Timeline of Grace

The Past

1 Corinthians 1:4 “4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,”

a. The Destruction of Depravity

Grace cannot cohabitate with sin-guilt. Therefore, the presence of grace destroys the penalty of sin.

This is the wonder of grace, sin is destroyed! This is a marvelous reality.

People think this means that “Oh great, God wont be mad at me for the bad things I’ve done.” It’s so much bigger than that!

This is an ancient and longstanding rebellion against God that man has ben engaged in.

In dying for sin, and removing that stain… Christ removes the penalty of the ancient curse of sin.

When we are saved, we are justified. (We are saved from the penalty of sin.)

We are currently being saved from the power of sin through sanctification.

We will eventually be saved from the very presence of sin through glorification, when we receive our resurrected bodies.

b. The Destruction of Debt

The presence of grace means the absence of merit.

We cannot earn grace, we cannot deserve grace.

A misnomer about Christianity: God gave me an advance payment at salvation of forgiveness, and I spend the rest of my life earning that “favor.”

This is false, we cannot earn a sing iota of God’s favor.

Jesus’s sacrifice was priceless, how can you repay something that is priceless?

We owe God our praise, honor, glory and a lifetime of faithfulness. Yet, that is from a heart of gratitude NOT obligation.

c. The Destruction of Deserving

Here is the big one… Sometimes we think we are saved because we deserve it.

One of the greatest mistakes of the Scriptures is when Israel thought God had chosen them as His chosen nation because they were inherently better than other nations.

This is so wrong: Deuteronomy 7:7–8 “7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

Paul makes it clear in Romans that there is no one, Jew nor Greek that deserves His grace and love.

The Present

1 Corinthians 1:5–7 “5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift…”

a. Our Conversation

“Speech” - This is the capability to tell others about God.

Do you realize you have this capability? Whether you are a man, woman, boy, girl, old, young…etc!

You have the ability to boldly speak about the goodness of God and tell others about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

b. Our Cognition

“Knowledge” - Is this some king of secret knowledge? No.

This refers to the fact that through this life, God equips us with the knowledge to be able to know about what we are speaking about.

God provides us with the Holy Spirit to direct us and “lead us in all truth.”

His Holy Spirit, through the experiences of our life, the reading of God’s Word, and so on… equips us with the knowledge to know how to shine His light to others.

You have the specific knowledge to help someone through a hard time, lead someone to Christ, disciple someone who has recently been saved… it is all dependent upon your devotion to The Lord and your innate gifts and abilities.

c. Our Capability

We all have spiritual gifts that we have been endowed with as believers. These gifts serve the ultimate purpose of God using us to bring glory to His kingdom.

As believers, we all have a spiritual gift that God has endowed us with. Yet, we are ignorant of them a lot of the time.

We need to know whether He has endowed us with the gift of teaching, preaching, exhorting, administration, mercy, giving, etc.

The only one who can determine this for us is the Holy Spirit.

This is how God has been gracious to us right here and now.

The Future

1 Corinthians 1:7–9 “…as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

a. Christ’s Glory

The book of Revelation is devoted to one topic: revealing the glory of Jesus Christ.

For 2,000 years, He has been despised, rejected, mocked, etc.

Yet, at His second coming, we see that every knee will bow, and every tongue WILL confess the name of Jesus.

b. Satan’s Destruction

The Lord’s return will bring Satan’s final defeat, humiliation, and punishment, which he deserves, just as Christ deserves and will then receive exaltation. Satan will no longer be “the ruler of the world” (John 14:30) or “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). He will be bound for a thousand years, released for a little while, then chained and thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity (Rev. 19:20; 20:10).

c. Martyr’s Vindication

The Lord’s return will bring retribution against all who have persecuted and afflicted God’s faithful people. In his vision of the seal judgments, John “saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ ” (Rev. 6:9–10). Vengeance belongs to the Lord (Deut. 32:35; Rom. 12:19), and when the Son returns, God will take that vengeance—long deserved and long delayed. “For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire” (2 Thess. 1:6–7). They fully deserve it.

d. Wicked’s Death

Christ’s return will bring the death of all who have rejected Him. “When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire,” He will deal out “retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thess. 1:7–9). The Lord is coming to judge those who have hated and rejected Him, for they deserve it.

e. Saint’s Glorification

We delivered from the penalty of sin at our justification, the power of sin in sanctification… finally this is the point where we are delivered from the very presence of sin.

At His Second Coming, He will confirm us/mark us as blameless.

We will literally be cleansed of any and all sin whatsoever, enabled to spend eternity in the presence of Almighty God.

This is the greatest ending to a story that anyone could ever conjure.

This would be like stepping into a time machine, and getting to walk right into the Garden of Eden and enjoy unhampered, untarnished, unmitigated fellowship with God.

Except that this will be even better, because we will have the story of redemption as our backdrop and song for eternity.

Finally know this: God loves you.

We are saved because God wanted us saved, and we stay saved because God does not change His mind about that desire.

We had no part in God’s original desire to call us, and we can do nothing to change it. If He called us when we were lost and wretched, He surely will not cease to be faithful to that call now that we have come into fellowship with His Son. The word koinonia (fellowship) also means partnership, oneness. We are secured to glory by being one with God’s beloved Son. We entered the kingdom by grace and we will be kept in the kingdom by grace.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 “23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”