Sun, 1 March 2020
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Sun, 16 February 2020
Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the world’s greatest musical geniuses. Bach’s compositions are brilliant works of musical innovation and complexity.
His father taught him to play the violin and harpsichord at a very early age. Orphaned at the age of ten, he went to live with his older brother who was a church organist who continued tutoring Bach. He grew to love the Lord and the scriptures. Proof of this is in the fact that he had some 80 theological volumes in his library (quite a trove in those days). He also had a three-volume personal study Bible. His hand written notes attest to his appetite for and love of the Word of God.
Music’s highest purpose for Bach was to glorify God. He attempted to please God in everything he did.
Before composing a single note, he would pen JJ at the top of the page. JJ is Latin for Jesu Juva which means “Jesus help.” Then he would pray, “Jesus, help me show your glory through the music I write. May it bring you joy even as it brings joy to your people.”
When he completed the final note of a composition, he would then write SDG at the bottom of the page, SDG is Latin for Soli Deo Gloria, for the Glory of God Alone. His aim was that his music when played would point people to God and that God would get the glory. He once said, “My music comes from my heart as a humble offering to God.”
He was devoted to Christ, loved the scriptures and recognized that both life and music had a higher purpose. He said, “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”
Bach’s life is an example of what it means to live for the glory of God. It is an example that we all should follow. That will be our theme this coming Sunday at Istrouma. Please join us! |
Sun, 16 February 2020
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Solas "Soli Deo Gloria" Romanos 11: 36-12: 2
"Porque de él y por él y para él son todas las cosas" (11: 36a).
“A él sea la gloria por siempre. Amén ”(11: 36b).
"Por lo tanto, les pido, hermanos, por la misericordia de Dios, que se presenten ustedes mismos como un sacrificio vivo, santo y aceptable para Dios. ¡Así es como se debe adorar a Dios! No se adapten a este mundo, sino sean transformados mediante la renovación de vuestro entendimiento, Entonces aprenderán a conocer la voluntad de Dios para ustedes, la cual es buena, agradable y perfecta.” (12: 1-2).
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Sun, 2 February 2020
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Sun, 26 January 2020
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Sun, 19 January 2020
“Sola Gratia” Sermon Series: Solas Ephesians 2:8-10 Istrouma Baptist Church – Jeff Ginn, Lead Pastor 10:45 AM Sermon January 19, 2020
Outline:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).
Ephesians 2:8-10 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
“Amazing Grace” is, perhaps, the best-known and best-loved hymn of all time. The beauty and simplicity of its melody (which you just heard played) is only eclipsed only by the hope and depth of its lyrics.
Listen to the first stanza: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind but now I see.”
The author of these words, John Newton, was, by his own admission, a “wretch.” Now, that’s not a word we use every day. It means, “a miserable person; one who is profoundly unhappy or in great misfortune; a base, despicable, or vile person.” You may think that’s an exaggeration on his part. But he was a wretch. He was a slave trader, a blasphemer, and a rebel.
You know the song, I trust, but you may not know the story of the author. So I want to tell you a little bit about the life of the man who wrote that song. John grew up in a home where his mother was an instrument maker and his father was a sea captain. His mother passed away when he was about 7 years of age, and so he was reared in those later childhood years by his father. He loved his father. He looked up to his father. His father was a sea captain, and so, get this, when he was 11 years old, John Newton went to sea. He made his six voyages across the oceans with his father before his father finally retired as a sea captain. Well, he had not gotten enough. He dreamed about the adventures of life on the open seas, but his dream was soon turned into a nightmare, and I want to tell you about it.
He boarded a merchant ship and plied that trade for a while. But one day, he was in a port and he was pressed into naval service. We don't understand that term because we have an all-volunteer military. There's no draft. You volunteer if you want to serve. But back in those days in Jolly Old England, you could be pressed into service; that is, basically, you’d be captured and you would be forced to serve in the military, and so it was with John Newton. So now, he's no longer living a carefree life of a sailor aboard a merchant ship. He is now in the Royal Navy. He kind of chafed under the regimen of that life. He ran afoul of his captain and was whipped, humiliated and demoted. He contemplated either murder of the captain or suicide. Before that could happen, he was able to escape and got aboard a slave trading ship called the Pegasus. He did not get along with the crew and was cast off in Africa. He was picked up by a slave trader, and became a slave himself in Africa until he was rescued. He said of that period that he was “a servant to slaves.”
Later in life he wrote, “I sinned with a high hand, and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.” Newton lived a hard life with equally harsh consequences.
God got his attention though. In 1748, Newton’s slave ship was nearly wrecked by an intense storm. Surrounded by crashing waves, ferocious winds, creaking timbers, and the cries of the souls on board, John fell to his knees and pled for grace. He was born again on board that ship that tempestuous night.
He comes to know Christ and begins to learn of the word of God and how to live as a Christian, but he's still a slave trader himself. He captains a slave trading ship. He hauls many a slave across the oceans into slavery, but God begins to convict him about the wickedness of that. He becomes friends with a man named William Wilberforce who was the primary advocate in England for the abolition of slavery. John Newton became an ally in that cause, and of all things, this once slave trader, blasphemer, rebel, becomes a pastor of a local Baptist Church there in England. He began to be hymn writer, and he wrote those lyrics that we know and love, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”
God’s grace, which reaches anyone, anywhere, saved a wretch like John Newton—not just from the terror of that storm but from the grip and guilt of his sins. Newton wrote the song now known as “Amazing Grace” years later, while serving as a pastor in Olney, England.
Today, his lyrics still inspire, encourage, and instruct people about the radical reality of God’s amazing grace. It gives “wretches” like us hope. It makes blind people like us see. And that is amazing! Only grace—sola gratia—is able to save sinners. For him, grace was amazing.
God help us if we ever get to a point where we're not just astounded by grace, that it would redeem wretches like you and me, friend. But that's the nature of his grace; it is amazing. We're going to look at that theme this morning in a message entitled, Sola Gratia, the Latin phrase which means “grace alone.” I'm going to base the message today out of; really, I think the classic passage in the Bible about grace. Open your Bible please to Ephesians chapter 2, and we're going to begin reading in verse 8 and carry it through to verse 10. I’d like us all as a sign of our respect for God's Holy Word to please stand as its read. Precious words are these. Give it your very best hearing. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Let’s pray.
[Prayer]
Please be seated.
We're celebrating 100 years here at Istrouma this month, and as we thought about this wonderful season of our church’s life, we thought we’re going to go back to some of the foundational principles upon which this great church has been built. Jesus himself, of course, is the Cornerstone. We're going to come to him in the next Sola series message. But we're looking at some of the great foundational principles, and among them are things like Sola Scriptura, which was our opening message in the series. There, I talked about how the word of God, scripture, is our only sure and sufficient guide to all matters of faith and practice, scripture. Then, last week, we took up the theme of Sola Fide, which is the Latin phrase for “faith alone.” Remember, we talked about the Philippian jailer who was terrified, near death. He fell down and he cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” The Apostle Paul answered him with words as clear as a bell, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your household.” Believe. That's how we're saved, Sola Fide.
Now, today, we're taking up the third of these messages, and it's entitled Sola Gratia, which is the Latin for “grace alone.” By the way, if you're new to Istrouma, we don't usually work in Latin here but this is an exceptional season of our church’s life, and it's fun for you to know these terms, even if we never revisit them again in terms of the Latin terminology. But bear with us; here it is, Sola Gratia, grace alone.
I want to begin in verse 8 and say that we are saved by grace. That's the first point, Sola Gratia. We are saved by grace. Look at the opening words to verse 8, “For by grace you have been saved.” You'll notice Paul is actually talking about something in the past, right? He says, “You have been saved,” not “You will be” or “You are being.” He uses the past tense because he's addressing this letter to the church at Ephesus. He's talking to believers. He says if you want to know how it is that you came to have life, it's by grace that you came to this life. It's by grace you have been saved. I know I'm talking to a lot of folks here that by grace you’ve been saved. But I am talking to some, and I don’t know who you are, but I'm talking to some who will be saved by grace. I pray that even this day you'll come to know the grace of God in truth.
What is grace? It is one of those church words. If I were to ask you to define grace, how would you do it? What is grace? A lot of people will define it in this way, two words: “unmerited favor.” What does that mean? “Unmerited” means you don't deserve it, and grace is God's unmerited favor to us. He loves us in spite of our sin. He forgives us in spite of our rebellion. He takes us to heaven though sin once stained us. It is unmerited favor shown us because of what Christ has done.
I'll give you an acrostic that I learned as a kid. I've always remembered it, and I think it's very helpful. If you'll take the letters of the word “grace,” I’m defining it for you, what is Grace? G-R-A-C-E. Write down beside each letter these terms: G God’s R Riches A At C Christ’s E Expense
Did you get that? Grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. That's what grace is. What are God's riches? God's riches would be his forgiveness; his patience with us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance; it’s heaven as our eternal home; it's abundant life, joy-filled life, peace, here and now. Those are God's riches, and they come to us at Christ's expense. In other words, those great gifts that I've named were not free. Someone paid for them that they might be ours, and it was at Christ's expense that they come to us. So that is grace. We are saved by grace.
I want to say two things about this. Number one, we have a problem. Houston, Baton Rouge, Luling, Lafayette, Monroe, South America, Africa, Asia, we have a problem. What's our problem? Our problem is, in a word, sin. I want to refer to jewelers for just a moment. I know we've got a couple of jewelers in our church, and I appreciate them so much, and I hope you’ll frequent their business. But these jewelers are very ingenious. If you say “I want to buy a diamond,” you know what a jeweler will often do? They'll take out a piece of black velvet fabric, and they’ll lay that black fabric down, and then upon that black fabric they’ll place the diamond or diamonds. Then they'll put a large spotlight shining down on those diamonds. Why do you think they put the diamonds against that black backdrop? It is so that you will be able to appreciate in all of their brilliance the beauty of the diamond. A diamond against a white counter may not glisten and shine as well as that diamond against a black backdrop. What's the point? You'll never fully appreciate the brilliance and beauty of grace until you see it against the black backdrop of our sin. That's why we're amazed by grace, that we, though sinners, can be forgiven and accepted by a holy and righteous God. When I see his grace against the backdrop of our filth and sin I'm amazed by it. Yes, our problem is our sin.
Let me show you this in the text. If you’ll look to verse 1 of this very same chapter it'll be very clear. Let me begin reading there in Ephesians 2, verse 1: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked [that’s describing us, folks], following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience…
Now, let me pause right there. He's describing humanity. You might be tempted to think that because we’re Christians we are above what he calls the “sons of disobedience.” You know, we can look down our spiritual noses at those “lesser humans.” We’re the Christians. But look at what verse 3 says. I love this. He says: among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh…
Folks, look. I once walked in the passions of the flesh. I did things of which I am ashamed. Just like John Newton; he didn't have much on me, if any. I, too, am a wretch, a sinner, and when I see God's grace given me against the backdrop of my past, and how I lived in the passions of my flesh, I'm amazed and I hope you are as well. Now, that's our past. That's our problem, right? But I've come to tell you good news, not bad news. That's bad news. Let me give you some good news. Though we have a problem, it is answered by God's provision, and that's the next sub point. We have a provision. You’ll see this as we continue reading this very passage. It says, Ephesians 2 verses 4 and following: 4 But God, being rich in mercy...
Let me pause to ask you to do something. As I'm reading this, I want you to watch for the word “grace,” and when it occurs, I want you to count it. All right, let’s see how many times it occurs in these verses. We are sinners. We once walked in the passage of our flesh. He says, But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses [even then, he loved us, yes, he], made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and [he] raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [And then verse 8, our key verse] 8 For by grace you have been saved...
How many times in what I just read, including verse 8, does the word “grace” appear? Three. Exactly right. Not once, not twice, but three times over he is stressing to us God's provision for our problem. Sin is addressed by grace, and by grace we are saved.
I want to give you an illustration that I hope will help turn the light on in your understanding of this. I'm going to tell you a make-believe story. It's the story of a father. This father had an only son, and he loved his boy as fathers do. The boy got old enough to go out on his own. One day the boy was out, and he was attacked by some thugs. They beat him and they robbed him, and in the course of their attack the young son was killed. It was a brutal murder, and the father was heartbroken, as you can imagine.
The father considered how he might deal with those who had murdered his son. He thought of four possible responses he could make. First of all, he could seek vengeance. Do you know what vengeance is? Vengeance is when you take the law into your own hands. Without police, without courts, without law, he would go and he would execute those that had killed his son. In vengeance the criminals would get worse than they deserve, because really, everybody has a right to a fair trial. Everybody has their day in court. Vengeance is inappropriate. God says, “Don't seek vengeance. Leave that in my just hands,” right? “Vengeance is mine,” the Lord's says. But he considered vengeance.
Secondly, he said there's another option. I could seek justice. That could be my response. Leave it to the police to find the criminals; leave it to the court to try them; the jury to decide on their guilt or innocence; and the judge to declare the sentence. Now if vengeance giving them worse than they deserve, justice is giving them straight-up what they deserve.
But then he thought of a third possible response. He thought, I could show them mercy and forgive them for what they've done and plead mercy in the court on their behalf. That would be unbelievable, would it not? I think it's beyond most of us to respond in that way. If vengeance is getting worse than what they deserve, and justice is getting what they deserve, mercy would be not getting what they do deserve. Yes, they deserve a sentence. They deserve prison. They deserve punishment. Perhaps they deserve execution. But mercy would say, “No.”
Then, there remained one possible response. Not vengeance; not justice; not even mercy, as great as it is. There remained the option of grace. Now if vengeance is getting worse than you deserve, and justice is getting what you deserve, and mercy is not getting what you do deserve, what would grace be? Grace would be getting what you don't deserve. What if in that story the bereaved father looked with pity upon the criminals and said, “Not only do I forgive you, I want to adopt you into my family, and I want you to inherit the riches that would have been my son’s. You say, “Preacher I can't stand the thought of that. That's unbelievable that anyone would respond in that way.” and I would say, “Yes, wouldn't it be amazing? It would. And that's why we refer to it as “amazing grace.”
Friend, we are those criminals. Do you not see that? It was your sin and my sin for which Christ was nailed to the cross, not for any guilt of his own. God in love looked down at his only beloved there. God could have sought vengeance upon us. He certainly could have executed justice or stopped short at mercy, but he went all the way, and he would adopt us into his family. Are you a part of God's forever family? Friend, if you're not, you may be this very day. How do you get into his family? You’re saved by grace.
Now, number two. Not only are we saved by grace, but, number two, we’re saved through faith. When you read your Bible, I think you know this now, but let me just say it, every word in the Bible matters. Every word. You can't even change the prepositions. You can't say you’re saved by faith. You're not saved by faith, you’re saved by grace, but you’re saved through faith.
Now, let's explore this just for a moment. Because God has been gracious in giving his son, you might be tempted to think that everybody's going to be saved. We’re saved by grace, and that's God's action in Christ on our behalf. He died for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2:2 says. Well, if he died for everyone, and grace is available to everyone, then won’t everyone be saved? There are those who hold that position. It's called “universalism,” that everyone, universally, will be saved. Many of them will even say it’s because of Christ and his death on the cross that redeems everybody regardless of their response. But friend, I'll just say in response to that, and I don't have time to address it fully, I’ll just say they didn't get that idea from the Bible. The Bible teaches that there are two destinies, heaven and hell, and there are people who will spend eternity in heaven or in hell. So no, not everyone is saved, even by the grace of God, because you see, there is a response that is required of us, and faith is a response to God's grace. Now, if you would look there again at verse 8, “For by grace you have been saved [and we’re emphasizing those two words in bold] through faith.” Grace precedes faith, and that's very important, folks. Listen. Sometimes you’ll hear people say, “Oh, it doesn't matter what you believe, just believe.” It's as though if you had faith, regardless of in whom you put your faith or in what you put your faith, just believe, and you will be saved. You can believe in Muhammad, you can believe in Confucius, you can believe in naturalism and you can believe in pantheism and worship the trees and the rocks and the lakes, it doesn't matter what you believe; just believe. We’re saved by faith. No, friends, we're not saved by faith; we’re saved by grace, the act of God in Christ, but it comes to us through faith. That's the means by which we make it our own.
God alone saves, and it is through faith that that salvation comes to us. Our faith, I'll say it this way, our faith has a focus, and that focus is Christ. Remember last week when we were talking about sola fide, only by faith are you saved, and we were talking about the story of the Philippian jailer who was terrified that he might die. An earthquake had shaken the prison where he was responsible for the prisoners, and in his terror he asked this point-blank question, “What must I do to be saved?” And the answer was as clear as a bell, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Notice the answer was not, “Believe and you will be saved.” No, that would be to truncate the answer. It would be to omit the central part. It is not “Believe and you will be saved.” It is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Take out Christ, take out his grace, his atoning death on the cross, and we will all be lost. It is grace that saves us through faith. Faith is our response to God's grace. I think of it this way, and perhaps this will be helpful to you. I think of grace as God reaching down from heaven to save a drowning world, drowning in our sins, and grace is him extending his hand to save us. I view faith as the response. Faith would be us looking heavenward and extending our hand to take the hand of grace. Here's the thing, folks, listen. When God's hand of grace is clasped by your hand of faith, salvation comes to you. His hand is extended. The only question that remains is, “Have you responded? Have you taken hold of that grace?” And you do so by faith, by entrusting yourself to him who died for your sins. That's how we get saved, by grace through faith.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast
It's in that sense that it’s sola gratia. It's not God’s grace plus your good works. You know, there are a lot of people who think that God admits people or rejects people into heaven on this basis. Watch. They think that God has this big scale in heaven, and on one side God's going to stack up the bad things you've done, the lies you’ve told, the lust you’ve felt, the immorality of your life, the dishonesty and the pride and the prejudice. He's going to stack all that up on one side. Then, bless your heart, he's going to come over here and he's going to stack up the good things you've done, and it's going to teeter. If you've done more good than bad, whew! You made it in. But if you did more bad than good, uh-oh, you’re lost. That's how most of the world thinks. The problem is, that is not what the Bible teaches. Sola scriptura teaches that it’s sola gratia, only grace through faith. We're not saved by our works. You see, if you were saved by the good things that that you did, when you get to heaven you be like this. You’d put your thumbs under your suspenders and you’d be like, “Hey, Lord. Good to see you. I got here because of the good things I did. You know, I was a good guy. I was faithful to my wife. I gave money. I was sweet to the little old lady down the street. I never robbed a bank. I'm good.”
When we get to heaven, nobody's going to have their thumbs under their suspenders. You know what we're going to do? We're going to fall on our faces, and we're going to say, “God, how could you save a wretch like me? How great you are. How gracious you are that you would forgive me and save me.” It's all of grace, but it does require faith.
Let me give you an illustration. I hope this will help. Can you see what this is? I got this in the mail this week from some sweet church members. They sent me this as a gift. It's a gift card for $200 to Fleming's Steakhouse. I’ll get a filet mignon with that. They sent this to me. It wasn't my birthday. It wasn't my wife's and my anniversary. I had not mowed their yard. Just out of love, they sent this to us. Do you know what you call that? Grace. You see, I have something that's valuable here and I didn't pay one red cent for it. It's grace. But is my belly full? And do you know why my belly isn't full? It’s because I have to redeem this. The way it gets redeemed is through faith. You see, I have to believe that this is not a gimmick that this is not a fake gift card. I have to believe that it’s real. I have to believe that the magnetic strip on the back is still good. I have to believe that they haven't already spent the $200 and just sent it to me as a gag. A curse upon them if they did that! No, I know, I know. I believe this is real, and as soon as my wife and I can carve out the time, we're going to go redeem this. We're going to sit down. I think I'm going to get a filet mignon. Could I get an “Amen”? Wrapped in bacon! With a baked potato, lots of butter, lots of sour cream – and no scallions. And I'm going to eat that. My wife, she’s going to get whatever she wants. In fact, I think we may even take a couple with us. Haven't chosen who it is yet; we've got $200! And I'm going to eat that meal, and they're going to bring a bill. You know what I'm going to do when they bring that bill? I'm going to slap that card down on that bill – paid in full by the merits of another! Now, what's the point? This is grace, but I must exercise faith. I must possess it. I must make it mine, and I have to exert faith to do so. Christ offers you something much more than a gift card to Fleming's Steakhouse. In fact, I would just say pitiful in comparison. Pitiful in comparison.
He offers us eternal life, and you don't pay a red cent for it. But somebody paid for it, and he didn't spend his money to do it; he did it with his blood. We were not redeemed with things such as silver and gold, but with the blood of Christ as of the spotless lamb of God. We’re saved by grace through faith. Faith is often expressed just through prayer. “Lord, I know I'm a sinner. Lord, I call on you to forgive me. I believe Christ died on the cross for me.” We make that profession through prayer and we acknowledge it and we receive by faith the gift he offers.
That brings me to the last point. Sola gratia, only Grace? There are going to be a couple of people that protest what I'm preaching, and here's the way the protest goes; I know how this goes. There's going to be one group, and I'll call them legalists. They're going to say, “You mean I can be saved just by the grace of God, by putting my faith in him? You mean I don't have to do good works to save myself? That's too easy. No, no, no, they say.” They reject it. They say it's faith and works that redeem. That's the legalist. And there's another category over here, and they're going to say, “Oh, I'm saved by grace through faith and I don't have to do good works? Awesome! I'll walk an aisle, I'll pray a prayer, and then I'll just live like the devil until I get to heaven, and then I'm in by the grace of God.” That's wrong too. It’s the legalist and it’s the lawless. I'm going to do what I want.
How would the Bible answer the legalist and the lawless? He does it perfectly, right here in this text. Now, look at verse 10, “We're saved by grace through faith for good works.” We’re saved for works. Folks, look up here. Remember I told you every word in the Bible matters, every word? It’s not just big words like “grace, faith, works.” Those are big, momentous, weighty words. Even the little words matter – “by, through, for.” They're called prepositions. Little bitty words, but they matter. You can't switch them and have the truth. Like you can't say, “I'm saved by works unto faith or unto grace. No, you can't invert them. They are just as God gave them. So while I'm not saved by good works, I am saved for good works.
Two things about this I want to stress: Number one, God works in us. I love this. This is so good! The Bible calls us his workmanship. You know, we've got some guys in our church who are craftsman. I can think of a couple of guys who do woodworking. They do some pretty exquisite work; I’ve got some of their crafts in my home. I think of some painters that we have in our church, great artists, and you know some of them. Well, did you know, we are God's work of art? The word here “workmanship” is the word poiema in Greek, and from it we get our English word “poem.” Listen, friend, listen. You are God's poem. They used it back in those days for a work of art. It could be a piece of poetry. It could be a song. It could be a painting. It could be a sculpture. We are God's – I put it to you this way – we are God's masterpiece. You’re not unimportant. You’re not without value. You’re not without gifts and talents. No, you’re the creation of God. And could I just say, we’re twice over the creation of God. I was his by virtue of creation, and now I'm his by virtue of salvation. I was a creation of God; he knit me together in my mother's womb, but I'm a new creation by means of salvation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “If any man, boy, woman or girl is in Christ, he or she is a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” I've been made new in Christ. I am his creation and I am his re-creation. You’re God's masterpiece. You're his poem. You’re his painting. You’re his sculpture.
This isn’t so that we can look in the mirror and admire ourselves. Wow, aren't I amazing! I am God's masterpiece; I'm God's workmanship! No. Notice we’re created in Christ Jesus unto, or for, good works. You were created for a purpose. You were created with a plan in mind. Listen, I've been living out the plan of God in my life for many decades now, and the journey following Christ is tremendous. Oh, the things God has done. And my task in life is to listen for the voice of God and follow the Spirit’s leading, and it's your job as well. He wants to use you to change this world.
I want to stress to you an opportunity coming next Sunday night. Folks, I know we normally only come here on Sunday mornings, but look at me and listen to me please, okay? I don't often ask you guys to go over and above, but I'm asking you to do it this coming Sunday. Come back to church Sunday night. Let's just repeat that together. Come back to church Sunday night. All right? 6 PM. Here's why. You're going to be equipped to do the good work of being an ambassador of the King. That's we’re made new creations. 2 Corinthians 5:17 is followed by 2 Corinthians 5:20: “We are ambassadors of Christ, and we’re making an appeal that you'll be reconciled to God.” And God wants to use you to help this world come to Christ, to know the grace of God through faith.
Why do I tell that story? You know why? You and I are like that handkerchief. The bottle of ink has been spilled on us by our sin and our disobedience, our trespasses. We look up, despairing because of the stain, and God in grace looks down and he actually takes those stains and he covers them, and he makes a masterpiece out of our mess. And the name of that is grace. Amazing grace.
Would you stand? Let’s sing together. |
Sun, 19 January 2020
“Sola Gratia” Sermon Series: Solas Ephesians 2:8-10 Istrouma Baptist Church – Jeff Ginn, Lead Pastor 10:45 AM Sermon January 19, 2020
Outline:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).
Ephesians 2:8-10 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
“Amazing Grace” is, perhaps, the best-known and best-loved hymn of all time. The beauty and simplicity of its melody (which you just heard played) is only eclipsed only by the hope and depth of its lyrics.
Listen to the first stanza: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind but now I see.”
The author of these words, John Newton, was, by his own admission, a “wretch.” Now, that’s not a word we use every day. It means, “a miserable person; one who is profoundly unhappy or in great misfortune; a base, despicable, or vile person.” You may think that’s an exaggeration on his part. But he was a wretch. He was a slave trader, a blasphemer, and a rebel.
You know the song, I trust, but you may not know the story of the author. So I want to tell you a little bit about the life of the man who wrote that song. John grew up in a home where his mother was an instrument maker and his father was a sea captain. His mother passed away when he was about 7 years of age, and so he was reared in those later childhood years by his father. He loved his father. He looked up to his father. His father was a sea captain, and so, get this, when he was 11 years old, John Newton went to sea. He made his six voyages across the oceans with his father before his father finally retired as a sea captain. Well, he had not gotten enough. He dreamed about the adventures of life on the open seas, but his dream was soon turned into a nightmare, and I want to tell you about it.
He boarded a merchant ship and plied that trade for a while. But one day, he was in a port and he was pressed into naval service. We don't understand that term because we have an all-volunteer military. There's no draft. You volunteer if you want to serve. But back in those days in Jolly Old England, you could be pressed into service; that is, basically, you’d be captured and you would be forced to serve in the military, and so it was with John Newton. So now, he's no longer living a carefree life of a sailor aboard a merchant ship. He is now in the Royal Navy. He kind of chafed under the regimen of that life. He ran afoul of his captain and was whipped, humiliated and demoted. He contemplated either murder of the captain or suicide. Before that could happen, he was able to escape and got aboard a slave trading ship called the Pegasus. He did not get along with the crew and was cast off in Africa. He was picked up by a slave trader, and became a slave himself in Africa until he was rescued. He said of that period that he was “a servant to slaves.”
Later in life he wrote, “I sinned with a high hand, and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.” Newton lived a hard life with equally harsh consequences.
God got his attention though. In 1748, Newton’s slave ship was nearly wrecked by an intense storm. Surrounded by crashing waves, ferocious winds, creaking timbers, and the cries of the souls on board, John fell to his knees and pled for grace. He was born again on board that ship that tempestuous night.
He comes to know Christ and begins to learn of the word of God and how to live as a Christian, but he's still a slave trader himself. He captains a slave trading ship. He hauls many a slave across the oceans into slavery, but God begins to convict him about the wickedness of that. He becomes friends with a man named William Wilberforce who was the primary advocate in England for the abolition of slavery. John Newton became an ally in that cause, and of all things, this once slave trader, blasphemer, rebel, becomes a pastor of a local Baptist Church there in England. He began to be hymn writer, and he wrote those lyrics that we know and love, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”
God’s grace, which reaches anyone, anywhere, saved a wretch like John Newton—not just from the terror of that storm but from the grip and guilt of his sins. Newton wrote the song now known as “Amazing Grace” years later, while serving as a pastor in Olney, England.
Today, his lyrics still inspire, encourage, and instruct people about the radical reality of God’s amazing grace. It gives “wretches” like us hope. It makes blind people like us see. And that is amazing! Only grace—sola gratia—is able to save sinners. For him, grace was amazing.
God help us if we ever get to a point where we're not just astounded by grace, that it would redeem wretches like you and me, friend. But that's the nature of his grace; it is amazing. We're going to look at that theme this morning in a message entitled, Sola Gratia, the Latin phrase which means “grace alone.” I'm going to base the message today out of; really, I think the classic passage in the Bible about grace. Open your Bible please to Ephesians chapter 2, and we're going to begin reading in verse 8 and carry it through to verse 10. I’d like us all as a sign of our respect for God's Holy Word to please stand as its read. Precious words are these. Give it your very best hearing. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Let’s pray.
[Prayer]
Please be seated.
We're celebrating 100 years here at Istrouma this month, and as we thought about this wonderful season of our church’s life, we thought we’re going to go back to some of the foundational principles upon which this great church has been built. Jesus himself, of course, is the Cornerstone. We're going to come to him in the next Sola series message. But we're looking at some of the great foundational principles, and among them are things like Sola Scriptura, which was our opening message in the series. There, I talked about how the word of God, scripture, is our only sure and sufficient guide to all matters of faith and practice, scripture. Then, last week, we took up the theme of Sola Fide, which is the Latin phrase for “faith alone.” Remember, we talked about the Philippian jailer who was terrified, near death. He fell down and he cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” The Apostle Paul answered him with words as clear as a bell, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your household.” Believe. That's how we're saved, Sola Fide.
Now, today, we're taking up the third of these messages, and it's entitled Sola Gratia, which is the Latin for “grace alone.” By the way, if you're new to Istrouma, we don't usually work in Latin here but this is an exceptional season of our church’s life, and it's fun for you to know these terms, even if we never revisit them again in terms of the Latin terminology. But bear with us; here it is, Sola Gratia, grace alone.
I want to begin in verse 8 and say that we are saved by grace. That's the first point, Sola Gratia. We are saved by grace. Look at the opening words to verse 8, “For by grace you have been saved.” You'll notice Paul is actually talking about something in the past, right? He says, “You have been saved,” not “You will be” or “You are being.” He uses the past tense because he's addressing this letter to the church at Ephesus. He's talking to believers. He says if you want to know how it is that you came to have life, it's by grace that you came to this life. It's by grace you have been saved. I know I'm talking to a lot of folks here that by grace you’ve been saved. But I am talking to some, and I don’t know who you are, but I'm talking to some who will be saved by grace. I pray that even this day you'll come to know the grace of God in truth.
What is grace? It is one of those church words. If I were to ask you to define grace, how would you do it? What is grace? A lot of people will define it in this way, two words: “unmerited favor.” What does that mean? “Unmerited” means you don't deserve it, and grace is God's unmerited favor to us. He loves us in spite of our sin. He forgives us in spite of our rebellion. He takes us to heaven though sin once stained us. It is unmerited favor shown us because of what Christ has done.
I'll give you an acrostic that I learned as a kid. I've always remembered it, and I think it's very helpful. If you'll take the letters of the word “grace,” I’m defining it for you, what is Grace? G-R-A-C-E. Write down beside each letter these terms: G God’s R Riches A At C Christ’s E Expense
Did you get that? Grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. That's what grace is. What are God's riches? God's riches would be his forgiveness; his patience with us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance; it’s heaven as our eternal home; it's abundant life, joy-filled life, peace, here and now. Those are God's riches, and they come to us at Christ's expense. In other words, those great gifts that I've named were not free. Someone paid for them that they might be ours, and it was at Christ's expense that they come to us. So that is grace. We are saved by grace.
I want to say two things about this. Number one, we have a problem. Houston, Baton Rouge, Luling, Lafayette, Monroe, South America, Africa, Asia, we have a problem. What's our problem? Our problem is, in a word, sin. I want to refer to jewelers for just a moment. I know we've got a couple of jewelers in our church, and I appreciate them so much, and I hope you’ll frequent their business. But these jewelers are very ingenious. If you say “I want to buy a diamond,” you know what a jeweler will often do? They'll take out a piece of black velvet fabric, and they’ll lay that black fabric down, and then upon that black fabric they’ll place the diamond or diamonds. Then they'll put a large spotlight shining down on those diamonds. Why do you think they put the diamonds against that black backdrop? It is so that you will be able to appreciate in all of their brilliance the beauty of the diamond. A diamond against a white counter may not glisten and shine as well as that diamond against a black backdrop. What's the point? You'll never fully appreciate the brilliance and beauty of grace until you see it against the black backdrop of our sin. That's why we're amazed by grace, that we, though sinners, can be forgiven and accepted by a holy and righteous God. When I see his grace against the backdrop of our filth and sin I'm amazed by it. Yes, our problem is our sin.
Let me show you this in the text. If you’ll look to verse 1 of this very same chapter it'll be very clear. Let me begin reading there in Ephesians 2, verse 1: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked [that’s describing us, folks], following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience…
Now, let me pause right there. He's describing humanity. You might be tempted to think that because we’re Christians we are above what he calls the “sons of disobedience.” You know, we can look down our spiritual noses at those “lesser humans.” We’re the Christians. But look at what verse 3 says. I love this. He says: among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh…
Folks, look. I once walked in the passions of the flesh. I did things of which I am ashamed. Just like John Newton; he didn't have much on me, if any. I, too, am a wretch, a sinner, and when I see God's grace given me against the backdrop of my past, and how I lived in the passions of my flesh, I'm amazed and I hope you are as well. Now, that's our past. That's our problem, right? But I've come to tell you good news, not bad news. That's bad news. Let me give you some good news. Though we have a problem, it is answered by God's provision, and that's the next sub point. We have a provision. You’ll see this as we continue reading this very passage. It says, Ephesians 2 verses 4 and following: 4 But God, being rich in mercy...
Let me pause to ask you to do something. As I'm reading this, I want you to watch for the word “grace,” and when it occurs, I want you to count it. All right, let’s see how many times it occurs in these verses. We are sinners. We once walked in the passage of our flesh. He says, But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses [even then, he loved us, yes, he], made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and [he] raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [And then verse 8, our key verse] 8 For by grace you have been saved...
How many times in what I just read, including verse 8, does the word “grace” appear? Three. Exactly right. Not once, not twice, but three times over he is stressing to us God's provision for our problem. Sin is addressed by grace, and by grace we are saved.
I want to give you an illustration that I hope will help turn the light on in your understanding of this. I'm going to tell you a make-believe story. It's the story of a father. This father had an only son, and he loved his boy as fathers do. The boy got old enough to go out on his own. One day the boy was out, and he was attacked by some thugs. They beat him and they robbed him, and in the course of their attack the young son was killed. It was a brutal murder, and the father was heartbroken, as you can imagine.
The father considered how he might deal with those who had murdered his son. He thought of four possible responses he could make. First of all, he could seek vengeance. Do you know what vengeance is? Vengeance is when you take the law into your own hands. Without police, without courts, without law, he would go and he would execute those that had killed his son. In vengeance the criminals would get worse than they deserve, because really, everybody has a right to a fair trial. Everybody has their day in court. Vengeance is inappropriate. God says, “Don't seek vengeance. Leave that in my just hands,” right? “Vengeance is mine,” the Lord's says. But he considered vengeance.
Secondly, he said there's another option. I could seek justice. That could be my response. Leave it to the police to find the criminals; leave it to the court to try them; the jury to decide on their guilt or innocence; and the judge to declare the sentence. Now if vengeance giving them worse than they deserve, justice is giving them straight-up what they deserve.
But then he thought of a third possible response. He thought, I could show them mercy and forgive them for what they've done and plead mercy in the court on their behalf. That would be unbelievable, would it not? I think it's beyond most of us to respond in that way. If vengeance is getting worse than what they deserve, and justice is getting what they deserve, mercy would be not getting what they do deserve. Yes, they deserve a sentence. They deserve prison. They deserve punishment. Perhaps they deserve execution. But mercy would say, “No.”
Then, there remained one possible response. Not vengeance; not justice; not even mercy, as great as it is. There remained the option of grace. Now if vengeance is getting worse than you deserve, and justice is getting what you deserve, and mercy is not getting what you do deserve, what would grace be? Grace would be getting what you don't deserve. What if in that story the bereaved father looked with pity upon the criminals and said, “Not only do I forgive you, I want to adopt you into my family, and I want you to inherit the riches that would have been my son’s. You say, “Preacher I can't stand the thought of that. That's unbelievable that anyone would respond in that way.” and I would say, “Yes, wouldn't it be amazing? It would. And that's why we refer to it as “amazing grace.”
Friend, we are those criminals. Do you not see that? It was your sin and my sin for which Christ was nailed to the cross, not for any guilt of his own. God in love looked down at his only beloved there. God could have sought vengeance upon us. He certainly could have executed justice or stopped short at mercy, but he went all the way, and he would adopt us into his family. Are you a part of God's forever family? Friend, if you're not, you may be this very day. How do you get into his family? You’re saved by grace.
Now, number two. Not only are we saved by grace, but, number two, we’re saved through faith. When you read your Bible, I think you know this now, but let me just say it, every word in the Bible matters. Every word. You can't even change the prepositions. You can't say you’re saved by faith. You're not saved by faith, you’re saved by grace, but you’re saved through faith.
Now, let's explore this just for a moment. Because God has been gracious in giving his son, you might be tempted to think that everybody's going to be saved. We’re saved by grace, and that's God's action in Christ on our behalf. He died for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2:2 says. Well, if he died for everyone, and grace is available to everyone, then won’t everyone be saved? There are those who hold that position. It's called “universalism,” that everyone, universally, will be saved. Many of them will even say it’s because of Christ and his death on the cross that redeems everybody regardless of their response. But friend, I'll just say in response to that, and I don't have time to address it fully, I’ll just say they didn't get that idea from the Bible. The Bible teaches that there are two destinies, heaven and hell, and there are people who will spend eternity in heaven or in hell. So no, not everyone is saved, even by the grace of God, because you see, there is a response that is required of us, and faith is a response to God's grace. Now, if you would look there again at verse 8, “For by grace you have been saved [and we’re emphasizing those two words in bold] through faith.” Grace precedes faith, and that's very important, folks. Listen. Sometimes you’ll hear people say, “Oh, it doesn't matter what you believe, just believe.” It's as though if you had faith, regardless of in whom you put your faith or in what you put your faith, just believe, and you will be saved. You can believe in Muhammad, you can believe in Confucius, you can believe in naturalism and you can believe in pantheism and worship the trees and the rocks and the lakes, it doesn't matter what you believe; just believe. We’re saved by faith. No, friends, we're not saved by faith; we’re saved by grace, the act of God in Christ, but it comes to us through faith. That's the means by which we make it our own.
God alone saves, and it is through faith that that salvation comes to us. Our faith, I'll say it this way, our faith has a focus, and that focus is Christ. Remember last week when we were talking about sola fide, only by faith are you saved, and we were talking about the story of the Philippian jailer who was terrified that he might die. An earthquake had shaken the prison where he was responsible for the prisoners, and in his terror he asked this point-blank question, “What must I do to be saved?” And the answer was as clear as a bell, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Notice the answer was not, “Believe and you will be saved.” No, that would be to truncate the answer. It would be to omit the central part. It is not “Believe and you will be saved.” It is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Take out Christ, take out his grace, his atoning death on the cross, and we will all be lost. It is grace that saves us through faith. Faith is our response to God's grace. I think of it this way, and perhaps this will be helpful to you. I think of grace as God reaching down from heaven to save a drowning world, drowning in our sins, and grace is him extending his hand to save us. I view faith as the response. Faith would be us looking heavenward and extending our hand to take the hand of grace. Here's the thing, folks, listen. When God's hand of grace is clasped by your hand of faith, salvation comes to you. His hand is extended. The only question that remains is, “Have you responded? Have you taken hold of that grace?” And you do so by faith, by entrusting yourself to him who died for your sins. That's how we get saved, by grace through faith.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast
It's in that sense that it’s sola gratia. It's not God’s grace plus your good works. You know, there are a lot of people who think that God admits people or rejects people into heaven on this basis. Watch. They think that God has this big scale in heaven, and on one side God's going to stack up the bad things you've done, the lies you’ve told, the lust you’ve felt, the immorality of your life, the dishonesty and the pride and the prejudice. He's going to stack all that up on one side. Then, bless your heart, he's going to come over here and he's going to stack up the good things you've done, and it's going to teeter. If you've done more good than bad, whew! You made it in. But if you did more bad than good, uh-oh, you’re lost. That's how most of the world thinks. The problem is, that is not what the Bible teaches. Sola scriptura teaches that it’s sola gratia, only grace through faith. We're not saved by our works. You see, if you were saved by the good things that that you did, when you get to heaven you be like this. You’d put your thumbs under your suspenders and you’d be like, “Hey, Lord. Good to see you. I got here because of the good things I did. You know, I was a good guy. I was faithful to my wife. I gave money. I was sweet to the little old lady down the street. I never robbed a bank. I'm good.”
When we get to heaven, nobody's going to have their thumbs under their suspenders. You know what we're going to do? We're going to fall on our faces, and we're going to say, “God, how could you save a wretch like me? How great you are. How gracious you are that you would forgive me and save me.” It's all of grace, but it does require faith.
Let me give you an illustration. I hope this will help. Can you see what this is? I got this in the mail this week from some sweet church members. They sent me this as a gift. It's a gift card for $200 to Fleming's Steakhouse. I’ll get a filet mignon with that. They sent this to me. It wasn't my birthday. It wasn't my wife's and my anniversary. I had not mowed their yard. Just out of love, they sent this to us. Do you know what you call that? Grace. You see, I have something that's valuable here and I didn't pay one red cent for it. It's grace. But is my belly full? And do you know why my belly isn't full? It’s because I have to redeem this. The way it gets redeemed is through faith. You see, I have to believe that this is not a gimmick that this is not a fake gift card. I have to believe that it’s real. I have to believe that the magnetic strip on the back is still good. I have to believe that they haven't already spent the $200 and just sent it to me as a gag. A curse upon them if they did that! No, I know, I know. I believe this is real, and as soon as my wife and I can carve out the time, we're going to go redeem this. We're going to sit down. I think I'm going to get a filet mignon. Could I get an “Amen”? Wrapped in bacon! With a baked potato, lots of butter, lots of sour cream – and no scallions. And I'm going to eat that. My wife, she’s going to get whatever she wants. In fact, I think we may even take a couple with us. Haven't chosen who it is yet; we've got $200! And I'm going to eat that meal, and they're going to bring a bill. You know what I'm going to do when they bring that bill? I'm going to slap that card down on that bill – paid in full by the merits of another! Now, what's the point? This is grace, but I must exercise faith. I must possess it. I must make it mine, and I have to exert faith to do so. Christ offers you something much more than a gift card to Fleming's Steakhouse. In fact, I would just say pitiful in comparison. Pitiful in comparison.
He offers us eternal life, and you don't pay a red cent for it. But somebody paid for it, and he didn't spend his money to do it; he did it with his blood. We were not redeemed with things such as silver and gold, but with the blood of Christ as of the spotless lamb of God. We’re saved by grace through faith. Faith is often expressed just through prayer. “Lord, I know I'm a sinner. Lord, I call on you to forgive me. I believe Christ died on the cross for me.” We make that profession through prayer and we acknowledge it and we receive by faith the gift he offers.
That brings me to the last point. Sola gratia, only Grace? There are going to be a couple of people that protest what I'm preaching, and here's the way the protest goes; I know how this goes. There's going to be one group, and I'll call them legalists. They're going to say, “You mean I can be saved just by the grace of God, by putting my faith in him? You mean I don't have to do good works to save myself? That's too easy. No, no, no, they say.” They reject it. They say it's faith and works that redeem. That's the legalist. And there's another category over here, and they're going to say, “Oh, I'm saved by grace through faith and I don't have to do good works? Awesome! I'll walk an aisle, I'll pray a prayer, and then I'll just live like the devil until I get to heaven, and then I'm in by the grace of God.” That's wrong too. It’s the legalist and it’s the lawless. I'm going to do what I want.
How would the Bible answer the legalist and the lawless? He does it perfectly, right here in this text. Now, look at verse 10, “We're saved by grace through faith for good works.” We’re saved for works. Folks, look up here. Remember I told you every word in the Bible matters, every word? It’s not just big words like “grace, faith, works.” Those are big, momentous, weighty words. Even the little words matter – “by, through, for.” They're called prepositions. Little bitty words, but they matter. You can't switch them and have the truth. Like you can't say, “I'm saved by works unto faith or unto grace. No, you can't invert them. They are just as God gave them. So while I'm not saved by good works, I am saved for good works.
Two things about this I want to stress: Number one, God works in us. I love this. This is so good! The Bible calls us his workmanship. You know, we've got some guys in our church who are craftsman. I can think of a couple of guys who do woodworking. They do some pretty exquisite work; I’ve got some of their crafts in my home. I think of some painters that we have in our church, great artists, and you know some of them. Well, did you know, we are God's work of art? The word here “workmanship” is the word poiema in Greek, and from it we get our English word “poem.” Listen, friend, listen. You are God's poem. They used it back in those days for a work of art. It could be a piece of poetry. It could be a song. It could be a painting. It could be a sculpture. We are God's – I put it to you this way – we are God's masterpiece. You’re not unimportant. You’re not without value. You’re not without gifts and talents. No, you’re the creation of God. And could I just say, we’re twice over the creation of God. I was his by virtue of creation, and now I'm his by virtue of salvation. I was a creation of God; he knit me together in my mother's womb, but I'm a new creation by means of salvation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “If any man, boy, woman or girl is in Christ, he or she is a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” I've been made new in Christ. I am his creation and I am his re-creation. You’re God's masterpiece. You're his poem. You’re his painting. You’re his sculpture.
This isn’t so that we can look in the mirror and admire ourselves. Wow, aren't I amazing! I am God's masterpiece; I'm God's workmanship! No. Notice we’re created in Christ Jesus unto, or for, good works. You were created for a purpose. You were created with a plan in mind. Listen, I've been living out the plan of God in my life for many decades now, and the journey following Christ is tremendous. Oh, the things God has done. And my task in life is to listen for the voice of God and follow the Spirit’s leading, and it's your job as well. He wants to use you to change this world.
I want to stress to you an opportunity coming next Sunday night. Folks, I know we normally only come here on Sunday mornings, but look at me and listen to me please, okay? I don't often ask you guys to go over and above, but I'm asking you to do it this coming Sunday. Come back to church Sunday night. Let's just repeat that together. Come back to church Sunday night. All right? 6 PM. Here's why. You're going to be equipped to do the good work of being an ambassador of the King. That's we’re made new creations. 2 Corinthians 5:17 is followed by 2 Corinthians 5:20: “We are ambassadors of Christ, and we’re making an appeal that you'll be reconciled to God.” And God wants to use you to help this world come to Christ, to know the grace of God through faith.
Why do I tell that story? You know why? You and I are like that handkerchief. The bottle of ink has been spilled on us by our sin and our disobedience, our trespasses. We look up, despairing because of the stain, and God in grace looks down and he actually takes those stains and he covers them, and he makes a masterpiece out of our mess. And the name of that is grace. Amazing grace.
Would you stand? Let’s sing together.
Direct download: 03.__Sola_gratia.__Transcript_20200119_.pdf
Category:Solas -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT |
Sun, 12 January 2020
What would you say is life’s most important question?
Someone might say that life’s most important question is, “Does God exist?” That’s certainly important. Another might suggest, “How did the world come into being?” Still another might get a tad more personal and ask, “How did mankind come to be?” One immediately pressing question is, “Will LSU defeat Clemson on Monday night for the national championship?” O.k., so maybe that one doesn’t make the cut.
The interesting thing is this: the Bible (and the Bible alone—sola scriptura) answers all of these questions. Does God exist? Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God.” Yes he exists. How did the world come into being? Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” How did mankind—you and I—come to be? Genesis 1:2, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Isn’t that great? God’s word alone answers the deepest questions of our existence.
But there is another question that is, arguably, life’s most important question. It is this: “What must I do to be saved?” It is imminently personal and the stakes could not be higher. If there is a God (and we believe that there is), and, if there is an eternity awaiting (and we believe that there is), how can I gain that eternal life?
Jesus said that this is a supremely important issue. He said, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” In other words, if you could gain the whole world—all its riches and all its pleasures, yet you lost your own soul, what have you gained? Nothing. All the world pales in comparison to your soul. You must know the answer to this question: “What must I do to be saved?”
Here’s the good news: God’s word gives us the answer to that question as well. Our aim this Sunday is to answer that question for everyone so that we can have eternal life and abundant life.
Solas “Sola Fide” Acts 16:25-34
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them (Acts 16:25)
Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:30-31).
And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God (Acts 16:33-34).
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT] Turn in your Bibles to Acts 16:25-34 to discover this. Would you stand in honor of God’s word as it is read: Acts 16:25-34 25 About midnight Paul and Silas [Now, I would interject, if you don’t know those names, Paul and Silas were early church leaders, and more particularly, they were missionaries taking the gospel where it had never been known. So, Paul and Silas] were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them [Again, I’ll interject, yes, they were in jail, and I'll tell you how they ended up there in just a moment, but Paul and Silas are in jail. They’re singing praises to God; the prisoners are listening to them. Now, verse 26], 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” [Now, again, I am suggesting, that that is life's most important question, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Now here comes the answer, verse 31] 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
Let's pray.
[Prayer]
Please be seated.
As a church, we are celebrating 100 years of shared life. As an element of that celebration, we're revisiting some of the bedrock principles upon which this church is founded, and it's in a sermon series called “Solas.” Now that is a Latin word. Really, it's an anglicized version of it, and the word sola means “only.” There are some solas in the life of the Christian church that stand preeminently. We looked last week at the first of them, sola scriptura. Today, we're going to learn about sola fide. Sola scriptura, only scripture, is our guide to faith and practice. And now today, sola fide, only faith, brings salvation; faith in Christ. Sola scriptura teaches that sola fide is the only way to be saved. These two principles, Sola scriptura and sola fide, are intimately related to one another, and I want to demonstrate this by reminding you of the text we looked at last week, 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17. You'll remember this: All Scripture is breathed out by God [inspired by God] and [is] profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God [the people of God, if I could extend it in that way, that all of us] may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
This was our passage last week, and it establishes the principle of sola scriptura. Now, I want you to see the verse that immediately precedes these two. Look at verse 15. Notice that it teaches that sola scriptura leads to sola fide. It says, verse 15, Paul speaking to Timothy, his young protégé, he says: [Timothy], from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings [sola scriptura, the sacred writings, and notice what they have done. He says, so, the sacred writings] are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Do you follow that? There it is in verse 15, sola scriptura; sola fide. You have known the sacred writings; that is, God's word, and they have led you to have faith, sola fide, in Jesus for salvation. So, there are the two principles related closely to one another. Salvation comes to us through faith in Christ Jesus. That's the answer to life's most important question. No passage makes this any clearer than Acts chapter 16 where we find ourselves this morning.
All right, so let's go back to the first of these points, the first step. I want you to see the context in which this question was first posed. Here in Acts 16, Paul and a group of his coworkers are on a missionary journey. Things are going well. People are saving saved. They’re following the Lord in believer's baptism. A church is being planted there in Europe for the very first time. Paul and his team are experiencing the joy of seeing God at work. There's one particular life to which I want to allude that plays into our passage this morning. It's the story of a little girl. I call her little; she was probably a teenager. This girl had an unusual power. This girl could tell foretell the future, and the Bible explains how it is that she could foretell the future. She was actually possessed by a demon, and by virtue of this supernatural power, she could foretell the future.
Paul and his partners met up with this young girl. I won't tell the whole of the story, but I'll just say this. By the power of the gospel, this young girl was set free. I mean that in two senses. First of all, she was a slave to masters who were using her for their own profit. You see, people would pay to have their fortune told, and the slave masters had this girl in captivity, and were using her for their own profit. Again, I say that. This leads me to say a couple of things by way of lagniappe. First of all, fortune-telling is not just a thing of the ancient past. I could wish that it were so, but there still are fortune tellers in our day. I think most of these are just flat-out charlatans. They're just putting on a charade, a show. Perhaps some are demon-possessed, and they may have some capacity given them by spiritual forces.
I actually went on the web out of curiosity, and typed into a Google search engine “Fortune tellers, Baton Rouge.” I was curious to know, are there fortune tellers in our city today? What do you think the answer to that is? One of the responses was, “The 30 best fortune tellers in Baton Rouge.” I clicked on it. There was a list of fortune tellers in our fair town. It included people who did things like fortune-telling, tarot card reading. There were mediums, self-identified. Some could cast spells including love spells, etc. No, this is not just something that's from ancient history. Even in our own day, there are people who dabble into these things. So it gives me a good opportunity to let you know what God thinks of these things. I want to read from the Bible, Deuteronomy 18 beginning in verse 10: There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer [that is, one who calls up the dead to speak with them] or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. . . .
This is from the Bible. Folks, we ought to have nothing to do with these works of darkness. Even something as what seems to be innocuous as horoscopes. I think it's terrible that papers will often include horoscopes. Worse yet, they put them next to the comics in the newspaper. It doesn't belong there, and I would encourage you not to read that. Astrology; anything of the sort, God says that is all an abomination. The work of the gospel is to set people free from these things. God doesn't want us to consult with the dead or with spiritists or with mediums. No, He has given us his word, sola scriptura. He has given us his indwelling Holy Spirit to illumine our minds to understand the things that are in the word of God. I don't need a fortune teller. I don't need a necromancer. I have all that I need, sola scriptura, to be a guide by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who illumines these truths to our lives. Now, I told you, that's just lagniappe. I just gave you that for extra.
I'm also reminded to say this: This poor young girl was a slave to her masters. It's very evident to me they didn't care one whit about that little girl. They only used her for their own purposes. You know, you hear a lot today about sex trafficking, pornography. Could I just remind us all, those who peddle that, who push that, they care nothing for the boys and girls whose lives they wreck. They domineer them and they own them, and anyone who participates in these things supports it. God sees it equally as an abomination. We as God's people ought have nothing to do with it. Instead of abusing people, we ought to love them and want them to be free. It's exactly what the Apostle Paul and his team were doing. They were setting people free by the good news of Jesus, and this little girl among them.
Now, you would think, would you not, that everyone is going to be ecstatic that this little girl has been set free. Oh, that it were so. It wasn't so. Her masters see that their means of ill gain is gone, and so they haul up Paul and Silas on false charges. Two things result, and I want to mention them to you. One, undeserved prison time. Undeserved prison. Paul and Silas, if you can imagine this, were cast into prison. It's worth noting, friend, that if we stand for the Lord, we're going to face opposition in this world. Not everyone is going to pat you on the back. Now you may get a fair amount of that; certainly here at church, I trust that you’re encouraged as you follow Christ. We want to do that. But it won't be so with everyone. There will be those who will oppose. I, myself, have faced occasions of great opposition. The Bible says; this is 2 Timothy 3:12, “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Jesus was crucified. John was beheaded. Luther, of whom I spoke last week, was excommunicated. Jan Hus, the great Czech reformer, was burned at the stake. William Tyndale, who for the first time translated God's word into English so that all English speakers could hear the word of God in their heart language, he was burned as a heretic. Later he was exhumed and his ashes were sprinkled on the Thames River.
You come forward into our own day, I think about those believers in Libya not so long ago that were beheaded by ISIS because they believed in Christ. There will be opposition; there always has been, there always will be. Now it may not be as serious as these cases that I've named. Perhaps not even as serious as Paul and Silas, beaten now and imprisoned in stocks. But perhaps you'll be passed over for a promotion, or perhaps others will belittle you for your faith or some stance that you take on a moral issue, but I want to encourage us all as Paul and Silas did to remain faithful to the Lord despite the opposition that arises.
So, prison is really not a surprise. But do you know what is a surprise? It's that, though they are imprisoned, undeservedly so, there arises their undeterred praise to the Lord. How do they answer the stripes that were put upon their back and their stocks in which they were bound and the prison in which they were jailed? They answered their prison with praise. You know, it's one thing to praise the Lord when the prison doors swing open and the shackles fall from our wrists. But I want you to take note, Paul and Silas were not praising the Lord after they'd been liberated, after their shackles had fallen from them. No, they are praising the Lord in the midst of their suffering, unjust though it was. No wonder, then, the Bible says that the prisoners heard them. Don't you know the prisoners heard them? Don't you know the jailer himself heard them? They were listening to them. Of course they were, because there is power in our praise, particularly when it’s in the face of hardship and difficulty. I know I'm preaching to many of you who, even today, sang songs of praise to the Lord in the midst of your trial. I want to say God is honored by that. Your witness is never more powerful than when you gladly praise Him in the midst of your trial, and Paul and Silas did. So, that is the context in which life’s most important question arose.
Now, secondly, I want to take you to the actual conversation in which life's most important question is both asked and answered. First, let's look at the asking of this question. The jailer discovers that Paul and Silas have been set free. They are singing, and someone said that as they sang, God took such pleasure in their song that God was tapping his foot along with the beat of their song, and it caused the earthquake. That's a little bit fanciful, but I like it, still. God sent an earthquake to that jail. The jailhouse rocked, for all of you 1950s folks. As the jailhouse rocked, the prison doors swung open. The shackles fell from their hands and their feet, if, in fact, they were shackled at both of those extremities. The shackles fell, and the jailer, realizing that the prison doors have swung open and that the prisoners have been set free, presumes that they've all escaped. You have to know that in that day, if you were the jailer, and your prisoners escaped, you would be executed for having failed at your duty. He sees this, is terrorized by it, and he draws his sword and intends to kill himself.
Here's another point where I want to interject a thought. It's never right to take your own life; it's never right to take your own life. He's going to commit suicide. I may be speaking to someone this morning who is contemplating ending your own life. Maybe you're in a valley, a deep, deep valley, and it seems there's no escape from it. Could I just encourage you that suicide is never the answer? Paul and Silas, to their credit, step in and they tell the man, “Don't harm yourself. We’re all here.” Now, let's be frank. Here's the jailer who has put them into the deepest part of the prison. Perhaps he's even taken some joy in shackling them and in seeing their wounds from the beating that they took. You couldn't blame Paul and Silas if they just stood aside as the jailer killed himself, but motivated by Christ's love, they intervene and they say, “Don't harm yourself.” I'm reminded to challenge all of us, if you know of someone who is wrestling with deep depression, intervene. Speak to them. We have a counseling ministry here at Istrouma, and we can get help. There is help, and there is hope in Christ. Paul and Silas say, “Do yourself no harm.”
Upon their kindness, this jailer runs in before Paul and Silas and the Bible says that he falls down at their feet. You see, he's been impacted by what he's observed. He has seen Paul and Silas singing praises to God. He's heard that song. He's personally experienced their mercy when they defend him who once oppressed them. Paul and Silas could easily have escaped, but they haven't. They’re remaining there. So, impacted by what he has heard and seen, he asks life's most important question. It’s in verse 30: Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
Now, some might suggest that this question is related to the temporal crisis. He knows that the prisoners might escape, that the wrath of Rome is going to fall upon him; he's going to be executed, so he's asking, “Sirs, how can I escape my impending doom?” But I don't believe that's the real heart of his question, because the prisoners have not escaped. They’ve remained. His life has been spared. There is hope temporally. No, I believe he is asking an eternal question, “What must I do to be saved from my sins? What must I do to inherit eternal life?” I believe that's the heart of his question. And I love this question. I see in it his humility. He doesn't think he has all the answers, and I tell you, that's a healthy thing. Maybe you've come in today quite confident in yourself, presuming that you have all of the answers both to life and eternity. But have you ever come in humility to ask this simple question, “What must I do to be forgiven; what must I do to be saved? I want to be instructed. I want to be taught. I want God's answer to life's most important question.” I see his humility. I see his hunger. He rushes in. He falls at their feet. He is desperate. I don't know that anyone comes to salvation apart from desperation, hunger, and humility. This man has all of those traits, and for that reason, he asks life's most important question, “What must I do to be saved?”
Not only is the question asked, the question is answered. For all time, we know the answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Point-blank question; point-blank answer. What must I do to be saved? What must you do to be saved? What must all humans do if they are to be saved? The apostle’s answer: “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”
I want us to think about that answer just for a moment. I want us to think of what the answer was not. What must I do to be saved? Notice that he did not say, “Join the church and you will be saved.” There are a lot of people that think that. They think, “Well if I'm going to go to heaven, I've got to be a member of some church or some faith. If I have my name on a church roll somewhere, then I'm good.” No. Joining a church of any stripe does not save you. It's not the answer to the question. He did not say, “Get baptized and you will be saved.” There's nothing wrong with getting baptized. In fact, he's about to get baptized. There's nothing wrong with joining a church. He's going to become a part, I believe, of the Philippian church that started with Lydia, was joined by the slave girl who was now set free. He's going to be, I'll just say, the third member of the church at Philippi. Nothing wrong with these good deeds, but it's not by good deeds that you are saved. Good deeds are the fruit of salvation in you, not the root of it, not the source of it. How do you get saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.
This answer is in harmony with the rest of the Bible. Listen to John 1:12: But to all who did receive him [that is, speaking of the incarnate Christ], who believed [there it is, who believed] in his name [What is it to receive Christ? It’s to believe in him...to all who did receive him, who believed in his name], he gave the right to become [the] children of God.
How do you become a child of God? How do you get saved? How do you have your sins washed away? How do you go to heaven? You believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You trust in him. You receive him.
John 3:16, the most famous verse in all of the Bible: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
How do you get everlasting life? How do you get saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus.
Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God [unto] salvation to everyone who believes...
Eph. 2:8-9: For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
The way to be saved is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. There are basically two systems that are put forward as answers to this question. One is faith alone, sola fide, our theme for today. The other is that you’re saved by faith and works. They often will cite, those who hold the latter position, they’ll cite James 2:24. There the Bible says: ...a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
So now, we’re in a quandary. Are we saved by faith alone apart from works, or are we saved by faith and works? That's a pivotal question, and we must know the answer to it. I believe that the Bible is clear that salvation comes by faith alone. How then is it that James can say that you’re saved not by faith alone but also by the works that you do? How can we reconcile these two passages of scripture?
James, if you read the broader text there, is talking about the faith that saves. He says, “Show me your faith without works, and I'll show you my faith by my works.” James knew well that faith alone saves, but faith that saves is never alone. I'll say it again. Faith alone saves, but faith that saves is never alone, and that our works show the reality of our faith. If you have no works to demonstrate your faith, then what kind of faith do you have? James says that you have a dead faith, and he asks, “Can that faith save?” I'll answer the question, No, that faith can't save. Someone can say, “Oh, I believe in Jesus,” but they never go to church, they never follow the Lord in believer’s baptism, they have no heart for generosity, they curse, they swear, they sleep around, they rebel and break God's law. There's no fruit. There's no demonstration of a real faith. Can that type of faith, just verbal in nature, save? No it cannot. It has to be a genuine and real faith that is demonstrated in the life that ensues.
That brings me, then, to the last point, and that is the change that comes to the life that answers rightly life’s most important question, when the person knows the answer, and I'll put a capital “A” on it, the Answer to life's most important question. The Answer to life's most important question is a person, the Lord Jesus, and when you put your faith and trust in him and his atoning death on the cross, you are saved.
Now listen, it brings change. Would you look in your Bible again, now, to verse 33? And he [that is, the jailer] took them [Paul and Silas] the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God
What a tremendous paragraph that is! You see, the change in his life was produced by faith. He embraced the gospel proclaimed to him, and the change was produced by that faith. Now, that faith is proven by the fruit of good deeds. You see his baptism. Listen; if you’ve given your life to Christ, and you've come to saving faith, you ought to follow the Lord in believer's baptism. I'm probably talking to some folks in here that have not yet let your faith be made known through baptism subsequent to your salvation. I just want to challenge you to take that step of faith and demonstrate by it that you’ve put your trust in Christ. I may be speaking to some who’ve not yet committed to fellowship in a local church. We want to challenge you to not only believe but belong. Commit yourself to membership and service in a local church. I note this man's generosity. He set food before them. I note his joy; he is rejoicing now. He went from desperation and suicidal thoughts to great joy, and what made the difference? It was Christ in him that made the difference.
Have you been changed? Is your life radically different because Christ indwells you? If not, this very morning I'm going to challenge you to give your life to Christ.
I'm going to tell you one last story. I’m going to put on the screen a picture of a fellow whose name is John Harper. Some of you may know his name. John Harper was born into a Christian family May 29, 1872 in Scotland. He became a Christian 13 years later and had already started preaching by age 17. He received training at the Baptist Pioneer Mission in London, and in 1896 he founded a church, now known as Harper Memorial Church in Glasgow, which began with 25 worshipers but had grown to 500 members by the time he left 13 years later.
In 1912 Harper, the newly-called pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, was traveling on the Titanic with his 6-year-old daughter. After the ship struck an iceberg and began to sink, he got Nana into a lifeboat but apparently made no effort to follow her. Instead, he ran through the ship yelling, "Women, children, and unsaved into the lifeboats!" Survivors report that he then began witnessing to anyone who would listen. He continued preaching even after he had jumped into the water and was clinging to a piece of wreckage (he'd already given his lifejacket to another man).
Harper's final moments were recounted four years later at a meeting in Hamilton, Ontario, by a man who said “I am a survivor of the Titanic. When I was drifting alone on a spar that awful night, the tide brought Mr. Harper of Glasgow, also on a piece of wreck, near me. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘Are you saved?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I am not.’ He replied, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’
“The waves bore him away, but, strange to say, brought him back a little later, and he said, ‘Are you saved now?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I cannot honestly say that I am.’ He said again, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ [quoting the very verse I preached to you today]. Shortly after, he went down; and there, alone in the night, and with two miles of water under me, I believed. I am John Harper's last convert.”
He was also one of only six people picked out the water by the lifeboats; the other 1,522, including Harper, were left to die.
You know, it's interesting. There were only two kinds of people after the Titanic sank – those who were saved, and those who were lost. There were no other kind of passengers aboard the Titanic; those who were saved, and those who were lost. Could I just say on the ship of earth on which we sail, there are only two kinds of people – those who are saved, and those who are lost. That's why I say life's most important question is this: “What must I do to be saved?” Friend, the gospel message is this, believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
You say, “Man, is that all?” Yes, that’s all. That is all, because once you believe, it transforms life. I want to challenge you this morning to believe on the Lord Jesus.
Let’s stand.
[Invitation]
[Prayer]
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Sun, 12 January 2020
“Sola Fide” Sermon Series: Solas Acts 16:24-34 Istrouma Baptist Church – Jeff Ginn, Lead Pastor AM Sermon January 12, 2020
Outline:
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them (Acts 16:25)
Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:30-31).
And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God (Acts 16:33-34).
What would you say is life’s most important question?
Someone might say that life’s most important question is, “Does God exist?” That’s certainly important.
Another might suggest, “How did the world come into being?”
Still another might get a tad more personal and ask, “How did mankind come to be?”
One immediately pressing question is, “Will LSU defeat Clemson on Monday night for the national championship?” O.k., so maybe that one doesn’t make the cut.
The interesting thing is that the Bible (and the Bible alone—sola scriptura) answers all of these questions.
Does God exist? Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God.” Yes, he exists.
How did the world come into being? Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
How did mankind—you and I—come to be? Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
From the Bible, we get the answer to all of life’s most important questions.
But I want to make the case this morning that there is another question that is, arguably, life’s most important question. It is this: “What must I do to be saved?” It is imminently personal, and the stakes could not be higher. If there is a God (and we believe that there is), and, if there is an eternity awaiting all of us (and we believe that there is), how can I gain that eternal life?
Jesus taught that this is a supremely important issue. He said, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” In other words, if you could gain the whole world—all its riches and all its pleasures, yet you lost your own soul, what have you gained? Nothing. All the world pales in comparison to your soul. Therefore, you and I must know the answer to this question: “What must I do to be saved?”
Here’s the good news: God’s word gives us the answer to that question as well. Our aim this Sunday is to answer that question for everyone so that we can have both eternal life and abundant life.
Turn in your Bibles to Acts 16:25-34 to discover this. Would you stand in honor of God’s word as it is read: Acts 16:25-34 25 About midnight Paul and Silas [Now, I would interject, if you don’t know those names, Paul and Silas were early church leaders, and more particularly, they were missionaries taking the gospel where it had never been known. So, Paul and Silas] were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them [Again, I’ll interject, yes, they were in jail, and I'll tell you how they ended up there in just a moment, but Paul and Silas are in jail. They’re singing praises to God; the prisoners are listening to them. Now, verse 26], 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” [Now, again, I am suggesting, that that is life's most important question, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Now here comes the answer, verse 31] 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
Let's pray.
[Prayer]
Please be seated.
As a church, we are celebrating 100 years of shared life. As an element of that celebration, we're revisiting some of the bedrock principles upon which this church is founded, and it's in a sermon series called “Solas.” Now that is a Latin word. Really, it's an anglicized version of it, and the word sola means “only.” There are some solas in the life of the Christian church that stand preeminently. We looked last week at the first of them, sola scriptura. Today, we're going to learn about sola fide. Sola scriptura, only scripture, is our guide to faith and practice. And now today, sola fide, only faith, brings salvation; faith in Christ. Sola scriptura teaches that sola fide is the only way to be saved. These two principles, Sola scriptura and sola fide, are intimately related to one another, and I want to demonstrate this by reminding you of the text we looked at last week, 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17. You'll remember this: All Scripture is breathed out by God [inspired by God] and [is] profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God [the people of God, if I could extend it in that way, that all of us] may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
This was our passage last week, and it establishes the principle of sola scriptura. Now, I want you to see the verse that immediately precedes these two. Look at verse 15. Notice that it teaches that sola scriptura leads to sola fide. It says, verse 15, Paul speaking to Timothy, his young protégé, he says: [Timothy], from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings [sola scriptura, the sacred writings, and notice what they have done. He says, so, the sacred writings] are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Do you follow that? There it is in verse 15, sola scriptura; sola fide. You have known the sacred writings; that is, God's word, and they have led you to have faith, sola fide, in Jesus for salvation. So, there are the two principles related closely to one another. Salvation comes to us through faith in Christ Jesus. That's the answer to life's most important question. No passage makes this any clearer than Acts chapter 16 where we find ourselves this morning.
All right, so let's go back to the first of these points, the first step. I want you to see the context in which this question was first posed. Here in Acts 16, Paul and a group of his coworkers are on a missionary journey. Things are going well. People are saving saved. They’re following the Lord in believer's baptism. A church is being planted there in Europe for the very first time. Paul and his team are experiencing the joy of seeing God at work. There's one particular life to which I want to allude that plays into our passage this morning. It's the story of a little girl. I call her little; she was probably a teenager. This girl had an unusual power. This girl could tell foretell the future, and the Bible explains how it is that she could foretell the future. She was actually possessed by a demon, and by virtue of this supernatural power, she could foretell the future.
Paul and his partners met up with this young girl. I won't tell the whole of the story, but I'll just say this. By the power of the gospel, this young girl was set free. I mean that in two senses. First of all, she was a slave to masters who were using her for their own profit. You see, people would pay to have their fortune told, and the slave masters had this girl in captivity, and were using her for their own profit. Again, I say that. This leads me to say a couple of things by way of lagniappe. First of all, fortune-telling is not just a thing of the ancient past. I could wish that it were so, but there still are fortune tellers in our day. I think most of these are just flat-out charlatans. They're just putting on a charade, a show. Perhaps some are demon-possessed, and they may have some capacity given them by spiritual forces.
I actually went on the web out of curiosity, and typed into a Google search engine “Fortune tellers, Baton Rouge.” I was curious to know, are there fortune tellers in our city today? What do you think the answer to that is? One of the responses was, “The 30 best fortune tellers in Baton Rouge.” I clicked on it. There was a list of fortune tellers in our fair town. It included people who did things like fortune-telling, tarot card reading. There were mediums, self-identified. Some could cast spells including love spells, etc. No, this is not just something that's from ancient history. Even in our own day, there are people who dabble into these things. So it gives me a good opportunity to let you know what God thinks of these things. I want to read from the Bible, Deuteronomy 18 beginning in verse 10: There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer [that is, one who calls up the dead to speak with them] or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. . . .
This is from the Bible. Folks, we ought to have nothing to do with these works of darkness. Even something as what seems to be innocuous as horoscopes. I think it's terrible that papers will often include horoscopes. Worse yet, they put them next to the comics in the newspaper. It doesn't belong there, and I would encourage you not to read that. Astrology; anything of the sort, God says that is all an abomination. The work of the gospel is to set people free from these things. God doesn't want us to consult with the dead or with spiritists or with mediums. No, He has given us his word, sola scriptura. He has given us his indwelling Holy Spirit to illumine our minds to understand the things that are in the word of God. I don't need a fortune teller. I don't need a necromancer. I have all that I need, sola scriptura, to be a guide by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who illumines these truths to our lives. Now, I told you, that's just lagniappe. I just gave you that for extra.
I'm also reminded to say this: This poor young girl was a slave to her masters. It's very evident to me they didn't care one whit about that little girl. They only used her for their own purposes. You know, you hear a lot today about sex trafficking, pornography. Could I just remind us all, those who peddle that, who push that, they care nothing for the boys and girls whose lives they wreck. They domineer them and they own them, and anyone who participates in these things supports it. God sees it equally as an abomination. We as God's people ought have nothing to do with it. Instead of abusing people, we ought to love them and want them to be free. It's exactly what the Apostle Paul and his team were doing. They were setting people free by the good news of Jesus, and this little girl among them.
Now, you would think, would you not, that everyone is going to be ecstatic that this little girl has been set free. Oh, that it were so. It wasn't so. Her masters see that their means of ill gain is gone, and so they haul up Paul and Silas on false charges. Two things result, and I want to mention them to you. One, undeserved prison time. Undeserved prison. Paul and Silas, if you can imagine this, were cast into prison. It's worth noting, friend, that if we stand for the Lord, we're going to face opposition in this world. Not everyone is going to pat you on the back. Now you may get a fair amount of that; certainly here at church, I trust that you’re encouraged as you follow Christ. We want to do that. But it won't be so with everyone. There will be those who will oppose. I, myself, have faced occasions of great opposition. The Bible says; this is 2 Timothy 3:12, “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Jesus was crucified. John was beheaded. Luther, of whom I spoke last week, was excommunicated. Jan Hus, the great Czech reformer, was burned at the stake. William Tyndale, who for the first time translated God's word into English so that all English speakers could hear the word of God in their heart language, he was burned as a heretic. Later he was exhumed and his ashes were sprinkled on the Thames River.
You come forward into our own day, I think about those believers in Libya not so long ago that were beheaded by ISIS because they believed in Christ. There will be opposition; there always has been, there always will be. Now it may not be as serious as these cases that I've named. Perhaps not even as serious as Paul and Silas, beaten now and imprisoned in stocks. But perhaps you'll be passed over for a promotion, or perhaps others will belittle you for your faith or some stance that you take on a moral issue, but I want to encourage us all as Paul and Silas did to remain faithful to the Lord despite the opposition that arises.
So, prison is really not a surprise. But do you know what is a surprise? It's that, though they are imprisoned, undeservedly so, there arises their undeterred praise to the Lord. How do they answer the stripes that were put upon their back and their stocks in which they were bound and the prison in which they were jailed? They answered their prison with praise. You know, it's one thing to praise the Lord when the prison doors swing open and the shackles fall from our wrists. But I want you to take note, Paul and Silas were not praising the Lord after they'd been liberated, after their shackles had fallen from them. No, they are praising the Lord in the midst of their suffering, unjust though it was. No wonder, then, the Bible says that the prisoners heard them. Don't you know the prisoners heard them? Don't you know the jailer himself heard them? They were listening to them. Of course they were, because there is power in our praise, particularly when it’s in the face of hardship and difficulty. I know I'm preaching to many of you who, even today, sang songs of praise to the Lord in the midst of your trial. I want to say God is honored by that. Your witness is never more powerful than when you gladly praise Him in the midst of your trial, and Paul and Silas did. So, that is the context in which life’s most important question arose.
Now, secondly, I want to take you to the actual conversation in which life's most important question is both asked and answered. First, let's look at the asking of this question. The jailer discovers that Paul and Silas have been set free. They are singing, and someone said that as they sang, God took such pleasure in their song that God was tapping his foot along with the beat of their song, and it caused the earthquake. That's a little bit fanciful, but I like it, still. God sent an earthquake to that jail. The jailhouse rocked, for all of you 1950s folks. As the jailhouse rocked, the prison doors swung open. The shackles fell from their hands and their feet, if, in fact, they were shackled at both of those extremities. The shackles fell, and the jailer, realizing that the prison doors have swung open and that the prisoners have been set free, presumes that they've all escaped. You have to know that in that day, if you were the jailer, and your prisoners escaped, you would be executed for having failed at your duty. He sees this, is terrorized by it, and he draws his sword and intends to kill himself.
Here's another point where I want to interject a thought. It's never right to take your own life; it's never right to take your own life. He's going to commit suicide. I may be speaking to someone this morning who is contemplating ending your own life. Maybe you're in a valley, a deep, deep valley, and it seems there's no escape from it. Could I just encourage you that suicide is never the answer? Paul and Silas, to their credit, step in and they tell the man, “Don't harm yourself. We’re all here.” Now, let's be frank. Here's the jailer who has put them into the deepest part of the prison. Perhaps he's even taken some joy in shackling them and in seeing their wounds from the beating that they took. You couldn't blame Paul and Silas if they just stood aside as the jailer killed himself, but motivated by Christ's love, they intervene and they say, “Don't harm yourself.” I'm reminded to challenge all of us, if you know of someone who is wrestling with deep depression, intervene. Speak to them. We have a counseling ministry here at Istrouma, and we can get help. There is help, and there is hope in Christ. Paul and Silas say, “Do yourself no harm.”
Upon their kindness, this jailer runs in before Paul and Silas and the Bible says that he falls down at their feet. You see, he's been impacted by what he's observed. He has seen Paul and Silas singing praises to God. He's heard that song. He's personally experienced their mercy when they defend him who once oppressed them. Paul and Silas could easily have escaped, but they haven't. They’re remaining there. So, impacted by what he has heard and seen, he asks life's most important question. It’s in verse 30: Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
Now, some might suggest that this question is related to the temporal crisis. He knows that the prisoners might escape, that the wrath of Rome is going to fall upon him; he's going to be executed, so he's asking, “Sirs, how can I escape my impending doom?” But I don't believe that's the real heart of his question, because the prisoners have not escaped. They’ve remained. His life has been spared. There is hope temporally. No, I believe he is asking an eternal question, “What must I do to be saved from my sins? What must I do to inherit eternal life?” I believe that's the heart of his question. And I love this question. I see in it his humility. He doesn't think he has all the answers, and I tell you, that's a healthy thing. Maybe you've come in today quite confident in yourself, presuming that you have all of the answers both to life and eternity. But have you ever come in humility to ask this simple question, “What must I do to be forgiven; what must I do to be saved? I want to be instructed. I want to be taught. I want God's answer to life's most important question.” I see his humility. I see his hunger. He rushes in. He falls at their feet. He is desperate. I don't know that anyone comes to salvation apart from desperation, hunger, and humility. This man has all of those traits, and for that reason, he asks life's most important question, “What must I do to be saved?”
Not only is the question asked, the question is answered. For all time, we know the answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Point-blank question; point-blank answer. What must I do to be saved? What must you do to be saved? What must all humans do if they are to be saved? The apostle’s answer: “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”
I want us to think about that answer just for a moment. I want us to think of what the answer was not. What must I do to be saved? Notice that he did not say, “Join the church and you will be saved.” There are a lot of people that think that. They think, “Well if I'm going to go to heaven, I've got to be a member of some church or some faith. If I have my name on a church roll somewhere, then I'm good.” No. Joining a church of any stripe does not save you. It's not the answer to the question. He did not say, “Get baptized and you will be saved.” There's nothing wrong with getting baptized. In fact, he's about to get baptized. There's nothing wrong with joining a church. He's going to become a part, I believe, of the Philippian church that started with Lydia, was joined by the slave girl who was now set free. He's going to be, I'll just say, the third member of the church at Philippi. Nothing wrong with these good deeds, but it's not by good deeds that you are saved. Good deeds are the fruit of salvation in you, not the root of it, not the source of it. How do you get saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.
This answer is in harmony with the rest of the Bible. Listen to John 1:12: But to all who did receive him [that is, speaking of the incarnate Christ], who believed [there it is, who believed] in his name [What is it to receive Christ? It’s to believe in him...to all who did receive him, who believed in his name], he gave the right to become [the] children of God.
How do you become a child of God? How do you get saved? How do you have your sins washed away? How do you go to heaven? You believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You trust in him. You receive him.
John 3:16, the most famous verse in all of the Bible: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
How do you get everlasting life? How do you get saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus.
Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God [unto] salvation to everyone who believes...
Eph. 2:8-9: For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
The way to be saved is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. There are basically two systems that are put forward as answers to this question. One is faith alone, sola fide, our theme for today. The other is that you’re saved by faith and works. They often will cite, those who hold the latter position, they’ll cite James 2:24. There the Bible says: ...a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
So now, we’re in a quandary. Are we saved by faith alone apart from works, or are we saved by faith and works? That's a pivotal question, and we must know the answer to it. I believe that the Bible is clear that salvation comes by faith alone. How then is it that James can say that you’re saved not by faith alone but also by the works that you do? How can we reconcile these two passages of scripture?
James, if you read the broader text there, is talking about the faith that saves. He says, “Show me your faith without works, and I'll show you my faith by my works.” James knew well that faith alone saves, but faith that saves is never alone. I'll say it again. Faith alone saves, but faith that saves is never alone, and that our works show the reality of our faith. If you have no works to demonstrate your faith, then what kind of faith do you have? James says that you have a dead faith, and he asks, “Can that faith save?” I'll answer the question, No, that faith can't save. Someone can say, “Oh, I believe in Jesus,” but they never go to church, they never follow the Lord in believer’s baptism, they have no heart for generosity, they curse, they swear, they sleep around, they rebel and break God's law. There's no fruit. There's no demonstration of a real faith. Can that type of faith, just verbal in nature, save? No it cannot. It has to be a genuine and real faith that is demonstrated in the life that ensues.
That brings me, then, to the last point, and that is the change that comes to the life that answers rightly life’s most important question, when the person knows the answer, and I'll put a capital “A” on it, the Answer to life's most important question. The Answer to life's most important question is a person, the Lord Jesus, and when you put your faith and trust in him and his atoning death on the cross, you are saved.
Now listen, it brings change. Would you look in your Bible again, now, to verse 33? And he [that is, the jailer] took them [Paul and Silas] the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God
What a tremendous paragraph that is! You see, the change in his life was produced by faith. He embraced the gospel proclaimed to him, and the change was produced by that faith. Now, that faith is proven by the fruit of good deeds. You see his baptism. Listen; if you’ve given your life to Christ, and you've come to saving faith, you ought to follow the Lord in believer's baptism. I'm probably talking to some folks in here that have not yet let your faith be made known through baptism subsequent to your salvation. I just want to challenge you to take that step of faith and demonstrate by it that you’ve put your trust in Christ. I may be speaking to some who’ve not yet committed to fellowship in a local church. We want to challenge you to not only believe but belong. Commit yourself to membership and service in a local church. I note this man's generosity. He set food before them. I note his joy; he is rejoicing now. He went from desperation and suicidal thoughts to great joy, and what made the difference? It was Christ in him that made the difference.
Have you been changed? Is your life radically different because Christ indwells you? If not, this very morning I'm going to challenge you to give your life to Christ.
I'm going to tell you one last story. I’m going to put on the screen a picture of a fellow whose name is John Harper. Some of you may know his name. John Harper was born into a Christian family May 29, 1872 in Scotland. He became a Christian 13 years later and had already started preaching by age 17. He received training at the Baptist Pioneer Mission in London, and in 1896 he founded a church, now known as Harper Memorial Church in Glasgow, which began with 25 worshipers but had grown to 500 members by the time he left 13 years later.
In 1912 Harper, the newly-called pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, was traveling on the Titanic with his 6-year-old daughter. After the ship struck an iceberg and began to sink, he got Nana into a lifeboat but apparently made no effort to follow her. Instead, he ran through the ship yelling, "Women, children, and unsaved into the lifeboats!" Survivors report that he then began witnessing to anyone who would listen. He continued preaching even after he had jumped into the water and was clinging to a piece of wreckage (he'd already given his lifejacket to another man).
Harper's final moments were recounted four years later at a meeting in Hamilton, Ontario, by a man who said “I am a survivor of the Titanic. When I was drifting alone on a spar that awful night, the tide brought Mr. Harper of Glasgow, also on a piece of wreck, near me. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘Are you saved?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I am not.’ He replied, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’
“The waves bore him away, but, strange to say, brought him back a little later, and he said, ‘Are you saved now?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I cannot honestly say that I am.’ He said again, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ [quoting the very verse I preached to you today]. Shortly after, he went down; and there, alone in the night, and with two miles of water under me, I believed. I am John Harper's last convert.”
He was also one of only six people picked out the water by the lifeboats; the other 1,522, including Harper, were left to die.
You know, it's interesting. There were only two kinds of people after the Titanic sank – those who were saved, and those who were lost. There were no other kind of passengers aboard the Titanic; those who were saved, and those who were lost. Could I just say on the ship of earth on which we sail, there are only two kinds of people – those who are saved, and those who are lost. That's why I say life's most important question is this: “What must I do to be saved?” Friend, the gospel message is this, believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
You say, “Man, is that all?” Yes, that’s all. That is all, because once you believe, it transforms life. I want to challenge you this morning to believe on the Lord Jesus.
Let’s stand.
[Invitation]
[Prayer]
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Sun, 12 January 2020
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Istrouma en Español Solas “Sola Fide” Hechos 16:25-34
“Alrededor de la medianoche, Pablo y Silas estaban orando y cantando himnos a Dios, y los demás prisioneros escuchaban.” (Hechos 16:25).
“Después los sacó y les preguntó: —Señores, ¿qué debo hacer para ser salvo? 31 Ellos le contestaron: —Cree en el Señor Jesús y serás salvo, junto con todos los de tu casa.” (Hechos 16: 30-31)
“Aun a esa hora de la noche, el carcelero los atendió y les lavó las heridas. Enseguida ellos lo bautizaron a él y a todos los de su casa. 34 El carcelero los llevó adentro de su casa y les dio de comer, y tanto él como los de su casa se alegraron porque todos habían creído en Dios.” (Hechos 16: 33-34).
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November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January
December
November
October
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January
December
November
October
September
August
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | ||||
Syndication
