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with that. Well, dear ones, if
you will grab your Bible with me and turn to our scripture
text. This morning, our scripture text
is Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter two, our text
will be verse four and five. Ephesians two, verse four and
five. And as always, let's read verses
one to 10 together, because again, this is one sentence. This is
one thought. This hangs together, as it were. Ephesians chapter two, verse
four and five. The title of this morning's sermon,
By Grace and Grace Alone. By Grace and Grace Alone. Ephesians two, verse four to
five. We'll start our reading up at
verse one. Friends, the word of God says, and you were dead
in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following
the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by
nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God,
being rich in mercy. because of the great love with
which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved,
and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly
places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show
the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in
Christ Jesus. 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. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand,
and we should walk in them. Dear ones, this is the word of
God. Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Father. As we come to your word
this morning, we thank you first for your word. Father, you have
given to us a true lamp to lighten our steps, to lighten the world
around us so that we might see clearly who you are, who we are
and the world in which we live. Father, we pray by your word,
open our eyes this morning to see you in your glory, in your
goodness. in your grace. Father, we pray
that as we meditate and explore the riches of your loving kindness
towards us in Christ, that Father, you would again overwhelm us
with gratitude, with thanksgiving. We pray that by these truths,
you would stir us up to love you more, to serve you more faithfully,
to rejoice in you, Father, deepen our joy in you as we proclaim
the riches of your glory. Because, Father, you save sinners
by your grace alone in Christ Jesus, Father. Receive the glory,
dear Spirit, please bless these words, guide me as I open these
scriptures because, oh God, it is only you who can enable and
equip us to speak, to understand, and to live the truth. Father,
we are wholly dependent upon you. We ask your mercy in Jesus'
name, amen. Amen. Friends, worship God. Worship God who saves sinners
by his sovereign grace alone. Difference in in painting. In the history of art, there
was the Hudson River School. And this school of artists was
based in New York State. And they were commissioned to
paint landscapes of the American West. And as the West was being
explored, as As people were trying to encourage people to move out
to the West, this Hudson River School, these guys would paint
beautiful pictures, beautiful vistas of the American West. Guys like Thomas Cole, they would
paint these beautiful landscapes. And what distinguished the Hudson
River School was their use of light. The light, often of the sun,
would be used by the artist to guide the viewing, to direct
the attention of the looker to the most central elements. They
were renowned for using the sun to illumine and to spotlight,
as it were, the key aspects of the landscape. But in order to
do this, they would also take dark clouds and shadows and they
would use these dark clouds to accent, to contrast the light. And so this darkness was used
to bring further attention to the light and what the light
was illuminating. So dear friends, it is the darkness
of our natural state as rebels against God, that should showcase
all the more brilliantly the light of God's grace to save
us in His Son. And friends, today we will trace
those beams of God's mercy as they lead us to see His grace. And so friends, here in verse
four, we'll look at verse four and five together. I want us
to take the whole of verse four for our first look. Verse four
says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with
which he loved us. All right, now friends, remember,
as we're taking a verse, we have to remember the context. This
is the most important principle of biblical interpretation, context. You've heard it said in real
estate, location, location, location. What's the most important thing
in real estate? Location. The most important
principle in biblical interpretation is context. And so what that
means is we look what's behind and we look what is ahead to
understand the verse that we're seeing here, okay? So what has
come before? Well, verses one to three, Paul
has been painting for the Ephesians their past, their spiritual biography,
as it were, their history as rebels against God. And as we've
seen, this is not just the natural state of the people, the church
at Ephesus, but this is our natural state. So what Paul is detailing
in verses 1 to 3 is our spiritual biography, our past. If we are indeed in Christ, this
is who we were But for some of us today, it may be where we
still are. And what were those things that
Paul said about us? Well, remember, Paul said that
we are all by nature in a state of spiritual death. We are alive
biologically, but we are dead spiritually. And we remember
that Paul made that point so emphatically because he wanted
us to understand that we are completely hostile to God, completely
unable to contribute or bring about our own redemption. In
our spiritual deadness, we must be made alive by the power of
God in order to come to Christ. And so we saw that by nature
we are spiritually dead. Of this spiritual death, we produce
works of sin and evil. So out of our sinful nature,
come sinful thoughts, sinful words, and sinful deeds. That is, this original sin, this
spiritual death, this fallen human nature, that is the spring,
that polluted fountain from which all our iniquity flows, all of
our trespasses, all of our evil and wickedness. And so we talked
about how sin's not just on the outside, it's inside. And it's nothing that we can
scrub clean with good behavior. It's nothing that we can eradicate
by the right kind of training or discipline. It is our nature. It's who we are. And then we
saw the effects of this, like ripples going out as the polluted
spring of sin, of our sin nature began to flow and overflow. Paul
began to explain to us that We were slaves to sin. We were slaves
to the devil because our desire was to do his bidding. We were
slaves to our own passions, our own wicked cravings and lusts
and desires. These were producing in us all
manner of ungodliness. And so what Paul has been doing
in these first three verses is he has been driving home how
helpless how hopeless, how hostile we are to God, so that we understand,
against this black backdrop of our sin, the brilliant radiance
of the grace of God, that He would reach down and save sinners
as we are. Friends, again, you will never
understand grace. You will never understand the
gravity of the gospel. You will never understand the
rich and redeeming love which the Father has for you apart
from understanding how dead in sin and trespasses you once were. And so in verse four, we get
the prescription. Verse one to three was the diagnosis.
He was diagnosing our sin and rebellion and helplessness. Now
in verse four, he gives us the Prescription, the treatment.
What has God done? Well, verse four, look again.
But God. But God. Pause there for a moment.
Now that's a conjunction, right? It's joining two statements together. And we see here a contrast where
we are living in sin and rebellion and hostility to God. God is
doing Something else. God is the one who must take
the initiative. He must initiate our salvation. But God, being rich in mercy. So God takes the initiative to
save. Out of what? Paul explains to us what motivates
God to save sinners. What is it that drives God? What reasons does God have for
saving such wretched rebels and sinners as we are? It's not in
us, friends. It's in Him. And Paul wants us
to get the point that it is God of His own mercy alone. which drives him to save. This
is the motivation. But God, being rich in mercy. So God graciously initiates our
salvation. Give him thanks for that. You
were not seeking for God. He sought for you, O Christian. And this was of his mercy. his merciful character. Notice again how Paul says that.
He says he is rich in love. That means that God is wealthy
in loving kindness. He is abundant, impatient, long-suffering
with sinners. Friends, this is part of the
character of God. This is part of who he is. This
is part of how he relates with fallen human creatures as we
are. He is rich in mercy. Being rich in mercy. Now friends,
let's think a moment about mercy. Mercy is by definition undeserved. When somebody goes before the
court and they are asking for mercy. They're asking not for
something that's deserved for them, not that they earn. They're asking for a reduction
of their sentence. They're asking that the court,
the jury, would give clemency. So mercy is by definition undeserved,
friends. Friends, I want you to remember
this. Sometimes we think that God owes us mercy, that God owes
us forgiveness, that God is obligated to forgive. We even have an expression
in our own, in our own talking, to err is human and what? To forgive is divine. And we just think, well, I'm
a sinner, I sin, but God is God, so He forgives. But friends,
God is never obligated to forgive. God is never obligated to give
mercy. Friends, if God condemned every
single one of us to the eternal hell we deserve for our sin,
all we could say is God is just. God is holy. God is good. And friends, I want you to understand
this, that God's mercy at this very moment attends every aspect
of our being. It is the mercy of God, the goodness
of God by which we draw another breath. It is the richness, the
goodness of God by which we enjoy fellowship with one another.
Friends, it is the mercy of God that we are allowed to breathe
and to live another day. Friends, God's forbearance and
mercy means that even rebel sinners as we are, who are deserving
of hell, he postpones. That judgment hasn't
come yet. If you're sitting in this room
today and you are estranged from God and you are not reconciled
to him by faith in Christ, it is by the mercy of God that you
are not in this moment sent to eternal condemnation. Friends,
Mercy is undeserved. It is not obligated. And friends,
if you ever think that God owes anybody the right or the possibility
of redemption or salvation, you're not talking about mercy. You're
talking about justice. Mercy is never obligatory. Mercy is the free choice of the
one who chooses to be merciful. So friends, remember, your redemption
was initiated by a gracious God. He was seeking for sinners as
we are. And this came not of any good
he saw in us, not of any deed he saw that we would do, but
it was out of his merciful character. Exodus 34. Verse five to six,
remember this is the great passage where God proclaims his name. And I want you to think about
the richness of God's goodness. Exodus 34, beginning at verse
five, the Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed, the Lord,
the Lord, a God merciful. full of mercy and gracious, slow
to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping
steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, but will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children
to the third and the fourth generation. Friends, God's holy character
is the root of redemption. Out of his own merciful heart
flows streams of kindness, love, and goodness. And now again,
friends, we see how God is good and merciful to all humanity.
We talked about that, how God gives good gifts. Scriptures
say he causes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust. We
call this in theology, God's love of benevolence and beneficence. Very briefly, it means God is
benevolent. He is good-willing towards the
world that he's made. When God looks upon a fallen
human race, he wills good for us. He wills us and his inclination
towards us is one of good, one of mercy, one of longsuffering
and forbearance. And more than that, God's love
is beneficence. It is good doing. He does good
in all these innumerable blessings which he showers. But I want
you to see here, friends, in verse four, that in the context,
Paul is speaking not of his mercy in general, his universal mercy
to humanity. He's talking about his redeeming
mercy. and a saving love that motivates
God. It is a redeeming mercy that
is intended by God to save all those whom He bestows it upon. So friends, this mercy is a mercy
of redemption. It's effectual. God is rich in
mercy. He is, as we see in verse four,
because of the great love with which He loved us. Paul gives
another explanation, another motivation by which the Father
seeks to save and redeem sinners as we are, that he is great,
he has a great love. Now again, that love, Paul uses
the word agape, and oftentimes when Paul uses that, he's speaking
of the most faithful, deep, steadfast love, the equivalent here is
that of the Old Testament of steadfast love, that hesed. What
God, how God loves is He loves with covenant fidelity. Now friends, you and I know,
we are exposed to relationships all the time where we have friends
who love us for a year, two years, but 10 years down the line, they
don't want anything more to do with us. We even know of relationships,
husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, where that love wanes and withers
and fades away. And friends, we know even in
the best relationships we have now, with folks we truly love
and they love us, sometimes that love is mixed. Sometimes I don't
love my wife the way that she ought to be loved. Because friends,
remember the very model for love is God's own steadfast love,
the love which He loves. The Father loves His Son perfectly,
steadfastly, unchanging, unceasing, loyally. That is the kind of
love that God sets upon his people. He sets upon you, dear Christian,
loyal love, faithful love, unchanging love, a love that is effectual
and is able to bring about your full and perfect redemption.
And that love never withers or changes It never suffers mutation
because it is God's own, holy, faithful love. Because of this
great love. Friends, again, this is not little
love. This is not medium love. It is
great love, exceedingly powerful, strong, and effectual love. God graciously initiates our
salvation out of his merciful character and of his own redeeming
love. And again, friends, God is not
obligated to set his love on any. And he's choosing to love
the unlovely. He's choosing to love the rebel.
He's choosing to love the sinner. He's choosing to love those who
are hostile to him. Because this great love is set
on us. It is a sovereign, willing love. So friends, again, You weren't
seeking for God. I was not seeking for God. None
were seeking for God. But it's God who sought his people. It's God who initiates our redemption. And if he initiates it, friends,
then that means it's his. He governs, he oversees, he is
effectual to bring about all his saving purposes. So what
can we say? We give thanks. We give thanks
to God. We praise him for his mercy to
save. So verse five, even when we were
dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Again, Paul looks at verse five,
this first clause, even when we were dead in our trespasses. Paul reminds us again, who were
we? Who are we all by nature? We
are dead. spiritually dead. Now again,
what does this deadness mean? Well friends, it means that we
are a corpse. It means that we are not mostly
dead, not a little bit alive, not merely dead, not just sick. It means we are completely without
any ability to contribute to or incline to our own salvation.
Friends, again, it's not as though we are the drowning man falling
under the waves and all we need to do is grab hold of the gospel
as it's thrown to us like a light. like a lifesaver. Friends, the
Bible says it's even dire, it's even more urgent because we are
down at the bottom of the sea, a corpse, unable to do anything. And God must come and give life. God must regenerate. God must
make us new. So even when we were dead in
our trespasses, Friends, again, God didn't choose to love the
lovely. Friends, we are not loved because
we are lovely. We are lovely because we are
loved. Friends, because you are loved
by God in Christ, you are lovely to him. beautiful, spotless,
blameless, pure, and acceptable. And friends, this is not who
we were by nature. We were spiritually dead, and
of that spiritual death, there was a hostile heart. Friends,
remember, the sin that's on the outside has its root on the inside. What comes out of the mouth is
the produce of the heart. Remember, Jesus is talking with
the Pharisees, and he says, Pharisees, I know that you are scrupulous
when it comes to law keeping. He said, Jesus says, I know that
you are so meticulous in observing the commandments of God that
you'll even go beyond that and you'll try to wash cups and dishes
and dining couches. But Jesus says, you guys don't
get it. It's not what's on the outside coming into a man that
defiles him, it's what comes out of a man that defiles him.
because it's what comes out of the heart. Murder, sexual immorality,
theft, all manner of evil, that is what makes a person unclean. So friends, sin's root is within,
it comes out of the mouth, the hands, and the feet. So guys,
friends, God is not loving the beautiful. You know, it's, It's
easy to love friends, people that are lovable. We know this,
don't we? We know the kids in children's
ministry who are just very kind, very big-eyed, warm-hearted. Every time they see us, they
have a smile on their face, and they're just easy to love. We
know kids that are easy to love, but we also know kids that aren't
easy to love. We know children that are difficult,
and defined. We know, children, that it seems
like every time we're in an interaction with them, it turns into argument,
it turns into fighting, it turns into all manner of unruly behavior. And friends, in the flesh, it's
so easy to love the lovely. It's so much harder to love those
who are difficult. Now friends, the Bible says that
we, we're like those unlovely children. We're like an unruly
inmate, constrained in the straitjacket, continually devising ways to
harm our God. Friends, God is loving his enemies,
his enemies who do nothing but purpose plot and perpetuate evil
against him. Friends, again, Paul wants us
to see what grace What mercy He has shown us. Because He was
loving us when we were living in open defiance to Him. Again,
trespasses, even when we're dead in our trespasses, what that
means is that spiritual death produced trespasses. And we know
trespassing, we know it means to go where God has forbidden
us to go. That sin by nature, is defiance
and a rejection of God's boundary setting. We say, God, you don't
have the right to tell me where I ought to go and how I ought
to live my life. You don't have the right to govern
me. I, my own autonomous self, have the right to define for
myself what is good, right, true, and acceptable. Friends, sin
by nature is a quest for autonomy. We want to throw off the yoke
of God live life on our own terms. And so that's why the Bible paints
it and says trespasses. Because friends, we so often
sugarcoat our sin. We'll call it a mistake. We'll
call it an accident. We're very good at rationalizing
and mitigating our guilt. And so what the Bible does is
the Bible shows us in living color what our sin truly looks
like before God. It's trespassing, it's jumping
outside the boundaries that he has set. It is a direct defiance
of his rule, of his goodness, of his wisdom, of his glory. So friends, do you recognize
that? This morning, do you recognize who you are by nature? Do you recognize how lost you
were, how rebellious you were? And do you also recognize how
God took the initiative to save you? Again, friends, if we understand
how God is sovereign in his salvation of sinners, that ought to revolutionize
the way we think of salvation. And God sought us, that God chose
to love us. So friends, Humble yourself before
God, who chooses to save rebels as we are, who are spiritually
dead, hostile from the heart, and living in open defiance to
God's rule. Second part of verse five, made
us alive together with Christ. So here we are by nature, spiritually
dead in our trespasses. We have no moral ability to respond
to the gospel. Every time the gospel is proclaimed
to us, we reject it because we have nothing but hostility to
God. What must God do? God must take the initiative.
He must regenerate. And that's what Paul means here.
He makes us alive by his resurrecting power. He makes us alive together
with Christ. Now let's think about that for
a moment. Christ was raised from the dead 2,000 years ago. So
what does Paul mean here? Well, he means that when he comes
and gives the new birth, he gives new life. And this new life is
the life of Christ, is the resurrecting power of Jesus by which we are
raised from the dead spiritually. And we have a hope of a physical
resurrection. bodily resurrection to come,
made us alive together with Christ. This is one whole word here,
alive together with, this is, the idea is God is raising us
with Christ, we're sharing in Christ's resurrection, sharing
in his blessing, sharing in his honor, sharing in his power. So friends, again, When we talk
about how God saves, we talk about the new birth. And I've
spoken to you many times that the new birth precedes logically
and produces effectually faith. That in the Scriptures, it's
not you believe and are born again, rather you are born again
and therefore believe. The new birth is the cause which
produces the effect of faith. The new birth is God's sovereign
work. He does it by himself alone. We are passive. We are dead corpses
who must be raised from the dead. But when we are made alive in
Christ Jesus, that instant we are born again, faith is birthed
in the soul. New affections are given to us
by God. And the Christ we once rejected
is the Christ we now embrace. And so in the same instant we
are born again, we come by faith to Christ and we are joined to
him. through the instrument of faith
by the power and ministry of God the Holy Spirit. So this
union with Christ happens instantly. We are born again and then we
are joined to Christ. And we share in all the benefits
of Jesus. We share in his righteousness.
We share in the blessing of his cross where our guilt is pardoned
and his righteousness accrues to our account. And on that basis,
God counts us to be just, so he made us alive. Friends, a
miracle happened when you believed. A miracle happened when you came
to Christ. God brought life from the dead. God raised you unto new life
in Christ. You were born again unto faith. You were made alive with Him.
And this life was not just a one-time deal. It wasn't just you got
life when you were born again and came to Christ, and now you
could lose that life or forfeit that life. No, that life is yours
forever, because again, it's the life of Jesus. It's His own
eternal life. Friends, let me ask you something.
Can Christ die? Can Christ ever be dethroned?
Can Christ ever lose His station? No, friends, that same life which
is Christ, the Father has given to you who are in Christ. Friends, what joy that is. You
have been made alive together with Christ. You share now in
His eternal blessedness. You share now and forever in
His eternal fellowship and acceptance before God. Oh yes, dear friend,
on our own performance by who we are. We do remain sinners,
but we are now by station, by identity, by the new birth, we
are saints. We are reckoned to be holy in
Christ. So friends, never forget that.
Never forget that. Friends, the gospel lets us understand
ourselves in two ways. And remember, Luther got to the
very nub of this when he said, the Christian is simul justus
et peccator, which means we are at the same time both sinner
and saint. Dear friend, if you are in Christ,
you are still a sinner. We still sin against God. Never
believe that you will ever be perfected in this life. You are
pursuing perfection. You are growing in grace. It
is progressive. But you and I will never arrive
at perfection in this life. That is for glory to come. You
and I are by nature sinners. We still sin. There still comes
out of this fallen humanness sin. That's why we lie, cheat,
steal. That's why we still sin against God. But this sinful
nature, we are sinners, but we are also saints, righteous, counted
righteous before God. That's your status, friends.
God has, through union with Christ, by faith in his name, he has
made you alive, and you now share in the life of God, the life
of Christ. And so you stand forever as acceptable
before the Father as Jesus is acceptable before the Father.
You're clothed in Christ's righteousness. Friends, God cannot love you
any more or any less than he does right at this very moment. If you are in Christ, you are
loved with the same steadfast, holy affection that the Father
has set upon his own beloved Son. So, friends, what that means
is your identity in Christ should make you quick to repent of sin. When the Holy Spirit brings sin
to mind, your identity as a child of the Father, as redeemed in
Christ, as bought by His blood, should spur you on to quick repentance
and faith and trust in His Perfect redemption. And it should also,
friends, spur you on to live more and more for the glory of
God. You are alive with Christ. You're
no longer held prisoner by your sinful passions. You've been
liberated. You have life, you have freedom
in and under Christ. Friends, all of the blessing
of your redemption is in Jesus. He is the exclusive fountain.
Never forget this. There is no redeeming grace of
God which comes outside of Christ. It is in Christ that we are saved. And that's why, friends, it's
by grace. So friends, trust the Father
who saves us in Christ alone by uniting us to Christ, raising
us with Christ, and granting us to share in Christ's eternal
life. And then here in verse five,
at the very end, it's almost like a postscript, but really
what Paul is doing here is he's helping us draw the lines and
connect the dots. Friends, this is what teachers
do all the time. They try to distill it down and
leave you with the, with the key takeaway point. So this is
what Paul says we need to take away from this. By grace, you
have been saved. That's what you need to know.
By grace, that's, it means through grace, what is grace? Free and
unmerited favor. God doing for man what man cannot
do for himself. And again, friends, your life
is attended by grace. There's nothing that you have
that you did not first receive. God, by His grace, sustains our
entire lives. But this grace, this redeeming
grace, is God's setting His love, His
redeeming love upon His people. By grace, you Ephesians, by grace,
you Christian, by grace, you disciple of the Lord Jesus here
at First Baptist Church, Jenny Lynn, have been saved. I want
you to notice that, have been saved. That's in the past tense.
The scriptures will speak of salvation as a past event. You have been saved as a present.
You are being saved as an ongoing thing and also as a future. You will be saved. And what Paul
means here is that you have been saved. You have been delivered. This was something that God accomplished
for you in the past that has ongoing effects in the future. But dear friends, let me ask
the question. What does Paul mean? From what have we been
saved? Friends, there's a lot of, there's
a lot of things that go around where people really have different
ideas about what man's true danger or peril is. But the Bible makes
very clear that the most dire danger that man faces is a holy
God. The most present peril for you,
oh man, still hard of heart and rebellious against God, is that
there is a God who judges. There is a God who will call
us to account for all the works that we have done, for every
word we have said, for every thought that we have thought,
and for every deed that we have done. Friends, the most dire
danger that a sinner faces is not prison time, It's not cancer,
it's not illness, it's not tragedy or poverty. The greatest peril
that man, the sinner, faces is a holy God before whom he must
give an account. And that is the danger from which
we must be delivered. And friends, only the God who
judges the world in righteousness has the power to save us from
himself. Friends, God saves sinners from
himself. He saves sinners from his own
righteous judgment. And he does so not by negotiating
his righteousness, but by satisfying his law's demands. Friends, when
God acts out of this merciful character, there's still judgment. He's judging Christ in your place.
He's punishing Christ for your iniquities. He's charging to
Christ's account your crimes, your guilt, your treason, and
Christ upon the cross forever endured the wrath of hell that
we deserve. Friends, that mercy came at a
cost. That grace had a price tag. God would satisfy His justice. He would remain righteous. And
recall, friends, that at the garden, here Jesus knows the
hour of his passion is at hand, and Jesus is terrified in his
humanity. He is so upset and so terrified
of what is to come on the cross, that the cup of the Father's
wrath would be poured out for him, that he would drink that
judgment to the very last drop. And you recall that this consternation
of Christ was so intense that there in Gethsemane as he prayed,
Father, all things are possible for you. If it be your will,
let this cup pass from me, but if it not be your will that it
pass from me, unless I drink it, not my will, but yours. As he prayed, and he prayed,
And he prayed, he sweat drops of blood from the sheer intensity
of his praying. Friends, what terrified Christ
was not the crown of thorns, it was not the beatings and scourges
that he would endure from the Romans or from the Jewish Sanhedrin,
though those were painful and those were necessary in order
to fulfill the Scriptures. The Scriptures say that the Messiah
would be rejected by his people and that he would be crucified
by the Gentiles. All of this was necessary to
fulfill the promises and prophecies that God has made. But what was
the most terrifying moment for Christ was when on the cross,
he who knew no sin became sin for us. Friends, on the cross,
Jesus bore our sins. He bore our guilt, He drank to
the last drop that cup of wrath for us so that we could be saved,
that we would be delivered, that we would be rescued from the
wrath to come, and more than being pardoned, we would be reconciled
to God. We would now in Christ begin
to enjoy the life, the love, the joy of fellowship with Him
for which God created us. So friends, When you think of
your redemption story, remember, and perhaps many of you can do
this, I know in my own life, as best I can tell, when I was
about nine or 10, the Lord awakened me to understand He was holy
and I was sinful and I needed a Savior and Jesus alone saves
and that He was my King and I needed to repent and believe upon Him.
And so I, at that moment, the rudiments of the gospel came
home to me. But friends, even if you can
remember that moment when you called out to God for mercy,
what the Bible is saying is that what was behind that of your
coming to Christ was the sovereign grace and mercy of God. It was God who made you alive
and brought you savingly to the Lord Jesus because He set His
love upon you. And he said, I would have her,
I would have him. I have chosen to be merciful
to them. Friends, what can we say in light
of that? There is no room for boasting. This should cause us
to worship, to praise, to love and to adore. It should also
equip us and prepare us to serve for God's glory because if God
saves by His grace alone, That means our children and grandchildren
whom we love, this is how they will be saved, by the grace of
God alone. And so we preach the gospel to
them because the gospel, the word of the scriptures is the
means by which God will bring faith. We share the gospel with
them, we model life and godliness, but then we get on our knees
and pray that God would be gracious to them. that he would do what
only he can do and save. That's what we do when we go
out into our community and we serve and we share the gospel.
We're praying, God, be gracious to them. God, have mercy upon
them because it's God who saves by his grace alone. So friends,
let us pray. Father, we thank you for your
word and we thank you that you are the God who saves. We pray,
Lord, teach us to appreciate your grace, to relish, your love
to rejoice in your faithfulness. Father, you save sinners in Jesus
Christ. Lord, we pray have mercy upon
us. Cause us to treasure you more,
to serve you more, and to glorify your name. Father, all this we
ask in Jesus' name.
By Grace and Grace Alone
Series Ephesians
| Sermon ID | 22020202284221 |
| Duration | 47:04 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Ephesians 2:4-5 |
| Language | English |
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