Sermon Tone Analysis

Sermon, You Can't Earn a Gift, Ephesians 2, Trauma Toolbox series

*Written by Lloyd Stilley*

*Scripture: *Ephesians 2:8-9

*Download PowerPoint Template & Images*  (500 kb ZIP file)

*Series Title*: Open Your Trauma Toolbox

*Series Theme*: We are marking 6 non-negotiable, bedrock truths upon which to build your life.

These 6 truths form the pillars upon which your life will stand.

If you have them firmly in place, the inevitable storms that will blast against the walls and rattle the windows of your life will not move you.

You will endure.

You will stand strong.

Omit any one of these 6, and your will be like the foolish man in Jesus’ parable who built his house upon a foundation of sand.

When the winds come and the water rises, great will be the destruction of it.

Sermons in this series:

1.

The Lord, He is God, Isaiah 6:1-4

2.     The Bible is God's Word to Me, Psalm 19:7-11

3.     I Am a Sinner Who Needs a Savior, Ephesians 2:1-3

4.     Jesus is the Answer, John 14:1-6

5.

You Can't Earn a Gift, Ephesians 2:8-9

6.     Are You Married or Just Dating the Church, Ephesians 5:25-32

Note: This message was preached on Memorial Day, 2008

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At Chatsworth High School in Los Angeles, he’s known as Mr. Memorial.

His real name is Brian Rooney; he’s the science teacher at the school.

And since 1970, he’s spent over $200,000 of his retirement money and savings contacting every city and town in this country by mail or by fax, seeking to learn information on any men and women who have given their lives for this country.

“My mission,” said Rooney, “is to bring humanity to every one of them.”

That mission actually began in the jungles of Vietnam 38 years ago with a promise he made to a dying soldier.

Two simple words were whispered to the young Army medic Brian Rooney as he leaned over the mortally wounded soldier, trying to read the name on his dog tags.

"Remember me," the kid whispered into Rooney's ear as he died.

Rooney promised he would.

*Baptist Faith & Message (2008)*

That promise grew into an obsession.

He now spends much of his time cataloguing memorials for the war dead, making sure they are cared for, and that they are remembered.

His work led to a bipartisan bill providing federal support for a national registry of veterans’ memorials.

He has personally cataloged and visited the memorials for over 8600 soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines from 50 states.

Source: Los Angeles Daily News (May 23, 2003, p. 3); online at http:~/~/www.thefreelibrary.com~/HE+TOOK+DYING+GI'S+ENTREATY+TO+HEART.-a0102234252

In that battlefield exchange, the sacrifice of a young soldier became personal to Brian Rooney.

Whispered words connected him to this dying hero, a man he had never met before.

It hit this young medic that the freedoms he enjoyed were bought by the blood and tears and deaths of the man, who like countless others throughout our nation’s history, whisper, “Remember me.”

I cannot escape my sense that I live and breathe the air of freedom purchased at tremendous cost, and that price is even now being exacted in the lives of brave young men and women scattered across danger zones around this world.

I stand as one who has received a gift for which I have paid little from those who have paid the ultimate price to provide it for me.

What can I say in the face of such staggering generosity?

I have not personally suffered the privations of war to gain the many liberties that we commonly enjoyed.

These come to me at a terrible price rendered by those who deemed such loss a worthy thing for what was gained.

All of us are the beneficiaries of their courage.

And from their valiant death comes this gift that most of the world has never known…this awesome gift we call freedom.

In the same way, but with extraordinarily more significance and meaning, we who are called Christians by God this morning have received from Him a gift for which we have contributed nothing.

In fact, as we shall see, we not only are undeserving of this gift, we are ill-deserving of it.

You say, “What do you mean by that?”

I mean that we not only have done nothing to merit receiving anything good from God, but we have actively opposed Him, fought against Him, and belittled Him, striking out against the very One we need the most.

This morning, there is a word that I want to call you to consider that is so important, so necessary, so foundational to real hope in our lives that it is one of OPENING YOUR TRAUMA TOOLBOX.

Sooner or later, your ordinary life will knocked off its feet by calamity.

One of these days, trouble will deliver a right hook that will send you reeling.

In that moment, all you have will be what you possessed five minutes before the blows came.

So we are checking out what we have inside to see if we are equipped for the coming storms of life.

So far we have seen that The Lord, He is God, that the Bible is His Word to us, that we are lost and in desperate need of a mighty Rescuer, and that there is one and only one who can do that: His name is Jesus.

But today we add an all important truth without which all these previous truths are of no help.

Leave this out and we’re finished, estranged from God and incapable of doing anything to change that.

Receive it, and the whole world is altered, and all is right with God forever.

Here is the truth you must know if you would ever be righteous in God’s eyes: salvation is a gift you receive, not a paycheck you earn.

Don’t underestimate the significance of this biblical truth.

You get it wrong—and it is incredibly easy to get it wrong--and you’ve missed heaven.

I’m not overstating the case.

You lean on your own merits, your religious fervor, the sincerity of your motives or the goodness of your overall behavior, and you will remain in your sins, under the wrath of God.

Friends, I am convinced that a great many people who go to church regularly are going to be shocked one day when they are driven from the presence of God forever.

So please join me as we focus on one of the clearest statements of truth on this subject in the Bible, Ephesians 2:4-9.

In the opening verses, the Apostle Paul writes about the true condition of every human apart from Christ.

Left to ourselves, we are sinners all, enslaved to spiritual forces we do not comprehend, forces that are hell-bent to give you just enough of whatever it takes to get you to drift through this life without ever seriously considering your need of the Savior, who is Christ Jesus.

The picture of Eph.

2:1-3 is a hopeless one.

We are dead toward God, dominated by the Devil, and destined for hell.

There is absolutely nothing we can do to change our standing before God.

By nature and by choice, we are an offense to the God of the universe.

And, as Heb. 10 says, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” says Hebrews 10:31.

That is why v. 4-9 is such good news!

“But God, who is abundant in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses.

By grace you are saved!

He also raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavens, in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace in [His] kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast.”

Look carefully at what you are reading.

On His own initiative, God has acted on our behalf.

We were objects of His wrath, but God, because of the great love with which He loved us, had mercy upon us.

We were dead, and dead people don’t respond or react to anything, but God made us alive together with Christ.

We were slaves, powerless and punishable, but God has raised us up with [Christ] and seated us with Him in the heavenly places.

All by Himself, God has taken action to reverse our condition in sin.

In a word, God has done everything, everything necessary to save sinners.

Why?

What impulse moved Him to have anything at all to do with us?

The heart has trouble accepting such overtures on face value.

Why did God come for me, for you?

Maybe a story will help.

“Shortly after the Korean War, a Korean woman had an affair with an American soldier, and she got pregnant.

He went back to the United States, and she never saw him again.

She gave birth to a little girl, and this little girl looked different than the other Korean children.

In that culture, children of mixed race were ostracized by the community.

In fact, many women would kill their children because they didn't want them to face such rejection.

“But this woman didn't do that.

She tried to raise her little girl as best she could.

[This went on] for seven years, [but then] the rejection [started taking its toll].

[Finally, this unwed mother] did something that probably nobody in this room could imagine ever doing.

She abandoned her little girl to the streets.”

“For the next two years, this little girl had to figure out life in a hard world, which was made even harder because of she was obviously different.