Grace, It's Really Amazing - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. That's the moment when you come to your senses. When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread?

And I am dying here with hunger. And so he got up and he came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him.

And he kissed him. What a picture of grace. What an amazing picture of grace. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now, as once again, he shows us how God's word meets our world. My wife, Velma, and I were watching the Fourth of July celebration from New York City. And it was spectacular.

They had five or six barges on the Hudson River. And when they put off the fireworks for 30 straight minutes, all five or six barges were like a finale for a half an hour. And what they did is they used all kinds of music as the backdrop.

They used classical music, 1812, wonderful stuff like that, patriotic music, Star-Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, very contemporary pop music. And then right in the middle of it all, LeAnn Rimes sang Amazing Grace. And it was kind of interesting because you have all these barges and then she's singing Amazing Grace and trying to go to the music.

They're shooting off the fireworks and then, you know, millions of people are standing there. And I'm thinking of the words. And I'm wondering what they're thinking. Like, I'm wondering, what are they thinking? Amazing Grace, how sweet this sound. What are they thinking?

What's she thinking? You see, I really wondered about that because it just seemed a little disjointed to me. I don't think when John Newton wrote that song that he really had that in mind.

That we would put some barges in the river, set off fireworks and ooh and aah to what was done. But that song, as great a hymn has ever been written, is a song that has been always sort of in transition or changing. In fact, when Newton wrote it, he didn't title it Amazing Grace. The title of the song was Faith's Review and Expectation. Catchy, huh?

Be hard to imagine that. That came later. Even the tune in which we sing wasn't the tune that it originally went with at all.

In fact, that came 50 years later. A British man named William Walker took it, a song called New Britain, and he took that song and he put the words to Amazing Grace to that. And that's kind of how we sing it today.

In 1904, Edwin Othello Excel. He added that very, very famous last verse when we've been there 10,000 years, bright, shining as the sun. We have no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun. But he didn't write those words. He found those words in Uncle Tom's cabin. And when he found those words, he loved them so much, ended up putting it to Amazing Grace. And that's normally not always, but normally the way we sing it today. In the 1970s, Judy Collins sang it and made a national hit out of it. Johnny Cash sang it to inmates all over in prisons. It's used as Olympic ceremonies. All over the world. When presidents are inaugurated, we sing it. In fact, in 2004, Bill Moyers did a special on it.

And he just couldn't quite come to grips. He said, you know, it was never endorsed, of course not, but by a pope. It never really had much publicity, but it's got this endearing long quality to it. In fact, if you were to go to Amazon.com, there are three thousand eight hundred and thirty two different renditions of it right now. I think it deserves all the attention that it gets. I think it deserves it as I finish this series on grace.

I felt that it would only be appropriate to use as my main text. John Newton's amazing grace. So let's look at the very first verse. Amazing Grace.

How sweet the sound. That saved. Wretch.

Like me. Wow. Powerful words, huh? Where do you get that idea for that verse? Well, open your Bibles to First Chronicles Chapter 17 and two verses.

That Newton says were his inspiration. First Chronicles Chapter 17. And verse 16. David is speaking. Says, Then David, the king. Went in and he sat before the Lord.

And he said this. Who am I? He said, Who am I? Oh, Lord God. He said, And what is my house that you have brought me this far?

This was a small thing in your eyes. Oh, God. But you have spoken of your servant's house for a great while to come and have regarded me according to the standard of a man of high degree.

Oh, Lord God. And the words that penetrated Newton's heart. Who am I?

Who am I, Lord? David couldn't understand it. He knew he was a sinner. He knew he was an adulterer. He knew he was a murderer. And yet he received the Davidic Covenant. Who am I?

Newton was a slave trader. Who am I? Who am I?

Paul said that he was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. And over and over again, Paul says, Who am I? What about you? What about you?

When you're in the presence of the Lord, do you ever think that? Who am I to be here? What did you bring to the table? What did you offer God?

How faithful have you been? Who am I? You see, when he says, Who am I?

He has to respond. Amazing grace. Outrageous. It is absolutely amazing. And it's sweet.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. You know, you wonder when contemporary singers sing this song, what do they think? You see, what do they think?

Well, it's interesting, some of them have spoken on it. Judy Collins said that when she thinks of amazing grace, she thinks this. She thinks of it's the time when you're trusting the universe. That's what it is. Joan Baez said that it's a state of mind that I would like to be in at least 30 seconds a day. Pete Seeger said, Amazing Grace is harmony. It's like math. See, they may be singing it, but they may not be meaning what you're thinking they're meaning when they're singing it.

They're meaning something else completely. And then he says that saved a wretch like me. Let me ask you, how many times have you ever referred to yourself as a wretch?

I'm guessing none. You see, that's not a very popular word. A wretch. In fact, if you look at it now, what it means in the world we live in is a, it means a miserable exile.

Sort of like the prodigal that saved a wretch. Words like wretch, sin, wickedness, evil, debauchery. We don't use those words, do we? We'd never write those words now. I mean, we use things like my unproductive personal habits.

I have behavioral disorders and challenges. We don't want to say wretch. But Newton did. You see, he saw his heart for what it was. Think of the Apostle Paul.

We looked at him over the past few weeks. I am the chief of sinners. I am the least of all the apostles. I am the least of all the saints. And you say, Paul, how could you possibly say that?

It's because you don't know what kind of wretch I was. You see, that's what Newton said. He is revealing, in a sense, this wonderful plan of grace.

The plan of grace is to save us. Those who have no way of saving themselves at all. Because of the human heart. Ivan Turkin of the 19th century Russian novelist and playwright said this. I don't know what the heart of a bad man is like. But I do know what the heart of a good man is like. And it is terrible.

You get it. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, If only there were evil people somewhere, Insidiously committing evil deeds. And it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line of dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

Who was willing to destroy a piece of their own heart? Chuck Swindoll said that if sin were blue. If sin were blue, you'd be blue. Your skin would be blue. Your hair would be blue.

When they cut you, you would bleed blue. He said, that's what it means. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. The plan of God. Then the second part of the first verse. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind.

Now I see. The power of grace. The power of grace finds you and changes you.

That's what he said. Notice. Notice how he changes. I once was lost, but now I'm found.

I was blind, but now I see. Turn with me to Luke chapter 15. Luke chapter 15. And the reason I want to go to Luke 15 is.

I am sure that Newton went there. It's all about being lost. Lost sheep. Lost coin. Lost son. The prodigal.

And it's kind of interesting here. Because there are two kinds of people in verse one. Now all the tax gatherers and the sinners were coming near him to listen to him. But the Pharisees and scribes began to grumble saying this man received sinners and eats with them. Two kinds of wretches. Those who know they're wretches. And those who pretend they're not wretches.

But they are wretches. And so Jesus sees this mixed audience and he loves to do what any good rabbi would do. He said I'll tell some stories.

That's how they taught. And Jesus wants to tell stories about the love and grace of God. And so the first story he tells, he tells about the lost sheep. And that a shepherd leaves the rest of the flock behind and goes to the lost sheep. And the second he talks about the lost coin and that a woman sweeps out her house.

Which had dirt floors and looks and looks until she finds that lost coin. But I think that when the scribes and Pharisees were listening to this, they weren't getting it. I think their view of the whole thing was, well the only thing that matters is, was the shepherd ceremonially clean? Was the woman ceremonially clean?

Otherwise it has no point. You can't get right with God unless you do some stuff and become ceremonially clean. Hence we have the third of these parables, the prodigal. And Jesus brings the prodigal to bear. And he says in verse 11 that a man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, he said give me my share of the estate that falls to me. So he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey to a distant country. And there he squandered his estate with loose living. About a third by the way, the oldest son would have got two thirds, the youngest son one third.

Very unusual. But notice he spent it all, sort of like a lottery winner. He found himself spending it all and he spent it all on loose living.

John Newton really understood that. He was raised by a godly mother. His father was mostly always at sea, but she died when he was 16. And so at 17 he went to sea.

He first tried the Royal Navy and didn't care much for that. But then gave the rest of his time to the sea. In fact he said, if you wanted to know what my religion was in those early years, it was simply wickedness.

That's all I did. Constantly drinking, carousing everything that he could do. Squandering what his mother had put into his life. And it says that not when he had spent everything a severe famine occurred in that country. And he began to be impoverished. And so he went and he hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him into the fields to feed swine. And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating.

No one was giving him anything to him. But when he came to his senses. By the way, that's the moment.

That's the moment when you come to your senses. When he came to his senses he said, how many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread? And I am dying here with hunger. And he says, and I will get up and go to my father and I will say to him, father I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be your son.

Make me as one of your hired men. And so he got up and he came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him. And he kissed him. What a picture of grace.

What an amazing picture of grace. I've preached this many, many times, but Jewish men do not run in public. You see, you never expose your legs, you never lift your garment up to run in public.

But this father runs. This is exactly not what you would expect if you understood their culture. In fact, from their culture it was a completely different thing. This young man had brought shame, not only to his family, but even to all of the people of his village.

And what he should have expected is a ceremony that they did. It was called the kazaza. And the kazaza literally means to be cutting off. And what you would do when he came back, the people of the village would come and they'd take a pot. And they'd take that pot, look at him, break it, and drop it at his feet.

Now that meant you are broken off completely from us, kazaza. And then they would turn their back on him. And they would never speak to him again in their lifetimes. That's what he should have expected.

That's not at all what he got. David Jeremiah writes, and I am very, very much in debt to David Jeremiah for this whole idea of this particular type of sermon with this hymn. He says, God's grace finds an expression infinitely repeated in his willingness to accept our insults.

Why? His compassion, his love. He says, I was blind, but now I see. In one sense, that's what happens when we're all converted. There is a big way in which we were blind and now we see. I was blind to how holy God was and how sinful I was. I was blind as to how feeble my own efforts or works or religiosity would ever restore and reconcile my relationship with God. I was blind to all that, and I'm sure he meant a lot of that. But I don't think that's exactly what he is saying. The scales did fall off of his spiritual eyes at the moment that he converted. But a lot of things fall off slow. As a believer in Jesus Christ, there are a lot of things you don't see for a long, long time.

In fact, sometimes it takes years for you to see. See, I would like to say that when John Newton was converted, the moment he was converted, he was done with slave trading completely. But he wasn't. In fact, one writer writes this, Newton spent 10 years as a slave trader, and I'm unhappy to say that most of them were after he was saved. He didn't write Amazing Grace, by the way, until 25 years after the point that he was saved. In 1788, Newton did write and he wrote the thoughts upon the African slave trade, a little pamphlet, and he wrote this in that pamphlet.

I hope it will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders. You see, the thing about Newton that is amazing is that through a series of events, he ended up finding himself unable to go to sea. And so he ends up becoming a self-taught Christian, teaching himself Hebrew and Greek. And after that, he decides that he is called by a church in Olney. And he begins to pastor in that church, and he does so for 16 years. And then he's called to a church in London and he pastors there for 28 years. In fact, John Newton died at the age of 81, still preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, what's amazing to me about this and what he did write, though, when he was preaching, there was a young man who heard Newton preach. And his name was William Wilberforce. And if you knew anything about William Wilberforce, you know he was, along with the Quakers, the key instrument of God to abolish slavery in England. In fact, in one step after another, from about 1800 to about 1833, first it was illegal in England. And then it was illegal on English ships and then eventually even to the English colonies.

In 1833, on July the 26th, they passed what they called the Emancipation Bill in 1833, July 26th. And this is what William Wilberforce wrote. Thank God that I have lived to witness a day in which, he says, England is willing to give 20 million sterling for the abolition of slavery. What the English did from their own government is they paid all of the people in English colonies who had slaves, they paid them for them.

He said that in July 26th, 1833, three days later, William Wilberforce died. But he saw them emancipated. That's what John Newton had done. Notice there the power of grace. I once was lost, but now I'm found.

I was blind, he says, but now I see. The power of grace finds you where you are and then changes you. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.