Free to Give Ephesians 2:4-10 December 6, 2009 

Think back for a moment over the Christmas mornings in your life. All of us could share stories about gifts 
we’ve received that bring fond memories and warm feelings. My wife joyfully reminisces the Christmas that 
she, her brothers, and the family that was living with their s at the time all received bicycles for Christmas. For 
me, one of my fondest memories on Christmas morning was coming into the living room to find only packed 
suitcases and no presents. We were off to Disney for the weekend, but that wasn’t the first thought through my 
mind. 

By nature, I think we like to remember, perhaps brag on what we have received because we like to share with 
others the experiences we’ve had from these received gifts. We want others to share our joy, our excitement, and 
our wonder with us. This is what Paul is doing in Ephesians 2:4-10. 

As we saw last week, as a result of our sin, we are spiritually dead, slaves to the influences of the world around 
us and Satan, and deserving only God’s wrath and eternal separation. 

Left to ourselves we were the living dead. BUT GOD intervened! God didn’t sit back and wait for us to figure it 
out - something we could have never done anyway. God didn’t leave us to wallow in our depravity. God didn’t 
give us what our sins deserved - he saved us by his grace. 

This morning I want to look for a few moments at the description Paul provides us of Christian salvation. We 
will look at Ephesians 2:4-10, which can be found on page ______ of the sanctuary bible. 

We’ve already spent time answering the question who has given this salvation to us. Clearly the answer is God. 
But we really can’t emphasize enough that salvation is God’s work and God’s work alone. The salvation we 
have is wrought by God’s power alone, for his purposes alone, for his pleasure alone, for his glory alone. We 
don’t have any part in securing or earning or meriting or achieving the salvation that God offers. It is God and 
God alone who makes this salvation possible. 

So why does God give this gift of salvation? What has motivated God to do this? To answer the question, why 
has God done this, Paul points to two attributes of God as answer. Verse 4 says. “But because of his great love 
for us, God, who is rich in mercy”. 

Take a look with me for a moment at the kind of love and mercy that have motivated God to act. It is God’s 
GREAT love and his RICH mercy. Using the words great and rich to describe God’s love and mercy point to the 
wealth of resource available for God to expend towards mankind. His resources for loving and being merciful 
are unlimited. He will never be exhausted of love and mercy. God has enough love and mercy to lavish on all 
human beings. God has intervened in our terrible plight as spiritually dead sinners because of his great love and 
rich mercy. 

Ok, then what did God do to intervene in our spiritually dead lives and save us from the punishment of our sins? 
Paul answers in verse 5, “ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with 
Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up 
with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus”. 

Paul outlines three actions to define what it is that God has done in the salvation he has given us. God has made 
us alive with Christ, He has raised us up with Christ, and God has seated us with Christ. 


The idea Paul is getting at is called corporate solidarity. Corporate solidarity means that what happens to me has 
an effect upon or can be shared by you. And what happens to you has an effect upon or can be shared by me. We 
don’t tend to think or live within this concept very often, We’ve so strongly bought into an individualistic and 
separatist mindset when it comes to how the decisions and actions of our lives effect each other that it’s hard for 
us to conceive of what Paul is saying. So allow me an illustration to try and bring this into focus. 

On September 11, 2001, as a nation we experienced corporate solidarity. On that day, what happened in NYC, at 
the Pentagon, and in a field in Shanksville, PA happened to all Americans. The attacks on that day were felt by 
all, regardless of where you lived or how you might or might not have been directly connected to the event 
themselves. We all shared in the grief, anger, and loss of that day. 

September 11th is a picture of corporate solidarity. Events that happened in specific locations to specific people 
had rippling effects throughout our entire nation and world. Paul is saying then that what we have in salvation is 
a shared experience with what has happened to Jesus Christ. 

Jesus was resurrected by God’s mighty power. Because of God’s great love and rich mercy, we too have been 
resurrected from spiritual death to spiritual life. In the same way, as Jesus ascended to heaven, we have also 
ascended. Which is to say that as Jesus is now in God’s presence, we as his disciples, in corporate solidarity 
with Christ, are also able to enjoy the benefits of being in an intimate, personal relationship with God. Finally, 
our corporate solidarity with Christ is also seen in our being seated with Christ in heaven. This means that as 
Christ has been seated at God’s right hand, as the Bible teaches, given authority to rule and reign over the 
heavenly kingdom, so we too as his disciples share in this authority. 

There is far more to be said about this, but the overarching point Paul is making is that the salvation God has 
given to us is a share in the glory that Jesus himself received. In other words, what Jesus has received from God 
we also, by being joined and united to Christ through faith, receive as well. 

How exactly do we receive this salvation you might ask. What is the mechanism by which we receive the 
salvation God offers? Verses 8 and 9 provide the answer. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through 
faith - and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast”. 

There are perhaps no two verses in scripture that are quoted by Christians more often as a defense of their faith, 
that also bring confusion and misunderstanding regarding the salvation we have been given. 

So let’s break down the two main points Paul is making in these verses as he addresses the mechanism by which 
God has given us slavation 

The first point that Paul is making is that this salvation is by God’s grace. Broadly speaking, grace means to get 
something that is not deserved. From Ephesians 2:1-3, again we saw last week that because of our sin we 
deserved death and eternal separation from God in hell for all eternity. As we saw a moment ago, because of 
God’s great love and rich mercy we can be saved from our sins. There is little confusion in these verses of who 
the main actor is - clearly it is God who is acting. By grace you have been saved... it is the gift of God... it does 
not come by your work - thus there is no room for you to be able to toot your own horn. 

The second major point Paul makes in these verses is that the salvation God is giving as a gift is received by 
faith. And it is here that to often, Christians misunderstand what it is that Paul is teaching and reminding us of. 


When we hear, “It is by grace you have been saved - through faith” we tend to act in a way that says it is our 
faith in God or Jesus that saves us. But Christians are not saved by faith, we are saved by God’s grace alone. 
Faith is the means by which God’s grace can be received. The problem we often run into here is that we see 
faith as the action we perform in the salvation exchange. God offers salvation by his grace, I receive that in 
exchange for my faith in Him. But this tends to amount to a Christianity that thinks or believes the right things. 

However, faith is more than merely believing the right things about God. What we believe is important - but as 
Paul will say in a moment in verse 10, faith is also our response to a trustworthy and faithful God. In other 
words faith is relational, it describes reliance on a reliable God . Throughout the Bible, God by his grace makes 
promises and commits himself to his people. His people in turn are to trust those promises and live in light of 
them. God shows himself faithful and as his people we are to respond in faithfulness. 

For example, when I stood at the alter with Cyndi, I made promises to her as her soon to be husband. She in 
kind made promises to me. We exchanged rings, a kiss, and the pastor pronounced us man and wife. I could 
now lie any way I choose right. I mean I made the promises, the pastor said the words. But if I then left the 
service and lived in response to my vows as though I were still a single man would you think I believed my 
vows were real? Of course not. You would say that I am a lousy husband. And you’d be right. Why? Because I 
live and act on the vows I had made. You might say that I had broken -- faith -- with my wife. My actions did 
not measure up to what I profess to believe. 

This is exactly what Paul is saying in verse 8 and 9. The gift of salvation has come to us by God’s grace. It is 
God’s work and God’s action. Through faith, through my response to the promises of God, I trust those 
promises, I believe them but I also live my life, I act, in light of them. It is by grace we have been saved through 
faith. It is God’s work in my life, and I now live my life in light of his work on my behalf. Faithfulness in 
discipleship living is not an optional part of the faith. 

And this leads us to the purpose for God’s gift of salvation. What is the purpose of this gracious gift of 
salvation? We find two answers in this passage. Verse 7 says that one of God’s purposes in saving us is, “in 
order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his 
kindness to us in Christ”. 

The first purpose God has in giving us salvation is to show all the people though history that he is indeed the 
kind, loving, compassionate, and great God. What verse 7 tells us is that one of the reasons God has given us 
salvation, one of the reasons God has saved men from the just penalty of their sins is so that throughout all time 
God will have tangible, living exhibits of his kindness, love, and mercy for others to see, so that they too might 
receive God’s grace. 

The second purpose God has in graciously giving us the gift of salvation flows from the first and is found in 
verse 10. God has given us salvation for the purpose of doing good works. Verse 10 says, “For we are God’s 
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. 

As this passage makes clear, salvation is not from works, but it surely is FOR works, meaning living obediently 
and productively in light of the salvation God has given us. 

Being God’s workmanship again points us to the thundering theme of Paul’s words in this passage - God is the 
one who is at work, God is the one who is making all of this happen. We respond to God’s work when in faith, 


trusting in the promises and commitments God as made and being in union with our savior Jesus Christ, we live 
our lives accordingly, we do good works. 

Again salvation does not come from works but it is for good works. What then are the good works we are to do? 

The Bible is filled with examples of good works that flow from the new life that has been graciously given to 
Christians - so read God’s word and find out. Get in a growth group and learn about them and practice them 
with other believers. There are many many good works we are to be engaged in But I want to focus on one good 
work we can and should all be regularly practicing. 

I began this morning by asking you to think of a gift you have received that you just had to tell someone else 
about. My brothers and sisters in Christ - we have been given an indescribably precious and awesome gift in 
salvation from sin. We have been rescued, saved from spiritual death and God’s wrath. Why would you not 
want to tell others about that. Why would you not want to shout that from the mountain tops? 

Why would we not tell every one we know that the loving and merciful God, the true and living God, has 
graciously given the gift of salvation to anyone who will trust him for it. What would keep you from sharing 
that gift with someone this year? What would keep you from directing someone to the greatest gift there is to 
receive? I know how some of you shop. You find a deal and there is no one in the greater Mid-Hudson Valley 
region that doesn’t know about the deal and how to get it for themselves. We have the greatest deal to offer 
anyone right here. And don’t think people are just going to figure it out for themselves. 

We have, I think, an excellent opportunity as a church body to go into this community and call individuals to 
Christian discipleship, to tell people that live here in the Hudson Valley about the free gift of salvation that 
could be theirs. Would you come and share this gift with someone this year? I hope you will take two hours out 
of your lives to join with us and sing some christmas carols, or hand out candy canes and gospel tracts. 

Because of God’s great love and rich mercy towards us we have received the gracious gift of salvation from our 
sins in Jesus Christ. Let’s go share this gift with others. 

Let’s Pray.