7/16/17 Sermon

By Grace, Through Faith                                                                               
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2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.[b] 4 But[c] God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
PRAYER:
After last week’s sermon, I know that many of you had many questions about predestination. And I told you it was all about the salvation of human race. At least, from Ephesian chapter 1, it was very clear that God chose you because GOD LOVES YOU and because YOU ARE CALLED TO BE HIS CHILDREN. Remember we had the writing on the screen in BOLD CAPITAL letter. Just like you are, sometimes, pain in the butt to your parents, they still love you.
Deuteronomy 7:8 said God Chose you because he loved you. I hope we made that very clear.
So what was not clear, or had many more questions about the predestination was:
Why doesn’t God save everyone if He loves us all? This is a great question. Before we can answer that, we need to know answer one important question:
What is God’s purpose of saving you? Other than obvious reason of God love you.

• 1:4 = Holy and blameless
  • SAVED, Christian
• 1:5 = According to his will
  • Build (and expand) his Kingdom
  • kingdom is not a building (would God Happy with a bigger church building)
  • What is God’s kingdom? It is Kingdom with full of saved people, who are holy and blameless
  • Just like the God’s church is not a building, but it is body of Christ (full of saved people)
• 1:6 = to praise his glorious grace (repeats on v12 and v14)
  • Let’s look at 2:10. It says you are his workmanship, a masterpiece.
  • Do you remember the little story I told a few weeks ago? Clay the rice bowl?
  • You are his masterpiece and you are used for God’s glory. You become the instrument or vessel, or tool to serve others, just like the rice bowls or plates or dishes that potter made and use it to serve wonderful food for others.
  • So you are being used for his glory if you are Christian. What is that mean? That means God wants to use you to serve others and bring other non-Christian friends to Christ.
  • Why? Because that is his will. His will to expand the kingdom of God, full of saved Christian people.
  • God’s grace is displayed through you when you serve others and bring them to Him to build his kingdom. That is why God chose you.
  • So, you should not ponder why God chose you and saved you. He chose you and saved you because of your non-Christian friends.

 
So let’s go back to why doesn’t God save you everyone? Well, He does! He wants to build a bigger kingdom THROUGH YOU. That is how God wants to save everyone.

• Parable of laborers in vineyard (Matt 20:1-16)
• Parable of banquet  (king’s wedding party, Matt 22:1-14)
• The points are:
  • All are invited, few came by his own choice, didn’t matter who came first, they all got what they came for and more (Salvation)

 
Today’s scripture says about our previous state before we believe God, (v 1~3) We were all dead in sin. Not only we were (spiritually) dead, we followed the course of the world and prince of the power of the air, Interesting choice of the words, it means Satan.

• Refrigerator meat gone bad. Shriracha sauce to mask the dead decaying small, that thing is good to go? No! dead is dead!
• We started death process when Adam sinned against God (aging process started)
• Rom 3:23 says we have all sinned and Rom 6:23 says we are all worthy of eternal punishment.
• Non-of-us are worthy of being saved, and God does not have to save everyone.

 
Why doesn’t God just forgive us anyway? HE is loving God after all..

• Then you might ask, why God doesn’t just come down and save everyone, because he is almighty and loving. Just forgive everyone and start over..
• OR wipe it clean and start all over again. Well, God tried that with Noah, but it didn’t work out so well after either, human still fell into sinful nature. We always have.
• So why doesn’t God just forgive us? Well, there is at least one reason I can think about.

 For example, let say, Christian borrowed my car. Chris was taking a joy ride and BAM. He totaled my car. Chris was so sorry and wanted my forgiveness. Well, what are my options? I could have him pay for it. Or he doesn’t want to pay for it then, I could take him to a court, make him work for it until it pays off or whatever.. But my other option is just forgive him. Right? What do I mean by forgiving him? It’s not like, “I am not mad, but you pay for it”. No, True forgiveness means I absorb the cost of damage. It does not change the fact that damage is fixed itself or go away. But Christian does not have to pay me back for the damage.
Chris, don’t borrow my car.
We broke the relationship with God and offended God with sins. But God himself absorb the cost of damage through Christ. So all we have to do is believe and receive Jesus Christ.
The key is to believe and receive Christ. That is our job, our choice, our decision.

• What God wants is very simple. HE wants to have relationship with us. And he wants us to love him back. That’s all he wants.
• IF God can order and make everyone to love God,
  Where is your freedom?
  Where is your free will?
  Where is love in that?
  Are we slaves?
  Are we robots? No, we are children of almighty God. We have freedom and free will.  We choose to love God. And we are the one that reject God. How do we reject God? We sin against him and we mock him with our actions and we do not follow His ways. Which comes down to really only one thing, LOVE GOD and LOVE others.
• So Let’s go back to our original question. Why doesn’t God save everyone? That is a wrong question. He wants to save everyone though you. And all human being has to do is to hear, believe, and receive.

 
(v 4~7) While we were dead, God made us alive with Christ by his Grace. And it says only by grace and God’s rich love we are saved. And what else does it say, God raised us with Christ and seated us with Christ in the heavenly places.

• Jesus did not merely died for us. Jesus died instead of us. Jesus took our sins Instead of us.
• And God seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. God literally put me in Jesus’s seat!
• I am as sure of heaven as Jesus is. People might ask me “are you that righteous?” No, Jesus was that righteous and he paid my debt. We traded places and I am going to heaven in his account
• When we pray, when we approach God in prayer, we pray in Jesus name. So our prayer has the power of Jesus. That is the only way to approach God in prayer, though name of Jesus.

 

• I want to show you this picture
   
  Notice that Jesus is standing and knocking on your door?
  Is there anything weird about this door?
  There is no door knob! How do you open the door without doorknob?

You must open from inside.
This door is your heart. Only YOU can open the door for him.
As you can see, the choice is my our hand, whether to open the door or not.
And there are many people, telling Jesus to go away!
This world we live in right now. Name of Jesus is not welcomed.
But you would care enough and love Jesus enough to ask the question of “ why doesn’t God save everyone?”
That means you have the fire of Jesus inside of you.
Jesus is asking the same thing, “Why don’t you open the door? Let me save you, let me give you peace and strength you need to not just survive but to thrive this hostile world.” “Let me carry your burden, let me carry you though!”  Holy Spirit is calling you right now.
Will you receive Christ as your Lord and savior this morning. Just say Yes and let him in.