A Study In Ephesians: Grace-Based Living

The Christian life is all about God's grace not human earning.

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SPEAKER_00 0:30

We're reading from God's holy word, Ephesians 2, 1 through 10. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, 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 ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not as 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, so that we would walk in them.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Let's pray together. Lord, your word says, taste and see that the Lord is good. Lord, help us to taste your kindness this morning. Lord, as we worship, as we receive your word. Help us drink your presence, your spirit into the deepest part of who we are. Father, use us to demonstrate your kindness to the world. Father, to live out your grace in such a way that people are drawn in to who you are, to your gospel, to your truth. And God, we just thank you that somehow we are the objects of your kindness and your great grace and love. Lord, we give you praise this morning. We open our hearts to you in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Thank you, John and Shelley, uh, for reading the word. Thank you, team, for leading us in worship this morning. Um my name is Nick, and I am one of the elders here at Point Communion Church, and I have the privilege of getting to preach a lot of the Sundays here, and very thankful for that. Um it's gonna be a little tight this morning. Uh so glad that you're here. And if you're a guest, if this if you're a visitor with us, we're glad that you're here. And I want to say thank you for being here. Um this is a a great, great opportunity this morning uh to proclaim God's truth. Uh I uh I wanted to just simply uh say, well, before I move on, real quickly, I want to identify that that John and Shelly, who were just up here reading the text to us, uh, they actually are heading up our student ministry right now. And God has called them into that, and they are actually hosting our teenagers uh both on Sunday nights and some other uh events that they've scheduled to connect with teenagers and discipling them. And so if you you have a teenager in your household, uh you probably already know you need help. Um and they're great help. And so, amen, right? And uh and so they're awesome folks who who love the Lord and love these teenagers. Um I think the last time he served as a student pastor was 23 years ago, something like that, and God has resurrected them uh to do that, and much wiser now, uh, much more experienced as all of their kids have now left their house, or at least they're they're past 18. And uh there's a couple I think that are still around. So uh, but we're very thankful for them and thankful for their hearts for the kingdom of God and for students. And so if you are a teenager or if you have teenagers, uh we encourage you to get to know them. They're awesome folks. Uh, I know personally I've got three that are in the student ministry um and already have benefited from just being around them and their love for the Lord. Um so as I was saying, uh this is a great morning uh because we get to proclaim the truths that this passage uh from Ephesians 2 that they've read for us say to us, states to us, declares to us, and it is so, so rich for us. If you, when you came in, did not get a worship guide, I want to uh encourage you just to lift your hand, and we actually have some folks, some amazing people who would love to hook you up with one of those uh so that you can write some notes about the message this morning. You can also follow along in that this week. There's a reading guide. We're reading slowly through the book of Ephesians, and uh we're excited about that. And one of the things that you will note uh as we think about the book of Ephesians, anybody else need one? You're good? Uh if is you noted that we are learning as a body, as a church family, as a community of believers here. We call ourselves a family of Jesus followers uh that are pointing people to life in Christ. We're a family of disciples on mission, if you will. Uh, that we are learning how to be a spiritual body together. Okay? And the book of Ephesians very specifically speaks to this uh this way that the church is actually supposed to function, how it's supposed to work, what it's supposed to look like, what it's supposed to feel like, how we're supposed to operate as a church. And sometimes we take our cues from culture or tradition, but when we look at God's word, this is an explanation of what the church should actually be, uh who we should be together, okay? And so we're gonna grow as a church, hopefully grow up and mature in being a spiritual body, okay? Not just a group of people who are together for once a uh 90 minutes on Sunday. Um, if your discipleship consists of 90 minutes on Sunday, you're not gonna grow a lot, okay? Uh I love getting to sing with you, I love sermons, but it's an all-of-life experience to follow Jesus, okay? And so, that being said, as we get into the book of Ephesians, even today, my prayer is that we will continue to grow to be the church that God wants us to be. That we will, which starts first individually, that each one of us individually uh listen to God and obey God, respond to Him by as and respond to His grace, as we're gonna talk about today. But also collectively, that when you become a Christ follower, you're not just called to personally be saved, but you're called into community to be a group of people who are saved and who are living uh transformed lives because of the salvation we've received through Christ. Now, uh if you don't have your Bible out, I go ahead and encourage you to pull it out because we're gonna be referring back to the text that we've read. But Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10. And this is one of my favorite sections of the Bible. Uh, it's one that I've actually taught from before. Uh it's been a while since my last time of teaching through this section, but it is really, really helpful. And it's helpful for a couple of reasons because as I was telling our elders this week, I felt this sense of like, uh I want, I want every person in our area to know that this is the heart of the Christian faith. That this is what we believe as Christians. This is what we, when we say Christian, sometimes that word Christian has a lot of baggage that comes with it, and for good reason, okay? Because Christians can be punks. Uh, Christians can be self-righteous, they can be arrogant, we can put on a lot of faces, we can put them wear masks, we can be, uh, we can pretend, uh, we can have a lot of things that go on in the church that we sign off and say, well, you know, we we just give ourselves permission to act a certain way, to do certain things that aren't in line with the Christ that we're following, they're not consistent with his character, because we are people, we're imperfect, we're works in progress. Uh, but when you look at what is the Christian faith all about, this is a section of scripture you can say, Ephesians 2, 1 through 10. This is the message of the Christian faith. This is what transforms and changes a group of people uh into a vibrant spiritual community who are living out uh who their their original purpose, their original design that God gave them, that God gave us. Okay, make that personal. And so that being said, um, I just want to start by simply saying this. The Christian life, as you're gonna note in this text that we've already read, the Christian life is all about God's grace, not human earning. Okay? The Christian life is all about God's grace and not human earning. Now, I almost wanted to use the word effort instead of earning there, but the problem is that actually the Christian life does require effort, right? It's just a question of is your effort to try to get something or is your effort from having something? But the reality of earning, there's something built into that that we get because we are all trying to earn, in many ways, uh a status, uh some sort of a destination we're trying to arrive at. And so there we understand what it means to earn uh things. And we're gonna come back to that idea more as we go along. But in this text, we're reminded that the Christian life is all about God's grace towards humanity. In fact, the whole Bible is. Some people think that the Bible is this book of rules, that it's just a book of religion, it's a book of rules, it's about man and about our efforts and attempts to try to get to God. But if you read the Bible in the right way, and what I mean by that is with the spiritual eyes to see it, it's not a book of rules, it's a book of transformation. It's a book of redemption. It's a book about God at the center of it, rescuing humanity. And so when we get to a text like this, this is a great summary of what the whole Bible is about. About uh God rescuing people, about God redeeming people. And so today, my prayer is that you will be encouraged, that your heart will be stirred with a fresh reminder, a fresh affection for that, because it will change everything. It will change your marriage, it will change your parenting, it'll change how you use your money, it'll change the way you go to your workplace, it'll change the way you live in your neighborhood, it will change your life inside out when you begin to grasp that we as Christians, we as Christ followers, we live with our hearts centered on the grace of God, the goodness and the grace of God, not our earning of God's love and forgiveness. Now, um, there's been some interesting uh developments this week that many of you are aware of. And some of you are aware of a trial that was taking place in Dallas. And I thought it was interesting, you know, again, just even as I was reflecting on this passage about the grace of God, and was thinking about what took place in a courtroom in Dallas. Now, there's a lot of commentary around this story, and there's a lot of pieces of it that I don't understand and I don't know, okay? So I'm not gonna stand up here from the stage this morning and tell you that I know every heart motive, that I know every idea, that I know every thought that's passed through my people's minds. But here's what I do know. I do know that when I heard a young man, and he engaged a murderer, he engaged a woman who took his brother's life. Again, only God knows the whole scenario and the situation and circumstances. And he embraced her and said, I forgive you and I love you, and I want you to receive Jesus. What an amazing picture of grace. Regardless of what we think about it and what we've assign motive to, what an amazing picture of God's grace. That someone would be willing to offer and extend that to an enemy. To someone who really doesn't deserve, according to what the decision was brought down through the court system. And what I'm saying to you this morning is that's just a little picture of what God has done for humanity. It's just a little taste of what God has done for the entire human race. And what makes it so amazing is that in that moment, this woman who was guilty, according to the court, and was condemned, according to the court, was extended forgiveness from one of the victims. What an amazing thought that that could happen in the heart of humanity. And his motivation, according to him, was that that's exactly what he's experienced from God in Christ. My heart. I just sat and tears came as I watched, as I reflected on that. Maybe you did too. But it's a picture of what God has done for us in his grace. You see, our our our default setting as humans, our default setting, like when you're when you're born into this world, there's something in you that is severely broken. Severely. And this text tells us that in the first three verses. And one of the things that is broken is that we feel like that we are the ones who determine and decide what justice looks like. That we get to determine and decide how justice works and who gets what and all those things. And within that, we're reminded, even through this text, that justice is a real thing and that it should happen, but that God has, in his grace, extended to us forgiveness. Even though we un we deserve just wrath from God. Now, I um I think it's interesting that Paul is writing this text to a group of believers, and he is talking about the gospel. And if you come to Point Community Church very long, you're gonna hear us talk a lot about the gospel. We'll use that word a lot here. If you're a guest, um, you're gonna hear us if you keep coming. You're gonna hear us say the word gospel, the good news of Jesus. We're gonna talk a lot about Jesus' death, his burial, his resurrection. Uh, we're gonna talk about his return, we're gonna talk about those things. And it's because we have to keep coming back to that, just keep centering ourselves on that, or we will naturally move, migrate towards man-made religion. But it's when we review what God has done for us that we realize that our Christian faith, again, is a response to what Christ has already done for us. And that being said, this is not unlike what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where he says, I want to remind you of what is most important. And then he begins to declare the gospel to them, to a group of believers. Some people have the mindset that the gospel, the good news, is for those people who don't yet know Jesus. But if you look at the New Testament, what you will find is that the apostles would review the gospel with those who already believed. Why? Because we're forgetful, because we move on, because we think that there are other things that we need to do, that it's yes, Jesus died for me, now it's my job to work for him. And work for him in order to earn, not just because I love him, not just because I'm grateful, not just because I'm worshiping him from that place of having received. And so many of us come into this room today still trying to add to what Christ has done in some form, some fashion. Maybe even your presence here today, and I'm not trying to be mean or rude or anything else, but maybe your very presence here today is an indicator that you feel like you need to do something to try to earn God's, to God's love and his forgiveness, to add to what he's already done for you. But before we can get to that, it's important that we understand, and we're gonna look at this three three pieces in this passage this morning. It's important that we understand the backdrop for this grace that God's given us, okay? Because here's what I've learned. Where we minimize grace, or where we sorry, where we minimize sin and its consequences, we abuse God's grace. Where we minimize and we sort of push aside the condition of humanity based on our sinfulness, then we underappreciate what God has actually done for us. Are you with me? And so it's very important that we get the whole picture, that we get a right assessment. Let me read it to you again, just the first three verses, because we're gonna talk about the first three verses which say that we have been saved from something. We're gonna talk about then the next, the last three verses of the section, which remind us we've been saved for something. And in the middle of this, you're gonna find sandwiched in there how that we have been saved through something. So the first three verses that remind us we've been saved from something. What have we been saved from? He says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sin, in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, and the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath, as the others were also. Now, again, as I said, it's really important that we don't skip over this condition, or we will minimize just how beautiful and amazing God's grace is. It's very, very important. Now, it is really alarming to face the facts about ourselves, isn't it? It's really alarming. Uh, this week I heard a story about uh it was not a true story, but it was a story that was kind of making this point, where he said there were three people that all had been smoking for a long time. So they were chain smokers, and they they went to the doctor, uh, all three went to the doctor on the same day, and they basically, in that uh that doctor's visit, were saying, uh, Doc, I need a checkup. Tell me how we're doing. And through the process, the doctor uh does some evaluation, runs some tests, looks at their body, and he brings them into a room and he says, All right, here's the deal. I've got some really good news for you. But before I give you the good news, I need to give you the bad news. Okay, great. So the doctor then proceeds to say, because of your condition, uh, if nothing changes and you don't act on what I'm about to tell you, if you don't act, you are going to die within a year. And the first person in the room stands up and says, I cannot believe that you just told me that. I cannot believe that you would assess me in that way. I feel fine, I look fine, everything is going fine, and storms out of the room. The second person stands up and says, Hey, I don't know why you think you have the authority to tell me that I have issues, but I don't have these health issues that you're saying. I don't believe it, I don't buy it, I'm gonna go find another doctor. Storms out of the room. The third patient looks at the doctor and says, Doctor, that's some really terrible news. But I'd like to know like what's the good news. And the doctor then proceeds to say, if we do this particular procedure, you will not only make it past a year, but you will probably be completely okay. And you'll you'll live a long life. You'll be fine. Now, the reason uh that story resonates is because when you think about what Paul has just done under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in these first three verses, he's telling us as human beings what the real condition of our hearts is. He's telling us where we really are, he's telling us what the truth is. Have you ever had someone come and tell you the truth? Someone say, like, hey, listen, you got issues. Uh we don't generally like that, do we? But here's the thing we all know that if we're gonna grow, if we're gonna be healed, if we're gonna make progress, then we have to face the facts. We have to deal with the truth. Do you know that when Jesus came, he didn't try to water it down. He didn't try to make people just feel good, he told them the truth. Jesus, the Son of God, as he walked on the earth, he told people the truth. That's why he called the Pharisees the sons of the devil. I mean, he just spoke it up, spoke it like it was. He told them the truth, he told them what was really going on in their hearts and that they had issues and that they needed saving. You see, you cannot experience the grace of God and the salvation of God until you realize you actually need to be saved. Until you understand the condition of your heart, until I understand the condition of my heart. And he says there that we are dead. We are just people uh who are we're immoral, and that we just needed some behavior modification through discipline and uh some conduct, redirection, uh, some correction of sorts. No, like we needed reviving. We we needed to be brought to life because we were dead. He says that in this passage. He says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. We were spiritual corpses. We were done. Uh I don't know if you know this, but dead people, they don't get hungry, they don't get thirsty, they don't they don't cry out for help, they don't move towards safety, right? Because when you're dead, you're dead. Nothing's going on. The brain activity is not there, the body is not functioning, it's not working. And he says we were dead in our spiritual condition, our trespasses and sins. Specifically. Dead. This is why anybody who takes credit for their salvation does not understand salvation. Does not understand the gospel. Because in order to be saved, you have to come to the fact that you cannot save yourself. And in fact, you would never seek God apart from him first acting on you, first seeking out you. We just read, sang a great song. Your goodness is running after me. Praise God for that, because our badness was running away from him. We were stuck. We were done. Our eternal destination was hell. God's wrath. In fact, he says that in this passage. The word in the Greek there that he actually uses, some of the translations say follow. You're following. He says it twice, actually, follow. It's kind of a weak word because we think of tension like we like follow out of our personal choice. But it's really in the Greek the word is mastered by. He literally says that you're mastered by your evil desires. You're mastered by the enemy. You're enslaved. When you're born, I know cute little babies, like one at the very back of the room back here. Point Russell out for you guys. This little guy, Porter, he's a cute little kid. Another one back over here, Jess's guess. Yeah, we got two babies back here. It's awesome. And they are beautiful, but you know what? The Bible says that when you're born, you're born a slave to sin. That your natural inclination is to sin, is to reject God, to resist God, to rebel against God. That's your natural state. And we have been saved from destruction. That is a result of that being born into that natural state. We have been saved from destruction. And let me just take it up a notch in that, listen, the Bible says here in this passage, I don't know if you noticed this or not, but he says that not only are we in this place of we are enslaved, but that we were by nature children under wrath. Now, let me just mess with you for a second. Okay? Because I don't know how you picture God, but he says we are children of wrath. Do you know what wrath he's talking about? He's talking about God's wrath towards sin. Towards his enemies. Did you know that God is wrathful towards sin? Did you know that God is wrathful towards his enemies? Towards those who ultimately rebel? I know we like to talk about God, uh, and we should talk about God's love and his grace and his forgiveness that's extended to us who don't deserve it. But we first need to remember that God is wrathful towards sin. He is the judge, he is going to ultimately deal with all of the disobedience in the heart of humanity. And here's the cool part, but yet amazingly hard to swallow. Do you know what Jesus did on the cross for us? The Bible teaches us this very interesting word. It's in John. It says propitiation. It's not a word we use. I'm sure all of you guys use that with your kids every day, right? It literally is this idea that God poured out his wrath on Jesus. Now, again, we're gonna come back to that idea, but we need to understand that we were dead, and as a result of that death, we deserved destruction. We reserved God's wrath. And just to be very clear, I think it's helpful because sometimes when we talk about sin, I don't know about you guys, but sometimes we kind of contend to lock in on a few things like the big sins, the big no-nos. You know? Don't murder, don't commit adultery, um, you know, don't steal stuff. But do you understand that ultimately at the heart of all sin is self-worship? Okay? Now, he says in this passage, he says that you're enslaved. He says that you're mastered by, you're enslaved to the world, that you're enslaved and mastered or influenced by the devil, and you're you're mastered and influenced by enslaved to your flesh, to your own evil desires. He says that in this passage. I don't know if you realize that, you feel that. But in that, what's interesting is that if we stop and think about how at the core of all of those is ultimately, God, I want to be God. I want to be God. Um in 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 6, uh, Paul is writing to Timothy, and he's telling him about elders, key leaders in the church. And he uses this language. He says, about an elder, about a potential elder, a potential church leader. He says, he must not be a new convert, or he might become conceited, and he goes on to say, and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Now, what is he saying? Just hang with me. What he's saying is that what got the devil in trouble was conceit. You know what conceit is? Self-absorption. When you are all about yourself, right? Everything's about you, everything's through the lens of what's in it for me. Anybody feel like you have that going on in your heart on a daily basis? If I'm just really honest with myself, it actually doesn't even take that much honesty. Just a, you know, let's just sit and think. I am a very selfish creature. I'm self-absorbed, self-centered. And he says at the core of all of our problem is this conceit. This self-absorption. You want to know what wrecks our marriage? Conceit. You want to know what wrecks our parenting. Conceit. You want it wrecks the way we spend money? Conceit. Being self-absorbed. You want to know what ruins your relationships with others. Conceit. And he says that the devil, he's the father of conceit. He was all about himself. He didn't want to worship God, and it's what got him condemned. It's got what got him kicked out of heaven. It's a whole other sermon for another day. But the bottom line is that when we are conceited, we are just living just like the devil. I don't know if you think about that, but that's exactly what we're doing. Now, now here's the thing. I want to say one more point here, and we got to move on. In this idea of conceit, in the self-absorption, we need to remember that there's two ways that this primarily functions, okay? And this is all throughout the Bible as well. I'm just going to summarize them briefly. One is a conceit, a self-absorption, that's all about my way, okay, over God's, in terms of just flat-out rebellion to his rules. Resisting him, resisting his authority, rejecting that, okay? If you know anything about the prodigal son story, then you know that the one son that's the primary character in that story on the front end is the son who says, Dad, I want you dead. Give me my inheritance, and I'm gonna go. And he goes off and he lives uh doing whatever he wants to do with all of his inheritance until he spins it up and ends up in the pig slop. Okay? So he's rebellious, and that's conceit. He's self-absorbed, he doesn't see clearly, and he does whatever he thinks will make him happy. And he ends up there. But there's another figure in the story who also is conceited, who's also self-absorbed, and he's the older brother. And the older brother in the prodigal son story, if you don't know that story well, he's the brother who, when the younger brother comes back, he's throwing a pity party outside. He's like, Dad, why are you loving this guy who said he wanted you dead, who took all half of your inheritance, and he went out and squandered it. And he's sitting out there, and his conceit is actually that he thinks through rule following, he deserves the love of the Father. What I'm saying to you in that, just to make it crystal clear, is that you can actually be a churchgoer who reads your Bible, who prays, who tells people about Jesus, and you're conceited. That in fact, one of the most dangerous forms of conceit is when we do good stuff so that people will think that we're good people. It's just as dangerous and deadly. Are you with me? This is important for us religious folk. Okay, I'm telling you right now, it's important because there's a deception of the enemy where he will self-absorb, we will turn ourselves in, we will look inward and we will look to ourselves as our own personal savior. And we'll try to run the show through our own self-righteousness, through our own religious acts. And today we need to repent of both of those things. I know repentance is not a fun word, but it should be more normal in the church. Because we got to turn away from worshiping self when we're being rebellious, and we need to turn away from worshiping self when we're being religious. As weird as that might sound, who's the center? Is it God or is it us? Is his grace or is it our earning? What's at the center of our hearts in that? Listen, if we listen carefully to God and his spirit, he'll show us. And he is gracious. He is gracious to us in it. So our natural condition is deadly. We could go on and on. But that's the backdrop. Is it a little bleak? Yes. Bible says in Romans, for the wages of sin is death. What you earn from sin is death. But it doesn't stop there. Praise God for that, right? But before we get there, let's remember that we are not only saved from something, but we're also saved for something. Verses 8 through 10. Let me read them again. For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is God's. Everybody said the word gift? Gift. That's awesome, isn't it? Good news this morning. It is God's gift, not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them. Now, notice Paul emphasizes this point about grace again. Because he not only says that you are saved by grace, but he also tells you what you're not saved by. He makes sure, as any good preacher would, that you get both the positive and the negative so that you get a clear picture. And he says, you're not you are saved by grace, but you're not from yourselves. Not saved by yourselves, and you're not saved from works, so that no one can boast. We have been saved for God's purposes. Okay? We have an eternal purpose. God has a transcendent purpose for our life. If you don't know what your purpose is, ask God. He'll show you. Because God has given you an eternal purpose. He has given you a reason to live. He has given you a reason to work and to have a family or to be pure in your singleness. He has given you a reason to live. He has given you a reason to do whatever you do in your daily lives. But what really helps us understand this in this section of Scripture, I think, is he kind of lands on this issue of you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourself. It is God's gift, not from works, so that no one can boast. Now, when you guys hear the word boast, I don't know what comes to your mind. Okay. I don't use it a ton, I don't use that word a lot, but these people, when they heard the word boast, they would have thought a little bit differently than we do. Okay? Just thinking culturally, contextually. What they would have thought about was they'd have thought about uh in their day with their combat, with their armies and their wars that they fought, they would go out into war, and let's just be real brutal. Um, their war was bloody. And it was hand-to-hand combat, getting on your stuff. You didn't send drones, you didn't have big planes flying over. You you just hand to hand, you got geared up for the battle, you strapped on your gear, and your chance of survival is 50-50, maybe, depending on who you're fighting. And here's the deal: the night before you go out to battle, you know what these guys do? They sit around boasting. And they say things like, uh, man, we've got iron chariots. They only have wooden ones. Woo-hoo! We're gonna win. Man, have you seen how sharp our spears are? Woo-hoo, we're gonna win. I mean, seriously. Uh, they're like, man, we've got two of the biggest dudes out there. We are going to take them out. Woo-hoo! And basically, they spend the night before the battle just kind of getting themselves worked up and excited. Now, any of you guys have played sports, you know, we kind of have our version of that, not near as significant as you could go lose your life, you know. But like our sports teams, you get ready to go out, and everybody gets like the pregame speech. All right, guys. I mean, they're Goliath, we're David, but we got we got God on our side, and we're gonna pray the Lord's prayer, you know, and even if they're not believers. I mean, this is how we do it, right? Uh we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, you know, and let's put it on our eye patches. All right, let's go. Um, sorry, that was not supposed to be a mean thumb, but God used it, by the way. I found that out. Um, but that means like we can do all these things, and we so these guys would boast, they would kind of build themselves up through saying things and mean trying to be confident. The point is this that what they were saying is listen, we're putting our trust in these things. We're putting our hope in these things that they're gonna help us survive this battle and we're gonna win, we're gonna get the victory. My question is in your life and in my life, what do we boast in? What do we put our trust in? What do we put our our our hope in, our trust in for survival? Paul says, if you cannot boast in your own works, you cannot boast in your good living and your morality and your ability to be a good person. That's not going to get you to heaven. You know the number one answer you get when you ask people who do believe that there's a heaven in hell? Do you believe you're gonna go to heaven? They're like, yeah. And you say, Well, why? I'm a pretty good person. Listen, in our lives, the Bible tells us plainly that we could never make up for our bad works by our good works. And so we should never boast in those things. We should not boast in ourselves. If boast means putting confidence in those things, trust in those things, those actions that we do, we're missing the point if we think that we can save ourselves through our own good works. And Paul says that emphatically in this text. One of my favorite verses in all the Bible is Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. Some of you know this. We've memorized it with some of our team leaders. Here's what it says in Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. This is what the Lord says the wise man must not boast in his wisdom, the strong man must not boast in his strength, the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth. But the one who boasts should boast in this that he understands and knows me, that I am Yahweh, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth. For I delight in these things. This is the Lord's declaration. Psalm 20, verse 7. He says, Some take pride in chariots and others in horses, but we take pride in the name of Yahweh our God. You want to boast in something? We boast in God. We boast in Christ. In fact, in Galatians 6.14, Paul says something very interesting. He says, But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through the cross and I to the world. You want to boast? Boast on Jesus. Brag on Jesus. Put your trust and your hope in Jesus. Because he has secured the victory for us. Through the cross. The cross? Him being killed by some humans? That's where our victory is? Absolutely. Because when he took on the wrath of God in that moment, he took on the punishment of God for us. When he substituted himself for us, in that moment, what we deserved was poured onto Christ so that we get what we don't deserve any longer. We get embraced by a God who loves us, even though we could never earn it, and we definitely don't deserve it. Praise God for that. Praise God for that. For we are his creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Both we were created, we were born, and we were reborn for what? For God's purpose. We have a purpose for our lives, and it is to boast about Christ in all things that we do. It is to brag on the cross. It is to say that in the cross, broken people, dead people were made alive through Christ, through his death. Remember, when we are saved, we have work to do now. It's not that we are saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. And there's a big difference in that preposition, but it's an awesome opportunity every day to see what God wants you to do with your life. When you wake up in the morning, you say, What good works do you want me to do today, God? Not so that you'll love me more, because here's the crazy part. Your very best day and your very worst day, God loves you the same. But because we have that, because that's true, what are the good works you want me to do, God, in my life? Well, the good work is to make our good God known. To make him known in whatever place you find yourself, whatever you are, we are created by God and we are created for God. Now, the last thing, I said we were saved from something, we were saved for something. How are we saved? How do we go from dead to alive? Doing good works. Well, he says in the passage, he says in verse 4, but God. This is the biggest butt in the Bible, right there, guys. Okay? It is huge. He says, but God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, he made us alive in Christ. There's three things that it says that he does in his love. He makes us alive, he raises us up, he seats us in the heavens. He raises us up, he seats us in the heavens. So that in all those things he can display his kindness to us, the riches of his grace. Now we've already started talking about this because I can't help myself. But do you understand how beautiful it is what Christ has done for us? It's only through Christ. He is the door, he is the gate, he is the entry point for the kingdom of God. In order to receive the grace, we have to lay down self. We have to stop trying to do it in our own work, right? We got to stop resisting and receive by faith. And even faith is a gift from God. John Stott, he says it this way: Sin is us substituting ourselves for God, where salvation is God substituting himself for us. Praise God, Jesus stepped into our place. Some people know the acrostic probably in the room. I learned it probably when I was a teenager, but if you don't know it, it's a simple way to remember. Grace is simply God's riches at Christ's expense. God's riches at Christ's expense. That's a good way to remember how beautiful and amazing God's grace is for us. So through Christ, through Christ, through his death, through his resurrection, we actually had that. Notice in that section, it doesn't say one time that we do the work of saving ourselves. It's what Christ has done, it's what God has done. He chose us, he set us apart, he raised us up. Now, some of you are thinking, I don't feel like I've been raised up yet. I don't think I'm seated in the heavenlies yet. I don't think I feel like that I'm victorious over all the sin in my life yet. What's going on here? Well, what's interesting in the passage is that what Paul is saying is that legally it's a done deal. It's a done deal. No matter how you feel, the facts are the facts. And legally, your position has changed. Now, I think this will help us just a little bit with this. I've got um got JT that's gonna help me. I don't do this very often, but I think it's helpful sometimes to have a visual, okay? And so I think sometimes uh in the room, um, just to make sure that we get the point, you guys give JT a hand here. He's working hard. All right. Now, here's what I've learned. Um, no matter where I am in the world, I've learned that people, again, naturally want to earn uh the status that they think is out there is like the the ultimate status, right? So God's love, his forgiveness, his grace, heaven. They think that. And so if you think about this, it's like this is the ladder of the human life and the effort and the work that we try to put in, okay? And so some of us we think, you know, and maybe this is not your story, but this is this is kind of my story. This is kind of how I learned. It's like, well, if I pray every day, I climb a rung, right? Uh if I read my Bible every day, I get another rung. So I'm like making some progress here, right? If I if I help the poor, that's definitely a rung. Okay? And if I'm a good husband, and instead of like getting angry and mad when my wife does something that I don't like and I forgive her instead, oh man, that's that's definitely another run. Okay? And so we begin to try to climb our way up to this top place that we say, Well, God, I'm gonna get there. Just give me some time, I will be good enough, and I'll make my way there. All right? Now, what's interesting as you think about this ladder is like you can probably consider that there's different people in the world that we know, there are different people in our lives that we know. We say, man, they are at the top of the ladder. Like Mother Teresa, up here, right? She's like sitting on the top. All right? Now, here's the problem in that thinking, because we all tend to see life as this system of earning, that we're climbing, we're making this effort. Now, I want you to understand something that's so beautiful. This is the amazing gospel message. That when it says in that passage that in Christ we were raised, that means the very moment when we were down here at the bottom, we were dead in our trespass and sin, there was no saving us. We were done, we weren't, we weren't showing any signs of spiritual life at all, right? We were flatlined. Jesus, who's in the heavenlies, by the way, because the the image here is that when you win the victory, you get to go back and sit at the right hand of the king. And Jesus has won the victory, so he's at the right hand of the Father. But on the day that you received Christ, he came down, he picked us up, and he carried us all the way to the top. Now, I'm not going to go all the way up here, okay? One, I'm scared of heights. And two, I don't want to freak anybody out. And he seated us up here. Day one. Now, that means everything else you do as a Christ follower is not to get here. You're already here. Are you with me? You're not trying to get here. You're here. Now the question is, is are you living like you're here? Are you doing the good works? Are you listening to the Father? Are you receiving from Him your new identity as a son, a daughter of the Most High God? You see, for many of us in this room, you came to Christ and you're like, okay, I'm in. I'm in, Jesus. I'm following you. Now I've got to add to that. Okay, I'll do some more good stuff. I'll do some more good stuff. I'm making my way up. Oh, whoops, I messed up. You know? And it's like this system of up and down. Listen, today in Christ, we've been seated in the heavenlies. We're at the top. We're with him. This is the beauty of Christianity. Every other religion in the world celebrates man and our works. We celebrate Jesus and his work. We celebrate what he did for us that we could not do for ourselves. We sing about it, don't we? We name our kids after it. I was joking with the team this week. It's funny how we've got lots of kids that run around named Grace or Charis. Actually, know some in our church. Charis, which is the Greek word for grace. Nobody names their kid works, okay? You notice that? Maybe just because it doesn't sound as good? Uh uh maybe because it doesn't just doesn't feel as good. Some of you are laughing now. Listen. Maybe this week that will stick with you when you find yourself trying to earn God's way. I think what's helpful as we close this out, it's really important, is how do we actually know we believe this? How do we actually know that we believe that we were seated with Christ day one, not because we deserved it, but because Christ attained it for us through his victory on the cross? How do we know that? Well, let me just give you three. Okay, there's a lot we could go to, but I'll just give you three. First one is this. You know you believe that salvation is a grace gift from God when you run to God instead of away from God when you sin. Are you with me? When you sin, when you blow it, when you mess up, you actually come to God instead of running from him through either trying to do good stuff to make up for it or just hide from him. I'm gonna go off the grid and maybe it'll blow over and God will forget. Listen, he knows he's aware, and he paid the price for it. You're forgiven in Christ. If you're in Christ, you're forgiven. And so you can come to your Father. In fact, listen to what the words of Hebrews 4.13 say. It says, No creature is hidden from him. All things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom he must give an account. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, he's our high priest. He says, Let us hold fast to this confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness. Does God know that we are weak? Absolutely, he does. And Jesus understands what it's like to be a human. He walked on this earth and he understands temptation. Just let that sink in for a second. It says, But the one who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. Now notice this last verse. Therefore, let us approach the throne of what? Grace, with confidence, with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time. Some of you today, the reason that you are continuing to struggle is because you won't turn to God and say, God, I need your help. He is offering you grace. You know the Bible says God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Not only are we saved initially by grace, but we live the Christian life by the grace of God. We are sustained by it. It's how we get from where we are to where Christ wants us to be in our lifetime. It's by the grace of God. The engine of the Christian life is the grace of God, the Spirit at work in us, who were once dead, but now are alive and seated in the heavenlies. Not only can we tell that we believe this when we run to God instead of away from God, but you know that you believe that salvation is by grace when you forgive others when they offend you. Let's get real practical. Do you hold on to unforgiveness? Are you a bitter person? Do you struggle to forgive people in your life on a regular basis? I'm not, I understand forgiveness is a process, okay? So don't make me. I don't want you to think that I'm standing up here saying, well, you know, if somebody wrongs you, you just don't ever hold them accountable, don't ever have any kind of like, uh, there's not a process for like repentance. But here's the question: Do you in your heart willingly and openly forgive people as a normative practice? Is it normal for you to forgive, or is it normal for you to hold things over people's heads, to keep a record of wrongs, as it says in 1 Corinthians 13? Because if your heart is bound up in that, you have not let the grace of God sink into your life. I said earlier, if you want to ruin relationships, if you want to experience pain and heartache in your marriage, hold on to unforgiveness. Make your laundry list of all the things that you don't like that they're doing, all the things you feel offended by. And your relationship will wither. But guess what happens? When the grace of God gets a hold of your heart, the grace of God will flow out of your heart to other people. And when it does that, it will bring life. It will bring life to your relationships, to your to your family. It'll bring life to the people around you. Man, if we believe that salvation is by grace, it will transform the way that we interact with other people. We will be able to forgive people the way we have been forgiven. In fact, that's what Paul writes in another place in even Ephesians 4, he's saying, we forgive as Christ has forgiven us, right? Now, the third one is this. Um, we believe that salvation is by grace when we are regularly telling others about it. One of the things that happens is when we experience the grace of God, we start boasting on it. We start bragging, we start talking about the fact that there's a God who loves us, who made us, even though we don't deserve it. And it's beautiful and it's powerful and it's life-changing. And so if in your life you're never telling anybody else about the grace of God, my belief is that probably you've lost sight of it. You've probably forgotten how much grace God has poured out on you. Because you know what actually drives out fear of talking to other people about Jesus? What drives out fear is God's love, his grace. And when that's there, you you carry you care less what they think about you and more about who God is and what he's done for you in spite of yourself. And it flows out of your life. I would pray that we would be a life-giving church in South Austin where people who, if they encountered you at the grocery store, when you were getting your hair cut, when you were in your on the sidelines at your kids' game, yelling at the referees, that the people would experience the grace of God through you. They would experience the love and the goodness of Christ through us. That the spiritual fruit that we are to bear would come out because we have experienced the grace of God and the goodness of God in our lives. One of the most incredible and most moving songs ever written. You know where I'm going, right? One of the most amazing songs written by a guy named John Newton is this song called Amazing Grace. And what's so profound about this song, Amazing Grace, to me, is that the human interaction with it, no matter what room I'm in, and it's been a while since I've sing it, but no matter what room I'm in, there's something in the lyric that stirs us because we almost feel permission to sing about our brokenness and then to celebrate the grace of God in it. Some of you, you feel like I can't really talk about my sin. I can't talk about my issues. I love it in the song that he says, a wretch like me, that saved a wretch like me, that I was lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. And what's interesting is he doesn't boast in his wretchedness, he declares that he boasts in the amazing grace that meets him in his wretchedness. And I love that because I need to hear that. I need to hear that every single day of my life, moment by moment. I need to be reminded that I, apart from God's grace, am a wretch. I am a wreck, I am a mess, I am headed to hell in a handbasket. But by his grace, I've been rescued and I've been seated in the heavenlies. I still don't fully understand that. I can't get my head around it. I'm trying. I still don't live like it, but it's true in Christ. Do you believe that today? That's the heart of the Christian message. That's the heart of the Christian faith. It's not what we've done for him, it's what he's done for us that then changes everything we do for him. Let me pray for us. Oh, Father. This morning, um, this wretch of a person named Nick Shock desperately needs to be reminded by your spirit, by your word, even through these people, just how amazing your grace is. God, I confess this morning that I need you way more than I acknowledge I need you. That God, I am in a position, I'm in a place where I can get prideful. I can get prideful and I can get self-absorbed. And when I do that, God, I know, oh, I am missing out on the rest that comes and just realizing your grace. God, I know that there are some in this room today who feel like they don't measure up. And the fact is, is in ourselves we don't measure up. But we can turn that as an opportunity to realize our need for you and receive from you the gift you've given us. God, I pray that there's if there's people, there are people that are here this morning that have never received grace in their life, they're still trying to earn their way to you, they're still trying to climb the ladder. God, I pray that this morning they would just stop with trying to be saved by their works and receive the gift of eternal life. To receive the gift of forgiveness, to receive the relationship that you want for them to have with you, to receive the new identity in Christ that you want them to know and have and experience. I'm praying for that today, Father. And I'm praying for those of us that are believers in this room today to be stirred with just a fresh, fresh gratitude and worship to you for you. We love you. We praise in your name. Amen. Um, we invite you this morning to respond. And uh the response can be a couple different ways. Um, a few. One is, as I just said, the invitation is wide open. The invitation to receive the grace of God. Um, he says we're saved by grace through faith. So, faith in what? I'm gonna stop putting my trust, I'm gonna stop boasting in myself, and I'm gonna start boasting in Christ. I'm gonna put my faith and trust in Christ. If you've never done that, this morning I pray that you would make that transition in your life. You would make that decision. You take that step of faith. There's some of you that have come to know Christ, but you feel really beat down today because you feel like you're just not performing very well for the Father. And the Father's like, I gotcha. I got you. You're forgiven, you're empowered by my spirit. Receive. Take in my grace this morning, not to minimize sin, but to receive the forgiveness that you have in Christ. There's others of us in this room that have minimized, we're Christ followers, but we've minimized God's grace. And so as a result, we've minimized sin. And we've we've got to deal with some stuff. We probably need to deal with some rebellion to God. We're doing our own thing, we're going our own way, and we're hoping God doesn't see it, or we're hoping he'll just keep kind of letting us get by. God wants to set you free this morning. He wants to offer you grace, freedom, joy, peace, forgiveness in Him. So, one of the things that helps me to even remember what Christ has done is to take communion. And set up around the room, there's five tables. We invite you, if you're a Christ follower, if you're a believer, if you've given your life to him, you've made that transition, then you can go there. We encourage you to go with someone and to simply take communion and remind each other we're forgiven in Christ, that his representing his body broken and his blood shed for us. Make it personal. He did that for you, he did that for me. We receive his grace in that. And we remember it, we reflect on it, we acknowledge it. And then if you need prayer for any reason, whether again you want to receive the gift of salvation or whether you're struggling in some form, we've got some folks who will be back in the back of the room, myself included, and we'd love to pray for you, encourage you in any way we can. You can sing, you can sit, you can stand, but let's just respond to the grace and the goodness of God this morning, all right?