It's good to see all of you.
It really, truly is. I am thankful God has given you
this desire to hear from Him, from His Word, and I do pray
that He would bless us that way today. We're going to be in various
scriptures today, but I want to take you to Colossians. That's
where we're at in our series, Colossians chapter 1. If you
want to turn there first. I've entitled today's message
Grace, but really there's many subtitles I'm inclined to give
to that message. One of them is What is Grace?
So it's a question. And the other title that I considered
is God's Glorious Grace. The Greatness of God. I have
a little granddaughter who is attending our Zoom meetings.
I don't know if she hears me all the time, I always think
about her and all of my, all those who are listening by Zoom
meeting, but especially her because she's only two years old and
she does comprehend some things. So I try to send her mom some
stuff to help her and her husband in the raising of their child.
Their children, they have two. It's difficult to use words that
are abstract, like grace. And so that's why I ask this
question, what is grace? I think that grace is something
that we hear a lot about in the world today. You probably find
most people know the word grace, and most people will refer to
the grace of God. And they will say things like,
were it not for grace, there's a song, were it not for grace,
and things like that. But what does the Bible say about
grace? And when I think about my granddaughter,
I also think about what does the Bible say in a way that makes
it clear, because I want her to understand, I want to understand.
And as I think about these things, I realize that I can't really
convey God's grace to anyone. I can take you to those scriptures,
I can try to relate those scriptures to you, and I certainly pray
that God would apply it, but I really can't make God's grace
understood to anyone. I can't even understand it myself
unless the Lord is pleased to do that. So this title, What
is Grace and God's Glorious Grace, are meant to help us emphasize
the importance of having an interest in the grace of God and our need
for grace, but only the Lord can truly do that. So when we
look at Colossians chapter 1, the reason that we're talking
about grace is because it's here. It says in verse 1, Paul, an
apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, which we talked
about last time, and Timotheus, our brother to the saints and
faithful brethren in Christ, which are at Colossae, grace
unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The reason that we're talking
today about grace is because the Apostle Paul, by the will
of God, wrote to the Colossians, sent by Jesus Christ, he called
them saints, faithful, brethren, and identified them as being
in Christ, and then he says to those, grace to you. Grace to you. from God the Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace. And so we wanna talk
today about God's grace. And so when we get into this,
I want you to first of all see what the Bible says about God's
grace in a way that illustrates God's grace from history, the
history recorded in scripture. So that's the first thing I want
to do is to understand how God uses grace, how he introduced
this wonderful, important, essential, saving grace through what he
has written in scripture about these people. And then these
things from the Old Testament scripture will lead us to explicit
statements or statements from the New Testament which give
us the real true meaning and importance, the centrality of
the grace of God in our salvation. And obviously, these are words
that are too big for my granddaughter to understand. But just hold
on to this question, what is grace? And as we look at this,
I want you to see several things about this. And I've captured
those things in a list here. And I don't want to give all
of them to you at once. But I want you to see some things
about grace. And I hope that one thing will
stick with you. about God's grace, and that's
this. If you were to ask me what does
grace mean from scripture, and as I think about how God's grace
has been shown to me over the years, the years, the many years
in which the Lord has graciously caused me to trust Christ, I
would tell you that my understanding of grace has increased significantly
from what I first learned about grace. So that I would have taken
someone's definition about grace, like God's riches at Christ's
expense, which certainly is a good summation of the word grace,
but that's someone else's definition. But when I think about my own
life and how the Lord has been gracious to me, and how from
scripture he has revealed the meaning of this grace so that
it's convincing me of the truth of it, then I have a completely
different level of appreciation than just hearing someone say,
this is what grace means. And that's what I pray today,
is that the Lord would bring us, each one of us, to stand
amazed in the presence of God because of his grace. And if
you look over at chapter four of Colossians with me, In chapter
four, it says this in verse six. He says, let your speech, that
means what you say, let your speech be always with grace,
seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer
every man. So in the church of God, and
not outside of the church of God, but especially when we're
gathered together, The Lord instructs us to speak, to talk about His
grace. Let your speech or what you talk
about be always with grace. Let it be the subject of what
you're talking about, God's grace. Not only is it the subject, it
should be the subject, but it is the way in which we interact
with one another. We don't talk in a way to puff
up ourselves, but by grace we talk about the Lord Jesus Christ
and we want Him to be exalted. And so we talk about His work
for us, His work in us. And His promises, His words,
all that He is in His goodness, in His grace. That should be
the subject. And the manner, the way that
we talk to one another is graciously. And so this is a very important
thing. What is grace? What is it? If it's so important, then what
is it? Now, the first time this word is ever used in scripture
is used in Genesis, the book of Genesis, which means beginnings.
So let's look at Genesis and see what God says about grace
in the book of Genesis. And we're going to take this
in the book of Genesis to see how God has illustrated the truth
of his grace. and how this should cause us
to admire in adoration and worship who God is and what he's done
for us. So first of all, I want you to
remember now how Genesis is given to us. You are like a child. Imagine yourself to have never
heard a sermon, to have never heard about God from a man, from
someone else, and all you have are your own thoughts, and you
don't really know how to put them together. What has God said? Well, He begins the Bible with
Genesis, and He begins with creation. God made everything, and we see
from that that God is before everything, and that He is almighty,
He can do anything, and that He made us, He made people. And
that when He made people, He gave them a command to avoid,
to not do something. And if they did, they would die.
And in the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, you shall surely die. So we are accountable to
our Creator. And immediately what happened
in the book of Genesis in chapter three is that Adam and Eve disobeyed
God, their creator. The one, the creator, the infinite
God, the eternal God to whom they must give an answer and
are accountable, they sinned against him. They disobeyed God. That's the context. And what
happened at that point was God took an animal, killed it and
used the skins from the animal to clothe Adam and Eve. Now,
there's no word in all of that that is grace. There's no grace
word in that account, but you see the grace of God in it, don't
you? Men were created, God Himself created them by His own will
and power. And they're accountable to Him
and yet they disobeyed Him and they received, because of their
disobedience, they received death. Death was the compensation, it
was what God brought upon them because of their sin. And so
we see that's the context here. And out of that context, God
promises that one day the seed of the woman would crush the
head of the devil, the serpent, through whom Adam and Eve actually
disobeyed God and fell in their sin. And that God would provide
this covering for their nakedness through the killing of this animal. And so we see that in the Lord
Jesus Christ. The word grace is actually used
a little later on in Genesis. In Genesis chapter 6 it says
this, it's the same story over and over again. Notice, God saw
in verse 5, Genesis 6 verse 5, God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. I don't think
you could find a more pointed description of the wickedness
of man. That he was wicked in God's sight. Every thought, every imagination
of his heart was only evil and continuously. That's the context. So we went from the disobedience
of Adam and Eve and Eden from the tree of knowledge and good
and evil, and they're being cast out of Eden, and they're dying
in spirit and being under the condemnation of death. And then
we see this, that all men on earth, every one of them, was,
by God, seen to be wicked, and it was a great wickedness, and
their imaginations and every thought of their hearts was continuously
evil. That's the context now. It's
gotten worse, hasn't it? Notice in verse six, and it repented
the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved
him at his heart, and the Lord said, this is the consequence
now of their sin, their wickedness, I will destroy man whom I have
created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and
the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth
me that I have made them. Now, you and I, we we take this
this. position we've never heard, and
here God comes, and He's preaching to us, first of all, how He's
Almighty, the Creator, the Sovereign. We're accountable to Him. We've
disobeyed Him. We're suffering the consequences
of death. And now we see that our thoughts
are opposed to God, and all that's good, we're evil. It's great. Our wickedness is great in God's
eyes, and that He has determined to destroy everything on earth
that He's created. That's the context here for the
word that we're studying here. What is grace? And look at verse
8. But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. So what do we learn from this?
That grace comes from God. Grace is what God does in His
goodness in spite of man's wickedness, in order to prevent that man
from being destroyed for his sin by God's just consequences,
the justice of God coming upon him. Man deserves to die, and
yet God intervenes with his grace. He says, but Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Noah should have been destroyed
with the rest of the world, but Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. What did God do? Well, He delivered
Noah and his family from the destruction that his sins deserved. And so grace then we can see
by its very definition comes to those who have sinned against
God and deserve to die and are under the sentence of destruction
and God intervenes and he sees that person, not for anything
in them because they're sinful, He doesn't look for a reason
in them, but he finds in himself this quality of goodness that's
part of who God is and he shows this grace to them. And that
grace intervenes to remove them from the destruction which they
deserve and preserve them. So that what God did was he told
Noah, build this ark, he put Noah and his family and Two of
every kind of animal in the ark, and he preserved their lives
in the ark. And so grace did this. Wicked
sinners saved because of the grace of God. So we understand
now something about grace, don't we? And then we turn later on
in the book of Genesis to the story about Joseph. Now, Joseph
was a man He was the 11th son of Jacob, so he was born in Jacob's
old age, and he was the son that Jacob loved most. Jacob made
his son Joseph a coat of many colors. His brothers saw that
his father loved him more than all the rest of them, and they
envied, they hated Joseph in their hearts. And so when Jacob
sent Joseph to see how his brothers were doing, and they saw Joseph
coming, and knowing their hatred for Joseph, they said, let's
kill him. And when he got close to them,
and they had thought to kill him, They began to talk amongst
themselves and they decided instead, because God wouldn't allow them
to kill Joseph, he had another reason for preserving Joseph's
life, so they threw him in a pit and they sold Joseph to Joseph's
enemies who were called Ishmaelites, who then sold him into Egypt
as a slave. Now these brothers of Joseph
wickedly wanted to kill him. In their heart, they murdered
their brother. But rather than actually taking
his life, God prevented them from doing that and he sent Joseph
away from them. That was their wickedness that
did this. And in sending Joseph away from his brothers to Egypt,
God would fulfill his purpose of grace. And that purpose of
grace was this, that the very brothers who intended to kill
Joseph, would be saved, their lives would be spared by Joseph
himself. That Joseph himself would be
raised up to be the ruler over the entire nation of Egypt. And as the ruler over Egypt,
they would be brought before him and their lives would be
held in the balance. And he would tell them, I was
brought here by God through your wickedness in order to save you. And so what we see in this account
of Joseph is that God has illustrated his grace in the most intimate
way, the most moving way of scripture, so that we see this grace of
God through Joseph to these wicked brothers. Notice in Genesis chapter
45. Genesis 45, Joseph's brothers
are before him. Joseph is over them. He's the
ruler and he so desires to tell them who he is and forgive them
and let them know about God's grace. And this is all in his
heart. And he says in verse one of Genesis
45, Joseph could not refrain himself. before them all that
stood by him. And he cried, cause every man
to go out from me. All of his servants had to leave.
And there stood no one with him while Joseph made himself known
to his brethren. Joseph is going to reveal himself. He's going to tell them, I'm
your brother. But it's not just telling them, I'm your brother.
What is he going to do? He's going to reveal to them
what kind of a man he is. He's going to reveal his character
to them. He's going to reveal to them
he is gracious. And by revealing this to them,
he's going to reveal God to them. In fact, he's going to tell them
about God's grace. Notice, and Joseph wept aloud
because he loved them and he knew they were afraid. And the
Egyptians in the house of Pharaoh heard Joseph weeping. That's
how loud he was weeping. Verse three, and Joseph said
to his brothers, I am Joseph. Does my father yet live? And
his brethren could not answer him, for they were troubled at
his presence. The word troubled there means
their heart was skipping beats. They were trembling. They were
afraid for their lives. This is the one that we sold
to Egypt, sold to these Ishmaelites who persecuted the Lord's people.
would have killed him if God hadn't prevented us. And now
we stand before him. He has power over our lives.
No wonder they were quaking. They were standing before the
one who was their judge. And he revealed himself to be
their brother. And not only that, but he says
in verse four, he said to them, his brethren, come near to me,
I pray you. And they came near and he said,
I am Joseph, your brother. whom you sold into Egypt, he
opened up the fact that, look, I know about your sin. And they were there standing
before him, and then he says, now, therefore, notice, this
is grace. Be not grieved nor angry with
yourselves that you sold me hither, for God did send me before you
to preserve life. That is grace. So what we see
here in God's own definition of grace, God brings good, the
good of God, God's goodness, out of our evil to save us from
the death we deserved by the Lord Jesus Christ. And in doing
so, we see this is God's character. This is God's glorious person
and character. His grace to us who deserve just
condemnation. And he says to us, God, before
ever you thought of it, intended your wickedness to bring about
your salvation and to preserve your life. Look at chapter 50,
Genesis chapter 50. He says in verse 15, this was
after Jacob, their father, died. Now they're worried. Jacob is
dead. Joseph will finally get a chance
to kill us because Jacob, his father, isn't around to make
sure he doesn't do us harm. They didn't trust Joseph. They
didn't know Joseph. They were still worried about
him. They were concerned because they knew he had power over their
life. He was ruler over the whole land. And in verse 15 it says,
And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, They
said, Joseph will peradventure hate us and will certainly requite
us. He'll require from us a compensation
for the evil we did to him. He'll requite us all the evil
which we did to him. Verse 16. And they sent messenger,
they wouldn't even go themselves. They sent a messenger to Joseph
saying, this is a lie. Thy father did command before
he died saying, so shall you say to Joseph for forgive, I
pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren and their sin for
they did unto the evil. And now we pray thee forgive
the trespass of the servants of God, of the God of thy father. You see, what are they doing
here? They're acting like Joseph still holds a grudge against
them. Why? Why would they think that?
Because that's the way they thought. They didn't trust Joseph. They
didn't know him. They didn't know grace. They didn't know God is gracious. And so they made up this story
about Jacob commanding them to send a messenger to Joseph to
tell him, you got to forgive their evil. They did against
you. And Joseph, when they sent that
messenger, what did he do? He wept. He wept. Why did he weep? because they
did not know, they did not know him, they did not trust him,
they did not understand the grace of God, even at this point. And
it says in verse 18, and his brethren also went and fell down
before his face, and they said, behold, we be thy servants. And
Joseph said to them, fear not, for am I in the place of God. What he's saying here, it was
God who did this. I'm a mere man. You need to have
dealings with God. And this is what God says. As
for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good
to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive. That is grace. That's the definition
of grace. God performing good out of and
in spite of our evil in order to save us who were wicked and
sinned against Him from the destruction we deserved. but not just merely
saving us from the destruction. And here is what is so surprising
and unexpected and amazing about God's grace, is He reaches down
to the lowest possible ruin in our wickedness and our helplessness,
and He raises us up at the highest cost of the blood of His Son
to sit with Christ in glory. That is grace. That is grace. It's turning our evil into His
good because of Christ. And so the definition of grace
is given that way in the New Testament. Look at this with
me. Look at Romans chapter 3. Romans, grace be to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Romans
chapter 3. The first thing we learn about
God's grace is that it's God's character. It's God's nature
to be gracious. It says in Romans 3, notice,
the pattern was, we saw it first in the garden, Adam and Eve sinned,
and yet God clothed them with the skins of the animal. And
then Noah, all the earth was wicked. God's going to destroy
the world and all that's in it. And Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And then Joseph's brothers, they
meant evil. They wanted to kill their brother.
And God used their wickedness to bring about his saving grace
towards them to save their lives. And now with those patterns,
sin, destruction deserved. and salvation brought, and glory
given, with those things in view. Look at this. The New Testament
takes this and explains it in the plainest language. Look at
verse 23 of Romans chapter 3. Romans 3, verse 23. For all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's the context,
isn't it? We have disobeyed our sovereign
creator, the one who is only good. It's our sin and it's all
our fault and we deserve the wrath. We've fallen short of
the glory of God. The one thing we were designed
and created to do was glorify God and we failed because we
wanted to be like God. We wanted to remove God aside
and let us sit on his throne to decide whether it's good or
bad, whether it's true or false. whether what he's doing is in
our interest, because we think of ourselves as the center of
everything. And in our pride, we want the
attention and the recognition. No, that's falling short of the
glory of God. But notice, when we had all sinned,
when we all had fallen short of the glory of God, what happened?
being justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. Do you see the definition of
grace here? When we were sinners, God, instead of our sin, established
and provided for us a righteousness God's own righteousness and in
that righteousness justified us freely without any reason
ever sought for in us or found ever to be found in us, but only
for the grace that was in himself, that sovereign grace, that grace
that is resident in him as God and not in any but God. He says
here, freely, by His grace, because of His grace, because this is
who God is, this is the glory of His person, through the righteous
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You see? That's grace. God taking us who had sinned
and were under the condemnation of eternal death and clothing
us, washing away our sins in the blood of his son, clothing
us in the righteousness of his son, giving us the everlasting
life that his righteousness deserve. And then in that, with that life,
giving us his spirit to know these things and to lift us up
and bring us to glory and seat us with Christ in heavenly places
at his own right hand and make us his children and heirs and
give us the inheritance that belongs to his son with his son. To receive us in His presence
with all the delight and the joy, the infinite delight and
the infinite joy of God Himself because He sees us in Christ. That is grace. Taking our evil
and turning it by His grace into good that glorifies His name
because of His grace. What grace is this? What grace
is this? In Exodus chapter 33, Moses asked
the Lord, he says, show me, I beseech thee, show me your glory. This
is in Exodus 33 and verse 18. Moses is asking the Lord after
God had forgiven the children of Israel for making the idol.
He didn't destroy them. He promised he would go with
them and all these things that Moses had prayed for. And then
Moses says, I beseech thee, show me your glory. Show me that character
of God that demands the worship and adoration and admiration
from all of his creatures, and especially from me. And the Lord
said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee. Because God's
glory is his goodness. And I will proclaim the name,
this is who God is, the name of the Lord before thee. And
this is it. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. And I will show mercy on whom
I will show mercy. This is God's glory, that He
is gracious to sinners who deserve His wrath, so gracious that He
lifts them from the ruin of the most depraved and evil and wicked
conditions, assaulting His throne in His honor and His glory, and
He lifts them from that. by paying the price and answering
the demand His own holiness required in order to clothe them in the
perfections of His Son, and to see them before Him in His presence
without fault, blameless, holy, in love before Him as His children,
and to give them as His heirs, His own children, all of the
riches of His glory with Christ. That's grace. That's grace. And this is God's glory. You can see why grace has no
part of us in it. Can't you? First of all, it finds
us in our sinful wickedness, in our evil and our helplessness
in this. And secondly, it doesn't look
for a reason in us, but brings the reason from God's own name,
his character, his glory. And then it provides all that
he himself demands in order to make this righteous and just. And so that when God says in
1 John 1 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So God's grace is part of his
character. Grace is just God being God. You see, it's just God being
God. He's sovereign. And in his sovereign
will and good pleasure, he is pleased to make known his glory
in saving sinners by his grace alone through Christ the Lord. And so look at with me also this
very important principle in 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy in chapter 1. Second Timothy is just before
Titus. In chapter one, just listen to these words now. We're answering
the question, what is grace? And we're also taking note that
this is God's glory. This is God's glorious grace. It belongs to him alone. Notice this, in second Timothy
one, verse nine, who has saved us, and called us with a holy
calling. This is not a compromised God. This is not God lowering standards. This is a holy calling. This
is the way God's holiness, this is what God's holiness has done.
This is the way God's holiness is fulfilled, which is obviously
who God is. He's holy. But He called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, because we're so
thick-headed, and our heart is so adamantly hard, that unless
God says it in ten different ways, we still don't get it.
Not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace. That's not us, that's God's own
purpose and His own grace, which, notice, was given us where? In Christ Jesus before the world
began. You're excluded from contribution
here. In fact, you're not only excluded
from contributing, but you were the deficit that had to be made
up in order for grace to shine forth. That's what sin did. That's what our sin, our wickedness,
our thoughts were in the imaginations, only evil continuously deserving
to be destroyed. And God did this. Look at Romans
now. See there that grace is in Christ. It's in Christ alone. It's in
Christ alone. It's not in us. It's not from
us. It's from God, our Father, and
the Lord Jesus Christ. And his grace to us is in Christ
alone. Look at Romans chapter five. We know that grace turns our
evil into God's good by Jesus Christ. And notice what this
says here in Romans chapter five. Verse 20. Moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound. That seems strange, doesn't it?
Why would God give the law to make sin worse? That's what he's
saying here. It's like you've seen a popcorn
popper. Well, that's too old. People
don't have those anymore. You've seen a fountain. You go
to the fountain, the water is just shooting up. One time we
went to a place where we used to live in Santa Rosa. They have
this geyser. Water just shoots up right out
of the ground. That's what happened. God's law
was given to man. What happened? Sin just shot
up. It just got bigger, worse. He says, the law entered that
the offense might abound. Why would God do that? Here's
why. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. You see? Grace can only be given where
there is sin. And grace is only abounding where
there's abounding sin. So that grace, anyone who has
received grace from God is confessing in that confession, in that declaration,
I'm a sinner and nothing at all. And I can do nothing, not one
thing of all that God requires of me. I'm helpless and hopelessly
wicked and sinful and evil beyond understanding. And yet God, in
His grace, in Christ, has paid what his law and justice demands
in order to give me his own righteousness and in that righteousness bring
me to himself and make me his son and give me his spirit, birth
me and everything that comes from that. That's abounding grace. You can see the victory of grace
in it and the triumph of it, can't you? Over sin abounding. Over sin abounding. That's what
the song says. Grace over sin abounding. Because
it comes from this verse. This is what God said. This is
God's glory. Notice the next verse. He expounds
on this. How did it abound? Ah, as sin
reigned unto death, it ruled over all men by their sin, bringing
them to death. An unstoppable tyrant. Even so,
another king, grace, reigns through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. From the depths of sin to the
heights of glory through Jesus Christ our Lord on the grounds
of His righteousness. That's what grace does. brings
good out of evil, turns our wickedness, doesn't turn it into that, but
it laid our sin on Christ. And by laying our sin on Christ,
and Christ submitting and obeying God to bear our sins and the
punishment our sins deserve, He, in that obedience, established
in the place of our sin an everlasting righteousness. And with that,
an everlasting life. And what happens then? He gives
us His Spirit to know something. Look at John chapter 1, the gospel
of John chapter 1. He says in verse 14, the word
means Jesus Christ, the eternal, Word, the Word was made flesh. Jesus Christ, who is God, eternal
God, the Son, took on our nature. He became a man. He was made
flesh, body and soul. And he dwelt among us. And we
beheld what? His glory. The glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of what? Grace and truth,
just like we just read. Sin reigned unto death, but grace
reigns through righteousness. That's the truth unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ. So the glory of God, we saw it
in Christ. He was full of grace. And look
at verse 16. Of his fullness have all we received
and grace for grace. heaped up upon grace, grace for
the grace we've received, that we might receive more grace,
continuously needing grace to give us what God is determined
to give us. It all comes by grace, from first to last and in between. Everything God has for his people
is out of the depths of their sin and their helplessness and
hopelessness in themselves, totally dependent only on Jesus Christ
for his righteousness, his grace. For the law, verse 17, the law
was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. He's the only one. No man has
seen God at any time. But the only begotten son, which
is in the bosom of the father, he has declared him. In his grace, in his grace, Jesus
said in John 17, this is life eternal. This is the essence
of eternal life, that they might know thee the only true God in
Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Know him how? In his grace. He lifted me from my sins and
rescued me from the damnation I deserved. And he didn't just
merely do that, which would have been wonderful. He forgave my
sins and he forgot my sins. He put them out of his memory
because Christ put them away, clothed me in His righteousness,
made me holy in His blood, set me before Him to His great delight
and His love and peace before Him. And He sent His Spirit to
birth me that I might know these things and live by faith to His
glory, confessing Christ as my all, speaking to one another
by this grace." You see, grace Grace does this. Look at Romans
chapter 4. Romans chapter 4. One more place here. We just
can't continue on and on, can we? Romans chapter 4. Look at this. We can. We will
one day. We will not stop when we get
to glory. We will just go. We will sit
there and we will cry out, don't stop, don't stop. Romans chapter
4. What is Romans 4 about? Grace. is righteousness, grace, righteousness
through grace, salvation by grace. That's what the gospel is. By
grace you are saved. Remember? We'll get to that.
Romans 4. Romans 4 is about Abraham and
it's about David. What was Abraham? Well, he was
the first one that God pointed to who had believed. And because
of that faith that God gave to him, the one he believed, Christ,
was counted to be his own righteousness. Abraham had nothing. He couldn't
produce the child, Isaac. He and Sarah were dead. They
couldn't do it. And they proved their efforts
to do it were sinful efforts when they tried to have a son
through Hagar. That won't work. No. Abraham
was dead. He couldn't do it. Yet God had
promised. And so he says in Romans chapter
4, Verse four, to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of
grace, but of debt. If you try to provide what God
requires from you, it's going to mount up and pile up and and
keep heaping up to your debt. and you will never be able to
get out under that debt. You will be put into debtor's
prison, and you can't earn there, and you can't move one bit of
your debt away, and you'll be there forever. But notice, but
to him that worketh not, he doesn't do one thing to be accepted with
God. He can't do anything. He's a
wicked, evil sinner and he can do nothing. And he knows it.
Like Abraham, couldn't produce children. So he doesn't do anything
to earn God's acceptance because it can't be earned. He can't
produce the righteousness God can only be satisfied with. He
wouldn't even dream of it because he's come to the end by God's
grace to recognize, like Joseph's brothers, we're standing before
our judge that we wanted in our hearts to murder. and he holds
our life in his hand, and he is gracious in righteousness. So he says here, to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. Isn't that grace? He takes an
ungodly sinner and he declares him to be righteous in the obedience
and blood of his son. To him, to that one, He says,
to him that justifieth his faith, Christ himself is counted for
righteousness. The one he believes, the object
of his faith. The one who gives him that subjective
faith to trust him as his only hope. And then he goes on about
David. What was David? Well, David was
that great sinner, remember? He committed adultery with another
man's wife. And then he said, oh, I gotta
kill that man to get him out of the way. I wouldn't want anyone
to find out about this. Shut him up. His servant, who
was faithful to him, had him murdered by the enemy, just like
Joseph's brothers wanted to murder Joseph by his enemies. David
actually did it, and he was guilty of murder. And David says here,
David described the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes
righteousness without works. That's grace, that's grace. Notice
in verse 16, Romans 4, 16, therefore it is of faith that it might
be by grace. Faith excludes all of our contribution
to the end, the promise, God's promise might be sure, certain
to all the seed. Look at the last verse, this
is grace. He was delivered for our offenses, those sins that
offended God, that evil wickedness, the thoughts of our heart, only
evil continually, that offended God. He, Christ, was delivered
for our offenses, because they were laid on Him, made to be
His. He owned them, and He stood before
God in them and with them. And he himself received from
God that just condemnation our sins deserve. And therefore,
he says, and he was raised again. For our justification. Because
God declared us to be righteous in his obedience, in his blood. Therefore, he raised Christ and
he justified us. So you see the grace of God.
You see, let's look at just one more and I will stop for sure
here. Ephesians chapter two. We could just go on and on. This
is the grace of God. Grace occurs in the New Testament
some 120 plus times. And many times, over 35 times
in the Old Testament. So grace is a very common word. One of the things about grace
is if you try to earn it, You disqualify yourself for grace.
Remember what Paul told the Galatians, if you're circumcised, Christ
will profit you nothing. Nothing. You make the death of
Christ useless. Ephesians chapter two, notice
this. After telling in chapter one all the glorious things that
God did for us in Christ before the world was, and how he raised
us up with him, that we are the completion of him who is the
fullness of all things, he says in Ephesians 2, and this is how
it happened with us. You, verse 1, you, Hathe Quickened,
who were dead in trespasses and sins, were in time past, you
walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air. In other words, you were children
of Satan, by nature, by your nature, by your practice, by
your thoughts. You walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience,
among whom also we all had our conversation." There's that universal
sinfulness in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind. the thoughts of
our heart, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others." Remember? God was going to destroy the
world in Noah's day. But God, but Noah found grace. But God, who was rich in mercy,
for His great love, wherewith He loved us, obviously not as
a result of what we were, even when we were dead in sins, hath
made us alive, quickened us together with Christ. And here it is,
all caps, underlined, bold, highlighted, by grace you are saved. God's riches. out of our wickedness
at Christ's expense, given to us freely, sovereignly, and yet
without anything from us, all from God, all in Christ, all
to His glory. All we can do is say, thank God
for His goodness. Isn't that amazing that God would
say grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and from the
Lord Jesus Christ? No wonder he said, let your speech
always be in grace. Talk about it and do it graciously. If you've ever if you've known
the grace of God, you know what it does? It absolutely humbles
you. Weren't Joseph's brothers humbled?
They were humbled, weren't they? Wasn't that public and humbled?
Wasn't Noah humbled? Wasn't Abel humbled? They were all humbled by grace.
Paul the Apostle, absolutely humbled. And if you've been humbled
by grace, you know what? You don't promote yourself. You
don't preach grace plus something else. You don't declare yourself. You declare the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if you don't, then you don't know grace or you've forgotten
it. I don't know. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your grace in the Lord Jesus Christ to us wicked, unprofitable
sinners who deserve nothing from you. We do deserve condemnation,
but we deserve no goodness. And yet you've turned our very
wickedness into the cause for your grace to abound. Where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound. We all sin, and yet we're
justified freely by your grace through the redeeming work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is so comforting, so joyful
to our hearts, so peace instilling, causing us such assurance that
you wouldn't look to us for anything. And we likewise find it in our
hearts to forsake all hope in ourselves and give all, place
all of our confidence and trust in Christ and in His finished
work. For His glory alone, in His name
alone we pray, and for His sake, amen.