All Because of Grace
August 13, 2000
Text: Ephesians’ chapter 2: 1-10
I would like to talk today about Grace and Mercy,
There is a story about
Peter Miller who had an unsaved neighbor who hated and ridiculed him. But when his unsaved neighbor was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death; Miller walked to the camp of Gen. George Washington to beg for the man’s life. Washington listened to Miller’s plea, but said he did not believe Miller’s friend could be spared death. Miller said, “ he is not my friend, but my worst enemy” With that Washington granted the pardon.
I. Definitions of Grace and Mercy
1. Mercy is not getting what we deserve-e.g. your children disobey and deserve the wooden spoon or a week’s restriction, they know what their consequence is but you let them off early or pardon them.
2. Now I don’t recommend that you pardon them every time.
3. Or
The little boy who lied and whose daddy was going to spank him with the paddle, but instead to show Christ to his son, knowing punishment was required he allowed the little boy to spank him, that is mercy. Like Christ, Dad knew the sin had to be punished, but his mercy for his son spawned by love for his son-motivated him to be the one to receive the punishment
Church, Do you think we could turn the world upside down if we administered mercy like that?
What are some Definition’s of Grace
1. G.R.A.C.E- God’s riches at Christ’s expense
2.Unmerited favor
3.Grace is getting what we do not deserve!
From the Greek the word is Charis-(karis)-Vine’s –loving kindness in the case of God’s redemptive mercy.
Today I want us to look at God’s Grace in four areas of our lives:
1. God’s Grace saves us
2. open your bibles to Ephesians ch 2 p.153 in your pew bible
Let’s Pray
Eph 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
Eph 2:2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Eph 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
Eph 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve
Eph 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Grace- God giving us what we do not deserve
Eph 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus,
Eph 2:7 in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
Grace is the gift from God: faith is our part of the transaction, God will take 9 steps toward us, but he will not take the 10th, the 10th is our leap of FAITH
Dead and Dead- All of us born a natural person after Adam- are born dead, But God because of mercy and Grace wants us to be made alive in Christ Jesus.
That is why it is futile to compare ourselves to anyone else, because we all indulged the desires of our flesh and mind and in the natural born state by nature objects of God’s impending anger. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
When I think of GRACE as God’s power for salvation I think of the apostle Paul, admittedly the chief of all sinners, bearing witness to the stoning of Stephen in Acts ch 9
On that road spoken to by the risen Christ
Saul Saul why are you persecuting me?
Blinding Saul and then the GRACE of our LORD to send Ananias to lay hands on him.
Acts 9:13 Ananias had heard how bad this man Saul truly was!
Acts 9:15 But the Lord said to him, ( Ananias) "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel;
Can it be anything but the GRACE of God when He takes a murderer like Paul or a sinner like me or like you and after baptism fills us with His Holy Spirit and then uses us to HIS GLORY?
It is God’s Grace that saved Paul
Secondly,
2. God’s Grace gives us the power to minister
Look at what Paul does next
Acts 9:20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God."
Acts 9:21 And all those hearing him continued to be amazed, and were saying, "Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name, and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?"
The same guy who wanted to persecute and murder Christians, in one flash of GRACE-becomes the greatest advocate of the one He persecuted.
Principle: by Grace you can love someone you once hated and persecuted and become their biggest advocate.
If you don’t believe that you don’t know God.
1 John 3:15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
1 John 4:20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
1 John 4:21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
Acts 9:22 But Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ.
Acts 9:23 And when many days had elapsed, the Jews plotted together to do away with him,
It is God’s grace that makes us ministers immediately!!
Listen to his words to the Corinthians:
1 Cor 2:1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
1 Cor 2:2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
1 Cor 2:3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
1 Cor 2:4 And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
1 Cor 2:5 that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
1 Cor 2:6 Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;
1 Cor 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
Paul says he was untimely born because he persecuted Christians and Christ counted that persecution as against himself.
Persecution means Drive away- when we persecute Christians we drive Christ away.
But Jesus sent the light into Paul’s life and spoke to him and Paul was saved and changed.
1 Cor 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.
Listen to what Paul wrote to the church in Rome:
Rom 15:15 But I have written very boldly to you on some points, so as to remind you again, because of the grace ( getting what I did not deserve) that was given me from God,
Rom 15:16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, that my offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Rom 15:17 Therefore in Christ Jesus I have found reason for boasting in things pertaining to God.
Rom 15:18 For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed,
obedient life
3. And so God’s Grace is the power of salvation, it is the power to be a minister of Christ and thirdly it is the power to live an obedient life.
How can God’s grace be the power to lead an obedient life?
Lewis Smedes writes in his book How can it be All Right When Everything is All Wrong
Why do we call grace amazing? Grace is amazing because it works against the grain of common sense. Hard-nosed common sense will tell you that you are too wrong to meet the standards of a holy God; pardoning grace tells you that it’s all right in spite of so much in you that is wrong.
Realistic common sense tells you that you are too weak, too harassed, too human to change for the better; grace gives you power to send you on the way to being a better person. Plain common sense may tell you that you are caught in a rut of fate or futility; grace promises that you can trust God to have a better tomorrow for you than the day you have made for yourself.
Principle: Grace is the POWER to move like Paul from where you are today to where God is!
The first step for anyone who truly recognizes the fact that they are a recipient of God’s GRACE is that they quickly develop a sense of gratitude, of thankfulness and a thorough understanding that a favor has been granted to them.
What is the big favor?
The big favor is that all of us deserve death, but by GRACE through Faith weare moved from where we are to a position of being in Christ!
In this position we are all one- united under one name and one Spirit, unified in purpose.
We cannot be in two camps- recently I heard someone say they were asked what camp they were in. One camp the camp where Jesus is!!
Richard Beam says: “ You cannot understand grace if you do not understand the awesomeness of God and the awfulness of sin.”
He says:
Forgiven souls are humble. They cannot forget that they owe all they have and hope for to grace, and this keeps them lowly. They are chaff snatched from the fire--debtors who could never pay the debt they owe--captives who could never be set free, except for undeserved mercy--wandering sheep ready to perish when the Shepherd found them!
This was in the Christian reader:
Soon after my brother moved, he made a point of meeting his new neighbors. He found that a Christian family lived on one side and an attorney on the other. My brother remarked, "We’ve got law on one side and grace on the other."
We too must realize that we have law on one side of the cross and the power of grace (through the Holy Spirit) on the other shall we go on sinning that GRACE might Increase? Absolutely NOT!!
All we need to do is tap into God’s power.
4.The Christian who operates under GRACE knows he is given the power to give God’s GRACE away.
Closing
Paul knew he had to give God’s GRACE away once he had received it.
Paul & Silas in Philippi (Acts 16)
As they are traveling to a place of assembly by the River- that was a place of prayer!-
Possessed slave girl, who had the spirit of divination who for many days was following them and was crying out these men are showing you a way to be saved.
Paul in the name of Jesus cast out the demon in this girl and when her masters lose money because she is no longer a soothsayer, Paul and Silas find themselves beaten with rods,
Acts 16:23 And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely;
Acts 16:24 and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison, and fastened their feet in the stocks.
Acts 16:25 But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them;
God’s grace is the power to sing hymns when you are beaten bloody, in shackles and in prison.
The earthquake comes
The jailer draws his sword to kill himself-
Notice it was GRACE ( not getting what they deserve) that set the captives free.
NOT just Paul and SILAS, but by them receiving GRACE and giving it away look at what happens:
Acts 16:28 But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Do yourself no harm, for we are all here!"
When we give God’s Grace away Souls are saved
And it is here that the question is asked?
Acts 16:30 and after he brought them out, he said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
If you want God’s Grace to:
Be saved
To Minister
To Live an Obedient life and to give God’s GRACE away you need to do what the jailer did
"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household." And after hearing the word immediately he was baptized, he and his entire household.
One cannot preach Ephesians 2 without preaching verse 10
Which means God has given us His Grace to do Good works. Work that He has prepared for us to do.
Isn’t GRACE Amazing???
Hymn or song of invitation
