Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, Lord, we rejoice to be here this morning. Lord, I'm thankful to be here amongst Your people. Father, I pray You'd cause us to rejoice again in our salvation. Lord, I pray that Your word would encourage your people. Lord, I ask that you'd help me to build up your sheep. Lord, I pray that there'd be, Lord, the help of the Spirit in this time. Lord, I ask just use this first hour, this Sunday morning, the edification of your sheep. Lord, I pray you'd give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Once again, Lord, cause us to once again rejoice in your salvation. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. All right, well this morning we'll be in the book of Ephesians chapter 2. We'll be reading verses 1 through 10. Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 10. 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 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." And here it is, verse 8, "'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 that we should walk in them. Amen. Some people are converted and they've never read much of the Bible at all. They've never even read the Bible, perhaps. They hear the gospel preached, they listen to a sermon, and they get saved. Other people, they might know a good amount of the Bible. Maybe they were a lost church member, or maybe they were raised in a Christian home, and they have more knowledge of the Word. But it's not really until we read for ourselves or we hear for ourselves from the Word that we really understand what happened to us, that we became Christians. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul is dealing with here in this portion of Ephesians chapter 2. What happened for these Ephesians to become Christians? What took place in their lives? And so much of the whole book of Ephesians deals with exactly that. These mystical realities of the Christian faith. And so I want to take as my topic today the power of grace, taken from verse 8. By grace, you have been saved through faith. So we'll look at three things. I want to look at what this grace is, what this grace does, and how this grace becomes ours. So first, what is grace? What is it? What's the actual meaning of the word grace? Other than a beautiful name for my wife? What is God's grace? What does the word actually mean? What does it mean that we've been saved by grace? And well, for us to understand what grace is, Paul begins in verse 1 of chapter 2 and he says this, you were dead. For us to understand the meaning of grace, we first got to consider what we were before we were saved. In these first three verses of chapter 2, That's exactly what Paul is doing. He's describing what we were before we were saved. And either these verses describe what you were, or they describe what you are right now. And if you think you were never like this, It's probably because you still are this in chapter 2 verses 1 through 3. You were dead in trespasses and sins. What does that mean, dead in sins? How dead is dead? He says, 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, that's the devil, Satan, the spirit that is now at work, the sons of disobedience. That's how Paul describes lost mankind. It says, sons of disobedience. It says, children of wrath. And the Bible says that that's what we were when God saved us. We were just like the rest among whom we all once lived. Children of wrath. Sons of disobedience. We had no affinity towards God. We were dead towards God, dead toward righteousness. We lived as slaves to the devil, as slaves to our sinful passions and the lusts of our flesh. That was the state that we were in when God found us. Now, it's evident when you look around at the world, why do you think the world is exactly the way it is? Why do you see when you turn on the news, it's full of murder and war and crime and lying and corruption. It's horrible. That's not just a sliver of mankind. That's all of us. That's everybody. We were like that. And aside from God's grace, we were just like the rest. And now, in spite of the fact that man is a slave to the devil, He's following the course of this world. He's deadened his sins and he's enslaved his lust. He's still, the religion of the natural man is still essentially this. He believes in salvation by works. He still wants to be righteous by his own works, by his own doing, by his own keeping of the law of God by his own good, righteous things that he does that he can offer to God and earn acceptance by the good things that he does, even though he's dead in his sins, he thinks, oh, I've just gotta stop doing that. I've just gotta stop smoking. I've just gotta stop swearing. I've just gotta start going to church. I just gotta start reading my Bible. I just gotta start praying. He thinks that that's his only problem is he's just gotta change his behavior. And it's gonna make him right with God, but at the heart of this religion is ultimately one thing, it's human pride. Man wants something to boast in. As long as it's up to us, ultimately, our salvation, there's something for us to boast in. We can say, I've done it! I kept the law. I did it. I fast twice a week and I pay tithes of all that I get. We're exactly like the Pharisee, as long as that's our mindset. Now, why does Paul remind us this? at the beginning of the chapter, it's that we'll never understand grace if we don't know what we were when God found us. We weren't, it wasn't that we were just a little bit bad and all we had was some mistakes and some blunders here, but it was that we were dead in our sins. We were lost completely. Now, We begin with that picture so we can understand what grace is. It is God's kindness toward those who absolutely do not deserve it, and who deserve the exact opposite, who were children of wrath like the rest of mankind. And until we understand grace, We'll think there was something good in us. But let me ask you this. Before Jesus healed somebody, before Jesus healed a lame man, did he ask him first, first, show me you can walk. Show me you can walk, and then I'll heal you. Then I'll give you legs at work. Before he healed a blind man, did he ask him to first show him that he could see? I'll give you your sight back, but first you've got to prove to me that you can actually see. No, do you see how ridiculous that is? Then we understand the idea that we can't be saved by our own works. It's that we're totally unable to do it. That's our problem. We're lost. Can't help myself. Can't save myself. I can't be righteous by my own power. I don't have that ability. It's like a blind man trying to see. He doesn't have the ability to do it. He can't do it. Let me ask you a question. Why are you saved and your neighbors aren't? Why are you the only Christian in your family? Well, I always had more of an affinity toward God, and I was just more spiritual than... No! That's not it! You were just like them! You were just like the rest! You were dead in your sins, as dead as them following the devil! But God, why did God do it? Why does God save people like that? Verse 5, excuse me, 6. Oh, actually four. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love, because of God's great love, he's rich in mercy toward those who don't deserve it. And I'm so glad I can tell you God is like that. That's the God we serve, a God who's rich in mercy, Well endowed with mercy, full of mercy toward those who don't deserve it. No. This teaching about man being dead in his sins is not popular. I mean, in certain circles, it is popular. People like to talk a lot about the depravity of man. But amongst the world, it's not popular. People don't like it. And unless the Spirit of God has really worked conviction in you, you just won't believe it. I mean, what do people think? Basically, yeah, I've got some blemishes here and there. I've done some bad things. But at heart, I'm good. I'm not a child of wrath. God's not going to send me to hell. But this is the testimony of Scripture. That's what the natural man is. Now, it's against that backdrop that the grace of God shines so clearly. And where is the grace of God most clearly seen? Where do we see the grace of God more than anywhere else displayed? 2 Corinthians 8-9, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich." We were just like the rest. We were just as poor as them. And it's not because we were better than anybody else that God chose us. and selected us and said, I'll have my son die for you because, well, you deserve it more than anybody else, but because of his great love, because of his great mercy. We see the same thing expressed in Romans 5, 6. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Do you hear that? Christ died for the ungodly. You can't hardly believe that's in your Bible unless you actually read it off the page for yourself. It wasn't the righteous people that Christ came to save. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. People have done that. But God chose his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That's what grace is. This idea that it's God's free, undeserved, nothing in us, nothing in us that merited this love of God and God's given it to those who are his enemies. This is not your own doing. Verse nine, it's the gift of God. This is further illustrated in the example of the Israelite exodus. Deuteronomy 7-7, Moses reminds the Israelites on the brink of the promised land, It was not because you were more in number than any of the other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it's because the Lord loves you, and he's 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. The Israelites were slaves, and until God worked by his mighty power to bring them out of Egypt, Slaves, they would have remained. They never would have made it to the promised land. And he warns them again, beware, lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers as it is this day. It's God's power, not our own, that saves us. Now, as we examine this verse, we see, we have some questions. By grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing. What's this in the verse? Is he talking about grace? Is he talking about faith? What is the this that Paul is talking about? Well, I submit to you that it's both. He's talking about faith, and he's talking about grace. We've already seen the idea that grace is something we don't earn, but what about faith? Can I boast in my faith? And I would turn to Acts 18.27, talking about Apollos. It says, and when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed. Now, unless you believe that there's more than one way to believe than through grace, it's clear that even apart from the grace of God, we can't believe. We can't even boast in our faith. The faith itself, the believing, it comes by grace. And you'd be alone if you thought there were more than one way to arrive at faith. We all come in the same way. It's by grace. And what does he say in Philippians 1.29? Paul says, for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for his sake." It was granted to the Philippians that they should believe and suffer. It was a gift of God. It was given them by God. Just as the Bible speaks of God granting repentance, God granted repentance to the Gentiles. And in 2 Timothy, Paul talks about God granting repentance to those who've been ensnared by the devil. I'll read that one too. Says, and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. So the point is this, our faith, our believing in God, our repentance, it's a gift from God. It comes from Him. The whole salvation, everything, it comes from God. It doesn't come from ourselves. So, move on to this. What this grace does. What does grace do? We've looked at what it is. It's God's undeserved kindness towards sinners. But what does grace do? We'll look back at Ephesians 2. Turn back there. By grace, You have been saved. The grace of God really saves people. That's what grace does. It saves! Salvation! It's the forgiveness of your sins. It's the pardoning of your guilt. It's the cleansing of your soul. It's the uniting of a person to Christ so that Christ lives in them and they've been raised up to sit with Him in the heavenly places. That's what grace does. Mark this, God's grace saves the sinner. It does not leave him in his sins, in his former state. Verse five, God made us alive. You who are dead, God made alive. He makes us alive in Christ. Here's a man on the road to Damascus, and he's got letters giving him authority to bind Christians. throw him in jail, mistreat them. But a light from heaven shines upon him. And he's changed. He's a new man. He's the Apostle Paul. Think of the stories of George Whitefield, and John Wesley, and Martin Luther. These guys were, what were they doing? They were trying to be righteous by their own works. They were trying to be righteous by their self-abasement, and their fasting, and their praying, and their doing everything they could. Luther went and became a monk, and John Wesley went, and he was a missionary to the Indians. And he thought, I went to go convert the Indians, but I realized I wasn't converted myself. Not till they realize this truth. It's only by trusting in the merit of Christ alone. Christ's merit alone can justify the guilty sinner before God. And it's then that they were transformed. It's then that our life is transformed. That we're made to be no longer slaves to sin. This salvation, it's entirely a free gift of God's grace, but the grace of God causes us to be zealous for good works. Verse 10, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. You see, we're not saved by our works, but When we're saved, we're zealous for good works. Just like Titus says, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in the present age. waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works zealous for good works that's what the grace of God works in us it's this desire to have A life that's pleasing to God. It's a desire to live in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace toward me was not in vain. It wasn't powerless in His life. But on the contrary, I worked harder than any of them. Though it was not I, Paul says, it wasn't actually but it was the grace of God that was in me that was making me run faster than all the others. It's the grace of God that causes us to live the new life, the life of being saved. See, it's not enough to just have the name of Christian only. It's not enough to merely settle for outward religion and profession and say, oh, yeah, I believe these things. I believe the Bible is true and all that. But we've got to have this change, this power in our life. The Bible talks about, it was mentioned last week, those who have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. I used to read that and not get it. What's the power of godliness? What is it? What's he talking about? The power of godliness is the power to actually live a godly life, the power to actually have victory over sin. And if you have no victory over sin, if you have no transformation of life, you have no love for God and his people, then you've got something less than real Christianity. You've got something less than the real grace of God. So here's the next question, the third point. How does this grace become ours? How do we receive this grace? How is it affected in our lives? Again, verse 8, Ephesians 2, by grace you have been saved through faith. Faith. What is faith? Again, it's one of those words that it's kind of hard to exactly define. It's like love. Paul has to say, love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not boast. Love doesn't envy. He can't just give one definition of love, but you have to describe it in many different ways. Faith is like that. What is faith? And why are we saved through faith? Why is that the way that we're saved? How does believing save us? And this is going to sound harsh to our ears, but I'll say nobody's saved by faith alone. What I mean is this, you can believe all day long, but apart from Christ coming, being your substitutionary atonement, dying in your place, your faith will do nothing for you. Faith saves us because faith unites us to Jesus Christ. And it's through Him that we receive reconciliation with God. Faith is commonly called. are described as an empty hand that reaches out and receives from God. It offers nothing to God, but it receives everything. It's like a beggar. He reaches out his hand to grab money or food or whatever it is. He doesn't boast in his hand. He doesn't say, my hand got me this food. But he receives it as a free gift. Here's another illustration. If you're in the desert, and you're dying of thirst, and you see there's a fountain, a water fountain, and you go to that fountain and you drink, the water saves you. But how does that water get there? It flows through the pipes, and in that way, The grace of God, His salvation, it flows to us through faith. It brings us the effectiveness of what Christ has done for us. It's the channel through which we receive salvation. So, how do you get faith? If we're saved through faith, How do we get faith? Where does it come from? The Bible says, faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Again, faith is the gift of God, but what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to just wait until God zaps us with faith, and then I can believe? Do I say, I can't believe, so there's nothing I can do. I guess I'll just sit here, and God's not saving me. What does a helpless man do when he's in danger? What can he do? But cry for help. Right? All he can do, help me! Help! Save me! I'm drowning! If you really feel yourself drowning, You feel I'm lost apart from this faith, apart from faith in Jesus Christ. I'm lost. What are you going to do? You're going to call out. Grab hold of one of the promises. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Can you do that? Can you call out? Save me, Lord. That's how we're saved. It's by calling out. If any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He doesn't say sit there and wait, but come, come. Don't wait, but come, cry out. Proverbs chapter 2, it says this, my son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, ask for it. If you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you'll understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. So you can't work for it. You can't earn it. But can you cry out to Him? He speaks, and listening to His voice, new life the dead receive. Look unto Him, ye nations, own your God, ye fallen race. Look, and be saved through faith alone. Be justified by grace. Can you look? Can you listen? Then you can be saved. by faith alone in Christ. So, what's the application of all this? Number one, humility. We of all people ought to be the most humble on the face of the earth because we know what we were when Christ saved us. Number two, really believing that God can save absolutely anybody If we know what we were and God saved us, we know He can save anyone. We go out to Haven for hope, you believe God can save those people? He can. Do you believe that? And if you really believe that, take the gospel there. I know we're not all gifted evangelists, but God can use you, do you realize that? to take somebody, the gospel, you can open up your mouth and talk to somebody about what he did in your life. You can do that. And you don't have to worry about, well, do I present it exactly the right way? Do I say this exactly? I have to be super eloquent and all that. That's not where the power is. It's not in your ability. It's by the grace of God. He speaks in listening to his voice, new life the dead receive. So you ought to be, of all people, most zealous. I mean, we're the only people who can take the gospel. There is nobody else, other than the church, who can take the gospel to the lost world. We ought to take it and share it everywhere, as far as you can. I mean, I love this church because we strive to reach those parts of the world who've never heard it but you realize where you're at right now you can reach people who do not know the gospel yeah they were raised in america they know you know go to church read your bible but they don't know the gospel They don't know what it is. They're trying to be saved by their own works. They think, I've just got to stop doing all those things. They're not trusting in Jesus Christ alone. They don't know substitutionary atonement. They don't know anything about imputed righteousness. You can go and tell people about what Christ has done for you. So we'll end with that. Father, I thank you for this time this morning. Lord, I pray you'd use this message for good. Lord, I pray you'd be in the rest of our fellowship. And Lord, draw near to us. Help our brother Craig as he comes up to preach. Lord, may we sing with all our might today and give glory and thanks to you. We thank you, Lord, for free salvation through your Son. Amen.