Let's turn in our Bibles to 2
Corinthians chapter 1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. We're just going to look at one
verse, verse 2. The Apostle Paul is writing here
to the Corinthians and he says, Grace be to you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it was common
among natural men. If you were a Gentile, your salutation
would be grace to you. If you were a Jew, your salutation
would be peace to you. A natural man only meant by that
the happiness, temporal happiness, which he could imagine, the best
that he could imagine. And that's all that he meant
by that. But with God, grace and peace come together. They're
both given, grace and peace. And it's much more than just
an ideal situation that a man imagines. Now how am I going
to preach a 30 minute message on such a vast subject as grace
and peace? I want us to look first of all
at grace which saves. Grace which saves. And then grace
which gifts. And then grace which effects.
And then we'll move on to peace. Peace with God. Peace of conscience. And peace with reverence. Now,
first of all, let me give you the main point of the message.
This is what we're going to be looking at in every point that
we go through. Salvation for sinners is entirely
by the grace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. And
it's through that grace that He gives us peace. It's all of
God entirely. Now, first of all, let's look
at grace which saves. God our Father chose whom He
would by grace. Scripture could be more clear
on that fact. Exodus 33, 19, whenever God brought
Moses to see His glory, God declared, I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious, and I will be merciful to whom I will be
merciful. That's God's prerogative to do
with His own what He will. Grace means that He chose us
not based on anything in us. If a man contributes part of
the work to it, it's not grace. Grace means God chose us entirely
apart from anything of us. For it to be grace, it's got
to be free. It's got to be free. being not
yet born, having done neither good nor evil. Remember Jacob
and Esau? That's a picture of all God's,
how He saves by election. The children having done neither
good nor evil, that the purpose of God, according to election,
might stand. Not of Him that works. It's not of our works, but of
Him that calleth. That's why God elected a people. That's why He chose a people
to save. So we would see it's not of our
works, it's of God's grace. Now that's good news because
when we fell in Adam, because God chose us not based on anything
in us, when we fell in Adam, His grace did not change. If
it would have been based on something in us, it would have ended the
moment we changed and the moment we became sinners. Now we changed
We changed. We became God-haters by the fall. We became murderers by the fall. We became an abomination to God
by the fall. We changed and we continue to
change. But God does not change. His grace remains the same. And so the scripture tells us
that we're saved entirely by grace that's unchangeable. God said, I change not. I'm God,
I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. Now, we fall short when we describe
grace as free favor. That's short of the definition
of grace. What I'm trying to tell you is,
you know, if a beggar, if I supplied all the need of a beggar, that
would be free favor. But grace is so much more than
that. The grace of God is much more than that. What if somebody
murdered everybody in your house and robbed you and then you showed
them, supplied all their need? That's more like God's grace. It wasn't that we were just neutral. We hated God with every fiber
of our being after the fall and God still saved us by grace.
He did this for God-haters. Christ made Himself to be the
lowest by grace. No man has ever made himself
as low as Christ made Himself. But to be lowest in the Kingdom
of God is to be the greatest. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now that though He was rich,
yet He became poor for our sake. By grace, Christ took our human
nature. He took a body that God prepared
for Him. for a purpose. He took that body
so that in that body God made him sin for us who knew no sin. He knew no sin. He would not
sin. And you know the definition,
God's definition of imputation, the scriptural definition of
imputation. God will not impute sin where
there is no law. How then from Adam to Moses could
God impute sin? God won't impute sin unless somebody
is sin. So how then could He, if there
was no law whereby we could break it and become sin, how could
God impute sin from Adam to Moses? Because we sinned in Adam. And therefore, God was just to
impute sin to us. Even those who had not sinned
having an express command like Adam had. Because we really sinned
in Adam. So when it was a necessity that
God make him sin. What's impossible with men is
possible with God. A man will say, I don't understand
it. Well, good, because faith doesn't stand in the wisdom of
men. It stands in the power of God. He made him sin and then
God justly imputed sin to him and numbered him with the transgressors. It's interesting that Scripture
never says sin was imputed to Christ. Never. Because it seems
though that God our Father would have you realize He had to be
made sin. That's why it doesn't say sin
was imputed to Him, though sin was imputed to Him. We know that
because the Scripture says He was numbered with the transgressors. And why did He do this? He did
this for vile, God-hating sinners. He did this to put away the sin
of His people and purge the sin of His people and make us just
before the holy God. He did this for people that didn't
want to be justified. We didn't want to be brought
to God. We didn't want to have anything to do with God. And
yet He came and did this for an elect people God gave Him.
And then for you and I who were dead, totally dead, unable to
do a thing, He arose from the grave to the right hand of the
Father with all His people in Him. And all this was done that
as sin has reigned unto death. That's what happened in Adam.
Sin reigned unto death. And He did this so that even
so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. And grace reigns. Grace reigns. And then God the Holy Spirit
came to where we were through the gospel and He regenerated
us. He regenerated us and that was by grace. And I remind you,
He did that while in our hearts we were crying out, ìNo, God!î
In our flesh of Adam, we were crying, ìNo, God!î We were saying,
ìNo, I will not have you reign over me.î We were not seeking
God. We were seeking a way to stay
far away from God. And yet He came and regenerated
us even when we were dead in sins, Hath He quickened us together
with Christ? By grace are you saved. Now, that's the point of grace. Grace is all of God. Grace is
free and grace is how we are saved. God the Father chose His
people. Christ the Son redeemed His people.
And God the Holy Spirit regenerated His people all by grace. All by grace. Let's talk about
the gifts of grace. Now this may be more in line
with what Paul was desiring for the church of Corinth because
they were such sinners. They were such sinners. But every
blessing that we have came as a gift from God, free by grace. Everything we have. When we started
out in this world, we were the product of Adam. We were sinners,
unjust, unholy. God is not going to work with
that. He is not going to take any part of that that we were
and use it to make us acceptable to Him. He has to create everything
anew. He has to create everything anew. So everything we have is a gift
of God. What do you have that you did
not receive from God? If you're a believer, it's all
a gift. Spiritual and eternal life are
the gifts of God. In Romans 5.15 it's called the
grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one, by one
man, Jesus Christ. It's the grace of God and the
gift by grace to have eternal spiritual life. That's what all
you who are born of God, that's what you have. You know, we think
sometimes of spiritual and eternal life being what we're going to
have one day. If we're born of God, we have
it now. We have eternal life. And along with that spiritual
life, He gave us faith and repentance. That had to be given by grace.
Scripture says, by grace are you saved, through faith, and
that not of yourselves. Not of works lest any man should
boast. It is all the free gift of God
by His grace. If we said we believed on our
own, that would be our point of rebellion. That would be the
point wherein we would boast. Now you hear it a lot. You hear
men talk about their faith. And that is what they are doing.
They are boasting that they believe. But our faith did not come from
us. It came from God. It is a gift of God. And then
this most precious gift, we are justified by grace. Free justification
is a gift from God. Romans 3.24 says we are justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. Justified is to be totally clear
so that we never sinned in God's record books. When God looks
at our record, there is no sin to be found. We are justified. Past, present and future, no
sin can be found. That is why the Scripture says,
there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
because we are justified. That is why the Scripture says,
who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is
God that justifieth. Who's going to lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It's Christ that died and is
risen again and ever lives to make intercession for it. Past,
present and future, no charge can ever be laid to one of God's
people for whom Christ died. He's justified us. Isn't that
a wonderful gift? That's the best gift of all to
know no charge by God will ever be laid to me. None at all. And then we are adopted, and
we are accepted, and we are forgiven by grace. Adoption is a gift
of grace. And acceptance with God is a
gift of grace. And forgiveness with God is a
gift of grace. Ephesians 1.5 says, He predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. We are God's adopted children.
And then it says, He did it to the praise of the glory of His
grace, wherein He made us accepted in the beloved. We have acceptance
with God. And then He says, in whom we
have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin. And again
He says, according to the riches of His grace. Why does He call
it the riches of His grace? Can you put a value on it? Can
you put a price on it? It's unsearchable riches. to
be accepted of God, to be in His presence accepted. And so
then all spiritual gifts, now to preach, all gifts to be able
to comfort, to be able to be a helper to one another, to sing,
to be able to do anything for the cause of Christ in His church
together towards one another. That's a gift of God. Scripture
says, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is
given to us. We have different gifts. He says,
if you have prophecy, let it prophesy according to the proportion
of faith. I'm sitting here preaching according
to the proportion of faith. I can't preach anything but what
I believe. I can't preach anything but what God has shown me. Or
ministry, let us wait on our ministering. If He's given you
a heart to minister to one another, don't try to do something else.
Minister to one another. And He says, "...or he that exhorteth."
Some people are good at exhorting one another. At saying something
in the right way to help a stumbling brother. He says, "...then wait
on your exhortation." Do that. That's what God gave you grace
to do. And He said, he that giveth. Some people are better givers
than others by God's grace. If you're a giver, He says, do
it with simplicity. Don't shout, don't blow a trumpet,
do it with simplicity. And he that ruleth, do it with
diligence. And he that showeth mercy, do
it with cheerfulness. There's nothing worse than for
somebody to show you mercy and do it in a begrudging way. That's
not really mercy, is it? Show mercy with cheerfulness.
All these are gifts of God. So we could go on and on. We
have so many gifts and it is all by His grace. Paul said,
I am what I am by the grace of God. And lastly, having to do
with grace, we look at the effect of grace. And there is a lot
we can say here about the effect of grace. I like this chiefly.
Because our salvation is by grace through faith, the effect of
it is it is sure. It's sure to all God's people.
Listen to this, Romans 4, 16. It says, Therefore salvation
is of faith, that it might be by grace. To the end, the promise
might be sure to all the seed. Because salvation is by grace,
that means everybody God chose to save shall be saved. They
shall all be brought to faith because it's through faith by
grace. To this end, that the promise, all God's covenant promises
might be assured to us by grace. And then believers are affectionately
adorned by grace. We have this new man He gave
us, created in the image of God, and in that new man there is
a beauty of heart and mind that God created. Like begets like. Adam begat a son in his image,
Scripture said, fallen to prey. And Christ, this last Adam, He
begets us again. And the Scripture says, created
after His image. Changed into His image by His
grace, by the Spirit of God. That's a gift. That's a gift. And then, by grace, every believer
engages in the work God would have us to do. We can't even
boast in anything we do for Christ. Paul said, by His grace which
was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly
than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me. If I labor, I don't have any room to boast. When you hear
me talking about studying or staying up late or something
like that, I'm not boasting in it. I wouldn't do that if it
wasn't for the grace of God. It's by God's grace alone. And
anything you do is by God's grace alone. And we're going to be
kept by this grace. This is the effect of grace.
The last sinner Christ will bring, crying grace, grace unto it.
It's all grace from beginning to end. But here's where I want
to move to. Go to Isaiah 32. This is the
greatest effect of all right here. Isaiah 32. Look at verse 17. We are talking here about what
Christ is going to do when He reigns in righteousness. And
He says in verse 17, the work of righteousness shall be peace. And the effect of righteousness,
quietness and assurance forever. Now that is the chief effect
God works by Christ coming and establishing us in righteousness.
So let's move on now to peace. First of all, we have peace with
God. The gospel of Christ is called
the gospel of peace. Because it's the good news of
how Christ has made us to have peace with God. That's what He
was doing when He came here to save us. Mercy and truth are
met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. God's just. He executed all His
people in Christ. The wages of sin is death and
He poured out those wages on all His elect in Christ. So God
is just. And yet, peace. Now we have peace
with God. They can kiss in harmony. I will
tell you a little secret. The world will know it now. Yesterday,
your pastor got a ticket. I guess in the course of working
on the building, didn't realize that the forerunner didn't have
registration. And so when a vehicle in New
Jersey is 20 years old, you don't have to have it inspected anymore,
but you still got to have your registration. And so I got a
ticket for not having registration. Well, the police officer said,
it's a terrible offense, but I'm going to show mercy and just
give you a citation. Well, grace, justice wasn't carried
out. The law is not in the business
of showing mercy. Justice to be carried out, the law has got
to be executed in full. In full. Or it is not justice. And that is what I am saying.
God came and He upheld His justice in full by sending His Son to
die in the place of His people. And so He can be merciful to
us now in a just way. He made mercy and justice kiss
in harmony, peace and righteousness kiss. Because we are justified
by faith now, we have peace with God. When we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Reconciled
means to be brought back into peace. If we were reconciled
to God by the death of His Son, much more than now being friends
by His grace, we shall be saved by His life. Because He is there
at God's right hand, we shall be saved. Because we are reconciled,
we are friends with God now. Those that He died for. And it
is good news to us that this kingdom is not about what we
are supposed to do to be saved. This peace is not by you working
to make yourself savable or saved. The good news of this Gospel
is the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink. It's not touch,
not taste, not handle, not... That's not what the Kingdom of
God is about. The Kingdom of God is righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. He didn't call us and
bring us to worship Christ to put us in bondage again. That's
not what God did. You've not received the Spirit
again to fear. You've received the Spirit of
adoption. You are in the household of God. So you can cry Abba Father. This is peace. Peace with God. And then look at this now. We
talk about peace of conscience. Not only do we have peace with
God, we have peace of conscience. You know, that is one of the
most valuable things in the world. You cannot rest if you have a
guilty conscience. You cannot rest. You have to
have peace with God. And the older you get, unless
your conscience is seared, The older you get and the closer
you come to death, the more that guilty conscience is going to
scream and scream and scream at you. There is nothing that
will give us peace but God coming through the blood of Christ and
purging our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
That is what has to happen and a new man has got to be created.
And because we are sinners, that new mind has constantly got to
be purged by God, by the blood of Christ, because we become
defiled constantly. We have these doubts and fears
that enter in constantly, but He constantly purges us so that
they don't reign in us. And when He's purged the conscience,
that's when He produces this peace. He said, you should go
out with joy and be led forth with peace. And the mountains
and the hills shall break forth before you into singing. And
all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. When God saves
you, you begin to see Him illustrated in everything, in the trees,
in the hills, in everything. You begin to see how a corn of
wheat is a picture of Christ. How it goes into the ground like
Christ went into the ground. And how it's broken like Christ
was broken. And how from that comes a vine
just as Christ arose from the grave to the right hand of the
Father. And then from that vine comes the branches. He said,
you're the branches, I'm the vine. And from that vine comes
fruit He produces. And you begin to see things like
that so that the hills and the mountains clap their hands. You
have peace now. that you didn't have before.
It's not being at war with God. That's what it is. A conscience
no longer tearing you apart in guilt and terror, scared of meeting
God. It's called peace in believing.
And I'm telling you this now, sinner. You sitting here that
don't believe on the Lord, believe on Christ. Cast all your eternal
care upon Him. Confess Him in believer's baptism.
Acknowledge that He is your only hope before everybody. And I'll
tell you what you'll have. You'll have peace of conscience. You'll have peace of conscience.
If it's all in His hand and He cannot fail, you'll have peace
of conscience. Peace and assurance forever.
And now, we can simply be honest with one another about what we
are. I'm not afraid to tell you I got a ticket yesterday. I'm
a sinner. It's what I am. I'll be honest with you. I don't
have to put on a show and act fake and phony like something
I'm not. Paul said, Our rejoicing is this,
the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly
sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we've
had our conduct in the world and more abundantly to you. It's
a testimony of a good conscience. And then he said this, we've
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. We're not walking
in craftiness anymore. We're not handling the Word of
God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, by preaching the
truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the
sight of God. See, I don't blame persons who
had a bad experience when they were younger in religion that
fake and phony religion that acts like I'm holier than thou
and all that. I understand a person having
that kind of experience in religion and saying, I don't want to have
anything to do with religion. I'm not calling on you to have
anything to do with religion at all. I hate that fake, phony,
dumb, as Paul called it. I'm calling on you to come to
Christ where you'll find honesty, and you'll find a clear conscience,
and you'll find brethren who simply commend themselves to
your conscience, speaking honestly, speaking out of the Word of God,
showing you what God's done. Not this fake and phony mess
called religion. Not at all. Peace is having a
conscience that's submissive to the will of God and obedient
to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's peace. You know, when
you were younger and you did something that you knew that
your father or your mother told you not to do, you didn't have
peace. You had a guilty conscience.
And it troubled you. You were afraid that they were
going to find out. And you were constantly trying
some way to cover that up so they wouldn't find out. That's
having a guilty conscience. But when God purges a conscience,
A perched conscience is free and clear of guilt because in
that new man you're obedient to God and to our Lord Jesus
Christ. He says, believe on my Son and
you believe on Him. He says, love your brethren and
by His grace you love your brethren. You like to assemble with them.
You enjoy hearing the Gospel preached. You enjoy comforting
one another and hearing about what's going on in the lives
of your brethren because He's made you obedient in that new
man. And that's peace, to be obedient. Not to be a rebel,
to be obedient. Do you have a good conscience?
I pray God will be pleased to give you one by sprinkling the
blood of Christ on your conscience. That's the only way you'll believe
Him and cast your care on Him. Now lastly, when He does all
this, we have peace with one another. Now there's been some
great crusaders for peace in the world that have marched and
have given speeches and what have you, and rallied folks to
try to affect peace. And to some degree, I guess you
could say in a relative sense, maybe they have done some good
in affecting peace. But the only true peace that
is given is given by God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
And what He does is He removes all the walls between His people. He removes all those things that
we used when we were dead in sins, the things we used to exalt
ourselves over one another. Race, place, where we were born,
face. We look like this and the other
one looks like that. Even grace. Our religion is better
than your religion. He takes all that out of the
way. The Scripture says, He is our peace who hath made both
one. Talking about Jew and Gentile.
He has made us both one and He has broken down the middle wall
of partition between us. What was that middle wall of
partition? What made the Jew hate the Gentile and the Gentile
hate the Jew? Christ came and abolished in
His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained
in ordinances. for to make in Himself of two
one new man, so making peace." Christ fulfilled all the law
of God for His people. Filled it full. He gave it what
it demanded. So that the Scripture says, now
that's taken out of our way, nailed to the cross of Christ.
So that now, you're just as righteous as I am. So how am I going to
exalt myself over you saying I'm more righteous than you?
You can't get more righteous than the righteousness of God
in Christ Jesus. I'm as holy as you are, so I
can't exalt myself as being more holy than you are. You can't
get more holy than perfected forever by Christ's one offering.
You can't get more holy than being made meat to be a partaker
right now in that glorious inheritance with the saints that have already
passed into glory. That's what the Father has made
us. You can't get more holy than that. You can't get more gifted
than we've been gifted by God. And the fact that all our gifts
come from God and are not of us, I can't boast in a gift that
I have that you don't have. Because it's a free gift of God.
And you can't boast of the gift you have that I don't have. It's
a free gift of God. You see, He took everything out
of the way that we used to use to exalt ourselves over one another.
And He made us one in Him. Put on the new man which is renewed
in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. That's
not Christ, right? Christ is the new man. He's called
the new man in other places. But he's not talking about Christ
right here because Christ wasn't created. No part of Christ was
created. You and I have a new man that's
created by God that was not there before. A new spirit I'll put
within you, He said. That which is born of flesh is
flesh. That which is born of the Holy
Spirit is spirit. They're not the same. It's not,
as some will say, you have a sinful principle and a holy principle
in the same regenerated nature. That's what some people teach.
No, that's not so. When Paul talks about the law
of the mind and the law of my members, he's talking about the
principle of my mind. That's the mind created anew
by God. And he's talking about the principle
of my members. That's that flesh created by
Adam. But they're two different things.
Two different things. Before I was born again, I was
just flesh. Now, he says, there's a new man
that's renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. And he says this, and in that
new man there is neither Greek nor Jew. We are not boasting
of our race anymore and exalting ourselves because of our race.
Could you imagine if everybody in the world had that kind of
peace? You know what a great place it
would be if we didn't exalt ourselves because of race? God's people
don't. We don't exalt ourselves because
of the law, circumcision or uncircumcision. We don't exalt ourselves because
of our education, barbarian or Scythian. There is neither barbarian
or Scythian. We don't exalt ourselves because
we are free born or born into bondage, poverty and what have
you. There is neither bond nor free.
Our class is not what makes us who we are now. What is it then? Christ is all and in all. That's right. Christ is everything. That's why we can't boast against
one another. That's what our peace is with one another. Christ
is my all and Christ is your all. And here is something else.
Christ is in all. I can't make a boast against
you without making a boast against Christ because Christ is in you
who believe. I can't run you down without
running Christ down because Christ is in you who believe. That's
why we have peace with one another. Christ said, inasmuch as you've
done it unto one of these, the least of my brethren, you have
done it unto me. You remember when he arrested
Paul on the road to Damascus? Paul had letters to go bind the
believer and put them in prison. That's who he was doing this
to. He was doing it to believers. But when Christ arrested him,
he said, why do you persecute me? Christ is one with His people. He's all and He's in all. Let
me end by saying this. Now we see something of the great,
great blessing that Paul is talking about in this salutation. Let's
read it again and I hope we'll remember now when we read these
salutations in Scripture. It's not just natural man wishing
you the best. It's talking about God's grace
and God's peace. Grace be to you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, let's
stand together. Our great God and our Father,
our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, we thank You for everything. Thank You for everything. There's
no thing that we have that You didn't give by grace and this
great peace we have is all of You. Lord, continue to show us
that grace. You said You'll do it, but You've
also said You'll be asked of us to do it. And we ask You,
Lord, show us more grace. Keep us in peace with You and
peace in our conscience and peace with our brethren. And Lord,
if You do this by Your grace, we'll serve You and we'll honor
You and we'll spread this Gospel and we'll do what You've enabled
us to do for Your Kingdom, for the furtherance of Your Kingdom.
We ask it, Lord, by Your grace, by that great peacemaker Christ
our Lord. Amen.