Sermon Series: Ephesians–the Believer's Bank

Salvation Is...Part 2

Ephesians 2:4-9

PSBC 4/16/00

In a nutshell: Not only is salvation an act of God that rescues us from the realm of sin, but it also has some other intricate parts that need to be appreciated–it is done by love; it's work is done for life; with a purpose; through faith, and for good works.

I. Introduction

A. Appreciation

This past week in our staff meeting, Darrin and Greg gave me a gift. It was a gift to demonstrate their appreciation for encouraging them and taking them to the Pastor's Prayer Summit two weeks ago.

I opened the gift, and this is what it was... a Hartz 2 in 1 Flea Collar. The note they attached to it says, "Question: What's the difference between an "Big" Dog and a "Lil" dog? Answer: "Big" dogs have more fleas.

But guys, that's not the only difference. Let me define the word for you... Big Dog–Comes from the Latin Word CANIS BIGGUS. It means, among other things: The one who is in charge; Head honcho; Rises above the competition; Leader of the pack; Committed to attitude; Calls the shots; The lead dog; Born to run; Plays to win; Doesn't need no leash; One who is way up there; The top dog; Stays off the porch; Expects to win; Doesn't fetch; and Thinks big.

Lil dogs like to fetch and they need leashes!

And notice whose wearing the "Big Dog Shirt"!

We have a lot of fun as a staff, together. And even if we joke a lot with each other, and play pranks on each other, we really do appreciate each other.

B. God

Rufus Jones, a Quaker philosopher and teacher in the earlier 1900's, was a man who gave his life to the pursuit of knowing God better and deeper. He makes a very perceptive statement in one of his books, about appreciation of God...

God ... can be received only through appreciation and conscious appropriation. He comes only through doors that are "purposely" opened for him. A person may live as near to God as the bubble is to the ocean and yet not find him. He may be "closer than breathing, nearer than hands or feet," and still be missed. -- Rufus M. Jones in The Double Search

Well, what Pastor Darrin started two weeks ago, and what we are examining tonight, then what we'll be looking at on the first Sunday night in May, is purposefully opening the doors of understanding (Jones' words) so we will truly appreciate this wonderful thing that belongs to anyone who follows Jesus Christ as the forgiver of their sins and the leader of their life–this thing we call salvation.

C. Last Week

The apostle Paul opens these doors of understanding for us in the first 10 verses of Ephesians chapter 2, where he lists out some of the intricacies of this salvation. And that's where we'll continue to focus our thoughts tonight. Please turn to Ephesians 2, in your Bibles right now.

Two weeks ago, Pastor Darrin began looking at the intricacies of salvation listed in this section, by taking us through the first three verses of chapter two. And he focused our thoughts on the intricacy of the fact that SALVATION IS FROM SIN.

D. Transition

Now, this week, we are going to look at four more of the intricacies of salvation. These are listed in verses 4-9.

II. 4 More Intricacies of Salvation

A. Accomplished by Love

Ephesians 2:4
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

The New American Standard version gets even closer to the original Greek construction when it says...

Eph 2:4
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, (NASB)

In other words, God's mercy is richly given to us, because He loves us so much.

But terms–mercy and love–are just nice Bible words, unless the eyes of our hearts and emotions can see what this is talking about. Let me try to open those eyes for you. Last summer I shared this illustration with you, but I think it bears repeating...

1. 60 Minutes Story

Illustration: About 18 months ago, the TV program 60 Minutes., told an incredible story. The story they featured was about three high school young men, who took advantage of the drunken 16 year old girl friend of one of the boys, raped her, then brutally killed her, and finally dumped her body off a bridge somewhere in an adjoining county. All that was done so the girl couldn't bring an accusation of rape against any of the three young men.

One young man was a high school football captain, another was from one of the wealthiest families in town, and the third was a perpetual troublemaker in school and the town's society in general.

The boys made up a believable story, and would have gotten away with the murder, had it not been for the high school athlete who finally decided that instead of covering things up, he had to come forward and tell the truth. So, going against the advice of his lawyer, he told the truth in court, about what happened that night. And even though he hadn't pulled the trigger, he admitted that he stood by and participated in the rape and let the murder happen. His testimony convicted himself and the other two boys, who are all now serving prison terms in Texas, where this all took place.

That young man who confessed, will spend the better part of his adult life in prison for what he did that night and what he allowed to happen that night to his 16 year old girl friend. But someday he'll be released, and the state will say that he paid his debt to society. But the fact remains that there is no way he could ever pay the debt to the grieving parents for the daughter who was killed. That bondage will go on forever.... Unless... and that is why I think 60 Minutes picked up this story... Unless something out of the ordinary happens.

You see, the incredible thing in this troubling and gruesome case was that the boy who confessed, asked to meet with the parents of the girl who had been murdered, after his conviction. And when he did, he asked their forgiveness. And unbelievable as it may sound, the parents showed him mercy and granted him that forgiveness.

They did what the prison system will never do for that young man. They–the people who were injured in this situation the most–reconciled with that boy–they mended the tear in their relationship with him. They even promised to pray for him and visit him while he was in prison.

Now, I can remember, as I watched that program, that I realized that no matter how much that young man wanted to be forgiven or have his relationship with the family of his girlfriend restored, he couldn't do it.

That's because... Only the person who has been offended can offer forgiveness; and only forgiveness can bring a mending to the tear in a relationship–we call that, reconciliation–putting things back the way they were.

2. That's what God does

And what Paul is saying here in verse 4, about salvation, is that even though our sin greatly offended God, it dishonored His name, and caused an alienation from Him ... because of God's rich mercy and His great love, He offers forgiveness and reconciliation to every repentant sinner.

God's mercy and love found a way for sinful you and sinful me to be reconciled to Him. It was at great cost to God. A greater cost than just saying, "I forgive you and promise to visit you in prison." It cost him the life of His Son. That's why Jesus' words have such meaning in...

John 15:13
13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

They have meaning because Jesus knew what He was talking about first hand. Jesus Christ's compassionate love for those who don't deserve it, makes salvation possible. Salvation is accomplished by love.

B. To Make Us Alive

Ephesians 2:5
5 (God) made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions– it is by grace you have been saved.

Now, here's a second intricacy I want you to see tonight: Salvation ...makes us alive.

Illustration: That great preacher, Dwight L. Moody once said, "Some day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead. Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher, that is all-out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal; a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto his glorious body. I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever."

Now, listen friends, Moody wasn't talking about something that is still to come–the resurrection at the end of time. He actually meant he would survive his own death. In fact, he wasn't going to ever be dead. There would be no lag time–no down time between life on earth and life in heaven.

What Paul is telling us in verse 5, is that when you have salvation through Jesus Christ, you will not die–you will live forever–don't miss the impact of that significant statement of that phrase–"Made us alive with Christ."

What Paul concretely means is that when these bodies of clay... that house our souls..., wear out...; The part of us that is designed to live for eternity–our soul, instantaneously, without missing a heartbeat, goes to be with God in heaven...

That's what Jesus meant when He said these incredible words in...

John 8:51
51 I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death."

And the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to write along these same lines...

1 Corinthians 15:55-57
55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Bodily death is no big deal to people who have salvation, like it is to people who don't have salvation. When life is done on earth's streets of dirt, it immediately begins on heaven's streets of gold, for a person who has salvation in Jesus Christ.

So, another intricacy of Salvation is it is designed... to make us alive.

C. For a Purpose

Ephesians 2:6-7
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Here's the next intricacy of our salvation... Salvation is for a purpose.

1. Tomato Farming

Illustration: One of the crops that my dad and brother raise on the farm are tomatoes. I can remember about 20 years ago my dad came out to Central California to see some of the newest innovations for harvesting tomatoes . You see, the farmers in Central California that he visited were growing more tomatoes per acre than anyone ever had in the history of farming. But they had one problem.

They had to figure out a way to get their beautiful and tasty tomatoes into the salad bowls of Chicago and on the sandwiches served in the deli's of New York–un-bruised. Because even a beautiful and tasty bruised tomato, in the hands of tomato buyers, is just an undesirable bruised tomato.

So these Central California farmers set agrarian-technology to work. And they accomplished three marvelous things:

1-First, they got a machine to pick the tomatoes while they were still yellow but very firm.
2-Then they put the tomatoes on an assembly belt, passed them under a certain kind of light for seven seconds, and the tomatoes turned a rosy pink color, almost red.
3-Finally they devised a packaging system that was so good that you could put a dozen tomatoes in one of their Styrofoam crates, and lift it twenty feet high above solid concrete; and also take a bumper from a Chevy pickup truck, and lift it twenty feet high above solid concrete, drop them both, and the bumper would come off worse than any one of those tomatoes.

Agrarian-technology had conquered. So, that's what my dad went out to see. But everyone soon discovered that there was one major problem. While the farmers solved their problem, they also forgot their purpose.

You see, these new tomatoes that the chef sliced into his salad in Chicago and the sandwich maker in New York, sliced on his sandwiches, didn't taste the way a tomato was supposed to taste.

And the tomato industry in Central California suffered greatly for several years because in solving their problems, they forgot their original purpose– to get good tasting tomatoes on to the plates of consumers.

2. Culture Today

One of the sad characteristics of our culture today is a lack of real purpose.

In fact our Vice President, Al Gore, recently said...

The accumulation of material goods is at an all time high, but so is the number of people who feel an emptiness in their lives."

But salvation allows us to do more than just merely exist in the emptiness of life, doing the things every other person is doing–making money or getting educated or designing or engineering or managing or computing or figuring or giving care, or pursung hobbies.

Salvation gives us the opportunity to reflect the light of Jesus Christ into a dark, dark world. Salvation is...for a purpose–the purpose is to let the light of Jesus shine through you into a dark world through all those activities you do.

That's why that verse over the entrance to our sanctuary is such a key truth that we need to remind ourselves of every week "Send out your Thy light and Thy truth." (Ps. 43:3). It reminds us of our purpose–Jesus said, "You are the light of the world." Our purpose is to dispel darkness by being light where there is darkness.

But that purpose only exists if we have salvation in Jesus Christ. Without salvation, people are just "harvesting tomatoes without taste".

So, because of salvation, we have purpose–TO SHARE GOD'S TRUTH AND TO BE HIS LIGHT!

D. Given by Grace

The final intricacy about our salvation that I want you to see tonight is in verses 8-9

Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–
9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

These verses tell us that another intricacy of salvation is...that it is through faith.

Illustration: Gladys Aylward (ale-ward), was a missionary to China more than sixty years ago. Her missionary work was concentrated on an orphanage. At one point during that time, she was forced to flee the part of China where she was living, because the Japanese were invading. But she couldn't leave her work behind–the 100 children she was caring for. So, with only one assistant, she led those one hundred orphans over the mountains and through the jungles toward what was known as Free China.

As she journeyed through the rough terrain, and grueling weather, trying to keep the children together, and safe, while maintaining her own sanity, Gladys grappled with despair like she had never grappled with it before. After one sleepless night, she looked out at yet another day of hardship and pain, and no hope of reaching safety.

Then a 13-year-old girl in the group seeing her leader's distress, reminded her of one of their most-loved Bible stories–the story of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.

"But I am not Moses," Gladys cried in desperation. "Of course you aren't," the girl said, "but Jehovah is still God!"

Well, the story ends when Gladys and the orphans made it through to Free China.

They proved this fourth very important intricacy of our salvation. No matter how inadequate we feel, God is still God. And because we have salvation, we can trust in Him, He will never leave us, and He always cares for us. That is the essence of faith!

III. Conclusion

So there they are... four more things–intricately wonderful possessions–that are in the bank account of your life. They belong to you, if you are a man or woman who has salvation through Jesus Christ...

1. Your salvation is accomplished by love;
2. That salvation makes you alive, eternally;
3. It gives you purpose; and
4. You have someone trustworthy and never changing in which to put your faith.

Illustration: Patrick Henry, a distinguished statesman from Virginia, and the man who said those immortal words, "Give me liberty, or give me death..." was a well-to-do man. Before he died, he left a will in which he left all of his material wealth to his children. However, Mr. Henry concluded his will with these thought provoking words:

"There is one more thing I wish I could leave you all -- the salvation of Jesus Christ. With this, though you had nothing else, you could be happy. Without this, though you had all things, you could NEVER be happy!"

Do you have it?
Amen.