“By Grace Through Faith” (Eph 2:8-9) - Family Worship Service -

The Whole Bible in One Sentence

If you were asked which verse best summarizes the whole of Scripture, what would you say? Perhaps many of you would recite John 3:16. Along with this famous verse, there is another golden text to summarize God’s way of salvation in one sentence, that is, Ephesians 2:8-9:

“For 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” (NIV).

By Grace

Salvation belongs to the Lord (Jonah 2:9). You and I have been saved by grace. But, what is “grace”? Grace is “unmerited favor.” In other words, grace is getting what we don’t deserve. [Object Lesson] Here on this table there are three gift boxes. Who wants this?  [1] Mary, can you come up and do five jumping jacks? And I will give this gift to you. [2] John, can you do three push-ups? And I will give this gift to you as well. [3] Kale, do you want this gift? Here it is! Now, let me ask all of you. Who received “grace” from me? Kale! John and Mary worked hard. They deserved it. They got their rewards. But as for Kale, he got what he didn’t deserve. I gave the gift to him, because I just loved him, because I just wanted him to have that gift. That’s grace.

We have been saved by grace. We have been saved just because God wanted us to have that gift – abundant life, eternal life with Him. That’s who God is. He is our good, good Father! On God’s part, He gives His saving grace to everyone. The Bible says, “God wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth” (1 Tim 2:4, NLT). That’s grace – the free gift of God. We cannot add anything to God’s salvation. Salvation is a work of God’s grace from start to finish. Salvation belongs to the Lord.

Through Faith

Does that mean everyone is automatically saved? The answer is NO! We ought to respond, receive God’s gift. On our part we ought to say “Yes” to God’s grace. That is “faith.” We have been saved by grace, through faith. Faith means trusting something or someone and acting accordingly. Nowadays Esther loves to climb – climb on chairs, tables, stairs – you name it. Not only that, if she saw me near to her, she just jumps to me. That is faith – trusting and behaving accordingly. So faith in God means trusting God and His promises with all our hearts and minds and acting accordingly.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of David and Goliath. David’s faith tells us what it means to have faith in God. When Goliath defied the name of the living God for forty days, none of the Israelites was able to fight against him, except David. David did trust God, His character, His promises with his whole heart and act accordingly. He did trust God enough to stand and fight against Goliath. David’s conviction and confidence are from his daily experience with God. Before King Saul, David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Sam 17:37). Because David knew God intimately, he was able to trust God and act accordingly. Later, because of Saul’s jealousy, David became a runaway and lived in the wilderness. And everyone who was in distress, or in debt, or discontented gathered around him. And David became their leader. Later, about six hundred men were with him. Let me ask you: who do you think changed? Do you think David became more like those 600 good-for-nothing fellows, or vice versa? The answer is those 600 men became more like David. They became the men of God who later helped to build a new country. How can this be? It is because David spent more time with God, than with the surrounding 600 men. David experienced God daily. He came to know God so intimately, know God enough to trust Him with all his heart and live accordingly.

Hear the Word

Faith is not a feeling. Faith is anchored in God – His character and His promises (His Word). The more we know God, the more we have faith in Him. The more we experience God, the more we trust Him and act accordingly. So, how do we know God and build real faith in Him? Like any relationship, we need to set aside time to deepen our relationship with God. In particular, we need to take time to hear God’s word as much as possible. The Bible says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rm 10:17, ESV).

As we open up to God and listen to His word attentively, we come to know God. We come to trust God. We come to fall in love with God. “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long” (Ps 119:97). “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (119:103) As we hear, read, mediate on the word, we come to know who God is and who God isn’t. We come to know what God’s will is and what God’s will isn’t. [Object Lesson] I have two twenty-dollar bills with me: one is genuine and the other is fake. How do we know which one? The agents of the Secret Service are trained in this way: They examine and study genuine currency so thoroughly –to a degree that they become so intimately familiar with the authentic item, that they can immediately spot a fake. In the same way, as we hear the word and immerse ourselves fully in God’s word, we just know God – His character and His will. We just know false messages when we see them. When the Israelites had gone astray and stumbled all over themselves, the Prophet Hosea urged them, “Come, let us return to the Lord. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord. And we will live before him” (cf. Hs 6:1-3). Faith in God – knowing God – comes from hearing the word.

Do the Word

But there is more! We grow in our relationship with God and our faith in Him by doing the word as well as hearing the word – hear the word, do the word. There are several books that I read over and over again, and one of them is “Why God Used D. L. Moody” written by his close friend, R. A. Torrey. In this book Torrey gives us seven reasons why God was able to use Moody in a mighty way. Though all seven were good, particularly the following one stood out to me as I was reading this past week: “A deep and practical student of the Bible.” It is known that in the margin of many pages in Moody’s Bible, he wrote the letters T and P. The letter T stands for “tried,” and P for “proved.” Moody had personally tried and proved many verses and passages in his own life. He was indeed a good, teachable student of the Bible. He was a doer of the word. So God could use D. L. Moody.

In Luke 10 Mary is another good example. Both Martha and Mary loved the Lord. But Martha was a take-charge person. Though she provided great hospitality services to the Lord, she did it according to her plan, her way. She made her own choices on how she wanted to serve. She was so preoccupied and not available. Jesus said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.” That is, in fact, what Mary was doing – sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing His word first. And the time came, Mary did do the word. She did the most beautiful, memorable, sacrificial service to the Lord – anointing Jesus’s feet with costly perfume and wiping them with her hair. From Mary’s story we can learn how important it is to be teachable and available for God to use. Are you teachable? Are you available? May the Lord make us available every day for Him to use. May the Lord make us teachable always and to the end!

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will,
while I am waiting, yielded and still. Amen.