God's Grace and Counterfeit Grace

Good afternoon, everyone. This afternoon, what I'd like to do is to begin a series of sermons, about two or three, depending on how it comes together, but on a subject that we all need to look at very closely, because there's a lot of misrepresentation regarding this particular topic we're going to cover today.

I'd like you to join me, first of all, in the book of Jude, right before the book of Revelation. We're going to go to the book of Jude, and we're going to notice something that God warned us about through the servant Jude, one of the family members of Jesus. And what did he clearly say, beginning in verse 3? He said, Beloved, showing again the attitude of love that we share as one another's call of Christ.

When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, please note it's a common salvation, it's for all of us. We're all in this together. And he said that it's very important that you understand that it was needful for me to write to you and to exhort you, and that you should do something, you should earnestly contend.

That means you really need to put some energy into this effort. Earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. Verse 4, and here's the danger. This is why we are told about this by Jude. He says, For there are certain men, individuals, crept in unawares. Now that's unawares to us as human beings, but not unaware to God.

That's why he's warning us about this ahead of time, to alert us to a danger of an element that has crept into the church of God from the day the church began, and has always been with us even to our day and age today. And he says, These men crept in unawares who were before old notice ordained. In other words, God has allowed this for a purpose. He's allowed these individuals. He could have kept them out, but he didn't.

He allowed them to come in for a part of the testing that is necessary. He says, These individuals of old to this condemnation of ungodly men. In other words, they're not there for the same reasons you and I are there. They are there with different reasons. And notice what they do after they've crept in. They have turning the grace of our God, the subject being the grace of God, into lasciviousness.

Now that's something we don't talk about. That word isn't a common word we use. So I dug it out of the dictionary, and it basically means the following. Lude, lustful, wantonness, meaning no restraints, nothing to put a restraint upon the individual. What it is saying in essence, it is prophesied that God's grace would be under attack and misrepresented to the masses when grace is mentioned. And so we're going to look at this subject from a broad perspective because there's much more here than I think most people realize. The title of this message I've entitled it, God's grace versus counterfeit grace.

God's grace versus counterfeit grace. And just like people use counterfeit money to try to fool people that they're getting the genuine article when in reality it's counterfeit money, it's worthless, there are individuals who likewise promote a counterfeit grace making people think that they've got the genuine article when in reality it doesn't conform with what the Bible clearly says. So we're going to look at that, and we're going to study that in these messages that I have prepared for you.

The usual definition of grace that you and I have either grown up with or have heard from others, it is basically the term unmerited favor or unmerited pardon. That God has, because he's so loving and so kind and so merciful, he has shown us this marvelous gift. And the sad part of it is it is not broad enough in scope to fully define to fully define all that is meant by the term grace. There's much more here than meets the eye, and that's what we want to explore. That's what we want to look at.

For example, in Luke 2 and verse 40, we are told that the grace of God, whatever that grace is, was upon Jesus. Jesus had the grace of God. And if you go back to the book of Genesis, you'll find that in spite of all the problems that were leading up to the noatian flood, Noah, it said, found grace in the eyes of God. He was given this substance, this thing of grace.

So it is a very important thing in Colossians 4, verse 6, you and I are told the following, let your speech always be with grace. In other words, be kind, and when you speak, be edify graciousness and terms of that nature. In other words, things should not come out of your mouth that defile your presence with other people. And we live in a world today, what comes out of people's mouth?

Four-letter words. The four-letter word that we should talk about is love, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through the power of God's Holy Spirit. So we find very important that not only is our speech to be always with grace, but it also says there, season with salt. Now salt is a very important element. It can be a preservative, and it can also be a situation where the scripture is saying your speech should always reflect a balance or some humor, a little bit of humor with salt.

And to be able to laugh, and to enjoy, and to uplift people. It is so important in our day and age that we recognize the importance of this thing of grace. And now we go to Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians chapter 2. And notice what we discover about this. This is a scripture that so often is used by so many in the evangelical areas. And we hear this quite a bit. In Ephesians chapter 2 in verse 8. Ephesians 2 and verse 8. Notice whatever this thing is called grace, it says, for by grace, this element, you are saved. Saved from what? Something that is very, very seriously a threat to your well-being as an individual. So this grace that God employs is designed to save us from a terrible danger that we all face as individuals. He goes on to say that this grace, by which you are saved, must be understood in what? In the context or through faith.

Faith. Now what kind of faith are we talking about? Just, I believe and I'll receive. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about living faith, the faith that is mentioned in Hebrews 11 and verse 6 where it states, for it is without faith, it is impossible to please God. And if you don't have that kind of faith to trust God, then you're not going to receive grace from God because this grace that God administers according to the Apostle Paul who wrote this and inspired us to be placed in the book of Ephesians here under the Spirit of God is saying that the grace that comes from God allows us to be saved through faith. This faith comes from God and how does faith come? Well Paul put it in the book of Romans. Faith comes by hearing and the hearing by the Word of God. You're hearing it right now. We're taking it right from the Word of God. And so these things are being revisited and brought to our attention to help us understand that something very, very precious has taken place to provide a saving grace for you, for me, and for all who hear what God is saying because this saving grace comes only from God. You can't earn it by yourself. I can't earn it. And people many times will take out of context as we continue to read. Notice he says, and that none of yourselves. Notice this saving grace, you can't pull it off. It's not within your capability. We're in a dangerous state of affairs and only our Creator who made us can deliver us from this state of affairs. And so he goes on to say, it is not of yourself, not anything you do. It is the gift of God, something God has determined he is going to grant to everyone who complies with what he has asked. And what is he asked? Acts 2 tells us, except you do what? Repent. You must come to a place in your life where you understand the need of repentance because they asked his men and brethren what shall we do? And he says, repent, be baptized, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This makes all the difference in our lives. It goes on to tell us that nothing we do as of works, it says, lest any individual, any man or woman, boast. If this was something in our capability to do, we would say, well good, God has got to save me because I've just done this. I've done everything here. No, no, no, no, no. This is beyond, beyond our ability. We're not in a position to save ourselves. So how do we get saved? You hear so much of this, you know, are you saved, brother? Are you saved, sister? Saved from what? People need to know what the danger is. And the danger is that apart from God, we're all history. There is no saving grace apart from God.

And God receives this glory and this honor. Why? Because verse 10 goes on to say, and it's important for us to recognize, we are His workmanship. Yes, He is the potter, and we are the clay. And He is molding us and shaping us to His divine purpose that He's working out in every one of our lives. Jesus said, I go, in the book of John, I go to prepare a place for you and everyone else. That you is everyone. God has all of us targeted for a special place in His Kingdom. And in that Kingdom, He wants you to be there. And so He has provided a saving grace. And if we will be in compliance with what He has said we must do, then He will offer that grace to us as a validation of the promise that He made to us that He would save us, and that the wrath of God would not be upon us, and we would have nothing to fear because we would put our faith in the great God who would save us from our sins. Let's notice a little bit further. We were His workmanship created in Christ. Yes, we're 1 Corinthians 15 says that we are to be like the second Adam, Christ. We're to be molded into His character. And to follow His example, Peter talks about walking in His steps. How do we live life? Do we live it according to God's commandments, His way of life? It says He has created us in Christ Jesus unto good works. You and I are scheduled to do things that are going to be fantastic. We don't even begin to comprehend the fullness of what God has in mind because He's so far above all His creation. But He says very clearly, He says we are created unto good works, things we are going to have to do, work projects that God has ordained for all eternity that we're going to be involved in. And He goes on to say, which God hath before ordained, that we should do what? Walk in them, live in them, live with this purpose in mind. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came with a very important purpose from the Father.

In John chapter 1, we find that very reference how God, in the beginning, verse 1, that the Word was with God and the Word was God, and how that all things were made by Him. Nothing that exists came into existence apart from Him, which means Jesus' name is not evolution.

His name is the Christ. He is Yeshua. He is Yahweh, Yehovah, Adonai. He's all those Hebrew names. I am that I am. And He is the One. In Him, notice verse 4, was life. God is the Creator and He is the life-giver. He gives life to everything that exists. And you and I enjoy this temporal existence because He underwrites it. It's all on loan from God. I love what I've mentioned to you before in a message about something a gentleman in the Church of God told me some time back, and how true it is. It's really burned deep into my psyche, and it's the very fact that he says, apart from God, apart from God, we are nothing. Apart from God, we have nothing. And apart from God, there is nothing. It summarizes that beautifully. That's exactly what it's all about. God takes precedence over all. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. So Jesus came and He did what? He demonstrated the true light, how we could see what really life is all about. And in verse 12, and as many as received Him, in other words, acknowledged Him, not just saying, I believe in Jesus, but no, recognizing what Peter said when Jesus asked that very faithful question, who do men say that I am? And they said, well, they think you're this, they think you're that. And then He asked more specifically, and put your name right there in where Peter answered, put your name that Jesus is, and who do you, your name, think I am? And Jesus makes it very clear, because Peter said what you and I have to say. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And God's own Son would say to you and to me, if that's what you see and that's what you believe. It is not because you can see it externally, but God the Father has revealed that to us that Jesus Christ is the source of our life, and He is the source of our saving grace. Now you go over a little bit further in verse 14, Notice, God just was infuriated, and He said, you have made my Father's house a den of thieves. And then He did what? He threw those money changers, tell you both upside down. He then began to get that cord, and He began to get these animals out of here, and He began to clean the house, scared the daylights out of all the rest of them. God can scare the daylights out of you. He has that capacity. That's why the Scripture always counterbalances you to understand that, look, God is love. Don't ever misunderstand. If we didn't have a loving God, we'd be in real trouble. But what God has demonstrated is this, be not deceived, I'm not mocked. Don't misread me. I'm being misrepresented on so many levels. Don't misrepresent me. Hebrews ends it in the final chapters of the book of Hebrews. It says, our God is a consuming fire, and He's going to burn everything up in the final analysis. All sin and all rebellion is going to be evaporated in flames of fire.

So that is designed to what, by the fear of God, men and women depart from evil. You'll stay away from the bad stuff. You won't want to go there because you know God's eyes are everywhere. He sees. People think God doesn't know. God says, I see it all. It's all being recorded for future time, future reference. Nothing slips through the cracks with God.

So grace, when we talk about grace and how wonderful grace is, and you hear so many people talk about grace in the so-called evangelical community. No, we love God. We're saved by grace. You just have to believe and you'll receive. It takes looking again into what the book actually says because what it tells us is that you cannot just believe and you will receive God's grace. No, we have been accused, even in the Church of God, that by keeping the Sabbath and by keeping the Holy Days and doing things that you and I know from the scriptures that we have searched out ourselves over the years, we've been accused that you're a legalist if you do that. You're keeping the Sabbath to try to win favor with God. No, keeping the Sabbath is not winning any favor with God. It's something we're supposed to do. That's all. It's a command. Because why?

The works that we do, as the book of James clearly shows, the works that we do, and we read about that in, you know, greater works are yet on the horizon. What works do we do? We do works that validate our faith. James says, you believe in God? No works. We believe in God by our works. We validate our faith and our trust in God by the things we do. You can call it legalism. You can call it what you will, but it is not any of those things. It is what you say those things are. It's not what God says those things are. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. That's how you know God has loved us. How do we love Him in return? We love Him by doing what He has commanded us to do. So we're here today to honor our great God, to thank Him for the Sabbath, to thank Him for the holy days that outlined a great plan of salvation. Without it, you and I would be lost, just like the world we live in is lost today.

Grace deals with the subject of salvation, and everything you read in this book, remember, as I have been stressing, this is the book of God that He gave and preserved for His people, the house of Israel, physical Israel and spiritual Israel, the church of God. But today, look at the disservice that is happening to people who go to church, well-meaning people, wanting to do the right thing. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I want to do the wrong thing today. Can I do the wrong thing? No. There's a way that seems right to a person. You want to do the right thing, but many times it comes out wrong. Why? Because it's not in harmony with the book. And the book teaches us many things. Romans 15, verse 4, all things are written for our learning. What do we learn about the Old Testament? The Old Testament is how God dealt with that small group of people, the Israelites, not the rest of the nations, just the Israelites. What is the New Testament teaching us? What God is doing with a small group of firstfruits called the church of God, which you and I have been called to be a part of at this time. God will deal with the rest of the nations of the world at a fall festival time called the fall festivals of God, the Feast of Tabernacles and the like. What is God going to do also with the vast majority of mankind? Give them their chance for salvation. But right now he's working with a grain of a mustard seed starting small. Always does it that way. Start small and then begins to extrapolate and build and build and build and it gets bigger until finally God will be all in all as he has prophesied it would be. Now God reveals to us in Scripture what he has done with the Israelites in the past. When they disobeyed him, he punished them.

And people today look and say, I don't want that God of the Old Testament. He was a meanie. He was a toughy boy. He just killed them people and did those things too. I want that New Testament Jesus. He's a God of love. That's the one I want. It's the same God. The same God. The one in the Old Testament is the same in the New. There's two sides to God's character. He can get angry when he gets angry, but he's most of the time loving and caring and wanting to do the very, very best for his creation because that's what love is, outgoing concern. And you and I should learn that very quickly as parents. When you have children, what do you do? Do you wake up every day to provide them the worst life that they've ever had? No, you try to give them the best life within your limited means. You want them to be happy. You want them to be successful. You want them to be fulfilled. And God wants that even more so for all of us. Now what God has done then in revealing this, he shows those acts of how he has shown favor to an undeserving people called Israel. They turned on him again and again and again. He helped them. They cried out to him. He had mercy upon them. They turned back to the pagan ways again. They did it again and again and again.

New Testament. How many times have we turned our back on our great God? Ooh, hang on, folks. Hang on.

Maybe more than we care to admit. We have to learn these lessons. And what did God say when they say, well, Master, how often should we forgive somebody? Because they kept hearing this word forgiveness coming from God, his own son. Seven times? How about 70 times seven? In other words, an infinite number of times we have turned our back on our God. If you don't think you have, you don't know your own human nature. We all have been guilty of that. Minister, lay person makes no difference. We're all guilty before God. God knows it, and if we can't admit it and face up to it, then we're not the people of God we claim to be. God, in His mercy, will forgive us like He did David, who did some terrible things, and none of us have hopefully ever gone to any extreme like David did. Never want to do that. But boy, he learned to run back to God fast and quick when he was finally facing the reality of it. No, we need our God to forgive us, and it is His acts of love and mercy that are made manifest in Scripture. God's grace is more than just a passive pity. He doesn't just feel sorry for us. He loves us. But He pities us as the Father pities these children. Like, He knows we don't really know what we're doing half the time. We just think we do. It's like when we're teenagers, we think we know everything about life. And all of a sudden, as we get older, we say, what happened? Things start changing real quick. We find out we don't quite know what we thought we knew. And it doesn't quite work the way we thought it was going to work.

And that's because it's all revealed to us in Scripture. No, God gave us His grace, and He provides this grace for man's salvation, mankind. That's why it is called God's grace. Not yours, not mine. Nobody can cover the transgressions that we have committed. Only God in His mercy can do that. And how did He do it? John 3, 16, you know the famous Scripture God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for you, for me, so that you and I would have what? We would have a vehicle, a medium whereby we could advance going forward to know our God and our Creator in a way that we have never known Him.

We've known about Him, but we didn't know Him. There's a difference. You know, you know a lot of people. There's a lot of people you know. But do you really know them, or are you just familiar with them? Usually it requires getting to know, taking time, finding out about the ups and downs a person goes through, and so you begin to have what we call some very, very close friends. God demonstrates in Scripture that His Spirit searches out the deep things of the mind of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 9 through 12 tells us that. 1 Corinthians 2, 9 through 12. And in the book of Galatians, chapter 1 verses 11 and 12, we're told that the Spirit reveals these things to the inspired writers. They didn't come up and come up with these ideas themselves. God inspired these people to write the things that were from God to us as human beings so that we would know what it is that God is trying to convey to us. And it is Ephesians chapter 3, verses 1 through 5, where the Scriptures make a clear understanding of the mystery of Christ. It tells us about Him and how we need to understand the true Christ of the Bible. It is through His Son. Let's take a look at Hebrews chapter 1, the book of Hebrews chapter 1.

God has dealt with mankind in many different ways.

But notice in Hebrews chapter 1 how He deals with us today. It says in verse 1 that God at different times and in different manners spoke in times past to the fathers. Now you have to know who the fathers are. That would be the Israelite fathers like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Again, we're dealing with the house of Israel. And He spoke to them and He says, and has in these last days, as we've moved into that last period of time, that last 2,000 years from the time Christ walked this earth to our time today, it says, in these last days has spoken to us by His Son. So the words of Jesus carry tremendous weight. And it says, whom He hath appointed heir of all things. The Hebrew word, or not the Hebrew in this one, be Greek, and I would be the word tepanta, meaning the universe, all things that have been created. And notice what He said, whom He also made the worlds. Now, whom being in the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, what has happened? By upholding all things by the word of His power, that He Himself would purge our sins, and He has now sat at the right hand of the majesty on high. Wow! God has used Him to purge something that has poisoned our lives called sin. First John 3-4, sin is the transgression of God's law, the Ten Commandments.

And so we find ourselves now in a very, very dangerous state of affairs. And unless God provided a vehicle, and He did, and what was that vehicle? We're told that from the foundation of the world, the Lamb of God was to be slain. It had all been part of the plan of God. Nothing escapes God. This is a very important area to keep in mind and drive this home into our thoughts.

Because people today are caught and betwixt. They don't quite understand. They think they understand, but they don't. For example, in Matthew 24, Jesus, if we're listening to His word, what did He say concerning the end times? He says, when you see this thing called the abomination of desolation, books of the Lord have been written about the abomination. Everybody knows about the abomination of desolation. Everybody's going to tell you when Christ returns. They don't listen to what the Bible actually said. Many ministers stand up in front of their congregations and say the Old Testament is done away, folks. You don't have to listen to it anymore. What did Jesus say? If you want to know about the abomination of desolation, He says, go to the book of Daniel and read about it. But Lord, how can I do that? That's in the Old Testament, and the pastor said that was done away. You see the dilemma they have created for people? Jesus says, here's where you got to go, and they don't listen. They just follow what they're being told instead of searching the scriptures like the Bereans and find out, well, what did Daniel do? And then we go back and we study some history, and we begin to fill in the pieces, and oh boy, now we know what we should be looking for. Jesus in Matthew 16 and verse 18 said, he would build his church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. You and I are part of that spiritual organism. We are combat veterans and have fought many battles in our own personal lives and have many battles still yet to fight before this is all over. And we are going to need our God to guide us in every step of the word, away. Now, grace is very important in so much that it was designed and provided by God for those who would put their trust in God and his Son. If we don't put our trust there, then God is under no obligation to give us his grace. Because today, grace has been misrepresented and treated as if you do anything that God says, if you keep his commandments, and then they'll hit you with it and say, well, nobody can keep the commandments. Can Christ in you keep the commandments? Answer, yes, through the power of his Holy Spirit. Can you keep it perfectly? Well, no, obviously not. But that's why God is a merciful God. He knows our frame, but he loves to see us striving to walk in his ways and do that which is pleasing in his sight. And when we do that, then God pours out his grace upon us because you and I are suffering from a serious disconnect from our Creator. We came into this world and we just grew up in it. And every society, every culture is doing the same thing. They believe in all kinds of different gods. We believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one true God that we believe is the Bible, the author of the Bible. And this is why we go to his word for answers. What is that serious disconnect? Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59. And here we discover something very serious about our condition. In Isaiah 59, beginning in verse 1, lest we have any idea that somehow God is limited, he makes it very clear. He says, Behold, through the prophet here, behold the Lord's hand. Yeah, he's got them. He's got hands, he's got eyes, he's got ears. We're made in his image. And notice what it says. The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. So God has the ability to save us. And he has worked out a plan, whereby he can do that. And it is through his Son, Jesus the Christ. Now notice what he goes on to say.

Neither is his ear heavy that he cannot hear. Now he can hear when we pray to him. In fact, he wants us to. He says, We are to pray, our Father, which art in heaven. Hallowed be your holy name. And so he goes on and explains here. He says, the problem that we are dealing with, he says, it is your iniquities, your lawlessness, your sins that have violated the laws of God. He says, that separate between you and your God because you see God is a holy God and he requires holiness as opposed to sinfulness. And you and I don't qualify unless God has given something wonderful called his divine grace that makes it possible for us to know God and not to fear him in a wrong way, but to fear him in the right way with love and admiration for what he's done for us and fearful to take him for granted because he says, be not deceived, I'm not mocked. And God is a consuming fire. For those rebels who do not want to walk in the ways of God, Jesus even talks about that in the book of Luke. He says, those that would not, listen carefully, that would not that I, the Christ, should reign over them, bring them forward, and slay them before me.

That's pretty potent stuff, folks. Jesus is not going to be one of these Mickey Mouse leaders. He's going to get right to the heart and to the quick of issues. He speaks clearly, concisely, in a God-fearing manner, and we are to walk humbly with our God. And so, we are suffering from this debilitating situation that is called sin, and it has hid his face from you that he will not hear. That's why a lot of times prayers were not answered because we weren't clean. We hadn't fully asked God to forgive us what we knew we were doing, and God has to hold back and wait until we acknowledge our sinfulness, and then he applies mercy. We have not been appointed to wrath, God tells us through the Apostle Paul, but unto salvation. But to those that walk contrary, Romans 1, and have pleasure and wickedness, what did Paul say? He said, they are headed for a terrible calamity because they're walking contrary to God's purpose for why he gave them life. 1 Kings 8, verse 46, says, there is no one who does not sin. Everyone is guilty. Romans 3, 23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Proverbs 20, verse 9, reminds us that I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin. Who can say that? You can't say it, I can't say it, nobody can say it, that you're clean. Only God is clean. But he cleans us up with his precious Word.

Since we sold ourselves into the bondage of sin, as John 8, verse 34, that's John 8, 34, and we know all have sinned, Romans 3, 23. You and I, we don't like to think about this, you and I are under a death sentence. And unless God alleviates and nullifies that death sentence, there's no future for anyone. And that's where the great love of God comes into play. He doesn't want to see us dead forever. But he tells us in Ezekiel, he tells us the sin, soul, it's sin, it shall die. He says what he means, and means what he says.

Ezekiel 18, verse 20, But the matchless love of God has provided a ransom for you, for me, for everyone. And the grace of God is demonstrated in many ways, many ways. And this is what's important. It's not a manifestation of just, you just believe in the grace of God, and that's it.

No, we are expected to live a certain way of compliance once we recognize the truth that God has done what? He's provided through his Son salvation that none of us deserve.

And that salvation should give us pause to say, thank you, dear God, thank you, thank you, thank you, for loving us so much and putting your own Son on the chopping block for us, so to speak. That is, that's a heavy one, folks. Salvation is God's gift to you, to me, but it involves some other things that we're going to have to evaluate. This is only one part of this thing of grace that I'm wetting your appetite with, because again, most people have a misrepresentation of grace. We haven't yet even discussed the aspects of the law of God, and how important the law of God comes into play when we talk about the grace of God. And we will do that the next time we get together. But we ought to be grateful for the loving kindness, the favor, the grace of our God, because without it, you and I would all be condemned as charged for our sinfulness. Now, you and I don't like to think about that. You like to think about, you know, we just do. We like to think we're pretty good people. I mean, there are a lot of bad people out there, but we're not that bad, are we? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, God says, they're bad their way, and you're bad your way. We're all bad. And we all need the saving grace of God. God doesn't do like certain theologies of certain things. He says, well, let's see. Now, that's a mortal sin, and, oh, this is a venial sin. And we'll need to change this. Oh, yeah, you might be able to go to purgatory. We'll get you up in there. He doesn't give you all that baloney. He just calls it what it is. He says, are you with me, or are you against me? Choose life that you and your loved ones may live. Choose against me, and you will die. You will die. And we're not talking about the first death. We're talking about the second. And we'll discuss in another time a subject on why we're shooting for what the Bible calls a better resurrection, upon which the second death has no power. It can't touch you because you will have passed from death to life in Christ Jesus. Oh, I'll tell you, dear brethren, looking to God for His grace to obey the gospel of our salvation of our souls is what it's all about. So next time, we'll go into a little deeper evaluation of the grace of God, because it has been terribly misrepresented. And you may have thought even yourselves years ago, well, it's just, there's nothing I really can do that God's going to do at all. He's doing all that He does, and yet He asks things of us in order to continue pouring out His grace upon us. He doesn't give grace to rebellion. He doesn't give grace to sinners who practice sin. And one of the things God does not want us to do is to ever tolerate any vestige of sin. You see that when He walked into the temple, and He says, my Father's house should be a house of prayer. This is His Father's house. Your body is the Father's house. And God wants you to keep it clean and serve Him with all your heart, with all your might, and all your strength. What does God do in return? He gives us His grace, something you and I don't deserve, because He loves us beyond the word that we call love. We just can't comprehend this marvelous God who we have been called to serve. May we give Him great thanks, because you know so many people this coming Thanksgiving are going to be more worried about stupid football games and who's going to win in this division and that division. They're going to feed their face with turkey and stuffing and dressing and all the other stuff that go. Wonderful blessings God has provided. But how many people will take the time? Or as one person told me here recently, they were in a situation where they were at a Thanksgiving and the party who was hosting it, I guess, said, you know, we need to ask the blessing. And one of the parties there said, I ain't got time for that! I'm hungry! Have we got time for God? Or are we more hungry for physical things rather than spiritual things? May God bless us as we seek His loving hand and He'll take care of the rest.