Restoring Grace

Introduction

Good morning. You always have to say that because somebody was back in Bible class during the first hour. And it’s never a good thing if the preacher doesn’t say good morning. But it is a good morning. We get to be here together. We get to open our Bibles. We get to study from the Word of God and we get to sing our praises and magnify our master. What a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday morning expressing, even as the song says, in our own fragile way, with all of our words of adoration, all of the things that we could say about our master, and they would still be insufficient, even if we were to offer him our entire soul. If we were to offer him our own being and everything that we are, it would still be insufficient for the grace that he has given to us.

As you can see by the slide, Ephesians chapter 2. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formally walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the Spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. And 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 trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in ages to come he might show to us the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and not of yourself, it is the gift of God, and not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his words, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. That is for many people, a challenging passage of scripture. For some, the idea expressed first in verse 5, touched on in verse 7, where it talks about the surpassing riches, and expressed again in verse 8, by grace you have been saved, is a is a doctrinal stumbling block. That some people want to take this passage and they want to isolate it from the rest of Scripture, and they want to say, see, by grace we are saved.

And it doesn’t require anything of me, because it’ll throw in verse 9, not of works, lest any man should boast. And we know that is not as it should be.

I go, I don’t know them yet. I don’t know them yet. I don’t know them yet. But in this group of God’s people, could I preach a lesson this morning that says exactly what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. That is affirming that we need to be amazed by the grace of God. We sing that song, don’t we? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found. I’m blind, but now I’m seeing.

How precious did that grace appear, the hour that I first believed. Culminating in that great verse when we’ve been there. Ten thousand years, bright, shining as the sun. We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun. I meant to ask Alyssa about that as it began or begun. I know, I think it’s poetic license. It just sounds wrong to me. But the sentiment is a sound one. What an amazing thing to say that I am amazed by the grace of God. But we have been so overwhelmed and so inundated with untrue things about the grace of God. That statement makes us uncomfortable. And if I were to begin with the statements in those verses, especially eight and nine, and affirm to you this morning that we are saved by grace from death.

And from that point teach a lesson that magnified the grace of God without any other consideration. Would I still be teaching truth? Would it set off alarm bells in your head? Would the lesson need to be filled with caveats and explanations and call-outs to other verses confirming the scriptural teachings on baptism? How many of you would come up to me with Bible in hand, ready to discuss, in case I was not aware, of passages like Mark 16 and Matthew 28 and Acts 2 in 1 Peter 3. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about grace. In fact, it was our subject last year, our theme for the year in Centerville. This year we’re working on faith. Last year we worked on faith. It was our theme for the year last year.

Can we reflect on God’s grace? Can we get a better handle on what grace is so that we can talk about it comfortably? Because I’m a little uncomfortable with having to explain all of those other things and not be able to say, as the apostle Paul did, by grace I am saved. What that tells me is that maybe I don’t have a handle in my own mind on what he’s actually saying here, and maybe I don’t understand everything that grace is encompassing. Maybe, just maybe, the way that he said it is the right way to think about. And so, why did the apostle Paul make that statement? Why does he say the things? I’ll put them up here on the screen. I guess I already did.

In verse 5, by grace you have been saved. Well, what is grace? Verse 6, you’ve been raised up with him. Seated, he seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Well, why? So that in the ages to come we might show the surpassing riches of his grace. That was a great song, by the way, then. In kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And so he’s doubling down on this idea. By grace you’ve been saved. Well, how am I saved by grace? Well, through faith. Well, that’s another word that gets a little trouble sometimes. But it’s okay, it’s a biblical term. We can figure this out. We can figure out what’s going on with these words.

And better yet, we can be comfortable with them. By grace, you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. And 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. And can I say to you, that’s really the point of grace? The point of grace. Paul is not teaching a method of salvation here. He’s not simply saying, Oh, you have to be one of those people that falls into grace so that you can be saved. What he is saying is that the emphasis of my salvation is not upon what I am doing, but what God has done.

1. Why Paul Proclaims We're Saved by Grace

And so, why does Paul proclaim that we’re saved by grace? I think there are two primary reasons. Number one, as some of you would point out that the works here in this section of Ephesians really are kind of talking about the works of the law. He really is addressing that in this section because he’s dealing with this mindset of what’s my identity. I was a Jew and now I’m a Christian. They were a Gentile, now they are a Christian. He says, look, this is not what saves you. What saves you is what God did over here through Jesus. But also, if you get a chance, would you log into South Side’s website? I’m going to plug another preacher’s sermon. You’re never supposed to do this, but I just love this guy.

Brent Booty preached on grace at the South Side Lectures back in June. And he explained in that lesson, I’ve read his, I’ve read his notes on it. I actually need to go listen to the entire lesson, but I got his notes. And it’s like this is the behind the scenes stuff. It’s really good. He explains how the book of Ephesians is really kind of a statement to a benefactor. And it was very common in their day and age before you talked about the duty owed to a benefactor, that you would announce all of the benefits that he’s given you. And what you see in chapter one of the book of Ephesians is a list of statements that all begin with do you guys who were here remember what those statements begin with when I taught them twice?

In him. And can I say to you this morning, just as we would say that we can only be in him by being baptized into his death. Allah Romans 6. We can only be baptized into his death when we understand that it’s his death that matters. His death preceded my death and resurrection and baptism. And that’s just another way of saying God did greater. Whatever I give, whatever fragile way, then I oh the songs you chose. Great songs, brother. Whatever fragile way that I can praise him, whatever way that I can announce the grace of God, it is insufficient to what that grace actually is. And so the second reason I would say is that before he begins to address all the workings that the new covenant requires in chapter 4, beginning with the idea of walking in a manner worthy of our calling, he wants us to understand what God has done.

And we are not going to bring anyone to the Lord unless we first help them understand what God has done. It is evident based on the structure of this passage that this is something that the Apostle Paul believed to be of the utmost importance for his reader to understand. He was confident in the assertion, by grace you have been saved. Ruffy. It’s evident to us also from the rest of Scripture that God wants us to appreciate the grace of his Son. Romans 5 speaks of it, as does 1 Corinthians 10.

As does just about every other passage I can think of on baptism, in some way intersects the story of God’s grace. The problem is that we’ve lost contact, we’ve lost control of the word and we’ve lost contact with its meaning. And we allow it to be applied in ways that the Holy Spirit never intended for it to be applied, and suddenly we no longer are comfortable with this statement of faith, this statement of trust, this statement that the Apostle Paul believes wholeheartedly that he’s been saved by grace. Can I say to you, this is an important lesson, and I really want to focus on the young people here for just a second. This is an important, not just a lesson about Scripture, this is an important life lesson.

Just because someone is so absolutely wrong in something that they are nowhere near the truth, does not give us the license to be absolutely just as wrong on the opposite end of the spectrum.

2. Get Comfortable With What the Grace of God Looks Like

We need to get comfortable with what the grace of God looks like. So I do want to address some passages very quickly that will settle us down so that our ears can open. Philippians chapter 3. Does God have expectations of us? Not that I have already obtained, verse 12, or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Okay, so we got some grace working there. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, and reaching forward to the law to what lies ahead. I press on to the goal of the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ’s Jesus.

Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude. And if anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you. However, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. And it sounds like the Apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit, governing what he’s writing there, expects us to live according to some effort, to put forth some effort in the kingdom. I would also go ahead and just announce 1 Peter 3 18. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.

Corresponding to this, baptism now saves you. Did you know baptism is a picture of God’s grace? It’s also a picture of the grace that he showed to Noah. Baptism now saves you. But it’s not the removal of the dirt of the flesh. But an appeal to God for a good conscience through what? The resurrection of Christ. You see, baptism only works if God’s grace is there.

Who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven after the angels and the authorities and the powers have been subjected to him. Okay, so now we’ve gotten some verses, and we’re comfortable with these passages. And we can add to passages, add to this passages like Colossians 2 that talk about being saved by both faith and baptism, acting as a part of our salvation. We can talk about Romans 5, in which Paul enunciates all the wonderful love that God showed to us. We’re going to talking more about that tonight, and the hope that comes by that. But this morning we’re going to talk about restoring God’s grace today. I won’t share the name of the person. He’s actually still a friend of mine and still active in the church, still a member of the Lord’s body and serving faithfully so.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved direct like me. I’m pitchy today. Sorry about that. Someone came up to me and said, You can’t lead that song that way. I said, why not? He said, That song has to be slow. And reverential. Wait a second. I don’t sound very amazed when I’m going amazing grace. Oh, sweet.

3. Resist What Is Against God and Move Godward

I’m trying to get down to the Tony Block register. It’s just not happening. I’m barely a tenor. I never forget that story. And here’s why. It communicated something to me about what that young man, and I don’t know if he still holds this position or not. I don’t, I don’t know. It’s not even a position, but how he felt about grace at that moment. And it was completely different from how I felt about grace. I’m thinking, this is something I’m amazed by. What do I do when I’m amazed by something? I’m excited to talk about it. I want to express it in the loudest, most vocal way that I can. I want it to be something that is alive within me. Can I show you something from the book of Titus chapter 2?

Beginning in verse 11. It says, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession. What a great thought, purifying for himself a people for his own possession. Zealous for good deeds. These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

What a beautiful passage. A passage that says the grace of God appeared. Bringing salvation to all men. That word grace means favor or loving, kindness, or gift. How many of you have heard the definition of grace? It is grace is a free gift of God. Anybody ever heard that? If you haven’t, you have not been listening. I’ve heard that my whole life. Grace is a free gift of God. We’ve got to put some conditions around this so people don’t think that this is something God’s doing free. No. People need to know this is something God is doing freely. But they also need to understand that free does not mean that it does not come with condition. Because he says it has appeared to all men, and it’s brought the offer of salvation to all men, but he also says it’s instructing, it’s transforming, and it’s perfecting.

And that the expectation of grace is that the one who has come into contact with it, the one who has heard this message is going to be grown and changed by the thing that he’s come into contact with. I want to introduce you to something. This is something that I do as a preacher. Maybe Tony does. This is how I do my own exegesis of passages. Whenever a passage feels a little clunky and it’s and it’s hard, particularly because I’m using the New American Standard, that is not an easy translation to read from unless you read from it all the time. But what I will do is I will take that passage and I will restate it again, and I’ll go look up all the words and restate it again in the simplest possible way that I can, and then ask myself, is this still faithful with what it’s saying?

I want to introduce you to how did I call it? The Jared Boldman abbreviated version of this passage. It is evident, and check me on this, it is evident by the kindness and the blessing of God in his offer of salvation to all men that we should resist what is against God. That’s the first lesson of grace. By God offering salvation, it should become evident to us that he wants us to resist those things that are not like him. That we resist what is against God and stop coveting the world. Ooh, that’s an idolatry lesson right there. Stop coveting the world. We should make up our mind to seek those things which God approves of in an effort to move toward him, even against the spirit of the present day.

Well, how did I come to this conclusion? Well, I started by looking at what grace really means. God has given us kindness. When God described his relationship with his people in the Old Testament, he used a word in the Hebrew, and it’s Hesed, and you can check me on this. It’s C-H-E-S-E-D. Hased. And it literally is a word that has no definition in English. We had to create a word to express this. Does anybody know what word we created? Lauren’s going, I know. Loving kindness. And it means love and kindness and covenant faithfulness and all of these things. This would be another thing I’d go to Brent Moody or Jeff Wilson about. But it means all of these things. And this is the expression of grace.

God has been kind to us. He has been kind to us according to his covenants that he makes. But not only that, his kindness and his blessings teach us to deny ungodliness. This is the lesson of his salvation, that we should resist what is against the world. This is the word a sabia. And that literally means the things that are in opposition to God. You want to know how to fix the problems in your life? Find the things that are in opposition to God, because they’re working against your grace. A sabia. What is averse to godliness or in opposition of God? And we should deny worldliness. Now, we don’t have time this morning, but I would encourage you to go over to James 4 and look at the problems that James announces to them when he asks, where do the wars and strife come from among you?

He says, Does it not come from your desire for pleasure? And this rolls out of the thought in James 3, where he is contrasting worldly wisdom with godly wisdom. And worldly wisdom is earthly and demonic and from below, and it’s sensual. And its end is always death and destruction. But the wisdom from above is not like that. It’s peaceful, and it yields the fruitful peace, the fruit of peace and righteousness. So we need to stop coveting the world. That’s the lesson of grace. We talked about it being instructing, right. Not only does it teach us to stop coveting the world, it wants us to behave in a sensible, discerning or sober state of mind. To be a person of one mind. Our word psychosis comes from the Latin or Greek, meaning two minds.

Two minds.

Oh, wait. That’s you can’t be of two minds and find the grace of God. You’ve got to be of one mind. You’ve got to be of sound judgment. You can’t be the o, you can’t be of the opposite or the double mind when you are thinking about the things of God. And not only sensibly and discerningly and soberly, he wants us to behave righteously. The chaos, justly, befitting the custom of that which is proper. A word that shows up in passages like 1 John 3 and 7. It’s the idea of the righteousness that God expected in Genesis 7 and 1, or how they should desire righteousness from Habakkuk 2. And we should move toward him. Remember the asabia, away from God. We should behave godly. Usebos.

We should move piously in the direction of God. There’s a really cool word that Microsoft Word wants to argue with me, it’s not really a word, but Webster says it is. And that word is Godward. We move in a Godward direction. We move Godwardly. And if I’m coining a phrase, Alyssa can hit me afterwards. We move Godwardly. This is the lesson of grace. Now, does that sound like grace is sitting around saying, My God did wonderful things for me, and I’m just sitting right now, I’ve got nothing to do. It sounds like I’ve got a lot of work to do, actually. And do you know who’s driving that work? Or what’s driving that work? The grace that God made evident through his son. He’s given me this is grace.

He’s given me something better to desire that changes me, it instructs me, it perfects me, it uplifts me. And it expects me to grow. And so the lessons of grace sound like this. We need to cease living in a manner to which the people of God are unaccustomed. We need to settle our minds and decide to live justly in a manner befitting that’s, you know, one is away from God, the other is toward God. We need to settle our minds and decide to live justly and in a manner befitting the customs that God’s people hold. We need to live in a Godward or God-seeking life. Grace teaches a pattern of disciplined self-denial. Matthew 16 would support that. And a disciplined word toward God. And so the question that I should be asking, because of God’s grace is am I living Godwardly?

4. A Wonderful Sacrifice That Became My Savior

But not only does it say that, the second lesson from grace is that I have a wonderful sacrifice from my God that became my Savior from my sins. Look at verses 13 through 15. I’m going to put these under a microscope. Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus. This is sounding a lot like Peter at the end of 2 Peter 3, isn’t it? We’re looking for the day of longing for the day of glory. But we are looking for the blessed hope. We’re looking for what this, what the finality of this hope looks like. Sounds like 1 Corinthians 15 too. We’re looking for what the finality of this hope looks like at the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed.

There’s that perfecting we talked about. And to purify for himself a people for his own possession. Okay, well, it sounds like grace is doing some powerful things, but where’s the expectation of me? Zealous for good deeds. Zealous for the things of God. Not only that, Paul is commissioning Titus to be busy about the work of teaching this. These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority, and let no one disregard you.

So we’ve got our three lessons of grace. Grace is instructing, it’s transforming, and it’s perfecting me. What does the perfection of grace look like? Well, it causes growth, and it also causes me to appreciate the intercession. If I understand the Apostle Paul, and I hope that I do, because I shouldn’t be preaching this if I don’t. But if I understand what the Apostle Paul is saying at the entrance to Romans 6, the beginning of Romans 6 says he’s coming out of the fifth chapter. And he poses the question, perhaps it was a literal question, perhaps he’s just looking at their behavior and he’s wrapping their behavior in a statement of rhetoric and saying, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may increase?

May it never be. How shall we who die to sin still live in it, still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus? Okay, we got a baptism here, have been baptized into his death. Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this that the old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.

For he who has died is free from sin. I don’t want to swing the pendulum too far over to this direction. I keep pointing over here, guys. I’m leaving you out in the woods. I don’t want to swing the, see, now they kill a moment. I don’t want to swing the pendulum too far over to this direction and just point it all on growth that grow that grace has some expectations of us. We need to grow, we need to be transformed, we need to accept the instruction, we need to strive for perfection. Those are all true. But the pendulum also has to swing back the other direction. We need to appreciate what was done in the intercession of Christ. And I cannot appreciate that unless my life after my death, burial, and resurrection and baptism yields the fruits of repentance and the fruits of righteousness that are mentioned all over the New Testament.

Where those things are absent, the grace of God is not in effect in the life of that person because they are not living in a Godward direction. And so here’s the statement of the passage that we just read. We’ve already read that from the from the NASB, so here’s the Jared version. Again, check me on this. So we’re looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds, these things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. So how would we state this in common English?

We want to talk about grace today. What does it look like? We are people who anticipate anxiously the result of the outcome of our hope. Can I ask you something? Are you looking forward to the end of all this? Not in a judgmental kind of way.

That’s not what we mean by that. But are we like the Apostle Paul when he wrote in the second letter to the Corinthians that I long, I long to be further clothed because here I’m walking by faith and not by sight. And the desire is for me to walk by sight. I want to get to the place where this mortal coil is not the problem for me. That we anxiously await or anticipate the outcome of our hope in which we wait for the glory of Jesus to be confirmed and revealed as our perfect, our perfect God, our Savior, and the one chosen by God. That’s what Christ means, one who is chosen by God. Do we really believe that this is God’s chosen sacrifice? He is my blood propitiation.

He is my sacrifice of atonement, my peace offering. And you know the really cool thing about this, guys? Something that ought to just a sixth reason. I gave you five in the lesson with four. I’ll give you a sixth one to wake up every morning and praise God for the one time he offered a sacrifice on our behalf to himself. That’s your Savior. That’s your perfect Lamb. And He’s coming again. That is a powerful kind of testimony. And do you know the book of Hebrews pivots on that subject? It spins around the axis of that subject. We’re going to talk about that tonight. It revolves around that truth. Look at God’s perfect sacrifice and decide what that means for your life and for mine. Well, how do I know that he’s the perfect sacrifice?

The word there gave himself for us to redeem us. The words there rendered that way. Literally means to pour out when it’s translated. Isn’t that such a cool idea? Jesus poured himself out upon us.

This is starting to sound like Hebrews again, isn’t it? He became the blood payment. He was poured out as a ransom upon us for all the deeds which were against the law to what end? To make clean and to make without impurity a kingdom or people, because that word their people is not individuals, it’s talking about a group of people. We are the children of God. A kingdom of people of his very own.

But I want to say these things to you. Jesus is the confirmation of our hope. It’s evident by this that Jesus is our offering. He gave himself. Jesus is our purifier. 2 Corinthians 7 and 1 would testify to that, as does James 4, as does 1 John chapter 1, which we read earlier. And not only that, oh, he’s our great redeemer. I should get the great redeemer. He’s what bought us back. How I love the great Redeemer and the statement that Peter makes there in 1 Peter chapter 1 about the glory of Christ that was poured out for us and the great promise that’s sealed in that glory of that sacrifice. But not only is he the confirmation of our hope, the offering for our sins, the ransom by which we are bought back, the brought back, the purifier, he is our king.

Conclusion

And those that come to this victorious, conquering king have the mindset of his kingdom. And they learn it through the grace that has been given to all men. So we’re going to wrap up on this. The one who truly is truly has found and appreciates the grace of God, commits himself to give all to the one who gave his all in order to ransom us from our sin. Three questions that I hope that will entertain this afternoon. Am I committing my all to the one who gave his all for me? There’s a whole other sermon in that. This is why Tony likes people to come for meetings. We just leave the sermon ideas all over the floor. Am I committing my all to the one who gave his all for me?

Am I living toward God? Am I living in that Godward direction? And thirdly, do I truly appreciate God’s grace made manifest in his son Jesus? If I do not, can I say that I have no prospect in that grace? I have no participation in that grace. There is no hope for me in that grace if I am not willing to live according to the rules of grace, because this is what grace is. The real answer of grace is it makes us like the Son of God who died for us. Does that define your life this morning? Is that who you are? Or is there sin on your conscience that you become acknowledging? Why don’t you do that if it’s the case as we stand and say?