.png)
There is no greater good than telling people what grace is, what it does, and why people need God’s grace.
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.
What is grace and why do we need to talk about God’s grace on Christmas? What if I told you that the Christmas story is the story of God’s grace and that most people celebrate Christmas without considering God’s grace, the first cause behind Christmas?
Last week, an online article caught my attention because of its title, “Graceful Atheist.” A man who did not believe in God claimed to have this magnificent attribute of God’s character, His grace. He argued that humans do not need God to experience and exercise grace. He said that we need each other and each other is all we need and proposed a secular grace which he defined as a proactive acceptance, love and caring for our fellow human beings.
The problem is that the secular grace of acceptance, love, and caring for fellow human beings sounds wonderful but practically, is impossible without God’s grace because of sin. People need to know that all humans are born with a sinful nature and are incapable of unconditional, selfless, and pure acceptance, love, and caring for fellow human beings.
On this week of Christmas, rather than recounting the story of Christmas, I wanted us to understand the first cause behind the Christmas story, God’s grace, which was outlined by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:8-10.
The big idea is that it is meaningless to celebrate Christmas unless we understand God’s grace. As we continue our verse-by-verse study of the book of Ephesians, Ephesians 2:8-10 outlines three truths about God’s grace.
The Message of Grace
Ephesians 2:8 starts, “For by grace you have been saved.”
What is God’s Grace?
God’s grace is one of the most powerful truths of the Christian faith. It is the basis of God's first act to save humanity, who are completely dead in its trespasses and sins. We read that in Ephesians 2:1-2, “1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, 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—”.
I added “completely” because, primarily, all religions and philosophies focus on man’s works to be good and do good to make the world a better place, but not in Christianity. Even though some so-called branches of Christianity also got the message of grace wrong and turned it into a religion, grace sets Christianity apart from any other religion or philosophy because grace proceeds from God as the first divine act to save humanity.
When the world and its religious systems examine the condition of man, they say that there is hope, that we can save humanity by being good and doing good. After the fall in Eden, when God looked at the human condition and the world, He said you are dead in your trespasses and sins.
If sin was a sickness, we could have tried something, but unlike degrees of sickness, it wasn’t that we were a little dead or more. We were completely dead, and there was only one treatment for the dead: resurrection— and only God can resurrect the dead.
This is why Ephesians 2:5, says we were made alive together with Christ and verse 8 explains how and why we were made alive and states “…by grace you have been saved.” The Greek word for grace in verse 8 is charis, which is God’s unmerited favor toward unworthy people and God’s unconditional love toward undeserving people. The message of the grace of God is that you can neither do anything good or bad to deserve it nor do anything to be worthy to be saved.
This grace, the unmerited and undeserving favor, was the first cause behind the story of Christmas in which God took on flesh, Jesus, to pay for our sins to defeat death and offer eternal life.
Did Mary and Joseph, the human parents of Jesus, know this? Yes, absolutely. In Luke 1:28, an angel came to Mary and said, “Greeting, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” The Greek root word here for “favor” is the same as in Ephesians 2:8, charis, which means grace. Then, the angel explained what this grace meant. In Luke 1:35 he said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” In this one verse, we witness the grace of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The triune God extended grace to the world on Christmas as the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, embodied God’s grace on Christmas. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
What Does Grace Do?
Again, looking a Ephesians 2:8, it says, “by grace you have been saved.” That’s what grace does— it saves us. The whole purpose of God’s grace on Christmas was to save humanity. This is what the angel told Joseph. In Matthew 1:20-21 he said, “20 Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” The prerequisite for Christmas, the birth of Jesus, was the suffering of God’s Son. He was born to die on the cross to offer forgiveness and to make it possible for humanity to receive eternal life. That is the amazing grace of God on Christmas that most people don’t know.
Why Do We Need It?
The context of Ephesians 2:1-3 says we were dead in our trespasses and sins and were by nature children of wrath. Verses 4-8 declares the solution, “4 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, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and 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. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,”
Three times grace is mentioned here: first in verse 5, then in verse 7, and now in verse 8. It is the third time that we hear the clear gospel, the good news that we are saved by grace through faith and not by anything we can or cannot do or say to earn it. This disqualifies Christianity from being a religion because there is nothing man can do or not do to be saved. It is all by God’s grace.
I was listening to a Muslim preacher who told his congregation that the idea of grace in Christianity is ridiculous because all you need is grace. I do not blame the Muslim preacher, if Christians do not understand fully what grace is, what it does, and why we need it, how can we expect a non-believer to understand it, let alone a preacher of a religion?
Application
The rest of verse 8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” Like other gifts, you don’t need to work for it. The gift depends on the will and desire of the giver. God wanted to give us the gift of salvation, and He did so on Christmas.
If you are someone who never understood the gospel before and were following religion, today, if you want to be saved, all you need is faith to receive God’s gift of salvation in Jesus. All you need is to put your faith in Jesus and you will be saved forever.
The Means of Grace
Salvation is through faith as it says in verse 9, “… not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” The means to receive the grace that saves cannot be the result of any works man can perform, including faith itself. Yes, even our faith is God’s gift because otherwise, we will boast that we contributed something to our salvation. You may say, “But, Pastor, I decided to receive Jesus,” or “I invited Jesus into my life.”
But, what was the first cause behind your salvation, God or you? Remember, you were dead in your sins and trespasses, but God made you alive in Christ, God convicted your heart of sin, and God gave you the gift of faith to receive the gift of salvation. You see how it takes away any possibility of boasting of any kind. Even that is God’s doing. We cannot take any credit, not even a little.
The Muslim preacher who mocked the idea of grace in Christianity did so to defend religion and promote religious works, for he serves a religion.
I am not a servant of any religion but of Jesus, so I preach no religion but the relationship with Jesus.
There are only two ideas of salvation: one by grace alone, faith alone, and Christ alone and the other by everything else, whether praying five times and taking the Hajj to Mecca, praying the rosary religiously, purifying in the Ganges or depriving oneself of any material thing.
Application
If you are sick of religion, choose Jesus and His relationship. For that, you must first let go of any desire to earn your way into God’s kingdom.
The Miracle of Grace
Ephesians 2:10 continues, “10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Yes, grace takes away the power from any man or religion that says to be good, do good to earn God’s favor, and yet verse 10 says that God created us in Jesus for good works.
In the original creation, we were created for good works, but when sin entered the Garden of Eden, we lost our relationship with God because sin corrupted our nature. However, God’s grace on Christmas brought the good news that through the death and the resurrection of Christ, we are saved and received a new nature to do good works, which is the miracle of grace.
I was listening to a Hindu teacher who was teaching about earning good karma by doing good works in order to experience rebirth. Essentially, karma says you get what you deserve. God’s grace on Christmas says you get what you don’t deserve, which is God’s forgiveness, and you don’t get what you do deserve, which is God’s just wrath against sin and all sinners.
Application
Show the workmanship of God by doing good works in the world because you are saved. There is no greater good than telling people what grace is, what it does, and why people need God’s grace on Christmas.
As I close, imagine the fear that Mary had to face at a young age when she heard she was given God’s grace that she would bear the Son of God as a virgin, and yet, she said yes. Now, imagine her fear 33 years later as she stood at the feet of her son, Jesus. Imagine her pain when Jesus took the last breath and said, Tetelestai, which in English means “it is finished.” In Greek, it is an action that has been completed in the past with results continuing into the present. What Jesus declared was this: “It was finished in the past, it is still finished in the present, and it will remain finished in the future.” The grace that was announced to Mary before conception and was carried out through crucifixion and resurrection remains available to you.
Action Step
Don’t just celebrate Christmas. Celebrate God’s grace on Christmas, the first cause behind the story of Christmas by sharing the message of God’s grace that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, by sharing the means of grace that no works of man, good or bad can save us but only grace alone, faith alone, and Christ alone can save us, and by sharing the miracle of God’s grace that we have been saved and given a new nature to do good work and not that we do good works to be saved.
Appeal
Stop trying to earn your salvation through works and good deeds, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”
Study Questions
1. What is grace and how is it different from the secular use of the word (v8)?
2. What role do grace and faith play in an individual’s salvation (v8)?
3. Ephesians 2:8 closes with “it is the gift of God.” To what does “it” refer? Does it refer to grace, faith, salvation, or something else?
4. How can work-based salvation be a source of pride (v9)?
Deeper Study Questions
1. Are you saved by grace alone, faith alone, and Christ alone? Do you think you contributed something to your salvation?
2. Discuss applications for Ephesians 2:10.
3. What good works do you do that show Jesus to others?
4. As we celebrate Christmas, how are you planning to show the good works of Christ through your living?.
Read More
Comments