First Presbyterian Church                                                                 Rev. Michael J. Imperiale

Salt Lake City, Utah                                                                         July 23, 2006

                                                                 “Saved by Grace through Faith”

                                                                          Ephesians 2: 1-10

Introduction

Rescue, Restore, Rejoice. This is God’s gracious mission toward us human beings. The whole reason for the Christian faith is to discover, accept, and live in the grace of God that we have in Jesus Christ. All week long, our hearts and prayers have gone out for Destiny Norton, the little girl missing from her family and home here in Salt Lake City. I saw the Amber alert on the automated freeway signs and had that sinking feeling of “Oh, no. Not again. I hope, perhaps against hope, that she is okay.”

Which one of us wouldn’t want to delight in the rescue, restoration, and rejoicing of little Destiny and her family? Yet the community response has not been nearly as supportive as it was last time.

Which one of us wouldn’t want to see someone rescued and restored from the tangles of human sin, hurt, disappointment, bondage, or lostness? And yet, we live every day with our own lives or the lives around us that are separated from God, abducted from the family of God, lost in the world of sin, destruction, and death. And when the gospel of “rescue, restore, rejoice” is posted all around town, some people respond, but most either ignore or yawn. Some even criticize and castigate.

Why is the gospel of the free grace of God in Christ so hard for so many to accept? Ephesians 2 has some important things to say to us for our own faith and for the dynamics of participating is God’s gracious mission toward us human beings.

I. Human Conditions Without Christ (vs. 1-3)

One reason why most people don’t respond to Christ is that they don’t know that they’re lost. They don’t know that they’re dead. “I see dead people” was the famous line from the hit movie Sixth Sense a few years ago. Lots of jokes swirled around about ones workplace, teachers at school, government workers. “I see dead people; they’re all working for my boss” etc. Well to tell you the truth, as a Christian who has been made alive by the Spirit of God, you also can walk around in this world and see dead people.

Paul put it this way. “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. You were mired in that old stagnant life. You followed the ways of this world and the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. We all gratified the cravings of our sinful nature, following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, all of us were by nature objects of wrath.”

No one likes to be told that they are sinful or realize that they are dead. But it is an important step in becoming or being a Christian. We need to be rescued. A flippant teen asked the pastor, “You said that unsaved people carry the weight of sin. I don’t feel anything. How heavy is sin? Ten pounds? Eighty pounds?” The pastor replied. “If you had a 400 pound weight on a corpse, would it feel the load?I wouldn’t feel anything because it’s dead. The person who feels no load of sin or is indifferent to its burden or flippant about its presence also is dead. Spiritually dead.”

A country preacher put it this way. “The very animals whose smell is most offensive to us have no idea that they’re offensive, and are not offensive to one another. We human beings, fallen and sinful as we are, just have no idea how offensive sin is in the sight of God.”

This human nature has not changed as the bible of two thousand years ago describes present day people right on target. We still have greed, anger, and slander. We still deal with jealousy, envy, and selfish ambition. The papers are filled with discord, dissension, and factions. Lust, sexual immorality, and adultery still plague our relationships. Hatred, rage, and murder still marks our planet. Galatians 5 and Colossians 3 list enough evidence to convict any one of us.

Years ago, correspondent for the London Times reporting on many of the same problems we have today, ended every article with the statement: “What’s wrong with the world?” G.K. Chesterton once wrote an apt reply: “Dear editor: What’s wrong with the world? I am. Faithfully yours, G.K. Chesterton.”

The fact that all people, without exception, commit sin proves that without Christ we have a sinful nature. We are in sin and cannot save ourselves. “We were dead in our transgressions and sins.”           

II. Life in Christ (vs. 4-9)

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ… It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”

None of us knows how Elizabeth Smartt is doing after her difficult ordeal a few years ago. But she often shows the poise and promise of a life Rescued, Restored, Rejoicing. When her name comes to mind again as it has this week, continue to pray for her health, healing, life, and growth just as we pray for Destiny Norton and her recovery.

This great passage from God’s Word emphasized how we do not need to live under sin’s power anymore. The penalty and its power over us has been destroyed by Jesus Christ on the Cross. Through faith in him and in what he has done for us we stand acquitted, or not guilty before God.

Here is the gift of salvation and our true identity in Christ. We are justified. No condemnation awaits us. We are set free from the law of sin and death. We are sanctified and made acceptable in Christ. We will be made alive at the resurrection. We are a new creation, the old has passed, the new has come. We are adopted as God’s children. Our sins are taken away and we are forgiven. We have been brought near to God sharing in the promise of Christ. We will share in an eternal glory. All this is the gift of God – saved by grace through faith.

Our word salvation comes from the Latin salvare to save and salus for health and help. Cure, recovery, remedy, welfare all mean deliverance or preservation from danger or disease implying safety and wellbeing. The movement in scripture includes both physical and spiritual aspects. The Bible gives an unfolding account from creation to fall to the history of Israel in the Old Testament to Jesus and the church in the New Testament of how God provides the basis for salvation, presents it, and is himself our salvation in Christ.

Jesus said that he came to seek and to save the lost. But faith in Jesus requires a contrite heart (a recognition of our helpless state), childlike receiving of God’s love in Christ (a simple trust), and a renunciation of the world’s claims on us (a repentance turning away from self and toward the Lord). This salvation is provided as a free gift of the righteous God acting in grace toward the undeserving sinner who, by the gift of faith, trusts the righteousness of Christ who has redeemed us by his death and justified us by his resurrection.

Salvation in Jesus Christ fulfills the history, the promises, the plan of God told throughout the whole Bible. By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, you and I are recipients of God’s redemptive plan: Rescue, Restore, Rejoice.

Conclusion

I stand before you with the testimony of God’s Word and with the testimony of my life. By faith in Jesus Christ, I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. I hope you can say the same. Jesus died for my sins and rose again for my life. I am already redeemed, I am already reconciled, I am fully forgiven in Christ.

God’s grace is also operative in the present, every day of my life. There is a need for the working out of my salvation in all my relationships: in my family, in the church, in the world around me. Faith is a continuous process of trusting and relying on my Savior to make the difference for good in my life.

And God’s grace will be finally and fully complete in the future. As a believer, I am saved with hope, appointed to receive eternal life, ready to be revealed in the last time. Indeed, this salvation is “nearer than when we first believed” (I Peter 1:5).

If this describes your salvation and relationship with Christ, Rejoice! If this is a salvation you want to know, receive and experience, let’s pray to God together.

“Dear God,

I hear that you are the Creator of all things. You are the one then who gave me life. There is so much about this life that I love and enjoy. The things I like to do, the people I love and who love me, the wonder of being human.

And yet I also hear about my sinful nature and the way I constantly fall short of your desire for life. I have run headlong into things like greed and anger, sexual immorality and impurity, discord and jealousy, cheating and deception. I know the list is long and insurmountable. I am sorry for all I’ve done to rebel against you and to hurt others in my life.

Today I hear that somehow, amazingly, you still love me, care for me, and want to save, reclaim, and redeem me. I need to be rescued and restored. So, dear Jesus, I thank you for giving yourself for me, for forgiving my sins on your cross. I want to turn away from that old life and receive the new life you offer. Jesus, come into my life as my Savior and Lord. Fill my mind and heart with your will and ways. For they are good. Set me on that path of life that will be best for all my days to come. May they direct me toward your kingdom today and forever. Amen.