Since by Grace, Why Anything Else?

Date: April 28, 2002 – Sunday Morning Sermon
Speaker: George Bailey (during a Gospel Meeting April 28 through May 1, 2002, as the Northeast church of Christ, Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Main Scripture: Ephesians 2:8-10

Ephesians 2, verses 8 and following: “by grace have you been saved through faith, that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”

What is this thing we call “grace”? From a negative point of view, it is not a license to sin, Romans 6:1. God has never given man a license to sin, because sin “separates” us from Him, Isaiah 59:1-2. And grace is not freedom from responsibility. As we mentioned in our Adult Bible Class this morning, Ephesians 2:8 through 10,“by grace” we are “saved through faith,” that not of ourselves, and, that “we are His workmanship.”In Luke 13:24, to enhance the responsibility, the Lord said to “strive to enter in at the strait gate.” That word “strive” is the same that is used when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and in such agony, as mentioned in Luke 23. And it’s the same used in 1 Timothy 6:12. In fact, Paul was playing on words. He said to “fight the good fight.” Actually, he was saying “agonize the agony”—the same word. “I have fought a good fight”—I have “agonized the agony.” So grace isn’t a freedom from responsibility and it doesn’t promote carelessness. Hebrews 2:1, “we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard.” And it doesn’t discredit God’s justice, according to Job 40, verse 8. It doesn’t repeal the judgment day, even though “by grace we are saved through faith, that not of yourselves.” “It is appointed to man once to die, and after that the judgment,” Hebrews 9:27. And grace does not declare a moratorium on punishment of sin. It is still “the wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23. And it is not an amnesty. An amnesty is an intentional overlooking, and God cannot, and will not, intentionally overlook sin. In Habakkuk 1:13, the Bible said He is of too “purer eyes than to behold evil.” Nahum 1:3, He “will not at all acquit the wicked.” And furthermore, grace does not do away with the need for obedience. The Lord willing, tomorrow night [April 29] we are going to talk about obedience, and “why obedience, if by grace we are saved through faith?” [Since By Grace, Why Obedience?]

Well, what is this thing we call grace? We mentioned this morning, by way of introduction, that it is something that cannot be earned, cannot be deserved, and cannot be repaid. Let’s say, for instance, at the conception of a baby God, by grace, gave life. But when a baby is born, he has to inhale and exhale, and eat and exercise. But inhaling and exhaling doesn’t earn the life that God, by grace, gave. The baby doesn’t deserve the life that God, by grace, gave. The baby doesn’t repay the life that God, by grace, gave. But if a child doesn’t do all of these things, he can’t live. Doing these things is simply accepting the grace that God gave on the conditions that He gave it.

Let’s say that a farmer takes his seed. It’s by grace that God put life in that seed. There isn’t anything that farmer could ever do to earn that life, to deserve that life, or to repay that life which God, by grace, gave when He put life in that seed. But if the farmer doesn’t put that seed in the earth and cultivate it, he’s not going to have a crop. There is a certain amount of expense, a certain amount of labor, a certain amount of risk, but none of those in any way earns, deserves, or repays the life that God put in that seed at the beginning.

Well, what about salvation? The Bible said, “by grace have you been saved through faith,” and yet, “without faith, it is impossible to please Him,” Hebrews 11:6.But as great as faith is—as urgent as it is—it doesn’t earn, deserve, or repay salvation. In fact, it is by that faith that we come into that grace,according to Romans 5, verses 1 and 2.

When the Bible said, “except you repent, you will perish,” Luke 13:3 and Luke 13:5, does repentance earn anything? No—we shouldn’t have sinned in the first place! Does it deserve anything? No! The Bible said, “when you have done all” that is “commanded,” still say, “We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do,” [Luke 17:10].

What about confessing the Name of Jesus? If we do, He’ll confess us. If we don’t, He won’t confess us, Matthew 10:32-33. That confession doesn’t earn anything. It doesn’t deserve anything. It doesn’t repay anything.

What about baptism? Why is it that some people think that those who contend that we should be baptized for the remission of sins are earning salvation? There isn’t any way we can earn it, or that we are deserving or repaying. You can’t! And yet He said, “except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom,” John 3:3. Two verses later, “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom.” And then He said, “Marvel not that I said unto you, you must be born again,” John 3, verses 7 and 8. And on Pentecost, the people were told to “repent, and be baptized, for the remission of sins,” Acts 2:38. That means the same that it means in Matthew 26, verses 28 to 30, where the Bible said that Christ’s blood “was shed for the remission of sins.” Whatever the word “for” means in one passage, it means in the other. If it means “because of” the forgiveness of sins” in Acts 2, then it must mean the same over in Matthew 26. Was His blood shed “because of”?—oh NO, but His blood was shed in order that sins might be remitted.

Aren’t you glad the Bible wasn’t written in the English language? We’d be in a mess, wouldn’t we? You see, in English we have words that mean just the opposite. For instance, we say, “A man was put in jail for stealing.” Was he put in jail in order to steal? No—he was put in jail because he did steal. And then we say, “He went to town for a loaf of bread.” Did he go to town because he already had the bread? No—but in order to get it. So you have a word that means two different things. But you see, the Bible wasn’t written like that. In the language in which it was written—probably the most expressive of all languages (and no doubt that’s the reason the Lord gave it in that language)—there is the word that means “for, because of,” and there is the word that means “in order to.” The word that means “in order to” is the word found in Acts 2:38.