God's Grace
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning my friends.
I hope you are well and have done your very best to stay warm during these very fridge days.
So far I think we’ve had 7 snows this year, more than we’ve had in the past few years and I think I share the views of many when I say we are looking forward to spring time.
We are looking ahead....
I think we are always looking ahead as God’s people. We are looking ahead to a better time, a better day… we just do not know when that time will come, but like spring we know its coming.
This morning I want us to look back to a theme we examined a few years ago, I am not sure exactly why but I am certain God wants us to go back and address the theme of God’s grace. So we are going to look at it a little differently than before in the topical address of grace.
So what is God’s grace…
A biblical definition of grace is this.... Grace is the unmerited favor, the unconditional love of God for us and we experience this in the work of Jesus in our lives.
Grace is the blessing of what God gives or extends to us in love when we seek Him above everything else.
So this morning we are going to walk between the Old and New Testaments and look at the examples of God’s grace and what that grace does for those who trust in Him.
3 thougths this morning
1. Grace is tied to God’s love, 2. Grace is tied to his Nature
3. His grace frees us.
Lets begin with this thought today,
1. Grace is tied to God’s Love....
1. Grace is tied to God’s Love....
Let me ask you this....
How many of you have questions? You know questions about God, His nature, plans ..why He did this and not that..
I guess we all do right..
Here’s mine.... One of the most perplexing questions of all time for me is this one: Why does God love humanity so much....? You know in His omnipotence, He knew man would fall, that we would be wrecked in sin and yet He still created and loved us..
Honestly, when we look at our performance record, well we could say that we are broken, full of faults and damaged belong belief.
But He loves us.
I want you to turn to Genesis 3 with me for a moment and let look at the first working of God’s grace.
Genesis 3:21 is where we are going...
21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Now consider the context here my friends, Genesis 1-3 we have the creation story, the gift of a wife for Adam and finally the tragic story of the fall of man because of sin.
I have often thought, why didn’t God just stop there… you know call it quits. But He didn’t...
he knew His goodness, His grace and mercy would prevail and He would be gloried as He worked to reveal His plans for redeeming His creation.
So In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve fall into sin, the devil, Lucifer come and deceives them
And God steps into the picture, in omnipotence He knows they have fallen into sin, but he comes seeking them and begins to approach their problem. In verse 11, God ask Adam if they have eaten of the tree He commanded them not to eat from.. and Adam blames his wife and she blames the devil, which was correct, the devil deceived them.
And as you continue through the text and God punishes the the devil, along with man and woman for their sin..
And verse 21, we see something remarkable, we see their sin atoned for, we see mercy and grace.
Verse 21 says that the Lord made garments for them out of skin and clothed them.
So consider with me what has happened there… God has already completed the creation process, and now He takes the life from one animal in order to cover their nakedness, to cover their sin.
Now we are not told the type of animal, but I believe it is possible a lamb or goat skin, one of the two that was predominately used in the later sacrificial system that we will see come about with Moses and the children of Israel.
So an animal dies, its life is taken to cover them and with it their sin. This animal becomes the first sacrifice for sin.
And it is here that Adam and Eve didn’t get what they deserved, they deserved death. But instead they received mercy and grace. Yes their were consequences for their sin, but death was not one of them.
God loved them and He provided for them, He and atoned for their sin. His grace prevails in that He acted on their behalf.
You see my friends, God very nature, His very character is about Mercy and Grace. He acted that was in regard to Adam and Eve and He does the same for us… so lets continue...
Our second thought for today is this...
2. Grace is Tied to His Very Nature…
2. Grace is Tied to His Very Nature…
When we consider what God says, what God does as illustrated in His Word as He worked in our world. We must realize these are not random actions or words that come from God. No, the words and actions of God are tied to His very nature.
We see this in Genesis 3 as we have the first account of God’s mercy and grace as He responded to sin. And we see it in other accounts of Scripture as well.
To help understand this I want to take you to Moses with God up on the mountain in the book of Exodus after the children of Israel have been delivered from their captivity in Egypt.
Lets go to Exodus 33:17-23
17 And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
As you walk through the text, we find in verse 17… God tells Moses that He has found “favor’ in His sight, the word favor there is Grace… Charis, and then Moses will ask something absolutely incredible.. Show me your glory.
Two things are happening here, One Moses wants to know that God will continue with Him and the children of Israel as they move past Sinai toward the promised land.
Secondly, Moses has such a hunger and a desire to know the Lord his God, that he makes this incredible request. And the Lord tells Moses He will do this very thing, conditionally so that Moses can view Him safely and not die.
But look at what God tells him in verse 19...
19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
He said I will proclaim my name before you… ‘The Lord” and tied to his name He says.. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
What is God proclaiming there?
He is proclaiming the very attributes, the very nature of who He is... His essence if you will… So lets break it down...
A. God says “…I will make all my goodness pass before you...” Now we know that Moses is not going to be able to see God physically until He has passed completely by Him, remember He will hidden in a cleft of the rock to protect him until He could look upon God.
But while hidden, He is able to perceive in some way the goodness of God. In truth he is enabled to perceive the fullness of God, consider a room that is dark and suddenly you turn several lights on… the room is bright, one is able to then comprehend every corner, every square inch of the room. Nothing is hidden from the viewer, they are able to take it all in...
Moses is able to know, to understand the fullness of God, he is able to sense and know the goodness of God.
And then secondly
B. God says “...I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”
God is making a assertion her of who He is before Moses, and literally before all the world as well. He will show grace in being gracious and will show mercy in being merciful, without constraint or coercion.
So understand when God says this, He is reserving the right to do these actions (grace and mercy) to those He desires, regardless of who they are...
Moses here is enjoying it in a sense… but He will not experience it all, He will not enter the promised land, and he will not be apart of other God events that are in the future. In death though, Moses will know and understand God in a much deeper sense.
Now if you remember all that led up to this day is the golden calf. The children of Israel have sinned, they created that idol to worship and found themselves guilty before the Lord. And here God is telling Moses, it is in my very nature, I love those who I love regardless of who they are or what they have done or not done. It is God’s choice to love them regardless of their sin.
He entered into a covenant agreement with them. The covenant says i will always love you, that is the choice God has made based on His nature.
There were no merits involved, simply God loved them and because He loved them, He showed them grace and mercy. He forgave their sin and restored them. He did so based on who He is alone.. His character, His attributes, His love.
The same is done for us...
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
We could not do anything to merit or to earn God’s forgiveness or pardon. The gift of God was given to humanity based on who he is, it is by His grace and by His grace alone that we can be saved. Jesus died and brought a new covenant to us, God has ratified that covenant based on the shed blood of His Son. We enter that covenant by asking for salvation, for the pardon of sin, and God extends that to us based on His love, based on His grace, based on His mercy.
We did not earn it, it wasn’t owed to us. God gave it to us out of who He is...
Grace....It’s a God work not a human work or effort..
Grace is tied to His very nature.
And One last Thought, it is His grace that frees us
3. His Grace Frees Us
3. His Grace Frees Us
How wonderful it is my friends for us to know that we, as born again believers have been set free from sin.
God in his great love for us acted on our behalf, when it was impossible for us to please Him, to make right the error of our ways, In love God acted on our behalf.
What did he do?
He sent us Jesus, His very own Son.
Let me take you once again to the book of Ephesians, chapter 1 verse7
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
So lets break this verse down…
Paul begins by saying that all of this rests in one person, it is ‘in Him,” speaking of Jesus.
Everything, and I stress everything rests upon Jesus. Without Jesus we would be without hope, without help and lost my friends. So Paul stresses the importance and the necessity of Jesus. It all rests on Him.
So because of Jesus, we have redemption through His blood. It was the blood of Jesus that purchased us from sin. We had a debt because of sin. the price, the penalty that was charged to our account was to high, we were imprisoned because of it.
Think for a moment of the old debtors prisons of years gone by, they would remain there until the debt was satisfied. The problem for us, the dent was so great, we were helpless and hopeless, unable to satisfy that debt on our own. These trespasses and sins were our debt before God.
And so verse 7 says In Jesus, redemption through this blood. Our sins required a blood sacrifice to satisfy that debt before God.
But one came and acted on our behalf, He came and paid the debt that kept us imprisoned. Jesus paid the debt we owed, His blood being shed for the sins of the world, His blood satisfied the penalties that were charged to us.
We were escorted out of the prison, God said we were justified in His sight, the blood of Jesus covered our sins, and we owe nothing…Our sins are forgiven. we are free.
All of this, is according to the riches of His grace.
The word grace appears 22 times in the New Testament, and 5 times right here in the Book of Ephesians.
In Christ, the grace of God is made available to each one. It is freely offered and secured only through a relationship with the giver of that grace. 4
Grace is the abundance of God’s blessings, Verse 8 Paul says He has lavished on us. I love that word lavished, it is like pouring an abundance upon..
The closest idea I can communicate to you is like winning the lottery, sadly that is not a great comparison but if you won this enormous amount of money is it like you have everything you need or will every need..
In Christ, God has given us all that we need in pouring out His grace, His loving kindness upon us freely without any idea of work or service on our part, it is all him. It is all Jesus.
And it sets us free...
I am no longer under the penalty of death, of hell itself because Jesus has paid our debt and made us right, righteous, before God.
All of this is His Grace, given to us freely.
I couldn’t but He could and did freely.
God’s grace is absolutely wonderful, life changing and free.
He changed me… has He changed you?
Lets pray