Thank you, John. Now let's open our Bibles together to Ephesians, the second chapter. Occasionally, some biblical words or concepts are attacked as being outdated or no longer meaningful to 20th century educated, scientifically enlightened. and religiously evolved people. I think of such Bible truths as the historicity of Adam and Eve, that is, that they actually did live as a man
and woman in the beginning of history. The flood of Noah, the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as the only means of our reconciliation to God. his literal resurrection from the dead, his second coming again in glory and the end of the world. Truths like this are attacked as being outdated. Such an example happened yesterday in the Minneapolis paper in the letter to the editor by Howard Mills, who was the president of the United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in New Brighton.
Mr. Mills, among other things, denies the virgin birth of Jesus Christ as being literal, denies the literal resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in fact says it's unnecessary to believe such things because we have come beyond those sorts of literalistic kinds of interpretations,
he says. It's unfortunate to see a man who is a president of a theological seminary who is an unbeliever, who does not hold to the things which the Bible teaches most certainly and which are surely essential, fundamental truths if one calls himself a Christian. It may be a seminary, but it's not a Christian seminary. Some words are said to be outdated. Repentance. propitiation, sin. Even the word salvation is thought by some to be obsolete. But you know the Bible is living
and powerful. It is as relevant to this modern generation as it has been to any of those in the past. Its teachings and its words are still fresh with significance to all people everywhere. We look today at a text, Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10, which contains one of those words which is said by some people to be old -fashioned and antiquated. It is the word saved. Our text reads like this, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God. not a result of works that no one should boast. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Literally, the apostle tells us here, you are having been saved. That doesn't flow real well in the English. That's why it's contracted just a little bit to make it better in the English. But that's
literally what he says. You are, in other words, you are living in a state or a condition perpetually, continually, you are in a state of having been saved. Notice he doesn't say you are being saved, although that can legitimately and biblically be said and is. He doesn't say here, you will be saved, although again, that is a biblical truth that can be stated. But here he is saying, you are in a condition that can be described as, quote, having been saved. In other words,
it is a settled, once for all fact. You are having been saved, or as it says here, you have been saved. abiding condition of the soul. It is a condition into which one is permanently placed when he trusts the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps you have had the response, as I have on occasion, when asking a person if he's a Christian or she's saved, the response is sometimes, well, I certainly hope so. Have you ever heard that? I am glad that our salvation is not a hope -so salvation.
Ours is a know -so salvation. God has provided and wants for us to know that we have been saved. But if asked what salvation is, I wonder what you would say to someone. If you would like to see a brief summary of salvation, you're looking at it right now. Probably one of the best, if not the best, summary of salvation in the entire New Testament. Salvation is here described in
three simple phrases. If you will write these phrases on your mind, you will know how to answer someone who asks you the question, what is salvation? In the first place, we see that salvation is By grace. Write that down in your mind, if not underlining it in your Bible. Salvation is by grace. By grace, you have been saved. This is the basis of salvation. Literally, the apostle says here, by the grace, you have been saved.
In other words, he's pointing to a specific concept of grace, which he's already developed in his writing in this epistle. He mentions it, in fact, in just the previous verse. He says that in the ages to come, God will show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. And he says, by that grace, by this grace, you have been saved. You'll notice it does not say that we are saved by love. It's true that
God loves us. But the Apostle writes here, by the inspiration of the Spirit, I remind you, by grace you have been saved, not by love. Lewis Barry Schaeffer writes regarding the distinction of the two, Divine love and divine grace are not one and the same. God might love sinners with an unutterable compassion. and yet because of the demands of outraged divine justice and holiness, be unable to rescue them from a righteous
doom. Divine grace and salvation is the unrestrained compassion of God acting toward the sinner on the basis of that freedom already secured through the righteous judgment against sin that is secured by Christ in his sacrificial death. Divine love, my desire to save, yet be unable righteously to do so. But divine grace is free to act since Christ has died. God saves us by grace because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ when he
died and rose again on our behalf. Because of Christ's finished work 2 ,000 years ago, God now can righteously Act at his love toward us so that by his grace he saves us. Grace is further explained in Ephesians chapter 2, as someone has said, to exclude any possibility of self -achieved salvation. Or to say it another way, I believe that Paul explains more about grace here so that he can carefully guard it against
possible confusion. Surely the Holy Spirit led him to say some additional things about grace that are important so that we can understand what grace really is. Grace is defined further as being not of yourselves. I left out the word that for a moment, and we'll get back to that in a moment. But right now I want you to concentrate on not of yourselves because that further defines what grace is. He is saying here that this salvation that is by grace does not find its source in
us. There is not any inherent possibility in the sinner for him to save himself. There is no spark of divinity in him that can be fanned so that eventually he can self -achieve his salvation. He cannot inwardly generate salvation of himself. Thus the apostle says, this salvation by grace is not of yourselves. That rules out every man -made religion in the world, including unbiblical Christianity. And this article that I quoted from earlier shows that there is that kind around.
Christianity professed, but which is not genuine. Every man -made form of religion falls under this category, for religion is man's attempt to save himself through his own actions of some sort. It is his attempt to get to God, but the source of it is within him. You see, that's what religion is. Religion is man seeking to find within himself the way to God. Biblical Christianity is God revealing himself and the one way of salvation to man, for man to respond to. It does not find
its source in man. Secondly, he says regarding the salvation by grace that it is not a result of works. Now whether it be the works of the law, as would apply to his Jewish readers, or the works of fleshly and pagan religion, as would apply to his Gentile readers, Paul wipes them both out by saying it is not a result of works. Now to us today, that means that salvation is not the result of ritual. It is not received by sacraments. One does not receive salvation
by baptism. by keeping the Ten Commandments, by obeying the Golden Rule, or any other works which a man may do. As the poet has said, not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law's demands. We cannot work in any way to satisfy the righteous law of God that demands perfection. Salvation must be by grace, not a result of works.
In Romans 4 .4, the apostle clarifies that if in fact we were saved by works, it would make God our debtor, so that God would then owe us something, and we would be in heaven one day as a result of what God was indebted to give us, and God will be no man's debtor. Salvation is not by works. It is, on the other hand, a third phrase, the gift of God. He uses the word gift because salvation comes without any prerequisites.
There are no strings attached to it. Salvation does not require one turning over a new leaf. It does not mandate self -reformation. How many times have you talked to someone about faith in Jesus Christ and about salvation by grace? And the response is, well, you know, I want to do that as soon as I get myself cleaned up. There's always, it seems, that idea, I have to do something. But when we have that attitude regarding salvation,
it negates the very idea of a gift. This gift is provided by God at infinite cost to him, but freely to us. The cost to him, of course, was the death and resurrection of his beloved son. His work is complete. The gift has been paid for in full. Now God desires to give it freely. It is the gift of God. And then he says, fourthly, in another phrase, The reason for all of this is that no one should boast. Paul's idea is this, that there is no place in heaven for self -congratulations.
No one in heaven can ever take himself by the hand and congratulate himself on having achieved this significant thing of getting to heaven. Because God will have no boasting in heaven, except the boasting that is in himself. And that's the way it ought to be. God said through Jeremiah of old, let him who boasts, boast in this, that he knows me. Paul said, I do not boast except
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. My friend, the only boasting done in heaven is in the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Lamb, declared by all of us one day to be worthy because he shed his blood. and redeemed us from the tribes, the nations of the world. That is the only boasting allowed in heaven. Therefore, God has purposely called the base, the despised, the poor, the zeros of this world, as far as the world counts us. So when we get into heaven, the only boasting will
be done is in the Lord. There is no place for our boasting because salvation is by grace. Secondly, we see that salvation is through faith. That's the second phrase you need to write down in your mind. What is salvation? Well, in the first place, it is by grace. Secondly, it is through faith. Here Paul touches on the means by which we appropriate salvation. This preposition here, dia, through, is the channel by which we receive this gift
that God has. One author put it this way. Faith is the faculty by which we accept the free gift God has procured for us. Never in the Bible is faith viewed as a work or an accomplishment of a person. It is not a quality to command. It is not a virtue on the part of a man or woman. It is simply that in us which responds to God. Skevington Woods said it this way, it's a trustful response that is itself evoked by the Holy Spirit. Faith is more than an intellectual assent. It
is a reliance upon certain facts. Boy, that's an important thing to get a hold of. Faith is not just saying these things are so. It is saying I commit myself to these things. Do you realize how faith is woven into the very fabric of our everyday life? Some people struggle with faith. And they say, oh, I could never live by faith. It's got to be scientifically proven to me. And yet they overlook the fact that every day they
live, Again and again they exercise faith. A person is thirsty, so he goes to the faucet and he turns it on and gets a glass of water and drinks it. When he does that, he is trusting that there is an employee of the water department of that city who sees that that water is pure, or at least fit to drink. Furthermore, he is trusting that somehow that water was never intercepted between the water plant and his house so that something was injected into it to make it unfit
to drink. In fact, he does not even think about it. But it is an act of faith on his part, on a very human level. A person goes to a restaurant. He looks at the menu. He orders the meal. The meal is brought to him. He eats it. As an act of faith, he has never seen the cook. If he had, he might change his mind about eating it. He's never seen the kitchen. That, too, might influence whether he wants to eat the meal. What has he
done? By faith, he has eaten food, trusting that that cook has not only cooked the right food, but has cooked it in a way that it's edible. And he has trusted that somebody has checked that kitchen so that it's sanitary. It is an act of faith to eat that food in a restaurant. You came in this morning and sat down in a chair. Now you looked at that chair, maybe, to determine whether it would hold you after all the Christmas eating you've done. The chair looks sturdy. It's
made out of metal. It looks like the workman who put it together did a good job with the wells. So what do you do? You know the facts. Now you rely on them. You sit down in the chair and it holds you. You see, that's a very simple act of faith. Now, folks, if we can believe the man who works at the water department, if we can trust the cook in a restaurant, if we can rely upon a metal worker who put together a chair, Can we not rely upon the eternal God of the universe,
what he says? That's all faith is. It is committing oneself to, it is relying upon the facts as God says them. Now we need to look at that word, that. He says in verse 8, and that not of yourselves. What does that refer to? Is it the faith? Is it the grace? Well, theologians debate this, as theologians are wont to do, because the language here is debatable. It can go either direction. Probably what the apostle has in mind is the whole package of salvation, which is by grace
through faith. And so he's saying that that whole thing comes as the gift of God, including the grace, the faith as well. It is the gift of God. This salvation that he's talking about that is by grace, through faith, that is not of ourselves. It is the gift of God. Some people have intellectual problems with faith. I talked with a friend within the last couple of weeks who said, in essence, and he used the phrase, in fact, that faith is such a blind leap. Into the dark. Is that what
faith is? No, not at all. That's ignorance. Faith is depending upon what one knows to be true. What God has said. It may go beyond what we can observe, or beyond what we can rationalize with our minds, but if God says it, that doesn't mean that therefore, It does mean, rather, that it is true, and we can depend upon it. Faith simply takes God at his word. It is not a blind leap into the dark. It is an enlightened leap that trusts God. Intellectual objections to faith
really are not that at all. Intellectual objections to faith are actually moral problems, not intellectual problems. Because you see, the heart of it is sin. The heart of it is unwillingness to turn from self to trust God, to turn from rebellion against God to depending upon Him. Intellectual problems against faith are really, in their essence, moral problems, sin problems. Others claim not to have the gift of faith. They say, well, it says here the gift is given by God and I have
never been given that gift. My friend, if you would today believe, you may. The gift is yours. It is not a matter of saying, well, I was never given the gift, therefore I cannot believe. If you would believe, you can believe. Does faith save us? Well, yes and no. How's that for a good answer? I'm running for political office in a couple of years. No, that's not a political answer. That is an honest answer. Faith saves us in the sense that it is the channel by which we receive
God's gift. But faith is not our Savior. Christ is our Savior. There are some who wonder about their faith. They say, well, I'm not sure what I believed. I'm not sure if I was old enough. I'm not sure that my faith was sufficient back then. You see, the important thing is not how you believed, it's whom you believed. It is not faith that saves us in that sense. It is Christ that saves us. Charles Spurgeon put it this way, it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee,
it is Christ. It is not thy hope in Christ that saves thee, it is Christ. It is not even thy faith in Christ, though that be the instrument, it is Christ's blood and merit. You see, the assurance of our salvation doesn't rest upon the quality of our faith. It rests upon the quality of our Savior. Whom we have believed. Paul said, I know whom I have believed. I know that I have believed. I know whom I have believed. And that he is able to keep that which I have committed
to him against that day. Just as salvation comes to us by grace, it is secured to us. by grace. Now Paul says something more about salvation as he describes it to us. What is salvation? Well, salvation is by grace, it is through faith, and thirdly, it is for good works. Very simple concepts, but ones that will revolutionize a person in coming to Jesus Christ. Salvation is for good works. Here we have the purpose of salvation. He tells us in verse 10 that we are God's workmanship.
That is, the saved, or to put it in the context of Ephesians, he is saying the church, capital C, all of the saved, we, are God's poema. That is the Greek word, but you hear in that, do you not, the word poem. That's the main thought behind the word. We are God's poem, his workmanship. His work of art, His masterpiece. We are God's product. Only one other time in the New Testament is this word used, and it's used in Romans 1 .20. Where there it speaks about the heavens
as being God's poem. He says, God has displayed His glory through the things that are made. Now that phrase is the same word, poema. There God is writing a poem of creation in the heavens so that reading the stanzas of the stars, people are able to at least discern the deity and the power of God. But God is writing another poem. It is the poem of redemption. And my fellow Christian,
we are the stanzas of that poem. We are God's poem, created in Christ Jesus, not of ourselves, but in Christ Jesus, and that is emphasized here. He has created us. God's work is the work of creation. We are new creations in Jesus Christ, Paul says elsewhere. He tells us that the stanzas, which we are, are written in the good works of our lives. Created in Christ Jesus for good works. God has created us that we might walk in those good works. And by that walk, he then writes
the stanzas in his poem. The walk here is our lifestyle. That's what he's talking about. The same word is used earlier in the chapter in verse 2 when he says, in which you formerly walked. In what? Trespasses and sins. Before we were saved, we had a lifestyle, a walk. Trespasses, sins, two words that would describe the way we lived. We missed the mark. We overstepped the boundaries that God had set. And we were dead, spiritually. But now he says we've been saved
by grace through faith. And the purpose is that there's a change of lifestyle. There is now good works which God has prepared beforehand for us. That seems to suggest that God has prepared for each of us a special life purpose. That he has prepared a stanza for us to fulfill in his poem. and as by the Holy Spirit we live for Christ, good works flow out of us, and the stanza is filled in. Only the saved can perform good works.
You say, wait a minute, I know a man down at our office, and he doesn't even claim to be a Christian, but oh, he's a good man, he does good works. Well, the works that he does may be relatively good, But they are not ultimately good in the sense that it's used here. You see, when God calls these works good, what he means is that he is producing them in us and through us. Therefore, he finds them acceptable. They are good works.
An unregenerate person can never know, however relatively good his life may be, it is not the Holy Spirit in him producing those works for the glory of God. That's why I say only a saved person can perform good works. There are other kinds of works mentioned in the Bible. There are the works of the law, Galatians 2 .16. The works of the flesh, Galatians 5. The works of darkness, Romans 13, Ephesians 5. The dead works, Hebrews 6 .1. And even there it's talking about
religious works that are without life. The spirit is not in them, therefore they are dead works, as far as God is concerned. Good works are only possible in those who have been saved by grace through faith. These good works come after salvation. Salvation is not a result of the good works. The good works come after salvation as proof of it. You see, one of the practical results of good works in the life of the Christian is that they provide for him assurance of his salvation.
Are you sure you're saved today? How do you know you're saved? Do you realize that it's insufficient to point back to a prayer that you said sometime? And we're talking about the assurance of your salvation. It is insufficient to write a date on the cover of your Bible and to be able to look back there all the time and say, well, that's when I prayed the prayer. As far as God is concerned in his word, the assurance of salvation comes
through the good works in our lives. I remind you, not works that we produce in our own self -effort, fleshly works. Not the Christian life as we try to live it in ourselves. But our assurance of salvation comes through the Holy Spirit producing in us good works that are pleasing and acceptable to God. Do you have assurance of your salvation? You see, the purpose of salvation is a change of life. It's transformation. Now our good works are not perfect in this life. Because we are
not yet perfect. We still have sin dwelling in us. We still have the flesh that is able to express itself in ugliness and disobedience to God. We can choose to follow the flesh. We can choose to yield our members, our abilities, our capacities, to sin, to be instruments of sin. We can do that. How sad. When we do, by the way, when we do choose to make that decision, we begin to lose the assurance of our salvation. Have you ever noticed that?
I talked to a dear, dear friend of mine yesterday in another state who has even been a pastor of a church, been used of God in building a church, but has been involved in sin in the last few months. He's out of his ministry. now restored to his family. He's made things right with God. You know what he says? Because of the works in his life, the way the flesh has dominated him over the past period of time. He said to me yesterday, you know, I've had to go all the way back to
my salvation. He said, I have had doubts as to whether I am even saved. Now why is that? Why is it that happens to you? and to me, after we have been dominated by the flesh. It is because it is the good works produced by the power of the Holy Spirit in us that provides for us the genuine assurance of our salvation. Not good works to earn salvation, understand that, but good works that come because we have been saved and the Spirit of God is working in our lives
for the glory of God. It may be that you, like my friend, have been making the wrong decision. And sin has been expressed in your life. The flesh has been dominating you. And as a result of that, the works of the flesh and all of their ugliness have been seen, exposed. And you today are wondering, am I even saved? All kinds of doubts can go through your mind. I can't tell you whether you're saved. That's not my job. But I can tell you this, that salvation is by
grace through faith. We are saved by grace. We are kept by grace, thank God, not by our works. But if you want the joy of your salvation, if you want the assurance of your salvation, then your life needs to be yielded to the Lord. And you need to allow the Holy Spirit to produce in your life works that are pleasing to God. Now if that's not where you've been, my Christian brother or sister, that's where you need to get. And you'll find that the assurance of your salvation
will return. The church is God's masterpiece through which he has designed to exhibit his grace and his wisdom for eternity to come. Every one of us who's a believer in Jesus Christ is a part of that. As I've said, we are a stanza in the poem of redemption that God is writing. Laman Strauss remarks regarding the wonder of this. He says, God takes rough, crude sinners, dead in trespasses and sins, and produces vessels,
meat for the master's use. Sin -marred, defective material is transformed by God into useful instruments of righteousness. That's the purpose of your salvation, by grace through faith. It is for good works in your life. Is that the kind of salvation that you profess? There is no other kind of salvation. and the kind of salvation that Paul describes in these verses. There was a rather bizarre lady who lived at the turn of
the century. Her name was Sarah Winchester. Have any of you ever been to the Winchester Mansion? Yeah, some of you have. San Jose, California. Mrs. Winchester was the survivor of the Winchester who developed the rifle in the last century. inherited a fortune. She was a woman who was plagued by spirits. She was told by spirits, she felt, that if she would keep building her house, she would never die. You say, how can
anyone ever believe that? Well, how can people believe what they do except by the deception of Satan? The spirits told Sarah Winchester as long as she built that house, she would never die. And so she kept building for 40 years. She spent, what was in that day, $5 million building the house. The house is a rambling structure that has 2 ,000 doors, 10 ,000 windows, 150 ,000 panes of glass. It has 40 stairways. some of which lead nowhere. It has 47 fireplaces, 13
bathrooms. One day, Sarah Winchester died. When she died, by the way, she left behind three storehouses of materials, enough to continue building that house for another 40 years. But she died. She was sincere in what she believed. In doing what she was doing, this would cause her to escape death, but it didn't. You see, there is no salvation except that which is by grace, through faith, unto good works. Is that the salvation that you know today in your own heart? Let's bow together
in prayer. If you do not have the assurance of your salvation, I cannot tell you why that may be the case. It is possible that you have not been saved. You may be saved today, if you will. Whatever your past objections have been, whatever your hang -ups have been before this, will you today say, Lord, I do trust you. I put aside my empty works, my dead works, the self -righteousness to which I have clung. I cast away. And I turn to you and I receive you by faith. And I trust
you alone to save my soul. My friend, that salvation is the gift of God. It's by grace. Will you by faith receive it and through your faith make it your own? My Christian brother, sister, is God's purpose in your salvation being realized? If it were possible to read God's poem of redemption, And to skip down through that poem to your stanza, to your life's stanza. Would you be glad for the way that it reads today? If not, will you confess to the Lord the mess that you've made,
the wrong decisions you've made? And then ask him by his Holy Spirit to begin living his life in you. So that your life can be characterized by what God calls good works. Lord, to the end that this invitation may be realized in our lives, we ask your blessing upon it. I pray that there
will be not one go away today. without receiving or having received your gift, purchased at such a cost in the bloody and horrible death of your son, but a death which was well -pleasing in your sight, for your justice was fulfilled in it, so that your grace could save the likes of us. I pray that the good works you desire to see in us as a people will be realized today and this week. In Jesus' name, amen.