God's Grace

[0:00] Grace. God's grace.

[0:15] What is legalism? I was watching some preacher recently and he explained it like this.! Now, no offence to anyone who's a cop here this morning.

[0:26] ! It's quite an appropriate acronym for legalism. Legalism is something that we can make the mistake and I probably have done to some degree in the past to be honest.

[0:42] Using some of these words or kind of intimations about salvation. Legalism talks about commitment. Now, that's not a bad word. That's a good thing to have.

[0:55] Commitment's a good thing, isn't it? Obedience. That's a good thing too. Good to be having obedience. And a third thing is perseverance.

[1:08] Perseverance. Keep that very straight while you're watching. I've just got to watch her making funny mistakes.

[1:19] You might get legalistic with me. But I'm talking about legalism, right? So, legalism is about the idea that our relationship with God is a burden.

[1:34] It's a burden. It is a performance. That somehow we perform, we do, we try and we keep on trying.

[1:46] But like someone said, Jesus tore the veil. That's right. Amen. But, religion sows it back up. So, it's interesting, isn't it?

[1:57] It's a good way of putting that. Jesus tore the veil into the temple. He made it open so anyone could enter in. The law was fulfilled. Christ died. The Lord God tore the veil from the top to the bottom.

[2:11] And he made the way open into the sanctuary. So, any believer can enter in. But religion sows the veil back up. As if somehow we've got to go back inside all of that ritual and all of that man-made kind of doing.

[2:27] And it's a performance trap. Legalism is a performance trap. Where we try to measure up. Where it's all about trying by human merit, by human works to try to please God.

[2:41] Yet, to offend in one point, we're guilty of all. Even if we get everything down pat, but we just miss one little thing. So, legalism falls flat.

[2:54] It falls short. It fails us. Legalism fails us. It cannot save. It cannot save us. And, you know, it's not just we might use words like this when we're encouraging people in their walk with God, in their sanctification.

[3:09] Our salvation is not about our commitment. It's not about our obedience. And it's not about our perseverance. It's about God's grace.

[3:20] It's about God's grace. That's what it's all about, brothers and sisters. It's about grace. Grace is what we need to have.

[3:32] Grace is what we must have to satisfy God. Now, on the other side from legalism, we could go to the other extreme. Right? If you like, this is a bit of a continuum.

[3:43] And the other extreme is what you could call license. License. Is it C? Oh, no. Well, it depends. But anyway.

[3:54] It's a noun. License. Is that right? It's a noun. Okay. It's a noun. Okay. So, there we go. If you've got an English lesson this morning.

[4:05] License is the noun. And with an S on it, it's a verb. So, I learned something today. Hope you did too. Okay. Now, in June 1 verse 4, it talks about contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.

[4:21] And it says in verse 4, Now, what's lasciviousness?

[4:36] I'm glad you asked. Lyceviousness means abusing the grace of God. It means, you could put it, without restraint, unbridled, wantonness, wickedness, excess, abandon, sensuality.

[4:56] It misses the mark again. License. It's the opposite of legalism, where you're all confined. License means anything goes. There's no rules. There's no holds barred.

[5:08] Anything goes. It's about abusing the grace of God. Abusing God's grace. And some have got that idea about salvation. That, you know, it's just a total free for all.

[5:21] And then in the middle, you've got liberty. Liberty. Now, I think a lot of Christians get all tied up in knots with this.

[5:32] Happens a lot. You know, there's preachers that talk about, for example, full surrender. Full surrender. It's all about lordship salvation. In other words, Jesus has to be...

[5:46] It's all about Jesus being Lord. Of course, that's what we believe. But that doesn't save us. It's about grace that saves us.

[5:58] So the full surrender is actually here. Not here. Okay? The full surrender is not here trying to confine yourself and bind yourself. The full surrender is right here.

[6:09] In the liberty that comes from grace. That's where the full surrender is. That's where the full surrender is. Because in liberty there's rest. In liberty there's joy. We're truly alive in the liberty that's in Christ.

[6:22] In the love that he gives to us. It says in the word, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. There is liberty. That's 2 Corinthians 3, 17.

[6:33] Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Where the Holy Spirit is, there is liberty. The spirit of God brings salvation. The spirit of God brings grace to our lives.

[6:44] In Romans 6 it says, For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. We're no longer under the law. We're under grace now. So, but then it goes on.

[6:56] Now we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace. God forbid. So he's saying don't go here either. Okay? We're not under the law, but we're not got a license to sin either.

[7:07] It's about getting the balance right. And so, license misses the mark. It phases just like legalism does. It's finding the place of grace.

[7:19] It's finding that place of liberty. In Galatians 5, 13, Paul says, You have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty as an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

[7:33] So, he says don't go over here in the flesh. Don't use the liberty that you've got as an occasion for the flesh, but rather walk in the perfect law of liberty.

[7:45] So, that's just to kind of start your thinking today about grace and what it's all about. And so, if you turn to John 1, verse 17, it says, For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

[8:02] The law was with Moses, grace and truth with Jesus Christ. Let's just have a bit more of a think about grace now. I'll put it to you, three things about grace that we can use in our lives today.

[8:22] And number one is, grace saves you. Grace saves. In Titus 2, verse 11, it says, For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men.

[8:40] So, grace is the basis for our salvation. It's how we are saved is by grace through faith. Grace is what brings salvation. As someone has put it, we are saved by grace plus nothing.

[8:56] Through faith plus nothing. In Christ plus nothing. Salvation is a free gift. It's a free gift. This is what sets Christianity apart from every other kind of belief or religion.

[9:14] It's not something we hang on to until we get there either. Some people make that mistake. They think that our salvation is about, as we talked about before, the COP.

[9:27] Commitment, obedience and perseverance. No, it's a mistake. It's the P in Tulip. It's just one of the number that are wrong.

[9:40] P, perseverance. It's not perseverance. It's about God's preservation. It's God's preservation that we need. Not our perseverance. It's nothing to do with you.

[9:51] Nothing to do with you or me. It's about grace. Grace saves you. Plus nothing. Grace means God's favour, God's mercy, God's pardon. It's God's great love and we need grace.

[10:03] Romans 5, it says, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God's true Lord Jesus Christ. Justified by faith. It's a legal definition. You are made just.

[10:14] You are declared just. And it says, By Jesus Christ, by whom we have access by faith into this grace. We have access by faith into this grace.

[10:26] It saves us. Grace saves us. It's salvation. Grace. Grace. Grace. Wonderful grace. We have access by faith into this grace.

[10:37] It goes on, Wherein we stand and rejoice and hope of the glory of God. Three things. It's all by grace. We have access. Access. We stand and we rejoice.

[10:49] Now, in Christ's day we know the religious crowd of his day, the Pharisees, the religious crowd. They were moralistic, religious people, pretenders, professors of the laws of religion.

[11:05] The Pharisees took their pride to the nth degree in proving themselves, in showing themselves, in their externalism. It was all about their performance. The Pharisees missed them up because it was all about their performance.

[11:20] They represent anti-grace, un-grace. Religious people are offended by grace. Religious people are offended by grace. They think it's about them.

[11:33] They think it's about us. But friends, today I want to tell you how to spell grace. This is how you spell grace. J-E-S-U-S.

[11:45] That's how you spell it. Amen. Jesus is grace. He is grace. He's grace personified. He's grace incarnate. He's grace in a person. And what did the religious crowd do?

[11:56] They killed grace. They killed grace. The Pharisees killed grace. That's what religion is. It's a grace killer. It's anti-grace. It's a counterfeit of the true, genuine grace.

[12:07] Friends, our salvation is dependent on Jesus our Lord. It's dependent upon Him. Not on anything you can do. Not on anything you have ever done or ever will do.

[12:19] Nothing to do with you. Salvation is not dependent on your performance. On what you do. But on His. On His performance at the cross.

[12:30] On what He did at Calvary's Hill. That's what makes us acceptable to God. Christ's death on the cross is the perfect performance that we need. Not of works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.

[12:46] By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Titus 2. 3 rather. Ephesians 2 it says, But God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He hath loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ.

[13:03] By grace are ye saved. By grace ye are saved. It says. And then it goes on how He has made us to sit together in heavenly places with Christ, that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, and His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus.

[13:22] For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. A prince of Tozer said, You can never put a plus sign beside the cross.

[13:35] It's not the cross plus your works. It's not the cross plus your efforts. It's not the cross plus your perseverance.

[13:46] It's not the cross plus anything. It's the cross. It's faith and grace. We are saved by grace and grace alone. No activity on our part.

[13:57] Plus nothing. Plus nothing. Grace is what we need, brothers and sisters, to be saved. Grace saves you. You don't earn it at all.

[14:09] And we see through the Word of God how the Lord Jesus talks about salvation. What does He say as the Good Shepherd of John 10? We see Him talking about a shepherd in Luke 15.

[14:23] And He tells a story. The Lord Jesus tells a story about a shepherd who had 99 and only had 100 sheep. And the 99 was safe and sound but one was astray.

[14:34] One went walkabout. One went out into the dark night, into the wilderness. And so what did the shepherd do? He went out into the highways and byways and he scoured the place and he searched for that one lost sheep.

[14:48] Now, just imagine you're that sheep. You've done the wrong thing. Haven't you? Again. Alright? And you're out there and you're out there away from the fold.

[15:01] You're away from the shepherd. You're where you should not be. And then you hear the footsteps of the shepherd. Whoa, I'm in trouble. Whoa. I can expect a stern rebuke and some punishment.

[15:14] Well deserved punishment. Well deserved punishment. Absolutely. I've done the wrong thing. But instead, what does the lost sheep receive? He receives the warm loving arms of the shepherd.

[15:25] Lifting him up onto his shoulder and carrying him home rejoicing. That's what the sheep finds. It's grace. It's grace. It's grace.

[15:36] The shepherd finds the sheep and comes home rejoicing. And the sheep says, I've got what I do not deserve. That's grace. And then we see the Lord Jesus tells another story about salvation.

[15:51] He tells in Matthew 20, he talks about some casual workers. And he tells a story how early one morning, the owner of the vineyard goes out, maybe six o'clock, maybe even before daybreak, we can imagine.

[16:05] It was very early. And he found some workers and he sent them off to go out to his vineyard. And then later in the day, he comes, say, about nine in the morning, and he finds some others, idle in the marketplace, just kicking cans and just, you know, killing time.

[16:24] And he says, come and get in the vineyard. Come and work for me at nine o'clock. Then he goes out at noon, he finds some further workers, some more people. And he says, come on, come on, get on the bus and get out to my vineyard and do some work for me.

[16:38] Then he goes out at three o'clock, same thing. Then at five o'clock, same thing. He finds these workers. You know, they might have been getting to the end of the day and they thought, wow, I've got some bills to pay.

[16:49] My family's home and I've got nothing to earn to support them. And, you know, they would have been sweating, maybe, that we didn't have work. Okay? And then the owner of the vineyard calls his workers together and he takes the ones that he just put on, that only worked for an hour or so.

[17:11] The ones that he just hired. And what does he pay them? A full day's wages. He gives them a full day's wages. He gives them a full day's wages. Wow! That was a big pay packet for one hour's work.

[17:22] That I didn't think. I don't deserve that. And then the ones who were hired earlier in the day, the ones at three o'clock thought, oh, wow, they got so much, I'm going to get a bit more.

[17:33] But no, they got the same. The ones who came at noon and worked half of the day, they came, they got the same pay packet. The people who came at nine o'clock, same money.

[17:46] The people at six o'clock, they got the same money. It's grace. It's grace. It wasn't to do with their working. It was to do with their volunteering to go into the, hearing the master's voice.

[18:03] It was about them hearing the master's voice and responding to his call. And it wasn't about their work, the hours of work they had done that they were paid for. The ones who only worked for one hour said, we're getting what we do not deserve.

[18:18] Okay? So grace is like that. Grace is eternal life. Grace is God giving us what we do not deserve. So we can thank God for that. As someone has put it, the one from whom we need to be saved is the one who has saved us.

[18:33] Isn't that wonderful? The one from whom we need to be saved is the one who saves us. That's God's grace, isn't it? Just as the shepherd could have reprimanded that sheep, but no, he lovingly held and took the sheep to safety.

[18:46] And just as the vineyard manager gave the workers the same, even though they'd all worked different amounts of time. It's like that with Christianity.

[18:57] What did the thief have to get? The thief on the cross. What did he deserve? He was a thief justly condemned to death. He did no good works at all other than saying, Lord, Jesus, remember me.

[19:11] When you come into your kingdom, he confessed Christ as Lord. He did nothing to work for his salvation. Friends, that's grace, isn't it? We can take heart in that today. Grace he gives to the humble.

[19:22] He credits it to our account. He gives grace to the humble. James 4 verse 6. In Romans 4 verse 5 it says, But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

[19:38] Amen. His faith is counted for righteousness. It's not about working. So salvation, it's all of grace. It's rest. What does salvation get called in the book of Hebrews?

[19:49] We enter into rest. It's not about entering into busyness, but entering into his rest. Of course, when we love him, we want to do something for him, but our salvation is not about that.

[20:02] The salvation is about rest. It's about all of grace, apart from works. Now think about grace through the Bible. Think about the worst church you could find in the Bible.

[20:15] Just about. One of the worst churches anyway is the church at Corinth. The church at Corinth. They had lots of problems.

[20:26] Lots of big problems, the church at Corinth. And yet Paul addresses this church in the book of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. And what does Corinth have?

[20:38] Corinth is full of jealousy, backbiting, pride, division, drunkenness, legalism, lawsuits, factions, profaning the Lord's Supper, and the abuse of spiritual gifts.

[20:54] They had just about everything wrong. But what does Paul call them? Brethren. Brethren. He says, brethren, you're called to be saints. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, he addresses them, you're called to be saints.

[21:09] Sanctified. It's amazing, isn't it? Paul never rebukes them in the sense of their salvation. He calls them brethren. He calls them brothers and sisters. And he calls them brethren throughout the book.

[21:23] Now, some modern preachers today would have looked at the Corinthians, and they'd have looked at them in a condemnatory fashion, and would have said, well, you don't look like Christians.

[21:35] You're not acting like Christians, so you can't be Christians. You know, by my definition, you fall short of my definition of what a Christian is doing or can do. Because you don't measure up to my scale, to my measurement of what a Christian is and what a Christian is not.

[21:51] Some people would say that. And they would condemn people and say, you're not saying because you're doing this or doing that or not doing this or not doing that. And it's no wonder. I know Christians who are under a yoke of bondage because people have put them under that yoke of bondage.

[22:06] Well, they've come under that yoke of bondage, so they don't even know if they're Christians or not. That's how bad it gets. It's bondage. It's bondage. We call to liberty. We call to liberty.

[22:17] We call to liberty. Friends, there's a wonderful grace that we can know. A wonderful grace that we can know. And our salvation is not about what we do or do not do.

[22:29] Now, of course, Paul did confront them through the book. He confronted them about their sin. He confronted them about their false doctrine. He didn't excuse that or sweep it under the carpet.

[22:40] He did confront them and he challenged them about a loss of reward in 1 Corinthians 3. He talked about excommunication from the church in chapter 5.

[22:52] He talked about sickness and death as a result of their disobedience. But he didn't take their salvation away. They were saved. They were brethren. Brethren. Faulty, disobedient, stupid, but still brethren.

[23:05] Because grace had saved them. Amen? They were saved. Okay. Second thing about grace is grace sets us free.

[23:16] Grace sets us free. It doesn't put us in chains or binds us up like religion does, which means binding.

[23:27] Grace sets you free. It's contrary to religion. It's contrary to religion. Galatians 5.1 Paul says, Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

[23:39] And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Stand fast therefore in the liberty. There's a liberty in Christ. Friends, grace releases us. It sets us free.

[23:50] The Lord Jesus breaks the chains. He sets us free from man-made religion and works. He releases us. Grace releases us. And we can have an assurance based on grace.

[24:03] Based on grace, we can know that we are saved. We can know that we are secure. We can know that we're set free by his mercy. Apart from our works, grace sets us free.

[24:16] And it's the opposite of legalism, which is man-made standards. Now that's not to say standards can be helpful about how to live.

[24:27] But it's not about our salvation. That's when we make a mistake. When we make standards somehow part of salvation. Where does God place the priority? On rest. Finding the rest that is in Christ.

[24:39] The Lord Jesus says, Take my yoke upon you. Not the yoke of bondage, but my yoke upon you. And find rest for your souls. There's rest there under his yoke.

[24:50] Not burden, not weight, but rest. The Lord Jesus when he came, he says, The spirit of the Lord is now upon me, because he adorned to me to preach the gospel. To the poor he hath sent me.

[25:02] To heal the brokenhearted. To preach deliverance to the captives. To recovering a sight to the blind. To set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

[25:15] The Lord Jesus says his mission was to set at liberty the bruised. To release the broken, release the captives. To deliver them. As it says in Isaiah 61, where he was referring to.

[25:30] Now it says, He's called me to proclaim liberty to the captives. Friends, that's what grace does. That's what Jesus does to you, to me. If you're bound up, if you're lost this morning, there's grace available right now.

[25:43] There's grace available to strike the shackles off your hands. To break the fetters off your feet. To set you free. Free from religion. Free from your own works. Free from your own efforts.

[25:54] Free from your own trying and doing. To his trusting and his done. Friends, there's wonderful liberty and joyful salvation today in Christ.

[26:05] Romans 8, 21, it calls it the glorious liberty of the children of God. Isn't that wonderful? Don't you want to have glorious liberty this morning? Don't you want it? I want it.

[26:16] I don't want to be confined in religion, in man-made kind of thinking. I want to be set free by the one who brings release to the captives. To the one who brings liberty to them that are bruised.

[26:27] And he's available here now. He brings freedom. He brings the glorious liberty of the children of God. Freedom. Freedom. Free from the law.

[26:38] Free from bondage. Free from religion. Free from torment. Free from shame. Free from guilt. Free from condemnation. We're truly free, brothers and sisters.

[26:50] Through his grace. By his grace. Through faith. We can be free today. And furthermore, we can be accepted. Talked about access. We are accepted in the beloved, it says.

[27:04] To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Ephesians 1 verse 6. He's made us accepted in the beloved.

[27:15] It's interesting the word grace and accepted have got the same root word. There is that bestowing of grace. Grace is acceptance. Grace is love.

[27:26] Grace is his welcome. Grace is his reception to us. There's absolute freedom. There's absolute freedom. As someone has put it, the law demands holiness.

[27:37] Grace gives holiness. Isn't that good news? That's the gospel of grace. The law demands holiness of you. Grace gives holiness to you.

[27:49] The law condemns. Grace justifies. The law says the soul that sins shall die. Grace says the believer shall never die. Never die.

[28:00] The law says the wages of sin is death. Grace says the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The law sleuthed 3,000 at Sinai when the people sinned.

[28:14] Grace saved 3,000 at Pentecost. Amen. It's a difference, isn't it? What a marked difference it is. The law gives knowledge of sin. Grace gives a knowledge of salvation.

[28:26] We've got acceptance. We've got access because of grace today. Because of grace you can enter in today. You can enter in. You don't have to stand outside the curtain any longer. It's torn.

[28:37] It's torn from top to bottom. Enter in. Enter in. The curtain is torn today. Grace is available today.

[28:48] And friends, the grace that we need. It's not something we work up or do. We just receive it.

[28:59] Just receive it. Simply extend your hands open to him and receive it. And thank him. Someone has put it like this. Grace is the finely dressed doorkeeper to the presence of God.

[29:12] Who with a huge smile. A bit like the smiles we got when we walked in this morning. With a huge smile on his face. Swings wide the door.

[29:23] As we approach it says, go inside. He's been expecting you. Isn't that good news? Go inside. He's been expecting you.

[29:34] Grace swings wide the door. There's access today. There's access. But because of the beloved. There's access in the beloved today. Go right inside. He's been expecting you.

[29:46] That's the welcome we get. The welcome of grace. If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. John 8 36. Free indeed.

[29:57] That's grace. The work of Christ is sufficient for you. You don't need to have grace plus anything at all. You don't need grace supplemented by your own efforts or your own obedience even.

[30:12] Now some preachers put people under that yoke. Where they say you trust Christ and you've got to keep on obeying. If on the last day when you're disobedient and you do something wrong, you lose your salvation, you don't get in.

[30:27] Sorry about that. It doesn't work like that. It's wrong. It's false teaching. It's false teaching. Honestly it is. It's not about your obedience. It's about his obedience. It's about his perfect performance.

[30:39] Not about any of your performance. Because your own efforts fall dismally short. Even the best things that you do are just filthy in his sight. Filthy. Filthy rags.

[30:50] That's the best you've got. Don't even try to put those filthy rags around you and think, well I'll brush this off. This will be good enough. My own righteousness. It's not good enough. It's not going to measure up.

[31:01] You need his perfect righteousness to cover you. To clothe you. Galatians 4.7 it says, you're no more a servant but a son. And then an heir of God through Christ.

[31:12] That's Galatians 4.7. Grace sets us free. Don't you want to be free? Free indeed. Yes you can be. Grace makes it all happen.

[31:23] Grace makes it all possible for you. Justified. Set free by his grace. In Romans 3.24 it says, being justified freely by his grace. Through the redemption.

[31:35] That is in Christ Jesus. Grace sets us free. We talked about liberty before. That's grace. Someone said this about liberty. Liberty is not the power to do as we please.

[31:46] Or the state of being free from all controls. From a biblical standpoint. Liberty is freedom. From slavery and bondage. But including in that freedom.

[31:57] From sin's penalty. And power. And freedom from Satan's power. Is the freedom. Rather than the freedom to do as we please. Christian liberty means the power to do as God enables us.

[32:11] Because of his grace. It's freedom to do as he enables us to do. It's like a train could be considered free to do all it's designed to do.

[32:22] Only when it's on the track. We're free in Christ because we're free to do as he helps us to do to be. And that's the true liberty. The freedom to be all that we've been designed to be.

[32:35] The freedom to be as God has made you to be. For his glory. It's not the law of the jungle. But it's the law of liberty.

[32:46] The law of liberty. The law of grace if you like. So we can't please God by an enslavement to man's thinking or ways or effort or achievement. Because if we did what would it be? Pride.

[32:58] Pride. Pride. Pride. Pride. That's what happens. When we start to rely on this man here. It's pride. We can't have it. God will have none of it.

[33:10] You can't do it by yourself. You can't answer by yourself. You can't try to do it on your own. It's not by your own efforts. Because you can't please God. You can't do good.

[33:22] You can't even seek him. But God helping you gives you the grace that you need to make it all happen. The grace of God makes it all possible. The sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice makes it happen for you.

[33:35] Because our salvation from first to last is grace. From first to last when we save and as he keeps us it's grace. Right through from Alpha to Omega.

[33:47] From A to Z. Grace is right there. Right through. The whole story is grace. And so we don't want to add legalism friends today. We can make that mistake.

[33:58] There may be times when I've made that mistake. I'll be honest with you. Because in striving to please God sometimes we can veer towards legalism.

[34:09] We can. I know I can. I'm being honest with you. Because we love and we want to do right. But we don't rest in our doing right. We don't rest in that.

[34:20] We rest on his work. We rest on his grace because his grace saves us. Not others. So it's not about your power to do right. But as much as that's a good thing.

[34:33] You don't depend on it. You don't trust in that. And so. Friends. Grace. Is written. In blood. That's right.

[34:44] Amen. Grace is written. In blood. We look back at the Passover time. Think back to the Passover time.

[34:55] Think back to the Passover time. When the children of Israel were rescued by God. Delivered out of Egypt. How? By the blood. The people who didn't have the blood.

[35:09] Were. The people who had the blood over them. Were passed over. But the people who did not have the blood. Suffered the judgment of God.

[35:21] Think about it for a minute. At the Passover. What saved the people? They had to apply the blood.

[35:32] They had to follow God's instruction. To save them. But when the angel went over. The angel that brought destruction and judgment.

[35:45] God says. When I see the blood. I will pass over you. When I see the blood. I will pass over you. Now the blood of the lamb was placed where?

[35:57] On the outside of the house. Wasn't it? It was placed on the outside of the house. When God brought judgment on the people. There.

[36:08] When he. When he. Vented his judgment. His righteous rightful judgment. What made the difference was the blood. The angel didn't go inside the house and inspect.

[36:22] The angel didn't go inside the house and. You know just. Oh there's a bit of sin in there. Oh. They've not quite got that right. There's some false doctrine in there.

[36:33] They might say. Oh. They're a bit worldly. It wasn't about that. Because of all the sin. All. It wasn't about anyone. It wasn't about anything inside the house. It was about the blood on the outside of the house.

[36:44] That's what made the difference. Now that's not to discount. That. And I'll talk a little on that. But. It's not to discount. That we should. Search after God. And seek to please him. And how he lived. Don't get me wrong.

[36:55] By what I'm saying today. Just trying to get the balance right. Okay. Because. When God looked down. He saw the blood. That's what made the difference. When the father looks at the believer. He's put their faith and trust in the blood of Jesus Christ.

[37:07] He sees the blood. Sister. Brother. He doesn't see. What you're doing and not doing. He honestly doesn't. Almost like he. Well. It's almost like he. It's almost like it makes no eternal difference.

[37:18] There will be rewards and loss of rewards for you. When you're bleeding. You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding.

[37:28] You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding. You'll be bleeding. There will be rewards and loss of rewards for you. If you're a disobedient Christian, you will be embarrassed.

[37:39] You'll be ashamed that your ornament is coming. You'll be empty handed. There'll be a pile of ashes in your hands. You'll be chasing through life. When you don't follow him as you ought to, as you know you ought to in your heart of hearts, but your salvation is secure.

[37:56] It's paid for by the blood. When I see the blood, I'll pass over you. Friends, that's the grace of God, isn't it? When the Father sees the believer, he sees the blood.

[38:07] All he sees is the blood. He doesn't see beyond the blood. He just sees the blood. If you've got the blood, you're safe. If you've got the blood of the Lamb, you're safe today.

[38:20] Now what am I talking about? For some of you, it might not be making much sense. The sense is that in that day, the blood of a Lamb was shed as a sacrifice, as a picture of the Lamb of God to come.

[38:32] It takes away the sin of the world. And the Lamb's blood represented the salvation that comes through Christ's atoning death, substitutionary death on the cross, dying on the cross in our place.

[38:44] That's what the blood represents. And the people who applied the blood, in other words, they received by faith the gospel message. They were saved by the blood.

[38:55] It wasn't through anything that was going on inside the house. So we can thank God for that. We're accepted on the basis of the blood, not on anything that we have done. Regardless of our performance, grace saves us.

[39:08] Grace truly sets us free. Just as the thief on the cross does absolutely zilch that he could do to deserve heaven. But Jesus says, Today, today you shall be with me in paradise.

[39:23] It's a free gift. A gift is not a gift if it has to be earned. There's churches out there that say you have to earn your salvation.

[39:34] And once you've got it, you've got to keep working to keep it. Or you can lose it. It's all about your effort. It's all about your doing, doing, doing.

[39:45] Instead of God's done. That's a big mistake. Friends, honestly it is. It's a big mistake to make. Well-meaning people think that, Oh, I've got to keep... Everything's just got to be perfect.

[39:55] And, you know, I've got to be squeaky clean by my own trying to get to heaven. No, it's not. Nothing to do with that. It's about the blood. It's about the blood of the Lamb. We're accepted on the basis of the blood.

[40:08] On the basis of the gift of God. And it's our trust in Christ. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. That's got to be your trust today. Don't trust in some religious work.

[40:19] Don't trust in some religious words. Don't trust in some religious effort and trying of your own. It's vain and empty and worthless today. Friends, grace saves us.

[40:31] And grace is the power of God that sets us free. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

[40:42] If there's any grounds for boasting, you're standing on the wrong thing. Don't do it. Don't do that. So we'll go to the third thing just quickly. You've seen that grace, number one, it saves.

[40:53] Grace, number two, it sets us free. And grace, number three, it sanctifies you and me. Grace sanctifies us. Now, what does sanctify mean?

[41:06] It means makes us holy. It makes us holy. That's amazing, isn't it? That grace makes us holy. Grace makes you holy. That's amazing, isn't it? In Acts 20, 32, Paul says, Brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace.

[41:21] The word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. The word of his grace is able to make you sanctified.

[41:34] Sanctified, it means made holy. Sanctification is really only possible by grace. And as I said, 1 Corinthians 1, what did Paul address these silly Corinthian believers as?

[41:48] These Corinthians with all their faults and failings and their miserable poor witness, they just totally blew it in front of the pagan culture of their day with the wild carryings on in the church of Corinth.

[42:01] He says, To them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, grace be unto you. We've got hope, haven't we?

[42:12] If the Corinthians have got grace, thank God we've got grace today. Salvation is only possible because of grace. There's total freedom. There's total grace today.

[42:22] It's a declaration. Grace is a declaration that makes us holy. Grace is a declaration you may justify. There's an exchange that happens. There's a transfer as grace is credited to your account.

[42:34] So see, there's some great benefactor and suddenly you check your bank balance and wow, where did that come from? I didn't deserve that. Someone's just mysteriously, I'll give you my bank account number later.

[42:46] Someone's just mysteriously put this massive amount of money in my bank account. Where did that come from? That's grace. You didn't deserve it. You didn't work for it. Well, the bank must have made a mistake.

[42:57] But no, God didn't make a mistake. He's given us grace by his own virtue and power. Grace is his wonderful exchange, a wonderful transfer, a wonderful credit to your account.

[43:09] And what does he say to the Corinthians? In 1 Corinthians 6, when he's rattled off all the bad things that they're doing, he says, grace washes us.

[43:31] Grace washes us. It makes us clean, as clean as a newborn baby. Well, even cleaner, because they're pretty grubby, aren't they? But grace makes us, why it's a snow, it makes us washed from all our sin.

[43:43] It makes us, though our sins were a scarlet, they can be white as wool. You know, white as the wool of a sheep that's been dyed and treated. Beautifully crystal clear and clean.

[43:56] That's the picture. You are washed. So friends, what a wonder it is. Grace sets us free and grace sanctifies us. So in other words, it gives us the ability to love God, to worship him, to honour him, to be that spontaneous, gracious person.

[44:16] And grace overlooks our ungraciousness too, because we don't always act that way, doing. But our growth is based on grace. We should grow in grace, it says.

[44:27] Grace gives us the power to overcome sin. Someone put it like this, we're drawn by grace, saved by grace, continue in grace, live by grace, are kept by grace, and have a very being in our existence saturated by grace, ongoingly.

[44:44] It's grace from start to end. Grace governs you, grace empowers you, grace brings you healing, in that spiritual realm. He deals with your bruises by His grace.

[44:56] He takes your hurts. Grace is the basis for right doing, not guilt. We don't do right because of guilt. We do right because of grace. Grace enables us, grace empowers us, it sanctifies us.

[45:11] In Titus 2 it says, For the grace of God hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present world.

[45:26] Friends, we're called to have grace, and this grace teaches us, it trains us how to live. Grace saves you, grace sanctifies you, makes you holy, and grace sets you free.

[45:39] Free! Free indeed. Free, thank God almighty. Free indeed. Free indeed. God gives grace, and you can know grace today, but listen now, you do not earn it, and you do not pay for it.

[45:56] Because a gift is not a gift if you've got to pay for it, is it? It's not about that. So the big lesson to learn is that without His holiness, we cannot have grace.

[46:07] Without grace, we cannot have His holiness. It's all by His grace. Our full surrender is to His grace. That's where the full surrender is. The full surrender isn't about the legalism, about the doing.

[46:20] The full surrender is to rest in the liberty, in the glorious liberty that we have as children of God. The grace that we know is a grace that is a full surrender to His power.

[46:33] It's a full surrender to know I'm covered by the blood. His punishment, His wrath over me has been paid. Because of Jesus dying on the cross, I'm safe under the blood.

[46:47] And it's about coming into His rest. Coming into that relationship. Coming into that relationship. You know, brothers and sisters, I know there's some Christians I've met and they're tying themselves in knots.

[47:01] They tie themselves in knots and then they think, oh, I'm going to chuck it in. I just can't perform. You've got it wrong. Sister, brother, you've got it wrong.

[47:11] You cannot perform. Neither can I. None of us can. It's not about your performance. It's about His. Stop trying and start trusting. Stop doing and trust His done.

[47:25] The finished work of Christ. It was done 2,000 odd years ago. That's when it was done. It's not about your doing now. It's not about your trying. It's about your trusting. Friends, I urge you today, grace.

[47:38] We can miss it. We can miss it. We can veer on the end of legalism by man-made effort, well-intentioned, but miss them up because our salvation is not found in legalism.

[47:50] We can miss them up by the license where it's all about, you know, anything goes. She'll be right. Happy-go-lucky. Carefree, careless, unthinking kind of just a token profession of faith.

[48:08] A license. No, it's not there. But it's in that liberty that is grace. It's in the liberty that He gives to you to set you free, to save you and to make you holy. Friends, I urge you today, trust His grace and speak to others about that grace.

[48:24] It's not about anything we can do. Even we witness sometimes, we can act like the bad cop, you know. It's about your commitment. It's not actually. There is a commitment, but the commitment doesn't save you.

[48:38] It's not about your obedience. You can't obey. You actually can't obey. You're never going to make it. You're always going to fall short. And the perseverance, well, you know, you can try really hard, really, really, really hard, but the perseverance isn't going to help you either to get you saved.

[48:56] It's about His preservation. His preservation. That's what saves us and keeps us saved. It's His power. Friends, I urge you. Let's pray.