Grace

What does the word grace mean to you? Over the years, the Church has been accused of believing in salvation by works. Yet, this is a problem that you find that the Jews had.

I remember years ago, Mr. Armstrong wrote an article in the Plain Truth. It's one of the longest articles I've ever seen in the Plain Truth about why we do not believe in salvation by works.

He went through and very clearly explained that we do not. A few months later, I saw someone quote that very article to prove that we believed in salvation by works.

After reading what they said, I felt that they were not being very honest because the whole thrust of the article was quite contrary. But they've taken a couple of expressions, sentences out of context, and included it in their article. The Bible very clearly indicates that some will misapply grace. All you have to do is read the book of Jude, especially verses 3 and 4, and you will find where this is mentioned. The word grace is used something like 170 times in the Bible.

I've heard people in the church object to the word grace, are using the word grace too often, because they think it sounds too much like a Protestant. Protestants talk about grace. And if we talk too much about grace, then we'll water down the truth, or we'll water down the law, or we'll water down something. The word is used in the Bible to actually help to explain what is behind what God does, His motivation, where He's coming from. It explains the nature of God. It explains His approach toward mankind. Some say, well, it's a soft word. It's not a strong word in the Bible. Maybe it's a filler word. It's a meaningless word. A lot of people look on words in the Bible as being meaningless. You know, propitiation, reconciliation, atonement. What are all these words mean? Some people think they're gobbly goop, and so therefore, they throw grace into the same word. They say it's a word that doesn't have much value. It's a weak word.

As I explained, they may think that it sounds too much like a Protestant to talk about grace.

Now, the way the word is used today in many churches implies something that the Bible does not teach, and that is, it's used in a way that implies license, that you have liberty to do something that God does not give you liberty to do. And some equate the word. Their definition of grace is liberty, and so that's what they come up with. Some argue if you talk about grace, and you'll encourage people to ignore the law and sin. Now, you may think like these are crazy ideas, but I've heard them over the years expressed by various people. How do you answer somebody who will say, well, I think it'll encourage people to ignore the law and to sin? Well, my answer is, you simply can't ignore the subject of grace. I mean, it's in the Bible, and it's very clearly taught in the Scriptures. If we don't understand the subject of grace, we miss out on one of the major ideas, one of the major concepts in the whole Bible. I believe that many in the church have not understood the matter of grace the way that we should or fully understand it. We have many who have severe struggles in the church, and I believe that much of that goes back to an incorrect understanding of grace. A lot of times, people feel guilty, lack confidence, are discouraged, as we found out last week, or feel worthless, and all of these feelings would be resolved to a great extent if we correctly understood the word grace and the idea behind it as presented in the Scriptures. So it's a word that actually answers a multitude of questions and resolves a multitude of difficulties that people are faced with. As we will see today, the word is a powerful concept.

It does not encourage lawlessness, but when properly understood, it's the very thing that ensures righteousness, that if we want to be righteous, that you have to have grace.

It is a concept that holds many of the answers to questions that we're looking for.

So with that in mind, let's go back to the book of Acts, chapter 15, and let's begin in chapter 15, and let me show you that very early on there was a struggle to understand this word. Although it's not expressed precisely in these terms, we will see that it does enter into the picture. Acts chapter 15, verse 1, certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

Okay, this wasn't a little issue. Here were teachers coming along, telling the Gentiles that you can't be saved without keeping the law, or at least without being circumcised.

Now, Paul and Barnabas totally disagreed with that. Notice in verse 2, therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. Now, they went up, as we will see. In verse 3, it says, so being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy to all the brethren. Now, the point, or the fact that's indisputable that you can't argue with, is that Gentiles had been converted. Gentiles had not been circumcised. Gentiles had the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Gentiles didn't need to be circumcised to be saved. I mean, you know, this is the logic behind what Paul and Barnabas were teaching. But verse 5, but some of the sect of the Pharisees, so now we've identified who these people are, they have a pharaecical background. They had come into the church. Just as all of us come from various backgrounds, you may be a Protestant, you may have come from a Catholic background, you may have come from an atheistic background, you could have come from a humanistic background. Whatever the background, we all come into the church, and we all carry our little suitcases with us. It's called baggage. And we bring our own baggage, we bring our own ideas, our own thoughts with us, and the Pharisees had their own thoughts.

So some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.

So this gives a little idea about what the problem was. Not only were they saying they had to be circumcised, but they had to keep the law of Moses. Now hold your place here, but over in Galatians chapter 2, you might remember that we went over this when we covered the book of Galatians. Galatians 2 verses 1 through 5 gives a little background to what we're talking about here.

It says, after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and also took Titus with me, and I went up by revelation and communicated to them the gospel which I preached among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run or had run in vain.

Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised, but this occurred because false brethren. Now he calls them false brethren. Over in the book of Acts, it says they were Pharisees who believed. So they believed, but they didn't believe everything, or they had a misunderstanding.

But this occurred, it says, because of false brethren secretly brought in who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty. Now there is such a thing as Christian liberty, and there is such a thing as those who teach a form of liberty which is nothing but license to disobey. And he's not talking here about license to disobey.

He says, our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage, to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. Okay, with that as a background, let's come back over here. And you'll notice that Paul, when he went into Galatia and the Gentiles were being converted there, and many other areas that he had gone to, those Gentiles did not know very much about the law of Moses.

And they didn't know, when we talk about the law of Moses, they didn't know about the temple. They did not know about the temple service. They were not acquainted with the priesthood, the sacrifices, the rituals, the washings, knew the evolutions, and all of these things. They were just simply not familiar with that. When Paul would go into a Gentile area, he would preach Christ and him crucified, and he would teach some God's law and commandments, you know, the Ten Commandments, God's way of life. They'd been introduced to Jesus Christ, who embodied the law.

It was through Christ, he taught, that they would bear fruits. It would be Christ living in them, working in them. The Gentiles, as we will find, had already received the Holy Spirit, and they did not keep the law of Moses, the law concerning the physical ritual sacrifices and all of these things. Now, basically, in verse 5, what they were saying they needed to do was to be circumcised. Why did they say they needed to be circumcised? Well, of course, they'd done that for 1600 years, but if you wanted to become a Jewish proselyte, you had to be circumcised.

The way to become a part of a particular group of people was you had to be circumcised, and then you had to obey, keep, and do what they taught. Now, in verse 6, so the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter, and when there had been much dispute, so not everybody agreed here on what should be done, there was much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as He did to us. Now, if you remember the story going back to Acts 10 and 11, Paul, excuse me, Peter went and preached to Cornelius and his family. They believed, and God poured out the Holy Spirit on them just like He did on the Jews on the day of Pentecost, and they received the Holy Spirit.

So therefore, the Gentiles did not have to join the Jewish community or to be circumcised, did not have to come up to Jerusalem to offer up sacrifices, did not have to go through the rituals, you know, and all of these type of ceremonies. Now, this is what the Jews, these Jews here, of a Pharisaical background, were wanting the Gentiles to do. Let's go on here in verse 9.

Peter said, he made no distinction between us and them. Where distinction means he made no difference between us and the Jews. Between us and them purifying their hearts, how? Well, by circumcision. Well, no, it doesn't say that. It says by faith. The word purify here means to cleanse or to clean up. How do you and I become clean in God's sight of our sins? Well, we repent. We repent of what? Sin. What is sin?

1 John 3, 4, the transgression of the law. So we have to repent of breaking God's law.

So they were purified, though, by faith. They believed. And so there was no distinction made. Let's go over here. Hold your place, but in Romans 10 verses 11 through 13, Paul explains this.

Romans chapter 10 verses 11 through 13 says, For the Scripture says that whoever believes on him will not be put to shame.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him. And whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are you going to call unless you hear the truth? It goes on to show you it's not just saying anybody who claims to be a Christian is going to receive the Holy Spirit. You have to hear the truth, the gospel preached to you.

You have to have God's way explained. Now the Gentiles were looked upon as dogs are trashed by the Jews. And the false teachers thought that they had to become clean through keeping the law of Moses and circumcision. And Paul argued that that was simply not true. Now in verse 10, he says, Now therefore why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? It was humanly speaking. He's talking about their forefathers, and they were not able to do all that the law of Moses required because they would mess up, sometimes they would break the law, and they would be held accountable. The Jews tried to be pure and accepted of God by keeping all of the obligations of the law, and you find that they fell into a trap.

We realize, brethren, I don't care what law you're talking about. You're keeping the law, whether it's sacrifices, rituals, any law, or even the Ten Commandments, doesn't forgive you. We have to obey the Ten Commandments, but that doesn't purify you, doesn't clean you, or forgive you, which then makes you acceptable in God's sight. You can keep the law all day long.

From this moment on, you can keep the law and never sin, and that does not forgive your past sins. You see, our law-keeping doesn't do that. The law doesn't justify us. It doesn't cleanse us.

It doesn't forgive us. It takes the work of God to work with us, to soften our heart, to affect the changes that are needed, to bring us to repentance, our accepting Christ as our Savior, and then our being baptized, having our sins forgiven, and then to receive the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ has to come to live within us and impart His life, His power, His Spirit to us.

Jesus Christ lives in us, and as a result, good works can be performed and can be done, but not just by our own human energy and our own human efforts.

Fruits are born by God's Spirit. It takes the Spirit of God to produce the spiritual fruits that God is looking for, not just our own effort. So, you and I realize, brethren, that this is why we try to emphasize Jesus Christ in a proper manner in the right way, as we'll see. Let's go on here in chapter 15 verse 11. He says, For we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, remember this is Peter speaking, we shall be saved in the same manner as they.

So, it doesn't matter whether you're a Jew or a Gentile. We will all be saved in the same manner, and it is through grace. So, we're saved by grace, not by rituals, not by circumcision, not by sacrifices, not by any law. We're saved by grace. Obedience to any law does not save us, per se. It is our obedience, our works that save us, or let's say, if our obedience or our works save us, then what are we doing? We're saving ourselves. We have the capacity to save ourselves by our own obedience. Actually, when you begin to understand this topic, it goes back to the two trees in the Garden of Eden. You find that a person can do good under both trees.

One is a human goodness under the tree of good and evil. The other is God's righteousness under the tree of life. It has to be God in us that produces the righteousness.

Now, in Romans 3, let's notice a very important scripture. Romans 3.20. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, or the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight.

So, you cannot be justified by works. I don't care what kind of works they are.

What is the purpose of the law? Well, it goes on to tell us.

For by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's the purpose of the law. It makes us aware of sin.

As Paul will come to that later on, said, I would not have known what sin is unless the law said, thou shall not covet, or thou shall not commit adultery. How do you know right from wrong?

See, this is the big argument in society today. People say, well, my opinion is good as your opinion. When you do away with the Bible, you do away with God, and you lean to your own understanding, then everybody's opinion is just as good as anybody else's. When you do away with the standard, which is God's law, then you don't have anything to evaluate by. So we find the law reveals to us what sin is. Now why? So we can stop sinning. That's why. Obviously, God doesn't want us to continue to sin. But the law does not have the power to make you righteous. You need something else.

And that's God's Spirit. That's God in us. Verse 21. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.

So there is a righteousness that comes from God. It takes God living in us for us to do what is right.

None of us, by our own effort, we've got a bunch of wonderful young people here, and teens and young adults. But if you're not baptized, they may want to obey God to the best of their ability. But guess what? As mothers and fathers, you know that they slip up every once in a while, don't they? And guess what? You and I can have God's Spirit for decades.

And guess who slips up? You and I do. We still have faults, don't we? And we realize that.

It takes God living in us for us to do what is right, to obey His law, especially when it comes to the Spirit or the intent of the law, the purpose of the law, to keep it in the mind with the spiritual intent. In verse 22, even the righteousness of God, so whose righteousness is it?

It's God's righteousness, which is through faith in Christ, or faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe, for there is no difference.

So there is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. You and I, in order to have the righteousness of God, have to have the faith of Jesus Christ. Hold your place here, and Colossians the third chapter. We will quickly take a peek. Colossians 3 verses 1 through 4 to begin with.

Colossians 3 verse 1, If then you were raised with Christ, so you and I have been baptized, as we found in chapter 2, and we went through Colossians, we repent, we're baptized, we rise up.

So it says, You've been raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting on the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, and not on the things of the earth. For you died, so you and I, our old man, the old way of life, sins, died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God. So you and I, if we died, we have a new life, a new creation, a spiritual creation, and Christ who is our life. See, Jesus Christ now lives in us, and He is our life. If He lives in us, He will live the same type of life in us that He lived when He walked this earth over 1900 years ago. So He is our life.

There is no other life without Him spiritually. So when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Then we're told to put to death our members, which are on the earth, and we're to have Christ then living in us. Now in verse 9, do not lie one to another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created Him. So we are now renewed in knowledge according to the spiritual image of Christ.

Whether He is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian or Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

So Jesus Christ, if you and I have the Holy Spirit, as far as His church is concerned, those that He is working with today, He is all in all, in all of us. He lives over His life again within us. When Jesus Christ was on the earth, He was the light of the world. He was the temple of God on earth at that time. Today His body is His temple, and we are the light. Why are we the light? Why are we His temple? Because He resides within us. In the Old Testament, God said He wanted to dwell among them. He dwelt in the temple. God dwells in our bodies today, and He collectively dwells in the church. And so, all in all. Now coming back to Romans 3 again, verse 23, we find something shocking, for all have sinned. So there's nobody who hasn't sinned. Christ is the only exception. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So we've all sinned, and we all come short of the glory, the righteous life, the way that God would want us to live. But then it goes on to say, being justified is not a good thing. So you and I are justified hell, freely.

Now notice that word, freely, by His grace. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Redemption, you and I have been bought, paid for, bought back. Freely means freely. It means that our forgiveness, our being justified, is free. It's by grace. How could you or I earn our own justification? You just think about it. You want to be justified.

Let me paint a scenario. You sinned this morning, so you decide you're going to be justified.

So you say, God, I will not sin for the rest of the day. And by so doing, that will justify my sin this morning. And God says, no, it doesn't, because He knows that tomorrow you'll probably sin again. You and I, even though we don't want to sin, still sin. We still have wrong thoughts.

We still do things that are wrong. We do things that we don't even know that are wrong, and thereby sin. At one time, we didn't understand God's way of life at all. We sinned, habitually, all the time, because we didn't know about the Sabbath or the Holy Days, or tithing, or clean, unclean meats, or we didn't understand the spiritual intent of God's law.

There's nothing that we can do that will atone for, pay for, our past sins. So it is something that God does freely by His grace. And it's the very essence of what grace is all about.

We could never be good enough to merit on our own power, our own goodness, forgiveness, or to deserve forgiveness, or to be worthy of forgiveness by what we do. We deserve death. That's what we deserve. That's what we earn. The wages of sin is death. Romans 6, 23. So that's what we earn. All of you should have received a handout and came in.

Looks something like this. Yours isn't colored. But three different definitions of the word grace, charis, and the Greek. One from enhanced Strong's lexicon, taken from the Logos research system. One from vines and one from westward studies. Notice grace from Strong's 1a says that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness, graces, speech. Dropping down to grace, two, this is from vines under number one, says on the part of the bestore, the friendly disposition from which the kindly act. It motivates. It motivates our actions. It motivates God's actions. Two, on the part of the receiver, a sense of the favor bestowed. That a certain favor is bestowed upon you. You sense that, you understand that, you comprehend it. Then, number three, westward studies.

Second paragraph here says, charis implies ever a favor freely done. You do something freely for somebody without claim or expectation of return.

And then the last sentence, but the word especially denotes God's grace and favor toward mankind, or to any individual, which is a free act excludes merit. When we say excludes merit, it means you can't earn it.

Mr. Armstrong used to give the definition of grace as God's unmerited pardon.

That really is a very good definition. It's not something you merit. You can't say, like the Jews, this is the way the Jews were trying to do it. They thought because of their fasting, their many prayers, their flagellation of the body, their sacrifices, whatever it was that they were doing, that they would earn God's forgiveness and God's grace. And it doesn't work that way.

What you find, grace is God's kindness and graciousness towards us, without regard to the worth or merit of those who receive it. We don't deserve it.

There's nothing that we can do that would say, I deserve this. You've got to give it to me. We deserve death. And even though we may repent, that still doesn't mean that we deserve it. It is God's free gift. In chapter 5 of the Book of Romans, chapter 5 verses 6 through 8, it says, for when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. And for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die, but God's demonstrates his own love toward us.

And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While all of us were sinners, even before we were born, Christ died to make it possible for us to be forgiven.

What can you and I do to deserve that?

God freely gave his Son. Christ freely was willing to come to this earth and to die for our sins. What can we do to say, I deserve that? We deserve death. Let me illustrate what I'm talking about by a story of a rich man. Picture this in a major city, New York City, Chicago, Cleveland, wherever it might be. Big black limo pulls up and hears an alcoholic line in the gutters, a street person, and he's unshaven, filthy, flies or flying around him. Maybe he's lying there in his own regurgitation. He's dirty and he's filthy. Rich man comes along, picks him up, throws him or places him gently in the back seat of the car, and takes him to his mansion, has his servants wash him, clean him up, buy him a new suit of clothes, actually have the tailor come in and fit him with clothing, a $400 haircut, all of these things that you would do for him. And he feeds him with the finest foods, takes him off of booze, cuts out the drinking, the cigarettes, and all of these things.

And he tells this individual after he's sobered up, everything you see that I have here, I want to give to you.

You know, he looks around, he sees this beautiful mansion, several million dollars, and you know, this thing is worth. He said, I'm going to give you all of my holdings, all of my companies, everything. But first of all, I want you to get some education, be trained on how to run the company. You're in no position right now to know how to run it, but I want to train you, and once you go through this extensive training, I'll give it all to you. I'll leave it to you.

This poor street person looks up at the rich man, and he says, well, what do you want from me?

Well, he doesn't want anything. He's trying to give all of this to him.

Now, God, the analogy is that God gave the life of his Son to make it possible for us to be called, to be cleaned up. We were in the gutter and the cesspool of sin when God came along.

As the book of Ezekiel says, like Israel was in its blood, God came along, he picked us up, and he cleans us up. He reveals his way of life to us. We repent. God forgives us of our sins.

And God says, what I want to do is to share everything I have, the whole universe, with you. Be co-heirs with my Son, and eventually you will inherit all things, but first you have to be trained. Now, you and I are going through a training process right now. We're learning to be kings and priests. Now, because we're learning to be kings and priests, and we're learning to live by the standards of the household, does that earn us everything that the rich man has or that God has?

Is there any way that you and I could ever say, God, the whole universe out there that you want to share with us? Now, I've earned it. Well, of course we don't earn it. God's going to give it to us. But just like this poor man, we have to be cleaned up and trained, and eventually God will share everything with us. Let me illustrate another way that grace is applied, and this is what you and I need to learn. Another story. We live in a neighborhood, and for some reason, none of your neighbors like you. This isn't too strange sometimes, but your neighbors don't like you for some reason. They seem to have it in for you. They pick on your children, they throw rotten eggs at your house, they pull your mailbox down, they cut the tires on your car, they poison your dog. It seems that every time you turn around, the neighbor has a complaint. The police are out, and they're complaining about something. And the worst of these neighbors lives directly across the street from you. Every time you go out the front door, you see him over there, making faces at you, and you're ridiculing you. He lives right across the street. But one day you find that he lost his job.

His wife is sick and has to go to the hospital. Then you find that his car is repossessed. Now, there are a couple of things that you could do. You could secretly or you could openly rejoice at his predicament. You could say, yeah, he deserves it. Look at what he did to me. God's getting back at him, whatever you might want to say about him. Or you could tell him about a job lead that you know of. Hey, neighbor, I heard the other day that they're hiring people at the railroad. That happens to be true right now. And you're looking for work, the railroad.

Apparently, they're wanting to hire some people. But that's a side point. But you could offer to babysit his children while he goes over to the hospital to visit his wife. You could offer a ride to him until he gets a car to work. Your wife could cook food and take it over to the family to help them out in their their pinch. What would we call this? We'd call it grace.

I mean, after all that he's done to you, do they deserve anything? No. But yet, you would be kind to them in this situation. You would be gracious. You would be loving. You would be outgoing. You would be loving. You would be loving. Grace would say, can I help you? What can I do for you? Let me jump in. I want to be a neighbor. I want to be your friends.

Grace by God is the exact same thing. It's God's love handed out to us.

And we don't deserve it. God looks down and looks at our past. What have we done to God? We've shook our fists in His face. We've walked all over His Sabbath and His laws. We've spent on His holy days.

We've transgressed everything that He told man not to do. We've broken it. And then God comes along and says, let me help you. I want you to be my child. I want you to be my son or my daughter.

I'm willing to overlook the past. I'm willing to help you. And we stand there and say, why?

Have you ever asked a question? Why me? Isn't that the question that we're asking God when we look at ourselves and we see everybody else around us and God hasn't called them? Why me? Why are you calling me and not somebody else? Well, part of that is, well, I know how bad I am. Why did you call me?

My neighbors seem pretty good. Why weren't they called? And see, it's not based upon merit.

It's not based upon who's good. It's based upon God's calling, is it not? We're in the Church, not because we merit it, but because God called us and extended His grace to us. That's why we're here. It is God's grace, generosity, forgiveness, and aid. So what we need to realize is that perhaps over the years, there have been many ministers we know, especially in the world, who've had a negative attitude towards God's law. And they've criticized the law, they put the law down, they said you don't have to keep the law, and they talk so much about grace. And as a result, I think sometimes the term grace comes to have a bad connotation in our mind because of its misuse or misapplication in the world. And too often in society, it's what? It's an either-or situation, isn't it? It's either law or grace. And the Bible says it's law and grace. God expects us to obey His law, and we are saved by grace. Grace is an important word in the Scriptures. It's full of meaning because it's not used correctly by society or the religious ministers in society. It doesn't mean that it's not a powerful word. Grace is simply saying, Christ's saying, God the Father's saying, let me forgive you, let me help you, let me help you through your trials, let me encourage you, let me strengthen you. We have no word in English that explains this word. There's nothing that we have in English that you can say that explains it. Now in Greek, if you said charos, the Greek would understand. Now it's a word that was used in a certain way in, let's say, among the Greek people, but that the writers of the Bible chose to convey even a much greater meaning, which is God's unmerited pardon, forgiveness. Now is there anything wrong with God's law? Yeah, we need to clarify that. No, there isn't. The problem is not with God's law. The problem is always with the people, with us. The problem was with the Jews in that century, in the way they used the law, or they misapplied the law, or they added their own dos and don'ts to the law. It was the way they looked on it or misunderstood it or misapplied the law. You and I can have somewhat of the same misunderstandings if we're not careful when it comes to the law. Let me show you some of the, very quickly, some of the misunderstandings that people have today, that the law makes a person righteous. Well, that's what we've been talking about. No, it doesn't. It doesn't forgive your past sins. It doesn't impart the power to obey it. The law doesn't give you that power.

We do good and become frustrated sometimes when we don't get what we want.

An example would be in marriage. Sometimes partners in marriage can do good to their mate because why? Because they love them, when they extend grace to them? No, because they're after something. See, a wife might do something good for her husband because she would like for him to buy something. A husband might do something good for his wife because he's after something else.

So we find that there are always sometimes wrong motives that people have.

Another misunderstanding about God's law is that we keep it. You've got to do it to have God's favor.

Grace is God's free gift. Now, once God extends his free gift to us, his grace, he calls us.

Yes, he expects us to keep his law, but it's not what initially incurred God's favor. That's because God reached down and said, I want you. I want you, whoever you or I might be, that God calls us. Another reason sometimes people say that keeping the law will give us eternal life. This is how we obtain eternal life. Well, Romans 6.23 again says, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. There's nothing that you and I can do. If you keep the law perfect for the next hundred years, you cannot earn eternal life. What can you do to earn it?

You can't. It is a free gift from God. Now, Romans 7 shows that there is a reason for God's law.

Romans 7 verses 7 through 9. What shall we say then? Is the law of sin? Is there anything wrong with the law? Is it sinful, bad, evil? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said you should not covet. But sin, he goes on to explain the struggle that he had with sin.

The law shows us and reminds us that we're sinners, that we break God's law. The law shows how far or short we come of God's righteousness, of his character, of his standards. Again, what is sin? 1 John 3, 4. Sin is the transgression of God's law. Isaiah 59 verse 2 tells us this, that there is a wall that has separated mankind from God.

What is that wall? Well, we find here verse 2. But your iniquities have separated you from your God.

They stand between us and God or have in the past, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear. This wall started in the Garden of Eden. Man chose to go the wrong way.

Man has said no to God ever since. Man has gone about establishing his own righteousness ever since. Sin is breaking God's law or going against God's will, going against God's plan. Sin distorts. It goes against God's purpose for us. When man sins, and he's sinning habitually, as people are in the world, when man is cut off from the tree of life and is sitting under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the influence from God on the spirit in man is minimal, because man is going his own way. Man is receiving much greater influence from the spirit of this world, the spirit of Satan the devil, and as a result of sin, sin distorts man and it distorts the world. Man's intellect works differently when he is sitting under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and influenced by Satan the devil. He can't see things right. He reasons wrong. His emotions are upset and he doesn't have the power, the self-control. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a law of power and of self-control, of a sound mind. But man doesn't have that normally.

Man reasons wrongly, and this is because of a distorted way of thinking. Man thinks he can repair things, he can fix things, he can solve his problems, just given enough time, but he doesn't have the proper tools to do it with. The proper tools are God's spirit. That's what God gives us. Grace is bringing about the condition that restores man's orientation to God. And who is it who bridges the gap? Who is the one who says, here's the bridge and you can cross over? It's God.

God is the one who reaches out to us. See, he extends grace toward us. Even though we've been sinners, God says, I want you, and he calls us and he opens our mind. It's free. God is willing to overlook the break, the gap, the separation. The gospel is preached. People respond to that. People respond to that. Grace is God again bridging the gap. Grace works by changing man's will, our mind, our intellect, and our emotions. And brethren, once we receive God's Holy Spirit, there is a difference. We reason differently. We think differently. We have a different viewpoint. We look at things from a totally different perspective. We begin to look at them the way that God looks at them. So we need to realize that God will extend his grace to us.

Now, there are a number of things that we could cover here, but back here in chapter 4, chapter 4 of the book of Romans, chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. What shall we say that Abraham, our father, has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, so the question is, can you be justified by works? Can you be forgiven by works? He is somewhat of which to boast, but not before God. For what does the Scriptures say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Belief and faith were accounted for righteousness. Now, we know, and we'll get to the Scripture back in James, it says that Abraham believed, and because of his belief, he obeyed. Did he not?

You know, that's very clear in the Scriptures, but he was not justified by that. There's a difference.

The word justified here means to render righteous or such as he ought to be. What makes us righteous in God's sight? What makes us as we ought to be? Well, whatever separates us from God, separates us from having a right relationship with him. What if you and your wife were arguing all the time, and you are upset with each other? And one of you decides, this is silly, and one of you approaches the other and says, you know, we need to stop doing this, and you're willing to forgive each other.

Well, God doesn't have anything that he needs to be forgiven of. Guess who needs to be forgiven?

You and I do. What keeps us from having a close relationship with God? Just like in marriage, your disharmony might keep you from having a close relationship with your partner, your mate. Well, our sins, our way of life, our way of thinking that are contrary to God.

Now, once we come to acknowledge that and repent of it and ask for forgiveness, God then removes that barrier, and all at once we've been justified. We've been made right with God.

Now we can have a right relationship with Him. And actually, that's what the word righteousness in the Greek means. It used to be translated right-wise-ness.

We have been made right-wise with God and right-way with God. Right relationship, it's a gift.

You can't be made righteous by doing what is right, but you are required to do what is right.

God extends His goodness and righteousness to us. Verse 6, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness.

In other words, God is the one who makes it possible for us to be righteous, apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. So how does it happen? Well, our lawless deeds have to be forgiven, and whose sins are covered. So our sins are covered over. That's what atonement in the Old Testament means. To be covered, to be pardoned. Blessed is a man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. And verse 9 does this blessedness then come upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also. For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How was it accounted when he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Well, he was uncircumcised. So the point he's bringing out is rather than we cannot merit or earn this. It is something that God freely extends to us. Think of it this way. Only God is righteous.

We can only be righteous if God lives in us. Now, that's exactly what we read that Jesus Christ, our life died. We died. We're dead. And Christ lives in us. And He's all in all.

If Jesus Christ is living in us, He will do what is right. He will submit to His Father. He will obey His Father. He will keep the law. Righteousness is a quality of God. You remember Isaiah 64 verse 6 talking about our righteousness? Isaiah 64 says, our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in God's sight. That's not very clean. They're like filthy rags. So you and I, then, are saved by grace.

So where do works come in? Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians 2 verses 4 through 8. Verse 4, By God who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses. So you and I have been dead.

We've been made alive. How? Well, together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. And we've been raised up together and made sit together in the heavenly places and the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. So again, it's through Christ, through His sacrifice, that all of this has been made possible that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. So again, you see the language of grace expressed here, the kindness of God, the love of God. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. Now, grace is used in two different ways, or excuse me, saved is used in two different ways in the Bible. One is to be rescued. If you were drowning out here in the water and somebody comes along in a boat, they reach out and grab you and pull you in your boat, you've been saved. Your life has been spared. You and I have been saved. Christ comes along, our past sins are forgiven, the wages of sin is death, we've been saved from that. But ultimate salvation in the kingdom of God has not yet occurred. That's why the Bible says that we can presently be saved because we have had our sins forgiven through faith. And that not of yourself, even the faith, is a gift from God. So we don't save ourselves, it's not our own faith, even the faith is from God.

Not of works, lest anyone should boast. So we can't say, I've saved myself. Well, only God can do that. But verse 10, we are His workmanship. God is working in us, creating His character within us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So God does require that we have good works, that we do what is right. James 2 and verse 20. James 2, 20. It says, But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? So our works show what? They show that we have faith. If we don't do what God says, then we don't have the faith. Faith without works is dead. Was not Abraham our father justified or made right by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith working together with his works and by works faith was made perfect? In other words, when it says here he was justified by works, it doesn't mean his sins were forgiven, but he showed by his works by doing what God said, that he was willing to obey God. And he was then in a right harmonious relationship with God. And the Scripture was fulfilled, which says, Abraham believed God. Now what this shows, though, brethren, is that belief will lead to obedience.

Anyone who says that all you got to do is believe. See, this is the way the Protestants use this. They say, all you got to do is believe. No obedience. Well, this shows that real faith, real obedience, leads to obeying, to doing, to good works. So Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.

So you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. Now again, this simply means that if a person says that all I've got to do is believe and he doesn't have any works, then God's not going to forgive you. If you and I come to God, we think that God will forgive us.

And we're still breaking the Sabbath, and we're committing adultery, and we're stealing. We're not keeping the tithing laws. We refuse to keep the Holy Days. Why would God forgive us? Because we're still living in sin as a way of life. And so therefore, we're justified by works when we show God that we truly have repented, and that we're willing to walk with him and be in a right relationship with him. And then God extends his grace. And grace has to do with God's calling, God's selection of us, and God being willing to justify us and forgive us. But it is based upon our willingness to repent. And to repent means that we obey.

Works come through faith and by the grace of God.

Our good works. Faith leads a person to works. Good works come from Christ living in us and motivating us. Works are required. Righteousness is God's state. Attribute and approach.

The problem with the Jews was they went about trying to obey the law under their own power and steam. In Romans 10, verses 1-4, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness in verse 2 that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. They kept the Sabbath. They kept the Holy Days. They tithe mint, nannous, and herbs. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law or the end result of the law for righteousness, the outcome, the aim, the purpose to everyone who believes. So if we have Christ living in us, then the righteousness of God will be in us. That's the aim of that. So they had their own righteousness. They established their own do's and don'ts. They had their own standards. And too often you find that they were self-righteous.

And people can become self-righteous and sit back and judge others because they don't meet up with standards that they have established. Matthew 5 and 6, Matthew 23, show that they went about establishing their own righteousness. So brethren, what we find is you and I must trust in God.

We understand and we've always understood the subject that it's not a matter of law or grace, but it's a matter that God calls, opens our mind, extends His grace or forgiveness to us, and you and I have to repent and begin to obey Him. He provides the motivation. He provides the faith. He provides what it takes for us to respond. If we respond, our part is that you've got to do something. You and I have to respond, and then we have to obey.

Now, what I've given you today only scratched the surface of this topic. We haven't even begun to cover the subject of grace. So next week, I will pick this up and we will have a series of sermons going through and touching on grace. I want to clarify grace works, and clarify how grace helps us to overcome change, to be more like God. We need to see how grace functions in our daily lives and how many of the problems that we have can be traced back to our lack of understanding of the subject of grace. So this is a subject that perhaps we haven't really thought all on or studied that much, but it is an extremely important subject that we need to understand because it has everything to do with the plan of salvation.