Grace found

Last we week we talked about growing in grace. Today we see God’s grace in the life of Elijah, A widow, and her Son.

I love Gods Grace. It extends to the most unlikely candidates! It will surprise some of us because we never know when we will find Gods grace.

There are dozens of aspects to God’s grace. There is: what i shared last week God’s grace is transforming, liberating, sustaining, and restoring

I found out that its also:

Common grace - Saving grace - Maturing grace - Teaching grace - Sovereign grace - Sufficient grace - Miraculous grace - Protecting grace - and on and on. In fact the entire Christian life is lived by God’s grace.

To many when you talk of grace, they only think of saving grace. - ,. But that is only the beginning.

To many their definition of grace is the acrostic - God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. This is not an incorrect definition, however this definition only touches the surface. It’s like walking along the beach while the surf washes over your feet and believe you are swimming in the ocean. The ocean is miles deep.

What is a good definition of Grace then. "Grace is God’s freely given, unmerited favor toward the sinful and failing, the expression of forgiving, redeeming, restoring love toward the unworthy."

"Grace arises from God’s unconditional love, a love with no strings attached, no preconditions for it’s action. Grace is God’s love taking the initiative to meet our need, whatever that need may be. God does not love us for anything He can gain from his loving; it is not based on some kind of exchange system. In no way does He love us because we are deserving or have earned it. He loves us and reaches out to us in grace simply because it is the nature of love to reach out. He loves the unlovely, the sinner, the one who cannot possibly merit that love. To love the unlovely is God’s great delight. Such love is merciful and forgiving."

God’s grace immediately upgrades our lives from being lost to being saved. If it weren’t for God’s grace we’d all be on a downward spiral to hell, but God’s grace saves us.

Grace is so great and deep a subject that it can better be illustrated and shown than defined.

Grace is so great and deep a subject that it can better be illustrated and shown than defined.

This morning lets look in our passage in at - Three Pictures of Grace

Our first picture of Grace has to do with God’s prophet Elijah and is:

I. Equipping Grace - Vs. 2-7 Gods boot camp

Elijah was to become one of the greatest prophets in the OT. - but he was human - just like you and I. Before God could fully use him, he had to learn, he had to be equipped for God to use.

1. Elijah learned two things at the brook Cherith.

a. Obedience - Vs. 2,3 - to follow orders

b. Trust - Vs. 4

2. God used two things to care for Elijah

a. The natural - the stream

b. The supernatural - the ravens

3. "The will of God will never take you where the grace of God cannot sustain you"

Our second picture of grace has to do with god’s salvation of the widow of Cherith.

II. Saving Grace - Vs. 8-16

1. God called her - but she didn’t know it. Vs. 9

2. God’s grace in action - were there not many widows starving? - why her?

But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon.

Gods grace falls on who he wants it to fall on. Since its not earn its his discretion.

a. she was under judgment. This woman is living in the land where Jezebel reigned where Baal was worshipped. She herself is a heathen.

b. she faced death

c. she was without hope Vs. 12

3. Three "nots"

a. I have not - Vs 12

b. Fear not - Vs. 13

c. Waste not - Vs. 16

4. Here is a picture of our condition before God.

a. We have not - "There is none righteous"

b. Fear not - Christ died for our sin

c. Waste not - Salvation is eternal, not temporary

The third picture of grace has to do with Gods testing of this Widow’s faith:

III. Maturing Grace - (discipling grace) - Vs. 17-24

1. Salvation is not the end of the Christian life. It is the beginning.

2. What did this Widow yet need to learn. God humbled her and taught her. Her son got sick and she had to call the Man of God.

She said The woman said to Elijah, “I see it all now—you are a holy man. When you speak, GOD speaks—a true word!”

Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (). Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.