Why Does God Give Us Grace? Taking the Seat God Has Given You

Young children love to ask why. It’s a good question, because it makes us think more deeply about why things are the way they are.

Last week in What’s in the Water? Kyle Robinson asked how we’re saved. The answer from Ephesians 2 was clear: by God’s grace alone. In this second message Kyle asks the natural follow-up. Why does God give us grace? The answer tells us a lot about who God is and the gift He’s given everyone who receives it.

Why do we come up out of the water?

Ephesians 2:6 picks up right where last week left off: “And God raised us up with Christ.”

Going under the water in baptism pictures Jesus’ death and burial for our sin. It also shows that our old way of life is dead and buried. But we don’t stay under. We come up out of the water because God has raised us to new life in Christ.

What does it mean to be seated with Christ?

The Apostle Paul, the author of the book of Ephesians in the Bible, goes on to say that God “seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” To his first readers in Ephesus, that would have been astonishing.

In the ancient world you stayed in the status you were born into. The Ephesians also pictured the spiritual realm as a hierarchy, with humans at the bottom, angels and demons in the middle and the gods at the top. Humans could never go there. Paul has already said that Jesus sits above all of it, with all things under His feet. Now he says that we’ve been seated there with Him.

Kyle compares it to buying a basic economy plane ticket. You’re boarding last and stuck in the middle seat of the back row. You’re bracing to lose your carry-on and miss your connection. Then the gate agent calls your name and upgrades you to first class. You didn’t qualify. You even signed a waiver saying you didn’t. On a far grander scale, that’s what God has done for us. We didn’t qualify, but He moved our seat next to Him.

Why did God move our seat?

Kyle sums up the answer with a simple principle: where you sit determines what you can see. That’s why parents and kids, or a boss and an employee, can see the same situation so differently.

God moved our seat so we could see what we couldn’t see before. Verse 7 says He did it “in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

Kyle remembers a show at Disney World when a tall man sat right in front of one of his kids. His family had invested a lot of time and money in that trip, so Kyle moved his child to a seat where they could see. Our heavenly Father has invested far more in our salvation. He wants us to see it, know it and experience it.

That new seat gives us a new perspective when life is hard. Maybe money is tight, a test went badly, we’re stuck in the same sin again or we’re wondering where we belong.

Kyle describes it as living in two time zones. When he travels overseas for work, he lives on local time. He also keeps a widget on his watch set to Central Time so he knows what’s happening at home. Once, late at night in a hotel halfway around the world, he watched his son score a touchdown in a morning game in Eden Prairie. He ran around the room cheering. What happened at home affected him where he was.

We live here only for a while. Our home is in the heavenly realms, and what’s true there changes our here and now. God gives us grace so we’ll see His glory. He wants us to know that He’s in charge of everything, that He loves us and has forgiven us and that He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.

How do we take our seat?

Paul answers in verse 8: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith.”

When you sit in a chair, you’re trusting that it will hold you. You could say you believe a chair will hold you and still hover over it. But hover long enough and you’ll wear yourself out. Kyle says some of us are doing exactly that in our spiritual lives. We’re trying to hold ourselves up when God has already given us a seat. Faith means putting the full weight of your life and soul on Jesus instead of on your own effort.

Romans 10:9 shows how simple that is: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

It isn’t 90% God and 10% us. You can’t stand and sit at the same time. Salvation is entirely God’s work. Our part is to receive it and rest in it. That’s why Paul says it’s “not by works, so that no one can boast.” God does all of it, so God gets all the glory.

What did the jailer in Acts 16 have to do?

Acts 16 tells the story of a jailer in Philippi. Paul and Silas had been beaten and thrown into prison for talking about Jesus. At midnight they were praying and singing hymns when an earthquake shook the prison doors open. The jailer thought his prisoners had escaped and was about to kill himself. Then Paul shouted that they were all still there. Trembling, the jailer asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

Paul didn’t hand him a list of things to fix first. He didn’t tell him to get rid of his idols, treat his family better, clean up his language, start attending church and come back in 90 days for an evaluation. He said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

That same night the jailer and his household were baptized. Kyle points out what that means: either Paul or Silas baptized him. A prison guard let one of his own prisoners put him under the water. That’s how completely he trusted Jesus.

Why does baptism feel so vulnerable?

Being baptized means standing in front of people while someone else lowers you under the water and brings you back up. Kyle says that vulnerability is part of the point. We don’t baptize ourselves because we don’t save ourselves. When you let someone else baptize you, you’re saying you’ve put the whole weight of your life in God’s hands.

Maybe you’ve said yes to Jesus but have held back from baptism because it feels too exposed. Kyle encourages you to take that step anyway. Being that vulnerable with God is actually a freeing place to be.

What’s your next step?

If you follow Jesus, Kyle invites you to find a chair at home this week and sit in it, especially on a hard day. Let it hold your full weight and remind yourself what’s true. You have a seat in the heavenly realms. You didn’t earn your way into it and you won’t fail your way out of it.

If you follow Jesus but haven’t been baptized yet, consider taking that step.

If you haven’t said yes to Jesus, there’s a seat ready for you too. You can’t earn it, but you can take it by faith. Kyle ends the message with a prayer you can pray along with him. In it you admit your sin and accept God’s forgiveness. You say you believe Jesus died for your sin and rose from the dead. Then you receive the new life God offers.

Watch the full message above, download the Life Group questions to talk it through with others or learn more about baptism at Wooddale.