Thankful to be here this morning
and be given the privilege to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ
another time. I was just sitting there thinking,
and I might have this a little bit wrong, but there's two people
in this congregation, I think, that I've known longer than I've
known my wife Annie. And I think it's Lynn and Donnie. Donnie, looking forward to hearing
you this morning. Turn with me to Romans chapter
5. This is the first time I've been
out and about for a while. I look forward to it. I always enjoy being at Todd's Road just like
being home. I pray the Lord will be pleased
to meet with us this morning. I want to talk about the nature
of grace. The nature of grace. Romans 517,
let's start reading together there. For if by one man's offense,
or by the one sin of that one man, death reigned by that one
sin, or that man's deed, But now look how he talks about grace.
Much more. They which receive abundance
of grace. One sin destroyed us all. But when God comes, he gives
much more. An abundance of grace and the
gift of righteousness. And that righteousness shall
reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense
or that one sin, judgment came upon all men to condemnation,
even so the righteousness of the free gift came upon all men
under justification of life. Now I want to comment on that
all men, all men. The all men in those two verses
is all of God's elect. I know lots and lots of people
that never have been condemned or never feel condemned and they'll
live in this world and die in this world never feeling the
judgment or condemnation of God in this world. So the old man
that he here is talking about, I never, you know, I was made
a sinner by God, brought under the judgment of God, but at the
same time the same God that brought me into judgment gave me an abundance
of grace in life by the Lord Jesus Christ. The same all, there's
all there. It's all God's elect. My little
brother came, spent three days with me last week. He don't want
to hear nothing about God, don't want to hear nothing about Christ,
don't want to hear nothing about salvation, don't want to hear
nothing about it. So there ain't no danger, you
know, maybe God will bring him to that place one day, but not
now, he don't. And so then he gave us all justification unto
life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous, the same many again. Moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ. We've seen a lot of things here
about grace. I love the word grace. Just absolutely
love it. Love the word. I'd like to hear
anybody mention it. Just mention the word grace to
me and it makes me feel good. Gives me some hope, gives me
some comfort, gives me some assurance. Grace is a beautiful word. You
know, if I had a daughter, I'd want her named Grace. Name her Grace. What a beautiful,
beautiful word. And grace is a comprehensive
word. I mean, it covers some ground. Grace covers from ground. And you know how much ground
it covers? It covers from eternity back to eternity future. That's how far grace reaches.
I mean, it's comprehensive. It comprehends everything God
purposed to do for us in Christ before the world ever began.
This grace was given us in Christ before the world ever began.
And here we have some great contrast. In these verses we have sin abounding.
Sin abounding. Oh, it abounds. Powerful. Reigns. Sovereign it reigns. But we have
grace much more abounding. Whatever sin is, grace abounds
much more. We have judgment because of sin,
but we have righteousness as a free gift given to us as a
free gift of God. And we have sin reigning unto
death, but grace reigning unto life in our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says there in verse
20, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Where sin
abounded, grace did completely overflow. That's what this means.
No matter how much sin is present, how much sin is present, The
grace that comes from God through our Lord Jesus Christ is immeasurable. It's like taking a whole bucket
of water to put out a match. That's how much grace abounds
over sin. Now that's grace. Grace, free
grace, sovereign grace. And you look at people in the
scriptures. You take Mary Magdalene, talking about grace abounding.
Mary Magdalene, the scripture said, had seven devils. That's a mean woman. Now, you think about it for a
while. You think about somebody. I've seen some mean people in
my time. You think about a woman that's
got seven devils in her. Now, you know, I mean, you can't
imagine what she was like. You just can't. My stepmother,
when she was young, she had cigarette stains on her lips from smoking
so much and carried a bottle of vodka with her everywhere
she went. Cussed like a sailor. I don't know how many devils
she had, but it couldn't have been seven. But you know our Lord Jesus Christ
took Mary Magdalene and put her at his feet. Grace abounded so
great in that woman. Grace just reigned in her life,
destroyed her life, made her life miserable, made everybody
around her that was miserable, and grace brought her where that
sin abounded and put her right down at the feet of Christ. Clothed
her and put her in her right mind, and from then on she loved
the Master. Wherever he is at, she was. Wherever
he was eating, she was there. Whatever she was doing, every
place he went after he clothed her in her right mind and saved
her by his grace, she was right with him every word from then
on. Right with him. And I tell you what about old
Zacchaeus, a thief. All sin abounded in his life.
Every time you know those guys come take taxes, you know, he
said, well, you know you owe 50, but give me 55. Give me 55. After a while he had a pile of
money. One day he's up a tree, sin abounding in his life. He
said, I'll give four times back what I took. And our Lord said,
Zacchaeus, come down. Where that sin abounded in him,
grace brought him down. And he said, our Lord said to
him, he says, you know what? Today, today, Salvation has come
to your house. I'm going home with you today.
I'm going home with you. He didn't ask him. He didn't
ask him to invite him. He said, I'm going home with
you. Well, sin abounded and our Lord said, I'm going home with
you. When you love your Christ, say that to you today. I'm going
to go home with you. I'm going home with you. And
oh, and oh my, how about Saul of Tarsus? Here's a man who hated
Christ, despised Him. Didn't want his name mentioned,
wanted to wipe his name off of the face of the earth. Went one
day and he had some warrants in his pocket to arrest somebody. Take them where there's men,
where there's women, where there's children, made no difference
to him. But with all that hatred and enmity in his heart toward
the Lord Jesus Christ and his people, on that Damascus road
there was a great light above the brightness of the sun. And
it came down on him and there's a voice came from heaven said,
Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And
that man who's so abounded in hatred and Phariseeism and religion,
God brought him down and put him in the dust. And he's the one who wrote here,
where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. He said this,
he said, you know, I know a lot of sinners. I've seen a lot of
sinners converted. I've preached to a lot of sinners.
I saw a woman named Lydia converted. I saw a Philippian jailer converted. I saw multitudes of people saved
by the grace of God. But he says, you know what? I
found out that I'm the chief of sinners. But that's why Christ
come to die for sinners like me. Oh, grace abounded. And you talk about grace abounding. Simon Peter. I guess I'm more
like him than anybody. But here's a fellow who just
stood before the Lord Jesus Christ and bragged about what he would
do. He said, Lord, if you go to jail, I go to jail with you.
If you go to die, I'll die with you. He just bragged and bragged
and bragged and bragged. And our Lord Jesus told him,
said, Simon, Simon, Simon. Our Lord knew what sin he was
going to commit before he committed it. Our Lord knew he was going
to deny it before he ever denied it. And our Lord said, but I'm
going to, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pray for
you. Your sin is going to abound. Oh, it's going to abound. That
you're going to deny me three times. Your sin's gonna abound. But I'm gonna pray for you. And
you're not gonna fail. Oh, where sin abounds, grace
does much more abound. Sin is horrible. It's an awful
thing. But where it abounds, grace super
abounds. It overflows. And let me tell
you just a few things about grace. First of all, grace is God acting
freely. God acting freely. God acting
according to His nature and the nature of love. Here in His love,
not that we love God, but He loved us and sent His own Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. And our Lord Jesus Christ,
and I'm telling you something, beloved, people love. They say, God don't have to manifest
love. Listen, love must be manifested. If this love is in you, it's
got to come out. And God's love must be manifested,
must be acted out. And we're, me and you, we're
not free to love who we will. We're not. There's always something
that attracts us to somebody that we love and causes us to
love them. But there was nothing in us,
nothing in us under any circumstance that would cause God to see anything
attractive in us to cause him to love us. So if God loves anyone
at all, It's an act of His free grace. He just wills to love. He just wills to love. I love
him. I love her. And my love won't
start in time. My love won't start when they
start loving me. My love will start for them.
I loved them with an everlasting love. And with cords of loving
kindness, I drew them. And grace is God loving His people. Now listen to me. Grace is God's
loving His people as individuals. All the people in this building
this morning, every single one of them, God loves them as individuals. Not as a great big body, but
as individuals. And He loves us without expecting
anything from us. We don't have to make no promises.
We don't have to fulfill any obligations. He expects absolutely
nothing from us. He gives this grace to us and
loves us freely, graciously, as individuals, and He gives
this grace to us righteously. He gives it to us in view of
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the cross was an act of sovereign
grace. Surely, surely, we didn't deserve
Christ on a cross and God to send Him there because of the
great love with which He loved us. And let me tell you something
now, grace is God acting freely, acting freely. Nothing moves
Him to do it other than just He wills to do it. And grace
is uncaused in the person who gets it, uncaused in the recipient. The cause lies completely and
solely in the grace of God. You know, he read Ephesians 1.
Look over in Ephesians 1 with me again this morning. John read
that. Let's look at that again, just a minute. Grace lies solely,
the cause lies solely in the giver, which is God Almighty.
Grace is uncaused in the recipient. You know, people say all the
time, how could God love me? How could God save me? How can
God do this for me? So if you're going to find a
reason, you're going to have to find it in Him because you surely
ain't going to find it in yourself. So just quit looking. Just quit
looking. But look what He said here in
verse 4. Now when did God, when did, you
know, God's grace is uncaused according as He has chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world. I didn't exist
and yet God gave me grace. I hadn't even... Nobody's on
the face of the earth when God... He gave us this grace in Christ
before the foundation of the world. And listen, this is what
He did. This is before He ever made the
earth. Before He ever put the heavens in the sky. Before He
ever measured the water in all of His hands. Before He ever laid the foundation
of the earth is what He said. And He said He did this that
we should be holy. And without blame. Before Him. Before God. Without blame before God. Oh
my. I blame myself for a lot of things.
And I blame a lot of people for a lot of things. But I tell you
before God I'm without blame. And you are too if you're in
Christ. In love. Now listen to me. Heaven predestinated
us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. God only had
one Son. One heir. One person. that was his only begotten son.
But he had such wealth, and such grace, and such love, and such
passion, such mercy, such holiness, so much of it, that he said,
I want a family, because mine got so much wealth that I want
them all to have everything my son's got. So he adopted us,
so we could be joint heirs with Christ. And how, why did he do
that? according to the good pleasure
of His will, to the praise, listen, of the glory of His grace. The glory of His grace. And also,
you see, it's uncaused in the recipient. And if we ever look
for a cause in ourselves, you won't find us. And that's what
makes grace so amazing. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound. to save the rest like me. Oh,
listen. That's why it's free. It's free. It comes from God to men as they
are. Did he find you good? Did he
find you loving? Did he find you kind? Did he
find you gracious? Did he find you tender? Did he
find you merciful? No, when God's grace came to
you, where did it come to you at? Just like he was. Just like you was. Not like you
thought you was, not like you hoped you was, but like you was. And oh, listen. And it comes
from God to men as they are and it overflows. And it super abounds
over any sin. In fact, it super abounds over
sins. When our Lord died on the cross,
beloved, He died for all of our sins, past, present, and future.
That's how much grace overflows over sin. Let me tell you something
else about the nature of grace. Grace is sovereign. Grace is
sovereign. God has no debts to pay. If a
man works, then God pays him because he owes him a debt. But
to him that worketh not, God justifies the ungodly. There's
no conditions, no conditions on man's part to wait on. Grace
doesn't wait for us to become worthy. I remember years and
years ago, you know, I was a, I guess what you'd call a hippie,
you know, and I had real long hair and real long beard and
done things that people done back in those days. And I'd go
around folks and at all times tell them, he said, boy, you
need to get your hair cut, you need to shave, you need to start
going to church. First thing he'd tell you, get
your haircut and shave and go to church and straighten up. Now, if I'd have done all of
that, would that cause God to give me the grace? Just made
me two, four more of the child of hell than they already were. God ain't waiting for us to get
ready. We never can do anything worthy
to get one thing from God. I don't care how much we as believers
pray. I don't care how much we give.
I don't care how many Bible verses we read. I don't care how many
services we attend. We can never ever do anything
to get a blessing from God to earn it or give God to give us
anything. If He gives us anything, it's
because of grace. Grace. I love to pray, you do. But it's grace that enables us
to pray. If we give, we're only giving
what God's given us. And if we're allowed to come
here and worship, it's God that gave us the place to worship
and gave us the heart to be here. Everything we have, everything
we know, and everything we'll ever do comes from God and His
grace. And I love it like that. Absolutely
love it. And oh, the only wages that God
will ever pay off a man is He'll pay him off for his sins. He'll
pay him off for them. And He'll be paying for them
for eternity. Now I'll tell you something else
about grace. Grace can act toward whom it will. It can love whom
it will and where it pleases. God can pop, He can be in this
building here and there can be 25 people unconverted. Husband and wife sitting beside
one another. God reach down, touch one of
them, leave the other sitting. Huh? God can reach in the home
and save a child and leave mother and daddy alone. He can take
one member out of a whole family. and live ever member for generations
as far back as you can go and not see one person that God ever
did anything for. That's my family. That's my family
as far back as I can go. My Mary was into genealogy. She had a stack of genealogy
like that and put it up on the internet. People was paying her
money for that. She just put it up and gave it
all away before she passed. She wanted everybody to have
all of her records. She went through it for years and years,
meticulous in it. She traced her lineage all the
way back to the Revolutionary War and became a daughter of
the American Revolution. That's one of the hardest things
you'll ever do is become a daughter because you've got to trace all
the way back to a direct descendant to the Revolutionary War. She
went to my family. Not one member of my family From
my brothers and my sisters, my daddy, my grandpas, my uncles,
my aunts, back as far as you could go. Not one person. Not one. And here comes God. No sorry, no count, good for
nothing, sinful man. Me, me, me, me, me,
me, me, right down to the very depth of my soul. The flames of hell, you could
smell them on me. And God reached down. And here I stand. How could that be? That's great. Oh my. Grace can act towards
a man whether he's on the Damascus Road or whether he's in a jailhouse
like the Philippian or whether you're down by the seashore.
It don't make any difference to you. Whether you're in a prison
or a palace, up a tree or hanging on a cross beside the Lord Jesus
Christ. Grace can act where it will,
when it will, and for whom it will. And it can place the worst,
worst deservers in the highest place. It can save a multitude
or save one at a time. Our Lord went out of His way
just to win one woman. You know, if we just get to witness
to one person, you know how our Lord Jesus Christ witnessed to
one person several times? He walked way out of his way
to set on a whale. Hot day. Set on that whale. To get one of his sheep. Just
one of them. That's grace. Oh, it went out
of our after. And then they know Zacchaeus,
one down out of a tree, the Ethiopian eunuch on the road. But I tell
you why. Then that same grace can go and
save them both too. Three thousand at one time. Five
thousand another time. And yet, though they saved 3,000
at a time, every single one of them was saved individually.
In fact, out of those 3,000 people he saved at one time, you know
he had to save every one of them one at a time? Everyone had to
experience salvation for themselves. And if you'd ask them what happened
to them, they'd say, well, I stood there and heard this fellow say
something and it just, oh, the guilt was gone, the burden was
gone, the sin was gone. Every one of them. And I tell
you, beloved, and this is what people have a hard time getting.
Grace cannot act where there is ability. If there's any ability
at all, grace can't act. It won't act, will it? No, that's
why, you know, you start talking to somebody and they start saying,
I know, I know. Just shut up. Just shut up. Oh, I know what
it takes to be safe. Just shut up. Just leave them
alone. They know too much already. Grace
can't act without His ability. Grace is not a cooperative answer. God moves towards you and you
move towards Him. He don't need our help. He don't
need anything from us. Grace doesn't help. It's absolutely.
It's all of grace or nothing. It's all of salvation by the
grace of God from start to finish or it's not going to be grace
at all. You know people talk about falling from grace. You
know all it takes to fall from grace. is just to add one word. People think, well, you got to
sin to fall from grace. You got to go out and get drunk.
You got to go out and slap your wife around or something like
that to fall from grace. Listen, all you got to do to
fall from grace is add something to Christ or take something away
from Christ. The minute you come to God, the minute you come to
God and say, Lord, it's like this is, you know, I'll give
you an illustration. I pray, but I'm not fit to pray.
You fell from grace. You never was fit to pray. And then that's what you're doing
is you're trying to get yourself in a condition to come into the
presence of God. And you fall from grace when
you do that. And I know from experience. Would you agree with
that? The very minute you wanted to
make a qualification for you to come into God's presence,
you fell from grace. Because if we don't need, the
only qualification we have is Christ. The only reason we can
come into God's presence is Christ. The only person who makes us
acceptable is Christ. And the only way He made us acceptable
is through His blessed grace. And since there's no cause in
us, why should we seek grace and stop trying to give God cause
for His grace? God never gives grace because.
There's never a because. Never a because. And let me hurry
and move on. I don't know what time it is,
but grace, wherever it is, it produces humility. Titus 2.11
says, the grace of God that bringeth salvation teaches us. Grace comes and it teaches us
some things. And grace teaches us this. that
I mean absolutely we the objects of sovereign grace or there'd
be no help for us whatsoever. You're talking about putting
you down. I heard a fellow talk the other day. He said, boy,
said the last thing I gave up. He made a profession when he
was 12 years old in a Southern Baptist church and he became
a preacher and he became pretty successful in that religion and
pretty successful in that. God began to reveal Christ to
him and hymn him up. And he says, the last thing I
had to give up was that profession that I made when I was 12 years
old. He said, I thought I could be saved and hold to that because
I know it was real. He said, but God just kept hymning
me up and hymning me up and hymning me up and hymning me up until
I just surrendered. And he said, Grace, so overcame
me. And so whipped me and so put
me down that I had no, I couldn't do anything else. And so it just,
he said he stripped me down till I thought I was absolutely, I
didn't have, I was just down. I couldn't, I felt like my soul
was coming out. And this thing produces humility
in us. Oh, where God makes us to understand
that we're the objects of sovereign grace, it humbles us like we've
never been humbled. And I'll tell you what else that
old Scott Richardson said, put your headquarters in the dust
and don't never get out of there. What have we got? Why would it
produce such humility? Because we're brought to know
our unworthiness, our unworthiness. Really? Absolutely. David said,
Who am I? And what is my house that you
brought me here? Oh, listen. Simon Peter said, Lord, depart
from me. I'm a sinful man. Oh, my. Were we worth our Lord
Jesus Christ coming into this world? Were we worth Him coming?
Were we worth our Lord Jesus Christ being despised, being
rejected, being spat upon, being humiliated? Were we worthy of
our Lord Jesus Christ's horrible treatment at Pilate and Herod
and Caiaphas? Were we worthy of our Lord Jesus
Christ's praying great drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane? Saying, Oh Lord, my Father, if
it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Were we worthy
of our Lord Jesus Christ's bearing our sins in his own body on the
tree? Were we worthy of our Lord Jesus
Christ, His blood being shed unto death? Are we worthy of
Him being forsaken of His Father? No. And we're brought to know, we're
brought to know our complete inability to become worthy in
any way. I want to show you something. Look in Isaiah 5 with me just
a minute. Isaiah 5. I'll tell you something, beloved,
and I know you know this. I know your preacher preaches
it. We've talked too, too many times. That if I'm not saved by grace
today, I'll not be saved. If I'm not saved by grace tomorrow,
I'll not be saved. Grace is gonna have to save me
every day that I live. I've got to be saved every day.
I can't go back and be doomed to yesterday. And I don't know
what today holds, but I know that if grace is for me, God
is for me, who can be against me? But look what he said here
in Isaiah 511. Woe unto them that rise up early
in the morning and follow strong drink. Look down verse 18. Woe unto them that call evil
good and good evil and put darkness for light and light for darkness.
Oh Isaiah, he's pronouncing woe. Look what he says down verse
20. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes. Verse 22,
woe unto them that are mighty to drink strong wine and mingle. Now he's just pronouncing woe
on everybody and everything. Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe. And look what in Isaiah 6 now.
In the year the king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord setting upon
a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.
If you ever see the Lord, that's where you're going to see Him.
High and lifted up. And then the cherubims cried
one to another, holy, holy, holy. The whole earth is full of his
glory. The post of the door moved that the voice of him that cried
in the house was filled with his glory. Then look what Isaiah
said, woe is this fellow, woe is that fellow, woe is this other
fellow. And then he says, woe is me. I'm the fellow that's
undone. I thought all these guys was
bad. I saw the Lord. And I realized
I was the one. It's woe me. Woe is unto me.
I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. And
you know what we find out? That there's not one person on
the face of the earth any different than us. And I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips. You see, that's what grace does
to us. It brings us to our complete inability. We quit saying woe
as everybody else. And we say woe is me. Woe is
me. My last point, flesh in this
business of salvation by grace, the nature of grace. Flesh has
no purpose in God's sovereign grace, no purpose. They that
are in the flesh cannot please God. Paul says this, he said,
I know that is in me, in my flesh dwells no good thing. And why
flesh? Our flesh is nothing. Isaiah
said, why shall I cry? Talking about John the Baptist.
Why shall I cry? All flesh is grass. All flesh is grass. Grass. Just grass. Flower of the field. Flowers. Big ol' pineys, you know, peonies,
y'all call them. We call them pineys where I'm
from. Big ol' pineys, you know, beautiful white, red, pink. Roses, you know, big ol' roses
and big ol' flutes on them. Snowball bushes, big ol'
snowballs on them, about like that. Boy, when they're up there
and they're glowing, they're up there and they're beauty.
And just a little while, the petals start falling off. And then you go in the fall and
you just go and cut them all down and you take them all away.
That's the way we are. We bloom. We bloom a little bit. Have a little bit of glory. Have
a little bit of beauty, we think. And then we just start consuming
away. Just consume away. But then the
next verse says this. All flesh is grass. And the glory
of man is as a flower that fadeth. But then he says, Behold your
God. You may be this way. You may
be a flower fading. You may be just grass. But he
says, turn around, look at your God. There's your salvation. With all your frailty and all
your inability and all your unworthiness and all your flesh and all the
glory that goes with it. He says, Behold your God. And
this is why the natural man, no matter how religious, he hates
grace. It excludes all boasting. What
in the world are you going to boast about? There's not any
contribution we can make. And that's why we rejoice in
God's grace. There's no good thing in me.
No good thing in me, yet God loves me, God keeps me, God blesses
me. as I am and how I rejoice that this grace
was given me in Christ Jesus before the world ever began.
Where sin abounded, strike that match. Where sin
abounded, strike it. God will take a bucket of water.
Grace. Put it out. Put it out. Grace
reigns Are you saved? If you are, how
was you saved? How do you stand right now? How do you stand right now? If you stand, you stand by grace.
How do you live right now? How do you live from day to day?
We live by grace. And if you and I are ever privileged
and blessed to get to go to glory, get to step from this world to
the next, the last step we'll take from this world to the next
will be by the grace of God. Amen. Wouldn't that be something? Just be standing here one day
and Step like that and you're in
another world, in the glory. Grace will take you there. If
grace saved you, believe me, it won't let you go. It won't
let you go. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound. that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost. I once was lost. Oh, now I'm found. Oh, now I'm
found. Was blind. Was blind. But now I see.