Gospel of Grace

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Gospel of Grace

Discover the profound message of grace as taught by Steve Gregg. In this insightful exploration of scripture, Gregg explores the defining role of grace in the gospel. Addressing questions about the portrayal of God in the Old and New Testaments, he reveals the transformative nature of God's grace and its presence throughout the Bible. Delve into the concept of irresistible grace and its implications for believers, while uncovering the power of God's grace to overcome sin and empower a Christ-like life. Gregg's teachings on grace offer a fresh perspective on the unmerited favor and forgiveness extended to all through faith in Jesus Christ.

Transcript

. . . label that the scriptures use in speaking about the gospel that I would like to talk about in this series. We've talked before about the fact that the gospel in scriptures is called the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, or of our Lord Jesus Christ, or simply of Jesus Christ, but obviously the good news about Jesus. It is also called the gospel of the kingdom of God in several places.

It is also called the gospel of salvation. We've taken a few weeks to talk about what is meant by salvation. What salvation is, what one must do to be saved, and of course, last time we were talking about the issue of whether the Bible teaches a once saved, always saved concept, which is held by many to be a biblical concept.

The remaining topic that I would like to make sure we do not omit in this series is that label that is given to the gospel in Acts 20.24, where Paul speaks of it as the gospel of the grace of God. Now, the grace of God is a topic that we certainly are aware of as a predominant New Testament subject. The scripture says in John 1.18 that the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

We also know that the scripture is emphatic that we are not saved by our works, we are saved by grace, and any gospel that says that we are saved by our works, Paul seems to treat as a false gospel, even if an angel from heaven would preach it, he says, let them be a curse. So we know that grace is a very important defining issue in the gospel, in scripture. And it would be very tragic, I think, if our own comprehension of what grace means were to be inadequate, since it would mean an inadequate grasp of the gospel itself.

So I have tried to, this week, put together in these handouts that I have given you, an outline that I hope will cover all of the main bases on the subject of grace. And you can see, I want to talk first of all about the graciousness of God. The grace of God has to do not with simply his action in saving us, but it is an aspect of his character.

It is an attribute of God, the grace of God. He is a gracious God. When we use the word grace, we sometimes may be thinking only in terms of the legal aspects of salvation.

You know, God treats me as if I haven't sinned because of grace. And therefore, the sins that I have committed are legally absolved, as it were, by the grace of God. And this is probably the main thing that we are told about the grace of God, by at least most gospel preaching, and certainly it is a prominent aspect in the scriptures themselves.

But the grace of God speaks of an attribute of God himself. He is a grace-filled God. He is graceful, full of grace.

He is gracious. These are all terms that have similar meaning. And there are several scriptures I have given you.

Establishing that point, as I was looking up this week, I selected only a small portion of the scriptures that declare how gracious God is. What is interesting is how many of them, the vast majority of them are found in the Old Testament. God is declared to be gracious in the Old Testament far more often than he is in the New Testament.

Now, I thought that was interesting because many times people have asked me, why is it that there is such a difference in the portrayal of God in the Old Testament and that in the New? And the person usually goes on to state that in the Old Testament, God seems to be quite an angry, judgmental God, with a short fuse, peevish, easily angered. But in the New Testament, they say, Jesus is the depiction of God and he is gentle and meek and mild and wouldn't hurt a flea. He is a God of love and of grace.

And so this dichotomy between God as depicted in the Old Testament and God as depicted in the New Testament is often presented in these terms. So God is gracious in the New Testament. People say, by the grace of God in the New Testament.

In the Old Testament, it's a hard to please God, who has all these laws and rules and works that he requires and so forth. And whenever people ask me why it is that God is so different in the two Testaments, I simply have to say, I don't see the evidence of this. I don't see this at all.

God is more often in the Old Testament declared to be gracious than in the New Testament. And God is as judgmental in the New Testament as he is in the Old Testament. I think sometimes the wrong impression about this is given because the Old Testament is longer than the New Testament and covers much, much more history than the New Testament.

Remember, the New Testament covers how much history altogether? Sixty years from the birth of Jesus to the later epistles of Paul. Sixty-seven years, maybe, of history. Less than two generations are covered in the New Testament.

The Old Testament covers four thousand years or more. Now, God did a lot more things in four thousand years than he did in sixty-seven years, and so there's more things recorded in the Old Testament than there are in the New, quite obviously, and for good reason. Now, it's also the case we find God judging people in dramatic ways in the Old Testament more often than we find it in the New.

We find him sending a flood to destroy mankind in the days of Noah. We find the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. We see God sending Israel into Canaan to massacre and annihilate and exterminate all the Canaanites and later telling King Saul to do the same thing with the Amalekites.

We see God subjecting his own people to horrendous judgments at the hands of the Assyrians and the Babylonians. And we see the prophets declaring how angry God is at times with the people's idolatry and the very harsh things that God intends to do to them for that. And you can definitely get the impression God is a really wrathful God.

But we should remember that we're reading, I just laid out for you a few of the cases of God's wrath being demonstrated in the Old Testament. There are a few others. You know, when Uzzah touches the ark and he drops dead, that bothers people.

When Nadab and Abihu go into the offer strange fire in the tabernacle and they get toasted. That, you know, an act of instant judgment upon them, striking. But you know, we have the same kind of thing in the New Testament.

When Ananias and Sapphira lie to the Holy Spirit, they drop dead on the spot. We see even the Apostle Paul striking a man blind on the island of Cyprus because he was opposing the gospel. We find in the book of Revelation the wrath of God poured out in many ways.

The wrath of the Lamb is mentioned. The wrath of God is in both Testaments. And the love of God is in both Testaments.

In the Old Testament, although we read of these instances of God judging, we sometimes forget that between the stories there's sometimes several hundred years. We read of this story of the flood, right after God has sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Not remembering that that's fifteen hundred years later that he sent the flood.

And even when he decided that he would send the flood, he prophesied it in advance through the prophet Enoch. And Enoch named his son Methuselah, which means when he is dead it will be sent. And Methuselah died in the year of the flood.

So obviously the birth of Methuselah to the prophet Enoch and the naming of him, that was a prophetic warning that this man's death would signal the cataclysm of the flood. God would eventually have to judge the world. And this baby when it was born was part of Enoch's message about that.

But you know what? God is so slow to judge, so slow to wrath, he kept Methuselah alive longer than any other man on record. So that he would not be compelled to send the flood any earlier than he had to. Even when he sent the children of Israel into Canaan to annihilate the Canaanites.

It was after he had borne with the Canaanites for over four hundred years while he kept his people in Egypt. And he had predicted this to Abraham hundreds of years earlier. In Genesis chapter 15 he said that he would take the children of Israel into Egypt and have them there for four hundred years.

And after four hundred years they would come back and take the land from the Canaanites because he said the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. So he was going to give them another four hundred years to repent. Even though in Abraham's own day they were sacrificing their babies to Molech.

Yet God says this makes me angry but I have to give them some time to repent. So he gave them four centuries. God's a patient God.

Sometimes in the Old Testament we lose track of the passage of time and we just read the significant judgments and we draw a wrong impression about God in terms of his patience. Actually if you would read the book of Judges or the books of Kings very often you would come away most often wondering how God put up with people so much. Why he allowed Israel to remain his people through so many apostasies and so forth.

Until he finally judged them summarily in 70 AD. But we see the same kind of judgment in the New Testament. We just don't see as much time covered in the New Testament.

But we see after the New Testament closes we see the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. And that was as ugly a judgment as any you will ever find in the Old Testament. In fact Jesus said of it there was never a worse time in history nor shall there be afterwards.

So God in the Old Testament is not any different than the God in the New Testament. In both Testaments he is a God of wrath but also a God of grace and of love. Now let me just read some of these scriptures to you from the Old Testament that declare how gracious God is.

God said to Moses in Exodus 33.19 I will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim the name of Jehovah before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Paul quotes this verse in Romans 9. In a way that has led some people to believe that what Paul is saying is that God unilaterally and unconditionally elects certain people to be saved and others to be lost.

Of course that has nothing to do with the passage he is quoting. In the passage in Exodus God has just told Moses get out of my way I am going to wipe out the Israelites because they have been worshipping a golden calf and I will make of you a nation greater than them. And Moses besought the Lord not to do this and God says ok because you besought me I won't do this.

And he went on to say I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will judge whoever I will judge. And what he was saying is that I am going to answer your prayer but it is still within my prerogative to be gracious to them because you have asked me to. Or to be gracious to you as I wish to and make you a greater nation than them.

He is talking about being gracious to a people. He is not talking about individuals for salvation in the least in that passage. In Exodus 34.6 the Lord did what he said he would do in the previous verse we consider.

The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed Jehovah, Jehovah God merciful and gracious long suffering and abounding in goodness and truth. These are the first things God could think of about himself in describing himself. Now there are other things he goes on to say that he punishes the iniquity of third and fourth generation too.

But in describing his own character the first things that come to mind about who he is is he is a gracious God. He is full of grace. He is a God of grace.

He is long suffering that means patient. He is abounding in goodness and truth. In Psalm 86.15 the psalmist says but you O Lord are a God full of compassion and gracious long suffering and abundant in mercy and truth.

Obviously the psalmist is quoting God's own words in Exodus 34.6. In Psalm 103.8 David writes the Lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in mercy. Yeah he does get angry but he is slow about it. It takes a long time to get him really angry.

Why? Because he is not disposed to be angry naturally. He is naturally disposed toward mercy and grace. He is a God this is Old Testament.

Merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in mercy. Even Jonah observed this though it was a complaint from his lips. Jonah prayed in Jonah 4.2 to the Lord and he said O Lord was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish for I know that you are a gracious and merciful God slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness.

One who relents from doing harm. This is of course after God forgave Nineveh. After Jonah said 40 days Nineveh will perish.

They repented. God changed his mind. He did not wipe them out.

Jonah was upset. He did not love the Ninevites very much. And he complained God I knew you were going to be gracious to these people.

Now if Jonah knew that God was gracious then the grace of God must have been known in the Old Testament. David knew it. It was declared to Moses.

And of course the New Testament declares the same thing. In 1 Peter 2.2 we are told as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. And the next verse says if so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Have you tasted that the Lord is gracious? I mean is God to you just somebody you have heard theological propositions about? Or have you really tasted of God? Have you really gotten to know God? Is he a gracious God as you perceive him? Do you know him in that role of the gracious mercy of God? Well Peter hopes that his readers have. And he says I want you to desire the milk of the word as newborn babes if you have already tasted that the Lord is gracious. Well he is.

Now the grace of God in his character in his dealings with man are seen first of all in his dealings towards sinful man. We see God extending grace to sinful man. Both the Old and the New Testament declare this.

In 2 Kings chapter 13 and verse 23. Speaking of the rebellious Israelites it says but the Lord was gracious to them. And had compassion on them.

And regarded them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And would not yet destroy them or cast them from his presence. Even though they were rebelling against him.

Even though they were you know irritating him. Even though they were testing his patience. He was gracious to them and had compassion on them.

And he would not yet utterly destroy them. Nehemiah also in praying to God about his disposition toward Israel when they were rebellious. He says to God nevertheless in your great mercy.

Nehemiah 9.31 In your great mercy you did not utterly consume them nor forsake them. For you are God gracious and merciful. Now notice what both of these observations are.

God was gracious in that he did not utterly consume them. Both passages we read say that. That is still talking about situations where God did judge them.

Nehemiah is talking about the fact that God sent them into captivity for 70 years. That is a judgment. That he was mighty gracious to them.

You might say well how is it that he is gracious? Well he did not totally wipe them out which is what they deserved. Even when God judges he shows restraint. Even in wrath he remembers mercy.

And so God is a God who is always gracious. And Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 5.45. He said that we should be good to those who are not good to us. So that he says you may be the sons of your father in heaven.

For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good. And he sends rain on the just and the unjust. God is not only benevolent to those who are his friends.

He is also benevolent in measure to those who are his enemies. He causes the rain to fall on the crops of the wicked man as well as on the crops of the good man. He causes the sun to rise.

We had a beautiful sunny day today. Many people enjoyed it. Some of them Christians.

Some of them non-Christians. Probably some atheists enjoyed it too. God caused the sun to rise as a blessing to all.

God is gracious even to sinners. The way Jesus puts it in Luke 6.35. He says, but love your enemies and do good and lend. Hoping for nothing in return and your reward will be great.

And you will be the sons of the most high. For he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. Jesus doesn't mean to say that unthankful and evil people are special objects of his kindness.

But it means that in addition to being kind to his friends. He is also unkind to people who are not friendly toward him. Who are not thankful and who are in fact evil.

These are the kind of people you don't expect God to be kind to. But God's general grace. God's universal grace.

There are beneficiaries of it who are not at all his friends. And who ultimately will stand judgment. But he gives them their chances.

We read of people abusing this grace of God. When God extends grace to sinners. They don't always repent.

Now Paul said in Romans 11 the goodness of God. No it's Romans 2 excuse me. Is to bring you to repentance.

But the goodness of God doesn't bring everyone to repentance. Some receive grace and spurn it. And abuse it.

In Isaiah 26.10. The prophet says let grace be shown to the wicked. Yet he will not learn righteousness. In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly.

And will not behold the majesty of the Lord. God can be kind to sinners. And they don't see it.

They don't behold it. They don't get any better. Let grace be shown to them and he does not change.

It goes unnoticed. Jude said in the New Testament in Jude verse 4. That certain men have crept in to the church unnoticed. Who long ago were marked out for this condemnation.

Ungodly men. Who turn the grace of our God into lewdness. And deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now they turn the grace of God into something other than what it is. How do they do that? Well partly in their teaching. But partly in this.

They are living as rebels against God. And he has not stopped them. His grace is such that he has not smashed them like bugs.

Which is really their fate to do it. It says their judgment. They have been long ago marked out for this condemnation.

They will be condemned. But he has been gracious to them at this point. It says in Revelation chapter 2 that God gave Jezebel space to repent.

But she didn't repent. So he is now going to judge. God gives sinners space to repent.

That's grace. He doesn't have to. You sin one time and you are worthy of death.

The Bible says. And if God said okay you blew it that one time. You get your judgment.

If he took people right to hell the moment they sinned the very first time in their childhood. He would be totally just in that. Anything, any chances he gives beyond that is just pure grace.

And he is a gracious God. He gives many chances to the wicked. But in many cases they abuse that grace.

They turn it into license. And into lewdness. Now God's grace is also of course toward the righteous.

It says in Genesis chapter 6 and verse 8 that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now Noah was a good man. God said to him you only have I found righteous in your generation.

Notice God says I have found you righteous. God was looking. It says in Chronicles that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth.

And he might show himself strong on the behalf of him whose heart is wholly his or perfect toward him. On occasions he finds a man. Wholly devoted to him.

Noah was such a man. And he found grace. Now you might say well wait a minute.

Noah was a righteous man. And God found him as a righteous man and had grace toward him. I thought grace was undeserved.

And if undeserved how could it be extended toward someone who is righteous. Doesn't a righteous man deserve grace? I thought grace was only for wicked people. Like all of us.

Of course we realize that Noah was not a man who was sinless. Only Jesus has ever lived on the earth without sinning. But it says in the Old Testament that a man was righteous.

Or for that matter in the New Testament it describes a man as being righteous. It's speaking relatively. Of course he was relatively righteous compared to most.

He's not a man who has never sinned. There's no man who ever lived except Christ of whom that could be said. But because the man's heart was toward the Lord.

He found grace in the sight of the Lord. Now the word grace I need to clarify. Literally means favor.

In the Hebrew and the Greek it means favor. If you were raised in Sunday school or maybe even just in an evangelical church. You spent time.

It may be that you have heard the definition of grace is that it is God's unmerited favor. And it is. It says that in Romans 4.4. It says, you know, if it's a deed that's been worked for then the reward is of debt, not of grace.

And it says something very like that in Romans 11.6. Where it says that if it's of works it's not of grace. The favor of God that has saved us is a favor that we have not earned and could not earn. But that doesn't mean that God has no special favor towards some and not to others.

We have often heard that in Scripture. We've heard in church that God has no favorites. You ever heard that one? God doesn't have any favorites.

Well, could have fooled Noah's generation. Seemed like God had a favorite there. Could have fooled the people of Sodom.

Because only a handful got out of there special favorites that God sent angels and pulled them out. And then burned up the rest of the country without warning. The rest of the city.

God doesn't have favorites? That's a strange thing to suggest. When Jesus' disciples came to Him and said, why do you speak to these multitudes in parables? He said, because it's given to you, the disciples, to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them it's not given to know.

So that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand. In other words, I'm making things clear to you because you're my disciples. They are not my disciples.

I'm not going to make things clear to them. Was He showing favoritism? Sounds like it to me. Now, God shows grace to all.

But He has a special favor that He bestows toward those whose hearts are toward Him. Now that's hard for some people to swallow. Because I presume most of us here, probably all of us here, are believers.

And we know that God has shown grace to us and we're saved. And we've been well-schooled as evangelicals to deny that there's anything that God could possibly have taken into consideration in saving us. I don't know what God may have taken into consideration or did not take into consideration.

But the Bible does indicate that God shows special favor to some over others. Now, frankly, Calvinists shouldn't have any problem with this. They believe that God does show special favor toward others, some over others.

And they would say, of course, it's simply because of the sovereign purposes of God. And it's unconditional. Those who are not Calvinists would say something like, God is pleased to find faith.

God is pleased to find humility. God is pleased to find a heart that's toward Him. And certainly that's how the Scripture speaks.

The eyes of the Lord are running to and forth through the whole earth looking for a man whose heart is perfect toward Him. Sounds like God's looking for people who have this in them. So He can show Himself strong on their behalf.

Now we can say that's an anthropomorphism. And God doesn't really have to look in His eyes. He doesn't even have literal eyes in all likelihood.

He doesn't have a physical body. But the fact of the matter is, these Scriptures are given to tell us something about God, not to misinform us about God, but to tell us what God is really like. He's looking for people who have a heart toward Him so that He could show particular grace toward them.

Now you might say, but if He shows more grace to people who have something in them, is that no longer grace? Is that earned? A man is entitled to choose his own friends on whatever basis he wishes. And God has even more rights than we do. We should not think God unable to set conditions for friendship with Himself.

And the Bible seems to indicate there are such conditions. We'll see that as we look at more Scriptures in this study. Grace is given to some and not to all.

But it's not in the same measure. The wicked man has the grace of God shown to him in that God waters his crops for him. But the saved man has much more grace than that given to him.

And so the grace of God is not equally distributed. But the question of course of whether this is an unconditional inequality, or based on something that God finds in people, is of course one of the great debates of all time. We'll wait to take that up a little later.

It says in Exodus 33, 17, the Lord said to Moses, I also do this thing that you've spoken, for you have found grace in my sight, and I know you by name. Moses was a righteous man. He had found grace in God's sight.

That is favor. God favored him. Why? Well, we could say God just unconditionally favored him.

But there would be no way to prove that point, since we know that Moses was a man who met the general conditions for receiving grace, which was he had faith. In Hebrews chapter 11, we're told that when he came of age, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer the afflictions of the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. That he esteemed the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.

That's faith. And God had favor upon him. All the things that Hebrews just described about Moses happened before he ever met God, at the burning bush.

But at the burning bush, and later on at Mount Horeb, God said this to him. You have found grace in my sight. Why? Well, he doesn't say why, but it doesn't mean it wasn't for any reason.

In Psalm 84, verse 11, it says, For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

Is there any condition suggested here? God will give grace and glory in every good thing. To who? To those who walk uprightly. Sounds kind of like a category.

Doesn't it? Sounds like there's a category of people that God gives grace and glory in every good thing. He won't withhold any good thing from these people. Proverbs 3, verse 34 says, Surely he scorns the scornful, but he gives grace to the humble.

It doesn't say he gives humility to those that he shows grace to. It says he gives grace to the humble. By the way, this verse is quoted twice in the New Testament.

We'll come to it later. But, God shows special grace toward certain people. The scripture identifies them as the humble, those who walk uprightly, those who have faith.

And if this kind of tweaks the way that we've been taught about grace, well, so be it. Sometimes we need to be tweaked, but we want to get the whole counsel of God on it, and not just take the favorite verses. We know, of course, that our salvation is all of grace.

I agree with this. In Ephesians 2, verse 8 and 9, which we can all quote, Paul said, For by grace you have been saved through faith in that, not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

In Romans 3, verse 24, he said, We were justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We were redeemed freely, justified freely by his grace. In Romans 5, verse 20, it says, Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.

Sin cannot overcome grace, but sin can overcome man. And in order to be saved from sin, we need grace. And the grace of God is given to us for that salvation.

Now, how is that grace given to us for salvation? Well, it says right there, in Ephesians 2, verse 8 and 9, For by grace you have been saved through faith. Why should that be left out? Through faith. That is the means by which grace has saved us.

Now, the next line says, It is the gift of God. That's not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works.

And there are indeed many who believe that when it says, That is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, that it's speaking of faith. Partly because faith is the noun that stands closest in the sentence to the pronoun that. And therefore they say, well, faith is a gift from God.

But that's not necessarily a very proper way to understand that statement. Because the word that, which is that, not of yourselves, is a neuter. It's a neuter pronoun.

And in grammar, pronouns have to agree in gender and number and, what's the other one? Gender and number and? Please, with the noun that they're modifying, with their noun. So, the gender of the pronoun here is neuter. Faith, pistis in the Greek, is feminine.

And while sometimes these rules are broken, even in scripture, we shouldn't assume that they're being broken in a given case where a better understanding is readily available. Pistis is a female word, feminine word in Greek. That is a neuter word.

So it's not very likely that that is referring back to faith, because there is a feminine form of the word that that could have been used if that were the case, it would agree with it. It is salvation that is not of ourselves. It is salvation that is the gift of God.

It is salvation that is not of works, lest any man should vote. You see, that, which is not of ourselves, there's two other things to say about it. That is not of works.

That is the gift of God. Has anyone ever heard anyone argue that faith comes from good works? I've never heard that argued, but I've heard many people suggest that salvation comes from good works. It's salvation that Paul is talking about here.

It's salvation that is the gift of God, not of works, lest any should vote. But it comes through faith. That's the one where I say, well, if we are required to have faith, if that's not something that's a gift from God, that we, you know, some of us have it, and some of us choose not to have it, if we're the ones who make that decision, aren't we then earning it? How can it be a gift then? How can grace be grace? If I am the one who has to come up with the belief, do I not, by coming up with the belief, thereby earn the thing? And then it's no longer grace, it's no longer a gift.

And this way of thinking is a way that some of us have been taught to think, but it's not really very reasonable in my opinion, because a gift can still be a free gift and be conditional. I can tell my son, I'll buy you a car. He'd like it if I'd say that.

I'll buy you a car if you get straight A's for a whole year. Now, that'd be risky for me to do, because my kids do get straight A's, but suppose I did that, suppose I made that suggestion, I'll buy you a car, it'll be my gift to you. And then he goes ahead and gets straight A's.

Has he then earned a car? Not really. He can't take his report card down to the car dealer and say, here, I've just earned myself a car, here's my report card, I'll take the car, thank you. The car dealer says, wait, it's still going to cost some money here.

You see, you don't earn a car by getting straight A's. You don't earn a car without doing work and coming up with money. If somebody says, I will give you the gift of a car if you meet certain conditions, that doesn't mean that by meeting conditions you have earned something, it just means that you can't have it without meeting those conditions.

My grandmother, when I graduated from high school, said she would pay for my college education if I went to Biola College in Southern California. For various reasons, I didn't choose to go to Biola College, and guess what, she didn't pay my way through college. Now, if I had gone to Biola and she had given me that money for tuition, that would have been a gift, would it not? Now, if I didn't meet the conditions, I didn't apply for Biola, and she didn't give me the money, should I say, well, I thought this was going to be a gift? Well, it would have been a gift, but a person who gives a gift has every right to place conditions upon it.

A person meeting conditions doesn't thereby earn the thing itself, necessarily. When my first daughter was born, we made the mistake of having a hospital birth, because we didn't have any options because she was two months premature, and we've had all our other babies at home, but because we were at the hospital, the hospital had a record of the birth, and apparently baby product manufacturers and sellers get lists of babies that were born and contact the parents, and I got a whole bunch of things in the mail saying, we have a free gift for your baby. Come on into our store and present this card and we've got a free gift for you.

Well, I never did go in and get any of those things, but suppose I had phoned them up and said, would you just send me, here's my address, just send me the gift, thanks. And they'd say, no, you have to come into the store and we'll give you the gift then. Could I then have said, well, then it's no gift.

If I have to come into the store and get it, then it's not a gift, right? Well, they would say, quite justly, they would say, well, no, sir, even if you come into the store, that's not earning anything. Many people walk into our store and don't walk out with free merchandise. You don't, by walking through the door, earn free merchandise.

But we can give you free merchandise if you meet whatever conditions we set, and you bring this card into our store and you can have a free gift. It's still a free gift, whether it's conditional or not. And there's many times when a gift can be conditional.

God can say, I will give you the gift of grace, of salvation, of forgiveness of sins. All I require of you is to trust me. All I require of you is to humble yourself and believe in me.

You think that by believing you have earned something? Actually, Paul teaches the opposite is true. He says, if it's by works, then it's not of grace, but it's by faith so that it might be by grace. Works and faith are opposite means.

It is by faith so that it can be by grace. It is not by works because then it wouldn't be by grace. Faith is not a work.

Now, we are saved therefore by grace. This grace comes as a result of faith in God. Faith has its accompaniments, and we've talked about that earlier in this series when we talked about salvation, the gospel of salvation, because faith is the means by which we're saved.

But the Bible says there are things that accompany salvation. And we talk about those on another occasion. We won't take the time to do so now.

I want to move along from this topic of the general graciousness of God, and even in saving us, to the relevance of this whole matter of grace to us now that we're saved. Now that I'm saved, do I need any more grace? And if so, what for? Well, some might say, well, we keep sinning after we're saved, so we need to be forgiven, so we still need grace as long as we're sinning. Well, what if I go a day without sinning? Do I need grace that day or not? If I don't have anything to repent of, if there's... Now, people say, you can't go a day without sinning.

That was a tenet of my upbringing. In the church I was raised in, it was almost a, you know, part of the Orthodox creed or something, you know, and that was, you cannot go a day without sinning. We all must sin, many times, and thought, word, and deed every day.

I grew up thinking that. In fact, I grew up thinking that if you deny that, you're guilty of the sin of pride. Until I read my Bible and found out there's no word in the Bible that says I must sin.

Plenty of places in the Bible say I must not sin. John says, these things I write to you so that you do not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

I read again and again saying, abstain from evil, abstain from all forms of evil. There are many commands to not sin. There are no commands to sin, and therefore I'm under no obligation to sin.

And nothing in the Bible says I must. In fact, the Bible indicates very much the opposite. In 1 Corinthians 10, 13, we're told that God is faithful.

He will not permit you to be tempted above that which you are able to endure, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape so you can endure it. What does that mean? Every time I'm tempted to sin, I don't have to. God, it's a matter of faithfulness to Him.

It's a matter of His own integrity. He will not allow me to ever have to sin. If I'm tempted, He will see to it there's a way I can avoid sinning.

He'll provide a way of escape so I don't... Where does this doctrine come from that I have to sin? What a bondage that puts a person in. I don't have to sin. I do sin.

I don't claim to be sinless. And even James said that. James said, in many things we all stumble.

Put that together. I don't have to sin, but in many ways we do sin. Well, Paul wrestles with that, I think, in Romans chapter 7. There's two parts of me.

There's the part that wants to please God, and there's the part that still is the same as it always was before I was regenerated. And sometimes that other part wins. It doesn't have to.

Because Paul said if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. But we don't walk in the Spirit all the time. Why? Because we're not allowed to? It's not that we're not allowed to, it's just we don't.

We're not in the habit of it. We're not careful enough. We don't wage a good warfare often.

We're not vigilant enough. If we did, we would be allowed to not sin. God has not consigned you to an everlasting life of sin, or at least the rest of your... God has come to save you from your sins.

His name should be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. So, on this matter of grace, okay, I need grace to get saved, because I have all these sins I've committed before I got saved. Now I've come to Christ, I've put my faith in Christ, I have grace, I'm forgiven.

Do I need any more grace? Some people might not think of any reason why you would until you sin again. But what if I go a whole day without sinning? What if I manage to really do something extraordinary and go two days without sinning? Are those two days I don't need any grace? Only if grace is improperly understood. Grace is far more than just the provision for me to have my sins forgiven whenever I need that.

Grace, as I said, is an attribute of God Himself, and it happens to be an attribute that He imparts to us. I'd like you to look at John 1, 14, and the verses that follow. In John 1, 14, the Apostle John said, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Now, skip a verse, because there's a parenthesis there about John the Baptist. He's not our concern right now. After there's this little digression about John the Baptist, we come back to the subject of verse 14.

In verse 16, it says, And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace, some translations say grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Now notice the connection there between verse 14 and 16. It says, When we saw the Word dwelling among us, we saw the image of the Father in Him.

We saw a glory in Him that was like the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father. He was full of grace. I mean, grace, obviously, in our English speech sometimes has a broader range of meaning.

Actually, it has a fairly broad range of meaning in the Greek too, but in these places, When a person is gracious, it means that grace characterizes them, even as grace characterizes God. It says in Proverbs 11, 16, A gracious woman retains honor, but ruthless men retain riches. Now, graciousness is an attribute of a woman who is gracious, just like ruthlessness is an attribute of a ruthless man.

A person who is ruthless is the opposite of someone who is gracious. And a gracious woman retains honor. In Ecclesiastes 10, 12, it says, The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious, just like Jesus' words of grace came out of His mouth.

Well, any wise man should be able to speak with grace. The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious, but the lips of the fool shall swallow him up. In Acts 4, 33, it says, And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

Now, that great grace that was upon them all probably simply refers to God's favor was upon them, but we know that they were operating through the grace of God, as we shall see in many similar passages. For example, in terms of the grace that's in us, in 2 Corinthians 8, 7, Paul speaking to the Christians of Corinth, he says, But as you abound in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us, see that you abound in this grace also. Now, this grace in the context is the grace of generosity, because he is actually making an appeal to them to help the poor saints in Jerusalem financially.

But he says they have certain attributes already. They have faith, their speech and their knowledge is commendable, they're diligent, and they love the apostles. But he says, since you have all those things going for you, there's one thing more I'd like to suggest.

See that you have this grace also. This generosity is a grace. Older Christian writers frequently spoke of Christian attributes as graces.

The fruit of the Spirit was sometimes spoken of as graces. In fact, some of these things in the list in 2 Corinthians 8, 7 are fruits of the Spirit. At least love is a fruit of the Spirit.

And these are graces. And he's suggesting that they have some additional grace added in their lives as well, a little more generosity. In Colossians 4, 6, Paul says, Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

Tactful, diplomatic, not lacking in salt, because if the salt loses its savor, it's worthless. Christians have to be salty, but they need to be gracious too. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt.

It's interesting, salt you don't need a lot of. It's a seasoning. The principal attribute of Christian speech is to be grace.

Your speech should be principally gracious, but you need to season it with some salt. Sometimes there's a little sting in a rebuke that's required to be made, or whatever. I mean, it doesn't mean you're being ungracious.

It just means sometimes there needs to be a little of that salt too. Now, is grace irresistible? I only bring this up because the word grace is used, especially among Calvinists, of the particular points of Calvinism. They're sometimes called the doctrines of grace.

And one of those doctrines of grace, the fourth point of Calvinism, is that grace is irresistible. Now, the way this is understood is that God's grace is given only to the elect, and it is given unilaterally to the elect, unconditionally. And when God has elected a person for salvation, He graciously changes their heart.

He graciously draws them, turns them toward Himself. He puts faith in them. He puts repentance in them.

This idea of irresistible grace basically teaches that if you are one of the elect, you will inevitably come to Christ, because God's grace will irresistibly draw you. And sometimes this view is mocked or is caricatured by those who are not Calvinists, as if to say that God is seen here dragging the sinner against His will, you know, to the cross and making him become a Christian. But that is not at all what Calvinism teaches.

Calvinism doesn't teach that God does any of this against a man's will. The man's will becomes kind of a non-issue. I mean, the man has a will, but God is manipulating it all the way.

And the man comes to God because he wills to come, because God puts it in his will to come. So there's no... it's not that... In saying it's irresistible, it doesn't mean that the man who is being drawn is trying to resist, but can't. And that there's these heel marks, you know, all the way to heaven, that this person was trying to resist God.

That's not the doctrine. The doctrine is that God's grace only is sent to those who are elect and whom God will change their hearts so that they will come. It's a very nice doctrine, and I don't have... I don't find any repulsion or revulsion to it at all.

I personally just don't think it's necessarily taught in Scripture that way. In Acts 13.43, it says, Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. Now, why persuade someone to continue in the grace of God? If they've already received grace of God, then they must be elect.

They must be, therefore, you know, they must be the recipients of this irresistible grace. Why does anyone have to persuade them to continue in it? Would they not inevitably continue in it, if it's an irresistible thing? The Scripture does not teach that grace is irresistible. By the way, for those here who may be Calvinists, you'd probably be very angry at me if I got so close to Acts 13... Is it 48 or... I don't have my Bible open, I have the Scriptures in front of me that I'm using, where it says, as many as were appointed to eternal life, believe.

Which verse is that? 48? And that is seen as, in a sense, a Scripture in favor of irresistible grace. As many as were appointed for eternal life, believed. And it suggests that they believed because they were appointed to believe.

But it's interesting, it doesn't say as many as were appointed to believe, believed. And it doesn't say as many as were appointed to believe got saved. It says as many as were appointed to eternal life.

And that word appointed does not tell us on what basis they were appointed to eternal life. Could it not be that they were appointed to eternal life because God knew they would believe? And on this occasion, in fact, they did what God knew they would do. And having prior knowledge that they would do so, He had prior appointed that through this faith, through this decision, they would have eternal life.

That is at least a possible way of looking at the verse, although I think of an entirely different way as being more likely. And that is, the word appointed there can mean disposed. In fact, the same word is used in Romans, or no, 1 Corinthians 16.15 I think it is, where it says the household of Stephanas have, in the King James, it says they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.

In the Greek, it's the same word here, disposed, or translated ordained, in the King James, in Hebrews, Acts 13.48, it was ordained for eternal life, or appointed for eternal life. Same word as the household of Stephanas have addicted themselves. Actually, the word can simply mean to be disposed without referring to who disposed them.

They were disposed to eternal life, so they believed. It's interesting that two verses earlier it says that Paul judged those who did not believe. He says, you have judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

So there's those who had judged themselves unworthy of eternal life, and those who were disposed toward eternal life. Well, if the ones who weren't disposed toward eternal life had judged themselves, it's their own fault, then perhaps those who were disposed toward eternal life had disposed themselves toward it. We don't know, it's left open to the question.

I'm not saying that that verse teaches that those people had disposed themselves, but the word can certainly mean that, and it does in other contexts. So if the household of Stephanas, they disposed themselves toward the ministry of the saints, same word and the same tense. Same case and everything.

Now, so, that verse doesn't necessarily teach irresistible grace, but Paul finds himself trying to persuade people to continue in the grace of God. First, you can't continue in the grace of God if you've never been in it. So they must be in it.

Then he tries to persuade them to continue in it. It should be absolutely, you know, unnecessary to persuade people to do so, if it's an inevitability that those who are in grace will always be in grace. Also in Hebrews 10.29, Paul says, And how much sore punishment do you suppose will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? If you can insult the Spirit of grace and trample underfoot the Son of God, it sounds like grace doesn't have its way with everybody.

These people had been sanctified, it says, they were sanctified. But they trampled it underfoot, counted it an unholy thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace. Apparently the Spirit's grace did not irresistibly have his way with them.

In Hebrews 12.15 it says, We're looking carefully lest anyone should fall short of the grace of God. Now, he's not writing to non-Christians here. It's very clear.

Earlier in the chapter he says, You have forgotten the exhortation that speaks to you as of sons, saying, My son, do not despise the chasing of the Lord. He's writing to people who are sons of God, children of God, Christians. And he says to them, Be careful lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness spring up to cause trouble and by it many be defiled.

Now, you can fall short of the grace of God. You can resist the grace of God. You can insult the grace of God.

And people must be exhorted and persuaded to continue in the grace of God according to Scripture. So I'm not really sure where any verse of Scripture we found that says that the grace of God is irresistible. None of these things seem to teach that, at least the way I understand the language.

Let's talk now about the sufficiency of grace in the life of believers. You need grace after you're saved as much as before. And not just because you still sin after you're saved.

Because you need grace every moment of every day whether you commit a sin or not. Because the whole function of grace is not simply to get you forgiven. It may be the only part that preachers preach about very much, but it's not the whole function of grace.

In fact, the vast majority of what the Bible says about grace lays other functions at the door of grace. And there are several that I've mentioned here in the notes. Let me speak first of all about what I've... Well, let me talk about the sufficiency of grace in the life of the believer.

You know, in 2 Corinthians 3.5, Paul is talking about the great things that he has accomplished as a minister of the new covenant. But he doesn't want to take any personal credit for it. And he says in 2 Corinthians 3.5, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.

Now, the reason we were sufficient for these things, the reason we're capable of doing the great things we're doing, is not that we're personally sufficient to do that. No way. We don't have the innate native talent or power to perform the things we're doing.

This sufficiency of ours is from God. It's a gift from God that he's made us sufficient for these things. But how so? Later in the same epistle, 2 Corinthians 9.8, he says to his readers, And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.

Now, in the context, he's talking about finances. He's talking about them giving their money to the church in Jerusalem, and God will certainly make good on it, and will not let them be without. But consider this.

God is able to make all grace abound to you. What is all grace? What is the result of all grace abounding toward you? Well, the result is you have all sufficiency in all things. Paul earlier said, our sufficiency is of God.

We can do the things we do because God makes us sufficient. How so? Through grace. God's grace is given to us, and this grace is nothing less than God's enablement.

God's sufficiency for all things. You know, what is really the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament? Now, we saw earlier in John chapter 1, in verse 18, it said the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. I don't know if you've ever noticed the difference in those verbs.

The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus. The law was something external to Moses, something that he received from God and gave it to them, and so forth. He was just a messenger of the whole thing.

The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus. When Jesus comes, grace comes with him. When you receive Jesus, you receive grace from God.

And with this grace that you receive, you have all sufficiency. You know, the law could tell men what they must do, but it could not in any way enable them to do it. If Jesus simply came to tell us a better way than what Moses gave, A, he didn't.

Because everything Jesus ever taught, you can find in the law. Even love your enemies and do good to those who hate you, that's in the law. You'll find it there.

It says if you see the man who hates you, if you see his donkey fall under load, and you don't want to help him, you go over and help him. It says that in the law. And the law says if you see your enemy's ox walk around, you take it back to him.

It says in Proverbs, which still reflects the ethics of the law, it says if your enemy hungers, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him drink. So, even the law teaches the same ethic that Jesus taught.

Jesus didn't really come to teach a better way than what was already given by Moses. So, what did Jesus do? What did he innovate? What changed when Jesus came? Certainly not just a higher standard, because I'm not sure you could argue that it was a higher standard. People say, well, in the law, you are forbidden to commit adultery, but in Jesus' said you're not even allowed to lust after a woman.

In the Old Testament, you weren't allowed to lust after a woman either. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. Ever read that one? That's in the law.

Or Job said, I've made a covenant with my eyes, why then should I look upon a maid? He knew. Jesus taught the same ethic that the righteous men of the past knew. God had revealed these things before.

There's no new thing. What was new then, when Jesus came? Well, the law was given by Moses, but grace, especially grace, came by Jesus. Now, grace isn't just, some people think, oh, grace means I don't have to keep the law.

There's a contrast. Law, grace. Under the law, you have to obey God.

Under grace, you don't have to obey God, right? No, that's certainly a misapplication of that dichotomy. Grace enables you to obey God. It gives you that inward sufficiency to be what God calls you to be and to do what God calls you to do.

The Bible teaches this. Let me show you some of the places that it teaches such a thing. In Romans 5, 21, that's the end of a long and difficult passage in Romans.

Romans 5 has that contrast between Adam and Christ. And by one man this came and by another man this came and so forth and so on. If you're familiar with the passage, you know what I'm talking about.

But what Paul does in that passage is he personifies certain concepts that we would not normally think of as personal concepts. Law, sin, grace. These are personified like they're players in a drama.

And at the end of the drama, it says that after all had been worked out in the gospel, Romans 5, 21 says, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, sin, before Jesus came, reigned in the lives of all. What does the reign of sin mean, really, in practical terms, in your life? If sin reigns in your life, remember Paul said, sin shall not have dominion over you, now that you're a believer, you're not supposed to be.

What does it mean for sin to reign? Does it not mean that sin reigns, that sin dictates behavior, that there's a principle in you called sin, and it is this sin that dictates the course of your life so that you live in sin? What else would better be understood as the reign of sin? But Paul says that through what Christ has accomplished, there's a change. Sin used to reign, but now grace reigns in its place. Now, if the reign of sin meant that sin dictated my behavior, then would you consider the possibility that when grace reigns, grace dictates behavior, as sin once did? Paul says, in fact, that this is true.

In Titus 2, 11 and 12, Titus chapter 2, verse 11 and 12, Paul said, for the grace of God, now that's going to be the subject of this entire two verses, the grace of God. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. Now there's a subject and a verb here.

The subject is the grace of God. The verb is teaches. Grace teaches.

We have entered the school of grace, and that schoolmaster lives inside of us. This is what is spoken figuratively of in the Old Testament in Jeremiah, as God writing his laws on our hearts, and putting his ways in our inward parts. Or what Ezekiel, in Ezekiel chapter 36, described as God taking out the heart of stone and putting it in the heart of flesh.

Changing our heart. There's a new teacher there. If you have received the grace of God, the grace comes to teach, among other things.

And what does the grace of God teach? Some people think that the grace of God teaches me I don't have to obey God anymore, because I'm not saved by works, I'm saved by grace. Paul apparently knew no such doctrine of grace as that. Paul said when the grace of God comes, it teaches us something just the opposite.

It teaches us that denied ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age. Do you have an inward teacher teaching you that? I hope the answer is yes. It's not a trick question.

I certainly hope that everyone who names the name of Christ can say yes, absolutely. Ever since I turned over my life to Christ, and God has come and invaded my life, there's been this inward inclination to forsake worldliness. To deny my flesh.

There's been this urge, there's been this teacher in there, this inward voice that says I need to live holy. I need to live godly. I need to deny worldliness and ungodly lusts.

And I need to live soberly and righteously and godly in this world. That is at least what Paul said happens when grace is revealed to the soul. Grace teaches something.

Grace isn't just some kind of abstract concept, which means God forgives me even though I don't deserve it. Grace is something of God's own nature that invades through His Spirit. The Spirit of grace comes and there's this inward grace teaching me to live a holy life.

I have met people who live in sin, although they profess that they have become Christians. I mean, they live in unrepentant sin. I believe Christians do fall and need to repent and turn back to God.

But Christians don't live in sin unrepentant. And I've met people who profess to be converted and I've confronted them about their sin, that they're living in unrepentant sin. And I've had them say to me, well, I'm saved by grace, not by words.

So, what could come closer to Jude's statement about people who have turned the grace of God into license or into lewdness, as the New King James says, than that? Neither Jude nor Paul nor any writer of Scripture believed that the grace of God teaches us it's okay to sin. The grace of God teaches something else. If there's no teacher telling you these sins are wrong, you better stop these right away.

I suspect grace has not come to you, because when grace comes, it talks that way. And so, grace is a teacher. We need a teacher.

We need a changed heart. We need God's laws written on the inward parts. That changes the whole dynamics of the religious life.

Moses imposed laws. God imposed laws through Moses upon hearts that were not changed. There was no grace, at least not this kind of grace, that comes through Jesus.

But there was this grace that comes to us, where grace comes and teaches us to do what's right. But not only does grace teach us to do what's right, grace also enables us to do what's right. Hence, we read of God's supernatural enablement.

What we usually speak of as the gifts of the Holy Spirit, do you know the Bible doesn't actually refer to them as gifts of the Holy Spirit? When you think of prophecy and tongues and healing and miracles and whatever other things you might think of when you think of the gifts of the Spirit, do you know the Bible actually doesn't use the term gifts of the Spirit for these? But the word that is used in the Greek is charismata, that's plural, charisma, singular, and comes from the Greek word charis, charis is grace. The ordinary word in the New Testament for grace is charis, and you add two letters, charisma, and you have a gift of grace. The gifts, what we call the gifts of the Spirit, the Bible calls the gifts of grace.

What do gifts of the Spirit do? They enable you to do what Jesus did, beyond what you could do naturally. In the natural, you cannot heal the sick by a touch. You can't work miracles, you can't prophesy in the natural.

But the Christian life is not intended to be lived in the natural. That's the worst thing that's ever happened to Christianity, is people trying to institutionalize the thing so that you learn all the ropes, and then anyone can do it. You know, Christianity made easy.

Christianity is not easy. But it's not difficult either, it's impossible. The Christian life is impossible, because the Christian life is nothing else but Jesus' life, living like Jesus.

Now, it's impossible for man, of course, nothing is impossible with God. But one of the worst things that happened to the church is that we have reduced Christianity in our thinking or in our preaching to give up this and give up that, and start doing this and add this, start going to church, pay your tithes, be faithful in the church, and that's what we call Christianity. And anyone can do that.

And so you often find people who regard themselves as good Christians, even on the mission field, who are the very picture of rudeness and cantankerousness and impatience. The opposite of grace, they're not gracious, full of grace people. And yet they think of themselves as good Christians, why? Because they've interpreted Christianity as doing such things as they can do.

And then grace just covers their failures. The way they understand the doctrine of grace is this, I be as good as I can for Jesus, but I'm not perfect, so all my imperfections, those are under grace. No, that's not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches that the grace of God enables me to do what I cannot otherwise do. The Christian life is a supernatural life. Can you ever read the book of Acts? Ever read the book of Acts? You read the book of Acts and tell me you don't get the impression that the Christian life is a supernatural life? Life in the Spirit of God is a supernatural life.

I don't mean that every Christian is doing signs and wonders and miracles, that's not the only supernatural thing. Regeneration itself is supernatural. Man can't do it.

I can't regenerate my children. But God can, it's supernatural. Now, in order to live the Christian life as Jesus did, we need to be like him, full of grace.

And grace then manifests itself through gifts of grace, enabling us to do things that cannot be done naturally. The grace of God does it. In Romans 12, 6, one of the several key passages in the Bible about what we usually call the gifts of the Spirit, Paul says, Having then gifts, the Greek word charisma, gifts of grace, differing according to the grace that is given to us.

Let us use them. If prophecy, then let us prophesy in proportion to faith, etc. He gives more listing.

Notice, as we have gifts, differing according to whatever grace God has given us. The gifts are a manifestation of some distinctive grace that God has given us. To do something supernatural, as Jesus did, is to do it through grace.

Grace is the dynamic that teaches us and then enables us to do what we are to do as Christians. In 1 Peter 4, we see Peter talking just the same way as Paul about this. 1 Peter 4, 10, Peter says, Again, it is the charisma.

As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Notice, if you have a gift, you are a steward of something. What? Of the grace of God.

The grace of God is that gift that God has given you. If you minister to one another in this gift that you have, then you are being a good steward of the grace of God that is forgiven to you. But the gifting is an outworking of grace.

In 1 Corinthians 3, 10, Paul says, According to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, meaning of the church in Corinth, and another, probably Apollos and others, builds upon it. But let each one take heed of how he builds on it. Now notice, according to the grace of God that was given to me as a wise master builder, Paul laid a good foundation.

He did it wisely, but it was because of the grace that was in him, enabled him, gave him that wisdom, helped him to do what he could not do without Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15, 10, he is even more explicit. After he mentions that he has actually done a lot more work than the other apostles have, no brag, just fact, he wants to clarify that he is not bragging.

He says, listen, 1 Corinthians 15, 10, But by the grace of God I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

Notice, I worked harder, I did more labors, I accomplished more than all the other apostles, but it wasn't me, it was the grace of God that was with me. How did you do that, Paul? I didn't. The grace of God did that.

That's grace working in me. That's supernatural. That's the enabling of God.

In Ephesians 3, 7, Paul speaks similarly, he says, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. Notice the close connection in Paul's mind between the gift of the grace of God and the effective working of His power. That grace effectively works through him.

In Hebrews 12, 28, we read, Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which, that is, by grace we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. We're not to serve God in the flesh. We're not to serve God in our own strength.

We are to serve God by grace. Let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably. Service in the flesh is not acceptable.

Service that is rendered by the outworking of God's grace enabling us, that is acceptable. More, grace has another function. It has to do with that empowering, that enabling, but it's especially related to the subject of suffering.

You know, if you read Foxe's book of Martyrs, or you read even modern stories of Christian martyrs, or maybe even you heard tonight for the first time about the young girl in Colorado who, when the gunman came into the school library, said, any Christians here want to take a stand for Jesus? She said, I will. And he shot her. You might say, well, would I have stood up in that situation? Hope so.

Hope so. But she probably didn't do it in her own strength. You know, in the natural, there's no stronger instinct in man than self-preservation.

But the history of the church is replete with examples of people who did not succumb to that strongest of human instincts. And they loved not their lives unto the death. It says in Revelation 12.

And so, how can anyone not love their own life? It violates the strongest natural instincts of humanity. Because there's something stronger than man, and that is God, the grace of God. And the grace of God enables us to not love our lives.

It enables us to receive, cheerfully even at times. Many of the martyrs died singing, and showing other signs of an unperturbed spirit, as they were burned at the stake or fed to the lions. Things that you can hardly imagine letting happen to you, without, you know, going crazy over it.

And it's the grace of God that we can endure hardship, and do so graciously. Anyone can endure hardship. What choice do you have? You take a Christian and a non-Christian, subject to the same torture, by the same tortures, both of them probably can endure it.

There's no choice, they have no choice. They both have to endure it. But only one can endure it in a Christ-like manner.

Only one can endure it graciously. And that grace that comes at the time of special need, is the marvel of all onlookers. So much so that it is said that for every martyr that was killed in the Coliseum, there were a dozen or more spectators that gave their lives to Christ, because they were so impressed by the courage, and the joy, and the obvious victory of the Christians, who had no fear of death, because they were enabled by the grace of God.

The Apostle Paul was greatly tormented by some condition, we don't know what it was, it may have been an eye condition, it may have been something else. He only referred to it symbolically as a thorn in his flesh. And he asked God three times to remove it from him.

Do you remember what God said to him? In Ephesians 12, verse 9, He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Paul says, therefore I most gladly will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Notice, he had infirmities, and these provide the occasion for the power of Christ to be manifest upon him.

And he says this, because God's grace is sufficient to him. Paul said, God, would you take this trial from me? God says, no, I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll give you my grace instead. How's that? My grace will make you sufficient for the trial.

He is able to make all grace abound to you, so that you have all sufficiency in all things. It may abound to every good work. In 2 Thessalonians 2, 16 and 17, Paul said, now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and our God and Father who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.

Notice that God has given us what? Consolation and good hope through grace. Grace consoles us. Grace encourages us in hardship to make it through.

Grace enables us. It says in Hebrews 4, 16, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that when we obtain, look, two things. Obtain mercy, that's when we need to be forgiven.

We need mercy. And what else do we get there at the throne of grace? Well, what else would you get at the throne of grace? Grace. Grace to help.

Mercy for my guilt. And grace for my infirmity. Grace for my inability.

Grace to help me when I have the need for it. Now, notice, it's grace to help in time of need. You might remember the story of Corrie ten Boom and how her mother died when she was a little girl and she was very terrified watching her mother die.

She began to reflect on her own death, which she didn't know how she would die, but it's just a scary thought. And she said, oh Papa, how will I ever be able to stand it when it comes my time to die? And her father was a clockmaker and he said, He said, Corrie, do you remember when we take our clocks to Germany? They were in Holland. Do you remember when we go to Germany with the clocks and I take you with me sometimes on the train? He said, when do I give you the ticket to get on the train? She says, well, you give it to me right when we're getting on the train.

He said, that's right, Corrie, because you're just a very little girl. If I gave you the ticket too far in advance, you might lose the ticket. But I keep it safe for you and I hold it for you and you don't need it any sooner than you get it.

When you need the ticket, your father always gives you the ticket. And he says, so also when it comes your turn to die and to face horrifying things. Our father, he does not give you the grace for that right now.

He will give it to you then. I saw a movie a few years ago in the theaters in Portland. I think it was called The Radicals.

It was about an early Mennonite martyr. I think it was about Michael Sattler. I hope I'm not confusing Michael Sattler with some other Mennonite martyr.

There were quite a few Mennonite martyrs. But in the early days, in the 1600s, these people were burned at the stake and had their heads chopped off and were drowned for their faith and so forth. I believe it was Michael Sattler.

The persecutors who happened to be, I think in this case, I think they were Zwinglian reformers persecuting the Anabaptists. But the persecutors wanted to make a special example out of Michael Sattler. So he tore his tongue out, burned his skin off, wrapped him up in chains and dragged him through the streets naked.

And at certain points along the way, they had hot coals and tongs for people to grab and to poke onto his body with these red hot coals. And then they tied him to a stake and they lowered him over a fire. Not enough to die.

As soon as he'd start to bake a little bit, they'd pull him up so he couldn't die too quickly. And they kept doing it. And finally they dumped him in the ocean with a rock, or in the lake with a rock and drowned him.

Now, Michael Sattler told his friends that he expected they would do this to him. And he said, at the time when I'm in torment, I will give you a signal if Jesus is able to give the strength to go through this kind of thing. And that signal will be that I'll put my two index fingers together.

I may not be able to speak because I think they'll tear my tongue out. And he said, but if you see me putting my fingers together, then you'll know that God is giving the grace to endure it. And as he was being baked there over the fire, he put his fingers out like that and he put his fingers together as a signal to his friends.

It's worth it. You can do it. Through Christ, who strengthens me, it is possible.

That's the grace of God. He's sufficient. There are things Christians are called upon to do that no human being can do.

I mean, you can die and suffer without Christ, but you can't die and suffer like Christ without Him. You can't die and suffer graciously without grace. And grace is there to help in time of need.

As you contemplate, when I saw that movie a few years ago, I thought, if I had to go through that, how could I possibly endure such horrendous tortures? And I lay awake at night for a while thinking about that. I remembered, oh yeah, those guys weren't supermen. They were just like me.

You know, I had a wife who was killed in an accident. And when that happened, the grace of God just swept over me and I was strengthened through it. And I never went through all those things you're supposed to go through when you grieve.

Because, I mean, God was just near at that time. I felt the grace of God upon me. And a lot of people said, oh, it'll hit you a few months from now.

But it never did. But if I had been told a day before, and said, your wife is going to be killed tomorrow, I wouldn't have had that grace at that time. Because, for one thing, it wasn't a current need.

God is faithful. He'll give it when you need it. He gives grace to help.

You come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain grace to help in time of need. How do you get grace? Well, there's preconditions. According to James 4.6, He gives more grace.

Therefore, He says, God resists the prophet, gives grace to the humble. In 1 Peter 5.5, it says, likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive one to another and be clothed with humility.

For God resists the prophet, gives grace to the humble. You must be humble. You must humble yourself before God to receive grace.

That's for salvation or for any function of grace. Grace comes through, to the humble. It also comes through faith.

That just means trusting God. Any child can do that. You don't have to be a superman to get grace.

You just have to trust God like a child trusts a parent. Paul said in Romans 5.2, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace by which we stand or in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Notice we have access to faith, I mean through faith, into this grace. You need grace, there's access given to you. It's through faith.

Trust God. Often you don't even have to consciously pray for grace because if you're just living in trust of God, the grace comes. It should be habitual that you trust God every moment of every day and the grace is there.

When my wife was killed, I didn't have time to think, oh no, God give me the grace. At the time, I was just living a life of faith in God and God just sent the grace. He's faithful.

I didn't have to drum it up. It's through faith. Faith is a settled disposition in the heart of the believer, I hope.

It should be. And then grace comes in the times it's needed. Of course, we already read Ephesians 2.8, for by grace you've been saved through faith.

Grace saves you and it saves you through faith. We have access into this grace through faith. If you humble yourself before God and you put your trust in Him, that grace will always be there.

You'll have all things necessary. You can grow in this. You can increase in it.

Peter says in 2 Peter 1, 2, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. It can be multiplied. Grace can be multiplied in your life.

In 2 Peter 3.18, Peter says, But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And we already read 2 Corinthians 8.7 where Paul said, As you abound in everything, in faith, speech, knowledge, all diligence, and your love for us, see that you abound in this grace also. Grace in your life can expand to new areas.

You can learn to walk in grace more than you do now. What's more, you can minister grace to others. It says in Ephesians 4.29, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but what is good.