Grace - The DNA of God Part One with Tony Cooke

I'm going to talk to you about the grace of God and this I

taught a course on this topic before you were students at

Rheem. I taught it from 88 to 94.

I taught and we rotated courses and taught different courses at

different times, but I first taught on the topic of grace in

a single sermon in 1986. And the first time that I taught

on grace, it was kind of a the result of a journey.

I got filled with the Holy Spirit in 1977 and I was raised

in a mainline traditional denominational church.

To be honest, I didn't love church a lot.

I had church services were quite boring to me.

I respected God. I respected, you know, I'm, I'm

thankful for the things I learned.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm glad I learned the 10

commandments. How many of you think the 10

commandments are good? I mean, we're not saved by the

10 commandments, you know, but how many of you want your

neighbor to believe in the 10 commandments?

How many of you want your, you know, society's better if people

say, you know, God doesn't really want us killing each

other, stealing from each other, you know, lying to each other

and things like that. They they set a standard of

conduct and things like that that reflects certain godly

standards. But you're never going to get

saved by keeping the 10 Commandments.

I know when I was a little kid, before I even knew what the 10

Commandments were, I had three older brothers.

And before I even knew what Thou Shalt not covet meant, I'd

already coveted my brother's candy bar.

Before I ever knew what Thou Shalt not steal meant, I had

already eaten or stolen his candy bar in order to eat it.

And before I really knew much about what thou shalt not lie

meant, I'd already lied When my mom said did you at your

brother's candy bar, I said no. I'd broken three of the 10

commandments before I even knew what they were.

And so nobody, you know, I don't care how good you think you are.

You know you may be a good moral person by society standards, and

that's great. You know, I'm glad you're a good

person, but nobody's good enough to make it into heaven because

the Bible says we've all sinned and we've all come short of the

glory of God. And you say, well, I've kept

most of the commandments. Well, the Bible says if we keep

all the commandments and yet offend in one point, we're

guilty of the whole thing. You say, well, I don't like

that. Well, that's too bad.

That's that's that's how it works.

You may not like the law of gravity, but you know that it

works. That's how it is.

And so that's one of the reasons we're going to talk about the

grace of God. But I got spirit filled in 1977,

three weeks after I graduated from high school.

Friend took me to a meeting. People were acting a little bit

like they're acting here in church today, which is real

different than the way we acted in, in our church growing up.

I mean, you, there's just no emotion.

No, I mean, we're ultra conservative, ultra reserved.

You know what, what hopping, bouncing.

I mean, we didn't sway, we didn't do nothing.

We just stood stiff as a statue. And and and that's I'm not, I'm

not here to get on anybody. But, you know, but to see people

raising their hands in church at this friend took me to a

meeting, People were raising their hands.

I mean, people did this outlandish thing that we didn't

even do in our church at all. They smiled, I mean, they

actually smiled in church and I thought, I don't think I've ever

seen anybody smile in church. I mean, just we were that,

that's how, you know, conservative we were and that

type of thing. But, but Long story short, I got

filled with the Holy Spirit that night that was June the 9th,

1977 and got healed from a back condition supernaturally

instantaneously. My, I'd had a back condition for

two years, sports kind of type of thing.

I, my parents had sent me to three different types of doctors

trying to. And they all just said, you

know, that we, we don't know exactly why your back hurts like

it does. We can't do anything for it.

And in one instant, God healed my back.

And you know, in that night, my friend said, did you receive the

Holy Spirit tonight? And man, I'd heard of the Holy

Spirit, you know, because every, every time we left church, we

sang the doxology and every time we were in church, we recited

the Apostles Creed. I'm grateful for all these

things. I'm I'm great, but but somehow

these things I don't know. They stayed up kind of just

merely intellectual. And he said, did you receive the

Holy Spirit? And and to me that was just the

Holy Spirit was just somebody that we mentioned in a creed,

you know, have a relationship with him, receive him.

And I said, well, I don't even know exactly what that means.

And he took me through the book of Acts and showed me and showed

me how the people spoke in other tongues when they received the

Holy Spirit. And so I said, well, if that's

kind of anything related to the power that came into my life,

when because I felt the power come into my body when my back

got healed, I said, if that's him, I want all of him there is.

And that night received the infilling of the Holy Spirit,

spoke in other tongues. And that radically changed the

course of my life, radically changed the course of my life.

And so that summer, my, my parents didn't quite know what

to do with me because they literally, you know, they, they

had battled getting me to church.

You know, I just always wanted not to go to church until it's

boring. I don't understand it.

And all of a sudden, I'm going to multiple Bible studies a

week. And they didn't quite know what

to do with it. And so I was with my mom back in

her hometown in southern Indiana, visiting a friend of

hers she'd grown up in church with.

And this lady, very sweet lady, she's and my mom said she didn't

know how to describe it. So she just said, well,

Marjorie, she said Tony's really gotten interested in the Bible

in the last few months. That's all she knew how to say

is I've gotten interested in the Bible and this lady that my mom

had grown up with said, well, Tony, maybe you can help me with

something. She said, I've been in church

all my life and she said I, I, I don't know.

They always talk about grace. She said, what is grace now?

I don't know. I was 18 years old.

I've been spirit filled a couple months.

I wanted to think I was smart, you know, because I've been,

I've been, you know, speaking in tongues and reading the Bible.

And I was really, I mean, I was learning and growing and really

in love with Jesus and really excited about the Lord and, and

things like that. But I didn't want to admit that

I really didn't know what it was.

And she said, can you help me understand what grace is?

And because I wanted to sound smart and because I wanted her

to think I knew things, you know, because of my deep

experience now of two months, I said, well, yes, I can help you

with what Grace is. And she says, well, what is

grace? And I'd heard somebody give a

definition. So I said, well, grace is

unmerited favor. And I thought I'd just really

hit a Grand Slam. I just thought I'd really just

like, she was just going to change her life and all that.

And then and then she said something I wasn't expecting.

She said, yeah, but what's that? And now I'm stuck because I'd

heard somebody. How many of you know, just

because you hear somebody say something and you can repeat

what somebody says doesn't mean you really grasp anything about

the magnitude or the depth of what it is.

And so I went from feeling pretty good about myself to

realizing I'm in trouble now because she's asked me to go

beyond the standard definition of grace and unmerited favors a

fine definition, but it's not it's it's not a real profound

deep definition, she said. So I said grace is unmerited

favor. And she said, yeah, but what's

that? And I said I didn't want to tell

her. I don't know.

Should have, but I just said well, well, that's that's favor

that is not merited. And she said, yeah, but what's

that? And I was I pretty much had had

reached the depths of my understanding at that point.

And so that I, I, I lived with that, not that that was some

tormenting. I didn't wake up at night in a

cold sweat thinking, I can't define grace.

But but every time I'd read the Bible, I'd start looking.

I, I, I'd like to know what grace is.

How, how many of you have heard the song Amazing Grace?

You know, and that's what most people know about grace.

They know the song Amazing Grace, beautiful, beautiful,

beautiful song. And they know the definition

that grace is unmerited favor. But from that point on, over the

next several years, you know, ended up going to Bible school

and ended up even stepping into ministry and beginning to teach

and preach a little bit. I just still lived with that

fact. I don't really understand much

of what grace is, but I want to learn.

And I didn't teach on it. That was 77 when that happened

with that Lady asking me that question.

I didn't actually teach on grace until 1986, and I did a single

session. I felt like I'd learned enough

to teach at least one sermon, one full message on grace.

And then by 1988 it had turned into a 14 part series.

Tuesday, Thursday for eight weeks at Raymond.

And but I'm going to give you an understanding about Grace that

is not based on some theological, deep, profound

philosophical thing. How many of you as a kid, I, I

know we got people all different ages here, but how many of you

as a kid, maybe you're kind of toward my generation or

something. You know who Dennis the Menace

is? He was a cartoon character when

I was growing up. And we have a slide here with

Dennis the Menace, and that's Dennis and his little buddy

Joey. And in the background, that's

not his mom, that's his neighbor lady who who knows his neighbor

lady's name, Missus Wilson. She was the sweet, grandmotherly

type of neighbor who knows who Mr. Wilson is.

He was the cranky, grouchy, irritable old guy.

But Missus Wilson was the sweetest lady.

I mean the the epitome of the ideal next door neighbor for a

little boy because she is always making cookies for Dennis.

He's the blonde haired kid and that's his little buddy.

What's his little buddy's name? Joey.

And they're eating cookies because Missus Wilson has made

them cookies, which she was prone to do.

And in another cartoon, not this one but another cartoon, they're

actually leaving her home with handfuls of cookies.

And Joey in that cartoon says to Dennis, Dennis, I wonder what we

did to deserve all these cookies?

And Dennis says back, now listen to this because if you

understand this, you, you, you've got the rudiments of

grace. Dennis says, Joey, Missus Wilson

doesn't bake us cookies because we're nice.

She bakes us cookies because she's nice.

Did you catch that? Missus Wilson doesn't bake us

cookies because we're nice. She bakes us cookies because

she's nice. Now I can take you to all kinds

of theological dictionaries. I can take you to all kinds of

commentaries. And I don't know that I've ever

found a better definition of grace than that.

It's, it's doesn't, it doesn't involve God, it doesn't involve

Jesus. That's an earth.

How many of you know Jesus used earthly things to illustrate

heavenly principles? So if we want to make that

spiritual, which is certainly fine, we could say it this way,

God doesn't give us his blessings because we're good.

God gives us his blessings because He's good.

Everything that Jesus did for us on the cross, it wasn't because

we were good. Actually it was because of the

opposite. God did all that because He is

good. Now for most people, if people

know one Bible verse in the New Testament, I'm talking about

Christians, non Christians alike now.

Now for the whole Bible, a lot of people know Psalm 23, right?

Because they hear the 23rd Psalm at funerals and things of that

nature. If you're watching television

and there's a funeral, you know, they're standing out at a

gravesite or something, They'll often have the preacher saying

the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not beautiful, beautiful Psalm.

But if there's one New Testament verse, I mean, how many of you

watch football games? I don't think they don't do it

as much or they don't show it as much.

Used to be there was always people in the end zone with a

sign that said what? John 316 And what a beautiful

verse that is. For God so loved the world that

he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever would believe on

him should not perish but have everlasting life.

And we're in Florida. So I think this is an OK

illustration to use. Didn't Tim Tebow when he played

for the Gators, didn't he used to have John 316 and his, I

don't even know what would call that black stuff under the eyes,

but so people know John 316. But if there's a second verse

that most Christians know about grace, it's Ephesians 28 and 9.

Let's look at this on the screen, Ephesians 28 and 9, and

we're going to be unwrapping this.

We're going to be unpacking this.

We're going to be expounding on this because so many times

people become content to have a really superficial knowledge of

something when God really wants us to have a better, deeper

understanding of things. I put some letters and caps

underline one word, Paul says, For by grace you have been

saved. How many of you know that it's

good to be saved? You know, people don't even know

save from what say, you know, people here saved and they

think, well, do you save your money?

Do you have a bank account where you're saving money and things

of that nature? But if, but if you've ever, for

example, had a near drowning experience and somebody came and

rescued, you know what it is to be saved.

And people many times, because they're in darkness and they're

in blindness and they're in deception.

They don't realize that what it is to be lost, separated from

God and, and, and how much they need to be rescued with

forgiveness and mercy and things of that nature.

So many people, they're just, you know, kind of living life

oblivious to the fact that without God in their life,

they're lost and without hope. And then sometimes people will

have some kind of experience where they realize, I, I need

forgiveness. I need mercy.

So, so everybody needs to be saved in, in a spiritual sense,

in an, you know, we understand temporal sense.

You know, if somebody has a, you know, they're choking on

something and somebody, they're about to die, pass out and, you

know, die of asphyxiation and somebody comes along and gives

them the Heimlich maneuver and they, you know, spit out

whatever was they're choking on. You saved me.

You know, people can be saved in a physical temporal sense, but

the ultimate salvation being saved that everybody needs is to

be saved from eternal separation from God.

And just looking at this one verse, we really should just

look at the whole chapter. But just for this morning.

Paul says 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, lest anyone should boast.

All of that is so I mean, we could take each and every single

one of these words. Somebody said that grace it is

can be, you know, spelled out as an acrostic, an acronym that

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

God's riches at Christ's expense.

So Grace, if you remember back going to the dentist, the menace

story illustration, Dennis said Missus Wilson doesn't bake us

cookies because we're nice. She bakes us cookies because

she's nice. Meaning that God's grace is that

God did things for us not because of how good we were, but

because of how good he is. Not because we earned it, not

because we deserved it. Got enough brownie points, got,

you know, enough attendance check marks for church.

Got enough gold stars. You know, I've actually heard of

people who think that if they're going to go to heaven when they

die, it's because they did more good works than bad works.

And there have been people, intelligent people, seemingly

intelligent people, who actually, at the end of every

day, if they felt like they were pretty nice, you know, like they

braked instead of running over a cat or a dog, that's a pretty

good thing. They didn't run over the dog.

And they were nice to somebody at work or something like that.

And they didn't, you know, do something horrible that day.

At the end of that day on their calendar, they would give

themselves a Gold Star. I'm not talking about a

kindergartner. I'm talking about an adult.

But if they were bad that day, like if they cussed and chewed

somebody out, oh man, I shouldn't have done that.

So they wouldn't give themselves a Gold Star that day.

And they literally felt that at the end of their life, if they

had more gold stars on their calendar than not, they would go

to heaven because they were better most of the time than

they were worse. But if they had more days

without a Gold Star, then maybe they wouldn't go to heaven.

See, that idea is my going to heaven is entirely based on my

performance. What did I do?

And see, that's the antithesis. That is the opposite of grace.

Grace means it's not about what you do, it's about what he did.

And so Paul says, for by grace, by God's riches at Christ's

expense, you have been saved through faith.

And again, we're not going to take time to teach all this in

depth, but I love the song we sang earlier.

Yes, Lord, Yes Lord, Martin Luther said this faith is the

yes of the heart. Now I know, I'm sure your pastor

and other people here, guest people and different ones have

taught on faith and wow, what an important topic.

We're saved by faith, we walk by faith, we live by faith.

We're justified by faith. Without faith, it is impossible

to please God. So faith is huge.

And, and again, we all went to a school that has a 20 foot faith

shield up on top of the main building.

We, we have a background in faith.

Faith, what Martin Luther said is simply the yes of the heart.

It's when your heart says yes to God.

Now you can amplify that. You can teach many different

facets and angles of it, which is all great.

But by grace, which is basically God reaching out to you, you've

been saved through faith, which is you're saying yes to what

he's offering you for. By grace, you've been saved

through faith. And that not of yourselves.

It's not of your initiation. It didn't start with you.

You didn't generate it. You're not the alpha.

It's not of yourselves. It is the gift.

Everybody say gift. If you want to understand grace,

you have to understand gift because a gift is not something

that you earn when when you go to work and you work all week.

And what Can you imagine if your boss called you into the office

and said, I've got a gift for you?

And you say, oh, that's so nice. And you say, what is it?

And he says it's a paycheck. And you're thinking, that's not

a gift I earned that. See, so many people think that

salvation being saved or really receiving any blessing of God is

something that we earn that is based on our human effort and

human performance. So if your boss gives you your

paycheck and says I have a gift for you and hands you the

paycheck, in your mind you're saying, you know, I'm not, I'm

not going to get an argument with you.

But that's not a gift. I earned that.

A gift is something that somebody gives you that you did

not work for or earn. There's a difference between

compensation wages versus a gift, a gratuity.

OK. So by grace you have been saved

through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift. Everybody say gift again, it is

the gift of God. It is not of works or human

effort, lest anyone should boast.

So let's establish this, that when you and I stand before the

Lord and you know he has said well done, thou good and

faithful servant, and so on, enter into the joy of the Lord.

None of us are getting into heaven based on our works or our

efforts here on earth. It's a gift.

Now there's a second dimension of this, and this is where many

people become confused. There's a separate, separate

dimension of this where people are rewarded and there are our

works do play a role there. The Bible says multiple times we

will be rewarded according to our works, but we are saved by

grace through faith that not of ourselves.

It is the gift of God. You're not going to meet anybody

in heaven who says, hey, I got here because I did so many great

things for God. Everybody in heaven is going to

say, hey, I got here because even though I was a Sinner, even

though I had sinned and come short of God's glory, I'm here

because of what Jesus did for me, because of what Jesus did on

the cross. I'm here because of the grace of

God. Grace was God reaching out

through Jesus on the cross, dying, shedding his blood, and

so on, being raised from the dead.

And faith is our saying yes. Faith is our accepting a gift

from God that is not based on our works or our human effort.

OK, so I want to tell you a story here.

This is just a couple weeks old. I told Pastor Earl and Marcy

this last night I've got a brand new story that I think

illustrates grace really nicely. My wife and I just a few weeks

ago, we preached in England and Netherlands and Switzerland, and

while we were there we popped into Scotland.

I didn't preach in Scotland, but I wanted to visit some historic

sites. I love history and I went to

Scotland because I wanted to explore some of the sites

related to John Knox. How many of you were anybody

here raised Presbyterian? Anybody here raised

Presbyterian? Not a single Presbyterian here.

You were raised Presbyterian. Thank you.

We have one former. We have two.

Is it 22 Presbyterians in here? Actually, we have three.

I was raised Presbyterian. John Knox.

Let's look at him. He's the guy that founded

Presbyterianism. And I went there.

These are two pictures I took. One's a stained glass window.

One's actually a statue. The one on the right is a statue

of John Knox. And he was the founder of

Presbyterianism. And I, I really, even though I,

I was raised in that denomination, I really didn't

know a lot about him. But he had a real, I think he

had a real relationship with God and he had a real consecration

and dedication to God. And he had been a Roman Catholic

priest and had switched into what we call the Protestant

movement. And back then how that would

have been in the 1500s. How many of you know, church

history gets pretty rough at some places because it's not

just a history of what God did, it's a history of what people

did in God's name. And sometimes the lot there are

a lot of people were very misguided and misdirected and,

and so people would kill each other for believing differently.

How many of you know, we don't need to kill each other if we

believe differently And but people, I mean, they just killed

each other left and right. They had wars over these things

and so that's a sad part of it. But John Knox when when he

really understood some truth and embrace this Protestant faith

that we are saved by faith alone through the grace of God and not

by religious works, church works, etcetera.

He, he was, he was mentored by a guy, another preacher named

George Wishart, and they burnt him at the stake.

They they burnt his mentor at the stake for what he believed

and then they made John Knox a slave prisoner on a French

galley ship rowing a a galley boat for 19 months.

Can you imagine being a galley slave at all?

But for 19 months he had to row a boat chained to oars as a

slave. And all this because of his

faith in Jesus. And then when he finally got

out, there was an English queen who burnt 278 Protestants at the

stake as Bloody Mary and, and, and John Knox spent 12 years in

exile out of his own country, you know, to stay alive.

And then at a certain point he was able to come back into

Scotland and lead what we call the Protestant Reformation in

Scotland. And so he lived for Jesus.

He saw his closest friends burnt at the stake for their faith in

Jesus Christ. He was exiled from his own

country for a dozen years because of his faith in Jesus

Christ. And and I read about his last

hours and when when he was getting ready to pass away, he

asked his wife to read him two passages of Scripture.

He said, I want you to read to me First Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

And that's all about the the dead being raised.

How many of you know we celebrated resurrection a couple

Sundays ago, right? Not only is Jesus raised from

the dead, but guess what, because he was raised, we get to

be raised and, and not just in the future, but we get to live a

resurrection lifestyle even now. We get the power of the

resurrection before the full resurrection.

And then he asked his wife to read to him John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

And both of those passages were a great comfort to him.

And, and they knew he's just hours away from dying.

His life is slipping away. His physical life is ebbing

away. And then they said that he kind

of sort of went kind of unconscious, but, you know, kind

of half conscious, half not conscious.

And they said he was struggling, he was moaning.

He was, they said it was like he was in a battle of some kind

and, and like he was fighting something, like he was resisting

something. And they, they just kind of let

him alone. But then when he came to, they

said what, what, what just happened.

And this is what he said. He said, I'm quoting him.

So it's kind of that flowery old English.

He said I have indeed sustained many contests in this frail life

and many assaults from Satan, but now the roaring lion has

most furiously attacked me and and he kind of describes some of

the different temptations and challenges he had faced in life.

And he said, But now he just attacked me in a different way.

For the cunning serpent has endeavored to persuade me that I

have earned heaven itself and a blessed immortality by my

faithful discharge of the ministry that has been committed

to me. And, and he, and, and what it

boils down to is that Knox, what he really described as his

greatest temptation in life was to believe that he had earned

heaven by his own good works. And the enemy was trying to

persuade him at that last moment that it was his efforts, his

human efforts that had earned him a place in heaven.

And, and it's just amazing that he would be attacked by that at

probably what was his most vulnerable moment.

But he had to come back. And one of the verses he came

back to at that point was by grace We are saved through

faith, and that not of ourselves.

It is the gift of God. It is not of human works or

human merit, lest any of us should boast.

So I want to take you back to my early study.

When I began to study grace in earnest.

Here's what I did. There were no such things as

computer programs. How many of you pastoral, do you

remember the old Strong's Concordance?

It was about that thick and it listed every word in the Bible

and every place that was used. I maybe I'm kind of glad we

didn't have computers back then because it really made us, it

forced us just to dig in. It's so easy today to study and

I'm, I'm all for that, but I just went through and found

every time that grace is used in the Bible because I realized I,

I know that grace is unmerited favor, but I don't really know

what unmerited favor means. And, and so I went through and

began to study everything I could find.

And, and this, these are all the references I found.

Well, some of them, it's not all, but I, I found out and

there's a scripture for every one of these.

The Lord is gracious. He is the giver of grace.

He is the God of all grace. His throne is a throne of grace.

The prophets of old prophesied of the grace that should come to

us. This grace came by Jesus.

Every single one of these is a Bible verse.

He was full of grace, and it is from His fullness that we

receive 1 grace after another. The grace of God was upon him,

and gracious words proceeded out of his mouth.

It was by grace that He tasted of death for every man.

The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of grace.

We are told to continue in grace, to abound in grace, to be

strong in grace, and to grow in grace.

The Bible talks about great grace, the abundance of grace,

the exceeding grace of God, the glory of His grace, the riches

of His grace, the gift of grace, the grace of life, the manifold

grace of God, the true grace of God.

Our message is called the Gospel of the grace of God and the Word

of His Grace. We are saved by grace and

through grace. It is through grace that we

believe. Grace builds us up and gives us

an inheritance. We are justified by grace.

We have access by faith into the grace of God in which we stand.

Grace reigns through righteousness.

Didn't you tell me you're doing something on reigning here

recently? The Bible says that grace reigns

through righteousness and produces eternal life.

We are under grace. We have gifts differing

according to the grace of God. It is the grace of God that

makes us rich. God's grace is sufficient for us

and causes us to reign in life. We are called by grace into

grace. Grace enables us to preach the

unsearchable riches of Christ. Grace is given to every

believer. Our words can impart grace to

other people. We are partakers of grace.

We are to sing with grace in our hearts.

Our words are to be seasoned with grace.

Grace gives us everlasting comfort and hope.

Grace brings salvation to us. Grace helps us in the time of

need. Grace enables us to serve God

acceptably, and grace establishes our hearts.

Every single one of those is a, is a scripture phrase, a

scripture, a statement in the New Testament.

I think one or two might have been Old Testament at the very

beginning. And, and when I began to realize

this, I thought, I thought I didn't know what grace was.

I really didn't know what grace was.

Grace does so much more than I could have ever imagined.

And one of the things I realized I kind of understood, and I

think most believers understand that God saves us by his grace.

That's God's nature, his disposition, which results in

his actions. God is gracious toward us

because of his gracious nature. It's not some theory that God

has. It's not like some passive

attitude that God has compassion on us, but he doesn't do

anything compassionate. It's both his attitude and his

actions. I'm going to use a really

natural illustration to illustrate what Grace is.

And let me just tell you this right now, every illustration

fails at some point. OK, it falls short at some

point, but it but it also conveys a message.

How many of you appreciate electricity?

How many of you are glad you live in the 21st century and and

that you weren't born in 1800? Can you imagine living in 1700

whenever and in St. Augustine, FL and not having

electricity? Even some of the countries that

I'm sure Pastor Earl's been to, I've been to their electricity

even now isn't dependable. You know, it'll go out

sometimes. You know, they have brownouts

and blackouts and some states in the country, you know, the power

grid gets overwhelmed and that type of thing.

And I know when you guys have had hurricanes in Florida,

different parts, you know, that get hit sometimes.

What what are some of the places that have been hit in recent

decades? How long are they without

electricity? A week or two sometimes, you

know, we had a, an ice storm in Tulsa back in 2007.

We were without electricity from a Sunday to a Thursday.

And I could not, I, I really felt ashamed of myself.

What a whiny. I mean, it's just kind of like

this is the end of the world. And, and I know, I remember the

night that the electricity came back on.

We didn't know when it was going to come on and it came on that

night, Thursday night and it was cold in the house because the

heater wasn't working. And, and I told my wife, I said

it has to be 38° in here. And you know, I was complaining

and everything. Well, the, the electricity came

on and I immediately went to the thermostat to see because it's

all electric. You can't, it doesn't do

anything if the IT was 58 in the house, you know, sure, yeah,

that's a little chilly, but you know, you know, couple

sweatshirts and you're not going to die in 58°.

And I just, I am such a, you know, so spoiled and and that

type of thing. But so electricity, you know,

you have electricity most likely in your home, your apartment,

your condo, wherever you live and that type of thing.

I just want you to help me out in this message a little bit,

one by one. I want you to name one thing

that electricity energizes in your place of residence.

Name one thing everything coffee.

But I thought you guys were going to say air conditioning.

I guess today coffee is more important than air conditioning.

OK, so who said coffee pot? Who said coffee pot over here?

OK, that's good enough. All right, so electricity makes

your coffee pot make your coffee hot, right?

OK, what's the next thing that electricity does in your place

of residence? AC air conditioning.

OK, what else does electricity produce in your house or what

instrument does it go into telephone.

OK, I got to charge your phone and that type of thing.

Or maybe a landline, I guess maybe.

I don't know if you have to have, I don't haven't used a

landline in years. But what else does electricity

power in your house? Refrigerator, lights, Wi-Fi,

stove. Everything.

What about a ceiling fan? What about a microwave?

What else? Hot water tank, Water heater?

Television. I can't believe nobody said

television until now. You got a really spiritual

church, Pastor Earl? All right, OK, so here, here's

the point. We're we're going to make this

point, we're going to make this point and then we're going to

wrap up and pick up tonight at 6:30 Electric.

What if I just made this statement?

Electricity is electricity. Is that a true statement?

Electricity is electricity. Is that true?

It's true. We also understand that

electricity can power and enable many different results depending

on what receives the electricity.

Did you know that somebody could live, let's just say they'd

grown up, you know, because Can you imagine somebody coming to

America, Saint Augustine, from a, a nation where they lived,

you know, primitively and didn't have any appliances, didn't have

electricity, didn't have any modern conveniences, whatever.

And they show up and they maybe they come into your house and

they notice the temperature so cool and it's so hot outside.

And they say, how is this so cool, so, so cool in this house?

And you say, well, it's air conditioning.

Well, how's that work? And well, you don't know how to

explain unless you're an electrical engineer.

You just say, well, air conditioning works because of

electricity. And they look up and they see a

ceiling fan moving that cool air around.

What's that? That's a ceiling fan.

How does that work? There's nobody spinning it.

Well, it's electricity. And you take them to the kitchen

and you open the refrigerator and wow, it's even cooler yet

and keeps the food cold. I said, how does that work?

And you say, well, it's, it's, it's air conditioning.

And then you pull something out of the oven or, or the coffee,

you give them a cup of coffee. How did this get so hot?

And he said, well, electricity. Can you see how that would kind

of be confusing to them? See, a lot of people, even

Christians, think that electricity only does one thing,

grace. I'm sorry, a lot of Christians

only think grace does one thing, which would be like a person

coming from a an undeveloped nation thinking that electricity

would only do one thing. Let's go to this next slide.

If if we can. When we come back tonight, I'm

going to talk about 5 different expressions of grace, just like

we talked about different expressions of electricity.

You know, heat through an oven, cold through an air conditioner,

motion through a ceiling fan. I'm going to talk about 5

different expressions of grace, saving grace, strengthening

grace, sanctifying grace, sharing grace, and serving

grace. Tonight you see that diamond?

What is that diamond full of facets?

Different, you know the cuts, different surfaces that are all

there. How many of you know it's 1

diamond, but it has many different facets?

Grace is is is like that diamond?

The diamond is 1 stone, but it has many different facets and

the facets of grace that we're going to look at starting

tonight. Saving grace.

What does that mean? That grace saves us from sin,

from separation from God? What is, what is strengthening

grace? What is sanctifying grace?

What is sharing grace? What is serving grace?

Starting tonight, we're going to be examining those things.

So I want you to be back at 6:30 because what we've done just

this morning, as we've just laid a real simple foundation to be

able to build into some deeper and more profound things.

Father, in the name of Jesus, I want to thank you for this time

together, want to thank you for every person that's here today.

And Lord, I just pray that you'll open all of our hearts to

say yes, Lord, not just yes, Lord, to some temporal blessing.

Although we, yes, Lord, we want every blessing that you have for

us in this life. But Lord, we want to say yes to

you in every single area of life, starting with forgiveness.

Yes, Lord, we need your forgiveness, your help in life

to live a strong and victorious life.

Yes, Lord, we need your life in every area.