What Does the Bible Teach About Grace?

Okay, great. Looks like we're working. Today, I would like to take a look at a subject that hasn't been discussed much in the Church of God over the years. One reason that we have shied away from this particular topic is because it has been so misunderstood and so misused by millions of people over the years that we've pretty much just avoided the subject. At the same time, it can be a subject that is somewhat hard for us to wrap our minds around, and that hasn't helped to try to understand and explain this particular topic. Well, what is this subject? Well, the subject I want to talk about today is, What does the Bible teach about grace? What does the Bible teach about grace? Grace is a word that appears often in the Bible, in the King James Version, it appears 163 times. So it is quite a popular subject here. But at the same time, and this is another reason why it's kind of hard to wrap our minds around it, and that is that the word grace is not something we talk about in everyday conversations, not a word that we hear used every day. You might ask yourself, when is the last time you heard the word grace used in everyday conversations? Probably been years, maybe even never. Grace is, when we do hear the word, it is often associated with religious beliefs or acts or actions. We hear, it used to be a pretty common term about saying grace before a meal. Would you say grace, or somebody will say grace before a meal? People speak of being saved by grace. They speak of God being full of grace, meaning that He is gracious, that He is kind, that He is merciful.

Over the centuries, the word grace has migrated from having more religious meetings to a number of secular uses. I'm projecting some of these here up on screen for us here. We occasionally hear, for instance, of somebody who has fallen from grace, meaning they've fallen on hard times, they've made big mistakes in their lives, so they have fallen from grace as a result of their actions.

We know of people who are a disgrace because their deeds have disgraced them and been disgraceful. We may even say of somebody that they have no saving grace about them, meaning that they're pretty much worthless, no good. There's nothing worthwhile that comes from them. They have nothing in their favor. Those who are familiar with music or write music or compose it know that composers will sometimes add grace notes to a composition.

It's extra flourishes, extra notes that are unessential, but they add to the enjoyment of the listeners, those listening to the musical piece. In the publishing field, which I've been involved in for 40 years now, subscribers to magazines and newspapers after their subscriptions expire. It's common for publishers to give them several what are called grace issues, free issues, and the hope that they will renew again and keep their subscription going. This practice is called gracing in the industry. It gives people something free, free copies. Car rental agencies, mortgage companies, credit card companies, and so on will often give customers what is called a grace period.

If your payment is going to be running late a little bit, maybe a week late, they'll give you a grace period in which to pay your bill, and it is still counted, and they don't penalize you for that because of the grace period there. Sometimes people address royalty as your grace.

Just this week there was a new prince born into the British royal family, Prince Louis. I think they ought to get more hip and call him Prince Louis Louis or something like that, get a little more up on the times, but they're probably not going to do that. It reminds me when his father William was born, I was living in Texas at the time. You Texans would appreciate this, but a local radio station did a contest for name the royal baby, and the winner was Prince Bubba.

So they didn't take that one either. So I don't think Louis Louis is going to make it, and I don't think Bubba is going to make it. But, um, royalty is often addressed as your grace is a sign of esteem in which they are held. There are a number of variations of the word grace that appear in the English language. One of the highest compliments we can give someone is to tell them that they are graceful or gracious.

That's a high compliment. On the other hand, one of the worst compliments we can give some other characteristics we can ascribe or terms we can ascribe to somebody is to call them an ingrate. An ingrate. That's a deep insult. We are grateful when good things happen. When we receive good service at a restaurant, we express that thanks with a tip, otherwise called a gratuity, which again goes back to the word grace. We congratulate someone on a job well done, a promotion, something like that. Something that is free is called gratis, meaning that it is free.

At times, people will try to ingratiate themselves with others, sometimes with gratuitous words and actions. And if it goes too far, they may become, as we see here, a phrase borrowed from the Latin persona non grata, which means literally a person without grace. So with so many different uses and shades of meaning to the word grace, it's not surprising that grace is a term that can be somewhat hard to define.

Somewhat hard for us to wrap our minds around. And this has led to a number of misunderstandings over the years, some of them with very serious consequences. In failing to understand grace, as it is revealed in the Bible, some have accepted twisted and distorted views of grace and of God and His plan and purpose. And it is even led, as we see here in Jude verse 4, certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

So some people we see here twisted the meaning of grace to literally deny God, to deny Jesus Christ. So this is a matter that does have serious consequences. So it is important that we understand grace. What is your understanding of grace? If I went around and asked everybody in the room what your definition of grace is, I'd probably get a little bit of a different answer from each one of you.

You'd have different shades of meaning, different shades of interpretation on that. So what about your understanding of grace? Is it accurate? Is it rooted in what the Bible teaches about grace? It is vital for us to understand that because it is so important to understand what the Bible reveals about that. And I appreciate the doctrines class that we just had because it is a good introduction because grace very much ties in to the questions and the comments and the answers that were discussed today. I'd like to discuss just a minute here. Many of you are probably familiar with the words to the famous hymn, Amazing Grace.

Anyone here not heard of that hymn? Okay, just looks like everybody, universal. Many artists have done beautiful, beautiful recordings of that. I have one by Judy Collins on my phone here. I think she's my favorite version of that. But there's quite an amazing story behind this hymn, Amazing Grace. And we're familiar with the most famous lines from it. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.

And some people are even familiar with the story of how those words came to be written. There was an individual by the name of John Newton. You can see his photo here on the screen behind me. John Newton had quite an interesting history. He grew up to become a sailor and eventually became a captain on slave ships, transporting slaves from Africa to North and South America. This was in the early 1700s. And on his ships, he transported literally thousands, tens of thousands of slaves to a horrible life. In the year 1748, his ship was caught in a violent storm off the coast of Ireland and began filling with water. Holes were punctured in the hull of the ship and the ship started to go down. It was taking on a lot of water and he thought he was doomed. That he was going to go down with the ship and drown in the depths of the sea. And he cried out. He pleaded with God, Father, please, please save me. Please save me. And in a somewhat miraculously fashion, he would have described it as a miracle, the contents, the cargo of the ship, shifted and plugged up the hull where the water was coming in to the hull of the ship. And the ship limped and drifted to safety there on the coast and his life was spared.

As a result of this, which he considered to be a miracle, he surrendered his life to God. He repented. He stopped what he was doing and began seriously studying the Bible as he had promised to God. In time, over a few years, he became a minister and dedicated his life to abolishing the slave trade. If you've seen the movie Amazing Grace, it came out 10 or 12 years ago. He is a figure. He's the very elderly gentleman who shows up in that movie. And that was an accurate depiction of the movement to abolish slavery at that time. And later in his life, he did write the words to this hymn, Amazing Grace, as a reflection on his prior life as a slave trader and how God in his mercy and grace had delivered him from a life of incomprehensible evil to something far better.

To forgiveness and grace as he understood it. And he did live to see Britain abolish slavery shortly before his death in 1807. And John Newton's story is quite fascinating because it could apply to many of us. The subject of grace is something that is vital for our spiritual well-being. And yet, as we saw earlier with Jude, it's often misunderstood. It's controversial because of the way that grace has been abused and misused, leading to permissiveness, leading to license, as we saw again from Jude verse 4 earlier. So again, how would you define grace?

For some, the definition may be God's goodness to an undeserving person.

We have traditionally in the church defined grace as God's unmerited pardon. Many would say that grace is the forgiveness of one's sins. Are these definitions correct? Well, actually they are. They're all absolutely correct. But is that all there is to the subject of grace, or is there something more? These are actually a small part of the spectrum of meanings that the Bible reveals about what grace is. The Bible study, the biblical study of grace, isn't really all that complex. It's not all that hard. The Bible uses only two words for grace, one in Hebrew and the Old Testament, one in Greek and the New Testament. We'll look at those in just a minute here. It's not theological rocket science. There to find it there, it's quite simple to look at just these two words. It's not a number of words that we need to look at and understand a lot of historical background, just two words. The Bible was written and compiled over a period of some 1,500 years. So as the word grace appears, and it appears very early on in the Bible, we see different nuances come into play in what the word means, what it tells us, what it reveals to us. Grace does show up very early in the Bible. Again, the first time it appears is in Genesis 6 in verse 8. As we read here, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So we see that Noah was under or within God's grace very early on. Grace is not something that only shows up in New Testament periods when Jesus Christ appears and wasn't something that was unknown before that time. It goes all the way back to Noah who found grace as we read here. The Old Testament actually contains many mentions of grace, several of which we'll cover here. But what does this word mean? Let's take a look at it. I mentioned there's two words. We'll look at the first one here, the Hebrew word. Depending on which Bible resource you look at, it will be spelled H-E-N or C-H-E-N. It is pronounced K-A-N or K-A-N. It's a K-H sound in Hebrew. That's why sometimes it's spelled with an H, sometimes with a C-H. K-A-N or K-A-N would probably be the closest we would pronounce it in English. We don't really have that sound in our English language. And it means favor, grace, acceptance, unmerited, which means undeserved, favor or regard in God's sight. The word conveys a sense of acceptance or preference and some special standing or privilege with God or people. It's not used just of God, it's used a number of times in the Bible of a person showing grace to another person. And that has very important implications for us, as we'll see later on, not today, but we'll discuss that in the future. This definition is from the complete word study dictionary Old Testament published in 2003. Depending on your Bible versions, it's often translated favor. The King James version in particular translates it as favor quite a bit, so you'll often see that word, but it's the same word. Okay, here.

Okay, let's look at this a little bit more then. In this particular case, how can we make the meaning of grace relevant to us? What does it mean when we see that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord? What does that mean? To put it in more modern terms, we might say that Noah found himself on God's good side. On God's good side. There are many people that we would want to be in good graces with. We are the term. We want to be in some of these good graces. What does that mean? Well, it means we want to be on their good side.

Who is the person you probably most want to be on their good side? It's probably the person sitting beside you if you're married. You want to be on their good side. My secret to being on Connie's good side is to say a couple of times a day, but I love your dog. Whenever that's my get out of jail free card and she knows it and it works. Even though she knows it works. I love your dog and it works.

That's one way I stay in Connie's good graces is to assure her that I love her dog. So it's not just for Connie's benefit. I do love Jake very much. But you want to be in good graces with your spouse, with your husband, or your wife. We know that if we are in their good graces, what happens? Things go well. Things go better. Small things get overlooked. Things don't grind to a halt where you're butting heads continuously.

Things get worked out. You can discuss ideas, plans, this kind of thing. With enthusiasm, with excitement, with understanding, and you can agree to things. So if you're in somebody's good graces, everything works better. The relationship works better. On the other hand, we do not want to be not in somebody's good graces. You don't want to be in a position where you are not in favor with your spouse or fiance or something like that because of what happens then. Then nothing goes right. Nothing goes right. Small irritations grow to big irritations. We want to be in good graces.

We want to stay in good graces with our mate. We also want to be in good graces with our employer, our boss at work. You know what it's like when you go into work and your boss likes you and you have a good respectful relationship there. Things go well. If you're in good graces with your boss, your employer, everything goes right. Small things get overlooked. If you arrive five minutes late and your boss likes and respects you, they'll probably take the approach of, well, no problem.

That's fine. You can make up the time. Some other time. On the other hand, if you are not in your boss's good graces and you show up five minutes late, it can be pretty irritating. Your boss will get irritated at you. The whole day goes wrong because they're looking for you to make mistakes. So, it's important to be in someone's good graces. Otherwise, every mistake can get amplified. It can get blown out of proportion and the situation just goes nowhere but downhill.

And that's not good. Let's think about our friendships for a minute here. Friendships are based on what? They're based on being in good graces with the other person. The reason you gravitate toward other people, and we all naturally do, we gravitate toward certain people because we are favored by them and because they are favored by us as well.

We get along and the small problems or small differences, things that could be irritating, are just overlooked and forgotten. But on the other hand, if you are not in good graces, things just become irritating and leads to people being upset with one another, at differences with one another. And God's grace toward us is essentially the same, very much the same way. How does God view us? How does He want to view us? Let's notice something from John 15 and verse 15.

How did Jesus Christ view His disciples, the apostles there? He called them friends. And by extension, He views us as His friends. He says in John 15, 15, no longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. That's the kind of relationship that God, the Father, and Jesus Christ want to have with us. Friends, we are in favor with God and with Jesus Christ. We want to be on their good side.

And you might say that being under grace or being in good grace is as being on someone's good side. And whose good side do we want to be in above all? Well, we want to be on God's good side. We want to be on God's good side. And that is really what grace is all about, about being on God's good side.

When we wake up in the morning, first thing, what do we want to do? We want to be on God's good side. And when we pray to God in the morning, what do we want to do? We ought to let Him know, I want to be on your good side.

I want to obey you. I want to please you. I want to do what is pleasing to you throughout the day. And please help me to do that. And if our relationship is right with Him, we know that we are on His good side.

And getting back to Noah, finding grace in the eyes of the Lord. What does that mean? It means He was on God's good side. In a world of evil, a world of violence, a world of corruption, Noah walked up rightly with God. He was on God's good side. And He was favored by God. He was in a place that each of us should want to be on God's good side. In Noah's case, what did grace mean for Him? How did that work out in his life? Well, it means it literally saved his life.

Literally saved his life, the life of him, in the life of his wife and his children, and in laws as well. When the world had become so hopelessly corrupt and violent that it was beyond repair, and God basically had to start over. So Noah was being saved by God's grace as important lessons for us. How we are saved by God's grace, too. We'll go into that in more detail in a future sermon here. The problem with some, again, with trying to define grace is that a lot of the definitions of grace are just too narrow. They are too restrictive, or they sometimes pit different concepts against one another as though they are in conflict. People want to debate the meaning of different words, but as we saw earlier, it's only one Hebrew word, one Greek word. An important principle in understanding the Bible, or studying the Bible, is that when there are multiple definitions, it doesn't mean those definitions are pitted against one another, or in conflict with one another, or that they're contradictory. A lot of times it simply means that they are supplementary or complementary. They supplement one another. They add to one another. It's not a matter of one or the other, but one and the other that both are true and both help us to understand the different ways of understanding and defining grace. And they add to the fullness of that meaning. For example, again, God liberally uses the word grace in the Old Testament. So one way we come to a better understanding of what it means is just to see how it's used. What is it used for? Let's notice several passages here. One in Psalm 84 and verse 11. This is a Psalm of David. And it says, for the Lord God is a sun and shield. And then he says the Lord will give grace and glory. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing, then he elaborates on it, no good thing, will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. So we see here that God gives grace and glory and withholds nothing, nothing that is good for those who walk uprightly.

This is the kind of favor that God wants to extend to his people. He wants to give favor. He wants to give gifts. He wants to give us what is good. He wants to help us in our lives. And to anyone who is willing to walk uprightly, as it says here, he wants to shower even more of his goodness and his gifts on them. And this is what David was inspired to write about God. David, a man who is after God's own heart, tells us it no good thing, will God withhold from those who walk uprightly.

Let's notice another passage, Proverbs 3 and verse 34. Solomon was inspired to write about God. Surely he scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble. He gives grace to the humble.

It's interesting, this is quoted in James 4 and verse 6 and 1 Peter 5 and verse 5. But he gives more grace, James 4 and verse 6. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. 1 Peter 5, 5. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

So we see here that God gives his favor, his goodness, his grace, his gifts to those who are humble. Not the proud, not the stubborn, not the scornful. Let's notice another proverb, 4 and verse 9. Speaking, this portion of Proverbs is describing wisdom as though it were a person, as though it were a woman. So that's why it reads the way it does here. So it speaks of wisdom. She will place on your head an ornament of grace, a crown of glory she will deliver to you. Talking about the importance and the value of wisdom, which wisdom comes also by God's grace. So grace is one of the most wonderful things that God wants to give us. It is something that will be an ornament of grace on our heads, like a crown of glory on our heads there. So we see from just these few passages here that grace is far more than just the forgiveness of sin. That's not to say that's not important. It is. It's absolutely important. It's absolutely crucial to her salvation. Forgiveness is not something that we can earn or buy or pay for in any way. It is a gift that is freely given by God. But grace is far more than that. It's far more than forgiveness of sins. It's far more than undeserved pardon. It's the continual showering on us of knowledge, of glory, of wisdom, of anything and everything good that comes from God. That is God's grace.

There are times—let's shift gear a little bit—there are times where God extends grace on a massive scale, as recorded in history and in prophecy. Let's notice one. When Israel left Egypt, what did God say about this? We read about it in Jeremiah 31 in verse 2, "...Thus says the Lord, the people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness," referring to Israel, going in their wilderness journey. Israel, when I went to give him rest. This is talking about the period of Exodus that we've just talked about during the spring holy days and so on. So God's delivering Israel from generations of slavery there in Egypt, and leading them out of there into the Promised Land was what? It was an act of grace on a massive scale, a massive scale to the entire nation of Israel. What kind of grace did he show them? Well, he delivered them from slavery. He lovingly cared for them, provided for them the manna to feed them for 40 days, gave them water from the rock in the wilderness. Miraculously protected them from the Egyptian armies, wiped them out so they would not wipe out the Israelites, continually blessed them. Their sandals didn't wear out for 40 years.

So this is a case where God blesses the entire nation there for that 40 years, bringing them out of slavery and establishing them in the Promised Land. And God describes this as them finding grace. God extended His grace to them.

Let's notice another prophecy. This is a future time when God will extend His grace on a massive scale. Zechariah 12 and verse 10. Notice what it says here, And I will pour on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication. Then they will look on me, whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for him, as one grieves for a first morn.

And what we see here is a prophecy that is dual. We know, just from reading what it says here, this was fulfilled obviously on the day of Pentecost, which we'll be celebrating in a few weeks here. It was fulfilled on a small scale in the first century when God started His church there, as recorded in Acts 2, when people did receive a spirit of grace, and they looked on him whom they had pierced, referring to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And what did they do? What was their reaction? You may remember Peter's sermon, and people said, Lord, or Peter, what shall we do then? And Peter says, what? Repent and be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So they came to realize that their sins were responsible for Jesus Christ's death. And that was done how? That was done by God's grace. And by God's grace, they repented. And they followed Peter's instruction. They were baptized, and they received God's spirit and became a part of God's church there. But this is also prophetic because what is going to happen when Jesus Christ returns as King of kings and Lord of lords? At that time, the whole world will have the opportunity to do what is described here, to look on Him whom they have pierced by mankind's sins. And they'll have the opportunity and the understanding that their sins led to the death of Jesus Christ. And they will mourn over their sins and the results of those sins and grieve over that and will have the opportunity to repent.

And likewise, to be baptized and receive God's spirit there. So again, this is all by God's grace. God will, in that coming time, show great grace to the entire world. And in that grace, they will recognize that their sins are responsible for the death of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And that will lead millions of people to heartfelt repentance over their sins and guilt. So these are just a few of the examples of what we read about in the Old Testament and how the word grace is used. So we see God's favor. We see Him giving gifts. We see Him His special attention to those whom He has chosen to extend His grace. Let's take a look now at the New Testament word translated grace. And again, as with the Hebrew, there's one word. In the Greek, there is one word translated grace. And that is the word charis. It's spelled as though it's a chair, but it's charis in Greek. And it means, again, this is from the complete word study dictionary New Testament, it means grace, particularly that which causes joy, pleasure, gratification, favor, acceptance, for a kindness granted or desired, a benefit, thanks, gratitude, a favor done without expectation of return, the absolutely free expression of the living, I think it's supposed to be loving, kindness of the giver, unearned and unmerited or undeserved favor.

And again, broad range of meanings, but they are all true. They all complement one another. They don't contradict or earn in contrast, but they all complement one another to show and reflect God's grace and God's love toward us. This word charis is the root of our English word charity.

You might think of the love chapter. Charity suffers long and is kind as it reads in the King James. We understand that to mean love, and that's so it's translated in other Bible versions. But charity means both love and a gift. If someone is given charity, they are given what? They are given a gift. So it's interesting it combines both of those concepts into one love and a gift. And love is a gift. God's love toward us is a gift. This word comes from the Greek verb kairo, meaning to rejoice. To rejoice. So this is something we should be very happy about, to be the recipients of God's grace. It is also the root for our English word charisma. Charisma. There, too. Don't have time to get into the various implications of that, but it is.

The first time we see the word grace or caris used in the New Testament is in Luke 2 and verse 40. This is chronologically the first time we see it here. And it's referring to Jesus Christ as a young boy. And the child grew and became strong in spirit filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. The grace of God was upon him. So when Jesus is a young boy growing up, there's probably nothing more important to God the Father than bestowing His grace on this young boy, doing everything He can to nurture Him, to protect Him, to care for Him, and in every way to bring Him to fulfill the mission that the Father and the Son had planned out before time began.

And the grace of God, every possible attention and favor, is upon Him. And we see also, just a sign light here, that to define grace as God's forgiveness, or to limit grace to God's forgiveness or undeserved pardon, just doesn't apply in this case. Because, after all, who is the young boy here? He is Emmanuel. He is God in the flesh, who has never sinned and never will sin. So to say that it is pardon for sins just does not apply in this case.

Because we're talking about Jesus as a boy, and later as a man, who had never sinned, never did sin. So pardon just doesn't enter the equation here. So grace is something that is much greater than just God's pardon and forgiveness of sin. So as we grow in grace and knowledge, a good way to look at grace is to not think of it from the standpoint of what God has removed from us, as in forgiving our sins and removing them, but also to think of it from the flip side.

And that is what God has given to us, because as we saw from previous verses we've talked about, it's not what God takes away, it's what God gives us in His grace. And what are some of the things that He gives? We've touched on these just a little bit. There are many more, but just to orient our minds in that direction, what does grace give us? It gives us the opportunity for eternal life. It gives us the opportunity for a loving relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ. It gives us the understanding of God's plan and purpose for us. It gives us the understanding of the kingdom of God and how we may enter that kingdom.

And it gives us forgiveness of our sins. Yes, that is taken away, but that forgiveness does give us something as well. What does it give us? Well, it gives us peace of mind. It gives us confidence by which we can come before God's throne and seek His help in time of need. So again, many more that we'll talk about, but this is kind of just a starter list to help us think in terms of what God gives us through His grace, as opposed to just taking away our sins.

And those who truly know God, also we can head to this list. I want to discuss this separately, but the law of God is obviously a part of God's grace, too, because the law of God is part of God's goodness toward mankind and toward us as well, giving us that light, giving us that direction of how to live, how to avoid what, how to avoid the pain and the heartache and the suffering that comes from disobeying Him. And from a life of sin, we know that sin is what? Sin is the breaking, the transgression of God's law, or lawlessness. 1 John 3, 4.

There, sin is the breaking of God's law. Through grace, through God giving us that law, we avoid the consequences of those sins. And the argument in theological circles—I'm starting to say circuses, and that's probably a better term for it—are you under the law or under grace is nonsensical because they go hand in hand. They're not contrasted with one another, as many people make the mistake of confusing that. God's law is one of the most wonderful and gracious gifts He could ever give us, and one that will be a striking feature of Jesus Christ's reign on earth when all the world will come to Jerusalem to learn about God's law.

Let's notice just a few verses that tell us that God's law is a blessing. Deuteronomy 6, verse 24, And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day. A few chapters over. Deuteronomy 10, verse 13, breaking into a thought, And to keep the commandments of the Lord, and His statutes, which I command you to-day, for your good, so that you will be blessed, in other words, is what this is talking about. Another one, Joshua 1, verse 8.

As Israel is entering the Promised Land, Joshua says, The book of the law, this book of the law, shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then, if you do this, if you obey this law, for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. So God's law is a part of God's grace. It's not contrasted to it. It's a gift that comes from us. It is His guide. It is His instruction manual for how we are to live. And that is a beautiful and wonderful gift, a direction for peaceful and productive life, as we see here. So everything that God gives us, it is good, is a part of His grace to mankind. Moving on a little bit from the Gospels, let's notice something in Acts about the early church, Acts 4, verse 33. A remarkable statement here, if we think about it here. This is obviously very early on in the founding of the church, and it says here, So again, this is describing the origins of beginning of the church here. So notice that it says, Great Grace was upon them all. Not just average grace, not just run-of-the-mill grace, great grace. Miraculous, overflowing, abundant grace was on them all.

And what happened as a result of that? Notice first few words, and with great power.

So with great grace from God came great power, through which the apostles would give witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And the way to salvation, made possible through that. They had great power. Why? Because they had great grace that God had poured out on them. And God's graciousness in His favor gave them power, just as it can give us power.

Today, if anything could be described as a big help that God gave His church, it was His grace. His grace of giving them His Holy Spirit, and opening unbelievable doors for them to get off to a fast start, 3,000 baptized on that first day of Pentecost there. And the church was under a great deal of extra grace from God. The apostles had that great power, they performed great miracles, and they gave witness to that power and to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, how might that apply to us today? Have you considered praying, as we approach Pentecost, have you considered praying for God to give great grace to us today? And to give us great power, as He did the early church, when it was multiplied, adding thousands of people. Do we regularly ask God for His grace to open doors, to add more laborers to the harvest, to give us His power to multiply our strength? Not just our own physical strength, but His miraculous strength and power, so that His Word can be done in us, and through us, and through His church. Because it is done through God's grace, through His power, not our own. It is also through God's grace that He does what? That He opens the hearts and the minds of people who listen, and on whom the Word falls. That also is God's grace. A person's heart opening, being opened, to understand God's truth is part of the goodness, part of the gift that comes from God as well. Let's notice Romans 5 and verse 17. This is from the English Standard version. Romans 5 and verse 17. If because of one man's trespass, referring back to Adam, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Now there would have been no need for grace had not human beings, starting with Adam, rebelled against God and disobeyed God and sinned, and put themselves in a position of needing God's grace, of needing God's forgiveness and His help and so on. Here Paul talks about what? He talks about the abundance of grace that we have received through Jesus Christ because that grace covered the sins that we've committed. And we know what would happen if those sins weren't covered, that we would face the death penalty of eternal death, eternal oblivion. So that is what would happen if our sins were not removed. So it is a great, wonderful gift of God's grace to have that penalty removed from us and no longer hanging over us, is what is being said here. Let's notice how we are in the Bible. Here's another passage here, a little bit later in Romans, Romans 11, verses 5 and 6. This is from the New International Version. And here Paul discusses the fact that God calls and chooses some people by what? By His grace. He's talking here in context about Paul's own people, the Jewish people. So too, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace, a remnant of the nation of Israel, who are chosen by grace for what? To be a part of the church. And if by grace, and it is no longer by works, if it were by works, grace would no longer be grace.

So being called and chosen at this time, or any time to be a part of God's church and His family, is an expression of God's grace. And that calling that we receive to understand His truth is by God's grace toward us. Paul then goes on to say, to repeat the latter part of this, verse 6, if that calling is by grace and it is no longer by works, if it were by works, grace would no longer be grace. So what he says here is that grace, the goodness of God, is not something we can buy. It's not something we can earn. It is a gift. It is a gift. And when you give a gift to someone, there's absolutely nothing in that gift that they buy or they earn. It is a gift. You give the gift and expect nothing in return. And that is what Paul is pointing out here. God's grace isn't something that we can buy. Something that we can work for, earn in any way. It is something that freely comes from Him. Because, to get back to the phrase we used earlier, because we are on God's good side. Because He wants us to be friends. And He wants to give us everything. His grace is so profound that He wants to give us an inheritance that is almost beyond human comprehension, as we read about it in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 9. As it is written, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him. And these verses only begin to scratch the surface of the fullness of what God has planned for us by His grace. And that true picture is something that we don't have time to cover right now, but it's just an enormous and wonderful picture. Let's notice something else that God's grace does for us. Romans 7 verses 25, 23 through 25. This is from the New Living Translation. We see the workings of grace, as Paul described it in his own life, and struggling against sin. And sin, again, as we saw earlier, is transgression of God's law. So to say that to compare and contrast grace against law is nonsensical because God's law defines sin. So where there's no law, there's no sin. So it makes no sense whatsoever to argue grace replaces law or doesn't weigh with law. But we do see Paul here describing his struggles in day-to-day life, exactly the kind of battles that we all go through in our mind, in our body, in our spirit. Paul writes here, But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.

Paul is writing these words long after he has become an apostle, probably about 20 years or so, after his miraculous calling. They are struck down on the road to Damascus. So for 20 years approximately he's been serving God, he's been raising up churches, he's been preaching the gospel, he's been performing miracles. And yet he still struggles with these personal battles that he's having to fight within himself, just as we do, decades after we have been called and received God's Spirit. And it continues in verse 24, Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God the answer is in Jesus Christ, our Lord. So you see how it is. In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. So Paul knew that he has to rely on the help that came from God the Father and Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. And he relies on that goodness, not any innate goodness that he has. And he relies on that strength that comes from God's Spirit and from Jesus Christ living again within us, to fight against that ongoing weakness that pulls the flesh that is within each of us.

So every day when we pray and ask God to forgive us of our sins, of our trespasses, and we should be asking him to give us the strength to not do that again, to not repeat the evil things we've said, the evil things we've done, the evil things we've thought. And it is by God's grace that we can have the will and the help and the desire and the determination to go on because why? Because we are on God's good side. Because we need to be on God's good side. And God wants us to give us that help. He wants to give us that help, and he will give us that help as we surrender to him, as we submit our lives to him. And we should be praying for that help every day as Paul acknowledged in the struggle that he was going through here. So that whatever the struggle is, whatever the sin is we're dealing with, whatever the flaws, God's grace is how he helps us, how he leads us and moves us forward in change. Paul expresses a similar thought again in Romans chapter 2 verse 4. Do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? That was just discussed in the doctrines class here. The topic of repentance. Where does repentance come from? It comes as part of God's grace. Part of the good things he does for us. And we could just as easily substitute, instead of goodness here, not knowing that the grace of God leads you to repentance. We just read a few scriptures ago that it's by God's grace that he chooses us and calls us. And it's the grace of God, the goodness of God, that leads us to repentance as well. And goodness and grace are essentially the same because, again, everything is good that comes from God as part of his grace. And repentance are the terms God uses in the Bible for turning from our own ways of thinking and of doing things to seeking God's way of life, to seeking to think like he thinks and do as he does and act as he acts and live as he lives. And this is a requirement for salvation. Again, going back to Acts 2, 37 through 40, repent and be baptized and you shall receive the gift of God's Spirit. So this is a first step in properly responding to God's grace that he extends toward us. And to wrap this up here, the primary way in which God directs us toward him and toward his kingdom is not always through punishment. They're through tragedy. Often it just takes something to shove us out of our apathy.

The comfort that we have with the life we're in. Think back again to the example of John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace. He was comfortable. He had a good life, his captain of a slave ship.

Pretty wealthy. Had a lot of things going for him. And it took something that had to dislodge him from that to get him out of his comfort zone, to move him out of that, and to see how much he needed God. And in his case, it took water coming into his ship and the ship's starting to go down and realize that if a miracle doesn't happen, he's going to be a dead man in a few minutes.

And that's what we need. We need to realize that it is God's goodness and graciousness that leads us to repentance. And when we receive good things from God, we should recognize that he is encouraging us to do things right, to draw nearer to him, to make the changes that we should so that we can be reconciled to him, and to draw ever closer to him. So that's where we'll pick it up next time, talking about how we are reconciled and draw closer to God through repentance and through God's grace.