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Grace A L O N E. TITLE: I’m Okay- but I am not so sure about you. TEXT: Ephesians 2:8-9 THEME: The believer should trust in Christ alone for salvation. Moralism: If my good works exceed my bad on a scale of balances I will get into heaven.
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TITLE: I’m Okay- but I am not so sure about you. • TEXT: Ephesians 2:8-9 • THEME: The believer should trust in Christ alone for salvation. • Moralism: If my good works exceed my bad on a scale of balances I will get into heaven.
Haddon Robinson Biblical Preaching (Baker Academic, 2001), p. 100 “The law can prompt us to sin. I am told that several years ago a high-rise hotel was built in Galveston, Texas, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, they sank pilings into the gulf and built the structure out over the water.
Haddon Robinson Biblical Preaching (Baker Academic, 2001), p. 100 When the hotel was about to have its grand opening, someone thought, What if people decide to fish out the hotel windows? So they placed signs in the hotel rooms, "No fishing out the hotel windows." Many people ignored the signs, however, and it created a difficult problem.
Haddon Robinson Biblical Preaching (Baker Academic, 2001), p. 100 Lines got snarled. People in the dining room saw fish flapping against the picture windows. The manager of the hotel solved it all by taking down those little signs. No one checks into a hotel room thinking about fishing out of the windows. The law, although well-intentioned, created the problem.”
National Study of Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina
Teens' beliefs: (1) A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on Earth. (2) God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. (3) The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself. (4) God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem. (5) Good people go to heaven when they die.
Gene Edward Veith • "Even these secular researchers recognized that this creed is a far cry from Christianity, with no place for sin, judgment, salvation, or Christ. Instead, most teenagers believe in a combination of works righteousness, religion as psychological well-being, and a distant, non-interfering god. Or, to use a technical term, "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism."
Ted Turner “I don't want anybody to die for me. I've had a few drinks and a few girl friends. If that's going to put me in hell, then so be it.” 1993 issue of USA
Ephesians 2:8-10 • “8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
I. Because salvation by grace alone. • The word for grace in the Greek is “charis” ( This word shares the same root as the Greek word for gift, which is, “charisma” (carisma) Paul is making it clear- salvation is a gift, it is not something we earn or deserve, it is given with merit on our part.
Ephesians 2:4-7 “4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus”
Moralism • “..Moralism can be defined as an attempt to appease God's wrath toward sin with our good deeds. It is an enemy of the gospel because, at best, it says that salvation = Jesus + my moral effort. At worst it ignores Jesus' atoning work altogether. In Moralism we give God our moral record and demand that he bless us because of our compliance with God's law.”
Luke 18:9-14 “ 9To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed abouthimself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
Luke 18:9-14 13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
Luke 18:9-14 14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
The Moralist • The Moralist compares himself to others.
The Moralist • The Moralist compares himself to others. • The moralist sees himself as superior to others.
The Moralist • The Moralist compares himself to others. • The moralist sees himself as superior to others. • The moralist trusts in his own efforts.
Romans 7:14-23 “14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.”
Romans 7:14-23 “18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Romans 7:14-23 “ 21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.”
III. Because we are God’s workmanship the glory of our good works belongs to God.
Ephesians 2:10 “10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Philippians 2 “12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”
Philippians 2 Paul is saying we should reveal to others the salvation that is within us. Don’t be a closest Christian. It is God who works within us to will and act according to his good purpose.
Hymn: Have Thine Own Way • Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way • You are the potter, I am the clay • Mold and make me after your will • While I am waiting, yielded and still.
God did not say, “be good and I will save you.” He said, “I have saved you, therefore, be good.”
APPLICATION: • Don’t be deceived in thinking that you can save yourself. The standard you must achieve is perfection. Only one man, Jesus Christ, has achieved that.
APPLICATION: • Thank God daily for his free gift of salvation. Serve Him out of love and gratitude.
APPLICATION: • Let yourself be molded and shaped by God to form you into the beautiful vessel he wants you to be so that you make be an example of his remarkable handiwork in your life.
"Make us put you on the team." "Inside Rookie Minicamp (pt. 1), July 6, 2010," www.ChicagoBears.com (viewed 7-8-10)
The counterintuitive truth is that God works on a completely different basis than football coaches do. People who think they can perform so well that they can make God add them to heaven's roster because they are so deserving of it will be rejected. This is the idea of salvation by works, and it is the opposite of salvation by grace. God saves us by his grace and his grace alone, through faith in Jesus Christ.
