Our text is found in Galatians
chapter one again, if you'd like to turn there. Galatians chapter one. First hour we heard that salvation
is by Jesus Christ alone. In this hour, we're going to
hear how that he imparts that salvation to his people. It's by grace alone. And that's
what I've titled this message, Grace Alone. Galatians chapter
1 verse 1 through 5 says, Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither
by man, but by Jesus Christ and God, the father who raised him
from the dead and all the brethren which are with me under the churches
of Galatia. Grace be to you and peace from
God, the father and from 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, to whom be glory
forever and ever. Amen. Contrary, to popular beliefs,
salvation is wrought by Jesus Christ alone, and it's freely
bestowed by grace alone, grace alone. Not one thing can be added
to it, and not one thing can be taken away from it. We named
our church Holy Grace Church for a reason. Salvation is of
the Lord, and salvation is by grace. The scripture says, for
by grace are you saved through faith. In that not of yourselves,
it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. That's
clear, isn't it? It's not of works. It's by grace alone. It's
not of you. It's of God. It's all of him.
It's what he's done, what he accomplished. Grace is not simply
a helpless desire by God to save sinners, as some men seem to
make it be so. It's not a helpless desire that
he has that doesn't accomplish something. It's not something
given whereby men merely might be saved. It is God's sovereign,
omnipotent, perfect will to save by grace alone. And that's how
he saves sinners. That's how he saves sinners.
It's free, sovereign grace whereby he saves sinners. And did you
know grace is the only way a sinner can be saved? It's the only way. You and I cannot save ourself.
We can't merit salvation. We can't earn salvation. We can't
work salvation. We can't keep the law. So what
is our hope? For by grace are you saved through
faith in that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. That's
our hope. Paul is writing to these Galatians, not with many
messages, not with a bunch of different different, uh, types
of messages as he does in some other places in the church of
Corinthians, he had to deal with different things that they were
dealing with. There's one issue that they have, and there's one
solution he's writing. Here's the whole, the fullness
of the letter. This is grace and peace. That's the letter he's writing
about grace and peace to you. Verse three, grace, grace be
to you and peace from God, father, and from our Lord, Jesus Christ,
grace, And the first verse tells us how to have grace and peace. Not by men, neither by man, but
by Jesus Christ. And we heard that the first hour.
But then, the fourth verse tells us why. Because Jesus Christ
gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this
present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. So there's the why, and there's
the how. And that's what Paul's conveying
to them. But the message is grace, and
peace, grace and peace. It is life and death that we
understand something. It's vital. It's very important
that until grace alone is preached, we cannot have peace with God. Until grace alone For salvation
is preached, there is no peace with God. If it's grace plus
anything, there is no peace with God. You immediately put yourself
back in bondage. We put ourself back under the
law as soon as we add one thing to grace. But if we preach God's
sovereign, free grace as our only hope, in the redemption
of his people, that God chose to save us in spite of us, despite
of us, by his own merited favor given to us in Christ Jesus,
all freely by grace. We can have peace with God. We
can have true peace with God. There's no other peace to be
had with God other than by grace alone. Until salvation by grace
alone is preached and we're made to believe, there'll never be
true peace with God. Because grace is said to be here
and peace from Jesus Christ and from the Father. Grace to you
and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the source. This is the substance. This is
where it comes from. There's no other way to have
peace with God except through and by the Lord's doings. There's
no other way to have grace except through and by the Lord's doing. He is the supplier of it. He
is the giver of it. And whom does he give it to?
His chosen people. His chosen people. Any wavering from this is to
deny the finished work of Christ altogether. Any wavering from
grace, preaching anything but grace, is to deny the finished
work of Christ altogether. You can't preach Christ and a
little bit of works and not deny the work of Christ completely.
It's not preaching Christ at all at that point. See, the Lord
will not share his glory with anybody. Christ must be exalted
as the only object in preaching and salvation only achieved by
him and his doing, not ours. Salvation can only be worked
through and by grace because of what we are by nature. There's
nothing we can do in and of ourselves. The scripture tells us clearly
the flesh is enmity against God. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. How many times we read about us being born in sin,
shaping an iniquity, all the other times the scripture talks
about we cannot do anything to merit this grace. And if we could
merit it, it's no longer grace. Isn't that what he says? If by
grace, then it's no longer works, but it's a works, then it's no
longer grace. It can't be both. It can't be
both. To leave this is to leave the
principles of the gospel. This is the basic principles
of the gospel, and it's to declare the lie, to declare the lie. It's a discredit to the effectiveness
of our Lord's sacrifice. It's to decredit the Lord's sacrifice.
We must preach grace alone. We are saved by grace alone,
by grace alone. Now, what do I mean salvation
is by grace alone? Salvation is by Christ alone.
Well, that means we didn't merit it. We didn't deserve it. We didn't earn it. We didn't
do anything to obtain it. We didn't have any part whatsoever
to do with it. That's what that means. That's
what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ freely by his
grace. Men want to take the truth of
God and add something to it, some work that they must do by
their traditions. If they're doing that, they're
adding to the finished work of Christ, which makes it void for
their salvation. It doesn't void the sacrifice. Sacrifice is as powerful as it's
ever been, but they have exempted themselves by doing so. They're
choosing their own works. They're choosing their own self
over the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what they're doing.
That's what they're doing. Brethren, we can't attain to this. It's
too high. We can't work our way to it. We can't acquire it. You
can't find it. Can't find it. What Christ tell
the Pharisees, search the scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life. You can memorize this whole book and still not
know anything about God. Did you know that? You could
memorize this book verbatim and not know anything about God.
The Lord is a spirit, and they that worship must worship in
spirit and in truth, and until He makes us alive and gives us
His Spirit freely by His grace, we won't know anything about
Him. But oh, thank God, by His grace, He comes to a sinner,
His chosen sinners, and He reveals Himself. freely by His grace,
He reveals Himself, who He is, and what I am and what you are.
And He says, I'm God, I've redeemed you, I've saved you, I've bought
you. Why? Because of grace, because
of grace, nothing good in you, nothing good in me. Nothing good
in you, nothing good in me. No, he doesn't look and find
the prettiest apple on the tree. No, he gets the rottenest one,
doesn't he? The ones on the ground full of worms, the ones that
are disgusting. What does he do? He makes them
a new creature. That's what he does. I've used this analogy
before. Think of driving down the road.
There's not much an old dead stick on the side of the road's
worth, as far as you can burn it, I guess, to stay warm. But
you understand what I'm saying. It's not worth much. But that's
what the God of this universe chose to be his treasure. He
chose to take an old dead stick, that's what we are, dead in trespasses
and in sin, had no hope of life, no hope of bringing forth fruit
ever again. And what does he do? He grafts us into his son.
He grafts us into the true vine and makes us alive again and
we bring forth fruit unto him. And what does he see when he
sees us? Does he still see that old dead stick? No, he sees his
son. He sees the complete church and
he sees the son of God. Now what makes him do that? It's
called grace. It's called grace. Salvation is by grace alone to
whomsoever God chooses. Christ said this in John six,
all that the father giveth me shall come to me. And he that
cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. All that the Father
gives me shall come to me. He that cometh to me, I'll in
no wise cast out. The good news is, the scripture says, whosoever
calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall
they call if they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall he preach unless he be sent? See, God's the doer
of it. We're not deviating from the fact that this is all by
God, by Jesus Christ. freely by his grace. This is
the catalyst by which he does it. It's called grace. Conduit,
if you will, I suppose, what the means that he uses. Otherwise,
he would have nothing to do with creatures like us. This is something
he chose. Chose to show mercy and chose
to show grace. Understand, if you come to Christ,
it's not because you've earned a right to do so. If you come
to Christ, it's because he's already given you the grace to
do that. You need the grace to come to
Christ. Did you know that? I need the grace to come to Christ.
I need the grace to believe. I need the grace to be made alive. I need the grace to trust him. I feel like the father of the
child that was sick, the Lord said, if you believe, anything's
possible. He said, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. I'm so full
of unbelief. Lord, I need grace to believe.
I can't believe you unless you give me the grace to believe
you. I'm gonna believe what these eyes see, not what this sees.
Not the heart of flesh, but the heart of stone, the old man. That's what I see all the time
around me. I look with these eyes. I can't see these things
because they're heavenly. They're spiritual. Lord, give
me eyes to see. Let me see your son. Blind these eyes so I may
see Christ. The amazing part about a believer
is we don't trust our own eyeballs, do we? I mean, that's the truth
of it, isn't it? We don't trust what we see. Sure, we do in a
daily work setting. We ought to trust ourself to
get around and walk. But you understand what I'm saying? When
it comes to salvation, no. No, we don't trust these eyes.
We can't look at what's around us and say, OK, now I know that
I belong to God because I did this and I did that or I have
this or I have that or I'm this and I'm not that. No, we don't
do that. Why? Because salvation is by grace
alone, that's why. Salvation's by grace alone. If
we look in any other place besides the finished work of Christ,
we're not looking for salvation by grace alone. We're looking
for salvation by our works. Christ said this. No man come
to the Father except by me, and no man come to the Father except
the Father which sent me, draw him. Salvation belongs to God. He earned it on the cross of
Calvary. It is a finished work. It is
not a work that's still in process, contingent upon you and I in
any way. Salvation's accomplished. Salvation's secure. Salvation
is certain. And in order for you and I to
have any part of God's salvation, it can only come by one way,
grace alone. That's it. It can only come through
and by grace alone. We must be given grace to be
made alive. We must be given grace to hear. What did the Lord
say? He said, you can't hear me. You can't hear my voice.
Ain't that what he told the Pharisees? You can't hear me. Why? You're
not my sheep. That's what he told them. My sheep hear my voice
and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal
life. Why? Grace. Grace. By the will of God, by the determinate
counsel of God for his glory and for his honor, freely by
grace. Salvation is by grace alone.
I wrestled with which song to sing whenever we're finished,
and we've sung Amazing Grace a couple of times the last few
Sundays, and we're not gonna sing that one this time, and
I'm not close to being finished yet, so just bear with me. But
I wanna read that first stanza of Amazing Grace to you. And
everybody could probably quote it, but Amazing Grace, how sweet
the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but
now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. If the Lord doesn't save us by
grace, we won't be saved. We'll remain lost. We'll remain
blind. We'll remain in trespasses and
in sin. But if the Lord chooses by his sovereign right as God
to save us, it will be by grace alone. It will be by grace alone. Now it's vital that we understand
the first thing mentioned is grace, but the second thing mentioned
is peace and only the grace of God can bring about peace towards
God. Meaning you and I can't have
peace towards God any other way. This is vital. This is so important
because what men and women are doing today and what I used to
do and what you used to do in false religion is we were trying
to have peace with God outside of Christ. That means we were
trying to have peace with God outside of his grace. That's
what that means. It's impossible. You can't have
it. I mean, it's literally an impossibility.
Salvation is by grace alone, and the peace with God is by
grace alone. There's no other way. There's
just no other way. Scripture says in Colossians
chapter one, verse 20, Christ having made peace through the
blood of his cross by him, To reconcile all things unto himself
by him, I say, whether things in earth or things in heaven,
Christ is the one that made peace with God. You have to have Christ. Well, how am I going to have
Christ? Well, it's got to be by grace because I can't get
to him. He's got to come to me. Well,
that's what that song just said. I once was lost and now I'm found.
Did you find yourself? No, Christ found me. God found
me. Didn't find myself. Did I make
myself see? No, the Lord made me see. He
gets all the glory in this. This reconciliation that he mentioned
by his cross, that means we are at peace with the sovereign sustainer
and creator of this universe. We're at peace with him. You
can lay your head on your pillow at night. If you're looking to
Christ as all your wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
if you're believing in the blood alone for your salvation, if
you're trusting that it was his election that saved you, not
your choice, that it was Christ's blood that saved you and not
your works, you can lay your head on your pillow at night
knowing you have peace with God. If you were to die right then
and stand before him, You have peace with God, not because you're
looking at yourself, but because you're looking to him. And if
you find yourself looking to the Lord Jesus Christ, you know
how and why you're doing that? By grace alone, by grace alone. Ephesians 2.14 says, the Lord
Jesus Christ is our peace. He is our peace. He's made both one and hath broken
down the middle wall of partition between us. Grace is how we have
peace. Knowing our sin has been put
away by the blood of the lamb. Knowing our sin has been put
away by Christ. Know that Christ satisfied everything that God
required for his people on the cross. That is how we have peace
with God. If you would like this salvation,
it can only be received and believed one way, by grace alone. That's it. That's it. Now one might think that this
simple message that I'm giving us about grace and peace might
just be too simple. for the people of Galatia here.
It might be too simple for them. Maybe it's not gonna fix the
problem that they have. Maybe Paul shoulda done this, or Paul
shoulda done these, dealing with mixing law and grace. This is
the message, though. This message doesn't change.
It's never gonna get more complicated, because the gospel's not complicated.
I'm the sinner, and God must do all the saving, or I won't
be saved. That's not complicated. But how's
he gonna save a sinner like me? By grace. Through the blood of
Jesus Christ, his own choice, his own determinant counsel,
his own will and purpose, by grace alone. That's it, that's
it. Why would these Galatians receive
and believe this? Why would anyone receive and
believe? Why would you and I believe and receive this? There's one
word, grace, that's why. That's it, that's the only reason
we believe. Somebody told me one time that they chose Jesus
and made a good choice. And I said, no, you didn't. We
didn't choose God. Lord said this, Lord said, you
would not choose me. You would not come to me that
you might have eternal life. You will not. Why? He said, because
you're of your father, the devil. That's what he told him. He said,
but my sheep hear my voice. That's in the same John chapter
10 as the sheep. And then that's in John chapter
six. So he's continuing with the same group of Pharisees.
They depart, they come back and they start up again. They depart
and come back and start up. It's just the same thing. He's like,
no, you're of your father, the devil. You will not hear my voice.
You will not come to me that you might have eternal life.
Why? Because I didn't give you the grace to do it. That's right.
It's God's right to give grace or to not. Don't you love our
God delighting in mercy? Don't you love the fact that
he delights in showing grace? He says, I don't get into delight
in the wicked. He doesn't delight in wrath,
he delights in showing mercy. That's glorious, that gives me
hope. He delights in showing mercy. So why is this simple statement
that he's making here so vital? in the gospel? Well, it's making
a statement. Our Lord is saying that he's
taking the grounds away from any man or any woman to ever
have any part of salvation by what they do. That's what he's
saying. No, it's if you want peace, it's got to be by grace
alone. If you don't want peace, put
a work to it, and you won't have peace. If you want peace, it's
gotta be by God's grace alone. You gotta have faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ alone, believing on him. And you know, if you
find yourself believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, you know why
you find yourself believing? Grace. Grace is the reason. Salvation is only by grace. He's declaring that it's finished.
I love that. I know we all love that, but
I love the Lord saying it is finished. There's no controversy
there. There's no controversy there. Without controversy, great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
But you know what he did when he was manifest in the flesh?
He put away the sins of his people. And it's not a controversial
subject. It can be with some people, They shouldn't be because
it's so simple, it's so true. It's so true. Christ Jesus saved
his people from their sin, all by his grace. Now it's given
freely by his grace to his elected recipients. And I'll say this,
if salvation is not, and don't ever think that word received
means it's something that you do, it's something that you realize
that you've been given. It's not a work. Receiving is
passive. If you find yourself the recipient
of something, it's because of grace. That's why. But to receive
God's grace, it takes grace to even receive his grace. Do you
understand what I'm saying? We are so needy of our Lord. We
are so dependent upon our Savior that if he doesn't give us the
grace to receive the truth, we'll never receive the truth. Either salvation is freely by
grace alone, or it's not salvation at all. It's not salvation at
all. If the term opportunity, if the
term offer or opportunity go with it, that's not being saved
by grace. The Lord didn't make an opportunity.
The Lord didn't make an offer to man. The Lord offered himself
to his father on behalf of his people. And the father was well
pleased with that offering in so much that he redeemed every
single person that Christ died for. Why would he do that for
his glory, for his honor? But it was all because of grace.
It's all because of grace. Let's read our text again. Paul,
an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and
God the Father who raised him from the dead. And all the brethren
which are with me unto the churches of Galatia, grace be to you. Now he's speaking to a very particular
people. He's writing to the church of
Galatia, and then he's telling them who's writing, it's all
the brethren. This is a particular people. You can't forget the
Bible's not written to everybody. The Bible's written to the Lord's
people. That's just fact. Grace be to you and peace from
God the Father and from 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, to whom be glory
forever and ever. Amen. Don't let that word might
I made this a point to bring up when you see that in verse
four, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us.
He's not saying that maybe deliver us. He's saying that's the only
way. If he don't do it, there's no other way. This is how he
did it, that he might save us. It means it's the only way that
we'd be delivered. If he doesn't shed his blood, no remedy will
be found. If he doesn't lay his life down
and die, there's no life for us to be found. If he doesn't
put away our sin, we remain sinners, dead and trespassers in sin forever.
He has to do all of it. He has to do all of it. You know, if he doesn't save
us, you know this is true. If he doesn't save us by grace
alone, nobody will be saved. That's the only way sinners can
be saved is by grace alone. By grace alone. Romans 3.24 tells
us, being justified freely by his what? Grace. Being justified
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.
Oh freely, freely by his grace. How does humanity complicate
that? Well we do, and we did. We didn't
wanna believe it. Our flesh kicks against it, you
know why? Because it takes every bit of you out of it, and God
gets all the glory. Every bit of me out of it, and
God gets all the glory, and our flesh hates that. Our flesh wants
to be praised and looked at and admired and adored. Once the
Lord comes and shows you who he is, You'll say with Isaiah,
oh, he said, the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and
lifted up. And I thought, he said he was seated high and lifted
up. And he said, I'm a man of unclean lips. And I know what
the people of unclean lips. I'm undone. That's what Job said.
I'm undone. Behold, I am vile. I'm vile. You see God, the God of this
universe, you see him, you'll realize we are vile creatures
that need a savior. The reason we complicate it is
because our deceitful, depraved heart. You know, we don't need
help unbelieving. Do you know that? We need help
with unbelieving, but we don't need help unbelieving. We're
good at that. We're full of unbelief, aren't we? Full of unbelief.
We need to be reminded of the grace. We need to be given the
grace to believe. We need to be given the grace
to believe. Thomas, why did you doubt? Peter
walked on water and then he began to sink. You think that a man
starts to walk on water, he would just continue on, but no, he
took his eyes off of Christ and he began to sink. Why? Well,
the Lord took the grace away for a moment, didn't he? Yeah,
he began to sink. That's what happens to us, we're
full of unbelief. Lord's gotta keep us walking,
that's how it works. Brethren, we cannot fathom the
depth, the height, the width of the grace of God. But oh,
we cleave to it as our only hope for salvation. Our only hope
for salvation. We rejoice in it when we read
his soul was made an offering for sin. Why? Because of grace. Because of grace. We rejoice
when we read that his blood hath put away our sin. Why? Because
of grace. Because of the good pleasure
of God's will all by grace alone. We rejoice when we read, he was
made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. Why would he do that? Because
of his grace. Because of his great love, wherein
he loved us. It's all by grace. How did he do all this? Well, as we heard the first hour,
he did it by himself. It's all by Jesus Christ, by
himself. Without my aid, without your aid, Without any contribution
from us whatsoever, he put away our sin. Why did he do it? To save poor and needy elected
sinners, his people. That's why he did it. The only
way that we can be saved by grace alone. Who gets all the glory
in it? Who gets all the glory in it?
Well, look at verse five. I closed my Bible too early. Look at verse
five. Last few words at verse four,
God and our Father to whom be glory forever and ever. And you
could just keep saying forever and ever forever if you want
to. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
you would take this and bless it to our understanding for your
glory. Cause us to give us the grace, Lord, to believe. Give
us the grace to look to Christ as all of our righteousness.
It's in his name we pray. Amen.