toward anything other
than fulfilling the lust of His flesh and His mind, the lust
of the eyes, and the pride of life. If you are saved, you are
saved by grace. This is what this is saying,
simple and plain. If you are saved by grace, you
had nothing to do with your salvation. Luther said, if a man attribute
all of his salvation to anything other than grace, he knows nothing
of the grace of salvation. It's hard to believe grace. No,
it's not hard to believe grace. It's impossible to believe. And
you know this is true as a child of God. You have struggles with
it all the time. Inner struggles of the flesh
and the spirit, always struggling. I'm actually saved and I had
nothing to do with my salvation. But how quick are we when we
do something nice for people, good people, how quickly we wait
for somebody to bring it up so we can have it known about us. You've been saved. by grace,
it's impossible to believe otherwise if you've been saved by grace.
Our text begins with the word for. For in verse eight, for
by grace are you saved. For by grace. This word means
because. That means there's a cause of
our being saved by grace. We know the cause cannot be in
us because verses 1 through 3 make it plainly, painfully clear that
there's nothing in us that would cause the grace of God. It won't
cause anything from God save for wrath. Dead things cause
nothing but an abominable stench and dead men are passive even
in the gross, pervasive, rancid reek of their rank and vile emissions. Everything about us that is described
here would necessarily cause us to wind up in eternal torment
if it stopped at verse three. Everything between one and three,
dead things, dead things. Everything about us is described
here would necessarily end us up in hell. Since we are saved
by grace, the cause of it is plainly in spite of what we are.
What we are by birth and practice, what we are by choice and affinity
and inclination throughout our life and our nature is purely
and entirely against God on any and every conceivable level.
Against God from birth. Our course like water poured
on the ground is ever downward. Or like the instability of water
takes the shape of any container that it's in. Our career is a
lifelong, all-consuming race to succeed at being the winner
in the race for ruin. We are not steering. We are blissfully
ignorant passengers driven to doom by the prince of the power
of the air and he is not asleep at the wheel. You can be sure
of that. Nothing about us or proceeding from us is the cause
of grace. It simply can't happen. Nothing
about us. Yet our text is because by grace. Because. By grace you are saved. The cause of grace is found in
the source of grace, and the only source of grace, and that
is the heart of God, who is called in scripture the God of all grace.
The God of all grace. There is that blessed description,
conjunction but. In verse four, but God who is
rich in mercy for his love, great love were with, he loved us.
We cannot be the cause of grace, but God can be. But God can be
and is the cause of grace. That grace comes from merciful
love. We don't know much about love, but God does. He knows
plenty about love. Says he is rich in mercy. That
means he's got plenty of mercy. In fact, he said he's plenteous
in mercy. Plenteous in mercy so that his
mercy is sufficient for whatever it's desired to do even exceeding
excess Perfectly fit to meet the required need of the center
where sin did about Grace did much more a man he is so rich
that no matter how undeserving and sinful you are If He has
marked you for that mercy, you will receive that mercy and you
will be saved by that mercy. It's that simple in Scripture.
For remember this, His glory is tied up in His mercy and grace.
He told that to Moses in Exodus chapter 33 and verse 19 and 20.
I will make my goodness pass before you. I'll proclaim the
name of the Lord before you and I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Those are the four things He spoke in answer to the question
that Moses posed to him. Lord, show me your glory. What
glorifies you? What makes you glorious? Those
four things is what he answered. He is so rich that no matter
how deserving and sinful you are, if he's picked you out,
you will receive mercy. And his love is here called Great
love, great love. For the great love in verse four.
Great love wherewith he loves. What is a great love? Well, it's
God's love. It's unconditional love. And
therefore it's effectual to the salvation of whoever is loved. That has to be the case. Even in our paltry love. If one
of our children is in danger, we'll give our life for them.
Come on, man. It means I read the other day
about a man down at the coast whose daughter was in a riptide
and she was failing. She didn't know how to swim in
a riptide and she was in bad shape. Her father went out and
saved her, but he died in the process. No one would doubt that
man's love. Would they? And that's human
love, but it's a good example. It's always that case. If God
has loved you or if anybody else loves you, they will do whatever
they can to save your life if your life is in danger. Now,
religion has completely bastardized that idea and ruined the idea
and concept of love. They have love acting like this.
When my baby, my child is drowning, I stand on the shore and say,
I love you and have a wonderful plan for your life. Just come
to me. I love you and have a wonderful plan for life. Won't you make
the first step? That's not love. Love plunges
into the deep. With the great love wherewith
he hath loved us. It's not the 50-50 love of human
beings or the unrequited love of some infatuated, angst-ridden
teenager. It's great love. great love and
will be expressed indeed has been expressed in the salvation
of those whom he loves. Everyone whom God has loved and
that's the language used in scripture. It's always almost always in
the past tense. Everyone whom God has loved he
has loved everlasting and therefore he has drawn them to them everyone
whom God has loved Will be indeed has been and are Saved He has
saved by grace unless we think that somehow
we are worthy our Lord inspired Paul to add another disclaimer
as the cause of his grace even when we were dead in sin with the great love where he
has loved us even when we were a pile of corrupting, rotting
putrefaction in his nostrils, even when the only thing Pitt
could do with us was to dig a hole and toss us in and cover it up
and bury us out of the way, and forget us. Even then, even then,
in fact, precisely then, God raised us up from the dead. That's what it said. for God
who is rich in mercy for his great love were worthy of us
even when we were dead and sins hath quickened us together with
Jesus Christ this too serves as a heavenly disclaimer as to
us being the cause of grace this declares that we rose from the
grave when Christ did quicken together with Christ as you well
know we did not yet exist except in the purpose and the plan of
God This is bookended by a proclamation
that this was accomplished by the grace of God. In a divine
parenthesis, God inserts for our distinctive and necessary
education, by grace, ye are saved. By grace, ye are saved, are. Present tense, active for which
you are in a state of being a state of being graced. These ones who are graced, they
are saved. You are saved by grace. Now this speaks of the accomplished
work of Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree. It does. We were saved when he
rose from the dead and we rose with him. We were saved, yes.
But then there's the experience of salvation that God also covers
in the rest of these verses here, verses 8 and 9. But this is the
fact of salvation. There's no future walk down a
church aisle or decision to be made when you're raised together.
We were raised by God in Christ and we are saved. Not only has
grace raised us with Christ from the dead, it has raised us all
the way to heaven according to all the way to heaven. You say,
well I'm here on earth. Yeah, your feet are, but your
soul ain't. And your life ain't. People talk about the Christian
life. They want to see evidence of the Christian life. You can't
because the Christian life is hid. It's in heaven with God. That's what scripture says. We
are dead and our life is hid with God in Christ where Christ
sits at the right hand of the Father, Colossians chapter 3. this declares in a wondrous thing
that we rose from the grave when Christ did and as you well know
we didn't exist then you're saved and in heavenly
places in Jesus Christ verse six and have raised us up together
how many? all of God's children and made
us to sit together in heavenly places in Jesus Christ Not only has Christ graced, raised
the beggar from the dead, the beggar has been raised from the
dunghill, made to sit among princes. The believer is in Christ now
and where Christ is, the believer is there also. I don't know fully
what that means, but occasionally I have a heavenly thought, I
think. I can't imagine what it's like to sit at the right hand
of the Father, but we do. We sit at the right hand of the
Father in Jesus Christ even now. The believer's not offered this
honor. He's made to sit. That's what it says. He's made
to sit in heavenly places in Jesus Christ. I cannot begin
to fathom the glory of this. I'm like David. That's just too
wonderful for me to think about. I'm not able to conceive it.
I know my imagination runs pretty good. I got a pretty good imagination.
I had an imaginary friend until I was 20 years old. No, not really. I did have an imaginary friend.
I had an imaginary friend when I was about seven. His name was
Mikey. He went everywhere with me. I have a good imagination.
Sometimes I try to imagine the glories of heaven. I know my
brother Rupert Reibenbach is now sitting there and he sees
it first hand rejoicing in Jesus Christ. But he's always been
there since Christ rose from the dead. he's been made to sit
in heavenly places on earth and in heavenly places at the same
time smacks of the space-time continuum that Einstein tried
to figure out and couldn't, but we got it, we got it. It's right
here in this book, right here before us. We're on earth and
in heaven at the same time. God is the cause of grace and
bless his holy name. He even declares the reason why
he's bestowed grace upon us. Verse seven, it says that in
the ages to come, all the ages that are upon the earth and even
eternal ages if such a thing exists that in the ages to come
he might show the exceeding riches of his grace. How is he going
to do that? By showing the exceeding unworthiness of those who receive
it. That's the only way the exceeding
riches of his grace can be glorified and honored and shown is to show
it on the basis of the invaluability of the subjects that received
the grace. All grace to Him. All glory to
Him for grace. Showed us grace to eternally
reveal that our salvation is by grace because by grace we
are saved. When all is said and done, saved by grace will be
the theme of glory. When He speaks of Zerubbabel
building the temple of God and finishing the temple of God,
laying the last headstone, it says grace, grace unto it in
Zechariah chapter 4. Grace, grace, grace! will be
the song of heaven. For by grace are you saved through
faith. Through faith, this is the experimental part of salvation.
We are saved according to scripture when Christ rose from the dead
and set us in heavenly places, you are saved. But it also says
you are saved for by grace, you are saved through faith. This
is the experiment of salvation, the experience of salvation.
What we have in time. And faith is that wondrous, mysterious
thing that causes great sinners to understand and rest in the
inalterable fact that God alone is the author and finisher of
their salvation, which in the flesh is impossible to believe. Unbelief can never believe that. In your flesh you will never
believe that all of salvation from pole to pole, from Alpha
to Omega, from A to Z, all of it is by the grace of God. That's impossible to believe
in your flesh. You may give mental assent to it, some do, but have
no interest in Jesus Christ. But it's impossible truly to
rest in that fact, apart from being saved by grace that's the
only way you can do it the only way you can rest in a salvation
that is wholly wrought by God that you had nothing to do with
and that you do not contribute in any way from eternity to eternity
the only way you can believe that is God by grace gives you
this thing called faith it's a gift of God Men speak of faith
as if it is their salvation. It's not. When the Lord spoke
of being saved by faith, He spoke of believing that it is God who
has saved you by His grace. That's what faith believes. Faith
is believing what God says and is declared to be the source
of understanding. We understand by faith according
to Hebrews chapter 11. Read all those who by faith understood
that the world was formed, who by faith offered a better sacrifice,
who by faith understood. And again, our Lord makes it
clear that faith is not something that's natural to me. That faith
is not of ourselves, that's what he said. Look at verse nine,
or verse seven, or verse eight rather. For by grace are you
saved through faith, and that not of yourself. Both things
are not of yourself. Grace is not of yourself, and
faith is not of yourself. But faith is not of yourselves.
What does that mean? You can't come up with it. You
can't generate it, you can't make it happen. Being born in
unbelief, you can't suddenly become a believer on your own.
You can't work it up in the flesh. It ain't gonna happen. Now that
doesn't say unbelief doesn't believe stuff. It believes all
the wrong things, but it does believe. But if God has given
you faith, it's by His grace. And that faith believes what
God says. not what men say, not what governments
say, not what the world says, but what God says in this book
right here. If you're a believer, God alone
has made you so. Can you say that in your heart
today? If you're a believer, can you say I'm a believer because
God made me a believer? I didn't have anything to do
with it. Can you honestly in your heart and in your mind by
God's grace say that? Yet another disclaimer is here
declared. Faith is not a work. Not by works. It's not a work. Not a work. What is it? It's
believing God. Really. Narrow it down to what
it is. Reduce all this mess that people
are talking about faith and reduce it down to what it is. It's believing
God. Not part of what God says. not
what fits your agenda, but what God has said. And trust me, if
you believe what God has said, you're not going to agree with
the Word on any level. You just won't. Because this
is what God has said, and that's what faith believes. Are you
saved by grace? Then God has given you faith
to believe His Word, and it's not of works. You didn't work
it up, and you don't do works to accomplish it. Faith is not
a word. It's indeed the absence of word. Look over Romans chapter four. This is the explanation of that
principle sent in the father of the faithful, Abraham. Abraham. Paul is asking a rhetorical question.
He is asking a question so men will be forced to look at the
question and see the answer within. What shall we say then that Abraham,
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, is found? What did
Abraham gain by the power of his flesh? That's the question. What did Abraham gain? We know
Abraham gained some things. Abraham obtained some things,
but they were all given to God, given to him by grace. and he
was given faith to believe God concerning the seed and they
was accounted to him for righteousness for if Abraham were justified
by works he hath whereof to glory if indeed he had something to
do with his salvation if indeed his salvation was by his will
or by his decision If indeed that was the case, then he has
a reason to glory for poor God. And do men glory in their will?
Do men glory in their decision? You better believe they do. You
better believe they do. That's why men preach it all
the blame time. They preach it all the time. Exercise your will. I made my decision to come to
Jesus. Well, what's the big deal there?
It's you. It ain't God. your decision but if you do believe
that you're saved by your will or your decision go ahead and
glory you deserve it God says you have right to glory if that's
how it happened for what sayeth the scripture however here we
go back to that old book again we gotta listen to that this
old book what sayeth the scripture Abraham believed God and it was
accounted to him for righteousness Now to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. If you work for
your salvation, if you made a decision for your salvation, if your salvation
is by your will, then God owes you something. God's indebted to honor your
decision. God's obligated to honor your
will if thou hast had it happen. Not to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned of grace, but of death. But to him that
worketh not, huh? To him that ceases from his labors,
him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. His faith is counted for righteousness. To worketh not. But rather than
work, to achieve a standing before God, he simply believes that
God is the one who justifies him by the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Faith is not a work. And it's
impossible to boast in yourself if your faith is not a work.
That's why it says that not that any man should boast. This removes
any possibility of boasting. Where is boasting then? It is
excluded it says in Romans chapter 3. Even our works. It says in the 10th verse of
this book. Even our works. Will the believer work? Of course
he will. Will he seek to do that which
pleases God? Of course he will. How will he do in that endeavor?
Probably not that great. But he will try. And he will
seek to be a good person. He will seek to be a kind person.
He will seek to be a generous and a philanthropic person. He'll
seek to do all those things. He won't do it well, but he'll
do it. He'll work. But how will he do that? Will
he sit down at the first of the year and make a resolution? Or
some resolution, I'm gonna be kind, I'm gonna be generous,
I'm gonna try to check them off as it goes along. No, that's
not how it works. What are a believer's works?
Living before God. If Christ is in you, it'll leak
out on you, I know that. And if your friend is sick, you're
not gonna stand back and say, well, I hope you feel better.
You'll go see them and pat them on the hand, pat them on the
head and tell you I love them. When they're in need, you won't
say, well I hope the government gives you some money. No, you
won't say that. You'll open up your wallet and
give them some money, won't you? Well, when you do that, will
it be because you're keeping points with God? You're making
points with God, or will you do it because you love them?