Empowered By Grace

We not only have doctrinal standing by grace, but Paul wrote in Titus 2.11, listen, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desire, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in this present age. You see, many today would say that grace enables them to live in sin.

You know, don't worry about that, man. Just remember, grace. The Bible reveals that true grace in the life of a genuine believer enables that man or woman not to live in sin, but to live without sin, to hate sin, not embrace sin. What's the role of grace in the life of the believer? We know that we're saved by God's grace, but what role does grace have after that? Salvation is only half of the gospel truth. The other half is what happens after salvation. So just as we needed God's grace to become a Christian, we need his grace to live as a Christian every day. That's the gospel truth. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart with our Bible teacher, Stephen Davey. Stephen is in a series from Romans 1 called Gospel Truth. Today, Stephen explores the relationship between God's grace and the Christian life in a lesson he's calling Empowered by Grace.

Please get your Bible and open to Romans chapter 1 as we get started right now. There once was a wealthy man who owned a vast estate and all the necessary household staff from butlers to gardeners to keep it all in beautiful condition. He was a widow and had only one son who had left years earlier to fight in the king's army. To console himself, this wealthy widow had his son's portrait hung over the mantle and he often sat there by the fire in the evenings and simply remembered. Every time visitors came to his estate, he would introduce them to that portrait first before he showed them any of his rare paintings by masters like Rembrandt.

When news came that his son had died in a battle that broke his heart, a few months after the terrible news of his son's death, the old man himself died. His attorneys announced that since there was no heir to the estate and auction would take place, the paintings, the property, the furniture would all be auctioned off. The day of the auction arrived and hundreds of influential and wealthy people gathered, excited over having an opportunity to purchase one of the old man's rare paintings for themselves as well as some hand-carved furniture or one of the exquisite silver table settings or a hand-woven imported rug. The crowd was instructed to be seated while the auctioneer stood on the landing of a long, sweeping stairway. On the landing next to the auctioneer was a painting.

It was the rather simple portrait of this man's son that had once graced the mantle above the fireplace painted by some unknown artist. The auctioneer pounded his gavel, we will start the auction with the bidding of this portrait. Who will make a bid for the painting?

And there was silence. Then a voice in the back of the room called out, we want to see the rare paintings, skip this one. But the auctioneer persisted, will someone bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding, $100, $200 or more? Another voice shouted angrily, nobody wants that common thing, we came to buy valuable things now, let's get on with it. But still the auctioneer continued, the portrait of the son, the son, who will bid for the son?

The crowd was growing angrier and more restless by the moment. Then a voice came from the very back of the room, excuse me. It was the voice of the family gardener who had worked on the estate for nearly 25 years.

He had entered unnoticed on his way to another room and had stopped to listen and watch. He was a middle-aged man with sons of his own. He'd grieved with his master by that fireplace over the death of his master's only son.

The gardener couldn't imagine the portrait belittled, worse, discarded. It had meant so much to his old employer and friends so he said, I can't bid for it, I don't have any money to offer it but I would like it. A woman said, let him have it for free, none of us want it anyway. The auctioneer said, well, if no one bids for it then your desire alone will be payment enough. A man yelled out, well, just give it to him and let's move on. The crowd was becoming even more angry and impatient.

They had traveled from miles away for the worthy, expensive investments for their own estates and collections. The auctioneer pounded his gavel going once, twice, gone to the gardener. The man sitting near the first step of that grand stairway shouted up at the auctioneer, now, let's get on with the collection. The auctioneer, however, laid down his gavel and said, I'm sorry, the auction is closed. The crowd cried out in unbelief, closed?

What do you mean? The auctioneer stepped away from the podium as the estate's attorney stepped forward. He quieted the angry crowd and said, we called to conduct this auction knowing there was a secret stipulation in the will yet we were not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this very moment. Our instructions were that only the painting of the sun would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including all of its furnishings. The deceased owner wanted his entire estate to go to the person who cared enough about his son to want his portrait.

For the stipulation in the will had read, whoever chooses the son gets everything. From heaven's perspective, God has chosen us from our limited finite earthly perspective, we have chosen him, but the truth remains the one who chooses the son gets everything. There are those today among us, some who as the Bible says, are not mighty, are not well connected, or royal birthed. They are butlers and gardeners of the world who have slipped into the presence of the divine auctioneer and whispered, I have nothing to offer, but I desire the son. And to that one, Paul announces the rather stunning news in verse seven of Romans chapter one.

Look what else you get. You get grace and peace from God our Father. That's another way of saying you just inherited all that really matters in life, grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now in this opening sentence, Paul informs those who have chosen the person of the Son of God who is as he has already expressed fully God and fully man, equal to God the Father and God the Spirit, they have inherited everything of eternal value. They have become possessors of grace and peace. Paul writes grace to you. Now just what is this grace? For many people, one author wrote, grace is just something they say before a meal. Let's say grace. For others, grace is the word that they would use to express the bearing of some dignified person or perhaps the skill and fluid movements of a skater upon the ice. Oh, look at that grace.

Certainly the word has a broad spectrum of meaning. In the Old and New Testament, the meaning fundamentally referred to the bestowing of kindness to the undeserved and the Old Testament is the Hebrew word ken or chesed, translated often in your Old Testament kindness. In the New Testament, the primary word translated grace is charis. Dr. Snath defined grace as kindness shown by a superior to an inferior. When there is no obligation on the part of the superior to show it, it means to condescend in favor to bend or stoop. Donald Barnhouse wrote it this way, love that goes upward is worship.

Love that goes outward is affection. Love that stoops is grace. There probably isn't a more developed illustration of stooping and bestowing grace to someone undeserving than in the Book of Second Samuel, where David is now ascended the throne. Saul and Jonathan, his son and David's best of friends have been killed by the Philistines.

You probably remember the story. A few years into his reign, as he becomes established, David has an idea and it is shocking to his world. He calls those in his court and he asks them, is there anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I might show chesed, to whom I might show grace? Finally they find an old servant of Saul's named Ziba and David calls Ziba in before him and he says to him, is there anyone of the house of Saul to whom I might show the grace of God?

And Ziba says, well, the only one surviving is a young man who is the son of Jonathan. But when he was very little, in fact, as a five year old, his nurse picked him up and fled when Saul and Jonathan were killed. But you ought to know, King, that when they fled, they accidentally dropped him and his legs evidently were broken and they weren't amended properly, perhaps in their hiding.

They were afraid to call a physician. And so he is now crippled and both of his feet. What good would he be to you, King? David said, call him. And when Bephibosheth, now a young man, came into the presence of David, he fell on his face, expecting the worst. And David said in verse seven of Second Samuel nine, do not be afraid, for I will surely show grace to you on behalf of your father, Jonathan. What an incredible demonstration of grace.

What better illustration of what we as children of God have received from God on behalf of Christ. One author so wonderfully captured the analogy that I'll just read them to you between David and Bephibosheth and God toward us. When disaster struck, fear came and Bephibosheth suffered a fall that crippled him. Similarly, when sin came, humanity suffered a fall, which has left us permanently crippled out of love for his friend, Jonathan. David sought out anyone to whom he might extend his grace.

So also God the father, because of his love for his son, seeks those to whom he might extend his grace. The crippled man was destitute and undeserving. All that he could do was accept the king's favor.

So also we sinners are undeserving of God's grace and all we can do is accept his favor. The king took crippled Bephibosheth from a barren wasteland where he had been living. The name of the place where he was living was Lodabar, which means no pasture.

It was barren. So God has also rescued us from our own wasteland of sin and seated us in the place of spiritual nourishment and intimacy. Bephibosheth's limp was a constant reminder of David's grace. So also our feebleness keeps us from ever forgetting that where sin abounds, grace abounds that much more. When Bephibosheth was invited to sit at the king's table and eat, he was treated with the same respect and given the same privileges as David's own sons. And when we one day attend the great wedding feast of the lamb, the same will be true for us as well. We will sit with prophets and priests, apostles and evangelists, pastors and missionaries.

We will dine with everyone from the apostle Peter to Corrie ten Boom, and we will be there with them all because that same tablecloth of grace covers all our crippled feet. One anonymous author created an acrostic to define grace. He said grace is God's riches at Christ's expense.

That nearly says it all. It's another way of saying when you have the son, you inherit everything. When Paul wrote in Romans chapter one, verse seven, grace to you, I believe he was referring to the overall benefits of this work of grace in the life of the believer. But there are several different kinds of grace that I want to distinguish in our study today. Theologians refer to one as common grace. Common grace is that grace which affects all of mankind.

It is universally felt and experienced and benefited from God. Common grace restrains the total expression of sin, and it imposes moral constraint upon people's behavior. Without his common grace, they would run wild, as it were. Common grace enforces a sense of right and wrong through conscience and civil government. Common grace allows unbelievers the ability to appreciate beauty and goodness and allows them the ability to laugh and to enjoy to some measure life itself. That is common grace.

But there is secondly special or efficacious or saving grace. This grace saves. This grace sanctifies. This grace brings the soul to glory. Christ used the word grace as he inspired in his apostle that entire orb or all the work of saving faith. When he chose that word to say, for by grace you have been saved, Ephesians 2.8.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus. Special saving grace is effectual in the life of calling one to the side of Christ. It is a word that holds within it the sum and substance of the gospel truth. The gospel truth is summarized in. It is revealed by the word grace.

Finally, there is another kind that is cheap grace. This is a term coined by a pastor many years ago by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a Lutheran pastor in Germany who was hanged in 1945 by SS guards as he resisted Hitler and spoke out against him.

Much of Bonhoeffer's mystical teaching is rightly rejected by the evangelical church. However, he made a wonderful contribution by warning the church of the pull of secularization or the pull of worldly standard. He wrote this, as he coined the term, cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, communion without requiring confession, baptism without discipline. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross. In such a church, the world finds a cheap covering for its sins. No contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Let the Christian live like the rest of the world. Let him model himself on the world's standards in every sphere of life and never aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin. Another author commenting on Bonhoeffer's words said this, cheap grace then is a supernatural get out of jail free ticket.

No strings attached, open ended package of amnesty, indulgence, forbearance, leniency, immunity, approval, tolerance and self awarded privilege divorced from any moral holy demands. See, these are the pseudo Christians that Peter warned when he wrote, do not use your freedom as a cloak for evil. In other words, they talk about their freedom in Christ, then they excuse their sin. They talk about grace, but then they hide behind the facade of grace to continue to live in sin and compromise as we'll see in a moment. Grace is not given to the true believer so that you can somehow hide from sin, but so that you can pursue holiness and purity.

It was not given so that you would have fire insurance from hell and then live as if you belong there. It was to enable you to pursue the holy affection for Christ and his character. This is saving grace. How do you know if you have the genuine item? How do you know if you have true grace?

Let me give you six ways quickly. Number one, grace enables a true believer to suffer with contentment. Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers in second Corinthians twelve, seven to 10 because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation for this reason to keep me from exalting myself. There was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me to keep me from exalting myself.

Concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for power is perfected and weakness most gladly. Therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with suffering, with weakness, with insult, with distress, with persecution for Christ's sake.

For when I am weak, then I am strong. In other words, the believer who is allowing the grace of God to permeate and envelop their lives and hearts will content themselves to the sovereignty of God who may at some point bring suffering and difficulty and trial. It is God's grace that empowers the suffering believer to remain submissive and open to the work of a sovereign God.

And maybe you're like me, you've gone into a hospital room at some point in time. So you've had a meeting with a believer and you went in thinking that you were there to encourage them. But you left so convicted and so humbled and so encouraged by their demeanor of grace and their trust in their sovereign Lord.

So you have seen grace at work in the life of a believer that allows them to suffer with contentment. Secondly, grace enables you to speak with clarity. Paul wrote to the Colossians, conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace as those seasoned with salt so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

Colossians 4 6. What is it in the life of the believer that enables him or her to speak with clarity, to speak with graciousness to those who are on the outside looking in and certainly those who are on the inside? What is it in the life of a person that allows us it is grace and just as you would pass the salt, he uses the analogy here, so you would pass the grace, you would pass the salt and sprinkle it on your food, you would pass the grace as it were and sprinkle it on your tongue so that your words would be words of grace and tactfulness. Tactfulness, by the way, is a work of grace.

Somebody said that tact is making someone feel at home when you really wish they were. Gracious, tact and verbal diplomacy is the work of grace in your heart and life. Third, grace enables us to stand with conviction. Romans 5 1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.

Another verse that refers to our doctrinal standing is Hebrews 13 9. Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace. We not only have doctrinal standing by grace, but Paul wrote in Titus 2 11, listen, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desire and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in this present age. You see, many today would say that grace enables them to live in sin.

You know, don't worry about that, man. Just remember grace. The Bible reveals that true grace in the life of a genuine believer enables that man or woman not to live in sin, but to live without sin, to hate sin, not embrace sin, to be convicted by sin, not to manage sin. That is the work of grace. It allows you to stand with both moral and theological conviction. Another one grace enables us to surrender with compliance.

James wrote in Chapter four, verse six. God is opposed to the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Peter wrote, All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble that is those who submit to his lordship, his sovereignty, his control over all. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you at the proper time. First Peter five five surrendering to the will and the plan of God with contrition and with humility is the result of the inworking of true grace. Total surrender to him. Total surrender, ladies and gentlemen, is all but a forgotten concept today in the church.

We don't hear any more people surrendering to God, totally surrendering to his will. I like the little story of the chicken and the pig who both lived on the same farm. One day the farmer walked into the barnyard and told all the animals the family wanted ham and eggs for breakfast and he volunteers. The chicken nudged the pig and said, Hey, let's volunteer. The pig said, No, listen, what they want from you is a little contribution from me.

They want total commitment. The truth is the evidence that grace is at work in the heart of a believer is revealed in something more than a little contribution. A total surrender. There is perhaps no more clear surrender seen anywhere else than in what you do with your money. That's why grace, interestingly enough, enables us to sacrifice next with celebration. Paul actually referred to the act of giving as an act of grace. He called the entire act of investment stewardship a work of grace. And Paul reminded the Corinthians each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every good deed.

Second Corinthians nine, seven and eight. Giving is the result, then, of God's gracious work in your life. And when you know it is the work of grace, that is revealed in the fact that you know you're giving with thanksgiving and joy. Paul wrote here, God loves a cheerful giver. The word cheerful is the Greek word hilarion from which we get our transliterated word hilarious. God loves hilarious givers.

Imagine that. The offering time in the local church should be the most hilarious moment of the service, interrupted periodically by sheer laughter. Well, I'm being facetious, but the point is, if you're not thrilled with giving, if there isn't joy in your heart and giving, that is a revelation that true grace is not at work in your life. And I would encourage you, don't give. We'll make it.

We won't fold without it. Don't give until you understand the work of grace in your heart produces the desire to get involved in this gracious work of giving. So grace enables the true believer to suffer with contentment, to speak with clarity, to stand with conviction, to surrender with compliance and to sacrifice with celebration.

And finally, grace enables us to serve with confidence. Do you think of the apostle Paul as somebody, if anybody had it, he had it all together? Do you think that he was surely the one person who knew his skill set, who knew his abilities, who knew his background, who knew what he had to do and had the ability to serve God? Well, I want you to listen as you reveals to his friends in Corinth how he really feels. And last of all, as to one untimely born, Jesus Christ appeared to me also, for I am the least of the apostles and not fit to be called an apostle.

Did you catch that? I'm not fit to be called an apostle. By the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them. Yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

Do you get the point? He specifically repeats the word grace. I am what I am by the grace of God and I am serving by grace given to me for God. You ever feel that you're not fit for the role you're in? You think you don't have what it takes?

Well, guess what? You don't. But the grace of God equips you and enables you and empowers you to fulfill whatever task it is and where you find yourself at work. So stop hesitating or running from it.

The truth is it is too big for you. You can't accomplish that post of service. You will never be able to stand for God on that campus. You will never be able to stand with conviction theologically and morally. You will not be able to suffer with contentment.

You don't know how to speak with clarity and how to respond with graciousness. You can't do it unless you have chosen the Son and received from him this grace and then you discover I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Grace to you. Paul wrote centuries ago to them and to us. You've chosen the Son and when you chose the Son, you got everything.

That was Stephen Davey and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Today's message is called Empowered by Grace. We'd love to hear from you. Has our teaching ministry helped your spiritual journey? Do you have a story or testimony to share about how these daily lessons are helping you walk wisely?

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