Rick Warren - Saving 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, everyone, this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, and today

Rick Warren brings 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'll discover how not

to only understand grace, but to experience it and the

joy it brings. So let's get started with part one

of a message called Saving Grace.

I'd like for you to complete these common American phrases

for me. If it sounds too good to be true,

it is all right. We make money the old fashioned way.

We earn it good.

There's no such thing as a free You're very good

at this, okay. There is no gain without pain, and

this is a very familiar one. God helps those who

help themselves great. Now, everything about the American way of

life teaches us that you get what you're in life,

that there is no free lunch.

That you make your bed and then you lay in it.

And in America, we are very aware.

Of the values of competition and winning, and we know

what it means to work hard and to use elbow Greece,

and we value effort and sweat, and we tell people

you get what you deserve in life, and if you

want to make something of your life, it's up to you.

If it's to be, it's up to me. You got it. Now,

this is called the American work ethic. The only problem

with the American work ethic is God doesn't operate on

the America and work ethic, and so it makes it

difficult many times for us to relate to God because

we're in this driven work mentality. Now the problem is

Some one five, verse eight. It tells us that God,

rather than being in a work ethic mode, it says

God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and rich

in love. Would you circle the phrase gracious? The Bible

says God is a gracious God. That means he he

loves to be gracious, gracious to you. God loves to

bless people who don't deserve it. That's his nature. Aren't

you glad for that?

I am.

I'm glad that God blesses people who don't deserve it. Now,

you can't understand the Christian life at all unless you

understand grace. It is the heart of our faith, it's

the heart of our relationship to God. When you understand grace,

you're gonna feel closer to God. The more you understand grace,

the more you're gonna be drawn to God, the more

you're gonna love God, the more you're gonna be grateful

to God, because it is the thing that God brings

us to himself by that system, the system of grace. Now,

today we're beginning a new series and I'm calling it

Good News about Grace. What is grace, Well, grace is

a multifaceted diamond. There are many aspects to it. There's

no single definition that can describe what grace is all about.

One definition is grace is God's love and action.

Another definition is.

Grace is God giving me what I need, not what

I deserve. One of my favorite definitions is grace is

the face God wears when he looks at my failures

and he responds in a gracious way. Now, you need

to understand the difference between grace and mercy is when

God doesn't give us what we do deserve punishment, Grace

is when God gives us what we don't deserve blessing. Now,

I know that many of you probably think, well, I

understand grace. I know we're saved by grace. I've known

that for many, many years. But I discovered that even

many Christians, although they know they're saved by grace, I'm sure,

don't act like it. In fact, they spend most of

their life thinking and acting like we're saved by works.

And for many of you, even though you know you're

saved by grace, you don't get into heaven by doing good.

Your entire life is built on pleasing God by trying

to be perfect. And you think God is some unpleasable

parent up there in the sky with a clipboard and

a pen, watching your every move, saying yeah that was good,

and oh that was bad. Yeah that was good. And

you think you have to earn God's approval. And you

think if you do a certain number of good works

and God's going go good girl, good guy.

You got it.

And then if you don't do those things, God goes

forget it. You're worthless and that's it, and you're saved

by grace. But you're actually living by works. Now when

you really understand grace. It's going to bring so much

joy to your life. It is the most liberating thing

in the world. And you can be a Christian for

twenty or thirty years and never really learn to live

by grace. So we're going to do a series on it.

My goal is that through this series, you will not

just understand grace, but that you will experience it, that

you will feel it, that you will enjoy the grace

of God in your life because it does bring so

much joy. Now, today I want us to start with

the foundation, which is saving grace. Now for the many

of you, this will be a review. You understand saving grace,

but you cannot build a structure without the foundation.

And this is foundational.

And I think that it's good periodically that we sit

back and we just remind ourselves what a good deal

we got when we.

Received the grace of God.

And so today I want us to look at five

aspects of saving grace. How is it you know for

sure that you're going to heaven when you die? Five aspects?

And I built it around a little acrostic to help

you remember grace.

G r ACEE.

Now I told earlier service it reminded me of a

story of a professor who went to Yale University and

he decided he would speak on what is a Yale student?

That he said, I'm going to use an across stick

y a l e and he spoke on four attributes

of a Yale student there. They're young, they're adventurous, they're loyal,

and they're enthusiastic. But he went an hour and a

half on this little four letter acrostick and it just

wore out the crowd. And by the time time it

was over, he looked down to the student on the

front row and he said, what do you think of

my speech? And the kids said, well, I was just

thanking God that I didn't go to Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Now I promise you that my grace across tache isn't

going to take that long, So let's get right into it.

G the g and grace stands for God's gift to me,

God's gift to me. Romans three twenty four says, well,

let's read it together. All of us need to be

made right with God by his grace, which is a

free gift through Jesus Christ. And notice it says it's

a free gift Now, because of this American work ethic

that I was just talking about, many people think that

they're saved by works, that they're saved by earning their

way to heaven by being good enough that God says, okay,

come on in. If you were to go down here

to Eltro Road in Rockfield and ask fifty or one

hundred people on the sidewalk as they walk by, how

do you.

Get to heaven? You get a lot of different answers.

But basically they could all be summarized in you got

to earn your way to heaven, And you'd hear things like, well,

the way you get to heaven is just try to

be good and do your best, or work real hard

at being good and just try to be a good

moral person, or do more good things in life than

you do bad things in life. And if your good

pile is higher than your bad pile, well then God's

gonna say you're a good guy. Come on in. It's

all based on works, not grace. Now you need to

understand that God says here salvation is absolutely free. Circle

a phrase free gift. You don't work for a gift.

It's a free gift. God says, Salvation is absolutely free.

You can't earn it, you can't learn it, you can't buy,

you can't work for it.

Now, this is.

The fundamental difference between Christianity and every other religion, every

other faith, every other belief system. I don't care if

it's Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, et cetera, et cetera. You can

summarize every religion in one word, and all the other

religions grace is the Christianity is the only religion that's

built on grace.

It says God just gives you salvation. You don't do

anything to earn it.

Every other religion is based on works, and you can

summarize them in one word, the word do. There are

certain things you do in order to gain God's approval,

and it just varies. Each system is different. One religion

will say, well, you do these things, and another one

will say no, you do these things, and another one

will say no. You have the eightfold path, as in

Buddhism and things like this, where you do certain things

in order to gain bliss, gain heaven, gain God's approval.

It's always something you have to do, rules, regulations, rituals,

et cetera. On the other hand, if you were to

summarize Christianity in one word, it's the word done. It's

already been done for you. It was done on the

cross by Jesus Christ. He paid for your salvation, he

paid for your sins. It's already been done. I had

a guy ask me one time. He said, Pastor Rick,

what can I do to be saved? I just got

a plan with him. I said, you're too late. I

kind of shocked him. I said you're too late. He

said well, and I said, yeah, you're about two thousand

years too late, because what needed to be done for

your salvation has already been done and you can't do

anything about it. Jesus Christ already did it. He paid

for your salvation on the cross, and now it's a

free gift to you. That's why Jesus Christ, when he

was hanging on the cross stretched out his arms.

One of the things he said was it is finished. Now.

He didn't say I am finished, because he wasn't. He's

still alive day he resurrected himself. He wasn't saying I'm finished.

He said it is finished.

What's the it? Your salvation?

The plan to provide for the grace for every person

who needs it. It's finished, God says here it is.

It's a free gift, So there isn't anything you can

do to save yourself. You just accept God's free gift

of grace. See, I'm not getting to heaven based on

what I do. I'm getting to heaven on based on

the basis of what has already been done for me

by Jesus Christ. Now, folks, that's the greatest gift you're

ever going to be offered. No, you're never going to

get a better.

Deal than that.

And if you really understand grace, you will accept it

because it is a priceless gift in your life. It's

God's gift to me. The R and grace stands for

received by faith. God's gift is received by faith. Ephesians

two eight and nine says this, for it is by

grace that you have been saved through faith. Circle that

through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It's the

gift of God, not of works, so that no one

could boast. And they're saying here that faith is the

key that unlocks the door to heaven. And he says

it's just a gift, but you have to receive it

by faith. If I have a gift for you, and

I say, here's this gift for you. It's one hundred dollars,

Come and get it. Well, it'll just sit there unless

you come and receive it by faith.

You have to have faith, and I'm going to give

it to you now, he says.

Because salvation is a gift, you can't brag about it.

If you could work your way to heaven. Do you

realize how miserable it would be in heaven everybody be

bragging about how they got there. Well, I got here

because I did this. Well I got here because, oh well,

let me tell you what I did, and we'd all

be trying to one up each other with great stories

of what great people we were on earth. God says, Now, look,

it's a grace gift, your salvation. I just give you

forgiveness free. I give you heaven free. Here it is.

So what do you do with the gift. You can't

brag about it. You can only accept it and be

grateful for it. Romans four sixteen says this people receive

God's promise circle the word promise by having faith.

This is the promise of salvation.

This happens so that the promise can be a free gift.

Now, what's he saying here?

Salvation isn't based on my performance, thank God. It's based

on God's promise, not my performance. It's not based on

my goodness. It's based on God's grace. I'm getting to heaven,

not based on my merit, but on God's mercy. That's

why he gets all the credit, He gets all the

glory because it's nothing that I could do. It's a

free gift that is received by faith. Now, the Bible

is full of stories illustrating the principle of grace.

There are many of them. One of my favorites is

in the Old Testament.

It's in Second Samuel, chapter nine, and it's a story

of a young disabled boy named Maphibischef.

How'd you like to have that name?

I probably called him Phiby for sure, Hey, Phiby yo yo, Phiby.

Maphibischef was the son of Jonathan, the grandson of King Saul.

In the Old Testament, do you remember the story of

David and Saul. David was crowned, was going to be

the king. Saul was the current king, and Saul was

jealous of David. So most of David's life Saul was

trying to kill him, and he chased him all over

the countryside. David spent most of this time hiding from Saul,

avoiding being killed out of jealousy, but David never retaliated.

In fact, he became best friends with King Saul's son

named Jonathan, and they made a secret covenant that either

of them ever died, they would take care of each

other's family. Later on, both Saul and Jonathan were killed

in battle and David became the king. All of Saul's

relatives immediately were in fear, thinking David, who King Saul

has been trying to kill all his life, is now

in control and he's going.

To kill all of us.

And so they all tried to escape and hide. And

one of them that they were trying to hide was

the son of Jonathan named Maphibisheth.

And as the.

Nurse was carrying the young boy out, she dropped him

in the escape. His legs were broken and he became

a paraplegic. So here was this young disabled boy living

in fear, frightened for his life that the man who

is now king would retaliate against him. One day, David says,

is there anybody still alive? In Saul's household that I

could show kindness to Grace. And they said, yes, there is.

There's one little kid. He's a disabled little boy and

his name's Maphibischef. He cannot walk. David said, bring him

to me. Now you can imagine the fear in Maphibischef's life.

Here's the King invite him to the court. He's thinking,

I'm going to be killed. I'm executed. It's over, it's done.

But to his surprise when he arrived, David said, I'm

going to take you in, Maphibischeff, and make you a

part of my family. I want you to live here

in the palace for the rest of your life. I'm

going to pay all your bills. I'm going to meet

all your needs. You were to sit at my table

each night, and you're to dine with me, and I'm

going to treat you just.

Like one of my own sons. That's Grace.

The Bible says that God comes to us and we're broken,

we're disabled in areas of our lives. We are crippled

in some areas we have our emotions are crippled, or

other things are happening in our lives, and God comes

and says, you know what, I'm going to bring you

into my family, and i want you to sit at

my table, and I'm going to treat you like royalty.

You're one of my own, simply out of my grace.

Do you remember the story of the prodigal son that

Jesus told. There was a man who had two sons,

and one of them got a little anxious and was

independent spirited, and he came and said, Dad, I want

you to give me my half of the inheritance. And

the dad said okay, So he split the future inheritance,

gave half to one son right then, and the kid

took off and he, you know, skipped down, went over

to you know, sunset Strip in Jerusalem, and just I

did party hardying, you know, and he's having a great time,

wine women, a song, living it up, blowing all the

money and everything. And one day he runs out of

money and there's no ATMs in Jerusalem, and he hits

bottom morally, spiritually, financially, in every way possible. In fact,

it said he ended up having to work feeding pigs

in a pig sty, and he was so hungry he

would eat the food that the pigs were eating. Now,

you know, that Jewish people don't eat pork, So that's

about as low as you can go, living with a

pig and eating a pig's food, so culturally he couldn't

get more degraded. And one day, while he's in this mess,

the younger son goes, what am I doing? My father's

servants are treated better than this.

He says, you know what, I think.

I'm going to go home and I'm going to go

back to Dad and say, Dad, I've blown it.

I made a mistake.

I'm sorry, and I don't even deserve to be called

your son anymore. But Dad, just make me one of

your hired servants, and I will work for you as

a servant, not as a son, for the rest of

my life, because your servants are treated better than I

was out in the world. And the story goes that

is the prodigal son was coming home. The father saw

him from a long way off, and it says he

ran out to greet the boy and he grabs him

in a big bear hug, and he hugs him and

embraces him. He didn't wait for him to get cleaned up,

to get that smell of pigs off him, or all

that kind of stuff.

He hugs him, and then he says, Hey.

Bring out all the royal robes and bring out some jewelry,

and let's give him the official family ring and let's

throw a party.

My son has come home. That's grace. That's grace.

The kid deserved condemnation. The kid deserved to be judged, rejected.

The kid deserved to lecture from the dad' said I

told you so. But instead he's received with love, unconditional love.

That is the grace of God and it is a

received by faith.

Hey, thanks so much for joining us here on Pastor

Rick's Daily Hope. I've got some exciting news to share

with you today. Some generous friends of Daily Hope have

offered a ten thousand dollars matching grant, and that means

whatever amount you give to help share the hope of

Jesus worldwide is gonna be matched up to ten thousand dollars.

Here's Pastor Rick to tell you more.

Hi, everybody, thanks so much for listening today. You know,

my hope is that God uses this broadcast to help

deepen your relationship with Jesus. Now, these Daily Hope messages

are distributed on radio stations and digital platforms all across

the globe, and listeners are writing and letting us know

that their lives are being changed. They're telling us that

they're walking with Jesus and that guilt and fear has

been chased from their lives by God's love. You know,

relationships are being restored and marriages are being healed, and

many people are saying that they've found their life purpose.

I want to say thank you to you, because we're

only able to carry the hope of Jesus to these

people all around the world because of gifts from generous

listeners like you. I just wanted to say I am

so grateful for your prayers and your financial support.

Now.

I understand in times like these many of you are

unable to give financial support.

Hear it from me.

That's okay, because I never want anybody to give unless

God leads them to give. That's between you and God,

not between you and me, but between.

You and God.

And your prayers are a continual and incredible contribution to

this Daily Hope ministry. Now, if you do want to

give a financial gift, I've got some really great news

to share with you. There's a generous friend of Daily

Hope Broadcast who is offering to match the amount of

your gift. In other words, if you give twenty dollars,

then that persons combined it with a grant to make

your gift forty dollars. Now, if you've never given a

gift to Daily Hope, I want you to pray about

partnering with us so that together we can continue to

share the hope of Jesus.

Throughout the whole world. I love you so much.

Just go to pastorrig dot com to have your gift

matched up to ten thousand dollars. Once again, it's pastorg

dot com. Or you can text the word hope to

seven oh three to oh nine. That's the word hope

to seven oh three oh nine and again. All of

us here at Daily Hope thank you so much for

your support. Your gift helps us share the hope of

Christ with people everywhere. Be sure to join us next

time as we look into God's word for our daily hope.

This program is sponsored by Pastor's Daily Hope and your

generous financial support.