Common Grace vs Special Grace

Norah approached Dan, offered him a hug, and asked for a photo on her birthday. This interaction sparked a deep friendship, with Dan finding renewed purpose and joy in his life after the death of his wifeCommon Grace: God’s kindness to all people (gifts, blessings, conscience).

Quick definition

Saving Grace: God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, received by faith.

Common Grace: God’s kindness to all people (gifts, blessings, conscience).

According to Tim Keller: the Christian doctrine that God, after the Fall, bestows blessings, wisdom, talent, and skill on all people, both believers and non-believers, in a selfless, unmerited way. This grace maintains moral order, promotes goodness, justice, beauty, and skill in the world

Saving Grace- Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation, as He is offered to us in the gospel John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

- Real quick Thinking about last week with Sin and Grace

God has made us in his imagine- Read Genesis 1:26-31 This connects directly back to our lesson on sin. We must ensure that our understanding of sin does not contradict the reality that all humans bear the image of God.Genesis 1:26–31 (ESV)

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Ask: “What does it mean to be made in the image of God?”

Even though sin has corrupted every part of us, all people still bear God’s image.

Like a broken mirror, we reflect God imperfectly—but we still reflect Him.

Discussion Question:

Why is it important to remember that even sinful people still bear God’s image?

How dose this tie back to what we learned about last week? About sin

Sin has touched every part of who we are—our thoughts, desires, emotions, words, and actions. Yet, every human being still bears God’s image. This means that at the deepest level of our being, in our soul, we remain His image-bearers. We still have the capacity for relationship with God, but in our sin we turn away from Him—until He takes the first step and calls us back to Himself.

Common Grace

We see common grace most clearly in passages like James 1:17 & Psalm 145:8- 9 [Read & Discuss].

James 1:17 (ESV)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

How does James 1:17 show us an example of God’s common grace — the blessings He gives to all people regardless of who they are?

Psalm 145:8–9 (ESV)

The Lord is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The Lord is good to all,

and his mercy is over all that he has made.

Jonah 4:10–11 “And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”” – God cares even for Nineveh (and their cattle!).

What are some examples of common grace you see in the world (food, family, beauty, kindness)?

Why is common grace not enough to save us?

Without God’s common grace, we would not be able to explain how nonChristians can love their families and communities. We would not be able to explain how any non-Christian is able to live a moral life. These are the commonplaces that we share with non-Christians that often help us witness to them.

Non-believers are lost and alienated from God, and yet God is always at work, pouring out common grace that bears witness to both His existence and power.

Saving Grace

It rescues us from sin’s penalty (Romans 3:23–24)“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,”

It gives us new life — we are born again by grace (Ephesians 2:4–5)“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—”

It reconciles us to God — restoring communion (2 Corinthians 5:18–19)“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” Christ, the

How does saving grace go beyond God’s common kindness?

Why do we need saving grace if God already gives us so many good gifts?Source of Saving Grace & Common Grace

Christ is the source of Common and Saving grace

- Christ purchased both saving grace and common grace at the cross.

- Common grace keeps the world from collapsing into total evil.

- Saving grace reconciles sinners to God through faith and repentance.

Ending illustration

Think about a farmer. Let’s call him Tom- One farm belongs to a man who loves God, and another farm belongs to a Jerry- a man who doesn’t care about God at all. When the rain comes, it falls on both farms. Their crops both grow, their animals both drink, and their families both have food. That’s common grace — God gives blessings like rain, sunshine, breath, and beauty to everyone, not just believers (see Matthew 5:45).

But the rain can’t give them eternal life. Only Jesus, the “living water” (John 4:14), can do that. That’s saving grace — it doesn’t just help us live here and now, it saves us forever.

“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

Lets pray