What must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved? Notice how even the words that I emphasize in asking the question show us that there are many nuances that we need to consider and many angles that we need to look at as we begin to answer such an important and urgent question as this. There is no greater question. There is no more important or urgent question that you can ask in this question, what must I do to be saved? It's a question that you and I must have the right answer to. And not only us, but our children after us. We must have the right answer. We must give our children the right answer to this question. Not just any answer, but the right answer. We need an answer that is not the product of human scholarship or philosophical or intellectual speculation. A merely human answer to this question will not suffice, nor is it a question that science can answer. I noticed recently quite a bit of attention, maybe you saw this, quite a bit of attention given to a study involving brain scans of people who were actually in the process of dying. One of the most intriguing parts of that study was that there seemed to be quite a bit of activity in the part of the brain that regulates memory at the moment of and even just after death. And so that's led some scientists to speculate that there may be some truth to the old idea that our lives flash before us. in the moment of death. Well, whatever we do with that data or the interpretation of that data, it still doesn't provide us with an answer to the question, what must I do to be saved? Whatever we think about a study like that. I noticed also this week that a Russian state television host gave a very convenient answer to the question. Apparently all one has to do to be saved is be Russian. Very convenient answer if you're in the business of disseminating war propaganda, but not an answer that will satisfy the human soul. The answer that you and I need is an answer that comes from the word of God. Only God can tell us what salvation is, why we need it, and how it is to be obtained. There is an answer to the question. It's an answer that does truly satisfy the human soul. It's an answer that we would not come up with in a thousand years of study or research or scientific studies or rational contemplation. It's an answer that comes by revelation alone, by scripture alone. And it is the answer that we have here in Ephesians 2, verses 8 to 10. The answer is simply this. Salvation has nothing to do with anything that you or I do to make ourselves acceptable to God, but entirely about what God has done through Jesus Christ, His Son, to make us acceptable in Him. Nothing to do with us or anything that we do entirely and everything to do with what Jesus has done to make us acceptable in Himself. That's the teaching of our text this evening. And so we'll consider that in three points. First, salvation is a free gift from God alone. Second, salvation is received by faith alone. Third, salvation is for the glory of God alone. Let's look first at our first point. Salvation is a free gift from God alone. The first thing we want to see tonight from this passage is our great need for grace, our great need for grace. But if I were to ask you the question, what is grace, how would you answer that question? What is grace? What is grace? The word itself is really not all that controversial. Both Roman Catholics and Reformed Christians would agree that we need grace. Sometimes Roman Catholics are falsely accused of teaching that salvation is by works and not by grace. That's actually not true. It's really quite unfair. Rome has always taught the need for grace. During the time of the Reformation, the controversy was not between those who believed that salvation was by grace and those who believed that salvation was by human works apart from grace. That's not what the controversy was, not at all. The controversy was about the one word, alone, alone. You see, Protestants believe and believed that salvation is by grace alone. So with that one single word that the Protestant Reformers were saying something that Roman Catholicism has never ever been willing to say, even though it's the plain irrefutable teaching of the Word of God, what we have here in this passage tonight. Because what the Bible says, What we have here in this passage is that our salvation is entirely the work of God, that it's based entirely on the death of Christ for us at the cross, and that we contribute nothing at all, absolutely nothing whatsoever to that work. That's grace. It's this understanding of the grace of God that enables us to truly appreciate the wonder of what it means to be in Christ. Not only that, it helps us to have a God-oriented view of the whole Christian life. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, for one thing, it helps us to have a right understanding of the church, a right understanding of the church. What is the church? The church is not fundamentally a community of people who have responded to the grace of God in Jesus Christ. That's part of what it is. It is that, but it's not fundamentally that. The church is what God has done in Jesus Christ. Do you see the difference? The church is what God has done in Jesus Christ. And not only that, the church is what God is doing in Jesus Christ right now. The church as a whole and each member individually is the workmanship of God in history. The church is the visible outworking, the evidence, the manifestation, the fruit of the grace of God as that grace makes itself known in history, as that grace is applied by the Holy Spirit in history to the works, to the hearts and lives of those who are in Christ. This is where the book of Ephesians is taking us. To be in Christ is to be brought into the body of Christ. We'll see that especially when we get to chapters 3 and 4. You see, Paul is moving in that direction. He doesn't just talk about salvation as an individualized matter. We are saved individually. But he brings each one of us individually into the body of Christ, into the church. We're getting there, we'll get there. But here in chapter two, we have three main questions answered for us. First, on whose initiative have you and I been saved? Second, how have we been saved? In other words, by what means have we been saved? And third, Why have we been saved? For what purpose have you and I been saved? First thing we need to understand is that God is the great initiator of our salvation. God is the great initiator. God is the source of it all. God is the one who has begun it all. It's what Paul has been showing us all along. We saw back in chapter one that our salvation is a work of all three persons of the Godhead. The Father chose and predestined us before the foundation of the world to be brought into Christ. The Son gave himself in time to bring us into union with him. And the Spirit has applied and is applying the benefits of Christ's death and resurrection to us by his sealing and sanctifying ministry in our hearts and lives. But what Paul especially wants us to see now is how in all of this, God alone receives the glory. That's the whole point of this passage. How is it that God alone receives all the glory for all of this? You see, the movement of this section, the whole movement of this section is a movement, verses one to 10, from death to life. It's a movement from death to life. We've already seen that by nature you and I were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were without any spiritual life whatsoever, without any impulse or inclination toward God. We were unable to desire God or the things of God, unable to choose God, to love God, to seek God, to walk with God, to live in communion with God, unable to do any of those things by nature. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, which is what makes what we read in verse four so astonishingly wonderful. We saw last time how those two words, but God, are really the whole hinge of the gospel message. Paul's point is that our salvation is entirely by the grace of God, apart from human works, the grace of God alone. That's what he's been getting at. when he says that we've been made alive by the very power of God, which means Paul wants us to understand that by grace you've been saved. He says that twice in this section. In other words, our salvation is entirely a gift from God. It was while we were dead in our sins and trespasses that God made us alive in Christ. It was when we were in our sins that God sent his son to die for us. God loved us with a love that preceded not only our life in Christ but even our very existence in this world, that preceded even the existence of this world. That's what Paul means here in verse 8 when he says that we've been saved by the grace of God. We've done nothing to earn or to deserve it. Even our faith, the faith by which we take hold of Christ, by which we appropriate this salvation for ourselves, even that faith by which we receive and rest upon Christ for our salvation, even our faith is not our own by nature. It is the gift of God. It is the gift of God. So are you thankful for it? Are you thankful for this gift of faith that you've done nothing to deserve or to earn? Are you praying that God would sustain your faith, uphold your faith, grow your faith? That brings us to our second point tonight. Salvation is received by faith alone. What this means is that the grace of God becomes ours experientially by faith, the grace of God becomes ours, yours and mine, experientially by faith. Let me put it this way. You may think you know something about skydiving. Perhaps you do. You've watched skydiving videos on YouTube. You've learned about parachutes, how to pack them, how to use them, what to do if something goes wrong, how to activate your reserve. You may know what altitude you need to be at in order to do particular kinds of jumps. You may have been to one of those skydiving simulators that you find at amusement parks where there's this big fan beneath you and you're kind of being upheld by the air and you're just feeling like you're skydiving. You may have done all of that. You may have done all of that. You may have all of that knowledge and even all of that simulated experience, but it's not the same thing, is it? It's not the same thing. You still haven't stood at the door of a plane at 10,000 or 15,000 feet or however high you want to jump from and convinced yourself to actually jump out. There's a big difference between knowing about skydiving and actually skydiving. The grace of God becomes yours and mine experientially by the gift of faith. And what Paul is saying here in verses 8 to 9 is that God saves us by his own power in such a way that our salvation becomes ours in terms of our own experience through faith. And the Greek word there is dia, dia means through, through faith. It's the means by which God unites us to Christ in our personal experience in such a way that we begin to actively and personally take hold of Christ. We do something at that point. because we're alive now. We begin to do something because we're alive. We begin to actively and personally take hold of Christ and believe on Christ and follow Christ and worship Christ, what we could never have done in our own power and ability. God doesn't save us by giving us a substance called grace, by infusing a substance into us that we might call grace. He saves us by giving us his son. He saves us by uniting us to Christ. He saves us without any help from us, without any contribution from us, without any works that we've done, totally apart from our works, totally apart from our willing, totally apart from our doing. But how does he do that? Doesn't that just make us robots or puppets? or automatons. That's what people will so often say, isn't it? Well, the answer that Paul gives us here in the Word of God is this, we receive the grace of God by faith alone. That's the instrument. Let me illustrate it this way. Children, look at your hand. Look at your hand. Open it. Close it. Did you make your hand? Could you open and close your hand if God had not made you and your hand, and if God were not even this very moment enabling you to use your brain to send tiny electrical signals through your nervous system to move your muscles and open and close your hand? We see the point is, is that in our experience of salvation, faith is the hand. Faith is the hand that God has given us to receive Christ and all that He has done for us. We appropriate Christ and all His benefits by that hand, which we call faith. We take hold of Christ and all of His benefits by faith. Faith is the hand that God has given us to receive Christ and all that He's done for us. Faith, the hand, is the gift of God by which you take hold of, by which you receive all that Christ has accomplished for you in His birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection. But while we actively receive the grace of God by means of the gift of faith, What we need to see here in verse nine is that we shouldn't see faith as a work performed by us that enables us to see our salvation as something that God needed us or our input to make possible. God didn't need us. God didn't need our input. Paul makes it clear when he says that all of this is not of works lest any man should boast. What is boasting? Boasting is a form of carnal pride. making more of ourselves and our own abilities than we should. That's what boasting is. We were dead sinners. God had to make us alive and give us faith in order for us to begin to respond to him and to the gospel. But does that mean that we're like computers? That we're just programmed to do exactly what God wants us to do? Not at all. where men and women, boys and girls, made in God's image, and God delights to be in a living relationship of communion with us. Can a computer respond in thankfulness to its programmer? I submit to you that even if man achieves all of his goals with artificial intelligence, you still will not have a computer capable of responding in the way that a human being is able to respond. A computer has no ability to love or to trust. But when God saved you, he graciously and supernaturally worked faith in your sin-deadened heart and you began to respond to your father's love for you by loving him who first loved you. Now, when Paul says that our salvation is not of works, he's not saying that works play no part at all in your salvation. He's not saying that. Does that surprise you? Bear with me for a moment. Works most certainly do play a role in your salvation. The question is whose works and what kind of works When Paul says we're not saved by works, he's saying we're not saved by works performed by dead sinners, by those incapable of meriting anything at all in the sight of God. The only thing our works merit, because all of our works are sinful and corrupt, the only thing that our works merit is eternal punishment and condemnation in hell. But that doesn't mean that we're not saved by works. We are saved by works. The question is, whose works and what kind of works? Paul tells us we can't be saved by our own works. Dead sinners can only do dead works. We need the works of another. We need a perfect record of perfect works. A perfect record of perfect works. Our own works are worthless and dead. But you see, this is where faith comes in. Faith is the God-given hand which we open up by the grace of God by which we receive the perfect works and the perfect record of the perfect man, Jesus Christ. Faith takes hold of him and his righteousness and receives That alone as our basis and our standing with God. It's a righteousness which was accomplished for us by another. It's a righteousness which is applied to us by another. It's a righteousness that is outside of us, apart from us, separate from us. The Reformers would call it an alien righteousness, an other kind of righteousness. It's a righteousness to which we can add nothing by our own will and by our own works. And the moment that we try, the moment that we try to add anything of our own to Christ's perfect righteousness, do you know what we've done? We've begun to establish our own righteousness before God, which is self-righteousness, a righteousness that is not righteousness, a righteousness that God cannot possibly accept. So, brothers and sisters, we are saved by works. We're saved by the works of Christ alone, which we receive by faith alone. And that's what we really mean when we say that we're saved by grace alone. But that raises an important question, because if it's true that we're saved by grace alone apart from our own works, why should we care about works at all? Why should we care? What does it matter? Well, the answer is here in verse 10, which brings us to our last point. Salvation is for the glory of God alone. What we need to really see is that God graciously ordains both the means and the ends in our salvation. God graciously ordains both the means and the ends in our salvation. I mentioned earlier that God is actually doing something far bigger than us, far bigger than our salvation in the plan of redemption, and that's what we see here at the end of chapter 2. beginning at verse 19. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit. What's the big picture of what God is doing in the world right now? The big picture is that Christ is building His church. The church is the great monument in history to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what the church is. It's a great monument in history to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you want to know what is the evidence that Jesus Christ really died and really rose again, the great evidence of that We learn from the scriptures is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the body of Christ. The glory of God in Christ is visibly on display in every age in the church, sometimes more or less visibly so. Sometimes the church is more or less pure, as our confession tells us. The church is that holy temple that's being built up for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. It's like a big construction project. Maybe you've seen the work that's being done to expand the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, a massive undertaking. Every time I drive on it, I'm astonished at what is being accomplished. It's a massive undertaking. public works project in Virginia history. They said $3 billion. I think they're already over budget. If you drive by, what are you going to see? You're going to see cranes, scaffolding, equipment. You're going to see workers with hard hats and handheld radios. You're going to hear clanging and banging and shouting. And what will all of that tell you? There's still work to be done. The project is still incomplete. Well, that's just a picture, but it helps us to understand something about the Church. Because you might ask, well, why is there so much sin and error and division and discord and disunity in the Church of Jesus Christ? Why? And the answer is it's still under construction. It's still being built. But the foundation has been laid. Christ is the cornerstone. His work of redemption is complete. It's accomplished. There's nothing more that can be added. There's nothing more that can be done. He's risen from the dead. He's reigning at the right hand of God. The Spirit has been poured out. We have the Scriptures. We have the ministry of the apostles and prophets. There are no apostles and prophets today. That foundation has been laid. It's complete in that sense. But yet, there's still something being built up on that foundation. There are living stones that are being gathered, that are being cut out and shaped and placed. The whole body is still growing and being fitted together. The elect are still being called and gathered and sanctified through the preaching of the word and the ministry of the spirit. And so the work in that sense is not yet complete. But do we have any doubt? Do we have any doubt at all that God will complete the work? that he's begun. He's going to complete it. He's promised to complete it. He's moving all history in that direction for that goal. Everything that's happening in the world today, as I say so often, everything that's happening is happening for that purpose, though we don't understand why or how. It's the most important thing that's happening in the world today, though the world would never see it that way. Christ is building His church. He's moving all history in one direction toward one goal. What is that direction? What is that goal? The goal, the direction is the glory of God, the glory of God. It's the revelation of the glory of God and the salvation of his elect through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the glory of God. He's come to reveal the glory of God, and he is still revealing the glory of God. And that glory is being revealed in the building of the church of Jesus Christ, the revelation of the glory of God and the salvation of His elect. He's chosen us before the foundation of the world for His glory. He sent His Son in the fullness of time for His own glory. And the Spirit is at work right now, manifesting His glory in the hearts and lives of His people, fashioning a people to worship Him in the beauty of His own holiness. That's what it means here in verse 10 when it says, we, we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus four good works which God prepared beforehand, that we, once dead sinners, now alive in Christ, that we, of all people, that we should walk in them." That's the whole point of the passage. That's where Paul has been moving us all along. We are God's workmanship. And the word really means his creation, his fashioning, his design, his masterpiece. We are his workmanship. In fact, this is tabernacle language. This is temple language. The same word is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It's used of the construction of the tabernacle and all of the items in it. God is building a holy tabernacle, a holy temple made without hands, made of living stones, individually formed and fashioned and fitted for God's glory. You are, if you are in Jesus Christ, you are one of those living stones. that God has shaped and formed and made for his own glory. But you see, a stone made and shaped and formed by God for his own glory is not just set aside apart from the other stones and left. It might, as we're building something, we might leave it there for a time. But the purpose is to take that stone and to put it in exactly the place that it's designed to be. God is building a temple for His own glory, and you are part of that temple if you are in Christ. The church is a revelation of the glory of God in His Son, Jesus Christ. And so, dear brothers and sisters, if we are the workmanship of God, if we have been recreated in Christ Jesus four good works recreated to reflect something in this world of His beauty and His glory and His holiness, then let me ask you this. Can the workmanship of God fail, ultimately, to be beautiful? Can the workmanship of God fail to be beautiful? Can the workmanship of God fail to glorify its maker? But how do we do that? How do you and I glorify God as the workmanship of God? We do that by reflecting the glory of His holiness. And you see, again, this is where faith comes in. It's not a work that we perform. It's a gift that God has given, and it enables us to take hold of Christ, to take hold of all of His benefits, and to live for Christ. We live for Christ by faith, a faith which God has given to us. And as we do, by the grace of God, we begin, in some measure, a small beginning of the new obedience. We begin to reflect the glory of His holiness. Well, what is holiness? What is holiness? Is holiness simply a matter of doing good things? Is holiness simply a matter of not doing bad things? No. Holiness is something far more profound than that. Holiness is likeness to God. Holiness is being in communion with God. Holiness is living in union with Jesus Christ. Holiness is bearing a family resemblance to our Father in heaven as he works in us, as he works upon us, as he shapes, as he fashions, as he forms, as he pours out his spirit upon us and makes us more and more like Jesus Christ. That holiness comes by grace and through faith in Jesus. It comes as God supernaturally works in us to make us more and more like His Son. He's created us in Christ Jesus for good works. We're not saved by doing good works. We're saved in order that we might glorify our Father in heaven, shining as lights in this world, reflecting the light of Christ, the true light of the world. That's what we're saved for. And so we began by asking the question, what must I do to be saved? The answer is simple. There's absolutely nothing that you or I can do to be saved. Salvation is entirely the work of God for us in Christ and in us by the Spirit from beginning to end. It's His work from beginning to end. Even the work of sanctification, it's not your work. It's the work of God in you, making you more and more like Jesus Christ. We receive Christ and every spiritual blessing in him by the grace of God and through faith alone. It's entirely by grace. All boasting is excluded. And in that way, all the glory goes to God, not only now, But as we read in verse 7, that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. By grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. May God receive all the glory and honor and thanksgiving and praise from His church because we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them by His grace and for His glory. Let us pray. O gracious God and Father, we thank You for this precious passage of Your Word. We thank You, O Lord, that You have taught us in Your Word that salvation is not Anything that is of us, anything that is by us, it is entirely your work and it comes entirely by your grace. We thank you, O Lord, that you have blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ, that you have given us everything necessary for our salvation, that you have given us everything necessary for our sanctification, that you have given us your spirit, that you have made us alive, that you have given us faith, that we are your workmanship. Father, we also know that we do not always manifest that reality as we should. We do pray that you would forgive us and that you would make us more and more like Jesus Christ, that you would make us like Jesus Christ through repentance and faith, that you would make us a people who are showing your glory and your holiness and your majesty as we manifest something that the world knows nothing of, true repentance and true faith as we seek to live in this world in a manner that manifests the fact that we are your people, your children, that our life, the life that we live is not of this world. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand now and sing our hymn of response number