God's Grace

If I say the word grace, what does that mean to you? Now, over in Chicago, when I said the word grace, there was a young lady in the congregation who thought I was talking about her. But we were talking about a spiritual subject that you see the Apostle Paul reference many, many times.

How much do we know about that? Do you feel that you know all there is to know about that? I'm betting that all of us don't feel we know all there is to know about anything in the Scriptures. And we're happy to learn something that perhaps we've not quite thought of. It may not be new, but maybe a little bit of a different slant on something. Over the years, you've heard the same definition that I have heard that grace is God's unmerited favor.

And that is a good definition. It's an accurate definition. It's a true statement. Those of us, all of us in this room, deserve only God's wrath. We only deserve the death penalty because of our sins. But because of God's unmerited favor, we have been given the opportunity for eternal life through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Let's take a look at Ephesians 2 for a moment. There is a good discussion about grace here.

It helps launch the sermon. Let's turn over to Ephesians 2. Starting here in verse 8. Ephesians 2, verse 8. For by grace you have been saved through faith. Now, in a little bit, we're going to see some connective tissue as to how grace and faith are connected, but not at this point. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. So here we see evidence of what we've always been taught.

Grace is God's unmerited favor. We don't earn it. It is a gift. But as grace, the definition we've gone to so far, grace is God's unmerited favor, though accurate and true, that definition is also incomplete. There is more to the story than that. Grace is more than what God has done for us in the past through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. There is a religious word that we use for that, and that religious word is called justification.

Justification means that our past sins have been forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Or another way of stating that is that we have, because of the sacrifice of Christ, because of the grace of God, we've got right standing before God. Right standing because of God's grace, because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But we want to move forward in our understanding of grace, because grace is also what God wants us to do now and in the future. There's a word for that, and that word for that is sanctification.

Now, a standard Church of God definition of sanctification is that we are set apart for holy use. Now, what exactly does that mean that we're set apart for holy use? Well, let's continue on in Ephesians 2. We've read verse 8 and verse 9. We've seen the first portion of that definition of grace. But verse 10 shows us what sanctification is talking about. When we've been set apart for holy use, what does that mean? Well, verse 10 tells us, For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Those good works are also an aspect of God's grace. We have been set apart for a holy use, and that holy use is to be a light, to be an example, to be a witness, to be an ambassador. So, another way of looking at sanctification, you know, we've got our standard definition, but let's take another way of looking at this. Sanctification is right living before God. Just as justification is right standing because of the death and sacrifice of Christ, and all of that means, sanctification is right living before God.

Now, the last time I was together, we took a look at Acts 20. If you would please turn there with me. Acts 20 and verse 21. Acts 20 and verse 21, where it says, Testifying to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God. And last time I was here, we looked at the subject of repentance.

What that means for you and I as Christians. We talked about how if we really love God, we are going to be people who repent as a way of life. There's a lot of people who say they love the Lord, but are they willing to do what the Lord says? Are they willing to repent? Are they willing to change? And so we examine that thought. Repentance is toward God because we break God's law. And repentance means we want to stop breaking His law and living the way we should toward God.

But notice the second portion of this verse. Repentance is toward God, but faith is toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we read earlier in Ephesians, For by grace you have been saved through faith. So there's a connection here between grace and faith. What is that connection? Again, there are people in the world who would tell you, all you need to do is nothing. Just do nothing. You hear the call from the pulpit, and you feel motivated to give your life to God. What is there to do? Nothing. Well, is that what the Scriptures have to say?

No, it isn't. We'll take a look at that in just a moment. But the connective tissue, if you will, between grace and faith is this. Grace is extended to believers when believers do two things. And this is not earning salvation. But Jesus Christ Himself said that we have to repent. If we don't repent, we shall likewise perish. So obviously we've got to repent. And also, in addition to that, we have to have faith. Faith in the total sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

And please note the word total, the total sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That means more than just the fact that He was crucified. It means that, to begin with, Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, each day of His life, He couldn't let up for one moment.

He couldn't just sin, just a little tiny sin, and still be our Savior. Jesus Christ had a target on His back all of His life. So we have to have faith in the life He lived. We have to have faith that He died and was crucified according to the Scriptures. And when you take a look at that, that was certainly a trial. Because in a 24-hour period, He had three trials by the civil authorities. He had three trials by the religious authorities. Six different trials. We think of this, the sacrifice of Christ in terms of His crucifixion, the torture, the hanging on the stake.

But there was more to it. You know, when those you loved the most, when those you shared campfires with, and stories with, and meals with, when they all turn their back on you, when they swear and say they don't even know you, that is a trial. Certainly what He went through in terms of... that was a mental trial, an emotional trial. Anybody in this room gone through mental and emotional trials? Next time we get together, we're going to talk about that, trials.

But, you know, so Christ had that, but He also had the physical with the... all the torturing and the hanging on the stake. So we have to have faith in it. We have to have faith that He was resurrected. We don't believe in a dead Savior. We don't believe in a Savior still in the tomb. We believe in a resurrected Savior. We've got to have faith that He was resurrected. We have to have faith that He is a high priest now, our advocate. We have to have faith that He's coming again as our soon-coming King, to establish the Kingdom of God.

All of that is what we've got to have faith in. Now, I said that these are not requirements, and they're not. I guess probably a word that we would use is these are prerequisites, so that grace can be extended to us. Now, let's take a look at a couple of scriptures that show that. Romans 3. Actually, we're going to look at three scriptures here. Romans 3. Verse 24.

We've got to have faith, and then grace is extended to us. Mark 1. Here we have Jesus Christ, and you'll see me many times going back to Mark 1. You know, when new people come to you and they ask you about the reason or the hope that's within you, I know sometimes it's easy for us to get so caught up in, well, what do I say and where do I start? There's so much to say. But Mark 1 is a great place for any of us to start. Most of us have got telephones or something, some device that we carry with us that has our own portable Bible. It used to be when I was visiting, I always said, one of these little tiny print Bibles I put in my suit coat. Those are of no use to me anymore. My eyes can't read those Bibles. So now I've got my phone. My phone's got a Bible that I can turn to. But here on Mark 1, verse 14, Now after John, talking about John the Baptist, was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, some of the most basic of subjects, saying, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, and you know what? You don't have to do anything. No? What did Christ say? He said, repent and believe in the gospel. Repent. We talked about that last week. Believe is to have faith. Have faith in what the gospel stands for, what the gospel message talks about. So there again, you see those two items that we have to have as prerequisites. We see it really clearly, though, here in Acts, chapter 2.

We see the beginning of the New Testament church, 31 A.D. Peter has given an inspiring sermon. We don't have all that he said. We've got kind of the Cliffs' notes, the Reader's Digest condensed version of the sermon here in Acts, chapter 2. But after the people, these Jewish folks that were there, they wanted to keep the Holy Day on Pentecost.

They listened to the sermon. They were inspired by it. And notice what is said here in verse 37. Now, when they heard this, when they heard the sermon, they were cut to the heart. God was calling them, working with them, and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?

And of course, the apostles said, absolutely nothing. Right? No. What shall we do? Is there something that needs to be done? They said, yes.

Peter said, repent. First prerequisite. Secondly, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. To be baptized, when we're baptized, that's symbolic of our faith and the entire sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So repent, number one. Number two, show faith by being baptized. And then what does this verse, end of verse 38 say? And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And we know that we can't call ourselves Christians unless we have that Holy Spirit.

Now, where is all of us going to today?

Talking about grace.

Let's take a look at another verse that I think really helps get us going on the track that I would like to take you on. Acts 6, talking about Stephen, very zealous individual in the early church.

I want to read this in the Amplified version. The Amplified does just what it says. It amplifies the meaning of a verse.

But I think in this case, it really helps us to see some wonderful truth here. Acts 6, verse 8.

Now, Stephen, full of grace.

What does grace do for Stephen? In the Amplified, it has a parentheses, and parentheses as divine blessing and favor, and power, strength and ability, and notice what else it says, works great wonders and signs or miracles among the people.

So if we are full of grace, that grace is going to be showing itself in our actions. It's going to be showing itself in the way we live our lives. It's that sanctification I was talking about earlier.

Not only are we justified and our passings are forgiven, we are sanctified people. We are set apart for a holy purpose, and that holy purpose is to bring forth fruit, to bring forth good fruit, to live the way God wants us to live, to be a light, to be an example.

So, brethren, you and I as Christians are called not only to be recipients of God's grace, we are called to be conduits of God's grace.

We are called to be conduits of it. We are to let the power of God come into us and flow out of us.

There are various scriptures I can quote. I won't get to all of them today, but our speech needs to be seasoned with grace as God's Spirit works with our heart, mind, and our tongue, and as it works with our tongue as our tongue speaks, needs to be seasoned with grace.

So, I've got a question today. Normally, I've got a statement that's the theme for my sermon. Today, I put that in question form. And the question is this, and I want to spend the rest of the sermon answering this question. The question is this. What is God's amazing grace?

Just what is God's amazing grace?

I don't have a whole lot of points here for you. Number one, grace is vital to the mechanics of salvation.

Grace is vital to the mechanics of salvation. Let's take a look at Galatians 1.

Galatians 1, verse 15.

Paul here speaking.

I'll use my name. When is it proper to call Randy Delosandro? Do we call him in this age at all? Do we wait until he's dead and after the millennium and we resurrect everybody in the general resurrection? Do we wait until that period? Of course, the whole philosophy with God and Jesus Christ is, when is going to be the very best time for Randy to be called successfully?

I was called in the summer of 1967.

You know when it was when you were called.

Now, for me, it was pretty dramatic. It was like black and white when God called me. I wasn't in the church. I had been going to all sorts of churches.

You heard all sorts of things. Sniffed incense. All sorts of things. All sorts of bodies of religious people.

But in the summer of 1967, when I turned on the radio and I heard Garner Ted Armstrong proclaiming the truth of God, I said, Wow! I've never heard anything like this. I began to do something that all of you probably began to do. And that was I began to write to a radio station.

Or at least what I thought was a radio station. It turned out I was writing to Pasadena, California and getting literature. And you know how those days went. You'd write for those little, remember those little skinny white booklets with the black stripes up and down? And you get one of those booklets and, you know, you'd ask for 20 or 30 of them. And you would get one or two. And you would read those within an hour of getting the mail out. And each of those booklets had articles that other ones you asked for. And you would send for that. And six weeks later, right as rain, there they would come. You know? It was a very slow process.

Today, anybody who hears about United Church of God, they can go to our website. And it's all there.

Every booklet, every article, sermons, video sermons, audio sermons, sermon transcripts, unbelievable, it's available. But today, all of that, no matter which way God is working, it is done through His grace. You didn't plunk money down, and I didn't plunk money down, and said, God, I want you to call me. God did that when it was best for us. God the Father and Jesus Christ said, when's it best to call this individual?

You know, that harkens back to a scripture I quoted, I think maybe my first or second Sabbath here, 1 Peter 5-7. I'm not going to turn there, but in 1 Peter 5-7, in the Phillips translation, says that you are, we are God's personal concern.

Your salvation, when you're going to be called, you're His child, you're precious to God.

I had a, you know, interesting time when I, when we ran off to, Mary and I ran off to Detroit, wanted to encourage my son and my daughter-in-law, because they knew they were going to be having a challenging delivery for the two granddaughters. And so we drove over there Monday morning, thinking we'd be driving back home from Detroit that same day.

We drove over there, encouraged the couple. Things were looking pretty good. So we got in the car mid-afternoon, made it all the way back to the Illinois State Line, within 10 miles or so of the Illinois State Line. Got word, the girls are coming. So it turned around, drove all the way back to Detroit. Now, I say Detroit, where the hospital is located is only about 10 miles from Canada. It's about as far east as you're going to go and still stay in this country. So I mean, and then, you know, so what you had is driving there, going almost back to Illinois, driving back, we put about 900 miles in the car that day.

And so we stayed overnight, and the next morning we were able to see the two little girls. And there's nothing like looking into a little incubator and seeing two little structures about this big. 12 inches, 12 1⁄2 inches and 14 inches. Neither one more than two, neither one less, both of them less than two pounds. And when we walked in, little Austin was crying. And I thought, boy, I don't know what she's going to look like when she gets older, but she got grandpa's lungs.

You wouldn't think a structure that small can fill up a room with sound. And we were there for a while, then she started crying. And, you know, your heart kind of breaks. You see that little thing laying there? I don't know. There was no problem. You know, there's doctors and nurses every place. She was hooked up to monitors. There's no problem. I was wondering, maybe she was missing her twin sister, maybe missing her mother's heartbeat or her mother's voice or something. But, you know, she... little tiny mouth open, crying, little tiny tongue, little hands going over her head, waving her little tiny fingers, kind of like, doesn't anybody care? But it was good for her.

You know, those lungs were being exercised. But that's how God views you. You know, as my heart was melting to see those two little structures, how much of a little structure are we? What did Job say? Who was mankind that God even gives us a second thought? And yet we are his personal concern. By his grace, we have been called. Romans 2. Romans 2, verse 1. Therefore, having been justified by faith... Notice faith and grace here. We know we've been justified by grace, but here the word is faith.

See, we see the connection between grace and faith. Having been justified by faith, our past sins have been forgiven. We've got right standing before God. We have peace with God. Brethren, to what degree do you feel you've got peace in your life right now? To the degree you and I put our faith in God, the plan of God, the will of God for our lives.

You know, if you got my midweek Bible study, I was talking about waiting on God, waiting on God, having faith in His plan in our lives individually. To the degree you and I can put our simple faith in God, and what He has planned for us, will be to the degree we have peace. Many times I've asked myself, why is it that I've got all this noise going on in my heart and mind? You've probably asked yourself the same thing. I've had to respond to myself that, Randy here does not rely on faith upon God and His will. I've got to get more. I've got to merge with what He wants. Not what I want, but what He wants.

And to the degree I can do that, I will have peace. That doesn't mean the trial goes away. That doesn't mean the pain goes away. That doesn't mean the bad circumstances go away. But it means of our heart and mind to realize, this is in God's hands. This is in God's hands. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We don't have peace through Donald Trump. We don't have peace through Hillary Clinton. No, we have peace through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I think it was the last blog that Mr. Morrison wrote that was making that very fine comment. The political structure of this country is not going to save anything. Our salvation, our hope rests in God. But notice verse 2, "...through whom also we have access by faith into this grace..." Again, we see the connection. "...we have access by faith of Christ into this grace in which we stand..." This grace in which we stand. So our destiny is of grace.

"...into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." We can rejoice in the coming kingdom. We can rejoice at what we are going to become as sons and daughters, spirit beings in the family of God. We know that by the grace in which we stand. Our calling is by grace. Our destiny is by grace. We've read several times that our justification is by grace. Let's look at Acts 18.

Acts 18 and verse 27. "...and when he had crossed to Achaia, the brethren rode, exhorting the disciples to receive him. And when he arrived, they greatly helped. He greatly helped those who had believed through grace." So our belief is through grace. When God began to open up our hearts and minds, His grace touched us. So what we read, what we saw, what we heard made sense. How many times? How many of us have said to others, I couldn't make sense of the Bible?

I tried and it just didn't make sense. And all of a sudden, God flipped a switch in my mind, in my heart. Well, what was that? That's belief through grace. Belief through grace. Acts 20 and verse 24. "...but none of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy and the ministry which I have received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of..." What? "...to the gospel of the grace of God." The gospel of the grace of God.

I gave a sermon a number of years ago over in Wisconsin Dells, and I talked about this subject to some degree. It was on the morning of the last great day.

And I'll never forget that as I was going through in my German... I'm Italian, but you're not going to need a more German Italian than me. Because my mother's side... my wife's shaking her head. My mother's side was German, so I think maybe even though I'm 50% Italian, I think that 25% is rising up, and that's why I've got all the points and so forth. The German rises up. But as I was giving this sermon in Wisconsin Dells, talking about grace in these various points, the gentleman in the afternoon summarized it in a couple of sentences. He said, "...everything we do is a matter of God's grace." And that gentleman's name was Bob Faye. "...Everything we do is by God's grace." So it is the gospel of the grace of God.

The gospel of the grace, because everything is by God's grace. It's the same chapter, verse 32. So now, brethren, I commend you to God, to the Word of His grace. The Scriptures are of grace. The Scriptures are God reaching out to us. His power. The Scriptures, what we have in the pages of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is a portion of the mind of God. It's not the whole mind. God's mind can't be contained. It's a portion. It's the grace of God talking to us.

Every word being inspired. Every thought being the grace of God. The Scriptures are of grace. So, as I made mention, point number one, grace is vital to the mechanics of salvation. Point number two. And that is, grace is expressed in a wide variety of forms. Grace is expressed in a wide variety of forms. Last week in Chicago, when I gave this sermon, and I appreciate the fact we've got three people in this audience who heard that last week, and none of them are snoring at this point.

But when I was talking last week, I made the analogy that grace is like a beautiful jewel. My wife and I enjoy getting out in the morning and walking. My cardiologist really enjoys that I do that. We get up some days like today when we thought there was going to rain, and certainly living through this heat wave. We get up early, and within five minutes drive of our home, or place we're staying, is a mall. And so, we got to the mall about seven o'clock in the morning, and as you're making the rounds, we walk about three and almost four miles in there.

You keep on passing by these places that sell jewelry. And of course, they've got those beautiful lights. The glass is absolutely clean. No smudges, no fingerprints. You look down, you want to buy everything. I would make a great American Indian. Give me all these shiny objects here. But you look down into those cases, and you see the diamonds and the emeralds, and how beautiful they are in the sparkling light.

But they sparkle because of the facets that they have. Faith and grace, and many other subjects, but let's talk about grace for a moment, it's a multifaceted subject. Somewhere in the future, we'll talk about faith along those lines. People come to a minister and say, how do I know if I've got enough faith? My typical response would be faith in what? Because you can have faith that God will heal you, but maybe not have faith that God will protect you.

You can have faith that God will protect you, but maybe not heal you. You can have faith that God would provide for you, but maybe not have faith that God will heal you. There's any number of things in our life that we may be very strong.

I've known people who are very strong in terms of, God will provide, or God will protect, or God will heal. But those same people, should I come to Passover? Well, don't you have faith that you accept the Christ of your Savior, and your Passings are all forgiven? Well, I don't know. I'm a pretty bad person. So again, faith is one of those sorts of things where it's multifaceted. Grace is the same way. Let's take a look at the various facets.

And when I give you what I have here, brethren, this is by no means an extensive list. But let's take a look at some of the facets of faith. And perhaps this would spur you on to more Bible study on your own. The first one I have, and you can name this what you want to, I call it common grace. Common grace. Common grace is the grace that is poured out on all mankind. You don't have to be in the church to be a recipient of God's common grace.

Let me prove my point here. Let's go to Matthew 5. Matthew 5. In verse 44, Matthew 5.44, But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use and persecute you. So here we're looking at some fairly bad folks. But notice verse 45.

So in other words, our God does wonderful things even for the worst of people. The sun would shine on Adolf Hitler, just as the sun would shine on the greatest saint. So the atheists who would spit on the name of God the Father or Jesus Christ, God gives them the ability to spit.

God gives them life. God, in His grace, reaches out and gives them life. So that's what you call the common grace. Every human being has God's grace touching them. We're not talking about saving grace. We're just talking about common grace. Now, let's move on to saving grace. Here's another facet. Here's another type of grace. This is not given to everybody at this point. Everybody will have their opportunity sometime in their life, whether it be the life that they lived or are living, or the life God will give them in the second resurrection.

They'll have an opportunity. Let's take a look at Acts 15. This is saving grace, Acts 15, 11. Acts 15, 11. But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they. Saving grace. I don't think I need to try to illuminate that anymore. I think we all understand that kind of grace. We're saved by that grace and so forth. Now, let's go to another type of grace. This is what I would call it.

Again, you can name these what you want, but I would call this a securing grace. Securing grace. John 10. John 10, starting here in verse 27. John 10. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.

No need to worry about the workings of Satan or the demons. We don't want to just march through life neglecting the fact that they're there. That would be unwise on a number of levels. But as you and I are children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, we don't have to go through life thinking, well, Satan is just going to grab me and take me off. He's going to shipwreck my salvation. Well, that only happens if we let that happen.

That only happens if we let that happen. It says here that God is going to be there for us. Nothing is greater than anything. Nothing is greater than God. He's going to be there to secure our salvation. Jude 24. I've read the Scripture so many times I enjoy reading the Scripture frequently. Jude 24. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless. How can we present you faultless because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, because of saving grace? And to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. That's securing faith. We are secure in the knowledge that because we have accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, because we are living in a sanctified way, in a right way before God as the Scripture shows us the way to live.

We are secure. Don't have to worry about that. We are secure. There is what is called a sanctifying grace. A sanctifying grace is the kind of grace that brings about growth, brings about maturity, brings about our progress of becoming more Christ-like. That is a sanctifying grace. Acts 13. Acts 13. And verse 43. Sanctifying grace. Acts 13.43. Now when the congregation had broke out, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.

Continue in the grace. Continue to grow. The Bible talks about growing in grace and knowledge. Grow in maturity, spiritually speaking. Grow to become more Christ-like. 1 Corinthians 15. 10. 1 Corinthians 15. 10. By the grace of God, I am what I am.

And His grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all. Not I, but the grace of God, which was with me and in Him. So here you see here that there is something God wants us to do. We need to grow. We need to labor.

We need to struggle. And it's not easy, depending upon what your situation in life is. But over the course of many years in the ministry, I have marveled at people in God's church, who I've watched grow and develop and flourish. I know, you know, now human beings, apart from God's Spirit, they'll grow and develop and flourish. We all know that. That can be an aspect of just human nature. It can be an aspect of heredity, any number of things. People grow.

But I've watched it beyond what a typical human being would do. And the only way that happens is by that special spiritual additive we call God's Holy Spirit. By God's grace. Paul said, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain. In other words, God's grace was working on Paul. Paul said he labored and the fruits were shown. So, brethren, let's make sure you and I are using that kind of grace.

There's yet another kind of grace I want to just touch base on here, and that is serving grace.

Serving grace. Some of you here have the ability to play musical instruments. You do so very nicely. You add a great deal to our service. Some of you are able to lead songs. Some of you have great singing voices. Some of you have the ability to speak in public. That's always been one of the number one fears people have, speaking in public. And you do that in a very nice way, a very proper way here. Others of you, you know, Mary and I come into the congregation.

We enjoy coming to this congregation. You're a warm group. Not every group, I can't say that about every group I've ever been with, or gone to. I've gone to some churches where it's kind of like, didn't I shower this morning? You know, maybe use a better brand of toothpaste or mouthwash, or what's going on here? And we've got some congregations.

People said they've walked in. They've walked all around. They made it a point of being available, and no one walks up and says hello. That's not Chicago. That's not Beloit. But I've had people say that about various places they visited. So what I'm getting at is even the ability to stick your hand out and say, Hello, my name is so-and-so.

That's not always easy for some people. It certainly wasn't easy for me when I was going to Ambassador College. I was terrified of young ladies, but I had something going for me. I was on the landscape crew. And as a landscaper, I had everybody coming past where I worked all day long, at least during the time that my shift was. I made it a point in my freshman year at college that said, I'm terrified of talking to young ladies, but everyone that passes me, I'm going to say hello.

And I would say hello and then be terrified. But as time went on, I was able to say hello, and can we go out? And then I would be terrified and they would say yes. So it was a process. Over the course of time, that went away. But we all have things we're terrified of, and yet I've seen God's people really progress with His Holy Spirit. So you've got the ability to serve. Let's take a look at Ephesians 4.

Serving grace. Ephesians 4. And verse 7. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. You were baptized. You received God's Holy Spirit. You've got that gift. Don't say you don't have gifts. You've got the gift of God's Holy Spirit. You probably have more than one. Not more than one spirit, more than one gift. Let's link this with 1 Peter 4 and verse 10.

1 Peter 4. As each one has received a gift, minister or serve one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Use that grace to serve, to the ability of what you have to give. Last Saturday night, Mary and I had an opportunity with a young adults group over in the Chicago church. I really enjoyed that.

I enjoyed these young people ages 18 and 30 who got together. One of the assignments they had was to take five minutes and to do a little talk. They all were given a piece of paper. And on that paper, they had to draw a line through the middle. And then they had to plot highs and lows of their life, whatever they wanted to discuss. Now, in five minutes, you can't go through your whole life. So they would cherry pick as to what highs and what lows. But it was interesting what they had to say.

I learned a lot through that. And then there was another section of the evening where there was a question that came in. One of the things that I've done in the past for the church is answer questions from the Internet. Well, there was a question that came in. And so each of them was to give a response to this particular question. And what we may do here someday is to have, like in our in-home Bible studies, I may bring a whole flock of those and say, hey, let's answer these questions.

I've done that in times past, and people really enjoy that. But what we do is I say, let's do it as a group. Don't want anybody to feel like, so you've got to come up with all the answer on your own.

And as a group, you know, here's the question, how do we respond to this? Well, they took each question individually, and I was really happy to see the depth of understanding and the spiritual nimbleness that these young adults had. It shows that they've taken the grace of God, the gift of God, and they're doing something with it.

So that's another way we serve. Last type of grace, and again, this is not a complete list. This is just a partial list. But the last grace I want to discuss with you in a time I've got left is what we call sustaining grace. Now, two weeks from now, when I'm here again, we'll go through more of this, because I've been asked to give a sermon on trials, why we go through those. Why me, God? Why not stop this God? How many times do I have to go through this God?

So we're going to go through that in a couple of weeks. But we've got sustaining grace. 2 Corinthians 12. 2 Corinthians 12. Haven't we all been there? God, I got the point.

Can we please move forward here? And I think many times God is trying to whisper in our ear, sometimes whisper, sometimes yell in our ear, No, you have not gotten the point yet. That's why we're still going through this trial. 2 Corinthians 12. Verse 7. Now, I know none of you in this room have got any thorns in the flesh, right?

All of us have got great health, no problems. I know that's not the case. A messenger of Satan that buffeted me, lest I be exalted above measure. In other words, God gives us things to keep us humble. Considering this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times in the mighty part. He pleaded. He was in earnest. Use the motion. God answered his prayer. How did God answer his prayer? Verse 9. He said, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

God could have performed a mighty miracle and healed Paul. Or God could say, you know, just like with Mr. Armstrong. When I was in the work world and not a church pastor, there were several times where I was flown into various cities for job interviews. And in some of these interviews, I would be asked to have an interview with their local shrink. And in the one case in Baltimore, the psychiatrist said, Randy, what book has meant the most to you in life?

And I said, well, the Bible. Forget about the Bible. What other book has made the biggest impact in your life? And I said, the autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong. He says, who's he? I said, well, you've got a century I'll talk to you about him. But, you know, Mr. Armstrong went through tremendous trials, tremendous difficulties. And yet, what did you always hear? At the end of his life, the man was almost blind in both eyes and deaf in both ears.

God could have healed him, but God didn't heal him. Why? Well, part of it was so us to watch God's power and action. But the other part is for us to realize that, you know, my grace is sufficient for you. You want one big miracle to be healed? I can, God says, I can do that. Or I can give you a daily miracle. Every day you've got to rely upon me to get through the day.

Now, I don't know. I think maybe in many, many ways that's even a greater miracle to rely every day to God to get me through that day. That's a tremendous series of miracles. So you've got what is known as sustaining grace. And the last thing I want to say to you, Brother, on point number three, is humility is key to growing in any of God's graces. Humility is key to growing in any of God's graces. Just one Scripture here, Luke chapter 18.

You'll hear me talk about humility as a subject and as parts of sermons many, many times. I feel it is the building block of Christian values, of our foundation. If we're not humble, we're not going anywhere, spiritually speaking. Luke chapter 18 verse 9.

So, Brethren, you and I, as individuals, we've got to ask ourselves, where are we in our walk and our individual walks with God? Maybe the reason why we're going through the trials we're going through is because God still has... our knees aren't bent as much as they should be. Our head is not bowed as much as it could be. And God says, you know, you're really not fully trusting me yet. You're really not on the same page as me yet. And so until you are, we're going to continue with this trial. I mean, haven't we done that as parents? You know, we've got our little children that we love very, very much, and they aren't getting the lesson. Do we just say, well, you're not getting a lesson. Let me give you some rewards. No, no. We say, you're not getting a lesson. We're going to keep on... Here's another night where you don't get to do X, Y, or Z until you really come to understand what's going on here. So just what is God's amazing grace, brethren? It's not only the fact that our past sins have been forgiven by Christ's sacrifice. It is also the fact that God wants us to be a conduit. He wants us to allow His grace to come into our lives and pass through to others to be a light, to be an example, to be that conduit. Final Scripture is over here in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Something for us to always keep in mind. Dealing with the subject of grace, dealing with the subject of humility. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.

Our sufficiency is from God. It is by His grace that we stand physically and spiritually and in every possible way. So we have enjoyed Mary and I, and we brought Kay Loftus. We enjoy being with you here today, and we're going to look forward to being with you in a couple of weeks. So you all take care. We're going to stay around for a bit, then head back to the big city.