Open your Bibles this afternoon to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. And I'd like to briefly look at another picture. We saw two this morning. One, not a very pretty picture. Ephesians 2, 1 through 4. And then we saw a very beautiful picture, Ephesians 2, 4 through 7. Not a very pretty picture, Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, describing our deadness and sin. And then the beautiful picture of but God. And now we come to another picture. the wonders of divine grace, Ephesians 2, 8 through 10. I'd like us to think about this in these few moments that we have together and to consider the grace of God. Someone has given grace as an acrostic, G-R-A-C-E, God's riches at Christ's expense. That's good. God's riches at Christ's expense. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you so much for your word. We're thankful that the Lord Jesus Christ came. He lived. He died. He was raised from the dead. He has ascended to the right hand of the Father. And there He lives, making intercession for us. And we know, Lord, that East End Baptist Church is here, has been here for 127 years by your grace. and we give you the praise and the glory. You are the one who has sustained this ministry, and we realize that just as a church building is fragile, that a misdirected flame can cause great damage, so the life of the church is fragile and it is held in your hand by your grace. And we thank you, Lord, that as human life is fragile, and we are held by your grace, so we would understand that spiritual life, eternal life, can be secure for eternity if we will trust in Christ, that it is not fragile, that it is secure, not because of us, but because of your grace. And I pray, Lord, that you will speak to our hearts this afternoon. If there's one here that has not trusted Christ as Savior, they're relying on their works, on their good deeds for salvation. I pray that you would show them that it's by grace. And I pray, Lord, that in the years to come, until Jesus returns, that from this pulpit, the message of salvation by grace plus nothing will be clearly made known week after week, year after year. And make it clear to us today, we ask in Jesus' powerful and saving name, amen. Ephesians 2, verse 8, "'For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. I want you to notice, first of all, this afternoon, as we think of the wonders of divine grace, the source of salvation. How can one have a right relationship with God? How can one be on their way to heaven? How can one have justification in the courtroom of heaven, having God the Father come down with the anvil and say, justified? How can that be? It is by grace. Jonah was in the belly of the whale, and he came to a profound discovery. He said this, salvation is of the Lord. He understood God's grace. It is all by grace. The source of salvation is God's grace. For by grace you have been saved. Grace is that which you and I do not deserve. You did not do one thing to merit grace, and if you did, then it's no longer grace. We are saved by grace alone. Indeed, it's God's riches to us the sinner, but it was a great expense at the expense of the Lord Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. Grace is God's favor to us, the ill-deserving. In the book of Romans, chapter 5, we find this. We see that salvation is not by grace, that God loved us not when we were wonderful and lovely, but while we were sinners. This familiar verse, Romans 5a, But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In verses 6 and 7, he shows this. For when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die, but God." Now here's the picture. A righteous man is a law-abiding citizen. He says, it's not likely, scarcely would someone be moved to die for a law-abiding citizen, for a righteous man. Now perhaps for a good man, someone who's kind to his neighbor, he's just intrinsically good to all the people around him, maybe someone would be moved to die for a good person. But he said, when it comes to God, Here's how He loved us. We weren't righteous or good. We were sinners and Christ died for us. That's how God demonstrated His love while we were still sinners. We were unrighteous and we were bad. And Jesus died for us in that condition. That, my friend, is the grace of God, God's wonderful grace. It's God's supply, His indestructible, inexhaustible supply of love. and mercy to the sinner. From where does that grace come? Notice it says in Ephesians 2.8, for by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. This grace comes from the God of the Bible. It comes from the creator of the world. It comes from the God who stepped out on nothing and said, let there be. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. It came from the one who designed the very plan of salvation. The one who from eternity past had the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. In the book of Acts chapter 2, the apostle Peter relates to the plan of God when he says, To those Jewish listeners, he said, him, talking about Jesus, being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death whom God raised up. You see, by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, God is the one who decided to save sinners. God is the one who planned to send Jesus. to die for you and for me. The psalmist said in Psalm 27, the Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid. It was my privilege to share those verses with my father-in-law the night before he died. Psalm 27, I said, the Lord is my light. He is my salvation. He's the strength of my life. And his dad was lying there in the bed. He said, you can't beat that. That's exactly right. You can't beat that. When it comes to the point of death, what is important is your relationship with God. And how can you have a right relationship with God? It's through God's grace and his sending his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins. It's all of His grace. Ephesians 2.10 says that we should walk in good works which God has prepared beforehand, that we walk in them. It says we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. So I submit to you that the source of salvation is the grace, and that grace comes from God, and God demonstrated it in His Son, in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus, in the book of Luke, is shown to be the shepherd. And what does the shepherd do? In Luke 15, notice these words. Here is the parable that Jesus gave of the lost sheep. I'll not read all the verses, verses 1 through 7, but let me read verses 5 and following. And when he has found it, that is this lost sheep, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. Jesus is the shepherd that goes looking. for that lost sheep. He puts it on his shoulders, he carries it back to safety. He says, rejoice, I have found that which is lost. That, my friend, is grace. You see, the Bible says in the book of Isaiah, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. This may be a surprise, but it's not a huge compliment in many ways that the Bible over and over compares us to sheep. You know why? Because sheep are dumb. And they can get so helpless so easily. And here was the lost sheep of the hundred sheep. Here's one that goes and finds itself astray away from the herd, could easily, away from the flock, could easily die. But the good shepherd goes and searches, looks, finds it. What a tender picture. Puts it on his shoulders. The source of salvation is God's grace. And that grace comes from the God who created everything and demonstrated that grace through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Luke 19 10, Jesus said, the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. It was my privilege in the summer of 1978 to be a summer pastor as a college student in a farming community near Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. And there was a young man who was somewhat challenged academically. And I remember the joy that I had when we drilled and drilled and drilled Luke 1910. And finally, he said it. The son of man has come. to seek and to save that which was lost. But in that process of drilling it, this young man would get the word wrong and he would say, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. I said, no, no, no, not sink, save. Seek and save. He finally got it. But my friend, if we will not receive the Lord Jesus who sought us, we will sink. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. But he that does not believe is condemned already. We sink. So we have the blessed privilege to be found. The Son seeks us. He finds us. But if we refuse his love, we refuse his grace, we will indeed be sunk. the source of salvation, for by grace you have been saved. Now, I want you to think with me in Ephesians 2.8 about the structure of salvation. First of all, it is through faith. For by grace you stand in this condition, a present state resultant upon a past action. You are saved. How is this possible? It says, through faith. This is the positive aspect of the structure of salvation. Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10 and verse 17. Romans 10, 17. And here we see how important faith is. Romans 10, 17. So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. How does God bring about faith? Through the hearing of the Word of God. If you go to witness to someone and they say, put that Bible stuff up, I don't want to hear that. What do you do? Put your Bible up? No! They need to hear the Word of God. It is the agent that God uses to bring about faith, and it is through faith that we are saved. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. In that colossal moment in Philippi, in Acts chapter 16, there was an earthquake and the jailer came in to the Apostle Paul and he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Think of that, the crisis of the moment, what would be said? Paul summarized it so succinctly, he said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Salvation by grace through faith. What is faith? It's taking God at his word. It's believing that what God says will happen will happen. It is believing that what God said he will do He will do. Saving faith is trusting in the Savior as the one who died on the cross, get this, in your place. When Jesus died on the cross, that's where I deserve to be. When Jesus died on the cross, that's where you deserve to be. Jesus took our place. Faith is believing that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again, and he did that in our place. The structure of salvation positively, for by grace are you saved through faith. And I'll notice this, it's faith in God, it is the gift of God. He says it's not of works, it's a gift. If you work for something, then it's not a gift. If your mom or dad sends you out, if you're a young person on your birthday and says, I want you to work for your birthday present, then it's what you deserved. It's a payment for it. It's the gift of God, not at all of our works. Ephesians 2 says, by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It doesn't originate from within you. It is the gift of God. That's the structure of salvation. It's a gift. So today, my friend, if I offer you a free gift, what do you have to do for it to be yours? You just take it. You take it. It's the gift of God and then. Negatively, it is not of yourselves. Verse 8, not of works. And verse 8, not of yourselves. We do not work for this salvation. It is not coming up from within us. There is no God or goddess within us to save us. We cannot save ourselves. The plan of salvation is not of ourselves, as we see in Romans 3 and this very ugly picture that we saw this morning. There is no one seeking after God. It does not originate within us. It is not of ourselves. It is not from within us to be saved. Left to ourselves, we would be lost. It is not of works. Very clear. Not of works. A man challenged me once, or I challenged him once. He was from a particular cult. And in this cult, their scriptures say you're saved by grace after all you can do. Huh. How much would you have to do to please a holy, infinite God? you could never, ever measure up. Praise the Lord. It says it's not of works. Salvation is not of works. Let me just review a few good works. There's nothing wrong with these. In fact, they're good. Church membership, baptism, communion, alms, a good deed for the day, service in church, or whether it's singing, playing the piano, the organ, playing whatever it is, playing the instruments. How about this? Keeping the Ten Commandments. Or this? Keeping the Golden Rule. Or this? Reading the Bible. These are good things to do. You know what? They won't save you. When one of my kids was very small, I visited the doctor's office with her and built a relationship. This man had been very kind to our family. And this doctor said that he kept all the commandments. And I said, well, doctor, what about what you just told me? This man had wronged him in a deal about a truck And he said, I hate that man. I said, Doctor, you know, Jesus said that if we hate, it's like murder. And so I don't think we're doing so well in keeping that commandment. You see, my friend, we can boast ourselves in keeping commandments. We can think that we can just become so good and through that God will save us. No. And that's a horrible burden to be under. If you keep eight of the commandments, will that work? Five out of five? How about nine out of ten? You know what James tells us? If you've broken one law, You've broken all because it's like a chain. And the weak link, it's broken. So we think we keep all the commandments. We can't keep them all in our human flesh. Only one person did that, and that was Jesus. We are not saved by good works. It's not of works. And the ones I listed are only some. There are more that you could add to it. But dear friend, understand this. If today you think that you're going to heaven because you've been a good person, You can't go to heaven by being a good person. You go to heaven by being a redeemed person. And that is through the grace of God. It is not of works. So we have the source of salvation. The source of salvation is the God of the Bible, who demonstrated His grace in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the structure of salvation. It is by faith. It is the gift of God. It is not of ourselves, and it is not of works. And now we have the stride of salvation, and that's verse 10. So if you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have understood, I'm a sinner, but I believe that God loves me. He sent Jesus to die for me. He rose again from the dead. I'm trusting Him fully and completely and only Jesus. I'm only trusting Him, and now you are saved, you have been justified, you've been declared righteous, you're on your way to heaven. What does God want you to do? Notice verse 10. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. It is God's will that we would engage in good works, but it's not to be saved, it's because we are saved. It's not the basis of our salvation, it's the result of our salvation. And so the people of God who profess faith in Jesus Christ should be busy to serve Him, those things that I mentioned, but more than that, sharing the good news of the gospel, giving out the word of God. Listen, God calls us all to make disciples, to be his witnesses. We are to be filled with good works because it says we are his workmanship. I love this word, translated workmanship. Poiema is the Greek word. We get our word poem from it. We are His masterpiece. We are His creation. You are special to the Lord Jesus Christ. He saved you for a purpose. One of the reasons I know that is that the minute we were saved, He didn't take us to heaven. He could have done that. He left us here for a purpose. We are His workmanship. We are His special creation. And it said we have been created in Christ. It's all about Jesus. It's all in Christ for the purpose of good works. Notice what Paul said in the book of Titus. Let me quickly share this in Titus chapter 2. Notice what it says, Titus chapter 2. In verse 11, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works, excited about good works in serving Christ, not in order to be saved, but to show that we are saved and that we belong to the Lord. There's a continual process of these good works. I heard of a man that was in an oxygen tent in a hospital, and someone came to visit him there, and he had his Bible in that oxygen tent. And someone said, what are you doing? He said, I'm cramming for the final exams. Up until the moment that we go to heaven, we're to be people of the book, studying the Word, memorizing the Word, sharing the Word with others. God has a purpose for us. Listen, if you're not involved in good works, and you say, I'm saved, I want to say, why not? Why are you not involved in serving the Lord? Because if you're saved, the Spirit of God is within you, and He will create that desire for you to do something. There's something that you can do. Brother Phil and I were talking this week about how important it is to not minimize one single person in the body. There was a man in the church whose job was sharpening the pencils that were in the pews so the visitors could have something to write with. You say, well, what does that matter? It matters a lot. Think about the job of preparing the elements for communion. It's a little job, is it? No, there's no little job. What if they weren't here? That's a big job. You see, the body of Christ all works together. In the local church, every person in the body is important. Don't minimize your little toe. Every now and then someone will step on it and it will remind you, I'm here, I'm here, don't forget me. In the body of Christ we have hands, we have feet, we have big toes, we have little toes in every single part. is important in the body of Christ. And God's design in the stride of salvation is that we would be engaged in good works in the body, serving together, working together for the glory of God to bring forth God's honor in this day and among the people of the world. So here we have a divine Wonder the wonders of divine grace and salvation for by grace you have been saved through faith. and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. It's not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. God's grace is his active favor, bestowing the greatest gift upon those who have deserved the greatest punishment. One Bible commentator states, yes, his act of favor bestowed on us, and we deserve the greatest punishment. God has a purpose for us. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, He wants you to represent Him to this world. He wants you to be involved in good works. He wants you to be a part of the body and say, Lord, what would you have me to do? If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, my friend, we commend him to you today. We commend his saving grace to you. What must I do to be saved? believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, run to the cross by faith. And there acknowledge that Jesus died in your behalf and he rose again. The Bible said, whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Will you bow with me in prayer? Our Father, we thank you so much for this beautiful picture of salvation, the wonders of divine grace, And dear Father, we praise you for your grace shown to this local church. I pray, dear Father, that you will shower your grace upon all the churches preaching the gospel here. in this whole great metropolis. We pray, Lord, that every church that lives up the name of Christ and is true to the word of God and preaches the gospel, that you will move upon the people there to be light and salt and to make a difference. And, Lord, we give you praise for the encouragement that friends have been to us today. And we ask your blessing, Lord, on East End Baptist Church. We ask, Lord, that you will Bless the light that's shining here that it would continue faithful until Jesus comes back. Lord, it's only by your grace. We cannot take any credit, any glory. We turn the glory to you. We give you the praise. We are grateful. for your goodness to us. Thank you, Lord. And Lord, we humbly beseech that you would, by your Spirit, work in us to make a difference in this community, in this city, this state, and in this nation. Lord, may we carry the baton of truth faithfully forward. In Jesus' strong and mighty and saving name we pray. Amen.