Transformative Love: Bread Crumbs of Grace
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For God’s Glory and for Our Good
Transformative Love: Bread Crumbs of Glory and Love
Transformative Love: Bread Crumbs of Glory and Love
Quick summary of last week.
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Get your bread crumb of love and glory from Jesus.
Look for your bread crumb trail of glory and love.
Be a bread crumb of glory and love to those around you.
No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
Today we will look at:
How Bread Crumbs of Grace Are For Our Good
The Scattering of Those Bread Crumbs
Finding Bread Crumbs of Courage Through the Valley
How All of This Ends Up for His Glory
Read 2 Corinthians 4:7-18
Bread Crumbs Of Grace
Bread Crumbs Of Grace
Let’s take a moment and look at how God does everything for our good and for His glory.
vs. 15 - highlights where we left off.
Let’s first define grace.
You have probably heard of it described as unmerited favor, and so it is.
Grace is something freely given. It is, then, receiving that which we don’t deserve and we can’t earn.
One preacher used GRACE as an acronym.
God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us...
The word for bestowed here comes from the root word for grace and means to be highly honored, or greatly favored.
It is a receiving of special favor from God. You are highly honored and greatly favored. We don’t deserve it, but God freely wants to give it.
The riches of His grace lavished on us.
So, God gracing us with grace reveals His desire to do all things for our good.
So this is the understanding here in verse 15.
All things are done for our sake, that is, for our ultimate good.
In context, this is Paul and Timothy who are “all in” in bringing the Corinthians the Gospel.
But this attitude of Paul is only possible because God went “all in” to bring us His grace and save us through Jesus Christ.
Bread Crumbs Of Grace
Bread Crumbs Of Grace
God’s love is so great for us that He spared nothing so that we could be recipients of that grace.
Why? He knew that His transformative love given to us in a relationship with us was the only thing that would satisfy our hungry and thirsty soul.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.
As I said last week, anything else in this life that we hunger and thirst for will leave us disappointed and lacking any true satisfaction.
U2 - “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”
Now how I’m going to use this song may not be it’s intended meaning, but I think it’s close.
First of all, the author is on a search and quest to be with God, but there are a few implications from the song.
Searching the earth for it vs. looking to Heaven
Human relationships vs a relationship with Jesus
Spiritual experiences vs. a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Maybe even dabbling in the occult.
Holding the hand of the devil?
“Correct” doctrine (knowledge) vs. relationship with Jesus.
It’s as if he’s trying to find a relationship with God through everything else but an actual relationship with God
And then realizing those other things don’t actually bring him the satisfaction he desires.
We will only find our true satisfaction in God through an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ.
So God did all that He did for our good so that we would be eternally satisfied in Him.
This is why John Piper says, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.”
God’s bread crumbs of grace will nourish our soul if we will just accept them and savor them, and that grace comes to is through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
But that morsel of grace does no good if we don’t ingest it or internalize it.
We can’t keep Jesus at arms length.
We can’t externally worship God and not engage our hearts.
The Scattering Of God’s Crumbs Of Grace (vs 15)
The Scattering Of God’s Crumbs Of Grace (vs 15)
God’s grace should be spreading to more and more people through us
If we have received the grace of God through salvation, we should want others to experience the same grace of God through salvation.
That means sharing the good news of Jesus Christ when God provides opportunity.
Evangelism, outreach, missions.
Both proactive and reactive.
We also want to show the grace of God by gracefully loving others around us.
Starts in our families.
Does your action or attitude reveal the grace of God in your family?
Do you bless the people in your family even if they do not deserve it?
Share your testimony with others. Just like Steve did today. And we’ll have other testimonies down the road.
“And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.
What crumb of God’s grace have you received?
What did God heal in you? physical, spiritual, emotional, mental.
What did God bring back to life in you that had died?
Where have you been cleansed and forgiven?
How has He set you free?
What oppression did He release off of you?
Freely received freely give!
Now go and bring healing to someone else.
Help revive someone else’s spirit.
Encourage others to embrace God’s forgiveness.
Set the oppressed free.
We should be scattering those bread crumbs of grace to others around us!
Bread Crumbs Through The Valley (vs 8-9)
Bread Crumbs Through The Valley (vs 8-9)
But, sometimes those bread crumbs lead us through the valley
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.
You can see both blessings of grace and the enemies presence here.
And the fear that lingers over it.
Back to U2’s Song.
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For is also an honest assessment about the angst of sensing God in this life.
Let’s take the other side of the coin and let’s say Bono is pursuing God by faith through Jesus Christ. He does reference believing in the Kingdom Come and that God broke the bonds and loosed the chains, he bore the cross of my shame. You know I believe it.
And this comes at the end of the song, as if to say, “I have pursued God in all the other ways but have found freedom, forgiveness, and a relationship through the cross.”
But, then after that he says, “But I still haven’t found, what I’m looking for.” Confused?
This becomes that realization that what our soul truly longs for cannot actually be found this side of Heaven.
Moses: Show me Your glory! God: I can’t. The best I’ve got for you are the crumbs.
Again we get glimpses and crumbs.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.
Really, it’s alot like what we would experience in a long distance relationship and faceTiming or Zooming or whatever video chat you use, and how much our heart desires to actually be face to face and in the actual presence of the person. FaceTiming is not the same as face to face.
It is the longing for that day when we will be face to face and feeling the angst of missing the fulness of it in this life.
Now, that angst is life in the valley as a whole.
But sometimes that valley is deeper than others.
Sometimes it’s longer.
And sometimes that valley is darker.
And, if I may go one step further, sometimes there’s a valley in the valley.
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
Maybe this is a little bit about where U2’s song was trying to go...the groaning.
But there is hope.
And we find that hope to be fueled through the Crumbs of Courage.
Crumbs Of Courage (vs 16)
Crumbs Of Courage (vs 16)
I’m going to introduce these crumbs of courage today, but I will expand on them and the valley more next week.
First Crumb of Courage: We Do Not Lose Heart (vs 16) ties into we Do Not Fear from Psalm 23
“Do Not Fear”, or similar varieties like “Fear Not” are the most mentioned phrase in the Bible.
Why? Because God knows that because of this fallen world which is full of disorder, dysfunction, and danger, we need this encouragement.
Courage is moving forward in spite of the fear and danger.
Courage is the ability to face fear, pain, or danger despite the presence of those fears.
A courageous person, after consideration and calculation, is able to move forward because of their principled and moral beliefs and their trust in an eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omni-present, and infinite God that far outweighs their fear of the situation.
we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
The Greek word for Do Not Lose Heart means:
Don’t get discouraged when times are bad.
Do not turn out to be a coward.
Don’t become fainthearted.
Don’t have a despondent view esp. of trials and difficulties.
Why? (Psalm 23):
He will not allow us to go through more than we can handle. He is right by our side. He will never abandon us.
It’s like those crumbs of manna grow in size and begin to glow so as to lead us through the valley.
And each crumb brings us comfort and strength and guidance.
And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Secondly, when you experience the grace of God, it is worth the risk to share that grace and scattering those crumbs around to others as I mentioned earlier.
All For God’s Glory
All For God’s Glory
The Final Point: God sets us free by His grace, which is for our good, so that we can spread that grace around to others, so that there is an abundance of thanksgiving to the glory of God.
This is taking in the bread crumbs of glory and love and then being bread crumbs of grace to others so that God is magnified.
And we especially should share that grace with those who are in the valley.
The reason we are to scatter our bread crumbs of grace to others is so that God gets the glory.
We might feel good about what we did, and that’s fine, but we must not turn that inward or we will become conceited and puffed up.
We must turn all of that heavenward and give God all the praise and thanksgiving.
It’s not for our glory or really to make us feel good, but in the end it’s all for God’s glory.
Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
So yes, the grace of God freely bestowed upon us is for our good, but it is also for the glory of God.
And vs 15 is one of the Scriptures we use when we say, “God does all things for His glory and for our good.”
Because when He does things for our good, He should get the glory.
We must give credit where credit is due.
Closing Song: His Glory and My Good
