Grace

Q: What does the Bible say about God's grace?

The Bible describes God's grace as His unmerited favor towards sinners, which is essential for salvation. In Ephesians 1, we see that God's grace is foundational to our salvation. It is characterized as unmerited, undeserved favor that God bestows upon those He has chosen. The essence of grace is that it comes from God and is not contingent upon human efforts or worthiness. This grace encompasses various aspects, such as electing grace, justifying grace, and effectual grace, assuring believers that they are accepted in the Beloved, that is, in Jesus Christ, through whom they are redeemed and reconciled to God.

Q: How do we know God's sovereignty is true?

The Bible consistently affirms God's sovereignty in creation, salvation, and history, demonstrating that He rules over all. Sovereignty is a key theme throughout Scripture, indicating that God is in full control of all things. Ephesians 1 highlights that God has predestined believers according to His sovereign will before the foundation of the world. This means that every aspect of life, including salvation, is orchestrated by God for His glory and purposes. His sovereignty assures believers that nothing happens outside of His divine providence, ultimately leading to the culmination of His eternal plan in Christ.

Q: Why is God's grace important for Christians?

God's grace is vital for Christians because it is the source of salvation and assurance of eternal life. For Christians, God's grace is the foundation of their faith and salvation. In Ephesians 2:8, it states, 'For by grace you have been saved through faith.' This grace is not merely a concept but is the very means by which believers are redeemed, justified, and assured of their inheritance in Christ. Understanding and embracing the nature of God's grace keeps Christians grounded in the truth of the Gospel, reminding them that their salvation is entirely due to God's work, rather than any personal merit. It instills hope and confidence that leads to a life of gratitude and worship.

Q: What does effectual grace mean?

Effectual grace refers to God's saving grace that actively brings about the salvation of those He has chosen. Effectual grace is a specific aspect of God's grace that ensures the salvation of the elect. Unlike a mere offer of grace that can be accepted or rejected, effectual grace guarantees that those whom God has chosen will ultimately respond to the Gospel and come to faith. This is articulated in Ephesians 1, where Paul speaks of how those chosen by God are predestined to be adopted as His children. Effectual grace is not only about God's love and kindness; it is about His power working within the hearts of sinners to bring them to repentance and faith in Christ, ensuring that His divine purpose is fulfilled.

Q: Why do we need salvation by grace?

Salvation by grace is necessary because all humans are sinners and cannot achieve righteousness on their own. The need for salvation by grace stems from the reality of human sinfulness and the inability to attain righteousness through works. Romans 3:23 assures us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Therefore, by grace, God offers salvation as a gift, making it accessible to those who trust in Christ. Ephesians 2:8 emphasizes that we are not saved by our works but by God's grace through faith. This underscores the necessity of grace for salvation, providing hope and a path for reconciliation with God, which would be unattainable due to our sinful nature.

Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians
chapter one. Ephesians chapter one. I get so tired of arguing and
defending against the heresy of our day. And I catch myself
preaching and teaching and talking defensively and writing to prove
the truth rather than just rejoicing in it. You ever catch yourself
doing that? Just to try to prove things to
people rather than just rejoicing in it. But the reason being is
because so many people are perverting the truth. So very many people
are taking the Scriptures and perverting them and twisting
them and misapplying them so as to take all of the comfort
and the truth out of the Scriptures. And they twist it and take all
of the joy out of it, and so I catch myself defending the
Scriptures more than just rejoicing in them, in preaching and so
forth. Because men take these truths
that we rejoice in, such as God's sovereignty, which is my hope. It's what I rejoice in, that
my all-wise, all-powerful God has me in his hands. and he's
too wise to err, and he will do what's right, and he's sovereignly
in control of all things, and that I'm in his hands, and he
cannot fail, his promises do not fail. This is my hope, God's
sovereignty. But they and men reduce God to
an impotent, sentimental servant of man, don't they? And then
they take something like the love of God. which if the Spirit
of God ever gets a hold of you with the love of God, it'll thrill
you. And it'll amaze you that God Almighty would love such
a creature as we are, creatures as we are. And they cheapen it.
But they take this love and they cheapen it so as to remove all
the effectualness of God's love, remove the sweetness of it. And
it's of no more value to me than the men that talk about it, Put
on these silly smiles and say, God loves you, and so do I. And
I don't want their love, and I don't want that love that they're
speaking of from that God, because it can't save, it can't do anything
for me. And men take the atonement of
Christ, which is my hope of glory. It's all my hope of salvation,
the atonement of Christ, that when God Almighty sees the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, He passes over my sin sick soul.
that he, uh, he pardons me because of that blood. And they take
that blood and they so abuse it and make it to be an attemptment
rather than an atonement to where it saves nobody. And it takes
all the comfort out of it. And they make Christ just another
pathetic martyr and leave men helpless and hopeless, really,
before the Holy God. And nothing, though, and if you've
already guessed what the the subject of our message is. Nothing
is more abused in this day than the grace of God Almighty. Nothing. Everybody's talking
about it, but they're mostly abusing it. And it aggravates
me the way men speak of God's grace, but I like these songs
we sing. These old writers, they knew
something about God's grace, and they glorified God's grace.
That's what Brother Henry prayed. He kept praying about God's grace.
The song says grace is a charming sound, a charming, the song says
amazing grace. Men are speaking about grace,
but those who really know something about God's grace are speaking
of amazing grace, marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, the
song says. The song says, oh, to grace how
great a debtor, daily, daily I'm constrained. to be, that
is, I'm a debtor to God's grace for everything I am, everything
I have, every moment of my life, the air I breathe, the water
I drink, the food I eat, everything. Yet our generation has taken
this blessed, blessed truth and turned it into a pitiful offer
of God Almighty, just throwing it out there for whoever wants
it can have it. And it really doesn't do anybody
any good anyway. I don't know why anybody would
want it. Throw it out there for anybody to accept or reject,
and it makes me angry. And here I am defending against
it again in the very thing I started out talking about. But I can't
help but fight it and come down hard upon it. Can't do it. Because
God's sovereign, saving, effectual grace is like I told you yesterday. It's my security blanket. And
if you take it away from this baby, I'll be kicking and screaming
and crying. Don't take it away, I need it
all my life, God's grace. You see, modern religion is ignorant
of the term, totally ignorant of the word grace. They don't
even know what the word means. They've got it totally misconstrued
and totally misunderstood. The word means this, out of the
dictionary, unmerited favor. That is, it's something you get
for doing nothing. It goes a little deeper than
that, though. Undeserved favor. Undeserved, unearned, unsought
for, unworked for, condescending kindness, unworthy benevolence. I like that. Yet men today see
it as a mere token of God's love, of God's offer to all. but effectual or beneficial to
none. But that's not what the Scripture
says. The Scripture says salvation is by his grace. Salvation is
by his grace. That's what we read there in
Ephesians 2 verse 8. You're saved. By grace you're
saved. Our salvation depends totally
upon the grace of God. The sovereign grace of God. And
when we talk about the sovereign grace, all of our churches go
We preach what is called the sovereign grace of God. And what
we mean by the sovereign grace of God is the all-powerful grace
of God, that which actually does something, or that God actually
does something. We mean eternal grace, that it
never had a beginning or an end, never will have an ending. We
talk about loving grace, grace that actually loves and does
something for the objects of its affection. We talk about
electing grace, electing grace. Get grace that chooses. We talk
about calling grace, grace that calls. No man will come unless
God, by his grace, will call. We talk about justifying grace,
grace that will take me all the way to the throne of glory and
make me holy and unblameable, unreprovable before God Almighty. We talk about sanctifying grace,
grace that cuts me out from the herd, that takes me out from
amongst them. that stops my wild career. We
talk about giving grace, grace that gives us everything we have,
everything, or else we'd have nothing. We talk about keeping
grace. We're kept by his power, by his
grace. We talk about effectual grace,
effectual saving grace is what we talk about when we talk about
sovereign grace. Grace that actually does something,
not offers to help, but actually does something. That's what we
talk about. Well, look here in Ephesians 1. I want you to look
at what God's Word says about his grace with me. Let's just
do a little exposition here of Ephesians 1. Look here in verse
1 with me. Paul, an apostle, that is, a
messenger, an ambassador, a herald of the Lord Jesus Christ, a proclaimer
of the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ, of his gospel. He says,
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. You've got
to start right there. Everything starts there. Everything
begins there with the will of God. And Paul says, I'm an apostle
by the will of God. And he says, to the saints which
are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Why is anybody
called a saint? Why does anybody remain faithful
to the truth? the will of God through his grace,
verse 2, because grace be unto you. Grace be unto you. Grace to you and peace from God
our Father. Grace comes from God, and it
is from and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace from God
because God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit decided one
day to be gracious and to give it to whomsoever they will, for
a doomed race that could not do for itself. what they so desperately
needed to save, to save, to save and to make peace. It says, Grace
be unto you and peace from God our Father. And God We've been reconciled to our
Father by the blood of Jesus Christ Christ. He made peace
by the blood of his cross. And you see, the scripture says,
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and we've
rebelled against our Maker, and we are the very enemies of God
Almighty. We've rebelled against him from
day one, did not like to retain God in our knowledge, didn't
like to think of Him. When we knew something of God's
power, we didn't think about God. Neither were thankful. That's
all of us by nature, but grace. And what I'm getting at is the
terms and conditions of this grace and this peace have to
come from God Almighty. They're not in our hands. They're
not in our hands. Grace has to come from God. That is, acceptance, pardon,
freedom, justification, and peace has to come from God because
he's the one we've offended. Favor, forgiveness, reconciliation,
all has to come from God. It's not in our hand to make
peace with God, because he's the offended one. And he's the
only one, like a great king, can say, I freely pardon you,
I forgive you. There is peace between us. How?
Not by just up and saying, I forgive you. but by Jesus Christ, making
peace by shedding his blood and paying the price. And that was
through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying here.
Grace be to you. That is, God has graciously given
you the gift of salvation and broken down that middle wall
of partition and made peace or access with this Holy Father
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And blessed, and Paul
says so, blessed Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Blessed be His name. The song
says, showers of blessing. Showers of blessings we need.
Mercy drops round us. That's what we need more than
anything, is God's mercy. Mercy drops round us, our Father.
And all the blessings of God Almighty, look at it. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places or things,"
where is it? It is in Christ. All the blessings
of God Almighty are in the Lord Jesus Christ, all spiritual blessings.
The scripture says, "...in him dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead in a body." And we've received of his fullness, grace
for grace, everything we possibly need. Wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, redemption, heavenly things. You see that? Heavenly
things. We've got all the temporal things
we need, but we need something from God to make us fit partakers
of the inheritance of the same. We need to be made fit or meet
to be partakers or to dwell in God's holy presence. So God alone
can give this. And it all comes through Christ.
Fit partakers of the inheritance of the same. And it's all according
to God's sovereign electing grace. Verse 4. It's in Christ, and
it's all because God has chosen us in him. According as he has
chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world. I say this over and over again,
but Barnard said God loved Christ so much that he wanted a whole
big family just like him. Just like him. How is Christ?
How is he? And how does he intend for us
to be like Christ? Well, look at it, verse 4. That
we should be holy. He's holy. His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, is highly approved, holy, well-beloved, God-honoring,
the obedient Son of God. And every one of his children
are going to be just like him. We're being conformed to his
blessed image. and without blame before him
in love." Loving God because he first loved us. And verse
5, because he predestinated us. He predestinated us under the
adoption of children. This is what you'd call planned
parenthood. And God Almighty decides who
and how many. Something like, we try, sometimes
they slip up on us, but God Almighty knows exactly how many he's going
to have, because he determined before the foundation of the
world who would be his children. Predestinated them under the
adoption of children. You see, God only has one son
of his. so to speak, of his person, the
seed of God. Only one begotten son, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. Every one of us are wild asses,
coach, sons of the devil, and he has to adopt us. He has to adopt us, and we are
not in on that adoption board when he does. We weren't even
around when this happened. That council It says there, that
council took place long before this whole thing began, before
the foundation of the world, before the foundation of the
world. And this council consisted of basically three people, God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God the
Father is the one who decided to have a family. God the Son
is the one who agreed to come purchase, pay the purchase price
and redeem this family. And God, the Holy Spirit, is
the one who agreed to apply this redemption to his people, apply
this blood to their souls and to give them faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ and what he's done. According, it's all according
as God has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before him
in love, having predestinated us under the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ. And why did he do it? Well, it
says, only one reason, actually, according to the good pleasure
of his own will, just simply because he decided to do so.
Just simply because he decided to do so. And according to God's
infinite wisdom and his all-power and his all-wise plan, he did
For that reason, and to this end, verse 6, to the praise of
the glory of his grace. It's all going to work out for
his ultimate praise and glory. And God didn't do it because
of any intrinsic worth that he saw in us, or any foreseen faith
in us, but simply because he decided to do so. God doesn't
need human beings. It's not like Oral Roberts said,
that God was lonely, so he created Adam. God that we don't need
grasshoppers, do we? And God, that's what he likens
us to over in the book of Isaiah. But he did all this to the praise
of the glory of his grace, that we might sing of his praises
forevermore, that we might sing unto him, unto him, unto him
who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. And
wherein, and it's in this grace of his, this glorious grace that
he's made us Accept it. Accept it. This generation will have us
to believe that God's the one on trial, that he's up for acceptance
or rejection. You hear them say it all the
time. They close out almost all of their messages by saying,
won't you accept Jesus as your personal Savior? And nowhere
in the Bible does it say that, any such thing. But it says we're
the ones that need to accept it. We're the ones that need
to be accepted. And there is only one place of
acceptance, that is in the Beloved, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Why?
Well, notice with me, have you noticed how that everything is
in Christ? Look at verse 1, in Christ Jesus,
to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Verse 3, God has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings and heavenly things in Christ. Verse 4, according
as he has chosen us in Christ. Christ, verse 6, that we should
be to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath
made us accepted in the Beloved. Verse 7, in whom we have redemption. Verse 8, wherein he hath abounded
toward us. Verse 10, all things are in Christ,
even in him. Verse 11, in whom? Verse 12,
in Christ. Verse 13, in whom? In whom? In Christ. All the blessings
of God are in Christ. Let me illustrate this. I may
have told this before, but God Almighty loves His Son
supremely, above all else. Now, it's not wrong of God to
do that, because He can do it if He wills to do so. But His
Son really is the only one worthy of loving. Nobody else is. His
Son is. But much in the same way that
you people love your children above other children. Now, you're
a liar if you say you don't. A bunch of kids walk in the room
and you see who you make over and who your eyes light up toward,
your own children. But God Almighty loves his Son
supremely more than anybody else. That's right. More than anybody
else. And everything and everyone is
going to be predetermined, predestined, conformed, or in relation to
God's plan for his son. Now, you people, you make plans
for your children, don't you? We mold and shape and plan and
purpose our lives around our children. We do now. Yes, we
do. You were talking about it yesterday,
about putting money back so your grandson can go to college. Everything we do is for our children.
But our children are really no better. We don't have the right
to love ours any more than anybody else, because they're all the
same. But God's Son is the well-beloved, holy, righteous Son. He's worthy of God's love. He's worthy of it. And God loves
only those that he considers in his Son, in Christ. Let me
illustrate that. One time, years ago, my brother
was killed in Vietnam back in 1969. And a few years after that,
we were sitting in the house. I was living at home, and somebody
knocked on the door, and my dad answered the door. And there
was a real scruffy-looking fellow, real ragged and torn clothing
and real dirty and several days' growth of beard. And I believe
he smelled like he'd been drinking or something, a real rough-looking
fellow. And he said, Are you Mr. Mahan, Reverend Mahan? And
he said, Yes, yes, I am. He said, Well, I'm kind of...
He began telling his hard luck story. how he was down and out
and needed some money and so forth. And Dad's first inclination
was not to, you know, just put him off, maybe give him a few
dollars and go on. But as he talked a little while,
he finally said to my father, he said, you know, I was over
in Vietnam and I knew Robin. I knew your son. I was over there
with him. My dad's eyes lit up then. invited him in the house, this
old scruffy, dirty, no good fellow, invited him in the house. Why?
Because he related him to his sons, whom he loved supremely,
who died, who died. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the well-beloved, only begotten Son of God Almighty. And he loves
you not because you're lovely. Oh, no, we're unlovely, altogether
unlovely. But as he sees you in Christ,
as he relates you, And you're represented by the Lord Jesus
Christ, and everything God has for us is in the Lord Jesus Christ,
in Christ. Verse 7, because it's in him,
in him that we have redemption, redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sin, and it's all according to the riches of
his grace. In him we have redemption according to the riches of his
grace. Now, I'm not trying to make you think that God is hesitant
to give out his grace, because he's got a lot more than will
ever be used up. But God delights to show mercy. He's plenteous in mercy and grace. He doesn't hoard his grace, but
it says in verse 8, he's abounded toward us, wherein he's abounded
toward us in all wisdom and prudence. But it's in Christ that we have
redemption. through his blood. Christ's blood
actually paid the price that our sins demanded with this holy
God. He paid the price. He redeemed
us from the curse of the law by his broken body and shed blood. And we now have forgiveness,
not just forgiveness, but our sins are gone, washed in the
blood, put away. Like they're put on the head
of that scapegoat and laid out in the wilderness, and when Christ
went somewhere for three days after he went into the tomb,
I don't know where he went, but wherever he went, he put our
sins away, behind God's back or wherever. And it's all according
to the riches of his grace, and it's in his grace he's abounded
toward us in all wisdom, abounded. That's what we just sang about.
Marvelous, infinite, abounded toward us. The scripture talks
about unsearchable riches. We'll never fathom these depths,
the depths of God's grace. Innumerable blessings. There
are too many. David said, if I should try to number them,
there are more than I can number. They are over my head. I can't
even quit counting. An unspeakable gift, the scripture
says. His son. He that spared not his
own son. but delivered him up for us all.
How should he not freely with him give us all things? All things. He gave us the best, didn't he? Well, he can't do any more. Abounded
toward us. It says in all wisdom, wisdom. Have you ever received a gift
at Christmas time or for your birthday or whatever that you
didn't need? I know you fathers have. if you
wear ties or whatever you can receive a big polka dotted tie
from your kid or whatever. I remember when I was about 10
or 11 years old I was watching TV and they came on with one
of these advertisements for a tomato electric tomato slicer by Ronco. You know that company that that
sells anything and everything is an electric tomato slicer.
And boy, that guy got that thing, and he made it look so good. And I secretly sent off and got
that thing. I'm going to get it for Mom for
Christmas, you know. That thing came in, and Oh, I
was so excited I wanted her to have that, you know. And we got
it over there to sink, got a big nice ripe tomato, and just, that
thing just exploded. It just, it didn't work. It wouldn't
work. I think she cut her fingers with
it and everything. It was worthless. But God, God
never gives anything we don't need. Everything he does is on
purpose, and it's absolutely the best thing you could have.
everything, and his gift, the gift of his son, was the greatest,
the wisest, the most wonderful gift he could have ever given.
Just what we need. Just what we need, and just in
the nick of time. Just when we need it most, the psalm says.
Wisdom and prudence, God's wise gift. We don't need, we've got,
he told us to pray for daily bread. That's about all we need
in this life, food and rain. But we sure need his mercy evermore. We sure need his grace. We sure
need the blood of Christ to atone for our sins, to make propitiation
for us on the mercy seat. We need redemption. We need wisdom. We need all these things that
come in the Lord Jesus Christ. Just what we need. And God graciously
gives it freely. Not because we earn it, but simply
because he decided to do so. Wisdom and prudence, that means
wise dealings. He deals with us so wisely and
so wonderfully. In verse 9, he says, think about
this gift, the gift of God's grace. He's made known unto us
the mystery of his will. There's a lot of people out there
in darkness, aren't there? A lot of people that are deaf
and blind and and lame and haught and ignorant, ignorant of God
Almighty, ignorant of the mystery of God's gospel, the mystery
of His eternal will. But God graciously has let us
in on the secrets of His mind. He let us in on what He's thinking.
He didn't do that for the angels, did He? Not the angels. We looked into that one time
in 1 Peter 1.12, which things the angels desire to look into.
The angels don't really understand what God's people do, because
they haven't been redeemed from their sins. And they desire still,
this day, to look into these things. But God has graciously
let us in on His mind. This is spoken of throughout
the Scriptures, the mystery, the mysteries of the universe,
the mystery of the gospel. The mystery of his will. It's
a mystery. And it's been kept hid from the foundation of the
world. But he's let it, he's let it out to a few choice individuals. Not because they deserved it,
but just simply because, hand-picked. I'm going to let old Terry Kinsley
know what this thing's all about. Why me? Grace. Grace. God's grace. And this is the
most glorious, the gospel, when you think about this, You know,
the natural man receiveth not the things of God that foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them, they are spiritually understood.
And the Spirit, the wind, bloweth where it listeth, and cannot
discern where it comes from, where it's going, and it all
of a sudden just lights on you and reveals to you. Paul went
on to say there in 1 Corinthians, we have the mind of Christ. He's
actually revealed the mind of Christ to us, the mysteries of
the universe that are in the gospel. of God's sovereign grace
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And how this ought to make us
esteem this gospel above all things, that God should let us
in on it, that he lets us in on it, that we're sitting in
on the council halls of eternity. Every time we hear the gospel,
we're sitting in on the council halls of eternity, and that which
God Almighty pricks his ear up to. Yes, he does. It's the story about his son.
And it delights him. It's the mystery of the ages.
And he shows us. He shows us. He doesn't have
to. But he does. I mean, we're wandering
out there and seeing and rebelling, and all of a sudden he just turns
the lights on and brings us in here and closes us and puts us
in our right mind and shows us the mystery here. I want to teach
you something. How this ought to make us esteem this gospel
so highly. And God lets us in on, look at
this, verse ten, that in the dispensation of the fullness
of time, that he, this is the reason he did it, that in the
dispensation, or that is the final fulfillment of time, the
fullness of time, that he might gather together in one all things
in Christ. This is the mystery. That God
is gathering together, and it's what I was trying so futilely
to say a while ago, that everything God has for us, for anybody,
for this whole world, this whole universe, is wrapped up in his
Son, as it relates to his Son. And he's shown us that all things
relate to him, that in the fullness of time he's gathering together. Him on earth, even in Christ. And what this is, I wrote this
down, God's, I'm not being irreverent here, but you'll remember this.
God's showing us his family album, his home movies. You ever go
into anybody's house and they bring out the home movies? Sometimes
you don't want to see them, do you? God's letting us in on it,
and our pictures are there. We see ourselves in this family,
and we want to watch them. We want to get in on this, the
reading of the will. That's what he says in verse
11, "...in whom also we were obtained an inheritance." This
is the reading of the will. This is that trust fund that
God put away for us from the beginning, and he's letting us
have it early, before it's time. He lets us have a little bit
of this trust fund early. Why? Verse 12, and it all relates
back to what we've been talking about, that we should be to the
praise of his glory, his glorious grace, his glorious grace. To the praise of the glory of
his grace, he said in verse 6. In verse 12, the praise of his
glory. Verse 14, to the praise of his
glory, the praise of his glorious person. That's what it's all
about. Who first trusted in Christ. Why does anybody trust in Christ? Why does anybody believe in Christ?
Why does anybody see this one whom they've never seen before
and hear his voice whom they've never heard before and believe
in him who lived so long ago? Grace. God's grace. That's what
we read over there in Ephesians 2, verse 8. By grace, you're
saved. And it's all because of God's
amazing grace, the song said, in whom you also trust it. in
whom you trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, in whom also, after you believed, you were
sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." Now, Brother John
and I were talking about this in the study the other day, that
this generation, they generally take a verse like verse 13 and
put it first, don't they? Talking about faith, talking
about you trusted first. But do you see all that that
led up to this trusting? It all took place in the council
halls of eternity, in God's wisdom, in God's predestinating plan,
in God's choosing, His sovereign electing grace. It all took place
a long time ago. The names were written down a
long time ago. All things were ordered and sure a long time
ago. But in the process of time, we live on this earth. And God shows us the gospel,
and he gives us faith in Christ. By grace, he is saved through
faith. It's just a mere instrument. But this doesn't come first.
Oh, no. Men aren't saved because they
believe. Men believe because they're saved, because God Almighty
chose them to be saved. And he got this in the right
order. And if men would have their way, they'd put verse 13
first, wouldn't they? But that's not the way God did
it. And he spent 12 whole verses to show us that it's all according
to his sovereign eternal plan. And you do trust in him, though.
He doesn't trust for you, but you do trust in him. You trust
in Christ, and it's after you've heard the word of truth. It's
not about hearing just any old, any Jesus. Paul said there's
another Jesus. He said there's another gospel
going around. But the true one, this is eternal life, that they
might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he
sent to get the job done, his effectual, sufficient Savior. And you trust in that Christ
after you heard the word of truth, the sovereign grace of God, the
gospel of your salvation, the good news that you're actually
saved, that he actually saves you. And it's in him, in Christ,
that you believe After you believed, you were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. And I gave Brother John this
illustration. It's kind of like God and God's
plan. It's kind of like us mailing
a package, getting a package together. We buy a gift, we go
out and work for it real hard and earn the money for it and
purchase it and we're going to send it to somebody. This is
God's grace. And we put that gift in a box
and wrap it up and label it and stamp it and so forth and take
it down to the post office. And when they put that stamp
on it, according to the effectual power of the U.S. postal system,
it will reach its destination on it. Why? Because of that stamp
on there. If you don't have a stamp on
it, if they don't stamp Don't put that seal on the U.S. Postal
Service. It's not going anywhere. It'll
be returned. It'll come back to you, returned. But he said,
my worry won't return void. Christ came down here and purchased
our salvation, and this is the gift of God. The gift of God
is eternal life, and the gifts of God are without repentance. God doesn't... He's not an Indian
giver. He doesn't give them just to
get them back again. Oh, no. Christ, in that seal of approval,
is the Holy Spirit of promise. And he bears witness with your
spirit by giving you faith. And that's the seal. That's the
seal that God put on it. And in the final days, we will
be saved because of the effectual working and keeping power of
this Holy Spirit, the seal of the Holy Spirit upon us. We will
reach our destination. and will be presented before
the Holy Father by the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's going to say,
they're all here. Behold, I and the children which you gave me,
which you wrapped up in this eternal package a long time ago
and sealed their name in that Lamb's Book of Life, and this
Holy Spirit which gives us faith in Christ, which convicts us
of our sin and causes us to seek our God all our days. Verse fourteen,
it's the earnest, that's what I was trying to say, there's
the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption, until that
final day, the redemption of the purchased possession, until
He redeems body, soul, and spirit. And it's all, like we've been
trying to say, under the praise of His glory. It's all because
of God's amazing grace. Listen to this, listen to this
song. Ah, but for free and sovereign
grace, I still had lived estranged from God till hell had proved
the destined place of my deserved but dreaded abode. But, oh, amazed
I, I see the hand that stopped me in my wild career. A miracle
of grace I stand. The Lord has taught my heart
to fear. I heard somebody saying that
tonight. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's
God's grace that makes you to fear his name. To fear his name,
to trust his grace, to look to Christ, to learn his will, that
will be my employ. That's what I'm taking up with.
Till I shall see him face to face, himself my heaven, and
himself my joy. And it's all because of his marvelous
saving grace. And I don't know of any better
song to sing than Amazing Grace after that song. Let's sing that. Amazing Grace. And if you can
rejoice in that message, rejoice in God Almighty's sovereign grace,
it's because of his grace. It's all because of his grace.
Amazing grace. That's 236, what that is. 236. You don't need your books,
but stand with me and let's sing a couple of verses. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. But now I'm calm, was blind,
but now I see." Second verse. And how precious did that grace
appear, the hour I first believed. when we've been there ten thousand
years bright shining as the sun We know less days to sing the
praise than when we first begun.

Grace

What does the Bible say about God's grace?

How do we know God's sovereignty is true?

Why is God's grace important for Christians?

What does effectual grace mean?

Why do we need salvation by grace?

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Grace

What does the Bible say about God's grace?

How do we know God's sovereignty is true?

Why is God's grace important for Christians?

What does effectual grace mean?

Why do we need salvation by grace?

Sermon Transcript

About Paul Mahan

Comments

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