Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, March 20th. The Bible makes it clear salvation cannot be earned, and it's not a reward for good conduct. Today's podcast reminds us we're saved only by faith through God's grace. Well, the most comprehensive passage in the Word of God is in Ephesians chapter 2, those first 10 verses. It's all right there in those 10 verses what it's really all about. And so I want you to turn to Ephesians chapter 2, if you will, and let's read those first 10 verses, and Paul begins by saying, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, too, we all also formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you've been saved, raised us up with him, seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you've been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast, but we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them.
Now watch this. When you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, he forgave you, paid your sin debt and full of the cross, wiped away the penalty of your sin. Now you're a child of God.
What did he do? He made you alive. He raised you up out of the life that you have lived and will one day raise you completely and has seated you in the heavenlies. That is, in God, from God's viewpoint, it is a completed action. This is why we have no business living any kind of a life but a holy, godly life. We are temporarily citizens of the USA or wherever you come from. We are permanently citizens of the kingdom of God.
And this is what he's talking about here. Now, how many of us deserve any of that? None of us. The grace of God is the goodness and love and mercy and kindness of God, listen, given to us without merit on our part, without the sense of whether we, whether we deserve it or not.
We are unworthy of it. It is because he loves us and because of his mercy toward us. So listen to what he says. This is who you are, dead in trespasses and sins under the power of Satan, living in transgression, just like the rest of the world, formerly like the rest of the world, but now being rich in mercy. Isn't it wonderful how he says these things? He didn't say just merciful. He says rich in merciful, abounding in merciful, overflowing in mercy, so great a love he loved us.
And so what did he do? Took us, he gave us a brand new life, raised us out of that and set us in the kingdom. Your name and my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. We are already citizens of the kingdom of God. That's what Paul said in Philippians chapter three verse twenty. He says our citizenship is now, he didn't say it would be after you died. He said our citizenship is now in heaven. So the next time somebody says, where do you live?
Ask them, which address do you want? They'll say, well, do you live in two places? Yes, I do.
Watch this. We do live in two places. We live on this earth and we live in the heavenlies. Your hope, your assurance, your eternal life, where are you going to spend eternity? On this earth? If it's a part of heaven, which I think it will be a part of heaven after it's transformed and made like it once originally was, and all its perfection, I think that'll be a part of heaven. But when we think in terms of this earth as it is today, where do we live?
Our citizenship is here and it's there. That's what God says. You say, well now wait a minute now. What you have to ask is do I want God's viewpoint or my viewpoint? I want God's viewpoint. God's viewpoint says that's the way you were. And as a result of my grace, this is what I've done for you.
Now this is how I did it. Listen to what He says, for by grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of work so that no one may boast. Now God has done it all. Remember dead people can't, they can't do anything about themselves.
So it has to be a work outside of them. So here's what He says, He says, so this is the way it happened. He says, my viewpoint is that's who you were.
Here's what I've worked, here's what I've done for you, and this is the way I did it. By grace, by God's goodness and love and mercy and kindness, He sent His only begotten Son Jesus to the cross for the purpose of bearing all of your sin, all of your guilt, all of your punishment, all of your condemnation, placed it upon Him, and then the Father had Him crucified to pay your sin debt and mine in full, the perfect Son of God, the only one who could pay that sin debt. And as a result of that, He flung the doors open to the world that all who would accept His payment will be forgiven of their sin. For by grace you've been saved. Now what is grace? Watch this now, God's goodness and kindness and graciousness to us without merit or without worth and in spite of the fact that we don't deserve it. So it had nothing to do with anything good within you.
Then He makes that very clear. So that's the grace of God. It is something He does for us we couldn't do for ourselves. Now watch this. For by grace you've been saved through faith. That is, your part and my part is one simple thing, response. Somebody says, well, what about confession and repentance?
All right, now watch this. When you genuinely place your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, first of all, you wouldn't do it if you weren't aware you were a sinner. Therefore, you are confessing the fact that you're sinful. And repentance means when you place your life in His hand, you give yourself to Him.
What are you doing? You're saying this is where I've been walking, but now I'm trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior, and I intend to walk this way. Confession, repentance, and faith all go together, two sides of the same coin. You, listen, you can't have faith, true, genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ without confession and repentance.
Because what, listen, what motivated you to even come to Him? The confession within your soul, your spirit that you're a sinner, that you don't want that in your life. You want a change of life.
You want a new life. And repentance means something's turned, something's changed, something's turned around. Does that mean you're going to be sinless?
No. But it means simply this, that God is responding to your faith. But even that faith is the gift of God.
And you can translate this or interpret it several different ways, but this is a primary way. For by grace you've been saved through faith. That's not of yourselves, it's the gift of God.
Not of works lest any man should boast. Now, listen, the trusting wasn't of yourselves. The faith itself was a gift of God. Everything about redemption, about salvation, everything about it is a gift of God. It's God's grace. It's His goodness and love and mercy. It has nothing to do with anything good on the inside of us or anything that we have done or ever will do. It's all God's love, goodness and mercy.
Listen, so somebody says, well, but now wait a minute. And here's a key question we always have to answer. How could God, who is holy and just, how could God look down upon me then, see me walking in sin and disobedience, see me spiritually dead, see me under the power of Satan and see me under his wrath, and at the same time, how can he be a just God and forgive me for all of that? This is the only way he could have done it. Either all of us would have had to have died in that position and condition we were in under Satan's power, dead, trespasses and sins under wrath, or somebody would have to pay the debt for us. So this is why Jesus came. And this is why there can be no salvation apart from Jesus Christ. Now you think about this. If you and I had to stand before God in the condition that He describes, we'd be hellbound. Amen?
We'd all be hellbound. Therefore, how can God, being just and a righteous holy God, look down and wipe out all of that when He said the soul that sinned that shall die, the wages of sin is death? This is the only way He could have done it.
Somebody had to take my place and your place. His Son Jesus came, the perfect Son of God. John the Baptist identified Him as the Lamb of God. He came for the purpose of dying on the cross, bearing all of your guilt and mine and our sin and our shame and all the rest. He died and our place paid our penalty. And in the death of Jesus, here's what He did.
Listen carefully. He's satisfied. He's satisfied the demands of justice. Justice says sin must be penalized. Jesus was penalized in your place and my place. Therefore, the grace of God is all wrapped up in the cross of Jesus Christ because God the Father could not be a just holy God and just wipe away our sins.
I'm going to give you another chance. I'm going to forget all that because He said the soul that sinned that shall die, the wages of sin is death. How can you be just and do that?
Somebody took our place. Now, think about this. It is so far removed from truth that a person could say, well, I may not be the worst person in the world and I may not be the best person, but I believe there's enough good in me to get me saved.
Absolutely. I'm telling you, forget it. It cannot be true.
There is no way. When you look at the Scriptures according to what God says, dead in trespasses and sins under the power of Satan, living in the transgression of those trespasses and all the rest under the wrath of God, whereas men absolutely hopeless. So God rich in mercy and His great love did what? Sacrificed His only begotten Son as full payment for our sin and when He died, He died, it made it possible. He satisfied God's demands of justice and therefore now God can reach down to the most wicked, vile person on the face of this earth and say, you're forgiven.
How can I be forgiven when I've been so wicked? Because my son paid your sin debt in full. That's why we should worship the Lord Jesus Christ.
Follow Him. Walk in holiness, walk in obedience. Look what He did for us. He did for us something that no one else on the face of the earth or all the people on the face of the earth together could never have done what one person did, Jesus Christ. For by grace you're saved through faith.
Watch this now. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and works for the Lord Jesus Christ do not go hand in hand. I am saved by faith. As a result of my faith in Him, my transformed life lifted me up, changed me, give me a whole new destiny, a whole new sense of life. Now what do I want to do? I want to do exactly what He said.
And what's that? Not as a result of work so that no one can boast, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand we could walk in. Now watch this. Salvation and works have nothing to do with each other. It is faith only, not by works and here's the reason. If faith, it isn't something you came up with as a gift of faith He gives. That not of yourselves, not of works, lest any person should boast because that is exactly what man does, boast.
Then notice what he says. Here's the place of works. He says, listen, the only works going on is His workmanship and all of us who are saved will have to admit He's still working on us, right? He worked on us when He got us saved, He's still working on us.
And about time we think He's got us worked up pretty well, what happens? He shows us some area He's got to work on. But we are His workmanship, listen to this, created. That is, He created you in Christ Jesus. That is, He made you this new person. And He says when He comes, He says we're going to be like Him when He comes.
What's He doing? God is in the process of right now, as He says in Romans chapter 8 and 29, He says, He says that He foreordained that you and I should be what? Be conformed to the likeness of His Son.
He's going to work on us till the day He calls us home. Now look, He says we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we could walk in them. Now our good works are all well and good, but those good works is what we do out of love and devotion and because we're saved, good works, no amount of good works will ever get you saved. Listen, watch this, how can a person who is dead in trespasses and sins, living in rebellion, living according to the flesh, according to the course of this world, have any good works?
They can't. Now there's one point here I deliberately skipped over to the end. Let's go back to it. We said, now watch this carefully, listen and say amen.
Here's who you are. Here's what God's done for you. This is the way He did it. Now the big question is, why did He do it? I love this verse.
Let's go back to this. Let's start with verse five. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. What, watch this, what is God's ultimate purpose for saving us?
Listen to what He says. Raised us up with Him, seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that, in order that, in the ages to come, that means age upon age upon age in the future, He may show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. You know what He says His ultimate purpose for saving us is? Not keeping us out of hell, making us happy. His ultimate purpose for saving us, think about this, is that God wants to declare, to proclaim, to show forth the riches.
Listen, the surpassing riches, that is you cannot even compare the riches of His grace. That is, He wants, listen, for all eternity, the Father wants to declare and show forth to not all the angels above, but all on earth, all the things He's done for us, all the expressions of His grace. You know what His purpose is? His purpose is He wants to see us for the person He is, this awesome indescribable God who's full of grace and mercy and love and forgiveness and kindness. There are not enough words in the dictionary.
There's no way to explain the goodness and love and the grace and mercy of God. He says, you know what? That's who you were. Here's what I've done for you.
This is how it happened. And you know what I did all that for? Because I want you to see how loving and gracious and kind and good I am. Now, how in the world can anybody justify living in sin when God's done that much for you? What I want you to see is how good God is. He is a God of goodness and love and mercy that's absolutely indescribable. Now, the only way for a person who's heard the gospel to die and go to hell is to trample upon the most awesome truth ever known to man. And that is the God of grace and mercy has paid the ultimate price in giving and sacrifice by sending his only begotten son Jesus Christ to pay our sin debt in full and make it possible for his demands of justice to be satisfied and then to fling the door of salvation open to the whole world and make it possible for anybody anywhere under any condition to walk through by simple faith. That's why a five year old can be saved and a 95 year old man can be saved. You know why?
It takes the same thing. You may have been a Christian a long time. Do you understand what God has done for you when he saved you? He, listen, by an act of his grace and mercy, he delivered you from the penalty of sin and endowed you with the gift of eternal life through his son Jesus Christ, period. And it was all his work and none of yours because you were dead and couldn't do anything about it. He gave you the gift of faith and you responded to him.
Have you ever trusted Jesus Christ as your savior? And secondly, now that you are saved, can you tell somebody, this is how, this is what Jesus Christ did for me. This is what he can do for you. This is who you are. This is what he's done. This is how you can enjoy the same gift of eternal life that I have.
Can you tell somebody else? You see, God's not satisfied just saving us. He wants us equipped to share it with somebody else.
The clearer your understanding, the more boldness, courage, and passion you're going to have to tell somebody else. Amen? And Father, we want to say thank you this morning for your grace and love and mercy taught us.
We can never even think about beginning to think up enough words if we have a thousand dictionaries to express our love, our gratitude, and when we think about how little understanding we have of how awesome you are. Thank you for loving us anyway. I pray for somebody here today who's never trusted Jesus as their savior. Father, grant them the wisdom right now. Grant them the wisdom to understand it's all a dead-end street without Christ. But with you, it's a big, wonderful parade. We love you and praise you, and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to part two of Saved by Grace. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
