How God Saves Sinners | Ephesians 2:8-10 | Pastor John Miller

i want to back up now i know i'm we're going to read 10 verses to look at the last three but i want you to see it all in its marvelous context beginning in verse 1 paul says now you hath he quickened or you who are dead and trespasses and sins when in times past you walked according to the course of this world according to the prince and the power of the air the spirit that works in the children of disobedience among whom also we all had our conversation our manner of living and times past in the lust of the flesh or lester our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind we were by nature the children of wrath even as others but god who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath he quickened or regenerated or given new life together with christ by grace you are saved and he hath raised us up together verse 6 and made us sit together in heavenly places in christ jesus and then he says in verse 7 then in the ages to come he might show the exceeding richness of his grace and his kindness toward us through christ jesus for by grace you are saved through faith and not that of yourselves it is the gift of god not of works lest any man should boast for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus unto good works which god hath before ordained that we should walk in them i hardly think that we can fathom or comprehend the beauty and the marvelous truths that are found in these verses and i certainly as a bible teacher cannot exhaust the dr the depth and the riches that are here and one of the reasons why these verses are so well known and memorized and i do really really encourage you as a believer to put scriptures to memory every christian should memorize verses every christian should hide god's word in their heart so they might not sin against him so put them on sticky notes stick them on the mirror put them on the steering wheel in your car don't look at it while you're trying to drive on the freeway but maybe at stop signs you read it or whatever but just do something to just get god's word hidden in your heart and use the translation that is easiest for you to memorize i've read the king james bible my whole life since i was young and heard it preached and so i have stuck with that but i do think that it is one of the most quotable because of the rhyme and the meter and the way it's written and even the old english believe it or not in many cases actually lends itself to memorization and quotability so a lot of the modern english translations i i think are lacking an ability to be able to quote and so i'm really kind of a die-hard king james guy when it comes to being a memorizing and quoting scripture so anyway that's just a little two cents i threw in there that's not my notes i wasn't planning on sharing that with you but one of the reasons why these verses are so near and dear to our hearts is because they very simply and succinctly tell us how god saves sinners now we might think of salvation as being kind of a simple subject you know we're sinners jesus is the savior and we accept him in our heart and we go to heaven that's salvation but really it's deeper than that and it's needing there's a need for christians to think deeply and understand the doctrine of salvation and how it all works and why and that's what paul's epistles do it actually breaks it all down for us that's why i said you actually have the book of romans in three verses here in the book of ephesians so it's a message of how god saves sinners now let me summarize that message for you how does god save sinners by grace through faith in christ by grace through faith in christ now again this may sound super basic and super simple and you hear pastor john repeat it all the time but each one of those statements is a whole kind of theological truth in in and of itself some like to package it like this grace alone faith alone in christ alone now that's pretty easy for you to memorize too grace alone faith alone and christ alone and i believe that alone added to that is very important because it's not grace plus works it's not faith plus kind of doing religious deeds it's not christ plus other ascended masters it's christ alone so how does god save sinners by grace through faith in christ alone now a little review leading up to our text in verses one to three we saw the depth of our sin and we saw how in our natural state we were number one dead in sin verse 1 and we were dead in trespasses and our sins and then secondly we were disobedient in verse 2. we were living according to the world and according to the prince and the power of the air the spirit that works in the children of disobedience we were under satan's influence and then in verse 3 we were depraved we were living according to the lust of our flesh so this is before we were born of the spirit before we were regenerated and given new life and number three we were doomed we were children of wrath even as others so dead verse 1 disobedient verse 2 depraved verse 3 and doomed or verse 3 as well we were doomed but then notice immediately with this dark background we now see the greatness of god's love the height of god's love so he takes us down to the depth of our sin then he lifts us up to the height of god's love by the way verses 1 to 3 we have our sinful past and then in verses 4 4 to 6 we have god's grace and saving us in the present and then verse 7 takes us off into eternity future but notice what god has done for us three things i love this verse 4 he loved us verse 5 he quickened us that's he gave us new life and then verse six he raised us up and then in verse seven he shows us the exceeding richness of his grace and i believe in verse seven that he's actually describing than an eternity future we are going to be in heaven and god's going to unfold the glories and the majesty and the splendor of his grace so when we get to heaven we're not going to just go oh yeah this is cool now what do we do let's just get you know get bored and sit around and play our harps on the cloud and watch the angels fly around we're actually going to be listening to the grace of god unfolded throughout all eternity understanding the vastness of god's grace and his mercy that ages to come i believe is eternity future and he will show us the exceeding richness of his grace show us his kindness towards us and it's all through christ jesus so he talks about the depth of our sin he talks about the height of god's love now tonight in verses 8 9 and 10 we see the width of god's grace and work the height the depth and the width of god's grace and work verses 8 9 and 10. now let's read those verses again by grace you have been saved through faith and he is in many ways summarizing what he's covered in those first seven verses it is by grace you have been saved back earlier in verse five he introduced that theme at the end of verse 5 by grace you are saved notice it's not you hope to be saved you might be saved if you're lucky you'll be saved salvation is a present possession you are saved so by grace you are saved that then that not of yourself it is a gift of god not of works lest any man should boast for we that are saved by god's grace or his workmanship created in christ jesus on the good works which god hath before ordained that we should walk in them so we're not saved by good works but we're saved unto good works how true that is so paul elaborates on the grace of god so he has taken us from death to life from bondage to freedom from despair to hope so god has saved us now the question that we want to ask first tonight is how does god save us i'm going to ask two basic questions i'm going to ask how does god save us and then the second question is going to be why does god save us how does god save us why does god save us well let me tell you how god saves us by telling you first from the text how god does not save us or anyone for that matter notice verse 9 not of works lest any man or person should boast and then notice in verse 8 the statement and that not of yourselves did you know that no one can save themself it's like trying to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps try it sometime it's it's not going to work no one can save themself to begin with we just learned that we're dead in trespasses and sins what can a dead man do to save himself if you came on a corpse and said save yourself what would happen nothing wouldn't respond so there's nothing that we can do to save ourselves now this is going to be a little repetitive tonight but i want to drive home this point that christianity teaching we're say by grace through faith in christ is is is unique from all other religions no other religious system teaches grace alone through faith alone in christ alone no other religious system teaches we're saved by grace alone they combine grace with works is as close as they get but it's not grace alone and it is very important that you understand that only the bible only christianity teaches that the only way for us to be saved is by grace not by our own good deeds only christians only christianity says done other religions say do remember when jesus died on the cross and he uttered those words it is what finished to telesty done paid in full finished he cried so jesus paid it all all to him we owe sin had left a crimson stain and he what washed it white as snow it's not my good deeds plus his death on the cross it's grace alone through faith alone in christ alone and we studied that so thoroughly in the book of galatians it's not water baptism it's not communion it's not confirmation it's basically the grace of god we were dead we were enslaved and we were children of the devil we were doomed but yet god came to rescue us by his marvelous grace and then he tells us that it's not of works verse 9 lest no one so no one can what boast i love what john stott said he said we will not be able to strut around heaven like peacocks we will be filled with the but heaven will be filled with the exploits of christ and the praises of god no bragging going on in heaven you should have seen how many doors i knocked on you just seen how many i led the christ and you should have seen what a godly man i was i don't think so we're going to be in heaven worshiping he who saved us by his marvelous grace so we're saved by grace through faith it's not of ourself it is a gift of god so here's the positive secondly the negative we're not saved by works are religious deeds don't ever let anyone tell you that you can work hard enough to get saved or earn your merit your salvation so he says for by grace verse 8 you are saved by grace literally you have been saved so it's a present possession so how are we saved not by works but by grace and this is one of the grandest themes of the bible the grace of god the bible is the only book that teaches that we're saved by grace alone without works grace plus works is not salvation it's grace alone so we need to understand what grace is grace is unmerited undeserved favor it's the love of god going out toward the utterly undeserving grace is god doing for us what we do not deserve what we have not earned when we have not merited what we have not done any work for so we're saved by god's unmerited unearned undeserved favor and that's so important for you to understand now this is counter to our culture christianity is counter cultural it is totally counter cultural the culture is controlled by the lust of the flesh lust of the eyes and the pride of life the glamour of the world the tinsel of the world but god's kingdom is the opposite of the world in the world it's put yourself first do what you want do what feels good in god's kingdom it's die to yourself humble yourself it's the opposite read the beatitudes blessed are the poor in spirit blessed are the meek blessed are they that mourn where where do you find that in the world how to be happy how to be happy see yourself as a sinner destitute on your way to hell repent of your sins and trust jesus christ not too many books like that so god's kingdom is a counter-cultural kingdom from the world that's filled with pride and self-righteousness pascal said grace is indeed required to turn a man into a saint and he who doubts this does not know what either man is or a saint is now again i won't carry on it because we studied it in galatians but you cannot mingle or bring together grace and works and with all due respect for those who maybe are still connected to or involved with or come out of the roman catholic church roman catholicism has this wrong they emphasize the grace of god but only as you do pentance and you do the works and you're baptized and you go to confession and you take communion and all the works so they are doing what the bible says can't be done that's combining grace and works the bible teaches that when we're justified that it's an act of god where he declares the believing sinner righteous based on the finished work of jesus christ on the cross and it happens instantaneously by trusting jesus christ as your savior the roman catholic church teaches that it's a process so they confuse justification and sanctification and a lot of christians do the same thing they don't realize that my standing in justification my position is complete i can't get any more righteous i rest in that that is secure they always think they have to do things and work and try to be good in order to be justified before god but justification is an instantaneous complete work that i don't believe can be reversed but sanctification is a life process of growing more holy in righteousness and our walk with god romans chapter 11 verse 6 write it down says by grace then it is an if by grace then excuse me it's no more works otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be of works then it is no more grace otherwise work is no more work now i want you to quote that to me after church tonight basically he's saying it's either works or grace you can't have both if it's works it's not grace if it's grace it's not works you can't blend the two together it's so important so god's grace as john newton wrote and that marvelous hymn amazing grace is absolutely amazing romans chapter 5 verse 20 but we where sin abounded grace did much more what overflow so we're saved by god's marvelous grace now here's the third way god saves us through faith not by works but by grace that summarizes our salvation but it comes to us through the avenue of faith i like to think of faith as the hand that reaches out empty and accepts the gift of god's salvation now you might say but john i thought we were not saved by works is not faith a work i won't carry on this but let me make it very very clear faith is not a work faith is not earning deserving or meriting salvation and sometimes even evangelical christians get this wrong and they get the idea that you've got to have a lot of faith you have a lot of faith if you really want to be super saved not just kind of semi-saved but like super saved and i believe nothing none believe am i going to you look in the mirror and psych yourself up in the morning i'm going to believe i believe in g i believe in jesus it's not the amount of your faith it's the object of your faith a little faith in jesus christ will take your soul to heaven you don't have to have a lot of faith you just have to the right object of your faith and even if your faith is faltering or failing if you're trusting jesus christ to take you to heaven he will be faithful to do what he has promised but let me tell you what faith is not it's not a work write that down it's not a merit for salvation it's not a feeling it's not subjective it's not like trying to psych the emotions up i i believe i believe i believe nor is it a positive mental attitude some people think faith is a positive mental attitude it's thinking positively and eliminating negative thoughts or confessions out of your mouth nor is it believing in spite of evidence this is what the world thinks christians do that when they become christians they check their brains out at the door when they come to church they kind of check their brains out of the door and they just all feelings all emotions now our emotions good yeah they're great but they need to be subject to god's objective truth so if it's all emotions and we don't have objective truth to believe and reasons for our faith then we're going to falter and fall this is why and i'm saying a lot of things tonight i have no intention of saying i'm planning i'm just kind of into one of those moods but this is why that in many churches that are all emotion and less doctrinal truth from god's word there's a high ratio of backsliding and falling away from christ you might not like that you may disagree with me but i've been around it my whole life i grew up in it as a boy highly emotional energized christianity and i saw people backslide like there was no tomorrow because there was no foundation in god's word so it's not about emotion it's not about feeling praise god for the joy of the lord praise god for the sense of his presence and all those things but what about when it's not there what about when you wake up and you don't feel good and you're bummed out and it's like where is god you rest on his word you rest in his promises someone said you never doubt in the dark when god spoke in the light i love that so when you're in a dark place and you don't sense god's presence you own up the light of his words and you stand on this truth so faith is not a feeling i remember as a young christian growing up in that environment because i didn't feel saved anymore what happened to the joy of the lord god's forsaken me i must have done something wrong i knew i shouldn't have yelled at that guy on the freeway the other day and have the emotions emotions are gone and then you learn to walk by faith the just shall live by what faith not feelings but by faith feelings are the caboose that follow when we live by faith and trust in god's word so that's what faith is not but what is biblical faith let's break this down it involves the mind or the intellect knowing it it's an informed mind it's knowing that i am poor in spirit that i am a sinner you're not going to be saved until you're first convinced i need to be saved i need salvation if life is kind of good when someone says hey you ought to try jesus it's really cool he'll help you out yeah that sounds pretty good i'll try i tried buddha last week i'll try jesus this week that sounds pretty cool so you just throw jesus in the mix but it just doesn't seem to work for you how many times have you met people go i tried jesus it didn't work it didn't work what do you mean it didn't work the savior of the world who died and rose from the dead and sits on the throne in heaven can't save you it's because you don't understand you're a sinner and he's the savior and you don't just add jesus to your life you repent of your sins and trust jesus but it involves the mind being educated by god's word and the bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god this is literally a sermon preached about christ or the sermon of the grace of god and then secondly it involves the heart here's true biblical faith which is the believing it's the feeling of putting your faith and trust in jesus christ the beatitude says blessed are they that mourn so it starts of poor in spirit mourning over your sin the heart i must mourn for my sin i must have sorrow for my sin and then thirdly the will which is the yielding this is where salvation takes place i know i'm a sinner i'm sorry for my sin i turn from my sin and then i surrender my will and i trust christ and christ alone to save me i'm not trusting in my religious works but christ and christ alone so if there is no faith there is no salvation now this is how god saved sinners all through history old testament new testament there's not a salvation in the old testament by works and the salvation in the new testament by grace remember when abraham believed god and god imputed to him righteousness because he what believed god he hadn't gotten the law yet he hadn't been circumcised yet but he just believed god's word and god gave him righteousness so faith is not something that's progressive it's absolutely the moment you believe in jesus christ and trust him as your savior he gives to you his righteousness saving faith is not the mere intellectual reception of christian doctrine or truth and believing that god is real it's trusting in him to save you from sin write down james chapter 2 and verse 19 where it says that demons believe in god and they tremble this is why you run into a lot of times people who obviously by the way they're living are not christians but they'll say i believe in jesus everyone says that i believe in you oh i believe in you yeah i believe in jesus that doesn't mean anything have you trusted him belief is another word for faith but it doesn't mean let me put it in clear terms it doesn't mean an intellectual assent to facts or information did you know that you can believe everything that's true about christianity and go to hell you can believe that there's a god you can believe that jesus died for your sins you can believe that he rose from the dead you can believe the bible is the word of god but if you haven't trusted him you will die in your sins and go to hell so it's not enough to just go oh yeah yeah i believe i believe i believe what does it mean to believe what does it mean to put your faith and trust in jesus christ you know other terms are used in the bible let me give you some the word receive is in john 1 verse 12 whoever receives him to them he gave the right to become the children of god even them who believe on his name and then in romans 10 13 whoever calls on the name of the lord will be saved in romans 10 verse 9 that if we confess with our mouth that jesus is lord believe in our heart that god raised him from the dead we will be what saved and then in revelation 22 17 we got that when we went through the book of revelation believing in jesus means to come and to drink of the water of life freely it means to come to jesus sometimes we'll use that we'll say i came to jesus in 1971 or i came to jesus in 1983 i believed in him or i trusted him and then we all know john 3 16 right for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever what believeth in him shall never perish but have what everlasting life that's the whole bible in one verse that's the whole bible in one verse if you trust in him receive him come to him put your faith in him believe in him you will never perish but you will have everlasting life here's acts 16 31. it's going to be one of my night scenes of the bible by the way it happened in philippi in prison at night the philippian jailer said what must i do to be saved if you ever have a cultist knock on your door that's a great verse to turn to and ask the question and if they say join our group get a haircut put our underwear on get a christian haircut come to church get baptized join our group no paul told the philippian jailer believe on the lord jesus christ and you will be what saved that's in the bible it's that simple but yet big people always want to add some kind of righteous works along that as well so marvelous marvelous verse it's trusting in jesus christ it's kind of like illustration i've used so many and you're probably getting tired of hearing them all but it's kind of like marriage you first get to know somebody and i highly recommend don't marry somebody if you don't know him you can't believe some of the things that i encounter i have people come up to me even here in our church hey pastor john we want to know if you'll perform our marriage i'll say well when are you getting married right now up in your office if you'll do it how long have you known each other we just met a couple days ago no no no no no no it's not gonna happen i highly recommend you get to know somebody before you commit to them good good idea right secondly then you fall in love with them and you grow to agape them but it starts first with a knowledge of them knowing them i always tell young people too if you're single too you can get to know about a lot about a person by observation rather than dating or getting involved physically just observe them look at them watch them get to know them in a crowd get to know them in the distance because then if you see a red light okay we can turn around go the other way and you don't get involved sometimes we just get too involved i'll just stop right there and then we see all these red lights and we're involved with them and so we don't stop and go the other way it's very dangerous get to know them then there's love and then what happens in the wedding ceremony you walk down the aisle and the mat pastor says will you take this person as your wife or your husband and then you say what i do right do you promise to love and cherish and obey tell death i do that is a commitment that's the same with salvation that's trusting jesus christ saying lord i'm a sinner i love you you died for me i want to commit my life to you and you dedicate your life to him it's a commitment that you make jesus then said if anyone come after me he denies himself he takes up his cross and he follows me so how are we saved not by works but by grace through faith which is that trusting he him to save us putting all your weight upon him now the second question is why does god save us verse 10. so we are saved by grace not by not not by through faith not of ourself it is the gift of god not of works listening management both now i forgot something i don't want to miss that wasn't in my notes but in verse 8 when he says through faith and that not of yourselves the statement that not of yourselves is not referring to the faith it's referring to salvation and some misinterpret that and say that god gives you the gift of faith in order to believe and be saved but the grammar there in the greek and most good greek scholars agree even though some calvinists that are especially hyper calvinist believe that you can't get saved unless god regenerates you first then gives you the ability to have faith and believe in him then he saves you that's not what the bible teaches and i find no biblical basis for that in scripture i classify that as hyper calvinism so when he says but that not of yourself he's not referring to the faith he's referring to the saved the salvation is not of yourself it's another way of saying we're not saved by our works we're not saved by our good deeds now why does god save us verse 10 for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus unto good works which god hath before ordained that we should walk in them so simply stated god saves you by his grace through faith in jesus christ so that your life will testify of his marvelous grace so that you will be changed if anyone is in christ he's a new creation and that the way you live will bring glory and honor to god so he doesn't save you to make you rich doesn't save you to make you healthy and wealthy he saves you for his glory that's what salvation is all about starts with the grace of god and ends with the glory of god now notice we're not saved because of good works but we're saved unto or for so it's actually teaching us what is consistent through the bible is that our good works are the fruit of salvation not the root or the cause of salvation and again this is where the cultists thinking of the jehovah's witnesses and the mormons who come on your doorstep they get it turned around they think you work for salvation when the bible says you actually you work out your salvation with fear and trembling that the works are the fruit of your salvation and when james is talking about works being saved by works he's talking about salvation or being justified before men who look on us and see us that our life shows we're saved it's kind of like that song if you're saved and you know it then your life will surely what sure so you're not saved because of your good works you're saved to produce good works which are the work of the holy spirit in you for the glory of god now we all know that have studied this passage that that word workmanship is an interesting greek word it's the greek word poema and we get our word poem from it and the word itself literally means something made and what it's conveying is something made is a work of art actually a painting a piece of pottery a craft it's a thing made you're god's workmanship some translate this you're his masterpiece i love that god makes you into the glory for the glory of god he's poema he's making you i think of god using moses and joseph and all the people that he saved like paul the apostle what a marvelous work he did and what a marvelous work he's done in your life how he saved you by his grace how he took your old heart of sin and stone out and he put a new heart in you and the things you used to love you now hate the things you hate used to hate you now love and you're now a true child of god you have a new life old things pass away all things become new so you become his poema as work of art as masterpiece something that is made pottery was very popular in the ancient world for obvious reasons and i love the picture of god the potter we're the clay i've never been able to throw a pot on a wheel i can draw i can paint i can do artistic things but every time i try to touch the clay it just go boom i can't get it centered i can't get it straight it starts to whirling flies off and hits the wall i had a had a class in high school where we had to throw pots and i could never get a pot to look right it would fly off and i would just try it again and couldn't get it so i just kind of hit it against the wall flatten it out put a couple of grooves in it make an ashtray i took all these ashtrays home to my mom and she didn't even smoke here mom have another ashtray i'm so glad that god is the master potter amen that he's molding me and shaping me into the person he wants me to be and you know that's a lifelong process don't get discouraged if there's still some lumps in your clay don't get discouraged if you haven't been you know properly put in the kill and haven't been glazed and you're not painted just right god's in the process we're all under construction god's working he is creating and it uses that word create that we are his workmanship created in christ jesus so it's not us it's god the master craftsman who has created us and he ordained that we should walk in them i believe that god has a master plan for our lives if we will yield to him if we will trust him if we will surrender to him you cannot go wrong by trusting in jesus christ and surrendering your life to him in all thy ways acknowledge him and he will do what direct your path he will make your path straight so we were dead and he's given us new life we are now new creations so god's work for me in salvation god's work in me in sanctification and then god's work through me in service salvation sanctification and service what a glorious truth that is so we are saved by grace through faith apart from works what a marvelous truth that is we've been resurrected from the dead we've been liberated from slavery we've been rescued from condemnation we have eternal life so god begins a work in us by his grace and the ends when we get to heaven for his glory amen

Channel: Revival Christian Fellowship

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Length: 39min 25sec (2365 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021