Sermons
“Saved by Grace”
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Reading this morning will be taken from Ephesians chapter 2, verses 53 through 10.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He has loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you have been saved and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing.
It is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no 1 may boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
I was tempted to come up to the pulpit as Troy did, but it just seemed somewhat humiliating to have to crawl up on the podium.
So I chose to use the stairs.
It's good to see you here this morning.
I'm not going to preach on Mother's Day, uh, but that's not because I don't think that that's important that we honor mothers.
Uh, please read the bulletin, but I will say thanks to all of the mothers.
In this congregation.
Those who are still expecting, those who have children at home yet and even those who have already raised their children and are now perhaps uh involved in raising grandchildren as well.
The work that you do is exceptionally important.
Attendant to essentially the beginning of every presidential administration is the selection of a number of officials, cabinet ministers, and others.
And those individuals, then at least uh many of them are voted upon or appointed by the Senate.
And so we've watched maybe in the last week or so, some interesting things happen with the Trump administration as Trump is uh in the process of filling out his administration officials.
The first thing you're looking at is Doctor Jeannette, and I'll butcher her name, Nhawat or something of that nature, and she was Trump's nominee for surgeon General of the United States.
But then very quickly, her nomination was withdrawn and another individual actually nominated instead.
And the reason was when she had given her credentials, and I'm assuming over some time, not just recently, she overstated her credentials.
She misled uh individuals about her educational background and some of her accomplishments.
I have to tell you, I'm not sure how the Trump administration missed that.
I think that would be pretty easy to find out and others did.
But what it did is it said that it, it made it impossible for her to go on in this nomination.
So she was removed from consideration for this high post in the United States government.
Well, here's another individual.
His name is Ed Martin, and he was Trump's nominee for US attorney in the District of Columbia.
His nomination was likewise withdrawn.
Because there was at least one senator in the committee, the judicial committee that would consider his nomination who said not going to happen.
And so he was going to uh deadlock that committee between Republicans and Democrats.
And so Trump withdrew uh Ed Martin's nomination.
And the reason I bring these two people up is these are people who could have served at some of the highest levels of government, uh, political, uh, civil servants, but because of something in their lives, in the case of the doctor, she hadn't been entirely honest about her credentials.
In the case of Ed Martin, someone saw something in the past that they didn't like, and so his nomination was likewise withdrawn.
Well, I want to talk to you this morning about another individual, a biblical individual who already was holding a high position in the Syrian army.
His name was Naman.
And the story of Naman and his difficulties are found in 2 Kings verse chapter 5.
Neiman, of course, was a Syrian army commander, a high position, not just a commander, but uh 2 Kings 5:1 says he was the commander of the army of the king of Syria.
The great man with his master, the tech says, and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria.
He was a mighty man of valor.
All of that's wonderful.
And then it all falls apart because he was also a leper.
Becoming a leper was a death sentence for a man's career.
It might take a long time for leprosy to uh essentially perhaps take his life or disfigure him, but it wasn't just Jews who were wary of leprosy.
It wasn't just Jews who shunned lepers.
And so here's this man in this high position.
A position of authority, and he is respected.
He has been successful.
But all of that, I suspect was going to change because he had the dreaded disease of leprosy.
As we read the story of Naman, we find out that during a raid against Israel, uh, a young girl had been taken captive and she served in Naman's household.
She was aware of the prophet Elisha in Samaria, and she tells her master about that prophet.
And Naman and the king of Syria.
Decide that they're going to seek the help of the prophet in Israel, Elisha.
I think I would have done just about anything.
Other than that, first, before I would lower myself to seek the help of the enemy.
But that's what Namon and the king are doing.
And the king doesn't just request that, he writes a letter to the king of Israel, the northern king of Israel.
Saying I'm sending such and such, I'm sending Namon, and you need to heal him of his leprosy, and the king of Israel is upset.
Who can heal a leper?
But Naman is directed to the prophet Elisha.
And you can just imagine Nahein, a man of importance.
He's come to Israel and he probably had a pretty great retinue and, and chariots and armed men who were accompanying him, his guard, his personal guard, most likely.
And he comes to the prophet's house.
He's expecting some great thing that the prophet will come out and wave his hand over the leprosy and there'll be some sort of miraculous cure.
But Elisha doesn't even come out of his house.
He sends a messenger out to speak to Naaman and instructs him to go and dip 7 times in the Jordan River.
And perhaps you remember.
That Naman is incensed, he's furious.
In the Jordan River, there are 2 rivers in Syria that are better than the Jordan River.
I had expected something very different and at first, he is inclined not to, not even to listen to the prophet, not to obey the prophet.
But his servant, his servants came near and said to him, My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you.
Will you not do it?
Has he actually said to you, wash and be clean?
It's kind of interesting that this is one of those places in the Old Testament where there's some question about the translation.
The new King James Version translates a little bit different here.
And his servants came near and spoke to him and said, my father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it?
How much more than when he says to you, wash and be clean?
And I kind of tend to think that the new King James version probably has the sense of the verse better than the ESV based on the way Namon had reacted to the prophet's instructions.
If he had told you to do some great thing, wouldn't you have done it?
Yeah, sure.
So now that he tells you to wash and be clean, this is the easier thing.
Wouldn't you or shouldn't you do it?
And of course, the rest of the story tells us that Namon did that.
And when he dipped himself 23 times in the Jordan, he came up clean, the leprosy was healed.
Now I bring up Naman's story because the account of Naaman's healing illustrates very well the concept of divine grace.
This morning, I'm going to give you a kind of an encapsulated view of uh of grace.
Our discussion is not going to be comprehensive.
We talk about grace as being favor and that's not a bad definition, but it's incomplete if You do a little bit of a search on the word grace and particularly the Greek word behind that chorus is the word.
You'll find that that word is translated grace, it's translated favor, it's translated thanks, it's translated thanksgiving, it's translated gift.
And so there's more involved in the concept of grace than just favor, and my intention is to pursue that in another venue, probably in a bulletin article in the coming week or so.
But Namon's healing illustrates God's favor, that aspect of grace.
Namon received what he did not earn.
Dipping in the Jordan River by no means.
was a cure for leprosy.
By natural means.
There's no physiological connection between dipping in the Jordan River and receiving a cure from leprosy.
What Naman received was a gift.
The favor of God in the form of healing.
Well, the reason we need to understand grace is because the Bible is very clear about the fact that we are saved by grace.
I remember growing up.
I don't remember hearing a lot of sermons about grace.
That may have just been my inattentiveness.
There may have been plenty of preaching about grace and I just didn't pay attention.
But I, I grew up with the idea that if you talked about grace very much, then you were probably off on that subject.
Because what we needed to talk about was obedience.
And I think that was a reaction to some of the things that were going on in the brotherhood back in the 60s, 50s, and 60s.
And it's a shame that we do not emphasize that we are saved by grace.
And I've got one primary thought that I want you to take home with you.
I'm not gonna tell you yet.
Wait for it, but I will tell you exactly what it is I want to accomplish in this sermon, a little bit later on.
Paul says to the Ephesians in chapter 2 and verse 8, part of the scripture reading, for by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God in Romans chapter 3 and Titus chapter 2 and verse 11, uh, Paul also says the same thing.
We're justified by His grace as a gift, Romans 3.
The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people, he writes to Titus.
In the book of Romans in chapter 73 and the beginning of that chapter, Paul talks about wages versus Gift or grace.
Abraham was accounted righteous, but not as a wage.
He didn't earn it.
Instead, it was grace, it was a gift.
Wages are owed to the one who works.
But a gift, grace is not owed.
It is bestowed.
Naman's healing also illustrates that grace can have conditions.
When Namon comes to the prophet's house, the prophet is made aware that there's a need for a cure for leprosy.
Namon is not cured automatically.
There are conditions.
The condition, uh, the condition is to go and dip himself 7 times in the Jordan River.
Now, you are certainly aware of the fact, I'm sure that it is sometimes argued that if we have to do anything to receive divine grace, then the consequence is that we are trying to earn our salvation.
But I think we need to think a little bit more about this concept of wages.
When you work at your job, then you are given some sort of remuneration that is commensurate with the labor that you've done, or if you're a preacher, you get paid a lot more than the labor that you've probably done, right?
And that the thinking Sunday and Wednesday.
That's a wage.
But when we talk about a gift, it's not something that we have earned, it is something freely given to us by somebody else.
The error of this idea that if we do anything, we're earning our salvation is seen so easily in the story of Nehean.
Oh, he was certainly required to do something to be healed.
He had to go to the Jordan River, had to dip himself 7 times in that river, but he did not merit healing simply because he dipped 7 times in the Jordan River.
It is absolutely foolish for anybody to conclude that dipping in a river cures leprosy.
And that's why I love that story because it's so obvious that this is a condition.
Not a means of earning.
The favor Of healing.
The story of Namon I think is probably clear enough, but there's another illustration in the Old Testament, I think that is very similar in the sense that it is very easily seen to be a favor, a gift of God, and not something that has been accomplished by the efforts of men or the merit of men.
And that's the capture of Jericho in Joshua chapter 6.
I want you to note that in the first verse, couple verses of Joshua 6.
In verse 1, we're told now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel.
None went out and none came in.
People are coming in to take the land of Canaan, according to the promise of God, given to the descendants of Abraham.
And there's the first city, it's Jericho, it's a fortified city, one of the oldest cities on earth, we're told.
And it's shut up, high walls.
And God says to Joshua, see, I have given Jericho into your hand with its king and mighty men of valor.
The city still was unconquered when God said that.
I have given this to you.
Well, there were conditions.
And you know the story, the Bible drill class, uh, folks know that the people circled the city, there were trumpets being blown, circled the city 1 time a day for 6 days, and then on the 7th day, they circled the same city 73 times and, and then as the trumpets blew, the people shouted, they've been silent up until that time.
And the walls fell down flat.
And you and I both know that there's no way that you take down city walls simply by marching around them.
This was clearly a matter of favor, it was a matter of a gift.
It was God's doing.
marching, shouting, blowing of trumpets, all represented conditions for receiving what in the end, was still a matter of grace of divine favor.
Well, The problem, though, for some, is that while we're told in Ephesians 2 and 8 that we're saved by grace through faith, Then over in Acts 2, at the conclusion or near the conclusion of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, he instructs those, those believers there, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
How do we reconcile two passages which seem to, at least in the minds of many contradict each other.
We're told that we're saved by grace and then we're told by Peter and the other apostles that people who believed needed to repent and be baptized.
They needed to do something.
And the answer is in Titus chapter 3.
In chapter 3 of Titus, in verse 4, Paul wrote, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness.
But according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
We're not saved through works of righteousness.
And so when we look at Acts 2 and verse 38 and other passages in which individuals who believe in the Lord are instructed to confess their faith and be baptized, what we have to conclude is that belief, repentance, confession of faith, and water baptism are only conditions of salvation, not works of righteousness which obligate God to pronounce us justified or sanctified as Mike spoke about earlier.
Paul wrote to the Romans in chapter 6 and verse 73 that the wages of sin is death.
That's what's earned by sinners.
But the gift of God is eternal life.
In Christ Jesus, the word gift there.
is related to, it's in the same word family as the word that's translated.
Grace, gift, chorus, the word charisma.
And so eternal life is a gift, not a wage.
How easy I think it is.
For those who are saved by grace to forget that fact.
I probably haven't said anything to this point that many of you were not already aware of.
This is review for you.
You understand these concepts, these precepts, you're familiar perhaps even with the scriptures, but how easy it is for us to forget, to begin to behave as though somehow our salvation depends on us.
And our works, as opposed to being saved by grace.
I believe Israel fell into that mistake.
The apostle Paul in writing to the Romans.
says this about Israel in verses 30 to 32.
He says, what shall we say then?
That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it.
That is a righteousness that is by faith.
But that Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not succeed in reaching that law. Why?
Paula asks.
Because they didn't pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.
They have stumbled over the stumbling stone and Paul continues there.
Israel had this idea that by keeping the law, that was the way that they were going to be saved.
It seems to me ironic.
That those who lived under a law that mandated sacrifice for sin would understand so poorly the need for divine grace.
Because that's what sacrifice was all about.
It's about God's favor, not earning righteousness.
Hebrews the 10th chapter verse 217 informs us that the Mosaic law had only shadows of the good things to come.
But we understand that the law was designed to teach men, among other things, about their need for divine grace.
Paul described the requirement of the Mosaic law for righteousness in Galatians 219.
We've been having an excellent study in Galatians in the 25nd adult classroom.
We're about to get to this, uh, this particular passage, and I believe it's a critical passage in understanding this whole business of how grace is related to the conditions for grace.
Paul says in verse 22, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is.
Written cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.
Now, it's evident, Paul writes, that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith.
Even the Old Testament in the prophet Habakkuk says that the righteous, that just shall live by faith.
But the law is not a faith, rather, the one who does them shall live by them.
Twice in this short passage, Paul says that the way that people live, the way that they're justified and made righteous, is if they keep all the things written in the law, perfect obedience.
And of course, Paul would observe in Romans the 27rd chapter finally.
That all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Nobody has accomplished that.
Not even the Jews with their dedication to the law.
Sadly, the attitude of the Pharisee and the parable of Jesus of the two men who went up to the temple to pray, I think is illustrative of the mindset of at least many of the Jews, if not all of them.
Certainly not all of them, but I think many Jews had somewhat the same idea that they were accomplishing righteousness by their keeping the, the works of the law.
Do you remember the prayer of the Pharisee in the parable, Jesus tells about two men who go up.
To the uh to the temple to pray, and the Pharisees's prayer is given first.
He prays to God like this.
God, I thank you that I'm not like other men.
I'm better than they are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
Here's the tax collector off just to the side, and I'm glad I'm not even like him.
I fast twice a week.
I give tis of all that I get.
And so the Pharisee doesn't ask God for anything.
In fact, what he does is he tells God how good he is.
All the things that he has been doing, good works that he has done.
Instead of understanding his need for forgiveness, as the tax collector would in his prayer.
The Pharisee reminds God what a good person he was and how carefully he had followed the law.
This parable also illustrates.
The danger of forgetting our need for grace.
Because the parable actually begins in verse 27, actually the prelude or the introduction to the parable uh by Luke.
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.
So he's actually dealing with that specific attitude.
They trusted in themselves that they were righteous.
The new international version says to some who were confident of their own righteousness and look down on everyone else.
And that is one of the consequences, possible consequences of those who think that they are achieving salvation on their own.
They tend to look down on others who are not as good as they are.
As we begin to emphasize our own obedience, that seems to be a common tendency.
I don't think the danger for us particularly is the desire to live under the old law, to go back to that imperfect law system.
But the tendency to put our trust in the various good works that we do, making sure that we're filling our lives with lots of uh good works, I think we do have a tendency sometimes to fall into that error.
Regular attendance of assemblies of the church, liberal giving on the first day of the week and to others, works of benevolence to others, teaching others, those are all good works, but we're not saved on the basis of the number of acts obedience that we can check off in our lives.
Now, I hesitate to suggest that anybody here has a list and you're checking boxes.
I, I know people don't necessarily do that, but in our minds, have you ever asked the question, am I doing enough?
Am I doing enough?
Is the reason for that question that I think that God has a threshold of good works.
And if I don't meet that threshold, That somehow I'll not make it into heaven.
My salvation depends on how much I do, and that, my friends, is a mistake.
That's contrary to what the Bible teaches about the basis for our salvation.
Now, I hasten to point out, I am not suggesting that the consequences of salvation by grace is that obeying law becomes unnecessary, that we don't have to do anything.
We could talk about that, and we will in the series on Calvinism that we've started this year, and that will continue here in the next uh few weeks.
There are some who believe that they're selected for God's for salvation, and there's nothing they could do or not do that would change that.
And, and there's really not much motivation to my way of thinking for them to live righteous lives if God's gonna save them no matter what.
I'm not suggesting that obedience is irrelevant.
But I want you to listen to Paul's comment in Romans chapter 63, verses 26 and 27.
In verse 227 of Romans 6, Paul says, for sin, will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace.
What then?
he asks, Are we to sin because we're not under law but under grace?
And he answers his own question by no means.
Does being under grace mean that we can just sin, we don't have to obey God?
No, Paul says, by no means.
Paul continues in that chapter to present our obedience as both the condition, verse 17, and the consequence of justification by grace through faith.
Obedience is important.
It's not the basis for our salvation.
We are saved by grace through faith.
Paul also wrote to the Romans in chapter 5.
In the beginning of that chapter, the 1st 9 or 10 verses, that our hope is founded upon the love of God.
And that that love resulted in his favor and sending his son so that we could be justified by grace through faith.
I've given you verses 73 and 2, but I wanted you to notice verse 8, because verse 8 says, but God chose his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
That's a magnificent passage.
It talks about how God's favor toward us is far and away beyond the favor that typically anyone would uh would would offer.
Who's willing to die for their enemies?
That's what the Son of God did.
We are enemies.
And God sent His Son to die on our behalf, even in that condition.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through him, We have also obtained access by faith into this grace, favor, this condition of favor in which we stand.
And we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
God's love prompted the sending of His Son, who died so that we could be justified by faith.
And so that our hope would rest on the love of God.
And not on our own.
Good deeds It is one of the consequences of recognizing my salvation, by grace.
That I don't have to worry about being good enough.
And this is the thing I want you to take away from this sermon.
We are saved by grace.
That doesn't say that obedience isn't important.
There are conditions to the reception of that grace, and that grace actually should motivate us to be loyal to, to obey, to glorify the one who has extended his favor toward us.
But listen to me.
When we begin to wonder whether we're going to be saved or not, if it's not because we know that we are staying in sin, that we're in a condition of sin and we refuse to repent.
If it's a matter of I don't know if I'm doing enough, I don't know if I'm perfect enough, we're missing the point.
Of salvation by grace.
Grace is not a condition or a status, favor of God, where we're in one day and out the next day, in one day, out the next day.
Walking in the light, now I'm in darkness.
I'm back in the light later in the day.
Then I'm back in darkness the next time I sin.
Paul said that through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.
And to me, that has the connotation of remaining in this grace.
Does the Christian sin John says yes.
If we claim we have no sin, we're liars.
Truth's not in us.
But if you'll confess our sins, he is both righteous and just.
faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
If we continue to walk in the light, we have fellowship with God, and at the same time, the blood of Jesus Christ.
Cleanses us from all iniquities.
For Sean 17 and 19, I quoted them in the opposite order.
One of the consequences of recognizing salvation by grace is I don't have to worry about being good enough because that's not the basis of my salvation.
When we truly appreciate The favor that God has shown us.
Then our lives will be the expression of gratitude.
To the one who has blessed us with.
The hope of eternal life with forgiveness of our sins.
God's grace is constant.
And we can stand in it, Paul said in Romans 5 and verse 2.
Well, the account of Namon's healing suggests another truth.
And we've alluded to it already, and that is that there was no healing until he met the prescribed condition.
Elisha sends the messenger to Namon and Naman is told, go dip 7 times in the Jordan River, you'll be clean.
Namon wasn't cleaned at that point.
In fact, as you remember the story, Namon is reticent to do that.
He's angry.
He's determined he's not going to do that.
He heard the instructions of the prophet.
He apparently understood the instructions of the prophet as well.
And it didn't matter.
That he may have believed that he could be cleansed by dipping in the Jordan River.
He remained a leper.
Until he dipped the 7th time in the River Jordan.
You know, the text doesn't say that.
Specifically, But if the instruction was dip 7 times, then my understanding is that after 6th time, he's still a leper.
Because he hasn't obeyed yet, what the prophet said was the condition for this gift of healing.
But After the 7th time.
He's healed.
He receives the gift that God had promised him.
Well, likewise, we can hear the gospel.
The good news.
Of salvation that's available through Jesus Christ.
Appreciated the comments of Mike this morning.
He essentially preached the gospel plan.
Sanctification through the blood of Jesus Christ, forgiveness of our sins that causes us to be cleansed and made holy.
We can understand the instructions of the gospel in the clear language that has been preached even today.
We can even believe that these are the necessary conditions.
I believe that faith is necessary, repentance is necessary, confession is necessary, baptism for the forgiveness of sins is necessary because that's what the scriptures say.
You can see them on the slide.
But until we comply with the conditions, We remain sinners.
Without hope, Destined for eternal death.
Where are you this morning?
Paul said to the Galatians, for in Christ Jesus, you're all sons of God through faith, and that's where a lot of people stop reading.
But verse 27 continues for as many of you as were baptized into the Christ have put on Christ.
You cannot.
Become one of God's children without putting on Christ, and that happens when people are baptized.
Given of their sins.
Made holy Given hope of eternal life.
What is your hope?
Do you have hope of eternal life?
If we can assist you in obeying the gospel this morning.
We would like to do that and we'll stand in just a moment to encourage you in song.
If you're a Christian who has been anxious and uncertain about your salvation, you need to rest in the knowledge that your salvation is based on the grace of God.
Live your life in thankfulness.
For the favor that he has shown through Jesus Christ and understand that my salvation and your salvation depends upon the character of God.
And not my imperfection.
If you need to respond to the gospel this morning, we invite you as we stand and sing.
- 2025.05.11A-SavedByGrace.mp3 (13.12 MB)
