Why Grace Is So Amazing Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

Amazing grace, it's much more than a song. It's a characteristic of God we could not live without. Grace means getting what you don't deserve, and God has shed grace on us in abundance through Christ. Today, just how amazing that grace really is.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, some would point to the Old Testament and see God as vengeful, and then see in the New Testament a kinder, gentler God. How do we account for this apparent change as we read that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ? Dave, you've raised a question which needs an answer, an answer that really would take more time than I can give right now, except to say this. It is very important to see that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament is indeed the same God. Very quickly, you can look at the Old Testament and find many, many promises of mercy, of forgiveness, of grace.

There are some differences, yes, and that perhaps needs discussion at another time. But I'm so glad to announce to our listeners that we are in the middle of what we are calling the matching gift challenge. What an opportunity. What that means is that every gift that you give during this period of time, it will be doubled up to $90,000, thanks to some of our partners who believe very deeply in this ministry. Now as a result of the investment of God's people, we're so glad that running to win continues to expand in different countries and even in different languages.

Soon we will be in the Russian language. An opportunity again for people to hear the Gospel, all because of your involvement. Here's what you can do.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Thanks in advance for helping us, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ's grace needs to be spread around the world. I was capable of anything. I had not the least fear of God before my eyes.

I not only sinned myself, but made it my study to tempt and seduce others. Those are the words of John Newton. Perhaps you heard that on March 10, 1748, while on the Greyhound, a ship, a mighty storm came and began to tear the boat apart. Newton, who had convinced himself that he was an atheist, said to the captain, he made a suggestion as to what they might do, and then he added these words, if this will not do, may the Lord have mercy on us. And even the captain was shook, because here's a man who had defied God, who actually gave people a prize if they could think of some way of sinning that he had not tried. And suddenly he was talking about God. Newton said that during those days of storm, that the words of his mother that he had memorized from Proverbs chapter 1, she had taught him the scripture, came to mind that said, I will mock at your calamity and I will laugh at the difficulty. And he began to think that I have mocked God, and now God is mocking me.

God is laughing at me. In fact, he and his mate began to tie themselves to the pump so that they wouldn't be thrown into the sea. Well, you know, it was afterwards John Newton was converted. He found a New Testament on the boat and began to read after the storm died away, and he said, it fit my need exactly. And then he quoted the words of scripture that talk about Jesus Christ being a sin bearer.

He says Christ bore punishment for me. And years later, he wrote one of the most beautiful of all of our hymns that we love to sing, perhaps one of the best known Christian hymns in the world right now. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost and now am found, was blind, but now I see. Thank you, John Newton. And you, I know, John Newton will never forget the amazing grace of God.

When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we'll have no less days to sing his praise than when we first begun. Now as we speak about the topic of grace, I need to tell you that the way in which you perceive yourself will depend on the way in which you view grace. The better you think yourself to be, the less grace you will need.

If you have a proper understanding of yourself, the more grace you will need. Well, I want us to take our Bibles and look to Ephesians chapter 2. This is a series in the book of Ephesians, and we have concluded in chapter 1 that it is God who chooses us, and that will become clear now also in chapter 2. It is the Son who dies for us.

It is the Spirit who seals us. And then Paul falls on his knees to pray and says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, that you might understand all these things and know their beauty and the wisdom and the power and the greatness of Jesus. And then when you begin chapter 2, what Paul does is to further explain why we should be grateful. It is because of grace. This is probably one of the most fantastic passages in all the Bible on the doctrine of grace and salvation. First of all, before we talk about grace, and I'm going to be giving you some characteristics of the grace of God, I want us to understand how bad off we were before grace rescued us.

How much did we really need it? Now, I need to tell you that when we speak of people who've not entered into God's grace, that doesn't mean that they are mean people. That doesn't mean that they are bigoted. Some of them are very kindly.

They're the kind of people to whom you give your key when you go on a vacation so that they can take care of your house. But Paul is going to say that they are as separated from God as a lamp is after it has been pulled out of the socket. They are cut off from God.

But now notice the description. Verse 1, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. That's the way we all were before grace came to us, dead in trespasses and sins. We were alive so we could be called the walking dead, not the grateful dead.

That's something else but the walking dead. Now, when you walk through a cemetery, suppose you were to do that this afternoon and you would see a doctor going from tombstone to tombstone and you ask him what he's doing and he says, I'm dispensing some medicine because these people really need my help. We would smile because we would say that they're too far gone for medicine to help them. They don't need medicine. They need a resurrection.

They are not just sick. They are dead and unless you can do a miracle, there's no help that you are able to give them. Years ago, I quoted John Calloway who once made the statement that he was in a state of sin and he said, I'll do something about it when I get really serious. Well, I want you to know that even if he were to say with God's help, I would do something about it if I were serious, he still does not understand the extent and the greatness of God's grace. We need something more than just God's help. We need God's intervention. We need God's miracle. Think of that cemetery, tombstone upon tombstone, and then think of going to those people and saying, would you like to have God's help?

No, they don't need just help. They need a sovereign God-directed resurrection. So Paul says we were dead, cut off from God in our transgressions and sins. Secondly, he says we were deceived. We pick up the text in verse 2.

He says, in which you used to live, that is transgressions, when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the lives of those who are disobedient. We're deceived by the devil. And it's this deception that makes all of us live with a certain amount of denial. Not one of us really likes the way we are. And in order to adjust, we find a mirror, so to speak, that makes us look good.

It's like going to a state fair and you see all those mirrors that make you various shapes and various sizes and we come in with our various shapes and sizes and what we want to do is to find a mirror that makes us look very good. The fact is we're deceived. Luther had some insight here when he said that the unconverted man is blind and dead, but he adds to his problem by believing that he can see and perceiving himself to be alive. That's the deception of the human heart.

In other words, what I'm trying to say very clearly is that we are far worse off without God than most of us can ever possibly realize. It's deception that enables us to live and to make us think that we aren't as bad as some people think we are, or as bad at least as the Bible makes us out to be. We're basically people who not only are deceived, but we love the deception and that's why we cooperate with the devil when he comes to deceive us.

We're dead. Secondly, we're deceived. And thirdly, we are depraved. We're depraved.

Notice what the text says. Verse three, all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature, following its desires and thoughts, and by nature we were the objects of wrath. Oh, how people don't like that. You know, even those of us who walk with God, sometimes we don't like it because what God is saying is that by nature we are the children of wrath. We sin as easily as a bird sprouts feathers. It is what we do by nature. You do not have to teach a child to be selfish, to want its own way.

You just simply let the child grow up as his own nature dictates and you will have all that and more without any teaching. You see, because we are by nature the children of wrath. Am I beginning to communicate? Do you understand that we have a problem without grace? I mean, a serious, serious problem.

I'm still not sure that any one of us understands how serious it is, but it is bad indeed. Now, may I say parenthetically that today we have all kinds of secular answers to the dilemma of the human soul, that emptiness for that deadness and that alienation from God. We live in a very, what shall we say, age in which we are filled with all kinds of remedies. For example, there's psychotherapy.

We love this therapeutic age. And here I'm talking about secular psychotherapy. And the idea is that a psychotherapist can go within and he goes within and he stays there to dig out all of the trash that is in our lives and then supposedly that's supposed to help us. You know, the difference between a psychotherapist and a coal miner is that the psychotherapist goes down deeper, stays down longer, and comes up dirtier.

That's the difference. And then what you do is you take all this dirty water and you use that dirty water to try to wash the soul and to cleanse it. And it doesn't work very well. And then because of our age, which is filled with various therapies, you have this whole new craze of talk shows that if you can go on national television and just say whatever you want about whatever you are doing or whatever about anyone else, that somehow that too will cleanse you and that then you'll be different. It's a secular remedy for a deep ingrained human need.

We are, the Bible says, by nature the children of wrath. We can do nothing to help our predicament, nothing permanent, nothing lasting, nothing sure. I have a friend who says that he frequents a cafe in which there is this poem and I read the poem to you. I've taken the pill, I've hoisted my skirt to my thighs, dropped them to my ankles, rebelled at the university, lived with two men, married one, earned my keep, kept my identity, and frankly I'm lost. Yes, yes you're lost. That's life without grace. It is not a pretty picture.

You know people think well it's so wonderful to be able to do whatever you like. No, it is an ugly picture of alienation, of self-condemnation, it is a picture of emptiness, it is a picture of deadness. Deadness. That's life without grace.

And those of you young people who look at the world and think that you have been gypped, you've been shortchanged because they can do lots of things that you can't. Read this passage and think about it. It is ultimately deadness. Well, so much for life without grace. What's life like now with grace? Well, what I'd like to do is to give you four or five characteristics of grace and then we will better understand why it is so incredibly amazing. We pick up the text in verse four. You'll notice it says, 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've been saved and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in heavenly realms in Jesus Christ. In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Jesus Christ.

And then those famous verses. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this not from yourselves it is the gift of God not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. Not saved by works but saved unto good works.

What a difference. What are some of the characteristics of grace? Number one, of course, it is given to us apart from works. Apart from works. Do you understand now why works can have absolutely nothing to do with it? Let us suppose that you were in a cemetery and you said to some of the folks who were buried there, you know, I promise to resurrect you but you have to do something first.

Can't you at least wiggle your finger? Do something. Cooperate with me.

No, they are not in a position where they can cooperate with you. Some of you remember the story I tell when I took my class in preaching to a cemetery there in Deerfield and I asked them to preach to the tombstones and I asked this young man to do it and he would not do it. He thought I had lost my marbles and so I went over there and I preached to the tombstone. I asked Rita and Jonathan stand up it is resurrection morning and I shouted and I waited.

Thankfully, there was no resurrection. Often thank God for that. If they would have obeyed me, I think we would have had a problem.

We would have had a problem. Then I said to the class, you know, it is only because they can't hear. If they could hear, I know they would be raised.

So I shouted again. My dear friend, do you understand that the dead in the cemetery need a miracle, a sovereign miracle of God to grant them life and do you understand that it is the same miracle that God grants to us and it is that that saves us. The same miracle. Jesus said it was the same. He says as the Father raises up the dead and quickens them so the Son quickens whomever he wills, whomever he wills. If God does not do it, if God does not choose to do it, it will not be done, will not be done, has to be undeserved apart from works. God surveyed all the human goodness that has ever been done from the time of Adam and he saw that he could use none of it. He put it all on a shelf labeled unsuitable for use and said if these human beings are going to be reconciled to me, I'm going to have to do it.

It's going to be all one-sided. You see, now at last I think we're able to define grace. Grace is God's undeserved favor. It is undeserved favor toward us and it is not just giving us help, it is giving us a resurrection unto life.

That's what grace is all about. Of course it is apart from works. Secondly, think this through now. Think this through. It is unaffected by the degree of our sin.

It's unaffected by the degree of our sin. Imagine that we were to have two corpses here, one corpse that has been dead just three days and another that has been dead for 30 years. Would it be more difficult to resurrect one than the other? Would you say, well, you know, it's much more difficult to resurrect the one who has been dead for 30 years because that's far different than just being dead three days. Oh, my friend, there are some differences but the fact is that both of these corpses need divine intervention.

They need a miracle and if God can save the one who has been dead for three days and resurrect that corpse, God can most assuredly resurrect the one that's been dead for 30 because it's God doing a miracle. Now in the very same way, God can save big sinners, really big ones and I'm speaking to some of them this morning. You know who you are, don't you?

Don't just smile. God can save big sinners as well as small ones. Remember 1994 when we went through that John Wayne Gacy hoopla where a man killed 33 boys and hid them in the crawl space in his home and I remember the first time I saw him on television. I just expected to see this monster. I expected to see this evil person. I almost expected to see devils coming out of his body. The thing that shocked me was how normal he looked. That was shocking. In fact, I know somebody who looks a lot like him. That was surprising. You know the media almost wanted to make him out to be some kind of an animal unconnected to the human race.

No, no, no, no. John Wayne Gacy was one of us. He partook of humanity just like we partake of it. He only gave proof of that statement that is often made that sin sometimes takes you farther than you intended to go, keeps you longer than you intended to stay and makes you pay more than you intended to pay. He just followed his perverted desire.

Wherever they led. But he was a member of the human race. Remember it was Solzhenitsyn who said, wouldn't it be wonderful if in this world there'd be good people and bad people. Then we just take all the bad people and put them in one part of the world and say look after your problems and we take all the good people and we put them on that part of the world.

You know, we'd all put them in the state of Illinois or somewhere and we would say let's keep them separate. Solzhenitsyn says, the line between good and evil does not run through the human race. It runs through every single human heart.

Every single heart. You and I have seeds for all the wickedness that we condemn in others. It's all there potentially. Now what I'm trying to say is that of course God could have saved John Wayne Gacy because you see the distinction is never the greatness of the sin. The distinction has to do with the understanding and the willingness of the sinner as God grants them the ability to believe.

It is that that distinguishes them. But God can save big sinners. Big sinners.

Well my friend, isn't that wonderful news? God can save great sinners. And even today I might be speaking to someone and you consider yourself to be a great sinner.

I will not dispute that. But I want you to be brought to the grace of God in Jesus Christ and be reminded of the fact that we have a great savior for great sinners. I'm holding in my hands a letter.

I want to read a line or two. It says, the Lord is mightily using your materials today to fulfill various spiritual needs of the church and people suffering from war in and around Ukraine. I could go on and read more of the letter but that's enough to let you know that this comes from the Ukraine and the ministry of running to win continues to expand.

As a matter of fact, we're going to be in the Russian language and we will be broadcasting in both Russia and the Ukraine. Thanks to people just like you. And we're in the midst of what we call the matching gift challenge. This is very exciting. Partners of this ministry have said that they are willing to double your gift up to $90,000 during this period of time so you can do the math and you can know that whatever you give will be doubled to help us get the gospel to even more people. Now you need info. Sure hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because here's what you can do. Go to RTWOffer.com. RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 because this is so critical and the opportunity so great.

Let me give you that contact info again. Go to RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 whether in the Ukraine, Russia, Africa, Turkey, around the world, we believe that the message that is needed is the wonder of God's grace. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Pastor Erwin Lutzer has brought part one of Why Grace is So Amazing, the sixth message in a series on Between Heaven and Earth, taken from the book of Ephesians. Next time on Running to Win, we'll spend the time we need to find out how deep God's grace really goes. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.