Please turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 2, as we continue our series in examining Paul's letter to the Ephesians. I'll be reading verses 1 through 10, but the focus of the sermon is going to be on those great Reformed verses, verses 8 and 9. Let's give careful attention to the reading of God's most holy and infallible word. 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 towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." Now, boys and girls, do you like to get presents? See, I see lots of smiles, so I'm going to assume that the answer to that question is yes. Well, I've got news for you. Us big people like presents, too. We really do. Now, sometimes we get presents for birthdays or special occasions, and sometimes when you're a little bit older and you graduate high school, you might get presents then. And sometimes, occasionally, once in a blue moon, that means not very often, you might get a gift just because. Just because. No good reason, not because you did anything extra special or anything like that. It's just because maybe mom and dad just wanted to give you a gift. Or maybe uncle or aunt or grandma and grandpa, they just wanted to give you a gift because they were thinking of you. Well, giving of a gift for no reason, or at least no apparent reason, no reason that we understand, is a lot like what grace is. Grace in the Bible is the giving of a gift. And that gift is the Lord Jesus Christ. But see, in the Bible, grace is so much more than that. So much more than that. Because we're going to unpack this a little bit and explain why it is that it's so much more than just simply a gift for whatever reason. Just because God likes us. That's not really how it all works. So we're going to look at that tonight. Now we're in Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Paul was in prison. He wrote this one alongside probably Colossians and even Philemon. And Paul begins this letter not with thanksgiving but with praise. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. And in fact, from verses 3 to 14, it's just one big doxology. A eulogy, a blessing. One sentence in the Greek. 202 words. Imagine trying to diagram that sentence. But so filled with joy. over what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. That's Paul's natural reaction. To just praise God for the blessings that we have in Him. And then in verses 15 through 23, another long sentence. He gives thanks for the Ephesians. He gives thanks for the work that God is doing in them. Not only that, He prays that God would enable them to grow even more in the knowledge of God. And He shows them the incredible power at work in their lives by putting forth Christ. He puts forth Christ as the one through whom He demonstrates His power in raising Him from the dead. And that's important because then Paul goes and reminds them that not only is it power demonstrated in Christ, it's that same power demonstrated in you. In all of us. All of us who believe. And we've been unpacking the last few verses of the beginning of chapter 2. Where we saw in the first three chapters, excuse me, the first three verses, the depressing part. As for you, you were dead in the trespasses and sin in which you once walked. Now the first three verses, a lot of sadness. Because Paul reminds us of what we once were. And this is where the gift giving gets a little bit different. You see, God's grace is given to us despite ourselves, when we deserve the complete opposite. the total opposite. And we've seen in the past couple of weeks what God's love, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, as Paul says it, he made us alive in Christ. He raised us up with Christ and seated us with Christ. All three of those concepts are based on three words that some commentators, James Boyce, for instance, think Paul made up those words. compound words, raised us up with, raised us with, seated us with, all because of God's grace. Well, we come to verses 8 and 9. And verses 8 and 9 are a rally cry for the Reformation, a rally cry for the Reformed faith. By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast. And what we have in these verses is really a summary of everything that Paul has said to this point. A summary of your salvation. And really all Paul is going to do for us tonight is Paul reminds us that salvation is in every respect from God's grace. Paul reminds us that salvation is in every respect from God's grace. We'll look at this under three headings. First of all, God's grace is the source of salvation. Secondly, our faith is the instrument of salvation. And then thirdly, human merit or human works is excluded from salvation. So firstly, God's grace is the source of our salvation. Look again at verse 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God. Well, really what Paul is simply doing here is going back to a little parenthetical statement, a little side statement that he made way back in verse 5. You'll notice that in verse 5, he was talking about even when we were dead in our trespasses, may, that is God made us alive together with Christ. And the ESV has a nice long hyphen there. By grace you have been saved. And then he goes back to his argument. Well now Paul in verse 8 is going back to that and expanding it a little bit more. for by grace you have been saved." He's reiterating what he said in verse 5, and in fact, in the Greek, the grammatical structure points to this. So Paul is making sure his readers know that he's going right back to what he was talking about there in verse 5. He's talking about it in the words, but he's even structured his sentence grammatically to point us that way. That's how important it is for him. God's grace demonstrated in the coming ages. That's what he finished verse 7 with. And he returns to that grace, that very grace that Paul is expounding in these verses. For by grace you have been saved. Now, the salvation that we have in grace, the construction itself is similar to verse 5. But one thing I want you to note, and maybe some of your translations have this, but the ESV is not doing a great job with the translation. It's not wrong. And it may sound like I'm being nitpicky. Well, because I am. The ESV translates this both in verse 5 and in verse 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that is technically okay. But this is actually a place where the old King James gets it better. By grace are ye saved. Are saved, by grace you are, present tense, saved, past tense. That is a unique structure in the sense that what Paul is emphasizing here is that Paul is focusing on your current state based on an event that happened in your past. Your current state, you are now saved. Saved as a result of something that happened in your past. That's why the King James actually gets the tense of this correctly. By grace are ye saved. And it is a plural you. But the question then is this. Saved from what? How many people in churches out there today speak of, you know, getting the gospel out? We've got to get them saved. R.C. Sproul tells a story of one time he was on a Christian college campus or something like that, and somebody walked up to him and asked him, are you saved? And he answered back the question, saved from what? And the guy was dumbfounded. He didn't know how to answer. Well, I think you and I, from following Paul's line of argument here, could understand, especially from verses 1 through 3, we are saved from being dead in our trespasses and sin in which we once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. And Paul went even further and said that this stuff's internal. It's in you. You're following the passions of your flesh and it affects the mind. Every aspect of our being was affected by sin and thus, as a result, we were, as Paul says, by nature, children of wrath. Brothers and sisters, it is that from which we are saved. We are saved by God, from God. That is perhaps one of the most profound things about Christianity. Yes, we're saved from our sins. In many respects you can say we're saved from the devil and we're saved from hell, but remember what hell is. Hell is the outpouring of God's wrath upon all unrighteousness. But God saves us from that. That's salvation. Grace. This salvation is by grace. Well, grace. How do we understand grace? Now, some of us know people who are named Grace, and we have somebody in this congregation now who is named Grace. But what does grace mean? Well, one helpful definition is unmerited favor. Unmerited favor. Now, that definition is good as far as it goes, and there's truth to that. But, for example, one can, and notice that emphasis on can, think of the covenant of works that God instituted with Adam as a gracious covenant in one sense. Because Adam hadn't done anything to merit being in a covenant relationship. So we can speak of that being gracious. The Westminster divines wisely called that God's condescending to Adam. Because there was debate whether or not there was really grace there. But see, the reason why there was such a debate is because ordinarily we think of grace on this side of the fall. It is unmerited favor. See, the Bible, when it speaks of grace, we need to remember that the Bible is redemptive revelation. It is revelation of God's redemptive plan for all people, thus, Grace is a gift to us in spite of what we truly deserve. That's grace. That's biblical redemptive grace. Despite what you and I actually deserve, God saved us. He saved us. Is it any wonder again that Paul would begin this letter with a 202 word sentence praising God for all the spiritual blessings we have in Christ? We deserve the complete opposite! And yet He gives us grace. He saves us. He redeems us. He unites us to Christ. He raises us up with Him. Unites us to Him. unmerited favor in spite of what we deserve. You see, we were dead in our sins. We were under Satan's control. We followed the lusts of the flesh and the mind. By nature, we were children of wrath and God saved us. Because we couldn't do it ourselves. And this is what makes grace so amazing. Because we couldn't do it ourselves. By grace you are saved. It is by this grace that we were chosen, redeemed, adopted, made alive, raised and seated with Christ. All of these blessings that Paul is unpacking for us in these verses. Grace, God's grace is a particular attitude or disposition toward us. He chooses to show grace to you. He chooses to show grace to you. This is God's grace. It is His grace that is demonstrated in the coming ages that Paul reminded us in verse 7. Age after age after age. God's grace will be demonstrated in you. Because you are saved by grace through faith. God did not have to save anyone. You see, that one hurts. That smacks our pride. We like to think, well, I'm special. It's all about me. But God did not have to save anyone. And in fact, it would have been simpler, less costly to God if He had just started over. God's love is demonstrated in the fact that while He could have made new disciples, new people cheaper, He gave His Son on your behalf and on my behalf. He could have made new people cheaper. That is God's grace. By grace you are saved through faith. And then this brings us to the second point. Our faith is the instrument of salvation. And this again in verse 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not your own doing. Through faith. That is actually a very important phrase. Through faith. It is a correct translation. Through faith. It gives us what theologians call the instrumentality of our salvation. Faith is that instrument by which all the benefits of Christ's redemption flow to you. You see, faith is not the ground of our salvation, it's not the basis of our salvation, that's Christ and His work. Christ is the ground of your salvation. Christ's work and what He accomplished, that is the ground of your salvation. Faith is the means, that conduit by which those blessings flow to you. In fact, you won't find in the Bible, a phrase such as this, you won't find that you are justified or saved because of your faith, you won't find a phrase that you are justified or saved on account of your faith, but you will find that you are saved by grace through faith or by faith. Thus, the divines, the Westminster divines rightly called faith the alone instrument of our justification. That's in the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 11, Paragraph 2. That faith is the alone instrument of our justification. Well, what do we mean by that? Probably one of the simplest ways to help you understand this is to think of faith as a pipe. A big pipe. And once that pipe is put into place, then everything that that pipe is supposed to serve goes through it. Like water. When you put the pipe in its place, then the water can flow through. That's what faith is. It's like that pipe. And once that faith is in its place, all the blessings of Christ flow to you. And in that sense, faith is an instrument. But see, most of the time, we tend to, and this is because of the Protestant Reformation, we tend to focus on being justified by faith and amen to that. But it is not just simply justification that faith brings us. You see, in chapter 14, of the confession, paragraph two, it speaks of the principal acts of saving faith. The principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace. You see, it is not just justification. It is not just you're saved and that's it, we move on. No, it is by faith that you're also sanctified. It is also by faith that you rest upon Christ for eternal life. You rest upon Christ for all of it. That's what faith is. Faith is not a work, it is a receptive grace. where you receive and rest upon Christ alone as He is offered to us in the Gospel. Well, what is faith? Well, there's all kinds of odd ideas today. Maybe some of you have seen the movie, The Polar Express, and they just have this thing, Believe. Sometimes you see sports games, you know, football or baseball, people hold up signs, Believe. Well, believe in what? That's more hope, wishful hope. But really, when we speak of faith, saving faith, there are really just three parts to this. Knowledge, knowledge of the facts. You know what the gospel says. Then there's what's known as assent. You believe that the gospel is true, you know that it's true. You know, even Satan has this kind of faith. The demons know that the gospel is true. But the key to saving faith is what we call trust. Trust. Where you receive and rest upon Christ. You see, one dictionary gives this definition of faith. Complete trust or confidence in someone or something. And guess what? That's a pretty accurate definition. For the Christian though, the key is who that someone is. And it's Christ. You trust in Him and what He's done. Faith receives and rests on Christ and His work. This is why the divines rightly call faith a saving grace. Because it's a saving grace. And we're going to come to this in a moment, but it's a gift. It's a gift from God. And so brothers and sisters, I need to ask you this question even before we move on. Do you have this saving faith? Do you rest upon Christ alone for your salvation? There is no other name by which you may be saved. And those of you who may not have placed your faith in Christ, I urge you now, lean on Him, repent of your sinful ways, and rest upon Christ, because God is gracious, and He will forgive those who rest on Christ. Well, we've spoken of faith as being that instrument. But we need to understand that faith is not a work. And in fact, our works have no hand in salvation whatsoever. And this brings us then to the third point. Human merit is excluded from salvation. Notice now in verse nine, not a result of works so that no one may boast. Not of yourselves. Now, it's important to note that it's really continuing a sentence that begins in the middle of verse 8, and this not your own doing. This not your own doing. Literally, the Greek reads, this not from you. Now, I'm gonna do something here that really is kind of violating most rules of what seminary does for us who train to be ministers. They tell you don't get into the Greek too much. Now, that's true, and I agree with that because, you know, you don't need to worry about case usage and participles and all of that. But the thing about this is when we get to these two verses, everybody's got an opinion. They all do. They all bring out the Greek. No matter what kind of Christian background they come from. Therefore, I think it's important to understand this. This word, this pronoun, this, is what we call the neuter. It's a neuter word. Now, some of you who have had foreign languages, like maybe French or Italian, know that some nouns and some words, they have both a feminine and a masculine. Well, Greek also has a neuter. Well, this, that pronoun, is that neuter. Neither masculine nor feminine. Well, this becomes rather interesting, because in the Greek, the word grace and the word faith are both feminine words. And so you look at this and what can this word, this, be referring to then? It can't be referring to grace. It can't be referring to faith because they don't match up. Their gender doesn't match up. Well, first of all, it's not impossible that the word this, that pronoun, does refer to faith. That's possible. It's not impossible in Greek for that to happen. But I think it's better to understand that what this stands for is the whole concept. Salvation by grace through faith. All of it. This, not of yourselves. So yes, there's your free Greek lesson for the night. Salvation by grace through faith. This is not of yourselves. Either way, no matter how you look at it, even faith is included in this. Your faith is not from yourself. And you may be sitting there and you're thinking, wait a second, but I'm the one who believes and that's true. God does not believe for you. But He gives you the gift of faith so that you can believe. This not of yourself. It is a gift of God. Salvation is a gift. All of it is a gift. Salvation by grace through faith. And really, if you think about this, Paul's calling it a gift. It's just being redundant. Because that's what grace is. Grace is a gift. Paul also, in his letter to the Philippians, chapter 1, verse 29, in a little sort of side comment, he basically, and I'm paraphrasing here, says, it was not only given to you or graced to you to believe, but also to suffer. Belief that you have is a saving grace. It is from God. Thus, everything, all of salvation is from God. All of it. Which is why He then says, not from works. Hopefully you and I understand that what Paul is saying here is not works done by you and me. Because it is Christ's work that does save us. But it is our works that He is now speaking of. Works done by you have no basis for your salvation. Otherwise, grace would not be grace. Salvation does not originate out of your good works. Your good works is not in any way, shape, or form the source of your salvation. And in fact, it can't be. This was Paul's whole point in verses 1-3. You were dead in your trespasses and sin. Dead. You were by nature children of wrath. How could anything that you and I do give us salvation? Nothing could work, ever. Being a good Boy Scout does not save you. Helping old ladies across the street does not save you. Giving half your money to some charitable organization does not save you. God saves you. It is His gift. And Paul goes even further, so that no one may boast. You see, God did all in salvation, thus there is no bragging for you and for me. None whatsoever. One of the accusations against us Calvinists is that we are arrogant. And to be honest, sometimes we are. Let's be honest. Because we as Calvinists love to study our theology, we get puffed up heads, and we do come across arrogant. But one of the things that Calvinism ought to bear into our hearts, following the biblical principles, is that because salvation is holy of God, there's just no room for boasting. None. There should only be humility on our part. Humbleness. That God would save such a worm as me. Often times people say of us Calvinists that, you know, it's all unfair. Well it's right. It's not fair. It's grace. God did not have to save anyone. There was no obligation whatsoever on God's part to save any of us. And yet He does so freely. That all we have to do is turn from our sinful ways and rest upon Christ and His work. Therefore, there is no bragging. You see, a proud Christian is a contradiction in terms. There cannot be such a thing. Let's take an example of this from Israel's history. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter seven. And this is a beautiful picture from Israel's history about what it is, that underlying characteristic of grace. Deuteronomy chapter seven, verses six through 11. This is God speaking to the Israelites. for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for all, or excuse me, for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more a number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you for you were the fewest of all people. But it is because the Lord loves you. and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generation. and repays to their face those who hate him by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes, the rules that I command you today." Israel was saved simply because God loved them. He chose them. But you notice that Israel still had to obey. They still had to obey God's laws. They had to live in obedience to His moral will. That is true for you and for me. And in fact, I don't have time to start a second sermon on verse 10, but this is what Paul does in verse 10. It is true that we are not saved by works. But nevertheless, Paul is going to remind us in the very next words that he says, for you were created in Christ Jesus for good works. Obedience is not something we can just slack off and just say, well, hey, I'm saved, I can do whatever I want, yippee! We are saved and set free so that you and I can obey God. We are saved by grace. Not by works, but nevertheless, God requires still good works of us. Not to be saved, but because we have been saved. You notice God's language to the Israelites, I redeemed you, therefore obey my commandments. So it is with you and me, and as we look in two weeks at verse 10, God has saved you by grace through faith, not by works. so that now you can obey His commands. We started by talking about gifts. I like gifts. I like getting gifts. I become a little kid every time I get gifts. That's not a hint by the way, don't take it that way. But brothers and sisters, there is no gift greater than the grace we have in Christ Jesus. And there is nothing greater than it because we have this gift in spite of what we really deserve from God. We are children of wrath. Once, once we were children of wrath. But now we're His children. Adopted into His family, saved by grace through faith. What a load off our shoulders to know that all we have to do, as it were, is trust in Christ. Just trust in Him. Nothing else. Believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. May that truth resonate with us all this week that we are saved by grace through faith. Let's pray.