Sermon Series:
Five Words You Must
Understand
1 Corinthians 14:19
Yet in the church I had rather speak
five words with my understanding,
that by my voice I might teach others also,
than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.
Part
Twenty-five: Ephesians 2:5
“By
grace ye are saved.”
Introduction:
On the old Daniels
and Webster program on ROCK107 we often heard from one Walter Nepasky. He would begin his commentary in his very
recognizable “Coal Cracker” dialect with either, “I'm Walter Nepasky
and today I wanna talk about tree tings.”, or “Hi. My name is
Walter Nepasky. How ya doin’? Today I want to talk to you
about tree tings.”
What if we had a modern Christian radio station —The Rock of Ages 316 — with a program
that began, “Hi, I’m Paul of Tarsus, and today I want to talk about five
words.”
The Apostle Paul wrote: Yet in the church I had rather
speak five words with my understanding,
that by my voice I might teach others also,
than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.[1]
Paul follows up his introduction on The Rock of Ages 316 with his personal example — an extreme
preference framed as a mathematical proportion: 5 versus 10,000. This is Paul’s
“druthers”! This is when 5 is better
than 10,000!
If Paul were here, and you could pin him down to a
literal selection of five words, what do you think he would choose? “Gimme Five Paul!”
Before we get to a selection from the list of five word
Scripture passages that might be in Paul’s “in box” we should also consider how
Charles Haddon Spurgeon went even beyond Paul, perhaps due to “spiritual
inflation” in the intervening centuries!
“But the seed, though very small, was a living
thing. There is a great difference between a mustard seed and a piece of
wax of the same size. Life slumbers in that seed. What life is we cannot tell.
Even if you take a microscope you cannot spy it out. It is a mystery, but it is
essential to a seed. The Gospel has a something in it not readily discoverable
by the philosophical inquirer, if, indeed, he can perceive it at all. Take a
maxim of Socrates or of Plato, and inquire whether a nation or a tribe has ever
been transformed by it from barbarism to culture. A maxim of a philosopher may
have measurably influenced a person in some right direction, but who has ever
heard of a someone's whole character being transformed by any observation of
Confucius or Socrates? I confess I never have. Human teachings are barren. But
within the Gospel, with all its triteness and simplicity, there is a divine
life and that life makes all the difference. The human can never rival the
divine, for it lacks the life-fire. It is better to preach five words of God's Word than five million words
of human wisdom. Human words may seem to be the wiser and the more
attractive, but there is no heavenly life in them. Within God's Word, however
simple it may be, there dwells an omnipotence like that of God from whose lips
it came.”[2]
Note: The five word
statements from Scripture selected may not actually be five word statements
in either the Hebrew or Greek originals,
nor are they necessarily complete sentences or verses in English language
translations from the Hebrew and Greek, including the King James Version which is the source translation for the
statements. Nevertheless, they were
selected for the fundamental truths and span of doctrine that they
present. The current list of 37 examples
is not intended to be comprehensive, and may easily be expanded or
consolidated.
The 37 selections are categorized under the following
four headings:
The Person of Christ — The Redeemer
The Work of Christ (as Prophet, Priest and King) —
Redemption Accomplished
The Salvation of Christ — Redemption Applied
The Return of Christ — Redemption Revealed
The advantage of short simple sentences like these is
that they are easy to remember. There is little or no danger of our failing to
see the forest for the trees! May these words ring in our ears, resonate in our
minds, and abide in our memories.
Now for one of the possible
selections from Paul’s “in box”:
The five word statement to be considered on this occasion, “By grace ye
are saved,” falls under the third of these four headings, The Salvation
of Christ — Redemption Applied.
Outline:
I. The Necessity for Salvation by Grace - by grace
II. The Recipients of Salvation by Grace - ye
III. The Reality of Salvation by Grace - are saved
Transition:
Familiarity breeds contempt.
“Perhaps
there will be no disagreement if I conclude that the four most familiar
passages in the Bible — besides individual verses — are the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17;
Deuteronomy 5:6-21), Psalm 23, the Beatitudes
(Matthew 5:3-12), and the “Lord’s” Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4).
Previously we have
considered the value for Bible study of the story of “The Student, the Fish,
and Agassiz.” In that case the lesson had to do with looking, i.e., the value
of persevering in intense, prolonged scrutiny and detailed examination. Let us
now consider another, much shorter, and much older tale that may serve as an
example to bear in mind on another aspect of Bible study.
A slave who lived
at the same time as the Babylonian Captivity of Judea wrote many brief stories
that have stood the test of time. Here is one of them:
“When first the Fox saw the
Lion he was terribly frightened, and ran away and hid himself in the wood. Next
time however he came near the King of Beasts he stopped at a safe distance and watched
him pass by. The third time they came near one another the Fox went straight up
to the Lion and passed the time of day with him, asking him how his family
were, and when he should have the pleasure of seeing him again; then turning
his tail, he parted from the Lion without much ceremony.”
These tales are traditionally followed by phrases summarizing the moral.
In this case the moral of the story is: “Familiarity breeds contempt.”[3]”[4]
We need to beware that this does not happen in our study
of the Scriptures, especially in the more familiar passages! Let us venture
forth with one such example.
Two papers
presented to the John Bunyan Conference held at the Reformed Baptist Church,
830 Buffalo Road, Lewisburg, PA, on Monday, April 26, 2010.
Series Title: Seeing
the New Testament through New Covenant eyes
Series
Subtitle: Two Test Texts: The Point of
the Parentheses in Romans 2:13-15
and 1 Corinthians
9:21
Title: The Law
and the New Covenant Believer in 1 Corinthians 9:21
Subtitle: The
Point of the Parenthesis in 1 Corinthians 9:21 — The Focus of Law in
the New Covenant
Title: The Case
for New Covenant Gentiles in Romans 2:13-15
Subtitle: The
Point of the Explanatory Parenthesis Following the First Mention of Law in the
Pauline Diatribe — The Fulfillment of a New Covenant Promise in the Gentiles in
Romans 2:13-15
Biblical Parentheses and Parenthetical Theology:
define “parentheses” and illustrate
none in original text
subjective area in translations
sometimes where brackets are employed, and disagreement
as to where the interruption begins and ends.
I. The Necessity for Salvation by Grace - by grace
Why is salvation by grace?
Why must salvation be by grace?
Why cannot it be any other way than salvation by grace,
and by grace alone?
Romans 11:5-6 — “Even so then at this present time also
there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is
it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works,
then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.”
Sola Gratia
II. The Recipients of Salvation by Grace - ye
The identity of the 2nd person plural pronoun in context
Work the context!
Ask the question!
Get the answer!
III. The Reality of Salvation by Grace - are saved
The meaning of “saved”
Matthew 14:30 — “But when he saw
the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying,
Lord, save me.”
The implications of the perfect passive participle - The
Great Good News of God’s Grace
Same tense as John 19:30 — “It is finished.”
Conclusion:
This is a statement of fact, wonderful historical fact.
It may also be rephrased as a question: Have you been
saved by grace?
Is it enough? Is God’s grace enough for you to trust Him
implicitly and explicitly for your eternal salvation, for all that is necessary
to bring you to glory? Is it sufficient in and of itself?
Are you one of the saved, or are you one of the
multiplied billions who pass into a Christless eternity not satisfied with
God’s love, mercy and grace, but attempting to please Him another way? What is
the hope of those who, dissatisfied with what God has provided by His grace,
attempt to add to it?
[Sermon preached 2 AUG 2015 by Pastor John T. “Jack”
Jeffery at Wayside Gospel Chapel, Greentown, PA.]
End Notes:
[1] 1 Corinthians 14:19.
[2] Charles H. Spurgeon,
“The Mustard Seed: A Sermon for the Sabbath-School Teacher” (Lk.
13:18-19), Sermon No. 2110, delivered 20
OCT 1889, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, U.K.; in Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 35
(1889), pp. 565ff.; in Charles H. Spurgeon, The Parables of Our Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2003), pg. 707; and
on The Spurgeon Archive at http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2110.htm [accessed 23 DEC 2014].
[3] “Aesop (c. 620-564 B.C.)
The moral of “The Fox and the Lion” story in Aesop’s
Fables In traditional English translations of Aesop’s Fables, there’s a phrase at the end of each brief tale that summarizes “the moral of the story.” The origin of the proverbial saying “Familiarity breeds contempt” is widely credited to the traditional translation of Aesop’s fable “The Fox and the Lion,” which reads:
When first the Fox saw the Lion he was terribly frightened, and ran away and hid himself in the wood. Next time however he came near the King of Beasts he stopped at a safe distance and watched him pass by. The third time they came near one another the Fox went straight up to the Lion and passed the time of day with him, asking him how his family were, and when he should have the pleasure of seeing him again; then turning his tail, he parted from the Lion without much ceremony.
“Familiarity Breeds Contempt””
— Quote/Counterquote at http://www.quotecounterquote.com/2012/05/familiarity-breeds-contempt-and.html [accessed 28 APR 2015].
Another, much later source
for this moralism, is the following: “Parit
enim conversatio contemptum; raritas conciliat admirationem,” Translation:
“Familiarity breeds contempt, while rarity wins admiration.” Variant
translation: “Familiarity breeds contempt, but concealment excites interest.” De Deo Socratis (On the God of Socrates), ch. 4; pg. 355. Lucius Apuleius (c. 125 – c. 180), Metamorphoses,
in The Works of Apuleius (London: Bohn’s Classical Library,
1853); on Wikipedia at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Apuleius [accessed 28 APR 2015].
[4] The Study of the
Scriptures: Session 7, Wednesday 29 APR 2015, at Faith Baptist Fellowship
Church, Lake Ariel, PA; http://faithbaptistfellowshipch.com/.
