Greater Than Our Sin

The room was damp, unfinished cinderblocks surrounded me as I sat on a cold, metal folding chair. I couldn’t stop the tears of truth, pain, loss, shame, fear … it all came out.

I was nine years of age; I wasn’t fully aware of all my sin and the consequences of my choices. I just knew that my sinful life had separated me from God. I couldn’t escape it, no matter how hard I would try. Sin meant spiritual death, sin meant separation from God, sin meant that I was on my own with no hope. That moment was raw, and honest, stripped of every pretense … and that is where I met Jesus.

God, in his infinite mercy and grace, showed me his unconditional love and I wept. Unable to move under the weight of conviction and confession. What would cause a nine-year-old boy to experience such profound love … it’s called Grace.

Grace that is greater than our sin.Not grace that improves. Not grace that motivates. But grace that reaches into our discouragement, disappointment, disillusionment and the realization of our spiritual death and pulls you into life. Grace! It’s defined as …

Slide Grace - God's unmerited favor and enabling power freely given to undeserving sinners through Jesus Christ, by which He saves, forgives, regenerates, and sanctifies them. It is not earned by human works or merit but is God's sovereign gift that transforms believers and empowers them to live in obedience to His will.

The primary Greek word for "grace" in the New Testament is "χάρις" Charis. Conveying the generosity, love and transformative nature of God's relationship with humanity.

Today, we begin a two-part series simply called A Greater GRACE.  “Grace that is greater than our sin.” and “Grace that is greater than our circumstances.” But here’s the truth I want us to walk away with today:

Slide Grace comes in when you are completely undone.

It doesn’t meet you halfway. Grace meets you right where you are … in your sin and separation from God. Grace doesn’t wait for you to get our act together. It comes in when we’re completely undone. As Brennan Manning once said:

Slide God loves you as you are, not as you should be. Because none of us are as we should be.   Brennan Manning

Perhaps no aspect of the biblical message has moved people and nations as profoundly as grace. This crucial uniqueness of the Christian faith that declares we are saved by grace is so hard for us to grasp that it has required repeated and sometimes radical reinterpretation over the centuries. The reason is that we want to see ourselves as good and deserving of God’s favor.

Slide Do you think of yourself as a good person?

Do you believe that you are a good person? A moral, loving, kind, generous person? Compared to whom?  This is when we claim we are "good," falling into what could be called the comparison trap. SlideThe Comparison Trap

We tend to compare ourselves only to those we perceive as "worse." We might think, "I've never committed a serious crime" or "At least I'm not like that person," We remember own good deeds while forgetting our moral failures, which creates an inflated self-image. We frequently judge ourselves by “well meaning” intentions but judge others by their actions. This comparison trap directly conflicts with biblical teaching.

Slide … for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,                                                            Romans 3:23

We all have a favorite villain that we love to hate. That person that makes us feel good about ourselves, our lives, our problems and our sin because we are not like them. But the truth is …

Slide It’s not our comparative goodness that matters to God but rather the perfect righteousness of Jesus.

Jesus addressed this in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14), where the Pharisee thanks God that he's "not like other men" while the tax collector simply asks for mercy as a sinner. Jesus affirms that the humble tax collector went home justified before God because …

Slide Grace is the solution to the comparison trap!

Grace liberates us from the exhausting cycle of comparison and self-justification by offering acceptance that is based not on our comparative goodness but on Christ's perfect righteousness freely given to those who recognize their need for it.

We are going to turn to Ephesians 2:1-10where Paul writes to the church at Ephesus. Paul wrote this amazing letter while he was actually in chains in Rome, around 60-62 AD. He had spent nearly three years ministering in Ephesus during his third missionary journey, so he knew them well. Ephesus was this bustling commercial hub with the Temple of Artemis right there.

Paul is pouring his heart out about church unity, their new identity in Christ, spiritual battles, and relationships. I think Paul recognized the challenges they faced with ethnic tensions and the influence of pagan worship all around them. And here, in chapter 2 Paul gives us deep truth about who we are with Christ and what God has done for us.

Slide And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:1-3

Paul doesn’t mince words: “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.”The Greek word used here for “dead” is nekros—literally a corpse. Lifeless. Incapable of saving yourself. The truth is …

Slide We were Dead, not just Damaged!

That means grace isn’t God lending us a hand while we try to climb out of our mess. Grace is God breathing life into what was spiritually lifeless. As Tim Keller wrote …

Slide We were dead in sins and trespasses. We were not just sick, we were not just injured, we were not just impaired, we were not just broken—we were spiritually dead. Tim Keller

And notice what Paul says was keeping us there:

“Following the course of this world”—we were caught in culture’s current.

“Following the prince of the power of the air”—that’s the enemy, Satan, pulling strings in a broken world.

“The passions of our flesh”—we were our own worst enemy, chasing desires that never satisfied.

Michael Horton writes …

Slide We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. We are not spiritually dead because we commit evil; we commit evil because we are spiritually dead.                                                                   Michael Horton

And Paul makes it universal in verse 3: “among whom we all once lived…” No one’s exempt. This is the diagnosis for every human heart. And here is the truth for all of us …

Slide You can’t understand the beauty of grace until you understand the depth of your grave.

I might be tempted to think grace is a good thing when I need it, like a savings account. But when I realize what my life was and would have been without it. It is the most beautiful thing ever … grace breathed life into my grave and resurrected my dead soul …

Tim Keller writes … Grace is the whisper that awakens us from our slumber of self-sufficiency.  Then there is verse 4 where we read these two words …

Slide But God …

Two of the most powerful words in Scripture: But God. I was dead, but God. I was lost, but God. I was a child of wrath, but God.

Slide But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved … so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.      Ephesians 2:4-5,7

Grace isn’t a transaction—it’s a rescue rooted in God’s heart. Grace is that moment when God intervenes and does for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. Because once again Paul reminds us that we are dead and there is nothing we can do but receive what god has provided. Because …

Slide You cannot achieve it - you can only receive it!

Paul doubles down on this.It is not your doing, not your record, not your morality, your goodness compared to your favorite villain. No …

Slide 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. Ephesians 2::8-9

It’s grace. Through faith. A gift.Tim Keller says …

Slide The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.  Tim Keller

Grace is not the gift, it is the means to the greatest gift … forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus Christ! Paul writes in Romans 5:15

Slide But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.           Romans 5:15

He doesn’t save you because you are lovable. He saves you because He is love.  As C.S. Lewis wrote “The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”  And when he breathes life into these dead bones there is celebration, worship, devotion, glory on display. You might even say that …

Slide Our journey is from Death to Display!

We see that in verse 10 …

Slide For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

The word “workmanship” is poiēma—literally, a work of art. A poem. A masterpiece. You were created on purpose and for a purpose.

Slide Grace didn’t just rescue you—it repurposed you.

The unmerited favor of God. You didn’t earn it, and you don’t deserve it. But God gives it anyway for his glory. You and I are brought to life and given purpose you might say that we save for something. But many times we make our salvation just about being saved from hell, death and the grave. We repent, confess, believe and then struggle to live a life in Christ. That’s why we …

Slide Do not settle for being saved from something when you were also saved for something.

You are not a mistake.You are not just forgiven—you are recreated in Christ. And it is that life that you were created for that requires that you work, that you show effort, trust, faith, obedience, belief, pray, study, devotion, worship, service, generosity, community, bearing the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.

Works are what you were created for .. Grace gives us the ability, strength and understanding …

Slide Grace is not opposed to effort; it's opposed to earning.

Some of you are still carrying the weight of trying to be good enough. Still working to prove that God didn’t waste His grace on you. Still trying to earn what was never yours to earn in the first place.

Can I speak this truth over you today? Grace doesn’t come with conditions. It comes with freedom.Let me ask you a simple but serious question:

Slide Have you received God’s grace?

Not, do you go to church or do you believe in God—but have you trusted in the grace of Jesus Christ to save you?

You don’t need to clean yourself up. You don’t need to earn His love. It’s a gift. And it’s available to you today. And for those of you who have received it—are you living in it? Or are you still striving for something that’s already yours? How can we respond to God’s grace? There are two postures we need to take to grace … the first is …

Slide In Humility

How should we react to God's grace? We should respond, first of all, with a deep sense of humility. We really do deserve God's wrath. The awareness of that fact should not only humble us before God, but also before one another. In the realm of grace, there is no place for the sin of self-righteous comparing of ourselves with other people.

Even with respect to the most flagrant sinners around us, we say in all humility and absolute truthfulness, "There but for the grace of God go I." James, the brother of Jesus wrote in James 4:6 …

Slide But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.            James 4:6

So, if you are listening to this and you feel pride, anger, resistance, something in you that wants to deny, deflect and even stand up to God and fight. My prayer, my hope is that you will recognize He is stirring your heart, whispering to your deadness, wake up, arise to new life in grace through faith in Jesus Christ. That you will respond and come forth in new life. There is a second posture that we take when it comes to grace. We receive grace in gratitude.

Slide In Gratitude

Not only have we been spared God's wrath, but we have also been given all His favor. Gratitude arises spontaneously from a heart filled with grace moving us to obey God wholeheartedly.We deserve wrath, but because of Christ, we receive God's bountiful blessing. The author of Hebrews writes …

Slide But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Hebrews 2:9

When Christ died, He did not pay for His sin. He was sinless. Christ paid for the sins of others!

So when you ask God, He forgives your debt for sin, not because He owes you anything but because of Christ's sacrifice to pay for your sin. That's grace! Our response … I will celebrate the grace that seeks the lost and saves the wretch, that gives sight to the blind and life to the dead. I will remind myself that everything I am and everything I have, I owe to the miracle of God’s amazing grace.

Pray

Song - Run to the Father