Our pastor,
Steve Olsen, is preaching through the book of Ephesians this Summer. He's about to start Chapter 2, and in thinking through the text, the following illustration came to me.
You didn't build that!
Remember when Obama, in his 2012 campaign, made the statement to business owners that, "You didn't build that", in reference to the businesses that they built? Remember how full of hubris it seemed, and how most thinking Americans (rightly) rejected it?
He said what?
Well, there's a time when, "You didn't build that" is not only true, but true with eternal consequences. It is true when it comes to our faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 says,
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
If we approach our faith with an American Ideal, we are going to be theologically completely backwards. And that's un-American, and that's how we are wired to think. But it is Biblical, and we'd better 'get it' or we will miss the heart of the gospel. We really didn't build that faith which is in the process of saving us.
