I first want to express my love and appreciation to Rev. Jim Daughtry for preaching for us while I was away last Sunday. Jim did an excellent job expounding the glories of Sola Fide, ‘By Faith Alone,’ from Romans 1:16-17. This coming Lord’s Day, I will be continuing our sermon series on the ‘Five Solas of the Reformation’ with a message from Ephesians 1:3-14 on Sola Gratia, or ‘By Grace Alone.’

The medieval Church of Luther’s day affirmed that salvation was by divine grace. But there was a critical caveat. Divine grace, according to Rome, was granted to the sinner by faith, empowering him to perform good works. Then, as the Church maintained, the sinner was justified before God on the basis of these righteous deeds that grace enabled him to accomplish. However, the Reformers, moved by the teaching of Scripture, summarily rejected this distorted view of grace. They argued that the grace that comes from God leading to salvation stands alone. Good works, they proclaimed, are not added to grace, nor are they required for salvation. Grace is enough! The repentant sinner is justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone! Only then, after the sinner has been justified freely by God’s grace alone, do good works appear as the fruit of saving faith. That is, righteous deeds necessarily follow one’s experience of saving grace, but they do not cause or contribute in any way to one’s salvation.

Perhaps there is no book in Holy Scripture more saturated with grace than Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. There, the Apostle employs the word “grace” thirteen times in the six chapters of the epistle, and frames his letter around it as the supporting superstructure for his message. Paul’s bold affirmation in 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” sends shattering shock waves through every claim that sinners may contribute anything to their salvation in addition to what God has done in Christ Jesus our Lord. Grace is sufficient! Grace is efficient! Grace is all the sinner needs!

In 1:3-14 Paul has much more to tell us about the sufficiency and efficiency of God’s grace, and we will explore this rich passage together on Sunday. I hope you will meditate on these blessed and inspired words, and pray most diligently that our Lord will speak to us as we joyfully come together before Him in worship.