Classic Summer 2020: Sola Gratia

now I have been married for almost 30 years and what would you think of me if I met Kim and 30 years ago and said you know what

I'd like to marry you, I'd like to accept you but I have a few qualifications here's a cookbook and here's a financial ledger and you know in the next 30 years if you prove yourself to be a good cook and a good housewife you can acquire some of these skills

I might consider accepting you as my wife what would you think of me I have to talk about this right now while Kim's not here but you know what that's how we think about God very often it's in evangelical circles if we just do enough over the next thirty years then maybe at the end of our life when we have to lay down our heads and die will

God accept us and of course we know that's wrong what we do in human spheres we would never think of when it comes to God you know up front because of grace alone

God says to the sinner I accept you there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus I'll never cast you out you are my child because of my son's work on your behalf his perfect life his perfect death confirmed by the resurrection and you trusting in him

I accept you from the very beginning up front justified early on the moment you believe you are right with God and nothing can change that and if I went back to the cook illustration and now you're free to cook without worry about failure it is deep within us this idea that there's the grace of God and then there's our merit and somehow they're co -mingled and that's making us right with God it's grace but it's not grace alone and you know back in the days of the reformation this was a big deal are you right with God by his sovereign grace alone or is it by God's grace plus merit plus cooperation plus free will how are we seen as right in God's eyes now the medieval church had a little slogan and it's not blatantly heretical because it's got a little bit of something good in there but it went something like this their little ditty, their little slogan was

God will not deny his grace, so at least we're talking about grace he will not deny his grace to those who do what they can do you like that?

doesn't even rhyme as far as I'm concerned maybe it did in latin God will not deny his grace to those who do what they can and this was the roman catholic church there is the grace of God but you add human merit you add sacraments, you add ordinances you need grace and you need grace not just by declaration but by infusion for the roman catholics grace was a thing it was a substance, it was like a medicine, it was like gasoline it was a force and the pope said you can have some of this medicine, some of this substance, some of this grace substance and you can have it through the church and through the church alone and as you know there were seven sacraments that would give the church people this medicine called grace it started off with baptism and here with baptism all original sin would be cleansed you would be regenerated and the process of justification would commence the next step would be confirmation you'd get the holy spirit, you'd have some special sealing power from God there would be penance number three any kind of guilt or penalty from sins committed after baptism, after confirmation would be dealt with with penance of course the holy eucharist you have a non -bloody sacrifice weekly offered up on the altar of the catholic church applied to the life of the believer for those that were so inclined marriage you'd get a special grace anointing of the sick when you were near death you'd get the special anointing and then holy orders for bishops, priests and deacons and the crazy thing about this grace medicine substance that was needed was that it worked by itself you didn't even have to believe if you got baptized it didn't mean if it could mean

I don't even believe in baptism but you still get credit for it the latin word was ex operae operato from the work worked you don't even need to have faith and you get this and here's the wild thing this concept is still around five hundred years later after the reformation it's here today it's here in the roman catholic church despite scandals both sexually and financially but it's also in evangelicalism except we don't crassly say god will not deny his grace to those who can do what they can we say of course our modern day slogan is god helps those who help themselves did you know half of evangelicals surveyed thought that was a direct quote from the bible and eighty four percent of evangelicals thought it was at least a biblical idea this week in christianity today august two thousand seventeen quote today half of american protestants say that both good deeds and faith in god are needed to get into heaven the same number believe that in addition to the bible christians need guidance from the church teachings and traditions according to the pew research center well maybe it'll be better if we go overseas at least back in the reformation days luther calvin's wingley germany sixty one percent of protestants believe good deeds are needed for salvation switzerland fifty seven percent holland forty seven percent in other words sola gratia by faith about by grace alone and sola fide by faith alone they have the minority view in christian churches yes we believe in grace but it's not alone so today we're gonna look at the topic of grace alone saved by grace when we say grace alone we mean that god owes us nothing but by his own good pleasure by his own will by his own sovereign decree he lavishes grace and love upon us especially through the person of christ jesus it's one thing to say i believe in grace it's another thing to say i believe in grace alone unmerited favor demerited favor based on the person christ jesus i have nothing to make myself commendable before when you get to heaven i'm sure you will recognize that it was all god and god alone before we get in the passage let me ask the question this way because i think this idea has seeped into evangelicalism big time you and your friend each hear the gospel and you respond positively and believed in the lord jesus christ but your friend didn't your spouse didn't your roommate didn't your child didn't both hear the same gospel the good news forgiveness is found in christ jesus and god grants us to you by faith in him alone why did you believe and your friend roommate spouse didn't heard the same gospel one affirms it and believes it the other one rejects it you were smarter higher iq more handsome more education more righteous you were better the answer cannot lie in the person it has to lie in the god who's sovereignly gracious who goes to god's heaven the answer to that lies in not the man but in god and that is grace god will not share his glory with another and when you realize god saves you from his self his own wrath and deliverance from hell not because something is good in me but because god by his own good pleasure his own decree his own free will then you can say amazing grace but if you think it's you who did it you can't say that's a sweet sound that saved a wretch like me every time the clock struck on the hour spurgeon said by grace you've been saved that's what we should be telling our people because we so begin to think we're saved by grace plus something else so when you hear the clock ring at twelve i don't think i'm gonna preach until that point but by the way i haven't preached in a long time i think i'm gonna go long today it's a forgotten truth it's an ignored truth it's an important truth so take your bibles and turn to the gospel of john please i've got to clear up a few things steve has said just kidding but the gospel of john please thank you for preaching through i've been studying john a lot this summer and ecclesiastes a lot this summer i want you just to see quickly from john that salvation is god's doing it is by his initiative if you'd like to understand sola gratia it's simple understand that god initiate salvation and understand how bad we are and then you've got sola gratia and that's what we're going to look at today understanding that the cause of salvation the driver of salvation the instigator of salvation the catalyst of salvation is god and god alone then you'll understand sola gratia and you'll even more understand it if you understand this concept that we are depraved and they were corrupt and that we're fallen and we need a savior we can't save ourselves because grace initiates and there can be no cooperation because what would we contribute our sin now we could look at paul's epistles he really loved grace and wouldn't you if you were paul too the phariseeism and everything else that went along and all the rules and he's saved by sovereign grace but john also understands it and before we go to our main passage go to chapter one verse eleven and you can see throughout the book throughout this gospel the sprinkling of sovereign grace god's initiative even if it doesn't say the word grace john one thirteen is where we'll land but we're going to start off in verse eleven he came to his own and his own people did not receive him but to all who did receive him who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of god who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but born of god but of god well the good news is this now allows gentiles to be saved because it's not based on blood or ethnicity or anything else but the cause here is god and god alone it's not your physical birth who your parents are it's not your ethnicity it's not are you jewish or anything else it is god's work alone supernatural work of god alone he goes on to talk about grace in verse fourteen and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory glory of the only son from the father full of grace and truth verse sixteen for from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace verse seventeen for the law was given through moses grace and truth came through jesus christ sola gratia means it's by grace alone caused by god initiated by god driven by god and we're gonna see that in full or display now in chapter six john chapter six as steve has taught us uh...