Amazing Grace

Introduction

Good morning to everyone. It helps when you plug the thing in. Oh, I plugged it in now. We should be good. Amazing grace. That is a beautiful song that we just sang. And it’s a beautiful concept and theme. Robert Turner said, no greater theme could occupy the mind of man. If it were not for God’s grace, no man could possibly be saved. Are we amazed by the grace of God? Or do we sort of take it for granted? And we need to be amazed by it. Do you know what the word grace means? We typically say unmerited favor. The word that is translated grace in the New Testament actually just means favor. It is unmerited. But I challenge you when you think of the word grace to think of the word favor.

Amazing favor. How sweet the sound. It saved a wretch like me. Or Ephesians 2 8. For by favor you have been saved. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Without this grace or favor of God, we would be nothing. We would have no hope at all. Paul said, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And it is by the grace of God that we are children of God and that we are saved, and that we are considered worthy because we in and of ourselves are totally worthless. We are needy recipients of the grace of our God, and we must therefore become reflectors of that grace that has been so freely and abundantly showered and lavished upon us. Before we can do that, however, we must first come to an appreciation of what the grace of God really is about.

1. Grace Is Appreciated Only Once Sin Is Understood

And how do we do that? Well, grace is appreciated only once sin is understood. Because we have sinned, we are outside of God’s grace, and we cannot earn it. To the extent that we do not see sin for what it is, we cannot see grace for what it is. In the book of Romans, Paul speaks beautifully of the grace of God. I want you to turn with me, because these won’t be up on the slide. He speaks beautifully of the grace of God beginning in chapter 3 and verse 21 down through chapter 5 and verse 21. And we’re just going to glance at a few of these verses. In chapter 3, verses 23 and 24, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified is a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

Chapter 4, verses 6 through 8, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. Verse 16, for this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be accordance with grace. Chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand and we exult in the hope of the glory of God. Verse 15, but the free gift is not like the transgression.

For if by the transgression of the one, meaning Adam, the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound to the many. Verses 20 and 21. The law came in so that the transgression would increase. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so Paul is making a powerful argument that you cannot be saved by perfect law keeping. You cannot be saved by works of merit. You are saved by trusting in the Lord. You are saved by the grace that is in Jesus Christ. Beautiful, beautiful section. But he does not start the letter of Romans that way.

Before he can talk about grace, he has to first talk about sin and its prop the problem of sin. And he does this in chapter one, beginning in verse 18. And let’s just glance at a few of these passages. In verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. You go on down toward the end, look at verses 28 and following, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, they are gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

And although they know know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death. They not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. So the Gentiles are in sin. And at this point the Jews are saying Amen. And then he turns his attention to the Jews in verse 1 of chapter 2. Therefore you have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the same things. In chapter 3 and verse 9, what then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. And that’s pretty well your outline for the first three chapters.

The Jews are in sin, the Gentiles are in sin. We’re all under sin. There is none righteous, not even one. Is this the same letter? Which Paul is talking so beautifully in these sweeping verses and passages about grace, in which he speaks so graphically about the depths of immorality. Yes, it is. In fact, in Paul’s sequence, we learn that we must abhor sin before we can appreciate the grace of God. We cannot appreciate the solution until we’ve been sickened by the problem. Are you sickened by the problem? John Newton wrote Amazing Grace. He grew up in the 1700s in London, was a reckless youth. Became a sailor when he was older, and was profane. In fact, he had a reputation for being the worst among them all.

He denounced his faith during this period of his life. And he was so disobedient to those who are above him, that he was really pressed into service in the royal Navy. But then he became a deserter. And turned to a very dark occupation, that of slave trading. He was vile. He was hateful. He was a bigot. You just think of all the things you could fill in the blanks with. We could think of a lot. But he turned from those ways and turned his life. I’m not trying to give my stamp of approval on the doctrines that he held to. But he became a minister in the UK in a little village called Alni. And as was expected of ministers, he began to write hymns. And wrote many.

And some of them were collected in a larger collection called Alni hymns. And one of those hymns in there started with the words amazing grace. How sweet the sound. You know how the next part goes. That saved a wretch like me. He had the word grace and wretch in the same sentence. I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.

Totally helpless, dead in our transgressions. Until we can see that that’s what state we were in. And see the fact that sin has not been totally conquered in our life, and we continue to struggle with it unless we are sickened with that. We have no idea what the grace of God means. And it disgusts me to see people flaunt, and I don’t mean hear anybody, but I’ve seen it out there in the world as I evangelize. People that flaunt the grace of God with their lips, and then they flaunt sin with their body and with their mouth. They have no idea about the grace of God. They’ve not been sickened by the problem. The original title for amazing grace was 1 Chronicles 17, 16 and 17, Faith’s Review and Expectation.

That’s a long title. In that context of 1 Chronicles 17, King David wanted to build a temple for the Lord. But the prophet Nathan told him that God does not want you to do that. You’ve been a man of war. But your descendant will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of your kingdom forever. And David was so humbled by this that his kingdom would be established forever. That he responded in the two verses upon which amazing grace is originally based. Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house that you have brought me this far? This was a small thing in your eyes, O God, but you have spoken of your servant’s house for a great while to come.

2. Salvation Is a Gift; No One Can Boast

And have regarded me according to the standard of a man of high degree. Oh Lord God. What a statement of humility. Who am I? Oh, Lord God, that you have brought me this far. And so we apply that to us today. Do we certainly have this mentality, realizing that the grace of God is something that cannot be earned and that we totally do not deserve? Salvation is a gift. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Do we forget that? That salvation is a gift. Do we think of it as something that we have to earn? And obedience is absolutely vital. Don’t get me wrong. But no matter what we do, salvation cannot be earned.

It is a gift, it is a free gift. Don’t forget that, brethren. Even the most righteous men and women, the most reputed Bible characters, cannot boast or claim payment from God. Some of them might say, Well, surely the prophets could boast. Yet Isaiah the prophet, when he saw the Lord by way of vision, fell down on his face, saying, Woe is me, because I am undone. I’m a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among the people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. So the prophets couldn’t boast or claim payment. What about the patriarch? Somebody might say, Well, surely Abraham could do, could do that, could claim payment. Yet, what does Paul say of Abraham in Romans 4, 1 and 2?

What shall we say then that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, is found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about. But not before God. In other words, he doesn’t have anything to boast about because he wasn’t justified by law keeping. Works of merit. Somebody might say, well, maybe the apostles. They could claim payment from God. Yet the Apostle Paul said it is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am the foremost of all. You see, he had been sickened by the problem, hadn’t he? You see, nobody can boast or claim payment from God. I may have given this illustration before, but I think it’s been a while, so you’ve probably forgotten anyway.

A man fell into a well. And I don’t know how he fell into the well. It’s not a true story anyway, so don’t worry about that part. You think, how can somebody fall into a well? Well, anyway, he falls in a well and he starts crying out, help. And nobody hears him for a long time. And he keeps crying out, and eventually somebody hears this voice coming out of a well and looks down there and says, Hey, are you alright? No, I need to get out of here. Okay, uh, I tell you what, I’ve got some friends with me. We’re going to lower the bucket down, and you sit on the bucket, and we’ll pull you up. So, can you do that? Can we sit on a bucket?

We could do that, right? So he lowers down the bucket, the man sits on the bucket, and these all these men pull the guy all the way up to the top, and he gets up and he’s so excited, and he starts jumping around, bragging about how well he sat on that bucket.

3. No Amount of Good Deeds Can Earn Grace

You see, we have nothing to boast to boast about, nothing to brag about. It is God who pulls us up. Yes, we have our part that we must do. But ultimately, we can’t pull ourselves out of this pit that we’re in. It is God who saves us. And therefore, what we need to come away with is nothing but humility and gratitude. No amount of good deeds can earn the grace of God. In Romans 4, after Paul speaks about the fact that Abraham could not boast. Paul says in verses 3 and 4, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. That’s a quote from Genesis 15 6, and if I had more time, I’d go into that. Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due.

So Abraham was justified because he put his trust not in himself, but he put his trust in God. And when you read that to the one who works, you have to define what works means in Romans. Because we know that works is very important for our salvation. James 2 and verse 24 says, you see, then a man is justified by works and not by faith only. So it’s absolutely required that we be obedient, but this here is not talking about obedience. It’s talking about works of merit. Because it is works with the intention that I’m going to be able to get what is owed to me. You see, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. So that he could go to God in his mind, that this would be his intention, as if to say, God, give me what you owe me.

I think it’s funny that my son Ty is nine, and we started paying our boys for work around the house, and it’s gotten to a point where we paid him so much I had to say, son, I’m gonna have to pay the rest of the money next month. And so he he keeps reminding me, Dad, you owe me money. You owe me money, you owe me money. And it’s almost humorous to me that here my son, who I brought into this world, you know, well, with the help of my wife, obviously. And uh I feed him, you know, every day and give him a place to live in that I owe him money. Well, do we sometimes get the mentality that all of our hard work that we’ve done and all the good things we’ve done for God is somehow gonna give us some return one day in the eternity.

It doesn’t work that way. We’re saved by trusting in the one who will save us, who has told us that we must obey. In Ephesians 2 and verses 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that, what is the that? I think the that means the saved, the salvation. And that salvation, not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. And the same basic meaning here that we saw in Romans. We could go to other passages as well. J.I. Packer was right. He said, What is grace?

In the New Testament, grace means God’s love and action towards men who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners. I think that’s a powerful statement. Only by God’s grace were we created. Only by God’s grace are we recreated. God does for man that which we could never do for ourselves. If you rely upon yourself for deliverance, no wonder you’re struggling. No wonder you’re discouraged. No wonder you’re depressed or you don’t have the hope of heaven. You’re putting your trust in the wrong place. Quit putting it in yourself. Put your trust upon God. Every minute of every day. It’s not as if you’re going to start your day and think, well, I’ll be all right without God, but maybe about two o’clock I’m going to need him.

4. Grace Is Not Two Workers of Equal Strength

No, you need him every moment of every day. And you need to put your trust completely in him. You see, grace is not two workers of equal strength carrying a load in tandem. Now that’s not on your outlines, but you can add that if you like.

Actually from the West family. They gave it to us. And I have moved a lot of pianos in my teenage years because my dad does that on the side. And I told Rob, you and me are going to be able to move this piano, and he looked at me like I was crazy. He didn’t think we’d be able to do that. Well, all you got to do is lift it for about five seconds and have somebody slide the dolly under there and then wrap it up and you’re you’re pretty well set from there. And so we did that. I didn’t ask Melanie to lift the piano. I didn’t ask his boys or Jenny, she wasn’t there anyway, to lift the piano. I asked Rob to do it.

And when I got home with the piano, I sure didn’t call up Holly or ask Holly, honey, come help me unload this piano. I called up Wayne, and he came and helped me unload. Why? Because two workers of equal strength can pick up a load that’s pretty heavy. Is that sort of how we come to thinking about grace? That God’s got his end and we’ve got our end, and we’re carrying this load at the same time together, two workers of equal strength. Well, if that’s our mentality, that’s certainly not true because number one, we don’t have a very good history of holding up our end. And number two, God is our superior. He is not equal with us. You might have heard the famous quotation, I think it might have originated with Mother Teresa or something like that.

Pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you. I think that’s a desperate thought. Work is if everything depends on you. I understand the sentiment. But our sufficiency is in God. And God alone. It’s not in ourselves at all. Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, I don’t have time to explain the whole context. And we have such trust through Christ toward God, verse 4. Then verse 5 says, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. He’s saying, Whatever we have done and accomplished among you, I want you to know that really it’s only because God has made us able to do that. And we need to look at our lives the same way.

5. God’s Grace Is Trustworthy and Dependable

That our sufficiency is in God. We cannot act as if everything depends upon us. Well, if we’re going to depend fully upon the grace of God, we need to be convinced that his grace is trustworthy and dependable. And certainly it is. Grace is part of God’s eternal nature. It’s not that God hated us at one time and then decided to start loving us. God has always loved us. He has always loved us. His grace is permanently embedded in who he is. His loving kindness is from everlasting to everlasting. And you know, he proved that to us by sending his son. You know the verse. For God so loved the world, what did he do? He gave his only begotten Son. The one unique Son, the one and only, Jesus Christ.

He gave him up. I can’t imagine giving my son up for a bunch of vile people that don’t care. But God did that for us. And he planned to do that from all eternity. In 1 Peter 1 and verse 20, it says, For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world. But has appeared in these last times for the sake of you. So before we were even here, God already planned to send his son for us. Next time you begin to doubt the grace of God, think about that. He went to a lot of trouble for you. I think you can depend upon him to be there for you and to save you from sin. The grace of God truly is amazing. It is dependable.

6. Grace Demands a Response

And therefore, since the grace of God is so amazing, we ought to respond to it. Grace demands a response. We need to respond to the grace of God by laboring for him. What did Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15 10? But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. I hope the grace of God doesn’t prove vain with you or I. But that we may labor as Paul did. We need to become a conduit for the grace of God. So you younger people are going to have to ask mom and dad, what does that word mean?

God working through us. We become reflectors of the grace of God. We, in a sense, pay it forward. Think of it this way. God, through grace has taught us.

Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age. Titus 2, 11, 12. It teaches us. Do you teach the lost? Or do you turn a blind eye? Do I? Turn a blind eye to those who need the gospel. God didn’t turn a blind eye to us. God helps us. He gives us every day our daily bread. He gives us food to eat and water to drink and shelter and clothing. Do we help those who are needy? God comforts us in our pain. He is the God of all comfort. Do we comfort those who need it? God loves us. Even when we are unlovable. Even when we were enemies, sinners, helpless, Romans 5. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, Ephesians 2.

Do we love those who are unlovable? Even those who are our enemies? If we are going to be a conduit of the grace of God, that’s really what this comes down to, brethren. Are we going to be like God or not? Are we going to be like our Savior and show the same grace towards others that He has shown to us? Are we going to be stingy with our own grace towards others? Our own favor. God forgave us. Even when we were undeserving, nobody can deserve the grace of God. Do we demand that other people be deserving before we give them our favor and our grace? We need to forgive those who are undeserving. We could say much more. Maybe the reason that you and I are not doing more for others is because we’re not amazed by the grace of God.

Conclusion

The more amazed we are, the more we will do for Him. And the more we will rid ourselves of sin, and the more faith we will have and confidence in our own salvation. Remember, grace means favor. And the favor of God can save your soul. If you take hold of it, he’ll pull you up out of that well into which we’ve fallen. But you’ve got to sit on that bucket and you’ve got to hang on. And that means doing all the things that He has asked of us to do. Part of that involves repentance and baptism. Of course, we’re about to dismiss for Bible classes. But be thinking about this this morning. Would you bow your head with me in prayer? Our Father, thank you so much for your grace that is amazing.

We don’t deserve your grace at all. We are totally unworthy. And we feel so thankful, fortunate that you have thought of us from before the world even began. You made a plan for our own salvation. And you made it possible that we don’t have to earn our salvation with perfect law keeping. But you’ve made it such that we can be forgiven if we but commit ourselves to you and trust in you, the only one who can save. Through your Son, we pray. Amen. Well now.