What it means to be saved by Grace through Faith #40DoD

0:00 Hello, I am Pastor Gideon. This is 40 Days of Discipleship. And today we are talking about what it means to be saved by grace through faith. Yesterday we spoke about what the gospel truly means. Let me ask you something. If God asked you right now, why should I let you into heaven? What would you say? Most people, even good church-going people, will start listing things. I was baptized. I served in church. I tried to live right. I'm not as bad as other people. I don't pick fights anyhow. And every single of those answers, however sincere, however well-intentioned, misses the entire

0:46 point of the gospel. Yes. Today, we are going to one of the most important passages in all of Scripture. Eight words that contain the entire weight of what it means to be a Christian. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, it says, For by grace you have been saved through faith. For by grace you have been saved through faith. What does it mean to be saved in the first place? Before we talk about grace, faith, we must define salvation. To be saved means first to be delivered from sin. 1 Peter 2, 22-2 24. To be rescued from God's wrath, Romans 5 verse 9, 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 10. To be transferred from death to life, Colossians 1 verse 13. And then the last

1:37 point, to be brought into reconciliation with God, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 29. That means to be reconciled with God. Colossians 1.13 says he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. So salvation is not just I joined the church, I've changed behavior, I no longer do the bad things or becoming religious. Salvation is being moved from one kingdom to another. In fact, it is spiritual resurrection because the first kingdom where we were were dead but now in the kingdom of his dear son we are given life. Ephesians 2 says, and you were dead in trespasses and sins. You who were dead in your trespasses and sins has he quicken. So we

2:26 were not sick, we were no weak, we were actually dead, spiritually dead. So what then is grace or how does grace come in here? I need you to hear carefully. Grace is not just unmerited favor. I know that is the strict definition of grace. It is not just unmerited favor. That is too shallow. Grace is God's sovereign initiative to save sinners who deserve judgment. Yes. Romans 5, it says, but God shows his love for us in the while we're still sinners, Christ died for us. Sinners shown mercy by God's sovereign will or saved by God's sovereign will. So when you talk about grace in the gospel, you see God acting first. Man sinned, but God acted first. God acted freely and

3:16 God acted without your contribution. You were not seeking God. I was not seeking God. We were actually running from him. Romans 3.11 says, no one seeks for God. So grace is not God helping you find him. Grace is God finding you when you were lost and rebellious. He found us when we were lost and rebellious. The Greek word is charis. And in post letters, it carries a very specific meaning. The spontaneous, on, and, on. freely giving favor of God toward those who have no claim on it whatsoever. They don't deserve it at all. At this point, I want to paint a picture of grace that you can hold on to. Grace is not God meeting you halfway, no.

4:06 Grace is God coming all the way to the grave where you lay and calling you forth. Grace is not a divine reward for partial righteousness, as in you have done something a bit, like something small, there's something good about you, so God is now reaching out to you. No, it is not a divine reward for partial righteousness. The whole concept of grace is God acting freely and acting spontaneous towards us where we don't deserve anything at all. So it is not God saying, You did your best, so I'll fill in the gap. No. Grace is God acted entirely out of his own character, his own love, his own sovereign will towards someone who contributed absolutely nothing to deserve it. This is

4:55 what grace is. Now, here is something I want you to correct. Because many Christians have a later view of grace, they think of grace as simple forgiveness, like God wiping God. slate clean I did some rubbish on the slate he cleans it and yes it includes that but Ephesians 2 shows us that grace is so much bigger look at what grace accomplishes in just this few verses Ephesians 2 verse 5 says God made us alive that's regeneration a new birth and God will talk about what it means to be born again to be regenerated God made us alive in salvation. That means he gave us a new nature. Now when we come to verse 6,

5:44 he says he raised us up together with Christ. That's positional resurrection or we share in Christ's own resurrection life. Verse 6 says, and he seated us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's we standing right before the Father. Not standing in our own righteousness but in Christ's righteousness. So that's justifying us and giving us right standing in his presence. So grace is not just erasing a debt. It is more than that, far, far more than that. Grace is adoption into a family, not just any family, God's family. Grace is an entirely new identity, an entirely new standing, an entirely new destiny. Hallelujah. And notice the grammar in verse 5 and verse 6. It says, God made us alive. God

6:34 raised us. god seated us the grammar is unmistakably active on god's part and passive on ours we did not help we did not contribute we were the recipients that is grace now let's talk about the second part through faith for by grace are you saved through faith what is faith now this is where many get it from faith is not mere belief that God exists or intellectual agreement or like a mental assent or Emotional excitement about what God has done. No Biblical faith is a response to God's grace that involves trust Surrender and

7:21 reliance on Christ alone. If you don't get this you will never be able to understand the Christian concept of salvation by grace through faith and As much as grace is important, faith is also important. It is not salvation by grace alone, through grace alone. You understand? It is by grace through faith. And biblical faith is a response to God's grace that involves trust, surrender, and reliance on Christ alone. Hebrews 11 says, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So, when it comes to Christianity, true faith says... I cannot save myself. Christ is my only hope. I rest

8:06 entirely on his finished work. Faith is not you adding Jesus to your life. No. Faith is abandoning yourself to Christ. If you add up Jesus to your life, that is not biblical faith. You are supposed to abandon yourself entirely to Christ. Now, although faith is of the heart, if it is genuine, It will tell on the outside in the individual completely yielded to the Lord. You will see outward signs of full trusting in Christ and yielding to Him. That is biblical faith. Because when you look at it, genuine faith doesn't only receive the salvation of God. That's not it. It also surrounds to its lordship in order to

8:52 receive. And that shows on the outside. It results in a changed heart from a heart of stone to to a heart of flesh. It doesn't just shout, Jesus is Lord. It yields to his lordship. It abandons itself to his lordship. So the Lord said, not all who call me Lord shall enter the kingdom, but the one who does the will of my Father, which is in heaven. Literally saying, a genuine faith is yielded to the Lord to the point of doing the will of the Father. If faith does not end with a person aligning to the will of the Father, it was not genuine. It's as simple as that. The grace of God is so powerful that when you abandon yourself to it or you yield yourself to it, it dramatically aligns you to the will of God. When you read Ephesians

9:41 2,8, you see something about faith being a gift as well. It says something subtle, and I don't want you to miss it. It says, we are saved by grace through faith. And then it says, this is not true. your own doing it is the gift of God even the faith through which we believe is a gift granted by God so our Lord said in John 6 44 no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and Apostle Paul says in Philippians 1 29 that it is granted on the behalf of Christ for us not only to believe on him but also to suffer for his sake so our belief is granted do you understand Now, this does not

10:27 make us robots, but it does mean that even the first turning of our heart towards Christ, the first yielding to Christ, even the paying attention of the gospel and to the receiving of the gospel is a work of grace. So, the miracle of salvation is not that God helps seeking sinners find Him, no. The miracle is that God makes dead people alive turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, and then grants them the faith to embrace the one who raised them. If you don't understand it this way, you are likely going to be ending up with the problem with works righteousness or preaching the law. Every religion in the world, apart from biblical Christian, operates on some version of righteousness based on works.

11:15 The idea that if you do enough good, you observe enough rituals, you perform enough spiritual disciplines, you achieve enough glory, purity, you will earn a right standing before God. In Christianity, it is not like that. And here is actually the honest problem with that system. Ask yourself, how much is ever going to be enough? How much good are you going to do in order to obtain the righteousness that you want to have? Think about it again. If your salvation depends on your works, you can never know if you have done enough. You can never have assurance. You can never rest. Every sin will be a setback. Every

12:01 failure will be a threat. Every spiritual struggle will be a potential undoing of everything. Salvation does not rest On your works, it rests on the finished work of Christ. And Christ said from the cross, it is finished. Tetele star. Paid in full. There's nothing more to add. Grace and works are mutually exclusive. You cannot be depending on your works and be relying on grace at the same time. If you believe and are saved by grace, you cannot believe... and work yourself to salvation. Apostle Paul makes it even clearer in Romans 11, 6. He said, but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace will no

12:51 longer be grace. In other words, you cannot have a little bit of grace and a little bit of works. They are mutually exclusive as the basis of salvation. If it comes to Christian salvation, it is purely by the grace of God. And we abandon ourselves to this grace, yielded to this grace. If there is anything of works in the ground of your justification, it is no longer grace. It becomes a transaction. You did it and therefore got it. It is no longer grace. And Apostle Paul also gives us the reason God designed it in this way, so that no one may boast. You can find it still in Ephesians 2 and 9. If you can boast about your standing with God, then it is no longer grace.

13:38 Yes, God is zealous for his own glory. And in the matter of salvation, he has arranged it so that all the glory belongs to him and none to us. There will be no one in heaven saying, I help with my salvation. Every redeemed soul will point entirely to the grace of God in Christ Jesus. We all will point to the cross and say, this is the reason why I got saved. This is the reason why I got redeemed. Heaven will be one long hour of worship from people who know exactly what they were rescued from and exactly who rescued them. We were rescued from our sin and our fault and it was entirely by the Lord Jesus Christ, by God. Now, someone watching this might be thinking, if it is

14:23 all grace, if works contribute nothing to salvation, does that mean how I live doesn't matter? That is exactly the right question. And Paul answers it immediately in verse 10. He says, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before our hand that we should work in them. We are not saved by good works. We are absolutely saved for good works. The direction is everything. We are God's masterpiece. In salvation, he recreates us so we will be able to live well The way translated workmanship is the Greek word poema. It is the word from which we get poem. It speaks of a crafted work, a masterpiece, something made with intention and artistry. You are God's

15:13 poem. You are the handiwork of the divine craftsman. The redeemed person is not a half-finished project. They are the completed work of the one who makes all things new. And this poem is created in Christ Jesus for good works. Good works are the purpose of the new creations. not the price of it. You do not work to end what you already have. You work because of what you already are. Here's the practical difference grace makes in daily obedience. If you are trying to be holy to end God's acceptance, every struggle is a crisis. You are a servant who lives in fear of being dismissed. But if you are holy because you have already been accepted, If your obedience flows from a position of grace already freely given, then you are

15:59 an adopted child who serves out of love and of gratitude, out of a desire to honor the Father. They are not the same. The first person obeys to survive. The second person obeys to worship. That is the difference grace makes. And notice one more thing in the verse 10. God prepared these works beforehand. Even your faithfulness, even your obedience is something God has prepared and now He empowers it. Does grace mean we can live in sin? Now listen carefully. This is where balance is needed. Some hear grace and conclude, I can live anyhow. That is deception. Romans 6, 1-2 says, Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. True grace does not just save you, it transforms you. That's what we were talking

16:46 about yesterday. Titus 2, 11-12 says, For the grace of God has appeared, trading us to renounce ungodliness. Grace is not alliances to sin. Grace is the power to live holy and to live for God. If your faith does not produce transformation, it is not saving faith. That was what I was talking about earlier. If your faith does not produce transformation, that is not saving faith. That is a very defective faith. The evidence of true faith is that you are not saved by works, but you are saved unto good works. Ephesians 2, 10 says, for we have his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Works are not the root of salvation. They are actually the fruit. So we must ask ourselves, has your life changed

17:34 since you received the gospel? Do you hate sin now? Do you hunger for righteousness? Because if this faith you have is genuine, that receives the grace of God, genuine salvation will produce obedience. It will produce transformation. It will produce perseverance. Let's look at the danger of false assurance. Many people say, I am saved by grace through faith, but their lives contradict Christ. This is said in Matthew 7, 21. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Facts. So this teaching is not to comfort the careless. It is to awaken the sincere. Understanding that you are saved by grace through faith is to help you examine yourself. If you are sincere, you can tell whether you have true assurance or not. 2

18:21 Corinthians 13, 5 says, examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. This is what it means to be saved by grace through faith. God bless you. God willing, tomorrow we will look at what it means to be born again or the new birth or what it means to be regenerated. I'll see you. Shalom.