Four Foundational Convictions - 4. Sola Fide

Before we look at Ephesians, I'd like to read through Mark chapter 2 if you'll turn there, Mark chapter 2. I have become convicted about the fact that it's so easy to read so sporadically in our services and I'm just going to be reading through the book of Mark, and we're going to take a chapter every week, and today we're in Mark chapter 2, which we follow along with me. When he had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that he was at home, and many were gathered together so that there was no longer room, not even near the door, and he was speaking the word to them, and they came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. Being unable to get to him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had dug an opening, they led down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying.

And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic son, your sins are forgiven. But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts. Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Clearly Jesus aware in a spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven or to say, get up and pick up your pallet and walk, but so that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home, and he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, we have never seen anything like this.

And he went out again by the seashore and all the people were coming to him and he was peaching them. As he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting in a tax booth and he said to him, follow me. He got up and followed him and it happened that he was requiring a table in his house and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and his disciples, but there were many of them and they were following him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners? And hearing this, Jesus said to them, it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.

I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting and they came and said to him, why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, while the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast, but the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast in that day. No one shows a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, otherwise the patch pulls away from it. The new from the old and a worse tear results. No one puts new wine into old wine skins, otherwise the wine will burst the skins and the wine is lost in the skins as well, but one puts new wine into fresh wine skins.

And it happened that he was passing through the green fields on the Sabbath and his disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. The Pharisees were saying to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and his companions became hungry? How he entered the house of God in the time of Abbiothar, the high priest and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests. And he also gave it to those who were with him. Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. Let's take a moment to pray.

Our Father, we thank You for the Lord Jesus Christ. Every time we come to Your Word and we are exposed to the greatness of His person, the glory of His words and acts. And as He points towards this day in which He is going to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, our hearts are filled with great gratitude. We thank You for what Christ has done in our place. We pray today as we look in Your Word and as we come around this table and celebrate and remember and revel in the truth that Christ is our Passover, that He has paid for our sins and that we have now come into communion with You. We can sit in Your table and supple with Christ. We pray that our hearts would be filled with joy and gratitude in Christ's name, amen.

We are in the midst of a short series. In fact, this is the last message in that series on four great foundational truths in the Word of God. We've looked at what's called a solar scripturic. The Scripture is alone. We've seen that the soul authority in the church, as Christ is exercising as authority, we look to the Word of God alone to receive the authoritative Word of Christ, not through the Magisterium, not through tradition, not through the words of the church fathers, but to the Word of God, the Scriptures, Scripture alone. And then we looked at Solar's Christus Christelome, that He is the sole and only basis of our salvation and our relationship with the Father is Christ alone. There is no other path.

There is no other way. There's no other name given among men under heaven whereby we must be saved. And then we looked at Solar Gratia, and that is by grace alone. The salvation we last week, we began to look at Ephesians chapter 2, and we saw this dark picture of our fallenness so far away from God. And then this glorious diamond set upon that black velvet, the salvation that we have received through Christ, which is by grace, by grace, by grace alone, a gift from God, an undeserved kindness that He has shown to us. And today we want to look at the last three verses of this passage, verses 8 through 10, and see that salvation is not only by grace alone, but it is through faith alone, Solifide, all four of these truths were the cry of the Reformers, because this is where the church had drifted away from.

We no longer taught the truths that Martin Luther was so convicted by that he risked his whole life and ministry and everything to stand for these truths. Soliscriptura, Solis Christus, Soleggratia, and Solifide. These are glorious foundational truths upon which all that we believe really are founded. And so as we look at Ephesians 2 today, we want to answer this question, why must we be saved by faith alone? Why can't we not be saved by works? All religions in the world tell you what you must do in order for God to do something for you. Religion always begins with this is what you must do. Christianity begins with this is what God has done. And your responsibility is to embrace His work by faith.

The answer to this question, of course, is found in Romans 4.16, which we're not going to look at. But notice what Paul says there. Paul says, for this reason, it is by faith. Salvation is by faith. In order that, it may be in accordance with grace. The only way to salvation to be by grace is if you receive it by faith. If we mix works with grace, it's no longer grace, Paul says. If your salvation is based upon the work of Christ plus your work, then it's no longer grace, but it's works. And so Paul is going to tell us in this passage as we look today, that salvation is by grace through faith. Let me read just these three verses from Ephesians chapter 2, beginning in verse 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith.

And that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not as a result of works so that no one may boast for we or his workmanship. It in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. And here we have this wonderful balance of faith and works, that works flow out of true faith. That where there is true faith, there will be true works, because faith is characterized by works which flow out of it. Let's take a look at these things. First of all, we mentioned this last week that God is glorified through, saving us by grace alone through faith alone. This is to the glory of God. It is blasphemous for us to say that we are saved by the work of Christ, but plus our own works.

It would be like going to the foot of the cross, while Jesus was hanging there, nailed to the cross, having been made sin for us, and the father having poured out his wrath upon his son, and for us to walk up to the foot of the cross and put down our works at the foot of the cross and say here, let me complete what you have started. That's how polacious it would be for us to say that our salvation is based upon the work of Christ, plus the work of man. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone. Salvation is the great display of God's grace, and it is holy grace Paul is going to say. Notice these four things that Paul says here in verses 8 and 9. First of all, he says, the salvation is an extravagant gift.

You have been saved. Last week I mentioned earlier in this passage back up in verse 5, he says, by grace you have been saved, as an aside, as he is going through explaining our salvation and light of our fallenness and our lostness, our death and our separation, and the fact that we were headed for a day of judgment. It's an awful thing to think that we are headed for a day of judgment. This movie that came out recently, a beautiful mind, I don't know if you have read anything about this controversy, but because this man's life has been put on the screen, all of a sudden all these people are standing up and saying, wait a minute, you didn't tell it right. You didn't tell about what he did to me.

One woman stepped forward and said that he fathered her a child and would not take responsibility for it. So now his reputation has been shamed because he's been made such a public spectacle. Imagine the day when we stand before the living God, the God who knows all my secrets, the God who knows all my thoughts, the God who knows what I do in the dark, the God who knows what I do and what I think when no one else does, and I stand before that great white throne judgment. What an awful thought. It's got a righteousness and judgment appeals to us throughout our whole lives. Come under me. Come under me and receive forgiveness and not only forgiveness but receive righteousness so that you will be so righteous that you can stand at the final judgment with great confidence, not in yourself but in the righteousness with which he will quote you simply by receiving Christ and being clothed in his righteousness.

So when I stand there, all my sins are gone, cast into the deepest sea. The prophet says, cast behind his back, Isaiah says, between his shoulder blades, it no longer exists in the eyes of God. It's not amazing. It's not fair, is it? It's not fair that you will stand there simply if you don't know Lord Jesus Christ came to embrace him by faith and you have got sins worse than many who will stand there and be judged for their sins. It's not fair. It's grace. And it's the grace that he offers to all. This is the grace of the gospel that goes out to the world today, that there is a way that I can be made right with God, simply by embracing his son by faith and if I refuse to embrace his son by faith, I'm going to stand there before this great white throne.

The judge of all the earth, the Lord Jesus Christ, with the marks in his hands and in his feet and his side and he is going to pass judgment upon all those who refuse to embrace him by faith and to receive the salvation. What I thought that is, and now Paul begins to describe the salvation that is offered to us, that we have received by faith, he said, it isn't an extravagant gift you have been saved by grace, by grace you have been saved. Now he says this in such a way, I wish I could describe it in the power that it's given here in the original language, it's called a paraphrastic perfect, and paraphrastic perfect doesn't mean a thing to you, I shouldn't have said that, but that's what it is and what it means is this, is he uses several words simply to say this, you are in a state of having been saved.

You are in a state of being lost and headed for condemnation, but he says now by grace you are in a state of having been saved and that salvation is going to last eternity. Same thing, that I have been saved by grace and that salvation will last for all eternity. We have been spiritually dead and now we enjoy spiritual life because by grace we have been saved and we are in the state of having been saved and we will be for all eternity. Salvation is a present blessing because God did something in the past, he saved you by his grace. And then secondly he says that salvation is a gift that is freely given, it's really a funny thing to watch young children as they give gifts to each other and how sometimes they really don't want to give the gift.

You know, mom and dad go by the gift and they are going to give it to their little friend, but the fact is they don't want to really give it to their friend, they'd really like to keep it for themselves. Paul says that God has given us a gift freely. See, he was under no obligation to save sinners like you and me. He didn't have to save us. It wasn't something that was inherent in his nature that he could do nothing else. Humanity has no claim on God, but God's justice had a high claim on man and yet God in his grace freely gave to us guilty lawbreakers instead of a penalty, he gave us a gift. He was under no necessity to provide this. It isn't a part of God's nature that he'd be gracious to all, it is a part of his nature to love and even to love his enemies, but not necessarily to give us grace.

Grace was freely given. He was under compulsion to do this. In fact, notice he says that this gift of God, which we have received, this salvation, Paul says elsewhere, we were justified without a cause. Well, that means there was nothing in us that caused God to justify me. It wasn't because he looked down and he said, you know, he's really got a good heart. I believe that Daniel's thought is going to be the kind of guy that I want because he's just got such a good heart. You know, he's got some problems with me and he's got a good heart and so he chose him. Right now, that isn't it, isn't it? It's because out of his own nature, he decided to freely give a gift. Salvation has its origin in God's grace.

In the heart of God, there's something in the heart of God. We didn't win it from him or we didn't ring it out of his hands, but he freely, freely gave it to us. And the third thing he says is that salvation is an undeserved gift. There's no merit in the one who has saved. Grace is opposed to merit on man's part. That's the whole idea of grace. Grace is unmarried to favor, unmarried to kindness that God has shown towards us. It is by grace, not of yourselves, he says, which literally means, and that being that is being saved by grace who faith is not out of yourselves. The salvation that you received by grace who faith, it doesn't originate with us. It wasn't that some religious commission got together and decided, you know, here would be a great way for God to save man.

Let's suggest it to him by grace through faith. No, in fact, we're all discovering it. That's what life is all about. That's what the Bible's about is you read this history of redemption in the Bible. The story of the Bible is man begins to discover by God's revelation that God saves by grace through faith. And it's the only way he saves. In fact, it is the thing that offends man more than anything else because it leaves us nothing to boast about. It's by grace through faith, not of yourselves, not as a result of work. He says, in other words, human merit and human effort does not have a part in this in any way. It is salvation that cannot be achieved by human performance, but is given to us by grace as a blessing from God.

The spirit convinces a person that he has fallen and he can't get up, that he can't do anything about his fallenness. He's guilty and he's unable to win a pardon. He can only receive a pardon if God offers it. He's dead and he can get life only as a gift from God. That's what the spirit brings the conviction to the heart and a person feels the desperation and the need to be saved. I've never seen anybody come to faith in Christ through osmosis. I've never seen people come to faith simply by being around Christians and it rubbing off on them. What happens is the spirit brings deep conviction to the heart and I realize that I am lost and I'm done and I have my own synop on my head and when I stand before God, I'm going to be judged if he doesn't save me and then his heart, her heart is turned toward this God and she reaches out with empty hands to receive a gift.

That's the way salvation comes. You can develop people's character all you want and that's a good thing to do because it's a lot better to have people outside of Christ being good citizens and good neighbors and doing the right thing than it is to have thieves and robbers living next door to you. That's not going to make a person a Christian. The only thing that makes a person right with a living God is if they receive a gift and they have to see it as a gift. They have to see the fact they need a gift. They don't need a second chance. So I always think we need a second chance. You don't need a second chance or a tenth chance or a hundredth chance. You need grace. You need a gift that God freely gives and when a spirit can fix our heart of that and we understand that favor and nothing but favor that can bring us into safety, then we reach out with empty hands and receive this gift.

That's what you have to do to come to Christ. You have to come with empty hands. You have to be a person that Jesus describes in John 7 as thirsty, of dying of thirst or realizing you're about to perish if I don't get a drink and he says, all of you who are thirsty come to me and I'll give you a drink. For somebody who realizes that all their efforts are worthless no matter how hard they try when they're truthful about it the worst they get, the further away from God and His righteous demands they are and Jesus says, all of you who are weary and heavy of they didn't come to me and I'll give you a rest, you don't have to work anymore. You can rest in what I've done in my work and then your works will flow out of a heart that's so full you can't stop working for him because you love him so much.

If what we receive in salvation is nothing else but a gift to us in our weak and meritless state then of course we have nothing to boast about. Salvation by grace glorifies God. Salvation by works glorifies man and God says, that's one thing I'm not going to let you do is boast in your works. I'll let you boast in grace, I'll let you boast in your trials, I'll let you boast in the glory of God, I'll let you boast in the glory of Christ but I won't let you boast in your law works that earn you salvation because they won't. You know that's really what saving faith is, it's when I come to the place where I realize I have no contribution to make whatsoever. When you think about all those testimonies you heard after September 11th people who were saved out of that burning inferno and it's amazing how they don't brag about themselves isn't it?

People who would not have been saved if somebody hadn't stepped up and saved them, they don't brag about how smart they were, how thoughtful they were, how hard they worked at getting themselves saved, they just are full of gratitude. That's what happens when a person turns to Christ and that's what glorifies God. The thing that brings God's glory is God's glory is when people stand up and say I was really honestly a real wretched sinner and God saved me by his grace. I don't deserve this, I don't deserve it but he saved me by his grace. That brings glory to God. The fourth thing he says about us being saved by grace through faith is that salvation is a gift that must be received through faith.

Grace is the cause and faith is the instrument. Grace is the cause and faith is the instrument. Grace and faith are inseparable companions. You can't be saved by grace unless you're saved by faith. You can't be saved by faith unless you're saved by grace. God's grace is the ground of our salvation and faith is the means by which it becomes effective in a person's life. You have to receive it by faith. You have to open your hands and receive it as a gift from the living God. For this reason Paul says it is by faith that it might be in accordance with grace. Four times in his writing, Paul makes this point. If it's by grace it must be by faith that cannot be through works. You must receive it by faith.

By works he means by earning it through your effort. By living good enough that God could turn to you and say, you know what? I'm so impressed with your efforts that I'm going to give you salvation. Faith is taking hold of. That's the way it's pictured in the scripture. It's taking hold of. In the picture, the reason it's expressed that way is being saved is like the person who's drowning out in the sea and someone throws them a life raft or dives into save them and all they can do is take hold of them. They can't try to swim because they have no strength. They're going under. They're going to drown. They simply take hold of the person who has taken hold of them. Then it's pictured as drinking in John 7 because it's a picture of a man dying of thirst.

The water is provided and all you have to do is drink, but you must drink. If you refuse to drink, you're going to die. You're going to perish. It's pictured as entrusting yourself to the only one who can save you. That's what it comes down to. Will you trust the one who in your place went to the cross and suffered the full penalty that your sin deserves? And then he was put into his race in the dead and then he went back to the Father and then he spent the spirit into the world and the Holy Spirit is here to convict your heart. And if the Spirit convicts your heart and you take hold of Christ, you drink from this fountain, you rest your faith in this person. You'll be saved. I can guarantee it.

I can't guarantee much, but I can guarantee that. If you rest your faith in him, you'll be saved. Well, the second thing I look at here is that God is also glorified through manifesting his grace through good works. Is there a place where works in this scheme when we talk so much about grace and faith and not being saved by works? Is there an importance to works? Absolutely. Paul says in verse 10, after in verses 8 and 9, eliminating works is the source of verse salvation. Now, in verse 10, he establishes good works as the effects of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. He says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them.

And notice this, God has created the question for his glory. We are his workmanship. There's some artists in this room. My name is Jeannie Rames is here and she's an artist and we have one of her pictures on our wall. It's actually on a plate, it's a picture of my Judy's folks. And that plate is a glory to her. Because when you look at it, you see her ability. The word that's used here for workmanship is the Greek word poyema, sounds familiar, doesn't it? We are his poem. We are his work of art. Those who come to faith in Jesus Christ are people who are the artwork, the craft of the Father. Regeneration is a deep radical transformation and the deepest part of who you are. And that is a work of the living God.

Before this, Jesus told Nicodemus, you couldn't see, you couldn't hear and you couldn't receive anything from God unless you're born again. And this new birth that he brings to do our lives changes us completely. And we begin to look like the work of art that we are, that God has created us. We are his workmanship. What kind of a workmanship? What did he create this for? To put this on a wall? On display? No. He created us to function. We are the kind of work of art that actually works. Jean and I drove up to Youngville last week and we walked through some shops there and there was this one gallery that had all this artwork, quote, that was a bunch of scrap iron welded together in various forms.

Now, I could almost do that well myself, I believe. But they were considerably works of art, but they couldn't do a thing. It seems to me that God's haunting his people in the Old Testament, why do you bow down to these idols? Why do you worship this idol that you created which can't even know unless you carry it? It has arms, but it can't lift anything, has eyes, but it can't see, has a mouth, but it can't speak. It is worthless and useless. When God made his poyema, when he created his work of art, it is so that we would function so that we would be those who produce good works in the power of the Spirit and glorify him. I see it all the time. I see people step up and do works of grace in this church towards one another, people are hurting and somebody steps up and brings comfort to them.

Somebody is in great need and they step up and they supply that need. See, that's the poyema of God. That's the workmanship of God. He creates things. He creates people who actually do work that glorify him. When we love people the way Christ loved us and we respond to their needs, the way God responded to our need, we are displaying the fact that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works. That's what you were created for. People are never going to see the glory of God in you until you do good works. That's what you were created. He has even gifted you to do it in a special way. You have the gift of exhortation. He has put a gift within you so that you could display his glory by encouraging people who need to be encouraged.

When you do that, the glory of God is displayed. People begin to see the reflection of your heart. They see what your heart is fixed upon, it's upon the living God, upon Christ himself. The book of Ezekiel, something that I've been struck with, there's a pattern there because God is condemning his people for the fact that they have turned away from him and turned their hearts to idols. This is the process that he describes. He says, first of all, you turned your heart away from me and then your eyes were filled with idols. Have you ever wondered why your Christian life is the kind of struggle that it is that you have certain patterns that you fall into? Almost everyone in this room, I would assume everyone in this room struggles with certain kinds of sin that's peculiar to you.

And what those are, they're acts of idolatry. We have things in our life that we are tempted to love more than we love God. I mean, that's what's happening. When you do something, you know that God has told you not to do or you fail to do what God has commanded you to do, what's happening there is that you are worshipping an idol, an idol of your heart. For example, maybe God is, you know that he's commanding you to be sacrificial in the way you give to meet the needs of other people and yet you're too stingy to do it because your idol is your own wealth and success and possessions. That's idolatry. And how do we ever, why do we keep struggling with this? Why do we fall into this? Well, Ezekiel, God's best for Ezekiel, it's because there are those times when your heart is no longer filled with God, you turn your heart away and when you turn your heart away, God, when you wait from God, when you stop pursuing Him, when you stop loving Him, when you stop making Him the apple of your eye, when you are no longer pursuing Him with all your heart, all of us that in your eyes begin to be filled with idols.

Isn't that how it happens? And then you feel so vulnerable, you can't figure out why you can't resist temptation. It's because your heart has been turned away. And so God says to Israel, I'm going to teach you through this captivity of 70 years, not to turn your heart away from me. It's so dangerous to turn your heart away from God. 30th is exercise because the heart has been changed, regeneration, and our heart is filled with love for this God. That's why you initially believe on Christ because he changed your heart and you could not help but take hold of Christ by faith. And then he says that God has created the Christian for good works. We were created in Christ Jesus for good works. This is the new creation.

Jesus we are told in Colossians and in John chapter 1 is the creator of all things, nothing exists that he did not cause to come into existence. That's the teaching of the Bible. This man who was probably five foot eight, a Jewish man walking around the dusty roads of the Sea of Galilee who looked like any other Jew, was the person of the Godhead who spoke everything into existence. That song that we've heard sung before about the woman who washes the feet of Jesus with her tears and the song goes that she held eternity, the eternal God in her hands. Think of that. Think of that that people touched him. John says in his first epistle when we were with him we touched him with our hands. They were touching the God who spoke this universe into existence.

He's the creator. But here Paul says he's also the one who creates the new creation. We are new creatures in Christ. Second Corinthians 5.17 says when we have been made completely new because we have become a part of the new creation and he is the one who created us. He's the sphere of creation and this new creation happens through union with him. Taking over him, being a part of him. God's action of making believers alive with Christ, of raising them up and exalting them with Christ, causing them to sit with him in the heavens as Paul says. Face to face with God. This gives us a brand new start in the history of the world. God is creating a new humanity that's going to inhabit this earth for all eternity.

When righteousness is going to cover the land that the earth like the seas cover the water, we're part of this new creation and he has created us for good works. I mean, think of this. Here's what good works are. Good works are those things that I do because I love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and love my neighbors myself. What have you done this week that is motivated by this one thing that you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and you love your neighbor as yourself? Those are good works. There's a lot of things that people look at in my life and say that's a good work and they're really not a good work because they're not motivated by my love for God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and my neighbors myself.

Are you guilty of that too? Do you ever do good things for the wrong reasons? Well, that falls as in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 when the judge, or the 1 Corinthians 3, when Jesus Christ examines our works, all those things that I didn't do out of love for God and love for man is just going to go out and smoke. It's wood hands stubble and that's a blessing. Those things will never last in eternity. You won't even know all the things that I did for the wrong Lord because they're just going to be gone. They're going to go up and smoke. The only thing that left is gold and silver and precious stone. It might only have been just a little tiny bit, 25 years of ministry as a pastor and there might be this much, but it's pure.

It's going to be pure because he's going to purify it. It's the same way in your life. He's going to purify all that you've done for him because you're going to remove everything that you did for any other motivation except that you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and you love your neighbor as yourself. Those are good works indeed and you see God created you for that because that's glorifies him. When people do things for that motivation, it glorifies God. That's the goal of this entire renovation by grace. We are told in Titus chapter 2 that he did all this so that we would manifest his glory. He showed us this grace so that we could do good works that would glorify God.

Think about the relationship of good works to salvation as he's unveiled it to us here. That works come from salvation. They come after salvation. Their result of salvation and the power and desire to perform good works is from God who saved us. The person who's truly saved by grace is his life going to be characterized by good works. Not in order to be saved but because we are saved. And then Paul says, God has prepared good works for the Christian. Notice this. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand. You know the only other place this is used in the Bible. It's used in Romans chapter 9 when it says he has prepared us to be objects of his grace.

Does God have the right to prepare us to choose us to be objects of his grace just like he has the right to allow those that do not receive grace as objects of his wrath. Does he have the right to allow them to sin all they want so that when they're judged it displays the right to judgment of God. And of course the implication is yes, he has that right. This elism, it isn't determinism, it's the fact that God has prepared good works in advance in order that we might live in them. He's ordered your life in such a way. He's allowed certain things in your life and he has shaped your life. He's put you with certain people so that he could display his glory in the good works that he's going to do through you and they are totally unique for anybody else.

And then he says God has purposed that the Christian fulfilled these good works. He's prepared them and he has purposed that you will fulfill them. In fact he says in order that we should walk in them. Let me show you something in the text. Look at your Bibles. Look at verses 1 and 2 and then look at verse 10 and notice. This is what's called an inclusio. It's like bookends. This section is put together in such a way. It's a little signal at the beginning and a signal at the end and it has to do with walking. He begins by talking about the fact that before we came to Christ we were walking in sins and trespasses and he ends this section on this installation by grace by referring to those who walk are walking in good works.

That's called an inclusio and it simply means that this is a unit, that this is a portrait, this is a poem of the grace of God, that we should never forget that like Paul we are sinners. We are like the chief of sinners, but we are objects of his grace. Our eyes are open to our own sinfulness and to his glorious righteousness and grace at the same time. And God does this in order that we might do good works. Notice this. High to 2, 14 says he gave himself, Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself, for himself, to purify for himself a people of his own possession. King James calls this the peculiar people because the word for his own possession means something that is uniquely yours that you wouldn't go anywhere without.

Maybe it's an earring or a nose ring, but it's something you wouldn't go anywhere without. You know that's good look, by the way. God talks about putting rings in the noses and ears of, hey, to tell you that, I don't like that either, but that's what the Bible says. When he dressed up his bride he had put a ring in their nose, that's been a beautiful thing. And notice this, purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. Zealous for good deeds, zealous for good deeds. You know what zealous means? It means it means it means it's a driving thing in your life that you love good works because you love God. You want God to be seen for who he is. And so you want to be sacrificial.

You want to love people the way he's called you to love him because you want God to be seen for who he is. And verse 8 of the next chapter he says, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. Are you careful to engage in good deeds? He's created you for that. He's gifted you for that. He regenerated you for that. And that's what glorifies him. When you sacrificial it, do what is good for others. And you display the character of God. I wanted to give you four words. This is kind of, this is William Hendrickson in his commentary on this passage. He says these four things about salvation and works, works related to salvation. He says, first of all, works are rejected as a basis for salvation.

We are not saved by works, we are saved by grace. But secondly, works are confected by the Father-internity. That's called alliteration. Confected means that they're put together. He constructed them. We were creating Christ. He's a sport good works that which he is before or day that we should walk on them. He's arted your life. He's given you a certain gift. He's put people in your life. He's put circumstances before you. He's put you through certain experiences. Some of you sitting here are not even saved yet. You're going to discover in the future when you come to faith in Christ that he is even allowed you to fail the way you failed in order to use you the way he wants to use you. Because he has confected them.

He has designed them. He has a plan on a purpose. And then works are expected. He says, Paul says, in order that we should walk on them. And then finally, works are perfected by the Lord Jesus for the glory of the Father. By walking in good works, we have entered into the sphere of God. God's own activity. And we offer all of our works through Christ who perfects our works. My efforts are always, always without exception, kind of pathetic. But I offer them through Christ. And when they're offered through Christ, they're accepted. They're perfected. And the Father accepts them as though they were the work of Christ Himself. You know, today we're going to come around the Lord's table as we do every second Sunday of the month.

And we're going to remember. The thing we are remembering and celebrating is the fact that we've entered into a covenant by faith. Because we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and what He has done, that we are the right to come to the table and actually have communion with the living God and with His Son. The Old Testament, the Old Testament priesthood, the Levitical priesthood, had this responsibility to enter into the holy place where God manifests His presence. In fact, the manifest presence of God was seen by them as a pillar of fire, a pillar of cloud. They saw the Shaqina, glory of God, right there, resident in the tabernacle as they moved about on their way to the holy land. And one man, once a year, could go into the very presence of God.

And he went in with fear and trepidation. He went in with bells on the bottom of his robe so that if those bells stopped ringing long enough, they would think maybe the Lord has struck him dead. I am sure that many of those priests who went in, went in with great fear of what was going to happen. What have I told you that today, it's your responsibility for us to go into the presence of the God of the universe who draws in light with which no man can approach, but God has chosen you to go in and represent us. And you're going to go in and you're going to offer a sacrifice from us, but you better make sure that you go in in the prescribed way, because if you have the wrong motive, if you have the wrong desire, if you have the wrong thoughts in your mind, if you don't do it the right way, you're going to be consumed by that fire.

Well, I don't think many of us would want to be the representative, I wouldn't. And thank God we don't have to be, because we have a high priest who's in and in. But now it says that he's open to door through his flesh, that we can go into the presence of God. And so as we come to this table in a very physical and sensory way, as we take this loaf and as we take this cup, we taste the bread, we taste the fruit of the vine, those sensory moments are to remind us that we are actually supping in the presence of the living God. It's an amazing truth that we're going to come to the table and we're going to be in the presence of God. Let me read a hymn to you. By perhaps one of my ancestors Ann Griffith, I'm not sure if she's actually related to me, but I hope so.

She lived in the late 1700s, God saved it 20 and died in Schalbert at 29, she died very young, lived in the faith for nine years and she wrote some hymns that are the most amazing things I've ever read. The title of this song was written in Welsh, but it's been translated in very consistent way. And the title of the song, the hymn is here we find a tent of meaning. The tent of meaning was the place in the Old Testament, of course, where Moses went and met with God and now Jesus is that tent of meaning. He is the mercy seat. We come through him to come into the very presence of God and listen to what she wrote. Here we find a tent of meaning, here the blood that reconciles. Here's refuge for the slayer, here the remedy that heals.

Here the place beside the Godhead, here the sinner's nesting place, whereforever God's pure justice greets us with a smiling face. Sinner is my name, most shameful, chief of all in simpleness, yet such wonder in this temple finding God in quietness. He fulfills his law completely, the transgressor shares his feast. God in humans cry, sufficient. Jesus sacrificed makes peace. Bolly I will come before him. His gold scepter in his hand points toward this favored sinner here accepted all can stand. I'll press onward shouting, pardon, fall before my gracious Lord, mine the pardon, mine the cleansing, mine the bleaching in his blood. Oh, to come like smoke and columns rising from this wilderness straight toward his throne to see him seated with unfrowning face without end, without beginning witness to the one and three, making known the threefold glory true amen who sets us free.

What a privilege to come to this table. And to realize that as we come to this table, we sit, it's too bad we couldn't all sit or recline at table and have a place for Jesus because he's there. That's what he said. Every time we come around this table, he is here. We commune with him. And that's what we are doing this morning. And this communion, this act of taking communion is an act that declares something. It says, I have put my faith in this Jesus who is represented in this bread and this cup. It's one who gave his body for me, who became one with me and he went to the cross and suffered for my sins and shed his blood so that I drink from this cup, realizing that the shedding of his blood, the suffering that he experienced in my place is paid for my sins and for.

And me, the chief of sinners, can come into the presence of a holy God and his justice is quieted. He's satisfied. It's one of those glorious words in all the Bible that God has satisfied with the work of Jesus Christ. He's been propitiated. He's been satisfied with you, who believed on him. I know some of you, your husband, your wife aren't satisfied with you, your kids aren't satisfied with you, your parents aren't satisfied with you, nobody satisfied with you. Oh, I got news for you, if you believed on Jesus, he's satisfied with you. That's what Jesus does for us. Because we come to the table. It's a wonderful meal. It's a peaceful meal. We don't live in a dysfunctional family in the family of God.

We have a father who's pleased with all of his children and he knows you, Rascals. He knows all about you. He knows what's going on in your heart that he's been satisfied by the blood of Jesus and he's free to work glorious things in our hearts. As we take this, we are preaching the gospel. So the Bible says, every time we take this, we preach his death until he comes. So you're preaching this morning if you're a believer and you per take of this. If you're not a believer, don't per take of this because this is an act that says, I have put my total and complete trust in Jesus. If you're this morning and you're, you want to believe him right now, then take this communion as a demonstration of your faith, but don't take it if you don't believe this.

This is an act of faith. It is a demonstration of faith that we have believed or Jesus Christ and we rest our case in him. The men are going to come forward now, if they would and come up here on the front, we're going to pass up the elements.