Well, we're gonna be in a moment, in Romans chapter five, verses 12 through 21, so if you've got your Bible, why don't you turn there? I encourage you to bring a Bible, have a Bible on your phone, or have an old-school paperback Bible, and I encourage you, as a follower of Christ, to try to be in the Bible every day. I have a one-year Bible, takes me about two years to read through it, but I encourage you every day to be in the Word and to just nibble on the Bible every day, memorize Scripture, right?
It's important to do that, amen? And so, we've been in Romans for a little while, the passage has been teaching. Romans was written sometime around AD 57. Paul, at this time, is in Corinth. Paul was formerly Saul. He was a Pharisee, a religious leader in the first century, and following the death and resurrection of Jesus and the establishment of the church, Paul was persecuting Christians. He was known as Saul at that point.
In fact, it's recorded that even when Stephen was martyred in the book of Acts, Saul was there approving of it and watching over the garments of those who were stoning Stephen, and Saul decides he's gonna go to Damascus, which is a modern-day Syria, and he's gonna go north to Damascus to persecute Christians there, and on the road to Damascus, he experiences Christ, has a vision of them, literally goes blind from it for a little while, and he becomes a proponent of the gospel. He goes from killing Christians to becoming a proponent of Christianity, changes his name to Paul, and he began to travel around the Mediterranean world, around the Roman world at that time, sharing the gospel, and we call these the missionary journeys, and on this particular one, he's on his third missionary journey, and he traveled through what is now modern-day Turkey. In fact, when you read Revelation, the seven churches mentioned there are in modern-day Turkey, those sites you can still go to today, and then he went to Corinth and a couple other places in what is modern-day Greece, and from there in Corinth, around AD 57, he had heard about a church in Rome.
And he had never been there, and he wanted to introduce himself, and he also wanted to write to them about what salvation by faith in Christ alone meant, and so a lot of Romans is a deep theological work in which he is writing and saying, this is the foundation for what we believe, and so eventually he made it to Rome. He was under arrest when he did so, and he was hoping to go to Spain, but he is writing to the church in Rome, and in this particular passage, he's talking about sin and grace, and he's talking specifically about two atoms. There's the first atom that we have in the story of creation in Genesis, the first man, the first human being, and then there's this idea of a second atom, which is Christ, that the first atom was a foreshadowing of the second atom, and in this passage, he talks about that through Adam, through Adam, all became sinners. In 2018, there's an actual, a scientific journal called Human Evolution. There was a study by a gentleman out of Rockefeller University, went out of Thaler University in Switzerland, and they were studying mitochondria, I don't know what that is, in DNA, and what they discovered, and neither one of them are believers, is that all of human beings' DNA goes down to one couple, and in fact, their study indicated that there was some type of disastrous event a long time ago that almost wiped out all of humanity and almost all species, so even science comes back and says we all came from one couple, and in this passage, Paul writes about the first atom, and through Adam came sin, and then because of that death, that creation itself is not what God wanted it to be, Christ comes, and through him comes life, so if you've got your Bibles, would you turn there with me, Romans chapter five, verse 12, would you be so gracious, would you stand with me for the reading of the word, I know I've had you up and down a few times, and my apologies on that, this is a long passage, so you know, don't lock your legs, you may fall out, okay, all right, you might lose blood circulation, okay, so Romans chapter five, verse 12, I'm reading from the English Standard Version, Paul writes this, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, Adam, right, it was Adam, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sin, so Adam, right, the first one, that all of humanity has been tainted by that sin, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, even before Mosaic law was written, Paul says, there was wrongness, there was sin in the world, but sin is not counted where there is no law, verse 14, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses before the law came into being, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come, who was the one to come, Jesus, right, but the free gift is not like the trespass, trespass is another word for sin, for if many died through one man's trespass, Adam's, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many, and the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin, for the judgment following one trespass brought what, condemnation, what did it bring, condemnation, but the free gift following many trespassers brought justification, what did it bring, justification, the one man's sin, condemnation, the one man's obedience, Christ, justification, for if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life by the one man, Jesus Christ, therefore, verse 18, as one trespass led to what, condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men, for as by the one man's disobedience, that's Adam, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made what, righteous, now the law came in to increase the trespass, increased, grace abounded, praise God, all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
You may be seated. May God has blessing to the reading of the word. The message, I encourage you when you're reading the Bible to read like a good translation, like the English Standard Version, New American Standard Bible, New King James, these are a little more accurate, but I do love sometimes some of these more thought for thought translations, and the message has the same passage written this way.
It says in verse 18, here it is in a nutshell. Just as one person, that was Adam, did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person, Christ, did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life. One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong.
One man said yes or no. He said yes to God and put many people in the right. All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. It didn't fix the issue of sin. But sin didn't and doesn't have a chance and competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Getting everything together again through the Messiah invites us into life, a life that goes on and on and on, world without end. Summary, if I was to summarize this entire passage, I would say this. Sin leads to death, grace leads to life.
Would you say that out loud with me? Sin leads to death, grace leads to life. That is fundamentally what this passage is saying. It means missing the mark, literally. The Greek word hamartia, it meant an act of wrongdoing or guilt.
It's like putting up a target and shooting an arrow at it and completely missing it. It's the idea that there's a standard, there's a goal, and we've fallen short of it. It is in essence the failure or refusal of human beings, that's you and I, to live the life intended for them by God their creator. It's the original sin, and it's not a reference to Adam's sin being the first sin and therefore original.
It's the idea that we're born into sin. You see, I have a condition. It's called obnoxiousness. No, I'm just kidding. I do have that, and it's incurable.
So is my sarcasm. I have a bad case of that. When I was 17, 18 years old, my mom noticed that I had really low energy. Nobody believes that, but I had really low energy. And my mom said, something's wrong with you, and I'm gonna take you to the doctor.
And of course, I didn't wanna go, but mom sent me to the doctor. And they did a blood test, and they found out that my TSH, which is a thyroid-specific hormone that your pituitary gland puts out, how's that for a medical lesson, was low. I'm sorry, it was very, very high.
It was very, very high. And what that meant is that my thyroid wasn't working. And so I have what they call hypothyroid, which is underactive, versus hyper, which is overactive, which I know, with my personality, people are like, how could you have hypo?
I don't know. I guess that's just my personality. But I've had that, and so I've been on Synthroid, which is a medication you take ever since then. And what I found out was that my mom, the reason why she figured out is she had it as well. So that was in the genetics and the DNA.
And then I found out some years later that my grandfather, on my dad's side, had it as well. I was born genetically with this right in me. It got passed down. And the idea is that with sin, that we are born into sin, that we have the propensity of sin, that the human heart is selfish and self-focused. And so that's what sin is.
It is missing the mark. But what is grace? Grace is God's unmerited favor, unearned favor. Or charis means grace, goodwill, favor. It conveys a sense of a gift of kindness and favor given to a person.
One of my favorite theologians, J. I. Packer, suggests this, that grace is simply God's love demonstrated towards those who deserve the opposite. Right? You ever had that happen in your life, where you deserved something, you did bad, but you got the opposite?
Right? You ever been driving somewhere and see those beautiful blue lights in your rear view mirror? Am I the only one that's ever experienced that?
Yes. Now I only do it when I'm on the way to the hospital to visit someone who's sick or dying, which is every day, all day. And I was on vacation with my family, and I didn't realize the speed limit was 35, and I was not doing 35. I won't say what I was doing, because you already don't have a lot of respect for me anyway, so I don't want to give you more of that. And I remember the police officer pulling you over, and the kids are like, dad's going to jail.
No, they didn't really do that. And the police officer pulled up, and I was like, I said, I'm speeding, what am I? He goes, yeah. He goes, you were going 50 and over. I said, I'm really, really sorry, so I just told you the speed. And I was like, here we go, we get a ticket. The wife's looking at me with like, this is why you need to slow down.
And those kind of things, very loving and supportive in that way. And the police officer came back, and I don't know why. It's probably because I was crying and weeping uncontrollably. And he's like, all right, I'm going to let you off with a warning, you know, kind of thing. I deserved punishment, but I got favor, right? I got mercy, really. So that passage basically comes down to this. Sin leads to death, grace leads to life. Sin is missing the mark. Grace is God's unmerited favor. This is something you've heard me say before, but it's the best definition I can come up with, and it's not mine, I didn't come up with it. GRACE, G-R-A-C-E, stands for God's riches at Christ's expense.
Can you say that with me? God's riches at Christ's expense. I think that's one of the better ways of describing, because mercy is not getting the punishment you deserve. Grace is getting the favor you have not earned, right? Grace is so amazing, right? We have that beautiful hymn, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, right? Once was lost, but now I'm fine, I'm blind, but what?
Now I what? See, right? Why is grace so amazing? Because I think Paul is trying to describe something about God's grace in this passage that is very difficult for us to understand as human beings. Because God's grace, the way he operates, and the favor he gives is not like you and I. But in order to understand grace, pardon me, we've got to understand the good news, let me get some nectar of the gods. I don't believe in multiple gods, it was a joke. Dear Lord, dear Pastor Chad, Pastor Chris is pantheistic. Hey Google, what is pantheistic?
Why is grace so amazing? Let's start with this, okay? To understand it, this is important. And I'm gonna say something, and I know it sounds like common sense, but I need you to bear with me, because it's not common sense in our culture anymore. A standard of right and wrong exists. Whether it is universal moral law, or natural law, or the law of nature, a standard of right and wrong exists.
I don't mean a standard that requires laws to be written to define it, because laws tend to be mostly written about what not to do. I'm talking about the fact that there is innately within the human heart a innate sense of right and wrong. Even if you are agnostic, even if you are of another faith, right, I think we could agree on this for a couple different reasons. Like the issue, this is from The Evidence that Demands a Verdict, great book, of consciousness and free will, humans have a universal belief in right and wrong. You ever notice when a little kid, something happens, and they don't think it was right, they say that's not what? Fair, right?
That makes sense. There's a universal belief in right and wrong. While people do vary over specific behaviors that consider right or wrong, there is universal agreement on the underlying principles of objective morality.
That's a fancy way of saying, fundamentally, there are certain behaviors that are universally right or wrong, no matter the circumstance. And if someone says there is no such thing as an absolute truth, well they've just said an absolute truth when they've done that. But if someone is saying, well I don't believe, I think you, because what our culture does is our culture says, I'm going to decide what's right and wrong. It is my truth, right? My truth, right? But truth is that which corresponds to reality. That is the philosophical universal definition of truth, that to look at the world and observe it, and then to infer truth, to say I believe this to be true, right?
Isaac Newton writing about gravity, right? He observed and he wrote about truth. What's happening in our culture now is we're saying, no, no, no, no, no, don't look at the universe and the world.
Look inside the human heart and decide what's right and wrong. So that's why a man could say, I wasn't born a man, I was born a woman, because they're looking inside. That's why there's all kinds of immorality, because people are not looking at the universal statement that God set in mind, they're setting their own. In fact, earlier in Romans, Paul wrote in Romans 1.18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known, listen to this, for what can be known about God is plain to them without the law, because God has shown it to them, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. Paul is arguing for the existence of God simply by observing nature. So they are without excuse. They show themselves, even though they do not have the law, there's a universal sense of right and wrong. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse them or even excuse them on that day when according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Paul is saying, even people who don't have the law behave as if there is a law. I had grandparents that were not believers. My grandfather was an atheist.
Right up about a month before he passed and came to the Lord. It was an amazing story. I have to say, honestly, they were some of the most moral people I've been around. They lived a very good life. They were faithful to each other.
They were married for almost 75 years. They weren't criminals. So there is a sense of right and wrong that exists.
Why is grace so amazing? Because there is a right. Right and wrong.
In fact, C.S. Lewis wrote and said, if anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of say ancient Egyptians or Babylonians or Hindus or Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him or her will be how very likely they are to each other and to our own. I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean. Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle. People who had been kindest to him.
You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed throughout humanity as regards to what people you ought to be unselfish to. Whether it was only your own family or your fellow countrymen or everyone. But they always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired.
Common in the human heart. I don't care what you believe. I don't care if you're a complete atheist. There is a sense of right and wrong. And I've used this gross analogy before. But when somebody says there isn't, then I just ask them, well, what about pedophilia? Because if you don't believe in absolute truth, then for the pedophile, what they're doing is not wrong.
Right? Truth is relative. There's absolute truth. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real right and wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promises to you, but if you break one to him, he will be complaining it's not fair. A nation may say treaties do not matter, but then the next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties do not matter, and if there's no such thing as right and wrong, in other words, if there is no law of nature right, a universal sense of right and wrong, what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one?
Have they not let the cat out of the bag and show that whatever they say, they really know the law of nature just like anyone else? There is a right and wrong. Right and wrong exist. A standard of right and wrong is there in the human heart.
And C.S. Lewis went on to say, it is after you've realized that there is a real moral law and a power behind the law, a lawgiver, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that power with God, it is after all this and not a moment sooner that Christianity begins to talk to understand why grace is amazing. You first gotta understand that a standard of right and wrong exists. Thomas Jefferson wrote, when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, he said, we hold these truths to be what?
To be what? Self-evident. Right there in our declaration, our founding fathers said, there are some truths that are just obvious to humanity because a standard of right and wrong exists, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In his 1991 Senate confirmation hearing, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas expressed the widely shared belief that the Supreme Court should refer to natural law, universal moral law, a standard of right and wrong in interpreting the Constitution.
He said, we look at natural law, right, the standard of right and wrong, beliefs of the founders as a background to our Constitution. Right versus wrong. There is a standard of right and wrong.
It exists. Sin leads to death. Grace leads to life.
Why is grace so amazing? One, there's a standard of right and wrong. Two, if you're a note taker, we have all fallen short of God's standard. As a result of Adam's fall, all mankind are sinners by nature. Pastor Chad often says, if you don't believe in original sin, you'd never had children, right? We have a propensity to sin that underlines every actual sin. This means that original sin is not the original state of mankind, but it's in a departure from that origin.
The idea is that creation is not as God intended because of the fall of man. Scripture emphasizes the universality of human sin. Romans 3.23, for all have what? Sin and fall short of the glory of God. Psalm 51.5, I promised the girl running slides back in the production room, the young lady, that I would go slow through this section.
I'm trying my best. Psalm 51.5, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 58.3, the wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray from birth, speaking lies. Psalm 143, verse two, enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. Proverbs 20, verse nine, who can say, I have made my heart pure, I am clean from my sin? Ecclesiastes 7.20, surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Jeremiah 17.9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick but who can understand it?
That's why you should not follow your heart, your heart's an idiot. Ephesians chapter two, Paul says, and you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the devil, the spirit that is now at work, and the sons of disobedience, and those who don't know Christ, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, loved by the dead, like the rest of mankind. According to the Bible, this alienation from God we have because of sin is the root cause of all of humanity's troubles, the effects of the fall of man, alienation from God, the brutalization of human relationships, wars, rumors of wars, tragedies, work becomes hard labor, banishment from Eden's paradise, why is grace so amazing? Because there is a standard of right and wrong and because we've fallen short of that standard, sin leads to death, grace leads to life.
Why is grace so amazing? Number three, you can write this down, because God is just and sin has a price. Deuteronomy 32 four, the rock, that's God, his work is perfect for all his ways are justice, a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. Psalm 33 five, he, meaning God, loves righteousness and justice, the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. Psalm 89 14, righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne, of God's throne. Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you. Of the price of sin, Romans 6 23, for the wages of sin is what? Death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hebrews 9 22, in fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood, for without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Why is grace so amazing? Because there is a standard of right and wrong, because we have fallen short of that standard and because God is just and sin has a price that must be paid.
Why is grace so amazing? Number four, he paid the price we could not pay. He paid the price we could not pay. Faithfulness to the law is not sufficient. Justice is often shown as a blind woman holding a scale.
It's not a bad image. And the scale is often representing good deeds versus bad deeds. In fact, if you were to describe world religions, you could really say, and I know I'm oversimplifying, but I really think this is true, that religion says the more good things you do that outweigh the bad things, the more right with the God you will be that you're serving. So the idea is, how do I get right with God? How do I go to heaven?
How do I experience nirvana? Whatever those religions teach is all based on this idea that if I do good things, it will hopefully outweigh the bad things in my life. Christ comes along and says, you're missing the point. It doesn't matter how many good things you do, you're still a sinner. And no matter how many good things you do, it's not going to erase your sin. There is a price for sin. And the price for sin is not doing good things. The price for sin is death. And that's the difference between religion and Christianity, because Christianity is spelled, you've heard me say this, D-O-N-E, it's about what Christ has done.
Religion is spelled D-O, it's about what you do. The price he paid, he paid that we could not pay. Isaiah 64 six, we have all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
You can just imagine that's a really disgusting garment. We all fade like a leaf and our iniquities like the wind take us away. Second Timothy three two says, for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.
Right. It's a description of who we are as sinners. Jesus went so far as to say, you know, because he would have these statements where he would say, you have heard it said, but I tell you.
So he's literally quoting the Torah, but it's also quoting Talmud, which would have been commentaries from rabbis about how to interpret the law and how to live it out. And he would say, you've heard it said, but I tell you. And one of these, you've heard it said, don't commit adultery, right? We know what that is. He said, but I tell you, don't even lust for someone in your heart because under God, that's the same thing.
What? Jesus said that the standard of sin is not just doing something that's wrong, that God looks literally inside of our hearts and our motivations and thoughts and judges us based on those. So even if I don't act on it, even in my thought life, I'm a sinner. He paid the price. We could not pray.
Why is grace so amazing? Because there is a standard of right and wrong, right? I forgot my second point. We because we have all fallen short of God saying that's a pretty bad one to forget. Sorry. Don't tell Pastor Chad that.
All right. Number three, that God is just and sin has a price. And number four, he paid the price.
We could not pay. Isaiah 53 verse five. But he, who is that? Jesus was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are what? Healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him.
Who's the him? Jesus. The iniquity of us all. Praise God. Jesus paid the price.
We could not pay. Can we give him thanks for that today? Why is grace so amazing? Well, the fifth thing I want to say is this, that there is no sin that grace cannot cover. And there is no past that grace cannot redeem.
There is no sin. The grace cannot recover. And there is no past that grace cannot redeem. Now, when the law came in to increase a trespass, where sin increased, Romans 5-20, grace abounded all the more. So as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Sin leads to death. Grace leads to life. Why is grace so amazing? Because there is a standard of right and wrong.
It exists. Because we have fallen short of that standard. Because he paid the price we could not pay. Because God is just and sin has a price. And because there is no sin that grace cannot cover. There is no past that grace cannot redeem.
So the first question I want to just simply ask you today is will you receive the gift of God's grace? The works of God in creation, as well as his covenants, his promises, his word and his work of redemption, all spring from his grace. All we have to do to grace, all we have, pardon me, is do to grace. But as Michael Horton says, a theologian, grace itself is not a third thing or a substance, for in grace, God gives nothing less than himself. God is love.
Grace is at the core of who he is. Jonathan Edwards called God's love an ocean without shores or bottom. He, God, does not love like us. We love until we are betrayed. Jesus continued to the cross despite betrayal. We love until we are forsaken. Jesus loved through forsakenness. We love up to a limit. Jesus loves to the end. Will you receive the gift of God's grace? How do you do that? Is there a special formula? In the Bible, Abraham is called the father of those who are righteous by faith, meaning they are made right with God, not by what they did or by what they do, but by simply putting their trust in God.
Right? I've used an illustration before of a chair. If I brought a chair up here, and if I asked you if the chair exists, you would say yes, but it doesn't mean you're sitting in it. You can believe that God exists, but until you put your weight, your trust in him, you don't have eternal life. And grace is a gift that is there from the moment you're born to the moment you die. And to receive that gift is simply to say, Jesus, I ask you to come into my life. Be my forgiver, my savior. Be my leader, be my Lord. Save me from my sin and I submit to your leadership.
That's what it means to receive. And I turn my life over to you and I repent. I turn from my old ways. I turn to you.
It's a simple prayer. Jesus, come into my life. Confess you as Lord and savior. I ask you to come and take over. Forgive me of my past. I repent of my ways. I turn my life over to you. Take me to heaven with you when I die. It's a simple prayer.
It's a simple beginning. But it's a life changing decision. Will you receive the gift of God's grace?
No one can make you do that. The Bible says that at the end of our lives, when we die and we go into eternity, there are two groups. Those who receive God's grace and those who've rejected it.
Matthew 25, verse 46. And these will go away into eternal punishment, right? Sin leads to death. They're righteous into eternal life. Grace leads to life.
Which way are you going? To those who are not his own, Jesus is a fearful judge, one whose wrath cannot be assuaged or dampened. The Bible teaches that Jesus will one day be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels and flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. But for his own, Jesus himself endured that punishment. He set his heart on his own.
They are his. There is not the meanest, the weakest, the poorest believer on the earth, John Owen said. But Christ prizes him more than all the world. Have you received the gift of God's grace or have you rejected it and rejected God?
The decision is yours. For those not in Christ, this life is the best it will ever get. For those in Christ, this life is the worst it will ever get.
I'd like to sugarcoat this and tell you otherwise, but if you have cancer, would you prefer to be told that you have it and that there is an operation that can cure you or to be given a superficial diagnosis and a few aspirin and die as a result? Will you receive the gift of God's grace? Secondly, if you're already a follower of Christ, will you walk in that grace?
Will you live in it? We who are in Christ no longer look to the future for judgment, but to the past at the cross. We see our punishment happening, all our sins punished in Jesus. Charles Spurgeon said, Christ loved you before all worlds.
Long e'er the day star flung his ray across the darkness, before the wing of the angel had flapped the unnavigated ether, before aught of creation had struggled from the womb of nothingness. God, even our God, had set his heart upon all his children. Since that time, has he once swerved, has he once turned aside, once changed?
No. You, pardon me, who have tasted of his love and know his grace will bear me witness that he has been a certain friend in uncertain circumstances. You have often left him. Has he ever left you? You've had many trials and troubles. Has he ever deserted you?
Has he ever turned away his heart and shut up his compassion? No, children of God, it is your solemn duty to say no and bear witness to his faithfulness. Walk in his grace.
Maybe you've got some decisions you've made and you're like, man, I've really blown it. I want to encourage you today that God's grace is able to cover all of your sin and redeem your past. And I want to encourage you to no longer walk in guilt and condemnation. Confess that sin. Make it right with the Lord and move on. Leave it at the feet of the cross. Have you received his grace? Are you walking in it? And will you share God's grace with others?
Acts one eight, Jesus said, but you receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. I have a simple challenge. I'm glad I didn't preach to services today.
I wouldn't have made it. We're having Easter coming up April 20th. Ten services. Six thirty a.m. Sunrise Service, which, by the way, bring your own chair or stand because we'll be outside. Mitch Hass, our communications director, has created this incredible little invitation card just for Easter.
It'll be available, I believe, next Sunday. I would love for you to think about today who you're going to invite for Easter. And I'd love you to take some of those next week and invite some people to join you for one of those services. Let's get the gift of grace to others who never received it. Amen.
Would you stand with me? Sin leads to death. Grace leads to life. Why is God's grace so amazing? Because there is a standard of right and wrong.
Because we have fallen short of that standard. Because God is just and sin has a price because he paid the price we could not pay. And because grace covers all of our sin and redeems all of our past. Father, I pray for this church, for those, Father, who need to receive you, for those who've never received that gift of grace. I pray they receive it now, whether here in this room or online. And if that's you and you would say with every head bowed and eye closed, you would say, Chris, I need to receive the gift of grace.
Would you lift your hand right now? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You can put your hands down.
Thank you. Even online, you can put your hand up. God will see it. Maybe there's some of you here that would say, man, I'm walking in some condemnation and guilt. I've received the gift of God's grace, but I'm not walking in it.
I'm really struggling with guilt and condemnation over my past. If that's you, would you lift your hand and say, yeah, I need to just receive God's grace again. Thank you. Thank you.
Lots of hands. Thank you. You can put them down. Finally, can you commit to sharing God's grace with others? If you're willing, unto the Lord, to share Jesus with others just by inviting them for Easter, would you just lift your hand all over this place? Father, I pray right now for those who need to receive God's gift of grace. And as they pray this prayer, just pray and say, Jesus, come into my life. Forgive me of my sin.
Take over. Be the Lord of my life. Take me to heaven with you when I die. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Enable me to walk as a follower of you. If you've prayed that prayer for the first time, what I want you to do is the next time we have a water baptism, I want you to get water baptized to tell the world you're a follower of Jesus.
And if you're listening online and you don't have a home church or you're here, then I encourage you to become a part of cross assembly and learn to walk and grow in the Lord. For those who need to receive God's grace, Father, I pray that they would no longer walk in condemnation. I pray, Father, they would know that their sins are redeemed and covered. And Father, I pray you enable them by your power to walk in repentance from those old ways.
Fill them with your joy and enable them to walk in your peace and in your grace and your ability to redeem all of our past. Thank you, Father, for giving every one of us divine appointments to share God's grace with others. The worship team is going to lead us out. I want you to sing. I want you to lift up your hands. I want you to thank God for his faithfulness.
And I'll be right back to close us out. To cheer and to guide. Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine with ten thousand desires. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness.
Morning by morning new mercies I see. And all I have needed thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see. And all I have needed thy hand hath provided. And great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. Isn't it good that he's faithful? Isn't it good to know that his grace covers us? Can we give God praise for that? Amen. Would you lift your hands and receive this blessing from the Lord? Father I pray in this church's behalf and out of and according to the glorious riches of Christ Jesus that you would strengthen them with power through your spirit and their inner being that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith and that you being rooted and established in love would have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and that you would know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the fullness of all that is in Christ Jesus and Jesus saying everybody say it amen love you guys for changing world for Jesus this week
