This week we come to one of the most well-known passages in Ephesians. We have been saved by grace! Our faith is a gift; it is not earned. Yet what is often overlooked (especially by those who are overly familiar) is how Paul directly connects "works" to this discussion of grace - and in particular how works are expected to flow from grace. If Paul stresses that we are saved by grace and not works, how can he require works? As Dallas Willard has said, "Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning." Let's talk about grace and works.

Discussion Questions

Grace

Paul is redundant: "it is by grace you have been saved…not by works…this is not your own doing." He clearly expects his hearers to struggle to grasp this. Why is grace so counterintuitive?

Verse 8 says salvation is a "gift". We don’t always value gifts, but we certainly grieve losing what we earned. Talk about a time when your efforts led to both a dead-end of what you can do, but a rediscovery of God’s gift, which is enough.

Paul also writes that our salvation is "not by works, so no one can boast" (v.9). Clearly, grace is good news, but how might grace be viewed as a threat? What would have to change about us if we could no longer 'boast' in our accomplishments? How might this gift be offensive?

Robert Capon has written: Grace might as well be a 15-foot crocodile the way we respond to it. Despite our objections to the contrary, humankind, again and again, has proven, we will sooner accept a god we will be fed to than one we will be fed by. What does he mean? How can a gracious God be a threat?

How would you define grace? Read Isaiah 64:6. How does God's grace represent an insult to 'good works'? Is God against good works as a whole? Read Romans 6:1. Considering the meaning of grace, why might Paul feel the need to say this?

Works

Contrast how Paul speaks of works in vs. 8-9 compared with v. 10. If we are not saved by works, why does Paul so closely connect works to grace? What is the relationship? Dallas Willard has said, "Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning." What does that massive difference look like in your own life (without boasting, of course)?

How are we "God's workmanship" (v.10)? The Greek word here is related to our English word "poem" - and carries a sense of God's art. How might God's work in your life resemble a sculptor or poet diligently and painstakingly honing his work? If you are the roughhewn rock, how might you view the sculptor approaching you with a hammer & chisel in his hand? Share a specific example of how you’ve been changed and shaped – what you once were and what you are now.

Paul goes so far as to say we were "created... for good works", and that God even "prepared beforehand," that we would "walk" in them (v.10). How might that begin to resolve the tension between grace and works in this passage? What does it say about the uniqueness of how you might be uniquely used by God in history? When have you felt that God placed you right here, right now, for exactly this?

Read Philippians 2:12-13. Does the image that God partners with us to bring about good works in our lives encourage you? Where might this dynamic be in motion right now in your life?

GOSPEL: E.T.'s last words were "be good." Jesus' last words before dying were "it is finished." Which one is more life-altering? The irony of grace is that - correctly understood - the very place we realize our good works cannot earn heaven is the place we are set free to do good works. Jesus did what we could not; and his love is what compels us (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

APPLICATION:

Read Romans 5:6-10. "While we were weak... sinners... enemies..." How does that deep awareness of our need for grace better equip us to love those who we might now consider weak, sinful, or even enemies?

Considering the Thanksgiving meal has almost become a meme for familial arguments in our society, how could a deepening awareness of grace enable you to care for your family this year?

As God's workmanship, how are you increasingly becoming a work of his art, sharing "grace in action"? To the degree you are failing, how might confessing that equally begin to heal and transform you?