Robert Jeffress - The Three Most Important Words In The Bible
Hi, I'm Robert Jeffress and welcome again to "Pathway To Victory". For thousands of years, Christians have struggled to understand the relationship between salvation and works. God's gift of salvation is so immense, so priceless, then surely we must have something to do with it, right? Well, in this equation, our human logic fails us, and today we're going to learn why salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone. My message is titled, "The Three Most Important Words in the Bible," on today's edition of "Pathway To Victory".
You may remember the date of October the 14th, 1987, when an 18-month-old girl named Jessica McClure was playing in her aunt's backyard in Midland, Texas, and accidentally fell into an abandoned well. Remember watching it on television? Everybody's eyes were glued to the television set in that dramatic rescue effort of baby Jessica. This week, I pulled up an interview that was done 10 years after that rescue effort with Jessica McClure and her mom. Obviously, Jessica didn't remember what had happened to her as an 18-month-old. Just imagine her mom trying to explain to her the drama of that ordeal.
"Jessica, you were trapped in a 20 foot pit. You were alone without food and without water and with little hope of rescue. We could hear you singing 'Winnie the Pooh' and 'Jesus Loves Me' to comfort yourself. But then the rescuers drilled a 29 foot vertical shaft next to the abandoned well, and 2 men made their way down that shaft and they attached you to a board and they lifted you up out of the pit and the whole world cheered when they heard the good news".
You know, in many ways, that's an apt description of what God has done for us. We were all trapped in that pit of sin with no hope of rescue. In Ephesians 2, verses 1 to 3, Paul describes our condition. He says that we were spiritually dead. We couldn't even respond to any rescue attempt. We were not only dead, we were depraved. We were doomed to suffer the wrath of God forever. We had no hope for now or the future. "But God," verse 4 says. God intervened in our situation and he formulated the most dramatic rescue attempt ever made when he sent his own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come and die for our sins. And when he did that, he performed a miracle. He resurrected us, made us able to respond.
Not only did he resurrect us, but he reinstated us to be children of God. And he raised us to live in a whole new realm, not in the realm of sin, but of righteousness. And why did God do all of this? One word: grace. "For by grace, you have been saved. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, he has made us alive together in Christ".
Now we have come to verse 8 of that description, and Paul is going to circle around once again and hit upon the motivation for God in saving us. For those who have just joined us, let me read the passage we're looking at today, Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10. Paul says, "For by grace you have 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. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them".
In these three verses, we find what I call the most three important words in the entire Bible. And the reason they're the three most important words is they answer the question, "How can we be in a right relationship with God"? The three words are grace, faith, and works. And there are three simple statements I want to write down on your outline, I want you to write down. First of all, Paul tells us how we are saved. We are saved by grace. "For by grace, you have been saved". He doesn't say we are saved by faith. We are saved by grace.
What is grace? Well, you can try to explain grace by a dictionary definition. The Greeks use the word "charis" that we translate "grace" to refer to that inexplicable quality that draws one person to another person. Other times, it was used to describe the paying off of a debt. Somebody lends money, they realize the borrower has no hope of ever repaying, so the lender forgives the debt for no reason other than grace. Tetelestai is the Greek word, paid in full, that Jesus uttered in John 19:30 on the cross, when he said, "It is finished". Tetelestai, paid in full. All because of grace. But I think the definition that best fits this passage is the one that is very simple.
What is grace? It's an undeserved burst of generosity. An undeserved, inexplicable burst of generosity. It's the generosity that we saw last time when that social worker in London, Henry Moorehouse, saw the little 10-year-old girl carrying a pitcher of milk, a pitcher that fell out of her hands and shattered, and she was so grieved over it, thinking she would be punished. And Henry Moorehouse took her down to the crockery shop and brought her a new pitcher and filled it with milk. Why did he do it? He didn't have anything to gain by doing it. It was that compassion, that undeserved burst of generosity. It is by grace we have been saved. God's undeserved burst of generosity to meet a need we could never meet.
Another way to understand grace is not just by dictionary definition, but by contrast. What grace is not. "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not of works". Grace is the opposite of works. Just think about it. If you and I played any role in our salvation, think what a miserable place heaven would be because you know all we would do is go about bragging to one another, what we did to get there. "What did you do to get to heaven"? "Well, this is what I did". "Well, what did you do"? "This is what", it'd be one eternal braggamony. Who would want to endure that?
But there's not gonna be any boasting in heaven. If we boast about anything, it's gonna be about the graciousness, the compassion of God in saving us. You see, and this is a key point. If salvation is something we work for, then salvation is not a gift from God, it's an obligation that God owes us. Paul explains that in Romans chapter 4. Hold your place here and turn to Romans chapter 4, verses 1 to 3. The book of Romans was written to namely Jewish Christians. And Paul was explaining how we are saved by grace and not through works. And the Jewish Christians would normally ask, "Well, what about Abraham? He's the father of our nation. He's the George Washington of Israel. Look at all the good things he saved, wasn't he saved by works"?
Look at what Paul says, beginning in verse 1: "What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say"? How was Abraham made righteous? Genesis 15: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness". Remember in Genesis 15, God made that unconditional promise to Abraham? And the Bible says, "Abraham believed what God said". And at that moment, God took Abraham's little bit of faith and in the great accounting room of heaven, he exchanged that tiny bit of faith for the righteousness of God.
And we're saved the same way. When we trust in Christ to be our Savior, doesn't matter how much or how little faith we have. Whatever amount we have, even as tiny as a mustard seed, God can take that faith and exchange it for the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But then he explains in Romans 4:4: "Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as to what is due". Think about this. You may get paid on the 15th and 30th of every month. When you get your paycheck, do you go down and throw yourself before your boss and say, "Oh, thank you so much. This is such a gracious thing for you to do. It would never enter my mind that you would think to give me such a gift to say..."
How many of you do that? Your boss would think you'd lost your mind if you did that. Your wage is not a gift, it's an obligation. You had a contract. If you work and do this, this, this, and this, he pays you. It's just a transaction. It's an obligation. Now, think about it. If we work for our salvation, our salvation isn't a gift. It's nothing to thank God for. It's something he owes us. Ladies and gentlemen, God is unwilling to owe any man or woman salvation. It is a gift.
And that's why in verse 5, Paul says, "But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness". We are saved by grace. Charles Haddon Spurgeon in his devotional, "Mornings and Evenings," has a great word about this. Listen to this carefully. He said: "It is not your hold of Christ that saves you. It is Christ. It is not your joy in Christ that saves you. It is Christ. It is not even your faith in Christ, although that's instrumental. It is Christ's blood and merit that save you. Therefore, do not look so much to your hand with which you are grasping Christ, as to Christ. Do not look to your hope, but to Jesus, the source of your hope. Do not look to your faith, but to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of your faith".
Ladies and gentlemen, the only way any of us can be saved is when we quit trying to lay our feathers of righteousness on God's scale of righteousness and instead trust in the righteousness of Jesus Christ to save us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says: "For God made Him," Jesus, "who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him". When we trust in Christ for our salvation, God no longer looks at our unrighteousness. He sees us as having the same righteousness as his Son the Lord Jesus Christ. In that balancing scale, no longer do we place our feathers of pseudo righteousness, but we place the righteousness of Jesus himself and God pronounces us forgiven. That's what Christianity is. It is a relationship with God that is built on grace, not works.
The great expositor of scripture of yesteryear, G. Campbell Morgan, was once asked a question perhaps you've wondered about. He was asked, "How is it that you can explain the thousands and thousands of religions in the world? Why are there thousands of religions in the world"? And Morgan responded, "There aren't thousands of religions in the world. There aren't even hundreds of religions in the world. There are only two religions in the world. The first religion, which is every other religion except Christianity, is spelled, D-O, do this, do this, do this. Keep this list of regulations and you might have eternal life. Different religions have different lists but it all requires D-O, do this, do this, do this. Christianity is the only religion in the world that is spelled D-O-N-E, done. It has all been done by Jesus Christ on the cross".
And that's why Paul said: "For by grace you have been saved". But there's a second important word, not only grace. "For by grace you have been saved through faith". We are saved by grace, but we are saved through faith. That's what he says in verse 8: "By grace you have been saved through faith". You may sincerely believe that you're good enough to get into heaven. You may sincerely believe that when you were sprinkled as a baby, that was all it took. You can be sincere, but you can be sincerely wrong. The only trustworthy object of our faith is Jesus Christ, to believe that when he died, he took the punishment that we deserve. We are saved by grace that we receive through faith.
"Well, Pastor, are you saying works have nothing to do with our salvation"? No, far from that. Works are very important in the salvation equation, as long as you have them in the right order. We are saved by grace. We are saved through faith. And thirdly, write down, we are saved for good works. "For by grace you have been saved through faith". Then verse 10: "For we are His workmanship, created unto Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them". We are saved by grace, but we are saved for good works. We aren't saved by good works. We're saved for good works.
Once we become a Christian, good works are vitally important in a Christian's life. Why are they important? Paul mentions two reasons, as does the rest of scripture. First of all, our good works glorify God. When Paul writes: "For we are His workmanship," that word "workmanship" is the Greek word "poiema". We get our word "poem" from it. Did you know you're God's poem to the world? He saved you for a purpose. His purpose for your life didn't end with your salvation; it just begins with your salvation. He's creating a beautiful tapestry, a beautiful poem, that will attract other people to himself.
When people see your willingness to forgive, your peace in the midst of turmoil, your total trust in God, your kindness to those who wrong you. When people see that, they're naturally attracted to the God who made you the way you are. And that's why in Matthew 5:16, Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your," what? "Good works, and therefore glorify your Father who is in heaven".
I like the way one writer puts God's plan for our life. He said: "From God's sovereign seat, he foresaw us resting in his protection, boldly taking a stand against evil, compassionately extending a hand to the needy, and lovingly sharing the gospel every time he gives us a chance. God's plan for our lives extends beyond salvation to sanctification, beyond standing in grace to walking in good deeds".
Our good works glorify God. But secondly, good works are important in order to verify our salvation. Good works don't produce spiritual life, but they prove there is spiritual life. Isn't that what Jesus said in Matthew 3, verse 8? He said, "Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; therefore," verse 10, "every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and is thrown into the fire".
If you have a tree that's not producing fruit, it's dead and it deserves to be cut down. So it is with a Christian. It's not that a Christian loses his salvation because he doesn't bear fruit. If he doesn't bear fruit, it simply shows he never was a Christian to begin with. Just consider this example. Just imagine that I keep bragging to you about this beautiful apple tree that Amy and I have in our backyard, and I invite you to come over and see it one day. And so one Saturday afternoon in October, you come over and I take you out proudly to show you my apple tree and there's not an apple on it anywhere.
And you say, "Pastor, this is the time you ought to be growing apples on your apple tree. There's not a tree anywhere. I'm afraid your apple tree is dead". I say, "Dead? How could you insult me like that? What a terrible thing to say. This apple tree is alive". You say, "Well, then, where are the apples"? I say, "Oh, well, just wait just a moment". I run up to Tom Thumb grocery store. I get some apples. I come back and I tie them on to the dead twigs of that dead apple tree. Say, "Now here, it's alive. Here are the apples".
Well, that's silly. Apples don't produce life, but they prove that there's life. Tying apples onto a dead tree doesn't make the tree any more alive than tying good works on a spiritually dead person makes him alive in Christ. Fruit is the proof of life. Fruit doesn't produce life. It is the fruit of life. And so it is with a Christian.
You know, Martin Luther believed very much in the doctrine of we are saved by faith alone. But in describing the relationship between faith and works, he said this: "Faith alone saves, but saving faith is never alone". Where there is genuine faith, there is always going to be spiritual fruit. And that's what Paul says. We're not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works and our good works not only glorify our Father in heaven, they verify our salvation.
You know, one of the best illustrations of the relationship between faith and works is seen in that Academy Award-winning movie, "Saving Private Ryan". Do you remember the movie? It was loosely based on a true story about a family that had four sons serving in World War II. Three of them had been killed in action, and the government had a policy to do everything possible to save that fourth son from being killed, Private Ryan. So they enlist Tom Hanks, a captain, to go behind the enemy lines to try to find and save Private Ryan. And the movie is all about the heroic exploits and the sacrifices that were made.
And remember the final scene of the movie? Private Ryan stumbles over the Tom Hanks character, who's been mortally wounded at this point. And Tom Hanks looks up at Private Ryan. He looks around at all the devastation around him that had been caused by the rescue effort. And Tom Hanks utters the two final words of the movie: "Earn this". Earn this. What was he saying to Private Ryan? What do you mean, "Earn this"? Was his rescue something that he earned? No, this rescue effort went on without Private Ryan's knowledge of it, much less his effort in it. He wasn't saying there was anything the Private could have done to earn his rescue. But he was saying, look at the cost that has been paid for your rescue.
Now you go live your life in a way that's worthy of the sacrifice that has been made on your behalf. And that's what God says to us. Walk now in a way that is worthy of the calling with which you have been called. Why? Because "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created by Christ Jesus unto good works, that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them".