Grace For Today (Youth Conference)

Introduction

My first introduction to the Slavic Church

George Washington Cherry Tree/Outhouse joke

Now I don’t know if the son’s pitch to his Father worked or not, but he is in need of a lot of Grace.

How many of us have ever found ourselves in a position where we need a lot of grace?

Whether it is grace for putting ourselves in a bad situation (like pushing an outhouse into a river at 2am)

Or grace to get us through situations that just seem happen to us (like being in the outhouse floating in the river at 2am)

That’s ultimately what I want to talk about this morning... Grace For Today

Life has a way of hijacking our well thought out plans, dreams, or good intentions.

When that happens we can be left feeling out of control and it can produce so much anxiety, stress, worry, fear, feelings of being so overwhelmed..

But I want to highlight an incredible promise in Scripture that no situation, let-down, trial can take from us.

In other words...Life might be able to hijack our plans , but it can’t hijack God’s promises.

Truth

Here is the promise:

God’s grace is sufficient for me one day at a time.

Very simple.....but if you really want to change the way you live on a day to day basis, strive to walk in this truth.

We get this promise from something the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:

Paul wrote about half of what we call our NT Scriptures, and most of what he wrote was letters to churches.

Letter to Corinth, which was a large city in Greece.

2 Corinthians 12:8-10 “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this (thorn in the flesh), that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Nobody knows for certain what the thorn in the flesh was for Paul, what we do know, is that God, rather than taking away the problem promised that His grace was going to be sufficient to help him in his problem.

God didn’t give an answer, he gave a promise, and this promise applies to us today!

Enough in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in calamities.

When I am weak, I am strong, because the power of Christ is made perfect in my weakness.

At my point of weakness, Christ comes in with his strength and begins to move on my behalf.

God’s grace is always sufficient for the trial at hand.

That’s the promise, now here is our tension:

The tension or challenge is actually abiding in that grace

I can give you a gift, but unless you take that gift and apply it, it serves no practical purpose in your life, even though it is yours.

And it’s going to be a challenge because as humans, we have certain tendencies that will cause us to live outside of the grace of God

When I’m talking about the grace of God, I’m not talking about His grace for salvation, I’m talking about his grace that helps get us through the trials of life.

That’s not to say that the grace of God is not there, but rather that we aren’t abiding in it.

I want to highlight two of those tendencies,

I’ve seen these tendencies in my own life, and also in the lives of other people

So here is what we know...God’s Grace is sufficient for me on day at a time.

Now here is the tension we’ll face in abiding in that grace, due to some tendencies we have.

Tendency #1 - Filter tomorrows trials through the lens of today’s grace.

This is kind of the “What If” or worry factor

It’s not that hard to envision circumstances or times where our lives become increasingly harder.

Worries of every day life

This past year, we’ve witnessed the War in Ukraine

Will it lead to WW3?

How could I handle war if it came to our shore?

What if, as the economy continues to worsen, I can’t provide for myself or my family?

What if a loved one dies?

What if my traumas and emotional wounds never heal?

And so we can so easily live in fear and anxiety and worry for what could be in the future, whether likely or not.

But heres the thing.....

You and I don’t have a context for the grace that would be needed for tomorrow.

There is a time in my life, where I saw this play out in a very real way.

When I was around 10-11 years old. Story of when I fell into depression worrying about my Dad

I didn’t have a context for the grace that would be needed in that kind of struggle.

My context of grace at that time was God helped me in my schoolwork, he gave me strength not to beat up my brothers when I got mad at them....I didn’t have a perception of the grace of God for living after the death of a parent.

I would filter tomorrows trials through the lens of today’s grace.

And that grace couldn’t measure up.

I’ve had to be careful because I’ve always had that tendency to worry about the future.

I’ve always been very aware that my life can change dramatically in a moment.

A car accident, a miscarriage, a spinal chord injury, etc..

And I know God doesn’t owe me anything.

Things can turn quickly....life doesn’t always play out they way we hope or dream of

But here’s what it means for God’s grace to be sufficient....let me illustrate this.

Think of God’s grace like it’s an ocean buoy.

That anchored device that serves as a navigation marker in the water…it floats

The thing about a buoy, is it doesn’t matter how high the water gets, or how violent the waves get, it will always rise above the waters.

When God says his grace is sufficient, that means it doesn’t matter how deep the waters of sorrow are....how tempestuous the trials and waves of life get.

The grace of God is always one step ahead

You will rise above the waters.

Because at your moment of weakness, the power of Christ rests upon you, and you are strong

You don’t need to know how the grace of God will carry you in future events.....you just need to believe that it will.

Don’t filter tomorrows trials through the lens of today’s grace.

Know that whatever comes, his grace will be enough

For some people in this room, the anxieties, fears, hurts, depression, is not a result of worrying about some hardship in the future, it’s a hardship you are living in today.

And you know about the promise of the grace of God for each day, but you still feel like you are drowning in your trial, wondering when this grace will finally show up.

But let me explain the second tendency we have in the way that we engage with the Grace of God.

Tendency #2 - Encapsulating Our Pain

To encapsulate your pain is to live, not just with the pain of today, but to imagine and fear for the impact of that pain on your future as well.

So instead of dealing with the pain for today, we try to encapsulate the entirety of our situation or pain, and try to swallow it all at once.

God doesn’t give 20 years of grace in the span of a day, He gives it day by day.

Matthew 6:34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Our time of need is not future....it is present....God gives grace day by day.

But we will encapsulate our pain or the struggle.

Examples

What would happen if I ate in a way today to satisfy the hunger of the next 20 years? (I would get sick to my stomach)

What would happen if I slept in a way today to prepare me for the 100,000 hours I’m going to be awake over the next 20 years? (I would become incapacitated)

What would happen if I took Tylenol in a way today to cover the pain of a thousand headaches over the next 20 years (I would overdose)

So, what happens when we try to function today with the inevitable pain and trial of the next 20 years?(It crushes me)

These health problems I’m dealing with…how can i deal with this for the next 20 years. I can’t imagine living the rest of my life with this disease or health problem.

And we pull the struggles of tomorrow into today

This newborn child I’m raising....how am I going to go another night without sleep?

I have a one year old

And we pull the struggles of tomorrow into today

This depression I’m dealing with…I can barely make a day at a time, how can I do this for the next 10 years?

And we pull the struggles of tomorrow into today

This pain and sorrow from the death of a loved one, how do I go on? How can I survive the next 20 years without this person I loved so dearly.

And we pull the struggles of tomorrow into today

And so we live with the fear, the anxiety, the overwhelming feelings of our pain or struggle not just for today, but of the next 20 years as well…and it crushes us

Corrie Ten Boom said, “Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

That’s encapsulating our pain.

You don’t have to deal with what you are dealing with for the next 20 years, you only have to live in the grace and strength of God for it today.

It’s amazing what we can endure, when we live one day at a time

Take the life of the Apostle Paul as an example....he had his fair share of suffering in life.

In fact, Paul, in 2 Corinthians 11, summed up to the Corinthian church some of the things that he had gone through in his life since becoming a Christian.

Listen to what he said.

2 Corinthians 11:24–27 (ESV)

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

Imagine before dealing with these things Paul knew everything he would go through in life.

Picture him reading this list of woes and trials before he actually went through them.

Like us, he might say....”It’s too overwhelming… “God I won’t be able to bear that!”

But he didn’t have to go through all of that at once…and God was with him every step of the way.

When people lash out against you

On that night you can’t sleep

In that moment you are in extreme danger

That moment where it feels like you can’t go on

And once on the other side of those struggles

As Paul walked in the grace of God one day at a time, he was able to look back at all the things he went through, years worth of struggles and trials that we read of in the span of a few sentences, and say the grace of God is sufficient.

It is possible for us to come to that same conclusion.

Conclusion

Let me close and bring it down to earth, by giving you something practical to hold one. Something that you can do.

Because we might know that God’s grace is sufficient, but what can I do to make sure I am abiding in it.

How can I avoid these two tendencies we talked about.

Filtering tomorrow’s trials through the lens of today’s grace.

Encapsulating our pain.

Let me give you something tangible:

Amazon E-Reader

In 2007 Amazon released their first e-reader called the Amazon Kindle

5.5 hours after the release it sold out, it was a big hit!

There is this one feature that I love about kindle books

Feature I love: Popular highlights

Since its release Amazon has kept a database of all the highlights in the ebooks they sell

There was an article written in 2014 about kindle highlights

The Bible is the most highlighted book of all time

Within the Bible there was one verse that was highlighted more than anything else that gives us insight into the culture

You might think John 3:16, or Psalm 23

The most highlighted passage in the Bible is Philippians 4:6,7 (Read)

It reads like this, and this is where we are going to make it practical.

Philippians 4:6-7 “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Paul gives us two things to help us live in God’s grace for today and not our own anxieties.

Pray About Everything

Paul tells us to pray about everything.

God should be the first place we go when worry and anxiety try to take over

Medication can be good, but that’s not the first place we should go

Therapy is good, but that’s not the first place we should go

Google has a lot of advice, but that’s not the first place we should go

Your friends and family can be a support, but that’s not the first place you should go

Nothing is too big or small for God

Praying about everything reminds us that God sees us, hears us, and is present with us.

Pray with Thanksgiving

Many of our worries and anxieties are rooted in a lack of trust in God!

Can God’s grace really keep me in this?

Is God really in control in the chaos?

To Be Thankful is “to be conscious of a benefit received”

In thanksgiving you are making yourself consciously aware of the faithfulness and promises of God…which means:

Thanksgiving is an exercise of trust, and trust is the breeding ground for the peace of God in our hearts and minds

Don’t get caught up looking for all the answers, thank Him for His promises.

Don’t get caught up on the amount of grace you’ll need tomorrow, thank Him for his grace today.

Don’t get caught up in the pain of the next 20 years, thank Him for being your ever present help in time of need today.

Pray about everything, pray with thanksgiving.

God’s grace...is sufficient for me...one day at a time.

Altar Call

If worry of the future is something you struggle with

If you are in a struggle right now

Here is what I want our prayers to be......Thanksgiving.

Pray

Salvation

Today, we talked about the grace of God for your situation, but we can’t leave here before talking about an even greater grace. The grace of God for your salvation.

Bigger than any of the trials and pains we will experience in this life, is the pain and suffering, and regret we will experience in our eternal life apart from Christ.

Not only does God provide grace for this life, He has also provided a grace for your eternal life.

We are all going to die someday, whether you are living in this grace for salvation will determine where you end up.

We can enter into this grace by, as Jesus calls it, being born again.

What does it mean to be born again? Three things....it’s ABC

A - Admit you are a sinner, there is an issue in me that I can’t fix on my own. I’m completely dependent on the grace of God.

Admitting does’t require you to be perfect, it requires you be honest.

B - Believe that God provided that Grace when Jesus died on the cross he paid my sin debt.

C - Confess him as Lord that is in charge of your life from this point on. You let him lead your life

It would be a tragedy if we got the grace for this temporary life right, but missed out on the grace for our eternal life.

Salvation Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus I believe you're the son of God. I believe that on the cross you took my sin, my shame, and my guilt, and you died for it. You faced hell for me so I wouldn't have to go. You rose from the dead to give me a place in heaven, a purpose on earth, and a relationship with your father. Today Lord Jesus I turn from my sin to be born again. God is my father, Jesus is my savior, the Holy Spirit is my helper, and heaven is my home. In Jesus’ name, Amen.