Gods grace in our salvation

Let's read from verse 5 to 10. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. First verse, by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Let's first turn to Ephesians 2, 5 and 6.

Let's read that again because I think there is a little bit of a parallel there. In fact, I'll read it right now. Even when we were dead and sins hath made us alive together with Christ, by grace you are saved. and raised us up together and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

That's all positional truth. And here we're kind of looking at a repeat of that. So I think verb tenses are kind of important here. This is kind of a combination verb situation. I wouldn't spend a lot of time here except I think it is relevant. So some verses say ye are saved. And some say you have been saved. But ye are is present indicative. We are all identifying that right now. We are saved. I am saved. Roger is saved. Patty is saved. We are all saved. Right now. But in addition this perfect passive participle indicates that this is something that happened in the past and the perfect tense allows it to continue. into the future.

If you will, this is that one passage among many that I think I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. In other words, the three verb tenses that relate to being saved. I think this is so, so important because some of us identify a date, some of us don't. Right now, today, in nine 11 on April 15, 2018 were saved. Think of one day, that salvation, the glory of the Lord being experienced in his presence.

It's really relevant. We say this a lot, but this is one verse you can go to where the compound verb of present tense and perfect participle relates to all three tenses. Any thoughts about this? As I've said many times, it's a pillow for a pirate head, isn't it? It's really important to realize, like you're pointing out, that our salvation is just not that past event.

It is continuing. God is involved with us in the present and on into the future. Salvation is this ongoing I think there's I often reflect on this kind of scenario in a very special way you know for the believer who drinks milk And you know, anyway, I won't say anything more about that. But Believer Drinks Milk knows they're saved. And they know where they're going when they're out of here.

But the Christian life is a whole different agenda. And that's why we're at Holly Hills. Because how to live the Christian life is really doctrinally based. and when you go to other places we're trying to please God we've got this list of things we need to do we always fall short I mean the positional truth that we're studying in this class in addition to the other three classes is so so important for us to be firmly founded in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know the thing is I feel badly for these people who don't understand what they have in Christ right now because They're missing out on the full fellowship and the relationship that they could be having with Christ right now. And with other believers. In effect you've introduced the rest of the lesson.

It's so true. We fall short all the time but if you rest on our position and who we are in heavenly places then The pressure is off. It's a matter of living by faith and that's really what we're going to talk about. Thank you Nancy. Alright, let's go ahead then. For by grace you've been saved through faith. How many times have you heard this? It always rings beautifully doesn't it? I have one, thank you. I'm glad that worked Nancy, thank you.

So how about a metaphor here, and you could put lots of metaphors on bike race, you could say through faith. I kind of just threw this out. Grace is the highway, faith is the vehicle which we're driving. So the highway is already paved, it's fully there and available. The vehicle is the vehicle, and that's faith, but we're driving it. So the idea here is we have a responsibility to respond by faith, but yet we are in the car. The car is on the highway to a distant or close by location. I just throw this out. You can criticize that, but by grace you are saved through faith. So that is pretty straightforward. So what is grace? There are books on grace that are endless. Schafer spends pages and pages about this. Hall used to spend years talking about this.

Mike's class at times is grace only. We have three verses to cover today. Is unmerited favor enough of a definition? That's often thrown out. People use the you know, what grace, God's riches at Christ's expense kind of deal. I mean that kind of hits on it.

You look at the definitions that are given and there are four definitions that are given. The first is afforded joy, pleasure, delight, charm, you know, all that kind of stuff. The second is goodwill, loving kindness. I think that stops kind of short, doesn't it? The third is spiritual condition governed by divine power. That's true.

And the fourth is thanks, recompense, and reward. Now Mike uses that a lot, this thankfulness that relates to grace. Does that fit when you think about that? Grace being thanks? I mean it's kind of the same root word. There he uses that as one of the four definitions. I have never made a great fit between thankfulness and grace, but maybe that's our response to grace.

The cross is the source of all grace, right? It seems like you have to connect it with Christ. You can talk about grace, but not mentioning what Christ has accomplished. The ultimate fulfillment of grace is in Christ. So mentioning Christ in your definition of grace seems like to be accurate and to be honoring to the Lord, Christ has to be mentioned in that definition you come to. Well if you read on with there, underneath the divine power he recognizes Christ as the source.

I just tried to abbreviate these four definitions for grace and I think they all kind of stop short. And the other thing is that charis, the original word, is used in other contexts to be not as all-encompassing. Grace in these contexts is the all-encompassing work of salvation. Like it was mentioned, I was just looking back, he mentioned grace back in verse 6 there. I'm sorry, verse 5.

By grace you have been saved. So obviously grace and salvation are closely tied. Well, if you think about how about the cross, God's love to us, really afforded joy, pleasure, delight and charm to us undeservedly through the cross and that's an evidence of his good will and loving kindness to us as sinners saved by this condition we call grace. He governs that power being put forth and that's really kind of a The reward is ours based on an extended work that's not our own.

I don't know, you could wrap that all up into one. That's too many words. I think that's why people use the unmerited. Because it's so all-encompassing if you have a short definition. And compare that to mercy. What's mercy? Not getting what we deserve and now we get something we don't deserve.

It's very simple to look at it that way. Alright, and what's faith here? Just believing what God has revealed is always true of faith. So what faith are we talking about? We'll go down to the bottom in a second. I couldn't get that to come in at the end of this for some reason. So faith is response to an undeserving gift. In terms of the faith that we have to be saved, we're responding to an undeserved gift, that's grace, and it's non-meritorious, we don't have anything to do except respond.

And from whence and whomsoever, could grace come from someone other than the Lord? How about the body and the way we deal with one another? The work of the Lord Jesus Christ in us can manifest that grace to one another, can't it? Well, even another person can afford grace unto someone, but it's not Christ. But true grace is really only God found. Absolutely.

I mean, I think you could look at it from a human perspective outside the cross, but I think that would not be... But there's so little grace being given outside of the cross. There's so little grace. The world doesn't understand grace at all. Well, I think the believer doesn't very well either.

For sure. We could spend the rest of the morning talking about that. So, and not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. To what does that refer? Well, I'll answer the question because I put everything up here on the slide. Grace and faith are both feminine, but salvation is neuter. It relates to salvation. It doesn't relate to faith or grace. So, that not of yourselves. It's not faith or grace that's of yourselves. It's salvation that's not of yourselves. and it is not of yourselves from whence does the faith come to be saved.

I thought about this a lot and I decided to pursue this topic a little bit more. Where does the faith to be saved come from? So I went to Dallas Theological Seminar, and I pulled this out. And this is the conclusion of pages and pages and pages on this. Let's read the verses here. This is from Bibliotheca Sacra, dated July to September 2007.

The assumption that people are spiritually unresponsive and thus unable to exercise faith for salvation does not stand up to biblical scrutiny. Since faith is never considered a work in the scriptures, God need not endow individuals with faith in order to avoid a merit-based salvation. Instead, the Bible presents faith for salvation as a human response, much like that of a beggar holding out his hand for food. Passages that supposedly teach the gift of faith view do not, on careful examination, support that view. As noted, the notion that faith must be given by God before a person is regenerated poses several theological problems.

Instead, the scriptures present the view that people can exercise faith to receive God's offer of salvation. In his convicting work, the Holy Spirit draws sinners to himself and waits for their simple response of faith. God then imparts eternal life to them the moment they believe. As Paul and Silas told the Philippian jailer, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

You know, people, unbelievers especially, they're attacking, they're going totally the wrong way. I mean, you know, I haven't got the gift of faith. I think this is something that comes up a lot in conversation though. Where does the faith come from to be saved? All mankind has the ability to respond by faith. Right, and we see that. We put faith in so many things. Man foolishly puts faith in all kinds of crazy things. Look at our world today. People putting faith in all kinds of nonsense.

Nonsense is a good word. That might be a polite word. It's pretty sad. So I thought it was useful to kind of provide just that summary of the Dallas theological view, which I think is really biblically true. And by the way, they give verse after verse to support his position.

I just didn't take time to write all those down. You know, I always thought of it as sort of like a two sided coin. I mean, you believed and I mean, all it takes is that one belief and it's totally instantaneous as soon as you have that faith I don't think we can really understand all of that but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the Lord has no timeline He sees everything at one time whereas we are constrained in our minds by time and space But he doesn't have that time and space. So it's all an instantaneous moment.

Well, but what about someone who's saved as a child and grows up in the Christian family and their salvation? They can't really pinpoint that point. Yeah, I'm one of those. I don't know. It was some time when I was very little. I know on July 14, 1978, I came to the Lord because I gradually saw what a life could be changed in terms of sharing. It was a gradual process for a year after I witnessed how she was different than before.

I was always critical of the Bible because you could always contradict yourself by one passage versus another. As we rightly divide the word of truth, we can see that everything works together now when you put things under law that are under law and things under grace that are under grace.

Anyway, enough of that. Faith is capable by all. men, all women. Now the issue always comes up here. The skeptic would always argue at one point or another what about someone who is not intellectually capable to do this. Well God's got these people set apart in some way. We don't understand that.

The Bible doesn't give exceptions of children with Down syndrome. Although many Downs kids, they can probably understand this because many of them have IQs that are very capably able to understand. But the other kind of... Only a four-year-old can understand everything.

We don't have to answer all those questions. The Lord's got that all in mind. So Philippians 129, a couple of verses, I've cited a series of verses throughout these next three verses we're studying today. 129, for to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake. The point of that is not to suffer. I just want to say for you it has been granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him. Okay, so Christ's work on the cross provides all the evidence we need and our faith can respond to that.

Romans 10.17 says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The word is the source of our faith. And I guess you could say what about times when in fact there was no written word? Well, God worked in different ways in those times. These Old Testament saints aren't the church, so it's a different entity.

But nevertheless, believing what God has revealed has been the principle of faith forever. So what can we conclude here? This is my summary of this. No one in no way contributes to their salvation. It's entirely of God. We respond by faith, a response capable of every man and woman, and that faith is believing in what God has revealed, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God on highways paved by his endless grace.

Ephesians 2.9. Not of works lest anyone should boast. Boast is kind of glory. Boasting can be negative or it can be positive. We can boast in our position and life in the Lord Jesus Christ, but that's glory more than boasting. Boast we think of negatively, don't we, because it brings attention to ourselves. Why shouldn't our works count?

You know, I was with, I think I asked for a prayer last, or a couple of weeks ago, was it? I guess it must have been a couple of weeks ago, about my trip to Temple, which I was at Tuesday through Thursday. A very conservative Jewish man is someone, when we discussed faith, we discussed it a lot again. And, you know, he lives under, under kind of the, you know, the Israeli law.

And he said, oh, but the sacrifice, of course, we don't sacrifice animals anymore. But he believes that, let me just take one example and I share this with him. Christ said if you look at a woman with lust in your eyes you've already committed adultery.

He doesn't believe that relates to the Jew at all. that you can think whatever they want and as long as their acts are consistent with the law, they are living up to the law. I mean that's, it's not, no sin nature, no, I mean that's his view of the world. He's pretty conservative too and he speaks in Hebrew just left and right. Interestingly enough he's fairly conservative in terms of other aspects of his life. So we won't go into detail. But anyway, this idea, he thinks his works count. Why don't our works count? Tom, why don't our works count? They're all filthy rags. Well, I can't convince him of that. That's oil and water. There's no detergent.

If our works counted, then there would be no reason for grace. Yeah, Christ died in vain. Well, that's true. What about the Pharisees? They were doing everything they could, they thought, right? The self-righteous man has no place in terms of responding by faith to God's grace. Okay, all right. No other thoughts about this, right? All right. So what's the world view on this? The worldviews that works do count. The guy is exactly right. Our worldview rewards works. How about every death of a famous person you read about or you see on the television or something.

They're in a better place now. What's this better place that they're in? I mean, we can't pass judgment. Maybe they are in heavenly places. Well, what we know doesn't indicate that. But if you look at the obituary, it's all about their work. Exactly. That's a good point. There was their earthly work. Would it be refreshing if you had one that said this man just trusted Christ? That's right. That's exactly right. That's all he did. He didn't. He didn't need all that. We don't need to know what his works are. If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

The boasting would be of the flesh, wouldn't it? When we boast, we boast of ourselves and what we've accomplished. I hate that when that happens in yours too. Take a step back. By God's grace everything occurs to his glory and we pray that that's the path we're walking in by the power of the Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ. And what's your view of our works? Well if you live in the world system you have to perform if you have a job or you don't keep your job. So in the world system You do have to do works. Lydia was big in clothing, apparently purple. There's a woman of the Lord. She has a job. She sells items that she prepares.

We all have our jobs, or most of us do. The work system depends on responsible behavior, doesn't it? Their metric is how you're doing in that situation. But even people who don't have jobs every day, they have things they do at home, they have responsibilities, so we all do those things.

Okay, but what's your view of those works? They're just earthly works. No, but do they not bring glory to God? Can't we boast of those? And so should boast is errant subjunctive. That means it occurs at one time, could have lasting benefit or not, but it's subjunctive. We may boast, we may not. Yeah, Tom, technical point. Do you mean a Eurus subjunctive? Because he already looks like a little bit like your heart or the statue. That's a medical faux pas. And if anybody in this class would pick that up, it's going to have heart.

Excellent. This is really, really good. One of my lectures in Philadelphia is on calcific aortic bowel disease. This is good. The spiritual humility of bringing a worldly term into the Sunday school class. As they say, context, context, context. In the context, verse 9 follows verse 8.

So the thing we're not to boast about is, it's all wrapped up in God's grace. We're not, you know, in that context that no one should boast. We can't boast of our faith. We're not boasting of, you know, He's eliminating boasting because it's God's work of grace that is saving us.

And we exercise faith. So in the context, that's what it's about. Possible and whenever. So the idea here is that our works is not something to boast about. And we can't boast about God's grace because it's God's source, right? So, anyway. And since we're not saved by our good works, we can't be lost by our bad works.

I thought that was a neat thing to bring forward. That's a really good point. That is, because look how many people, I mean, you know, because they say, well, I'm too terrible for God to pay any attention to me. Welcome to the crowd. Yeah, exactly. Welcome to the crowd.

Romans 4, 5, but to him who does not work but believes on him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Remember 5.21, for he hath made him who knew no sin, sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So anyway, and 3.27, where is boasting then?

It's excluded by what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. The law of faith does not really relate to boasting. And I think this relates to our walk also. Just one verse that reflects that. If by grace it's no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it's of works, it's no longer grace. Otherwise work is no longer work. That's a complicated verse. Let's look at it again. And if by grace, then it's no longer of works. There's no works as part of grace. Otherwise grace is no longer grace. You trump grace if in fact works enters in. But if it's of works, it's no longer grace. Otherwise work is no longer work. So anyway, it kind of just shows that these two are oil and water. They really don't mix.

So we're going to talk in verse 10 about his workmanship in us. Now that's something not to dismiss works entirely, but it's going to relate to a different of different themes. So here we are to verse 10. For were his workmanship, how interesting is that, works don't count, his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Wow, big verse. For we are presently addicted to his workmanship, all of us are his workmanship. And that's the new creations we are in Christ Jesus. Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. Old things have passed away behold all things have become new.

How often do you reflect on that? Not as often as we should. We should be doing this day in and day out 24-7. I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in the world around us that we kind of dismiss our citizenship. I always like just the word his, his workmanship. That's the important, I mean to me that phrase, it sticks out. It's not what I'm doing with my life, but it's his workmanship. That takes the pressure off doesn't it?

Well it does and it's always baffled me so much because You know, it says we're going to get crowns when we get to eternity for the works that he prepared beforehand and prepared us to do and yet we're going to be rewarded for doing the works that he really did, I mean through us. You know, anyway, it's kind of hard to get your brain around that.

And remember Paul's epistles. What can we say in general about Paul's epistles about the first half of the epistle versus the second half? I think it's true of most of his epistles. The epistles to the church at Corinth are a little different there, but the second Corinthians has that theme to some extent. The first part is using the doctrinal and the second half is how it's lived out.

How do you apply the doctrine? In fact, we'll jump ahead just to 424. In fact, you put on the new man. which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness and that's all grace, isn't it? Our faith is by putting on the new man, day in and day out, the new creation we are in Christ Jesus. So again, the first three chapters of Ephesians set the stage and now what the life looks like.

Workmanship, Greek, is a root word for poem and translated actually in the original Greek is art or masterpiece. Workmanship. It's God's work of art in us and it's a masterpiece which brings glory to him. Isn't that kind of neat to think you're a masterpiece? Bob there's another synonym I like too, handiwork. You'll see what that With that Greek word, there's another synonym you'll see. Besides masterpiece, it'll be handiwork. Handiwork.

That's more practical. Masterpiece, you'd think of Mona Lisa or something. We're not going to... Yeah, what Tom? It's more fine-tuned. It gets into the details and they still give God glory. All right. Good. Okay. Hired hands by grace and faith. Right. his workmanship, were hired hands by grace and faith. By the way, hired means God is paying us to live this new life, if you will, and by faith that happens. Representative of his nature entirely in us.

Romans 1.18, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, which by the way is the only other translation for this word.

His invisible attributes, his workmanship, Translated in a different way in Romans 1.19. His attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. That's our workmanship. These things that relate to being clearly seen and understood by the things that are made.

And that's our life. Kind of a neat identification for us. How are you doing here? Nobody's responding to that. But one thing it does, you know, when we think about measuring our Christian performance, you're paled in the ability to do that. But it does take the pressure off, doesn't it? For it's God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure. He that has begun a good work in you will continue to perform it.

So how do we translate that into our day-to-day lives? The world system measures things with a series of metrics, doesn't it? How do we know if our workmanship is really meriting God's glory or brings glory to God? If you compare it with the undercurrents of scripture, not necessarily the letters or the exact acts done, but just the idea behind them to give glory to God, and if that is something you sense did occur, then you can give glory to God because He made it clear to you that it's not a wasted effort. Okay. Is that something we experience and take credit for? put an anchor to because it's founded on what God says you believe is true. Alright, so how do we recognize that in ourselves or our brothers and sisters in the Lord?

I think that's part of the Holy Spirit's job too, to put things on your heart. So it kind of goes to the next question then, creating Christ Jesus for good works, how do you define His good works? I don't think we really can. I think we live a life by faith that ultimately is recognized by the Holy Spirit and others. It's not something we pat ourselves on the back for. That's really self-rewarding. Because a self-righteous man and woman can do good things, right?

We were at the Denver Philharmonic last night and there was a a volunteer group non-profit that works in the inner city for young children who are probably disadvantaged in many ways by race and by location, by income, who are playing the violin and flute. The instruments are given away by somebody and this woman has taken on, she's musically inclined and has taught them violin and flute. one of the Andantes and one of Beethoven's symphonies. It was a fairly simple piece. Isn't that a good work? That's really a good work. To volunteer your time to train kids that are disadvantaged in classical music growing up. and my pinpricks forward to God that was that the motive behind it I had no idea how to judge the motive and of course she didn't. Who knows she's maybe saying them politely not that I have no idea but I mean that's how the world measures good works.

And that can be a cloud of reach in every one of us, can't it? Are we doing enough to meet the needs of an unsafe world by volunteering our time and effort? Maybe I'm just personalizing that too much. Are good works something that we're always going to be recognizing that was just a good work that I did or sometimes I think God uses us to do things. I think it's his life is through us and I think the Holy Spirit leads us to do things and I think sometimes we aren't always aware that Maybe we were an encouragement to somebody or something that we did was brought glory to him. But we're not necessarily, well that was a good thing I did. But God uses, I don't know.

I think what you're saying is really something for us to take a step back from and live by faith and let God measure whether the good works are glorified by him, right? We can't get bogged down with whether our good works are really the good works in Christ Jesus. We live by faith that we are new creations in Christ Jesus and then our paths are all different. We all have different personalities. We are in different settings. We all can manifest that new nature in a wide variety of different ways.

God gets the glory. We have to leave that up to him. If we try to put metrics on it, I think that's the wrong path. The Lord led me to do X amount of good works this week. It's not like a Pharisee when you do that, right? We have certain areas of influence with our children, our church, and our workplace.

The opportunities that we have there as opportunities present themselves, we trust the Lord that that he put us in that place and that if we have an opportunity to share Christ like you know you're a good example you don't go outside of you don't try to go into I don't know the high schools for example you're in the medical arena so that's where the Lord has placed you and I'm in the engineering arena I only have a little time to work these days but if you boil it down Philippians 121 always plays out for me to live as Christ And Paul went on to say, to die is gain. Either way you win. For me to live is Christ. It's not for me to live is to walk in his shoes. It's not for me to live is to be like Christ. It's for me to live is Christ. And to die is gain.

Think about that. How often do you reflect on that? I listen to Jay Vernon, as you know, a lot. And he always said, I'm going to gain, but I'm not ready to be gaining yet. He's very outward. There's another example. He felt that many people were called to form mission fields. That's wonderful. He never felt that way. But look at the mission field he's had through his teachings.

I don't think we need to be pressured to do things that we have good reasons not to do. God's going to show up in our life no matter where we're at. If the opportunity presents itself, then we can at that point make it, you know, trust Him by faith that we should go ahead and do that. And not worry too much about, well, am I going to get, will that be a good work? Is it actually a good work? Kind of keeping tabs, right? Like a win-loss column in a sport or something, right?

You just do it. Which God prepared beforehand that they should walk in them. Are we robots here? God's preparing this ahead of time that we should walk in them? Well, prepared beforehand is really kind of ordained. It's kind of like you're ordained to the ministry of living in Christ Jesus. In a sense, that's what we are.

So in Romans 9.23 it kind of is exemplary of this. By the way, it's the only other use of this being ordained in the church age. And that he might make known the richest of his glory on the vessels of mercy, that's you and me, which he had prepared beforehand for glory. That gets back to the beginning of Ephesians, where we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. That's been ordained before the beginning of time. That we as part of the body of Christ have been ordained for good works and we are his workmanship.

That's pretty mind-boggling, isn't it? Walk. We walk. Aorist. I got it right this time, Tom. It's not aorticus. Aorist, active subjunctive. Kind of means walking about. It's kind of like the Matthew passage in terms of going to spread the gospel. It's kind of in our walk, in our day-to-day existence, in our going. I know if Chris was here listening to this, he'd probably laugh his head off about the aortic. Yeah, Chris would be focused on that. But Chris is not here. He's helping a friend with a plane.

Okay, so the verb tense, arist, again, one point in time, often epic, lasting, active, meaning your part, you're the one doing it. And subjunctive means kind of walking about. We may be walking about in his workmanship. And at times we actually may not be. I'm not sure that's not reading a little bit too much into this but in our walking about we may not be walking about. Well the word walk is part of the idea of faith. The faith walk if you will. So you may be walking someplace you shouldn't be walking.

That wouldn't be a workmanship. It wouldn't be a work he prepared beforehand. It wouldn't be something sinful for example. So you can't make a sinful act and say well the Lord led me to do that. No, that's not him. The Lord is about his business in your life through those circumstances but that's not his workmanship, right?

So, 1 John 2.6, I love the epistle of 1 John for so many reasons, because it is so black and white and you have to see yourself in Christ. If 1 John is the first book you read after you are saved, you are going to think you are never going to have salvation. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. Christ is not our example, it is a life. We're walking as He walked because we have His life. That's different than being like Him. We're trying to mirror Him in our life.

Can we be specific? What has God prepared before ordained for us here? Well, it's just the same thing as that secret thing He's going to give each one of us in glory. We don't know what's in it just as we don't know what those works are or everything until it happens. That way we don't over anticipate and end up stealing the glory away from the Lord. Good Tom. I ponder this a lot to think how specific is God here and I don't think he's specific.

But the best thing I could do would be to turn to the fruit of the Spirit. I mean we are led by the spirit and the spirit energizes the Christ nature within each of us. Remember Christ's heavenly prayer before his crucifixion for us is that this comforter would come and that comforter would lead us into righteousness and truth. So look at the attributes of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control is not the life of Christ within us.

And those are not things we work on. Those are things by faith that show up. And when they're not showing up enough, we're falling short. That life manifests itself in this way. And you could give specific examples of each one of those fruits of the Spirit. Those aren't works, but that's a life lived out in many different ways, in many different circumstances.

Let's summarize these three verses. 2 Timothy 1, 9, and 10 I think is the best we can do. It ends with verse 8, Christ Jesus dot dot dot, which says in time eternal or something like that, I didn't put that there, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose, meaning or being ordained, and grace which was given to us in Christ before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." How's that for a couple of verses later in Paul's life to kind of summarize these verses and just, you know, again, substantiate the importance of being saved by grace through faith. Other thoughts as we wrap up here this morning. The class is small, but God's got to hear who he wants to hear. Well, we've been at that, right? We miss David Tellem and everyone else.

Other thoughts about Ephesians 2.8 should arguably be one of the most important verses in scripture in terms of our salvation. Thank you Heavenly Father for the depth and knowledge of the grace of you being revealed through another apostle. This was in another different letter and that this letter to the Ephesians is got plenty more for us as we continue with it. Thank you for this revelation and blessing today and how it was presented through your sermon. In the name of Jesus, Amen.