Good morning. It's so good to
see everybody. I'll tell you, it's been a while.
I was telling somebody this morning, the first time I came up here, me and Scott Richardson and Milton
Howard, and I think that was all there was, but Rick and Jenny Williams got
married that Saturday. Remember how long they've been
married? That's my first time coming up here. That's a long
time ago. You know it's wonderful how the
Lord blesses people to have that kind of unity and fellowship
for that many years. And just does the heart good,
you know, to see folks that you know and love and appreciate.
God is certainly good to Israel. Oh, He blesses His people. I tell you, they're just nothing
like the Lord's people. You haven't seen them for a long
time, but when you see them, they just pick up where you left
off. But turn with me to Romans chapter 5. I'm going to deal
with the grace of God in both services today. You know, that's
God's grace given to us in Christ. Romans chapter 5. It says here in verse 17, I'm going to just make a few mentions
of these things to get to where I want us to go. For if by one
man's offense or one man's sin, death reigned by that one man's
sin, but now look at the contrast here. Much more, death reigned
by one man's offense, by one man's sin. Much more, they which
receive abundance of grace, one thing happened, condemned us
all. But much more grace, you receive
it in abundance. Lots and lots of it. And it's
a gift. And it reigns in righteousness
by life, but through the life of that one man, the Lord Jesus
Christ. One sin condemned us all. But
God gives us an abundance of grace, and it's a gift of God,
and it's in life by the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, therefore,
as by that offense, that sin of that one, judgment came upon
all men to condemnation, to judgment. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men under justification of
life. The all men, in that verse, is all of God's elect. Because it cannot be that all
men has the free gift of righteousness. So the all men that came under
condemnation is those, there's lots and lots of people in this
world that's not condemned. They don't feel condemned. They're
going to face God not feeling condemned. I've known lots of
people that's went out into eternity, tried to talk to them, and they
didn't need salvation, they didn't need Christ. So the condemnation
that comes upon a man, it only comes upon him by the grace of
God. God's got to make a man feel
his condemnation. He's got to make a man feel his
guilt. And the man that feels that guilt and that condemnation,
that's the man that the free gift of grace and righteousness
comes upon. So it's the same people in Romans
5.18. For by one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one, shall
many be made righteous. Moreover, where the law entered,
that the offense might abound to show us how awful sin is.
But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And that's
what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the nature
of grace. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. Now, I just love the word grace.
I just like to use the word. I like to talk about the word. Grace is a charming sound. Amazing
grace, how sweet the sound. I mean, grace is a wonderful
word, a blessed word, a beautiful word. It's a word that comprehends
more than you and I can ever grasp in our lifetime. Been thinking
about it, talking about it, trusting God's grace in Christ. We just
rejoice in the grace of God. But here we have sin abounding.
But where sin abounding, grace much more, much more abounds
in our Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you, no matter how
much sin is present, here's what this is saying, no matter how
much sin is present, The grace that comes from God through our
Lord Jesus Christ is immeasurable. It's like taking a whole bucket
of water to put out a match. That's how much grace abounds
overseas. And you look at how it abounded
over people's lives in the Scriptures. Mary Magdalene, look how sin
abounded over her sin. This is a woman who had seven
devils. Can you imagine how mean a woman is and how awful a woman
is and what kind of character she had if she had seven devils
in her? And then you know, but were her sin abounded? Look what
grace did. Put her at the feet of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Made her sit at His feet and
wash His feet with her tears. Dry them
with her hair. And Zacchaeus, a thief, charged
men way too much and got wealthy doing it. But the whole house
of grace abounded over his sin and called him down out of that
tree and said, Today, salvation... Well, if you'll let me, I'll
come and give it to you. No, he says, Salvation must, must
come to this house today. And oh my, Simon Peter, oh Lord,
I'll die with you. I'll die with you. I'll go to
prison with you, I'll die with you. I know that's in your heart
to do that, Simon Peter, but that's not what you're going
to do. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And
let me tell you what, now sin is horrible. Sin is an awful
thing. And it's a grave grief to us,
and that's part of the covenant of grace that God causes us to
loathe our sin. And sin is horrible, but where
it abounds, grace superabounds, overflows. And I want to talk
about the nature of grace, if I can, just a few minutes this
morning. Somebody is going to have to tell me when 30 minutes
is up. Because this thing is counting
backwards. It is starting at 5 hours and
going backwards. So, you know, we don't want to
go by that. Somebody just raise a finger.
Will you do that stand? But let me just talk about the
nature of grace. Grace is God acting freely. Acting freely. Grace is God acting
according to His nature of love. Now, you know, men say that God, you know, He can love everybody,
but I do know this. And He could have damned the
whole human race. But no, I don't believe He could have. And the
reason He couldn't have is because He acts according to His nature,
and His nature is a nature of love. God is love. And He has to act, and love has
to act according to its nature. And God acts freely in His love. Now you and I, and love must
be man-affected, it must be acted out. Now you and I aren't free
to love whom we will. We aren't. We fall in love with
people. We can't just freely say, I'm going to love that person
there and not know anything about them, not know anything about
their character. But God in His grace acts freely to us and He
has the ability to love whom He will. And if He loves anybody
at all, it's an act of grace for Him to love that person.
It's an act of His sovereign grace and His blessed grace that
He says, I set my affection on that person. And this was manifested,
the love of God. Not that we love God, but that
He loved us. And what was one of the things
He told us is, you love one another like I loved you. And having
loved His own, He loved them to the very end. And I'll tell
you something about the grace of God. Grace is God loving His
people, every single one of them as individuals. Now that's an
amazing thing to me. You know, I know that there's
people that He loves. He loves His people. But I tell
you to think that He loves you as an individual, as a person.
You! You personally. And He loves
every single one of us personally. He knows us personally. He calls
us by name. He says, My sheep hear My voice
and I call them. And we hear His voice and He
loves us as people without any obligations from us to do anything
about it. So I'm going to love that man.
I'm going to love him. Oh, how Lord? How can you do
that? Because I will to do it. I'll love you freely. That's
what the grace of God is. And grace, I'll tell you something
else about grace. Grace is uncaused in the person
who receives it. Old Scott used to say, it's the
person the recipient. That's what he used to say. Scott
would say, if you're the recipient of the grace of God. Well, if
you receive the grace of God, it's uncaused in anything of
us. The cause of salvation, the cause
of the grace of God, lies in God Himself. God chose us in
Christ before the foundation of the world, and in love He predestinated
to the adoption of children to Himself. And why did He do that? According to the good pleasure
of His will. And that's what it is. People say, why does God do that?
According to the good pleasure of His will. Chose us in Christ. Gave us grace in Christ. And
you look in Ephesians 1 and three times, three times it says, "...to
the praise of the glory of His grace." So everything He does,
He does it so He'll get the glory for His blessed grace. And I
tell you, if you look for cause of grace in you and yourself,
and you never find it. And that's what makes grace so
amazing, so astounding, and overflows, is that grace does not look for
anything from anybody at any time. And if we wait to get worthy
to come to God, whether we know I've got to get fit to pray,
I've got to get fit to do this before I can do... Listen, grace
ain't got nothing to do with that. And I tell you, what's
what I love about the grace of God? It absolutely looks for
nothing from us. And everything we got, it gives
to us. It gives to us. And oh, grace
is sovereign. God has no debts to pay. No debts
to pay whatsoever. I mean, beloved, I say this in
no condition on man's part to wait on. Grace doesn't wait for
us to become worthy. He does something. Now, I do
know this. The only people God's going to
pay wages to is going to be those whose sin refuses to come to
Christ. The wages of sin is death, and
God's going to pay everybody their wages. Everybody's going
to get them. But where we got our wages paid,
and I'll preach that after a while, where we got our wages paid was
in our Lord Jesus Christ. God paid our sin debt, paid our
wages off, paid for our sin. The wages of sin is death. Christ
died. And God paid the wages of our
sin and our blessed Savior and our substitute. And so He ain't
coming back and saying, now you owe some more. That's what sovereign
grace is. It tells us that God did it all,
all to Him I owe. Sin had left the crimson stain.
He washed it. Why? Just know. And I tell you
what, and here's the thing about grace. Grace can act toward whom
it will. and how it will, and where it
will, and whether it pleases. It can manifest itself in a church
house and just reach one person. It can manifest itself on the
Damascus road. It can manifest itself toward
a thief on a cross standing beside our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace
can manifest itself anytime it pleases, and I'll tell you what,
for whom it pleases. Two men on the side of Him. But
grace was only manifested toward one. Right? You know how many tax collectors
there was in Zacchaeus' day? But grace only comes to Zacchaeus. And that's what's so wonderful
about the Gospel. You never know when God's going to come in grace
and go poof! There it is. Oh, there it is. Oh, my. It can take the worst
person and put him in the highest place. It can take a Saul of
Tarsus and make Him the Apostle of all. And I'll tell you, it
can pass by a multitude or save just one. And grace can save
3,000 at one time. It can save one at one time.
And whenever God saves a man, whether it's 3,000 or one at
a time, He saves every single one of them as an individual.
All that 3,000 that got converted in Jerusalem, When Peter preached on the day
of Pentecost, there were 3,000 converted that day, but God saved
every single one of them by themselves. They all experienced the grace
of God for themselves. Oh, they didn't look at one another
and say, I didn't get saved. No, God dealt with them. And
I tell you what, here's another thing about the grace of God.
Grace cannot act where there's any ability. Grace cannot act where there's
any ability. If there's any ability, then
there ain't no grace. Is that right? Grace doesn't just help a person.
We need heaps of more than help. We need life. We need saving
every day. We need the grace of God all
the time. I need Thee, I need Thee, O precious
Jesus, I need You every hour, I need You. Well, listen, I heard
an old fellow say, every moment I need You, O blessed Savior,
every moment I need You. You see, beloved, grace don't
help. We need more help. Grace does it all or it does
nothing. Grace, God gets all the glory,
you don't get nothing. And grace saves us from start
to finish. If I take my last step in this
world, it'll be just like I took my first one as a believer by
the grace of God. If I see God by faith now, and
if I ever see God face to face, and I'll see Him by the grace
of God. When I get there and you get
there, nobody will be able to say, I got here because I did. You'll get there because He did.
He did. And oh, bless His name. And since
there's no cause, that's why God should show grace to us.
I quit looking. There's no sense looking. Oh
my! And God gives us grace because,
no, no, there never is a because. Never is a because. It's there
if there's ever a because, it ceases to be grace. And the minute,
the minute, the moment you add anything to what Christ did,
Or add anything good thought that you have to the grace of
God. The Scripture tells us in Galatians 5.4, you have fallen
from grace. People think you've got to go
out here and commit some awful sin to fall from grace. All you've
got to do is just add a good thought and say, boy, oh boy,
God's going to bless me for that. No. God blesses us for Christ's
sake and the grace of God He gave us in that. You know, people
say, God's going to bless me because I got up at 4 o'clock
this morning and prayed. Listen, you should have just
slept if you think God's going to bless you for getting up. Sleep until 7 or 8 o'clock. Because
He ain't going to bless you at 4 o'clock in the morning or 4
o'clock in the afternoon for anything you do. If He blesses
us, He blesses us in Christ for Christ's sake and because of
the grace He gave us in Christ. Oh, I tell you. Let me tell you
something else about the grace of God, talking about His nature.
Grace produces humility. Grace produces humility. When
God makes a man to understand that we are the objects of His
free grace, His blessed, blessed grace, it humbles us like nothing
else could ever do. And it puts us down, and it will
not let us get back up. He won't let you get up. As old
Scott used to say all the time, you know, He puts you in the
dust and He makes the dust your headquarters and stay right there.
I'm telling you, God puts us, and I'll tell you what, and this
is the thing about it, we want God to keep us down. Lord, You
keep me down. I have no ability. You know,
what in the world would a man do with a task like this? To take the Word of God and face
a congregation And you come here, you say, Lord, please open my
heart that I can hear, and open my ears that I can receive, and
please use your Gospel for me today. Because we know that we
are to have no sufficiency or no ability, no strength. If Christ
is not our strength, who's going to be our strength? We have none. And so our Lord Jesus Christ,
and why does He bring us to such humility? Because we're absolutely
brought to know our unworthiness. Unworthiness. In my hands, no
price I bring. Lord, Thy power and Thine alone
can cleanse the leper's spot and melt the heart of stone. God's the only one that can take
out the heart of stone and put in a heart that can feel and
be touched. Then, oh my, let me ask you this,
were we worth our Lord Jesus Christ coming into this world?
Were we worth our Lord Jesus Christ being despised and rejected
of men? Were we worthy of our Lord Jesus
Christ coming and being so horribly treated at the hands of sinners
like ourselves? Were we worthy of our Lord Jesus
Christ bearing our sin in His own body on the tree? Were we
worthy of that? Were we worthy of Him shedding
His blood unto death? Of Him crying out from the cross,
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Jacob said it this way, Lord,
I'm not worthy of the least of Thy tender mercies. And that's what grace does. It
makes you know what you really truly are. And the thing about
this, you don't ever get no better. No better. I've been pastor of
the same church 36 years last March. And I don't know how in
the world they put up with me 36 years. How does this happen? How does it happen? Grace, grace,
grace, grace. We're not worthy. We're brought
to know our complete inability to become worthy in any way.
I'm undone. I'm unclean. And yet, beloved,
We find ourselves blessed on another principle outside ourselves. Grace, grace, grace, free, sovereign
grace. Amen. What else can we do? What else can we do? Come to
God in Christ. Thank God for the grace of God.
Oh, I tell you, amazing grace. Save the rest like me. You want
me to turn this on?