“Saved
by Grace through Faith” was preached at Sunnyside Presbyterian Church on
Sunday, November 12, 2017. It was part of We
Are Reformed-Sola! preaching series. Inspirations for this sermon include
Scripture, commentaries, laughter, the 500th anniversary of the
Reformation, laughter, and Sola Fide & Sola Gratia.
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Ephesians
2:1-10
1 As
for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to
live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom
of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All
of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh
and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature
deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in
mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it
is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated
us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the
coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in
his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by
works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in
Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
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I’m
about to reveal an embarrassing moment from my childhood. There’s a point to
this. I promise. Bear with me.
When
I was a very young kid in elementary school, we’re talking eight and younger, I
showed extreme perfectionist traits. I mean, I was a rule follower. Everything was
black or white. A stickler to one and only one way of doing things. And you
would think since I followed all the rules, I would be a good kid, right? The
kind of kid all parents would want? Wrong. I think my parents would describe young
Taylor as… Overwhelming. Obsessive. Occasionally hilarious. But always
extremely annoying.
For
example, and my dad loves to tell this story, when I first started tee-ball at
the age of four or five, I made sure to learn all the rules. Not just the major
rules like there’s nine players on the field or the purpose of gloves, balls,
and bats; we’re talking the specific, almost trivial rules. Such as if the ball
falls off the tee and unto home plate on strike three, the player is out. Well
here’s little five-year-old Taylor playing his first game of tee-ball. It’s my
turn to bat. I head toward the tee. I’m ready to make the ball fly. This is my
moment. Swing… and a miss. Strike one. It’s okay. I’ll try again. No big deal;
I got this. I ready myself once again. Here we go… swing… and a miss. Strike 2.
I should have realized at this point that I would never have a future in
baseball. But I’m not a quitter. I’ll try again. I take my stance; I grip my
bat, I eye the ball. Swing… and I make contact… with the tee… the ball falls off…
hits home plate… and then rolls forward slight toward the pitcher’s mound. I
hear my coach yelling behind me, “Run! Run!” And so I do, I sprint to first
base, and surprisingly, I make it safely.
But
then the realization sets in… the ball fell off the tee and hit home plate… so
I turn toward the umpire who is probably a fifteen-year-old working his first
ever part-time job… and I say, “I’m out.” He says something along the lines of,
“It’s okay. You’re fine. Just stay where you are. You’re safe.” And so I begin
to argue. I start explaining the rules of tee-ball to the umpire, explaining
that I deserve to be out. My coach is telling me to be quiet and just play the
game. My parents are hiding their faces in shame. And five-year-old Taylor
convinces the fifteen-year-old umpire to declare that I was out. You would
think my team would love me for this; I played the game fairly. But no, there
was no love for Taylor in that moment. It’s like they wanted to win or
something…
This pattern continued for several years. I would disqualify myself at swim meets. I would correct teachers when they missed something I got wrong. I even once told my grandfather that I was dropping out of school because I spelled one word wrong on a first-grade spelling test. Some would describe me as a know-it-all, but I knew the truth… I was just getting what I deserved.
I’m
still have “perfectionist” tendencies… but over the years, I’ve learned to let
things go and be grateful for what is happening around me. I’ve learned that
it’s okay to make mistakes; that I should learn and move forward. I’ve learned
that maybe I followed rules too strictly and that I needed to be a little bit
more flexible. And I learned not to argue when someone gives me more than what
I deserve, even when I don’t believe I fully deserve it.
This
fall we have been working our way through our “Always Reforming” preaching
series. Together we have been exploring how we are the reformed church, ever
reforming. And two weeks ago we
celebrated the 500th anniversary of the reformation. Five hundred
years ago, during the reformation, reformed theologians began developing the solas,
or the doctrines that would be central to our tradition. To this day, we
recognize there are five solas, and we are making our way through all five of
them before Advent starts in just a few weeks. On the day we celebrated the 500th
anniversary, Pastor Jamie started us off with Sola Scriptura, or scripture
alone—the belief that all confessions, creeds, practices, and teachings must be
rooted in Scripture, the divinely inspired Word of God.
Since
we have four solas left to discuss and only three Sundays including today till
Advent, we’ll be covering two solas today. Sola Gratia and Sola Fide—grace
alone and faith alone. Fortunately, and maybe even divinely designed, both are
covered in our passage today found in Ephesians 2.
But
before we go into explaining Sola Gratia and Sola Fide, I want us to understand
the context of Ephesians. See, Ephesians 2 begins with a direct explanation of
what we should deserve. It tells us that we should be out; should be
disqualified, should be wrong… it tells us we should be deserving of wrath. Which
for someone like me who likes the clear set of rules makes sense. You know, if
I actually think about it, five-year-Taylor being the “rule follower” that I
was without fully understanding what I meant would be saying, “Give me the
wrath! I deserve the wrath!” And the truth is, unfortunately five-year-old
Taylor in that moment, represents human nature.
This
is because, my friends, before the divine intervention of Christ, we wanted
wrath. We didn’t know any better. We were dead due to our sins against God,
which should naturally make us enemies of God. That’s what Paul is writing to
the Ephesians. He is writing a message regarding death and new life. When Paul
starts the second chapter of his letter to Ephesus, he starts boldly and
strongly. He declares the citizens of Ephesus as dead. Because of their sins
and because of their transgressions, because they are children of wrath;
because of who they are and because of what they have done - they were dead.
The ways of this world and their responses to it didn’t give them life;
instead, it was an infinite death sentence. There was nothing they could do to
save themselves; there was nothing they could do to bring themselves to life. And
without a Savior - they would continue to be walking a life of spiritual death until
the finality of physical death overtook them. They were, and will be
forevermore, dead.
And
sometimes when we look at what is happening in our world around us; it can make
us question whether our world is still dead. In the last four months alone, we
experienced heartbreaking amounts of tragedy. Riots in Charlottesville and
across our country because of racial hate. Hurricanes affecting our southern
coastal states and territories. Wildfires across the states in the east. A
gunman raining bullets down during a concert in Las Vegas. And then just this
week, a different gunman shot and killed 26 beautiful lives in a church in
Texas. A church, a place of worship, a sanctuary. I didn’t even name all of the
tragedies that have happened; there’s too many. Is the world still dead? Are we
still dead? We may not be the causers of these tragedies, but this is the world
we live in; therefore, we are a part of them. Our own sin clings to the sins
around us; it’s human nature. And it’s scary because we try do better and then
another tragedy strikes. It makes me feel like sometimes we are dead too. But
then it makes me realize that grace and faith are incredibly important to hold
onto in these moments because we’re not dead. Thanks be to God for a divine
intervention.
Now
before the reformation took place, the church was teaching Christians that by
good works they could pull themselves away from this spiritual death; that by
good works they would receive salvation and bring themselves to new life. But
the reformers argued that this didn’t make sense; that this couldn’t happen,
spiritually or physically, because our human nature wills us to stay dead. That
if we had it our way, we would stay dead, away from and against what God
intended, and therefore enemies deserving punishment.
And
that is where Sola Fide was introduced. Because all of humankind is fallen and
sinful, we are incapable of saving ourselves from the wrath of God. No amount
of works can bring us back into salvation. Instead, our justification is by
faith alone. Our assurance of pardon is received solely through faith based on
the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Again, this means the divine
verdict of salvation is not based on anything done by us but rather on Christ
and his righteousness. And the reason why Christ is acting on our behalf
according to Ephesians is because of God’s great love for us, because God is full
of mercy and grace.
This
explanation continues in Sola Gratia. Once again, we hear that no merit on our
end can be a part of achieving salvation. Rather, our salvation is given by the
divine grace of God; not because we deserve it, but because it is a gift freely
given by God. Sola Gratia should be understood in two ways. One, God is the
sole benefactor of grace and does so without any cooperation from humankind.
And two, that humankind, even under the influence of grace, cannot receive more
grace by any actions of our own. We have to see grace for what it is: a gift
freely, fully, and solely given by God; it is gift we do not deserve, yet it is
a gift that we are still given.
I
love that Sola Fide and Sola Gratia are central to our tradition because they
show what great love God has for us. It makes me love being Protestant and
reformed and Presbyterian because we are reminded how much our God loves each
of us. However, there is one thing that we need to discuss that reformed
protestants are often criticized for and it’s this: if we are justified by
faith alone and receive salvation by grace alone, what is the purpose of our
good works?
We
believe our good works are done in response to the grace that we have been
given; that our good works show thanksgiving for the salvation we have
received. It the ultimate glorification of God; the glorification of God that
God desires. And at Sunnyside, we respond to what God desires. We build bridges
of faith. We act as the hands and feet of Christ. We give God our glory when
worship and when we fellowship and when we connect. We respond to the grace we
have been given.
Sola
Fide and Sola Gratia go hand-in-hand with one another, and they can be put
together in one simple phrase: “Saved by grace through faith.”
That’s
our takeaway for today. If you have to remember just one thing from the sermon,
please don’t make it my memory of playing tee-ball. Remember this: saved by
grace through faith. Saved by grace through faith. Make it a mantra. Saved by
grace through faith. If any of my confirmation students are using this message
as one of their required sermon evaluations, you should definitely write this
down: saved by grace through faith. All of Sunnyside, let’s say it together: saved
by grace through faith.
Good.
There is it. Thanks be to God? Thanks be to God. Amen.
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