I want you to turn this morning
to the book of I Corinthians and the first chapter. Now, on
this cold morning, I took the good advice of the wool lady,
and I wore this wool coat out in the cold. But it's just a
bit too much for up here. I always listen to her sound
advice, though. I want to begin today by looking
first at one verse of Scripture that the Apostle Paul writes
to those at Corinth. Corinth sounds very much like
our day, like our country, like our area, like us. And as he begins this letter,
which is what this is, a letter that he wrote to them, being
inspired by the Spirit of God. Look at what he says in verse
4 of chapter 1. I thank my God always on your
behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ. I thank my God always for the
grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ. A lot of the old confessions
of faith, creeds, begin with that question, what
is the chief end of man? And of course, the answer is,
the chief end of man is to glorify God. To glorify God. And in order for God to be glorified
in the salvation of men. That salvation has to be all
of grace. Did you know that? It has to
be 100% grace. And that is the only way that
God can be glorified in our salvation. That is my subject this morning,
the grace that glorifies God. And when you read in this book,
as Paul says in Ephesians 1, All of these things in salvation,
the salvation of His people, all these things are to the praise
of the glory of His grace. And I know in our day that so
many religious people, they love to use this biblical word grace. They talk about grace. But it seems that the grace of
God that they talk about, they are just really mere good intentions. God has good intentions toward
you. Or God has made a lot of good
things available to you, or God will help you do something, maybe
to save yourself. And so the grace that we read
about in the Scriptures is so contrary, so contrary to natural
thinking, so contrary and offensive to a proud man, especially proud
religionists, and even foolishness to them. I just picked up a booklet
that had William Tiptaff's sermon that he preached from Matthew
121 before a great body of religious and political leaders. And he
simply stated what God states in His Word, and they left him
to scorn. They ridiculed him. They persecuted
him. They wrote articles against him. They just blasted him for saying
what God says about his grace. And this is often the case, as
a matter of fact, in verse 18, Paul says, for the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish, or them that are perishing,
foolishness. What we'll be about this morning
in this place is to most people just foolishness. Down also in
verse 23, he says, But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews
a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks or Gentiles foolishness. Yes, utter foolishness. This salvation that is by grace. But it was not foolishness to
the apostle Paul. And the gospel of grace was to
him, as it is to all of God's sheep, what he calls the power
of God unto salvation. In other words, God had revealed
to Paul what he must reveal to you and to me if we are ever
to know Him, and if we are ever to be saved from our sins by
Him. A long time ago, way back in
Jeremiah's day, the Lord said this. He said, Let not the wise
man glory in his wisdom. Neither let the mighty man glory
in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but
let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understands and
knows me, that I am the Lord which exercises lovingkindness
judgment and righteousness in the earth, for in these things
I delight, saith the Lord." An old preacher said one time
a long time ago, he said, if a person, if you and me are going
to learn anything about salvation, about redemption, If we're ever
going to know anything about the living God and have a saving
interest in Him, we'll have to be acquainted with two words,
grace and glory. Grace and glory. Because we can know nothing of
His chief glory until we learn something about His grace, and
His grace is sovereign grace. His grace is free grace. And if men and women knew anything
about this If they knew even anything about God or about what
grace is, we wouldn't even have to use a term to qualify that
word grace and call it sovereign grace. Sovereign grace is what
we read about in the Bible, which is the grace of God, who is an
absolute Sovereign, who does what He will. And so, since He
does what He will, and since He doesn't owe you or me or any
sinner anything but judgment in the matter of our sins, if
He, out of His own will, decides to be gracious to us, that's
sovereign grace. He will be gracious just because
He will be gracious. And grace, if we know anything
about what it really means, has to be free grace because that's
what grace means. Listen to what Moses says and
what he asked God for, even after he had seen more miracles than
you and I could ever imagine, he says this to God. He says,
I beseech thee, show me your glory. I have seen the sea divided,
men walk over it on dry land. I've seen staffs turned into
serpents. I've seen rivers turned into
blood. I've seen the lice cover the
land. I've seen all these amazing things,
but somehow I've got a feeling that's not really your glory. Show me your glory. And to Moses,
God responds in this way. He says, I will make all my goodness
pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee,
and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. You see, grace isn't God owing
us something. He says, I will be gracious to
whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will
show mercy. And Paul in Romans repeats this
very thing. And rather than flying in the
face of God Almighty, the only one who can show us grace and
confessing that we don't deserve anything but His wrath, sinners
like us ought to delight in the fact that when everything says
for Him not to be gracious to us, He can retreat into His own
sovereign will and be gracious to whom He will be gracious. You wouldn't be gracious to me,
and the devil wouldn't be gracious to me, and I proved for so many
years of my life that I wouldn't and couldn't be gracious to myself. My only hope is in his sovereign
grace, because when he says, I'll be gracious to him or her,
there's nobody can stop him. There is not devil, there is
not man, there is not power, there is not government, there
is not anything under the sun or in heaven, earth or hell that
can stop God from being gracious to me. And you know nothing of His grace
until you have seen something of His glory. If you remember,
the Lord Jesus said concerning that man Isaiah, he said, when
he saw his glory. Now, Isaiah wasn't enabled just
to see God, but he saw something of a revelation
of God in his majesty and in his glory, especially as he was
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah was sitting there, a satisfied
man in a high place of government, writing down all the things that
the king did. But one day that king, that he
highly esteemed evidently, that king died, and Isaiah says, in
the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted
up. He said, and his train filled
the temple. He was the fullness of everything,
and those creatures that were before him every second, they
cried out, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. Who do you think he saw? He saw
the pre-incarnate Christ. And when he saw Him, he said,
Woe is me. Woe is me, for I am a man of
unclean lips, and I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips. I am a sinner, unacceptable to
this holy God, and each and every one of my race and people, we
are all in the same boat. Woe is me. The Bible says, when Job saw
his glory, he said, I have heard of you with the hearing of the
ear. And he said, now mine eyes seeth
thee, and I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. Daniel said, when I saw him,
all of my comeliness melted inside of me. My friend, if we ever
see the glorious God, I'm not talking about this good buddy
God, this generic, one-size-fits-everybody God, this God that's the God
of everybody's imagination and every pitiful preacher's creation. I'm talking about the God of
the Bible. The one that this book says,
in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. End
of story. No debate. If you ever see Him,
if you're ever brought to know exactly who He is, we'll melt
all our comeliness, all of our imagined goodness, it'll all
melt, and we'll do like Daniel and Job and Paul And every other
one, like Isaiah, will confess his glory and will renounce ours. Will renounce ours. Turn over,
first of all, to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. Now listen
to what the Apostle writes here in Ephesians 1, in verse 3. when he, beginning to write to
this church at Ephesus, begins by praising and blessing God
for His grace to them. Verse 3, he says, Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us, not offered it to us, not made it available to us, But
he says, who has blessed us, past tense, with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. How can He bless you
and I by His grace? Yes, but how could He bless you
and I by His grace and not act in a manner contrary to His own
holiness and justice? He did so by blessing us with
everything in one He has appointed to represent us, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now listen to this next word.
You want to know about His blessings? How He blessed? According as
He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and without blame before Him. And that's where that verse actually
ends in the original. What did He do in grace? He chose
us in grace. If we had chosen him first, it
would not have been grace. He tells us, as he did the disciples,
you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and I have ordained
that you bring forth fruit. You see, grace has to do before
the foundation of the world with God in an everlasting covenant,
choosing a people by His grace in Christ and purposing to bless
them by His grace with all spiritual blessings. Then it begins the
next statement. in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will." Not your will, not my will, not
free will. There's just one free will in
this universe, and it belongs to that One who sits on the throne
and does what He will. And He says that in love, in
His love, in an act of love, He predestinated or marked off
beforehand us who, these believers such
as those at Ephesus, unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ unto Himself according to the good pleasure of His will."
That's grace. Grace has to do with what God
does, not what we do. Then look at what it says in
verse 6. He says, "...to the praise of the glory of His grace,
wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. How could that holy God accept
a sinner like Isaiah? How could He accept a sinner
like Saul of Tarsus? How could He accept a sinner
like me, more so than any of them? It's He does so in Christ. As a matter of fact, when it
says here that He hath made us accepted, that literally is this,
He has graced us. He has graced us in His Beloved. in His well-beloved Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, which is the only way He could bless us, grace
us. He graced us in Christ Jesus. And God works in this grace. this free grace, He works in
grace that all the glory might belong to Him alone and that
everything He does might magnify Him. As a matter of fact, if
you will just take this little rule of thumb to determine whether
or not a man or a teacher or a doctrine or whatever it is
is really of God or whether it is simply of man, here's the
rule of thumb. Does it ultimately and finally
glorify God or does it glorify man? That's a good rule of thumb. But turn back to where we were
in 1 Corinthians and look down now in verse 26. Because Paul
here moves on and he uses as an illustration not only those
who he sends to preach the gospel, but each and every one that he
saves. And he says this in verse 26. He says, For you see your calling,
brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, Not many noble are called. When you take a preacher of the
gospel, a man who claims to be a preacher, if he goes around
tooting his own horn, if he puts on his name titles to exalt him
like reverend or doctor or whatever it is, or that individual who
when he speaks tells about what he did rather than God did, They know nothing of grace. He says, but God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God
hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which
are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not
to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in
His presence. Not your flesh, not my flesh, not Reverend so-and-so's flesh, not President so-and-so's flesh.
No flesh shall glory in His presence. He says, but of Him. He writes
to these believers. He says, but of Him, of God,
are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. makes all his people in Christ
to be everything that they must be to be accepted by him. That, according as it is written,
he that glories. What does that mean? Brags? I don't know if you figured this
out or not, but you and I and every other son and daughter
on this earth of Adam, we're going to boast and brag on something. We're going to have our little
claim to fame. We're going to have our little
shining moment. But he says, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. And every person saved by the
grace of God must glory in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, God
might have used the abilities of man or the wisdom of man or
the talents of man to reveal Himself to man, but He didn't. As a matter of fact, when you
look in this book at the things that God has used to accomplish
His purpose, such as an ox goad, or a slingshot, or a nail, or
a ram's horn, or clay pot, just go back all through the Scriptures
and see what God used. He made sure that the only glory
would be And the Bible says that he puts this treasure of the
gospel. Paul says in the next book, the
next letter to these same people, the Corinthians, he says, we
have this treasure. What treasure? The gospel. We
have this treasure of the gospel in us. We have this treasure
in earthen vessels. Why doesn't God use man's shiny
intellect? Why doesn't He use flowery eloquence
and oratory and charisma and all these kind of things that
men follow after men just because they're charismatic or they're
smart or they're knowledgeable? Whatever it is, why doesn't He
use these things? He said, we have this treasure,
the gospel, in earthen vessels that the power might be of God
and not of us. God teaches you anything about
Himself and uses me or any other man to do so. If He is pleased
to reveal Himself through the gospel that's preached in this
place, there'll be no way that I could boast in it. It'll have
to be Him, His Word, His truth. And God absolutely does save
sinners, but He saves them in that way in which it excludes
every particle of boasting and glorying on the part of the one
who saves. He said, no flesh will glory
in my presence. When Paul's writing to the church
at Rome, in that third chapter, he gets through naming the state
and condition of man. He says, there's none good, none
that seeketh after God, none that understandeth himself, none
that do anything that God can accept. And so he says then,
where is boasting then? It is excluded. You see, if you're saved by the
grace of God, you don't have any reason to toot your horn.
You'd still be lost. You'd still be in your sin. You'd
still be in the most awful state, irretrievable state, helpless
and hopeless, if He hadn't saved you. That's me. He said, by what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Everything
that God has ordained on this earth, Isaiah says, the Lord
of hosts hath purposed it to stain the pride of all glory
and to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth. Here
we are, a whole world of people who have done nothing since Adam's
fall but rebel against the God who created us. He's going to stain our pride.
He's going to show His utter contempt for everything we do. He'll only accept that which
He Himself gives. He'll only receive that work
which He Himself does in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all the prophets, Peter says,
They all spoke and searched diligently in and prophesied of the grace,
he says, that would come to us. And I'll tell you this, if you
ever find out, and you'll never find out until God shows you, if you ever find out who God
really is, If you ever find out what your
own true condition is before God as a sinner, if you ever
find out how God must save a sinner and that this salvation which
exalts the grace and gives glory to God alone, you'll find out
that's exactly what you need. I'm not too smart. But I'm learning
one thing with every day that passes in this world, and that
is that the only way that such a wretch as I am could ever be
saved, could ever know God, and could ever be received into his
holy heaven is by his grace that is in Christ Jesus. Men are going around and women
trying to show how strong they are in one thing or another.
This says that it's for those who are without strength. They're
going around trying to show how good and moral that they are
when it says that Christ died for sinners. They are going around
to try to show how they have long always been these old friends
with God. And it says that He came for
those who have acted toward Him as enemies. You see, God in grace. He does not enable us to produce
righteousness, He gives it. He does not enable us to produce
repentance. He gives it as a gift. He does not enable us to somehow
stir up faith. The Scriptures say that He gives
it as a gift. All these things are the gifts
of God. Look back at Ephesians chapter
2. Ephesians chapter 2. These verses have been read so
many times, and preachers use them, and then what they do is
they'll read a verse like this and talk about the grace of God,
and then right at the end, they'll tell you something that's
just exactly the contrary to it. Well, God saves by grace,
but now listen now. He's fixing to undo everything
He said. He saves by grace, but now I tell you, you've got to
do good. You've got to live right. If
I could live right, I wouldn't need to be saved by grace. If
I could do something that pleased God, if I could follow the formulas
of self-righteous men, if I could do these things, I wouldn't need
a Savior. Listen to what he says. Ephesians
2, verse 8. Let's go back up to verse 4.
He's just described our condition, the first three verses, dead
in trespasses and sin. But look at verse 4. You see
that first word there, but? That means grace. That's what
we are. That's what our awful state is,
but God, who is rich in mercy. What is mercy? Mercy is the kind
treatment of the one who's shown themselves to be your enemy. For his great love, wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ." That word quickened means made alive. By grace, we are being saved. Now, salvation is set forth like
this in the Bible. All of God's people, they have
been saved, they are being saved, they shall be saved. How? All the way through by grace. And hath raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in
the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace
in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you being saved. through faith. Somebody says,
wait, that's it right there. The condition of salvation, though
it's by grace, the condition of salvation is faith. Listen
to what he says. He says, and that, not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. If you're unable to believe on
Christ, if you're unable to believe the truth of this book, the truth
of his gospel, which is the gospel of grace. It's the gift of God. The only
reason I could ever believe the grace of God is because of the
grace of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. You know if one particle of salvation
was left to us, that's the one part that we camp out on right
there and boast. If it was left up to our will,
we do what men do, boast about free will. If it was because we didn't drink,
we'd just stop right there and say, I know I'm going to heaven
because I've never drunk anything. I don't drink anything. If it
was smoking, it'd be the same. Whatever it'd be. By grace. All of grace. You see, he excludes every bit
of boasting. And there is no I or me or mine
from any sinner saved by grace." I'll never forget the lady who
asked me one time, she said, do you mean to tell me I wouldn't
have any part of my salvation? I said, this is the way it is. All we did is the sinning, and
he does all the saving. That's it. Men speak of, when
I made my decision. That's why such people as Billy
Graham, who when he finally dies, will, in the minds of so many,
go just instant sainthood or something. But he based all of
salvation on whether or not somebody walked up to the front of one
of his crusades or the front of a church, shook a preacher's
hand, repeated a prayer, signed a card, made their decision. Salvation is not in your decision.
Salvation is God deciding upon us. It's not my works. It's not my
choice. It's Christ's blood. His sacrifice. And what Paul says of all God's
people and what he says of his people, this applies to us. Turn back to I Corinthians again. This is one of the most marvelous
verses of Scripture. Because as Paul goes on, he writes
to these people who lived in this wicked place and who were
themselves some of the most wicked people. He describes them later
on and he says that, he just gives this long list of drunkards
and adulterers and fornicators, everything else, and he says
this, and such were some of you. But God saved you. Look at what
he says in verse 12 of chapter 2. Now we. Now we. Is he talking to everybody in
the world? No. Like I said, this was a letter,
and if you go back to chapter 1, that second verse, he says,
unto the church of God which are at Corinth, to them that
are sanctified by Christ Jesus, set apart by God's grace and
through Christ's sacrifice, sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints. It was on the news not long ago,
how that the former Pope, he's going to get into sainthood real
quick. They're going to make him a saint.
Somebody's going to vote on it and they're going to make him
a saint. No, they're not. Every person who is brought to
Jesus Christ, Every person that God chose before the world began,
that Christ came into this world to redeem and redeem them, everyone
who's called through this gospel of grace to believe on Him, every
one of them are saints. That's what this book says. Now, you've got your notion of
what a saint is. True saints are those who are
the people of God in Christ. Called saints. Those words, to
be there, were added by the translators. Not to be saints. They are called
saints if they are in Christ. With all that in every place
call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord who is both theirs and
ours. That is who he is talking about
here. All right, look back at verse 12 of chapter 2. Now, we
have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God. We have received the Spirit of
God. Believers receive the Spirit of God. God, the Holy Spirit,
comes to them. acting as the third person of
the Godhead in full agreement and harmony with the Father and
the Son to make manifest to us and enable us to believe and
know and have some understanding of what it is that God has done
for us in grace. You say, how do you know that?
Well, that's what he says here. But the Spirit which is of God
is what we receive, that we might know the things that are freely
given to us of God." Now, I didn't say that, and I
didn't invent that, but I sure am glad of that. Christ said that He'd send the
Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who would take the things of mine
and show them to you. That means that everything that
we have in salvation is by grace, Everything we have received is
by grace, and everything we have is understood by grace. First of all, God is the initiator,
the accomplisher, the giver of all things in salvation by grace. Grace means unmerited, undeserved,
unearned favor. The message of the gospel of
grace is not due. That's what I call the do-do
gospel. That's what Paul called it. He said, I count it as done. The message of the gospel of
grace is done. Suppose somebody came in here,
a world-renowned artist, and they had painted a beautiful
portrait of someone from the neck down. I mean, it was a masterpiece. And they said, if you want to
be A celebrity artist like me, if you want to make millions
of dollars for this portrait, all you've got to do is paint
the head on. That wouldn't be good news to
me. Here'd be this great, wonderful
portrait, their clothes, their arms, their hands, everything
looks so nice, and here'd be a stick drawing of their head. I couldn't do it. You see, whether or not something
is good news or not, it really depends on my condition, my ability. And for it to have been of any
value to me, he'd have had to have finished it. Finished it. He says as he hung on that cross,
it is finished. I've told you so many times I'm
not smart, but I know this. You can't add something to anything
that's finished. Complete. You are complete in
Him. He says He's given us His Spirit
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. The wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. This is
the record. John says that God has given
unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Thanks be
unto God for His unspeakable gift. That's grace. That's grace. All things in salvation are the
gift of God. He's the author and the finisher
of faith. They originated in that eternal
and everlasting covenant of grace before the world began. Paul
says, so then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs,
but of God that shows mercy. Here's the picture he gives us.
He said a king made a banquet for his son. He said, you go out and you tell
them this, all things are made ready. Everything. What do you got to
bring? Nothing. As a matter of fact,
in the old Eastern custom, even the wedding garment was provided
by the host. So that you read that parable
where it says it was found a man without a garment, and the king
became very angry and cast him out with his weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth. God provides everything. God the Father gave Himself to
us. He became our Father by His choice,
not ours. He gave us His love. He gave
His Son to us. And God the Son loved us, the
Bible says, and He gave Himself for us. And God the Spirit gives
Himself and comes to us and quickens us. God purposed this salvation,
purchased it, produced it, perpetuates it, perfects it. Just like Jonah
said, salvation is of the Lord. Paul said, I do not frustrate
the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. I'm not going to stand up here
week after week, Sunday and Wednesday, and tell you what to do and what
to do and what to do and talk about rewards and stuff like
that when everything's by grace. There are clear instructions
in this book as to how the people of God are to live and act and
be gracious one to another and such as that, and they will.
But that's not how they're saved. It's the gift of God being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. That word freely is the same
word that's used in John 15, verse 25, where it speaks of
Christ and it says that they hated Him without a cause. There was no cause in Him for
them to hate Him. He was sinless and perfect. And
likewise, we're justified freely, as it's translated in Romans
3, without a cause in us. were justified by his grace that
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Paul says he saved us and called us with unholy 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. All those He saves, they receive
everything by grace. People say, yeah, it's all a
gift, but it's up to us to receive it, accept it, reject it, or
refuse it. Well, how does He describe us?
He said we're dead in trespasses and sins. He said we're lost. In ourselves we're without hope. Would you go and buy a new bicycle
and take it up there on the hill to the graveyard and give it
to some of those folks there as a gift to them? You say, well,
I'd be foolish. That'd be a useless gift. Yeah,
and everything else in the matter of salvation would be a useless
gift to us if it didn't include everything. We're dead. This is a gift of
life. We're unbelievers. This is the
gift of faith. We're unrepentant. This is the
gift of repentance. We're helpless. This is the gift
of everything. And that's why he gets all the
glory. You read in the very book of
Genesis, it says, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. What does that mean? He wasn't
looking for it. Nobody finds grace who's looking
for it. Grace has to find us. He says, we have received the
Spirit which is of God. A dead person doesn't reach out
and take a gift unless he's got life. That's a gift of life. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us. The shepherd, he said, goes out
and seeks the sheep until he finds it. Why? Because he's a
lost sheep. And everything we understand,
we understand by grace. We have received, Paul says,
the Spirit that is of God that we might know. There are those who make light
of knowledge. I fear for them, because the knowledge that is
spoken of in the Bible is true knowledge, which is what God
teaches. and what he makes known of himself. John said he's given to us an
understanding that we might know him that is
true. And we're of him that is true. And this is eternal life, to
know him that is true. You see, grace is only in the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because it must glorify God. Grace glorifies the power and
authority and right of God to be God. He says, can I not do
with mine own what I will? Grace glorifies the justice of
God, that He is a just God and a Savior in those He saves in
Christ, because He punishes their sin in their substitute. The righteousness of God, because
God chose Himself right in how He saves sinners in Christ. The law of God, because the penalty
is executed against the representative of His saved ones, glorifies the faithfulness of
God, and the love of God, and the mercy of God, and honors
God in every respect. It is the grace of God that is
in Christ crucified. That's the glory, the grace that
glorifies God. Paul says in Romans 5, that as
sin hath reigned under death, Even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Christ
hanging on that cross, dying for the sins of His people, that's
the grace of God, and it's righteous grace. And when the last one of God's
people is called out, and by that I
mean brought to see what God in His Son has done for them,
believe on Him. The church is likened to a building
in Scripture, a great building. It said he'll bring forth the
headstone. The prophet said when that last
stone, capstone, is set into that building, which that signifies
completion, it will be with shoutings of grace, grace. You know, one more wonderful
thing. And I know I've got to hush. But it says this, you and I,
if we're the Lord's people, believe and trust in him alone, we go
through this life, we make mistakes, we'll fail, we'll fall, we'll
do this, that and the other. You know what it says. But he
giveth more grace. His grace is immeasurable, unending,
because it's in Christ. In Christ. I thank my God, Paul says, always
on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by
Christ Jesus. Is that what you need? Grace?
Sin Christ. We look to Christ. We trust Christ.
But our trust in Christ is what saves us. Who He is and what
He did is what saves us. God help us to look to Him and
to rest and to praise Him for the glory of his grace. Father, this day we give you
praise and thanksgiving. We pray that you would make manifest
this blessed truth to each one of your people. May they be enabled
to see this amazing grace that old Newton wrote about. Amazing
grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I am
found. I was blind, but now I see. We thank you for your grace in
Christ crucified. We give you praise and glory. We glory in you and in what you've
done. And we pray in Christ's name,
Amen.