Turn back to Galatians chapter
1 where we read our reading this morning. I want to read again
that third verse, where in this salutation, the apostle says,
Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our
Lord Jesus Christ." Something like 30-plus years ago, a little
group gathered under people's carports, in their dens, rented
community buildings, and after some time determined that maybe
the Lord had brought them together, as his church and me as their
pastor. And so thinking then that we
needed to have some name by where we might be identified as a local
church, we began to talk about what we might be called. And someone finally suggested
maybe that we should be called Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. And we took that name to ourselves
because we had believed that the Lord had been pleased to
reveal to us the truth of His grace. that it was sovereign
grace, that He had saved a number by His sovereign grace. And we wanted to be identified
by that term especially, grace. You see, grace assures two things. It assures that all that God
purposed to save, they shall be saved. They are saved by His
grace. His grace in Christ. And then the second thing that
grace assures is this, grace assures that God gives all the
glory in saving them. Grace allows no rival to God
in the salvation of His people. And there were some dangers in
Galatia where some of the Judaizers had come in and sought to mix
grace with law so that it was necessary for the apostle to
write to these churches and to remind them of the gospel that
he had preached unto them, and the gospel by which they professed
to be saved, that it was the gospel of grace." As a matter
of fact, in this he tells us that the gospel of Christ is
the gospel of grace. And so his words here in the
beginning, especially in that third verse, they're more than
just simply a greeting to these believers, they really express
what I would think would be the desire of His heart for them. And I know they express the desire
of my heart for this people. From that very first day that
we met, all the way to this very hour and for as long as God gives
me breath and the privilege to preach, this is my desire, that
you know something about the grace of God, and that grace
be to you. But not only grace for the hour,
as people speak of, or grace for your afflictions, or grace
for your trials, and grace for your families, although I do
desire grace for those things, but what I'm talking about is
grace for your souls. Saving grace. The grace that
Paul says reigns through righteousness. We might even call it righteous
grace, which is the grace of God that is in Jesus Christ,
the grace of our sovereign Almighty God. You see, Paul says here,
grace from. Not simply grace offered or grace
available, but grace imparted and given and received to the
blessing of our hearts. This is grace from God. As a matter of fact, he associates
with grace, peace. He says grace and peace. What does this peace involve? It involves peace with God. It involves the peace of God. And it involves a relationship
with the God of peace. He says peace comes through grace
because grace is the foundation of peace. Grace and peace. And because grace is exclusively
the work of God. And if we add any merit, or any
human work or any human part to grace, Paul says it is no
longer grace. It's got to either be your work
or God's grace. And now the grace that Paul has
desired for these Galatians And the grace that I would continue
to desire for each one of you is very much different from the
grace that we hear spoken of in religion today. I'll just
simply say this, their grace and our grace is not the same. You see, one of the ways of deceptions
is that men use these biblical words, but they apply to biblical
words their own definitions. You see, all Scripture is to
be interpreted in the light of all Scripture. That's what the
Apostle means when he says, no Scripture is of any private interpretation. That means not only is it interpreted
by the Spirit of God, But he doesn't leave us to some subjective
way of interpretation. It is always interpreted in the
light of every other verse of Scripture. Somebody said, what
we have to do in interpreting Scripture is stand a verse of
Scripture up and then throw every other verse of Scripture at it.
And if it stands in the light of what every other verse says,
then it has to be true. Because grace today, by some,
is mere opportunity. Or it's something like availability. And most often times, it's something
like this. Grace is assistance. That is, grace is assistance,
God assisting the sinner to do what he can't do, or making up
for what he doesn't do, filling out or filling in the cracks,
if you will. But Peter described it as true
grace. And that's what I'm interested
in. I'm interested in true grace. Like Paul who says in Ephesians
3, unto me who am less than the least of all saints, and he could
say that then, that's before I came along. He said to me,
who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given,
that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches
of Christ. He says when he writes to the
Romans, in Romans 5, he speaks of Christ and says, "...by whom
also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand
and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." This grace wherein we
stand. That sounds like security, doesn't
it? Sureness. Well, what is this
grace that the Apostle Paul is talking about, this grace that
we need to know about, this grace by which he says in Ephesians
2, by which we are being saved? Well, he lets us know here in
this text. Where does this grace come from? It comes from the sovereign will
and purpose of God. Look back at that third verse
again. He says, Grace be to you and
peace from God the Father. Now, you know most people. When
they talk about grace, they merely associate grace, if any, with
any accuracy at all, with the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you
remember, this is the grace of God. And God is God as we find
Him in this book in the triunity of His three sacred persons,
these three distinctive persons who He says in one place, and
these three are one. You say, I never can understand
that creature. Neither can I. Neither can I. I cannot understand the triunity
of God. But there is no doubt that what
we find written in this book plainly and clearly, and shown
to be clearly and plainly, is this distinction in the Godhead,
what is called by some the Sacred Trinity, God the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. So he says here, this grace comes
from God. Verse 4 he says, that it is according
to the will of God the Father. Amazing it is, if you look in
verse 4, that he writes to these believers and he says concerning
this grace, it is from God, it is according to the will of God
who is also our Father. You tell me that isn't grace.
That Almighty God could ever, by His Spirit, tell His Apostle,
as He did even His Son, to refer to His people in Christ as His
children. Even teach them to pray, our
Father, who art in heaven. Turn over to 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy chapter 1, and look down
in verse 9. Verse 8 ends with God, just like
everything else, and then he continues, he says in verse 9,
"...God, who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began." Grace comes from God. Grace has to trace every blessing
back to the fountainhead, to where the stream begins, and
it begins with God. It's all God's work. It is He
who has saved us. It is He who has saved us. It is He who has called us and
purposed to save us by His grace and determined to do it before
we were ever born. In other words, grace involves
God the Father in His choice before the foundation of the
world, and He gave us this grace of salvation in Christ Jesus
before the world began, and He settled it all before we were
born so we wouldn't be able to get our hands on it and mess
it up. He said it is by grace. It is
by faith that the promise might be what? Sure. If it was ever left to human
will, or human works, or human worth, or whatever any part of
man it was that it involved, if it was left up to us, it could
never ever be sure. It would never ever be even possible. Look back in Ephesians chapter
1. Do you notice how Paul, as he
begins so many of these letters, he begins by identifying and
by distinguishing the blessing of grace and the purpose of God
with God the Father. Verse 3 of Ephesians 1, "...Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ."
Somebody said, well, if you want God to bless you, you better
do this. No. says salvation is by grace. Paul says he has already blessed
us. He has already, before the world
ever began, blessed us, and He blessed us in Christ. And so all notions of doing something
to get more from God or be rewarded more highly by God for doing
that, it cannot be true if He has already in grace blessed
us with how many spiritual blessings? all spiritual blessings. Verse 4, "...according as He
hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him." And most scholars
believe that that verse ends right there, that statement ends
right there, and so begins the next statement, in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto
Himself according to the good pleasure of His will, to the
praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted
in the Beloved." Now you think about that. Actually, what that
says in that sixth birth is this, wherein He has graced us in the
Beloved. He graced us. Grace comes from
God. And when the Apostle Paul was
told by Ananias in Acts 22, he heard this. He said, "...the
God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know
his will, and see that just one, and shouldest hear the voice
of his mouth." In other words, the source of grace is in the
love and the will and the purpose and the decree of God Himself. He praises God the Father. All right? How does this grace
come? Grace is not some mystical concept
somewhere. philosophy of life, for grace
is not something that you and I can just play around with in
our minds and come up with whatever we want it to be. He says that
this grace, He has graced us, and that this grace has come
to us, and Paul says, Grace be to you from God the Father in
the Lord Jesus Christ. What does that mean? If you and
I ever know the grace of God, ever receive grace from God,
it will be in Jesus Christ. Look back at our text there in
Galatians 1, verse 4. Jesus, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from
this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. God's grace is in His gracious
Son. And it is in His Son who willingly
and freely and voluntarily gave something in the demonstration
of this grace to the people of God. What does Paul say that
he gave? Well, he gave a million dollars,
or he gave ten billion dollars. No, it says he gave himself. Grace involved the giving of
Himself for this people. And you know what? What you find
is that this One, the Lord Jesus Christ, In the description we
find of him, this word himself is used so many times because
it is speaking of his unique self. He wasn't just a prophet
among prophets. He is that prophet. He is not just a man among men,
He is the man, Christ Jesus. He is not just a Savior among
many Saviors, He is the only Savior of the world. And yet, men and women, in our
blindness, when He tells us plainly that He is the way, one simple
exclusive way, He is the truth and the life, we go in every
other direction to trying to make another way, trying to find
other truth, trying to gain other life. But grace is only in Christ. Turn over to the second chapter
of Galatians. Listen to what Paul says. Verse
20, he said, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Actually, that's more like this,
I was crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me." Now notice the next statement. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. For if righteousness came by
the law, that is, if you could ever gain righteousness, earn
righteousness, accomplish a righteousness by any principle of your doing,
then Christ is dead in vain. Grace is in Christ. And it is
not only in Christ, but it's in His giving of Himself to accomplish,
to bring in everlasting righteousness. Let me read you some verses.
Ephesians 5, and the second verse, "...and walk in love, as Christ
also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." Further in Ephesians
5, "...husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the
church and gave Himself." 1 Timothy 2, he's described as
the one who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due
time. He writes to Titus in chapter
2, he speaks of Christ who gave Himself for us that He might
redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar
people zealous of good works. This is what grace is about.
And this one very plainly in Hebrews 1 and verse 3, He says,
"...who being the brightness of his glory," God's glory, "...and
the expressed image of his person, and upholding all things by the
word of his power, when he had by himself," And here he doesn't
simply mean alone, though he surely did tread the winepress
of God's wrath alone. But he says, by himself, meaning
also with himself. You know, the Scriptures say
that he bore our sins in his own body on the tree. By himself. When he had by himself
purged our sins, he sat down. on the right hand of the Majesty
on high. How much more shall the blood
of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without
spot unto God? Grace has Christ giving His sinless,
perfect, holy Self for our sins. But now, once in the end of the
world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself by His death on the cross. And so when Paul speaks of this
grace, and here in this first chapter of Galatians, he speaks
of this grace that is in Christ who delivered Him, gave Himself
for our sins, that means as a substitute in the place of. as a ransom
price for, as a redeeming price for, as a trade for, in exchange
for, as a transfer, our sins being laid upon Him, He did so
to satisfy the justice of God. It says that He might deliver
us. Now, who was He writing to? He was writing to those that
had heard the gospel and believed, professed faith in Christ. He
did it for our sins. Not sins in general, but our
sins both original and actual. I like that old hymn. My sin,
O the bliss of this glorious thought, My sin, not in part,
but the whole, was nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more."
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. It always enters into
our minds, even those who have believed on Christ, who do believe
on Christ. It enters into our minds the
thought of our sins just this day. Our sins all over the mass
of our sins that we lived in this life, Christ having died
2,000 years ago. And then tomorrow, being what
we are in this flesh, we'll be involved in the same thing. But
here's the truth of it. He bore our sins. the great mass, the great bulk,
every one of them as far as you and I are concerned, every one
of us not even alive when He died. Can you just think about
that for a minute? that when the Lord Jesus Christ
died on that cross outside of Jerusalem, I had never even breathed
a breath. I had never in my own self, in
my own body, ever sinned against God. I had in Adam, in him all
sin. But it says that he died, he
suffered for our sins in their entirety. when he died on that
cross, who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the
tree, that we, being dead to sins, every believer, died in
Adam when he took of that fruit in the garden. Every believer
When Jesus Christ hung on that cross and died, they died in
Him. They died to sin. Paul says, "...for He hath made
Him." to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him." Now, there's one thing I absolutely delight
in in that verse. It is all of God and all in Christ
and all for His people. You show me something in that
statement, that all-comprehending statement. Show me something
in that statement that we do. in order to be saved. God made
Him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made
by that same God, the righteousness of God in Him. Somebody always
says, but what about the way we live? What about Christian
living and godliness and conduct? It's taught everywhere in this
book. But it's never taught for salvation. We are to do these
things because He has saved us in Christ. Well, what does Paul
say that this grace in Christ accomplishes? Well, it says in
verse 4, "...who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver
us from this present evil world." Now, there's no doubt that the
Lord's people live in this world. And there's no doubt that it
is an evil world. But the might here is not to
express a possibility. But it means that He gave Himself
in order to deliver us from this present evil world. That was the goal of Christ. I'd ask you this, did he fail? Could he have failed? Could the
one of whom the prophet said that he should see the travail
of his soul and be satisfied, could he ever possibly? have
failed, and yet that's what the gospel of our day that passes
for the gospel of grace does. It renders Christ an utter public
and eternal failure. Here is God manifest in the flesh,
doing something according to the will of God, And before God,
in order to accomplish the purpose of God, which he says is a purpose
of grace, how in the world could he not succeed? Paul expresses it like this,
writing in the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, he said, "...who
delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver in whom we trust
that He will yet deliver us. Past, present, future. He has delivered us, He is delivering
us, and He will deliver us from this present evil world. From its condemnation, from its
idolatry, from its godless principles, from its soon-coming judgment,
from its hatred of God, but most of all, I can't help but believe,
but from its religion, from its ideas about God, from its false
notions about what sin is, and what salvation is, and righteousness,
and Christ. Listen to Paul in Galatians 4. He says, "...even so we, when
we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. We were children. God's elect
have always been His elect, God's sheep have always been His sheep,
God's children have always been His children. But He said they
were in bondage. He sets them free. Christ said
they're not of this world. And all the elements of the Jews'
religion had become what even these Judaizers were trying to
bring back in and tie on to the gospel of grace. It had become
a religion wherein they trusted, it says in themselves, that they
were righteous. That is, by what they had done,
and greatly by what they abstained from doing. by what they had
given, by all the rituals and ceremonies they had participated
in. They were, as I said the other
day, going about to establish their own righteousness. You
remember Lot. It says that in Sodom, Lot's
righteous soul was vexed. by the filthy conversation of
the wicked." And most people have an image like this. They
say, well, there must have been a lot of cussing and fussing
and all kinds of stuff going on in Sodom, and I'm sure there
was. Even that blatant homosexuality
that was demonstrated there when they tried to come get the very
angels that God sent into the city. But if you go back and
read in Romans 1, the order, the degenerating decline that
brings about that kind of wickedness, it always grows out of false
religion. Just read it. Here they had light
and creation, but what did they do? They made themselves idols. They trusted the creature rather
than the Creator. It goes on, it keeps declining
and declining to all this blatant immorality and wickedness. I
believe what vexed the righteous soul of Lot most of all was all
the idolatry that was around him. All of the godless religion,
just like it is today. This grace accomplishes a deliverance. If you look over in Ephesians
2, look at what Paul says. You see, he not only delivers
us before the law and justice of God, but in time what Christ
has done, God in grace, God the Spirit, comes and delivers us. He says, "...in you hath he quickened,
who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye
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 in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
I always want to point this out, because a lot of folks have a
notion that God takes the child of the devil and makes the child
of God out of it, or takes a goat and makes a sheep out of it.
No. He says, and they were, we were, by nature, the children
of wrath. even as others." The children
of God have never been the children of the devil. They in themselves,
by nature, are the children of wrath. But by grace, they've
always been the children of God. Just read Galatians 4 and some
of those chapters where he said, and because you're sons, because
you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son But God,
who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ. By grace you are being saved. Quickening grace. Dying grace. Choosing grace. From A to Z,
grace in Christ, he says, "...and hath raised us up together, and
made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." And
you see, this deliverance from this self-righteousness, this
self-glorifying works religion, being delivered by God in Christ
from these things, not only from our sins, but from that bondage,
it produces a very real, practical result. Now listen to this verse. Paul writing to Titus in chapter
2, he says, "...for the grace of God." He's still talking about
the grace of God. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously
and godly in this present world. You might say, this grace stuff,
this sovereign grace stuff, that just teaches people they can
live any way they want to. Well, let me say this first of
all. When the Spirit of God reveals the grace of God in Christ to
you, it'll change your wants a lot. But the grace of God,
what Peter called the true grace of God, teaches those who are
saved by that grace that denying ungodliness and worldliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world. Now, we don't deny our weaknesses
and our constant remaining indwelling sin and all these other things
that some people claim to have improved out of, because he said
that we should live godly, soberly, righteously in this present world. We admit to our failures in doing
so, but that objective never alters. We should, and by the
grace of God, do as He enables us live such a way. Now here's
the last thing. I'm through. What is the purpose
of grace? I told you right in the beginning.
To bring glory to God forever. You can go back and you can look
at the first chapter of Ephesians where he distinguishes the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit in this work of grace. And everything
is said in each case to be to the praise of the glory of His
grace. But look at that fifth verse
in Galatians 1, "...to whom," this will not be a shared glory,
"...to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." So be it. How true. Glory to the Father,
glory to the Son, glory to the Spirit, Isn't that how we begin
singing in this service? He's God our Savior, and He saves
us by His grace in Jesus Christ. He justifies us freely by His
grace through that redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That's the kind of grace you
want. If you don't want that, you don't want grace. That's
what I want. And that's what I want for you.
And that's what's taught and revealed in the gospel of grace. Paul said, I marvel that some
of you were so soon removed from him that called you into the
grace of Christ unto another gospel, which isn't really another
gospel, just one gospel. But there be some that trouble
you and who would pervert the gospel of Christ. We pray that
you would make known in our hearts the gospel of your grace, that
grace that is in Christ. Make known to us that joyful
news that you have, before the world began, graced us in Him,
that it's always been of His work and not ours. that our sins
can only be put away, but have been put away by His blood, that
all is done for Your glory, that we might praise You as the trophies
of His grace, worlds without end. We thank You for Your grace,
and we pray in Christ's name. Amen.