The Necessity for God’s Amazing Grace
Ephesians 2:4-10
Someone has said, “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you're beyond the need of God's grace.” You and I need God’s grace. Our desperate need of God’s amazing grace is seen in the depraved nature of every human being. I want answer three questions this morning: Why do we need grace?; What is grace?; and How does grace meet our need?
I. The Depravity of Man Necessitates the Divine Intervention of God’s Grace
A. Man in his natural state is unable to live a life that is pleasing or acceptable to God. Man’s best falls far short of God’s standards.
B. Romans 10:10-12 “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
C. It is unpopular to preach about sin.
D. There are those would argue against that man, apart from God's grace, had the inherent power within himself to raise himself up by his bootstraps to become pleasing to God.
E. Today’s “false prophets don't like to talk about sin and total depravity and man's inability to do good on his own; instead, they say man is basically good. They don't talk about the need for repentance and conversion; instead, they talk about moral improvement. They don't preach Christ as our substitute Who died on the cross in order to atone for our sins. They talk around the cross. They talk about the people at the cross and becomes sentimental about the arms of Jesus stretched out wide in love. They say nothing about the cross as foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jew. However, They have plenty to say about Christ as our example in life.” – adapted from Adrian Dieleman, Trinity United Reformed Church
F. Psalm 53:2-3 “God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
G. Man has an obstinate will refusing to come to God
1. John 5:40 “And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”
2. Zig Ziglar once said that there are three things that are hard to do. One is to climb a fence leaning toward you. Another is to kiss a girl who is leaning away from you. The third is to help someone who doesn't really want to be helped. The last is the case with man as he feels he’s ok and doesn’t need the help of God except under his terms.
3. Psalm 53:1 “The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.” Not only does the fool say there is no God but he says “NO God!”
H. Man’s understanding has been darkened
1. Ephesians 4:18 “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:”
2. "When you continually choose darkness, sooner or later you lose the ability to see the light." - Don Aycock
3. Psalms 10:4 “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.”
4. Jeremiah 4:22 “For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.”
I. Man’s feelings and heart is depraved
1. Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
2. Genesis 6:5 “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
J. Man’s conscience is dominated by a fallen nature
1. Proverbs 16:25 “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
2. 1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
K. Man is a sinner by nature and cannot change on his own needs divine intervention
1. Q - Proverbs 20:9 “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?”
2. A - Ecclesiastes 7:20 “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”
3. Jeremiah 13:23 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil?”
II. What is Grace
A. Grace is the favorite topic of Christians. However, the majority of "Christians" do not have a proper understanding of God’s grace. They simply define grace as "God’s unmerited favor."
B. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of the New Testament defines charis, the Greek word for grace, as “that which bestows or occasions pleasure, delight, or causes favorable regard.”
C. It is true that we cannot earn nor do we merit the grace of God.
1. 1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
2. Psalms 37:26 “He is ever merciful...”
D. While true it only scratches the surface of what God’s grace is.
E. God’s grace is more than just a kind sympathy for man’s dilemma. It is more than just caring about you. God’s Amazing Grace is God taking concrete acts of love on your behalf.
F. John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that who sever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
G. Romans 5:6 “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
H. An acrostic for "grace": God's Riches At Christ's Expense
III. How does God’s Amazing Grace answer the need.
A. It is through God’s grace that He calls us
1. John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me, and I will raise them up at the last day’
2. 1 Peter 2:9 “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”
B. It is through God’s grace that He enables us to respond to His call
1. Ephesians 2:1 “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins”
2. John 6:66 “He said, ‘For this reason I said to you that none can come to me unless the Father enables them to do so.’”
3. "I did my part, and God did His part." "What was your part?" "I ran like the devil!" "What was His part?" "He caught me." - Heartland, Summer 1999, p. 10 (quotes from chapel addresses at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary).
C. It is through God’s grace that He saves us
1. Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”
2. 2 Timothy 1:9 “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”
D. It is through God’s grace that He seals us
1. Ephesians 1:13 “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
2. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”
E. It is through God’s grace that He empowers us to live victoriously
1. John 15:5 “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”
2. 2 Corinthians 9:8 “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all [things], may abound to every good work:
3. 1 Corinthians 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
