The Eyes Of Grace Series

The Eyes of Grace

Thank you, thank you very much. Today I want to make a case. . . for 360 degree grace.

What if you lived your life, what if I lived my life… with 360 degree grace, would it make any difference?

What do you mean, Stan, by 360 degree grace? I am so glad you asked.

By 360 degrees I mean. . .

Grace from above, that is, seeing God for who He really is.

Grace from within, seeing ourselves the way Christ sees us.

Grace from around us, viewing others the way God intended.

And then grace beside us, viewing our circumstances, the situations, the details and even the problems of our lives from God’s perspective.

I truly believe that God actually yearns for us, every one of us, to live in a place of grace. In a land of grace, In GraceLand!

Having pastored here for almost 14 years, having met thousands of South Floridians, there is no subject that I know of that has more potential to revolutionize your life, whether you are a seeker or a believer, whether you are investigating God or whether you’ve been living for Him for years, like understanding and living in the awareness God’s 360 degree amazing grace.

Some of you are here today and you are a student or you are an unmarried adult and you are trying to figure God out, investigating grace, GraceLand is for you.

Some of you have maybe been Christ followers for years and years and yet you have been trying to live the Christian life, doing your best to live up to your full moral potential, and it’s not working, and you feel like a failure, GraceLand is for you.

Some of you are living with guilt and with shame, your past life haunts you on a daily basis, if you are living in guilt, then GraceLand is for you.

Some of you are holding a grudge, you are unwilling to resolve a relational conflict or to extend a hand of forgiveness to someone who has wronged you, and GraceLand is for you.

I will say it again. 360 degree grace!

Grace from above, seeing God for who He really is.

Grace from within, seeing ourselves the way Christ sees us.

Grace from around us, viewing others the way God intended.

And then grace beside us, viewing our circumstances, the situations, the details and even the problems of our lives from God’s perspective.

And to help us with this, throughout this eight-part series, we are going to put on grace glasses, look with me at the front of tonight’s program, these are the glasses of grace, and we are going to begin to view in a 360 degree fashion everything in our lives from God’s amazing grace perspective.

And you will hopefully and prayerfully begin to see that growing in grace, that living in the land of grace is not a matter of our become stronger in and of ourselves, it is not a matter of us trying harder through the holidays to get it just right, but rather it is understanding the secret to the Christian life, the very mystery that Paul the apostle says has been hidden for ages and generations and now has been made clear. We are going to unpack that in this series, in full view for all to see.

Now- Let me tell you what you won’t hear throughout this series. You won’t hear “the eight secrets to spirituality,” you won’t come in here each weekend and find a ladder by which you can climb your way to God in “eight easy steps.”

So often, I think, we approach the Christian life as if it is a subject to be mastered rather than… a life to be lived. So, we are going to be talking about life, real life, and we are going to begin to view grace with our spiritual eyes.

And this is just so critical, it is so important.

In the gospel of Matthew, in the Message Bible, Jesus himself says:

“Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light.” Matthew 6:22

What’s Jesus saying? He’s not talking about your physical eyes. He’s not talking about physical light. He’s talking about spiritual insight. He’s talking about seeing in a new way, opening up in a new way, spiritually.

The New Living Translation says it like this: “Your eye is a lamp for your body. A pure eye lets sunshine into your soul.” Matthew 6:22

When you begin to view your life from God’s perspective it puts sunshine into your soul, friends.

Later on in scripture, Paul the apostle calls it seeing with the eyes of your heart. We used to sing a song “Open the Eyes of my Heart Lord.” In fact, Paul prays this prayer for all of us in Ephesians and this has been our prayer for you throughout Graceland…He says: