Sermon Tone Analysis

*[open bibles; will read v.1-10, but focus more on v.8-9] [reminder about Q&A, prayer]*

 

Continuing our series, “The Many Doctrines of Grace.”

Two Sundays ago we asked why was necessary for us be saved.

This is important question because it’s a question every person in the world is trying to answer.

Everybody comes into the world looking for salvation of some sort.

What do I mean by that?

Well, I mean that each of us as we grow older keep looking to save ourselves out of meaningless, sorry, unhappy lives and into purposeful, happy lives.

Well, as a Christian pastor, it’s no surprise then that I would suggest that best place, in fact the only place, for us to look for salvation is God.

So today we consider why and how God saves people.

To answering that question must reflect on God’s grace.

Grace ties everything together.

This why series called, “The Many Doctrines of Grace.”

Without grace will not rightly understand concept of God’s sovereignty and election in the Bible, very likely to dismiss such things out of hand.

Without grace will not understanding grace you will not fully appreciate human responsibility, very likely to take salvation for granted.

Without grace will not rightly understand faith, very likely to make faith just another form of legalism and religious good works.

Grace is what makes Christianity what it is.

It is most wonderful thing to talk to a non Christian about, since it reveals just how much God has done to save people.

At same time most difficult thing to talk to a non Christian about, since is hard-wired into our culture that salvation is found by doing good things.

Buy fair-trade coffee, volunteer at a local non-profit, sign up to SaveDarfur on the internet, and you are doing alright, you’ve earned some grace from God.

Many of us have somewhere deep inside of the thought that, “Well God should save me.

I’m not that bad a person!”

Of course, thinking like that will continue to keep you from truly experiencing God’s grace and true Christianity.

Rather, what we need is the honest biblical assessment of who we are in relation to God. v.1-3 describes it well to us and it also serves as a succinct summary of what we discussed two weeks ago.

It’s like Paul took Romans 1-3 and boiled it down to three verses.

The reality is that we are, as it says in Eph 4:18, /“alienated from the life of God.” /We are total strangers to a God-centered life.

In fact compared to the life of God our lives completely dead.

As we sink deeper and deeper into this spiritual death, as we continue to “walk” in the death of trespasses and sins, we will eventually become eternally dead, forever separated from God and the life of God.

Three major forces at work that we human beings have followed into deadness of sin.

They are:

1. /“the course of this world”/ (v.2).

Whole trajectory of our culture and society is splintered off from the path of perfect goodness and wholeness in which God originally set it.

Mankind wholly caught up in that splintered path.

 

2.

/“the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work”/ (also v.2).

This is a reference to Satan.

He is opposed to God and so of course looks to do anything possible to keep us walking in deadness.

And we are prone to believing in his lies and following after him.

3.

/“the passions of our flesh” “the desires of the body and the mind”/ (v.3).

We naturally inclined to reject God – to follow after our own sinful desires rather than God’s good and holy desires.

So that is where all human beings are.

And that is where all human beings would remain.

But God!

Those are two of the most precious words in all the Bible.

Those two words tell us that despite what you have you just read, despite how hopeless it all seemed, God has now stepped in to do something about it!

*[CLICK] Ephes.

2:4-7 -  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  [5] even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— [6] and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  [7] so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.*

Consider again v.1-3.

Notice all in past tense.

Paul writes this letter to Christians in the local church of Ephesus.

Reminds them, and those here today who Christians, “Don’t forget where came from.

But don’t think you are still there!

God has acted in Christ Jesus so that we who were dead now made alive in Christ Jesus!

We’ve come from the darkest depths of hell to being citizens of heaven!”

This happens because of rich mercy of God.

Notice, God isn’t just merciful.

He is RICH in mercy.

This happens because of the great love of God.

Notice, God doesn’t just love, he loves with a great love.

Important to notice these adjectives that Bible attaches to attributes of God.

Without them would still be dead in our sins.

Without them would have little reason to do good in our world, to talk to people about God and what he did in Jesus Christ.

It is because Bible says that God is not fast to anger but rather slow to anger and because God is not sparse in his love but abounding in love that we now with courage and passion and joy in our hearts can say, “I am now alive together with Christ – and you can be too!”

Truly, the church is the abiding display to all creation of the rich abundant mercy and love of God.

As commenter writes, *“Throughout time and in eternity the church, this society of pardoned rebels, is designed by God to be the masterpiece of his goodness!”*

For in coming ages God intends to show the cosmos /“the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

/(2:7)

 

This verse reveals to us the key operating force here – the concept that brings together why and how God saved us.

It is all found in the one word,3 “grace.”

v.5, “by grace you have been saved.”

v.8-9 elaborate further on this key phrase.

*[CLICK] [8] For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast.*

What then is grace exactly?

Grace describes “God’s unmerited goodness to mankind.”

It is God giving us what we don’t deserve and could never earn.

It is God showing love and favor to an unlovable and unfavorable people.

Now this unmerited goodness and favor of God can be seen broadly and traced back extensively.

Just think back to the opening chapters of Bible, to the dawn of human history.

The world created “good” by God, mankind was created to be “good” and enjoy “goodness.”

This is God’s grace!

Man did nothing to earn the privilege of living in a good world made especially for him.

How could we, we didn’t even exist!

Think also of great blessing of being made in the image of God.

Again, that is God’s grace!

Out of all the creatures in creation, man alone was given the opportunity to reflect God himself!

Now think of what happens in Gen 3. Man sins, rejects life with God.

Quick justice would demand that mankind be wiped out immediately.

Remember God’s warning in Genesis 2 – if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will surely die.

Adam and Eve broke a very clear command of God.

The punishment of death should have been immediate and swift.

Instead God sacrifices animals and provides clothes for Adam and Eve.

And he promises the coming of someone who crush the head of Satan, this someone being Jesus.

This is true grace.

Consider Old Testament in general.

Certainly there many examples of God judging people, often severely.

Yet really, if you think carefully, the Old Testament is really a consistent record of a God who is extremely patient and abundantly gracious and merciful.

In fact, it is in Old Testament that frequently find the phrase *“the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”*

Just see Exodus 34:6, Ps 103:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, just as a few examples.

Even more, God is revealed to be someone who enjoys showing mercy, “mercy” being the word to describe God’s unmerited goodness to people who are in desperate situations.

*Micah 7:18  8** Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance?

You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.*

* *

The Bible all about God and his grace!