<< Back to January 2002 Sermons

2002
6th January (am) - Saved By Grace ... Not By Works

I'm going to begin this sermon by describing some very general types of people.

I would ask you to think to yourself about which type you are most like. The down-to-earth practical person - good at showing care and concern in their home and family and doing their bit in the wider community & for good causes. People like that make such a difference - we recognise them as genuinely good people and we admire them.

The solid church person - loyal and supportive to their church, rarely missing on Sunday, sincere about religious faith and right living, willing to help in any way that they can, wanting to see the church doing well. How crucial such people are in every church I know - genuinely good church people, and we wish there were more of them.

The average, ordinary, person - trying to do their best in everyday life, and trying to give church life a proper place for themselves and their family. for many people in this grouping it's often not easy balancing all the demands of home, family, work, church etc. There are many people like this, and they deserve our fullest possible respect and support. Have you recognised yourself yet, even though these are ludicrously general descriptions. Maybe there's a bit of you in more than one group.

There is a 4th group which we need to mention - a group which doesn't sound attractive at all; a group we probably wouldn't want to ourselves in. This group of people live lives which are choked by 'transgressions and sins, by following the ways of this world, by gratifying the cravings of the sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts'. This, group, which is described in precisely those terms in our Bible Reading today doesn't sound very attractive at all, does it?

Let's keep those 4 types of people in our minds, and move on to think to ourselves about a second main question.

Which of these 4 types of people have the best hope of being right with God? Which of them has got it right, or is getting it right with God?

Getting it right with God is the title for the next 3 or 4 morning sermons. And to help us 'get it right', we've picked out some very important and basic NT verses to help us. Today's verses were from Ephesians ch.2. They don't use the word's 'getting it right', but phrases like: - you have been saved, made alive, raised up, seated in the heavenly realms, in the coming ages.

These are all phrases which deal with our lives being right with God now, and being right with God in heavenly terms. They are all phrases which have the ring of solemn significance about them - taking us to the very heart of getting life right with God. So, back to our question then: Which type of person has the best hope of being right with God?

From the 3 or 4 types of person we mentioned, which ones can feel that their life is right and safe with God, for now, and for the future?

This morning we want to listen to what these verses in Ephesians tell us. In a way they don't tell us anything we didn't know before, but in another way we still find the answers quite difficult to understand and accept.

What is difficult in these Ephes 2 verses is that they say that being good everyday people and/or solid church people is not really the starting point in getting it right with God.
It also seems imply that being just fairly average, ordinary people won't ever stop us getting it right with God, and most surprising and even difficult of all, it makes it clear that not even that 4th group we mentioned, gratifying the cravings and desires of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts - not even that group is ruled out of getting it right with God.

For here is the absolute crux of what Ephesians 2 says - in not just one place, but two: For it is by grace you have been saved through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no-one can boast. (vs.5 & 8) In plain language it is saying that:
it is not the type of person we are, that really matters in making us right with God - but rather the type of person God is. It is not from ourselves.
it is not the type of things we do, but the things God does for us, that really make the vital difference for our lives now and in the future; It is the gift of God - not by works, so that no-one can boast.

So this means that being a good everyday person or a solid church person is not the key ..... and being a very ordinary, average person, or worse, does not rule out.

Now I think that most of us find this very, very hard to really understand .....desperately difficult to accept.

Surely someone who is clearly living a good everyday life, or someone who takes their church and all its obligations seriously must be 'in with a better chance', must be closer to getting it right with God than other people who don't live like that.
But we must keep coming back to what these Bible verses tell us so clearly and so definitely. There can be no misunderstanding the emphasis as they tell us that it is not from ourselves, not by works we do but rather that it is: Because of God's great love for us, because he is rich in mercy, because of the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (vs.4-7)

Phrase upon phrase is piled up for us, emphasising that God's love and goodness and kindness towards people like us is immense, and that it is far beyond anything anyone might deserve or expect - it is mercy and it is grace.

And so, says Paul, because God is like this, people like us can have the assurance of our lives being safe with God, right with God, kept by God with a heavenly hope.
This is a wonderful, wonderful truth from the Gospel - this is the Gospel - as one of the other NT writers puts it: It's not that we have loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins - for good everyday people, for solid church people, for average, ordinary people ..... even for that 4th group.

And yet we still often fall back into that other way of thinking - hoping that we are getting it right with God because we have always tried to be loving people in our everyday lives, and loyal people in our church lives.
And this way of thinking can have a very strong grip indeed upon our minds and hearts. It's not that these things are to be dismissed or ignored or treated as unimportant - it's just that they are not the heart of the matter - they are not where it all begins - they are not the foundation of getting it right with God.
It is by God's grace you have been saved .... not by works Grace means goodness and love that is far, far more than we could ever imagine we deserve - extravagant kindness - hope which not even good everyday lives or solid church lives could ever merit.

It is by grace you have been saved - not by works.
And good job too - for here we come to Paul's most difficult and solemn statement in today's verses.
If we are thinking about putting ourselves into one of those groups, he says, we must really put ourselves into that 4th group - dead in our transgressions and sins ..... by nature objects of wrath - and therefore people who must depend on God's amazing kindness, his grace, rather than on our own good or religious efforts.
In making this very serious statement, Paul is clear that he is not just thinking about especially disreputable people - he is thinking about himself and absolutely everybody else. Look how he puts it: All of us ...... like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
The other day I had to sign a driving licence renewal form and the photograph to go with it. On the instructions it said that the relevant details must be supplied and signed appropriately - No Exceptions Will Be Made.

That is how Paul says it is here - All of us ..... no exceptions will be made! This is not implying that we are living immoral or deceptive lives. Paul is not trying to run anybody down.
He is simply to say that our lives are never going to be right with God by our own efforts - we are always less than we should be - while we might not compare too badly to other people, we are not right from God's point of view.
Therefore, if it were not for God's rich love and extreme kindness - if it were not for his grace - no-one could feel that their life and their future was right with God.
In the light of God's all seeing eye, over against God's holy ways, we are dead in our transgressions and sins, still held captive by the cravings of our sinful nature.
But God whom is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ ...... it is by grace we are saved ..... the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. What a message of hope for everyone! We need to remind ourselves over and over again that this is the Gospel of Christ. Thanks be to God.

But there is one last question for this morning - a very important one.

We've thought about which type of person we are.
We've thought about which type of person is most likely to get it right with God - although, obviously, that's really the wrong question to ask because it's not the type of people we are, but the type of person God is - extravagantly kind towards us that really matters.

Finally, however, we have to ask this question: If God is so extravagantly kind, and if his grace covers all kinds of people, does this really mean that everybody is more or less right with God whether thy seem to care or not, or at least that they will be right at the end?
In a way that's how it sounds, doesn't it - God's amazing grace which is essential for even the best of people, and utterly adequate for even the worst.
Does the incomparable riches of his grace more or less cover every person automatically? Will all but the most abhorrently obnoxious be right with God at the end - seated in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, as Paul puts it?
Well, attractive though that sounds - and maybe even though it is an idea that we would like for ourselves and our families - that there is a better pace for everyone at the end of this life, these very important verses in Ephesians, do not allow us to leave it there with this kind of idea that God's extravagant kindness automatically covers everybody.
These verses make 2 very straightforward points which tell us how God's wonderful love and kindness makes our lives right with him, right for now and for heaven.
And these 2 points are the same throughout the rest of the Bible.

First and Foremost, God's grace has to be received - vs.8 It is by grace you have been received through faith.
We have to see that we need God's grace and we have to choose to accept it.
We have to trust solemnly and seriously in what God has done through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, rather than in what we have done ourselves.
We have to turn towards Jesus as our Saviour and our Hope, rather than hoping that our own best efforts will be enough.
God's rich mercy and wonderful hope is for everybody who trusts in Jesus rather than in themselves - Jesus who died for all our transgressions and sins, all the cravings of our sinful natures.

He makes us alive with Christ; his kindness is expressed to us in Christ Jesus. Therefore God's grace has to be received through the deliberate trusting in Christ as Saviour.
We have to accept that we are sinful - we have to see that our sinfulness needs God's forgiveness - we have to see that Christ's death and resurrection is the means of God's forgiveness - we have to see Jesus as God's Saviour and Our Hope - the person who makes us right with God.

This is far more than a knowing it in the head - this is a trusting him in the heart. Today the bread and wine of Communion will remind us, in a very powerful visual way of Christ our Saviour, and of his flesh and blood offered to make us right with God, right for heaven.
Therefore this is a most important opportunity for us to refocus our faith on the essentials, to be reminded once again of God's wonderful grace, and to renew our trust in Christ as Saviour. Please let us all us this opportunity afforded to us for that purpose - being very careful to avoid the danger of a mere outward religious ceremony - for that would be back to what we do, rather than rally trusting in what God has done for us in Christ.

Today may even be an opportunity to get these things well and truly right in our lives - maybe even humbly coming to Christ in true faith today - what a way to begin the new Year. Let me encourage you to use this opportunity as it presents itself to us today.
God's grace is incomparably rich and all embracing - but his grace has to be received in faith - humbly and willingly recognising our need, his love and hope, and trusting in Christ as Saviour for our lives.

And lastly, that second way in which we must respond: As we put our trust in Christ, God's Grace must be lived out in our everyday lives.
Trusting in Jesus as Saviour will always show up in the good works of church life and everyday life. That's where being a good everyday person and a solid church person fits in.
So Paul tells us in vs.10: For we are God's workmanship, crated in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Worship and work in church life, caring and serving in everyday life will be the ways in which we show that we are trusting in Christ as Saviour, trusting in God's wonderful grace. We will not think of these things as ways of getting it right with God, but rather as ways of showing that we are glad that God has got it right for us - a natural way of showing that we are glad to trust in Jesus - it will be unnatural and unacceptable for these things to be missing.

So maybe we need to be coming back to our original question this morning.

What type of person am I, are you?
Down-to-earth everyday person; solid church person; average, ordinary person?
Most important of all, what am I trusting in to be right with God for my life and my future.
Who am I trusting in - myself or God's grace in Christ?
It is so very easy to be trusting in myself and in what I do or don't do.
It is so very necessary to be trusting in Jesus, and in what he has done to get things right with God for us