Grace Grace God's Grace Pt. 1

Amazing Grace, It is probably the most famous hymn in history:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind but now I see.

Though some today wonder if the word wretch is hyperbole or a bit of dramatic license, John Newton, the song's author, clearly did not.

Slave trader

Newton was nurtured by a Christian mother who taught him the Bible at an early age, but he was raised in his father's image after she died of tuberculosis when Newton was 7. At age 11, Newton went on his first of six sea-voyages with the merchant navy captain his father.

Newton lost his first job, in a merchant's office, because of "unsettled behavior and impatience of restraint"—a pattern that would persist for years. He spent his later teen years at sea before he was press-ganged aboard the H.M.S. Harwich in 1744. Newton rebelled against the discipline of the Royal Navy and deserted. He was caught, put in irons, and flogged. He eventually convinced his superiors to discharge him to a slaver ship. Espousing freethinking principles, he remained arrogant and insubordinate, and he lived with moral abandon: "I sinned with a high hand," he later wrote, "and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others."

He took up employment with a slave-trader named Clow, who owned a plantation of lemon trees on an island off of west Africa. But he was treated cruelly by Clow and the slaver's African mistress; soon Newton's clothes turned to rags, and Newton was forced to beg for food to allay his hunger.

The sluggish sailor was transferred to the service of the captain of the Greyhound, a Liverpool ship, in 1747, and on its homeward journey, the ship was overtaken by an enormous storm. Newton had been reading Thomas a Kempis's The Imitation of Christ, and was struck by a line about the "uncertain continuance of life." He also recalled the passage in Proverbs, "Because I have called and ye have refused, … I also will laugh at your calamity." He converted during the storm, though he admitted later, "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer, in the full sense of the word."

Newton then served as a mate and then as captain of a number of slave ships, hoping as a Christian to restrain the worst excesses of the slave trade, "promoting the life of God in the soul" of both his crew and his African cargo.

Amazing hymnal

After leaving the sea for an office job in 1755, Newton held Bible studies in his Liverpool home. Influenced by both the Wesleys and George Whitefield, he adopted mild Calvinist views and became increasingly disgusted with the slave trade and his role in it. He quit, was ordained into the Anglican ministry, and in 1764 took a parish in Olney in Buckinghamshire.

Three years after Newton arrived, poet William Cowper moved to Olney. Cowper, a skilled poet who experienced bouts of depression, became a lay helper in the small congregation.

In 1769, Newton began a Thursday evening prayer service. For almost every week's service, he wrote a hymn to be sung to a familiar tune. Newton challenged Cowper also to write hymns for these meetings, which he did until falling seriously ill in 1773. Newton later combined 280 of his own hymns with 68 of Cowper's in what was to become the popular Olney Hymns. Among the well-known hymns in it are "Amazing Grace," "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken," "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds," "O for a Closer Walk with God," and "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood."

In 1787 Newton wrote Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade to help William Wilberforce's campaign to end the practice—"a business at which my heart now shudders," he wrote. Recollection of that chapter in his life never left him, and in his old age, when it was suggested that the increasingly feeble Newton retire, he replied, "I cannot stop. What? Shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can speak?"

Grace Grace God’s Grace

There are 131 uses of grace in theNIV — 123 in the New Testament, 85 of which are from the apostle Paul, which means two-thirds of all the uses of the word grace in the Bible are in one author: Paul.

I think that Paul uses the word grace so much because like John Newton he believed himself to be a wretch.

Romans 7:24

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? “

The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011),.

Our passage this morning comes from;

Ephesians 2:4-10

4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

NIV

God’s Work for Us (Eph. 2:4–9)

The focus of attention now is on God, not on sinful man. “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9).

We are reminded of four activities that God performed on behalf of sinners to save them from the consequences of their sins.

He loved us

He quickened us

He exalted us

He keeps us

He loved us (v. 4).

By nature, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

But God would love even if there were no sinners, because love is a part of His very being.

Theologians call love one of God’s attributes. But God has two kinds of attributes:

those that He possesses of Himself (intrinsic attributes, such as life, love, holiness),

and those by which He relates to His creation, especially to man (relative attributes).

For example, by nature God is truth; but when He relates to man, God’s truth becomes faithfulness.

God is by nature holy; and when He relates that holiness to man, it becomes justice.

Love is one of God’s intrinsic attributes, but when this love is related to sinners, it becomes grace and mercy.

God is “rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4) and in “grace” (Eph. 2:7), and these riches make it possible for sinners to be saved.

It comes as a shock to some people when they discover that we are not saved “by God’s love,” but by God’s mercy and grace.

In His mercy, He does not give us what we do deserve; and in His grace He gives us what we do not deserve.

And all of this is made possible because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

It was at Calvary that God displayed His hatred for sin and His love for sinners (Rom. 5:8; John 3:16).

He quickened us (v. 5).

This means He made us alive, even when we were dead in sins.

He accomplished this spiritual resurrection by the power of the Spirit, using the Word.

In the four Gospels, it is recorded that Jesus raised three people from the dead: the widow’s son (Luke 7:11–17), Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:49–56), and Lazarus (John 11:41–46).

In each case, He spoke the Word and this gave life. “The Word of God is quick [living] and powerful” (Heb. 4:12).

These three physical resurrections are pictures of the spiritual resurrection that comes to the sinner when he hears the Word and believes (John 5:24).

But our spiritual resurrection is much greater because it puts us in union with Christ:

God “made us alive together with Christ.” As members of His body we are united to Him (Eph. 1:22–23), so that we share His resurrection life and power (Eph. 1:19–20).

He exalted us (v. 6).

We are not raised from the dead and left in the graveyard.

Because we are united to Christ, we have been exalted with Him and we are sharing His throne in the heavenlies.

Our physical position may be on earth, but our spiritual position is “in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Like Lazarus, we have been called from the grave to sit with Christ and enjoy His fellowship (John 12:1–2).

He keeps us (vv. 7–9).

God’s purpose in our redemption is not simply to rescue us from hell, as great a work as that is.

His ultimate purpose in our salvation is that for all eternity the church might glorify God’s grace (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14).

So, if God has an eternal purpose for us to fulfill, He will keep us for all eternity.

Since we have not been saved by our good works, we cannot be lost by our bad works.

Grace means salvation completely apart from any merit or works on our part.

Grace means that God does it all for Jesus’ sake!

Our salvation is the gift of God.

Salvation cannot be “of works” because the work of salvation has already been completed on the cross.

This is the work that God does for us, and it is a finished work (John 17:1–4; 19:30).

We can add nothing to it (Heb. 10:1–14); we dare take nothing from it.

When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn in two, from the top to the bottom, signifying that the way to God was now open. T

There is no more need for earthly sacrifices.

One sacrifice—the Lamb of God—has finished the great work of salvation. God did it all, and He did it by His grace.

Sin worked against us and God worked for us, but the great work of conversion is but the beginning.

Conclusion:

Jesus said in:

John 14:6-7

6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." NIV

Paul said in:

Eph 2:8-9

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. NIV