ACE MEN’S BIBLE STUDY

Spring Semester 2015

Ephesians

News Flash

Would this be to share something great and wonderful or something disturbing and

tragic???

Contrast of News

ACE Men’s Bible Study

Ephesians 2: 8-10

New American Standard Bible (NASB)8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [a

]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Footnotes:

a. Ephesians 2:8 I.e. that salvation

Inspect closely… The Good News

Ephesians 2: 8-10

New American Standard Bible (NASB)8 For by grace you have been saved through faith;

Examination of grace. Is grace just a New Testament concept?

Grace in the Old Testament

Dane Ortlund serves as Bible Publishing Director at Crossway Books in Wheaton, Illinois. He is the author of A New Inner Relish: Christian Motivation in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards (Christian Focus, 2008) and Defiant Grace: The Surprising Message and Mission of Jesus (Evangelical, 2011). He is a graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary (M.Div., Th.M.) and Wheaton College (B.A., Ph.D.). 

Grace in the Old Testament

Genesis – Man is wicked but God enters into a relationship with Abraham and promises to bless the world through him.

Exodus – God brings an enslaved people out of bondage.

Leviticus – God provides his people with a sacrificial system to atone for their sins.

Numbers – God patiently sustains his grumbling people in the wilderness and brings them to the border of the promised land not because of them, but in spite of them.

Old Testament Grace cont’d…

Deuteronomy – God gives the people the new land ‘not because of your righteousness’ Deuteronomy 9.

Joshua – God gives Israel victory after victory in their conquest of the land with neither superior numbers or superior obedience on Israel’s part.

Judges – God takes sinful, weak Israelites as leaders and uses them to purge the land, time and again of foreign incursion and idolatry.

Ruth – God incorporates a foreign, poverty stricken, desolate woman into the line of Christ.

Old Testament Grace cont’d…1 and 2 Samuel – God established the throne of David, an adulterous murderer.

1 and 2 Kings – God repeatedly prolongs the exacting of justice and judgment for kingly sin ‘for the sake of’ David. Since the king represented the people and the people were in the king, so as the king went, so went the people.

1 and 2 Chronicles – God continually reassures the returning exiles of His self-initiated promises to David and his sons.

Ezra – God shows his grace to Israel by working through the most powerful pagan ruler of the time, Cyrus to bring His people back home to a rebuilt temple.

Old Testament Grace cont’d…Nehemiah – God provides for the rebuilding of the walls of the city that represented the heart of God’s promise to his people.

Ester – Shows God’s grace in protecting his people from a Persian plot to eradicate them through a string of ‘fortuitous’ events.

Job – shows God’s grace in vindicating the sufferer’s cry that his redeemer lives (Job 19:25), who will put all things right in this world or the next.

Psalms – shows God’s grace by reminding us of, and leading us in expressing, the hesed (relentless covenant love) God has for his people and the refuge that he is for them.

Intermission…study of the word grace

Hebrew word Hesed or Checed – relentless covenant love

Strong's H2617 - checed Occurs 248 times in 241 versus in the Hebrew concordance of the King James Version

Some of the meanings include:

Mercy (149x), kindness (40x), lovingkindness (30x) and goodness (12x)

Intermission…study of the word grace

Greek word Charis – meaning grace or kindness

Strong's G5485 - charisoccurs 156 times in 147 verses in the Greek concordance of the King James Version

Some of the meanings include:

grace (130x), favour (6x), thanks (4x)

Old Testament Grace cont’d…

Proverbs – shows us God’s grace by opening up to us a world of wisdom in leading a life of happy godliness.

Ecclesiastes – shows God’s grace in its earthy reminder that the good things of life can never be pursued as the ultimate things of life, and that it is God who in his mercy satisfies sinners.

Song of Songs – shows God’s grace and love for his bride by giving us a faint echo of it in the pleasures of faithful human sexuality.

Isaiah – shows God’s grace by reassuring us of his presence with and restoration of contrite sinners.

Old Testament Grace cont’d…

Jeremiah – shows God’s grace in promising a new and better covenant, one in which knowledge of God will be universally internalized.

Lamentations – shows God’s grace in his unfailing faithfulness in the midst of sadness.

Ezekiel – shows God’s grace in the divine heart surgery that cleansingly replaces stony hearts with fleshy ones.

Daniel – shows God’s grace in its repeated miraculous preservation of his servants.

Hosea - shows God’s grace in a real-live depiction of God’s unstoppable love toward a whoring wife.

Old Testament Grace cont’d…Joel – shows God’s grace in the promise to pour out his Spirit on all flesh.

Amos – shows God’s grace in the Lord’s climactic promise of restoration in spite of rampant corruption.

Obadiah – shows God’s grace by promising judgment on Edom, Israel’s oppressor, and restoration of Israel to the land in spite of current Babylonian captivity.

Jonah – shows God’s grace toward both immoral Nineveh and moral Jonah, irreligious pagans and a religious prophet, both of whom need and receive the grace of God.

Old Testament Grace cont’d…

Micah – shows God’s grace in the prophecy’s repeated wonder at God’s strange insistence on ‘pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression’

Nahum – shows God’s grace in assuring Israel of ‘good news’ and ‘peace,’ promising that the Assyrians have tormented them for the last time.

Habakkuk – shows God’s grace that requires nothing but trusting faith amid insurmountable opposition, freeing us to rejoice in God even in desolation.

Zephaniah - shows God’s grace in the Lord’s exultant singing over his recalcitrant yet beloved people.

Old Testament Grace cont’d…

Haggai – shows God’s grace in promising a wayward people that the future glory of God’s presence with them will far surpass its former glory.

Zechariah – shows God’s grace in the divine pledge to open up a fountain for God’s people to ‘cleanse them from sin and uncleanness’.

Malachi – shows God’s grace by declaring the Lord’s no-strings-attached love for his people.

ACE Men’s Bible Study

Ephesians 2: 8-10

New American Standard Bible (NASB)8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [a

]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

It is the hesed of God

It is the charis of God

Charis

ACE Men’s Bible Study

Ephesians 2: 8-10

New American Standard Bible (NASB)8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [a]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a

result of works, so that no one may boast.

ACE Men’s Bible Study

Ephesians 2: 8-10

New American Standard Bible (NASB)8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [a]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a

result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Preston Sprinkle – God delighting in un-delightful people and using them to change the world.

ACE Men’s Bible Study

Ephesians 2: 8-10

New American Standard Bible (NASB)8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [a]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would

walk in them.

The Feet Prayer

ACE Men’s Bible Study

Lord take these feet,

And lead them to who you want me to meet,

Have me do what you want me to do,

And have me say what you would want me to say, THIS DAY.

And then let me get out of the way.

ACE Men’s Bible Study

Ephesians 2: 8-10

New American Standard Bible (NASB)8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [a]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would

walk in them.

Just Not Now!

Or because of Charis – YES & Right Now!