Saved By Grace

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.” (Ac 15:11 AV)

The ‘they’ are the Gentiles.  The Apostle is stating his belief that Gentiles and Jews alike are saved by the grace of God.  When we speak of salvation, grace is placed equal with all other elements of salvation.  When in reality, it is the greatest of all.  There are many elements to salvation.  Like childbirth, there isn’t one element more important than all others except for the breath of life.  A baby can be formed in its mother’s womb, but upon its arrival, if it does not breathe, it does not live.  Likewise, there are many elements to salvation.  There is hearing and understanding the word of God.  There is conviction of sin from the Holy Spirit.  There is repentance from sin.  There is faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  And there is also communication between the Creator-God and the penitent sinner.  All these things may happen but without grace, salvation does not occur.  God is not required to save us if we repent and trust.  If He is, then salvation is man-centered and not God-centered.  God looks down from heaven and sees our penitent and trusting hearts.  He takes pity on us and chooses to save us.  Not because He is required to.  Rather, because in His grace, He chooses to.  Now, I am not a Calvinist.  God does not save anyone who is not repentant or who refuses to trust.  He is simply not obligated to.

Suppose a child came to his father and needed relief from a situation he caused that only his father could solve.  Is he obligated to rescue his son?  What if this child was trained well, repeatedly refused his father’s instruction, and had a life pattern of going his own way regardless of the mess he caused?  Would the father be required to rescue his son from the mess that his son had caused even though he was the only one who could? Many years ago, I had a church member whose son never listened to his father.  Time and again, his father warned him his behavior was going to land him into serious trouble.  From his adolescent years into his adult years, this son continuously ignored his parents and did his own thing.  This did not end well.  It took several years, but this child, who had grown to be a man, found himself in jail.  I went to see him.  Looking him in the eye, you could tell the severity of where he was headed had not yet sunk in.  He was in a place where God should have been able to speak to him.  When he was released, he got into more trouble.  Over time, Dad stopped intervening and allowed his son to suffer whatever may come.  Each time he was caught in his circumstances, he went to Dad and sought relief.  It wasn’t until this child finally came to the end of himself that Dad would intervene.  He did so because he loved his son.  Not because his son was entitled to his father’s love.  In fact, he did everything to spurn his father’s love.  But seeing his child’s broken heart and will, his father acted in love and helped this son rebuild his life.

This is what God does for us.  He is not obligated to save us.  He is not required to put our lives back together.  We made a mess.  We went the wrong way.  We caused the suffering.  God did not.  All He did was send His Son to die for you and me when we wanted nothing to do with Him.  That is all He did!  When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, some of us accept this gift of salvation like a Christmas gift.  Because I am a child of my parents and they love me, I am entitled to be loved on.  Therefore I receive the Christmas gift because in some way it is owed to me.  Not salvation.  Salvation is a gift that is not owed.  It is a gift from the pure grace of God.  We have all, like sheep, gone astray.  We have gone our own way.  We have turned the shoulder.  We have stiffened our necks.  We have rejected the Lordship of God Almighty.  But sin is a horrible thing.  We have come to the end of ourselves.  Like the prodigal, we are no more worthy to be called the child of God.  Yet He, in His infinite grace, has chosen to take pity on us and save us despite all that we have done.  When we are saved, that is why we are.  By grace!  It is the grace of God that sent Jesus Christ.  It is the grace of God that kept Christ on that cross.  And it is the grace of God that applies the blood of His precious Son to our account of sin!