Happy Labor Day, Everybody. Pam and I returned yesterday from a few days in Indianapolis visiting with childhood friends, John and Diane Rodgers, from Crooksville, Ohio. Indy is the half way point between Crooksville and St. Louis, so we have been carrying on that tradition for the past forty plus years. Opportunities like this reveal how absolutely important friendships are…especially life-long friendships. Our time together was a “hoot”, as always, but now we’re home and back in the saddle. The morning routine, which I have shared for the past few weeks, is behind us now (and it’s San Diego weather in St. Louie – mid-70’s, a wonderful breeze blowing and virtually NO HUMIDITY), I have a cup of coffee in front of me, Percy Grainger is playing not-so-softly in the background, so it’s time to start writing.
If you remember last week’s blog, it was titled, “Does God Have A Plan for My Life.” The answer to that frequently asked question is inherent in the two fundamental principles I have been hammering home for the last month. The first principle, God is love, reveals his unchanging , unending, unconditional and unfathomable nature. The second principle, God wants a relationship with us (an eternal relationship) reveals God’s plan that, as we discovered last week, existed even before creation. Those two Biblical truths (or as Watchman Nee prefers to call them, “scriptural facts”) provide the springboard for everything else written in scripture or proclaimed by the prophets. And how do we know these principles are true? They are proclaimed by God himself throughout the Bible. Again, remember from last week… God knew we would have to come to know Him before we could choose to enter into the relationship he wants with us, so He chose to reveal himself to mankind through His word (The Holy Bible) and through the prophets. Every word written or spoken was inspired, not by man, but by the Holy Spirit, and reveals God’s nature and His truth. Titus 1:2 This truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God—who does not lie—promised them before the world began.! (my emphasis)
We also learned last week that in order to enter into an eternal relationship with God, we have to be without sin. 1 Peter, 1:16 states, …we have to be Holy because God is Holy, meaning… we have to be without sin. Sin in this case represents a state of being, that is, living separated from God. The only thing standing between us and a relationship with God is SIN. Therefore, the issue of sin has been mankind’s greatest dilemma, and that issue started at creation and continues until this very moment.
When God chose Moses to lead the nation Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and into the desert, he freed his chosen people who had been in bondage to Egypt for 400 years. But once the Israelites experienced freedom, they were faced with a whole new set of problems, (ie. how to live together in a God-loving, peaceful, non-chaotic manner). 400 years of slavery didn’t provide many opportunities for thinking “outside the box”. To provide a solution to that problem, God gave to Moses his 10 Commandments (know as “The Law.”) He did this for two reasons. One very practical reason was to give His people civil law – ten laws outlining how to live together as a civilized community. But the second, and most important reason for The Law, was to give them His moral standard – how He expected them to live to be pleasing to Him. While The Law itself is good, it continues to present an insurmountable challenge to mankind. Why?…because it’s contrary to our human nature, or as the Bible calls it, our sin nature.
At this point you may be asking yourself, “Why would God give us a standard that presents an insurmountable challenge? That doesn’t sound very loving.” Remember a few weeks ago when we looked at a scripture that revealed an important key to such a paradox: Isaiah 55:8-9 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” There is no doubt God knows us even better than we know ourselves, and he certainly knows our weaknesses. Therefore His plan was to reveal to us our inability to meet his standard based on our own effort, then to provide for us a Savior to do what we were, without a doubt, incapable of doing for ourselves.
God’s plan is so beautifully and succinctly stated in Romans 3: 22-25 “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 God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.” NLT (my emphasis.) Now let me add Romans 5: 6,9 “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.”
Wow!! Those words should give anyone hope for a new beginning. Regardless of who you are or what you have done, God wants to have an eternal relationship with YOU. And because of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, God in his gracious kindness declares you, NOT GUILTY!! Why? Because Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins. Contained in those few words is the Gospel of Grace. This revelation is the cornerstone, the very essence of Christianity! And the best news yet…it is all true, just as it is clearly stated in the first paragraph. God cannot lie.
So as you can plainly see, God’s ultimate show of love for us is the gift of his Son Jesus Christ who died in our place to pay the price for our sins. That is why we can look forward to an eternal relationship with God. Not because of anything we did, but because of what Jesus did for us 2000 years ago. And it is important to understand that that sacrifice was for all mankind, and for all time (past, present and, to our good fortune…the future!) I know this may be hard to grasp right now, but I will spend the next X number of weeks talking about what Grace means and, even more specifically…what it means to us. For the moment I will again refer to Isaiah 55:8-9 found in paragraph four above.
As I said earlier in this message, the Gospel of Grace is the cornerstone, the very essence of Christianity. Every other religion in the world is about man earning favor with God through his effort and through his works. Christianity is different. Christianity is about a loving God reaching down to man and offering to each one of us His plan for our salvation, not based on our effort or our works, but based on our faith in Him and in the fulfillment of His plan through Jesus Christ. As we begin to grasp the depth, the truth and the enormity of God’s plan for us, the more we realize that His plan is not only PERFECT, but the only way for us to enter into an eternal relationship with Him in Paradise!!
In the first paragraph I mentioned God’s “promise” to us. As we come to know God and the truth of his Word, we learn that the book (The Bible) is filled with God’s promises to us. At this point let me point out very clearly what I mean in the first two sentences when I say, “to us”. Knowledge of this truth is key to receiving the promises of God. The “us” I am referring to is everyone who has chosen to accept God’s gift to us, and that gift is Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. When we come to realize, accept and proclaim that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came as the sacrificial lamb to die for our sins so we can experience eternity with God, we immediately become one of God’s children. Only God’s children receive His promises. This gift to us is not a result of anything we have done or because we are worthy of such a gift (remember, Christ came at just the right time and while we were still sinners.) This gift is based entirely on our faith in the power of God and the work of Jesus Christ.
As you can see, God certainly does have a plan for our life, and that plan is our solution to the sin issue that keeps us separated from Him. Jesus Christ came as the sacrificial lamb to pay the price for our sins. When we accept Him as our Lord and Savior, His blood covers our sins. Now when God looks at us, he no longer sees Dan (a sinner) or, Bob, Jane or Mary (a sinner). The price for our sins was paid at the cross and God now sees us as “a new creation in Christ.” 2 Corinthians, 5:17 We NOW stand before Him sin-free!!
Well, my friends…this is much deeper into the subject of Grace than had I planned to go today when I first set down to write, but on the other hand I always ask God to guide my message. In the future weeks we will talk about this awesome gift in great detail and what it means to us. The truth of this gift is life-changing, and the best news yet…we don’t have to wait until we die to begin experiencing God’s blessings and his promises. They are available right now to anyone who accepts the finished work of Jesus Christ. So my question to you is… what is faith and how do we get it? (our topic for next week) And have YOU accepted God’s gift of Grace? Feel free to chime in on this discussion in the space provided below.
May God bless ya,
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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