Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Amazing Grace Part Three: Grace Preserves Us



-Through many dangers, toils and snares
 I have already come.
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far,
And Grace will lead me home.-

     “Through many dangers, toils and snares” Not only has God, through His common grace, restrained us from excessive sinfulness, but He now, through His saving grace, preserves us through this time of present sin. The Apostle Peter describes this as God guarding our faith through His power, so that He might be able to present us to Himself in the last day! And he encourages us that any “dangers, toils and snares” that come along the way are only testing the genuineness of our faith, much as gold is purified by fire, so that in the end our pure faith will be an occasion of praise and glory to Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith. (1 Peter 1:3-9; Hebrews 12:2)

     Jude speaks of God as “Him who is able to keep you from stumbling” and as the one who can “present you blameless before the presence of His glory” and get this, “with GREAT joy” God loves doing this! “Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and Grace will lead me home.” Can you keep you from stumbling? If you could keep every law of God and live a sinless life, it would only result in your own pride and arrogance and not in giving God his due glory. If you relied upon your own ability to live a stumble-free life and failed, it would only lead to your hopelessly resigning yourself to a sinful lifestyle. Legalism or licentiousness. Two bad options, neither one bringing glory to the one to whom all glory is due. We can't live holy, blameless lives successfully apart from the power of God and any attempt to do so will only end in certain disaster. Can you imagine presenting your own holiness before the presence of God's glory? Do you think God would have “great joy” in your homemade righteousness?  If every appearance of God in the Bible or even an angel, Old and New Testament, left men groveling on their face in the dirt, how can we think to stand in the presence of God's glory without the Righteousness of Christ?

     Thank God for His grace that has brought us safe this far! How many have we seen fall along the way? How many brothers and sisters have we seen walk with the Lord and then not? Can we boast that we won't, apart from the grace of God, follow them? Of course not! God's word to us, over and over again, is to persevere! Endure! Examine yourself! Test your faith! Only, with God's preserving grace always in mind. “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12








Amazing Grace Part Two: Grace Transforms Us




-Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear. 
And Grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
  The hour I first believed.-

     “Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear.” So God's Grace finds us lost, blind, deaf, sick and dead. Sounds pretty hopeless and indeed it is hopeless from the standpoint of our own abilities. We are oblivious to the threatenings of God and careless of His righteousness and holiness and are not only indifferent to His loving kindness, but are His enemies; actively against Him and His works and He against us. (Romans 5:10) We don't see our own sinfulness and we can't hear His call to repent. We are dead to God. We are sold to our dark master, sin, whom we love, and we love his kingdom of darkness where we carry out our sinful deeds. If we could see the light, we wouldn't want anything to do with it. We love the darkness and hate the light. (John 3:19-21)

     God tells Jeremiah over and over again of His plans to punish His people and condemns them for their rebellious hearts and sinful acts and declares many times that they have no fear of God, no trembling for their crimes and His holiness. Jeremiah 5:3 “O LORD, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent.” And again in verse 21 “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not. 22 Do you not fear me? declares the LORD. Do you not tremble before me?” and again in verse 24 ”They do not say in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God,” In 6:15 he states, “they didn't even know how to blush” then in 8:6 they continue in their evil, relentlessly, saying, “what have I done?” All the while their false prophets are speaking peace to them, saying, “God is not angry with you.” (6:14) (Sound familiar?) Apart from the work of God's Grace in our heart, we don't know fear. Indeed, it has to be taught and the only Teacher capable is the Holy Spirit. (John 16:8) God has to take out our stony, unfeeling heart and replace it with one of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26) Then we learn to fear and blush and be ashamed for our sins. (Ezekiel 36:31)

     “And Grace my fears relieved” The end, the intent of this awakening is not to leave us in shame and despair. Temporarily, for just a moment, it seems as though we must be crushed, so great is the burden suddenly realized to be upon us, but then we see the cross! What relief! What Good News! I just found out I have this horrible debt, this crushing load of sin and now you tell me there's someone who has paid that debt? Someone else has been crushed in my place? It's the same relief believers feel every time we hear the Gospel message today, and remember what Christ has done for us. How He has taken our shame and our wrath and carried them to the cross and paid the debt to the Righteous Holy Judge. “How precious did that Grace appear the hour I first believed.” Amen!


Sunday, June 26, 2011

Amazing Grace Part One: Grace Finds Us



-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.-

 “That saved a wretch like me” The Bible agrees wholeheartedly with Newton's assessment of the human condition, apart from Christ:
     In the fifth chapter of Romans, Paul tells us that, through one man's disobedience all men fell into sin. (Romans 5:19) When Adam sinned, we, who were all in Adam, sinned. We share his guilt. We are all born sinful. David tells us that he was “brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5)
     Paul spends the first three chapters of Romans convicting the natural man, the moral man and the religious man. He concludes in chapter 3 with both Jews and Greeks, and indeed everyone, “under sin” (Romans 3:9) “There is none righteous, no not one.” (3:10) To drive home his point he continues, “ no one does good” (3:12) He confirms “no one understands, no one seeks after God.” (3:11) Apart from the intervening work of God, not one of us would even look for God or His approval. (To be sure, some look after a god created in their own image and to their liking or seek a righteousness of their own, but none seek after the true God and His righteousness.) 
     But to make sure that we don't miss the point or mistakenly think he is speaking about someone else, he personalizes it by naming members of our bodies and assigning each one its own particular sin. “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (3:13-18) Are you getting the point? He's talking about you! Me! Us!
     This doesn't mean that we are as bad as we can possibly be, before we come to Christ. There may be many sins which we haven't committed. Maybe your not an axe-murdering terrorist, but even for that you can't take credit. The truth is that we are not as bad as we could be, because even when we were “dead in our lawlessness and sins” God, through His common Grace, has protected us, restrained our evil desires and kept us from excessive sinfulness. (Genesis 20:6; Exodus 34:24; 1 Samuel 25:26; Psalm 76:10; Proverbs 16:7; 2 Thessalonians 2:7) 
     See?!  It really is Amazing Grace! But just wait, it gets much better!