For the past couple of weeks, I gave sermons based on one word: first Hope, then Holiness, and this week we’re going to look at Grace.
I tried looking through my sermons to see if I’ve talked about grace before, and the only time I did (as a topic) was truth and grace. Today, I’d like to focus just on the concept of grace.
If you have your Bibles, we’re going to look at two sets of scripture today, three if you count the skip in our first set. We’re going to go to Romans chapter 5, and we’re going to look at the first two verses, and then skip down to verses 6 through 11. Then we’re going to read one verse out of Galatians, chapter 2, verse 21.
Romans 5:1-2 and 6-11. Then Galatians 2:21.
I’ve mentioned before that I listen to a Youtuber named Mike Winger. And I haven’t gone onto his Youtube videos in a while, but on his Facebook, he posted this not too long ago and it hit me so hard that it inspired me to write a sermon on it.
He said, “When Christians understand that grace isn’t something you get in little pieces but something you stand in, it changes how we approach God in worship and prayer.”
That hit me, because I’ve read the verse and heard the Keith Green song about this grace in which we stand, and it was good, but it never hit me that it’s something we continually stand in.
Scripture: Let’s take a look at that verse.
Romans 5:1-2; 6-11:
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”
“6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
If you want to follow along, we’re going to go back and read some verses from Chapter 4 and then Chapter 6 later on, so if you have a bookmark, you can put it in chapter 4 if you’d like.
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And now Galatians 2:21:
21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
“Amazing Grace” is one of the most––if not the most––popular songs ever written for a reason. God’s grace is so amazing, that it’s hard to comprehend. I think that’s why so many people think they have to earn God’s favor when they already have it. I think that’s why the Catholic Church came up with Purgatory. Well, there were other reasons historically, but so many people believe that we have to earn God’s favor or earn our salvation or do something to atone for our sins.
Everyone who is a Christian knows, and as I’ve mentioned in my sermon last week, we certainly can’t live up to God’s standard of perfect holiness and righteousness, though God calls us to. And because Grace is so hard to truly comprehend, we have a hard time knowing how to stand in it, as Paul says. But we do stand in His grace.
First of all, what is God’s grace? Like the word, Holiness last week, it’s a churchy word that never really gets defined. What does it mean? It means favor, and in the case of Christianity, it means unmerited favor.
And that adjective, “unmerited” is very important. It’s not just favor, it’s unmerited favor. It’s favor that we are given, but that we haven’t earned. We don’t deserve God’s favor, but because of his love, he bestows it anyway.
Christianity.com says, Grace is the Hebrew word chanan or the Greek word charis, meaning “the state of kindness and favor toward someone, often with a focus on a benefit given to the object.”
How many of you have ever had someone do a favor for you and refused something in return? Maybe a complete stranger? That’s a form of grace.
“Grace is what God does because he is gracious. Every action of God toward us involves his grace. His creation, his providence, his conviction of the sinner, his gift of salvation, his equipping of the saints, and the future he has prepared for us. All of this is due to God’s grace (Christianity.com).”
Elizabeth Keckley was a slave in Missouri before the Civil War. Her greatest desire was to purchase freedom for herself and her son. Her owner agreed that if she could raise $1,200 she could gain her freedom. Keckley worked as a seamstress and came up with a plan to go to New York City and work there to raise the money, but her owner feared that she would not return.
Instead, some of her wealthy clients in St. Louis contributed the money she needed, and Elizabeth Keckley paid the price for her freedom as well as her son’s. She moved to Washington, DC, where she counted Mary Lincoln among her dressmaking clients. Without the help of someone else, Keckley would never have been able to purchase her freedom.
All of us were enslaved to sin with no hope of ever gaining freedom. In mercy and compassion, Jesus gave His life for us, purchasing our salvation by shedding His blood on the cross. We are now free from sin, but that freedom does not mean that we do whatever we want. Instead, we are to live how Jesus wants us to live.
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
And it is not only grace by which we have been saved but also grace by which we stand. Going back to our scripture verse this morning, Romans 5:1 begins with the word, ‘therefore.’ And we all know that the Bible tends to break chapters rather oddly sometimes, in the middle of a thought, and that’s what happened here.
So in order to find out what the ‘therefore’ is there-fore, let’s take a look at the end of chapter 4. Paul was talking about Abraham, and said, beginning in verse 19:
“Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”
And then Paul goes on to explain: 23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
And that’s where Paul continues in chapter 5 with “therefore.”
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”
So like I said earlier, we want to do something on our part to atone for our sins. It’s in our nature to work for something or to earn something or make things right in some way. We have to be punished for something, we have to make amends.
We need to tell God we’re sorry and repent, that’s the step toward salvation, but it is not the work of salvation. The work of salvation was given to us as a free gift through God’s grace.
I read from Ephesians 2:4-5 a moment ago, and if we skip down a few verses, Paul tells the Ephesian church, “[For] it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works so that no one can boast.”
That’s similar to what Paul said to the Romans. Again, he talks about our salvation not being by works, and notice he adds to it, “so no one can boast.”
Remember how the Pharisees constantly boasted? Nothing irritated Jesus more than the Pharisee’s boasting. I have to tell you when I worked for Barnes and Noble, nothing irritated me more than customers who were snobbish. And I’ve said this before, but I would much rather do medical shuttles than airport shuttles because sometimes the airport shuttle passengers can be a bit snobby.
No one can boast about their salvation. Everyone is helpless in their salvation. I believe it was Billy Graham who said, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. God paid for it all, once and for all, the same sacrifice was made for everyone. The work of the cross is a finished work. Jesus’ last words on the cross were, “It is finished.”
The work of the cross is it. No purgatory, no laws to earn our salvation. No laws to earn our favor, no extra credit, no teacher’s pet. Nothing.
No one can boast, and no one can add anything to the work of the cross. The harder we work at the church or volunteer here or obey this or that, it doesn’t matter.
Now, I’m not saying we’re wasting our time with those things, those are good things, and God judges the heart, not necessarily the deed or how hard we worked at it. But these things are not extra credit. With a good heart, we’ll receive rewards in heaven for our good deeds, but not extra salvation.
Our salvation is paid in full. I came across an acronym for grace recently. It stands for God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.
Now what? Now that we’ve been saved by our faith in God’s grace, now that we have peace with God through Jesus, then what? Now, we live life in grace. Or as Paul put it, we stand in grace.
But what does it mean to stand in grace? How can we stand in something we cannot see?
One of my commentaries says, “Grace however is not just unmerited favor but in other contexts refers to the transforming power of God…”
In other words, God gives us further grace to live the Christian life. Remember last week when I said that holiness is a process? It’s a walk. We receive grace to live in and mature in holiness. We may stumble and fall, but we are not defeated. Through God’s continual grace, we rise again and start again from where we left off. God never gives up on us, no matter how many times we fall. God’s grace is what lifts us back up again, dusts us off, and helps us to move forward on our journey of holiness.
Just as we cannot obtain salvation on our own merit, we cannot obtain true holiness or sanctification (that is, the continual process of holiness) on our own merit. We have to rely on God’s grace all the time for the rest of our lives. I know, it’s like, “Can’t I ever get it right? You mean I’ll mess up the rest of my life?”
Well, yes. In one way or another. But God’s grace, by which we stand, should be an encouragement. We’re not begging God for grace, and hoping that we haven’t messed up so much that God’s given up on us, we’re standing in it. God’s grace is all over us.
It’s like standing over our heads in a swimming pool or in Seneca Lake. We’re in water. We don’t need to do anything more to get wet. We can’t get any wetter.
Sir Edwin Landseer was one of the most famous painters of the Victorian era. His talent developed early, and he had the first showing of his work at the Royal Academy when he was just thirteen years old. He was commissioned to do a number of official portraits of the royal family, and even gave private drawing lessons to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. But he was best known for his depictions of the natural settings and life in the Scottish highlands.
One day as he was visiting a family in an old mansion in Scotland, one of the servants spilled a pitcher of soda water, leaving a large stain on the wall. While the family was out for the day, Landseer remained behind. Using charcoal, he incorporated the stain into a beautiful drawing. When the family returned they found a picture of a waterfall surrounded by trees and animals. He used his skill to make something beautiful out of what had been an unsightly mess.
God works in much the same way in our lives. The things that we think of as weaknesses and handicaps can, through His grace, become our greatest strengths—and the very things He uses the most to bring glory to Himself. God’s grace provides the strength to meet every challenge and overcome every weakness.
This is how we live in God’s grace, or stand in God’s grace. We still have to rely on God to clean up our mess. We’re going to still make messes, but he will, because of his love and unmerited favor, transform our mess into a beautiful image.
A moment ago, I asked, what do we do now? And I said we stand in God’s grace. But standing is an act that we do. It’s about standing intentionally in God’s grace. I’m sure many of you know someone who had gotten saved and then walked away from God for whatever reason. Standing in grace is an act of faith.
Peter ends his first letter with these words: “With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.” Some translations say, “Stand firm in it.”
So while Paul says we are forever planted in grace in Christ, that is a position. Peter is saying that we need to allow the Spirit to enable us to stand in that grace in our daily conduct, that is a practice.
So we need to stand firm in this grace. We need to not sway from it, nor should we take it for granted.
If we go back to Romans, if you’ve kept a bookmark there, and we go one chapter over, to chapter 6, we read right at the beginning, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”
So standing in grace is not an excuse to sin. It’s not an excuse to be loose about our walk with the Lord, it’s not an excuse to have one foot in the world and one foot in the church. If we go down a little further to verse 6, we read, “6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”
And further down to verses 10 and 11, “The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
And one more, down to verse 14, “14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”
So standing in God’s grace not only gives us salvation, but it gives us the power to live a Godly life or a holy life.
I want to go back to the Mike Winger quote again.
“When Christians understand that grace isn’t something that you get in little pieces but something you stand in, it changes how you approach God in prayer and worship.”
How does it change the way we approach God in prayer and worship? I think you know the answer to that. It shows us a greater understanding of the kind of relationship we can have with God. We don’t need to be on pins and needles every time we sin. Every time we sin, we can have the confidence that God will pick us back up again, dust us off and help us to continue to keep going.
We’re not out of the race because of one trip up and fall. We’re not out of the race because of a thousand trips and falls and scratches and bruises. The race goes on for as long as we do.
And God is there to pick us up every time.
Grace is something we stand in. Not something we strive for. It’s not something we get given to us in earned or merited drops every time we sin or are in need and ask. It’s something we already are submerged in. So if you’re going to stand in it, stand firmly in it.
I’m going to ask you one more time. How does this newfound understanding of standing in grace change the way you worship and pray? Think about it. And let it change your prayer and worship and your overall relationship with the Lord.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Michael Pointner from Pixabay
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