What Constitutes a Man a Christian?

In this part of the sermon: Martin briefly reviews the two questions answered in previous weeks — God alone is the author of transformation ('But God'), and his motives are rich mercy and great love — before…

Martin uses the proverbial picture of not seeing the woods for the trees to explain his approach: before descending to detailed exposition of union with Christ, he wants to step back and survey the three major strands of Ephesians 2:4-10 as a whole, so listeners won't get lost among the individual details.

How does God make this change? And before we descend to the particulars and that will bring us into the concern that Mr. Rogers will touch on tonight, the doctrine of union with Christ which is obviously set before us in verses 5 and following, made us alive together with Christ, raised us up with Christ, seated us with Christ, created us anew in Christ, and we'll enter into some of the most profound concepts to be found anywhere in the Word of God. But before we begin a detailed exposition of these things that the Apostle teaches us, what I want us to do is to stand, as it were, back at a dis...

8:37 - 10:01 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin demonstrates from the fourfold repetition of Christ/Christ Jesus in Ephesians 2:5-10 that the person and work of Jesus Christ must be absolutely central to any genuine…

Martin illustrates the mistake of treating 'Christ' as verbal filler by analogy with how first, middle, and last names narrow down a person's identity — Paul's use of 'Christ' is not a disambiguating middle name but a title loaded with the full richness of Old Testament messianic expectation.

He says he is the Christ. He uses the term Christ once and Jesus Christ three times. Now again the term Christ for the apostle was not a barren verbal symbol simply another name such as we may have a first name a middle name and a last name and it is just a help to identify us there may be a lot of people with our last name quite a few with our first so if we stick in a middle name that narrows the mathematical chances that we will get mixed up with someone else. Well when Paul said Jesus Christ he was not adding Christ simply as sort of verbal filler.

16:51 - 17:32 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin illustrates with three examples — a shiftless young man transformed by falling in love, Albert Schweitzer transformed by humanitarian need, and Christian Science converts…

A purposeless, irresponsible young man who cannot hold a job for more than three weeks falls in love with a woman who tells him she will not marry a lazy man. Overnight he gets and keeps a job, and his whole lifestyle is radically transformed — a genuine life-transformation that has nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus Christ.

Here's a young man shipless, irresponsible never holds a job for longer than three weeks makes enough money to just go off on his next pleasure trip totally irresponsible shipless. What happens? His affections are set upon a young woman whether it's just the motion of his hormones or something more than that will not go into what so-called falling in love is but nonetheless it happens to him whatever we want to call it. And he begins to show an interest and talk about marriage and she says not on your life I'm not going to be married to some lazy good-for-nothing guy that can't hold down a job...

20:49 - 21:30 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin illustrates with three examples — a shiftless young man transformed by falling in love, Albert Schweitzer transformed by humanitarian need, and Christian Science converts…

Martin cites Albert Schweitzer, who abandoned a lucrative career in music and philosophy after seeing human need and responded to it. Schweitzer wrote 'In Quest of the Historical Jesus' but did not know who Christ was; his transformation was genuine and radical but wholly outside biblical Christianity.

Many a young man has been transformed because he fell in love. That's right. Other people have been transformed because they saw something that deeply moved them. Albert Schweitzer for instance from a man who could have made millions in the fields of music and philosophy or thousands anyway he turned his back upon that why?

21:51 - 22:12 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that genuine, radical life-transformation can occur entirely outside Christ — through love, humanitarian zeal, or cult conversion. Do not mistake moral improvement or religious experience for Christian salvatio…

Martin describes people he has personally met who were never the same after coming into contact with Mary Baker Eddy's writings — they had a thorough conversion, but it had nothing to do with biblical Christianity.

Transformed. There are people that are transformed when they get hold of a religious idea. I've met people who've never been the same since they came in contact with Christian society. Mary Baker Eddy's thoughts and writings.

22:31 - 22:43 Read in full sermon

Driving home: That unique personage who is God and man. Jesus of Nazareth who lived in history, died in history, was buried in history, rose in history, ascended to the right hand of the Father in history, was seated at the Father's r…

Martin read an excerpt of a speech by Reverend Sun Myung Moon — whose followers claim membership in the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity — and found the name of Jesus or Christ not once, while God is invoked only as a springboard to lead people to Moon himself as the hope of America and the world.

I had in my notes before I had in my hands the sheet of paper I now have to speak just a moment about Reverend Sun Myung Moon who is being pushed upon us from every corner, television, radio, paper, and his radio newspaper and his followers come to our door identifying themselves as part of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. Ain't that a mouthful? It has nothing to do with the Holy Ghost. It has nothing to do with Christianity.

25:06 - 25:40 Read in full sermon

The point: For the unconverted: your only hope is Christ himself — not a decision, not a church, not a sacrament. Look to him who receives the vilest of sinners and is able to cleanse and liberate them.

Martin challenges listeners to listen to Herbert W. Armstrong's 'The World Tomorrow' for half an hour and search for the fragrance of Christ's name; what is central is Armstrong's authoritative interpretation of contemporary problems — bait to sell literature and hook people into his deflection from historic Christianity.

Herbert W. Armstrong, The World Tomorrow. Listen to that word-making machine for a half an hour and if you're listening for anything of the fragrance of the name of Christ, you'll listen in. What is central?

26:14 - 26:30 Read in full sermon

Driving home: it is kindness to the undeserving. It is blessing upon the non-qualified. And the whole thrust of the biblical notion of grace is simply this.

Martin describes Paul's parenthetical insertion of 'by grace have you been saved' in Ephesians 2:5 as the apostle being so compelled by the grace theme that he puts in a plug for free grace before he can even complete his sentence about being made alive together with Christ.

he says, I've got to get in a plug for free grace. And he puts in a little parenthesis, for by grace have you been saved. And then he goes on to say, and we've been raised up with him and seated with him. You see, it's a break in the flow of thought.

28:50 - 29:05 Read in full sermon

Driving home: it is kindness to the undeserving. It is blessing upon the non-qualified. And the whole thrust of the biblical notion of grace is simply this.

Martin describes Paul returning in verse 8 with a big red pencil to underline the grace emphasis a second time — 'For by grace have ye been saved' — in case listeners had half-asleep missed it the first time.

When dead sinners get quickened, Paul says, it's grace that did it. When we ask, what was the ultimate intention, he says that grace may be displayed. And if we've been half asleep and have missed it, he comes back with a big red pencil in verse 8, and he underlines it again. Look.

29:42 - 29:59 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not think of your faith as something you bring to God that triggers salvation. Faith itself flows from God in the process of saving you — it is grace all the way through, not grace plus your contribution.

Martin contrasts a sick person who can cooperate in healing (soaking a foot, taking medicine) with a dead person, for whom no amount of soaking or medicine will produce life. This illustrates why Paul depicts sinners as dead — dead people contribute nothing to their own quickening, which is why the gift of life is pure grace.

If dead people get life, they didn't cooperate. If sick people get well, they may have cooperated in the process of healing. They may have soaked their foot. They may have taken their medicine.

31:38 - 31:49 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not think of your faith as something you bring to God that triggers salvation. Faith itself flows from God in the process of saving you — it is grace all the way through, not grace plus your contribution.

Martin notes that all religions have holy books, holy men, holy exercises, and holy rituals — and in that sense Christianity resembles them. But no religion under heaven other than biblical Christianity says the sinner's acceptance with God rests solely upon the grace of the deity rather than the creature's own performance or attainments.

It is the only, quote, religion that operates on the basis of pure grace. All religions have their holy books, their holy men, their holy exercises, their holy rituals. And if I may say so without being irreverent, in that sense, Christianity parallels some of the world's religions.

33:48 - 34:09 Read in full sermon

The point: When you listen to preaching or teaching, ask: is grace merely mentioned as a cover for a subtle system of human works, or is grace the dominant note? Apply this test to every ministry you sit under.

Martin quotes several stanzas of 'Amazing Grace' by John Newton as the song that God puts into the heart of every person who moves from the before picture of Ephesians 2:1-3 into the after picture of 2:4-10 — evidence that a gracious God has truly worked.

The song of grace. John Newton, amazing. Grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

36:11 - 36:18 Read in full sermon

The point: When you listen to preaching or teaching, ask: is grace merely mentioned as a cover for a subtle system of human works, or is grace the dominant note? Apply this test to every ministry you sit under.

Martin quotes the opening line of Augustus Toplady's hymn — 'A debtor to mercy alone, a stone of covenant mercy I sing' — as the second example of the song of grace that God places in the heart of every genuinely transformed person.

His grace has brought me safe thus far. Grace will lead me home. That's the thing God will put in your heart. A debtor to mercy alone, a stone of covenant mercy I sing.

36:32 - 36:44 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin establishes that just as the bondage of sin was experimentally real and pervasive in every dimension of life, so the transformation of grace must be experimentally real…

Martin advises listeners to interrupt any religious canvasser with one question: 'What place does the grace of God have in all you want to tell me?' — observing that this single question derails the pre-packaged spiel of any system that knows nothing of grace, leaving the person unable to find the tracks.

Let that be the basis upon which you assess the peddler of religious thoughts who comes to your door as you ask him that question. If you want to untrack him from his pre, his packaged little spiel, you just interrupt him and say, Sir, ma'am, I'd like to ask you one simple question. In all that you want to tell me and teach me, what place does the grace of God have? The poor fellow gets so derailed he won't be able to say, he won't be able to find where the tracks are.

37:16 - 37:45 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin establishes that just as the bondage of sin was experimentally real and pervasive in every dimension of life, so the transformation of grace must be experimentally real…

Martin describes the Jehovah's Witness whose conscience is bound by the conviction that to escape Armageddon he must put in his 20 hours a week peddling heresy — a vivid illustration of a works-based system entirely foreign to the grace of the gospel.

Grace? What's grace? The poor Jehovah's Witness whose conscience is bound to feel that if somehow he's going to escape Armageddon, he's got to put in his 20 hours a week peddling his trashy heresy. He knows nothing of grace.

37:47 - 38:02 Read in full sermon

The point: Reject the thin popular notion that salvation merely removes the penalty of sin and tidies up a few outward habits. The new life in Christ produces new desires, new communion with God, and progressive mortification of th…

Martin describes what he calls no caricature — the average evangelical view that salvation means God blots out your sins so you won't go to hell, cleans up some gross outward patterns, and accepts you as a carnal Christian for the rest of your days. He insists this thin concept cannot be fitted into Ephesians 2.

Well, simply this, that the work of God in saving men is no surface issue. It is not merely changing a man's ultimate destiny and here and now redirecting a few of the grosser forms of his sinful patterns. And sad to say, that's the average concept of the transformation of grace. When you trust in Jesus, God blots out your sins so you won't go to hell when you die.

42:32 - 43:01 Read in full sermon