Grace. What an awesome word. What a
sweet word. You're never going to be right,
nor am I, until I can see that truth, that
I am what I am by the grace of God. Grace will solve all your problems. because it'll make you grateful.
You'll say, thank you. When you contemplate the grace
of God to you, it'll sanctify you. You're looking to find out
how to be a good Christian. Look at the grace of God in your
life. It'll set you apart. You began to serve him because
you love him. Life will get much better because
you'll stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder
that he could love you, not other people, but you. And then just
look how good he's been to you. There's not a person in here
that has reason to complain. Look how good God's been to you.
Should have been dead sleeping in my grave a long time ago. If it's by grace, it can't be by works. Oil and water don't mix. Grace
and law works don't mix. You're not going to go to heaven
by your works, for sure. Because all your works are filthy
rags. But then there is this amazing grace of God Everybody
in here has secrets. And not good ones. Not good secrets. Some of you in here pretend like
you have some goodness, but you don't. Every good act that comes
out of you, it's because God put in you. When I see you raise your hand
and you say, as we said last Sunday, bless God, bless God,
because he chose me, he predestinated me, he called me, he redeemed
me, and he's going to take me all the way to heaven one day.
Don't you understand it's grace that puts you in the way? Grace
is not something we ought to be arguing about. Five-point Calvinist, so what? Some of you don't even know what
that means, I'm glad, it's okay. We don't brag about being Calvinist,
we brag about being a recipient of the amazing grace of God. I know some mean people that
are five-point Calvinists. I know some people whose lives
are totally messed up. No. Somehow or another, we're
not entering into this grace thing. I was just sitting there
thinking about the grace of God. The grace of God. Unmerited favor. I want to talk
to you about trouble at the Bible conference. Say, well, what Bible
conference? Well, turn to the book of Acts,
the 15th chapter. That Bible conference. And certain men, verse 1, and
certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren This
was happening in the church. Taught the brethren and said,
except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot
be saved. Trouble at the Bible conference.
Trouble in the church. Certain brethren came down and
taught that you had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Here's Satan's greatest ploy,
to get inside this church. You know why I preach grace every
Sunday? Every time I preach, I preach grace, because it's
grace, it's grace alone. I read these passages and think,
you know, things haven't changed much among churches. How Satan
attempts to get us off of this message. And some of you even
say to me, you know, pastor, I just don't seem to be growing
much over there, grace gospel. I really need to be fed. No,
probably what you need to be is saved. Because I've never heard the
message of grace when I said, oh, I don't need that. Oh, oh,
that. I love to tell the story, the
old, old story of God's goodness and his grace and his mercy. Look at verse 2 of Acts 15. When
therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation
with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain
other of them should go up to Jerusalem. Let's go up to the
big church. Unto the apostles and elders
about this question. What question? Whether a person
has to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses and trust Jesus
Christ to be saved. You ought to put a period after
Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved. Salvation is all in him. It's
not in you. Oh, if you could only see that,
you wouldn't be saying, amen, amen, amen. You'd be saying,
amen! Hey, amen! Worthless wretch that
we are within ourselves. judgment and condemnation. The grace of God comes to us. I am what I am by the grace of
God. So they're considering this question.
There's trouble in the Bible conference. Verse three, and
being brought on their way by the church, they passed through
Phinise and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles. And they caused great joy unto
all the brethren. Whatever they were preaching
caused great joy and Gentiles were being converted. And the
church was excited about it. And when they were come to Jerusalem,
they were received of the church and of the apostles and elders. And they declared all things
that God had done with them. That would be like me saying,
look at the old clutch cargo building. Look at the old UAW
hall. Look at 52 houses in little grace
village. Look. Look what God is, look
at some of you out of the crack house, out of shooting up. You know, some people don't like
to come over here because of what we have been. You know,
this could be a dangerous place. Oh, it is dangerous. You better
not get near this place if you don't want to get converted because
God's over here and doing great things. Well, when they were come to
Jerusalem, they talked about this thing of whether a person
has to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to
be saved. I, quite frankly, I don't know
where that puts you ladies about being saved. You know, sometimes
at church, we just don't talk about stuff we ought to talk
about. Being circumcised and keeping the law of Moses, Where
does that leave the female? I'm glad it's not by circumcision.
How about it, ladies? Amen. Say, well, pastor, I don't
think you ought to talk that way in church. They talk that
way in the first church. You think about how ridiculous
it was. In fact, that little stubby Jewish
man who was converted named the Apostle Paul, he got so upset
about what they were preaching that in the book of Philippians,
he said, I wish you weren't cutting off a little of the flesh. I
wish you'd cut the whole thing off. Say, oh, pastor, you shouldn't
have said that. Now we're all thinking about
you know what? Well, good. If you think you're
going to be converted and go to heaven that way, you've lost
your mind. That doesn't even make any sense
to me. How crazy we get. And then keeping
the law of Moses. You don't, most of us in here
by memory do not know the 10 commandments. You know, there's
over 4,000, 5,000 commandments in the Old Testament alone. How
many of them do you know by heart? And then the bigger question
is, if you don't know them, how are you going to keep them? Well,
you're not going to keep them. Law salvation, work salvation. I hate it because it's opposed
to the message of God's grace. Your life is never going to be
right by going to church, this church or that church. It's only
when you're filled to capacity and running over. You're never
going to be much of a blessing until you're running over with
gratitude. In fact, you're going to be judgmental.
Very judgmental. Amen. But if you're filled with
the grace of God, your attitude is this, if God saves me in my
wretchedness, he can save you. In fact, I think the apostle
Paul and I are gonna have a good talk when I get to heaven because
he said he was the chief of sinners. And I know he wasn't because
I am the chief of sinners. We're gonna talk about that.
He and I. But one thing we're both going
to do is give God glory and praise and honor. In fact, I've got
a head start. I started when I was an eight
year old boy. This grace thing is not new to
me. And I am absolutely positive that God has put me on this earth
to continually remind you of the grace of God and how grateful
and thankful and appreciative you ought to be. Well, they considered this question,
whether a person had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Verse
six says, and the apostles and elders came together for to consider
this matter. And then you find in verse 10,
the conclusion, what these guys came up with. Now, therefore,
why tempt you God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples,
which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Moses,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Old Testament saints, you're putting a yoke
on our neck. These laws, these regulations
that you have to be this good to go to heaven. It's a yoke
of bondage. Those of you who are here and
who are trusting law works for salvation or church entity for
salvation, what a bondage you're in and what a hypocrite you are. Because you know, and I know
because I've read the Bible, all of us here have missed the
mark. Not by a little bit, I mean, we have missed the mark. I often
say this and people always question me about it, but I would rather
stand before God as a thief and a robber than a self-righteous
religious person. Because what religious people
do is it's the Catholic church. It's the Baptist church. It's
the Presbyterian church. It's the Methodist church. It's
the church of Christ. It's the church of God in Christ.
It's first Pentecostal church of Christ in God. And on and
on and on. It's none of that. All of our
righteousness are filthy rags. You are what you are by the grace
of God. You got a 2000, Mustang, I don't
know why I said that, but it was the grace of God. It wasn't
your genius. You and I couldn't even play
the radio if it wasn't for the grace of God. We're war. Now, so the first church has
considered this matter and look what they said in verse 11. But
we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
shall be saved. That's what the first church
believed. Grace, not a doctrine to argue over, but to enter into
and both hands go up. That's why Jesus said to his
disciples, you didn't choose me. I chose you. Oh, hallelujah. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that he first loved us. Yea, I have loved you with
an everlasting love. Amen. But we're bound to give
thanks to God because he hath from the beginning chosen us
to salvation. I'm about to get happy about
election. That God chose me. Oh, why would he choose you? How did you end up here? Oh,
there was the hound of heaven that followed you through your
infancy, through your teenage crazy years, in those twenties,
and one day caught up with you and lay hold on you. All the
time you were blind as a bat, just doing your own thing. God
just let you do your own thing and took your own thing and you
ended up in a homeless center Or or maybe you were in church
and and they had a knockdown drag out split and you ended
up I'm gonna go over there at that little hands-on inner city
church over there in Pontiac and you heard the gospel and
How good God's been to you. And those of us who've been saved
out of church anity, we have more to be thankful for. You
know what the scripture says? Grow in grace. Grow. Say, well, I think I got it. No, you don't have it. When we've
been there 10,000 years, we've no less days to sing God's praise
than when we first begun. You think about the things he's
going to show you that he kept you from. The things that he
worked in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. And
then think about the awfulness of you to kind of taking credit
for you being such a genius. No, I don't think so. It was
the grace of God, how we're going to praise Him. Well, trouble
at the Bible conference. So, what happens? Now let's go over to Galatians.
We were working our way there. I think the book of Galatians
was probably written because of what happened at the Bible
conference. Trouble about this thing of whether we're saved
by circumcision, saved by works. One of the things that came up
at the Acts 15 conference was whether the apostle Paul was
a true apostle. So look at the way he begins
Galatians chapter one. Paul an apostle. That's the way
he starts it. You know, I was thinking, and
I'm certainly not boasting about me, but I can truthfully say
this. Kent called to be a preacher of the gospel of God's grace.
I know that. He keeps the pressure on me about
this message. When I was young preacher, older
preachers used to tell me, Kent, you need to get more messages
than just grace. And here we are 55 years later,
and I still haven't got what they were talking about yet.
It's grace that puts you in the way, leads you along the way.
It's grace that takes you all the way. It's not your mental
genius. I don't know why I'm thinking
about crack pipes, but you know, I have seen people, have you
ever seen anybody smoke crack out of a pop can? I have at home
somewhere in my collection of crack pipes, a crack pipe that
is made out of nuts and bolts. And I always say to myself, it
was a nut that did that. We are so crazy. Insanity doing
the same thing over and over and over expecting different
results, right? So here's what one thing I do
know and this is not haughtiness I would have quit a long time
ago. I would have given up on church long time ago I've been
through more church fights and you have bar fights I've seen
Christian people professing Christian people act absolutely crazy and
I know secrets that people are going to be glad when I'm dead. Take you a while to get that. Here's what the apostle, he said,
I want you Galatians to first of all know, you see the church
had been contaminated by these legalists and they were teaching
circumcision and law keeping plus Christ. Just remember this,
don't be adding anything to Christ. It's not Christ plus, it's not
Christ minus, it's Christ alone. In Christ alone. That's where
I'm standing, in him alone. All right, so Paul says, I'm
an apostle. And by the way, I'm not apostle
by men, neither of men, that's verse one. Jesus Christ is the
one they call me. All of you guys, You need to
know this. You say, well, you know, what
they were saying about the apostle Paul was he never saw the real
Jesus in real life. I mean, he, the others were all
called, you know? And so what the apostle Paul
says this, hey, you guys, I'm the guy that met up with the
resurrected Christ on the Damascus road. I'm as much called as you
are. Amen. That must've been a great
thing. I was thinking about that this
week. how he met up with the resurrected Christ, the Lord
Jesus on the Damascus road. Look what he says, to all the
brethren which are with me under the churches of Galatia. This
was a whole lot of churches he were writing to, and they were
getting all out of sorts about circumcision and law-keeping.
Grace be to you. Remember this, You can't even
be haughty about knowing the truth because all truth is revealed
truth. The only reason you know the
truth is because God opened your blind eyes. Oh, that he might show us the
riches of his grace. Grace be to you. Verse four,
who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from
this present evil world. You know what? As I get older,
this I'm sure of, this is an evil world. This is an evil world. According to the will of God,
our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I marvel. You know, if about half this
church began to say, you know, I've been here 40 years, end
of the month. I'm the only pastor you've ever had. Thank you. I didn't mean that in a haughty
way. I just meant 40 years. Message hasn't changed a bit.
Hasn't changed a bit. Who gave himself for our sins.
I often say this. And this is what the apostle
said in the text verse that Dr. Christopher read. I do not frustrate
the grace of God. Galatians 2.21. I don't frustrate
the grace of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, then Christ is dead in vain. If you can be saved
any other way and made righteous any other way than through Jesus
Christ, Christ didn't do much. He died in vain, it was for nothing. Don't you get it? God sent his
only begotten son into the world to save you on purpose, for a
purpose, hallelujah. Wednesday night, we talked about
having a single-mindedness toward Christ. There's not a husband
in here that doesn't want his wife to be single-minded toward
him. And the apostle Paul said to the Corinthian church, which
was a crazy church, they met, much like us, they met to take
the Lord's supper and got drunk on the Lord's supper and ate
all the bread and had a little party. Crazy. Paul said, I've espoused you,
you're engaged. Every Christian in here is engaged
to Jesus Christ. There's a great marriage supper
coming. And it's not going to be here
comes the bride, but here comes the groom. All eyes are going
to be on him. And the bride is single-minded
in her praise. Amen. You can read that in the
revelation. If it's by grace, then it's not
by law, period. There's no wiggle worm here.
Oh, but you know, pastor, don't you think it's important to be
baptized? How important is it? It's this important. If you are
being immersed in water to show that you believe and have trusted
that Christ died in your stead, in your room, took your place.
But if you're trusting in that water, that's a hellish thing.
You'll perish in your sins. It's not, there is a fountain
filled with water drawn from the city main, but there is a
fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's vein. That's
what it's about. Amen. I marvel that you're so
soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ
unto another gospel. I have often said this to you.
Some of you have heard me say this for 40 years. If after I'm
gone, you turn to another gospel than I preached unto you, I will
haunt you. I marvel, I'm astonished at you. You see, I remember when you
came in 35 East Huron with blistered lips. and a thick tongue because
you couldn't put down the crack pipe. I remember the heroin addiction. I remember the church entity
and the self-righteousness that you had. And instead of you coming
over here and being changed, you tried to change us. I remember
all of that. And then Jesus came and in power,
quickened you and made you alive. I marvel. I marvel that you're
so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of
Christ. Grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. Into the grace of Christ, unto
another gospel, which is not another. There is no other. There's
only one true gospel. It's the gospel of propitiation. It's the gospel of substitution. It's the gospel of the blood.
It's the gospel of he took my place. It's the gospel of redemption. It's the gospel of atonement.
That gospel, the substitutionary work and person of Christ, which
is not another verse seven, but there'll be some that trouble
you and would pervert pervert the gospel of Christ It's not
Christ plus baptism Christ plus the Lord's Supper Christ plus
your this or that you have nothing to do with your salvation I'm
talking about essential salvation. You had nothing to do with it.
He saved you by himself So well, you know I cooperated not until
he worked on your willer. I He changed your willer and
instead of rejection, you became a willing servant of Jesus Christ. He turned you around. Which is not another verse seven,
but there's some that trouble you. I'm telling you this, you
leave this grace gospel, you're in a heap of trouble. Because you are not what you
pretend you are. You have those secret thoughts
when you're alone. When nobody's looking, you have
that perverted flesh. And if it's not by grace, you
and I are goners. Why are you looking at me that
way? It's grace alone. And if you
could get shut up to that today, If you could really, you know,
if it really dawns on you today, there's liable to be some excitement
take place in here. You know, I love to see it when
people see the truth and can't help but shout. I'm not talking
about business meeting night. I'm talking about during church
service where it's hallelujah. Wouldn't it be something? Wouldn't
it be something? I've only seen it a few times
where there's been an outbreak of praise in service. I was telling
them Wednesday night about down in Danville once where people,
while I was preaching, got to singing. I mean, they interrupted
my message. It was wonderful. They just began
to sing. Wouldn't it be something if somebody
just started saying, we join you. Amazing grace, how sweet
to sound. There's a fountain filled with
blood, drawn from Emanuel's veins. Wonderful grace of Jesus, greater
than all my sin. Wouldn't it be awesome if that
joy was in us? I'll tell you this, you and mama
not have another fight, as long as your mind was on that. Your
children would see you happy and praising God. Amen. Not dead lifeless religion, but
a deep down hallelujah in your soul that makes every day you
say this, this is a day the Lord has made. I'll rejoice and be
glad in it. God is in my life. And here's what Paul said in
verse eight. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach
any other gospel unto you, than that which we have preached unto
you, let him go to hell. That's literally what he says.
The word of curse there is let him be condemned to hell. Oh,
oh, let me tell you this. God's serious about this business
of sending his son. Let me tell you this. That was
no light thing. That day when Jesus left heaven. I don't know what day that was
exactly. But I do know God the father.
There goes my boy. There goes my son. My only begotten
son. He's the apple of my eye. And the foxes have their holes and
the birds have their nests. But my boy has no place to lay
his head. What's he doing down here? Why
did you send him? I sent him to be the substitute
for worthless worms. Nobody, sinners, unrighteous
and ungodly. Oh, and from sinking sands, he
lifted me. With tender hands, he lifted
me. From shades of night to planes of light. Oh, praise his name,
he lifted me. Another gospel. Trouble at the Bible conference.
The apostle Paul said, if it's by grace, then it's not by works.
I'm not going to frustrate the grace of God. He said, well,
pastor, I think you went a little too far. I haven't gone far enough,
nor far as I want to go. I want to lift him so high. You
are blinded by the splendor of his grace and mercy to you in
Christ Jesus. How we sit around and complain
murmur. We have all this stuff. That's
all it is. Stuff. Just stuff. And don't have any
joy or peace or happiness. It's because we get to really
thinking we're something when we're nothing. We're nothing. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. What I would hope, it's three minutes after 12, that
you go home now today, if you haven't, and you just think about what
that preacher said. You know the apostle said this,
You know, after Paul, who was Saul, after he was converted,
people began to say something like this. Have you heard about
Saul? Do you know he's actually converted
to Christianity? He that was a murderous, like
a bloodthirsty dog hunting Christians down, now has embraced the faith
that he once rejected. And Paul said, and they glorified
God in me. That's what he says in the first
chapter of the book of Galatians. They glorified God in me. Do we have anybody with a past
Lutheran life in here? You were a Lutheran? One, two,
three, four. Maybe still five of you. Let
me tell you about Martin Luther. You know, he's a Catholic priest,
right? And he lived up in the monastery
up there in that cold, damp room. And he was trying so hard. He
would take off his clothes and beat his back with switches.
And he's trying to be justified before God. And one day he was
reading Galatians and the book of Romans. And God converted him. And he
said, the just shall live by faith. We're justified by faith
alone in Christ Jesus. And I read this week, here's
what Martin Luther said. Martin Luther said this, I am
married to the book of Galatians. Wonder why he said that? Because
there was trouble at the Bible conference and the apostle Paul
was confronting those folks about whether salvation is by grace
alone. Just think about this. Now, I'm
gonna try to remove everybody but you. And right now the spirit
of God is talking to you. I mean, you've tried to change
your facial expressions so I wouldn't suspect that God is dealing with
you, but you're really not very good of it when he does something
deep down inside. And today, maybe you've been
a Baptist all your life. You know, I was preaching at
New Hope Baptist Church when I was a kid preacher. And I felt
like so very strong, the Lord was dealing with somebody like
I do now. And we stood to sing at the close
of that message. And the pastor stood up and his
lip started trembling. And he said, my dear people,
the Lord has saved me tonight. Now I wasn't expecting that to
happen. Yeah, exactly. The pastor got
converted. I mean, maybe today, maybe today,
God took the scales off your eyes and you really saw that
you have been saved by the grace of God, that it was all by grace. And deep down inside, you are
so grateful and appreciative. You can hardly sit in your seat.
You're happy about it. You know, here we don't sing
29 stanzas just as I am at the close of the service, but I want
to tell you this. I have no objection for you coming
forward at any point when I'm preaching or at the close of
the service and saying this. I just want to confess before
this church that Jesus Christ is my Lord. I have been saved
by grace alone. Maybe for the first time today,
you saw it. It's an exciting thing. You know,
after being converted as an eight-year-old boy, I've just never got over
it. Every service, it's God's grace. And I'm gonna tell you this,
It will sanctify your life. If you are in love with Jesus
Christ, stop all the stuff, stuff, stuff, stop it. Lift your hands
and give him glory and praise and honor. Yeah, shoot. Sometimes I don't want to go
home. I know some of you do, but this is my favorite place. Right here in the presence of
God. And you're my favorite people.
I love you. And I'm glad he loved us. He loved us first. Look what
a miracle he's doing here. Just so awesome what he's doing. And greater things yet to come,
I believe that. All right, Dr. Christopher, are
you close? You're close. Sometimes I'm upstairs
listening to the service and Holy Spirit just, does a great
job of kicking my can sometimes, and I'm just thinking about the
word insanity, and it was spurred on by when he said church anity,
and I thought, boy, insanity on how we think. Unbelievable. And then we juxtapose that next
to a song that says, Heaven Came Down and Rescued Me. Unbelievable. My wife reminded me of Tully
and Tevigean's excellent, most excellent Christian math, and
I'll leave you with this. Jesus plus nothing, equals everything. Jesus plus nothing equals everything. And I'm terrible at math, but
I can sink my teeth into that one. Oh boy, can I sink my teeth
into that one. Heavenly Father, be with us as
we go through the week. Let your name be glorified. Let our thoughts
move more towards critical thinking and appreciation for the grace
that you have shown us by coming down. Teach us to be kind one
to another. Lift our hearts towards you.
We ask these things and pray these things in Christ's name,
amen.