Sermon Tone Analysis

*LIVING IN GOD'S AMAZING GRACE #10*

                                     11am Communion Service – 5 November 2006                       1537 words

 

You’ve heard me many times, speak about the word Grace and that the Bible is about the amazing good news of God's grace.

The Bible tells us of the many benefits of grace:

 

           The Bible says we're *saved* by grace, that the only way to heaven is through the doorway of Grace.

If you're going to get to heaven that's the only way you're going to get there.

You can't earn it, you can't work for it, you can't buy it.

It's just by God's grace.

The Bible says, /"For by grace you are saved through faith and even that is not of yourself it is the gift of God, not of works so no one could boast."/

If you could work your way to heaven, can you imagine how boring heaven would be?

Everybody would be bragging about how they got there.

The Bible says that we're simply saved by grace.

Not only that, we're *forgiven* by grace.

The Bible tells us in Isaiah 43 /"I forgive your sins for My own sake."

/ We don't deserve it but God says, "I forgive you."

The Bible says we're *sustained* by grace.

Philippians 2:13 says /"God is always working in you to give you the will and the power to do what He's called you to do."/  God will never ask you to do anything that He doesn't give you the ability and the power to do.

And that power and ability is called grace.

Then the Bible teaches that we're *healed* by grace.

He heals our broken hearts and binds up our wounds.

The Bible says we're *liberated* by grace.

We don't have to live under the rules and regulations of legalism.

Jesus said, /"Come to Me if you're tired and weary and I will give you rest."/

Not a bunch of chores to do but rest.

If your Christian life is not a life of resting in Christ, then you're moving back into that legalistic background.

The Bible says we're *given talents* by grace.

God has given each of us the ability to do something well and we're to use it for Him.

Scripture tells us in Romans 12, /"God *uses us* by grace."/

And we're *transformed* by grace.

The Bible says we're transformed by the renewing of our mind.

And finally, we *mature* by grace.

The Scripture says in 2 Peter 3:18 /"Grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus."/

The more you grow in grace, the more you're going to grow spiritually.

The bottom line really is this: *it's all by grace*.

Everything that God does in you, for you, through you, He does by grace.

Robert Louis Stephenson said, "There's nothing but God's grace.

We walk upon it.

We breathe it.

We live it and we die by it.

It makes the nails and axles of the universe."

Everything is by God's grace.

We wouldn't even have our own lives if it weren't for God's grace.

The saddest thing would be if you have never experienced God’s grace; that you’ve never received it, never really opened your life up to receiving the grace of God.

This morning, I want to consider the question: "How do I get it?"

You say, "This sounds like a good deal.

I want to be saved, forgiven, sustained, healed, liberated, given talents, used, transformed and matured.

How do I get it?

The Bible says in three simple words:  *By trusting Christ*.

God made it so simple that nobody could say it was too hard to understand.

It's not 23 steps and four pathways and eight guide roads and thirty-two rituals to go through.

He just says, By trusting Christ.

That's it.

It's just as simple as putting my faith in Him.

The Bible says this in John 1:17 /"The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."/

All of grace is wrapped up in a person.

He is the source.

Grace and truth comes through Jesus Christ.

If you don't get it through Christ, you don't get it.

He's saying that you don't get God's grace, that's His power and ability to do the right thing to make it in life, to be sustained, to become what God meant for you to be in the first place -- you don't get grace through religion.

You don't get grace through ritual, not even baptism or communion.

You don't get grace through rules.

You don't get grace through religion, rules or regulations.

But you do get grace *through a relationship*.

/"Now we rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done in dying for our sins making us friends of God."/  That's what you call having friends in high places!

You become a friend of God.

How?

By becoming in relationship with Jesus Christ, His Son.

An important word here is "relationship" because He says that's how we get the grace we need to live.

But the key phrase: "in dying for our sins".

That's what we're going to look at this morning as we take communion.

It says that this grace came to us because of what Jesus has done in dying for our sins.

Grace is free.

All you have to do is accept it.

It's free to you.

But it's not cheap.

It cost Jesus His life.

Grace is the most expensive commodity there is.

Jesus died on the cross to pay for it.

And Jesus never wants us to forget that.

He never wants us to forget the sacrifice that He made so that we could experience the grace of God, so He gave us a reminder.

He created a symbol.

This morning we're going to participate in that symbol.

The Bible says that this is a symbol of what Jesus did so we can have His grace.

As Christians, we rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus.

But before we do that, we need to remember the death of Jesus on the cross.

What happened when Jesus died on the cross?

What really took place when He hung there 2000 years ago that makes something so significant that we celebrate it and remember it with a symbol 2000 years later?

When Jesus died on the cross, He did three things: 

 

            1.

*He paid the penalty for sin*.

That means my penalty for my sin has already been taken care of.

It's like getting a "Get out of jail free" card from Monopoly.

That's what grace is.

One day you're going to stand before God and He's going to say, "Obviously, you blew it.

You sinned."

Somebody has to pay for those sins -- either you or somebody else.

And Jesus did it.

He paid the penalty for sin so I can be forgiven for them.

2.

*He broke the power of sin*.

What that means is Jesus now gives us the power to change the habits, the hurts, the hang-ups in our lives that mess us up.

3.

*The presence of sin will be obliterated*.