Amazing Grace - Two Things I Know!

VIDEO CLIP –

Amazing Grace tells the story of the remarkable life of the British abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833). This a biography chronicles Wilberforce’s extraordinary role as a human rights activist, cultural reformer, Christian, and member of Parliament.

At the center of his heroic life was a passionate twenty-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, a battle Wilberforce won in 1807, as well as efforts to abolish slavery itself in the British colonies, a victory achieved just three days before his death in 1833.

After Wilberforce, most societies in the world came to see it as a great moral wrong.

To mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade, Harper San Francisco and Bristol Bay Productions have joined together to commemorate the life of William Wilberforce with the feature-length film Amazing Grace a biography, which provides a fuller account of the amazing life of this great man.

This account of Wilberforce’s life will help many become acquainted with an exceptional man who was a hero to Abraham Lincoln and an inspiration to the anti-slavery movement in America.

Message Title : Amazing Grace - “Two things I know!”

1. I am a great sinner! I have committed sin against God.

2. And God is a great savior! In spite of my sin God has shown me favor and forgiven me.

Echoing the sentiments of the apostle Paul. Romans Chapter 7

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Wicked man that I am, who will save me from this death, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.

1. Sin makes a man wicked.

2. Sin Corrupts utterly any good that may be in us.

3. Sin separates us from God.

4. Sin puts a man in bondage as a slave.

5. But Grace restores us.

Today world wide over 4,600 churches together celebrate Amazing Grace Sunday.

Just as we, they have all sung the song this morning.

The song written by John Newton, a former slave trader, and captain of a slave ship.

• Turned Pastor and Song writer.

Each has his own tale of Gods amazing grace –

Every one of us could account for Gods Grace in our own lives.

Grace - It’s a journey out of slavery and bondage. – Much like Israelis march out of Egypt, which

is symbolic of sin.

1. For some literally that means in the physical sense. Addictions of one sort or another!

2. For others spiritually out of the holds of satan. Mental, emotional.

Years ago - I first heard the song Amazing Grace sitting in a bar, in Cranford New Jersey, shooting pool, drinking beer and running 100 miles an hour in the wrong direction. Casting crowns.

Little did I know then, that one day I would truly understand the meaning of the Amazing Grace of God that would save a wretch like me.

Many of you can relate!

It doesn’t matter what degree of sin you arrive at, all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.

The wages of sin is death, but thanks be to God through Jesus Christ that God made provision.

Paul called himself the chiefest of sinners

1. Murderer

2. Persecutor of Christ’s Church.

But Paul had a Damascus road experience. - When time stood still and other things no longer matter and it’s you and Jesus alone. “Conversion comes at the point where the stench of sin surpasses the ability to block it out.” Jack L. Martin

In the mid 70’s God began to deal with me hard. I was a great sinner!

a. By 11 years of age I was smoking and drinking. – Aunt Mary found me drunk throwing up outside the window of sisters house.

b. By the same age introduced to pornography because of a step father who hid it in the pipe basin in our bathroom.

c. Smoking pot by 13, other drugs from there on out.

d. 13 mom called to catholic school dance because I feel asleep face down in a foot of snow.

e. 14 slept on the porch of a stranger’s home drunk following a dance at another catholic school.

f. Left catholic school in the middle of the 7th grade rather than be expelled.

g. Left church at 16 Midnight mass.

h. Weeks earlier picked up on my 16th birthday for helping my friend when they broke into houses.

i. Dealing drugs by 17 from my mothers home.

j. Living in Canada by 18 with my brother and his speed freak friends. Doing Chrystal Meth Amphetamine.

k. Moved with 3 other friends to Los Angeles got into hallucinogenic drugs. LSD PCP