That's So Amazing - Grace

Christianity, if it's false, it doesn't matter,.

But if it's true, it matters.

The whole world, the only thing it can't be is moderately important.

Last week, we talked about the high cost of sin.

That was a tough discussion to look.

At the reality of sin.

And when you look at that, you can feel so guilty.

And that's God's conscience working in us.

Through the Holy Spirit to help us.

Seek relief from sin.

And so today, we're going to find that relief in grace.

Because as much as we are sinners, we are also forgiven by

God through his grace.

And so our series on the essentials continues today with the

question, what?

That's so amazing, and that's grace.

And grace is beyond amazing.

And if we understand how amazing the grace is, it transforms

who we are.

And how we live.

Everything changes because of grace.

And I want to talk to you about grace in the context of a song

that you know well.

In fact, we're going to sing it.

At the end of this service today.

Amazing Grace.

Excuse me.

There we go.

Amazing Grace.

You know that song?

Well, 250 years ago, I. Amazing Grace was a hymn written

by a country pastor in England for a small congregation for New

Year's Eve service.

I'm sure he didn't even have music.

To it at that point.

He never imagined, or did anybody else, that it would become

one of the most popular hymns of all times and recorded by thousands

and thousands of musicians.

And artists in different recordings.

The words, you know well, Amazing grace How sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me I once was lost.

But now I'm found I was blind but now I see.

You see, John Newton was not an ordinary pastor.

John Newton had a really rough life.

And John Newton was a bad guy.

He went to sea at 11, and when you went to sea at 11 in the middle

1700s, that was not an easy life.

It was nasty and it was mean.

And it was cruel.

And the only way you made it was to be nasty and mean and cruel.

Often in those days, the ships wouldn't have enough people to work

on them.

So they'd go into the pubs in the town and they'd find guys who

were drunk and.

And they would take them and put them into labor on the ships.

And off they'd go for months and.

Months, many times never return.

Well, John Newton's father was a sailing captain.

And so at age 11, he took his son to sea.

And John Newton became as bad as.

Anybody on the ship, sometimes worse.

It was a slave ship they went to Africa to steal people and to

bring them back to England and to sell them.

So these were bad guys.

But John Newton was so bad, he got kicked off the ship because nobody

could stand him because he was so vulgar and so overwhelming in

his behavior.

And so they left him in Africa and they sold him.

So he became a slave.

So the slaver became a slave.

He eventually got out of that, got back on the ships.

Eventually he became a sea captain of his own slave ship and

made many voyages back and forth, selling people.

One time there was a storm.

It lasted for 11 days.

That ship was about to be shipwrecked.

And a shipwreck in those days.

There was no hope.

You were going to drown for sure.

11 days they fought the storm and, and one night Newton was at

the wheel of that ship after 11 days.

Now this is not a ship like we're used to.

I mean, this is a beat up toss and turn.

Overwhelming just physically to go through that.

And he remembered his mother's prayers.

His mother always hoped he'd be a clergyman.

And so she taught him scripture and taught him prayer from

the beginning.

But he turned his back on all that.

And in the middle of that storm, he remembered his mother's

prayers and he said, God, could you save me?

Am I worth saving?

John Newton had turned from God.

John Newton had run from God.

John Newton threw his God's love right back in his face and said,

I don't want anything to do with you.

And at that night on that ship, John Newton discovered how

amazing grace could be and discovered that God could even save

a wretch like him.

His life was transformed and our lives have been enriched because

of his experience.

That's so amazing.

Grace.

Grace is amazing.

God created a perfect God created us from, for relationship

with him.

God had us as his children.

Not like your parents didn't have you as kids in order to have

somebody to move the lawn, pick up the clothes.

He had you for relationship.

God had us, created us for relationship.

A perfect God created a perfect world that he gave to Adam

and Eve.

And most importantly, he gave us a guidebook on how to live in

that world in the way that he designed it to be.

And in response, because of sin in our lives, we reject God and

His love and we ignore him and we don't love the people that he

loves.

And we put other gods before him.

Money and career and toys, even our talents become more important

than God.

We become selfish and we block out the fruits of the spirit.

Like we talked about last week, how when we become selfish

and sin builds up in our lives, we can't access the fruits

of the Spirit.

And for some, like John Newton, you just try to run as far

away.

From God as you can get.

You see, sin separates us from God, and we can't be connected to

a holy God because of our sin, because he can't be in the presence

of sin or he would not be holy.

And so God said, I'll fix this.

I'll send my son Jesus to come to earth to live a life among you,

but most importantly, to be a sacrifice on a cross for our sins.

We've talked about the crucifixion and how horrible it was

physically, but even more so emotionally and spiritually as Jesus

took on the sin of the world and was separated from God when he

could.

No longer connect to God because he was filled with sin.

God did that so we could be reconnected to the one who loves

us the most.

You know, the image of God we have is of goodness and of love,

but he's also got a justice.

And he said, if you've done wrong, you're going to pay the price,

because that's right.

And so that justice is there just as much.

And the only way we can get back to God is, and get forgiven

injustice is by the gift of grace.

And it is a gift, and it's freely given to us.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Nobody, nobody comes to the Father except through me.

So what do we have to do.

To come back to the Father who loves us, who created us, who gave

us a perfect world, a Father who is holy and full of goodness

and full of the justice we long for in our life.

How do we have to come back to Him?

All we have to do is accept the gift.

It's free.

But we never get free.

So what's the catch?

Can't be free.

All stuff we've done, stuff we've thought, the sin in our lives,

it can't be free.

There's got to be a catch.

No, there isn't a catch.

And see, all the people who walked with Jesus and knew him, including

the Apostle Paul, who knew all the people Jesus knew, wrote over

and over and over in the New Testament about one thing, and that

was the free gift of grace.

Grace that brings us back into fellowship with God.

That was the core of the whole.

Of the New Testament.

After the Gospels, they wrote this.

God saved you by his grace.

When you believe in Ephesians, God saved you.

You're lost.

You're A sinner.

We're going to hell.

God saved you from that by his grace when we believed.

You've got to believe.

You've got to accept the grace.

If we don't accept the grace, there's no forgiveness.

We've got to ask Christ to forgive our sins and to draw us to

him rather than being drawn to the sin.

So Ephesians 2 says, God saved you by his grace when you believed.

And then it goes on.

And you can't take credit for this.

It's a gift from God.

You didn't do anything to deserve it.

I'm glad you're a good person.

That's great and it's wonderful.

And remember we talked about heaven and doing for the least of

these.

So that matters for that.

It doesn't matter for your salvation.

What matters for your salvation is you receive the gift

from God and you can't take an ounce of credit for it.

You don't get a better gift because you're a better person.

We all get the same gift of forgiveness in grace.

Just because God wanted to do that.

And that scripture goes on, salvation is not a reward for the

good things we have done.

We always tend to think if we do good that we get a reward.

No, this is not a reward.

Again, these are written by the people who knew Jesus and walked

with him him and heard him teach and all the things that weren't

recorded in the Gospels.

This is their understanding of what Jesus was about.

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done.

So none of us can boast about it.

You can't boast about it.

So what can you do about it?

You can worship God and you can love the people that he loves

if.

You boast about it.

That's self righteousness and self righteousness is a sin.

We don't want to go there.

John Newton said this.

He said, I'm not the man.

This was obviously years later, I'm not.

The man I ought to be.

I'm not the man I wish to.

Be, and I'm not the man I hope to be.

But by the grace of God, I'm not the man I used to be.

When you are as amazed about grace as John Newton was and millions

of people before us, your life is transformed.

But if you never accept the gift.

Of grace, you spend your life in a fruitless effort to try to make

yourself acceptable to God.

And it can't be done.

A lot of people will say, well, you know, I don't believe in

Jesus and I don't believe in all that.

But I try to live a good life.

I try to do the right thing.

That's what I try to do.

And I want to say to them, when I hear people say that, don't

bother.

I mean, I'm glad for the rest of us.

You try to be nice and do the right thing because it's not as hard

on us.

But don't bother because you're still going to hell.

There is no way to the Father except through Jesus and his forgiveness.

So don't even bother with the good.

Life if you haven't accepted the gift of grace.

The Christian faith is not about keeping a moral code.

It's about a God who saves people.

Who fail to keep a moral code.

See that?

Look at those words on the screen.

Some of you, this is a lot more important than what's on your

phone.

Thank you for looking up.

The Christian faith is not about keeping a moral code.

It's about a God who saves people.

Who fail to keep a moral code.

It all boils down to that.

And that's why grace is so amazing.

So it raises a question.

Could you sin all you want?

Could you just let it rip?

Sin all you want.

Yep, you can.

There's no sin you can commit that.

God will not forgive.

The question is,.

Why would you want to, knowing the cost of grace that he had to

die in crucifixion on a cross knowing the cost that he paid?

Why would we want to sin knowing the cost that it robs us

from the best in our lives.

We talked about last week what sin does when it robs us from the

joy of life.

Why would we want to, Knowing the cost of missing eternity in fellowship

with.

God, why would we want to sin?

God will forgive whatever in your life comes.

He asks you to ask for his forgiveness, to receive the gift

and then seek to be drawn to him rather than seek to be drawn

to sin.

Well, there are three amazing characteristics of.

Grace I want to tell you about this morning.

The first is grace is not fair.

Grace is not fair.

Jesus told the parable of the three workers.

One came in the early morning, went to work.

End of the day, he got paid.

One came at noon, went to work at the end of the day, he got paid

the same.

One came an hour before they were about to stop the work for the

day, and he got paid the same as everybody else.

And they complained and they said, well, why does he get paid

the same as we paid when we were here and faithful all along?

Jesus says, that's not your decision.

That's not your discrepancy, it's mine.

If I want to pay him for a full day, that's my gift.

If I want to pay you for a full day's work, that's my gift.

Grace is not fair.

You don't work your way to a point of accepting grace.

God gives grace because he wants to,.

Because he loves us that much.

The thief on the cross is a great illustration.

You know, Jesus was crucified with two other criminals.

Now, crucifixion in those days was a really horrible thing.

Thousands and thousands of people were crucified.

It was not unique for Jesus to be crucified.

There were thousands of people to be crucified.

And the reason they were crucified is to be made an example.

People know what they did.

So they nailed them to cross or tied them to a cross and let them

hang there, often for three or four days, until they died in horrible

misery.

And then they left him there, usually so everybody could see.

So this thief on the cross was not some guy who just happened to.

Be walking by and they grabbed him and they put him up there?

No, this is a guy who was.

A really bad guy,.

And he's on the cross.

And the one thief made fun of him, said, if you can't save yourself,

you know, kind of mocking him.

Then the other one said,.

If there's any way you can forgive me, do.

And what was Jesus response?

He said, today you will be with me in paradise.

Today you'll be with me in paradise.

This was a guy who'd never opened a Bible in his life.

He'd never been to a chapel service.

He'd never been to a church service.

He'd never sung a song about Christian love.

He knew nothing about theology.

He hadn't done any good in his life, probably for anybody, for a

very long time.

And Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise.

You see, grace is not fair.

Because what about all the people who are trying to do good

and trying to do right?

They get the same grace.

Yeah, that's how it works if God wants to do that.

Because God freely gives his grace to.

Those that he loves.

Last week we talked about sin and.

How overwhelming it is and how it destroys our life and how it robs

us of eternity.

And Newton understood that.

And he understood it was not fair for all he had done to be so

horrible to people, for God to save him.

And so he wrote these words to.

Open the the song we know.

Amazing grace how sweet the sound this.

Saved a wretch like me.

The sounds that ring in John Newton's ears were not sweet sounds.

The sounds that ring in his ears were sounds of chains and of

crying and of fear and of torment in the hull of a slave ship.

The sounds in his ears were sounds of oppression and family separation

as he tore young kids away from.

From their families in Africa to take them and sell them.

Those were the sounds he knew.

And then grace came, and he said, how sweet the sound.

What sounds fill your life?

What sounds fill your life?

Newton says, you can have a different sound, a sweet sound.

Grace, you see, is never deserved.

Grace is never conditional.

And grace never gives up.

God never gave up on John Newton.

And God's never going to give up on you.

I once was lost, but now I'm found.

I was blind, but now I see.

Look at the contrast.

Lost and found, blind in vision.

That's what happened in Newton's life.

And he wanted to express it somehow.

How amazing grace is.

Well, so grace is not fair.

Secondly, grace is difficult to accept.

Grace doesn't fit into our understanding of the world.

See, sin, as we talked about last week, is all about selfishness.

The root of it all comes back to selfishness.

So we're interested in ourselves, and we're interested in

what we can create and what we can do.

And so we look at it and we go, okay, earning's okay.

Sure.

If I work, I get a check because I earned it.

If I go to school and I put in the work, I get grades because I

earned it.

If I'm in a relationship and I put the energy into it, I'm loved,

and so I earned it.

And all those are conditional.

Grace is totally unearned.

There is no way to earn grace.

It's impossible, other than it's a gift from God.

And that is so difficult for us to accept.

And that's what's so amazing about it.

God does for us what we could never do for ourselves.

Because he loves us that much, we cannot demand grace.

We don't deserve grace, and we're never.

Able to repay grace.

Newton wrote a bit about that.

He says, twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace,

my fears relieved.

You see, the reality of our sin is if you see the punishment

it really deserves in God's justice, we would.

Be terrorized with fear, absolutely terrorized with fear.

And that's what justice requires.

We all want justice in the world.

So often we don't see justice.

Well.

God is the deliverer of pure justice.

He will be totally fair.

And the grace excuse Me, the sin that separates from God deserves

punishment and he will punish for that unless we.

Are forgiven by grace.

If I could illustrate that a little bit, imagine God had given

me a book of your life.

In that book is a list of every action, every thought, every

motive, the sinful, everything you have ever done, from the time

you were small to what you did this morning.

Everything is in the book.

And we're going to start, let's start.

At the back of the room and.

We're going to call you up one by one, have you stand on this stage

and we're going to read the.

Entire book to everybody.

You're caught, there's no way out, Everybody in the room's getting

it.

You ought to be terrorized with fear, terrorized with fear at

the reality of justice for the sins of our lives.

But there's a different way.

See, I bring you up on stage,.

Justice gets laid bare.

And you beg for mercy.

And if you're not forgiven, there is no mercy because justice

is demanded.

And so your life and your future and eternity is destroyed.

But if you came up on stage and Jesus handed me the book and

I go, but there's nothing here on that.

They're sitting right there, but there's nothing in the book about

them.

He said, yeah, they're forgiven by grace.

There's nothing in the book.

Go sit down.

And that's mercy.

Never, ever, ever get over the magnitude of God's grace.

Grace frees us to face the truth about ourselves with hope rather

than with despair.

Well, there's a third thing about grace.

Grace transforms your life.

The same grace that saves you is the grace that grows you.

Many are interested in grace because grace is how you get to heaven,

right?

You do.

It's only by grace.

Forgiveness in Christ, believe in him, you get to heaven.

So grace is our ticket to heaven.

And then people say, well, yeah, but I want to follow the law

and earn my way into the Christian life.

It doesn't really work that way.

In fact, Jesus was the TARDIS on the religious leaders of his day

who were trying to keep the rules, trying to do all the expectations.

And of course, that turned into self righteousness in their

life when they did that.

And Jesus was harder on them than.

He ever was on any sinner he ever met.

Grace gets us to heaven.

Grace also empowers us to live the Christian life.

Grace is a resource God gives us through the Holy Spirit.

It can't be earned, but it has to be cherished and it has to be

used.

Imagine if you never plugged into the electrical outlet.

You wouldn't charge your phone, you wouldn't run your computer,

you wouldn't have air conditioning, you wouldn't have lights.

It's right there, but you don't touch it because you're not

plugged in.

And your life will be completely different.

Than it is if you don't use that resource.

Well, that's what grace is.

Grace is that resource that God gives us through His Holy Spirit

who lives among us, to plug in to his.

Power to transform us through grace.

That song goes on to say, the.

Lord hath promised good to me.

His word my hope secures.

He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.

That's talking about grace today.

That's not talking about grace in eternity.

That's talking about grace.

Today we show our gratitude to to God for His grace.

And we live in Him.

And the Holy Spirit fills our lives with more grace when we worship.

That's why we sing.

We don't sing with something just to fill in before speaking in

chapel.

We sing as a form of worship to Him.

Sing to Him.

Don't ever sing to the group.

And don't sing to Doug.

Don't sing to me.

Sing to Him.

When you sing, we pray, we study the scripture.

That's how we grow in grace that God's given us.

And then secondly, we give grace to others.

If you only give to people around.

You what they deserve, that is not grace.

That has nothing to do with grace.

That's just being a pretty good person.

Grace is giving to others what they don't deserve.

You won't give grace to others if it's not amazing in your life.

If you don't capture the amazing nature of grace, you're never

going to give.

It away and you're going to be stingy.

Grace transforms us when we understand how amazing it is.

And if we don't understand how amazing it is, we don't give grace.

And so our light dims.

We have to remember often what God has done for us.

We are sinners.

We were made and live in fellowship with a holy God.

But we can't be with him because sin separates us.

And so he gave us the Holy Spirit to convict us of that sin.

The rules don't free us from sin.

There's no doing good that gets you free from sin.

Only the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross the brings us back into

fellowship with God.

We are saved by grace and we grow in grace.

And that's what grace is about.

I'm going to close with my favorite quote of anything, any quote

I have outside of the Bible by Phil Yancey.

Phil Yancey said this.

There's nothing I can do to make God love me more, and there's

nothing I can do to make God love me less.

If you understand that grace is that amazing, it will transform

how you live in relationship with God, in relationship to each

other.