When God started his plan to save the world, he began by building a nation from a couple far too old to have children. Abraham went and had other kids; they didn't count. The child of the promise was the one God provided through the 90 year-old woman (Gen 21:12).
Just to make it clear God was starting this family, that son married a woman would couldn't seem to have children. When hope seemed lost, God gave them children (Gen 25:20-26).
Then God waited until the family was enslaved by the most powerful kingdom of their day. He brought them out of their bondage with a display of power that made it abundantly clear this was not of their own doing (Ex 14:16).
And he gave them an 80 year old man to lead them in the wars to follow. Nothing says "God did it" quite like have a general who's never been in battle leading from behind, so that you only win when his arms are raised (Ex 17:11).
God led the family to the land he'd promised them. It was inhabited by nations both physically and numerically bigger and stronger than they. Their first battle was won with trumpets before their swords were even drawn so they knew the battle was the Lord's (Josh 6:20).
Even after they were settled in the promised land, they found themselves needing rescue again and again, and God always provided in unlikely ways. As the Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me'" (Judges 7:2).
Whether God rescued Israel through shepherd boys (1Sam 17:15) or avenging angels (Isaiah 37:36), the message was always "God did this":
I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not yield my glory to another (Is 42:8)
God will not share his glory. God will not share the credit for what he has done. And so Scripture tells us, "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith ... not by works, so that no one can boast" (Eph 2:8-9). That was the passage that set me off on this trail: Salvation is all grace so it's clearly all God.
Are we supposed to do good works? Absolutely. "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph 2:10). Our Lord "gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good" (Titus 2:14).
But those works cannot play a role in our salvation lest we be able to claim some of the credit. God simply will not have that. He has put far too much into this for us to claim to have done it.
There are always some who respond to the gospel by saying, "What if I'm not good enough?" You're not. And God wouldn't have it any other way.
Even those who grew up hearing this truth can fall into thinking they've got to do enough, be good enough, to earn God's favor. You can't. So rest on God's amazing grace.
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