(text and audio)
Title: Beating the Horse to Death
Intro: Mindy, in your years of teaching music, is there a song that you just HATE having to teach? Why?
I feel like I have a particular challenge with today’s sermon. Put another way, there are some unique obstacles with this passage that make it a challenging passage to exegete:
Why Today’s Passage is Challenging to Teach:
- We are all VERY familiar with this passage.
- The Greek language is not difficult or controversial. (There are no “hidden linguistic gems” that I can uncover for you to bring a new insight to the text.)
- This passage naturally leads to some divisive theological viewpoints. (Depending on what you believe about how salvation works, this passage can become one of those verses where both sides are screaming “You are totally taking that out of context!”)
Chuck Smith Outline (I’ve never done this before, but I think it will be profitable…)
So, in full honesty, I’ve NEVER done this before. In an effort to dig into these two, extremely powerful verses, I want to show you someone else’s sermon outline on this topic.
This is from Chuck Smith, who is a very solid conservative evangelical pastor and writer. I have no issue with Chuck Smith, but I want to show you how he tackles verse 7:
And here is what I want you to do for me today. As I place this outline, line by line, up on the wall, I want you to raise your hand if/when you have a pang of concern. You may have none, you may have thousands. I’m not sure where this is going to end up, but I’m genuinely curios.
I. “FOR BY GRACE ARE YOU SAVED THROUGH FAITH.”
A. Here is where a long time controversy in the church comes together.
1. The sovereignty of God and the human responsibility of man.
2. Both concepts are correct for they are both taught in the scriptures.
3. Where man errs is to teach one to the exclusion of the other.
B. For by grace are you saved. That is the sovereignty of God.
1. I do not deserve to be saved.
2. I surely cannot save myself.
3. Salvation comes to me through the grace of God, there is nothing that I have done to deserve it, and certainly nothing I can do to earn it.
4. This is something that God has done for me, He has saved me.
C. The “through faith” is my part, just believing the promises of God concerning my salvation. That if I will confess with my mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead, God has promised that I would be saved.
For by grace you have been saved through faith…
Words/phrases that suggest this is God’s work:
grace
you have been saved
Words/phrases that suggest this is our responsibility:
through faith
How many of you, show of hands, think that Paul might have noticed these two concepts may have seemed to be at tension with each other in verse 7.
So what does Paul do about that?
He keeps writing!
If we isolate just the first part of verse 8, there is an argument to be made for tension. But if you just KEEP READING verse 8, and then add verse 9 in for good measure, things become MUCH MUCH clearer.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Let’s re-do the exercise now, with the first part of verse 8 properly in context:
Words/phrases that suggest this is God’s work:
grace
you have been saved
not of yourselves
the gift of God
not of works
Words/phrases that suggest this is our responsibility:
through faith
By my count that’s five to one in favor of God’s Sovereignty vs. Man’s responsibility.
So we don’t really need to deal with “through faith” do we? It’s shouted down by our other five points, right?
WRONG!
“Through faith” is NOT in opposition to the context of the passage!
Is “through faith” a human response?
YES!
So what is the 10 million dollar question?
How does one “Get Faith?”
How does a totally depraved, wicked sinner, who cannot do anything right, who cannot do anything to please God, somehow CHOOSE GOD?
God calls them to himself, which is a work of God.
The role we play is to RESPOND to what God has already begun in our hearts.
And why? Why is that?
verse 9: So that no one should boast.
Everything that we do, must be in an effort to reflect the riches of God’s Glory. If salvation is about us, it is NOT a gift, it’s a result of our work.