The Alternative

Dr. Tony Evans: God knowing we had a problem we could not fix, decided to fix the problem himself. That problem was sin, and the Lord solved it without any help from us. His love had a meeting with his mercy so that he could offer his grace.

Guest (Male): Google Maps won't tell you this, but there's no way to navigate from here to heaven without going through Jesus Christ. Today, Dr. Evans explains that grace is the road that gets us there. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter two as we learn more.

Dr. Tony Evans: Grace is the inexhaustible favor or goodness of God, giving to us what we could not earn, do not deserve, and would never be able to repay. It is unmerited favor. The apostle Paul, when writing to the church at Ephesus, is writing to Christians. He's writing to believers in the whole book and in chapter two.

This passage is generally read to refer to non-Christians, and it does, but the primary audience are Christians because Paul understood the necessity for Christians to understand what it means to be saved by grace even though they're already saved. There was something about grace that even believers needed to know in order to get a greater grasp on this magnificent term of the new covenant that now defines our relationship with God. So he gives a salvation passage to Christians. This is just nine verses. You're going to discover as we go further in our series, he dedicates a whole book in the Bible to Christians who are confused about grace.

The first thing he wants to explain in verses one through three is the need for grace. He says, and you were dead in your trespasses and in your sins. The reason that grace is needed is because of the presence of spiritual death. You were dead in your trespasses and in your sins.

The Bible speaks of sin in three categories. There is original sin. That's the sin of Adam when he rebelled against God that penalized the whole human race. That's called original sin. It's like when a lineman jumps offside in a football game. Well, the lineman is not the only one penalized, the whole team is penalized. The whole team has to move back five, 10, or 15 yards because of what one person did because they are attached as a team. All people are attached as a human race. So even though it was Adam that sinned, we're all on the team and so the penalty went to the whole human race. That's original sin.

Then there is inherited sin. This is the sin you got from your mama and your daddy. This is the sin nature. They didn't just pass on to you and you didn't just pass on to your children your physical DNA, you passed on your spiritual DNA. And that is sin. That's why you don't have to teach your kids how to lie. You don't have to teach your kids how to be selfish. You got to teach them to tell the truth, you got to teach them not to be selfish. Why? Because you passed on to them a sin nature that gravitates towards sin.

And then there is personal sin. Original sin, inherited sin, personal sin. These are the things we choose to do that are wrong. These are the actions we choose to take that are in opposition to the will and the word of God. The Bible says that all men are dead in trespasses and in sins.

The word dead in the Bible means separation. That's the synonym. To be dead is to be separated from God spiritually. God told Adam the day you eat of it, that day you'll surely die. But he didn't fall over and physically die that day. Adam lived for over 900 years. He died spiritually because he was removed from the presence of God. So when the Bible talks about death spiritually, the synonym is separation. Just as when a person dies physically, they are physically separated now from their spiritual soul. The soul leaves the body, so a separation has occurred in physical death. The person is still alive, they're just not alive in that framework anymore. So it is spiritually, men are separated from God.

So he says we were all in our trespasses and in our sin, in our separation from God. Now why is that so? Follow me now. Because of the perfect standard of God. God cannot reduce his standard just because he likes you. God's standard is one kind: perfection. He can't lower that. That's against his nature. For God to lower the standard of perfection would mean he is no longer himself. So he cannot reduce it.

And since it cannot be reduced, it is the standard by which he measures everyone, which is why the Bible says all have sinned. There is none righteous, no not one because the standard is perfection. But because people do not understand the nature of God, they dumb down the problem of sin. The Bible says all men are dead in their trespasses and in their sin, in their separation from God.

So that's the problem. That's why we need grace. Okay, so let's look at the provision of grace. Verse four. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, raised up with him, seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Remember, he's writing to Christians who needed to be reminded, who needed a refresher course on grace.

But God. Two words that are life transforming. God knowing we had a problem we could not fix, a bill we could not pay, a debt we could not eradicate, decided to fix the problem himself. But God. His method of fixing the problem involved a conversation between his attributes.

His love had a meeting with his mercy. Love is the decision to righteously seek the well-being of another. Mercy is the decision not to give somebody that which they deserve. So according to verse four, love and mercy married each other. See, God cannot reduce his standard, but what God can do is accept a sacrifice that meets his standard.

So God came up with a way to solve our spiritual indebtedness. Romans 5:8 puts it this way: for God demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died for us while we were yet sinners. So here is what the cross is all about. It is about substitution. It is about God providing somebody who would pay a price that we owed.

Born of a virgin, living a perfect life and dying a substitutionary death in the place of men. In some inscrutable way, God looked at the payment of Christ on the cross as fully satisfying the demands of a holy God. This is why when Jesus was concluding his life on earth and was ready to offer up the spirit, his final words were tetelestai: it is finished. That means paid in full. All that a holy God demanded from a sinful world was picked up by the tab of Jesus's death on the cross.

So 1 John chapter two, verse two says he not only died for our sins, but was the satisfaction to a holy God for the sins of the whole world. God was so satisfied with the death of Christ that it satisfied God for every man, woman, boy, and girl who was ever born or who would ever be born. And the way we know that God was satisfied by the death of Christ is the empty grave on Sunday morning. That was God's receipt about being paid in full.

The chasm between sinful men and God is so great that only God could build a bridge big enough to cross it. He did that through the sacrifice of Christ. That is why the sacrifice of John 3:16: for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God offers dead people life, and he offers it by grace.

Guest (Male): When Dr. Evans returns in a moment, he'll talk about why we sometimes insist on trying to earn what God only wants to give away for free. If you could use more help getting that concept to sink in, Dr. Evans has written a short devotional book just for you. It's called Anchored by Grace. As you go through the individual devotions, you'll find yourself leaning into God's grace instead of working harder to measure up on your own.

Dr. Evans says we sometimes wind up being our own worst enemy when it comes to this important area, so it's vital that we learn to let the Lord change us from the inside out. That's why we want you to have a copy of Anchored by Grace as our gift. Just visit tonyevans.org to make a donation and we'll say thanks by sending it your way.

And if you contact us right away, we'll also include all 12 full-length messages in both volumes of The Magnificent Grace of God audio collection on CD, USB, or digital download. Again, that's tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our resource team members help you. I'll have that contact information for you again after part two of today's lesson. Here's Tony.

Verse eight: for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so no one should boast. By grace you have been saved. These are folk who are already saved, but he has to remind them, they need a refresher course.

You and I live in a meritocracy. You can write that down. Meritocracy. That is, you become successful by what you earn. You work hard, you study hard, you go to school. That's a meritocracy where you work to gain your success. The spiritual world does not operate on a meritocracy where you earn it because you worked for it. It operates on a principle called grace.

By grace have you been saved, not according to your works. Point: grace cannot be earned. You cannot earn grace, work for grace. You can't pay for grace, buy grace, because he says it is the gift of God. Look at Romans chapter four, verses four and five. Here is what it says: now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor but what is due. But to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness.

One of the reasons that we do not experience more of God is that we try to work for something God wants to give away. He said it is not by works because even your good works are contaminated. You got people, non-Christians, and they are saying, well, you know, are you going to heaven when you die? Well, I think so and I hope so. I'm trying to make heaven my home. Well, what you doing to get to heaven? I'm keeping the Ten Commandments. Some days I do real good and other days, well, I break one over here, break one over there. But overall, I'm a nice person. I'm a good neighbor. I try to treat people nice. So when God sees me and he puts my bad on one side and my good on the other, I think my good is going to outweigh my bad so that I will have earned heaven.

The only problem with that is Jesus said, thou shalt not commit murder. He says that's what the law says, Ten Commandments say that. But then Jesus said, but I say unto you, if you looked at a person and wished they were dead, you have committed murder in your own heart. So let me just ask a question right now. How many murderers do we have in the house?

Jesus said, thou shalt not commit adultery. Because Jesus said that's what the law says. But I say unto you, he that looks after a woman, turns and looks again, has committed adultery already in his heart. How many adulterers are in the house? Because God's standard is not only what you do, it's what you wish you could have done because his standards are rooted in the heart, not just in the actions. So even people who say I keep the Ten Commandments just broke another one: thou shalt not lie.

So you can never earn it because you never knew if you did enough to get it. You're on your way to a flight. You're 30 minutes late. I'm 30 seconds late. Who's better off? Because we both missed the goal. God has a goal and you may be closer to it than me in terms of what you do, but we all fall short of the standard. And since we all fall short of the standard, God says I got to come up with something for everybody.

Now I know you have a question. I can read the question in your mind. The question is: wait a minute, I thought we supposed to work. I thought there are things God wants us to do. I thought there are. Absolutely. There absolutely are, but not to get grace. No, no. Because grace is a gift. You can't work for it. You can't earn it. In fact, if you try to work for grace, you just canceled what you worked for because he only gives grace away.

You know why he wants you to work? He wants you to work because you have grace. He wants grace to become so big and so exciting. Look, if I paid all your debt, paid all your bills for the rest of your life, and I ask you for a drink of water and you tell me you don't have time, oh, we got a problem. Because what that tells me is you don't appreciate what I did. You either you don't understand it, you don't value it.

See, one of the reasons why you have to beg people to serve or beg people to give or beg people to obey is because they don't appreciate what grace has done. So I want to give you such a big view of grace that grace is your motivator. Because the greater you understand it, the more you will want to do what God asked you to do and not just feel like you have to do what God asked you to do. Because when you want to do something, you're motivated to get it done.

And then he gives you the bottom line. Not as the result of works, verse nine, so that no one should boast. There will be no peacocks in heaven. There will be nobody strutting around at the corner of Gold Street and Silver Boulevard strutting around saying, hey God, we did it, didn't we? God will only do it by grace to remove all boasting.

In other words, when you get to heaven, the only one who will get credit is the Lord because he's the only one who paid the price for your salvation. He will get all the glory because you will be there by grace, by a free gift. So God has a whole new system of thinking, a whole new system of feeling, so that you now operate with a whole new sense of victory being dispensed by grace.

And yes, you'll learn about responsibilities, you'll learn about sin, you'll learn about victory, you'll learn about all that, but out of an environment or in an umbrella of grace. If you were in jail and I paid your bail and then you came out of jail and you told all your friends, man, they let me go because I behaved so well. Man, I did what they told me to do. I cleaned the floor, I did the dishes, and that's why I'm free. You've insulted my payment because the only reason you got out of jail is I put up the bail. Jesus has bailed you out of hell and he picked up the whole tab.

So he don't want you breaking out of jail now that you've been set free talking about, yeah, God had to let me out because I was... So what a lot of folk do is they go to church thinking church is going to wipe stuff away. No, grace is what transforms us. Grow in your understanding of grace.

If you're here today and you're not sure you're a Christian, you don't know if you died on your way home where you would spend eternity, you need to solve that problem today, and it can be solved for free. It costs you nothing. Jesus paid it all. The price has already been paid. It is the magnificent grace of God that saved you, relocated you, and will deliver to you in ages to come the riches of his grace.

If you've been listening to our broadcast and you have not personally trusted Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins so that he can give you the gift of eternal life right now, I want you to go to God and transfer your trust from any and everything else except the Son of God who died on the cross for your sins and arose from the dead. In fact, I'm going to say a little prayer and you can repeat it after me, you just have to mean it for yourself.

Heavenly Father, I know I'm a sinner and that I can't save myself. I believe Jesus Christ your son died on the cross in my place for my sin and I now am trusting him alone to forgive me and to give me the gift of eternal life that he promised to give to anyone who came to him for it. Thank you for saving me and help me from this day forward to live a life pleasing to you. Congratulations, welcome to the family.

Guest (Male): And that sentiment goes for all of us here at The Alternative. We encourage you to get involved in a solid Bible teaching church so you can grow. We also invite you to visit us at tonyevans.org and follow the link at the top of the homepage that simply says Jesus. There Dr. Evans has some words of encouragement to share and some free downloadable resources to help you learn more.

Today's message was called Saved by Grace and you can request that title on its own or get it as a part of Tony's series, The Magnificent Grace of God, a look at how something we don't deserve can give us everything we need. This set of full-length messages contains material we won't have time to bring you on the air, and as I mentioned earlier, it's yours as our gift when you visit tonyevans.org and make a contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station.

And remember, it'll come to you bundled with Tony's companion devotional book for this series, Anchored by Grace. Again, that's tonyevans.org or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 where team members are available around the clock to help you. That's 1-800-800-3222.

Many people think that if they behave better on the outside, they'll get better on the inside. But tomorrow Dr. Evans points out that real growth happens from the inside out and only through the gift from God that we can never earn. Be sure to join us for that.