What's So Amazing About Grace

WHAT’S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE?

February 18, 2007 Jay Davis Robison ROMANS 7:24-8:4

How heavy are you today?

Brought instrument of torture scale will you step on?

Weight can be battle but today consider weight that is greater battle

What if we could step on scale that measured our spiritual baggage?

Many people are groaning under strain of the baggage in their spirits.

Weight called guilt. We all have it to but some in heavyweight div. Guilt is a cancer eating you up on inside, some have become numb

to pain & energy guilt causes. Gotten used to dragging guilt

around into every r-ship every challenge to try something new,

every chance to move forward Guilt holds you back.

A lot of guilt weight today, I know true because we’re human,

we all have done stuff to make us guilty.

Boy, aren’t you glad you came today to hear that?

Romans 7 is one of the most powerful statements about struggling

with sin and guilt. What makes it so powerful is, that it is Paul

providing us a glimpse into his own struggle.

At end of Ch 7 and beginning of chapter 8 about amazing grace

1. Grace FLOWING FROM GOD TO US

Some believe grace means, anything goes do whatever you want

Grace recognizes THE ANGUISH OF SIN

Look at Vs 24 NLT sound like our guilt? Oh, what a miserable

person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by

sin and death?

Grace of God we recognize deserved punishment & got forgiveness.

Vs 25 In my mind I really want to obey God’s law,

but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

Recognition that something in our lives dreadfully wrong

We ought to do better, we should do better but we can’t

On one hand, God loves us; on other hand behavior drives him away.

God yearns to see in people his own image reflected; at best he sees

Shattered fragments of that image. Still, God will not give up.

How do we find that forgiveness and release from weight

The doorway to grace is REPENTANCE

Not being perfect, or holy, but repentance recognizing we need help

We cannot find God unless we know we need him. Merton

Only when I turn to God for outside help for grace

do I learn that a holy God loves me despite my defects.

God’s Grace =EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING

TO THOSE WHO DON’T DESERVE ANYTHING

Grace baffles us, Heidelberg Catechism #60 "w\out my deserving it

at all, out of sheer grace, God grants & credits to me the perfect

satisfaction righteousness and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned or been a sinner, as If I had been perfectly obedient as

Christ was obedient for me."

So Vs 1 NIV Therefore, there is now no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Condemnation= “to declare guilty, to inflict a penalty upon,

to doom, to declare unfit for use.” Sin leaves us that way

There is a condition to receiving this forgiveness.

Those who are in Christ Jesus.”

See Vs 3 NLT The law of Moses was unable to save us because of

the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could

not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners

have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us

by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins Vs 3 NLT

Since God is perfect and holy, to have a right relationship w\God

We must be perfect and holy, "righteous requirements of the law."

God sent Jesus w\sinful body like ours & declared an end to sin’s control over us, Not by being perfect but because Jesus died on

the cross for us, unity with Christ. He fulfilled the Law perfectly

& those “in Christ” are considered to have fulfilled the Law also.

Grace means I deserved wrath and got love, deserved debtor’s prison

and got instead a clean credit history.

ADOPTED: Jesus made me a part of God’s family.

REDEEMED: Jesus purchased my salvation with his blood.

Greek word for redemption refers to slaves purchased in market.

Jesus purchased us out of slave market & set us free from sin.

2. Grace OVERFLOWING ON OTHERS

Few years ago, young lady just finished playing a basketball game.

She backed out of parking spot & heard a crunch as car stopped.

She had backed up into a Corvette & took a chunk out of bumper.

Almost any other car would have been better. $$

She called dad & they tried to find owner. We worried about cost

But when owner came out, she looked at the damage and said

"don’t worry about it. My husband has a body shop he was going