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
l. Moved back east and got a place with 3 other friends.
m. Dealt drugs out of that house.
n. Finally in my mid 20’s after 4 major car wrecks, a DWI, and the death of one of my room mates from Nitrous Oxide, the smell of death became more than I could bare.
The list could go on endlessly but there is no need to say anymore, I was a great sinner.
Many of you were great sinners.
Some were small sinners but let me give you a hint, The size of your sin doesn’t matter, because all sin separates you from God and keeps you out of Heaven.
John Newton was a great sinner.
1. 20,000 slaves on his conscience.
2. Living every day with the guilt.
3. The condemnation
4. The fear of Judgment.
That’s what sin does to you.
• It enslaves you.
• Just like those slaves in Wilberforce’s life time
• Even chained, only these chains aren’t visible to the naked eye
• But they are very real.
• Ask the guys from Teen Challenge
• Ask the man or woman who is trapped in cigarette smoking
a. The one addicted to pornography
b. The glutton
c. The gambler
d. The Gossip
e. The gay
Can you say Great sinners?
The bible is full of great sinners
• Adam and Eve I Cor. The first Adam
• Abraham
• Moses was a murderer
• Noah was a drunk
• David was an adulterer
• There was a thief on the cross who was a great sinner
• A king named Manassa.
• A harlot named Mary
• Another harlot named Rehab
• Peter
Paul addresses a crowd of former great sinners in I Cor. 6:9-10
9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Friends had he of stopped there no one in that crowd would have had any hope.
In deed they had been great sinners.
But he finishes that by saying: vs. 11
11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
That my friend is where God becomes a great Savior.
That was the point where John Newton was able to write the words. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.
It took his ship almost being lost at sea, a great calamity to write the words:
Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fear relieved, how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.
I remember well the night, the first Sunday, the weeks that followed, the call of God on my life.
There was a song out when I first got saved, that I honestly believed that God had made just for me.
At the time I thought the woman singing it was talking about salvation because it so fit my life and situation.
Some of you are familiar with Ann Murray and a song she wrote called “ You needed me.”
When I first got saved I would listen to it and cry. It was God and me one on one.
It was A Great God who was a great Savior comforting one He had redeemed from sin.
This is what the words of that song said.
I cried a tear, you wiped it dry
I was confused, you cleared my mind
I sold my soul, you bought it back for me
And held me up and gave me dignity
Somehow you needed me
You gave me strength to stand alone again
To face the world out on my own again
You put me high upon a pedestal
So high that I could almost see eternity
You needed me, you needed me
And I can’t believe it’s you,
I can’t believe it’s true
I needed you and you were there
And I’ll never leave
why should I leave, I’d be a fool
’Cause I’ve finally found someone who really cares
You held my hand when it was cold
When I was lost you took me home
You gave me hope when I was at the end
And turned my lies back into truth again
You even called me friend
You needed me, you needed me
The apostle Paul said in I Tim. 1 : 14-16
The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
15Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
Can you hear the words Amazing Grace.
There comes a point where the true smell of sin becomes a stench to our nostrils.
In the film Amazing Grace, there is a scene where Wilberforce tricks the Parliament members who were voting to keep slavery alive into coming to a party on a slave ship called the Madagascar. Its there that he opens the portals to the slave quarters below deck and the smell of the death of 400 plus slaves wafes out into the crowd and for once they are able to see no to smell the effect of their evil actions.
Show Clip.
There is a place in our life where we must come face to face with our sinfulness.
Where we must smell the fruit of the life we are living.
And where we must change.
Paul did
John Newton did
I did
And any of you who have given Christ control over your lives have.
For some here right now, today might be the day that they portals of your sin are being open and the ugliness of your sin is being revealed to you. Now is the day of Salvation.
You are a great sinner
But God is a great savior - Where sin did abound grace did much more abound.
You haven’t killed 20,000 slaves
You haven’t put people in the church to death
But you have sinned and that means you have come short of the glory of God.
The wages of sin are death, but the gift of God, The Grace of God, is eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Altar Call. For Salvation.
Last clip - Tonight the film, next week the training for the Luis Palau outreach, the week after the outreach itself, each week the invite cards, the tracts.
Some struggle where evangelism fits in their life might I say you have room to be both a citizen, a worker, a neighbor, and a spokesman for the Kingdom of God.
2nd Altar Call those who need to be better witnesses.
