Rick Warren - Living in God’s Amazing Grace—Part One

You know, none of us can earn our way into

heaven because eternal life is a free gift when you

accept Jesus as the Lord of your life. Hey, everybody,

this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. And today Rick Warren

continues a series called Good News about Grace. You can't

truly understand the Christian life until you understand grace. It's

at the heart of your faith and your relationship with God.

And in this series you're gonna discover how not to

only understand grace, but how to experience it and the

joy that it brings. And right now, here's part one

of a message called Living in God's Amazing Grace.

I want us to just review the benefits of grace.

The Bible says that we're saved by grace. But the

only way to heaven is the doorway through grace. And

if you're gonna get to heaven, that's the only way

you're gonna get there. You can't earn it, you can't

work for it, you can't buy it. It's just by

God's grace. The Bible says, for by grace, you are

saved through faith. And even that is not of yourselves,

it is the gift of God, not of work, So

no one can boast if you could work your way

to heaven. Can you imagine how boring heaven would be.

Everybody would be bragging about how they got there. Well,

I did this, Oh yeah, but I did this. The

Bible says we're just simply saved by grace. But more

than that, we're forgiven by grace. The Bible tells us

in Isaiah forty three, I forgive your sins for my

own sake. We don't deserve it, but God says I

forgive you. The Bible says that we're sustained by grace.

Weppians two thirteen says God is always working in you

to give you the will and the power to do

what He's called you to do. God will never ask

you to do anything that He doesn't give you the

ability and the power to do. And that power and

ability is called grace. Then the Bible teaches that we're

healed by grace. It says that he heals our broken

heart and binds up our wounds. The Bible says we're

liberated by grace. We talked about that how you don't

have to live under the rules and regulations of legalism.

Jesus said, come to me if you're tired and weary,

and I will give you rest, not a whole bunch

of other chores to do. He says, I will give

you rest. And if your Christian life is not a

life that says it's a life of resting in Christ,

it means that I'm moving back into that legalistic background.

The Bible says that we're given talents by grace. God

has given us each the ability to do something well,

and we're to use it for him. A scripture tells

us in Romans twelve, the Bible says God uses us

by grace, that we're kept saved by grace. And we

talked about that. That how you cannot lose your salvation

because it's a gift. If you worked for your salvation,

then obviously the moment you stopped working for it, you'd

lose it. If you had to earn your salvation, then

the moment you stopped earning it, you'd lose it. But

since it's all by grace, it's on the basis of

what Jesus did, you'd have to lose it by what

he didn't do. But he did it. All the Bible

says that he said on the cross, it's finish, it's

paid in full, and so he keeps us saved by

his grace. The verse there in Jude one twenty four

says he is able to keep you from falling. You

don't have to keep yourself saved. And then we're transformed

by grace. The Bible says we're transformed by the renewing

of our mind. The Scripture says in two Peter three eighteen,

grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus.

The more you grow in grace, the more you're gonna

grow spiritually. So the bottom line really is this, It's

all by grace. That's the bottom line. Everything that God

does in you, everything that God does for you, and

everything that God does through you, he does by grace.

Listen to this. Robert Lewis Stephenson said, there's nothing but

God's grace. We walk upon it, we breathe it, we

live it, and we die by it. It makes the

nails and axles of the universe. Everything is by God's grace.

We wouldn't even have our own lives if it weren't

for God's grace. Now that's what we've looked at for

ten weeks. But you know, it would be a tragedy

if we had gone through this entire series and some

of you had still never received it, had never really

opened your life up to receiving the grace of God.

So as we conclude this series, I want to ask

again the question, how do I get it? You said, Rick,

this sounds like a good deal. I want to be saved, forgiven, sustained, healed, liberated,

given talents used, kept, save, transformed and matured. How do

I get it? How do I receive the grace of God? Well,

the Bible says, in three simple words, by trusting Christ.

By trusting Christ, God made it so so simple that

nobody could say it was too hard to understand. It's

not here twenty three steps and four pathways and eight

guide roads, and you know, thirty two rituals to go through.

He just says, by trusting Christ, that's it. That it's

as simple as just putting my faith in him. The

Bible says this first in John one seventeen. Read it

with me. The law was given through Moses, but grace

and truth came through Jesus Christ. And look up here,

all of grace, all of what we've just talked about

for ten weeks is wrapped up in a person. He

is the source. Grace and truth comes through Jesus Christ.

If you don't get it through Christ, you don't get it. Now,

what's he saying here. He's saying that you don't get

God's grace. That's his power and ability to do the

right thing, to make it in life, to be sustained,

to become what God meant for you to be in

the first place. You don't get grace through religion. You

don't get grace through ritual, not even baptism or communion.

You don't get grace through rules. You don't get grace

through religion. Rules relation are regulations. But you do get

it through a relationship. Look at the next verse, let's

read it. Now. We rejoice in our wonderful new relationship

with God all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ

has done in dying for our sins, making us friends

of God. Now that's what you call having friends in

high places, folks. You become a friend of God how

by becoming in relationship with Christ his son. Now circle

the word relationship, because he says that's how we get

the grace we need to live. But I also want

you to underline the phrase in dying for our sins,

it says that this grace came to us because of

what Jesus has done in dying for our sins. Now,

grace is free. All you have to do is accept it.

It's free to you, but it's not cheap. It cost

Jesus his life. In fact, grace is the most expensive

commodity there is. Jesus died on the cross to pay

for it. And Jesus never wants us to forget that.

He never wants us to forget the sacrifice that he

made so that we could experience the grace of God.

So he gave us a reminder. He created a symbol communion.

But the Bible says that this is a symbol of

what Jesus did so that we could have his grace.

What happened when Jesus died on the cross, What really

took place when he hung there two thousand years ago?

That makes something so significant that we celebrate it and

we remember it with a symbol. Two thousand years later,

when Jesus died in the cross, he did three things.

You might want to write these down. Three things Jesus did.

Number one, he paid the penalty for sin. That means

my penalty for my sin has already been taken care of.

It's kind of like getting get out of jail free card,

if you remember monopoly. That's what grace is. One day

you're going to stand before God and he's going to say, obviously,

you blew it from your sins. Somebody has to pay

for those sins, either you or somebody else. And Jesus

did it. He paid the penalty of sin, and so

I can be forgiven for that. The second thing he

did is he broke the power of sin. What that

means is Jesus now gives us the power to change

the habits and the hurts and the hang ups in

our lives that mess us up. The penalty of sin

is paid for. The power of sin is broken, and

the presence of sin will be obliterated. One day we're

going to go to heaven and there ain't gonna be

any sin there, and He's guaranteed it because of the Cross.

It's guaranteed. Now, there's a lot of mystery and misunderstanding

about taking communion. Most of us come from many, many

different backgrounds, and the question is often What should be

my attitude when I take the Lord's Supper? How should

I feel when I remember the death of Jesus Christ?

Should I feel guilty when I take communion remembering all

the sins that I've committed? Should I feel guilty? The

answer is no.

No.

Communion is not to make you feel guilty, because Communion says, remember,

Jesus is already paid for all your wrongs, so you

don't have to feel guilty anymore. That's grace. Should I

feel grief? Should I feel when I take the Lord's Supper?

Like this is like a funeral and it's something sad

as I remember the death of Jesus Christ. Should I

feel grief when I take communion? No, because Jesus didn't

stay dead. Three days later, after they put him in

a tomb, they said he's back. He didn't stay dead,

So we don't serve a dead god, a dead savior,

so we don't have to grief grief. So we don't

have grief, we don't have guilt. What should the attitude

be when we take communion? Gratitude? When I take these

two elements that symbolize what Jesus did for me, I

should be thinking, how could God love me like this?

How could God love me this much? You see, the

Bible tells us how much he loved us. Look at

this verse. The Bible says in one John three point sixteen.

This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ

laid down his life for us. He laid down his

life for us. That's what we should be grateful for now, Communion.

The Lord's Supper is a symbol, but it's not for everybody. No,

it's not for everybody. It's only for believers. It's only

for those who've accepted that grace gift. But you can

become a believer right now. There's nothing to stop you.

When we take this, these symbols of bread and juice,

and as we remember what they symbolize. I want you

to say, Lord, by taking this in your mind, you'll

be saying, I believe that Jesus died for me, and

I accept his grace today. That's what you're saying, I

believe that Jesus died for me, and I accept his

grace today. Near the city of San Juan Campos in Brazil,

there's a remarkable facility. It's a prison, and twenty years

ago the Brazilian government turned it over to a band

of Christians, and they said, you can run it, and

you can run it on Christian principles. And so they

cleaned up the prison and they renamed it Humanita, and

with the exception of two full time staff members, all

the work there is done by inmates. Families outside the

prison adopted an inmate to do work with during an

after's term. Recently, Chuck Colson went and visited this prison,

and he says this. When I visited Humanita, I found

the inmates smiling, particularly the murderer who held the keys,

opened the gate and let me in. When I walked in,

I saw men who were at peace with themselves and

with God. I saw clean living areas. I saw people

working industriously. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from

Psalms and Proverbs. He said, my guide escorted me to

the notorious prison cell that was once used for torture.

Today he told me that block houses only a single inmate.

As we reached the end of a long concrete corridor

and he put the key in the lock, he paused

and said, are you sure you want to go in?

Of course, I replied, impatiently. I've been isolation cells all

over the world. Slowly he swung the massive door open,

and I saw the prisoner in that punishment cell. It

was a beautifully carved crucifix by the humanita inmates. The

prisoner Jesus hanging on the cross. He's doing time for

the rest of us. My guide said softly. You see, folks,

this is what the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus

is all about. Jesus has served your time. He paid

your penalty. He was hung up for your hang ups.

He died in your place. And when we take communion,

we remember that Jesus took the punishment that we should

have taken. The Bible says this and Second Corinthians eight.

You are familiar with the generosity of Jesus. Christ, rich

as he was, he gave it all away for us

in one stroke. He became poor that we might become rich.

You can spell grace. Grace is God's riches at Christ's expense.

Hey, thanks so much for being with us today and

listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope that you

were just as blessed as I was. From today's broadcast.

Right now, here's Pastor Rick with a special message.

You know, when I started Saddleback Church over forty years ago,

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