Turn back with me to Romans chapter
1. I want to talk to you a little
bit this morning about grace and peace. Grace and peace. Paul having declared his apostleship,
And the gospel he was called to preach. He said, I'm separated
to the gospel. So is every man who's called
to preach it. He's not a counselor. He's not
an entertainer. He's a preacher. He's been separated
to the gospel. To the gospel. And he tells him
that, and then he moves on to talk to them who were the fruits
of that gospel ministry. He says in Romans 1 verse 6,
Among whom are ye also the called. The called in Jesus Christ. Our Lord said, My sheep hear
My voice. He calls them. If you'll read
that chapter, I think it's chapter 10 of John's Gospel, you'll see
that he's the great shepherd of the sheep. He said, I know
my sheep. And he said, the porter recognizes
the shepherd. He knows who he is. And he said,
I call my sheep by name. And they hear me. And they come
out. He said, I put them forth. And they follow me. He said,
you are the called. The called. And you are called
to be saints. The called of Jesus Christ. And
He said, to all that be in Rome who are beloved of God, called
to be saints, grace be to you. And peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul, in almost all
his epistles, had an inscription. You know what an inscription
is. You remember they put that inscription on the cross, King
of the Jews. That told it all, didn't it?
King of the Jews. They said, don't put that on
there. Put on there, he said he's King of the Jews. He said,
what I put on there, I put on there. And that's the way it's
going to stand. That's an inscription. Well, Paul had in almost all
his epistles, he had an inscription that identified him as its author,
and it kind of summed up what he was all about, and what his
message was all about, and what that epistle was all about. And that inscription is grace
and peace. Almost every letter he wrote,
he identified them as Beloved of the Father, called of Jesus
Christ, called to be saints. And He said, Grace and peace
to you. To you. There are two things
that strike a common chord in the hearts of all who believe.
Grace and peace. I tell you, you can be seduced. A fellow told me he was so down
one time he could sit on a penny laying flat ways and his feet
couldn't touch the floor. That's down, ain't it? You can
be so down that you just feel like there's no hope. And somebody
can say grace, grace. Just mention the word. Just see
it in a song. Grace, grace, God's grace. And I tell you, a light comes
on in the heart, a light comes on in the soul, and you begin
to be thankful and to rejoice over that grace that God has
shown to you. This strikes a common chord in
the hearts of all who believe. Grace and peace. Grace is what
that man has heard. Grace is how he heard. It's not
only what he heard, but it's how he heard. And grace is his
very experience. You've heard men talk about their
experiences. I had a dream and I had a feeling. The believer's experience is
grace. I don't care who he is. I don't care where he lives.
I don't care what kind of situation it was. He goes to give you his
testimony. Here's where he starts. Grace.
Grace and peace is the result of this grace. Where there is
no grace, there is no peace. There is no peace. This grace
and peace can only be known by those called to be saints. It
takes a new nature to discover grace. When grace comes, a new
nature comes with it. Grace and peace can only be known
by those called to be saints, and the rest of this unconverted
world knows nothing of the grace of God. Yet everything in the
believer's experience is the experience of grace. Now listen
to me. If you have anything in your
experience, in the providence of it, in your calling, in your
faith, in your repentance, in your conversion, in your walk,
or in your worship that has not come by the grace of God, you
don't know the grace of God. Grace is 100% grace. 100% grace.
Grace is pure grace with no works mixed in. Romans 11, verse 6, Paul defines
the grace of God as being no more of works. Otherwise, grace
is no more grace. To know grace is to know it apart
from everything you ever did. Everything that you might do.
Everything that you hope to do. Grace is pure grace. And everything Are you listening? Everything in the salvation of
a sinner is by the free and unmerited grace of God. Everything. Paul tells us in the plainest
and simplest of terms that this grace and this peace comes from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to hear me. There's
just one God. Just one God. Whatever He is,
however He is, and whatever He does, there's just one God. Just one God. And we're shut
up to this God by the Word of God, which He declares to be
infallibly inspired by the Spirit of God Himself. I know when we talk about these
things, we want to say, well, that just don't seem right. Seem
ain't got nothing to do with it. Throw that out the door.
Well, I think, no, just throw that out the door with the rest
of it. Right here. Show me in here your
God. Show me in here your God. Will this God compromise? Show
me that in here. Does man have a free will? Show
me that in this book. This is the foundation of faith
right here. The Word of God. And there is only one source
which is profitable for doctrine. The Word of God. There is only
one source profitable for reproof. and for correction, and for instruction
in righteousness, and that is the Word of God. Peter said,
we have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto we do well to take
heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day
dawn and the day star arise in your heart. That's the Word of
God. God does not leave Himself and
His message or His divine purpose to be imagined by men or interpreted
by men. But He tells us plainly in His
Word who He is and what He has and what is yet going on and
done by Him in this world. And this book tells us that God
is just. He's just. Everything God purposes to do
has a just and right end to it. God is just. And He's right in the strictest
sense of the word. He will not compromise about
anything. Not going to compromise. Period.
End of story. He's not going to change His
mind. He said, I change not. That's pretty simple, ain't it?
That ought to just put an end to that foolishness. I used to see that bumper sticker.
I rarely see it anymore. But it said, prayer changes things. Oh, no, it don't. Oh, no, it
don't. Every good gift and every perfect
gift cometh down from above from the Father of lights, with whom
is no variableness, neither shadow of turn. He is not going to change. And He is not going to compromise
on anything, and He is not going to overlook anything. In Deuteronomy
32, verse 4, it says, He is the rock. His work is perfect. For all His ways are judgment,
a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He. Our God is just. That's what
the book says. And because he's just, he must
and will punish sin. The soul that sinneth, write
it down, shall surely die. I'm not going to overlook it. I'm not going to overlook it.
Because justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne.
God is just, and God will punish sin. And our God is righteous,
perfectly, continually, everlastingly righteous. And because He is
righteous, He demands righteousness from all His creatures. Be ye
angel or man, God will not tolerate unrighteousness. He said, be
ye perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,
Matthew 5, verse 48. And our God is a God of wrath. God hates, the scripture said,
He hates all the workers of iniquity. Our God is a God of wrath. With
a righteous and just hatred for sin that passes all imagination
to me. I can't even imagine righteous
wrath. You can't either because we're
not righteous. But I'll tell you this, I get upset over some
little something. I get upset and angry about it.
I can't imagine a perfectly just and righteous wrath. It'll spare
nothing. Spare nothing. God will pour out his wrath in
the day of judgment and cast men into hell forever. And what
greater evidence can you ask of God of that than the death
of His Son? Listen to these words over in
Zechariah. He said, Awake, O sword, against
my shepherd, and against the man that is my
fellow, talking about Christ, saith the Lord of hosts. When
God made His beloved Son to be sin for us, whatever that means,
I'm not even going to pause to try to explain what that means.
Whatever it means. When He becomes sin for us, He
poured out His wrath upon His Son and made Him to drink it
even to the bitter dregs. God's wrath. And if God would
not spare His wrath or compromise His justice upon the sinner's
substitute, don't you be deceived in believing He's going to spare
it on you. If God poured out His wrath to satisfy His righteous
anger and His righteous justice, and He poured it out upon His
well-beloved Son, don't you think He's not going to spare you?
He's not going to spare you. He's not going to spare me. He's
not going to spare the angels. Isn't that the language of Scripture?
God spared not the angels who left their first estate. He didn't
spare them. And He's not going to spare you.
And He's not going to spare me. And then here's the thing. All we are is sin. All we are is sin. There's no
goodness in there. There's none good. None good. You say, I know somebody's
good. Let me tell you what God said.
God said He looked down from heaven to see if there was any
good. And He said there was none. Now, He's a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart. And there was none good. That's
the Word of God. I'm going to take His Word over
yours. There's none good. None good. All we are is sin. All we do is sin. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. I realize there's some better
than others. I understand that. But you don't
have others to deal with. You have to deal with God. That's
who you're going to stand before. And all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. We're born in sin. We live in
sin. We rejoice in sin. Job said,
we drank iniquity like water. Don't even think about it. Down
it goes. Every day. Every day. We love darkness. He said, here's
the condemnation. You want to see the condemnation
of this world? You want to see what sin is?
Here's the condemnation. Light came into the world and
men loved darkness rather than light. You want to see what man
is? Look how man treated the Son
of God. Which of you convinces me of
sin? And if I do know sin, why don't
you give me your ear? Why don't you listen to me? Why
don't you believe me when I tell you who I am? Paul said in Romans 3, verse
9, that he'd already proved that both Jew and Gentile, they would
all understand. My friend, you might not believe
it, and you might not ever believe it, but that's how it is. That's
how it is. And the one thing absolutely
certain in this thing of salvation is our need of God's free and
sovereign grace. Grace. There's no other way.
Grace. If God don't intervene, I'm a
goner. And when God intervenes, He intervenes
by grace. By grace. We got no potential for works.
We got no willingness to serve, no goodness, no righteousness
to recommend us. There's none good. No, not one. None righteous, no, not one.
None that seeketh after God, none that understandeth. They're
all gone out of the way, together become unprofitable. Destruction
and misery is in their ways, and there's no fear of God before
their eyes. Sinners need the grace of God. Sinners are shut up to the grace
of God. And sinners, real bona fide sinners,
rejoice in the free grace of God. Were it not for the grace of
God, no man could be saved. And I tell you this, when somebody
says grace, the believer lights up all over. Light shines in
his heart and shines in his mind and is thankful for the free
grace of God. He knows the pit from which he
has been dug. He knows the pit. He knows something
of the rebellion of his own heart. He knows something of his own
inability. I talked to a man one time. I
forget what church he went to. Not really important anyway,
but he was talking to me and he said, I was asking him about
his conversion. And he said, well, he said, we
was in the thick of the battle. And he said, I got shot in the
neck. And he said, my throat was cut
from ear to ear where the shell went in. And he said, I was laying
there and the blood was just pouring out all over my chest,
just shooting out all over me. And he said, Lord, if you'll
spare me, I'll serve you till I die. I said, I just got one
question. Did you? He hung his head, didn't
say a word. Grace. When God intervenes, it's
grace. We know something about that
inability, and we know something about the utter impossibility
of men to save themselves. So what I want to do this morning
is just go through some of the Scriptures and show you how the
grace of God flows from beginning to end. First of all, over in
I Peter chapter 5 and verse 10, he refers to our God, and I want
you to listen to these words, the God of all grace. Where is this grace at? Is it
in men? Where's this grace? He is the
God of all grace. Only place to find grace is in
God. He's the God of all grace. He
has it. He owns it. He is grace. Grace is God. Our God is grace. Listen to this. But the God of
all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ
Jesus, after that you suffered a while, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, and settle you. How is He going to do it? Who
is going to do these things? Where is all this going to come
from? From the God of all grace. The God of all grace. All grace
is in our God. He is the giver of every good
and perfect gift. It is as much the character of
our God to be gracious as it is for the character of our God
to be just. It's just as important to Him
to be gracious as it is for Him to be just. You know, when Moses He approached the Lord on the
mount, and he said, Show me your glory. Show me your glory. You know what our Lord told him?
He said, I'll be gracious. Huh? That's my glory. I'll be gracious. I tell you,
you don't know what that means until you find yourself the sinner. Lost. Separated from God. Banished from His presence. No
hope. No hope for you. Not going down for the third
time. You've seen them pictures of a drowning man holding up
one finger, and then two, and then three, and then he's gone.
No, you're under. All the way. You're gone. And then God intervenes. Huh? That's grace. That thief on the
cross was in his dying minutes. He was that far from hell. He said, Lord, remember me. Huh? Remember me. He told that other
fellow, he said, listen, we're up here justly. This man didn't
do anything. He said, Lord, remember me. Our
Lord said, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise. That's
grace. That's grace. There were no works
in that. That's all grace. Who changed his heart? It said
both of them was railing on him a few minutes before. Both of
them railing on him. Mocking him. They was all together. And then God intervened. And
then He justified God. and prayed for Christ to remember
him. That's grace. Great. And then look at God's eternal
purpose. Let me show you something about
the grace of God here in 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 9. It talks about us being partakers
of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the power of God,
verse 9, who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace. Ain't that what that says? Which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. God's
eternal purpose is a purpose of grace. It's a purpose of grace. And
the God of all grace chose His beloved Son to bring this grace
to us. All this purpose was handed into
the hands of the great Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians
chapter 1 through 6 tells us that God blessed His elect in
Christ with all spiritual blessings that they were chosen in Him
before the foundation of the world, that they were predestinated
unto the adoption of children in Him, and made them accepted
in the Beloved to the praise of the glory of His grace. The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And the faithful witness
of this gospel writer is that he beheld His glory. The Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace. Full of grace and truth. God's purpose of grace is through
His Son. And then thirdly, we have by
this eternal purpose of grace and because of the work of Jesus
Christ, the Spirit of grace. The Spirit of grace. Hebrews
10.29 calls Him the Spirit of grace. He is warning those about
leaving the gospel there in Hebrews 10, this one way. that God has
established through His Son, this new and living way. And
He said, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together as a matter
of so many. But so much more, as the day
approaches, you meet, you assemble, you comfort one another. You
worship Me that way, that way. You be taught by My servant.
You be comforted with My people. And He said, those who leave
this, Those who leave this. Those who leave this gospel.
Who leave this way. He said there is no hope for
them. No hope for them. Just a certain fearful looking
for of judgment and fiery indignation. Now he said those who died under
Moses' law. Those who died under Moses' law.
They took them out and under two or three witnesses they stoned
them. And they died. How much sore
punishment! He said, suppose ye shall you
be thought worthy who have trodden underfoot the Son of God, and
counted the blood of the covenant as an unholy thing, and done
despite to the Spirit of grace. Done despite to the Spirit of
grace. The Spirit of Grace is the Spirit
of Christ taking the things of Christ and showing them unto
us. The Spirit of Grace is the Comforter taking the things of
Christ and comforting us, bringing peace and rest and rejoicing
to chosen sinners. The Spirit of Grace. And then,
fourthly, the Gospel is called in Scripture the Gospel of the
Grace of God. Somebody told me that we just
don't understand this whole movement. He called it a movement of sovereign
grace. He said, if we don't preach sovereign
grace, you mean we're not preaching the gospel? You can't preach
the gospel and not preach the sovereign grace of God. It's
the gospel of the grace of God. Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. How are you going to preach Him
and not preach grace? In Acts 20, 24, Paul said that
the ministry which he received of the Lord Jesus was to testify
the gospel of the grace of God. The gospel is all about grace.
Paul said to the Thessalonians, God hath loved us and hath given
us everlasting consolation and a good hope through grace. The
gospel tells us we are justified freely by His grace through the
redemption that's in Christ Jesus. And speaking of our eternal union
with Christ and our death, burial, and resurrection in Him, it said,
by grace ye are saved. Ain't that what that says there
in Ephesians 2? And speaking of His kindness toward us and
bringing this good news to us, He said, by grace are you saved
through faith. Bite not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God. It's not of works. You know why?
Because you can bag on it forever. If all you had to do was walk
to the front, you'd stand before angels and devils in that day
and say, well, one thing I did. Totally, totally lay aside all
the glory of Christ and all the glory of heaven, and you talk
about that isle you went up and down. Well, you said that's silly. Men don't do that. You better
listen to their testimonies again. I remember the time and I remember
the place. Huh? I've heard the testimonies. I've made the testimony. I know
exactly what you... And that's why it's not of works.
It's all of grace. Otherwise, you boast. You boast. Even though sentenced to hell,
he said, will stand in that day, still boasting. Have not we cast
out devils in thy name? Have not we preached in thy name?
Have not we done many wonderful works in thy name? Boast, boast,
boast. He said, depart from me, you
workers of iniquity. I never knew you. I never knew
you. By grace, are you saying? And
then in Romans 5, 2, he talks about standing grace. Huh? We have access into this grace
wherein we stand. Standing grace. We stand in the
grace of God. We've got nothing else to stand
on but the free grace of God. But it's sufficient. It's sufficient. In Romans 6, 14, he speaks of
governing grace. Sin shall not have dominion over
you, for you are not under the law, you are under grace. Grace
governs the man. It leads the man. It rules the
man. Hebrews 13, verse 9 speaks of
establishing grace. He said, Be not carried about
with divers and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the
heart be established with grace. 1 Peter 3.7 talks about inheriting
grace. We are heirs together of the
grace of God. 1 Corinthians 15.10 speaks of
conforming grace. Paul said, I am what I am by
the grace of God. By the grace of God. 2 Corinthians
9.8 talks about abounding grace. He said, God is able to make
all grace abound toward you, that ye always, having all sufficiency
in all things, may abound to every good work. Ephesians 4.29
talks about ministering grace. And 1 Peter 4.10 said we are
stewards of the manifold grace of God. Believers love the grace of God. Their whole experience is about
grace. Sing, Paul said, with grace in
your hearts. That's how you can sing, with
grace in your hearts. Let your speech be always seasoned
with grace. And do you know what the very
last words of the Bible are? Does anybody in here know what
they are? The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all. Amen. That's the very last words
of the Bible. I went to church for 20 years.
Never heard the grace of God. And I've just shown you here
in a few minutes that everything connected with the believer,
his calling, his conversion, his regeneration, his walk, His
conforming, His dying, everything, His resurrection, all by the
grace of God. Grace, grace, grace, grace from
one end to the other. And what I'm laboring to do this
morning is to show you that the grace of God is not something
that occupies some inconspicuous place in the salvation of sinners
that he might miss and not know it. It has everything to do with
his salvation, and it's utterly impossible for him to miss it. The grace of God. The grace of
God. And peace is the result of that
grace. Peace. We have peace with God. Grace brings purpose and power
into the life of the believer. Grace brings justification and
sanctification. Grace brings faith and repentance. It brings regeneration and conversion. Grace brings motivation and devotion. And grace brings every good and
perfect gift down from the Father of light to needy sinners. And
when it comes, it brings peace. Peace. Peace like you've never known.
Peace. Lay in the bed hurting so bad
I can't stand it. But I still have peace. I have
peace. Peace with God. Arthur Pink wrote this. Let me
read it to you. It's just a short excerpt from
his writings. He said, divine grace is the
sovereign, saving favor of God, exercised in bestowing blessings
upon those who have no merit in them, and for which no compensation
can be demanded, for they've got no price to pay. Grace is
completely unmerited and unsought. Grace cannot be bought, earned,
or won by anything in us or done by. If it could, it would cease
to be grace immediately and become works. Grace is bestowed upon
sinners without attraction, without condition, without qualification. And when it comes and as it comes,
it comes as a matter of pure charity, unsought, unasked, and
undesired. That's the grace of God, the
grace of God. And there's four things that
distinguish the grace of God in the Scriptures. I'll give
this to you and I'll quit. It's eternal. It's eternal. It's from the very beginning.
From the very beginning. He said in Romans 8, 28, And
we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them
who are the call, according to His purpose. That's grace. Grace in God's providence and
grace in His election and in His predestination and in all
things. You can read it again in 2 Timothy
1.9. I've already read that to you. It's eternal. And here's the
second thing about this grace, it's free. You can't buy it. It's free. It's justified, he
said in Romans 3, 24, freely by His grace. It's free. And I'll tell you something else
about this grace. It's sovereign. It's sovereign. It comes from
a sovereign. It's given sovereignly. And it
reigns sovereignly in the heart. And then, fourthly, the grace
of God is distinguishing. God only shows grace to His elect. Now there's a difference between
mercy and grace and I'm fixing to tell you what it is. Mercy
is anything short of hell. Anything short of hell is mercy. And in that sense, He shows mercy
to all men. You're not in hell yet. You're
here this morning and you don't know God. You're under His mercy
right now. Under His mercy. Anything this
side of hell is mercy. But grace is effectual. And grace is only to His elect. Because grace brings life. Grace brings all the good and
perfect gifts from God down to sinners. Grace. Grace is particular. Grace is distinguishing. And
it's shown only to those. And so every time Paul gives
that word, grace and peace to you, he takes time to tell you
who he's talking about. He's talking about those called
of God, called to be saints, called by the Holy Spirit. Grace
brings eternal life and every good and perfect gift to those
he loved from all eternity. May God be pleased. to manifest
that grace this morning.