Turn back in your Bibles once
again to that first chapter of Galatians. It's somewhat amazing that we
would be reading a letter that was written by the
Apostle Paul, like 2,000 plus years ago, and yet we would be reading it here this morning. But the reason that the Spirit
of God has preserved this letter, that's all an epistle is, is
a letter, But the reason that God has preserved it is because
it was not only written to these people in the churches of a place
called Galatia, but it was also written for us in this day. Paul was writing this letter
to them. Because he had been taught what
few in this day seem to know, and that is what grace is. And so when there came to be
in those churches of Galatia some people who were coming in
and they were Preaching a mixture. They were mixing grace and works. Or grace and law. They were mixing what grace tells
us about what Christ did with what Moses commanded those Israelites. to do. And this man, the apostle of
Paul, being taught of God, he knew that even the slightest
mixture, he'd write this in the book of Romans, even the slightest
mixture of anything that pertains to what we're to do to be saved, and what Christ has already done
in saving us, that made for a poisonous mixture. He said, if you add
any work to grace, then is no more grace. I've often likened
it to taking a glass of water and dropping one drop of poison
in it. And if you look and you say,
well, it's mostly water. It may be mostly water, but it
has a mixture in it that would prove very deadly. And the apostle Paul, uses here
in this first chapter, in verse number 6, another expression
for the gospel. He says, I marvel that you are
so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ. The grace of Christ. And I say he uses that for another
way of expressing what the gospel is about, because he continues
I marvel that you're so soon removed from Him that called
you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel." He warned
against another gospel, which he goes on to say is really not
another. There's only one gospel. He says,
but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel
of Christ. The gospel is the gospel of Christ. And the gospel is the grace of
Christ. That's what I want to talk to
you about. this morning is the grace of
Christ. You see, Paul knew that these
people were in danger because of these who came preaching this
subtle mixture. We always ought to remember that
another gospel is simply a counterfeit gospel. And when anyone seeks
to counterfeit, especially one as cunning and as deceitful and
as subtle as the devil is, he'll always use a close counterfeit. You might even say he might even
use 99% grace. But 99% grace with even
that small mixture, Paul called it another gospel. He warned against another gospel
and also of another spirit. and even warned of those who
preached another Jesus." You see, saving grace, the grace
of Christ, is what Paul describes in Romans 5 as the grace that
reigns in righteousness. It is the grace of the sovereign
God who will be gracious to whom He will be gracious. And grace is oftentimes defined
as unmerited, undeserved favor. And in one sense, grace is very
much like love. But love can be shown to equals. It can be shown to one less.
It can be shown to one greater. But grace must naturally assume
that it is love shown from one greater to one lesser. And so grace is really more than
simply love, but it is love in action. It's love doing something. It's love being gracious. And Paul says here, In verse
3, he says, grace and peace from. That means actually demonstrated. Not offered, but given. And not only given, but of necessity
received to great benefit and blessing. You see, grace, must
be irresistible. And if it were not irresistible,
it could not be grace, it would not magnify God, and it certainly
would not meet our true condition. You see, that's the glorious
thing about the grace of God. God demonstrates His grace with
a full knowledge of the situation and condition and nature and
status of all he saves by grace. He says in that third verse,
grace and peace. And that is always the necessary
order. In other words, grace must precede
peace, and peace can only come by grace. Grace is the foundation
of peace. There is no true peace except
in grace. A sinner can never arrive at
any state of real and lasting peace by any of their works. They only arrive and are given
this peace as a result of grace. And grace is exclusively the
work of God. It is always, and it must be,
the work of God. And anything added to it of man's
will or man's work causes it to no longer be grace. But something happened at Galatia,
and it has happened in our day. Because the subtle mixture keeps
coming in under such banners as free will, or morality, or
obedience, so-called. And it is taken more than the
result of grace, and is made rather to be the cause of grace. In our day, grace has become
God giving a person an opportunity. Or as we say oftentimes, or we
hope we don't say, but others say, God giving everybody a chance. Or as it is, God making something
available. Or grace is God giving some kind
of assistance. So with all these things today,
just as it was in Paul's day, just as it was in some of the
churches in Galatia, what the Bible calls the true grace of
God, it has to be distinguished from this counterfeit grace. It has to be identified, and
men and women have to be warned concerning it, and it's even
come to the point that we have to use terms like free grace. Free grace. That's like saying
wet water. Because they are essentially
the same thing. Grace is that which is received
freely and given freely by God. As a matter of fact, it must
be distinguished, and yet it never would be were it not for
grace. Paul would have never written
this were it not for grace. No man would ever have stood
in the face of all that opposes grace were it not for grace. He said, "'Unto me who am less
than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should
preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. Again, he says, by whom, that
is Christ also, we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And then he would say, through
the apostle Peter. He said, I reckon, though with
few words I did write, exhorting and testifying this to be the
true grace of God in which you have stood. Now, if there is
a true grace of God, if it was necessary even in Peter's day
to use that kind of language distinguishing and calling it
the true grace of God, there must be a false kind of grace. And so I want to be interested
in, and I want to know, Grace was it that Paul preached. What grace was it that the apostles,
Peter being one of them, what grace was it that they preached? Well, I want to ask four questions
this morning. Four questions about the grace
of Christ. And the first one is simply this,
where does grace come from? Why would we even today, or in
the language during our day here on this earth at this time, why
would we even be talking about grace? Where did this grace come
from? It comes from the sovereign will
and purpose of God. Grace, as we find it in this
book, and that's the only one I'm interested in, but grace
as we find it in this book we call the Bible, originated and
has as its fountainhead God Himself. As a matter of fact, in that
third verse, Paul says, Grace be to you and peace from God
the Father. Verse 4, he says it in this way,
According to the will of God and our Father, And this ought to tell us how
we know what grace really is. Grace originated in God, and
therefore, if it came from God, what we know about it, we'll
have to get from God. Look over in 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy chapter 1, and look down
at that verse 9, where Paul has been talking about the gospel, and it being the very power of
God. But look at what he says in that
9th verse. He says, "...God who hath saved
us, and called us with an holy calling." Now, some people would
put that just exactly the opposite way. They would say, He called
us, and if we answered His call, then He saved us. There is so
much confusion about this whole business of being salvation,
and men and women use this kind of language in our day. They
say, oh, so-and-so got saved the other night. Well, that reveals
our ignorance of just exactly what salvation is. Salvation
is spoken of in the Bible in the past tense, in the present
tense, and in the future tense. And here it is in the past tense.
Who hath saved us? and called us with an holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began." You see, the grace of God does not begin when the Spirit
of God calls us. The grace of God did not begin
even on the cross of Calvary. The grace of God preceded time
itself, preceded this earth being created by God. There was a purpose
of God's grace in Christ Jesus for a people before the foundation
of the world. And why is that necessary that
we know that about God's grace? Because it is essential that
He gets all the glory of it. That which began in Him. that
which originated in Him, that which was purposed and given
by Him before the world began, you and I cannot by anything
we do in time take the glory for that. Grace comes from God. It is all God's work. It says He saved us and He called
us, He purposed to save us by His grace, and He determined
to do it before we were born. He chose us before the foundation
of the world and gave us this grace of salvation in Christ
Jesus even then. And you go over to the book of
Ephesians. And you read that first chapter,
especially those first three or four verses. And what it talks
about is Paul begins that letter saying this, "...Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us."
He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, the blessings of His
grace, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world." You see, grace lies in the choice of God. And He in grace settled this
business of salvation before we were born, so we wouldn't
be able to get our hands on it and mess it up, which we would
certainly have done. Grace is not merely a contingency
plan. That is, if man will do something,
God will do something. And yet, that's the kind of grace
that is set forth in our day. If you'll do this, God will do
this. If you'll walk down this aisle,
or if you'll go into this baptismal pool, or if you'll change your
whatever it is, then God will do something. That's not grace.
That's not grace at all. When Ananias first spoke those
words to him down in that city of Damascus, he said to them,
the very first thing he says to him is, "'The God of our fathers
hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His will, and see that just
one, and shouldest hear the voice of His mouth.'" There's no accident. that you're here, Saul of Tarsus. It's no act of your so-called
free will. It certainly is not because of
your works, though they were religious works, all of which
were sin and rebellion against me." He said, it's the grace
of God. And that's what Paul would say
the rest of his days. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. In other words, all the grace
that God gives to a sinner, all the love, all flows out of His
will and His purpose and His decrees. It just begins with
God. And whatever you and I find out
about it, And as he says, there is no salvation except by grace. Whatever we find out about what
this salvation by grace is, we're going to have to find out from
God. And we may be sitting back and
say, well, that's the way you interpret it. Or we may say,
let me tell you what I think about it. But my opinion and
your opinion, it will not amount to a hill of beans. It has to
do, if it is grace, true grace, with what God says. Because it
came and flows out of God. But grace must also be consistent
with God. God will not. He cannot act. in grace in a manner that is
inconsistent with himself. So that brings me to the second
question. How does God manifest this grace? I said it was grace in action,
love in action. So how does God manifest, or
show, or demonstrate, whatever word you want to use, this grace? If I'm going to have grace from
God, I have to know how He shows mercy and grace. And the truth
is, it's not so much a how as it is a who. How does God manifest this grace? Well, verse 3, He says, "...grace
be to you from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me just assure you of
this. There is no grace from God apart from the Lord Jesus
Christ. If we're talking about the true
grace of God, we've got to be talking about the true Son of
God. And you cannot be talking about
the true Son of God without talking about the true grace of God. You see, that's why Paul called
it the grace of Christ. The gospel is about God's grace
in Christ. Look in verse 4. He says, "...who
gave Himself for our sins." Now isn't it amazing that people
in our day would use the term grace, and would say they believe
in grace, and would even want to talk about grace, and yet
they talk about everything else other than the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll get together and we'll
sing a lot of so-called gospel songs. But there's just one problem,
there's no gospel in them. We'll get together and we'll
have a testimonial service, or we'll get together and we'll
recognize some folks in the church, or we'll gather and we'll do
everything, we'll do everything except talk about who Christ
is and what He actually did, who gave Himself for our sins. God's grace. is in His gracious
Son." Now hold your place and turn back over to Romans chapter
5. And look at the last two verses
of Romans chapter 5. Because in these verses, we find
out why the Lord Jesus Christ is essential to grace. Romans 5 and verse 20. Paul says, moreover, the law
entered that the offense might abound. Grace preceded the giving
of the law. You say, well, why then, if grace
preceded the giving of the law, why was the law given? One reason
was that it might show the exceeding sinfulness of sin. If you're
breaking a law, let's say you're just speeding down this highway
out here, and you're driving at a dangerous speed. If there is no sign, it doesn't
change the fact that you're driving illegally and dangerously. But if I step out there and hold
a sign, or if the state posts a sign out there that says speed
limit 45, what did that sign do? Did it change you? No. Did it help you? No. Because
you're a lawbreaker at heart. All it did was expose and show
your crime and violation. And all the law did with its,
thou shalt not, thou shalt not, was show sin for what it was,
disobedience and rebellion against God. But he says, moreover the
law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. You see, all the law could ever
do is declare you and me guilty. That's all it can do. It's not
because of a fault in the law. It's because of a fault in us. And rather than being the means
by which God would save us through our obedience to the law, it
just shows our need for Christ. It shows us, as Israel did with
that law their whole history, that the only way God could ever
bless them was by His grace. But that's not to say that grace
violates the law. That's not to say that in grace
God acts contrary to His character, because grace is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now listen to what he says, "...that
as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Now
you can count on this about God's grace. God's grace always reigns
in righteousness. In other words, God will always
be shown as doing that which is right when He demonstrates
grace to His people. That's why His grace is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And because of that, the Lord
Jesus Christ came into this world and willingly and freely and
voluntarily gave Himself for our sins. That was the price. He hanging on that cross and
giving His life, that blood that's spoken of so often times, simply
means that His life was poured out. That was the penalty. Because the wages of sin is death. Grace is demonstrated in Christ,
and not just in Christ in some mythical way, but in the man
Christ Jesus actually hanging on that cross and dying for the
sins of His people. Doing what is right. Doing what
is necessary to enable God to be just as He makes us righteous
in Christ. Look over in Galatians chapter
2. And look down at verse 20 and
listen to the apostle. He says, I am crucified with
Christ, or I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Why is that? Because His death
was the way I could live. Because I died in Him and also
rose in Him. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me, And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by
the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself
for me." Now notice the next statement. I do not frustrate
the grace of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, by my obedience to the law, by your obedience to the
law, By your doing, then Christ is dead in vain. If there had
been a possibility that you and I could have gained the favor
of God, or in some way dealt with the matter of our sins by
virtue of our obedience to some command from God, then Christ
would never have had to come. We wouldn't need grace. And not
needing grace, we wouldn't need Christ. But God's grace was active
in the person and through the work of His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who gave Himself for our sins. Paul said, walk in
love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for
us an offering and a sacrifice to God." He gave Himself. That's the price. He said, I
came not to be ministered to. I didn't come to be served. I came to be a servant and to
give my life a ransom for many. I lay down my life for the sheep."
Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church
and gave Himself for it. Who gave Himself a ransom for
all to be testified in due time. Who gave Himself for us that
He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar
people zealous of good works. who being the brightness of His
glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding
all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself
purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty
on high." And when I say offered, I don't mean He offered in the
sense of made Himself available, but He offered Himself as a sacrifice. to God. How much more shall the
blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself
without spot to God, offer His holy, perfect, sinless Self? Because a sinner cannot die for
a sinner. A sinner cannot redeem a sinner. But here He is, the perfect Son
of God. God manifests in the flesh. And He gave His self for our
sins. That is, in exchange for transferring
all our sins to Him and His righteousness to us. Gave Himself for us as
a substitute, as a payment, as a ransom to satisfy the justice
of God. He said, our sins. When Paul
wrote this letter, he wrote it to believers. As a matter of
fact, this whole book is in one sense God's love letter to His
people. It is like a will for the reading
to be made among all His people. And those who can find a place
in the will, those who can look to the One whose blood ratifies
this Testament, it's for them. My sheep hear My voice. You see, He says for our sins,
Not simply sin or sins in general, but our sins, our actual sins. For the transgression of my people,
God says, was He stricken. And you see, this is the character
we have to see Christ. And only when we see Him in this
character, only when we see who He is and what He actually does,
on that cross, do we know something about the grace of God? That's
the grace of God hanging on the cross. But like I say, the grace
of God is in Christ Jesus and He's just not hung out there
like something would be put up or put in a vessel somewhere
and you go by and if you want Some of it you dip it out or
you take it out. Not like that. But he's doing
something. And he's doing something in grace. Which brings me to the third
question. What does God, as He is in Christ, what does this
grace actually accomplish? making something available in
grace. What does grace, which is God
in action, His love demonstrated, what does God in grace actually
accomplish? Well, if we listen to the Apostle,
Verse 4 says, "...who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver
us from this present evil world." He gave Himself to deliver us. And if this was His goal toward
us, is there any possibility that He failed to do it? Could
He have failed? Some people seem to love to toy
in their mind what Jesus Christ could have done or what He might
have been made. That's so ridiculous. The Bible
tells us what He did. What did He do? He delivered
His people from this present evil world. The prophet said
He'll see the travail of His soul. and be disappointed? No, he'll see the travail of
his soul and be satisfied. Paul to the Corinthians, who
hath delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver in
whom we trust that he will yet deliver us. What does that word
deliver mean here? Well, I looked at Strong's Concordance
Dictionary to try to find out. It means to release. It means
to pluck out. It means to rescue. It means to choose one from many
for one's own self. He said, deliver us from this
present evil world. The world as a whole being under
condemnation. Deliver us from its false gods. Deliver us from its godless principles. From its soon coming judgment. From its hatred of God. From this maze of error. from this idolatry that passes
for the religion of God. Paul says, but now we are delivered
from the law, that being dead, wherein we were held, that we
should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the
letter. Again, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness
and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son? And
we wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead,
even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come." I don't
have to lay down at night. I tend to lay down at night and
worry about whether or not I'm going to get the grass mowed
the next day, Whether or not I'm going to do this, I don't
have to worry about the wrath of God to come. Why? Because He delivered us. If He's
already bore that wrath in the matter of my sin on that cross,
I don't have to. We're saved from wrath in Him,
He says. If I take my eyes for a moment
off of Him, If I get to feeling like I've been maybe a better
boy than you've been. If I get to looking down my nose
at you and say, well, you know, if he was the kind of Christian
I am, he'd be a lot better off. No. Or if I get to looking inside
myself to try to find something good I've done or something good
about me, I don't have any peace. But look into Christ being made
the righteousness of God in Him. Knowing that God in grace views
me as He does His Son. Knowing that God in grace, as
David said and Paul said, He did not even impute or charge
me with my sins, but He laid them on His Son. If He bore them in His own body
on the tree, I don't have any. But especially to deliver us
from this present evil world that is always seeking to stand
on its own merit before God. Always going about. to establish
our own righteousness, always trusting in themselves that they
were righteous and despising others. The grace of Christ will
do three things. God's gospel of grace is perfect. It will do three things. Number
one, The grace of Christ, the gospel of grace, will find out
that legalist at heart. That person who's trusting in
some measure to their own works. They'll find this gospel after
a while to be an offense to them. It'll just find out the legalist
every time. It's too much grace for them.
But it'll do something else. It'll expose the antinomian,
the true antinomian, the true lawless person. They'll take
it and use it as a license to sin. They'll take it like a man
who uses a knife, instead of cutting his steak up, he just
stabs himself with it. But it'll sure find out thirdly
those sinners. that God chose and gave to Christ
before the world began. They'll find it's their only
hope. If there's one thing I'm more
sure of at 68 than I was 35 years ago, it's this. And that is the
only way I could be saved is by grace. I've never made any
improvement. I'm just afraid that's the case.
My hope is He gives more grace. It's not to say that I don't
in some measure strive to do what pleases God. It's not to
say that I don't seek to live godly in this world. But when
it comes right down to a basis upon which to have hope of salvation,
Grace. Only the gift of God. Well, the fourth and final question
simply is this, what is the chief goal of grace? Well, it's simply to bring glory
to God forever. That's one thing grace does.
It assures that God gets all the glory. Verse 5, he says, "...to whom
be glory, Forever and ever. Amen. And Paul says, it's an
amazing thing to me that you who supposedly have believed
the grace of God, that you would turn and in any measure count
your works or the law as part of the ground of your justification. is to glorify God's grace which
is revealed in Christ as the Mediator and Redeemer of His
people. Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of Thy name, and deliver us and purge away our
sins for Thy name's sake. Go back to Ephesians 1. I think
it's about three times there. Those first thirteen verses.
You find the work of the Father set forth, the work of the Son,
and the work of the Spirit. Each time it says, to the praise
of the glory of His grace. He said it is that no flesh should
glory in His presence. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption, that according as it is written, He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord." Not of works. But by grace are you
saved, are you being saved. through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God, even the
faith by which we believe, not of works, lest any man should
boast." And you can walk out of this door and on every hand
before this day is over, if you get to talking to most folks,
most of them being religious in some way, you're going to
hear them boast. Me, my, I, we, ours. That's always the way it is.
Give me the grace of Christ. The grace of God in Christ crucified. Give me that grace that honors
God, that reigns in righteousness, that pays the actual debt, that
gives the gift, that looks upon me in my real condition as dead
spiritually, and unable to help myself. If I owe a million dollars,
and before tomorrow morning I have to have every penny of that paid,
or I go to jail. And you come and you pay $999,999,
and I still don't have that one dollar. Away I go. Give me grace, which somebody
described as God's riches at Christ's expense. That's the
grace of God in Christ. And none will be saved apart
from it. But all who are saved by it will
be to the praise of His glory for all eternity. Father, this
day we lift up Your worthy name, lift up the worthy name of the
Lamb of God, and thank You for grace. And say with Paul, I am
what I am by the grace of God, grace that reigns in righteousness
through His cross death. We thank You and we pray. In His beloved and righteous
name, Amen.