Main Character Energy

6 · Brief transition marking the theological pivot point in Ephesians 2 — from human failure to divine intervention — using the text's own structural signal

But verse 4 interrupts with those two glorious words, "But God."

7 · Alcantar exposits God's multi-stage salvific intervention (sending Christ, making alive, raising, seating) while simultaneously naming the human tendency to receive salvation as merely a restoration to the protagonist role rather than as a complete rewriting of who holds the pen

We have this story, it's going this way, and it's gonna end in death, and yet God, as it were, jumps back into the story and intervenes. And he not only sends Christ to die on the cross for our sins, he then makes us alive that we might see it. He then raises us to new life. With Christ. He then seats us with Christ and gives us an eternal trajectory of hope and joy and glory.

And yet for all of that in Ephesians 2, all of that, Paul knows that we still have a temptation and a tendency to think, "Oh, excellent. The Lord has restored us to the rightful place of being the main character again. Thank you, Lord. That was a tough spot I got into." "but now I'll take it from here." And Paul knows this, that when it comes to our salvation, he's gonna really push on us today. He's gonna force us to see that when it comes to salvation, we really did not accomplish any of it.

8 · Alcantar states the sermon's controlling thesis and reveals why it matters beyond soteriology — if we contribute anything to salvation, we'll carry that merit-based, self-centered approach into every other relationship and sphere of life

The summary that kinda hangs over this part of Ephesians is that salvation is none of us and all of him. And a lot is at stake here because if salvation is, well, some of us, then we might be able to carry that into other parts of life. Well, my marriage needs to be, you know, about me, and this relationship needs to be about me, and this thing needs to be about me. But if at the end of the day we went from death to life solely based on the grace of God, then all of a sudden we're like, hey, listen, whatever God wants of me. That's where Paul's going to take us at the very end.

9 · Alcantar provides detailed grammatical exposition of Ephesians 2:8, establishing through Greek pronoun analysis that "this is not your own doing" refers comprehensively to the entire salvation process including even faith itself — not just grace but the very act of receiving grace is God's gift, eliminating any room for human contribution

So the headline again: salvation is none of us. And all of him. None of us and all of him. So first, we're gonna cover what we are saved without. We're gonna go saved without, saved by, saved through, and saved for.

The first will probably take the longest. Saved without. This is Paul's kind of driving point here. He's laid out salvation, but he wants to be explicit about something. He says, verse 8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith." And it's almost like he pauses and remembers that all of us are giving off pretty strong main character energy.

So he turns and says, "And this is not of your own doing." And we're like, "Oh, I don't know if I like that." Now, here's one of the key questions grammatically in this phrase, "This is not your own doing." What is "this" referred to? What's the this? 'Cause we're like, well, maybe it's one of those situations where obviously we need help. Obviously, you know, we're imprisoned and we need help. And maybe it's like one of those, you know, those stories, heroic stories where one of the characters is locked up and jailed up.

And so somebody brings a boat right up next to this big sailing ship, gets close to the prison, and they're calling out, "Here!" And they throw in something and they pull off the bars. But the main character stands up and you realize they're going to have to make a heroic leap. I mean, the boat is there and they did break the, you know, the bars off. But this guy is going to have to take a running, flying, heroic leap through the air in slow motion, grabs one of the ropes, swings onto the deck, and you're like, well, that was impressive. Listen, I mean, obviously those other characters did a great job bringing the boat, you know, and pulling the bars off.

But this other character, did you see that slow motion leap?

What a character. What a main character, right? And so Paul knows this. And so the question is, okay, well, what's the "this" that is not your own doing? And here's where Paul— this is where the phrase— we're going to use some grammar here, but the phrase is intended to take in all of verse 8, meaning all of salvation and grace and faith, and even to refer probably back through Ephesians chapter 2 where he says all of All of this, do you remember this?

Zombies, all of this, the Frankenstein stuff, all of the deadness, all of that going from there to life, all of that, the grace that was given to you, all of the salvation, and even the faith by which you receive that salvation, this is not your own doing. And I know some grammar nerds here are like, but I really want to know about the neuter, pronouns here? What's going on with that? Well, I'm glad you asked. This is where the ESV Study Bible, I think, was actually the best summary here.

It's a great study Bible. It says as follows: The Greek pronoun is neuter, while grace and faith are feminine. So normally the neuter would refer to a neuter or feminine to the feminine, but the fact that they don't— it doesn't match one of them means that without a match, it refers to the whole phrase. Okay? Just the 3 of you that were like, "Oh, great." Everybody else just pretend like that made a lot of sense.

Okay. I'm just trying to show you the work so you know I'm not making this up, 'cause it's important. "Accordingly," it says, "this points to the whole process of salvation by grace through faith as being the gift of God and not something that we can accomplish ourselves. The use of the neuter pronoun to take in the whole of a complex idea is quite common in Greek, and its use here makes it clear. This is the, like, this is the end exclamation point.

Its use here makes it clear that faith, no less than grace, is a gift of God. Salvation, therefore, in every respect is not your own doing.

10 · Alcantar uses the prison boat rescue scenario to illustrate total divine action in salvation — revising the earlier hypothetical to eliminate even the heroic leap, showing instead complete passivity on the part of the rescued and complete activity on the part of the rescuer

So here's the picture. The boat pulls up. You do not make a heroic leap through faith onto the deck. They jump in after you. They tie a rope to your hand. They drag you out of the window, pull you onto the deck, and you're like, "Wow." That is intended in the phrase, "This is not your own doing." And Paul fears that we may not get the point yet. Still giving off too much main character energy, verse 9, he includes this: "Not a result of work so that no one may boast." Right? There's not meant to be anything in salvation that we would be able to look back on and go, "I did that. God did 90%, I did the 10." God did 99%, I did the 1. God did 99.99999% and I did the 0.000001. It was a little heroic, just a little, right? I mean, obviously everything here, great, love the work, God, excellent. But this moment, man, that was pretty good, right? There's none of that. There is not meant to be any room for boasting.

11 · Extended illustration from Bryan Chapell showing three swimmers of dramatically different abilities all drowning before reaching California — demonstrating that comparative merit is meaningless when the standard is absolute (reaching the shore), just as comparative morality is meaningless when the standard is perfect righteousness

Brian Chappell summarizes this in a wonderful way in his commentary, talking about how we have no ground for boasting over and against one another or in our salvation at all. So he pictures it this way. Imagine that a plane goes down in the Pacific Ocean, and on the plane there are 3 survivors. There's a guy that can barely swim— and I'm sorry, all the life rafts and stuff sink. I don't know why, but that's just what happens.

So there's 3 guys in the water. One guy can barely dog paddle and he is like freaking out. Second guy, look, he swims a couple times a week for half hour to an hour. I mean, he's relatively fit for a, you know, for kind of a 3 times a week swimmer. And then there is an Olympian.

It is, you know, I don't know, insert your favorite Olympian there, Michael Phelps or somebody, long distance swimmer would be preferred here. And the Olympian looks at the other two and goes, guys, we can do this. I know right there, if we swim east, the shore of California will be here at some point. We just have to keep swimming, keep trusting, keep pushing, do our best, dig deep. Gives them the whole Nike Just Do It speech, sponsored by Nike.

And he says, let's go. And so they are like, all right, we have no choice, we're gonna do this. So the dog paddler, I mean, he is falling behind. He's struggling. He's freaking out.

He makes it like an hour. Boom, down to the bottom of the ocean. The Olympian looks at the other guy and is like, now look, this is what you've been training for. 3 times a week, this is what we've been training. This is what you've been training for.

You can do this. And so the guy lasts an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, even 4 hours. I mean, he is getting to the end of his strength, but he is just— he's just swimming. And he looks up and he's expecting to see California. More ocean.

So he sinks down, bottom of the ocean. The Olympian goes like, look, all of my life I have trained to be an Olympic athlete. I've trained to swim. I feel more comfortable in the water than on the land. This is my moment.

This is going, like, this will put me into the annals of history. I survived, swam to California. Let's go. So he digs deep, 10 hours, 11 hours, 12 hours, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 24, 30, and finally at hour 36, he just physically can't move anymore, looks ahead, doesn't see California, swims to the bottom of the ocean. Meaning he drowns.

He gets there, and if you could look at their progress on a map, you would see here's the down plane, here's the coast of California, here's the dog paddler, blip, Here's the, you know, 3 times a week swimmer. Bloop. Here's the Olympian. Bloop. And here is California.

Now, in that moment, are any of them— is there room for any of them to boast about their accomplishment? Is there room for the Olympian to go like, well, at least I got a lot further than those guys? No, he's dead, right? Like, well, I did get further. No, you're still dead.

12 · Alcantar applies the illustration to the text, establishing that God structures salvation to eliminate boasting precisely because self-exaltation ("main character energy") is the very spark of sin — if salvation left room for human contribution, it would reinforce the very pride that caused the Fall

That's what Ephesians 2 is laying out. All of us on the bottom of the ocean floor. And if anybody brings us from the ocean floor back up and quickens our hearts and makes us alive and pays for our sins and seats us with Christ, all of that Paul is wanting to make absolutely explicit is not the result of works, meaning anything we do, so that no one can boast. But Paul is absolutely going after that part in our heart that's like, "But it should be about me." And do you know why God saves in such a way that it eliminates that? Because that, that is the spark, in a sense, of sin.

That's the spark of saying, "I'm going to exalt myself. I'm going to make myself look good. I want the universe to revolve around me." And unless that is utterly eliminated in the way that we're saved, well, We're going to end up right back where we were, in a sense. And so salvation from first to last, from A to Z, is none of us and all of him.

13 · Alcantar applies the "no boasting" principle to the pervasive human tendency toward comparison and self-righteousness, exposing how even watching the news can become an exercise in moral superiority — then contrasts this with the leveling effect of grace

And look, the reason this makes such a difference is this: this humbles everybody. Christianity is not a contest of people trying to see how good they can be compared to others, or maybe we're in here much better than the people out there, ugh, the nasty, ugly, Terrible world out there. You watch the news. "Ah, those people. Ah, they're at it again. That political party. Ah, unbelievable. Not like me. I'm a good person." You know? And why do you keep watching it? Because every time you do, there's a little bit of, "Yeah, I'm a little bit better than that guy. I'm better than him too. Oh, I didn't kill anybody. Oh, that guy, definitely better than him." When it comes to salvation, we're all humbled. None of us can boast. Humanity lives in a constant struggle to be a better hero than the next person, to compare our accomplishments, our looks, our spouses, our houses, our careers, our running times, our deadlifts. That's for somebody here. Constant comparison. Us, them, us, them, us, them.

14 · Alcantar issues a specific ecclesiological charge to Cross of Grace — the church's very name (Cross of Grace) should function as a constant reminder that eliminates any sense of superiority over visitors, other churches, or any person, because all are saved solely by grace

Ephesians 1 and 2 are built to remind us all of grace, none can boast. And this is my burden for us as a church. I want us to be, as a church, a people constantly humbled by the grace in our name. Cross of Grace should never be a place where anyone walks in suddenly thinking, "I'm a little bit better than that person, at least." Nor should we ever look at somebody who walks in those doors and think, "Well, we're a little bit better than that person, at least," or that next church or that next group. No. We are people. Who found ourselves on the bottom of the ocean, all of a sudden breathing in air, made alive by the grace of God. No room for boasting.

15 · Pastoral aside articulating Alcantar's vision for the church's identity — a community perpetually astonished by grace rather than confident in its own merit, doctrine, or methodology

I would love it if we were just known as the people that just can't believe— the church where people can't believe they're saved every week. We just show up again. "I can't believe it. Look at that. I can't believe it." That our doctrine or our methodology or nothing about us would make us feel better than others. Others. None of us, all of him.

16 · Alcantar justifies the repeated emphasis on grace by naming the human tendency to drift from grace back into merit, then deepens the definition of grace from "unmerited favor" (previous week) to "gift" — moving from the relational posture of God turning toward us to the concrete reality of God giving us something

Second point. That was the first longer point, saved by. Second point, saved through. Saved through. Verse 8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith." Now, I'm so sorry, I jumped. My bad. I got my pages mixed up. We got to do saved by, otherwise the saved through won't make sense. Second point, saved by. "For by grace you have been saved through faith." We'll get to that in a second. It is the gift of God. Now Paul, he has already talked about grace a lot. Maybe you're here and you're thinking, "Man, I thought we already went over grace in verse 1 of chapter 1, and then last week we spent a whole message on grace, and now you're doing another point about grace. What is the deal? Let's move on." You know why we're not gonna move on? Because of this. Because as many times as grace occurs in the book of Ephesians, we will preach grace again. Why? Because Paul knows that because that is what our hearts need, that apart from grace, we drift back into, "Well, I did a little bit. Well, I'm a little bit better than—" No! And he uses this vivid picture now. It is the gift of God. Now, we've talked about how grace is basically the gap. It's the difference between what we deserved and what we receive from God. We've talked about grace being God's unmerited favor. So here's the gap between what we deserve and what we receive. And all of a sudden, God, in unmerited favor, who had been turned away from us because of our injustice, turns toward us in favor. That is amazing. But now it goes further. Grace, then, is the gift of God.

17 · Extended illustration from Les Misérables showing grace as concrete gift — Jean Valjean deserves punishment but receives not only favor (the priest covering for him) but additional gifts beyond what he stole, transforming stolen goods into a gift that changes his entire life

Listen, one of the most vivid illustrations of this I think I've used once or twice before, but I cannot find a better illustration, so I'm just going to keep using it. Is from the beginning of the novel, the Victor Hugo novel, Les Misérables. If you remember Les Misérables, if you've seen the musical, or you even— if you've always thought it was called "Less Miserables," that's okay. It doesn't matter. I thought it was that until age 30 or so. And so the beginning of the novel and the story, this criminal is kind of out almost on parole, and he's staying in the home of a priest. And while he's there, he decides, you know what, I'm already bad. I'm just going to steal all the priest's silver, the candlesticks and all that. I'm going to steal that, take off. Unfortunately, on his escape route, he gets caught. And they bring him to the priest. And the priest immediately— obviously he knows the guy. He brought him into his home. He stole all of his valuables, these silver candlesticks in particular. And the guy, you know, the inspector brings him. It's just like, hey, I'm just confirming he did steal these, right? All right, back to jail for him. And the priest comes out and goes, "Oh, my friend, so good to see you again." And the inspector says, "Well, but this guy is telling us that you gave him the candlesticks. Is that right?" And the priest says, "Oh, of course, of course, a gift for one of my friends." He says, "In fact, you've forgotten some of the things I intended to give to you." Goes back into the house, essentially gets the rest of the silver, brings it, gives it to the man. The guy, Jean Valjean's mouth is agape. The inspector is like, wow, okay, well, I guess if it's a real gift, then there's nothing to do here. He walks off. And there's this beautiful picture in the novel. Jean Valjean is standing there holding these valuables that he stole, but all of a sudden have been made a gift to him, and more has been added to him. And that changes his life forever. Where in that moment he deserved justice, in that moment he deserved to go back to jail, but instead what he receives is unmerited favor. And not just unmerited favor, which is what he received the night before, but an unmerited gift to him.

18 · Alcantar contrasts the world's merit-based identity system (which creates constant instability) with salvation as gift — showing how receiving salvation as gift rather than wage transforms how we approach God and eliminates the exhausting cycle of self-assessment

That's what Ephesians 2 is telling us. Not only do you not get what you should get, not only does God turn towards you in favor, he gives you the gift of salvation. Church, this makes such a difference as you think about your life. Remember that our world is built on, "Well, I do this, so I am this." I'm saved by my merit. I'm saved by this is who I am. This is what I've done. This is what I look like. This is what I've accomplished. I'm saved by, this is who I am, this is my merit. And Christianity says, no, that's death. Because you live your life constantly up and down. This is the way I look today. This is the way I looked yesterday. You know, this is what I've accomplished today. This is what I have not accomplished. This is who I am. This is my identity. Trying to work out, in a sense, an identity that will bring us salvation, which is death is all we get from that. Instead, what God does is he gives us the gift of grace by which we are saved. So this makes every difference. When you relate to God, then, you do not come to him with a collection of, "This is what I've done, this is what I haven't done. What does that get me? Do I get close to salvation today?" He gives you the gift of salvation.

19 · Direct pastoral address to someone in the congregation who fears approaching God after sin — diagnosing the misunderstanding (thinking they need to earn back access through good deeds) and correcting it (grace means coming with the mess)

Look, brother, sister, I do feel like God's pushing on this with somebody here. If you fear going to God in prayer when you've sinned, you don't get grace. When you've messed up, made a mess of your life, and you're afraid to pray until you do a few more good deeds, you don't get grace. Grace is you come with all the mess to the Lord and ask for his help, and he gives you what you could not get on your own.

20 · Alcantar traces how grace as gift transforms horizontal relationships — marriage becomes mutual gift-giving rather than scorekeeping warfare, parenting flows from grace, and even racial tension is addressed by eliminating comparative merit, previewing applications Paul will make in later chapters of Ephesians

And then it makes every difference, not only vertically but horizontally. Everything else in Ephesians flows from this truth that we are saved by grace. And when that happens, people do not get to relate the way that the world relates. The way the world relates is, here's who I am, here's what I've done, here's what I've earned, and then you compare. Here's who I am, here's what I've done, here's what I've earned, and you go to war. Look, this is marriage apart from grace. Here's the things I've done, here's the things you've done, who wins? And Ephesians 5 is utterly transformed because what Paul does is he says, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." Meaning by grace, God gave himself to you in salvation, therefore you give grace to your spouse. He then applies it to parenting. He applies it next week into the complicated world of racial tension. Of who gets to be the best race, the best ethnicity, the most, you know, the most meritorious, who gets this, who wins here. Paul says, "Nobody does. Everybody— nobody boasts. Everybody receives grace." That changes everything.

21 · Pastoral burden for the church to eliminate scorekeeping in all relationships, particularly marriage — exposing the human tendency to keep mental lists of wrongs and offering grace as the antidote that crumples up the list

And look, this is my heart here, again, church. At Cross of Grace, my deep burden today is that we be a church that refuses to keep score. That we do not relate to one another going, "Well, this is what I've done and this is what you've done." That in our marriages we're not keeping a subtle list. And if you don't think you're keeping a list, just wait till you get into a conflict with your spouse and all of a sudden you're like, "Well, let me get the old notepad out." And you're like, "Three weeks ago you said you were going to do this and you didn't. And two weeks ago I was going to do this and then you interrupted me." And, you know, all of a sudden You're like, "Well, I don't keep score." It'll come out, okay? But if we are saved by grace, it takes the list, crumples it up, and throws it away. That we would relate to one another that way in the church, that when we're frustrated with one another, when there's inevitable conflict with one another, we go refusing to boast, holding out grace for one another. The same grace that we've received ourselves.

22 · Alcantar establishes that faith is not the basis of salvation but merely the instrument by which grace is received — countering the tendency to treat faith as a work or merit that unlocks God's favor, using the syringe-and-medicine analogy to distinguish the delivery mechanism from the saving substance

That's saved by. Briefly now, saved through. Saved through. For by grace you have been saved through faith. Now this is an important, a small but important point, that we receive the gift of grace in such a way that we cannot boast about it through faith. Now, maybe you've heard that phrase, God helps those who helps themselves, right? God helps those who help themselves. You know who came up with that? The Greeks, because their gods were indifferent losers that you had to basically do some stuff and hope that it would attract the attention of one of the gods to come kind of come in and say, you know what? He actually is doing a pretty good job and help you. And yet we carry that so often into our Christian faith. Well, I got to do this. So God, I mean, God has all that grace, but I need to almost unlock it with some kind of merit or work to get the gates to open. Hey, here's all the grace of salvation, but the key I'm using is my own merit or good works. And Paul says, "No." Listen to this from the Expository Commentary. He says this: Note that we are saved because of, or on the basis of, grace which is attained by means of, or through faith. We are not saved because of, or on the basis of faith, Faith does not save anyone. Only the grace we receive because of Christ's atonement saves us. Faith is merely the instrument by which grace is received. Similar— I love this illustration— similar to a syringe that delivers life-saving medicine. A person is saved not because of the syringe, but because of the medicine. And yet without the syringe, i.e., faith, salvation would not be possible. Faith is the response by which salvation through the perfect work of Christ is received.

23 · Extended illustration from The Sandlot showing faith as passive reception — the kid who can't catch simply holds up his glove and the skilled player does all the work, demonstrating that faith is not a heroic act but desperate receptivity that takes no credit for what it receives

Look, no syringe walks around thinking, "Yep, boop, I cured malaria," right? "Boop, I was in a— that was a very impressive course of antibiotics, you know? I cured that guy and that guy and that guy and that guy. All me." No. The syringe is not doing the work. It is the medicine inside. Similarly, it's not as though when we believe with faith we're doing anything heroic. The picture I get in my mind is that picture in The Sandlot. If you've ever seen that movie, The Sandlot, please rewatch it before you share it with your kids. It has some swearing and stuff. But everybody always thinks the movies they grew up watching didn't have anything bad, and then they watch them and they're like, oh man. Yeah. So just— Life tip. But there's this great scene in The Sandlot where this kid can't play baseball. None of the other baseball kids wanna let him play 'cause he's truly terrible. And so the one really, really, really good kid tells him, here's what you do. Walk out into the field and just stick your glove up. And the guy's like, walk out into the field and stick my glove up? He's like, yep, do it. So he does. He walks out into the field and just thinks, this is not gonna work. I'm gonna be humiliated. 'Cause he can't catch, right? So he walks out into the field, and I think if I remember right, he closes his eyes, doesn't he? And sticks his glove up. And there's this big shot of him in a giant field with one, like, little glove here, and he's got his hand open. And so the guy throws the ball in the air and hits it, and you're just thinking, oh no. And everybody's looking at him like, well, this kid's a loser. He's not gonna catch this. And he just, he has his glove up in the air, And the ball sails through the air, bam, into the glove, and hard enough that basically his hand involuntarily grabs it. And everybody goes, ah, he can play. All right, come on, man, you know. And so he's in. From that moment on, he's in with that group of friends, right? Now, here's, would he in that moment put his glove up, catch the pitch, and go, booyah, nailed it. "Who wants some?" Nobody, right? Nobody's doing that. He's not going to do that. He's fully aware that there's just— I mean, he's fully aware that he didn't do any of that, and there's just relief and joy on his faith— on his face. Faith is that moment by which we stick the glove in the air and Christ does it all.

24 · Evangelistic application directly addressing non-Christians in the congregation, explaining how to become a Christian by applying the illustration — faith is desperate receptivity (holding up the glove) rather than heroic achievement (doing 100 good deeds), with assurance that this kind of faith is never disappointed

Saved through faith. Through faith, not through merit, not through works, but through faith. And let me just encourage you today, if you are not a Christian, this is what it means to be a Christian. It does not mean go out and do 100 good deeds and come back and we'll check your merits like your grades. It means this: you put your glove into the air and say, "I can't do it. I'm dead. I need help. God, please help me. I believe who you say you are. You are who you say you are. I believe you sent Christ to the cross for my sins. Please make me alive. Please." I'm turning my life over to you. Look, none of that is a work, is it? None of that is heroic. All of that is going, Lord, help me. And the happy surprise that nobody, if I could say it this way, nobody who puts their glove up in the air in faith, in desperate faith, is ever disappointed. Believe today in faith, friend.

25 · Alcantar transitions to the final movement of Ephesians 2 (verse 10), establishing that salvation includes not just rescue from something but restoration to something — God's original design from Genesis 1-2 where humans were created as masterworks with glorious purpose, which was lost in Genesis 3's self-authorship and is now restored in salvation

All right, very briefly, last, saved to. We're saved from something, but we're also saved to something. Verse 10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." We're not saved just from something, we are saved for something and to something. And this is so important, okay? Because our culture's default view is that we fashion ourselves into an appropriate main character, the main character that we want. We choose the rules for our lives, our sexuality, our gender expression, our relationships, the way we respond to others, our wardrobe, right? The gym we go to, even the church we go to at times are all accessories of who I am. But the reality is, as we saw earlier in Ephesians 2, all that leads to— what it's supposed to lead to is joy, peace, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Look around at our culture. We have more money and more ability to fashion ourselves into whatever we want than any culture in world history. And are you walking outside and seeing insanely happy people that just can't believe how happy they are and how peaceful they are and how joyful they are? Anybody else experiencing that? I'm not experiencing that. Turn on the news if you think people are experiencing that. Like, nope, that, that, ooh. All it leads is to deadness and death. And here's why, here's why some background is important here. Genesis 1 and 2 lays out this backdrop to all of Scripture, and Ephesians 2 in particular, that God created us with a purpose, with a design, and it was beautiful, a beautiful design. The word workmanship here is actually a word that means masterwork. Genesis 1 and 2 says that we're made in the very image of God. That word workmanship is poemia, which— from which we get the English word poem. God created a thing of beauty. He didn't create humanity, or each human being as just, "Well, here's a rough table that, you know, whatever, it's there." No, every human being, a masterwork made in the image of God. With glorious intent and glorious purpose. But in Genesis 3, humanity says, "Nope, we want the pen of the story. We're gonna design ourselves. We're gonna pursue our own happiness. We're gonna rule. We wanna be sovereign." And where does that get us? Deadness.

26 · Alcantar establishes that salvation reverses Genesis 3 and restores Genesis 1-2's masterwork design, then returns to the Les Misérables illustration to show how grace transforms Jean Valjean's story from criminal to heroic servant — using this as evidence that God can write beautiful stories when we surrender authorship

So in salvation, what God does is he essentially rewinds the clock back through Genesis 3 to Genesis 1 and 2 and restores us to this glorious, beautiful masterwork purpose that is God's intent for every single saved person. He intends, brother and sister, that you in Christ become a masterwork with beautiful intent and beautiful purpose. And you don't have to go over there and be like, "But I need to make my part in the story." No, God has a glorious, beautiful part for you in his story if you are willing to let him reshape you and refashion you into this thing of beauty. Look, this is the purpose of God. And let me just say this. The thing— I talked about Les Misérables earlier. The character of Jean Valjean, from that moment, the priest actually tells him in that moment something that I think is glorious. The priest tells him, as he hands him the rest of the silver stuff, the priest tells him, "With this, I have bought your soul for God." And from that moment, Jean Valjean is a different man. When grace changes him, he's a different man. And the whole rest of the story is him essentially helping other characters, rescuing other characters, serving other characters, all because he experienced grace himself. His life is rewritten away from just being a common criminal to being a glorious masterwork character. One of the greatest characters in all literature, right? And sometimes we're like, "Well, I don't know if God's going to write me a good part." He made the Grand Canyon. I don't know if you've noticed that. He made the galaxies above you. He made endless wonders and beauties and wants you to become one of them.

27 · Direct exhortation to surrender authorship of one's life to God — the climactic application of the entire sermon's pen-and-story metaphor, calling for total surrender to God's authorship

This is what I want to say, friend. Give him the pen of your life. This is what Ephesians 2 is about, us giving up the pen of our life and allowing God to shape our story that we might do good good works, that we should walk in the works that God has for us.

28 · Alcantar closes by reframing the main character question through Les Misérables — arguing that Christ is the true main character of the story (including the story of salvation), then using the failure of the "main character energy" creator to show how exhausting self-authorship is versus the freedom of living in Christ's authored story

Let me end with this, two things. One, who's the main character of Les Misérables? Who's the one that sets off the chain reaction? Often we think, well, that's— it's obviously Jean Valjean. He's the guy that the whole book is built around. No. Perhaps it's right to say that the entire orbit of everything that happens in Les Misérables is built not around Jean Valjean, but around the priest priest who shows him the act of mercy. Or perhaps it would be better to say, well, perhaps not the priest either, because where did the priest learn it from? Where would the priest learn the act of radical grace given to a sinner who does not deserve it? And in that way, The main character of that entire story, entire novel, is probably the one that first introduced the idea of radical grace to humanity in the first place, Jesus Christ. So friend, as we go today, let me end with this. When we try to live as main characters in our lives and make everything revolve around us, it is crushing. The New Yorker followed up and found the person who created the main character energy video. And it says this, "For a few months after her viral hit, she tried to ride the momentum and become a successful creator, making new videos constantly because influencers have to be main characters around the clock. And then her posts tapered off." And she says this, "It just wasn't fun anymore. There was a lot of pressure." Look, I think one of the things that Ephesians 2 is it first confronts us and says, "You can't be the main character of the story." But when we receive that truth, oh church, it is freeing. It's freeing. We don't have to come every day and come up with, "What am I going to do? Who am I going to be to be loved, to matter, to mean something?" We show up every day in Christ with God inclined toward us, ready to give us gifts, ready to reshape us into something beautiful. Oh, isn't that such a better story? Isn't that such a better way to live?

29 · Brief transition correcting himself and instructing the congregation to prepare for communion, signaling the shift from sermon to sacrament

Would you stand? And we're going to pray together. Actually, no, don't stand. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I did this wrong. That's my head talking here. We're going to take a quiet moment and then we're going to end by singing, but first we're going to take communion. So if you have the elements near you, please take those elements and we're going to receive these elements together.