May 3, 2026 | Saved By Grace Through Faith

Ephesians 2:8-10, Pastor Jason Lancaster

Transcript

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My son, one of my sons, Roman James Lancaster, was born in 2006. And you may ask, why the name Roman? Well, we like the way it sounds. I'll elaborate a little bit more than that. Um, you named him Roman after the book of Romans. And some smart Alec came out to me back in the day and said, You do know the book is called Romans. Okay. His name is Roman James. I like to show theologically that the book of Roman and James are not in contrast, but go together, faith and works. Also because my father-in-law, that's his name, so we added that, you know. The Romans also took part in killing Jesus. I want to remind Roman that he's a sinner and that we all took part in killing Jesus. But most of all, I named him Roman because I want him to embrace the gospel preached in that book about faith alone and Jesus Christ alone. And he is 19 years old now, embracing Jesus. And I praise God for that. I'm also excited to preach to you about that gospel, that same gospel, not from the book of Romans, but from the book of Ephesians, from a little short passage that is called the Heart of the Gospel. So if you want to turn there in Ephesians chapter 2, maybe you've memorized this verse. If you went to Iwana, it was said every Wednesday night at Iwana, but maybe you'll see it in a fresh, new way. Okay, here's the outline. It's truly complicated. Hope you can follow. This is really the outline. It's in your bullets, and it goes something like this. How we are saved, how we are not saved, and what are we saved for? Quick little summary as we're saved by grace through faith for works. Saved by grace through faith for works. Now, before I jump in and go into all the details, we have to ask the simple question. What does it mean to be saved? Saved from what? Christians throw around that saved language. What are you talking about? And you would say, I'm saved from my sin. What does that mean? Okay, saved from your sin. And I'm saved, according to Ephesians 2, from Satan. He no longer has authority over you. Saved from the world, the world doesn't have control for me, and saved from death. When I die, I'm not going to die. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. But one of the ways that we never talk about salvation, in which we should, which we should tell people, is that you are saved from God. The Bible's very clear that all of us by nature are children of wrath. God's anger and wrath is on us, and apart from Jesus Christ, we would perish in hell forever. So we are saved from God. And you may say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but but God is good. Yes, God is good, but you are not. So we're saved from his wrath through Jesus Christ. All right. I'm ready to roll. Now, let's go. Ephesians chapter 2, look at verse 8. For by grace you have been saved. I know you got you hear the word grace all the time, and you've heard the word grace thrown around. Sometimes you've heard it explained, and sometimes when we hear the word grace, we look at it more as a business transaction. Like a little transaction. And this morning, for and then there's some truth to that, but but for this morning, I don't want you to see grace as a transaction, but more as a divine rescue. Grace means that you did not deserve to be rescued from your sin and the total depravity of your life, but you get mercy anyway. You deserve death and eternal suffering in hell, but you get forgiveness and grace. You deserve wrath, but instead you get God's favor in Jesus. You, in fact, do the worst you can possibly do to God, and He does the best He can possibly do to you. It is a divine rescue. Verse 8 again. For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is kind of where that transactional language in our mind comes. Okay, God does his part, we do our part, we're the faith part. But I want you to understand this we receive this grace through faith. We respond in the gospel of grace, and we receive his work for us by faith. It doesn't mean that we mentally disagree with the facts, it's that we totally are all in Jesus. We trust you to save us from our sins. We believe you rose from the dead. That is legit. We embrace you as both Lord and as Savior. Now I want to show you what I mean by this transactional language and this rescued language, all right. Perhaps you viewed grace like this, and I think this is an accurate way to understand it, okay? But I'm I don't think it's a big enough picture yet. So how many of you have ever had any success of claiming unclaimed property from the state? Anybody? A few of you. I've had success of it. You're like, what does that even mean? Well, pick a state that you have lived in, go to their state, whatever website, and they have unclaimed property in there, amidst uh paychecks, some taxes, some insurance, something left in a safety deposit box, something that's yours. It is under your name. In fact, the state will keep it until you go and claim it. Yes, this is a real thing. It's worked for me before out of the state of Texas, believe it or not. Your name may be somewhere on some property that you don't know about. So I'm don't check now. Wait till after the service. And so the idea is that in Jesus, he offers us salvation by grace through faith, and it is ours to receive. We just have to claim it. And for those who do not embrace Jesus, they are not claiming what could be theirs. Now understand that's a that's a great imagery of receiving grace by faith, but I don't think it's complete enough. Because it still kind of leaves it in this transactional language. Perhaps this is a better image. My mother used to be uh just kind of a free spirit hiker, and she would hike all over the place. Um, don't think hot spring village trails. Think more Montana, Idaho, out there in the mountains. And sometimes she would go with groups. But I think my mom had ADD because she would be with groups and she would get distracted and just go off. In fact, she was so lost, she's been lost two times in the mountains. And I don't mean, oh, lost, we she lost her way. No, lost as in send out the chopper, send out a search party lost. That's my mom. Overnight type lost. Like for real. Now I was thinking about that when choppers, you know, they go out looking for her and search parties go out there looking for her. Well, she's lost. And if she sees a helicopter, what is she gonna do? Hey, I'm down here. She hear people calling her the name, calling her name. What's she gonna do? Yeah, I'm over here. It's me. I'm lost. Find me, please. No, she's gonna be like, yo, I'm down here, save me, I am lost. Bears are going to eat me. I'm gonna run out of food. I am lost. That's faith right there. Right there. You are lost, and the divine rescue has been provided in Jesus Christ. You put your faith, you can be rescued from your sin, from Satan, from death, from wrath forever. Unfortunately, most people don't recognize their lostness. Unfortunately, most people just go about their business, but that divine rescue pops up in their life from time to time, and you may be here this morning. You're like, oh, this is one of those chances again. Here we go. God's trying to get my attention. Absolutely. The divine rescue is for you. But you can just go about your business, and you'll be lost. Let's continue on. Look at verse 8 again. For by grace you have been saved to yourself, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. So I want you to understand this, right? You didn't save yourself, you didn't pull off the divine rescue. It has nothing to do with you. It's not like God does his part, I do my part, we meet in the middle, and God saves me that way. No, no. Your part was this: you did all the sinning, God did all the saving. Or to put it more grammatically incorrect, you did all the lost things, God did all the founding. You get that? That's your part that you contribute to your salvation. It's the it's the sin part. We we are not saved on our own power. We're saved by faith. I'm here. Come rescue me. So let's talk about a little bit of how we are not saved, all right? Look at verse 9. Look at verse 9. Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Well, some of the Jews believe that through obeying the commands of God, they could be made right with God and saved. And man, if you ever read the New Testament, it refutes this left and right all over the place. For example, Galatians chapter 2, verse 16 says, Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too, having put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. I mean, this is all over the New Testament. We are not forgiven by our own effort. We are forgiven by Jesus, made righteous by Jesus. And that's the only way that we can have salvation, it is through Jesus. And if you notice there, it says, not as a result of works. If you ask most people today, and you and you know this, they're your neighbors, they're your friends, maybe you, like, how do you gonna get to heaven? And they'll say, I'm gonna be a good person. So most people in America, probably just around the world, think I'm good enough to get into heaven, God will let me in, and all the bad people, whoever they are, there are probably a few of them, they will go to hell. And so people think, just be good. One time I was at the hospital uh visiting um my family. Somebody was in there, probably my wife, having one of our million kids. So I was I was there, and I was on floor one, and I needed to get to the basement where the cafeteria was to get some food. So I'm on floor one and I push down. Elevator down, you know, the light comes on down, elevator opens. I get into the elevator with a group of people. That group of people started pushing floors like three, four, five, two, eight. And every time they would push a number, the it would not light up. So I snaked my way in the elevator three people, and I hit B as in basement, as in going down, and it lit up, doors closed, we went down. And this lady, it no joke, she said to this, she said this, she said this to the group. She's like, well, it was going up until someone pushed down. Lady, this elevator was always going down. You just got on the wrong elevator. That's what people think. They think I'm gonna be a good person. I'm gonna go up, up, up, no, no, no, no, no. That is the wrong approach, theology, life. You name it. We think we're just good. My brothers and sisters, what have we been studying in Ephesians? In Ephesians, we are being told that we are dead in our sins. A dead people, a corpse, cannot impress anyone. Dead people do not seek God, dead people don't love God, dead people don't follow Jesus on their own. What could we do to earn our salvation? The answer is absolutely nothing. If we could earn our salvation, we would boast. We would boast in what we have done. But there is no boasting for them who are saved. We boast, we boast in the Lord. So I'm about to give you two questions that I really want to hit you. This hit me when I was probably 22 years old. I learned these two questions, and I believe answering these correctly will bring revival to your life and revival to our nation and to the world. So, question number one: most of humanity is asking this how can I become a better person? That is what people are asking. How can I become a better person? You'll see it all over. Read self-help books, that's what it's saying. How can I be a better person? And they're talking about how can I get to heaven? How can I be a good person? Now I want to tell you this. That's not the right question. This is the right question. How can I, an evil person, be accepted by a holy and righteous God? How can I, an evil person, be accepted by a holy and righteous God? When humanity starts asking that question, whether it's in a church, in a community, in a city, you will see revival. Because the answer is only and always by grace alone, through faith alone, and the finished work of Christ alone. You get that? By grace alone, faith alone, finished work of Christ alone. That's the question, and the answer is Jesus. And I'm telling you, if we are asking that question, there will be revival in Jesus. So I what are the options? All right. So we have those who claim they're safe by works. And you would think to yourself, do people really think that? Oh, come on, they do. There's churches that proclaim that. Yeah, they do. And so you would think, well, how would that work? If Jesus died for sinners, well, how can good works get you into heaven? Well, it goes something like this. There's a variety of variations like this is that someone would say, I'm saved by the grace of Jesus, and that grace enables me to do works, and you combine Jesus' grace with my works together, those justify me and give me access to heaven. Another variation is this is something called God pays the difference. It's the idea, let's say I have my kids and they want some new shoes, they save up $35, we go to the store, and $35 is not going to buy any shoes these days, and so dad pays the difference. So the idea is that we're good people and we come up a little bit short of heaven, and then Jesus pays the rest, he pays the difference. Now you may wonder, what's the problem? They're just there's just a little bit in error. Okay, so they want to add some works. What's the big deal? It's interesting, it's like it's like we've forgotten history, and we think, what's the big deal? Protestant Reformation? Can't we all just get along? I don't ever have you turned to other passages, but if you want to keep your finger here and find Galatians, that's backwards to the book before. Galatians chapter 1. I'm just gonna I want to make sure you see that this is in the Bible and I'm not just making this up. This is what Paul said about those who are preaching a different gospel, preaching a gospel of works. I want to make sure that you see this in your Bible. Galatians chapter 1, Galatians chapter 1, verse 6. Galatians 1, 6 says, I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. That would be a gospel of works, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to just distort the gospel of Christ. So a gospel of works is distorting the gospel. Listen to this. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. That is the word damned. As we have said before, so I say again now: if any man is preaching to you a contrary gospel to what you received, he is to be accursed. Why is it such a big deal that we harp on this gospel of grace alone, faith alone, Jesus Christ alone? What's the big deal? It's because those who preach a different gospel must and should be damned, accursed, condemned. We should call it out. But what if an angel comes down and right here, an angel starts preaching to you a different gospel? Don't believe it. Do not believe it. There is only one way to heaven. Grace alone, faith alone, Jesus Christ alone, anything else may be accursed. That's in your Bible. Why do we make it such a big deal? Why was the Protestant Reformation a big deal? Grace alone, faith alone, not by works. We don't boast, we boast in the Lord. Okay. Back to Ephesians? I'm gonna ask you this question. Because I want you to understand, I know this is such a familiar passage to you. How many of you feel good when you're doing your quiet time? You have a time of worship, you're going to church, you're checking the boxes. How many times do we feel that we're kind of, you know, kind of confident in ourselves? And yet when we miss a day reading the Bible, we don't pray as we should, we don't go in a small group, then we start to feel like a loser. I mean, this is not just me, this is all of us. When we're when we're checking the boxes, we're like, oh yeah, I'm pretty, I'm pretty awesome. I'm pretty awesome. But you don't feel so awesome when you're not checking the boxes. And I want to read this to you. This is a very famous statement. I don't know who said it. I've said it before, many of you have said it before, and I want you to just ingrain this in your head. You are not condemned by your worst days' failure, and you are not saved by your best days' performance. You are not condemned by your worst days' failure, and you are not saved by your best days' performance. It's all about Jesus all the time. It's all about Christ. Keep coming back to Christ. And I don't I still don't think you understand this gospel. I I know you do, but I want to press it one more, one more time, and I'm gonna tell the historic story, and I'm gonna take out all the history of it and just simplify it. And it goes like this A man and a woman had a son, and the son was a teenager, and he was dying. And the man went into his son and said, Son, as he's getting ready to die, maybe that day or the next few days, he goes, son, do not look to your own works. You're about to meet God. Don't be checking the boxes, like, oh, I did this, I did this. Maybe God will accept me. He said, Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus alone. You're saved by Jesus alone. Don't look to your works. And then when the husband came out of the room, the wife pulled her husband aside and said, Why cannot this gospel be preached to those of us who are alive? And this is what the husband said. He said, This it may be told to the dying only, not to those of us who are well. Do you get the implication there? It's saying, no, no, the gospel of grace alone, faith alone, it can only be told those who are dying so that they can just know they trust Jesus alone. But those who are living need to get busy. You need to do stuff. And if we told you that you're saved by grace through faith alone, you may think, huh, I can just go live any way I want. Yes, the gospel really is that good news. Grace alone, faith alone, Christ will absolutely add nothing to it. We can tell it to the dying, we can proclaim it to the living. But that gospel, when it's embraced, will always produce works. And that brings us to verse 10. Look at verse 10, chapter 2 of Ephesians 2.10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them. You're God's workmanship. That word workmanship in the Greek is where we get our word poem, or you some of you would say masterpiece. We're the masterpiece that God signs by his blood. We are his workmanship. So good works don't save us, but they always come out of those who are saved. Good works are not the root of salvation, they are the fruit of salvation. They are evidence that one is saved. We are going to spend so much time on this when we hit chapters four, five, and six of Ephesians. We're going to talk about lots and lots of good works. So I'm not going to get into all those details today, but I will say if you are saved, you will produce fruit. Your fruit will be evidenced by good works. You will see it. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. It will just spill out of you. But I want to harp on one thing. Those who are saved by grace will exhibit the good work of grace. A very dramatic example would be Erica Kirk, the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated. And she was at the memorial. I don't know if you remember this, but she publicly forgave the young man who pulled the trigger. Now, how do you do that? Because you are one who received grace. And those who receive grace give grace. And I know this is really hard for some of us because maybe you're hard on yourself, so you don't give grace, or maybe you're hard on your spouse. You're just walking around, not giving grace to your spouse, or maybe you don't give grace to your kids, people you work with. The more and more that we realize that we're targets of grace, we'll show the grace to others. And that is a good work. Some of the most gracious people have been the most transformed by Jesus Christ. I read this week about a guy who did something that I just I do not understand this. I f I found this out this week, and I do not understand this. Within the last year, a very famous celebrity gave one of his kidneys away. Just not somebody he knew, not his friend. This is just gave one of it. What? And I learned there are about 600 people who do this per year. I mean, you could say, well, yeah, because their neighbors or their friends are gonna get one, they give one, they exchange one, or maybe this. No, no. There are people who just give away, but that's that's not I'm gonna go donate some blood. No, I'm gonna go donate a kidney.

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What?

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Can you imagine serving someone in that way? Someone that you may never meet, doesn't even know you, you're just gonna give away a part of you. What Christ has done, he gave his life for you, and you weren't his friend, you were his enemy, and he still gave you his life. That's grace right there. You do the worst to him, and he does the best to you, and I believe there are implications that play out every day in grace. I just want to tell you, I know some of you may suffer from low grade guilt. I do from time to time, low grade guilt. I feel so guilty. What I did not do, what I did not falling back on the grace of Christ is key for those who suffer from real great, low grade guilt. And this is the part I just feel like I need to tell you also that even after you're saved, God's grace will be there for you, will enable you, will forgive you. It'll be an enabling grace, an empowering grace, no matter what you're going through. And I just want to I just want to tell you this. So I'm I'm in a small group. We meet at uh Dane and Christie's house. And last week, and we were ending up, um he's like, You got prayer requests? And I'm the pastor in the group, so I try to be quiet most of the time. He's like, they got prayer requests, and Dane, I I have a prayer request. I didn't share it with you. Sorry, buddy. I didn't share it with the group. So I just thought, as my punishment, I have to share it with the whole church. Always share your prayer requests. Since I've been saved since 19 for the past 30 something years, there have been times and there have been seasons where I don't know how you say it, I've I have suffered with despondency. That's a that's a very clever way of saying depression, anxiety for most of the time. And I've hit a window in my life. I've shared this with my staff. I said, what do you do when things are going good? They're like, what are you talking about? I mean, I'm meeting with those three guys, everything's always optimistic for those guys. I'm such the downer of the group. Like, yeah, things are going good. You know, I've never really had that happen. I've hit a little window. What's what's gonna happen next? And so I feel like I've I've I've had this little this little peak of something. Doesn't mean in my depression, it's my I didn't have joy in Jesus. I'm not talking about that. But I feel that despondency, that depression, like nipping at my heels, trying to overtake me again. And it may, and it probably will. And for all you fixers in here, you may say things like, well, are you sleeping good enough? Are you getting enough sunlight? Uh, are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you in community? Okay, fixers, did you know you can have problems in your life that you can't fix? Will God's grace meet you there? So, Dane, my my prayer request is not that it won't overtake me, because it probably will, but that God's grace will meet me in a fresh way. And there's anyone in here, you're in something right now where the darkness has overtaken you, you need to know that God has not abandoned you. His grace will meet you in a fresh way. You can experience God, you can grow even in the darkest times. And I know that some those dark times will soon end as you're soon to be with the Lord. Some within our congregation are dying sooner than later, and you need to know God is not gonna leave you. He's not gonna forsake you, He's not keeping a chart of your good works and hoping they outweigh your bad. He's holding out the rescue, and it's in Jesus alone.