The Unconverted “Believer” (15): The Good Works of True Believers 05/23/2021

Well Pastor Jason will come and read for us our new testament passage and today is Acts 19. One other matter we're going to return to next week. I think it's appropriate to return using our hymnals next week, thankfully.

Artie's been faithfully duplicating these hymns for us now for what about 15 months or so, quite a long time. So we'll plan on doing that next week, also Artie. So Acts chapter 19, we continue to read of the gospel spreading out into the Roman world, into Europe formally, and then Jason will pray for us.

Acts 19. And it happened that while Apollos.

Was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples and he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said, no, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.

And he said, into what then were you baptized? They said, into John's baptism. And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is Jesus.

On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about 12 men in all.

And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.

This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that he had touched, that had touched his skin, were carried away to the sick and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this, but the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know and Paul I recognize, but who are you?

And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them and mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

And many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.

And they counted the value of them and found it to be 50 ,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. Now after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Ikea and go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome.

And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while. About that time, there arose no little disturbance concerning the way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen.

These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades and said, men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see in here that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing. And that she may even be disposed from her magnificence.

She whom all Asia and the world worship. When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. So the city was filled with confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel.

But when Paul wished to go into the crowd, the disciples would not let him. And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.

Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky?

Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash, for you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. If therefore Demetrius or the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are opened, and there are pro-councils.

Let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly, for we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.

And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly. Let's pray. Our Father God, we rejoice that you are the one true God, and that gods made with hands are no gods at all. And Lord, we confess that we often worship and serve the creature rather than the creator.

And Lord, we are thankful that you have delivered us from this sin. And we pray, Lord, that you would always take preeminence in our lives, that you would always be first and foremost in our lives. And as we behold you in the scriptures, Lord, we pray that you would speak to us clearly, so that we might know you, that we might know your work, that we might know the power of the resurrection.

And Lord, we thank you for all of these things. So help us now, Lord, as we open up the word. Help us to focus and be intent on what the word of God states. We pray that the Spirit would guide us and lead us, and that we would leave here and apply these truths to our lives.

To your praise, glory, and honor. Thank you, Lord,.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, let's turn in our Bibles, please, to Ephesians chapter 2. Some time ago, I commented that I hope that in this series, you know, that you really don't hear anything new, that we're rehearsing things that we've all been instructed in, informed about.

But there are some things that need to be reinforced, some things that we already know that we need to hear again, and certainly that is the case today. And so throughout this series that we have entitled The Unconverted Believer, dealing with nominal Christianity, we've made frequent reference to the matter of good works, the good works of true believers, and how necessary they are.

We certainly emphasize that we're not saved by our works, that's heresy, works righteousness. That is, our good works are not the ground on which God saves his people, not the basis, but rather it's the works of Jesus Christ, obviously.

Nevertheless, good works are essential to salvation. Not everybody believes that. Good works characterize the life of the true Christian. Good works are the evidence that a person has been born again of the Holy Spirit, has exercised true repentance from sin, true saving faith, and is living as a true Christian.

Good works are one basis of personal assurance of salvation, and we'll start addressing that matter of biblical assurance next Lord's Day, Lord willing. And as we set forth last Lord's Day, our good works will one day undergo the Lord's examination on the day of judgment, Revelation 20.

Jesus Christ who will distinguish by the works of true believers, he will distinguish them from hypocrites and unbelievers. Well, today we want to address more clearly and fully what the Holy Scriptures reveal to be the nature of good works, because there is a lot of confusion and error respecting this.

What are good works and how are these good works produced in our lives? And we'll do so by first affirming that God saves us by his sovereign work, not by our works. And second, we'll show that God has created us as his people in order that we would produce good works.

And then third, we'll show from the Word of God what God has declared to be good works in contrast to what fallen people wrongly assumed to be good works. And so in order to set these matters before us, we want to consider a very familiar passage.

I trust it's familiar to us all, and that is Ephesians 2, particularly verses 8 through 10. And so God saves us by his sovereign work, not ours, and that's what the apostle declared really in the first two chapters of the epistle to the Ephesians.

We may see the need for Christians to perform good works when we consider the purpose for which God brings us to salvation. That's a very important statement. And so I want to read the first 11 verses of Ephesians 2 to get the context in which we read verses 8 through 10.

Paul wrote, and you, he, God, made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, that would be the devil, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, in other words in all unbelievers and non-Christians, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as the others.

There is no difference between us and all others in the world, but God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you've been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

And then here are the verses to which you want to give special attention. For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

The Apostle Paul was instructing these new Christians in the church of Ephesus that God was really the sole cause for them coming to new life in Christ. Since Paul had first heard of their of the two evidences of their conversion, their faith in Jesus Christ, number one, and secondly their love for other Christians, Paul had continually prayed to God on their behalf.

He thanked God repeatedly that God had brought them salvation, he knew who was responsible, and then Paul also continually prayed that God would give them understanding that it was his sovereign grace that had brought them from sin into a state of salvation.

It was when they were in a state of spiritual death, both unwilling and unable to come to Christ, that God caused them to become alive in Christ. Due to God's unconditional election of them as sinners, he stated that earlier in chapter one, God purposed to bestow salvation upon them because he loved them from eternity, he loved them in Christ.

It was not due to any desire or effort on their part, they were just like everybody else, sinners. They were spiritually dead, they couldn't respond or come to Christ. In Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, which we've already read, declare their fallen condition when God brought them to receive new life.

Again Paul wrote, you he, God made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, spiritually dead, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the devil was our lord.

The spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, the devil is at work in this fallen world. You either belong to God or you belong to the devil, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves. We're all at one time within his kingdom, the kingdom of the devil, and the way we serve the devil is by serving ourselves.

He wanted Adam and Eve to serve themselves, eat of that fruit, that's how the devil controls people. He entices you, tempts you to serve yourself. In serving yourself, you're serving the devil. Becoming a Christian, you're serving God, entirely different.

When you're a sinner, you serve yourself. The loss of our flesh, our sinful desires, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, these are the things we wanted to do. It was by nature we were children of wrath, just like all others.

There was no difference between us and anybody else in the world. All under sin, all under the power of the devil, but God went to work to save his people due to his love for them. He showed his mercy toward them.

It was a work holy and solely of his grace. He intervened, and this is what Paul stated in verses four through seven, but God, see in contrast to who we were, but God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us.

Paul's talking about himself and Christians. Even when we were dead in trespasses, we were spiritually dead in our lawlessness against God's law. He made us alive together with Christ, and then this parenthetical statement reiterating by grace you've been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

And then he gives a purpose clause, for the purpose that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. We're never going to arrive at the place when we have learned and heard it all regarding the riches of his grace toward us.

Eternity is going to be an unveiling of his grace toward us. So God had taken his people from spiritual death, had enabled them to rise onto spiritual life. It was a spiritual resurrection, that's what's being described here.

The first resurrection say of Revelation 20. And not only did he rise, cause him to rise from the spirit from spiritual death, but he caused them to ascend positionally from their state of spiritual death, cause them to rise, ascend, to be seated with the Lord Jesus, their Savior, their Lord, on his heavenly throne with him, in him.

We're reigning with Christ presently. It's a reign of grace. And so he is sharing his reign with us through his grace in our salvation, our victory over sin, our resisting temptation, when we're able to defeat the devil, when we are able to see and win people out of the devil's kingdom into the kingdom of God.

We're reigning with Christ and furthering his kingdom in this fallen world. It's a wonderful privilege that he's given us an opportunity. We've got a fight far greater than David ever dealt with with Goliath, and we can see wonderful victories in this glorious struggle of the kingdom of God against the kingdom of the devil.

The king and the devil cannot prevent his people from coming into the kingdom when God purposes to save their souls. Paul then explained further the nature of this work of God's grace in their salvation.

In verse 8, Paul restated the truth, for by grace you have been saved. Notice the tense of the verb. It's actually a participle. It's a past tense. You have been saved. The word for, by the way, for you've been saved, have been saved, is a conjunction, and that word for is an explanatory conjunction.

He's explaining more fully what he had already set forth. Their coming alive together with Christ in salvation was holy due to God working in them and upon them. Earlier Paul had written that this great power that God had put forth to bring them out of their state of spiritual death was the same power that God the Father used to raise Jesus out of his grave to come to physical life, resurrection life.

The same power God used to bring Jesus forth from the dead. He used you to, in bringing you forth from spiritual death onto spiritual life. Same power. Paul argues that toward the end of chapter 1, and that was one of the reasons Paul was prayed for this church, that he wanted God to open the eyes of their understanding that they would see this.

You're running around looking for the power of God to heal people. He said, you need to realize the power of God has already been at work in you. He raised you from the dead. Amazing. Now frequently salvation is set forth in the New Testament as a future prospect for believers and we emphasize that a great deal because nobody else seems to be emphasizing it.

They all talk about salvation as something in the past only. I was once saved. But here it is set forth as a past experience. Yes, one day we shall receive salvation, the word of God, declares that we're heirs of salvation.

That means we'll inherit salvation one day. But here salvation is set forth as the present possession of the Christian. When we were saved, when God had caused us to be raised from spiritual death onto spiritual life, when we'd come to believe on Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we were saved.

And therefore, if you're saved, you have God alone to thank and to praise for you formally were unconcerned and unable to come to Christ. The devil had you in his grip. You were spiritually dead. You were void of the desire and the capability to believe in Christ.

But due to God's love for you in Christ, through his mercy upon you, his work of sovereign grace in you, he brought you to salvation in Jesus Christ. He saved you from your sin. He alone gets the glory.

He alone gets the credit. He brought you out of your state of spiritual death and sin onto spiritual life in union with Jesus Christ. It is a work of God's sovereign grace. And that is what distinguishes us as reformed, frankly.

We believe in the sovereignty of God in bringing salvation to sinners. How did God bring you to experience salvation by his grace? He tells us how. We read, for by God's grace, you have been saved. And here it is through faith.

Now, Arminians, those who are not reformed, those who are not Calvinistic, Arminians teach that saving faith is the sinner's contribution to his salvation, in which he's born again really of his own free will.

They would say something like this, God offers salvation to all by his grace, and then the sinner who responds in faith of his own free will receives that gift of salvation. God has done his part in having his son die, but you must do your part in believing this.

And by these two acts, God and yours, you become saved. It's a cooperative effort, your effort and God's effort. And that's what Arminians teach, non-reformed people. Technically, this is what is called synergism.

It's taken from a Greek word. It means the two. Sin means together, S-Y-N, together, together with. It means two. God and fallen man work together in order to bring about salvation. And that second part of the word ergism is from the Greek word ergo, meaning to work.

You're working together with God. Between the two of you, you come up with salvation. That's synergism. That's Arminianism. That's Pelagianism historically, and it's not biblical. The Bible teaches monergism, which means that God works alone, mono at the beginning of that word.

God works alone to bring salvation to his people. Monergism is what historic reformed Christianity has affirmed and proclaimed. And so Arminians teach that man, fallen man, has free will in the sense that he has the ability in and of himself, granted with some assistance from God, to come to Christ for salvation.

They have too a high opinion of fallen man and too low opinion of God, frankly. This passage, however, and this verse of Ephesians 2a, does not support their unscriptural teaching of synergism. Salvation is not a cooperative effort of God and man, for it is wholly a work of God's grace.

Now granted, every true Christian had come to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of his free will. God doesn't force anybody to come to Christ. Everyone who comes to Christ comes of his free will, because he came to desire salvation in Jesus Christ.

But it was only due to the operation of God's sovereign grace in his soul that he began to desire to come to Christ, that he came to understand that he was a sinner and helpless and needed a Savior. We love God because he first loved us.

And so, don't misunderstand this. We being Reformed, we're not denying that an appeal to men and women to come to Christ. We urge them to do so. We urge them to freely do so. But we know if they're coming to Christ, as we are offering Christ in the gospel, and they do come, the only reason they're coming is because God had been doing a work of grace in their soul, giving them the desire and the ability to come to Christ in repentance and faith.

That's the only way it's going to take place. And so this verse teaches that God saves his people by grace, and he does so through faith. And those two prepositions are extremely important. To be precise, God does not save his people by faith.

Now we commonly talk that way, and it's understandable that we do. Really, God saves us by his grace. It is by God's grace that he enables and moves those he has loved in Christ from eternity to exercise faith in Christ and receive salvation through that faith.

Again, we freely came to Christ, but it's because he gave us the power to do so through his grace. He gave us a new heart, a new desire to know him and submit to him. It wasn't there before. Some of us were like the apostle Paul.

We hated Christianity, despised it, rejected it, reacted to it, wanted nothing to do with it. How is it that we came, became ones like Paul, following Jesus Christ? Because the Lord Jesus did a work of grace in our soul.

It says, Paul wrote to the Christians in the church at Philippi, is God who works in you, both to will and to do for his good pleasure. There's the desire and the ability. That's a good definition of grace.

God working in you both to will, to desire, and to do of his good pleasure. When God purposed to save us from our sin, he put forth his power to cause us to come to him in faith and repentance. It's a spiritual resurrection, as Paul declares in Ephesians 2.

It was wholly due to his grace operative upon us and in us. He made us, as the old King James stated, willing in the day of his power. He put forth his power and we found ourselves desirous and willing to come to Christ.

We wouldn't have had he not loved us and had mercy upon us. It's not because we're more willing, more intelligent, less offensive, less sinful than anybody else. Most of us could testify that we were the worst of the lot, because God gets glory.

And the greater sinner he saves, the greater glory he gets. And that's what Paul reasons in first Corinthians, why not many among us are mighty or wise that are called, but he calls the foolish things of the world, because he gets glory from it.

God's in the business of saving sinners, great sinners, and we ought to have that confidence in God and confidence in the message of the gospel. If we preach the gospel faithfully, we'd be surprised who ends up getting converted.

When God's power is at work, we need to pray to that end. We need to be faithful to make sure we're given the proper message, biblical message, but that is the instrument, the word of God that God uses to put forth his power of grace, which leads to saving faith in the sinner.

That saving faith is due to a work of God's sovereign grace in a sinner is abundantly clear in the word of God. It's not like faith is your contribution and God's contributed his grace. Between the two of you, you come up with salvation.

We read in the case of Lydia, having come to salvation, she was a Jewish probably. Luke recorded in the book of Acts, Paul had an encounter with this businesswoman. She was a wealthy woman actually from Asia Minor, and he encountered her beside a river outside of the city of Philippi.

We know there were a few Jews in Philippi because there probably wasn't a Jewish synagogue, and when there weren't 10 Jewish men in a region to establish a synagogue, formal synagogue, the few Jews present would go down to the river on Sabbath and meet together and pray together.

So Paul went down there on the Sabbath, figuring that he could find a Jew or two, and that's what we read in Acts 16. On the Sabbath day, we, Luke and his writing, and Paul went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customarily made, and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there.

Now a certain woman named Lydia who heard us, she was a seller of purple, a very expensive cloth, only for rich people could buy that from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God, and here it is, the Lord opened her heart, that's grace, opened her heart to heed, to respond to the thing spoken by Paul, and when she and her household were baptized, she begged us saying, if you judge me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay, and so she persuaded us.

So why was it that Lydia gave heed to Paul's message that he declared? It was because the Lord had opened her heart, that's a work of grace. This describes the work of saving grace in her soul. God in his providence had directed her to the riverside that day.

God had moved Paul to go to the same place on this day, for he knew that he would probably meet with some Jews there, and when Paul spoke the gospel to her, the Lord gave her understanding of what he said, gave her the ability to believe what Paul was saying was true, and he gave her the desire and willingness to embrace and commit herself in faith and faithfulness to Jesus Christ.

God saved her by his grace through faith, having opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. Salvation is solely by God's grace, and this is set forth also in Luke's account of the success of the gospel through Apollos in the region of Achaia, that's where Corinth was located.

We read about that in Acts 18, now a certain Jew named Apollos, he wasn't a Christian yet, he only knew John the Baptist's message before Christ had come. Jew named Apollos, born in Alexandria, Egypt, he was an eloquent man, mighty in the scriptures, he knew the Hebrew Old Testament, he came to Ephesus.

This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord, being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue when Aquila and his wife Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately, and when he desired to cross to Achaia, the brethren rode exhorting the disciples to receive him, and when he arrived he greatly helped those.

Who did he help? Those who believe through grace. It takes the grace of God to believe, it's the work of God. And then it of course speaks of Apollos's effort, for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.

And so here we read of Apollos having greatly helped Christians, whom Luke described as having believed through grace. Again we see saving faith is due to the work of God's grace. God saves people through saving faith that he creates and sustains in them by his grace.

Now as we return to Ephesians 2, we read next that Paul had set forth the entire work of salvation as God's work for us, not our works. Again Paul wrote, verse 8, for by grace you've been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God.

How could that not be clearer? You're not saved by yourself, of yourself. Salvation which comes by God's grace through faith is not of yourselves. Again this repudiates Arminians, who say that salvation is of yourself, of your own free will.

The word of God says it's not of yourself, rather it's the gift of God. This humbles man, and man doesn't like to be humbled, and it glorifies God. And people tend not want to give full glory to God. Now there's some debate as to what the word, the pronoun it, refers to.

What is the antecedent for the pronoun it? In verse 8, which again reads, for by grace you've been saved through faith, and not of yourself, it is the grace of the gift of God. What does it, the pronoun, refer to?

A pronoun always has an antecedent that it is taken the place of. Some say Paul intended the pronoun it to refer to faith, that faith is the gift of God. It is the gift of God. Faith is the gift of God.

And although we could rightly say that saving faith is a gift of God, and we've already shown this is so, nevertheless that'd be too narrow an interpretation within this verse. It refers to everything that goes on before.

All of salvation is a work of God's grace. All of salvation is a gift. As one wrote, the context demands that this, and he uses the word this instead of it because he's using the ESV translation, the context demands this be understood of salvation by grace as a whole, including faith, or faithfulness, through which it's received.

God's magnificent rescue from death, wrath, and bondage is all of grace. It neither originates in nor is affected by the readers. Instead, it's God's own gift, a point which Paul goes out of his way to emphasize by changing the normal word order and contrasting God's with yours.

The particular word for gift, though common enough, does not appear elsewhere in the Pauline corpus. In other words, this Greek word for gift is nowhere else in Paul's letters in the New Testament. Other words with a similar meaning are used to speak of God's gift of righteousness and life in Christ.

This gift speaks about salvation in its entirety. Fallen people can take no credit for their salvation. From first to last, the application of redemption is due to the work of God's sovereign grace bestowed on undeserving, helpless, damned sinners.

But even when they were in their sin, God had loved them from eternity. Again, Ephesians 1, he speaks about that. He loved us in Christ. In God's sovereign will, in his decree of eternity, all who would ever be redeemed by Christ, he chose to be in Christ.

And that's why he loves us, not because we're more lovable than anybody else, but because he loves his son supremely, infinitely, everlastingly, and he purposed to see us in his son. He loves us with the same love he loves his son.

That is something that I don't know that we can ever really come to grip with. He loves us with an everlasting love. And so he purposed to save. He purposed to work in saving them from his sin because he loved them.

God is loving to all people. He's merciful, he's patient, even with the ungodly, the unjust, but he has a love for his own that is unique. He doesn't call the unregenerate out there my beloved, he calls Christians my beloved because he loves them in Christ.

And if you're a Christian, or if one day you become a Christian, it's because God has had a love for you, the same love that he had love for his son from eternity. He would not let you perish. He would do whatever it took to save you from sin.

Well, Paul went on to declare in verse 9, the entire sentence reads again, for by grace you've been saved through faith that not of yourself, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

If anyone takes credit for his coming to salvation through faith in Christ, he's either ignorant or he's in error. To claim that you came to faith in Christ of yourself, due to your own ability, of your own free will, you're claiming that you are saved by your own works.

You made faith a work, something you produced yourself, and God doesn't save anybody according to their works. The result of that kind of thinking could result in the Christian boasting of his own ability.

Look at me, I was less sinful than you. Look at me, I was more intelligent than you because I believe you didn't. Pat me on the back, I'm better than you. God doesn't save anybody so in a way that they can have that kind of attitude and that outlook toward anybody.

He saves us in such a way that we are humbled before him and forever grateful because we know, we know there was nothing we could have done, would have done, wanted to do, should, nothing that would have commended us in any way or brought us to Christ.

He had to have taken action or it wouldn't have happened. And so God saves people in a manner that they can only give the glory or credit to God. Now it's rather commonplace, actually up to this point we've been in introductory material, now we're getting to verse 10, this is the important part.

It's rather commonplace for when people quote this passage to stop at the end of verse 9. But when we're talking about the good works of Christians we need to get into verse 10. Again the entire statement reads, for by grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. So he's reiterating in another way, all declared they were not saved by our works but rather we are the result of God at work. We are his workmanship, you're not saved by your works but by his.

It's God's sovereign work of grace that saves sinners through Christ. And by the way here we have an additional word about our salvation, it's described in terms of a creation. Earlier it was in the form of a resurrection, here it's a creation created in Christ Jesus.

One wrote of this verse, God's salvation has already been described in terms of a resurrection from the dead, a liberation from slavery, a rescue from condemnation. Now it's spoken of as a new creation and a further reason is given why this salvation is not of human origin and therefore cannot be the basis of human boasting.

It is God's workmanship from first to last. Believers have been created in Christ Jesus for good works. These good works cannot be the ground of our salvation or the subject of our boasting since it's the goal of the new creation, not the cause of it, the goal of it.