Amazing Grace

And one of the means that God has given us so that we will not forget what he has done for us, his love, the price he paid, the fact that he gave his life, is the communion service. It's a visible reminder of what Jesus did for us. And certainly it's a reminder of the work that was done on Calvary's cross, all the work that needed to be done for salvation was done by Jesus there when he gave his life and when he shed his blood for us. That's all that was needed for salvation. I think it is one of the greatest perversions of Satan today that this memorial has been turned into a work that somehow, for some people at least, they think, gives them acceptance before God. Something that was designed to reflect upon God's grace and that the work was all done through Jesus Christ is somehow twisted and perverted by many today to believe that if you partake of this juice and these crackers somehow that will forgive your sins or that will aid in your salvation. What a perversion of what God intended this to be. God intended it to be a reminder of his grace and of the work that was done for us at the cross by his son Jesus Christ. Well, that's what we want to focus on this morning and this series of messages on Ephesians is the grace of God, the amazing grace of God. So where in the Bible is that grace highlighted any better than in Ephesians chapter 2, the first 10 verses. So I invite your attention to that passage this morning where we will look at God's amazing grace. I remind you that God's grace or grace is God's unmerited favor. That's the standard definition of grace. But grace is God's inexhaustible goodness to us to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. God's grace freely gives us what we did not deserve. It freely gives us what we cannot earn and what we could never hope to repay. God's grace freely gives us salvation. We cannot earn it. We cannot pay it back. We could never hope to do enough good works to make ourselves pleasing in God's sight and to get us a ticket to heaven. And is God's grace that grants us salvation, that freely offers us salvation, life in Christ, forgiveness of sins, of home in heaven. And Ephesians chapter 2 describes that for us so graphically. In the first three verses, for instance Paul tells us of the depths of grace. This is where grace finds us. This is the depth to which grace went to retrieve us, to find us and to save us. The depths of grace. Look at where Paul says God's grace found us. Verse 1, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. Grace found us dead in sins. Now this is not a figure of speech. He's not saying, you know, you were really bad off. It's like you were dead. No, this is literal death. We were dead. We were dead spiritually. There was no spiritual life in us before grace reached down and found us, before God saved us. There was no spiritual life at all. Now you may be a very healthy person. You may have a healthy body. You may have a sharp mind. You may have a pleasant personality. And you may be dead. Dead spiritually. It is possible that there are some folks sitting in this church service this morning who look fine physically, are mostly alert mentally, and yet dead spiritually. No spiritual life. Jeremy Bentham was a well-known philosopher in England in the late 1700s and early 1800s. In fact, his landmark book in 1765 really defined a philosophical system or a system of ethics, which we call today utilitarianism, or generalism, some ethicist call it. But it's the idea that pleasure is the highest good and whatever brings us pleasure is what we should live for. It's that system of ethics of determining right and wrong. Well, Jeremy Bentham died early 1800s and he left his entire estate to the University College Hospital in London on one condition. That is that his body would be preserved and brought in to every board meeting of the hospital. And he would be allowed to sit at every board meeting of the hospital. And to this day, that happens. He's rolled in to the hospital for the board meetings. The chairman always said Jeremy Bentham present but not voting. Obviously he's not voting. And he looks very nice. He's dressed up in a suit. He has a very nice smile. His eyes are closed so he sleeps through the meeting. But he looks very good but he's not going to vote. He's not going to contribute to the discussion. He can't. He's been dead for 170 years or more. Now I believe there are a lot of people like that today. Dead men walking, dead women walking, people who are alive physically but dead spiritually. It is quite possible that even here this morning there are folks who are living good moral lives. You're kind to your neighbor. You support your family well. You're involved in community projects. You even come to church. But there is no spiritual life. And the evidence is this. There is no ear for spiritual conversation. You really don't tune that in at all. There is no appetite for spiritual food. You have no desire to get into God's word. There is no eye of spiritual perception to see things as God sees. The way He wants us to live. There is no eye for that. There is no heart for the things of God. There is just a desire for the things of this world. And so really practically speaking in your life there is no evidence that there really is any new life there, any spiritual life. It's possible there are people here today breathing, living, active people who are dead spiritually. This is where grace finds us. Is dead in sin. But grace not only finds us dead in sin. Grace also finds us directed by the world. Look at verse two. Referring back to our transgressions and sins he says in verse two, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world. You see where grace found us, where we are outside of Christ is that we are directed by this world. Now when Paul uses the word world, he's not talking about the planet, he's not talking about the world of people, he's talking about an ordered system, a philosophy of life, a way of thinking about life, a way of thinking that has values of what's right and what's wrong. It's a way of looking at life and a way of living life. It's a world system. And that world system today is what many people are directed by. Their lives adopt the values of what they see in the movies and on television programs and the music that comes over the secular radio stations. That's what they live by. That's what their mind is formed by and they live out those values. It's the values of this world that are promoted on our talk shows. And so a lot of people, the only direction they get is if Dr. Phil says it or Oprah says it, it's got to be right. And so those values that come across the talk shows or the values that people think that's what I'm to live by. Those are the values by and large of the world. They are directly contrary to what the Bible teaches and what God wants us to live by. It's a system of thought in a way of life that is promoted through the media of the day, print media and visual media. And most people who live their lives are directed by those things in life. That's where they get their information. That's where they get their, what they think of the facts about life. That's where they get their value system. Morals, right and wrong decision making ability all comes from that world system. And so you see the Bible says grace found us not only dead and sinned but directed by the world. Thirdly, grace finds us dictated by Satan. Verse two in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air. The spirit who is now at work and those who are disobedient. What does it mean? The ruler of the kingdom of the air. Well, that's a specific kingdom that the Bible talks about in several places. It's a kingdom that is ruled by Satan. He rules a demonic world. And the Bible talks about that demonic world operating in the sphere of the air or even in the heavenly, sometimes the word is used. The idea is that Satan has a kingdom which operates to dictate to this world system what its values will be. And so the values of this world system that we learn through the world system, this ordered system of thought and so forth that we just talked about really is dictated by Satan. He's the one pumping the information. He's the one filling the minds and hearts and so forth with ideas about where all this will come from and how people should live. So this kingdom that includes a demonic world that is under the authority of Satan, this kingdom is promoting a spirit, an attitude, a way of thinking, a way of living that's described there in verse 2, the spirit that is now at work and those who are disobedient, those who live contrary to God's word. You see how the whole thing fits together? It's a world system that is dictated by Satan and his demons that are promoting a way of life that is disobedient to God's word. So that's where grace finds us. Outside of Christ we are dead and sin, we are directed by this world and we are dictated by Satan. But not only that, we are dominated by a sin nature. Look at verse 3. All of us also lived among them, referring back to the disobedient, all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. So the Bible says, not only do we have this world system out here, this philosophy of life and way of thinking and way of living, value system, all of that, and not only is it directed by Satan, but we've got another problem and that is our own sinful nature. We are dominated by our sinful nature. That's where grace finds us. Before we are saved, we know nothing other than to live by our sinful nature. That doesn't mean that we're always doing as bad as we can do, but it does mean that we are all born with a nature that takes us away from God and leads us towards sin and as Paul says, we live gratifying, trying to please the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. We're under the dominion of a sinful nature. Her one day heard a scream coming out of one of the bedrooms and she went back to find out what was wrong and when she walked in the door, she saw her daughter kicking and pulling the hair of her younger son. So she broke up the fight and got them separated and she comforted a little boy and then she took a little girl out to the side and said, honey, you don't kick your brother and pull the hair of your brother and things like that. But those are the kinds of things that the devil wants you to do and he puts in your mind and heart to do. Those are wrong things. You're not supposed to do that. She looked up at her mom and said, well, kicking may have been the devil's idea, but pulling his hair was my idea. And you know, she's probably right. A lot of the things we blame the devil for are really our own ideas because we have a sinful nature that pulls us away from God and pulls us towards sin and we want to gratify those desires and thoughts and feelings of the sinful nature. And so where does grace find us, grace finds us dominated by a sinful nature. But not only that, it doesn't stop there. One last statement in verse 3 tells us that grace finds us destined for punishment. Look at the end of verse 3, like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. Now what does that mean? It means because we come into this world with a sinful nature that is against God and for us and has broken off our relationship with God. We are alienated from God. We're hostile to God. It means that we are under His wrath. We are already judged and condemned by God's wrath. Now friend, you need to understand if you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior, it's not like, well, I can kind of wait through life and see how things turn out. And then when I get to heaven, it'll all stack up one way or the other. You know, good works, bad works, and I'll figure out where I'm going then. It doesn't work that way. The Bible teaches you don't have to wait till you die to be under God's judgment. You are already under God's wrath. You are an object of His wrath. Look at these two verses in John chapter 3, John 3.18, whoever believes in Him is not condemned. Whoever does not believe, now notice this, stands condemned already. Because He is not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. If you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior, you are already under the condemnation of God. The sentence has already been passed. Just hasn't been carried out yet. And that will happen someday. But the sentence has already passed. You are already under God's wrath. You're already condemned. Look at verse 36, the end of the same chapter. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Now notice, for God's wrath remains on Him. It's saying that God's wrath is already on you. And if you continue to reject His Son, which is the only means God has ever provided for your salvation. If you continue to reject Him, then His wrath will remain on you throughout eternity. And you will experience the literal carrying out of that punishment and judgment that God is storing up. The Bible says until the day of wrath. So the Bible teaches this is where grace finds us. It's pretty sorry states, pretty bad shape. And I want to remind you that there are people in this situation who outwardly look like they're doing okay. Physically they're fine. They may even live pretty decent moral lives and be good neighbors and all the rest may even come to church. But the Bible says if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, where you are is dead and sin directed by this world system dictated by Satan, dominated by the sin nature and destined for judgment and punishment. That is where grace finds us. But thankfully it's not the end of the story. Look at how verse four starts. But why I'm glad that's word is there. I'm glad there's a change in things in verse four. There are probably gloomy scene in verses one through three. But here's the hope, here's the good news. This is the deliverance of grace. This is where grace takes us. And where does grace take us when God reaches down by his grace and takes us out of our sin and saves us and gives us eternal life and forgives us? Where does grace take us? First of all it takes us to a new life. Look at verse four. But because of his great love for us, God who is rich and mercy, made us alive. With Christ who is rich or even when we were dead in transgressions, it is by grace you've been saved. Notice he made us alive because we were dead in sins. What we needed is resurrection. It's a strong word here. It is the word for resurrection in the Bible. What you need is not self-help. That's not going to resurrect a dead person. It's self-help, the idea that I think I can do better if I just try harder or if I really try to be nice to people and live a pretty clean life, then I think when I get to heaven, my good deeds all out way my bad. Not at all my friend. It's not a matter of trying to do more good. You're dead. You're dead, spiritually. You can't crawl out of a casket. You're dead. There's nothing you can do to save yourself. So you need more than self-help. You need more than your own efforts and your own works to try to please God. What you need is a resurrection. You need life from above to resurrect a dead person. That's exactly what he's saying in his grace. He does for us. He gives us new life. He reaches down. Notice verse 4 because of his great love and also verse 4 because of his richness of mercy. Verse 5 because of his grace. He resurrects us. He makes us alive. Notice the Bible says with Christ, with Christ. It is because of Jesus' death on the cross and his burial, his resurrection that we can have new life in him. That is the only way of salvation. You can try until you are blue in the face. You can try until the day you die to do enough good to please God. And the Bible says we started out with such a great deficit because we're born with the sin nature. You'll never get to heaven that way. You will never make it that way. But grace, God's free gift to us of salvation gives us new life, resurrection of life. Secondly, it gives us a new location. Look at verse 7. Verse 6. And God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. You already have a new location. You are just as good as already in heaven. See what it's saying there? You are already seated in the heavenly places in Christ. Now physically you're not there yet. You're still here. Some of you may be off in another land somewhere in your mind. But come on, come back. You're here. But as God looks at you in your position in Christ, you are already seated in the heavenly places in Christ. You're already in him. Just as good as in heaven right now. That's how certain your salvation is. That's how secure you are in Christ. You have a new position. By the way, that position that we have in Christ enables us to have all that we talked about in chapter 1 a few weeks ago, all the blessings and the power and the help we need to live the Christian life. All of that's available to us because we have a position of being seated in the heavenly in Christ. So we have a new life. We have a new location third. We have a new future. Verse 7. In order that in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. It's so easy just to kind of read over that verse, let it roll off our tongue and not really grasp what he's saying. This is one of the most amazing verses in all the Bible about what heaven's going to be like. What it is literally saying to us is that throughout heaven's eternity, God is going to continue to reveal to us ways in which He loved us by showing kindness to us. That's impossible for our finite minds to grasp all the ways in which God loves us and He demonstrates that. And heaven is going to be a continual discovery of the ways in which God has shown His love to us. I know heaven is not marked off by time, so I'm speaking a little out of order here, but it's almost like every day we wake up in heaven, God says I've got something new to show you today about how I love you. I think maybe I've told you about Jack Benny, the comedian, died several years ago. Jack Benny had a custom of every day of sending a rose to his wife if he was out of town or bringing her one home every day to let her know that he loved her. Fresh rose. Now I see a lot of conviction on guys faces right now, see some wives going like that. It's different for everybody. Don't put your husband under that kind of burden, say you got to do that to show him you love him. Jack Benny did it. On the day of his funeral, there was a knock at the door after the funeral was over and Mrs. Benny was at home. There was a knock at the door and a delivery man from a florist was there. And he had a rose. And Mrs. Benny broke down crying and then she said, evidently, you don't know, Mr. Benny is dead today was his funeral. And the delivery man said I was told that. I was also told by my florist, the people I deliver for, that Mr. Benny arranged before he died to make sure that until you died, you would have a new rose every day. Now I think heaven's going to be something like that. I think heaven's going to be waking up to new discoveries all the time. God's showing us, in great joy and pleasure, God loving to show us how much He has loved us and the ways in which He's loved us by showing His kindness to us in Christ. We have a new future coming, my friend. It's a glorious one. Grace takes us to a new future, but grace also takes us to a new focus, verses 8 and 9. Once we understand grace, the focus is no longer on us and our works, the focus is on Him and His grace. And we understand that salvation is totally a work of God. Notice what verses 8 and 9 say, familiar to most of you here this morning. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of work, not by works so that no one can boast. Now notice three things, the Bible says about our salvation here and our new focus that we have from grace, understanding grace is to understand what salvation is all about, that it's of grace, it's not of works. Three things are said, first one in verse 9 is not by works. Not by works. You cannot work your way to heaven. You may think you can and you may try and you may think, well I'm as good as Joe Blow so and so, who's a member of that church. My friend, the standard is not anybody's works. The standard is the holiness of God. You can't reach that neither can I, nobody can. And that's why salvation has to be a gift. It's not by works. You've probably heard the old fable of the frog who fell in the milk pail and he kind of panned it and started paddling. I guess it was a frog paddling, not a dog paddling, but he paddled. And he's in there just paddling, trying to stay afloat on top of the milk and all the sudden some of the milk begins to harden a little bit, you know. So he paddles a little bit, more and paddles a little bit, more and pretty soon there's a pad of butter there and he climbs up on top of that butter that he's churned and he jumps out of the pail to his salvation. Well, that's a neat little story for Kermit the Frog but it doesn't do any good or me any good. It's no good for us in our salvation. We will not, we will not by anything we do build a platform on which we can jump out of our sin into heaven. We will not do that. It is not by works, the Bible says. That's God talking, not me, not by works. Second thing he says about this new focus on grace in verse 8, it is by grace. It is by grace, not by works but it is by grace and grace is the opposite of works. Grace means that we don't earn it and we can't pay him back for it. It's not like God says, well I'll save you but you've got to do this and this and this to pay me back. If you don't measure up, cancel the salvation. No. It is a free gift that God gives us. Now that ought to blow us away. That God would freely by his love give us the gift of salvation. But it's your only hope, my friend, because you cannot do it by works. So it's not by works, it is by grace. Thirdly notice, the third thing about it is it is by faith. Verse 8, it is by grace you've been saved through faith, through faith and this not from yourselves. The whole thing, salvation, grace, faith, the whole package, not from yourselves, it's from God. It's a gift of God. But we are saved through the channel of faith. We receive this salvation through faith. And my friend, faith is much more than just an intellectual agreement about the facts of the Bible. You know, an understanding that there was a historical man named Jesus and an understanding that he did come to this earth and he died on a cross and you've seen the movies on TV and all the rest. You know that happened. That's an intellectual belief. Faith is placing your trust, your confidence in him, that what he did on the cross is the only way you can get to heaven. That's the faith he's talking about. Back in the 1800s, there was a performer. His stage name was Blondon. He was a French guy. I think his name was John Claude Clarath or something. I don't remember exactly what his name was. But anyways, the stage name was Blondon. He was a tightrope walker. And he was the best, maybe the best that's ever been in that particular art. He dazzled audiences all over the world by walking the tightrope in very unusual situations. For instance, one time in London, there was a tightrope 170 feet above the ground and he walked across the tightrope playing a violin. There was another time he did this in London where he did a summer salt on the tightrope wearing stills. But his most unusual performances were at Niagara Falls. Several times, Blondon crossed Niagara Falls on an 1100 foot long tightrope, 160 feet above the water. If you've ever been to Niagara Falls, you can imagine there are enough distractions just with the noise and the water that I just can't imagine that happening. But he always spiced it up a little bit. It wasn't just like walking on the tightrope across the water. He spiced it up a little bit. One time, he went across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. And in the middle, he stopped and had this little kerosene stove he pulled out and cooked an omelet on the tightrope. Another time, he wheeled a wheelbarrow across Niagara Falls on a tightrope, blindfolded. That's just, yeah, that's the way I thought. How did that happen? I'm glad someone's listening. But I think the most amazing feat of all was when he crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope, carrying a guy on his back. Now I don't know about you, but I don't think I would volunteer to crawl up on the guys back. I don't care how good he is. I'm afraid I might start squirming and lose my balance and we'd both go down. But he did it. He actually carried someone across on his back on the tightrope. And when he got to the other side, there was a crowd there, of course, watching this. They're all applauding and he sets the guy down and he says to the crowd, does anybody here believe I can do that with you? And one guy in the front said, oh, yeah, I just saw you do it. And Blondon said, well, climb on and we'll go back across. And he said, no way. Now that's the difference in belief and faith or trust. You may see something and believe it can be done. You may see the facts in front of you and believe the facts about it, but to actually commit yourself and your eternal destiny to Jesus Christ, to lay yourself totally on him, depend totally on him and the work he did on the cross to save you, that is trust, that's faith. And that's how you're saved. It is not by works, it's by grace through faith. That's the new focus we have because of grace. But quickly, let's look at where grace or what grace requires of us, the demands of grace, what grace requires of us. Verse 10, for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. You know, most of us when we think of Ephesians 289, who's great verses about salvation, not by works, it's by grace through faith, we realize that's a gift of God. We stop there. Paul didn't intend us to stop there. Because grace as free as it is and the way it delivers us to a new life and a new location, a new future, a new focus, all of that is true. But once we are saved, there are some demands that grace makes of us. Rightly so. You see, the response that we are to have because of God's grace is to serve him. You were not saved just to sit back and enjoy the ride to heaven and say, well, I'm so glad I'm saved, my sins are forgiven. And now I get to go to heaven. Man, I'm just going to enjoy the ride. No, you are saved in order to serve God. You are saved for that. Notice three things he says about this demand of grace. The demand, the requirement of grace is this. We are designed for service. He says, for we are God's workmanship. The word workmanship is an interesting word, poyema, is the Greek word. It literally means a piece of art, a masterpiece, a work that's created by a great master of art. You were designed for this. You were designed for serving God to do good works to live for him. And you were put together for God that God designed you. He built you in the womb for that. He gave you certain abilities. When you got saved, he gave you certain spiritual gifts. When you got saved, he built into you the kind of personality he wants to express itself in certain ways and serving him. He's given you life experiences, all of which he has designed to prepare you in some way to serve him. Like Amy Carmichael used to say in her books, God never wastes the time of his servants. Nothing that ever happens to you ever happens by mistake. It is all a part of God's plan and purpose to prepare you to serve him in some way. To be of use for him in someone's life. God has designed you for that. Secondly, God has delivered you for service. Look at verse 10 again. We are created in Christ Jesus to do good works. The creation he's talking about here is the new creation, salvation. Then you may be in Christ, he is what? A new creation. Salvation is described sometimes as a new creation. We are in Christ, we are new creations, but we are created in Christ to do good works. We were delivered, we were saved for that. Again, you were not saved so that you can just sit and enjoy the ride to heaven. You were saved so that you could be of use to God. Otherwise, God would just take us on when we got saved. Why not just individual raptures when we get saved? If everything's already done and we're ready for heaven, which we are, why don't we just zip us up there when we get saved? But he doesn't, he leaves us here because salvation is the beginning of a lifetime of serving him. We were delivered from sin for that. But not only were we designed for that and delivered for that, we were destined for service. Notice what he says there in verse 10. Created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. What that's talking about is the sovereign working of God back in eternity past when he planned his eternal plan. It included the good works he wanted you specifically to do in your life. That's an amazing thought, but that's what he's talking about here. God prepared in advance the good works that he has for us to do. They were all laid out in his plan before you were ever born. And then in his providence, which means his overall control of life circumstances, in God's providence, he brings you along step by step and brings you to encounters with those good works that he's prepared in advance for you to do. Now that's a really great way to look at life. To wake up in the morning and say, God, I believe in eternity past, you had some things chosen for me to do this. You had some things planned for me to do in advance. And I want to be looking for them, Lord. So I'm just going to believe you today that across my path today may come some needy person. And I may not first recognize, but I want to be on the lookout for anybody that you send across my path believing that that is a divine intersection in your providence of someone who has a need. And some way you have prepared me through trial or difficulty or just past experience or through interest or personality. You've built into me. You've prepared me and enabled me to do this. And here this person is and here I am. And this is a divine intersection of our lives. And this is something you planned long, long time ago. But now I see it working out in this day. And I have an opportunity to do good works for you because I'm saved, not in order to get saved, but because I love you have an opportunity to work out your plan in my life today. It's a great way to look at life. I wish I woke up every day thinking about that. I'll be honest with you, I don't. But I wish I did. And one of my prayers today will be Lord, make me more sensitive to that. That you've got this already in plan for me every day. And I just need to be looking for the ways that you want me to do the good works you prepare in advance for me to do. We all ought to be looking for that because God designed us for service. He wants you to serve Him, friend. And you know what? If we really understand His grace and all that He's done for us in salvation, none of which we could do for ourselves, then out of just the overflow of love from our hearts for Him and gratitude for what He's done, we ought to want to serve Him every day. And look for whatever He wants for us to do each day in intersecting with other people's lives to serve Him and do those good works. He prepared in advance for us to do. God's grace is so amazing. The Him is true, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Once I was blind but now I see was lost but now I'm found. Would you pray with me? Father, thank you for your amazing grace.