Ephesians 2, and beginning in verse 1. And ladies and gentlemen, this is the Word of God. And you are dead in the trespasses and sins 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, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him. and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works. so that no one may boast. Let's pray together. Our God, be exalted. Reveal your truth to us. And by that, set us free. And we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. You may be seated. I'd like to take you on something of a journey today to understand your Bibles better. To do that, we have help by means of gifted teachers through the church age. One of the gifts that the Lord has given to the church through the ages, not just in our own time, but through the centuries, are pastors and teachers. I'm sure you remember, Ephesians chapter four describes the fivefold or the fourfold, depending on your view, ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. And these are not obscure to us. These are people through the ages of the church who have been gifted by God, not only to study God's Word and to understand it, but to teach the church. They are gifts to us. and we impoverish ourselves if we ignore them. Rather than thinking that it's just you, me, it's us and Jesus under a tree, and that's the most spiritual thing we can do, just get alone with Jesus. There's nothing wrong with getting alone with Jesus, but it's helpful to us when we're looking at Bible passages to find out not only what the Holy Spirit might reveal to us, but what He's revealed to others. And we can learn a lot from them. Through the history of the church, there's been times when the people of God and the teachers of the church had to combat heresy. And what resulted are creeds of the church, oftentimes in the midst of great intellectual combat. They formed these things based on the teaching of Scripture. What is true to scripture, we need to embrace. What is simply the tradition of man, we need to reject. But we should use a lot of caution when great teachers of the church, and many of them have said this after studying this passage in this book for 20 years and more, this is what it says, rather than disregard it to at least understand why they came up with their idea. In the history of the church, there was a heretic by the name of Pelagius. He was from Britain. Shouldn't trust anyone from Britain. We're not actually sure exactly which country. It's rumored it was Wales. Although, when we think of England, we can think there were some greats as well, like Spurgeon and Whitefield and some of the others. But Pelagius wasn't simply one of those greats. He was a British monk and he had the idea that Adam's sin only affected Adam. It only affected him. No one but himself. And everyone born since Adam have been born into the same condition that Adam had before the fall. Before the fall of man of Genesis 3. It was, in theological terms, a denial of what we call original sin. Not the original sin of Adam, but that original sin is inherent in us. When we're born into this world, we have a tendency towards sin. You might think I'm not sure about that. Well, have children and you will be very quickly onto the idea that they know things and do things to draw attention to themselves and we have to teach them out of it, and often discipline them out of it. The Bible says foolishness is in the heart of a child. The rod of discipline will remove it from them. By nature, we're prone to not go towards God, actually away from Him, to want our own will, to lie. That's what is inherent in us, and that's why we need a new nature. We'll talk more about that. So for Pelagius, man is kind of neutral towards sin and he's able to make the right choice because he's free from sin if he wants to be. He was reading a prayer of Augustine. who was a great, one of the greats I'm referring to, in the first millennia of the church, he was no doubt the greatest theologian outside of the New Testament, hugely influential, and he wrote a prayer, and it went something like this, Lord, command what you will, and grant what you command. It's a very short sentence in a prayer. Command what you will and grant what you command. Now Pelagius read that and got mightily upset by it. You think, what would be upsetting about a prayer like that? Well, it was upsetting to him. Not the first part that said, Lord, command what you will. For Pelagius, it was obvious that because God is the great creator, he has the right, as creator, to command his creatures to do everything he says. Anything he says. And so, it wasn't the first part of the prayer that threw him into anger. It was the second part. Grant what you command. And for Pelagius that was just ridiculous. No, the fact that God commands us to do something must mean we have inherently the power to do it. God says, do it, we must have the ability to do it. Now, he attacked Augustine's prayer, vociferously, and Augustine, Augustine, however you might say it, Augustine, I believe that's the right way to say it, He defended the idea that we need God's grace to do God's will. That inherent in us is not the propensity towards doing good, but we need grace to overcome our resistance, and we need help. It's interesting when you read the New Testament, Jesus, when he came, didn't lower the standards of God just because people weren't getting there. In the Sermon on the Mount, which many find as a comfort, if you actually read it, it's very discomforting. Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God. Well, how many of you can say, well, that's me. Totally pure, always been pure in heart. The more you read, the more you realize, I need help. He goes on and sums it up by saying, you must be perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect. We can look around us on a horizontal plane and say, well, I'm better than this guy, and I'm better than that guy, and we can list the dictators around us. I'm better than Hitler, I'm better than Stalin, I'm better than Mao, I'm better than this guy. But Jesus doesn't say, well, that's great, welcome to the kingdom of God. No, he says, the standard is perfection. You must be perfect, not according to Hitler and Stalin, but according to the standard of God the Father. You must be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect. How many say, well, I've done that, did that all day. No, we are in need of grace. Even though God has commanded us to be perfect, I'm sure you'll agree, none of us get there. And that's because of our inward tendency to sin. We have it. In sin, my mother conceived me, David wrote in Psalm 51. It's our tendency. So, Pelagius thought if God commanded something, he must have given us the ability to do it, and therefore, his conclusion in reading the words of Jesus would be this. Jesus said you must be perfect, we therefore can be perfect. And he believed that some people had actually achieved it. This Pelagian idea, we call it Pelagian from this monk's name Pelagius, is rampant in our land. It's basically the idea that man is basically good. He's basically well. He's doing good. He might need a few tweaks and a little kind of halftime pep talk, but he's doing well. There's no need, Pelagius said, for God to grant what he commanded. And Augustine defended his view that although God commanded, God needs to actually grant grace to us so that we can be empowered to do what he commands. Pelagius, on the other hand, would say, no, grace isn't necessary because God commands us to be perfect. We must have the ability to be perfect. Grace might facilitate and help, but it's not required. This idea of Pelagianism is humanistic, as you can imagine, and it's the belief that man is well. Man is good, man is well. It's a man-centered teaching, and while very positive, It limits the nature and scope of sin. It can't survive the scrutiny of God's Word and reading it. It flatly denies the necessity of God's grace. This view, Pelagianism, was condemned as heresy by the church many times over for the simple reason there's no basis for it in Scripture. However, that view never really went away. It's basic to the human heart. It's very prevalent in our own day. It's amazing how many sermons in our land has, if we were to mark it in a theological term, would be pure Pelagianism. As one man said, we're all born Pelagians at heart. We think we can do anything God commands or achieve salvation without the need for grace. There's a second view I want to make mention of, and it's called synergism. You might have heard that if you're in the business world. The leader of a group might say, look, we've got this project. We need all of our ideas on the table. You think, I'll think, and we'll synergize. We'll bring them all together. And that word synergism, it's S-Y-N rather than S-I-N, is the idea of things being accomplished by the actions of more than one. S-Y-N. Cooperation. And here the belief would not be that man is well. It would be the idea that man is sick, even mortally sick. And that's a view that is rampant in the church today, in the professing church. And the idea is this. If man was as healthy as the Pelagians say, then surely war and disease and starvation and poverty and the problems we face today would have been eliminated by now. But since they're here and they're still here, it hasn't been fixed, the synergist will conclude that something's basically wrong with human nature. Yet, they would say it's not entirely hopeless. It's bad. It's really bad, even desperate, but not hopeless. And if you just educate man, he will arise out of the ashes and accomplish great things. It's not hopeless. We haven't blown ourselves off the planet, not yet anyway. There's no need to call the morticians yet. Human nature in this view of synergism would say that man has been damaged, his nature has been damaged by the fall, but his will is not enslaved to sin. He's fully capable, now hear this, fully capable of believing in Christ even prior to what we call regeneration. Don't be put off by that big word regeneration. It simply means to be born again, to be made alive spiritually, to be generated, it means to become alive, to be regenerated is to be made alive by the power of God. And the idea of synergism is that you need God's grace God's grace is necessary, but every sinner retains within himself the ability to choose Christ or to reject Him, either cooperating with God and being saved, or resisting God's grace and therefore being damned. That idea is very broad and there's a lot under that banner of synergism. Two I'll mention is something called semi-Pelagianism. Semi was not the cousin of Pelagius. It's a form of Pelagianism which teaches this. Pelagianism, as you remember, man has the ability to do everything God says. Semi-Pelagianism would say man initiates and God helps. Man initiates. We reach up to God and God says, oh, I see that hand. I'll help. Another view under this big canopy of synergism is something called Arminianism. It was named after a man called Yakov or Jacob Arminius. And this teaches that God initiates by offering grace, and that mankind either does or does not cooperate with that grace. I'm sure you've heard of it, even if you've never heard the term before. God offers grace, man still has the ability to cooperate. And it's very popular in our day. And it's still classed under that banner of synergism because Being born again, regeneration, takes place through the cooperation of man with God's grace. Salvation then is part God, part us. The view would be like this, that God does 99.9% of everything, But he can't invade the human heart. He is a gentleman, you understand. And therefore, the final choice of you being saved or not is with you. God is trying. He's really trying, but he won't force the issue. He has to wait for you. And then when you respond, you're saved. The third view is the view I hold, Augustinianism, named after who? Augustine. You got it right. It's what we would call the reformed view. And when we say the word reformed, I want to just say I want that to mean biblical. I think every Christian just wants to be biblical. As I've climbed the theological tree, I climbed and found Reformed theologians at the top of the tree. Or if we talk about a mountain, climbing the mountain of truth, I found theologians of the Reformed variety in their deck chairs having cigars and coffee. They'd been there a while. It took me a long time to find this out. This is the view in Augustinianism that God says by his divine power alone. Now this would be described as the word, I know you've heard it because you've been around here a while, monergism. Monergism. If you've got a CD player, an ancient times cassette player, MP3 player, you can have it play in mono or stereo, right? Stereo means two, more than one. Mono means one. So, if you've got a mono player, it's not going to be as dynamic as a stereo, but you've got some noise. But it's one speaker, one noise. So, monogism is the idea of one power working. One power working. And I believe that is what the Bible teaches, and I hope to convince you of that today. So, first belief, Pelagianism, man is well. Second belief, Synergism, which means man is sick, even mortally sick. The third belief is Augustinianism, and that's the belief that man is dead. Well, that doesn't sound positive at all. No, I would say it is. He's positively dead. Now, for salvation to occur, it requires the entire work of the Trinity. God, the Trinity, is at work in the salvation of lost sinners. God, the Father, elects a people for salvation. Jesus, the Son, redeems them in his atoning work on the cross. And God, the Holy Spirit, regenerates them, bringing them to life. A great picture of this is Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. Do you remember when, in the Gospel of John, Lazarus was dead? rather than Jesus going up to Lazarus beyond the great rock that was over the place and then interviewing Lazarus, the dead man, and say, look, I would love to raise you, but I need your cooperation. Would you please sign these forms so that should I raise you, you won't sue me for violating your right to stay dead. I just want you to know you could be raised here. I don't want you to walk then from the grave site to the lawyer, to the attorney, and it's trouble for the kingdom of God. Sign these documents. No. What happened, as you know, is the stone was rolled away, Jesus shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. I'm convinced if he had not named Lazarus, everybody in the graves would have come forth. But he gave great mercy to Lazarus. And how much cooperation was involved in Lazarus' heart and mind for the resurrection to take place? The answer is none. He was dead, and Jesus raised him by the power of his word. And when Lazarus came forth, he was mightily grateful. He then had to die a second time later on, but that's another story. But he was raised from the dead by monergistic power, the power of Jesus alone. One power working, there was no cooperation. And I believe that's a biblical picture of what God does for the sinner when he saves. It's an amazing thing. Jesus actually said that man is the slave of sin. In the Reformation, God used Martin Luther not exclusively, but he was the primary agent of and spark of the Reformation, for sure, and he was a leader. He wrote many things. I've seen, I don't possess, all the works of Luther in a 54-volume set. He wrote a lot. But he said of one book it was the most important. He was known for his championing of the doctrine of sola fide, faith alone. Justification is by faith alone. But that's not what he thought was his most important work. It was the book, I hold in my hands now, The Bondage of the Will. He believed that that was the central issue in terms of understanding the true gospel. the bondage of the will. And again, it doesn't sound positive until you understand what God does for man in sin and in bondage. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 2. You might have thought we'd never get back to it, but there it is, Ephesians chapter 2. And I want to ask you of the three main views that have been articulated, which do you see in this passage? Verse 1, And you, let's stop there for a moment and ask, who is the you? And the answer is found in chapter one and verse one, to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus. So Paul, writing to Christians, writes this, and you, you Christians, were dead in trespasses and sins. Now, I've taken time to look up the original language here, and here's what I found out after much study. The word dead actually means dead. That's what it means. So Greek word nekros, we have the English word necromancy, which is something forbidden by God for contact with the dead. But the word nekros simply means dead. And it means dead like a stinking corpse. Let me suggest to you that there's no degrees of deadness. If you find 18 people lined up all dead, you don't say, Charlie over here, he's more dead than George over here. No, if they're dead, they're dead. And I would say this, mankind is dead on arrival. DOA. Not physically. Not emotionally, but spiritually. And that's why we need new birth. We need to come alive spiritually. Jesus said it. See, I want to get my doctrines not from the great teachers of the church, although I respect them. I want to see these truths in the lips of Jesus. See, Christians have no problem with Jesus. They might have a problem with Spurgeon or Edwards or some of these other guys, but usually they're open to Jesus. And Jesus said this, unless a man is born again, he cannot see. He cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. You must be born from above. You need new birth. Now, to enter the kingdom of God is to put faith in Jesus, to repent and believe the good news. And Jesus' testimony was, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born again. They have to be regenerated. Things just fell. It's the nature of the fall. They have to be regenerated before they will put their faith in Jesus. Now, they may not be aware of that. They're conscious. You might have been conscious. I was conscious of me making a choice to receive Jesus. But we have to have our mind renewed to the word of God. And though we're conscious of our choice, the Bible is very clear that we chose because he first chose us. We love him because he first loved us. So here the Bible says, Paul writing, and you, Christians, were dead in trespasses and sins. Now, really it's the picture of the zombie. How is that? Because while they were dead, they were walking around. This is the walking dead. In which you once walked. following the course of this world. The world has a course, and you Christians were at one point on that course. What would you be doing? Well, it describes the situation. Following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived. Now, Paul is equating the fact that he was amongst this group also. We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature Really, really good people. We were well. Is that what your Bible says? No. We were by nature children of wrath. Children deserving the wrath of God to be poured out on us. Like the rest of mankind. So, Paul is telling us a lot here, and he's telling us that we, Christians, now Christians, were like the rest of mankind, dead spiritually. Yet walking around, fulfilling the will of the devil. like the rest of mankind. Now, this is not particularly positive, and in many churches you will not hear verses one through three read, because it's just not helpful. No, it's not helpful to say this. I believe that it is very, very helpful for us, first of all because God has said it, so we need to study it, mull over it and God has revealed it for a reason, but this backdrop of blackness and bleakness gives glory to Christ when he saves us because we realize what he has done to save us so that grace becomes amazing rather than boring. No one's written a hymn, I don't think, maybe someone strange is out there who wrote boring grace, how mediocre the sound. But you realize that's not going to sell. And the reason why saints through the ages since it was written sing amazing grace is that the writer understood this. Amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch. Like me, I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, not merely short-sighted. Blind, but now I see. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. It wasn't because I figured things out. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. He understood it, John Newton, the writer. So, man's in this desperate condition. He's dead spiritually, walking around, fulfilling the desires of the body and the mind. By nature, he's a child of wrath like everybody else. And then the Bible says this, but man with an island of righteousness, still unaffected by the fall, reaches out his hand to God. God says, I see your hand. I will respond, or else God is offering help. And we say, yes, I'd like to be reborn. I'd like new life. I'd like spiritual life. Yeah, I want to cooperate, God. That's not what you see. The next two words describe what God does and the remedy to our desperate condition, but God. I once saw a pillow with those words on the pillow to remind everyone in the house what God had done for them. But God, what wonderful words, not but man, but God. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, who is the us? It's the people of God. Even when we were dead, he does not mention this merely once in verse 4, he mentions it again in verse 5. At the time we were dead, God acted. God did something. God came. God wrought. God achieved. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great, the mega love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive. Who did? God did. He made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So, rather than the picture of God on the top of the mountain, man in the valley, man by means of his wits, and his learning, him applying the commands of God, he climbs up the mountain to meet God. That's not what we have here. What we have here is man in the valley, every one of us, dead in the valley. and God coming down in the person of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel, ladies and gentlemen. Living a sinless life, dying an atoning death on the cross, rising again from the dead, and now at the place of all authority in the universe is able to command us to repent and believe. And those that do have eternal life. That's an amazing, amazing gospel. But the picture of the Bible is that God came down, found us in our deadness, took the people of God on His back, and climbed up the mountain to the heavenly places, and He raised us up when we were dead. When we were dead, He raised us up to sit with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And you say, why? I don't know if we'll ever know why. God didn't need to. He did not need to fill out a form and say, I've got to show mercy to someone. He does not. In fact, mercy by very definition cannot be deserved. But God. being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead. At the time of our deadness in our transgressions, trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. It's almost a redundancy to say it's by grace, because how else could it be? Man was not involved. God did it all. By grace you have been saved and raised us up. The understanding is He raised us up with Him. We didn't raise ourselves. And He seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So that, what's the purpose? In the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. Oh, there it is. By grace you have been saved. Ladies and gentlemen, grace saves. Grace doesn't try to, it actually saves. By grace you have been saved through faith. Oh, stop it, stop, stop right there. That's what we supply, right? We supply the faith. God does everything, he does the 99.9%. We just supply the faith, that's how we say. No, we are required to put our faith in Jesus, but the reason you have, if you're a Christian, have put your faith in Jesus is God gave you faith. And that's what's expressed in the next words. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Linguistically, we could say, it's the grace, it's the salvation, and the faith. All of this is not of your own doing, it's the gift of God. Not a result of works so that no one may boast. You see, we can't even congratulate us and ourselves about our faith, singing songs of, oh, to the faith that got me here. No, that's why all the saints are giving glory to God for salvation, because they understand he did it all. He gave us faith. We're conscious of putting our trust in him, but biblically, you put your trust in him because God gave you the gift of faith. Philippians 1.29, it's been given you to believe. It's a beautiful thought. It's something also conveyed in Colossians 2.13, when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him. It's all the act of God. It's monogism. There's a single actor, one who acts, and that's God. Synergism, on the other hand, refers to a work that involves the action of two or more parties. It's a co-working. And in that, some of the glory must go to us. Yeah, it's me that got me here. When we think about it in real terms, you could have two twins, let's call them Brian and George. raised in the same home, hearing the same gospel, in a gospel meeting, one responded and the other didn't. Why is one in the kingdom and one not? Well, one could say, I was more spiritually supple and tender-hearted than my brother, my twin brother, but you know that's not right. I was more intelligent. Well, even if that was the case, who gave you your intelligence? No, around the throne, no one will be saying, well, keep it quiet, but I'm here because I chose. What can I say? I'm trying to stay humble. No, you see what this does? The fact that God does it all, it doesn't merely discourage human boasting, it excludes it. There's no glory for us. And in heaven, I'm sure the question will be, why me? Even now, why me? Why can I see it? You share the gospel with people and they just say, that's good for you, I just don't see it. Exactly, they don't see it. They need the Holy Spirit to show them. Dr. R.C. Sproul writes this. The Reformers taught not only that regeneration does precede faith, come before faith, but also that it must precede faith. Because of the moral bondage of the unregenerate sinner, he cannot have faith until he's changed internally by the operative, monogistic work of the Holy Spirit. Now you can follow him, right? Faith is regeneration's fruit. not its cause. According to semi-Pelagianism, this is again the quote of Sproul, regeneration is wrought by God, but only in those who have first responded in faith to Him. Faith is seen not as a fruit of regeneration, but as an act of the will cooperating with God's offer of grace. Evangelicals are so called because of their commitment to the biblical and historical doctrine of justification by faith alone. Because the reformers saw sola fide, justification by faith alone, as central and essential to the biblical gospel, The term evangelical was applied to them. Modern evangelicals, in great numbers, embrace, now hear this, the sola fide of the Reformation, but have jettisoned the sola gratia that undergirded it. They've understood about justification is by faith alone, not according to our works, but they've, by and large, rejected the sola gratia, the fact that grace saves and it's all of God. J.I. Packer and Johnston assert in the book I raised up earlier, a quote, and I believe you can follow it with me. Justification by faith only, or faith alone, is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia. You all with me? That's three of you. Deeply discouraging. You're with me, right? What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received? Or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Is it a part of God's gift of salvation, or is it man's own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation holy of God, or does it ultimately depend on something we do for ourselves? Those who say the latter, as the Arminians later did, thereby deny man's utter helplessness in sin. and therefore affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder then that later reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being in principle a return to Rome, because in effect it turned faith into a meritorious work. and a betrayal of the Reformation because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the Reformist thought. Arminianism was, indeed, in Reformed eyes, a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favor of New Testament Judaism. Hear this, for to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle from relying on oneself for works. And the one is as unchristian and anti-christian as the other. In the light of what Luther says to Erasmus, there's no doubt that he, that's Luther, would have endorsed this judgment. Now, these are strong words from Packer and Johnston. Packer is known for being just a very friendly and A wonderful guy, for him to say this is quite something. He must have been reading Luther and affected by that. You see, only in the reformed view, which I believe is the biblical view, all ground for boasting is gone. It demolishes all human pride and exalts God's grace as the sole, S-O-L-E, efficient cause of a sinner's salvation. Jonah 2.9 says it this way, salvation is of the Lord. That's it. That's my theology, because I believe that's what the Bible teaches. And therefore, all the glory goes to God for salvation. You see, when we talk about the solas of the Reformation, and I've written a booklet about it, the final sola is soli deo gloria, to God alone be the glory. And it's the result of the other four. You see, if we've put something into the pie and we're eating it, we are a contributor. We're part of the process. But no, it's based on the sure foundation of Scripture alone. We can say justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That's why it's all to the glory of God alone. And that's why he gets all the glory. Romans 9.16, so then, Paul summing up his argument, it, that's divine election, does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, human effort, but on God who has mercy. You can't really have justification by faith alone, sola fide, without sola gratia, grace alone. You want to hear a strong statement from Luther? I would encourage you to read The Bondage of the Will. The reason the Reformation took off was partly because Luther was so accessible. He could easily be read. He was a theologian, no doubt, but he wrote in words that the layman can understand, and The Bondage of the Will is a great book to read. He said this, he who attributes Salvation, if even the least to the will of man, knows nothing of grace and has not learned Jesus Christ aright. Now, I'm convinced people can be in the kingdom and born again and not realize how they were born again. You don't have to pass a theological test to enter the kingdom of God. You can be as a little child. But if you're gonna grow in your faith, and you're gonna read your Bible, you're gonna come up with this because this is the words of Jesus. This is the words of Paul. This is John. See, the faith that justified you is not the product of you, because you were dead in sin, but God. Is that your testimony? I trust that's your testimony. You now see Christ as beautiful as the treasure of your life. You see, the debate in the Reformation was not over the necessity of these things, but the sufficiency. That's it in a nutshell. Rome would say, and others would say, yeah, you need the Word of God. Yeah, you need faith. You need grace. You need Christ. Oh, yeah, you need to give glory to God. But the reformers said, that's true, but it's not enough. And the message is this, the word of God is sufficient as well as necessary. That faith is sufficient as well as necessary. Grace is sufficient as well as necessary. Christ is sufficient as well as necessary. And the glory of God, the glory of God is sufficiently praised when we understand he did it all. Earlier in the service, we had read Luke chapter 18, where the Pharisee had a synergistic view of grace. Now you can understand it. How so? He thanked God for the change he had. He says, I thank you that I'm not like this guy and that guy and all those around me. I'm certainly not like this guy over here. I give you credit, God, And as I've cooperated with you, I wanna give you thanks. You've been a big part of this. I thank you. I thank you. But the tax collector, what did he do? I'm speaking anachronistically. You know that phrase of that word, there wasn't such a thing at the time. But the tax collector was reformed. Because he believed in mercy alone. At least that's what he cried out for. He beat his chest, wouldn't even look up to heaven, and said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And what did Jesus say? This man, rather than the other, went to his home justified. That's justification by mercy alone. Jesus was teaching these very doctrines. All human merit is destroyed when we understand it. We're justified by the person and the work of Jesus Christ alone. When you were dead, Christian, he made you alive. One man was once asked, what can a dead person do? And he said, biblically, there's only one thing, stink. The sister of Lazarus testified to that. After four days, Lord, now he stinketh. Every other view but this view leaves man slightly alive and near death. It's what we would call vigor mortis. is able to move a little bit. Jesus said this, the flesh profits nothing. Luther's commentary on that verse was this, that nothing is not a little something. But in that other view, synergistic view, the flesh profits everything. Because while still dead, you make a decision which causes God to then say, I see that decision, based on that, I'll make you alive. No, Jesus was right. Unless born from above, no one can see or enter the kingdom of God. Let me end with this understanding. Grace, if you're a Christian, didn't merely make you savable. Grace saved you. And you're a new creation. You've had a heart transplant. I know that's what's happened in my life. As a eight or nine year old, I read my father's Bible and made an inward decision, I'd never read it again. There was nothing in me that wanted it. Something's changed. Why do I love the word? Not because I got in line and I applied for a heart transplant. No, God the Holy Spirit invaded a little tin shed in Chester, England, one May day in 1980, as the gospel was preached and invaded my heart. And I wanted what I didn't want before. And I was born again, and I put my faith in Jesus, and I'm still following him, not because I'm great, it's the exact opposite. It was when I was dead, he made me alive. When I had no desire for him, he acted. And that's our human condition outside of Christ. He didn't make you just savable and is now gonna applaud you, thank you for what you did. I couldn't have saved you without you. Now in heaven, all the saints get this. In prayer, we get this. We might have intellectual issues with this, but you know, in prayer, we say, rather than God, I know you would not do anything more than you'd give to anyone else in grace, but could you arrange circumstances, leaving it to the human choice? No, God, would you save? Would you show them Christ? You see, in prayer we understand it, and in heaven we will understand it. All the songs of redemption sing, worthy is the lamb who was slain, for he redeemed us by his blood. Let's pray together. Lord, we are just so thankful for the grace of God, a grace that is powerful, a grace that is sufficient. And here on Reformation Day, we give honor to the Lord Jesus, who is the author and the finisher of our faith. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen.