What was the best gift you’ve ever received? I’m not looking for a Christian answer. We’ll get to that. I actually want you to think back to the most recent most tangible physical gift you’ve received.
Do you remember how exhilarated you were? Do you remember excited you were? Do you remember the first person you called to share the good news with? Do you remember how life changing it felt to receive that gift? That’s the way a person feels when they realize that the gift of salvation is given to them by God’s free grace and is received through the pipeline of faith.
Ephesians 2:8 – 10…
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not 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, that we should walk in them.
My plan is to camp out in the first 9 words of our text today. Nine words! Nine glorious words that say “For by grace you have been saved through faith”. These nine words when contemplated and digested and moved from the head space of our thinking into the heart space of our desires and affections have the power to transform the hand space of the believer’s behavior radically.
And as we examine nine words I want to highlight 3 of those nine words for us. Those 3 words are: The word “for” and the word “grace” and the word “faith”. 9 words distilled into 3 words that communicate that the gift of salvation is given to us by God’s free grace and is received through the pipeline of faith.
#1: The gift of salvation is tied to the word “for”… (8)
You might be asking, “Why is the word “for” so important”? I would argue that this one word is important because it acts like a bread sack tie in that it ties together the bread sack of the doctrine of salvation that Paul is giving to us. The word “for” is a joining word that literally joins together two flows of thought and makes them into one. Let me show you what I mean.
Last week in verses 1 – 7 we learned that we once were spiritually dead. I was dead in my old lifestyle of sin, when I followed the way of the world, when I followed Satan, when I lived according to my fleshly desires, when I was a child of wrath and when I was like the rest of humanity. I once was spiritually dead.
And we also learned that when a person becomes a Christian they come alive for the first time. They once were spiritually dead but now they are alive. Now I am alive because of God’s rich mercy, because of God’s great love, because God raised Jesus from the dead, because God’s grace has saved me, because God has positioned me with Christ and because God has chosen to reveal himself to me. I once was dead but now I am alive.
And this is where the word “for” in verse 8 becomes so important because it ties together Paul’s first thought that we once were spiritually dead but now we are alive with Paul’s second thought that the gift of salvation is given to us by God’s free grace and is received through the pipeline of faith.
So to put all of this together into one clear personal thought for the believer… If you are a believer then you can say along with the apostle Paul that I once was spiritually dead but now I am alive for the gift of salvation has been given to me by God’s free grace through the pipeline of faith.
So the word “for” is unique in that it acts like a bread sack twist tie that connects two very important thoughts in regards to the doctrine of salvation. The gift of salvation is tied to the word “for”.
#2: The gift of salvation is given to us by God’s free grace… (8)
Paul says, “by grace you have been saved”. This doctrine of grace is like the best meal you’ve ever dreamed of consuming. For the Christian, the truth of free grace or unmerited favor or unearned kindness, is the doctrine that makes salvation so unbelievably good.
When I think about how evil I’ve been and how hopeless my life was before meeting the face of grace in the person and work of Jesus Christ I’m left speechless. Why would the person whom I’ve made to be my enemy become my Savior? Why would Jesus go to the cross for me? Why would he give himself freely on my behalf? The answer is compelling and even frightening.
Jesus went to the cross for me so that he could become the embodiment of God’s grace to me. This is compelling and even frightening to me because it’s an audacious act of generosity that seems stupid to my human ability to reason or make sense of things.
I don’t know anyone who is completely free from selfish motives other than Jesus. And in my mind I think that if I was completely free to do whatever I wanted to do, the last thing I would do is give myself away as entirely or as horrifically or as sacrificially as Jesus did at the cross.
When I give myself away sacrificially, deep down inside I’m always struggling with wondering what the payoff will be. This is part of the sin that I still struggle with. I struggle with wondering what I will get in return for my sacrifice or what the reward will be or what the payoff will be.
It’s natural for every one of us to ask these questions. What’s the payoff for my sacrifice going to be? Is this sacrifice a wise investment? Will there be a return or a desired result from this investment? When I give this gift will it actually help to promote something good or will it enable something harmful to continue happening?
And in some ways these questions are simply wise management questions. It’s important to count the cost before giving myself away. And it’s really the same way with God. Even though on the surface it looks absolutely foolish, the truth is, when God poured out his free grace upon us so that we could be saved he did it with full knowledge of whom he was investing in and who he was purchasing.
I don’t believe Jesus went to the cross with a blank check in his pocket hoping that someone somewhere would take up his offer of the free gift of salvation by God’s grace. I believe Jesus went to the cross knowing exactly who he was purchasing out of the whorehouse of sinful pleasures.
I believe Jesus knew exactly whom he was dying for. He knew the names of people who were children of wrath that would one day become children of the God of grace. He knew my sin and he knew my failures and he knew my cowardly ways and yet he became the payment for my warfare against him so that I could become his possession. Twice owned by the God of grace. That’s grace my friends. The gift of salvation is given to us by free grace.
#3: The gift of salvation is given to us through the pipeline of faith… (8)
The apostle Paul says, “you have been saved through faith.” If it is by God’s grace that we are saved and if it is through faith that we receive the gift of salvation then the question we have to ask is: what is faith? What is this faith that becomes the pipeline for God’s free gift of grace that saves me?
I’m a hard worker. It’s ingrained in me to be an over-worker. I actually struggle with doing nothing because I love to be doing something. I grew up in a little old farmhouse way out in the country where we heated our house with a wood-burning stove and we trimmed our yard with machetes and cycles instead of mowers. We bailed our own hay bails for the livestock and we split our own firewood with axes.
We worked from before sun up to long after sun down most days of the year and we produced a ton of tangible results from our hard labor. So it’s natural for me, when I think of this concept of God’s free grace coming through the pipeline of faith that I just need to work harder to get me some more free grace.
Like, I just want someone to tell me where the faith worker line begins and I’ll be at the front of that line every week working my tail off to earn what is being given away freely. Doesn’t this all sound so silly? How could I be so silly as to think that I need to work hard to produce the kind of faith that pipes in God’s free grace?
This kind of silly thinking and silly behavior is almost so under the radar that it easily gets missed in our lives. How often have you heard someone say, “you just gotta have more faith.” My response is usually like… “Oh really! Where do I get me some more of that? Where do I go to work to get me some more faith?”
Think about it for a minute… how do you usually pray when you realize your faith is lacking? Don’t we all pray, “Lord please give me some more faith?” We ask for it that way because intrinsically we know that faith is a gift from God just like grace is a gift from God and just like salvation is a gift from God.
We never pray, “Lord help me to just pull on the boot straps of my faith and get on with it.” We don’t pray that God would help us to work harder at earning faith or earning grace or earning salvation. But we often live like we can earn it. And I think we do that because we fail to understand what faith actually is.
What is this faith that Paul speaks of that acts like the pipeline for God’s free grace that saves us from the penalty of our sin? Let me take one stab at it this way. One scholar in seeking to explain faith says that faith is only as authentic and strong as the object in which it is placed in. So the object of faith defines the authenticity and the power of faith.
That same scholar explains authentic and powerful faith this way. Imagine a tightrope walker walking on a tightrope above Niagara Falls. He walks all the way across safely. Next he rides a bike across safely. Next he carries out a kitchen stove and cooks a nine-course meal safely. Next he walks across on stilts blindfolded safely.
And then he does the unthinkable. He grabs a wheelbarrow and pushes it across safely and then asks you if you believe he can push you across safely in the wheelbarrow. And your answer is absolutely right? I believe you can get me across safely because I’ve watched you do so many powerful things already. But the real question is do you trust him to get you to the other side safely? Will you get into the wheelbarrow?
That’s the essence of faith. Faith is believing and trusting smashed together into one giant hairball that’s really hard to swallow. Now let me ask you, can you muster up that kind of believing and trusting faith on your own? I know I sure can’t! I’m too much of a coward and a poser and a people pleaser! I’d rather settle for seeming to be a faith filled courageous man than actually being a faith-filled courageous man.
And if I look to myself to muster up the kind of believing/trusting faith that it takes to get into that wheelbarrow with Jesus on the tightrope I would fail every time because the faith I’m conjuring up is actually placed in my ability to conjure it up and I’m broken. Therefore my faith would be broken too.
So if faith is only as good as or as strong as or as authentic as the object in which it’s placed in then how do you and I get us some of that good old fashioned biblical faith? Well this is where one of my favorite passages of all times becomes really helpful. God’s Word is so instructive and so good when it comes to answering some of our toughest questions about the Christian faith.
In regards to faith Hebrews lays it out better than any other place in the Scriptures. Hebrews 11 says, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Heb. 11:1-3). In other words, faith that believes and trusts is assured and certain of things hoped for that are not seen. And that kind of faith that believes and trusts is enabled by the Word of God. And the word of God became flesh and dwelt among us and his name is Jesus. Isn’t that great stuff?!
But that’s not all because the author of Hebrews continues for the rest of the chapter using people from the Old Testament like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses and many others to illustrate what faith looks like in the life of a believer and then in chapter 12 the author of Hebrews says:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder (or author) and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12:1-2)
Did you catch what I’m getting at? Who founded my faith? Who wrote the book of faith upon my heart? Who makes my faith work perfectly? The answer overwhelmingly is Jesus. Jesus wrote the book of my faith. Jesus causes my faith to work perfectly. Jesus is the one who creates the ability to believe and to trust him in a way that creates the pipeline for the free gift of God’s grace that leads to salvation.
The entire package is one great big overwhelming gift of grace and faith and salvation. None of it began with me. It all began with God. That’s why verse 4 back in Ephesians 2 from last week is so important because it tells us that when we’ve screwed it all up and when we’ve lacked in our faith and when we’ve failed over and over and over again we can come back to the truth that the biggest truth in all of Scriptures are two words that you and I need to preach to ourselves daily and those two words are, “But God.”
But God gave me the gift of salvation by free and unmerited or unearned grace. But God gave me the gift of salvation through the pipeline of faith. But God is the one who wrote the book of faith upon my heart. But God is the one who will sustain my faith perfectly until the end.
And how do these two words “But God” become tangible for us? How do we latch onto it? How do we grow in receiving the gift of salvation by grace through faith? We grow in receiving this gift by looking to the cross of Christ where he joyfully endured the cross on our behalf. Where he joyfully despised the shame for us.
Jesus went to the cross so that we could become grace covered, faith-filled, saved children of the most-high God who are seated on the throne in Heaven with our Papa God because we are united to Christ in his death, his resurrection and his glorification.
The cross is where we experience the gift of grace. The cross is where we meet the face of grace. The cross is where we find the object of our faith. The cross is where we get into the wheelbarrow of believing and trusting in the person and work of the author and perfecter of our faith. The cross is where we receive the gift of salvation by God’s grace through the pipeline of faith!
Conclusion…
For by grace you have been saved through faith. Nine words! Nine glorious words that when contemplated and digested and moved from the head space of our thinking into the heart space of our desires and affections have the power to transform the hand space of the believer’s behavior radically.
Nine words distilled into three words. The word “for” and the word “grace” and the word “faith”. Nine words distilled into three words that teach us to look to Christ because is the face of grace and the author of faith and the means of our salvation. This is the good news of the gospel for the gift of salvation is given to us by God’s free grace and is received through the pipeline of faith.