Home pageLook at all the religions of the world! In one form or another, all of them who believe in God speak of doing good, or some religious activities, and in order to become pleasing to God. The unique teaching in the Bible is that no matter what we do now, we cannot make up for all the sins we have already done, and that the only way to become pleasing to God is through receiving grace from God. This 'grace' is described as being the undeserved or unmerited favour which God is willing to show us. This God who created us, and who loves us just because of that, and not because we are good or lovable, knew that we were in a hopeless situation. Even if He were to tell us all that we should do and should not do, He knew we would not be able to follow all that. In fact, we have this demonstrated before us when God formed a separate nation called Israel, gave them laws and commandments, and Israel failed. So, after it was clear that man had no ability to remain sinless and do all that God wanted from him, God came out with His plan of salvation based on grace!
The first thing God had to accomplish was to clear the great chasm that had developed between Him and us because of all our sins. Isa.59:1-4 says, "Behold, the LORD's hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken falsehood, Your tongue mutters wickedness. No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly. They trust in confusion and speak lies; They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity." Our sins have created a distance from this holy God that we cannot close. The justice of God demands that these sins all deserve punishment. If we have even a little imagination of how God is holy and righteous, without sin, we can understand what our sins of thoughts, imaginations, intentions, words and action appear to Him. Even those among us who appear to be good and pious are all guilty by this standard, and if we were to stand before God on the Judgment Day, we will have no justification or excuse to give. We are all guilty. But grace meant that God found means to clear the gap between us as a gift of His unmerited favour. To achieve this, He sent His only Son Jesus to take the punishment in our place and satisfy the demands of His justice.
God offers this grace to everyone, because He created all people and He doesn't want to be separated from any one of us. But obviously, not all get saved. That is because there is something on our part that must be there to receive this gift of salvation from God. How we can receive it and experience it is what I want to talk about today.
Eph.2:8,9 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." It is not enough for us to understand this at the surface level, because many people who do that, take away the idea that salvation is by the grace of God alone and not as a result of our works! Since this subject is connected with our salvation and life in eternity, we must dig deeper than that. Let's not jump to conclusions. Let us also look at other parts of the Bible and learn from there also. Let us make efforts to go beyond distinguishing between black and white, and proceed deep enough to differentiate among the different shades of grey.
If we look at that passage we just read, we can notice that even though salvation is an undeserved gift God gives to us and we cannot earn it or boast about it because of anything we do, we cannot receive it unless we have 'faith'! So! It is not 'only' about grace! Not 'sola gratia'! We have to have faith on our side to receive what is offered to us even though we do not deserve it. Now let us understand what that means.
So, here is salvation which God offers us purely by grace from His side, because we don't deserve it. We can't earn it in any way. That is true. But on the other hand, if we want to receive it we must have faith in God from our side. God does not save us altogether from His side without faith from our side. That is why only a few actually get saved because only a few have that faith. If salvation was entirely from God's side, everyone would be saved, because that is what God wants. 1Ti.2:3,4 says, "This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." We know that God is almighty, and so if He wished to save everyone, as we just read, everyone would be saved. If some people are not getting saved, God is not responsible for it, but only that these people did not have faith in God. So, if some people read the passage in Ephesians we read earlier and imagine that salvation is entirely by the grace of God, they forget how we people also have a part in our salvation. We have to have faith in God in order to be saved.
At this time, remember that true faith is not about some ideas in our mind but something that involves our heart also and which will propel us to action. That is what Jas.2:21-24 says, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,' and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." If we look at this passage deeply, it is not saying that we are justified by works, but that any faith that does not result in works cannot be genuine. So, when we look at faith through which we can receive salvation, we must think of the kind of faith that will produce the corresponding action from our side.
Now salvation has to deal with our past, our present and our future. We need to first receive forgiveness for all our sins of our past. We receive this by faith, knowing that when Jesus died on the cross, it was for the punishment for our sins. When we turn to Jesus as our Saviour from our sins, one thing it will produce in us is a desire not to sin again, because our sins were the reason He had to die on the cross. This desire to turn away from sinful living to a life that will be pleasing to God is the proof that we have faith in Jesus. This is repentance, and as we have seen now, it is not some works that we do in order to earn salvation, but a part of the faith with which we reach out to Jesus to be our Saviour and Lord. Another part of this faith is to recognise who Jesus is, our Creator, our Saviour, our Master and our Lord. When we have this kind of faith, naturally we will want to obey Him in everything He tells us.
The second part of our salvation is to deal with our present life. We cannot go on sinning, but overcome when we are tempted to sin. 1Jn.2:1 says, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;" God wants us to be overcomers, and to overcome in our temptations as they come. He doesn't expect us to immediately stop sinning and become sinless! He knows that even when we are seeking to overcome, we might fall into sin because of our weaknesses. So He has made the provision for us to receive forgiveness, as we confess our failures to Him. But we must remember that just because forgiveness is available to us, we mustn't think there is no need for us to seek to be overcomers!
The last part of salvation which we will experience will only be in eternity where we will be given sinless bodies. This will take away even the presence of sin from our life.
Let me describe a little more about what God expects from us from day to day after we have entered into the experience of the grace of God. Assuming that we have dealt with our past, received forgiveness and adoption as children of God, what does God want us to do? I want to emphasise this because unfortunately, many who have become followers of Christ do not emphasise this in their daily life. I hope that by the time I finish, you will all be very clear about it.
Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Lk.9:23). 'Anyone' who wants to follow Jesus. Jesus is saying that the only way to follow Him is by denying ourselves and doing what He wants us to do. It is obvious that many people who imagine themselves to be followers of Christ have not even heard about this. Their commitment to Jesus may be actually only accepting the idea of Him as Saviour! There is even a chance that some of them have never seen themselves as sinners, repented from their sins and turned to Jesus for salvation. Many of them who have even taken that first step have not been taking this as a daily way of life. Now such people can understand why this has not really made a difference to their character or their relationship with God.
Tit.2:11,12 says, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age." Many people seem not to have come across this passage at all, but having an idea that God will do all of salvation for them through His grace. But see here, by receiving grace we have to allow it to enable us to deny ourselves, as we heard earlier, and order our full life according to God's ways.
For people who imagined that salvation is entirely to be carried out by God in their life, just see this verse in Rom.8:13, "for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live." Instead of saying that the Holy Spirit will transform us by His power, it is saying that it is we who have to use His power to put to death the sinful desires that come to us! Just continue to read the New Testament clearly, and we will be shocked to see what all things God expects us to do in ordering our life according to His ways!
Somehow, many believers have been lulled into a spiritual sleep by a false teaching that says salvation is entirely by God. I have heard preachers quoting Php.2:13 which tells us that God is working in us, without quoting v.12 which tells us what to do. Let's look at both verses together. "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." God is working inside us to give us the willingness and the power to do some thing, but then it is for us to actually carry out that particular thing externally. Of course, God is not asking us to work for our salvation. He has made it ready for us. He is asking us to implement it practically in our life. If we don't do our part, but keep expecting that God will save us completely, God's grace will get wasted. Doesn't this explain why many believers' lives are not changing from the time they first came to the Lord?