All right, we've been in a Bible teaching series called Gospel
Course and it is the basic fundamentals of the faith.
And I was just thinking as we were singing these songs, just
how preaching the gospel for multiple weeks over has just
really changed my heart to just make it love it, make me love it
so much. I'm so thankful for what Jesus
did for me and the simplicity of the gospel.
I pray we would never get over it what Jesus has done for us.
But this gospel course, we've been starting from the very
beginning of what is the gospel? What does that word mean?
And we learned that it is a death.
It is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
The word means good news. And that is the best news that
you'll ever hear, that someone else died in your place for you
to be able to know God. And so we're going to pick that
up today in Ephesians chapter 2. If you have a Bible, you can
turn to Ephesians chapter 2. And while you do that, I want to
admit to you tonight that I had a moment this week that I was
weak. I had a self-righteous moment
this week. If you guys ever had one of
these where you feel like you're better than somebody else.
I was outside of my office in the Pearl District 13th in
Everett, and there was a guy riding a bicycle.
He was about to cross the street and he had this emblem on his
helmet I'd never seen before. And so I just said, hey man,
what does that thing mean? And he began to explain it to me
and I did not. I was not tracking with what he
was saying. It was a little conspiratorial.
And I was like, man, that's what you're saying is a little out
there. And as I began to ask questions
in probe at the truth of do you have anything to back up the
things that you're saying? He eventually just started
cursing at me and rode away. So I was like, what, what just
happened? And in that moment I actually
said, how can someone actually be this way?
Like how can they think the things that they think?
And it was in that moment that I believe the Holy Spirit said to
me, you were just the same without Jesus.
I wasn't into the things that this person was into, but I had
other things that weren't true that I was basing my life off of
things that I believe, things that I did.
And I can even think back to a time when I was a late teenager,
early adult, I don't remember. I was lost.
And I was I used marijuana regularly and I had a Christian
friend of mine sent me down and tell me why here's from the
Bible, why you shouldn't do that.
And I was just like not hearing a word that he said.
Have you ever had a time like that where you look at someone
and think, why are you the way that you are?
But really, if it wasn't for the gospel, you would be some other
kind of way just like them. No ability to hear, no ability
to have common sense even except that you believe.
Have you ever maybe been on the other side of that?
Have you ever been judged by somebody that thought they were
better than you? It doesn't feel very good to be
on the other side of that, does it?
Well, today we're going to find the answer to this.
Judging one another is really the grace for others in the
grace of God. So our big idea for today is
that salvation is only by God's grace.
So grace will be our theme. If you couldn't tell it in the
songs, Grace was the theme of our songs today.
Salvation is only by God's grace.
So let's read Ephesians chapter 2 verses, 8:00 and 9:00.
For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast.
These probably are memory verses for you.
If you've been in church for a long time, you've heard these
verses before. But for some reason the church
in Ephesus needed to be reminded of this.
In Ephesians chapter one, there were some high and lofty things
said about them. They were chosen.
They were in God, man. God had a plan for them before
the foundation of the world. If you, if you're a believer
man, God has been working in your life and he comes to
chapter 2. Look at Ephesians chapter 2 and
verse one and you have ye quickened who were dead in
trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to
the course of this world, according to the Prince of the
power of the air. And it goes on.
They were being reminded. Don't forget about who you used
to be. And we don't need to go hanging
on to the old man. We're told to put him off and
put on the new man, but we can't ever forget that this whole
thing is really God's grace to begin with.
So before we jump into the rest of our Bible study, let's take
just a moment and pray. I want to give you about 30
seconds to just settle yourself in prayer, breathe, ask the Lord
to teach you, and then we'll continue.
So let's pray. God, we come to you tonight
anticipating that we'll hear from you even out of the
simplicity of your word. I pray that we would be forever
changed, not because of the power of my sermon, but because
of the power of the gospel and how you use your word in our
lives. Would you use this time to equip
us for this week? I pray in Jesus name, Amen.
All right, so your, your big idea for today is that salvation
is only by God's grace. If you're going to follow along
with your outline, you'll see in point number one that we all
need God's grace. This is what we really need.
We've seen in some previous weeks that our greatest need is
to to reconcile with God and our lostness and we need God's
grace. It says in verse 8 of Ephesians
chapter 2. For by grace, are you saved
through faith and man. These words have just been the
echo of Christians for generations.
By grace are you saved through faith?
But let's take a moment and breakdown verse #8 for for some
of these common words. So first, salvation is the same
for everyone. That's what the word saved
means. Salvation is the same for
everyone. There is no different way to get
to God. There's only one way.
And it doesn't matter what your lifestyle was like, what sins
you had done. There is no conservative or
liberal gospel. There is one gospel.
There's only one gospel that saves.
So being saved is I give you the definition the act of saving or
preservation from destruction, danger or great calamity.
The way that God saves us for by grace are you saved is by his
grace. We know that is God's desire to
save these a couple common verses The Bible says that he
wants all men to be saved no matter what their background is
like, no matter what their nationality or their skin color
is like or whatever they think whatever they do, He wants all
people to be saved. Romans 10 says whosoever can be
saved, anybody that chooses to believe in the finished work of
Jesus on the cross, they can be saved.
But it is this grace that is the means of salvation.
Grace is the means of salvation. So just in case you forget what
the word grace is, I'm going to help you out with your your
grammar or your vocabulary. The free unmerited love and
favor of God. Sure that we could use this word
in other ways, but for today's sake in the Scriptures, grace is
the unmerited meaning, something you did not deserve or earn the
unmerited favor of God. We often use that that phrase
like give me some grace, right? If you've got a test do and
you're past the deadline, you're hoping for grace.
So if you're asking for grace, it's something you don't
deserve, right? You're like, hey, listen,
please. I know I should have cut me some
slack. That's what we all really want.
We want grace, don't we? I need grace.
You need grace. We need to give grace to each
other. I used to do jail ministry, six
years. I've lived in Ohio for longer
than six years, but for six years, on my lunch break, I
would go to the county jail, do a Bible study with a bunch of
guys in the jail, and my friend Fuzzy would come with me.
I wish I would have had a picture of Fuzzy.
He was he, he was at Woodstock. So he's an old hippie.
And he had this big Gray beard that he hadn't shaved since
Vietnam. And Fuzzy has this acronym for
GRACE that I put in your notes for you to help you never forget
what it means. That's a that's a meme you'll
never forget. That's not my friend Fuzzy.
That's that's what you're feeling like whenever you need
some grace, right? But did I not put it in here?
There we go. Grace is God's riches at
Christ's expense. That's what grace really is.
When we're talking in the Bible about for by grace are you
saved. God gives you something so much
greater than you could ever deserve, and it came at the cost
of Jesus. And we see that Jesus died for
sinners while we were yet sinners.
You did not deserve the cross. 1st 1st Corinthians 15 says that
Christ died for our sins. So think about this.
If you were a Sinner when Jesus died for you, how did you
deserve it? But aren't there times whenever
we're confronted with another person that disagrees with us
and we somehow feel like I'm better than them?
And really, it wasn't anything that we did in the 1st place.
It was really it was our faith. Because faith is what enables
grace. Faith is what enables grace.
So God's desire is to save his means is through grace, but
faith is the choice that we make to believe what He said.
So I have another definition for you.
This is a fancy 1 the ascent of the mind or understanding to the
truth of what God has revealed. So my faith isn't just in
something that I feel or some theoretical concept.
Faith is to believe what God has said.
When I simply believe that Jesus died for my sins and choose to
act upon it in faith, that is what we would call saving faith.
The book of Romans tells us that we are justified by faith.
That's a judicial word that means I'm made just as if I
hadn't sinned because of my faith.
Not because of my works, not because of my ethnicity or my
political views. I have peace with God because of
my faith and what he said. You guys know this faith is the,
this is the basis of Christianity, right?
We walk by faith and not by sight.
It doesn't mean that we don't get to do the math.
You have a book, you can do the math.
You can take God for his word. Go ahead and study it, read it,
love it, eat it, enjoy it, but you still have to have faith.
You weren't there for the crucifixion, you weren't there
for the resurrection. You weren't there to see this
written down and preserved over the last several thousand years.
You just choose to believe what it says.
So I put it to you this way in your notes.
To receive God's grace, we must have faith that Jesus took our
place. To receive God's grace, we must
have faith that Jesus took our place.
And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that sounds too
simple. I just need to believe
something. I think that doesn't quite sound
right. Because in our natural world, we
reward good behavior. We punish bad behavior.
The gospel is somewhat backwards because we can't do it by
ourselves. This isn't a thing that we can
do to accomplish on our own. It says in verse 8 of Ephesians
chapter 2 For by grace are you saved through faith and that not
of yourselves. So this is not a thing that you
were able to do. You, you buy you did have faith
that wasn't chosen for you by the way, you chose to have
faith, but there's no act that you did that made you right with
God and some kind of works. This is not something you can
do. Christians really we're not
self-made people. Do you know the phrase
self-made? There's no sense in which we can
say, look how hard I've worked. Look how good I am.
Look at all that I've done because if it were not for the
grace of God, we will not have any of it.
We could not live the life that God has intended for us to live
without his help. We would not be able to do it.
But there are some pretentious people in this world that think
that they're self-made. And I think there's a picture,
there's a lesson in this. So Kylie Jenner is quoted saying
there's really no other word to use other than self-made because
that this is the truth, that that is the category that I fall
under. Although I am a special case
because before I started Kylie Cosmetics, I had a huge platform
and lots of fans. I come from a rich family.
I have a big following. I start a business.
Oh, it's successful. I wouldn't call that self-made,
right? But is that not how Christians
are? Many times we get a little
excited about ourselves. We think we're doing really
good, we're working really hard. And really, it's just the grace
of God laboring in and through US.
Don't be like Kylie Jenner unless you get saved.
Don't be like her. Pray for her.
Go ahead, man. Why not?
God wants all to be saved. It doesn't matter how famous you
are. Have you ever this?
Listen, this is a pause. This might sound weird.
This is unscripted, but have you ever thought that every person
you see on the screens that you watch is a real person?
Well, maybe not with AI, but most of them are real people.
You can pray for them. The actors that you watch, the
things that you see, man, you should be.
You should be praying for people, All right?
We can't do it by ourselves because you can't earn a gift.
I mean, come on, you guys should see these points coming by now,
right? Verse #9 says it is the gift of
God. And you guys know how gifts
work, right? A gift is a thing that we give
to somebody else because we love them.
And we've seen you can go back in time on our YouTube and
Spotify to find out that God loves you and that's why he died
for you on the cross. But maybe have you ever had a
gift giving experience that didn't go so well?
My wife is in another room, so I can say this right now and you
can you can tell her later. It's fine.
When we first got married, I was like, I was such an idiot.
OK, so this is just really on me.
I'm sure when we first got married, I tried to give her
jewelry like, oh, here's this necklace thing or here's this
like wrist thing that you, I don't know, I'm not a girl.
This looks cute. I'm sure you'll like it's, it's
real gold or something. And every piece of jewelry that
I bought her, she was like and literally returned it multiple
times to where I was like, you know what?
I'm I'm not trying anymore. I'm sorry.
You just don't get any jewelry. Buy your own jewelry.
I don't know, but a gift has to be received, right?
My, my, I'm not offended. It's fine.
My wife rejected my gifts. She said, no, I, I returned your
gift. And this is the same way that
salvation works. We all get the choice.
We're presented the option. The gift of God, the Bible says,
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
God offers this gift to us, to humanity.
He's good. He offers everyone.
Not everyone may get an entire gospel presentation in their
language, but God is drawing all men to Himself and He is able to
present to them the good news that they can hear and believe.
The gift must be received. So we all have to have a day
that we understood, and we chose to put our faith in what God
said to receive the gift. This is how the gospel works.
It's not something that we can do on our own.
There's no boasting in a gift, right?
I did not work hard. This this verse also says the
wages of sin is death. A wage is what we work for.
A gift is just something I enjoy.
I can maybe boast, hey, look at this wonderful gift someone else
bought me, but I don't get to take the credit for it myself.
You also can't work hard enough. See, this isn't something you
can do by yourself because there's not enough work that you
can do. Verse 9 says that it's not of
works. So again, remember where we are
in verse 8. By grace are you saved through
faith, meaning that salvation is not of works there.
There are no sacraments, there's no active baptism, there are no
rituals, there's no church attendance, there's no speaking
in tongues that will save you. Believing the gospel is the only
thing that will save you. But I know some of you.
You're the the type a hard working getter done kind of
people. Anyone like not I'm raising my
hand, but not for me. Anyone else?
All right, Yeah, I see you. All right.
I got you. I got you locked in.
Now I know who you are. You're going to do it because
you have to do it, and you're going to get it done.
You're going to do it right. You're going to do it on time,
and you're going to. You know, I'm not I'm not quite
built that way. You can't apply that to your
Christian life. We want to apply diligence for
sure, but there's not enough that we can ever do to reach a
bar that says I'm worthy of God's love.
There's no amount that we can labor for.
OK, does he finally love me? That's not how the gospel works.
It's not of works. In fact, we're not justified by
works. We saw that word justified
earlier. We're justified by faith, but by
the works of the law. Anything that you could
accomplish, they will never be enough for you.
And since this is true, that you can't work and earn your right
standing with God, you don't get to brag.
Verse 9 says, lest any man should boast, I will boast in
Christ alone his righteousness and not mine.
You don't. You don't get to boast in
anything else there. There's nothing that made you a
a Christian other than the gospel and what Jesus did.
And sometimes we get a little too excited about who we are.
So perhaps you've forgotten about the word boast.
It means to glory, to speak with laudable pride and ostentation
of meritorious persons or things.
There's a there's a one for you. You might have to Google some of
those other words. It's it's to be overly proud
about something. It's not just pride.
Like, man, I love my kids or, you know, I worked hard today.
I feel good about a good day's work.
This is like what I glory in. This is what I find my
satisfaction in. And it's a little pretentious.
It's a little over the top. Like, stop it.
We can't boast in our own works, we just simply don't get to,
Paul says in Romans chapter 3. Where is boasting then?
It is excluded by what of works, nay, but by the law of faith.
See, faith is really the thing that's like the most important
thing to God, faith in what he said, because it rules out your
ability to say, look what I did. You see if you have anything
going for you in your Christian life, man, I've got a job and a
career and I'm out of debt and I'm working hard.
I've got some things. Maybe you got a house or a car.
Maybe you're sober. Maybe you've got some marriage
years under your belt. Maybe you've got victory over a
particular sin. Maybe things are finally going
your way. Really, you would not have any
of it without Jesus. You might live some kind of
life. It might be a Kylie Jenner kind
of life. It might be my friend on the
bicycle and their own kind of world kind of life.
But you wouldn't have anything that's really worth living if it
wasn't for your faith in the gospel.
And I, I'm humbled by this, this week, just in my own life, that
salvation is only by the grace of God.
Is there something that comes to mind for you today?
If you're the hard worker, are you trying to achieve some
standard? Have you ever believed that if
there's not a time that you've accepted the free gift, man,
that's the best place to start. Sometimes whenever I'm listening
to somebody else speak, I like to find a particular thing that
I feel like, man, that's that's what I'm hearing today and
circle it. I would encourage you to do the
same as we take some time now to settle down and think about what
should I do after hearing from God's Word.
So I think I put some things on the bottom of your page to help
you reflect For you, maybe let's just think about you before you
think about anybody else. Have you accepted the free gift?
Is there somebody else that you've been judging?
Have you forgotten the grace of God and think about our church
or think about this community? What kind of church could we be
if everybody in the room had this kind of understanding of
the gospel? Man, this isn't about me.
We're doing stuff. But man, really, God's just
blessing it. He's just doing what he's doing.
Wouldn't that be a cool people to hang out, hang out with?
Wouldn't that be contagious or infectious when people come into
the room or come into our Bible studies?
How could this perspective of the gospel change our church?
And lastly, would you take this attitude and this message and
get it out on the street and share it with somebody else?
On this day in May, I have some friends coming into town that
are going to be missionaries to Scotland.
And I'm just kind of a wacko. When my friends come in town, I
like to take them into the city and share the gospel of
strangers together. And so that's what we're going
to do on. This is a Saturday in May at
11:00. If you want to show up at 13th
and Everett, we'll give you a brief rundown of how to share
the gospel. We have some tracks that's we
have like a the cheat codes for you.
Does anyone remember back in the day before video games were
crazy fancy, like you had to actually remember the cheat
codes or like beat the level and write it down?
OK, We give you the cheat codes for the gospel right here, man.
I'm like giving you the game Genie of the Bible.
And if you're not ready to share that with other people, that's
OK, man. Come just be with us.
Just be present. We'll do the hard work, man.
We'll love on people. We'll share the gospel.
We, we train our people to be able to do that.
Well, just come be with us, hear somebody else do that, man.
Just be a part of getting the good news to other people.
So make that a prayer point. If you can't make it, ask the
Lord why. See what he says.
So typically we end our services with a a time of prayer.
And I want to give you just a moment to pray on your own.
You have those points at the bottom of your notes.
If you feel like, man, I think I'm doing good.
God's working in my life. My heart is clear.
Think about some people in your life that need to hear the
gospel. Pray for them, spend some time
asking God to work in their heart to ask for an open door.
I'll take just about one minute and then I'll lead us in a
prayer and we'll conclude.