Four Foundational Convictions - 3. Sola Gratia

I really would like to encourage all of you, if you're not in a small group, that there are these several small groups are starting up this week, brand new studies and some of them brand new groups. So take a look in the bolt and there's one on every night of the week, absolutely except Friday night. There may be one then, I can't remember, but take a look, it's a great opportunity to experience the body of Christ, the grace of God in a small group, where the word of God is the center and Christ is worshiped and you get to know each other and it's a great way to grow. It's part of God's plan and purpose. We've been in a short series, a four part series on the four foundational truths of the church.

But the first which was Christ alone, the Scripture's alone and then Christ alone, today we're looking at grace alone. This is to me one of the most blessed of all the truths that we will ever hear, is this salvation is by grace alone. We return with me to Ephesians chapter 2, let's read the text, begin with Ephesians chapter 2 beginning in verse 1, Paul writes, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formally walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Seeing them we too all formally lived in the lusts of our flesh indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and we're by nature children of wrath even as the rest.

But God being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions 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 ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. 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 are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus, for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. What a blessed truth that we are in spirit and grace as Paul puts it in Romans 5, that we enter into grace and it's like the atmosphere in which we lived before God as believers in the New Covenant.

All of God's dealings with us are manifestations of grace, God's unmarried kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. What a blessed truth. I got to tell you as I was thinking about this message last night, it just overwhelmed me. I thought of a song in fact that I had heard a few years ago and I've never been able to find it. If you ever find it, please give it to me. The line goes like this, grace upon grace, like waves on a shore, always enough, always more. And that's how it is, that's what this verse says in verse 7, the ages rolled in on us in the future and eternity future, He's going to continue to demonstrate to us His kindness, His grace towards us in Christ Jesus. I remember 1971 when Valley Bible Church started, to me that was the greatest part about it that we could freely openly and without any restraint teach the doctrines of grace to God's people.

What a great privilege that is, that we can teach the doctrines of grace. We started a school called Grace School of Theology and Ministry because we wanted to teach the doctrines of grace. These truths of the grace of God in Christ Jesus are so magnificent and they're magnificent because they reveal to us the character of our God, like no other truths in the word of God, the doctrines of grace. This passage today Paul answers an important question, that is why must we be saved by grace alone? Why must we be saved by grace alone? And notice the answers that he gives, first of all he says because we were ruined by sin. We were ruined by sin. Notice verses 1 through 3, how he describes the ruin that we experienced, we were dead and trespasses and sins.

We walked according to the course of this world in the strength that the prince of the power of the air satan himself gave to us to live in alienation and disobedience rebellion against God. We lived in the lusts of our flesh and indulging the desires of the flesh of the mind and we were by nature, children of wrath. We were ruined. We were unable to accomplish that for which we were created. That's what it means to be ruined. John 3, 16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish. The word perish is the word ruin. It means to be ruined for that which for which you were created. You were created to have a relationship with God to know what it's like to be loved by a father in heaven and to be the objects of his grace.

That's what you were created for. Every one of you in this room were created for that. Whether you know Christ or not, you were created. You will be ruined if you do not experience that grace. What kind of death is this that he describes here? We were dead in our trespasses and sins. It seems like a strange thing because in the context, you notice he says we were walking in verse 2 and we were living in verse 3 and we were indulging in verse 3. And yet we were dead. You see what he's describing here is the essence of death. In fact, physical death is just the ultimate culmination of the death that he's describing here. The spiritual death, the condition of all mankind as a result of Adam's fall and rebellion against God is defection.

And because of that, we experience death, spiritual death, and ultimately physical death. In Genesis 2 when God warned Adam and Eve, he warned Adam and Eve passed the message along and she didn't get it just right, but he told Adam, if you disobey my command, you will die. In Romans 5, it tells us that when he disobeyed God, he died and so did the whole race that he plunged all of us into death. And in fact, Romans 6.23 says the wages of sin is death. And we've experienced that as a race, we are dead before God apart from his grace and his intervention. In fact, Paul describes it this way, we were excluded from the life of God, excluded from the life of God for which we were created. Now notice this, this ruin was seen in three things, as he describes it here, was seen in our walk, first of all, that is our ethical conduct, our way of living, the way we ordered our lives.

He said that we lived in this sphere called trespasses and sins. In other words, we were continually failing to meet up to the obligation we had before God had his creatures who ought to worship him because that's what we were created for. In sins, we were rebellious, we broke his law, we refused to love him with all of our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors, ourselves. In the standard of this life that we lived outside of Christ, he says, was according to the course of this world, this world system that is organized and arrayed against the living God. You see it all around. You every time you turn on the TV, you read the newspaper, you see the manifestations of a human race and rebellion against God.

And we walked according to the course of that world system. And then he says, the influence, the main influence of our life was the prince of the power of the air, Satan himself, who we're told is the head of this world system that is arrayed against God. And second Corinthians 4, verse 4 tells us what his agenda is, by the way, the agenda of Satan is to keep the unbeliever in darkness in regards to the gospel. He blinds their minds to the glory of the gospel. He blinds their minds to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, specifically. He wants to keep people blinded to the truth of who Christ is. And a lot of times all he does is he just keeps people ignoring God. They don't think there are rebels against God.

They don't see themselves as enemies of God. They just ignore him. It's amazing how you hate to be ignored. When somebody meets you, can you imagine someone introducing you to someone important and they took one glance at you and turned away and never shook your hand, never acknowledged that you exist? That's how the human race does the living God. We just act as though he doesn't exist. That's Satan's ploy. In second Corinthians 11, it tells us that Satan is a deceiver. He appears as an angel of light. He tries to get people very religious. There's a lot of religious people in the world today who totally ignore the living God. Satan is a deceiver and he is a controller. First, John, chapter 5 puts it this way.

Verse 19 says that the whole world is lying in the lap of the evil one. He is rocking them to sleep. And basically saying, you don't have to think about this religious stuff. Just live your life. We were dead. In the spirit, he says, is now working in the sons of disobedience, energizing them to continue in their unbelief. Have you ever been amazed at conversations you had with an unbeliever who really needs Christ so manifestly they're going through things in their life? And you know what the answer is. They simply need to turn to Christ and you share the gospel with them and you enter in with all your heart to try to convince them that they need Christ. And then there's stubborn unbelief. Even though they know what you say is true, their stubborn unbelief causes them to continue on as sons of disobedience instead of bowing the knee to the living Christ.

And we have all kinds of excuses, but the real reason is the heart. And then notice what our orientation was in verse 3, we were in the flesh. The flesh is Paul's word, it's the biblical word to describe, fallen man living in independence of God and rebellion against him, living under the control of sin. The flesh is used really to describe the whole mass of humanity, which is like a fellowship who will not and cannot please God. The Bible puts it this way, they could not if they would and they would not if they could. They have no desire and no ability to turn to God. That's where we were. This is a description of us. And those in the flesh he says are those who oppose the will and authority of God.

He says in Galatians 5, the spirit lests against the flesh and the flesh lests against the spirit so that you cannot do what you desire to do. Oh, our fallenness was horrible. We were so far from God, so far from God. Our whole nature is infected. In fact, a little later in this book in chapter 4 is going to say our mind, our emotions, and our will was in darkness. We would not turn to him. And then he says that all humanity is in this situation because we were like the rest of humanity. The whole race is in the flesh, in that he was with God. And then notice what our destiny was. He describes this by way of our destiny. This is what's called a hebraism in Scripture. It's a common hebraic way of describing the character of a person by calling them the child of something.

And we were children of wrath. We were children of wrath. What does that mean? It means we were headed for wrath. This is a shocking picture you have here. If you just take the time to think about it in verses 1 through 3, our sinful condition outside of Christ. And then he ends it with this bleak prognosis with these words. And we were by nature children of wrath even as the rest. That means we were objects of God's wrath. John 3.36 says, he who believes in the sun has eternal life. But he who does not obey the sun shall not have life and the wrath of God is abiding upon him. That's such a picture-esque expression, the wrath of God abides on him, means the wrath of God is...