If you need anything, or need to know where
something is, I'd be happy to help you out.
I'm sitting right back there.
I introduced to you this morning Art McNeese,
and his wife Holly are here from Coppell, Texas.
I'm glad to know Art and Holly from being,
that's where I'm from, is Coppell.
He's been a minister at Riverside where I'm from.
Anyway, he has an MA from ACU and most recently
has a doctor of ministry from ACU.
He and his wife Holly have four children, Kara,
Kimberly, Haley, and Hannah.
We're glad to have you this morning and have
you talk about amazing grace.
I'd like to ask Brother Kirkpatrick to lead an
opening prayer for us and then we'll be started.
Father, we're so grateful to you for all that
you do for us, for the many blessings,
the many great things of life that we receive
from you.
We just praise your name for that.
We thank you for this opportunity we have this
week to restore our energy,
to be instructed, to be uplifted.
We pray that you'll bless us as we try to take
advantage of all the opportunities we have
to become better servants for you.
We're grateful most of all for what you've done
for us through Jesus,
and we pray that you'll bless us in this class
as we hear more about that.
We're thankful for Art and his family.
We thank you for their ministry, and we thank
you for the gifts that you've given to him,
and we pray that you'll continue to bless him
as he uses those gifts.
Father, we just ask for your continual presence
with us,
and ask that you bless us as we try to become
better servants for you.
We pray this in the name of Jesus, amen.
Well, good morning.
Good to see you here on a typically blustery
Abilene day.
Kind of reminds me of my student days in
Abilene, but it's great to have you here.
And to have you here as we talk this morning
about grace,
I can't think of any subject I would rather
address than the subject of grace.
I think it's one that's almost impossible to exhaust,
and one that we really cannot say too much about,
and so it's great to have you here this morning.
We're looking forward to a full day.
We'll be speaking about this this morning,
again at 11:00 and again at 3:30,
and I hope you'll have a chance to join us for
all of these sessions.
And I appreciate Brother Kirkpatrick leading us
in this prayer.
We have Phil and Debbie Gage, their daughter
and son-in-law,
with us at Riverside, and we just appreciate
them so much.
It's great to be with you.
Let's bow in prayer one more time.
Father, we are so grateful that you are a God
of grace and glory,
and we are so thankful for your abundant grace
to us.
You are a marvelous God.
And as we reflect upon the magnitude of your
goodness to us,
we realize we don't deserve it, but we thank
you that it is there for us.
Father, we again ask that you would overwhelm
us with the power of your grace
and fill us today with your Spirit.
And thank you for these sweet people who share
an interest in you and in your love.
And we pray through Christ. Amen.
I love the story of the man who didn't have any ears.
It wasn't that he couldn't hear, he just didn't
have any ears.
And he was interviewing three men one day for a
job and testing for sensitivities.
And the first man came in, and the interview
was just a spectacular interview.
But at the close of the interview, the man with
no ears said,
By the way, is there anything different about
me that you noticed?
And the man said, Well, yeah, you got no ears.
And he said, Well, that's true, but that's
pretty insensitive.
It came time for the second interview, it was
also a great interview,
just a spectacular interview.
But at the close of the session, the man with
no ears said,
By the way, is there anything different about
me that you noticed?
And the man said, Well, yeah, you got no ears.
And he said, Well, that's true, but that's
pretty insensitive.
So it finally came time for the third man's interview.
interview. He walked in, it was a terrific
interview, and at the close of the interview
again came the question, by the way, is there
anything different about me that you notice?
And the man studied him carefully. He says,
well, you wear contacts. Well, that's true,
but how did you know? Well, you can't wear
glasses, you've got no ears. Well, sometimes
even in our best efforts to get it right, we
mess up. And when we mess up, we need forgiveness.
More seriously, when we commit sins and
offenses against a holy God, we need grace. We need
God's unmerited forgiveness. We're hungry for
grace, but sometimes we don't find much
of it in our world. Lewis Smeed says there are
three common sources of crippling shame
in our lives, secular culture, graceless
religion, and unaccepting parents. And secular culture
runs on non-grace. Students are ranked
according to their GPAs and their test scores. Ford
Motor Company grades people on a scale of one
for clerks and secretaries, up to 27 for
the chairman of the board, and you've got to
achieve a grade of at least nine to even
have a good parking place at Ford. Anorexia is
a direct result of non-grace. As teenage
girls strive to look like those beautiful,
skinny models and starve themselves to reach
that ideal, our culture makes it very, very
hard for us to feel good about ourselves because
no matter how good we are, no matter how well
we perform, there's always someone a little
bit better. Sometimes religion runs on
non-grace. There are some people who will not
go to church
because they don't want to be made to feel more
guilty. And occasionally, at least, religion
is guilty of pointing a long, bony finger of
indictment in people's faces and saying,
don't you realize how terrible you are? Don't
you realize how ashamed you ought to be? And
sometimes people leave feeling more demoralized
than ever. And then sometimes parents dish
out non-grace. I know not all do, but I talked
recently with a friend of mine who said, you
know, in all of my 40 years, my parents not
once have said to me, good job, son. And one
woman said she had been on a long guilt trip
with her mom as the travel agent. So there
are a lot of people who struggle with grace
because they've never experienced it. They
don't know what grace is. And another reason
people struggle with grace is because grace
seems to fly in the face of reason. Grace
doesn't make sense. We all know there's no such thing
as a free lunch. I mean, whatever we receive in
life, we receive because we achieve it,
right? 90-year-old golf pro Harvey Pinnock died
about three years ago. His first golf
book, Harvey Pinnock's Little Red Book, sold
more than a million copies. And in the 1920s,
Pinnock bought a red spiral notebook, and he
began jotting down his observations about
golf. He never showed that red book to anybody
except his son until 1991, when he showed
it to a writer. And he asked the writer, do you
think this is worth publishing? And the
writer read it and said, yes. And he left word
with Pinnock's wife next week that Simon
and Schuster had agreed to an advance of
$90,000. But the next time the writer saw Pinnock,
Pinnock seemed troubled. He said, you know,
with all of my medical bills, there's no way
I can give Simon and Schuster that much money.
And the publisher had to explain that it would
be Simon and Schuster giving him the $90,000
rather than vice versa. Sometimes we mistakenly
think we have to buy the gift being offered to
us. And we can't imagine receiving something
free of charge. We figure if we've sinned, we
have to pay. Justice demands that sin be
punished. But the Bible's answer is, the price
has already been paid by God Himself.
So Paul will write in Romans 3:24, out of pure
generosity. He put us in right standing
with Himself. In the movie, The Last Emperor, a
little boy serves as the ruler of China.
His brother asks him one day, what happens when
you do wrong? And his response is, when
I do wrong, someone else is punished. And to
illustrate that point, he picks up a plate
and he holds it in the air and then he drops it
on the hard tile below and it shatters
into a thousand pieces. And in the distance,
you can hear someone else being punished.
But you see Christianity is just the opposite.
When we as servants do wrong, our King is
punished. We don't bear the penalty. Jesus does.
So grace is the greatest news we could
ever receive. Why do we have such a hard time
receiving it? I want to suggest several reasons
this morning. First, an erroneous view of God.
An erroneous view of God. But sometimes
we see God as someone who dangles us
precariously over the fires of hell, eagerly
waiting to
see us drop into the abyss. Some kind of a
Gestapo who can't wait to zap us in the gas
chamber. You mess up and he'll get you, is the
attitude. But anybody who believes that
needs to read Luke 15 again. Jesus tells of a
shepherd who leaves his flock of 99 and
searches in the darkness for one lost sheep.
And God is that shepherd who would rather
die than see one of his sheep lost. He tells
about a woman who turns the house upside down
looking for a lost coin. She searches
assiduously all over the house trying to find
that coin
and she will not quit the search until she
finds that which is lost. And then of course
he tells about a son who takes his dad's
inheritance and goes into the far country. He's
down and
drunk and dirty. And finally he realizes he's
done a stupid thing and decides to go home
but he's so ashamed he comes shuffling back
expecting to be treated like a slave. But
to his amazement his father welcomes him home
and throws a party for him. And Jesus says
God is like that. He is a father whose heart
literally aches because he wants his son so
desperately to come home. I have a friend who
lives in Dallas. He has a daughter, 21
year old daughter who lives in San Antonio.
She's living on drugs and booze and a man
who abuses her. And about a year ago my friend
sat at lunch and told me the story about how
he had received a call from his daughter and
she said Dad I'm coming home. I realize I
need to get back. And she said would you come
get me? And so he rented one of these big
U-Haul trucks and he drove from Dallas to San
Antonio prepared to bring her back but
when he got there she backed out. And he tried
through his tears and his persuasion for three
hours to persuade her to go ahead and come on
back home but she wouldn't do it. And so
he got back in the truck and drove all the way
back to Dallas in an empty truck. About
three days later his daughter called and she
said Dad you're right I should have come home.
And I wish I could tell you that was the happy
ending to the story. She said Dad would you
come get me? He said I can't come get you right
now but he said I'll tell you what I'll
do. I'll send you the money to rent the truck
and you can pack up yourself and come back
home and so he sent the money. And sure enough
she loaded up the truck and she began driving
but she drove from San Antonio to Austin and by
the time she got to Austin she chickened
out. She turned the truck around and she went
back to the abusive situation that she was
in. And my friend through his tears told about
the sorrow that he experienced over a daughter
who had disappointed him over and over and over.
And who continued to inflict wounds
in her own life and in the lives of other
people by her refusal to do what was really
in her best interest and what her dad so
desperately wanted. Now in spite of the fact
that she's
disappointed him again and again do you think
he loves her any less? Not one whit. There's
nothing that she has ever done or ever will do
that will cause him to love her any less
than he loves her right now and has always
loved her. And sometimes we think that because
of repeated failures in our lives that there's
no way for us to go back to a loving father.
But you see in the words of Philip Yancey grace
means there is nothing you can do to
make God love you more and there's nothing you
can do to make God love you less. He just
loves you unconditionally. And so a wrong view
of God contributes to our inability to
receive grace. Sometimes it's a wrong view of
freedom. In Jesus' day the Pharisees were
strict adherents to the law of Moses and they
believed that righteousness came by believing
the law and I think sometimes we give the
Pharisees kind of a hard knock. They ought
to be at least given credit for being
scrupulous in their desire to honor the law.
But some
of the Pharisees came to believe they could
accomplish salvation instead of receiving
salvation. And if you think that Pharisees are
a phenomenon of the past you're wrong.
We still have people who get upset if you
preach love instead of legalism, grace instead
of works. We still have people who believe that
salvation is a matter of achieving instead
of receiving. And you know why we have
Pharisees in every generation? Because people
want them.
Because people want them. And they are afraid
of the responsibility that freedom brings.
They're afraid if you start talking about grace
they're not going to be able to reduce
religion to a convenient list of Do's and
don'ts. They might have to think for themselves
and think about the implications of grace.
There is a certain security in slavery. And
there are some people who have the mistaken
idea that if you believe in grace you believe
in junking morality. That's not true at all.
Paul develops his thesis of salvation by grace
through faith in the first five chapters of
Romans. And then he anticipates that some
will be tempted to presume on grace. So he
opens chapter 6:1. So what do we do?
Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving?
Absolutely not. You see grace is a thousand
times more demanding than law could ever be. We
said goodbye to one of our good church
members last year, David Ransom. Some of you
might have known David. He went to Harding
University. David was 48 years old when he died
last year. He was stricken with blindness
when he was three days old. And David was just
a remarkable Christian. He was a great,
great servant of God. And he provided a
wonderful model and example to us of what it is
to be
a servant of Christ. But David had a lot of
problems, particularly in the last few months
of his life. He had diabetes. He had a whole
series of other health problems. And finally
in addition to his blindness, the doctors had
to amputate both of his legs. So needless
to say, David required a lot of care. But there
were people in our church who cared
so beautifully for David Ransom. They would
help him to the bathroom and back. They would
help him take showers. They would clean up
after messes. They would do all kinds of things
that were necessary to help David live just
some semblance of a normal life. But you know
they did it lovingly. And they did things for
David that you could never pay anyone to do.
You couldn't pay somebody to do the things for
David Ransom that those people did. Grace
and love produce a life of loving sacrifice.
Some people want to use grace as an excuse
for doing wrong. But anybody who really
understands grace knows that grace compels us
to live
for God and to live for others. I love the
words of Titus 3:12. Grace teaches us to say
no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to
live self-controlled, upright, and godly
lives in this present age. And then sometimes
we have a hard time accepting grace because
of a wrong view of salvation. Let me ask you
this morning, how do you get a bank loan?
You get a bank loan by proving that you don't
need it, don't you? You tell the banker about
your collateral, your securities, your
resources, and then when you have proved to the banker
you don't need any money, you get some. And
that's the view some people have of grace.
They say grace is what God gives you after you
prove you don't need any. And that's
dead wrong. The equation that some people have
of grace is this. I've heard grace described
this way, you do the best you can and then God
fills in the rest. You do the best that
you can to honor the will of God, up to 50% of
the will of God, and then God does the
other 50%. Or you do 90% of the will of God and
then God does the other 10%. You want
to talk about heresy, that's it. That's heresy.
Because the Bible says that in terms of merit
we contribute nothing to our salvation, nothing.
Now sometimes we think that we are saved by
grace plus something. Grace plus works, grace
plus worship, grace plus evangelism, grace
plus missions, grace plus whatever. You fill in
the blank. But in terms of merit the Bible
says the equation reads grace plus zero. It's
all grace. We are saved because Jesus Christ
accepted full responsibility for our sins. And
the word grace is found 88 times in the
writings of Paul. It is a kind of one word
summary for his gospel, Ephesians 2:8, for
by grace you have been saved through faith.
This is not your own doing, but the gift of
God. We can't add anything to grace. And then
sometimes we have a hard time receiving grace
because of a wrong view of self. We don't think
we really need it. We have trouble with
grace because it's an insult to our pride. It's
an affront to our pride. After all we
figure we deserve anything we get and since we
don't deserve grace how can we need it?
Our problem is we have the wrong measuring
stick. You know I might feel pretty good comparing
myself to Hitler or even comparing myself to
some other folks that I know, but the benchmark
is God. And God is holy and flawless and
impeccable. And over against the righteousness
of God
I have none, none. It could be that the only
thing that is worse than the unrighteousness
that results in immoral living is the
self-righteousness that results in trying to
save ourselves.
In Matthew 20 Jesus tells this parable about
workers in a vineyard. And you know the story
a landowner hires some men to come to work
early in the morning about 6:00 in
the morning. He agrees to pay them a denarius
for the day and then as the day unfolds he
needs more workers and so he hires more workers
at nine a.m. at noon at 3:00 at five
o'clock but then at the close of the day he has
the unmitigated gall to pay the guys who
came at 5:00 the same as he pays the guys who
worked all day. And the early morning
guys are furious. They say how is it that you
can dispense this kind of generosity?
How can you pay them the same you've paid us?
After all we've been out here sweating
all day. And the landowner's response is don't
I have the right to do what I want with my
money? Or are you envious because I'm generous?
Don't begrudge my generosity. Because you
see the point is God has the right and the
prerogative to dispense his salvation any
way he wants to. I will have mercy upon whom I
will have mercy. I will have compassion
upon whom I will have compassion. And the
reason is we're not saved because we earn
salvation we are just saved. When you talk
about grace you have to eliminate the word
deserve from your vocabulary. None of us
deserves it but all of us need it. So what is
the cure
for crippling shame in our lives? The cure is
grace. Some of you this morning may be
hurting because the relentless ranking system
of the world is beating you down. You'll
never be the top student in the class no matter
how hard you work. You'll never be the top
salesman in the company no matter how much you
try. You'll never be considered a high
fashion model or a top athlete or the very best
worker in the company. But let me tell
you it doesn't make any difference because your
value is not determined by what you achieve.
It's already been announced by God. God doesn't
hand out grades or pass out promotions. He
doesn't care what you look like or how fast you
can run a 440 or how many sales you make.
What he wants is your life. We said goodbye to
David Ransom our blind friend last year.
David couldn't run. He couldn't even walk. He
had to have a lot of help just getting
across the room. But it didn't make any
difference to God. The only thing that God
wanted was
his heart and that's what David gave him.
Graceless religion operates on non-grace but
God operates on grace. In John 8 the scribes
and Pharisees catch a woman right
in the middle of the act of adultery and they
drag her in front of Jesus and they say the
law says this woman ought to be stoned. What do
you say? You talk about guys who are characterized
by non-grace. And I want you to notice these
guys weren't really concerned with righteousness.
They only wanted to put Jesus on the horns of a
dilemma. And one reason I know that is
because they didn't bring the man she had been
in bed with. Adultery takes two of course
but this woman stands alone before God. They
don't care about the holiness of God or the
horror of sin in anyone's life. They just think
to themselves we've got Jesus now he's
in a trap. And you know you've got to wonder
about these guys. How did they know this woman
was committing adultery unless they were
peeping toms? And Jesus kneels down and starts writing
something in the dirt. Maybe the sins of the
woman's accusers. We don't know. But he says
let the one who is without sin among you cast
the first stone. They begin to slink away the
oldest first. Jesus is left standing with the
woman and he says has anybody condemned
you? Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no
more. Now the Pharisees represent graceless
religion. They're quick to point a finger. But
Jesus represents the attitude of grace.
You don't need a duffel bag of goodness to get
you to Heaven. You can put anything in
that bag you want to. It will not get you there.
The only thing that will get you to
Heaven is the sheer grace of God. And then
unaccepting parents can dish out guilt that
God dispenses grace. Now parents have the right
and responsibility to teach us when
we are wrong. But some parents do nothing but
slap their kids with punishment and the
scars last a lifetime. And you need to know
that God is not that kind of parent. He is
a lovesick father. And no matter how much we
abuse him, he loves us and wants us to
come home. Some won't accept Christianity
because they think I could never be good enough.
If you think that's the point of Christianity,
you missed it. It's not a question of proving
how good you are. It's a question of declaring
your insufficiency, your inadequacy, and your
weakness in claiming God's strength. Or they
think I could never become a Christian because
I can't stand those people who think they're
better than everyone else. And I realize there
are some Christians who have maybe a spirit of
egotism, but most Christians I know don't.
It wasn't too long ago when I was with a group
of men who were sharing with each other,
and one of the men shared very openly his
struggles with sin. And he was ashamed of
it. And he asked us to pray for him in the
middle of his weakness. But there was not
one ounce of a condescending spirit in that
room. Every man to a person said, we'll just
pray for you. We love you. There but for the
grace of God go I. And some Christians don't
think, or some people don't think they really
need grace. They're good enough as it is.
But I could suggest we walk up to a huge ravine
and jump 100 feet to the other side. It wouldn't
matter if you jumped 5 or 50 feet. You would
fall to your death because God's standard
is perfection. That's why we have to have grace.
Several years ago, Bill Moyers did a
documentary film on the hymn, Amazing Grace.
And if you've never seen it, I really encourage
you to get it sometime. It's a wonderful film.
It includes a scene filmed in Wembley Stadium
in London. Rock bands entertain the crowd.
Groups like Guns N' Roses blast away their
music. But backstage, there's Jesse Norman, the
great opera singer. And she's waiting
for her turn to sing Amazing Grace as the
closing act. You know, of course, that Amazing
Grace was written by John Newton. He lived a
life as a coarse, cruel slave trader. He
first called out to God in the middle of a
storm that nearly drowned him. And after being
rescued from the storm, he renounced his life
as a slave trader and became a minister. But
he never lost sight of grace. And so he wrote
those great words. And in the film, it is
finally time for Jesse Norman to sing. And a
single circle of light follows her on stage.
A beautiful black woman dressed in a flowing
African gown. And she waits to sing. No back
up band, no musical instruments, just Jesse.
And she begins to sing Amazing Grace, how
sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I
once was lost, but now I'm found. I was
blind, but now I see. And then something
remarkable happens. The raucous fans fall
silent before
her aria of grace. And she reaches the second
verse and she has the crowd in her hands.
And she reaches the third verse and several
thousand fans are singing along. And as Philip
Yancey puts it in his great book, Jesse Norman
later confessed she had no idea what power
descended on Wembley Stadium that night. But I
think I know what it was. It was the power
of grace. Because our world is hungry for grace.
And when grace descends, the world
falls silent before it. I want us to take about
a three minute break. I'd like to ask
you to stand up right now. Do we have a song
leader in the group? Surely we've got one
in this room this morning. Is there somebody
who's willing to confess that he is? Bill,
are you a song leader? Why don't you stand,
let's sing Amazing Grace and then we'll continue.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a
wretch like me. I once was lost, but now
I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. Was grace
that taught my heart to fear. And grace my
fears relieved. How precious did that grace
appear, The hour I first believed. When we
've been there ten thousand years, Bright
shining as the sun. We've no last days to
sing God's praise, Than when we first begun.
Thank you so much, be seated. It's great to
sing about grace, isn't it? Oh, Philip Yancey's
book is titled What's So Amazing About Grace?
And it's one that you ought to get. It's the
best book I know on the subject of grace.
There are several that I'll probably mention in
the course of the day, but it's a wonderful,
wonderful book. What's so amazing about grace?
How do you spell Christianity? Do you spell
Christianity D-O or D-O-N-E? Your answer to
that question is critically important, not
only in terms of how you see Christianity, but
really in terms of how you see all of
life. And I think that most people, including a
lot of Christians, spell Christianity D-O.
And for them, unfortunately, Christianity means
getting on the treadmill and going as
fast as you can, as long as you can, even
though you don't get anywhere. Christianity
is an endless list of rules to be kept, even
though we know we can't keep them. For many
people, Christianity is nothing but do. Do
this, do that, do more. Have you done a lot?
Well, you'd better do more. Have you failed to
do this? Well, you'd better get busy and
do it. For many people, Christianity could be
summed up in the words of the Nike slogan,
just do it. Do it and keep on doing it, and
maybe someday you'll get there. But Christianity
is not spelled D-O. It is spelled D-O-N-E. And
if you don't believe me, then listen to
the words of the Bible. Paul says in 2 Timothy
1:9, God saved us and called us to a
holy life, not because of anything we have
done, but because of His own purpose and grace.
Do you ever get those calls from resort
promoters offering you a free gift? Well, if you'll
just come to Honey Pines in the woods in East
Texas this Saturday at 1:00, we'll give
you a free vacation to Hawaii or a new color TV.
That's all there is to it. You know, I've
never once said yes to one of those
invitations, and you know why, don't you?
Because there's
a catch. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
And that's why we find grace so hard to believe.
Now, wait a minute, Lord, you're telling me
there's something, there's nothing I have
to do, that it's all done. You're telling me
that there's nothing I have to earn, that
it's absolutely free. We find it almost
impossible to believe. The Christianity is not spelled
D-O, it is spelled D-O-N-E. And we are saved by
grace, not by works. Try to imagine a world
without grace. Let me tell you this morning
what would happen if our world was not characterized
by grace, if we were not saved by grace, if
Christianity were spelled D-O instead of done.
First, if we are not saved by grace, then I
have no interest in being a Christian, none.
Think about what Christianity becomes if it is
stripped of grace. It becomes essentially
a set of rules to be kept and a set of
standards to be achieved. And I don't need Christianity
to give me a set of rules. There's no shortage
of rules and regulations in this culture or
in any other culture. I can find rules and
standards in a lot of places. I can find rules
and standards in Buddhism, which teaches that I
have to climb the ladder of goodness to
reach eternity. I can find rules and standards
in Mormonism, where I have to work my way
into a position of acceptance. I can find rules
and standards in Catholicism, which
has over 2,400 canons I have to keep to be
saved. The last thing I need is another list
of rules. In fact, think about this. If we are
not saved by grace, Christianity only
succeeds in giving us a list of demands and
then frustrates us by leaving us with the
inability to keep those demands. Imagine a God
who would play this game with His creatures.
A God who would say, now I want you to know
what the rules are, and I want you to understand
the only way you can ever win the game is to
keep all of the rules. And I know that
you're not going to be able to keep all the
rules, therefore there's no way you're ever
going to be able to win. Would you love a God
like that? I wouldn't. That's what happened
to Martin Luther. As a young monk, he would
spend as long as six hours a day racking his
brain to confess the sins he might have
committed the previous day. He wrote these
words, Although
I lived a blameless life as a monk, I felt that
I was a sinner with an uneasy conscience
before God. I also could not believe that I had
pleased Him with my works. Far from
loving that righteous God who punished sinners,
I actually loathed Him. I was a good monk
and kept my orders so strictly that if ever a
monk could get to heaven by monastic discipline,
I was that monk. All my companions in the
monastery would confirm this, and yet my conscience
would not give me certainty, but I always
doubted and said, you didn't do that right,
you weren't contrite enough, you left that out
of your confession. Luther came to hate
God for a while because he felt that he
couldn't get it right. Now if we're not saved
by grace,
Christianity is bad news, not good news. And I
don't need any more bad news in my life.
I've got plenty. And Paul understood this
perfectly. He writes the book of Galatians
to say, Christianity is not spelled D-O, it is
spelled D-O-N-E. And Galatians is the only
letter where Paul never gives any sense of
commendation to his recipients. He never commends
to the people that he writes to. And he begins
with this sledgehammer paragraph in chapter
1, verses 6-9. I am astonished that you are so
quickly deserting the one who called
you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a
different gospel, which is really no
gospel at all. Evidently some people are
throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert
the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an
angel from Heaven should preach a gospel other
than the one we preach to you, let him be
eternally condemned. As we have already said,
so now I say again, if anybody is preaching to
you a gospel other than what you accepted,
let him be eternally condemned. There are
legalists in Galatia who are trying to throw
the church into confusion. They are disturbing
the church by saying that Christianity is
spelled D-O. They are saying that grace and
faith are not enough to save Gentiles. They
have to be circumcised. Grace is not enough to
save the Gentiles. They have to adhere
to the Jewish law. You know, the biggest
trouble makers are often not those who are outside
the church, but those who are inside the church.
And the biggest trouble makers in the church
are those who try to convince others that
Christianity is spelled D-O. Listen carefully
to what people teach. Listen carefully to what
they preach. And if you hear them preaching
that Christianity is spelled D-O, they are
trouble makers. That's heresy. Paul knows
the heart of the gospel is at stake. He gets so
worked up about this, he says, if anybody
teaches you something other than the gospel of
grace, let him be eternally condemned.
I don't care if he is an angel from Heaven. He
is to be eternally condemned. Paul knows
if you budge an inch, the legalists will take a
mile. And he warns again against people
who throw the church into confusion in chapter
5:10. The one who is throwing you into
confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may
be. If people teach that the faith is
spelled D-O-N-E, they do not know what the
gospel, or they know what the gospel is about.
But there's a second reason. We're not saved by
grace. We just all need to kind of pack
it up right now and go home. Because it is
ludicrous for us to be here. It is an exercise
in futility. If we are not saved by grace, then
we all have a one-way ticket to Hell.
Because you see, without grace, the faster I
go, the behinder I get. It's like the Road
Runner in Wiley Coyote. You've seen how every
episode goes. The situation is always the
same. No matter how hard Wiley tries to catch
the Road Runner, he can never do it. He's
always one step too late. Always one strategy
too short. And it's not the Road Runner who
ends up crashing and burning at the bottom of
the canyon. It's the Coyote. And that's
the way life is without grace. Defeat is
absolutely inevitable. Now I know that from my
own experience,
from you. I know how I can try to live for God.
I can go along for a few hours or a few
days or maybe a few weeks. My spiritual life
seems to be humming. Everything is in sync
with God. And I'm cruising along pretty well.
And all of a sudden, Satan throws a wrench
in my life. And my spiritual engine starts to
sputter and cough. And before I know it,
I've limped off over to the side of the road.
Or I can be doing battle with Satan and feel
pretty good about it. And then he hits me with
a hook to the chin or a slam to the body.
And I'm reeling because I know I haven't
followed Christ like I should. If we're not
saved by
grace, I'm doomed and so are you. And this is
what Paul discusses in Galatians 2:15 and 16.
Let's read it. He says, We who are Jews by
birth and not Gentile sinners know
that a man is not justified by observing the
law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too
have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may
be justified by faith in Christ and not
by observing the law, because by observing the
law, no one will be justified. Paul says,
just to make sure you get the point of this
paragraph, let me say it three times. He says
it in a general way. A man is not justified by
observing the law. He says it in a personal
way. We are justified by faith, not by
observing the law. And then he says it in a universal
way. By observing the law, no one will be
justified. Christianity is not spelled D-O.
It is spelled D-O-N-E. And you see this in the
story of the prodigal son in Luke 15,
don't you? We mentioned it earlier. The son
takes his dad's inheritance. He goes into
the far country. He spends it on wild living.
And when he finally realizes what an idiot
he has been, he decides to come home. And when
he comes home, he is determined to do something.
Father, I have sinned against Heaven and
against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your
son. Please treat me as one of your hired
servants. Father, I have sinned so I am ready
to grovel. Father, I have sinned so I am ready
to be humiliated. Father, I have sinned so
make me one of your slaves. Maybe there is
something I can do to make it up to you. And
the father says, okay son, get on your knees
and beg. No. In fact, he will not allow the
son to do anything. The son is ready to give a
speech. Father, I have sinned. The father
interrupts the speech. This is no time for
speeches, son. The son is ready to grovel.
The father says, this is no time for groveling.
This is time for partying. Quick, bring the
best robe. Put a ring on his finger. Sandals on
his feet. Bring the fat and calf and let's
have a feast. Son, you can't do anything
because I have already done it all. Now this worries
us because it seems too permissive. But Jesus
is not worried about giving the prodigal son
a kiss instead of a lecture or a party instead
of probation. And he proves it by bringing
in the older brother at the end of the story
and having him raise pretty much the same
objections that we would. The older brother is
angry about the party. He complains that
his father is lowering standards and ignoring
virtue. The music and dancing and a fat and
calf are just so many permissions to break the
law. But Jesus has the father say one
thing in response to that, cut that out. Your
brother was lost and now he's found. We're
through with bookkeeping. It's a time for grace.
Third, if we are not saved by grace
then Jesus was a fool for going to the cross.
Think about a script that could be presented
to Jesus if we are not saved by grace. Jesus, I
appreciate you leaving glory and coming
to the earth but it really wasn't necessary. I
appreciate you suffering and bleeding on
a brutal cross but it was all just overkill. I
appreciate the alienation that you experienced
from your heavenly father but it really was
superfluous. You know what I mean? Can you
imagine what a slap in the face that would be?
Can you imagine what an insult that would
be to the father and to the son? But that's
precisely what we say when we try to save
ourselves, when we try to insist on our own
goodness to get us to Heaven. Well again Paul
knows this all too well because this is what he
says to the Galatians 2:21,
I do not set aside the grace of God for if
righteousness could be gained through the
law Christ died for nothing. If we could gain
righteousness through our own efforts by climbing
up the ladder, by doing all that we know how to
do to achieve righteousness then the cross
was an exercise in futility. Jesus I'm sorry
you went to the cross because I've studied
the Bible and I know what it says and I've
pretty well done what it says. I'm sorry you
went to the cross and I know there are a few
little problems in my life, a few skeletons
and those are regrettable but it's really
regrettable that you went to Calvary because
none of that was really necessary. Fourth, if
we are not saved by grace then we have
no power to live for God. This is the real
paradox. Some people are afraid that if you
preach that we are saved by grace then the
basis for righteous living disappears but
exactly the opposite is the case. Without grace
I have no ability to live for God because
of two things. First, I can't live righteously
for God without the Holy Spirit. I can never
live perfectly but I can't do anything for God
without the Holy Spirit. There is no power
in my life apart from supernatural power.
That's why Paul says what he does in
Galatians 5:22-25 and he talks about the fruit
of the Spirit, love and joy and peace
and patience and kindness and goodness and
faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.
Good things aren't the fruit of what I do they
are the fruit of the Spirit. And second
I don't have the incentive to live for God
without grace. I don't have the incentive
but if Christianity is spelled D-O-N-E then I
have a huge incentive to live for God. That's
why Paul says in Galatians 5 and 6 the only
thing that counts is faith expressing itself
through love. I mentioned earlier that love is
always more demanding than law. There are
things that you mothers would do for your
children that you can never pay anybody to
do. You couldn't compensate somebody to do that.
You do it out of your unconditional
love. Now please don't hear me this morning
saying that there's nothing that we have to
do. People who are saved by grace must do good
works because that's the calling of grace.
By grace you have been saved through faith.
This is not your own doing but the gift of
God not because of works lest any man should
boast. We are created in Christ Jesus for
good works Paul says in verse 10. If you really
understand grace you'll work harder than anybody
because you'll be so unconditionally committed
to doing all that you can for God. The good
works result from salvation they don't produce
it. And people who are saved by grace must
run from sin because that's the calling of
grace. Paul fights the legalists tooth and
nail. But then before he signs off in Galatians
6:7-9 he says this.
Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man
reaps what he sows. The one who sows
to please his sinful nature from that nature
will reap destruction. The one who sows to
please the spirit from the spirit will reap
eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing
good for at the proper time we will reap a
harvest if we do not give up. And so Paul
understands there is a life of holiness that is
commensurate with the reception of grace.
And people who are saved by grace obey Jesus'
command to receive a new birth in baptism
because that's the calling of grace. Titus 3:5
he saved us not because of righteous things
we had done but because of his mercy. He saved
us through the washing of rebirth and renewal
by the Holy Spirit. But you see people who are
saved by grace realize that baptism is
God's work. It's not our work. It's true that
we surrender in baptism but it's God's
work. The water is the context in which washing
takes place but the Holy Spirit is the agent
of regeneration. We don't save ourselves. We
don't regenerate ourselves. Only the Holy
Spirit does that. And so baptism is not
something we do to earn salvation but something God
does to us as he forgives us and gives us his
Holy Spirit. People who are saved by grace
realize that if anything freedom in Christ can
be much tougher. It's one thing not to
murder someone. It's another thing to forgive
my enemies. It's one thing to stay away from
adultery. It's another to work hard to keep
romance in a marriage. It's one thing to pay
taxes. It's another to serve the poor. And
grace always demands much more than the minimum.
We're going to talk at 3:30 this afternoon
about the discipline of grace and there is
discipline associated with it. Holly and I have
a little girl who will be three in May.
She was born without a cerebellum, born with
severe disabilities. And it means that little
Hannah cannot walk. We hope that maybe some day
she'll learn to walk but right now she
can't walk. She likes to pull up. She can pull
up to about this level and she kind of
wobbles around and weaves and bobs but she
can't walk. She can't talk. And of course
our prayer is that one of these days we'll get
to hear her say mommy and daddy. Hannah's
made a lot of progress. She's come a long, long
way. But not without training, not without
therapy, not without discipline. She goes to
Easter Seals for therapy twice a week.
Holly works with her. There are others who come
into our home and work with little Hannah.
And one of the consequences of that therapy is
that she's grown in her ability to do some
things that otherwise she couldn't do. So there
is a value in discipline that trains,
that provides parameters, that encourages, that
coaches, that mentors. But discipline
doesn't get us there. It's the consequence of
realizing the greatness of God's goodness
to us. Again, let me quote Philip Yancey. He says,
Under grace I am more aware of what I have
neglected than what I have achieved. I cannot
hide behind a mask of behavior nor can I hide
behind facile comparisons with other Christians.
How do you spell Christianity? If you spell it
D-O, you may eventually lose all interest
in being a Christian. You may become angry with
a God who gives you impossible demands
without the ability to carry them out. If you
spell it D-O, you may miss out on salvation
completely. Sometimes people raise the
question, is it possible to fall from grace?
You bet
it is. And you know how Paul says you fall from
grace? Listen to Galatians 5:4.
You who are trying to be justified by law have
been alienated from Christ. You have
fallen away from grace. That's how you fall
from grace. You place your reliance for your
righteousness and your salvation on yourself
and your own goodness. If you spell Christianity
D-O, you insult Jesus Christ by saying that He
died for nothing. And if you spell it D-O,
you have no power to live for God. I've been a
pretty good speller all my life. I took
second place in the third grade spelling bee.
There are not many words I misspell, but there
have been times in my life when I have spelled
Christianity D-O. And every time I spell Christianity
D-O, I end up missing out on many of the great
blessings God has in store for me. But when
I remember that Christianity is spelled
D-O-N-E, then I discover a peace and a power
that I
need for my life. You may misspell most other
words or many other words in your life, but
whatever you do, do not misspell Christianity.
It is spelled D-O-N-E. Let's pray. God, thank
you so much that salvation is received and not
achieved. Thank you for relieving us from
that awful burden, a burden of a treadmill that
keeps us on a pace that's impossible
and leaves us nowhere. Thank you, Lord, for
Jesus Christ. Thank you that He did for us
what we could not do for ourselves. Thank you
that He fulfilled the demands of the law
perfectly. And Father, help us not to surrender
our freedom and liberty in Christ. Help us
not to concede to the force of legalism, which
would strip away our freedom, which would
place us in a suffocating atmosphere, which
would keep us from knowing the real truth
of the gospel. Help us never to accept the
counterfeit. Help us to realize how bogus
legalism is. And Father, please, by the power
of your Spirit, fill us with grace, remind
us of your goodness, and inspire us through
your strength to live for you so that other
people say, here are people whose lives are
oiled by grace, and they love Jesus Christ
so much. They're so filled with love for Him.
They want to do everything possible to serve
Him. God, we thank you for the chances for
grace we received today and the next two days.
We're grateful for all the classes that are
being offered. We thank you, God, for this
great grace of being at these lectures. And
thank you again for those who've come today
and for the grace that they will carry back to
their homes and their churches and their
places of business. God, we confess our need
for you and our absolute dependence upon you.
We thank you for the totality of your grace,
undeserved, unmerited, but so freely given.
And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
We thank you for the totality of your grace,
undeserved, unmerited, but so freely given. Amen.