[0:00] In our study, we have been working through our church's 10 values. And you see up on the banners and on the screen how we church. Now, this is about the 10 ways that are unique to how we approach doing this thing that we call church, of assembling together, of worshiping, of opening the scripture, of living life for Jesus, of serving Jesus.
[0:23] How do we do that? Now, it might seem a little bit strange to take a doctrinal statement and say, this is part of how we do church. Anyone else think about that?
[0:33] I was looking at this and studying like, wait a minute, who wrote these values? This is a little bit weird. So, I'm kidding, they're good. I like them. All right. Some of you are like, wait a minute, what? Are we changing something here this morning?
[0:44] No. This is doctrinal and it's good. Salvation by grace through faith. Can you say that with me real quick? Salvation by grace through faith. Okay.
[0:54] That's a doctrinal statement, but it's also a practical statement. Now, why is it such a big deal that we think about doing church and living for Jesus by salvation, by grace through faith, by grace through faith?
[1:11] Well, the obvious one is because we are saved by grace through faith. And so, when we proclaim the message of the Bible and when we tell people about Jesus and what he did, we have to make it very, very, very, very clear that there is nothing that you and I can do to earn salvation.
[1:34] Nothing at all. Okay. Because in the value itself, we say salvation by grace alone. Nothing else. Only the grace of God is what saves us. There is nothing that you can add to salvation.
[1:46] There's no way that you can make God love you anymore. There's no way that you can get like extra favor from God. You just can't because he simply loves you.
[1:59] He loves you entirely. He loves you completely. And he loved you when you were at your very worst. And he loves you today. And he loves you every day. Now, that might sound like Bible basics.
[2:13] But can we be honest for a second? How many other areas of our life operate that way? Are you with me? How many other areas of our life operate upon the foundation of grace?
[2:25] You don't go to your job and, you know, sit there and not do your work and not complete your responsibilities. And your boss comes in and says, man, I just love you.
[2:36] And I'm happy with you. And you know what? Can I bring you lunch today? I mean, you look so comfy sitting there and not doing your job.
[2:46] And man, I'm just so happy with you. Your boss probably comes in and is like, what are you doing? Get to work. Do your job. Right? And we understand that in our vocations, there is an element of performance.
[3:00] Right? You might even have performance reviews. Or you might have different, what do they call those? There's like checklists or expectations. Right? There are expectations of what work you are going to perform for your employer or for your customer.
[3:16] Right? There are expectations. You might even think about, you know, within your, every family kind of has unwritten rules. You know what I'm talking about? Every family has rules of like, this is what we do.
[3:28] This is what we don't do. If you do the things that we do, then you're good. And if you don't do the thing, if you don't do those things or you do other things, then you're not great. Right? Things are going to be awkward at Thanksgiving or, you know, when we get together.
[3:40] Because you're not living up to the, to the standard of who we are as, you know, insert your last name. Or you might even think about friendships. Right? If you have somebody that, that they, they, you, they treat you good and you treat them good.
[3:54] Then you can have a pretty good, you know, friendship. Right? You can, you know, like each other and get along and, you know, do all of those things. But what happens when someone does you wrong? That certainly harms a relationship.
[4:06] And sometimes and oftentimes, I think probably in every single one of our lives, we can look back over the, our lives and through the people we've known and been acquainted with, that there's some relationships that they're just not really there anymore.
[4:20] Right? Because someone did wrong, someone hurt the other person and it could not or was not reconciled. And so I think when we come to God, it's honestly, like if we, if we take grace, uh, in my, probably my favorite definition of grace is unmerited favor.
[4:40] Grace means unmerited favor. God's favor, God's love upon you that you did not deserve and that you cannot earn.
[4:51] If we take grace to be, that, that, that is the truly the foundation of how I relate to God. That is unlike anything that we know in this world.
[5:07] That's like, unlike anything we see in this world. And honestly, can I be frank with you for, for myself? Sometimes that's a little bit hard to believe because when I'm doing well, I'm like, yeah, I'm saved by grace through faith.
[5:21] Praise God. I'm happy. Right? I feel good about that. But when I'm not doing well, then it's like, oh, I feel bad. And it's like, does God love me even right now?
[5:32] And what is the answer? The answer is yes. It's not a trick question. The answer is yes. But here's the harder question. Do you believe that? Do you believe that at your very worst, God still relates to you through grace, through undeserved love and affection and favor and care?
[5:55] Do you believe that? And that's really kind of the whole question of this message this morning. Do you believe the grace of God? And I ask that to, you might be here this morning and you, maybe you're not a Christian.
[6:09] Maybe you're curious about the Bible. Maybe you grew up Christian, but you're not saved. You've never been born again. You've never placed your faith in Jesus. You're not a believer in Jesus.
[6:20] I ask you, do you believe, will you believe what God says about how he relates to you and extends salvation to you?
[6:31] Because salvation, we find, is a gift. And he extends it to you, no strings attached, but you might have a hard time believing that. And I also ask Christians, do you believe that God has extended salvation to you by grace?
[6:47] And I think if you're saved, you say, yes, I believe that. But let me ask you a second question. Do you believe that right now, today, God relates to you on the foundation of grace, on the foundation of undeserved love and favor?
[7:03] Because that sometimes is a bit of a harder question. All right, so let's open the book of Ephesians together. We're back to where we were in our Bible reading, Ephesians chapter number two. And those questions of, do we truly believe this?
[7:16] That is where we're going today. So the first thing I want to talk about is let's dive into this thing called grace. And let's maybe expand our definition a little bit of, you know, what is the grace of God?
[7:27] I tell you, I typed grace so many times this week that when I look at the word, I'm not even sure I'm spelling it right anymore. You ever do that? You write something down or, you know, sometimes when I'm putting something on a piece of paper, it's like, did I even spell that right?
[7:40] You know, I start second guessing that. Grace, when we define it, how do we define it? At its foundation, the Greek word charis for grace, and I'm not a Greek scholar, but I can use a dictionary, is this idea.
[7:53] It is a gift. It is favor. It is goodwill. It is kindness. Okay? That's what it is. Here's another definition I thought was very good. Listen to this. Goodwill freely disseminated by God, especially to the benefit of the recipient, regardless of the benefit accrued to the disseminator.
[8:13] Now, that one has a lot bigger words. I want to go back to, you know, unmerited favor. That's a little bit easier for me to get a hold of. But essentially, the idea, did you catch what's going on there? God freely gives us love, favor, kindness, and he's not in it for himself.
[8:30] He's not trying to get something from you or there's no strings attached, right? This is a free offer of, I love you. I've given you my son. I've made salvation, forgiveness available to you.
[8:43] And there's nothing that you can do to repay, right? That's really the kicker, isn't it? That there's nothing you can do to repay. Because when somebody gives you a gift, you know, unless it's like Christmas, but if someone just walked up to you and said, hey, I just want to give you this thing, right?
[9:00] You're my friend and I love you. I just want you to have this. One of your first thoughts is probably, okay, why are they giving this to me? I mean, it's not a holiday. It's not my birthday.
[9:11] What is the reason behind this? And if you can't figure out a reason for the gift, like if you're like me, you might be tempted to say, okay, what can I do to repay you? What can I do to give you back?
[9:23] Like I'll even say, you shouldn't have given me this. Isn't that funny? How we reject the grace of others by saying, you should not have given me this. Here's another thing, another definition.
[9:35] God's, oh, we talked about God's unmerited favor. I got to skip that one. God's righteousness given to us at Christ's expense. Sometimes that's used as a, what do you call those acronyms or like an acrostic?
[9:48] God's righteousness at Christ's expense. God gives us, when we say that God forgives us of our sin, that is one part of salvation. But there's another part that is like just as amazing is that God forgives us of our sin, the wrongdoing that we've done, but he also gives us righteousness.
[10:07] He gives us the perfection and the goodness of Jesus as well. And Jesus, he paid for that by suffering a horrible death and dying on the cross. And God offers that to you freely.
[10:20] Isn't that incredible? That God would take all of the goodness of Jesus, right? I think we can agree and say that Jesus, he was perfect. He was righteous. He was good, right? If there's any definition of good, it's Jesus.
[10:33] He is good and he takes all that goodness and he puts it upon people whose lives are described by badness. And then we call that sin. You know what the scripture says, right?
[10:45] All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every single person in this room has sinned. The very best person, the person that you look at this morning and you say, that is the most good, kind, loving, righteous, holy person I know.
[11:06] You don't know him very well. Because every single person you look at is a sinner. Is incredibly bad. Now, I don't say that to make you feel bad.
[11:20] But I say it because it's true. It's true about me too. It's what the scripture says about us. What is grace? Grace is the fact that God, through Christ, he loves us.
[11:32] He forgives us. He accepts us. Apart from our own worthiness. Or really, we should say, apart from our own unworthiness. Because all of us are entirely unworthy of receiving anything good from God.
[11:48] In fact, if we're going to talk about earning or performance or what we deserve, what is the only thing that we deserve to receive from God? It is judgment.
[12:00] Scripture says that the wages of sin is death. There are consequences for wrongdoing. God is the righteous judge over all.
[12:11] And his justice, his judgment, for that to be fulfilled, it requires wrath. It requires condemnation, punishment.
[12:23] And we don't like to think about those things. But is that not the only thing that we deserve as people if we're honest? Right? That's the only thing we deserve. We've done wrong.
[12:34] We've got to pay the consequences. Right? Even think about our legal system. A just legal system, you're not going to walk into court before a judge and have a relationship that is based on grace.
[12:47] You have a relationship that is based on judgment. Right? And that is based on the truth of, here's what you did, and here's the punishment for that crime.
[12:58] But see, the thing is, God relates to us differently. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? Let's go to Ephesians 2, verse number 5.
[13:10] Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace, ye are saved. The first thing that I want to point out to you about God's grace is God's grace is so powerful.
[13:25] It is so powerful because it takes people who were dead in their sins, and it makes them alive. Did you notice what happened in that verse? When we go into verse number 5, he says, We were dead in sins.
[13:38] When something is dead, there's no life, no movement, no power, no ability, no feeling, no nothing. Like, it's gone. It's done. Right? I think about Pastor Trent's screenshots.
[13:51] Anyone ever got a screenshot from Pastor Trent? And his phone has like this tiny smidgen of red on the battery level indicator. Maybe you've seen that on Facebook. If you've never seen that, you need to go look for it.
[14:03] It's so funny. On almost like 95% of those screenshots, his phone is about to die. I would be freaking out. And I would not be posting on Facebook. I'd be like, I need to go plug my phone in because it's about to die.
[14:13] Because once that thing dies, you tap on the screen and it's not going to light up. Thankfully, I got a good bit of juice left this morning. But that's what it is to be dead. You're not turning it on.
[14:24] You can't do anything with it. It's gone. Or you got a car that, we even say this about vehicles, right? If your vehicle died, you ain't going to get in and turn the key and go anywhere. There's nothing, nothing that can be done with it.
[14:35] And he says, that was us spiritually dead, dead, unable to earn any favor with God, unable to earn any righteousness. In fact, one who is in their sin and who is lost, even the very, very, very, very best thing that they can do before God, it is simply a filthy rag.
[14:57] It is nothing. It is nothing compared to the holiness of God. But what happens? When we were dead in sins, he has quickened. Quicken simply means to be made alive.
[15:09] He gives dead things life. He gives dead people life. Now you might say, well, hold up, dead people? Are we talking about zombies? Like, what's going on here? We're talking about people like me who at 15 years old, I was dead in my sins.
[15:25] And I had sins. I was trying to work and to earn favor with God. Basically, like, I'm going to try and be as good as I can so that God will love me. But the fact of the matter was, is that I was bad and I could not earn God's favor.
[15:41] But what God does is he extends a gift. And this is this resurrection gift of taking someone who is dead spiritually and making them alive. That is a miracle.
[15:53] That is powerful. And in parentheses, in case we missed it, I love how the scripture puts certain things in parentheses. He says, listen, how did God do this? By grace, ye are saved.
[16:05] And I hope that maybe makes you a little happy. Maybe makes your heart a little joyful to say, wow, I could not do anything to earn God's love. I couldn't attain life on my own.
[16:18] I couldn't get rid of my shame on my own. But God, he gave me life by his grace. Grace is powerful. Verse number six. And hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, then the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
[16:40] These two verses are kind of like one of those rabbit holes you can go down. And this is one of those places where I feel incredibly inadequate to explain and to describe how all of this works or even what this looks like.
[16:53] But let's go through this a few lines at a time and consider what is God doing? He's saving people. He's making dead people alive. He's giving people eternal life.
[17:05] And why is he doing that? Excuse me. Verse number six. He says, he's not only made us alive, but he has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
[17:17] This is referring to the fact that someone who has believed in Jesus, you, if you're saved, you're sitting here at 355 Windy Hill Drive, right?
[17:28] That's your physical location. But in God's eyes, what is your location? Raised and seated, where? In heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
[17:39] Does that blow your mind a little bit? Is that a little bit strange to think about? Like, it's like, wait a minute. No, no, no, God. I'm right here. I'm right here. I'm not sitting anywhere else. I'm sitting here listening to the Word, studying the Word.
[17:53] But God says that I'm seated in heavenly places. That's in the presence of God, in Christ Jesus. That's something in Scripture that you can look at and study, that when a person believes, when a person gets saved, there's something that happens where we're considered, or we are, I shouldn't say we're considered, we are in Christ.
[18:15] We're in Christ. The life of Christ is now my life. The position of Christ is now my position with God. The righteousness of Christ, as we talked about a few minutes ago, it is my righteousness.
[18:30] We are in Christ and we are seated with Him. That's pretty incredible. Let's continue. That in the ages to come, in verse number 7, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness, toward us through Christ Jesus.
[18:47] So basically He says, listen, what happened when somebody got saved? They went from being dead to being what? Alive. Can we say that together? They went from being dead to being? Alive.
[18:58] And they went from being, they were seated with Christ. That's talking about now, our position with Christ. But then He starts looking forward into all of eternity, that in the ages to come, what is God going to do?
[19:15] He's going to show something. He's going to display how incredible His grace is, and how is He going to do that? He's going to show it in kindness.
[19:27] We don't often think about God in terms of kind, but that is one of the things that the Scripture tells us about God. He is kind. He is kind towards us.
[19:39] He is kind towards His children. He says He's going to be displaying, showing the incredible, the exceeding riches of His grace. That word that we've been studying, His favor, His love, He's going to be showing that through all eternity.
[19:54] Does that not just boggle your mind? I'm just going to have to quit there, because I don't really have many other words to try and explain to you what that is. Although I did read this, and I thought this was so good. It means that one day, when we pass from this life into eternity, the believer will stand paralyzed with joy, wonder, astonishment, and relief.
[20:18] It means that as we stand there in His presence, we'll never be scolded for the sins of this life, never looked at and told, enjoy all of this, enjoy all of heaven, but remember, you don't deserve it.
[20:31] The very point of heaven and eternity is to enjoy His grace in kindness. And if the point of heaven is to show the immeasurable riches of His grace, then we are safe.
[20:45] Because the one thing we fear will keep us out, our sin, can only heighten the spectacle of God's grace and kindness. Think about that for a second. What is it going to be to stand before God and enjoying relationship with Him, being reunited with believers who've gone before us, being in a place that is unaffected by sin and corruption and all the things that we deal with in this life, and exploring forever how deep God's love is for you and for me.
[21:14] That will be amazing. The thing I wrote down was grace is expansive. It is just bigger and more amazing and more wonderful than we can understand.
[21:25] And finally, we get down to verse number eight. And this is that passage that you may be well aware of. And think about this. God offers grace to us. Grace is powerful.
[21:36] It's amazing. It's bigger than I can imagine. And it is offered to me. That's like the most wonderful thing, right? You have somebody who's trying to sell you something. And they show you, look at what it can do.
[21:47] And look at how it's going to change your life. And once you have this, isn't that how you sell? You help people imagine a preferred future that is better than what they have now. You show them.
[21:57] It's like, hey, this is going to be great. Now, here's the bill, right? Here's the price tag. But what God does, he says, look at what grace does. Look at how amazing it is.
[22:08] And here, take it. It's yours. If you'll simply believe. That is amazing. Look at verse eight and nine with me. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
[22:20] It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now, we've got to pause there for a second, because there are a few things that you've just got to say when you talk about Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.
[22:32] The first thing is this. Have you received that gift? I hope you've seen from the scripture that God loves you, and he will change your life, and he will change you for all of eternity.
[22:44] He will forgive your sins and give you eternal life. That gift he offers to you. It's not something you can earn. It's not something you can work for. It is a gift of God.
[22:55] All you've got to do is receive it, and you receive it by faith. That just means you believe him. You believe in him. You trust in him. You call upon him to save you, and the scripture says he will.
[23:07] Salvation is that simple. You might have heard people tell you that you've got to do this. You've got to go to church, or you've got to be baptized, or you've got to be a good person. You've got to do all of these things. The scripture says none of those things will gain you any favor with God.
[23:20] Just receive it. Just believe him, and he will change your life. Do you believe that? At the end of the service, when we close out, we'll have an opportunity for you to talk with somebody about salvation.
[23:33] And maybe you, even during this time, that you would simply believe. And your life will be changed, because that's what the scripture tells us. Now, can I talk to Christians?
[23:44] Can I talk to our church here for a second? What does this mean for us? Because some of this might just seem like, you know, it's old hat. It's things we know. It's things we hold to. It's like, this is obviously the foundation of biblical faith.
[23:56] But what do we need to do? We need to be very careful that every time the gospel is shared, every time we talk about salvation, we do not put anything in the way of salvation that God doesn't command.
[24:10] Are you with me? We don't tell people you've got to get baptized. We don't tell people you've got to come to church. I like coming to church, and I think it's a good thing to do. You don't have to do that to get saved.
[24:22] You don't have to clean up your life. You don't have to fix some things. You don't have to become a Bible scholar. All you've got to do is hear the message and receive it.
[24:35] That's all you've got to do. Friends, do not ever, do not ever put anything in the way of the gift that God offers. We hold it out. We're ambassadors for Christ, and ambassadors better be faithful to carry the message as it has been given.
[24:50] Because when we put anything in the way, anything, or even insinuate, like, you know, kind of, you know how people do that sometimes? It's like, you really kind of should do this thing. We can't even do that, right?
[25:01] Because it is very clearly only by grace, through faith, nothing else. That's it. Will you believe or will you not? That's all there is. Now, we've got a few minutes left, and I've taken a chunk of this message that I've studied, and we're going to revisit a little bit of this tonight at 5 o'clock, because there's just way too much to say.
[25:22] Now, this is the problem that Christians get into. I need to talk to Christians for a minute. What is the problem that Christians get into? We understand that we get saved by grace through faith. But then it's almost like we feel like something switches.
[25:35] And after we get saved, we understand that that is a free gift. And man, do you remember when you first understood that, and when that got into your heart, that I don't have to do anything to earn forgiveness?
[25:48] I don't have to do anything. Like, God receives me just as I am. Do you remember when that happened in your heart and life? Wasn't that wonderful? Wasn't that freeing? That it's like, I can't believe it.
[26:01] Like, everything in my life is, I've got to measure up. But with this, it is just come and believe. That is mind-boggling. But something happens with Christians where it's like, now I've got to get to work.
[26:16] And now I've got to start earning. And now I better get things right. And I better fix things. Now, this is a tension that I've struggled with for a long time.
[26:27] Right? Because it's hard to think like, okay, God accepts me freely apart from my own worthiness. Or I really should say, apart from my own unworthiness. But now, as a Christian, there's a way that I'm supposed to walk.
[26:41] How do those two go together? Which is it? Do I just receive God's goodness and just enjoy it and love it? And be excited about it? Or do I berate myself and discipline myself and get myself in shape?
[26:54] What is it? Let's continue in verse 10. Because this is kind of interesting what happens. What happens as we fall along this chain of what God's grace does? God's grace is available.
[27:05] It's offered. It's wonderful. It's powerful. And then God's grace does something else. Would you get to verse number 10? For we are his workmanship, creating Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
[27:19] You see, here's the thing that's amazing. What this does not say is that after you receive the grace of God, after you believe, after you trust in Christ, now you need to work really hard and figure out, you know, how you are going to do, you know, stuff that pleases God with every single day of your life.
[27:37] And you need to figure all that out on your own. What does it say? It says, we are his workmanship. What does that mean? It means that you are what God made. There is a new life that God made in you, that is you, I should say.
[27:53] He made your life new. It is changed. It is not something I have to earn or I have to work for. He changed me. And what did he do?
[28:03] He changed me and he has a plan for me. And what is left for me to do? What does it say? We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
[28:13] That is the path, right? That is the path of this new life. Or we could maybe say that is the outgrowth or the overflow of this new life, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.
[28:26] See, what happens is when you get saved, you get changed. You get made new. And now there is a new life that all he says is just go walk, right? Go walk. We've been trying to train for a race coming up a little bit later on, a couple of guys here at the church.
[28:43] And I tell you, I've learned that I like walking a lot more than I like running. I can walk for a long time and it's pretty fun and it's enjoyable and it's like, it's even like a little bit relaxing and it's like, man, I can go walk.
[28:56] Running is hard. And my knees hurt a little bit. And it's like, I don't want to think about that because like I'm thinking about getting older and like all this stuff or it just means I need to run more, okay? I don't know what it means. But it's like there's a way of walking, following Jesus that is wonderful.
[29:14] That's amazing. That's, dare I say, natural, right? Right? But oftentimes we start relating to God based upon earning. And our heart, it like, it goes, it soars and then it just like is crushed because there's days when I do good and I'm like, man, God must be really happy with me today.
[29:36] I'm walking and I'm doing great. But then I fall down and it's like, oh goodness, God must not really be very happy with me today because I didn't do very good. What's happening? I'm measuring my relationship with God based upon my performance instead of based upon His grace.
[29:55] Now, here's the hard part that I realized. I thought that if I didn't beat myself up, and I still think that sometimes, if I don't beat myself up and make sure that I get myself, you know, straight and getting going in the right direction, then I won't walk in good works.
[30:17] It's like, I've got to be a drill sergeant for myself saying, come on, Bo, do better. Come on, another one. Push up. You're like, do all the things. And I've relied upon that, like, pressure and motivation for myself.
[30:34] I shouldn't say motivation because it's not motivating. It's just like very despairing because it's like, you know, I continue to not measure up, right? I can't not measure up to perfection.
[30:46] Like, none of us are going to measure up to perfection. I thought that's the only way I was going to motivate myself to walk in this path. It was like, come on, get it together.
[30:59] But what does God's grace say? He doesn't say that. He says, I love you. He says, I accept you. I've changed you. And I have a path for you.
[31:10] Walk with me. Do you feel the difference? Right? There's a very, very big difference. And it's really hard to get a hold of this. And this is one thing that, man, I think God, He's working in His children to get a hold of this all throughout our lives.
[31:25] You know, I think 90, a friend told me this, he said, 90% of the battle is just understanding and believing and grasping the grace of God in your life. That the fact that He really changed you and all that's left for you to do is just walk with Him.
[31:41] Is just follow Him. That is the grace of God. We walk in the grace of God. One passage before we close out. Colossians chapter 2, verse number 6.
[31:52] And this is one I'd really encourage you to jot this down and to think about this because this is one that you may want to keep and hold on to and meditate upon because you might be thinking, wow, this sounds really great that, you know, even as a Christian that God loves me and He accepts me and all I do is just walk with Him.
[32:12] It's like I'm living in this wonderful relationship with God and it's like we feel like that should be enough for me to do right and to live in a way that honors God and to live with a good testimony.
[32:25] But it feels like it's not enough sometimes. First of all, that's a wrong belief because God's grace is a better motivator for the Christian life than boxing ourselves in with rules and regulations and pressure and berating, right?
[32:41] God's grace is a better motivator. We don't often believe that. And the second thing is we forget that the way that we receive Jesus is the same way that we live our Christian life.
[32:54] Would you read this with me? As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. Think about those words for a second. This is a very rich verse.
[33:05] How did we receive Jesus? By grace through faith. Can you say that with me? By grace through faith, right? Is that not how we receive Jesus? Yes or no? Not a trick question.
[33:15] It is. Okay, so if that's how we receive Jesus, how do we walk in Jesus? But don't we often think, I better put up some rules and some guidelines and figure out all these things?
[33:30] Now, God's word, you might think, well, okay, God's word is full of rules and is full of guidelines and is full of all these things. God's grace, He takes changed people and He informs us what it is to walk in this new life.
[33:48] You see, here's the big difference. There's a big difference between being motivated by grace, being motivated by rule keeping, by earning, is what I should say.
[33:58] There's a big difference between relating to God based upon His love and His favor and trying to please Him. And when we're relating to Him based on trying to please Him, we're really missing the point.
[34:12] The point is, He loves us. He accepts us. He does instruct us. In fact, here's another verse. We're not going to read it, but you might jot this down. Titus 2, 11 through 14 talks about how God's grace, it teaches us and instructs us in godliness.
[34:29] See, grace and truth are not at odds. Grace and truth, they go right together. And our life is one of believing God's truth and walking by the grace of God.
[34:40] That's where our life is. So as we close out, I just got to go back to that first question. Do you believe the grace of God? Christian, how are you relating to God right now?
[34:53] How do you think God feels about you right now? I don't know what your week has been like. I don't know what you are worried about. I don't know what you're ashamed about.
[35:04] I don't know what failures you've had. I don't know what joys you've had. I don't know. I don't know. There's so much. I don't know about your life. You don't know about my life. But I do know one thing. God loves you.
[35:16] And you can't earn it. And you don't have to earn it. Would you keep that in the forefront of your heart and mind and allow that to motivate you as you walk with him?
[35:27] Right? This is a Christian walk. Thank God it's not a Christian sprint or run or any of those things because I probably wouldn't make it. But it's a Christian walk. He's giving you the strength that you need to walk day by day.
[35:42] He's giving you truth. He is loving you all along the way. He's picking you up when you fall down. He is working every day in your life. So what do you need to do? Just, this maybe is a little bit too touchy-feely.
[35:56] I don't like this illustration. But it's almost like a little kid walking with their parent. Just hold on to his hand and let's go walk together. God loves you so much. I wish I had the words to explain how much he loves you.
[36:09] You might be here and you've never believed in Jesus. This gift that we're talking about, maybe you think it's too good to be true. Maybe you think you're not good enough to be called a Christian, to be called a child of God.
[36:24] Maybe you think you are past hope. The scripture tells us that you are not. Your sin is not too big. Your failure is not too great. God loves you and he offers you a gift of forgiveness.
[36:38] He offers it to you freely and all you need to do is believe. And anyone who tells you anything different, you need to point them to the Bible and say, that Bible did not tell me that. The Bible just told me, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
[36:54] Would you bow with me? We come to the time of invitation. There's going to be some music that's playing in just a moment. And it might be that you have realized that you've never believed in Jesus.
[37:07] And we're going to close in just a second. But we can't leave without this opportunity for you to turn to Jesus.
[37:20] Jesus, he loves you. He will forgive you. He paid for your sins on the cross. It is a free gift.
[37:31] And all you've got to do is believe. You might say, well, I'm not sure even, how do I know if I'm believing or asking right? Friends, it is simple faith.
[37:45] It is simply a heart that would come to God and say, Dear God, I don't deserve your love. I don't deserve forgiveness. I've done wrong.
[37:56] But I believe what your word tells me. That you paid for my sin on the cross. That Jesus did rise again from the grave. I believe that. And I'm just calling out to you.
[38:09] Save me from my sins. And make me your child. Scripture is simple. I don't have anything else to say other than believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
[38:21] And thou shalt be saved. Christians, how about it? How are you relating to God today? Do you feel that God is an angry father berating you for every mistake that you've made?
[38:37] Watching your path and ready to get on your case whenever you mess up? Friends, that is not how God relates to us. Certainly, He does correct. He does teach.
[38:49] But He always, always loves. His favor is upon you. And for all eternity, we're going to enjoy exploring and knowing and experiencing the kindness of God that has been shown to us through Jesus.
[39:08] personal fulfillment says in our hearts.
[39:27] Lateral. He sees. He goes.