Sola Gratia (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Grace Alone and the Five Solas

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. It's Tuesday today. I have Pastor Steve Cooley here with me, as always, on Tuesdays, and I just want to say, Steve, welcome. Well, thank you very much. Greetings and salutations.

Salud. Saludo. Have a salubrious day. I'll try. All right. Steve is... Steve is... I wanted you to tell the joke that you told during Sunday school regarding the demons, angels, and something else and the Ouija boards.

It wasn't really a joke.

It was just kind of a comment. But I laughed. Talking about Ouija or Ouija or however you say it,.

Squeegee, squeegee boards. I think in New England, that would be Ouija boards. Ouija.

Ouija boards and all these other, you know, ascendry things. And I just said, well, you know, they're all fun and games.

Until somebody gets demon possessed. I think I've told the listeners before, and I've told you the story, that my mother had a Ouija board. We had a Ouija board in our house. And I remember the little felt bottom portions of it where you put your fingers on there.

My mom had it on her side. And then I had on my side, answering the question, will I win this swim race at the swim meet at Monroe Junior High or not? I didn't win. Shocking. Yikes. Well, we are in a series on Tuesday talking about doctrines that are important for you to know.

Actually, everything in the Bible is important for you to know. Some things are of more importance, and Paul reiterates those. Maybe Jesus reiterates some of those, but everything's important. But some things are more important than others.

Some things are more important because of their relationship to salvation. Some things are more important because of things that have happened in church history. And so we're talking specifically about the five solas of the Reformation, doctrines that are, yes, important, but importantly used by God in church history, specifically around the 1500s and 1600s.

And these are solas alone doctrines, something alone. We've talked about sola scriptura. What's that, Steve?

Sola scriptura is scripture alone.

We've talked about sola fide. Faith alone. We've talked about sola Christus. Christ alone. And now we are up to sola gratia. Gratia alone. Grace alone. And sometimes people, you know what? I just can't even talk today.

Just help me. Just talk for a little bit so I can get my bearings.

All right, well, I'm just going to talk for a little while while Mike gets his bearings. Grace alone. Yeah, I think there is a misconception. We were just talking about this before we went on the air.

You know, sometimes people emphasize grace so much that they have a tough time when it comes to telling somebody why they should ever obey. You know, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. Oh yeah, obey.

And meaning that there has to be a balance. In other words, we believe that we are saved by grace alone just as we believe we're saved by faith alone. Faith through grace, grace through faith, however I want to say that.

But the key is that true saving faith is accompanied by works. And we would never say to anybody, well, you said you're saved, and you said it's by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. Therefore, you are saved.

We want to see, and not just us, but that person should examine themselves based on their own life.

Okay, excellent points. We will not turn this into a show about Roman Catholicism because you can listen on Fridays if you'd like that, actually. I did receive an excellent email the other day from a Roman Catholic who was concerned about my soul.

And your fish eating on Friday, or lack of it?

Yeah, but I probably, you know, I could go down to Joe's Fishery and get some cheap fish on Friday. I like that part of Fish Friday. But I was glad, Steve, to get an email from somebody who was concerned about me.

You know, all this love, oh, we've got to love everybody. Well, if you're a Roman Catholic and I'm teaching the wrong thing according to you, you don't love me enough to tell me? You just tell your friends, oh, I bash Catholics?

I think then you don't love me. So I appreciate those emails where they want to make sure that I go to heaven. And so the Solas were in the hotbed. They were spawned out of this division between sects of Christian, that is the Protestants and the Roman Catholics.

And so the Catholics didn't believe in the Solas. They believed in these things of faith, but not faith alone. They believed in Scripture, but not Scripture alone. They believed in Christ, but not Christ alone.

And they believe in grace, but not grace alone. And so this is spawned out of that doctrine where we say to ourselves, it is by grace alone. It is the unmerited favor of God that saves through Christ Jesus.

Or to use Sinclair Ferguson's words, the demerited favor of Christ. What would he mean by demerited favor?

Well, I like that even better, just as you said, because unmerited favor would suggest kind of somehow that we didn't deserve it. But it's worse than that, because not only did we not deserve God's favor, we deserved his wrath.

And so demerited favor, I mean, we earned exactly the opposite of what we get. You know, if we were to say, you know what? I just want what's fair. I just want what I've got coming to me. I would never say that to God.

I mean, I'd be like, I want grace. I want mercy. I want compassion. I don't want justice. If I get justice, I'm in a lot of trouble for me directly upon me, upon my sins. Well, let's push the envelope a little bit.

Right along those lines, Steve. When people say God doesn't play favorites. He absolutely does. I like to, not capriciously, not sinfully, not whimsically. No. We know that he has put favor on some in eternity past, carried on through time and into eternity, but started in eternity past.

He's given favor to some, hasn't he? Yeah. Isn't that the root word of favor, right? Absolutely. You know, what's funny is that,.

Even think about that for a moment. God doesn't play favorites. So then he felt the same way about Jesus in his humanness as he felt about every other single person?

Well, I kind of don't like it that I can't play the violin like Yo-Yo Ma. Well, he plays the cello, doesn't he? Oh, sorry. I was trying to be very culturally up-to-date. You know, I could have probably said something, you know, I can't sing like Joe Strummer.

How about the violin like Alicia Ratten?

That would be very good. Sola gratia means that God saves by his unmerited favor alone. If you're a Christian today, you will not get to heaven and somehow say to God that you contributed, that you were in partnership, that you co-operated with God.

You will say, God, you saved me. I was passive when it comes to salvation. You did all the work, and I was a recipient of your salvation. All glory, laud, and honor be to the eternal King. And so we have a jealous God that we serve, and we would actually like to guard his glory.

That's what Steve and I want to do. We want to do a lot of things. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we joke, sometimes it's very serious. We want to guard his glory, and anyone that impinges upon his glory and steals it by saying, I did something to get to heaven, should be disqualified from that kind of thinking or from their ministry, out of that ministry.

Well, to get back to grace alone specifically, when we say, you know, demerited favor, basically what we're saying is, you come to God, not empty-handed. I mean, we like to say we come empty-handed, but we come with our hands full, full of sin.

And God removes that sin, places it upon Christ, and shows us his favor for no other reason than he chose to do so, not because of any inherent worth in us. It is his grace, his favor, and his decision.

But as you said, he doesn't make it capriciously. He decided before the foundation of the world, and everything is ordained or everything is decreed to bring about that final result. That is the salvation of those he has chosen to save.

Well, there is a reason why he picked some and didn't pick others, but we just don't know that reason. The only thing that the scripture teaches us as we get insight from Deuteronomy 7, it pleased God to choose Israel and not choose, therefore, the Moabites, the Canaanites, et cetera.

So there is a reason, and it was pleasing to God, and it would be logical, it would be rational, it would be within the mind of God, but we just won't know until later. We just should be glad he gave grace and favor.

I almost said gravy, gravy favor. He gave grace to anyone because everyone deserves judgment. Steve, I agree with you that when people come to the Lord, they come with their hand, I wouldn't even say full, I would say clenched, trying to punch God with some kind of brass knuckles.

My father would say, you want a knuckle sandwich? He'd have these brass knuckles trying to hit God, but their arms are too short. They were at enmity against God, and yet God laid down his son for us, and the son willingly laid down his own life.

And so, Mike Abendroth here with Steve Cooley. We're talking about grace alone, and we haven't really given you too many verses yet. We've just talked a roundabout so you understand the topic, at least in an introductory level.

Ephesians 1 and the Purpose of Grace

Well, let me start with one here in Ephesians chapter one. And for anyone who struggles, wrestles with the doctrine of predestination, by the way, I'd highly recommend reviewing Ephesians one and two and Romans eight and nine, and I think that would help you a great deal.

But Ephesians one, just at the end of verse four, because it's an awkward verse break here, he says,. In other words, he tells us that this was his purpose for his glorious grace, that his grace might be on display, not because we're good, but because of God's grace.

Grace Alone Against Synergism and Human Cooperation

Steve, I was thinking as you were reading that excellent section, I'm not even concerned that much about sola gratia when it comes to Roman Catholics, although I do have some concern where we live here in New England, but I'm more concerned about my Arminian friends, my synergistic friends who want to add something to the grace of God to cooperate with God.

You know, we hear these gentlemen, Jesus is knocking at the door, you know, and he won't let you Who's there? Uh, no. Yeah, no. He won't come in until you let him in and you know, you got to cooperate and it's your own free will.

I think there's more problems these days, since we're not in the 1600s, with this synergistic Arminianism that sinners somehow do something. They even come up with their own faith. Grace alone says faith is a gift.

Repentance is a gift. Belief is a gift. Everything is a gift and you are owed justice from a holy God and you get grace and that should spawn praise.

Well, we've talked about, you know, self-generated faith a number of times, but I would just ask anyone out there who's listening, what would make you believe that you, being as Ephesians 1 would describe, or Ephesians 2 would describe you, dead in sins and trespasses, could possibly generate your own faith?

What about a dead person could cause them to believe? And the answer is nothing. It is God who makes those alive who come to faith.

Could you say, if you're listening today, if you're a Christian, I have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ by something less than grace alone. Because if you can say that, you still may be a Christian, but you just don't understand.

You have the wrong view of that. You come to the grace, you come to God alone through grace alone. And it's not through your will, it's not through your descendancy. Descendancy, is that right? It's close.

Okay, it's not through because of some kind of descendant, you are a descendant of Abraham or a pastor's kid or something, but you come through grace alone, epitomized and incarnated, as it were, by Jesus Christ himself dying at Calvary and being raised from the dead.

I think my new favorite verse, Pastor Steve, for sovereign grace, all grace is sovereign grace, as John Gershner would say, by the way, he'd say, all grace is a sovereign grace. It's a blessed redundancy though, although a redundancy.

And that was R .C. Sproul's mentor, John Gershner, found in Hosea chapter 14. I will love them freely. God says of the people there to Israel, I will love you freely. It wasn't because they were good.

They had foreseen goodness. They believe there was foreseen faith. There was a future for Israel. He said, I loved you just freely. No impingement, no motivation from the outside. Saints didn't cause him to love Israel.

Satan didn't cause him to love Israel. Angels didn't cause him to love Israel. The triune God said, I will love Israel freely. And that same kind of free, this is real free love, by the way, is shown towards the church in addition to Israel.

You know, here's, what is the number one song at every funeral? It's Amazing Grace. And when you stop and think about how many funerals that's sung at, where no one knows what grace is, everyone, there's this presumption that grace is just, you know, when you die, everyone graciously goes to heaven.

Just wrong. If you're at some funeral where people don't preach the gospel, don't know the gospel, and they're singing Amazing Grace, it's because they don't really grasp how amazing grace is. Because when we think about what we deserve, if we were God, we'd all be in trouble.

In other words, if I were God, everyone else would be in trouble. Everyone who ever crossed me, whoever made me mad, whoever sinned against me would be damned. Thankfully, God isn't like us. He is patient, he is long-suffering, and when he brings a sinner to faith, he graciously blesses that faith and grants that person salvation.

Steve, I'm having a moment right now. As you're talking about grace, I thought about the word in Greek for grace, charis, where we get the word charismatic. And I think I've just got the second blessing.

I'm now charismatic. No Compromise Radio listeners, Mike Ebendroth is now a charismatic. I'm really overwhelmed by grace. I love grace, I'm a maniac, I'm a charis-maniac. Right on. With my own definition.

People ask the question, what's so amazing about grace? They should read Mike Horton's book by that same title, What's So Amazing About Grace? If you think you deserve it, it's not amazing. If you think you're due it, it's not so amazing.

If you think you're due the opposite, hell forever, and then you get the eternal riches of heaven through Christ Jesus's merit, then you'd say that is amazing.

Yeah, I mean, if you're sitting there right now and you know in your mind that you're saved, and you just think for a moment of what you were like before you got saved, you just think, that should make you in awe of grace.

Whenever I consider everything that I did and what my attitude was, what my desires were, and then to think of what God has given me in spite of myself. It's not because of who I was, it's in spite of everything I was and everything I thought and everything I did.

For God to put me where I am now is just an amazing thought to me, and that is grace. When we understand how great that grace is, we almost can't help but weep.

Grace Versus Works-Righteousness

Why is it, Steve? Well, I know the answer to this question, but why is it that people have so much trouble with grace? I think it has to do with the effects of the fall and how we are a works-righteousness people.

Even for Christians, we struggle with grace because we easily fall into some kind of works. We start off by grace and then we try to keep up by works. Galatians 3, we are a works people and we have some kind of virus that wraps around us that continues to plague us, and that is some works-righteousness system.

And tell the listeners why grace is in complete opposition to works.

Well, I think our tendency, as you're just saying, is to equate works, to equate what we're doing at any given time with our salvation. And we're working out our salvation with fear and pride. I mean, no fear.

I mean, basically with pride and nothing else. In other words, we think that somehow we're kind of God saved us, sure, but now we're walking on our own. Or God's helping us every now and then, just keeping us between the lines.

And it's grace from beginning to end. It's God's mercy. If somebody said to me the other day, and I won't embarrass him by saying who it was, but he goes, you know, I'm doing really well right now. And he goes, I'd give 95 of the credit to God.

And I said, 95 of the credit? He goes, man, oh man, I gotta repent of that. 100 of the credit. Listen, if there's anything good in me, if there's any good in anyone, including Pastor Mike, it is the grace of God at work in us.

That's exactly what Paul said. He said, it's not me. He couldn't boast in and of himself. Why? Because he knew that left to his own devices, he'd be a legalistic Pharisee out persecuting the church. And all of us left to our own devices would be no better.

Well, if you add one part of works to any grace, if I add one part of maybe a little baptism to the grace of God for my salvation, or maybe walk in the aisle, or maybe a decision, maybe I claim as meritorious Jesus, I accepted him into my heart, then you nullify and render inoperative grace.

It must be grace alone. When I read John 1 .13, how are people made Christians? How are they received Christ who were born? Not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. It's God's will that saves people.

Therefore he gets all the credit. Now, what a slam it is, Steve, when people say, well, I'm saved by something besides the grace of God shown at its apex at Calvary where Jesus died. Jesus's death was pretty good, but I had to add a little bit to that.

It's the worst. I mean, you know, again, we're not out for Catholics today because that's on a Friday, but I mean, it strikes at the very heart of the gospel. This whole idea that there's anything we can do that we can add.

I mean, and I'll go ahead and say some things, but I mean, if we think that somehow our prayers for other people bring us closer to God or make us a better Christian or somehow improve our standing, if we think our giving at the church, anything that we do makes us more of a Christian.

I mean, it's not just salvation itself, but it's our walk with Christ. If there's anything, again, there's anything good in us, it's not us. We are, by virtue of the fall of Adam, we're left as slaves to sin.

It is only through the grace of God that we've been set free, that we become slaves of righteousness and that our desires are changed.

I'm reading a book now called Public Enemies, and it's not about the movie. It's a book about Hoover and FBI and Dillinger and Ma Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde and all these robbers. Oh, I thought they were radio evangelists.

Yeah, that's good. There were these robbers in the 30s and they had these V8s and submachine guns and the local police could not do anything to combat them. Many of you listening today would never think that you would go down to Cumberland Farms or to Walmart and rob somebody with a gun.

You would say it's wrong, it's sinful, it's criminal, it's not appropriate. I'm taking something that's not mine at gunpoint. And you would say robbery is wrong. You would agree that Dillinger got what he deserved as he was shot, that Bonnie and Clyde got what they deserved.

But why is it that evangelicals cloaked with the garb, cloaked with the language of scripture, they steal and rob from God's glory by adding to grace and no one seems to call them on the carpet for it.

And so when I look at Romans 11, verse six, but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace is no longer grace. So you're saved by grace alone or you're not saved at all. Now, again, you could have a deficient view of this but we're trying to cause you to have the right view of it now.

Amen. How about these lyrics by Josiah Condor, 1836? "'Tis not that I did choose thee, for Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse thee, hadst thou not chosen me. Thou from the sin that stained me has cleansed and set me free.

Of old thou hast ordained me that I would live in thee.". Lyrics that attribute all of salvation to God and God's glory alone through grace alone.

Well, and I think if we viewed grace rightly, it would change the way we live. It would change our priorities. It would change our attitude toward others. I mean, it is hard to be prideful and arrogant and thinking how good you are when you realize that apart from the grace of God, you're nothing.

And it makes you a lot more, I would say, empathetic, sympathetic, all those thetic things. New thetic? Well, yeah, sure. When you're talking to unbelievers, and it's why you can stand next to someone who is homosexual or they're struggling with whatever their sin is, and you can say, you know what, I am literally no better than you.

Left to my own devices, I would make the exact same choices that you were making. It is only the transforming grace of God that offers me any hope. I would be stuck, I would be dead in my sins and trespasses.

The Practical Effects of Grace and the Priority of Grace in Salvation

Well, this is Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley today talking about sola gratia, grace alone. If you're a Christian, you're a Christian by grace alone. And Paul even makes sure to say in Ephesians 2 by changing the order of the sentence that there should be a high priority put on grace.

He could have said you have been saved by grace through faith, Ephesians 2 .8, but he didn't say that at all. He said for by grace, to make it emphatic, to make sure you know it's front-loaded, underlined, highlighted, bold, for by grace you have been saved through faith.

And that's what we want to teach, and so next Tuesday we'll talk a little bit more about the implications of sola gratia. Steve, eight seconds. Well, then next Tuesday it's on. Info at nocompromiseradio .com if you'd like to ask any questions.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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