Good Morning, my Friends. This is one of those days when I rolled out of bed at 0-dark-thirty, and feel great! I’m energized; I have a cup of hot coffee beside me; my two favorite pooches, Glenn and Cliff, are stretched out beside me, and I get to write about one of my favorite topics. So…as they say, I’m ready to roll.
I have talked before about how privileged I feel to be part of Grace Church St. Louis and the incredible respect I have for Pastor Ron Tucker. For the past month we have been engrossed in a message-series entitled, “New Creation Realities”. What a liberating topic! When we, as Christians, grasp the truth that we are, in fact, a “new creation”: the old is gone; the new has come (2Corinthians 5:17), and that our “new identity” is based on who we are in Christ, it will absolutely rock our world! And it is this reality that empowers us to rise above this fallen world to live the life we are called to live as Christ-followers.
Two fundamental truths of Christianity are: God is love; and God wants a relationship with us…each and every one of us; and eternal relationship, regardless of who we are or what we have done. (Take a minute and just let that truth sink in.) Those two Scriptural facts are the foundation of the “Gospel of Grace”, as succinctly presented by Apostle Paul in Romans 3: 21-25, 27-28. “But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight – not by obeying the law, but by the way promised in Scriptures long ago. We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done. For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us NOT GUILTY! He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy His anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. Our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith in Jesus Christ.” (my underlining)
The stumbling block with the Gospel of Grace is it is too simple. “Surely there must be more”? “I know I have to do more than just accept God’s “gift of grace”. OK…God might forgive some people, but me…with my background. Not a chance! The good news is…that thinking is based on lies. The truth is…God wants to save you. He wants to save you for his Kingdom by saving you from yourself!
Since God is Love, an intrinsic part of his character is to be merciful, as described in Romans 5: 6, 9-11. “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgement. For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his life (and raised to eternal life). So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God – all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in reconciling us to God.”
The concept of mercy can be a hard one to grasp. Our human nature wants to “get even” when we are wronged, and that idea is certainly reinforced by the culture in which we live. For instance, how often have you heard, “I have no pity on that person”, or “I hope he gets what’s coming to him”, or “he deserved that”? While all of us have probably made such statements – and to our way of thinking it is right and natural, but God doesn’t always see things the way we see them. For instance, He spoke through the prophet Isaiah and revealed, “My thoughts are completely different from your thoughts; my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
God’s revelation through the prophet Isaiah is exemplified in verse 11 in the paragraph above. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” (Notice Apostle Paul includes himself when he used the word “us”, reinforcing the truth that ALL of us fall short of God’s glorious standard.) Being helpless is one thing; being utterly helpless points out the depravity of the human condition as seen through God’s eyes. (It’s important to notice here that He didn’t wait for us to clean up our act!) And while He doesn’t define at just the right time, we had from Creation to 2015 years ago to wrestle with the dilemma of mankind: SIN, meaning living with the focus on our self rather than on God. God’s plan, even before the world was created, was to send a Savior to do for mankind what he knew we would be incapable of doing for ourselves. Ephesians 1:4-5 explains His plan this way. “Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.”
That last sentence might come as a surprise, but it again reveals God’s loving and merciful nature. When He created us, he created us in his image and for a purpose. And that purpose was for a relationship with him. HE wanted (wants) a relationship with us. HE loved (loves) us. And HE gave us “free will” so we could choose to love him back and enter into that relationship. But there is one issue that stands in the way of that relationship blossoming, and that issue is SIN. We can’t come into the presence of God if we are stained with sin, as revealed in 1Peter, 1:15: “You must be holy…as God is holy.” Why? Because sin spreads, contaminates, kills and destroys.
Holy means “to be set apart for sacred use; standing apart from sin and evil” (NLT concordance) Since man, of his own volition, cannot achieve sin-free status, God’s Gift of Grace transcends that problem. If we believe that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be – the Son of God, who came as a sacrificial lamb to pay the ransom for our salvation – and we accept him as our Lord and Savior, we become a new creation in Christ. We are immediately grafted into God’s family, meaning we are his child; our sins are forgiven; we are promised eternal life; we are worthy and acceptable in God’s sight; we are heir to all the covenants and promises in the Bible; we are heir to all the Spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm. Now when God looks at us, he doesn’t see a sinner…he sees Jesus Christ because we are covered with His blood. All barriers that stood between us and God have been removed, as explained in Romans 8:1-2: “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death.”
Not only is our eternal destiny sealed when we accept God’s Gift of Grace, but the power to live the life we are called to live – right here, right now in this fallen world – is only made possible by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is also part of God’s salvation plan. He wants us to be his light in the world’s darkness. So when we call on the Holy Spirit to empower us to change our desires so we can become “God’s masterpiece by doing the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 1:10), the Holy Spirit will make it possible for us to rise above our circumstances in this world and bring honor and glory to God through our decisions and actions.
Regardless of who we were, our new identity today is based upon who we are in Christ. And as hard as it is to grasp, God always finds a way to make our mistakes and weakness his/our strength. The more that becomes a reality, the more we experience the rest and abundant life Jesus promised. It’s all about us getting out of the way so Jesus can live his life in and through us. Only God could have conceived a plan so perfect.
The God we serve is a God of Love, Mercy and Grace. As Watchman Nee would say, I would like to close with two Scriptural facts. “Nothing is impossible with God”. (Luke 1:37) And Zephaniah 3:17: “The LORD your God is with you, HE IS MIGHTY TO SAVE. He will take great delight in you; he will quiet you with his love; and he will rejoice over you with singing.” That is not only good news…that is extraordinarly good news!!
So my question to you is…have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? If no…why not?
Please feel free to respond to this message, and please “like” and share it with other social media friends.
May God Bless Ya,
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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