Sola Gratia #1 - Surprised by Grace (Dr. Kurt Bjorklund)

Senior Pastor, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund, examines Ephesians 2:8-9 to explain how salvation comes through God's grace alone as a one-way, unconditional gift that requires no prior merit or subsequent obligations, emphasizing that this grace, while seemingly too good to be true, is accessed through faith and forms the cornerstone of Christian doctrine.

Message Transcript - https://www.orchardhillchurch.com/blog-post/2025/3/3/sola-gratia-1-surprised-by-grace

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Transcript

Good morning. Let's pray together: 

God, as we're gathered, and have gathered over this weekend in Butler, the Strip, Bridgeville, Wexford, the Chapel, online, I ask, as we ask so many weekends, that my words would reflect your word in content and in tone and in emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus name, Amen. 

Today we are beginning a series that we're calling Sola Gratia. And you may be familiar with that phrase, you may not be, but the phrase comes from the Reformation. The Reformation was an event that took place in the 1500s where there was a reforming desire for the church. It ended up leading to some of the broader denominations that we have today. But the Reformation was built on five different SOLAs, really three that were primary. The solas were Sola Scriptura (by Scripture alone), Latin phrase, Sola Fide (by faith alone), Sola Gratia (by grace alone), Sola Christos (by Christ alone), and Sola de Gloria (to the glory of God alone), were the themes of this Reformation.  

And there were different reasons that this all came about. But to make something that's fairly complex fairly simple, Martin Luther became the central figure, and he became the man who was the flashpoint for this, because he had posted these 95 Theses on the door in Wittenberg to talk about what should be true in the Church that wasn't true. And he had written about it. And over time, a council was called together to say, you need to recant what you have said. And just so you know the stakes, if he did not recant, not only would he be excommunicated from the church, but they had told him at that point he would also be killed, because the Church had power with the state. So this is what was at stake when Martin Luther came to this moment.  

And In April of 1521, he was asked to give a defense. And so he prepared. And on the 17th of April, he was ready to give a defense. And they said to him, if you do not recant again, you will be excommunicated, you will be killed. And he said, well, give me a day just to come back. So he came back the next day, prepared speech, gave this long-winded defense of why he believed that grace was alone how we came to be right with God, how it's through faith alone, Scripture alone, all of these things. And he gave it in German. And the council, when he got done, said, that was nice. Can you give us a shorter answer in Latin? Which is kind of funny, because in essence, they were saying, okay, we heard all of this, but you kind of bored us so tell us again, tell us in Latin, tell us succinctly. And he gave what has become well known because he said, here I stand, I can do no other. I will not recant. And it began the process that we know as the Reformation. 

And what was at stake was this idea of, are we saved by grace alone, or do we bring something to the table? And in some ways became the split between the Catholic and the Protestant Church. Now, I just want to say very early here that today I think you will find some people within the Catholic Church who believe they are saved by grace alone. And I believe you will find many people in the Protestant Church who believe their standing is on the basis of what they have done, regardless of the official doctrine. But, that doesn't make the official doctrine unimportant, because if it's true that there is a God, and I believe there is, and if it's true that there is an eternity, a Heaven and a Hell, and I believe there is, then the central question for every person in every age is, how do I know that I'm right with God, that I have eternity lined up correctly for myself?  

And so today we're going to begin this series called Sola Gratia, by grace alone to talk about this. And if you've been here over the years, we have done a series a year over the last several years on some of the major doctrines of the church. This is the fourth in that series. Next year we'll continue it with another series. And through seven years, we will have hit all the doctrines of the church, or of the Christian faith, at least in part. I know you don't care, but I want to say that, because that way I know I got it out there.  

Now, we're going to look at Ephesians 2: 8 and 9 primarily today, because this is one of the key passages on this. And so I just want to read it again. I know you heard it, but I want these words to be in our minds: 

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” 

There was a book that was written a few years ago by a man named John Barclay. It was called “Paul and the Gift”. I've mentioned this book before. I believe this is probably one of the most important New Testament studies written in the last 10 to 20 years. And what John Barclay basically argues is that our language for grace is somewhat difficult for us to comprehend in our age and in the age of the New Testament. And the reason he says this is because we get the word grace, and when we get the word grace, we think, oh, grace is God's riches at Christ's expense, it's unmerited favor. But these concepts don't necessarily connect to us. And what he says is that it would be better to understand that grace, and the word gift, English word gift in the New Testament, are much closer to synonyms than they are to something different. Grace is the Greek word charis, and it shows up some 148 times in our New Testament, plus the verb forms, that's the noun form. And then the word gift is the Greek word dōron, and it means gift, as you'd expect, shows up 17 times in our New Testament, plus all of the, the gift forms.  

And what John Barclay would say about this, he says when you study the semantic range and all the uses, what you see is that grace was intended not just to talk about some concept that we would know, but a gift that was one way. And he says this, he says at that point, there was such a patronage system that people expected if they gave a gift that they would get a gift. They would give gifts to get gifts. Can you imagine there was ever a culture once so shallow? And that the idea of grace just broke this whole idea of reciprocity, this whole idea of you give to get or you have to give because you're in the debt once you've been given. 

And now we're going to just talk about being surprised by grace. And I want to say that there are three reasons in this text to be surprised by grace. And the first is this. And that is grace may seem too good to be true, but it isn't. And I say this because here's what this text just simply says and what it simply means. For it is by grace, it's a gift, it's a one-way gift from God that you're saved.  

Now the word saved in the original language is a participle. It's in the perfect and passive voice. And all that means is passive means you don't do anything for it. It's not active, it's something that's done for. Perfect means that it has a present reality and a continuing result. And so even in the grammar here, what he's saying is you have been saved from something, rescued from something, all by a gift that is one way. And to make it even more clear, he says this, he says it is not of yourselves, it's not by your works, you have not done anything to bring yourself salvation to bear. And this is good news. 

In fact, one of the reasons so many people in our day and age are resistant to the church, resistant to the message of Jesus Christ, to the Gospel, is because at their core, they believe that what they need to do is give something to God to get something from God. They believe that at their core, they have to make some kind of a trade. Instead of saying, this is free from God as a gift. Here's how John Barclay writes about this. He says: 

“Grace may in fact be said to be free in two senses. It might be free of prior conditions without regard to worth or desert, ‘free’ in the sense of being undeserved. Or (and this is not the same) it might be considered free of subsequent obligation, debt, or demand, given, as we might say, ‘with no strings attached’. In the second sense, ‘grace’ might seem incompatible with any system of condition, law, rule, or demand...On this reading, grace is not only unconditioned - given without regard to prior desert - but also unconditional - given without expectation of a necessary response.”

So what is he saying? And this is obviously just part of a larger work, but he's saying, here's the thing. When you come and understand that it's given by grace, there's nothing you do on the front side that makes you worthy of it, and there's nothing that it requires on the backside for you to say, I have now earned it. And I recognize just in saying that that some of us hear that right now we're a little uncomfortable, because we say that sounds, what?, too good to be true. And that's kind of the point.  

In December, my mom died. My dad had died a few years ago. And one of the things that at least happened for me in the death of my mom was I recognized that my mom, probably because my dad had died earlier, was the last person who probably had a relationship with me that wasn't significantly conditional. And here's what I mean. A parent has a child at some point and they don't say, well, I hope that this child does something so that they're worthy of me bringing them into my family. I mean, it just kind of they're there, and then whatever the child does, the parent cares about and is unconditionally committed to the child, period. 

And I know in the New Testament there's an image of marriage, but in some ways, even marriage is conditional if you think about it, I've been married to the same woman for a long time, a couple decades. I think I have a good marriage. I think if you ask her, she would say you have a good marriage. Feel free to ask her. But here's what I know. There is still conditionality in that relationship. If I don't do certain things, my wife's not happy, and there are things I can do that would cause her rightly to say, I am done with this relationship. But a parent doesn't have that kind of condition. And even if you haven't had a perfect mom or dad, there's a sense in which that's as close as you can get to this idea of saying there's nothing that you bring prior, and there's no future obligation that somehow is there. There's no circularity. There's no sense of saying I have to do in order to maintain this status. And that is the idea of grace. And that's why this seems too good to be true. Because in every other area of our lives, and even with parents to a large extent, there's an air of conditionality. But with Jesus Christ, with God, grace is a gift that we don't deserve, we don't earn, and there's nothing we can do to enhance it. And not only that, it's disproportional. It's completely disproportional in the sense that God gives, and there's nothing that, even if we want to give back, that we can give back.  

There's a man named Billy Collins who's written about this just from the human standpoint, and he shared this poem. Take a look:

“The other day I was ricocheting slowly 
off the blue walls of this room, 
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano, 
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, 
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary 
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist 
could send one into the past more suddenly— 
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp 
by a deep Adirondack lake 
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips 
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard 
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them, 
but that did not keep me from crossing 
strand over strand again and again 
until I had made a boxy 
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts, 
and I gave her a lanyard. 
She nursed me in many a sick room, 
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips, 
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead, 
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim, 
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard. 
Here are thousands of meals, she said, 
and here is clothing and a good education. 
And here is your lanyard, I replied, 
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, 
strong legs, bones and teeth, 
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered, 
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp. 
And here, I wish to say to her now, 
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother, 
but the rueful admission that when she took 
the two-tone lanyard from my hand, 
I was as sure as a boy could be 
that this useless, worthless thing I wove 
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.”

Now I show you that simply because sometimes what we want to do with God is say, here's my lanyard, now we're square. And it is disproportional, and it is something that you and I cannot fully repay. And this makes it too good to be true.  

Now I know some of us will try to avoid this. And we'll try to avoid this because we'll deny that we're sinful and have any need for grace. We'll say, I am not a person who's sinful. And again, this is why some people try to avoid the idea of church, the idea of God, because they don't ever want to come face to face with this. And some will try to avoid it by simply saying, I am enhancing my virtue to such an extent that I don't need grace either. But grace, when it's fully understood is surprising, because every time we're confronted with it, we're reminded that it seems too good to be true, but it isn't. And so there's grace that seems too good to be true, but it isn't. 

But secondly, the reason this is surprising is because grace seems too risky to be embraced. But it isn't. And the reason I say this is because when you look at Ephesians 2 and you see this little phrase that says it's not through yourselves, it's not by works. The tendency will be to say, well, if it's all by grace, then what motivation is there for anybody to do anything? If God gives it as a gift and he doesn't demand anything on the backside to give a gift, then how will anybody behave? How will anybody choose to do the right thing?  

This was the exact question Paul asked in Romans 6:1. Paul, the author of Ephesians, also the author of Romans 2, different places that he wrote these letters and had helped establish the churches. He says this: 

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace might increase?”

Evidently, there were some who were basically saying this, if God's grace gets even greater the more we sin, let's go ahead and sin more so we get more grace. Do you know how Paul responds in verse 2? “By no means!”

Some versions say, God forbid. Some say, may it never be. It's a phrase that has this sweeping prohibition like, perish the thought. That's a horrible thought. And then he says this: 

“We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”

So his argument here is basically saying you don't need to worry about people abusing grace, because once you've actually experienced grace, you'll die to sin, meaning the rules won't be needed to keep you in line. And so when we have the idea that says grace is too risky to be true, what we're doing is we're not understanding the reason of what happens when grace works in our heart, because what happens is we start to say, what I want is the God who has given me this generous gift. It would be as ridiculous as saying if somebody had given you, let's say, a car that you needed, and all of a sudden you had this beautiful car, and you said to them, you know what? I realize that you've given me this car. Could you give me a few rules for how to take care of it? What happens if you get a new car? You want to know how to take care of it. You don't need somebody to give you. Well, let me tell you all the rules. You have a sense of it.  

There's a book that was written a few years ago by Reed Hastings. He was the man who helped build Netflix into what we know it as today. It was called “No Rules Rules”. And in it, he argues that for their culture to succeed, what he needed to do, was he needed to liberate the culture of as many rules as possible. Now, he said, in order to do this, he said, we also had to get rid of people and get the right people in. So he said, we were very quick to terminate. He used the words give generous severance packages to, but he means terminate.  

Because what he found was that the people who needed rules weren't passionate about the business. And what he wanted was people who were so passionate about the business, they didn't need rules. Now, that clearly doesn't work in every organization, because you may not be able to upend the entertainment industry and everything else in your particular business, you may not be able to move people out with generous severance packages. But his point was basically this. And that is when people are passionate about producing the best things in their company, they don't need rules. Rules actually get in the way. 

Do you know it's true if you are passionate about who Jesus Christ is, and you love Jesus Christ, rules are not what will produce holiness for you? What will produce change in you is a response to grace and saying, I'm not trying to figure out what is the bare minimum of what I need to do to somehow appease God. I am following God. And our rules actually help us see our needs. Now sometimes people will object when somebody teaches like this, and they'll say, well, if you're saying this, then what will happen is you're diminishing the law of God. And I actually believe the opposite is true. Because what happens when a community of faith starts to say, we can keep the rules, we're able to keep the rules, is you either lower the standard of God, so that you think you can get over it, or you start to pretend so that everybody in the place starts to act like they're good enough. It's only when grace is the object that you say, this standard is higher than any of us and it's only by grace that we have standing. You see, that's not risky in the sense of saying we don't have any chance to make it. It's risky in some ways to say we're all about the rules. 

J.D. Greer, in his book about the Gospel, it's called “The Gospel”, says that when we understand grace, what we come to understand is that God won't love us anymore because of something we do, and he won't love us any less because of something we do. And then he goes on and he says, just think about it this way. God won't love you anymore because you give more money. God won't love you anymore if you decide to go to the mission field and live a life of discomfort. God won't love you anymore if you take out the trash for your spouse. They may, but God won't. And then he says, and God won't love you any less if you struggle with lust or you struggle with sin, then he loves you today. You see, for some of us, that feels risky to even say that. But what grace is, is a one-way gift that we don't earn. And the text says, it's not of yourself, it's not by works. Therefore, we have to come to a place of being able to say that this grace can be embraced. It's not too risky, because it's the very grace that's in the Scripture.  

Sometimes people will do this. They'll say, there are two ditches to avoid when we talk about this. The ditch of legalism on one side and the ditch of license or licentiousness on the other side. And the idea is, don't preach law to such an extent that we start to get into we have to perform in order to get something, but don't teach so much grace that people on the other side start to think, I can do whatever. What I actually believe is that both of those are ways that we try to avoid grace, ways we try to avoid Jesus. On the one side, we try to avoid Jesus because we say, I'm good enough, that I don't actually need Jesus. On the other side, we say, I don't need Jesus. I don't need grace because none is ever needed. I just do whatever I want. It's only when we really understand the gift of God that we're able to say, this is God's way of drawing us.  

So, we can be surprised by grace, because although it seems too good to be true, it isn't. Although it seems too risky to be embraced, it isn't. And then I would say we can be surprised by grace, because although it seems too humbling to be celebrated, it actually can be celebrated. And here's why I say this. Ephesians 2:8, 9. The last little phrase says:“...so that no one can boast.” 

So why does God give this lavish grace this way? What does it say? So no one can boast. You know, the truth about most of us, is we want credit for things, things we do well, things that we contribute to. And here the statement is, when it comes to your standing with God, you have no reason to boast. Think about some of the worst things that happen in spiritual communities and churches. A lot of times it's about spiritual pride, somebody saying, God likes us and the way we do things more than he likes others. What if we were able to say, the ground is level at the foot of the cross? Therefore, we all come not on the basis of what we get right, but on the basis of what Jesus has done for us. Do you see how it changes everything in the way that we live?  

Paul Zahl wrote about it this way. He said: 

“If I can do enough of the right things,  
I will have established my value.  
Identity is the sum of My achievements.  
Hence, if I can satisfy the boss,  
meet the needs of my spouse and children,  
and still pursue my dreams,  
then I will be somebody.  
In Christian theology, such a position  
is called justification by works. It assumes that  
my worth is measured by my performance.  
Conversely, it conceals  
a dark and ghastly fear: If I do not perform,  
I will be judged unworthy.  
To myself I will cease to exist.”

See, being humbled by grace, by the cross, actually lets us celebrate, because we're free from performance. Here's how Jerry Bridges wrote about it. He said: 

“My observation of Christendom 
is that most of us tend to base our  
relationship with God on our performance 
instead of on his grace. If we performed  
well - whatever ‘well’ is in our own opinion -  
then we expect God to bless us. 
If we haven't done so well,  
then our expectations are reduced accordingly.”

In other words, what a lot of us do when it comes to God is we say, if I do well, God will bless me. If I don't do well, God won't bless me.  

“In this sense, we live by works, 
rather than by grace.  
We are saved by grace,  
but we're living by the ‘sweat’  
of our own performance. 
Moreover, we are always challenging  
ourselves and one another to ‘try harder.’ 
We seem to believe success in the Christian  
Life (however we define success)  
is basically up to us: our commitment,  
our discipline, and our zeal, with some help  
from God along the way.  
We give lip service to the attitude of the  
Apostle Paul, ‘But by the grace of God, I am  
what I am (1 Cor. 15:10).’ but our unspoken  
motto is, God helps those who help themselves.’”

See, what happens for some of us is we hear about grace like this and we say, yeah, but what about. And we want a little credit for thinking we did something that helped us deserve something, at least from God, and that God is somehow in our debt.  

When I was in college, I’d work in a job, and I was driving home one day and I had gotten on the highway, four lane highway, two each direction. And I was driving, and a truck, semi truck merged in front of me. And when it merged, it caused me to have to slow down. And I was ready to make a change into the left lane to go around the truck. And the car that was behind me had gotten the jump on me and gotten out in the left side of me where I couldn't go right away. So I had to go even slower and wait and then go behind the car. And I was in my little bit of come on, like, you know, how dare you get in my way. But just as that car got up next to the truck, and I was behind the car, the truck made a lane change into the left lane, and the car that was right in front of me went into the ditch, and I watched it do this flip into the ditch.  

Now, this is before we all had cell phones everywhere. And so I stopped at the next rest stop, called emergency services, and I don't know exactly how that all ended for that person, but here's what I do know, and that is when I got back in my car and drove the rest of my way home, I had that moment of saying, wow, if I had gotten out in that space, there's no way I would have avoided going in that ditch. It was either get hit by the semi or go in the ditch. There were no other options for that car. And here's my point. How goofy would it be for me to say, you know, I'm really glad that I have such sharp reactions as a driver of a vehicle. I'm really glad that I learned how to drive defensively. I'm really glad that I drive a car that if it flipped, which isn't true, would survive the flip. That would be goofy, because it was luck, grace, happenstance, that day that I did not end up where that car did. And the point of you are saved by grace, not by your own efforts, not by works so that no one can boast, is for you and me to be able to say, this may feel humbling, but it is worth celebrating, because it is there that I can stand with confidence.  

Not only that, when you see this passage, what is the one phrase that does feel like we bring something? It's what? Through faith. In fact, in the original language, it's the preposition dia, which usually takes the accusative, often takes the accusative form. Here it takes the genitive. And all that means is when it takes the accusative, it's because of here it means “by means of”. In other words, this is abundantly clear that the way that we access grace, which is nothing we do, is by faith. And faith means reliance, trust. It means to say, I believe this. And the way that we come to experience the grace of God is not by a mere intellectual ascent just simply saying, okay, I kind of acknowledge there's a God, but it is by saying I believe that it's all Jesus and not me. 

And in order just to be abundantly clear, I want to borrow something I've seen done in our kids ministry, and that is just say there's a simple ABC to this. The A is admit that I'm sinful, that I have a need. Believe that Jesus paid for me, that it is by grace, not by works. And then, confess with our mouths. Romans 10:9 says: 

“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Same idea that salvation comes not through what we do, but through what God has done on our behalf in Jesus Christ. And it's available today to anybody who believes and trusts, has faith in what God has done. 

Now, some of us may be here and you may say, well, you know, I've heard this, but being surprised by grace means going back and saying, at times this seems too good to be true, but it isn't. It seems too risky to be embraced, but I'm going to embrace it because it is embraced in the scriptures. It's actually the way to freedom. And it may seem too humbling to be celebrated, but it's actually where I am the most free because I'm not trying to position myself, to feel good about myself. My worth is coming just from what God has said. And if we can live there, then we live in the reality of sola gratia. And it will shape us and mold us in every relationship and in every place that we live.  

Will you just bow your heads, close your eyes with me for a moment? And I just want to give you a moment if you're here, to either just come to God and admit your need, acknowledge your belief in Jesus Christ, if you've been somebody who thought it was about your effort, be willing to confess with your mouth in this moment that you need a savior. If you're here and you say, I believe this, maybe today is just a day to take one of these surprises and say, God, thank you, that even though it seems too good to be true, it is, and I worship you, God. Even though it seems too risky to be embraced, I'm going to embrace this instead of trying to bring my merit, to bring my goodness in order to get something. And you'll see how it'll change your heart. Or maybe you just say, although it seems too humbling to be celebrated, and when I celebrate this, I actually am free in a way that I'm not when I'm trying to celebrate my own merit.  

God, help us to live in the reality of by grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, to your glory alone, is how we want to live. And we pray it in Jesus name. Amen.  

Thanks for being here. Have a great week.

This transcript was automatically generated. Please excuse errors.