Tag Archives: Grace

Christian Living

Sustaining Grace

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“1 I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. 5 On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses— 6 though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. 7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

In the passage above, the Apostle Paul provides for us a glimpse of the sovereign sustaining grace of God.  In sustaining grace, I’m referring simply to grace provided by God, at the time we need it, in the amount we need, such that it sustains us through difficulty, be it trials, tragedies, or tests of faith.  In Paul’s account, he had been given a vision of heaven, one in which he was instructed to keep silent about.  In God’s omniscience, He knew that such a grand vision would create in fallen, sinful man (even one as righteous as Paul) the propensity to boast, so in order to humble Paul, we are told he received from God a thorn in the flesh.  Many commentators have speculated about what this could be, but that may be an unnecessary point of contention.  The real focus of this passage is the grace of God.  Note, Paul pleaded with God for removal of the thorn, yet God persisted in saying that His grace was sufficient and that through Paul’s weakness the Lord’s power would be made perfect.  Simply stated, Paul’s struggle, whatever it may have been, caused him to rely on God’s strength and not his own.  And that’s where sustaining grace comes in.  Paul was able to rely on God because of grace.  Certainly his own strength was emptied, such that his reliance was solely on the strength of God through the grace of God.  A powerful reminder for us indeed.

What are you struggling with believer?  Health?  You need grace.  The loss of a loved one?  You need grace.  An unwelcomed change in circumstances?  God’s grace is sufficient.  Marital, financial, employment, relationships, the strengthening of your faith.  All require the sovereign sustaining grace of God.  May that be your prayer today, that God would supply grace in your time of need, such that you can say with Paul, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Grace and Peace to you!

Book Thoughts, Christian Living

By All Means, Let Grace be Grace!

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Hopefully you read the post from earlier this week and were challenged by the truths to turn back to God, repent of your sins, and begin living for Him.  Maybe even God has been working on you and you’ve felt Him chasing after you.  Hebrews 12:5-6 NKJV says, “…My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.”  It’s out of love that He pursues you and wants you back.  Don’t be discouraged, or continue to evade God, surrender to Him.  With that said, how then do we follow up on a message like backsliding, where we placed emphasis on producing fruit in our lives as evident of a true conversion and salvation in Christ?  We back that message up the same way that the Bible does by teaching that these works and “fruits” are meaningless if they are done from the flesh and not the Spirit.  No amount of works or fruit is going to get you anywhere, much less heaven, unless the Holy Spirit is working in your life to produce this fruit.  There is no such thing as “works salvation” or justification by faith + works.  There is grace and by all means, let grace be grace!

The Apostle Paul, writing about the divine sovereignty of God to bring those whom He’s called to salvation, says this in Romans 11:6 ESV regarding grace, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”  If we attempt to earn or work our way to salvation then it takes away the grace of God, resulting in grace no longer being grace.  Grace is a gift and by its definition is unmerited favor.  That means nothing you’ve done or could ever hope to do will earn you grace.  In this same manner, nothing can be done to pay back grace.  We can’t say, well God gave me grace, I’m a Christian, now I’m going to pay Him back by doing more and more.  Romans 3:23-24 ESV says, “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 is a gift, through Christ Jesus, given through our faith.

What if our justification, or salvation came from works, meaning the more we did or felt we earned or deserved the more saved we are?  How would that look?  First it would be an absolute mess because who would determine the number of works that would need to be done in order to reach salvation?  What kind?  How would sin get addressed?  The more we would do the greater our sense of pride would well up inside and say, “Look at me!  I’m so great, I did all of this!  I helped all of these people, gave this amount of money, worked for this charity, I earned my salvation, I deserve to go to heaven.”  Well Paul specifically addresses this in Romans 3:27-28, “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.  For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”  There is no boasting with grace because it wasn’t yours to give and it’s not yours to get, apart from the redemptive work of Jesus.  God pours out grace on us when we believe, through faith, that He sent His son to die on the cross for our sins.  One final exhortation from the Apostle, “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” Galatians 2:16 ESV

Apart from grace in our lives, we are not saved.  Without it we can do nothing.  We are at the sole mercy of God, but that’s what makes grace so amazing and marvelous.  We don’t deserve it, but if we trust Christ as Savior, He gives it to us anyway, and that’s when the Holy Spirit begins working in our lives to produce the fruits of the Spirit we read about in Galatians 5:22-23 ESV, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

Trust Christ as Savior, let the Spirit do the work in you and through you and by all means, let Grace be Grace!

Marvelous Grace

Verse 1

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,

Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!

Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,

There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.

Chorus

Grace, grace, God’s grace,

Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;

Grace, grace, God’s grace,

Grace that is greater than all our sin.

Verse 2

Sin and despair, like the sea waves cold,

Threaten the soul with infinite loss;

Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold,

Points to the refuge, the mighty cross.

Chorus

Verse 3

Dark is the stain that we cannot hide.

What can avail to wash it away?

Look! There is flowing a crimson tide,

Brighter than snow you may be today.

Chorus

Verse 4

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace,

Freely bestowed on all who believe!

You that are longing to see His face,

Will you this moment His grace receive?

Chorus

Book Thoughts, Devotions, God's Sovereignty, Reformed Baptist, Theology

Sovereign Grace

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I want to apologize for my recent lack of posts.  For those of you who regularly follow this blog, I am extremely grateful.  I know some of you have offered encouragement by saying how God is using His words posted here to make changes in your lives and I pray that He continues to do so and that I might in some way be used by God to continue to bring His Word.  Having said that, I’ve been busy recently with several projects, one of which is finishing up my first class in Seminary.  It’s been quite a time management adjustment and because of the amount of reading and writing required there, posts here have been sporadic.  Please pray for me as I’m finishing up the last two weeks there.  The final assignment for this class is a research paper/project.  For mine, I really feel like the Lord was leading me to develop a Bible Study based on the life of John the Baptist.  I don’t know how He plans to use it yet, but I wanted to share the first lesson that I’ve been working on and ask for any comments, recommendations, or criticisms.  This is NOT in final “Bible Study” format, but more so for the project submission, but the main ideas are the same.  Since it’s due this weekend, I’ll try to post each “lesson” as I finish them.  Thanks so much for reading.

John the Baptist: The Model Ministry

Sovereign Grace

John the Baptist’s life was the personification of God’s grace, from his prophesied ministry in Isaiah and Malachi to the very definition of his name, “The Lord is gracious.”  In beginning a study of his life, especially from the perspective of ministry, we must first examine the Old Testament prophecies of the Messianic forerunner to fully understand the impact of God’s sovereign grace on not only John’s life, but on our own as well.  In order for us to fully appreciate this impact, in this lesson we’ll briefly look at God’s grace in several supporting passages to establish this extremely important foundational truth.  Each of these elements of grace are not only applicable to John the Baptist, as we’ll learn in the subsequent lessons, but they are equally relevant to our lives.

Grace Saves

When we talk about God’s grace, we need to understand what grace is and why it is so fundamental to our spiritual lives.  In its true definition, grace is defined as unmerited favor.  But we must ask, where did this unmerited favor come from and just what kind of favor have we been given?  John states in his Gospel, “14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15(John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because He was before me.'”) 16And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:14-17 ESV There’s a lot in this passage to digest that not only answers those questions we posed earlier, but also introduces us to the ministry of John the Baptist.  In verse 14, the Apostle John lets us know when Jesus came from God the Father in heaven to earth in human flesh (incarnation) He came “full of grace and truth.”  Since Christ is filled with grace, we can surmise that He is grace embodied.  Skip ahead to verse 16 and we learn that from “His fullness”, meaning grace, “We have all received grace upon grace.”  Here we have the answer to our question where does grace come from, it comes from Jesus Christ.  It’s in verse 15 that we find reference given to John the Baptist and his recognition of the Jesus the Messiah, but more on that in a later lesson!

So what about our second question?  The Apostle Paul states in his letter to the church at Ephesus, “8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV This passage clearly indicates that unmerited favor, or grace, provides salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.  In his book, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers adds his thoughts on our passage from Ephesians, “The gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the truth that it reveals is not palatable or easy to swallow. There is a certain pride in people that causes them to give and give, but to come and accept a gift is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom; I will dedicate my life to service I will do anything. But do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.” If we can summarize both of the answers to our questions posed in this lesson we get, Jesus = Grace and Grace = Salvation, therefore we can surmise that Jesus = Salvation.

Grace Justifies

A second characteristic of grace that we need in order to lay the foundation for beginning our study on John is the justification of grace.  In his study Bible, John MacArthur observes that justification is a legal or forensic term that comes from the Greek word for “righteous” and means “to declare righteous.” Concerning this justification, Romans 3:23-24 ESV says, “23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Here the Apostle Paul is affirming to us that although every one of us has sinned we are justified by God’s grace as a gift through Jesus.  This is in accordance with what we learned about grace earlier that it is also a gift of grace from Jesus that saves.  From the legal perspective that John MacArthur was alluding we can look forward to the judgment of Christ that is forthcoming and know that our justification, or declaration of righteousness, saves us from the punishment of sin, which is eternal death and separation from God.

Grace Trains

Our third and final quality of grace recaps each of the previous two while establishing an additional truth all its own, that of the instruction that grace provides.  The Apostle Paul once again provides an example of grace as he writes in his letter to Titus, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Titus 2:11-15 ESV In keeping with our other two descriptions of grace, this third example is no different in that it yet again points toward Jesus Christ.  In verse 11 we see that the “grace of God”, which is Jesus, has appeared bringing salvation just as we learned in the previous example.  Our particular focus in this passage draws us to verse 12, where we find that grace trains us by teaching us to avoid all things unholy such as worldly pleasures by living self-controlled and holy before God.

Summary

As we learned at the beginning of this lesson, John the Baptist’s life reflected the sovereign grace of God from before he was even born to the very name that God gave him.  Though salvation as we know it, including belief in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus had not yet occurred, John was in fact saved from eternal death and separation from God by His grace.  It’s grace that set him apart.  In being called and set apart, he was justified or declared righteous.  In fact, as we’ll learn later he was even declared “great” by Jesus, which would have been an impossible declaration if he had been neither saved by grace, nor justified by grace.  Finally through God’s grace John was trained for his ministry.  In order to preach repentance he must be above reproach himself, lest he be deemed hypocritical, not merely before men, but before God.  Therefore, it was critical we establish the foundational truths of God’s grace because as we progress through the life of John and examine his model for ministry it will become exceedingly clear that the grace of God is the preeminent attribute necessary for a successful, God glorifying ministry.

Application

Are you able to recognize the presence of God’s grace in your life?  If not, perhaps you have yet to make that life changing decision to receive Christ as Savior.  Hebrews 4:16 ESV instructs, “16Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  Draw near to Christ and He will draw near to you.  Repent of your sins and receive Jesus as your Savior so that He may shower you with His Grace.

For those that are saved, as Christians we use the term grace frequently, but do we really understand the magnitude of it?  Grace not only saves, not only justifies, and not only trains us to live holy, but Grace is Jesus.  It is by Grace we have been saved and never have more truer words been spoken than that old familiar hymn, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.