We Are Saved by Grace Alone – Sola Gratia

Sola Gratia

For the past couple weeks I’ve been working through a Sermon Series, to explain five critical issues that were at the heart of the Protestant Reformation. These five critical issues were summarized by five Latin Phrases – Sola Scriptura, Scripture Alone – we looked at that matter two weeks ago. And last week we saw that sinners are counted as right with God and his law – they are justified through faith alone, Sola Fide. This morning we’ll be considering the third of these issues Sola Gratia – and we’ll see from the Bible that salvation comes to us by God’s grace alone, Sola Gratia. Then in coming weeks we’ll give attention to the remaining two issues: Solus Christus (Christ alone) and Soli Deo Gloria (to the glory of God alone). These are the Five Solas of the Reformation – and even though we might be tempted to think that all these wrinkles were ironed out a long time ago, these issues continue to be misunderstood and misapplied today, even among Christians.

So if you have a Bible nearby, please turn with me to Ephesians, Chapter 2. I’ll be reading verses one through 10. But before I read our text tonight, please pray with me:

[Pray and Read Text]

What is Grace?

The word grace is a word that most Americans have heard of. Because in everyday conversation, the word grace can be used in a variety of different ways. We talk about people “saying grace” before meals – giving thanks to God for their food. Grace is a common name for baby girls. We talk about ice skaters and ballerinas being graceful. And yet, when it comes to understanding the word grace as the Bible speaks of it, many people have difficulty explaining what grace means.

And of course, before we can meaningfully talk about what it means to be saved by grace alone – sola gratia – we first need to know what this grace is that the Bible speaks about. So let me give you a working definition of grace that we’ll see confirmed as we work through our text. Grace is unearned favor. Or to say it a slightly different way, when someone shows you grace, they’re showing you kindness that you haven’t done anything to deserve.

Salvation by Sola Gratia

The reason why Sola Gratia – salvation by grace alone – became such an important issue during the Reformation, was because the Roman Catholic church claimed that they were teaching a version of salvation by grace alone (and it still makes this claim today, by the way). But this is what they mean by that: line 2027 from the Roman Church’s Catechism says, “No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion.” That sounds good so far. But then the catechism continues: “Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods.”

In other words, the Roman Church argues that as Christians do good works by the Spirit – those good works give them merit in the eyes of God. The Roman Church claims that people are able to merit for themselves and for others all of the graces – 100% of the graces – that are needed to attain eternal life. But by saying that graces are things that are merited ­– things that are earned like a Boy Scout merit badge – I hope you can see, this is a very distorted view of grace. In fact, it strikes at the very core of what grace is.

At the end of the day, the Roman Church teaches that you need personal human merit – not the merit of Christ imputed to you – but you need to earn and store up your own supply of personal merit in order to receive saving graces. And this means that Roman Catholicism doesn’t teach sola gratia – salvation by unearned favor alone. They teach salvation by grace plus merit. They don’t embrace and emphasize the sufficiency and completeness of God’s saving grace. Instead they insist that the merit you gain by cooperating with God’s grace is the pivotal issue that determines your eternal destiny.

But this way of thinking isn’t unique to Roman Catholicism. It’s quite common for people to have the idea that they will be saved because of something they did for God – because they confessed their sins, or because they said the sinner’s prayer, or because they’ve been decent, law-abiding citizens – things like that. Some of us might believe that when Jesus died for our sins, he put our stained clothes through the laundry for us – but now it’s up to us to keep ourselves unstained and unwrinkled, and to keep God happy with us and to go on receiving his special care. But this isn’t how the Bible speaks! Those aren’t the things that save us! We’re saved by grace alone – sola gratia.

So as we turn our attention to Ephesians 2, I want to rightly lay out how God’s grace is totally undeserved, and yet truly effective and enough for the salvation of sinners. I’ll unfold our text under three main points: First, the unworthiness of humanity. Second, the extravagance of God’s grace. And third, I’ll explain the Implications of Sola Gratia.

The Unworthiness of Humanity

So first, let’s consider what our text says about the Unworthiness of Humanity. God gave this part of the Bible – this letter to the Ephesians through a servant of Christ named Paul. Paul was writing here to a church that he had helped start in the ancient city of Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey. And so far in this letter, Paul’s been reminding the Ephesians about the incredible blessings of God’s saving work.

But in Ephesians 2, Paul hits the rewind button. And he reminds the church in Ephesus how wild this is, that God would save them. He reminds the Ephesians how wicked and unworthy they were; he reminds them of their deadness, and their disobedience.

He reminds the Ephesians of their deadness in Ephesians 2, verse 1: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Paul isn’t saying that the Ephesians had been physically dead. I think that’s pretty clear. He also isn’t just saying that the Ephesians had been like dead people, without actually being dead. Instead, Paul wants the Ephesians to understand that they had truly been dead. They were dead spiritually.

This has been true for the whole human race ever since the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God in Genesis Chapter 3.  God had warned them “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” But Adam and Eve rejected God anyway. They despised his word. They abandoned his ways. And on that day, Adam died spiritually, and eventually died physically for his crime, as well. He died toward God, and the rest of humanity has died with him.

And this deadness makes us unworthy before God, because in our condition of spiritual lifelessness, we’re unable to move ourselves an inch toward God. We have no spiritual heartbeat, to love God, to trust him, or to desire him. And for as long as we’re dead like this, our hand won’t reach for God, our eyes won’t open to him, we won’t have hearing ears. Those who are dead won’t even know their own deadness! We’ll be unmoved by the truth of God, and unworthy of his blessings.

But there’s a second thing that further adds to our unworthiness. Not only our deadness – but also our disobedience. In our physical bodies, we should be carrying out the purposes of the One who created us. We should be giving him thanks, and learning from his wisdom and goodness. But in our spiritual deadness, the default of humanity isn’t to follow God, but to follow other things.

Paul points this out to the Ephesians in verses 2 and 3. They had been “following the course of this world (they lived for the world), following the prince of the power of the air (which is a way of saying that they lived for Satan), the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” And then Paul goes on to say that they “…all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind (so they also followed their own fleshly cravings)…” They were following everything except for God. And as a result, they “…were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

The Ephesians, and the rest of mankind with them, did not deserve happiness from God, or prosperity, or peace, or safety. And you and I didn’t either! In the guilt of our deadness and disobedience, we, too, were children of wrath – meaning that we deserved the judicial wrath of God, just like the rest of humanity.

The Extravagance of God’s Grace

But if this is the case, then how can we ever expect to receive God’s smile? How can we ever hope to have the gates of heaven opened to us, and to find rest in the arms of Jesus? It’s because of grace. God has shown us favor we didn’t earn or deserve. He has acted to save us by sola gratia – grace alone.

And the reason why Paul helps us to see the lewdness and lostness of humanity for what it is, is so we can more clearly understand the extravagance of God’s grace. And this will be my second point: the extravagance of God’s grace. Our text draws particular attention to God’s grace in two ways – first, by pointing us to the character of his grace, and then by pointing us to the carrying out of his grace.

The Character of God’s Grace

So look with me at verses 4 and 5, and notice what our text says about the character of God’s grace. It says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.”

The text tells us why God made dead sinners alive. It tells us why God decided to show unearned favor to sinners. Paul says it’s because he was “rich in mercy; because of the great love with which he loved us.” It’s entirely because of God’s character – and not at all because of our conduct. No one earned a wage that God was obligated to pay. No one forced God into this, against his will. It’s not even as though God was suddenly overcome by a strong feeling of affection and nostalgia toward sinners – and that he was driven to love us by some kind of uncontrolled emotional impulse. Instead, God consciously chose to set his love on sinners like you and me. Even before you and I became aware of our poverty – even before it crossed our minds to crawl to God as beggars, to plead for mercy, He came to find us, and to save us by his grace – sola gratia – by grace alone.

And there’s a lot of comfort in knowing that the grace of God flows to us from the unchanging character of God. If his favor toward us really did depend on something in us – that would be bad news, because you and I are able to change. If his grace depended on our sorriness for sin, then we would always be wondering if we’re sorry enough. If it depended on the sincerity of our devotion to him, we would always wonder if we’re devoted enough. But the grace of God doesn’t depend on our virtue – it doesn’t depend on how deserving we are, or on the merit we have accumulated in God’s eyes. Instead, from first to last, the saving grace of God is given – not earned. It isn’t conditional on our performance, but it is constantly, completely supplied from the Niagara Falls of God’s own goodness. The saving grace of God comes to us because of his character – because he’s rich in mercy. Because of the great love – the perfect love – the unchanging love, with which he has loved his people.

The Carrying Out of God’s Grace

But notice, our text not only shows us the character of God’s grace. It also speaks to the carrying out of God’s grace – how God has demonstrated his grace.

We first see God’s special grace displayed in his initiative to love. God’s love wasn’t a response to anything we had done. He didn’t love us because we had been pious saints, or because we had been pitiful sinners. But he loved us because he chose to love us. We’re told that he loved us with great love, even when we were dead in our trespasses. In our deadness, it wasn’t us who took any sort of first step toward God, but God graciously initiated with us.

And God’s special grace is further displayed by the unworthiness of those he chose to love. It should already be surprising that God would take so much interest in caring for simple little creatures like us, floating around on a rock in space. After all, the infinite Creator of the Universe is already happy and satisfied as he is. He doesn’t depend on us for anything. At any moment, he could create a thousand other universes, filled with things just as interesting as us – if not moreso. And yet God’s special favor has been focused on us!

But the thing that’s infinitely more astonishing is that he loved weak creatures like us even though we were evildoers! The Son of God stooped down and went to the cross for us while we were still villains, crooks, and enemies. In our apathy, in our twisted, shameful thoughts – in our pride, in our selfishness – God had every reason to be displeased. He had every reason to despise us – frankly, every reason to destroy us. And yet we see the greatness of his grace, in the way he chose to love the unlovable. It’s magnified by the undeservingness of those who have received his unearned favor.

But the extravagance of God’s grace is further shown when we consider what He’s done in order to save us. Verse five tells us, “even when we were dead in our sins and trespasses, [He] made us alive, together with Christ.” Christ was made dead on our behalf, for our sins, so that we could be made alive – so we could take hold of spiritual life, eternal life – so we could be alive toward God and responsive to His Word. Though we were deserving of death, “He made us alive, together with Christ.”

But verse 6 goes on: “And he raised us up with him (with Christ) and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Not only have we risen from deadness with Christ, in his resurrection. But every Christian has also ascended with Christ; He’s taken us up with him, spiritually, into the heavenly places. He has thrown open the doors to God’s throne room. We’ve been given a seat of honor there: we’ve been seated with Christ. We have a place with God that’s certain and secure. And why has God done this for us? Verse 7: “so that, in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” By grace you and I have been saved. Grace, grace, and more grace – sola gratia – grace alone. That’s what God’s putting on display here.

And next week we’ll get into this a bit more, but notice how God gives us his grace, here. He gives us his saving kindnesses with Christ or in Christ. You see that in the text, right? We’re made alive together with Christ. We’re raised with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places. And how does God show the immeasurable riches of his grace toward us? It’s in Christ Jesus. God gives us the fulness of his saving grace by giving us Christ. The good things of Jesus are now counted as belonging to you. The righteousness of Jesus becomes your righteousness. The favor that Jesus has with the Father, is now the favor you have with the Father.

And since our salvation rests fully on the perfection of the Savior God has provided, this means that our salvation is stable. As our text says, “by grace you have been saved.” In Christ, the work is complete. His grace is sufficient. From beginning to end, salvation is by grace. Sola gratia. Grace alone.

The Implications of Sola Gratia

But let me wrap this all up by pointing out a few practical implications – a few practical ways that sola gratia should affect how we live. This is my third and final point: the implications of sola gratia. And as we work through these, you’ll notice that our text repeats some of the same practical applications that we saw in our text last week.

First, being saved by grace means that we should abandon your attempts to earn God’s favor. Abandon the idea that your works produce some sort of merit or deservingness in the eyes of God. Because verses 8 and 9 say, “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.”

The human heart has a hard time accepting grace – true, unmerited, freely-given grace from God – we have a hard time accepting it. And this is because we all want to be able to say, “I contributed something to my salvation.” We all want to say that God saved us because we had the good sense to come close to him, or because we were more moral than people around us, or because we were more hard-working, or because we were better stewards of his kindness than other people – or whatever. We’re all tempted to fill in the blank with something.

But every time we do good works to try to contribute to our salvation, we’re essentially saying that God’s grace to us, in Christ, wasn’t enough. And we’re falsely claiming that we’re the superhero who can supply what’s lacking. It’s actually a very devious, devilish thing to do – because we’re robbing credit for our salvation from God. We will never be able to brag as though we’ve contributed something, because God has done everything. It’s not as though God paid the bill, and we chipped in to pay the tip – no, by grace, God has paid our debts in full.

And so it would be good to follow the example of the Scottish Presbyterian, David Dickson, who said, “I have taken all of my bad deeds and put them on a heap, and I have taken my good deeds as well, and I have put them on the same heap. And I have run away from that heap into the arms of Jesus.” Abandon your attempts to earn saving grace – abandon them on the garbage heap – throw them into the landfill. And rest in the grace of Jesus alone – sola gratia.

But there’s a second implication of being saved by grace alone that I want to point out. Sola Gratia – being saved by grace alone, should teach us to embrace a fruitful life of good works. We see this in verse 10: “For we are his workmanship (God’s workmanship), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

We don’t prepare good works for God, to try to impress him or earn something from him. Instead, our text says that God has prepared good works for us. We don’t have to invent a job for ourselves, and then convince God to hire us. Instead, God has pulled us from the gutter to give us a job. He’s taken it upon himself to qualify us for this work, to train us, and to employ us. And he has special assignments laid out for you and me, every day – more meaningful than we realize. He calls us to prayer, to patient listening, to persistent work, to proclamation of truth. He calls us to love, to serve, and to sacrifice in a way that displays the glory of Jesus to the people around us.

And why do we do these things? Is it because we believe we need to merit God’s saving kindness? Is it because we’re constantly afraid that God will stop loving and helping us if we don’t follow through? Not at all. We embrace good works, because God has embraced us by grace. He has unchained us from following the world, the devil, and our fleshly impulses so that you and I can be free to follow him. He has issued his decree from the King’s Palace, and has appointed to serve as royal ambassadors for his kingdom, in all our tasks, in every land we travel to. So as you go into your workweek – every day as you’re thinking about whether or not you want to get out of bed – don’t forget the important work God has for you to do – good work. Profitable work.

We were all once like worthless spades, rakes, and scythes – with crooked points, dull edges, and broken handles. But in Christ we’ve been restored and remade. And he’s taken us to be useful tools in his hands for cultivating and bringing in the harvest.

So don’t make excuses. Don’t claim that you’re too young or too old to be of any use. Don’t fill up your life with random nonsense, so that you’re too busy to live for your King. It doesn’t matter if you have a checkered past – that doesn’t change the fact that God has found you, and forgiven you – and by his grace, he has prepared a new life for you. A life that produces beautiful things. A life of good works.

And if we have, in fact, experienced God’s saving grace, it really doesn’t make sense that we’d continue wandering around in the midnight of our sin. Once a broken arm has been healed, it shouldn’t go on hanging limply in a sling. Once we’ve been made alive in Christ, we shouldn’t go on walking in the deadness of our trespasses. Instead, the grace of God that saves us from sin and death is the same grace that saves us into a desire for good works, and a diligence in them.

But there’s one more implication of sola gratia that I want to end with. Specifically, one of the most important ways that we walk in good works, is by walking in grace ourselves. And what I mean by this is that you and should understand that grace isn’t just something that comes to us from God – but grace is something that God intends for us to show toward others.

Every other world religion says that there are certain things you must do – certain ways you must measure up if you’re going to be right with God, or right in some other transcendent way. There’s a requirement for works – an insistence that you must make yourself deserving before you can expect to gain ultimate happiness or actualization. But Christianity is one-of-a-kind. It’s totally different from everything else. Because in Christianity, we’re told about a God who loves freely – a God who gives favor as a gift – a God who remains committed, even when we’re foolish and unfaithful. We’re told about a God who willingly lays himself down for even the most obnoxious kinds of offenders – and who stands by them until they cross the finish line, and enter into glory. And this God says, I’ve prepared good works for you. Go, show this same grace. Go, forgive the people who have wronged you. Take notice of the people who have ignored you. Remember the people who have forgotten you. Serve the sinners sitting next to you here at church, here, even when you feel like there’s nothing to be gained by it. Go, show grace to the poor, to the handicapped, and to the hard-hearted. Go, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.

But they don’t deserve it! Of course they don’t deserve it. Neither did you. Neither do you. Neither will you, ever. And yet, God set his grace on you, just the same. As Christians we are given grace, so that we might show grace to others.

So be careful that you don’t set standards for other people, where you say, “I will forgive this person if they prove that they’re really sorry.” Or “I’ll invite this person into my life if they show that they’re worth my time.” There are a million other arbitrary standards we could invent – where we require the other person to earn our kindness or acceptance. But that isn’t the way of grace that we learned from God.

Instead, Ephesians 2 reminds us that grace is freely given – not earned. It rests on love, rather than on a legal assessment of someone’s worthiness. So let’s show the same type of extravagant kindness that God has shown toward us. Let’s pursue this as a church in Mt Pleasant. Let’s treasure the freeness of God’s grace – salvation by grace alone – sola gratia. And let’s protect this message of grace, and proclaim it, for the glory of Christ. Amen.