Saved by Grace, Created for Good Works

Why is the price of my freedom described as expensive, and what was actually paid for it?

Redemption assumes a slave market. A price had to be found, someone who owned the freedom of the enslaved bought it, and the seller had to be paid. God went first and bought His people before anyone could pay Him back.

Therefore tell the children of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments. I will take you to myself for a people. I will be your God; and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

Exodus 6:6–7

Yahweh didn’t set his love on you nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples; but because Yahweh loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 7:7–8

…knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish or spot, the blood of Christ,…

1 Peter 1:18–19

Take heed, therefore, to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood.

Acts 20:28

If I can't pay for it, why does the pull to earn it feel so hard to lay down?

The pastor says you can't turn over your IRA to get this gift. That pull is the deeper question. Naaman almost walked away healed because the cure was too simple for him to accept.

But Naaman was angry, and went away and said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of Yahweh his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leper.’ Aren’t Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. His servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had asked you do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? How much rather then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” Then went he down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

2 Kings 5:11–14

…for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast.

Ephesians 2:8–9

Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Romans 10:1–4

He therefore who supplies the Spirit to you and does miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?

Galatians 3:5

What does God see in me while He is still working on me that I can't see myself?

The pastor's daughter's tree went up in Raleigh before the holiday, and the orchard sees the apples while they are still green. Jesus says He prunes the branch that is bearing fruit, so the work on you is not evidence you are behind.

Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

John 15:2

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10

Therefore we don’t faint, but though our outward person is decaying, yet our inward person is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory,…

2 Corinthians 4:16–17

I gave my life to Christ, so why don't I feel different from the person I was before?

The pastor's test is plain: someone who was crushed by a piano would not stand around chatting. Nicodemus hears about new birth and asks how it is possible, which is the same question from the inside.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t marvel that I said to you, ‘You must all be born anew.’ The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

John 3:6–8

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17

You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience.

Ephesians 2:1–2

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22–23