We Are in Celebration Mode Here at North Park Church. We Are Celebrating a Work of God

Ephesians 2:9a 10-22-17

Not of Works

We are in celebration mode here at North Park Church. We are celebrating a work of God from 500 years ago, but one that didn’t just burn brightly and fizzle. The Reformation of the church which was led by Martin Luther and John Calvin made a lasting difference. God knows we need revival now, but revival never does lasting good where there is not a foundation of truth. Greg Asimakoupoulos says that when we teach we are laying the logs of truth in the fireplace of Christian community so that when the Holy Spirit ignites a flame of faith, there is something to sustain a fire.” Did you get that? That was well-put. Listen to it again. We are laying the logs of truth in the fireplace of Christian community so that when the Holy Spirit ignites a flame of faith, there is something to sustain a fire.It is possible to have truth without passion, and that is no good. But if you have passion without truth it soon fizzles and fades. Thankfully the Reformation, which was an admittedly complicated historical development, was in large measure a revival brought by the Spirit of God that was rooted in a concern for truth and it has lasted, thank God, to our day. So, we are celebrating it by taking three Sundays to focus on themes of the Reformation, three of which are found in Ephesians 2:8-10. So we are focusing on these great verses. Last Sunday we looked at verse 8 and saw that salvation from sin, rightly understood is a work of God’s grace that is accessed by faith in the person and work of Jesus. Our text this morning will be the first half of the ninth verse of the second chapter, as we continue our examination of a portion of Scripture that addresses just about the most critical question a man or woman could ever ask - namely, the question of how one may be saved from the curse and penalty of sin and get into a right relationship with God. I know this may be a hard question for you to think about. Our shallow society accustoms us to thoughts about how to dress for success, pick up girls and trim those thighs. So, it is understandable that we may find thoughts about God, sin and eternity rather difficult. But I am hopeful that you can follow our study carefully to learn some amazing, maybe even life-changing truth.

Ephesians 2:8-10For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as 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 so that we would walk in them. Fourteen days ago we looked at this magnificent concept presented in verse 8. We saw that salvation comes to us by the grace, the undeserved, unearned favor of God. We saw that God saves us by grace through the gift of faith, which is not anything we can contrive but is also purely the provision of divine grace. We continue today in our progression through the passage and come to verse 9 which contains what we call a qualifying or clarifying negative. In verse 8 the apostle says that salvation is by grace. It is totally a gift of God, and in Verse 9 he further clarifies that positive assertion with a qualifying negative statement 9Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.Do you see why I call this a qualifying or clarifying negative? It is framed in the negative. It tells you what is not meant, and it serves to clarify in case there could be any confusion. For example, if you are a dad you might give your son a directive. You might say,“You may take a break from school and play on the computer. But I want you back in your room doing math by ten o’clock.” And then you add the qualifier. “I do not mean by 10:01. Understand?” Ever had someone speak to you like that? Sure you have. They tell you what they mean and then to drive it home they tell you what they don’t mean. Why would that be important for a parent to do in a situation like I described? It is important in order to set down very clear parameters for behavior. Every parent has, by experience, learned how a child can stretch a directive or a permission to the furthest reaches of its possible interpretations. In a situation like I describe, more often than not, the child will take you to mean he has until around 10 O’clock and so he will mosey into the room to do his schoolwork at about 10:17. But the qualifying negative eliminates any possible excuse or misinterpretation doesn’t it? That is exactly why Paul puts forth his clarifying negative in verse 9. He wants to see to it that nobody could misconstrue what he was saying. He wanted to make this point extremely, unmistakably lucid. Why? Because he knew how deeply imbedded there is in the proud, fallen human heart the notion of merit as opposed to grace. There is something in us that feels we must earn what comes to us, that we must work for it, and deserve it. Our pride finds the notion of grace very unappealing. We are always looking for a way to get credit for ourselves, to stroke our own egos. But Paul knew that and took pains in our text to exclude that possibility. He did the same thing in Romans 3 where he had just been teaching that Christians are justified by faith in Jesus. 27-28aWhere then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith. That should be clear enough. How are we justified? By faith. But in case you might want to add some works to the faith he goes on to say 28We maintain that a man is justified by faithapart from works of the Law. That is just like what we find in our text in Ephesians. A positive assertion. “Saved by grace thru faith.” The clarifying negative,“Not from works.”

Do you remember ever seeing a movie about the Civil War days by the name of Shenandoah? It is a pretty old film that stars Jimmy Stewart as the widowed patriarch of a large family of young men. And the opening scene of that movie pictures the large family gathered at this huge supper table with Jimmy Stewart at the head, and Jimmy is praying, “O Lord, we went out and tilled the soil, and we planted the seed, and we fought off the pests, and we harvested the crop, and we prepared it and we served it, and even though we did all these things we pause now to thank you because we know that’s what mamma would want. Amen.”That prayer expresses how most of us tend to think. We may thank God outwardly because that is what looks good, but we tend to think that we deserve the good things we get. But the apostle, in our passage, takes pains to make sure there will be no confusion like that in matters of salvation. When it comes to farming we may be co-workers with God, but when it comes to our pardon from sin, our reconciliation to God, everything is by grace, everything is a gift. And what do our works have to do with it? Nothing. Nothing. Why? That no one should boast.

In Ephesians 2:8 you have this diamond of the gospel, this precious statement of how we are saved. By grace, thru faith. That is a truth so precious to God’s children, and so hated by the devil that Paul, by the Spirit of God, decides to place guards around it. His next three statements are like sentries stationed around the word of grace to protect it, first of all, from anyone who would make the exercise of faith a ground for boasting. So he says, “That not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Then the apostle protects it from the legalist who would add to saving faith some kind of human work. 9Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.Then the apostle places verse 10 around the gospel to protect it from antinomians who claim that since salvation is by grace that works are unimportant. Do you see how these three verses hang together? It is really a wonderful thing to behold. And oh so critical to understand.

Today we seek to understand the danger Paul guards against in verse 9. It is the poison of legalism. The poison of mixing with the gospel something of human performance and merit. You see, there is a constant tendency among us and in us to corrupt the pure river of grace with the polluted streams of human works. This is what happened in a colossal way prior to the coming of Christ and it has happened in a colossal way since the coming of Christ as well. It is an ever present danger. There is nothing that men or mankind need more than that pure river of gospel truth. And so we must dam up that foul stream of human works or risk being damned ourselves.

This is important business so learn with me. There have been and still are two distinct streams of human works that have intermingled with and polluted the river of grace. We will look at each separately today, beginning with the stream of ceremonial works. By “ceremonial works” I mean those external acts and rituals that are connected with the practice of religion. The Old Testament included many such works. There were sacrifices and feast days. There were tithes and there was circumcision. These were good things. These were things that were commanded by God. They were part of the Old Testament administration of God’s covenant but they became a source of confusion for many, as so many came to place their trust, their confidence, their standing with God on these external rituals. You can see the spirit to which I refer in the story Jesus tells about the proud Pharisee in Luke 18. This man stands proudly in the temple and boasts before God by saying this 12I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get. Now what is the problem here? Was there something wrong with fasting? No. Something wrong with tithing? No. Those were good things. The problem is with his attitude about them. The Pharisee thought that these were the things that made him acceptable to God. Jesus came and said, “No, you guys are missing it.” Paul came later and said the same thing when New Testament Christians were living with similar confusions. And the biggest form they were struggling with in places like Galatia was that of circumcision. 5:2Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Does that mean that if you are circumcised you can’t be a Christian? What would you guys do if I said, “Yes?” New church policy! Does it matter if you have your baby boy circumcised? I’ve been asked that more than once. You can talk to your doctor about that one. With respect to the gospel, Galatians 5:6aIn Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith. Paul was arguing against a mentality that made too much of the sacraments. What he means in verse 2 by receiving circumcision is to trust in that ritual. That was an enormous problem in the days of the prophets of old and the days of Christ and the days of Paul. Is that a problem in our day? Oh yeah. In spite of the obvious efforts of the apostle to make the gospel unmistakably clear and protect the gospel from the pollution of human works, the error of sacramentalism infiltrated the church right from the beginning. By “sacramentalism” I mean the belief in the saving efficacy of church rituals and practices that somehow these religious operations contribute to the acceptance of our souls with God. Look with me at Colossians 2:16No one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. These are all things that belong to the ceremonial aspects of Old Testament religion and look at what Paul says about them 17Things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.He contrasts here the terms “shadow” and “substance.” Think what that means. Your shadow is real isn’t it? When the sun is out we all have one. It’s right there. You can see it on the sidewalk. But does it have any substance, any weight? Can you take your shadow, lean it up against your house and climb on your roof with it? Of course not. But that is exactly what some people try to do with religious sacraments. They take a shadow, and make it a ladder by which they try to climb up to heaven. But it is foolishness. Those shadows may derive from something real and substantive but they are not meant to hold the weight so many religious systems place on them. They do not, cannot, and were never meant to save anybody. Read the writings of Paul and you see how he labored so to make this point clear. Galatians is all about this. Romans covers it too. In Romans 4 he uses Abraham as an example to prove his point. 4:1-2What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.That sounds familiar doesn’t it?3For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” It was a gift.4-10bNow to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 7 “BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED. 8 “BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.” 9 Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, “FAITH WAS CREDITED TO ABRAHAM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” 10 How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? He is asking,“When did Abraham receive this wonderful pardon, this cleansing, this righteousness that made him acceptable before God?” Was it before or after he did the sacramental thing? Was it before or after the religious work? 10cNot while circumcised, but while uncircumcised16abFor this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace.

In the early days of the church, when so many had been Jewish, the problem was with Old Testament sacraments: circumcision most especially. Once that problem was handled and the church became predominantly Gentile the expression of this perverted sacramentalist mindset altered, but the rotten root of it stayed the same. No longer was the concern about Jewish rituals, now it was the Christian ones. It didn’t take very long in church history for baptism to be turned into a ceremonial savior. What the Lord gave to serve as a shadow of the substantial, cleansing work of the Holy Spirit was now treated as a means of salvation. This foul stream polluted and corrupted the Church of Rome. We still see it today, with a slightly different twist in the doctrines of the so-called Churches of Christ. Blinded to the teaching of Paul they go on claiming the saving power of baptismal waters. It’s the old circumcision thing all over again. Likewise, the Lord’s Supper has been misused, and made into some mysterious thing in which the bread and wine magically become the Lord’s physical body and blood. Instead of feeding our souls on Christ by faith, we can do it through the sacraments, via the hands of the priests. What a shame! All Christ said was, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” But men take what God gives as a teacher and use it topollutethe stream of sweet grace with human ritual and ceremony. Why? Why?! All I can figure is that there is something in us that craves for external forms and means. We evangelicals can fall into the same traps with our walking of aisles and raising of hands and quoting of prayers. You see, these are things that say,“If you’ve done it you have it.” The Jew counts on his circumcision, the Orthodox may count on his baptism. What do you count on? May God deliver us from every ounce of this sacramental heresy and make our teaching, our testimony, our confidence completely centered on grace alone, and on faith alone.

Let’s take a deep breath and move now to look briefly at the second stream of gospel-polluting human works. This is the stream of moral works. Here we move our attention away from the ceremonies of God’s law to the central ethics of His word. You think primarily of the Ten Commandments. Universal moral laws. They are good things aren’t they? Wonderful laws. What could be wrong about them? Nothing wrong about them, just as there is nothing wrong about guns. But if you misuse them, if you don’t know the purpose of them you can kill yourself and others. And that is exactly what happens when men and women look to their own good works to make them right with God. When it comes to our justification we have no more to do with moral works than we do with ceremonial works. Romans 3:20By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.That verse speaks to the purpose and intent of God’s moral law. It tells you what the purpose isn’t - namely it is not to serve as the basis of justification. Jesus said that the legal obedience of lost sinners is like the washing of the outside of the cup, like painting the outside of a coffin but inside are dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. The law was not given to secure our pardon or redemption. To use it that way is a misappropriation of a good thing. What does the verse say is a purpose of the law? 20bThrough the Law comes the knowledge of sin. The law serves as a mirror into which we can look and see our own failure, our own sin, and our own need for a Savior. That is what you do with mirrors. But you don’t use them to make yourself a ladder for climbing to heaven. One day a pastor got a call from a very wealthy man who was not a Christian. The man’s wife attended the church but her wealthy husband did not. But on this day the rich man called the pastor and explained to him that he had been diagnosed with a very serious illness and was not given long to live. For the first time he concerned himself with eternal matters and so he asked the pastor a question, “Preacher, if I give a million dollars to the church do you think I will go to heaven when I die?” The pastor thought for a moment and said, “Well, it’s worth a try.” I think that’s funny, but you know it’s not true. Isaiah 55:1“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Footnotes: