I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 2 with me this morning to continue our exposition of this letter. This morning, we'll be looking at verses 8-10. Ephesians 2, verses 8-10. Let's give ear to God's Word. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. But we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Thus, for the reading of God's word. Let's ask his blessing. Father, we need to hear this word this morning. But we need to be reminded that we are saved by grace alone. May you encourage our hearts and remind us, Lord, of how much we need Christ, that we might be driven to Him all the more this day. In His name we pray, Amen. You know, one of the truths of Scripture that the church has always had to defend is this very thing, that we are saved by grace alone. It used to be that you could say someone was saved by grace, justified by grace, and it meant something. It meant something significant. But today we have to qualify, as happens when error arises, we are forced to qualify, to use more words to say a single point. And today we must be very clear of what the Scriptures teach, because some are suggesting that, yes, you're saved by grace, but also something else or in addition to that. So we must be very clear and therefore we are forced and this is good, but nevertheless, we are forced to qualify our understanding of Scripture and we are forced to say that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. In saying that, we are being as clear as possible and hopefully avoiding the confusion of any who might hear us. But this is something the church has always had to defend here. Paul isn't so much defending it as reminding the Ephesians. Of this great truth, but turned to Galatians, turned to Romans, what is Paul defending, even as we read in chapter three of the book of Romans, Paul is defending this very truth, the salvation is by grace alone. And as we'll see in a few moments, this salvation is also through faith alone. And as I said, it is in Christ alone. So Paul defended it in the Scripture times against the Judaizers. The Reformers defended it against the Catholic Church, trying to add to justification. You're justified, yes, but you're also justified by your works. And so they add something to grace alone. And we must stand up and say no. Controversy is never fun. And any sort of confrontation is extremely uncomfortable. But we must defend the Scriptures. And praise God, the Church always has. Our confession, our catechisms, all the great reformed confessions come out of defending what the church has always believed against error. And so even today, we defend this great truth justified by faith alone or by grace alone. Same idea saved by grace alone. We're defending it today against what's become known as new perspectives or new ways of reading the apostle Paul. The suggestion is the reformers misunderstood what Paul was talking about. They misunderstood when they interpreted the New Testament for us, Romans and Galatians in particular. They misunderstood what Paul was saying when he said justified or saved by faith alone, by grace alone. Paul was really talking about something else. Well, Paul makes very clear for us this morning what he's talking about. And he is indeed talking about what we have defended again and again. The salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. So we must always defend Scripture. We must especially defend that truth of Scripture in regards to our salvation. Because this salvation, i.e., justification, if it is by grace plus something, I don't care what it is, then we have changed the gospel. We have lost the gospel. We are preaching a different gospel, which Paul said to the Galatians in chapter 1, verse 7, is no gospel at all. Because no other gospel can save. No other gospel is good news except that which says we are made right before God by grace alone. Because if I have to add anything to it, if I have to contribute anything at all, then I am still dead in my sins. I am still in bondage to the devil and I am still a child of wrath. As verses one through three of chapter two say. We are still lost, we are the most to be pitied. if we are trusting in grace plus our own contribution of any sort. But praise be to God. Salvation is neither by our achievement, nor is it a reward for anything we do, a reward for any good work that we bring to God, but rather salvation or justification being made right before God is indeed by grace alone. As Paul makes abundantly clear in these verses, let's look at verse eight together. For by grace, you have been saved." You might remember this from verse 5 when Paul was arguing, when he was sharing with us how God makes us alive in Christ. We looked at this Easter morn, verses 4-7, you might remember. And he interrupts his flow of thought in verse 5, saying, by grace, you have been saved. Now, he elaborates on that. You should also remember that while verses 1-3, as I already mentioned, left us dead in our sin and in bondage to the devil and a child of wrath by nature. Verses 4-7 told us again of God's intervention. The divine compassion, you remember, when God actually by the work of Christ makes us alive and raises us up and seats us with Christ in the heavens and we are now a child of God. God remedies our situation that we have by nature by being in sin and apart from God. You should also remember that Paul uses, I pointed this out, uses four words. in verses four to seven to make clear to us that it is God who took the initiative to save. You remember, Paul spoke of God's mercy according to the great love with which he loved us. By grace, you have been saved in order that he might show his kindness to you in Christ Jesus. Those four words stand out as being completely unmerited, completely something that God does to us, to those who do not deserve it. So when we come To verse 8, Paul is simply repeating what he spelled out earlier, that the cause of our salvation is God's free grace alone. Paul says the same thing, as I read for you already, in Romans 3, 23 and 24. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And again, don't be thrown off by a different word there. Paul says justified by His grace. In Ephesians 2.8, before us, it says you've been saved by grace. It's the same thing. He's talking about the same thing, because the only way that sinners can be saved is by being justified or declared just, declared righteous in the sight of God. Being saved is one who is being justified. One who is saved is one who is justified, made right in the sight of God, who judges the hearts of all men. So when God saves us from our state of sin and misery that we are in by nature, when he justifies us in his sight, he does it out of pure, unmerited grace. But look at the next phrase. In verse eight, as our salvation is by grace, So it is through faith. For by grace you have been saved through faith. Paul's not saying now that salvation is on account of faith. He's not saying that our salvation is because of faith. We've already seen. He's already told us clearly. It's on account of grace. It's because of grace that you've been saved. God had mercy on you. God loved you when you were unloving. God is showing His kindness to you. His mercy, His grace to you. So it is by grace, but it is through faith. Neither is he saying, however, that salvation is conditioned upon faith, that it is upon the condition. That would make salvation into a transaction where God provides it if I provide faith. He comes this far, I come so far. Charles Spurgeon spoke of this along the lines of building a bridge. He said, even if God builds ninety nine percent of the bridge and you build one percent of the bridge, it is not salvation by grace alone. It is salvation by grace plus. However little you have contributed, you have contributed something that then becomes necessary to the bridge being built. And how can that be? It's completely contrary to what Paul is saying in Ephesians two and throughout Scripture. When Paul says that salvation is through faith, He's referring to the way in which we receive it. Faith is the instrument of salvation. It's the empty hand. It's the means by which we enjoy our being made alive with Christ, which we've already established is by grace alone. It's the means by which we enjoy what God graciously does to us when we are undeserving by making us alive in Christ. And so we see that faith is essential to salvation. It is essential. There is no salvation outside of faith. Likewise, there's no salvation outside of repentance. They both are essential, but they are not our contribution to salvation. They are not our bringing our part, coming to the table with our cards. No, faith is our wholehearted response to God's making us alive in Christ. It's the effect of salvation. We believe and we put faith in Christ because God has changed us where we now love the one whom we hated. We love Christ. And so we find Romans 3, 25 saying that Christ's saving work was to be received by faith. And then in verse 26, Paul says in Romans 3, 26, that God is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Also, in Galatians 2, 16, Paul says, We know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, however few they might be, however many he might bring. Not a one can justify him. But through faith in Jesus Christ and Romans 10, 9 and 10, we all know this passage. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, one believes and is justified. And with the mouth, one confesses and is saved. Faith in is our God-enabled response, which was made clear in the Heidelberg Catechism question that we answered. What is faith? It is that which the Spirit of God works in me by which I trust in Christ. So it is our God-enabled response to the gracious work of God's Spirit in us. That's what faith is. And therefore, John Calvin described it as that empty hand that reaches out and receives what's already been done for us in Christ. And therefore, when we speak of saving faith, we speak of nothing else but faith in Christ, faith in who He is, faith in what He did. Otherwise, it's not saving faith. It cannot be, because no other faith can save. We can have faith in all sorts of things. World religions are filled with faith. Believe in this. Believe in that. If it's not in Christ, then you're dead in your sins. If it's not in Christ, then it's not saving. However good and strong your faith might be in a set of rules or in a given human prophet of any sort, a given idol, none of it is going to save you. Because saving faith, by definition, is faith in Christ. So at this point, through verse 8, Paul has answered two essential questions. Two very essential questions. Why? Why does a dead, enslaved, and condemned sinner, from verses 1-3, why does such a sinner suddenly repent and believe in Christ for salvation? Why does that happen? Because of the saving grace of God alone. Because God has grace. And He raises that person. He makes that person alive in Christ. Verses 4-7. We've established those points. Second question. How? How does an awakened sinner who is saved by grace alone, how does that awakened sinner receive all that God has for him in Christ? By faith alone. Contributing nothing, simply saying, I receive it. So I would be so bold as to say that at this point that it is impossible, it is impossible to misunderstand what Paul has said in these verses. It's impossible. He's very clearly stating his point. And yet. In order to remove any doubt from us, in order to remove any doubt that salvation is caused by God's grace alone and that salvation is received by faith alone, the apostle adds two balancing negatives, a negative on either side. First one in verse eight, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Notice here that Paul says, this is not your own doing. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Now we might think initially, if we read the passage quickly, we might think initially that Paul is referring to the faith. You've been saved, by grace you have been saved through faith, and this faith is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. That's how we might read it. But that's not what he's saying. That is true. Faith, as I've already established, is a gift. Repentance is a gift. It is taught in Scripture as such. That's not what Paul is saying here. Instead, Paul's referring to salvation by grace as a whole. Which certainly includes the gift of faith. But what Paul is saying is that God's magnificent rescue. Of you and I. Who were dead in sin. enslaved to the enemy and condemned by God's wrath against our sin, that God's magnificent rescue of such people is all due to his grace. It's not something that originates with us, nor is it something that is effected by us. Rather, it is God's free gift. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, this salvation, this being saved by grace alone, this this giving to you new life, all of it. is God's gift and not yours, not something you do. That's the first negative. The second negative, which balances the other side of this is in verse nine. Look what Paul says in verse nine, not a result of work so that no one may boast. Paul needs to say this, you know, because some might agree that Paul with Paul, that salvation is a gift of God. OK, I'll give it to you. Salvation is a gift. But then they would go on to say that it's earned or merited in some way. Yes, it's given by God, but we have to do something. Some would even again say that even our faith is that which is required, that we have to come of our own selves and believe. But verse nine is clear. The salvation is not a reward for good works. It is not a result of works because there's no basis upon which we can merit anything from God. How could we look at verses one to three again? What are we by nature? We are dead in the trespasses of our sins in which we once walked, living according to the course of this world in bondage to Satan. Enslaved by our flesh, enslaved by the world around us, enslaved by the devil himself, and a child of wrath by nature. How can we, if that's who we are by nature, how can we bring anything to God? How can you even muster up faith that is pleasing to God? Would God be pleased with such things that you bring? Proverbs 27 says that the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination. Wait a minute, he brought the same sacrifice I did. The Word says clearly to bring such and such a sacrifice and to pour the blood here and to cut this and that away and do this and that. He did everything right. Why is his sacrifice an abomination? Because his heart is wicked. Because he is not a man of faith. So it's not a matter of what we bring. It's who we are that determines what we bring. And if we are dead and enslaved and condemned, verses 1 to 3, Then we need a salvation that is by grace alone and received through faith alone. Otherwise, we won't ever be saved. We simply never will, because we will always hate God. We will always be angry with his laws that condemn us and expose our sin. We will always hate him. We will always lift our fist at him. We will always turn our back on God. We will never reach a point in and of ourselves to where we wake up one morning and realize that we were wrong and turn around and say, I'm going to try a new way. I'm going to try this God thing. It just might be worth it. It doesn't work that way. There is in us a hatred, and Romans 8 says we cannot submit to God. We will not, because we are at enmity with him. And only Christ can deal with that enmity, which we've already spoken of. It's impossible. Romans 3.20, we already read it. For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. God's law exposes us. It doesn't draw us to God. It exposes us and drives us to Christ. The law is meant to show us our need for Christ. God's law exposes. And therefore, since salvation is by grace alone, Paul says all ground for boasting on our part is removed. All ground for boasting on our part is removed. It is not a result of works so that no one may boast. No one will stand before God in eternity. No one can stand before another brother and sister and say, I brought more faith than you did to the table. I earned what I got. I'm mature in Christ because I work for it. Where is such boasting? Where does that come from? But for the enemy himself. I like what John Stott said about this verse, no boasting. He says, we shall not be able to strut around heaven like peacocks. Heaven will be filled with the exploits of Christ and the praises of God. There will indeed be display in heaven, not self display, however, but rather a display of the incomparable wealth of God's grace, mercy and kindness through Christ Jesus that will be on display. That will be praised and we will exalt such a Christ. We will exalt such a God forever who by grace alone has saved us. What a tremendous blessing this is. What a tremendous blessing this is to know that salvation is by grace alone. What good news is this gospel? It is the best news because we can't earn it. We can't bring anything to God that would please Him in and of ourselves. We must seek from Him His mercy. We must seek His love through Christ. We must seek His grace. We must seek His kindness. We must beg for compassion because we deserve help. We deserve His judgment. We are children of wrath. We're already under wrath. When we're outside of Christ, John 3 says we are already under the wrath of God. We don't want to be there. No one wants to be there. And yet here we are told the tremendous good news. Of what God has done for us, who so desperately needed these things to be done. He has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. Salvation is indeed by grace alone, and it's not on account of our works, not a single one, not even faith, because the faith you have, which you trust with, which you trust in Christ is God given. It's God enabled. You did not muster that up. God gave it. But Paul has one more thing to say for us this morning, one more thing to say about this being saved by grace alone in verse 10. Just because good works are excluded from the cause of our salvation, from the root of our salvation, doesn't mean that they don't matter. Doesn't mean that good works don't have their place. In fact, it doesn't mean the good works aren't necessary. Listen to verse 10. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." We are God's workmanship. The word carries the idea of creation. We are what God has made. And He's made us in Christ Jesus, Paul says. Created in Christ Jesus. We are what God has made new. It brings to mind what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is A new creature. A new creation. He's part of the new creation that comes with Christ. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Though we were dead in our sins, verse 1 said, God has graciously recreated us in Christ Jesus. It takes us back to what we had in verse 4. Being made alive. He's given us new life. He's done something new and transforming in us by His grace. But that's only the half of it. Notice what we were created for. for good works. He prepared these works before the world, before the foundation of the world, in order that we should walk in them. Now, that clarifies something. Clarifies what I hinted at a few moments ago, it clarifies that while works may not be the root of our salvation, if they are, we're still dead in our sin. It clarifies that they are the necessary fruit of our salvation. They are the proof of our salvation because they naturally grow out of our being created anew in Christ Jesus. They grow out of our being made alive in Christ by grace alone. And this change that salvation brings upon us, notice, this change is so radical that while we once walked In our sins and trespasses in verse 1, what do we now walk in in verse 10? These good works that God has prepared for us. Works then. Are our works necessary? Yes, they are. Are they necessary for salvation? No. Christ's works are necessary for salvation. We are saved on account of His righteousness. Well, how then are they necessary, you ask? They are necessary as the fruit and evidence of it. What did Jesus say in Matthew seven? Many will come to me and say, Lord, Lord, did we not depart from me? I never knew you depart from me. I never knew you. The works you did were not fruits of righteousness in your heart were not fruits of a new relationship with Christ. Jesus himself said as well. The one who loves Him, the one who is saved, does the will of my Father. If you love me, Christ said, you will keep my commandments. God is pleased in that as we are attached to the vine, John 15 says, we bring forth good fruit. Those who do not bring forth good fruit are cut off and thrown into the fire. Are works necessary? Yes, we are created unto them. How? As fruits. And how we need to hear this? How we need to hear this. We so often forget that God has called us to walk in good works. We talked about this several Sunday evenings ago, the design of grace and the remedy of grace. Some of you remember. The design of grace is that we walk in good works and we rightly underline we underline the salvations by grace alone and we carry our banner salvations by grace alone, but we tend to forget the salvation is unto good works. And Paul adds that here. He could have stopped at verse 9, but he adds verse 10 as an important and necessary part of understanding what salvation is, what it means to be saved. To be saved is to be changed. To be saved is to be transformed. To be saved is to live differently. Why? Because you're a completely new creature. You're rooted and you're planted in Christ. And that can't help but bring forth fruits. It can't help but bring forth fruits that are in accordance with whom you're planted in, which is Christ. And so we begin to put on Christ and put off self. And we bear what does Paul call it? The fruits of the spirit. They're an optional, they're fruits that grow naturally out of who we are in Christ, and so we need to take this passage seriously this morning and examine ourselves when you take an honest look and see whether we can point in our own lives to what our very confession calls the fruit and evidence of a true and lively faith. And personally, I have little doubt that we'll each find something in our lives that we can point to, but we should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be ashamed of ourselves if we have long claimed to be a Christian and there are but on our tree just a few apples. If we have long claimed to walk with Christ, to know Christ, to understand the means of grace, and to have the means of grace at our disposal, and we still bear small fruit, few fruit. Why? Because we've been changed. And if we've been so radically transformed that we no longer walk in our sins, but we now walk in good works, then where are they? This is the kind of self-examination that we do not like to hear, but it's this very thing that the Bible constantly calls us to. You would be amazed if you went through Scripture and underlined, highlighted every time the Apostle Paul himself calls you as a Christian to examine yourself. Yes, we need to be clear about doctrine. But doctrine produces fruits. Doctrine is life-changing. Theology produces praxology. It changes the way we live. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But that salvation is unto good works. It is. Because God's plan from the beginning was not that we would just be saved from perdition and snatched from the fire. God's plan from the beginning was that we would be holy. You remember the call to Israel. No sooner does He bring them through the Red Sea than He tells them. You are my holy nation. A kingdom of praise, dedicated, consecrated, given to me completely. You remember the call of God in the Old Testament? Be holy because I am holy. Christ did not forget that. Christ adumbrated that. Be perfect as I am perfect. Peter echoes it again. Be holy as I am holy. Hebrews tells us, without holiness, no man will see the Lord. Does that mean that we need to be holy in order to earn the right to see him? No, no, no, no. We stand before God in Christ's righteousness. But if we stand before God in Christ, then we live as Christ. We have holy lives that show who we are. We manifest a changed heart. It changed our lives. If your heart is changed, you can't help but change your life. And say what you may, if we put a point in our lives and we don't find any fruit, then we berate our own lives. That's why the Scripture tells the church again and again and again, examine yourselves, test yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. Do not be deceived by an unbelieving heart, Hebrews 3 tells us. Look to yourself. And is not this the very thing that the Scriptures call us to do? Again, be holy as I am holy. Be a people devoted to good works. Be a people for perfecting holiness in the fear of God. That's the call of Scripture to you and I. It cannot be denied. It cannot be ignored. But isn't this the very thing? Praise God. Isn't this the very thing that the spirit of God has promised to do in us? This passage reminds us. That we are to be fruitful in good works, that we are to be living lives established in holiness, that we are to be walking. In works of righteousness for which God has created us, that's what this passage tells us. And we mustn't try even for a moment to shield ourselves from the impact of that verse. Verse 10. It should convict us. It should convict us. But we must also remember. The sanctification, our being transformed into the image of Christ. Sanctification is God's work. It's God's work. And it's God's promise. We are His workmanship. It is He who has created us in Christ. It is He who has called us to these good works. It is He who has prepared them that we should walk in them. And we must walk in them. But we do so by His grace. We do so by the strength of His Spirit who indwells us. We do so because we can. We live a life of good works because we can. Because we have been created anew, given the spirit who transforms and changes us, given a spirit who motivates us to righteousness, convicts us of sin and creates in us a greater love, a desire and a willingness for good things. Perfect passage to memorize this Philippians 2, 12 and 13. Both calls are there. First, the call to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That's what Ephesians 2.10 is telling us, in a sense. We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. So we ought to work out our salvation with fear and trembling in the sight of God, seeking to live holy because he has called us to be holy. And yet, verse 13 is the comfort that we need this morning. For it is the Spirit who works in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You are called to be holy. But how can you be with such struggles that you face against sin every day, against evil thoughts, evil lust and cravings? How can you be holy? Because the Spirit is at work in you. God promises sanctification. He has committed Himself to purify you and me. And by His Spirit, He's doing it every day through chastisement, through discipline, through sickness, affliction, trials, all sorts of ordeals. God's using these things wisely to shape and form and carve and design us to be like Christ. Look to him. Look to Christ's congregation. Look to Christ to finish what he started in you and at the same time. Give yourself to him hook, line and sinker. Give all that you have, all that you are. Give yourself to the means of grace. Give yourself to the means of grace in order that you might grow, not only in the doing of good works, but in the willing to do them. in the wanting and the desiring to do those things. You might grow in zeal for holiness, zeal for Christ-likeness. There might be created within you a fire that is unquenchable, burning, as Jeremiah says, in your bosom, that can't be put out. You must do right. You must do good works. You must please God in everything. Because God has given you by His Spirit such a desire to do so. He's given you the strength to do so. He gives you His Spirit to lead you and convict you in the right way to walk. Pray for that. Pray for that. If we lack the desire for good works, we must pray that God would stir it in us and we must avail ourselves of the means of grace. We might like that fire again in a new. Looking to God in great strength. For his strength to be ours, his holiness, ours. First Corinthians 130 tells us that Christ has been given to us by God as our sanctification. Let's walk in him and live in him as people changed. Amen.