Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:06 Some of the things we've been doing, it's, it's quite good to go over some of the, the more fundamentals of our faith, I think, to look into who we are, what we're about, and actually the kind of importance of yeah, some of the topics that we're gonna be covering. So we've, we've gone through, um, what Peter was talking about when he got asked this question, there was a story of 3000 people getting saved and they got asked this question, what must we do to get saved? And we've gone through that list of all the different things and having faith, believing, repenting, being filled with the Holy Spirit. And now we're on this part of our series where we're looking, okay, what are the fundamentals of our faith? What are the things that are, that are really important, that are really crucial to, to, to now continue this journey?
Speaker 1 00:00:52 That if we've done all those things, if, if we understand what it means to be safe, what does it mean to live it out? And I think that's a really good, uh, uh, like setup for what I'm gonna be talking about today. That's this topic of grace. And then for those that may being us, with, with us for a while, maybe you came from extra down and you know what, like the heart of rediscover is about. And you, you might have seen us this morning. It wasn't the worship great. Yeah, it was really, really good. And you might look at us and go, Hey, why are they so excited? Yeah. Like when I've gone to church normally, sometimes like people are a bit more, um, serious. But I think what we, what we find here, and I'm not saying they're not excited, I think they know this, but the, the reason why we celebrate the way we celebrate, we worship, the way we worship is because of this.
Speaker 1 00:01:42 It's, it's because of this grace that I'm gonna talk about. So I'm gonna kind of go over three different questions of kind of looking at the, the what is grace, why did we need it? And then what we do once we've got it. So I'm gonna go to three different sections. It's quite nice actually as well. Normally how I read my Bible, I kind of just go through books by books. I've got a nice plan that I go through, read a couple chapters a day and you read through a different book. But now actually doing this study to flick around and jump around the Bible a little bit to look at the different chapters that talk specifically about Grayson. It's almost like it was written by Holy Spirit. It's almost like these different people in different places in different contexts talking about the same subject all linked up.
Speaker 1 00:02:30 That's why I love the Bible. So we're gonna be jumping around, we're gonna be in Romans chapter five. At first. We're gonna be in Ephesians chapter two. And then we're gonna be in Titu chapter two. And we're gonna look at the thing. So first of all, Romans chapter five, verse one, two, it's on the screen. I'm gonna read it from down there. Says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through him, we have also obtained access by faith into disgrace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And this is that, that first thing that in, in, in two sentences, in two verses, what is grace Jacob, if it gets the next slide, I kind of, I unpick a little bit more. So it says through him, we have also obtained access by faith.
Speaker 1 00:03:23 So it's this thing, this faith, like how like when we start off about grace, it's it's about faith and this faith that we have and you see the little arrow, it, it gives us access. So it's, it is through faith, it gives us access and it gives us access to the grace. So that's that kind of like interesting flow that we get about, we talk about like how does grace work? Like how do we get it? And it's, it's faith that gives us access into grace. Yes. And what do we do with the grace we stand? So we, we we, it was stood in this grace that that we gained on faith and now we rejoice. This is the, the, the summary of almost like what I'm gonna be talking about today. I'm gonna go into a bit more detail. We rejoice for the hope of the glory of God.
Speaker 1 00:04:13 So it's, it is by faith you get the access to this grace that we stand in. And when we are stood here as a community, what we were singing about, all that we are about here is to show and to tell and scream and say look what's gonna come that the reason we are stood and we've got this gift of grace is to give us hope that we will see the glory of God. And not only will we see it and say that that man he's coming for me, but that we get to join in with him. Yes. That we have this hope of a future promise. I love what the n l t version in this kind of says. Well you get the next um, because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege. This is grace undeserved privilege where we now stand and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.
Speaker 1 00:05:14 That's what's going to come. So in this um, kind of letter then Paul continues in this same chapter talking about these two different people. There's this sin of Adams. So when it says in this bit that one man's trespasses, that's Adam where was talking about Adam and Eve Adam in the garden, not just like Adam that you might know at work. It wasn't him, it was Adam in the garden. And then the other man that is talking about is Jesus Christ. So I'm gonna read this and then got a little table that might be able to explain things a little bit more. It says, but the free gift is not like the trespass for if many die through one man's trespass. Adam much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
Speaker 1 00:06:01 And this free gift is not like the result of that one man sin for the judgment following one man's trespasses bought condemnation. But the free gift this grace following many trespasses bought justification for if because of one man's trespass 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. And it goes on a little bit. It says, therefore as one trespass leads to led to condemnation for all men. So one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sins. But by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in and increased the trespasses, but where sin increased grace abounded all the mourn so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 00:07:13 Ah Lord. So it's a big kind of section and I've got this next kind of slide that that tells us like the summary. It's this constant verse of like, Adam did this but Jesus did this. And then like Adam did this for Jesus did this and then Adam and then I read it all out cause I want to prove like I'm speaking from the Bible, this isn't just me. So I've got the verses there if you wanna follow along and you can see the points that I've got. So it's this contra contradiction where sort like Adam and this sin entered through the garden, this sin entered into the world and it was Adam, but then it was all part of this redemptive plan. This, this, this graces that redemptive plan. There's an amazing kind of uh, acronym that I love about grace and it spells Alex God's riches at Christ's expense.
Speaker 1 00:07:55 So retire, read in the Bible. I kind of remember that that's what I'm gonna talk about a bit more and it helps me kind of focus on this. So through Adam, through that sin that many died, but through Jesus now many more may have grace. And as I said, what's this grace that through Adam, this condemnation occurred. But through Jesus we have justification. The we are made right and we are seen as righteous. The the through Adam, through sin death reigned. But through Jesus now life reigns. We can be confident in that hope, that glory, that it's not necessarily always for now, I don't think it's really that, but I think the Bible talks about the future. That that that hope that we have, that that confidence that we have, it's that life reigns in the future. That death no longer has its sing, I love it in revelation there's this image of of Jesus and he's, he's, it is an image and a vision to John on his island, one of his best friends.
Speaker 1 00:09:00 And it's almost like, and maybe this is just me, I'm the youth pastor, I'm the young Alex pastor, so you can like allow us a little bit. But he's gonna go, look, I've got the keys and he's saying, I've got the keys to death Andes. And I don't think he'd just be saying it like this here. Look, I can imagine him being excited and proud and given that confidence that I've got the keys, the things that I talked about, that life, I've got the keys to death, that that through Adam many were made sins. But now through Jesus Christ and him alone, many are made righteous. Thank you God. If we get to that next slide, please Jacob, I think okay, no good, got these. So then it goes on. Is that one sorry. Um, then through that the law came in. So Adam sinned and then the law came in.
Speaker 1 00:09:52 So this is Moses, this is the 10 commandments. And this doesn't make a lot of sense all the time. But I think through this understanding of grace, the um, Romans kind of unpacks. You see the point that that the law came in. So God gave these commandments and what was the result of that law is that the sin increased. So, so God goes, here's some commandments that I'm this holy God and if you wanna be in right standing with me, if you want to be able to come and approach me, this is the law. This is the only way that you as man can do this. But then they weren't able to do it that our result of that the law came and then sin increased all the more. But then it says, but that mean that grace abounded all the more, how can we know this gift that we've given?
Speaker 1 00:10:41 How can we celebrate and sing with this joy if we don't know what we were saved from? If I stand here and go up my day, and I think that it's because of the things that I do that hey, maybe I help out with a soup project or maybe I go out at a food bank, I volunteer at a charity shop. Like, like I, I sweep up the lawn and maybe I'm quiet after 10 so my neighbors are happy. Does that mean that I get good things? Does that mean I can go to heaven? No. And this is what Jesus was saying, what God was saying when the law came down as if you wanna be made right with me there 600 plus laws and rules and regulations. That's the only way you can do it. But then through that actually it's this grace that abounds that has the ceiling increase and we realize more and more how simple we are.
Speaker 1 00:11:30 I don't know about you guys. I've been a Christian since I was four, a privilege but really living it probably since I was about 18. And the closer and closer I get to the light, it's a little bit scary because sometimes the closer and the closer I get to God, the worse and worse I see my sin. And if it's not for this grace that we're focusing on, if it's, it's not for this justification by Jesus and his blood alone, what we remember every time we take communion, then all of a sudden this, this weight that I shouldn't be carrying, what does it look like for those that don't know grace, that they carry that weight every day, that this trespass increase and that trespass eventually led to death. It's what sin will always lead to. But this grace abounded even more and that grace leads us and takes us to eternal life.
Speaker 1 00:12:23 This is what we are about. This is why we sin, this is why we're happy. This is why we are full of showing. Can we go onto that next bit now please? Cool. Hey, there we go. So if you wanna turn to me to Ephesians, we're gonna look at chapter two. This is the verse that most of you might get to come up. I'm gonna drink a little bit first and that's a bit dry on Ephesians chapter two verses one I think goes on to eight as well. But that's on the next slide. It says, and you were walking dead in trespass and sin in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air and the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying the desires of the body and the mind.
Speaker 1 00:13:14 And you were by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love in which he loves us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace. You have been saved and raised up and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heaven places in Jesus Christ that continues to so that in the coming age he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved not through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Speaker 1 00:14:18 So again, this detailed thing we can just show you like it's from the Bible, it's not me. And we're gonna unpack it a little bit more. It says that you were dead. This is that next section of like why did we need grace? So we understand we've got it. It's, it's that faith that gives us access to that grace. But why did we need it in the first place that you were once dead and what did it look like to be dead? You are following the world and you are following the devil, the prince of this power of the air. And what did that look like? It's disobedience. There's the sums of disobedience and what does the disobedience look like? Its passions of the flesh, his desires of the body and the mind. It say, Hey, this is who you were. This is who all of us once were.
Speaker 1 00:15:02 We were dead. We followed the world, we followed the devil. His lies, we looked like the sons of disobedience. Our actions were so disobedient to our fathers. But it's your nature. One interesting thing that since Adam entered the the, the sin entered through Adam's story, that our nature was the passions of the flesh and the desires of the body and mind that it's easy actually it's natural. What does that look like in a world where I do what I want, my body's the master. We're studying in our young adults through the book of Orth Indians and it's all about this sexual marriage. It's saying, hey, like my uh, hung is when I'm hungry, I feed it. When I want to have sex, I just have sex and look like with prostitutes. What does it look like in a world where the passions of our flesh, the desires of our body and our mind are the things that gave us death?
Speaker 1 00:15:58 But there's grace. We continue on to that next bit. But God being rich in mercy and this mercy, this is an interesting word that comes up often. The the the de the dictionary definition is compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm. So God is in this position where he sees our death, he sees the sin and the things that were entertaining that that through our nature we choose Satan over God. But he is rich in mercy. When he's got the position of authority to bring down that hammer, cause of his love. When we were one's dead in sin, we are now alive in Christ. This is grace. This is grace that we are raised up and we are seated in heavenly places. This this image of Jesus to come, that this is God showing his kindness through his grace.
Speaker 1 00:17:02 This is the good God that we serve. When he could bring down the judgment, he brings love when we were once in sin. He brings a life with Christ. When we deserve nothing, we have been raised up for eternal life and seated in heavenly places. This is why we sit. This is why we shall not for right now that life might look really hard. Do the things going on here on this earth. They're pretty brutal. But we sing as we know our hope, that we know our future, that we know we will rest and we will sit in glory and goes. That next section is through grace. There is grace that saves through faith. Sorry, this is the bit that you all might heart. I want to just pick it up. It's just commas and sentences. But I like to spit it up there. This grace that saves it is through faith.
Speaker 1 00:18:09 And both of this, all of this is a gift from God that it is nothing that you have done. It's only Jesus and he did it for everyone. All you have to do is receive that grace, yes, that grace, that gift. And the reason of that is that so no one can bump. That's right. No one can be proud of those things that that we can say we did it, but we fall on our faces and say only you could do it God. And why did he do it? So, so what is grace? Why did he do it? Is because the we are God's workmanship that he designed us and he made you. And he wants you to be in Jesus. That was your original plan to walk amongst God in the garden. That's what he designed, that we are his and he wants us back.
Speaker 1 00:19:05 This is grace. And what do we do with it? It's this next transition of why does he do it? So we've got this grace and he did it because he wants us to be back with Jesus. What does it look like that now we made right? What does it look like to stand in grace and it's to do the good things that he's already prepared before us to walk in them. And that brings me on to that next kind of section from Titus two. And it says, for grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people, trading us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live lives of self controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age that's now waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself up to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself of people, of his own possessions who are zealous for works.
Speaker 1 00:20:18 Yeah, what do we do with it? So this grace of God has appeared. I hope I've unpacked that a little bit more. That you gain it through faith that gives you access to this grace, this good good gift. And this good gift gives us salvation. It's that hope of eternal life. And once we've been given this gift, you've been given this gift. If you accept it, what do you do with it then? I'm holding it here in my hands. And it's for training and it's for training. And you might think back to what he was talking about in Ephesians and Romans, the two contradictions in this life, it's training us to renounce the ungodliness, our worldly passions, the things that led us to death. It trains us to resist those, to renounce them, get rid of them. And it trains us and helps us to live in self-control, to live an upright and godly life. He's given you this gift for the future. What's the gift look like now? It looks like going away from your sin and running to God. And when we do this, we've been given this gift and we're, we're training, we're in that training period on how to deny ourselves our natural urges, what our body wants to do, what our mind naturally does. And we're trying to pursue this life of self-control and upright and this godly life that only through grace we can get back. And we wait.
Speaker 1 00:21:48 We wait for our hope. Why are you here to, to, to proclaim and to speak of the hope that we have. It's the only reason God got you to wake up today. It's the only reason. The only reason that when you gets saved and you receive this gift, you don't just get beamed up straight ahead and you say, that's another one I've got. Because as he did that every time there'd just be people left who don't know the good news. So we wait for our hope that Jesus is appearing and he's coming in glory. Last time he came like a baby, but this time he's coming in a cloud of fire. There'll be a sword out of his mouth, fire in his eyes, he's riding on a white horse. And I get to say he's coming for me then that's my king and he's daring glory.
Speaker 1 00:22:41 And what did he do? What does he do when he comes? He redeems us that we are saved, not right now, but for that future date, that that judgment, that mercy that God gives us when we receive that, that person, we hold that account before God and he say, here's my whole life, every decision I made, every voice that I sang, everything God, it's on the line and it is mercy where we deserve death. He looks at Jesus and he says, you are being redeemed. And why is he doing that? He's purifying at his people back to him. So you will once gone away and he wants you home. This is the story of grace, the story of Jesus that your father wants you hope where his possessions. And now we are hope that we stand in this grace. What do we do? We are zealous for good works. The band want to come back, maybe play a very guitar once I do this, this is gross. This is all we're about. This is the only thing that matters. Yes, we want, we want to live that life of of training. We want, we wanna renounce our sin. We wanna live in this book, but it's useless without grace that if we try to work so hard, we don't understand it's not from Jesus, then what's the point? We'll be going and going and going and we'll burn.
Speaker 1 00:24:22 So Jesus, we thank you that you redeemed us. Thank you that you brought us home and you purified us that we are now back with you. Father, we're home. And whilst we wake up, help us us through your grace to to, to go away from the things that led to death, but run to the things that lead to life. Run to you've God, the words you've laid out before us. Let us walk in obedience with them. Be sellers to do it. But Holy Spirit, we are waiting with you and we say, Jesus, come again. Jesus, we wait for you. You are our home and we want to see our glorious king. And just now as every head is bowed and eyes are closed, maybe you've been here for a while and then you, you only maybe just understood, maybe it's clipped. Maybe it's your first time, you're not really sure why you came, but I think it might have been to this reason right now to hear this message, this story of grace. So I just wanna give you an opportunity, if you wanna receive that grace, that gift that's not because of anything you've done. Whether you feel like you're the best person ever or the worst bit of this gift is for you.
Speaker 1 00:25:55 So I just wanna give you this moment. If you wanna raise your hand and say, Jesus, I accept. Just gonna wait another moment. We just wanna pray and all of you guys wanna say this together. Lord, we're so grateful. Lord. Lord, grateful, so grateful that you have redeemed us. And Lord, help me Lord to turn from the things that lead to death, things that lead. And I wanna run into your life. Lord Jesus, I accept you as my redeemer, Jesus, accept you as my redeemer. Purify me for your good works and through the joint of your hopes. Help me run the race supermarket.
