Mr. Mike Grovak
Sermon Transcript
July 14, 2001
The Grace of God
Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most
marvelous inspiring leaders in the twentieth century. And I think in any sense
of the word that you might define him as a good man. We would have to say he
was a good man. In fact, I thought if I were to make a list of the, say, ten
most admirable people, as well as influential people of the twentieth century,
I think one of them would be Mahatma Gandhi because not only did he lead to
independence the world's largest democracy, but he established a tradition of
bringing change using certain Bible concept. Using the principle of non-violence,
which we saw people like Dr. Martin Luther King and many other use here in this
country in the American Civil Rights Movement. Basically so much of what Dr.
King and others did was based on the teaching and the example of Gandhi. His
teaching, his example of non-violence and tolerance, I think just make a tremendously
admirable man.
If you think who is a good person who deserves to be rewarded by God, it is someone like him.
But you know, that leaves us with
a problem. The Bible very clearly states, and this gets to the subject of salvation
by grace, which is what I want to talk about today, that we can only be saved
through Jesus Christ.
I am just going to read, I have
here in my notes, a key scriptures that regard Acts 4:10, 12. It makes it so
very, very clear. It states;
Acts 4:10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel:
It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whomGod
raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. (NIV translation)
Acts 4:12 Salvation is
found in no one else, for there is no other name, it is sort of like what
part of no other name don't you understand, under heaven given to men by
which we must be saved."
See, the whole point of salvation
by grace is this; is it the free gift of Jesus Christ. You can't earn it. You
can't produce it. Jesus has to give it to you. You know, since salvation is
by grace to those who accept Jesus as their Savior, you have a problem. Gandhi
is not saved. He never accepted Jesus Christ.
Now there are probably many of you who were taught as I was taught. I attended a parochial school throughout my elementary school years and I will tell you what I was taught. I was taught that people like Gandhi are saved. I was taught that if you were a Jew or Muslim, Hindu, and you lived in good conscience according to the teachings of your religion, you would go to heaven. Well that leaves you with a problem because what it says that salvation is by grace if you are a Christian, and it is by works if you are not.
You know, one of the most blessed
gifts that we have under the new covenant is God's gift of grace. Through Jesus'
sacrifice we have undeserved, unearned forgiveness of our sins and we have access
to God.
I would like to read to you from
the article grace, in the Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible.
This is how it starts. It says; Grace is God's unmerited free and spontaneous
love for sinful man. revealed and made effective. In other words it only
works through Jesus Christ. As such, it lies at the very heart of the Christian
gospel and is one of its most distinctive features. A feature that you
accept Jesus as your Savior. Everything you have done wrong is forgiven and
you have access to eternal life
But there is sort of a flip side to that. And the flip side is, if you don't
do that you do not have salvation and … then what happens to you?
What is really ironic is that most
Christians, and I know many, many very sincere believers and I don't in any
way disparage their sincerity, but most Christians really do not believe in
grace as is explained in the Bible because any people who talk about grace of
God and salvation by grace at the same time deny that most of humanity will
ever have the chance to receive it.
You see, the Bible makes two things
very clear. It says God wants to give His grace of salvation to everybody. Everybody.
And we are going to go through some scriptures in a little bit that say that.
Also, only when you receive and respond to this grace will you receive salvation.
Now where I am going with this is
you look at the subject of grace, what we are going to see today is that only
once you understand and accept the plan of salvation as is revealed through
the Sabbath and particularly through the annual festivals, that you have salvation
the way it is described in the Bible. If you don't have the understanding that
God gives us through the festivals, then believing in salvation by grace, maybe
to use the terms many people are familiar with, simply consigns most people
to hell. Because most people never have the opportunity to accept Jesus as their
Savior.
And that contradicts, we are going
to see many statements in the scriptures where Paul and others say He is going
to give salvation to everyone. So, salvation by grace is offered only through
God's plan of salvation as revealed in the festivals, otherwise God is a lot
less than the God He is.
You know, one of the reasons we
are here as part of the United Church of God, is that we insist that salvation
by grace is something God is going to give to all people, because what most
of us were asked to do is, will you reject God's plan of salvation by grace?
And we said unh uh. No we won't.
What we are first going to do is
look briefly at just what grace is. That is the first thing we are going to
do. Then, second, we are going to look at Biblical statements that show you
only receive salvation by the grace of God. You don't earn it. It is God's free
gift. And third, and this is going to be the key point, we are going to see
how many statements there are, and we aren't going to go through all of them,
but just enough to make the point that God's stated goal is that everyone must
receive salvation, the grace of salvation through Jesus Christ. And what that
simply leaves us with is the inevitable conclusion that unless you have the
plan of salvation as pictured through the festivals, you don't have grace.
Now sometimes people will say, why
do you take off to go to the Feast of Tabernacles every fall? Why do you take
off for these Holy Days? Why do you keep these festivals? Sometimes I would
say it is because I believe so strongly in salvation by grace through Jesus
Christ. And after today's sermon I hope you will be able to understand this
a little better.
First point, just what is the grace
of God? Grace is God's basic nature. We all know about the energizer bunny,
right? It just keeps going and going. God is sort of, in terms of His capacity
to give, and to just give us benefits; He is kind of like the energizer bunny.
He just keeps giving and giving and giving. You think of all the things He has
done for us. The gift of salvation. The fact that we can be saved from our sins.
The incarnation, the fact that God, One of the members of the God family just
emptied Himself and became a flesh and blood human being like us.
I would like you to just maybe imagine
you would have the opportunity, if that would be the word, to empty yourself
of your nature and become, oh I don't know, an ant, a garden slug. You would
still know everything that you knew as a human being, but you would just seem
to be trapped in this absolutely, by comparison, terribly lower form of existence.
Well that only begins to capture what it was like for Jesus Christ to empty
Himself and become a human being because He loved us and wanted to give us salvation.
The Holy Spirit, all these things,
these are manifestation of a limitless generosity. That is maybe one way of
looking at grace. Grace is just how God expresses His generosity just without
any limits. It is how He is. And He shows His grace in many ways.
Let's turn to Ephesians 1:5 These verses state that we receive eternal life
and sonship in the family of God by grace.
Ephes. 1:5-8 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ,
in accordance with his pleasure and will-- [6] to the praise of his glorious
grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. [7] In him we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the
riches of God's grace [8] that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
Verse 7 says we are redeemed from sins through His blood. We must never lose sight of the fact as to how huge a thing the forgiveness of sin is. Let me just say, and I include myself, all of us in some point of our life have been thieves. Some of us have stolen more than some, but at some point in our life, I think I could make a blanket statement accept for maybe the very young among us, all of us have been thieves. At some point all of us have broken the first commandment and been idolaters and put something in the place of the true God. All of have broken God's Sabbath in some way. Some of us have been adulterers. Perhaps one or two of us have even been a murderer at some point. But you know what the grace of God means? Because we have been baptized and we have sought God's forgiveness, once we repent, none of these things matter. How great is that grace that God gives us?
Now verse 5 and 6 that we have read,
state that we are made God's children through grace. How great a gift is that?
The fact that we will live forever. The face that we will have all power. You
know, when you really think of all the things that God is giving us, His grace
is greater than we can ever imagine.
Do you remember, especially those
of you who are adults and weren't raised in the Church of God, when you come
into the truth as a teenager or an adult, there is something there very marvelous?
There are certain points in time where you can look back and say I remember
the first time I understood. Remember the first time you really understood what
God's plan was? It was like this bolt of lightning like, everybody is going
to come back to life and have a chance! Everybody is going to have a turn! God
is not really trying to save the world now.
I can remember so clearly the first
time I understood what salvation was. I was about sixteen years of age. It was
about this time of day on a Sabbath afternoon. I was sitting in a small office
in the home where I grew up and I was reading the book Why Were You Born?
I got about two-thirds of the way through it. I can remember just how the light
was kind of like this, coming through. We had actually stained glass windows
in the front of house. And I just remember reading that page over and over again
saying, you mean God is going to make me one of His very children and I am going
to share His nature forever? I can remember where I was when I first understood
that.
So what is God's grace? Very simply,
it is His total nature of generosity in every way which He deals with humanity.
God's grace is His basic nature. God's grace is the way in which He never stops
giving. And what makes it so special is that it is undeserved. We don't deserve
it. It is unanticipated. When we really see all that God has in store for us,
we can't imagine that until it is revealed to us, and certainly it is unearned.
We didn't do anything to receive it.
Next we just need understanding.
Because of this grace, this basic giving nature God has, that is the only way
we could have salvation. Salvation is only because of grace. Turn to Ephesians
2:8
Ephes. 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through
faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- [9] not by works,
so that no one can boast.
Salvation is something God just
gives us. We are saved because He is generous. We are saved because He is loving.
We are saved because He is forgiving. Verse 9 makes it clear. This act of giving
us salvation, of saying your sins are gone and you are going to live forever,
is not something that any human effort can bring. Our works are specifically
excluded. There is nothing that we can do to cause our salvation. Why are we
saved? Why are we giving eternal life? Why are our sins forgiven? Because God
is generous. There is no limit to His generosity. There is no limit to His love.
There is no limit to His forgiveness. But to kind of put in on the flip side,
no amount of good works can save you from your sins. When you understand what
salvation is, which is the forgiveness of sin and the gift of eternal life,
all of Gandhi's good works can't bring him salvation. And we understand, he
is not saved. He is not lost. He is just simply not saved at present.
To name a couple of other individuals
who are rather note worthy recently, Anwar Sadat, former President of Egypt.
His good works didn't save him. Yitzhak Rabin. And I mention those three people
because they were three, I think, admirable people. One was a Hindu. One was
a Muslim. One was a Jew. Each of whom was gunned down and assassinated why?
Because he wanted peace. He wanted war to stop. Each one of them wanted there
not to be fighting and for people to live and get along. And each one of them
gave their lives to an assign's bullet because they wanted something that we
all want. And yet, each one of them never came to the grace of Jesus Christ.
See, this is as I said kind of the flip side of salvation by grace. There is
no salvation without grace. You must be a Christian. And as we read in Acts
4:12, accept what Jesus gives you in order to be saved.
Now, a lot of Christians look at
what we have read in the Bible so far and say, well that is why we have got
to expend every possible effort to go to all corners of the globe to just have
as many people as possible hear about this message of salvation of Jesus Christ
because if we don't they are lost. There are many people who believe that there
are billions of people today who are living and dying and in fact are lost because
they don't hear this, they don't make a decision. And we just have to try to
get to as many people as we can. There is a problem with that though.
There are many statements in the
Bible, and we are going to read about three of them, all from the book of Romans
that make this point. I would say that this is the key point of the sermon.
God says I am going to give My grace to all people. I guarantee it. And you
just have to ask, if God is going to give His grace to all people, and salvation
by grace is so important, how does that reconcile with the idea that we have
to get to everyone now? It tracks perfectly with what we understand about the
festivals, that there is a millennium, there is a last great day, everybody
has their turn.
But let's look, this is the key point of the sermon. God says I am going to give grace. I am going to give salvation to everyone. Yet, most people who have ever lived have never had a chance. And if this life is the only chance of salvation for most, you have a hopeless contradiction. And the plan that we are so blessed to understand through the festivals is the only answer to that.
Notice back in Romans 5: 17. Sometimes
you just pass over what really the plain statements that the scripture is telling
us.
Romans 5:17-18 For if, by the trespass of the one man,
He is talking about the sin of Adam, his sin, death reigned through that one
man, Adam's sin introduced sin into the world, how much more will those who
receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign
in life through the one man, Jesus Christ
It states to give some hint here,
that as much as sin is now universal, some day God's grace and His forgiveness
will be universal. Of course we understand that will happen after the return
of the Lord and the establishment of the kingdom for a thousand years. But notice
verse 18. It makes a real important point here.
. [18] Consequently, just as the result of one trespass
was condemnation for all men, because Adam introduced sin to the world, everybody
sinned and everybody was condemned, so also notice, the result of one act of
righteousness, Jesus sacrifice, was justification that brings life for all men.
Does that really mean what it says?
That Jesus' sacrifice brings salvation, brings the grace of God to all men.
It doesn't say just all who accept Him. It says everybody. See, the time is
going to come when grace will be as universal as sin. And basically, all people
will be offered forgiveness. Now how does that square with the fact that most
people die without receiving forgiveness in this present life? It makes total
sense once we understand that there is a future resurrection when everybody
will receive this grace and will receive this opportunity. See that is how great
God's grace is. That is how Christ's sacrifice can bring grace to everyone.
And yet, how could this happen if this is the only day of salvation when only
a small minority of people are Christians? Notice going on in verse 19.
Romans 5:19 For just
as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, Adam
sinned. He got us going down that path. Everybody became a sinner. so also
through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
He is saying basically just the
way Adam introduced sin to everyone, Jesus is going to introduce grace and righteousness
to everyone.
Wherever you see sin today, someday
you will see the grace of God, and grace will be universal. And again, how do
we reconcile all this with today being the only day of salvation? Another scripture
in Romans 3:23. We have read very often Roman 3:23, but I think in the context
of what are talking about today, it is really very important to go on and read
verse 24 and see what it says.
Romans 3:23-24 for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God, Now we understand this. We all have sinned. I mean, I have sinned
since I got up this morning. Notice what verse 24 tells us. It kind of makes
a contrast with verse 23. It talks about, in verse 23, we are all sinners, and
notice [24] and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that
came by Christ Jesus.
Verse 23 says all have sinned, but
then verse 24 says all are justified. No, we don't see all justified yet. This
isn't happening now. When will it occur? One last verse I want to read in Romans
is Romans 11:32. Now something you have to understand about the book of Romans.
The reason the book of Romans is here first among all of Paul's epistles is
that it gives a really marvelous outline of God's plan of salvation. As you
go from chapter one through chapter eleven, you basically understand first of
all that Gentiles are sinners and Jews are sinners. All people are sinners who
need the grace of God. Then he introduces Abraham and the fact that even Abraham,
whom the Jews would look to as the father of the faithfull, was saved by grace.
And then it brings through how we can have forgiveness of sin. We can walk in
newness of life. And then it kind of concludes in chapter eleven where it talks
about how in the millennium then all people, including Israel, will come to
salvation. It kind of goes through the entire plan of salvation in eleven chapters.
And what verse 32 does is kind of summarize the first part of the book, and
really then summarizes God's plan of salvation.
Romans 11:32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
God is going to have mercy on all
people. We haven't seen that happen yet. I mean, and obviously United Church
of God is not the only place where you find believers, but if you were to just
look by any measure of criteria that you want to, say, most people today, even
people that are sitting in church and trying to live according to some religion
as best they can, have not received the grace of God, have not been forgiven,
have not been shown the mercy of God, but God just simply says, how do I sum
up My plan? My plan is this; all men are bound over to disobedience, but I am
going to show mercy on them all.
What we have seen here are kind
of two very clear statements or concepts of scripture that most believers cannot
reconcile because they just haven't had revealed to them part of God's grace
that we have.
One of these clear statements is
that salvation is only by grace through Jesus Christ. That is the only way you
are saved. But the others are statements such as the one that we just read and
others, that God will offer salvation to everybody.
The fact that salvation is only
by grace and that God will save all men and women, that is in total harmony
with what we learn each year, year by year, in keeping the annual festivals.
But if you don't have God's plan as revealed in the festivals, you can't reconcile
the two and you are left with sort of the dilemma I talked about earlier. Either
salvation is by works, which is not Biblical, but you say God tries to save
good people of all religions. But what that also says is that the sacrifice
of Jesus really doesn't matter. Oh you have the choice that salvation is by
grace through Jesus Christ and God is only saving a few people. If you don't
know God's plan, you either have to conclude that Jesus sacrifice doesn't matter
or that only a small number of people are saved.
There are many, many marvelous statements
in the scripture that talks about the grace of God. I think we need to focus
on these now. And what it says is, when it comes to grace, maybe to kind of
quote the colloquial phrase, "Baby, you ain't seen nothing yet". That
the grace of God, what ever we have experienced in this life, is totally paled
into insignificance by what He is going to do.
What He is saying, what is that
percentage they use on Ivory soap? Ivory soap is 99.44% pure. Maybe if I were
to make an analogy, 99.44% of the grace of God is for the future. And the Bible
states that in many, many places we are going to read. If you will notice John
1:14. It talks about Jesus Christ and His free human condition. It talks of
Him as the word. As a member of the family of God.
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth.
When in commenting on this verse,
the article in the Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, I mentioned
earlier, the article grace comments on this verse. It says, "Grace here
is combined with truth as if they are being presented as complimentary to each
other. And together they make up the totality of the gospel message."
That is kind of interesting. That
to understand the totality of the gospel message you need two things. You need
grace and you need truth. The problem is that many, probably I would say most
who understand about grace and understand how important it is, don't have truth.
Because it not only important to understand the what of grace, as to what it
is, but when it occurs. In other words, knowledge of grace must be combined
with the knowledge of the truth. You have the truth only by understanding the
plan of God. And if you only focus on grace you become confused.
Notice what it says in Ephesians
2. This is one of several verses that says that grace is not revealed until
an age to come. All that the Bible says about grace we are not going to see
that until the age to come when the Lord returns and everybody is offered salvation.
Ephes. 2:6-7 and raised us up together, and made us sit
together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [7] Notice, that in the ages
to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness
toward us in Christ Jesus.
You see, verse six says that God
and Christ are working something great in us in the Church. And then verse seven
says the full richness of His grace. In other words, if you want to understand
the grace of God you have got to stick around for the age to come because not
until you get there are you going to really see what the grace of God is.
How consistent is this with the
great white throne period, because you deny God's plan and you deny the grace
that He is going to extend to every human being that has ever lived. Do we ever
focus on, for example, what a time of total reconciliation the great white throne
period is going to be? It seems like in this age there is so much injustice.
People seem to literally get away with murder. People go to their graves with
ill feelings. Do we understand how much God is going to sort that all out in
the great white throne period?
Let me just give you an example.
It is Feast of Tabernacles time, oh, a little more than a 1,000 years in the
future. We have just been through the general resurrection of all people who
have ever lived, and you have got literally probably tens of billions of people
who are learning to attend the Feast of Tabernacles. We are at a Feast site
somewhere and we see a couple of individuals over here in the corner that are
kind of keeping to themselves. They are speaking to one another. They realize
that they need to be here. They realize they have done some terrible things.
They have done some awful things. They realize that they need to get with this
program of salvation that is being offered. They need to learn what they are
here to be taught. And they need to become a part of this community, this body,
the Church. These individuals are Adolph Hitler, Fuehrer of the Third Reich,
and Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo. They are going to be there. They
try to be friendly. They figure well, let's go meet someone. Probably most people
here won't even know who we are. And they go and introduce themselves to someone,
and the person has just, not an angry look, but such a hurt look in his eyes.
And after they introduce themselves and say what their names are, he answers
them not in the pure language that is going to be spoken in that day, but in
the German of the 20th century. The man says, "Ich heisse Joseph
Lieberman. Ich bin im Auschwitz gestorben." My name is Joseph Lieberman.
I died at Auschwitz. And he introduces them, Mr. Himmler and Mr. Hitler, to
his wife Naomi, to his children Ashur and Miriam. And he just explains what
it was like for them in the Second World War and what they went through.
I am telling you, things like this
are going to happen. And how this fits in with the grace of God is this; do
you know that by the time that hundred year period is done, not only will people
like Hitler and Himmler come to terms with what they did, not only will they
be forgiven, but the hurt and just incredible agony between them and the people
that they affected in this life, that is going to be gone. That is going to
be forgiven. That is one of the things that is going to be buried in the grace
of God. And by the time that hundred-year period is over, Adolph, Heinrich,
Joseph, Naomi, Miriam, and Ashur, are just all going to be able to go out and
enjoy a good time together as fellow children of God.
Now how does that, as the grace of God, compare to anything
we can have in this present age? You know, I think of someone like Timothy McVeigh,
who just, not far from Lafayette, IN where we live, went to his death defiant
and unrepentant about a month ago, for being one of the greatest mass murderers
in the history of the United States. He is not going to be able to remain defiant.
There will have to be reconciliation. Him coming to terms with what he did,
a forgiveness. And we could just go on and on and talk about all of the hurts,
great and small, that people have experienced over all time. And when we understand
what God has in store through the fullness of His grace, then this statement
we read in verse 7, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable
riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus, has a
real meaning. We don't really understand what the grace of God is until we see
it manifested in His full expression through the festivals. Acts 20 makes the
same statement. It says that grace is only something that you have in the kingdom
of God in its fullness.
Acts 20:24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to
me; if I only may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given
to me. The task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
Because of course, the message of
the kingdom of God is all about grace. It is all about forgiveness and reconciliation
for each and every human being.
Acts 20:25 "Now I know that none of you among
whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again.
Notice what he does in verse 24
and 25. He equates the gospel of the kingdom with the gospel of grace. He uses
the two terms interchangeable. The kingdom is when grace is poured out. Until
the kingdom comes, you really won't see grace. I mean we, like many other things,
we have a foretaste of it today. We see God's giving us in our lives. We see
His forgiveness in our lives. But how does that compare to each and every last
human being being called, reconciled, forgiven and reconciled to God? And, I
might add, each and every human being eventually being reconciled to one another?
Remember, actually, probably very few of us are old enough to remember the comedian
Will Rogers. We have heard of him. He always used to say I never met a man I
didn't like. The day is going to come when each and every human being is basically
going to be able to say that, and that is the grace of God.
Titus 2, makes it clear that grace
is something that comes to all men only after the second coming.
Titus 2:11 For the grace
of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,
I just read this from the New International
Version. The Revised Standard states; For the grace of God has appeared for
the salvation of all men.
In other words, the grace of God
appears for all men to be saved. Bauer's Lexicon Standard, one of the
standard Greek English Lexicons, actually has a translation of this verse as
well. It says, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.
So when does the grace of God appear?
When everybody is offered salvation. This happens only after the return of the
Lord. Versus 12 and 13 bring this out.
Titus 2:12-13 It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness
and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in
this present age, [13] while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing
of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
You see, we live godly in this present
age, and then we wait for Jesus' return which is our precious hope. Why? Because
that is when grace and salvation is revealed to all people. So this imparting
to all men is tied in with the second coming.
Being saved by grace means that
you have the opportunity to hear and accept the gospel, which, for most people,
doesn't happen until the future.
I am going to read a couple verses
here in Acts 15. Peter, in his message to the Jerusalem Council actually makes
this point.
Acts 15:7-11 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: "Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. So the Gentiles had heard the gospel and believed. [8] God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. [9] He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. So he is talking all about the Gentiles and how they received the gospel. [10] Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? [11] No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."
See the point, hearing the gospel
and believing is the same as receiving grace. Hearing the gospel and believing
is the same as receiving grace. But that also says that without hearing and
having the chance to believe you do not receive grace. Without grace you cannot
be saved. That is why grace is necessary for salvation, because just simply
having your mind opened to the message of the gospel is one of the great manifestations
of the grace of God.
So, again, to come back to this
point we have been making over and over, if this is the only time of salvation,
most people never received the grace of God. And without the blessed knowledge
of God, the best that some of the sincerest and brightest minds have been able
to come up with is some sort of an idea that we have to preach to everyone that
we can now because most people are condemned to some sort of hell because they
don't have their chance now. There simply has to be a future time for all to
understand the gospel.
We look forward to God saving everyone.
At least offering salvation. Certainly nearly everybody will choose it. But
a Christian, I hope I am not offending by saying this, but a Christian who believes
in salvation by grace without understanding God's plan, basically has to settle
for a plan of salvation in which ten or perhaps twenty percent of people are
saved and the rest are lost. That can't be because as we see in many places,
and just one final scripture in Romans 2:11, God does not show favoritism. God
does not show partiality. God is no respecter of persons. And here in this context
he is even talking about both Jew and Gentile. And as he is talking about "Jew"
being those who have known of God's way for centuries. "Gentile",
those who were unaware of it, he says:
Romans 2:11 For God does not show favoritism.
God does not show favoritism by
opening to His truth to some now, by making His Bible, Christianity, and salvation
through Jesus available to just a few now. God is no respecter of persons. Everybody
has a chance. And that is the grace of God.
To just kind of sum up what we have
seen. Grace is God's fundamental nature. It is the way He is. Remember it is
like the energizer bunny who keeps giving and giving and giving. Grace is God's
absolute and unmerited generosity that He shows to us. He just can't give enough
to us. And I think maybe the biggest manifestation of God's grace is not the
physical blessings we have, whatever they might be, it is the fact that He makes
us His children and we are going to have eternal life. God's grace eventually
is going to reconcile all human beings to one another. And unless we have the
grace of God, which we have through the preaching of the gospel, we don't have
salvation. God so eagerly, we have read several scriptures that say that, wants
to give His grace to everyone. Yet, most people who have ever lived, never even
have the opportunity here what we are talking about, let alone to decide I want
it or I don't want it.
Jesus said He died so that all people
will receive the grace of God. All will have the gospel preached to them. All
will understand about salvation. All will have the opportunity to say yes, and
brethren of course we believe nearly everyone will say yes, and yet this is
an opportunity that only a fraction of people have had so far.
God tells us His grace will be universal.
And it is only by understanding His marvelous plan of salvation that we understand
through the festivals; the Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost,
Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, the Last Great Day,
we can really understand how great the grace of God is.
God tells us that grace is going
to be universal. We must understand grace in combination with truth. If we only
look at grace and don't understand truth, don't understand when grace is and
how it will be given, we get confused. We have read several scriptures that
kind of magnify that truth as well.
What is it that truth teaches us?
Truth teaches us just for most grace is not revealed until the age to come.
That is when they receive the gospel. Truth teaches us that grace is not revealed
to all until the kingdom of God. Truth teaches us that salvation and grace begin
to come to all people only after Jesus returns. The truth teaches us that only
when people hear and can be opened to the gospel can they receive grace. And
for most, that happens in an age to come.
So brethren, does the United Church
of God, and I don't mean to single us out, does the Church of God, do sincere
Christians, do we believe in grace? That is all that God's plan of salvation
is about. And if you talk about grace without understanding God's plan, you
are preaching a false gospel; and either what you have to end up preaching is
kind of a combination of grace and works, or just without saying too much about
it, preach that most people are condemned.
I am awfully thankful that God has
given us an understanding of His grace. I am thankful that we have received
it. I am thankful that we can share it with others. And I am thankful to be
a part of an organization where that preaching is going out in ever greater
power.
Why are we going to go and make
preparations in about three months to keep the Feast of Tabernacles and the
Last Great Day? One of the reasons is to go and say I am just so looking forward
to when everybody is going to receive the grace of God. When everybody comes
into God's family. That is really the true and genuine grace of God.
When we celebrate God's festivals, and the fall festivals will be coming up
on us before we realize it, one of the things that we can reflect upon is that
they teach us about the fulfillment of God's grace when it is made available
to all people. The feasts are not just there for us to be happy. They foretell
when the entire world will be happy and rejoice to finally be given the grace
of God.