The Grace of God's Eternal Promise
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Pat did not want me to do her funeral. That isn’t because she had a problem with me. She was very nice to me whenever we interacted.
No—she had a good reason for not wanting me to do this funeral. She wanted David Bounds to do it.
David has served as a pastor to the Southeast region of Virginia for over 40 years.
He is one of the most respected people that I know.
Most Christians I know who had David as a pastor kept an emotional attachment to him for decades.
His ministry has that much impact.
Pat knew David from her time of sitting under his ministry at Ivy Memorial in Hampton.
She asked him to do her funeral and he said yes.
But David is currently battling Parkinson’s and he just wasn’t able to do it.
The family asked me, but before they did, David actually asked me.
He said, “I promised Pat I would do her funeral. I can’t. Can you do it?”
But even though David is not here, I am going to do the next best thing—I am going to use one of his sermon outlines this afternoon.
So my preaching, but David’s outline. That is as close as we can get for Pat today.
Earlier we read one of Pat’s favorite Scriptures:
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
This is an incredible promise from God—that His Son has gone to prepare a place for us in His Father’s house and He is promising that He will take us there.
This is great hope on a day like this because we know that our friend and family member is with Christ in His Father’s house. She is experiencing glory. She is in the presence of God without the staining influence of sin.
That heavenly reality is one that so many would want to grasp and lay hold of. But how do we?
How can we be sure that we will spend our eternity in heaven, just like Pat?
The answer is found in one beautiful word this afternoon—that word is grace.
WHAT IS GRACE?
WHAT IS GRACE?
On a day when we are faced with death, grace is a life-giving word. A precious and glorious word.
And most importantly, it is a Bible word.
Grace is not just the short prayer that we say before our meals.
It is not a pat on the back when we miss the mark.
It is not simply something to make us feel better when we are down on ourselves.
So what is a good definition of grace for our grieving hearts this afternoon?
First of all, grace is pardon.
It is chains falling off of those imprisoned by sin.
It is the divine Judge’s voice crying out and saying that we are innocent.
When the Apostle Paul speaks of the grace that pardons, he says:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
See, the Bible reveals to us the reason that death is in the world. It is because of sin.
God told Adam that if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden, he would surely die.
When Adam committed that sin against God, he was separated from God because he became sinful and God is holy.
And as Adam’s spiritual children, we have inherited his sin. And as a result, we have inherited his death sentence as well.
We know the Bible tells the truth when it says we are sinners if we compare ourselves to God’s perfect moral law—the Ten Commandments.
The Commandments show that we have not loved God the way He commands and we have not loved our neighbors in the way He commands.
Instead, we have blasphemed, dishonored our parents, lied, stolen, lusted, coveted and so on.
We stand guilty before God in His court and we need help if we are not going to spend eternity separated from Him.
The solution to our sin and death problem is not works. That is what Paul is saying in Ephesians 2. You cannot save yourself with good works. You cannot atone for your sin with good deeds. You cannot undo your death with charity.
We are only pardoned by grace—not our works.
This grace we are talking about is God’s love.
His unmerited favor to unworthy sinners.
The free and undeserved kindness and compassion of God.
And we most see that kindness and compassion when we look to the life of Jesus.
In Christ, we see the sinless Son of God who has come to earth and lived perfectly under His Father’s authority and He has kept every one of His Father’s commands.
And yet, despite His sinlessness, He died a sinner’s death on the Cross for us. He was our Substitute. He died in our place.
The wrath we should have received from God for eternity for all of our sinning, was poured out on Jesus instead of on us.
And then He rose from the grave to prove His victory over our sin and our death
So we can say that grace is God’s undeserved blessings poured out on sinful people, but we would say that the pinnacle of that grace is the sending of His Son to die in your place and provide a pardon for your sin and guilt.
This is why Paul wrote that grace is a gift.
Grace and pardons and sees us accepted by God.
But we must receive that gift.
We receive it by confessing our sin to God and turning away from it.
Placing our hope and trust in Christ’s death and resurrection for salvation
He will then forgive you—pardon you—and give you eternal life.
And if you believe this and you turn from sin and place your faith in Christ, the pardon you receive from Christ is the greatest gift you will ever know.
You will be adopted into His family of faith
You will be transferred from the domain of darkness into the Kingdom of the beloved Son
This is all grace—God’s unmerited love toward you
Too many people think that Christians are these perfect people who keep their noses clean and never do anything wrong.
They think that righteousness is something that Christians are trying to earn by being perfect.
The truth is, Christians are people who know they can’t keep their act together on their own.
And they are not trying to earn their righteousness—they are totally dependent on Jesus’ righteousness.
They have staked everything on the grace He has shown them in the Cross and the resurrection of Christ.
They are not perfect people—they are pardoned people.
And that gracious pardon will see to it that we are welcomed into the Father’s house for eternity.
GRACE IS POWER
GRACE IS POWER
We have seen that Grace is Pardon. I now want to point out that the grace that takes sinners to heaven is powerful.
The Apostle John wrote:
John 1:16 “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”
So while God’s grace will pardon us and see us forgiven and guiltless before God’s throne—His grace is also the power that gets us through life.
It is the power that got Pat through her life.
Grace is God’s enable power in us.
It saves us, but it also carries us through our days.
It is the touch and movement of God’s power inside of us.
And it provides for us everything we need to serve God each day:
2 Corinthians 12:9a “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Philippians 2:13 “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
We can see from these Scriptures that God’s grace is what empowers us to be who we were created to be each and every day—worshippers of God.
And His grace enables us to do that which He has called us to do—to serve God and serve our fellow neighbors
It is a joyful thing—especially on hard days like this—to have the full effect of God’s grace in our lives.
To be able to say that we are liberated from sin
To be able to say that God’s grace gives us the opportunity each day to try and live like Jesus did—loving God and loving people
Forgiving people who do harm to us
Enduring hard things like He endured the Cross
To know that God’s grace is the power at work in your life that carries you from moment to moment. From mission to mission. From day to day. From month to month. From year to year.
His grace is sufficiently power to see us through this life and into His Father’s house.
AN EXAMPLE OF GRACE
AN EXAMPLE OF GRACE
One of the great examples of grace that we see in the Bible comes to us in 2 Samuel 9.
David has evolved from shepherd boy to the King over Israel.
David was good friends with a man named Jonathan.
Jonathan dies at the end of 1 Samuel and David wants to find any of his descendants that are out there so he can care for them
David finds that Mephibosheth, one of Jonathan’s sons, is still alive.
And the king said, “Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?” Ziba said to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet.” The king said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba said to the king, “He is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.” Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar. And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, “Mephibosheth!” And he answered, “Behold, I am your servant.” And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.”
David showed grace to this man.
He was living like a slave and because of a covenant David made with his father, David could not allow it.
So he takes him into his palace and treats him as one of his sons and he will live on the king’s provision for the rest of his life.
This is not unlike the grace that God pours out through His Son Jesus.
God will take a sinner who is enslaved to sin and bring him into His house
By the grace shown in His Son’s death, God will save that sinner
And then that sinner will be empowered by God’s grace as they worship and serve Him for the rest of their lives
Praise God for His grace to save us. To empower our living. And to bring us into our Father’s house for all of eternity.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
If you want the grace we have talked about today, I want you to understand a couple of things in closing.
First of all, you can only receive the grace of God through His Son Jesus. There is no other way.
2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”
The grace that grants spiritual riches is only found in Jesus Christ.
You cannot earn it. You cannot produce it. You cannot purchase it.
God gives is freely in Christ, when we repent and trust in Him.
Take note of that.
You must turn to Christ if you want God’s grace.
Secondly, We must know that grace is to be received.
Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
God sets Himself against those who think they do not need His help.
But when sinners come admitting who they are and asking for forgiveness according to our Lord Jesus Christ, it is God’s joy to pour out His grace on them.
Do not think you are above the need for forgiveness and salvation.
If you are a sinner and you have never trusted in Christ, today is the day to do it.
And with that in mind, I want to close by asking you a question about grace and I will do it by quoting David Bounds directly:
Have you received this grace? Are you aware of your ongoing dependence on grace? Where would you be without it? What are you attempting with it?
If you have tasted of grace, you will be able to tell. You will be able to answer these questions with conviction.
Because we are not the same after we taste it.
We are saved by grace and if that salvation has come, we will be changed by grace.
Have you been changed by it?
Will grace see you into the Father’s house, where there are many rooms?
If you are unsure, today is the day to put it to rest.
Let your mourning and grieving drive you to turn from sin and turn to Christ.
Let’s pray.