Grace - The DNA of God Part Two with Tony Cooke

So I told you today about a lady named Marjorie, who is my mom's

friend. And she said, Tony, when I was

18 years old. And it just been filled with the

Holy Spirit. She said, can you tell me what

Grace is? And I wanted her to think I was

smart. So I said yes.

She said, what is it? And I said it's unmerited favor.

And I thought I'd really just, you know, because that was a

Theo. How many of you think

theological definitions are going to change people's lives?

You know, and you know, I just think as I was flying down here,

of course, flew into Jacksonville and was driving

over. And, you know, when people think

of Saint Augustine, I wonder how many times they really think of

Saint Augustine. The, the, the preacher that

lived back. He did, you know, he is African,

he is North African and he, he's actually a brilliant guy.

You may not agree with everything he said.

I may not agree with everything he said, but he said some pretty

amazing things. And one of the things he said

that that really impressed me when I, I think he is in the 5th

century, if I'm not mistaken. I'll have to go back and check

my dates. But he said, and I'm, I'm really

going to butcher this quote, so forgive me, but he said, what

good does it do you if with profundity you can define the

Trinity and yet by your pride you offend the Trinity?

And he was saying it's it's better, you know, I mean, I'm

all for knowledge. I'm a Bible teacher, but but if

we, you know, get in this groove where it's all about such hyper

precise technical knowledge that we miss the Spirit of God in the

issue, you know, we're missing it.

So, so I'm all for wanting to be able to come up with some kind

of working definition of grace, but I'd much rather you have a

little bit of technical knowledge about grace, but

because of your faith and your humility, you be able to drink

deeply from God's grace. Because the main objective in

the Christian life is not just simply being able to have

precise technical knowledge of things, but it's to be able to

partake of things. I love the verse in the Bible

that says taste and see that the Lord is good.

And I've known people who got into, I mean knock down, drag

out fights about the grace of God.

And I'm thinking is that gracious?

You know, if I really believe in the grace of God, some some

aspect of that should lead me to become a gracious person, you

know, and and same with so many things.

But anyway, you know, when Marjorie, that friend of my mom,

said, what is grace? And I, out of pride, said it's

unmerited favor, I thought I was just so smart to tell her that.

And she said, yeah, but what's that?

And then all of a sudden I felt very uncomfortable because I

couldn't go beyond that. And I said, well, that's favor

that is not merited, which, you know, she she probably figured

out then. I don't really know very much

about this. And she said, yeah, but what's

that? And then I just had to say,

well, you know, and and so it's really years.

I, every time I'd read Grace in the Bible, I'd say, I want to, I

want to know what that is. I I don't really know what that

is. And I'm going to give you some

kind of working definitions. I wish I'd known some of these

then when I was talking to her, I think I could have answered

her better. But the next slide, just some of

the definitions we've have here. Is that Grace?

GRACE is God's riches at Christ's expense.

That's kind of a good insight. Grace is what flows out of our

gracious God. I really gracious is probably

not a word we use a lot in our society today, but how many know

when you've met a gracious person, somebody who's kind,

somebody who's generous, somebody who's positive,

somebody who's affirming, encouraging, you know, they just

exude, you know, kindness toward other people.

Grace is what flows out of our gracious God.

Grace is God's and these are just random definitions.

Grace is God's love, mercy and compassion, forever reaching out

to us and for us. Grace, this is 1.

I think this is from Vine's Dictionary of Greek words.

Vine said that grace is God's divine influence upon the heart

and it's reflection in life, in our lives.

Grace is God's power in action. Grace is God doing for us what

we could have never done for ourselves.

Second slide there is grace is the sum total of all that God

did for us in Christ, all that he's doing for us now through

the Holy Spirit and all that He will do for us in the future.

Grace is favor or kindness shown without regard to the worth or

merit of the one who receives it, and maybe in spite of what

that same person deserves. Grace is the active expression

of God's character. Grace is the outpouring of God's

love. So those are just a few.

I mean, those are worth, you know, just thinking about

meditating on as you study through Scripture, you know,

what the Bible says about grace is 1000 times more important

than what I say about grace. Hopefully what I'm saying is

coinciding with, and often the same thing is what the Bible is

saying about grace. But you know, maybe have some of

those definitions in your mind as you think about what the

Bible said. Do you know Paul began almost

every letter, I think, and ended every letter with these grace be

unto you. Great.

See, I used to think those are just mere formalities like you

know, yours truly or sincerely yours or you just saying it to

be saying it. But no, those were words that

conveyed blessing. And when Paul said grace be unto

you, he was really making a powerful statement.

You know, we've all been taught about the power of words and

life and death are in the power of the tongue And and you know,

that's why Paul began all these letters and John, Peter, you

know, they all did. But let's go to the next slide.

And this is kind of a review of what we talked about this

morning. We we talked about electricity.

I hope how many of you were here today, this morning, You heard

this morning Good most everybody.

So if you weren't, you can go back, I'm sure and grab the

information. But I said grace is a little bit

like electricity. But on one hand you can say,

well, electricity is just electricity and it is.

But electricity will create different results depending on

what it flows into. And you can say grace is grace,

and that's true. But grace will produce different

results depending on what part of our life we allow grace to

flow into or what part of our life where we receive that

grace. You know, grace does something

different flowing into a microwave than it does flowing

into a refrigerator. It's all electricity, but it

produces different results when we come to God as a lost person,

you know, separated from God, sin, you know that type of

thing. And and we say, Jesus, I receive

you because he is he. You know, he is the Lord of

grace. The Bible says he's the God of

grace. By grace He tasted of death for

every man. The Holy Spirit is called the

Spirit of grace. You know, grace is the sum total

of everything that God did for us in Christ and is doing for us

now through the person of the Holy Spirit.

So if I'm a lost person and I come to Jesus and I come to God

and you know, the God of all grace, then grace makes me a new

creature. But that's not the end of grace

because I've got other areas of my life that need his influence,

that need his help, that need his direction.

So we told you this morning that we're going to be talking about

saving grace, strengthening grace, sanctifying grace,

sharing grace, serving grace, you know, because those are all

vital. And we have a picture of a

diamond there because we wanted you to understand that, you

know, grace is grace, just like a diamond is a diamond.

But how many of you know, when you look at that diamond?

I'm not a jeweler. I, I know I've bought a few

things for my wife over the years.

I'm not one, you know, maybe some of you guys are just

phenomenal gift givers, but my wife is, I say this so lovingly

and so kindly, but she is so precise about what she wants and

she doesn't want a lot. You know, she'd, she'd much

rather have a walk on the beach than some gift.

But every once in a while she'll say, you know, I'd like a ring

and, but it's pretty rare. She had that just a couple of

years ago. And so we had to go.

And I mean, I had the privilege of going.

That's what I meant. I had the privilege of going

while she looked at many different rings.

I just love that. I just loved waiting there,

being with her and Earl. Am I digging myself out of this

pastor? You think I'm doing my best?

Anyway, baby, if you're watching tonight, I love you so.

But she's, she's so precise about what she wants.

So anyway, but a jeweler, you know, I just look and say that's

a that's a diamond. But a jeweler will take that.

Is it an Oculus? I don't know what it's called

that little magnifying glass. And the jeweler might, if this

is what they do, turn that diamond and look at every facet.

So I, I, I don't know much about this, so I want to share because

I believe there is a similarity between something like grace and

a diamond because I believe they're both multifaceted.

So let's look at it. I just grabbed this all.

I just grabbed this online this morning.

Here's a definition of of what diamond facets are.

Diamond facets are flat surfaces cut onto a diamond surface.

These facets act as mirrors, reflecting light and creating

the diamonds brilliance, fire, and sparkle.

I like those terms. Diamond facets are the numerous

flat surfaces on a diamond that are strategically created and

arranged to optimize the stones interaction with light.

Each facet is meticulously cut and polished to exact angles.

This enables light to enter the diamond, reflect internally, and

exit back out to produce the sparkle that diamonds are famous

for. Now when you stop and think

about that if if if if this is a decent example.

I hope it is if grace is like a diamond in that it, it's one

stone, but there are different facets of the same diamond.

You stop and think about that. Just like electricity,

electricity is electricity, but it when it flows in, it'll

produce different things. So my question for you tonight,

you know, we tried to lay a little bit of a foundation this

morning. Tonight we want to really

examine how many areas of your life are being affected on a

day-to-day basis by the grace of God in your present day

experience and walk with God. You know, I think there it is

possible if somebody has not had a lot of teaching about grace,

they might, you know, and you say have you experienced the

grace of God? You know, they could say, yeah,

I got saved on such and such a date.

And maybe it's 20 years ago and they're thinking their only

experience with the grace of God is the day they passed from

spiritual darkness into spiritual light.

And listen, if that's the only time that you've experienced the

grace of God, great. Thank God for that one.

But there's so much more. That'd be like saying, you know,

have you ever experienced the benefits of electricity?

And a person would say, yeah, seven years ago when I moved

into this house or apt, I turned on the lights once.

Wait a minute. You you turn on the light?

You mean you don't turn on the lights every day?

You mean you don't you don't have the refrigerator plugged

in? You mean you don't have a hair

dryer curling iron plugged in? You mean you don't have the

coffee pot plugged in? You don't have the TV and the

micro? You don't have your computer?

No, I just. But I had an encounter with

electricity once. Do you see how you're missing so

much if if you just think that getting saved is just having one

A1 time experience? Thank God for the one time

experience. There's so much more.

When when I was, I told you this morning, didn't I tell you about

that when I was 18 years old, I got spirit filled.

I told you that this morning. And I was raised in the mainline

traditional denominational church.

And three weeks after I graduated from high school, a

friend took me. Remember this?

Three weeks after I graduated from high school, a friend took

me to a meeting. Now, if you're here and you're

an old timer, you may remember the name Charles and Francis

Hunter. Anybody here remember that name?

Few folks remember that name. They were when I was 18, when I

first met them. They just seemed ancient to me.

And of course, when you're 18, you know, 45 seems ancient.

But anyway, we won't start getting into relativity and

stuff like that. But he's this older couple and

but God used them in some amazing ways.

He laid his hands on me that night.

The power of God came into my body and I fell under the power

of God. And when I got up, he said,

young man, bend over and touch the floor.

And he didn't know I, you know, active in sports and all that,

but I was playing everything I did.

I had pain in my back. I had pain shooting down the

back, right side of my leg. Anytime I would bend over past,

you know, if I bent down to touch my kneecaps, that pain

would shoot down. I could force myself to go

lower, but man, did it hurt. My parents had sent me to three

different doctors and they couldn't do anything.

He laid his hands on me. The power of God tangibly came

into my body and when I stood up, he said, young man, bend

over and and touch the floor. I bent over and put both palms

on the floor with no pain whatsoever.

Don't ask me to do that. Now I can bend over without pain

but things change between 18 and 66.

But anyway, so never have had a back problem since then.

So but but that was three weeks after I graduated from high

school. I got filled with the Holy

Spirit that night. Spoke in tongues.

Been speaking in tongues ever since.

Thank God for being able to pray in the Spirit.

Right before that, right before I graduated from high school, I

I told you I grew up in North Central IN and went to a

probably a relatively small high school.

Our high school was literally, and I'm not kidding one bit,

located in the middle in between 4 cornfields.

It was completely rural Indiana. And so, so I'm just saying that

to kind of give you, I wasn't part of a big city school or

anything. It was a fairly small school,

but I was class president my senior year and a month or

probably two months, I don't remember when my, my high school

principal called me into the office and said, Tony,

graduation is coming up. And because you are the class

president, you will automatically be giving the

graduation speech representing the school, representing the

senior class without one bit of hesitation.

I said his name was Mr. Burkholder.

Wonderful man. I said, Mr. Burkholder, find

somebody else. And he said, what?

And I said find somebody else. He said, well, Tony, it's a

great honor to speak at your high school graduation.

I said I have no interest in public speaking.

I said honestly, I said it would not be a, a, a pleasant

experience for me. Please get somebody else.

And he tried to talk me into it. I just, I just kindly, you know,

don't want anything unpleasant or controversial or adversarial

about it. I just said, I just don't, I

don't want to speak in front of people.

So he got a good friend of mine, a guy, and and he did the

graduation speech, did a great job.

I was so thankful that night that I didn't have to get up and

speak. Three weeks later was that

night, that meeting where I got prayed for, filled with the Holy

Spirit and healed. Now, I didn't turn into a

preacher overnight, but something happened in my life

when I got filled with the Spirit and I started going to

all these meetings, all these, we didn't even really have any

established churches like this. Boy, I wish we would.

We started going to all these, you know, Bible studies with

just 17/18/1920 year olds. We'd all had that experience

with the Holy Spirit. We'd get together and, and none

of us knew anything. None of us have been saved or

spirit filled very long at all. We'd get together and talk about

a scripture that we'd found that week and we'd sing a couple of

songs and it was just super informal and super, you know,

kind of disorganized and that type of thing.

But, but God showed up in some of those meetings with the young

people. And I think there's either 5 or

6, six of us ended up in full time preaching ministry out of

that disjointed group of people that just we met in people's

garages and their basements and their living rooms, you know,

just, you know, for a few months there.

And I didn't, like I said, I didn't start preaching full, but

all of a sudden I, I'd read a scripture during the week and I

could not wait to get to Bible study to tell because we had,

you know, small group young people, just, you know, what did

you learn this week and share? Boy, this week I read this and,

and wow, this is what it means to me.

And a few months later it was, I read these two scriptures this

week and wow, did it impact my life.

And this is what these scriptures mean to me.

And, and the third month or whenever I said I read these 3

verses and then it just kept until I was giving lessons and

all of a sudden this kid that didn't want to speak publicly is

now speaking a lot. Before that I completely had no

interest in speaking before people.

God put something on the inside of me that wasn't there.

Now, I think God can take natural abilities and enhance

them or or you know, add a touch to them, but God can also put

things on the inside of a person that were not there at all.

You know, and I don't know, sometimes people say, was it

natural ability or is it just a supernatural gift?

Sometimes I don't know, but just whatever you have, use it for

the glory of God. And so anyway, so serving Grace

says, I trust in God's ability to equip me to serve others.

So we're going to give you a scripture for each one.

Let's go to the next slide. If we could, I want to give you

a scripture for each one. We talked about saving grace.

Let me give you another definition.

Saving grace according you say which of these definitions is

right? Well, I hope they're all right.

I think they're just different ways that you know, how many of

you know, if, if several people look at a mountain from

different perspectives, you know, one person might focus on

the the trees on it, one person might focus on the waterfalls on

it, Some person might focus on how steep it is, some person

might focus on how tall. And all the descriptions are

accurate, but they all are a little bit different.

So here's a definition for saving grace.

It's God's life and power released toward and working

inside of an individual, justifying him or her and making

him or her a new creature in Christ.

That's that to me is a pretty good definition of saving grace.

And, and this is the verse we looked at today.

For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of

yourselves. It is the gift of God.

It is not of works, not of it's it's not of our works.

It's his work. It's not of human works.

It's of God's work. It's not of your works, lest

anyone should boast. So none of us have anything to

brag about when it comes to standing before God.

You know, I can't say God. I'm here in your presence

because I'm so awesome. I'm here because God, I've just

done so many amazing things. I know you're really impressed

with me. God it's Father.

I come in the name of Jesus. That means I come because of who

he is. I come because of what he did.

I come because of his shed blood.

I come because of his death, burial, and resurrection.

He, he's the mediator between myself and God.

He, he's the mediator between you and God.

So that's a good scripture about saving grace.

What about strengthening grace? And what about a verse on that

strengthening? Grace is God's life and power

released toward and working in an individual, strengthening him

and enabling Him to stand victorious in life.

See, grace doesn't just get you into the Kingdom.

Grace empowers you once you're in the Kingdom verse we have

here Romans 517 For if by one man's offense death reigned, who

is the one man that his offense or his sin enabled death to come

in and rule and reign over the human race?

Adam, by one man's offense, death reigned through the one.

Much more, everybody say much more.

We're not talking an equal thing.

We're talking a much more thing, much more.

Those who receive what abundance of grace?

You know, I just wonder now I'm speculating those who receive

abundance of grace, are there Christians who maybe just

receive a little bit of grace, just enough to make it into

heaven? I'm just asking a question.

How many Christians don't receive all the grace that they

could? Those that receive abundance of

grace will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

So, so it doesn't say will reign in heaven, it says we will

reign. And that implies we will, we

will be like royalty on earth. We will reign in life, in life

through the one Jesus Christ. So that is what we would call

strengthening grace. And then what about this thing

that we've been calling sanctifying grace?

We're going to elaborate more on a lot of these things tomorrow,

But sanctifying grace, the definition I have here is that

sanctifying grace is God's life and power released toward and

working in an individual. Cleansing everybody, say

cleansing, cleansing him or her and enabling him or her to live

a holy life. Titus 211 and 12 For the grace

of God. This is Paul, this is the

apostle Paul, this is the Bible, the grace of God that brings

salvation. So that's kind of a neat thing

that grace does is it brings salvation to people.

Have you ever heard somebody say, I just went seeking after

God? I sought after God and I finally

found God And, and I'm not, I'm not trying to dispute or, or put

anybody down, but but really the Bible says Jesus said in John

15, he said you did not choose me, but I chose you.

John said, it's not that we loved him, it's that he loved

us. Now, I'm not saying that people

don't go on a spiritual journey and try this and try.

I know that kind of thing happens.

And, and I suppose from an earthly standpoint, people do

think that they're seeking after God, but the big reality is that

long before you ever thought about seeking after God, he had

already sought you. Now I know this is a hymn, not

Scripture, but I think this, how many of you know hymns may or

may not be true? Scripture is always true.

But I think this, I think the hymn, He sought me and He bought

me with his redeeming blood. Now whenever you say I sought

him, I'm not going to, you know, argue if you say that, but just

understand this. He'd already sought you.

He'd already bought you before you were even born.

God said I have loved you with an everlasting love.

That means no beginning, no end. I've loved you with an

everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness

I have drawn you to myself and all that time you may be

thinking that you are seeking God, but I think the ultimate

reality and the pre-existing reality is that He was seeking

you. So the grace of God that brings

salvation has appeared to all men.

Wait a minute, does that mean everybody's going to be saved?

Does that mean everybody's going to heaven?

It says it's appeared, doesn't say it's been received.

I believe that salvation is offered to all, but it's only

received by those who receive. Jesus wept over the city of

Jerusalem. He said, how often would I have

gathered you, you know, under And he said you would not.

You know, I mean, you can find so many scriptures about people,

you know, saying no to God and rejecting God.

The fact that the grace of God brings salvation and that

salvation has appeared or been made available doesn't mean that

everybody said yes, doesn't mean that everybody's accepted it.

The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all

men. Teaching us.

Look at verse 12. Teaching us.

So did you know grace teaches that word teaching in the Greek

language is training it it's, it's a, it's not just a, an

intellectual passing on of information.

It's like hands on training. I'm going to train you how to do

this. The grace of God that brings

salvation has appeared to all men teaching us who's us?

We're the ones who've said yes to the salvation, to the grace

teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts.

We should everybody say should we should live soberly,

righteously and godly in this present age.

Now, that right there deserves some time.

That right there deserves some unpacking because some people

have taught or implied or or people have gathered, perhaps

through ignorance or whatever reason, that grace means you're

forgiven. You can do whatever you want.

There's never any consequences for disobedience or sin.

The grace of God teaches us, trains us, that denying what

does denying mean? Says say no to it.

Denying ungodliness and worldly lust?

We say no to that, and then we should.

That means we say yes to living soberly, righteously, and godly

in this present age. Saving grace gives you life.

Sanctifying grace helps you to live a lifestyle.

This is so huge. Let me let me just say this.

I wish I had this on the screen, but I don't.

Grace is never ever, ever divine permission to do wrong.

Grace is divine empowerment to do right.

Grace not only delivers us from the penalty of sin, grace

delivers us from the power of sin.

Sharing grace. I'm just giving you one

scripture for each of these 5, but I think I think that's a

good basis for what we're going to launch from and go into

tomorrow night sharing grace. This is one people don't think

about. Generosity is the heart of God.

You know, I don't know any ministry in the world that

doesn't function because somebody's generous.

This church functions because people are generous.

People bring their tithes and their offerings and see the

mission, the guy, the people you support, the missions that you

do personally here at this church, the outreach that you

are that. I mean, it's like somebody once

said the water, you know, the gospel, you know, it's living

water and the water's free, but the plumbing's real expensive.

OK. And it's always been that way.

Do you know Jesus had financial partners in his ministry?

Luke chapter 8, it talks about a group of women that followed and

Luke 8 · chapter mention

they gave him regularly of their substance.

And and so thank God for every person that ties into Anchor

Faith Church that gives offerings, that does all the

support. But I've always noticed it

interesting and that that sometimes people feel that when,

you know, we have this dynamic praise and worship and people

are just, oh, they're just. And, and then all of a sudden

the pastor, you know, gets up and mentions the offering and

then it's just kind of like, well, we're having such a good

time with God and you have to go bring up the offering and talk

about money and stuff like that. God's just as much.

And he, he's not a materialist, you know what I'm saying by

that? He's not a, he's not greedy,

He's not covetous. He's not, but, but he wants to

be involved in every area of our life.

He wants to be involved in us being good stewards of our

finances, just like he wants to be good stewards of our tongues

and worshipping and praising God.

And and so we see that the grace of God has the grace of God will

influence your material life. So what is sharing grace?

It's God's life and power release toward and working in a

in an individual. I really should say it's God's

life power and provision. We need to add provision in

there released toward and working in an individual

prompting cheerfulness. Everybody say cheerfulness in

giving to others. And I think the Amplified Bible

probably has the best rendition of this because it really does

amplify it. Let's look at this together.

And, and just so you'll know, Second Corinthians chapter 8 and

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

9, Paul is talking totally about finances and this is what he

says. And God is able to make, this is

Isaiah 9:8

Chapter 9, verse 8. God is able to make all grace.

So he's talking about grace in the middle of a 2 chapter

teaching. He's talking about grace in the

middle of finances and stewardship and God is able to

make all grace. And now here you see, we're

going to see a different facet. He's not talking about anybody

going to heaven here. He's not really talking about

being empowered for daily living.

He's not really talking about holiness.

He's talking about finances. He's talking about generosity.

So it's a different facet of the same diamond.

God is able to make all grace, and now he identifies which

facet of the diamond. He's talking about every favor

and what kind of blessing. What kind of blessing?

Earthly blessing. Now, do we seek earthly

blessings first? No.

Do we put money first? No.

Does God care about your resources?

Yes. God is able to make every grace,

every favor and earthly blessing come to you in abundance so that

you may always and under all circumstances and whatever the

need be self-sufficient. Now that doesn't mean

self-sufficient without God. It means God by his ability is

going to make you self-sufficient.

But it's really a God sufficiency.

It's a self-sufficiency based on 1st a God sufficiency,

possessing enough to require no aid or support, and furnished in

abundance for every good work and charitable donation.

So notice it starts with God providing your need so that God

being generous to you, so that you can be generous toward

others. God operates on a principle of

freely. You have received freely give.

He operates on a principle of such as I have give I thee.

Now somebody could very easily, you know, a person who's

thinking, a person who's using their brain could say brother

cook. You say freely, I have received

brother cook. I didn't freely receive

anything. I've worked hard for everything

I've got. I mean, I, I, you know, I, I

worked my way through school. I worked my way through college.

I mean, I started the bottom of the corporate rung.

I mean, I've worked his blood, sweat and tears.

You know, I, I've worked my way up and all, all the wealth I

have, I've earned it. Can you understand somebody

having that attitude? Yeah, from a natural standpoint

you can. But here's my question.

And, and OK, great commend you. How many of you know work is a

good thing? You know, we commend work.

You know Jesus, did you know Jesus was a Carpenter 6 times

longer than he was a preacher? He was a Carpenter from the age

of 12 to the age of 30. He just preached for three

years. He was a Carpenter for 18 years.

We're all for work. Adam was a gardener and a

security guard. Abraham was a rancher and a, you

know, her, you know, traded in goods and things through his

camels. And, you know, Joseph and Daniel

and Nehemiah all worked in government.

Luke was a physician. Paul was a leather worker.

I mean, work is a good thing, but here's the question.

When you were climbing the corporate ladder, when you were

earning the degrees or going through your training school,

whose oxygen were you breathing while you were doing that?

Those muscles, if you if you work, you know, physically, you

know who gave you those muscles? So I I developed them.

Yeah. But where do they come from?

Who? Who formed you?

You're fearfully and wonderfully self created.

No, no, you're formed in the womb by God.

You. So I made my I'm.

I'm a great intellect and that type of thing.

Yeah, well, well, did you create your own brain?

Everything we have comes from God.

So we're not devaluing, we're not disrespecting the hard work

you've done, but we should always keep in mind that that

it's only by the grace of God that we were given the raw

materials to do something from that.

And with that is his air we were breathing.

And sometimes we don't even, you know, do you ever just thank God

for air, you know, things like that.

So say, serve a sharing grace. God is generous toward us.

We become generous toward others.

And finally, what we're going to call serving grace, serving

grace, we're defining it as God's life and power release

toward and working in an individual, enabling him to

serve God and others with a divinely imparted ability.

And we read in first Peter chapter 4, verse 10, Peter's

1 Peter 4:10

writing. If you look at first Peter

chapter one, verse 1, you read that Peter was talking to

Christians all over, really a large region of what today is

the nation of Turkey. He talks about to the believers

and we just read it. We don't know what they're

talking if we haven't studied the geographies in Pontus and

Bethenny and Cappadocia and so on.

He's talking about, it'd be like saying to the believers in

Florida and Georgia and you know, South Carolina and all

that type of thing. It's a pretty huge region and

and so he's not talking to 1 Christian, he's not talking to a

pastor. He's talking to believers in

multiple churches over a large geographical realm.

And he says as each one, as each one.

Now, what does each one mean? If I said this is hypothetical,

OK, this, I'm not saying this every say this is this is

hypothetical, OK? But if I said after service I

want each one to come see me, I'm going to give you each $100

bill. I said that's hypothetical.

And you come up to me and you see me start handing out and I

said, oh, I'm sorry to you. I say to you, oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't mean you. I meant, I meant everybody else.

You can have a problem with that, right?

You say you didn't, you didn't give out an exemption.

You, you said each one. I'm part of each one.

How many of you are part of each one?

Peter says. As each one of you has received

a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the

manifold grace of God. That word manifold means multi

colored. And I, I, I'm trying to remember

the, the Greek, but I, I know it's, it's associated with what

we would call like a plant. If you, if you're got a green

thumb and do gardening work, you know what a leaf is that's

variegated means it's got different shades of color within

the same leaf and that type of thing.

It's all the same leaf, but there's many different shades.

The manifold, we would say it this way, the multifaceted or

the diversified grace of God. So let's read it that way as

each one has received a gift. Notice he doesn't say we've

received the same gift because we don't have the same gift.

We have different gifts. Minister it to one another as

good stewards of the diversified, the multifaceted

manifold multi colored grace of God.

If anyone speaks, let him speak as of the oracles of God.

See some people their gift is a vocal thing.

But then he says, but if anyone serves ministers, let him do it.

As with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God

may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

So serving grace. This isn't talking about going

to heaven when you die. This isn't even talking about

being a victorious Christian in the sense that we think of

individual victory. It's not talking about being a

holy Christian. This is talking about being a

productive Christian. This is talking about doing

things that will benefit other people.

And it may be that you have a vocal gift if any man speaks.

So what what in the Bible would that Well, that would include

preaching, teaching, prophesying, exhorting,

encouraging. You know, there's a whole bunch

of different levels that people speak and it's a gift from God.

But but then he said, but if anyone ministers, meaning some

people don't have a speaking gift, Not everybody's called to

be behind a pulpit. Most people are called to be

behind the scenes. Do you know if if you can

picture an iceberg right now in a cross section of an iceberg?

If you've seen these on some of the documentaries?

I don't know what the figure is. Maybe somebody watches the

National Geographic or whatever. But it's like what 10% of the

iceberg is a is above the surface of the water.

Is that what? What's the exact figure?

Does anybody know? I don't even know if it's the

same with every iceberg. Well, it's just hypothetically

10% of the iceberg is above the surface of the water.

It's visible. 90% hypothetically is beneath the surface of the

water. You don't see it, I mean, unless

you're under the water. Do you know, that's a lot like

church? People come to Anchor Faith

Church on a Sunday and man, the, you know, they see some greeters

and that type of thing that's really nice and see the snack

bar and the thing that's nice. And they come in here and man,

they see this great worship team up here, you know, and, and, and

they hear pastoral get up and deliver the word, you know, and,

and they leave and, and they have an assessment of Anchor

Faith Church. But you know what they, they

just saw maybe 10%. They didn't see all the praying,

all the people that pray behind the scenes.

They didn't see the planning that takes place.

They didn't see the organizing. They didn't see the different

department heads. They didn't see the different

coordination between different team members who are, who are

doing outreach and all these things.

Thank God for what happened. Thank God for the 10%, but every

healthy, vibrant church, there's way more that the average person

attending doesn't see, but it's just as valuable, just as

important.