Good evening. Let's all stand
together. We'll sing hymn number 314. 314. I am thine, O Lord.
I have heard thy voice, and it told thy love to me. But I long to rise in the arms
of faith and be closer drawn to thee. Draw me nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to the cross where thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to thy precious bleeding side. Let's take it up a little bit.
Consecrate me now to thy service, Lord, by the power of grace divine. Let my soul look up with a steadfast
hope, and my will be lost in thine. Draw me nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to Thy precious bleeding side. Oh, the pure delight of a single
hour that before Thy throne I spend. When I kneel in prayer and with
Thee, my God, I commune as friend with friend. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed
Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to thy precious bleeding side. There are depths of love that
I cannot know till I cross the narrow sea. There are heights of joy that
I may not reach till I rest in peace with Thee. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed
Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to Thy precious bleeding side. Be seated. We'll sing hymn number
70. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Early in the morning Our song
shall rise to Thee Holy, holy, holy Merciful and mighty God
in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, All the saints
adore thee, Casting down their golden crowns Around the glassy
sea. Cherubim and seraphim, falling
down before Thee, which word and heart and evermore shall
be, holy, holy, holy, Though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see, Only Thou
art holy, There is none beside Thee Perfect in power, in love
and purity Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty All thy works
shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea Holy, holy, holy If you have your Bibles with
you this evening, I'd like to read from the book of Hebrews. We'll
read a portion of Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. We'll read the first 18 verses. For the law, having a shadow
of good things to come, and not the very image of the things,
can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year
continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they
not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshipers once
purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those
sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should
take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into
the world, he saith, Sacrifice an offering thou wouldest not,
but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the
volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God,
Above, when he said, Sacrifice and offering, and burnt offerings,
and offering for sin, thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein,
which are offered by the law. Then said he, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. And every priest standeth daily
ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can
never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost also is
a witness to us, For after that, he had said before, this is the
covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their
hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins
and iniquities will I remember no more. Now, where remission
of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Our most high and heavenly Father,
Lord God Almighty, holy and righteous, King of all,
we humbly come into your presence, Lord, through your blessed Son,
Lord Jesus Christ, with humble hearts, Lord, that you've given
us, that you've prepared us, yet boldly at the same time we
come in your blessed Son, Thank you for everything that
you've so freely provided. Everything you've given us. We thank you for your. Holy words
been preserved for us. Or ask that you would. Teach it to us. Teach us that
way. Enable us to. to read your word and to understand
it, Lord, to nourish our souls with it, cause us to grow. Lord, we ask that you would meet
with us tonight as our pastor stands before us
to preach from the word, Lord, that you would reveal it to our
hearts. Let us not meet in vain. Lord, we pray for those who are
weak and weary, those who are troubled. Lord, we have brethren who are
traveling. Ask your mercies be upon them
all. We ask thy mercies be upon us too. Lord, we need your mercy
every moment, every hour, and every day. Father, we ask that you would
keep us or we won't be kept. Let us not flee from the one
thing needful. Keep us coming and cleaving and
believing. Lord, most of all, we ask that
you would save your sheep, wherever they may be. Be with the members
of other congregations, our brothers and sisters, Lord. Some we know
and some we don't. Lord, we pray for them, too, that you bless
their meetings, cause the gospel to go forth. Lord, we pray that that will
be done for Christ's sake. Amen. Hymn number 452. We'll sing the verses, and then
we'll save the chorus for last. On the third verse, we'll say,
in wonder, instead of in pity. In wonder. I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how he could love me, a sinner
condemned unclean. For me it was in the garden,
he prayed not my will but thine. He had no tears for his own griefs,
but sweat drops of blood for mine. In wonder angels beheld
him and came from the world of light. To comfort him in the
sorrows he bore for my soul that night. He took my sins and my
sorrows. He made them his very own. He bore the burden to Calvary
and suffered and died alone. When with the ransomed in glory
His face I at last shall see, T'will be my joy through the
ages, Tears sing of His love for me. How marvelous, how wonderful,
and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful
is my Savior's love for me. Romans chapter 5, Romans chapter
5 this evening. I want to start here in verse
17, but I want to talk about grace tonight. I want to deal
with grace, free grace, God's grace, amazing grace. Start here in verse 17. I'll
comment as I go to get where I want to go. For if by one man's
offense, or by one offense, it says in the margin, by one offense,
by one sin, By one man's sin, death reigned by that one offense,
by that one sin. And by that one man, much more.
Now listen to this, and this is one of the apostles' way of
describing things. He says, If that's what happened,
much more. I'm going to tell you what happened
for us. They receive abundance of grace. One sin is an offense. But we receive abundance of grace. And listen to this, and the gift
of righteousness by one, Jesus Christ. We lost by one man's
one sin, but we get an abundance of grace and a gift of righteousness
by the Lord Jesus Christ. Abundance, one ruined us, but
we get an abundance of grace. And then look what he goes on
to say. Therefore, as by the offense of judgment, of condemnation
come upon all men to condemnation. Even so, even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free grift came upon all men unto justification of
life." Now, I want to try to show you something here if I
can. When it says there in verse 18, Therefore as by the offense
of one judge came it upon all men to condemnation. Now, That means, I believe that that's
just the elect that he's talking about because he says the same
thing in the latter part of the verse. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men under the justification
of life. We know that all men are not justified. We know that
all men don't have the gift of life. So I think to all men there
is all of God's elect, all of us came under the same condemnation.
We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But
yet it says, you know, we received the righteousness of one, a free
gift, a free gift came upon all men under justification of life. So it can't be ALL MEN ARE LOST,
AND THEN ALL MEN ARE JUSTIFIED, SO YOUVE GOT TO FIGURE OUT WHO
ARE THOSE ALL MEN THAT HES TALKING ABOUT. IS THIS THE SAME ALL MEN
IN BOTH INSTANCES? I THINK IT IS. AND THEN LOOK
WHAT HE SAYS HERE NOW. IN VERSE 19, FOR BY ONE MANS
DISOBEDIENCE, MANY WERE MADE SINNERS. SO BY THE OBEDIENCE
OF ONE SHALL MANY BE MADE RIGHTEOUS. He takes it from all men to many. One man's disobedience made sinners,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. And this
is the reason, he says, this is the reason that God gave the
law and the law entered. The law came into existence that
the offense or the sin might abound, but wherever sin abounded,
I don't care how much this sin of offense was, and the law made
this fence to abound, but where sin abounded, grace, grace did
much more abound. You think sin abounded, grace
makes sin, I don't care how many there are, it does away with
them, abounds over them. And that's, he goes on to say,
as sin hath reigned unto death, Even so might grace now reign
through the righteousness of God Almighty given to us in Christ
unto eternal life by Jesus our Lord. But look there where it
says sin abounded, grace did much more abound. You know, the
Scriptures tells us very, very plainly about salvation being
of grace. But I love the word grace. Grace
is just a charming sound. There's not one more wonderful
word in the Bible than grace, if you understand it. And grace,
what a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful word. And grace is
a comprehensive word. It covers more than you, where
sin over here abounds. But grace comes along, and it
s like a match, and you take a whole bucket of water to put
out that match, and I ll tell you what, no matter how much
sin abounded, grace SUPER-abounded over that sin and done away with
it, and what a comprehensive word! And in these verses we
have a great, great contrast where sin abounded, we have grace
much more abounded. We have judgment because of sin. We have righteousness as a free
gift. And sin reigns unto death. You
know, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God, the gift
of God is eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ. And oh,
it's abundance of grace. And I tell you what, where sin
abounded, grace abounded much more. And I tell you where sin
abounded, grace completely overflowed that sin. No matter how much
sin is present, the grace that comes from God Almighty through
Christ is immeasurable. You can't measure it. What you
read tonight, it says you know that Christ, God said, I had
no sacrifice for sin. I had no pleasure in them. The
blood of bulls and goats can't put away sin. But this man, by
one offering, came to do the will of God, and by that will,
by that will of God, Christ came and put away sin once, once,
for all time and all eternity and for all his people. Oh my. I tell you, Grace, Grace, what
a wonderful, you know how many people you go through the Bible
and see what Grace has done for them? Mary Magdalene. Everybody's heard about Mary.
There's Christ, Mary's mother, there's another Mary, but Mary
Magdalene is the most notorious woman in the Bible. What made
her notorious? Well, she had seven devils, seven
of them. That means she is pretty rough.
She is pretty mean. She is probably about half crazy
or worse than that. She don't tell them what kind
of woman that people, what kind of reputation she had. But oh
my. when Christ came to her and saved
her by His grace, everywhere you find her from then on, she's
around Christ, she's following Christ, she's at the foot of
Christ, she's worshiping Christ, waiting on Christ, serving Christ,
fixing meals for Christ. Once God done something for her,
she never got over it. She's been in glory all these
years. All these millennium, and there's
Zacchaeus. He was a thief, said he was. He said, I'll restore fourfold
what I've taken. He was up a tree, and Christ
said, Zacchaeus, come down. Why? Because salvation has come
to your house today. And he didn't say, I sure would
like to come home with you. He said, I must abide at your
house today. I must. And there was nobody
meaner Nobody hated Christ more. Nobody wanted to put Christians
out of business more than Paul, Saul of Tarsus. I mean, he'd
already put women in jail, already put men in jail, already had
punished and served and mistreated God's people for a long time. He was a Pharisee and he was
on his way to get a whole bunch of folks and bring them back
up to Jerusalem and put them in jail. But God said, today's the day. The hour has come. Oh my, a light
brighter than the sun. Shown on him. And listen, Clay
Curtis preached a message here one time, The Blessing of Blindness.
And what a blessing it was that God struck Saul of Tarsus blind. He became blind to his self-righteousness,
blind to his Phariseeism. He became blind to everything
that he ever trusted in, and when God opened his eyes, the
Scriptures tells us he went straight away and preached him whom he
once persecuted. That's what you call grace. That's
what you call grace. Oh, my. Simon Peter. Oh, my goodness. He was a mess. He was a mess.
And I tell you, he bragged to the Lord Jesus, I'll die with
you, I'll go to prison with you. And then he fell and denied the
Lord three times. But oh, did our Lord deny him?
Did our Lord forsake him? Did our Lord say, no, no, you
know what our Lord did? Simon, Simon, do you love me? Oh Lord, I do. Simon, Simon,
do you love me? I do. Simon, Simon, do you love
me? Lord, you know. Oh my, even those who nailed
our Lord Jesus Christ to the tree, he said, Father, forgive
them. They don't know what they're
doing. And there was a multitude of sinners forgiven by that one
prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ. Sin is awful. Sin is black. Sin is despicable. Sin, no excuse
for sin. No justification for sin. But
where it, sin abounds, grace super abounds. Grace overflows. So let's look at grace. Let's
look at grace. I think I got six points. Six
points. And let me tell you the first
thing, a point about grace. Grace is God acting freely. Grace is God acting freely. What
do I mean that? God acting according to His nature. God acting according to His nature
of love. You know, say, God don't have
to love. Yes, He does. God is love. And where there's love, and God
is love. He's not a God of love, He is
love. And when you got a God who is love, that love must be
expressed. It must be brought out. It must
be expressed. And it has to be expressed freely. And I tell you, according to
the nature of love. He said, you know, Hosea said
like this, I will love them freely. Grace is God acting freely. And
I'll tell you, and then he said, God spared not his own son, but
will he not also with him freely, freely give us all things, being
justified freely by his grace? And love must be manifested.
Love must be acted out. You know, you hear people so
stupid, you know, We're free to love. We aren't free. We are
not free to love whom we would. A man that would love three or
four women more as much as he did his wife, you'd say, that's
a sorry man. He's not a man, this would be
impossibility for him to do that. And we aren't free to love whom
we will. We fall in love with people,
with individuals. And people, we fall in love with
people that God's gave us a love one enough for. But God is free
to love whom He will. You and I are not. But God is
free to love exactly who He wants to. And if God loves anyone,
if God loves anyone, if He loves anyone in this building, anyone
at any time in history, in past history, present, or in future
history, if God loves anyone at all, it has to be an act of
God's grace. has to be. If He loves somebody,
it's an act of grace. It's an act of grace. Oh, my. And I tell you, grace, and grace
is God giving His people as individuals, as individuals. Every one of
us here are individuals. God didn't save us as a group.
He saved every one of us one at a time, one at a time. And God and having loved his people as
individuals, and he does it without any promises or obligation for
us to fulfill. He don't say, I'll love you if
you do this. I'll love you if you do that.
He said, I'm gonna love you. I'm gonna love you and I don't
want nothing back from you. You don't have to do anything
to get me to love you. I'm gonna love you freely. And here s another thing about
His blessed grace. He gives us grace righteously.
What do I mean by that? He gives us grace in light of
what His Son was going to accomplish on the cross. Abraham was a righteous
man thousands of years before Christ went to the cross. God's
ALWAYS viewed His people as righteous in VIEW of our Lord Jesus Christ
dying and establishing righteousness by His death. So when God gives
us grace, He does it on the BASIS of what His Son accomplished
and what He'd do on behalf of us. And oh my, the GIFT of grace! Surely, surely, we did not deserve
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. If I tell you what, if God saved
us righteously, He did it on the basis of what Christ accomplished.
And here's the second thing, second thing. Grace is undeserved
by its recipients. For those who receive it, grace
is absolutely undeserved. Anybody here feels like they
deserve grace? Grace, beloved, its cause lies
completely, wholly, and solely in God Almighty, in Himself.
Look in Ephesians chapter 1 with me. Let s look in Ephesians chapter
1. You know, grace is undeserved
in the ones who receive it. Its cause lies completely, wholly,
and solely in the Giver God Almighty, you know, and look what it says
here in verse 4, According as he hath chosen us in him, in Christ, before the
foundation of the world, now that s a long time ago, that
s for I was, for you was, for Adam was, for anybody was, And
then he says this, and that we should be holy. Oh my. And listen to this, and without
blame, but for him in love, not our love for him, but his love
for us. And listen to this now, having predestinated us under
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, God only had
one son, But He meant to have a multitude of sons that no man
could number, so He adopts them. And the reason adoption is so
we can have the inheritance that Christ has. And listen to why
He did this, having predestinated us according to the good pleasure
of His will. Why'd God do it? Chose us in
Christ for the foundation of the world. It pleased Him to
do it. good pleasure of His will. And oh my, here's another reason
why I done it. To the praise of the glory of
His grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved. Did
you notice that we, did we do anything in any of those things
that was said? Did we do anything? Did we have anything to do with
those three verses deal with? Huh? Did we have anything to
do with that? If a person looks for a cause in themselves, you
won't be able to find it, you won't be able to find it. That's
what makes grace so amazing. It's free, it's free. It comes
to man as they are, and it overflows and super abounds over their
sin. So it's, no, don't look for a
cause. I just can't understand why God
would do that for me, why God would do that for me. That's
why it's called grace, that's why it's called amazing. It is
amazing! And here the third thing is that
grace is sovereign. Grace is sovereign. Now what
in the world do I mean by that? That God has no debts to pay. God has no debts to pay. You
know, if a man works, the scripture says that God has to pay him
off. If a man hath works, he hath work to glory. He hath work
to glory. And if a man wants his wages
for what he's done, God will give him his wages. And the wages
of sin is death. God will pay everybody off, and
I get great comfort out of this, and I've said it, I don't care
what anybody's doing, I don't care how powerful they are, how
nobodies they are, I don't care where they live or what they're
doing, there is absolutely nobody getting by with one thing. God is keeping track. and you
die without Christ, you're going to face the wages of your life,
the wages that God will pay you, just as sure as you live in this
world, He'll pay you your wages. But He don't pay us wages, He
gives us grace. But here's the thing, God puts
no conditions, no conditions on man's part to wait on. Is He waiting on us to do something? Is He waiting on us to become
believers before He can give us grace? Is He waiting on us
to have some faith before He can give us grace? Is He waiting
on us to be obedient, come to services so many times to give
us grace? No, no, no. He does not expect
anything from us whatsoever. He gives it, He gives it, and
He gives us. Oh my, God doesn't wait for us
to become worthy. Oh, to do some kind of an act.
Oh, He don't wait for us to become worthy, it's the unworthy. And
I tell you, grace, grace, God's grace, bless His holy name, God's
grace can act toward whom He will, can act when it will, and
where it pleases Him. it'll come to the person that
God Almighty is pleased to give it to. I tell you what, whether
you're on the road like Paul was, or you're in a church house,
or whether you're in prison, or in a palace, or upon a tree
beside Christ, and you're a thief, Christ got grace, and He gives
it, and if a person waiting to get worthy of it, they'll never
have it. Oh, my. I tell you, he can place
the worst deceivers and the worst sinners in the highest place. He took Saul of Tarsus, a God-hater
and a Christ-rejecter and a Pharisee of Pharisees and made him an
apostle. He took Simon Peter who denied
him and made him to be a lion for the grace of God, a lion
of the gospel of God. Oh, my, it can place the worst,
worstest sinners and those who deserve nothing in the highest
place. You know what old Jacob said
one night after he slept on a pillar and God came to him and laid
hold on him? You know what he said after God
got done with him? He said, I'm not worthy. of the
least, the least, the least of your tender mercies. Whatever
the least mercies you got, I'm not worthy of that. Oh my, I
think he knew something about grace. Oh, it can bypass a multitude. and save one like Zacchaeus up
the tree. Go out into the desert and save
a eunuch and pass by everybody else. Well, there's a revival
going on. He has to go to one eunuch. Our Lord went to one
woman, woman at the well. He comes and gives grace when
you least expect it and to the least person that you would ever
expect him to do. That woman at the well, our Lord
Jesus said, you know, go call your husband. I don't have a
husband. Our Lord said, you're telling the truth. You're really
telling the truth. He said, you've had five of them.
You've had five of them. And the one you're with right
now, that's not your husband. Her eyes got about that big.
She said, oh my. How do you know this? She left her water pot. She walked
off and left. She went there to get water in
the middle of the day because of her reputation. Everybody
goes out early in the morning, late in the evening, but she
comes at the middle of the day. And boy, when Christ confronted
her, you know what she did? She left her water pot sitting
right there, run into town. Come see a man! I see a man. You know what he
did? He told me everything that I've
ever done and ever been. Oh, is this not the Christ, the
Messiah? Oh my, he can save one at a time,
a multitude at a time, or save one at a time. He can save 3,000
at a time, or save a eunuch all by himself. Oh my, or a woman
at the well. I'll tell you what. And everybody
that God saves, He saves them by grace. Now let me tell you
something. I noticed this this morning when
I was talking with somebody, but you know when they were just
talking about tongues this morning, and you know there in Acts chapter
two, when they first, the first time, or Acts chapter three,
the first time that they spoke in tongues. And they all got
up there, and all the apostles got up there. And there was people
there from all over the world at that time. And the scripture
said that they heard every man speak in their own language. And you know what they was preaching? They was preaching the Word of
God. The Word of Grace, every one
of those fellows, though they were speaking in another language,
and everybody heard them, they were preaching Christ and the
Gospel of the Grace of God in Christ and what He accomplished,
every single one of them. They said they were preaching
the Word of His Grace, and I tell you, that s what happens. And
here s another thing about grace. Grace cannot act where there
s ability. If grace will not act, well,
there's ability. As long as a man's got some ability,
as long as a man's got some worth, as long as a man's got some power,
he ain't gonna get no grace. And I tell you, grace doesn't
cooperate. No, no, grace, we don't need
help. We need grace. We don't need
to shove in the right direction. We need grace. And grace is absolute. It does all, all, or it does
nothing. You can't mix it up. It's grace that saves us from
start to finish. Grace does it all. All to Him
we owe, and oh God, thank God for grace. And I tell you what,
grace cannot come where there is ability. And then if there's
no cause, Since there's no cause in us why God should show grace
to us, we should never ever look for any reason for God giving
grace to us. Should never look for it. Because
if you start trying to figure out why He showed grace to you,
you're trying to figure out, well, there's some reason He
done it. But there ain't no reason He done it. The only reason He
done it is because He willed to do it. He was pleased to do
it. And it had to come from Him.
Had to come from Him. Oh, you hear somebody say, God
gave me grace because. Listen, there never is a because. Oh, never is a because. No, no. If there ever is a cause for
God to do something for you, it ceases to be grace. Paul says,
you know, if you add anything to Christ, you've fallen from
grace. You add anything to grace, you're
falling from grace. You know all it takes to fall
from grace? Is to add one little thing to Christ, and you're falling
from grace. To go back to the law for something
you think you need to do, you've fallen from grace. That's all
it takes. And here's my, if I'd done five,
I believe I have. One, two, Three, four, five. I'm on five. I'm on five. And here's one thing I do know
about grace. Grace produces humility. Grace produces humility. Grace
teaches us something. When God makes us understand,
and only grace can do this, only God can do this, when God makes
us to understand that we're the objects of His sovereign, free
grace, it humbles us like we've never been humbled. And it keeps
us working to stay down there. We want down there. We want down
there. You know, why in the world would
grace produce humility? You know why? Because we see
that we're absolutely unworthy of anything God would ever do
for us. We're absolutely unworthy. We was unworthy before we was
born. We was unworthy all the days
of our life. We're still unworthy. And we'll be unworthy until we
enter glory. Nobody thinks they're worthy
of the grace of God. Nobody thinks they're worthy
for God to do anything for them. And when He shows us our absolute
worthiness, Worthlessness and our absolutely unworthiness.
Were we worth, let me ask you some questions, were we worth
Christ coming into this world? Huh? Were we worth Him being
despised and rejected and beaten and bruised by men and mangled
by men? Were we worthy of His horrible,
horrible treatment by men and how they did Him at it. Was we
worthy of our Lord bearing our sins in His own body on the tree?
Was we worthy of Him taking our place as substitutionary death
on the cross? Were we worthy for Him to come
and become a man? Were we worthy of His blood being
shed and Him dying with that blood shedding? Were we worthy
of Him being forsaken of His Father? Were we worthy of those
things? We're not worthy of anything
that God would do for any of us. The minute we become worthy,
it ceases to be grace. The minute you think that you've
got something to offer, it ceases to be grace. And when you start
thinking about what God did for you, and he did all this for
you, starting in eternity, and then in time, Christ came, for
people like us. He was treated horribly for people
like us. And I didn't deserve Christ to
do anything. I certainly didn't deserve him
to give me any grace at all. I mean, you know, the things
that I've said and done in my life, I fell a thousand times,
fell flat on my face. I've sinned, I can't count the
sins that I've committed, no way I know what sins I've committed
since I've been a believer and been a preacher. What keeps me from falling? Grace. I'm worthy of anything God would
do for me. You know, you say, Lord, Why
would you endure such things? And I tell you, we're brought
to know our complete, absolute inability to do anything, anything
at all, to get God to do something for us. And yet God blesses us,
God blesses us, blesses us on another principle, on the principle
of grace, on the principle of grace. And here's my last point. Flesh, flesh has no place in
the purpose of God's sovereign free grace. Flesh has no purpose
in it, no profit in it whatsoever. Oh my, Paul said, I know that
what I would not do, that's what I do. And that that I would do,
I don't. So he said, I know that in me,
in my flesh, dwells just a little bit Just a little bit of good. No, in my flesh dwells not one
good thing. Oh, when I, he told John the
Baptist, you know, he told the prophet, said, watch, go and
cry. Why shall I cry? All flesh is grass. It's like a flower. It's a grass
whizzer, it's a flower fader. But he also turned around and
said, I want you to tell them something. Tell these people
something. I want you to stand up. and not
only cry out that their flesh, that their flesh is grass, like
a flower and it fades away, but also tell them, behold your God. We're flesh, we're nothing, we're
unprofitable, but oh, bless his holy name. He also said, stand
up and holler, behold your God. Behold your God. Oh my. That's why the natural man, No
matter how religious he is, he hates grace. He hates grace.
It leaves him no room for boasting. He can't brag. He can't boast.
He can't look to himself. And there's no contribution,
no contribution whatsoever that the flesh can offer. And oh my! That's why we rejoice in the
grace of God. There's nothing good in us. And
yet God loves us, God blesses us, just as we are. Not the way we wanna be, not
the way we're gonna be, but just as we are. Anytime, 24 hours
a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, as long as we live
on this earth, God does it. Oh my, oh, no wonder Paul said,
oh, thank God for the power of God. God gave us grace in Christ
before the world ever began that we should be holy. Gave us grace
in Christ that we should be holy. And he done it on purpose. Bless
his name, he crossed our path on purpose. He did it on purpose. Why would he do that? He's God and I'm glad it's the
way he works. I'm glad it's the way he works. Oh my. And I'll tell you this
grace has given us in Christ from the foundation of the world.
Somebody ask, how are you saved? By grace. How do you stand? In grace. How do you live? By grace. How are you gonna enter
into glory? By grace. Do you know any other
way? I don't know any other way, do
you? Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. T'was grace that taught my heart
to fear, And grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear,
the hour I first believed. Through many dangers, toils,
and snares, I have already come. Tis grace that brought me safe
thus far, and grace will lead me home. When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the
sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first
began. Thank God for grace. Oh, I'm
going to get it in the morning. I'm going to have it while I
sleep tonight. I'm going to wake up with it. I'm going to have
it every day of my life. Because God's the one that gives
it. He's not looking for anything from us for it. And He ain't
never gonna look for us for anything from it. Bless His name. I'll
see you Wednesday night, God willing.