THE AMAZING GRACE OF GOD
Getting to Know God - Part 5 of 8
Psalm 86:15 06-05-11 Sermon
Think about these statements you have probably heard many times:
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
We make our money the old fashioned way; we earn it.
God helps those who help themselves.
Americans are pros at performance and we know little about grace. The American work ethic says, "You get what you pay for. You get what you deserve." That makes it very hard to relate to the fact that God is a gracious God. Psalm 86:15 "You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God."
What does grace mean? It means God gives me what I need, not what I deserve. Someone has created the definition that goes along with the letters of the word Grace—God’s Redemption at Christ’s Expense. The Bible says that it is God's nature to bless undeserving people. He loves to do it. Isaiah 30:16 "The Lord longs to be gracious to you." It's His pleasure. He loves to be gracious. His grace is unconditional, unlimited and unending, the Bible says.
This morning I want us to look at three ways that God's grace makes a difference in your life. There are many amazing blessings we could look at but for the benefit of time we'll look at just three ways God's amazing grace makes a difference.
1. GOD'S SAVING GRACE REMOVES MY GUILT.
That is so basic. God's saving grace removes my guilt. Since nobody is perfect we all have guilt. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody does some wrong things. The Bible says, "all have sinned". We all have guilt feelings.
Ephesians 1:7-8 (Good News) "By the death of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace of God which He gave to us in such large measure!" This is the most basic truth of Christianity. In almost all the other religions of the world you have to work, you have to strive to do good things to overcome your sin. But in Christianity Jesus Christ has already paid for your sins. All you have to do is accept it. There is no reason to go around with a bunch of guilt. Notice, he says, we are free. Free from what? Free from condemnation, free from guilt, free from worry, free from death. Even if there were no heaven, it would be worth it to become a Christian just to have a clear conscience. He wipes out guilt. There is no reason to live in regret. There's no reason to live in guilt. That is such good news. God's saving grace removes my guilt.
If you've experienced that you know what real freedom is. Jesus said, I came to set you free. The saving grace removes the guilt in our lives and He forgives us.
Ephesians 2:8-9 "For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not your own doing [circle this] but God's gift. There is nothing to boast of, since it is not the result of your own efforts." The point is that salvation is based on God's mercy not my merit. Salvation is based on God's promise not my performance. He says, you can't earn it. It's almost comical the way some people try to earn their salvation, to prove themselves worthy to God, to try to earn His forgiveness. There are Four fruitless attempts at salvation.
They have Salvation by Sincerity. They say: "It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere." The only problem with that is you can be sincerely wrong. I read about a pilot who sincerely flew into a mountain. I could pick up a glass of arsenic and drink it sincerely thinking it's milk. It will still kill me! I knew of someone who sincerely believed that she was going to be healed of breast cancer without any doctors or any medicine. She died sincerely believing that. You can be sincerely wrong.
Then there is Salvation by Subtraction. You don't do this, don't do that, stop doing this and that... and maybe God will forgive your sins. Don't smoke, cuss, or chew or run with girls that do. Just don't do anything! If the Christian life is just a bunch of "don't's" even my dog qualifies as a Christian. She hasn’t robbed a bank or killed anyone. She doesn’t curse or smoke or drink. She doesn’t cheat on her taxes. She doesn’t do any of these things.
Then there is Salvation by Service. Do good. Be nice. Take communion. Get baptized. Help little old ladies across the street. Serve on a church committee. Take a turn cleaning the church. Come to a church work day. Teach Sunday school.
Then there is Salvation by Comparison. "I don't need to become a Christian because I'm better than ..." The fact is you may be better than Osama Bin Ladin, and better than me. But God doesn't judge you according to me. I'm not the standard and neither is Osama. The Bible says God Himself is the standard. We all fall short of that standard. That's the most basic thing in the Christian life. But God's saving grace removes my guilt. If you could save yourself the cross is a waste. There's no reason for Jesus Christ to die. If you could save yourself why did He put forth all the effort?
The most important decision you'll ever make is to receive God's saving grace. If you haven't done it, do it today. But it doesn't stop at that point. God's saving grace removes my guilt. Then comes...
II. GOD'S STRENGTHENING GRACE RESHAPES MY LIFE
God’s strengthening grace helps me to become the person I really want to be, and the person God wants me to be. It molds me and reshapes me. This is sanctification. God remakes my life. God loves you just the way you are but He loves you too much to let you stay that way. The Bible says, in Jeremiah, that God is the potter, we are the clay. He's got us on the potter's wheel. He's making us and molding us and shaping our lives. We say, "Thank you, Lord. I'm just going to jump off the potter's wheel. I'll take care of myself. I can shape myself into the right thing." We blow it!
Hebrews 13:9 "Your spiritual strength comes as a gift from God, not from ceremonial rules." The biggest problem in Christianity is people start with relationship and revert to rules. They start with just being in love with God and then fall back into a religious syndrome of rituals and regulations. A brand new Christian is excited and happy and rejoicing how great it is to be in love with the Lord. Then all of a sudden he makes the fatal mistake of beginning to watch other Christians, how they dress, how they act, the spiritual sounding phrases. He no longer says "It was fun!" he now says, "It was a blessing." We never say "We're going to eat food" but "We fellowship together." We don't get angry anymore but say, "I was grieved in my spirit." You stop using English and revert back to a religious thing trying to earn God's pleasure by trying to keep certain rules and regulations. Paul says In Galatians 5 that that was the problem with the Galatians. They started one way and ended up going back to a religion.
If that's not the way to live a Christian life, how are you supposed to live a Christian life? Colossians 2:6 "Just as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live in him." The way you became a Christian is the way you continue as a Christian.
How did you become a Christian? By promising to do good? By promising to be perfect? No. How do you live the Christian life? By promising to do good? No. Simply by receiving God's grace and letting it come into your life. The Bible says "Grow in grace." The Bible says "God is working in your life". The more you trust in God -- the more you let Him work through you -- the faster you're going to grow. God's saving grace removes my guilt and God's strengthening grace reshapes my life. And then, …
III. GOD'S SUSTAINING GRACE REMOVES MY HURT
It relieves my hurt and helps me keep going when I'm in pain, when I want to give up. Paul, in Corinthians, had a problem that caused constant pain. We don’t know if it was physical pain or emotional pain or what it was, but he called it a thorn in the flesh. Three times he said, "Lord, take this pain out of my life" and God didn't do it. Instead God said, in 2 Cor. 12:9, "My grace is all you need [circle that] for my power is strongest when you are weak." God says, I'm going to give you grace. Grace is what you need to keep on keeping on.
If Paul prayed and didn't get an answer should I pray about my problem? Of course. The Bible tells us to pray about our problems. Hebrews 14:6 tells us "Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence so we may receive grace to help us in our time of need."
When you have a problem, a crisis, when you are going through stress and tension and you pray for God's strength in your life, one of two things is going to happen. One, God may remove the pain. That's His Supplying Grace. But if He doesn't, Number Two, He may leave the pain in your life, in the situation, and He gives you Sustaining Grace to handle it, to take you through the problem so you can learn something through the problem. We'd never learn anything if all of our problems were instantly removed. We learn much more through pain than we do through pleasure. Sometimes God has to leave the pain there. But whenever He leaves the problem in our lives He gives us the grace to see it through. He removes my guilt by Saving grace, He reshapes my life by Strengthening grace, but He relieves the hurt and helps me through the problem with His Sustaining grace. He's going to help you out. When you get that down, nothing can devastate your life. No problem, no crisis, no hurt, no harm, no stress, because you realize that God's grace is sufficient. I can handle it -- not on my own -- but I can handle it with God's grace.
What happens if I don't depend on God's grace? What happens if I just rely on myself and try to work out the problem. "I can handle it on my own." What happens when I face a hurt or a problem, crisis or stress I don't depend on God's grace?
Hebrews 12:15 (Phillips) "Be careful that none of you fails to respond to the grace of God for if you do there can spring up in you a bitter spirit which can poison the lives of many others." When you try to handle a hurt on your own, you're going to get bitter. Resentment is the result of trying to handle all of your problems in your own power. You become cynical, critical and you allow bitterness to grow in your life. You raise your hand to God in an angry fist and say, "Why me?" You put on a black tie and have a pity party for yourself. "Poor me! Look at this problem in my life!" You're not relying on the grace of God.
As a pastor, I meet hurting people all the time. You can take two people, put them in the same exact situation and one of them is devastated by it and they become resentful and poisoned by their attitude. The other has a sweet, sweet spirit. How is it that you see some people that you know have problems that are overwhelming, are under increased pressure, unusual pain in their lives that is not even their own fault and they maintain a sweet, sweet spirit? How is that possible? It's possible because those people are relying on the sustaining grace of God.
Some of you may have been hurt very deeply in the past. You still remember it and it hurts. Just the very thought of that memory makes you tense. Some of you ladies may have been hurt by your fathers or by a brother or a husband. Some of you men have may have been hurt at work or in your home. When you think about that hurt it still kind of brings a tear to your eye. How do you get rid of a hurtful memory like that? There is only one way. The only antidote to a painful memory is the grace of God. You receive God's grace into your life and then you offer it to that offending person and let them go. You don't hold on to hurt. The person in your past that hurt you can no longer hurt you unless you let them. Let them go! Receive God's grace into your life and then be gracious and offer forgiveness to that person and let them go, for your own sake. It's the only antidote. Grace can pull you through tough times.
Some of you say "That's sounds like a good deal. I'd love to have God's grace, to walk out of here with a clear conscience, to start over." Others need God's strengthening grace -- things in your life you'd like to change, weaknesses, habits and you don't have the strength or power to make those changes. You need God's strengthening grace. Some of you are saying "I've been holding on to a hurt. I've got pain in my life -- physical, emotional, relational. How in the world do I get God's grace in my life?"
There is only one single thing you need to do to get God's grace in your life. The key to receiving God's grace is in James 4:7 "God resists the proud [circle that] but He gives grace to the humble." The key to receiving God's grace in my life is I admit that I need it. That's it! I admit that I need God in my life. Pride prevents God's grace. As long as I'm self dependent -- "I can handle it. I don't need anybody to tell me what it's all about." "I don't need anybody else. I've got it under control." -- As long as you've got that kind of attitude you don't have it under control and that's why you've still got the problem. You need God's grace to see it through, to make the changes, to get the forgiveness. All you've got to do is admit it. "I'm not making it on my own!"
This is the value of confession. Some of you have a bad habit you'd like to break. The first step to breaking a bad habit is tell God and somebody else. When you tell God, He's not shocked; He already knows. It's no big surprise to God. He just wants you to admit it. Then tell it to somebody else. James 5:16 says Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. If you've never confessed it to anybody, that's why you still have the problem. "But if I admit this bad habit or hidden sin in my life that's pretty humbling." You've got it! Bingo! The very key to getting God's power in your life to change that bad habit begins by admitting it to somebody and getting humility into your life admitting that you need God.
I've discovered that the more I live in a totally dependent mode upon God and the more honest and open I am about my own faults, weaknesses and failures and fears the more God pours His grace into my life, which gives me the power to make the changes I need to make.
Once you've received grace, what do you do? The Bible says you do two things after you've humbled yourself and God pours His grace into your life.
1. God says He wants you to be gracious to other people. I Peter 4 says God's given everybody a spiritual gift and ability by grace and He wants you to use that to serve other people. In the Phillips translation it says, God wants you to be a dispenser of grace. Graciousness is in short supply in our society. Most people are just flat out rude. Graciousness is in short supply. The reason why so few people are gracious is because they don't feel graced, forgiven. When you really understand how much God has done for you, and how much you've been forgiven and the fact you wouldn't even be alive today if it weren't for God, you wouldn't have your brain that gives you the ability to think... Are you a gracious person? Are you a gracious parent? Do you parent by grace? Do your kids get unconditional praise at home? Or is everything based on performance? If they do a certain thing they get the strokes. If they don't do a certain thing then they don't the strokes. Some of you have had kids and they're growing up and you just need to accept their uniqueness. Some parents don't approve of their kids unless they have the same characteristics the parent does. Then they'll like them. Maybe God gave you some kids who, fortunately, aren't like you. Be a gracious parent.
2. The other thing God wants you to do is to share His grace with other people. Tell them. It's the best news in the world. You don't have to live under a cloud of resentment and regret. You can be forgiven. If I had the cure for cancer I'd take every dime I had to let people know what it was. I have something better than a cure for cancer. The people that live right next door to you need to hear God's grace. Share it with them this week. What a gracious God we have!
The bible says: "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." Grace is the answer to all your needs. God says I will take care of all your needs by grace. The verse right before this one says God wants you to be gracious, generous, a giver. What you sow you reap. The more generous you are with others, the more you feel God's grace in your life.
The most important question I can ask you today is Which of these three kinds of grace do you need most in your life right now?
Some of you need God's saving grace. You need to have your guilt removed. Would you like everything you've ever done wrong be completely forgiven and forgotten in eternal heaven? Would you like to have a clear conscience? Totally forgiven! It is available. You don't have to go any further. You've got God's gracious forgiveness on the basis of Jesus Christ. If someone were to ask you, "If you were to die tonight and go to heaven and God asks you `Why should I let you into heaven?' what would you say?" "I've been a nice guy... I even went to Forest Grove United Methodist church one Sunday morning..." Maybe you've been operating under the wrong assumption for months or years... that you could earn your forgiveness, earn God's love, earn your way to Heaven. You can't. You need to throw yourself on the grace of God and say, "God, I admit it. I could never earn my way to heaven. I've done too many things wrong to earn Your forgiveness. But I want to accept Your graciousness."
Some of you need God's strengthening grace which reshapes your life. You're a Christian but you've gotten off track. You're just not as close to God as you used to be. You have fallen away a little bit. You know that everything isn't all right. As a result you're frustrated, defeated, under stress, there are tensions in your life. You know you're not living the way that is right. You think it's so hard to get back up to the place you used to be with God. It is not hard at all. Just say, "Here I am, God." Just turn around and say Yes. Your spiritual strength comes as a gift from God. He'll bestow on you the power you need to make those changes. For some of you, you need to get off the performance treadmill. You have subtlety, unconsciously, replaced your relationship with God with religious duties. Go to church, read your Bible, listen to Christian radio, tithe your income to the church, I do my thing and I'm bored and there is no joy. You need to get back to falling in love with the Lord again. Focus on the relationship, not the rituals and rules.
Some of you need God’s sustaining grace to relieve your hurt. You're in over your head and you're about to go under. You're ready to throw in the towel. And you have physical pain, emotional pain, or a pain in a relationship. God wants to say to you His grace will sustain you and help you do the things that are right. Let Him have your pain. Some of you are thinking back to that person who has hurt you many years ago and saying, "I can't do it. I don't know how to forgive that person. They hurt me too bad. I don't have the power to forgive that person. I can't just let him go." You're exactly right! That's why you need God's grace to help you do what you cannot do on your own. Some of you parents have been hurt by your children, some of you children have been hurt by your parents, some of you have been hurt by someone else. You can't forgive them by yourself but God's grace will give you that power. Receive it and offer it to that person.
God's grace is available to you right here and right now. That's why He brought you here today.
Prayer:
Would you pray a simple prayer in your heart as we close today? Would you say "Dear God, I know I need You. Who am I kidding? I need first of all Your saving grace to remove all my guilt. I know I've done a lot of things. I haven't kept my own standards, much less Yours. I ask You to forgive me, not because I deserve it but because You are a gracious God. Would You wipe the slate clean in my life? Would You give me a clear conscience? Would You set me free from the regret and the burden of guilt I've been carrying? I receive it right now." Then would you pray, "God, I need Your strengthening grace. There are things in my life I want to change, I want to be different, but I can't do it all on my own. I need Your power to make the changes. I want to be different and I need Your grace to reshape my life."
Some of you need to say, "God, I've been focusing on rules and religion and I've forgotten it's a relationship with You that’s really important. I want to renew that relationship this morning." Then would you pray, "Lord I need Your sustaining grace. I need the power to keep on keeping on. I'm tired, frustrated. I know what's the right thing to do but I feel like giving up. I need Your sustaining grace. With Your grace remove the hurt in my life, and relieve it. Father, if You see fit to leave it there a time longer, however long, give me the sustaining grace to see it through, to handle it. I ask this not because I deserve it but because of Your grace and who You are."
Father, I want to thank You for the good news of Your grace -- the gospel. I pray that today many people here would experience it in their heart and in their lives. I pray that today many are opening their heart to Jesus Christ and inviting Him in as they say Yes to You. Thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen.
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