Alright, we'll go ahead and get
back into our study here. Let's have a few more things
and we'll get out of here. It's hot in here. I know it is.
I'm sorry. We just got done looking at Grace
being found described in different ways in the verses that we looked
at right before the break. We've seen that, of course, the
main thing that we've seen is probably the biggest definition of grace is being
the favor of god but uh... we also seen that uh... grace
is uh... forgiving mercy it's uh... grace is also the fact that god
has given us the gospel that is grace uh... the gifts that
he gives to his people are grace and uh... then his uh... giving
us uh... to be with him forever is uh... also uh... grace we also see
that it's uh... what I'd like to look at now,
and if you want to turn over, go ahead and turn over to Acts
chapter 15. Some of the things that stem
from or come out of this grace, or once this grace is applied, what comes out of grace being
exerted or grace being given. In Acts chapter 15 and verse
11, We read, but we believe that
through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved,
even as they. Now, of course, not to go into
everything that's talked about Jews and Gentiles, but just looking
there that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
shall be saved. So one of the things that is
the overflow or one of the things that comes out of grace is salvation. And I know that's kind of a broad
subject, a broad term. Whenever we say salvation, we
can mean election, we can mean the finished work of Jesus Christ,
we can talk about the effectual calling or the irresistible grace
of God. We can talk about the gospel
conversion. We can talk about growing in
the grace and knowledge of God. We can talk about all these things
as part of salvation. But all of these things, and
we want to read some of the verses that deal with some of these
things, all comes out of grace being given. Grace being given. And so we see here that it is
because of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are saved. Now I know that's kind of simple,
isn't it? Most people say, well, preacher,
I bet you studied long and hard on that. That by the grace of God that
we're saved. Yeah, I think sometimes though
it's so simple, or people make it so simple that they don't
realize that there is a complexity to what is being said when we're
saying saved by grace. Whenever we are saved by grace,
that means absolutely no works. And at that point, that's where
we begin to lose people. And so, there's a lot to be said
to that, but again, that was for another sermon. We shall
be saved by the grace of God. Turn with me, if you would, over
into Galatians chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1. There is a point in time, and
we spent a few weeks talking about the irresistible grace
of God. We talked about His overcoming
grace. And that's the point where we
whose heart was stone, who didn't have any care for God of spiritual
things, all of a sudden, God exerted grace upon us. And whenever He did, whenever
we were born from above, That changed. That was irresistible. We didn't do anything to get
God to do that for us. And there wasn't anything we
could do to keep God from doing that to us. And we see in Galatians,
Paul speaks of the time when God did that to him. And in v. 15, we find out something that
grace did. Look at v. 15. But when it pleased God... I know I spent some time on that,
but I want to reiterate that fact. When it pleased God. Not
when it pleased the preacher. Not when it pleased the receiver.
Not when it pleased the penitent man. And I use that term penitent
man in the Catholic way. The one who's done all these
things to get grace. It's not when it pleased anybody
but the Lord. When it pleased God, you were
awakened. You were born from above. You
were born again, quickened. Born anew, born from above, quickened
in the fact that you became a spiritually live person. He said, but when
it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by His grace, we are called by His grace. Now, we are called effectually
in quickening by His grace. And I also believe as far as
Paul being an apostle and a preacher of the Gospel, he was called
by God's grace. That too is a gracious thing.
That would have been considered a gift that we've seen in the
last one. God gave Paul a gift and that was grace. and He was
called by that grace to exercise that gift. But we see that calling
of God is the source of that or the fountain from which that
comes is the grace of God. It is because of God's unmerited
favor, it's because of God's mercy, because of God's gifts and His love for us that
He calls us. Look with me if you would, back
into Acts chapter 18. Now there's other places, again,
there's other Scriptures that probably are more prominent in
your mind on some of these things, but again, I'm hitting some of
the spurious, not so popular verses that we haven't already
hit showing some of these things. One of the other things that
grace is the source of or the fountain of or the beginning
of is our belief. We talked about believing and
how that we believe because we've been born from above. That's
an overflow of salvation. But specifically, believing is
a grace of God. We hear all over the place that
if you'll just believe, if you'll just believe, if you'll just
believe, then God will give you. Okay? That's worse. Okay? Believing is a result of something,
not something that we do to get something. Believing is a result
of salvation. A result of quickening, of calling,
of conversion. See, quickening is of God. Calling is of God. Conversion
is of God. And that conversion entails believing
the Gospel, right? We were not believing the Gospel. And whenever I say Gospel, brethren,
I'm not talking about death, burial, and resurrection. That's
part of the Gospel. That's how the Gospel came. But that's not what I'm talking
about. Whenever I talk about the Gospel, I'm talking about
sovereign, imputed righteousness, sovereign grace, Jesus died for
a specific people and saved that specific people for whom He died.
That's the gospel. That's the good news that salvation
is a finished thing. Salvation is a completed thing,
a victorious thing, and an applied thing. Salvation is always applied. It's never offered, it's applied.
And so, whenever I say the Gospel, that's what I'm talking about.
Now, to believe the Gospel, we have to be given grace. So grace
becomes the source of our believing. Now, we've read other verses
already that those who are ordained to eternal life believe, and
that it is given on because of Christ for you to believe. But
look what it says here in Acts 18 and verse 27. It says, "...And when He was
disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting
the disciples to receive Him, who when He was come, helped
them much which had believed through grace." If anybody believes
the Gospel, it's going to be through grace. Grace is going
to be the reason they believe. That's why I don't like to get
into long disputations with people over anything really, to be honest
with you, over any kind of matter. I'll maybe make my points and
this or that, and at a certain point when I can see it's just
dead wall between each other, it's done. Because it's only
through grace that anybody believes anything. And so that doesn't
mean that we're not to defend and that we're not to present
the truth and to stand in the truth and to rebuke and to reprove
as we have opportunity. But the Bible also says that
those after one or two admonitions, if they don't believe that, that's
it. It also says that if anybody
who is a heretic or someone who is a divider or a disputer, not
to have anything to do with them. The Bible says that we are to
mark those out, those who cause divisions, and not to have anything
to do with them. Okay, so there are some admonitions
to us that if we get into these disagreements or arguments or
confrontations, we stand on the truth, but we only go so far. And as the disciples were told,
if they don't receive what you have to say, then shake the dust
off your feet and move on. The only way their eyes are going
to be opened And this is all with the assumption that whoever
is coming is coming with the truth. Same thing, I'm not saying
that I have all the answers and that everything I say is always
of the truth. I pray that it is, I hope that
it is. I hope God gives me to speak the truth in every instance.
But if I come with the truth, if anybody is going to receive
that truth, it's going to be right here because they believe
through grace. They believe through grace. And
so we hold that patience out for other brothers and sisters
in Christ. If they show forth that they are of God and they
have a hope in Christ, they believe the Gospel on some of these items
as we talked about earlier, you know, just the flat earth and
things like this, instead of mocking them and saying, well,
you're just crazy because you don't believe that, it's just
plain and clear right here, well, you're just an idiot. Which I was called
an idiot this week. I was called stupid this week.
I was called silly this week because of some of the things
that I believe in the Scriptures. That's not how we approach each
other. If we know that this truth right here is true, that people
only believe through grace, then we should be patient with one
another. And that in and of itself is a grace that only God can
give us. And I didn't add that to my list,
but maybe I should go back and do that. So believing is through
grace. Look, if you would, at Romans
3 and verse 24. I think you probably already
know what we're going to find here. Romans 3 and verse 24. The Scriptures say For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. We are justified by His grace.
So now grace becomes the fountain of justification. It is by God's
grace that we are justified. Does faith have anything to do
with it? Absolutely. That's where the through the
redemption that is in Christ comes. His faithfulness to carry
out the covenant. His faith in God to provide everything
that He promised if He carries out the covenant. His faith justified
us, and it was only by God's grace that we enter into that
justification. So we are deemed, and again,
especially for the young kids, that the word justification means
not guilty. We are deemed before God not
guilty. Innocent. Cleared of all charges. What a blessed thing that is.
Praise God's glorious grace on that, brethren. I guess it's because I grew up
in in a Household and and in church
and all this stuff all my life and just hearing over and over
and over again a lot of these things That sometimes you just
kind of pass over that but to know Especially when you have
been given to know your sin to know that Right now in the courtroom
of God, my dossier that's laying on the judge's table says, not
guilty. It's stamped, not guilty. That big red stamp that says
not guilty is stamped over thousands and thousands and thousands of
transgressions that was in my dossier. But yet, stamped on
there is not guilty. Probably in big letters just
like this, and then there's probably little letters that go around
it, you know, you've seen the stamps. It says, Not guilty by
the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Not guilty through the redemption
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Whatever it says, I'm just glad
it says not guilty, aren't you? I'm glad it says not guilty.
We are justified before God, and that's from grace. Look with me at Ephesians 1. I'm going to hit two birds with
one stone in this verse. We've already talked about that
one of the descriptions of God's grace is forgiving mercy. But here in Ephesians 1, verse
7, we find this. Talking of Jesus, it says, "...in
whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins according to the riches of His grace." So now grace becomes
the fountain of redemption. Grace becomes the fountain of
forgiveness of sins. See, I can be told, well, you were deemed not guilty
for those transgressions. I've told you guys this before,
and I've kind of almost taken not to say it since we're on
live and recording, but it's out. I've told it in public before,
but many of you guys know the story of whenever I was a teenager
getting caught shoplifting in the mall down in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I tell you what, it was the
most horrible, humbling, convicting, I can throw in almost every emotion
I can think of. Thing, you know. Now, I don't
believe I was converted at the time, but I did profess Christ. I did live in a household that
professed Christ. My family was known in town as
the Christians and my grandfather was the pastor and all this kind
of stuff. And, you know, I did try to live
a good moral life. But whenever I got caught shoplifting
in that store that day, And they took me behind the scenes and
threw me down on a table and my mom was screaming at them,
you've got the wrong guy, you don't understand, he's a Christian,
he would never do any of this. And they pulled out all the stuff
that I'd stolen and the look on my mom's face and everything. They told me, you're banned from
Sears, blah, blah, blah, blah, okay? And they let me go. So for them to let me go, it
was as almost if I wasn't guilty, but I was guilty. But they let
me go. Now, there's a difference in
knowing I'm not guilty before the Lord. Okay? Now, we all know
we have transgressions. So we know that we are guilty.
But to know that God has counted us as not guilty. See, whenever
they let me go, they said, because you're a young guy, you don't
have any other prior records, all this kind of stuff from what
your mom's been saying about you. Obviously, this must be
the first time, which it actually wasn't the first time. We're going to let you go. And
so we're going to let you go as if you were not guilty. Now that was great to know that
I wasn't going to jail or that I was going to have to pay a
fine or I was going to have to do community service or whatever.
It was nice to know that they let me go as if I was not guilty. But the guilt was still there. I still felt the guilt. The remorse,
the shame, the humility was still there. But it would have been
a completely and totally different thing if they would have said,
we're going to let you go and listen. We forgive you. We're not even going to think
about it anymore. Matter of fact, we're going to take this occurrence
and we're going to throw it as far as the east is from the west.
We're going to plunge it into the deepest of oceans that can
ever be found. We're going to act as if this had never even
happened. And you know what? We are not even going to hold
a grudge or a bad thought against them. They didn't do that. They
told me don't come back to our store. Now that would be a lot
different, right? To know that I'm not guilty because
of somebody else is one thing, but for that person who was offended
to look and say, listen, I forgive you. And I'm not going to remember
what you did ever again, no more. That is a big, big thing. That
helps me to know that yes, I still feel guilty. I did that against
those people. I stole their stuff. I bore false
witness. I did all kinds of stuff. I bore
false witness against my Lord. But for them to say, you know
what? We're not going to count it against you and we're not
even going to remember it. We forgive you. Well, how that would
have changed my thoughts going home that night, the pain and
the anguish of that. And here we see in Ephesians
1, verse 7, he says, in whom we have redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of sins. God just doesn't impute a righteousness
and say, here, His righteousness is yours. He actually says every
transgression that's in our symbolic dossier that we're talking about
here, every transgression that you have done, are doing, and
will ever do, I forgive those. Brethren, that just should break
our heart and bring us into humble and contrition before our God.
The forgiveness of sins. And that forgiveness can only
come by grace. One can pay the price for another,
and that can be grace, but abounding grace is not only did He take
our place, but He said, I'm not going to remember it no more.
You're forgiven of everything. What an amazing grace we've been
given by God. But going beyond that, look with
me, if you would, to 2 Thessalonians. Not only has He saved us, And that came from grace. He
called us. That came from grace. He gave
us the ability to believe on what He did for us. That was
by grace. He deemed us not guilty. That
was by grace. And then He forgave every sin
that we've ever done and will do. And that was by grace. But then He even goes further,
brethren, in His Word. And look what He does. Verse
16, Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God, even our Father
which hath loved us, and have given us everlasting
consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and
establish you in every good word and work." See, he went beyond
just He went beyond just the positional, and I've preached
this a lot, especially over the last few weeks, the difference
in positional and practical. Yes, positional, we're positionally
perfect before God because of Christ. But what about practical? Is God as sovereign in His grace
in the practical, in our everyday life, in our everyday walk? Or
is that conditional as some of the Pyrenean Baptists teach?
Oh yes, eternal salvation, that's all unconditional. But, everything
here, that's all conditional on you. No brethren, it's just
as much sovereign, monergistic grace now as it is there. And here we see that it is not
only have we been told outside of us what God has done, but
He's given us a grace inwardly. He's given us a consolation.
He's given us a good hope through grace. so that it will comfort
our hearts and will establish us in every good word and work."
He's given us His Spirit in us to guide us, to will and to do
His good pleasure. He's given us His Spirit inside
us to tell us that we are His children. We've been given a
consolation. Have you ever tried to console
somebody? Sometimes you can console somebody,
can't you? Sometimes somebody cannot be consoled. But here
we're told that the child of grace is given an everlasting
consolation. That tells me that in that spiritual
life that's been given to us in quickening, God imparts in
us by His Spirit a principle that consoles the child of grace. You don't believe me? Go back
to Romans chapter 7 and listen to Paul. I see I'm doing the
things that I don't want to do. I don't do the things that I
want to do. This law that's in my flesh is always at sin. What
was the consolation? There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit put a consolation
in him although I see myself as wretched and vile and unworthy
and low and not to be esteemed above anything else but dirt.
There's been given to me a consolation. I am His. The Holy Spirit is
given to us to give us assurance that we are His people. So God goes beyond just in grace
showing us what happened outside of us, but He also shows that
inside of us what happened to us. And that consolation is there. Why do I believe in assurance?
That a Christian can have assurance? Well, it's definitely not because
of what I do outwardly. But it's everything of what God
does inwardly in giving us an everlasting consolation and a
good hope. And a good hope. There's a consolation
and a good hope. Two different things. Two different
principles there. Consolation and hope. My hope
is in Jesus Christ. I have a hope that He is coming
for me. That is an earnest expectation
of something that will happen, that God has promised. But the
consolation is also that there is this feeling of satisfaction. I am consoled inwardly that He
is enough and He is all that I need. And my hope is in Him. That is also from grace. Anybody got any questions or
any remarks or additions? Any of you brothers got anything
that you'd like to say? Well, we'll stop right there
and we'll pick up with this Lord willing next week. Let's bow
and have a word of prayer and we'll be dismissed. Our gracious
Heavenly Father, we thank You again for the mercy and the grace
that we find in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank You for grace
and we ask, Lord, that You might continue to let that grace abound
in our heart. We are thankful for all these
things that stem from it. And Lord, we are just grateful
that we have been the recipients. And Lord, we just pray that as
we leave this place today, that we might bear testimony, not
only that grace has been given to us, but we might declare to
all those that we're around of the wonderful, marvelous grace
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank You for these brothers
and sisters that have gathered here today. And I thank You,
Father, for saving them and for gathering them, giving them a
love for the Gospel, a love for the truth, a love for each other.
And Lord, we just continue to lift them up to You. that we
all might be edified one to another. We pray, Father, that the things
that have been said here today have been pleasing to you, that
it has been of the truth. And Lord, I pray that it has
edified your people. And Lord, I just thank you again
for the opportunity that we have to meet together. and to share
these things among each other. I thank you for the food you've
prepared by these ladies. And Lord, I just ask you to bless
them. And we thank you, Lord, for their service that they provide
for the fellowship here and doing that. And Lord, we just thank
you for all that you've done through your Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. And it's in His name we pray,
Amen. Hey, I also want to remind everybody,
don't forget on October the 22nd will be our joint meeting with
Brother Larry and the Pineville House Church. We are going to
meet here in the morning and have our fellowship time here,
kind of basically the same way as we always do. I'll probably
speak a little. I'll probably have Brother Larry
speak some, too, if he feels led to do so. Or any of the other
brothers that will be here if they feel led to do that. But
we still don't know exactly how many is coming. But we'll meet
here, we'll have our services here, we'll eat lunch, and then
we'll break, and then we'll go down and meet at Pineville, where
we'll also have time of fellowship around the Word of God. and afterwards,
and so looking forward to that. I pray that some of these people
from around the United States that have expressed an interest
in this. Of course, we already know Sister Louise is planning
on being here with us and a couple of other men that have mentioned
that they might come. So I wanted to remind you that,
Wayne, in advance that you might be able to set that side of time
for us to fellowship a day together. and look forward to any of those
who come that don't meet with us normally. A time we get to
meet them and to fellowship with them and maybe you can visit
with them and share some things of the Lord between each other
to build each other up and encourage each other. So looking forward
to that. All right.