What does First B Jackson teach about grace and faith?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on grace and faith starts by leveling the ground completely. In his walk through Ephesians 2, Pastor Ray pressed the point that every person, Jew and Gentile alike, entered the story dead in trespasses and sins. There were no prior categories that gave anyone a head start. The rescue that follows comes entirely from outside the person being rescued: God, rich in mercy and great in love, made dead people alive together with Christ.
Pastor Ray took time to separate what grace and faith each actually carry. Grace is receiving something good you do not deserve. Mercy is not receiving the punishment you do deserve. Faith, from the Greek pistis, has to do with persuasion, trust, and confidence, and it only holds when it is placed in something actually faithful. God is faithful. Faith in Him holds not because our faith is strong but because He is.
The teaching does not stop at the rescue. Ephesians 2:10 gets overlooked in arguments about faith versus works, and Pastor Ray said so plainly. We are God's workmanship, his masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works He prepared beforehand. The point is not to win a theological argument against earning salvation. It is to show that grace and faith remake a people, and that people has a purpose in the world. Pastor Jon's earlier survey of Ephesians reinforced the same logic: the first three chapters are inspiration and motivation, not commands. The doing only makes sense once the being is in place.
Taught from Ephesians 2:8-9 · Ephesians 2:4-5 · Ephesians 2:10 · Ephesians 2:1 · Ephesians 4:1-3
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 1
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 to the assembly of God which is at Corinth; those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both theirs and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I always thank my God concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus;
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- March 22, 2026 But God: Rich in Mercy Ephesians 2 shows every person starts dead in sin, but God's mercy brings Jews and Gentiles alike into one body through Christ's blood, not our works.
- July 9, 2017 First Be, Then Do A review of Ephesians 1-3 showing that who we are in Christ comes before what we do for Him, and that the church exists to carry God's wisdom to the world.
Mentioned along the way
- July 1, 2018 Guard the Deposit Entrusted to You Pastor Aaron wraps up 1 Timothy and opens Titus, tracing the real history behind Paul's letters and what it means to guard the gospel entrusted to us.