Good morning.
Let me give you a little background about this morning before we get started. I was asked to go to Columbus, Ohio, to meet with Indian believers. Now, people always, for some reason, ask me to clarify that: are they Native Indians or Indian Indians? I do not know that it matters that much, but they are India Indians.
They are believers, and they love—and have a very strong practice of—bringing in the new year. I think that is a very good thing. They are serious about it, and time does not matter to them. We met there at 10 p.m. last Wednesday night and went until about 2:30 in the morning. I spoke. I told them it was the latest—and then I corrected myself—the earliest I have ever spoken, from one until after two in the morning. But the Lord was gracious.
They wanted to hear the church’s promise for 2015. They gave me a particular subject, because we could think of many promises. The promises of God are endless, thousands upon thousands. But the particular subject they asked me to share on was grace.
So, after sharing there, it seemed appropriate, with my time coming up, to share some of those things here with you. I hope you do not think you are getting a worked-over message, but I hope you take it in the same light. They actually go through the year reminding each other of those promises. What a good habit to get into.
You know, I think often we remind each other of all kinds of things: “Oh, my hip, it is aching so bad. You remember my hip.” That is what Linda said this morning. But what if we reminded each other throughout the year of those great and precious promises of God?
I suppose if some of you called me in the evening after a long day and said, “Brother, I have got something for you. It is not my car broken down. It is not the heater and problem. But it is a promise—a divine promise in the Word of God.” Think about it. How we would help one another going through this year of 2015.
If we could, first of all, hear the promises; second, lay hold of the promises; third, appropriate the promises; and fourth—and this is not my outline, by the way, in case you thought it was—remind each other of the promises of God, what a year it would be.
I will read the verses they gave me, and then we will see how we do. John 1 is very familiar:
And the Word became flesh,
And dwelt among us,
And we have contemplated His glory,
A glory as of an only begotten with the Father,
Full of grace and truth.
Now go down to John 1:16–17:
For of His fullness we have all received,
And grace upon grace.
For the law was given by Moses;
Grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ.
Another passage given to me was 2 Corinthians 12, this exceeding great promise given to the apostle Paul himself. We will begin at verse 7 and read into verse 9:
And that I might not be exalted by the exceeding greatness of the revelations,
There has been given to me a thorn for the flesh,
A messenger of Satan,
That he might buffet me,
That I might not be exalted.
For this I thrice besought the Lord,
That it might depart from me.
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
Finally, from the Old Testament, Psalm 84:11:
For the Lord God is a sun and shield:
The Lord will give grace and glory;
No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.
Lord, we always realize our dependence when we come to You concerning Your Word. We always think of what Peter said that day when so many turned back, when so many were offended. You said, “Will ye also go away?” And he rose to the occasion and said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life.”
Your words are spirit and life. So, Lord, we ask You to speak today. We are together in Your presence. We had the privilege to remember You at Your table, but above all, we want to hear You. We want You to speak to us. We want to hear of Your promises, and we want to delight in that so great provision.
So we commit all these things that will be shared and remembered this morning to You, and ask You to breathe on them, precious Lord, by Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ precious name, amen.
Well, today we will share on just three overall things. Some people like to know the outline in the beginning because they get confused by the speaker. You might find that hard to believe, but we can be very confusing people. Sometimes we do not know what we are saying. So I will give you the outline, and maybe, in a way, as we meander through the subject, you will know what we were talking about.
First, grace is our beginning and grace is our end. Remember that: it is a promise.
Second, grace is all-sufficient for every situation. Remember that.
Third, grace is the inexhaustible gift of God. You cannot wear it out. You cannot use it up. You cannot deplete it. It is the inexhaustible gift of God.
That is where we are going, and we will try to stay within our time constraints. They put this bloody clock right up in front of you to remind you that you are limited. Pardon me for using that word; you British know what that word means. But it is a curse sometimes. May the Lord help.
The Indian believers did not have that problem. They could go all night. When I got back from that meeting, Mac told me that Chinese brothers and sisters, where he was in Portland, went until five in the morning. Perhaps we Westerners are a bit too time-sensitive. Maybe we need to be a little more eternal and timeless. It would help us as we start this new year.
When I begin to think of the promises of God, there are a few impressions that automatically and always seem to come to me. I think it would be good, as we talk about the promises of God, to talk about those impressions. They are the basis, the encouragement, and the reason we can believe what we believe—and believe it with strong encouragement, as the Word of God says.
Turn to Hebrews 6:13–16. Notice the context:
For God, having promised to Abraham,
Since He had no greater to swear by, swore by Himself,
Saying, “Surely blessing I will bless thee,
And multiplying I will multiply thee.”
And thus, having long patience, he obtained the promise.
For men indeed swear by a greater;
And with them the oath is a term to all dispute, as making matters sure.
When we come to these promises, when we come to the promise of God to His church, the first impression—the bedrock impression—I want to hit you with is this: God is the One who promises. Think of it. It is not me promising. It is not you promising. It is not your mother promising—though you always believe your mother’s promises. It is God who promises.
That is a very vital thing we must remember. Who is the promise maker? As I get older, I drift back to growing up quite a lot. I used to say that I lived in the woods. That did not mean I literally lived in the woods. It meant I played all day in the woods. I actually had a house, though my manners may not betray it.
I played army in the woods all day long. I do not know if they play army anymore, but we would play army. There was a fellow I played army with whose father was in the army. He made me a substantial promise. There could not have been a better promise for me.
He said, “My father is coming on Wednesday, and he will bring you real military stuff—helmets and uniforms.” I could not have been more excited. He said, “We will put that stuff right here by the back fence, by the woods, so you can come early in the morning. You will find all of that neat military stuff so you can continue to play army in the woods.”
I remember waking up so early, going to that fence, and there was no military stuff. I grew up that day. I realized that everybody who promises is not faithful.
But God is faithful. The One who promises is God Himself. It is not my buddy over the fence. It is not anybody you know. To the church, the One who makes the promises is God Himself. How we could encourage one another with that throughout this year, in rough spots and difficult times: “Do you know who the promise maker is? He is the promise maker.”
He is the One who promised to Abraham, and He is the One who promises to us. It is not man; it is God Himself. His promises are unfailing and sure. That is really a deep impression I have.
In addition to that, Hebrews says He swore by an oath. Why did God do that? He is God; He does not need to swear by an oath. As a matter of fact, He forbids men to swear by an oath.
Look at Matthew 5:33–37, the Sermon on the Mount:
Again, ye have heard that it hath been said to them of old time,
Thou shalt not forswear thyself,
But shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
But I say unto you, Swear not at all;
Neither by heaven; for it is the throne of God:
Nor by the earth; for it is His footstool:
Nor by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
Neither shalt thou swear by thy head,
Because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay:
For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
Now get the context with Hebrews 6. This One who demands of man, “Thou shalt not swear,” Himself swears by an oath: “Blessing I will bless you.” Think of that, brothers and sisters. Get hold of that. This promise maker, who bids men not to swear, Himself swears. Is that not grand? This is how sure His promise is.
Look again at Hebrews 6:17–20:
Wherein God, willing to show more abundantly unto the heirs of promise
The unchangeableness of His counsel,
Interposed with an oath:
That by two unchangeable things,
In which it is impossible for God to lie,
We may have strong encouragement,
Who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.
This is the second impression I have: there are two unchangeable things—the unchangeableness of His purpose and the intervention of an oath. We know one another. I think sometimes daily my purpose changes, but His purpose never changes.
What He has promised is sure—more sure than anything—because He is the One who promised it. He has an unchangeable purpose to sum up all things in the Lord Jesus, to use His church to be the fullness of Him that fills all in all, and in the end for us to be that bride that shares eternity with Him. What an unchangeable purpose.
Then there is the coup de grâce. That is French, and I hardly know English, so I will not tempt you with my French. But it is spelled grace. It means that blow of mercy. It is actually a battle term. It means to put someone out of their misery, to put them out of their suffering.
God is not interested in putting us out of our suffering, but this stroke of mercy says it is impossible for God to lie. Think of it. It is possible for me to lie. You may not think so. Most of you probably would not think I would tell a lie, but at least an exaggeration here and there. Linda will heave in laughter. Maybe a little white lie.
But it is impossible for God to lie. That is why we have strong encouragement. It was possible for my friend to lie; it is impossible for God to lie. I even think Brenda could tell a lie—sweet little Brenda.
This promise maker is the promise keeper. You remember a few years ago when that movement started and filled sports stadiums with men making promises they would keep to God. I do not want to disparage that. I believe many men were brought into the kingdom through that movement. But I am amazed at how quickly that movement went off the radar screen.
I think there is a reason. The focus was on the promise keepers instead of the promise keeper. Do you understand? As we go into this new year, our focus is not on us as the promise keeper. You will be sorely disappointed. Your focus must be on Him as the promise keeper. That is what Hebrews is saying.
Consider 2 Timothy 2:13:
If we are unfaithful,
He abideth faithful;
For He cannot deny Himself.
What comfort. What a promise. He is the promise keeper.
A third impression I have is from 2 Peter 1:3–4. I will read it from the Authorized Version:
According as His divine power hath given unto us all things
That pertain unto life and godliness,
Through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises:
That by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,
Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Brothers and sisters, not only is He the promise maker and the promise keeper, but He is the provider of His divine power. Think of that promise. Do you really believe He expects you to live the Christian life by your own life? Surely you will be overwhelmed and discouraged.
He gives us His divine power, and in giving that divine power, everything you need that pertains to life and godliness. This is not a short list. It is a complete provision.
Then, on top of that—the icing on the cake, as we like to say here in the West—He gives us exceeding great and precious promises, that through these we may become partakers of the divine nature. Now, be careful with that verse. You will never be divine. Do not ever begin to think it. But it means fellowship, conformity, and being transformed, so that in the end, when we see Him, we are like Him, for we see Him as He is.
The fourth impression comes from 2 Corinthians 1:20:
For whatever promises of God there are,
In Him is the yea;
And in Him the amen;
For glory to God by us.
Think of it. In Him is the yes. In Him is the amen. We tend to be so negative. We think, “Well, maybe,” or “No.” If you are a real melancholic, like some people I know, you are always thinking, “No. Maybe. Not sure.”
But here is what it says about the promises of God: all the promises of God in Him are yes and amen. Brothers and sisters, to me that is an exceeding great thing.
He is the promise maker. He is the promise keeper. He is the One who provides His own power. He is the divine power and the source of exceeding great and precious promises. In summary, all the promises in Him are yes and amen.
Think of the promise the Lord Jesus gave His church in Matthew 16:18. It is the ultimate promise:
Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church;
And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Peter was a stone, not the Rock. Upon this Rock—meaning the Lord Himself and this divine revelation of all that He is—He said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” That is the ultimate promise of God. It will not prevail. Even the worst thing, the gates of hell, will not prevail.
The Lord also said that He would send the promise of the Father, repeated in the early part of Acts. It had to do with the Holy Spirit: “Wait for it until you receive this promise of the Father, power from on high.” The Holy Spirit is the steward to keep the promises of God. Is that not good news?
When I think of talking about promises, these are the impressions I have. No wonder the Word is full of strong encouragement, as Hebrews says. We ought to spend this year encouraging one another with God’s strong encouragement.
Now, I know you want me to get into the subject. Grace is our beginning and grace is our end. Do you know grace is your beginning? Ephesians 2:4–8 says that you are saved by grace, and not of yourself; it is the gift of God. Grace was your starting place.
Brothers and sisters, grace will be your ending place. That is one thing we need to know. John 1:16–17 says:
For of His fullness we have all received,
And grace upon grace.
For the law was given by Moses;
Grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ.
Of all His fullness, we have received grace upon grace. Is there any limitation you can think of in His fullness? Think of Colossians: in Him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and ye are complete in Him. Of all that fullness, we have received grace upon grace.
Even John 1:14 says:
And the Word became flesh,
And dwelt among us,
And we have contemplated His glory,
As of the only begotten with the Father,
Full of grace and truth.
That is what we behold when we see Him: full of grace and truth. This is the beginning for every believer. We start with grace. It is our Alpha, but it is also our Omega, because we will end in grace. It is grace upon grace, nothing limited.
These remarkable verses make a distinction in our beginning. They speak of the ending of one thing, the old covenant: the law came by Moses. Grace and truth subsist through Jesus Christ—the beginning of a new thing, a whole new economy.
When you think of the law, I think there are two words in the Bible that describe the law. What are those words? Think of Exodus 20. The two words are: thou shalt.
The whole old economy in Moses is summed up in those two words: thou shalt. Everything—the whole burden in the old economy—is upon your head. Thou shalt do this. Thou shalt do that. Thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not do that. It is an unyielding rule.
Listen to James 2:10:
For whosoever shall keep the whole law,
And yet offend in one point,
He is guilty of all.
What an unyielding rule. You mean to tell me, if I am 99 percent correct and one percent wrong, I am guilty of the whole law? That is the unyielding rule of the old economy.
Do you want to live in the old economy? I am amazed at Gentile believers who like to call themselves Messianic and like to go back and live by all the law, they say. I am all right if you are a Jew and you want to do that; James did that. But for a Gentile to go back to the old economy and put himself under this unyielding rule seems to me to be crazy at best. Forgive me for my strong words.
We are people of a new economy, a new beginning. In that new beginning is grace upon grace. There must be an equivalency in the words. If there are two words in the Old Testament describing the law given through Moses, there must be two words that describe this new beginning and this new economy we have in Christ Jesus.
The two words are: I will. This is the new economy, brothers and sisters. This is grace upon grace. When you read Jeremiah 31:31–34, the prophet gives that great prophecy of the new covenant to come. Six times it says, “I will do this. I will do that. I will remember your sins no more.”
That is the new economy of grace. Where would you rather live: “Thou shalt,” or “I will”? This is our beginning. It seems to me to be the most extraordinary contrast in the whole of the Bible: thou shalt and I will.
Galatians 3:18 says:
For if the inheritance be of the law,
It is no more of promise:
But God gave it to Abraham by promise.
The second thing about this grace, which is our new beginning, is that grace is not a thing; it is a person. I think we think of grace as a thing: “Just a little bit more grace. Just a little grace to give me, Lord.” Brothers and sisters, I am one of you. I cannot tell you the number of mornings I have gotten up and said, “Lord, give me a little grace to get through today.”
He must be sitting up there saying, “Do you remember the verse? Full of grace and truth? Of His fullness you have received?” Do you remember the verse?
I remember growing up—there I go reflecting back again—when neighbors knew each other and talked to each other. It was a strange period, this Ozzie and Harriet period. In those days, we did not have stores open on Sundays. There were Blue Laws, and stores were not open.
You would always run out of things. I remember Mom saying, “Go next door and ask so-and-so for a cup of sugar.” I hated that, absolutely hated that. “Mr. Jones, Mom asked for a little cup of sugar just to get us through the day, because the stores are closed, and we do not have it, and I will not get that piece of cake.” I hated it.
But do we not do that with the Lord? “Lord, give me a cup of sugar. Give me a little bit.” What He says to you is, “I have given you My all—full of grace and truth, grace upon grace, unlimited provision. All is made available to you.”
It subsists in the Lord Jesus Christ. Darby caught this thought of “subsists” in a very good and thorough way in his notes. He said it means “has come,” “began to be,” that which had not actually been before now begins to be so.
Grace and truth coming into being is in the person of the Lord Jesus. It subsists in Him. Dear brothers and sisters, everything has been made available to us in the Lord Jesus. There is no limitation from God. That is what the new covenant is.
What a difference. What a mighty difference. Our beginning is grace. Grace is not a thing; grace is a person. He is the fullest provision of that grace. As 2 Corinthians 9:15 says, He is that unspeakable free gift: the Lord Jesus, grace upon grace.
Grace means to endue with divine favor. That is what it means. In the Old Testament, wherever grace occurs, almost always it speaks about finding favor in someone’s eyes—either with God or with man.
Do you remember the first occurrence of grace? Noah. Noah found grace in His sight. Think also of Moses. God Himself said to Moses, “You have found grace in My sight. I know you by name.”
Moses turned that into a prayer. That is a good thing to do. If God tells you something in a promise, turn it into a prayer. If God says something in a promise, turn it into a prayer.
Moses said:
If I have found favor in Thy sight,
Make me to know Thy ways,
That I may know Thee,
That I may find grace in Thine eyes.
That is tremendous. He could have said, “Give me a million dollars,” though that would not last too long today. But he said, “Make me to know You.” Then he did not think of himself; he thought of the people:
Consider that this nation is Thy people.
I read every verse about grace, Old and New. It took me quite a while. Over and over, I saw this phrase. In the old covenant, it was always finding grace in someone’s eyes. Think of Jacob with Esau. He was afraid Esau would squash him like a bug. Yet he found grace in Esau’s eyes.
Think of Rahab the harlot. When Jericho was condemned, this one found grace in His eyes. But all these pale in comparison to the grace we have found in God’s eyes in the New Testament.
Ephesians says we have been brought into favor in the Beloved. You have been placed in Christ Jesus. You now have ultimate grace because you have been brought into favor in the Beloved. You are in a place of ultimate favor with God.
Grace is not only our beginning; grace is our end. Look at the final verse of the Bible, Revelation 22:21:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints. Amen.
We began in the Gospel of John with grace without measure, grace upon grace. That is our beginning. But when you come to the end of the New Testament, it is grace again: “The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all.”
So I put two and two together. It is grace in the beginning, and it is grace at the end. Everywhere in between, for the believer, the promise is grace upon grace, all through, all along the way.
The Scottish Puritan George Hutcheson explained it this way: it is grace upon grace—grace after grace, and more grace because we have already been given grace. It is unlimited grace, unlimited favor. It is not merely that you have favor at a moment in time, as they did in the Old Testament; you have been brought into favor in the Beloved.
The apostle Paul was so overwhelmed with this idea of grace that he began and ended every one of his letters with grace. The man who wrote almost half of the New Testament—thirteen of the twenty-seven books—was so overwhelmed with grace upon grace that he began every one of his communications with grace and ended every one with grace.
Grace is our beginning, and grace is our end. May the Lord really transform us as He shows us this.
I think of the vision of Zechariah 4. Zechariah saw the golden lampstand, all of gold, with two olive trees feeding golden oil, and the light never went out. He asked, “What are these, my Lord?” The Lord did not answer him directly. He wanted to know what the olive trees and golden lampstand were, but the Lord told him about grace.
He said:
Not by might, nor by power,
But by My Spirit, saith the Lord.
Then He went on to say that when the capstone, or top stone, is put in place, there will be shouts of:
Grace, grace unto it.
In the end, we will have many things to shout about. But I believe the chief thing we will shout about is grace. It will be like John Newton’s hymn:
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
Grace is our beginning, and grace is our end.
Not only that: grace is sufficient for every situation. We read 2 Corinthians 12:7–9. Paul had been given exceeding great revelations. Paul had been caught up to the third heaven. Think of that. If anybody in this room were caught up to the first heaven, or maybe the second heaven, much less the third heaven, everyone would know it in this room. It would be your testimony to your dying day.
But God had something greater in revelation to show him. So that Paul might not be exalted by the exceeding greatness of his revelation, he was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to buffet his body. Then the word came to him: “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
Brothers and sisters, this was the exceeding great revelation to the apostle Paul and to every one of us as believers in Christ Jesus. There is not anything in life—there is not anything you can face, will face, or have faced—that His grace is not sufficient for.
That is a promise to hold on to. God thought so much of this promise that He did not send an angel. You might think, after all the visions and after catching Paul up to the third heaven, that He would send an angel and say, “God says to you, the apostle Paul, His grace is sufficient for thee.”
But these are the Lord’s words Himself. He did not send a messenger. He did not send an angel. If you look at grace in all the verses of the New Testament, this is the only time the Lord Himself mentioned the word grace. He uttered to this one, the apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
This one went through deep sufferings. Read 2 Corinthians 11. He is the absolute worst-case New Testament example of what suffering can do. Remember when he was called in Acts 9? The Lord said, “I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.”
Read that list in 2 Corinthians 11. It is overwhelming. Five times, Paul received forty stripes less one. We often say thirty-nine stripes, but the wording is “forty stripes less one.” The absolute penalty by the law was forty stripes. They were so afraid to exceed the law that they stopped one short.
Not only that, three times he was scourged. The Romans had a way with their scourging, with that cat-o’-nine-tails. They knew that forty lashes were what it took to bring a man to death. This man endured fastings often and perils often, all to learn the greatest lesson a believer can learn.
That great promise is this: My grace is sufficient for you in every situation. There is not one thing you can go through on this earth that His grace is not sufficient for you. It is absolutely sufficient in every situation.
There is suffering grace. There is living grace. Often we do not take it. There is dying grace. When we get to the end of this short life, brothers and sisters, this is the Word. This is the promise.
He takes this worst-case scenario, this man who would suffer so greatly for His name, and says, “I will prove to you how great My promises are through this worst-case situation: My grace is sufficient for thee.”
The last point is that grace is the inexhaustible gift of God. We read Psalm 84. It is a famous psalm:
How amiable are Thy tabernacles,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord:
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
You know Psalm 84:10, how this one would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Then it makes this remarkable promise at the end of the psalm:
For the Lord God is a sun and shield:
The Lord will give grace and glory:
No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.
Grace is the inexhaustible gift. I read recently of a fellow in London who saw a sign that said, “Limited Capital.” That means there is only a certain amount, and then there is no more.
But the grace of God—the promise to us as the church—is the inexhaustible gift of God. You cannot wear it out. You cannot use it up, like you have so many punches on your pizza card and you go in and discover you are out. You cannot outdo God or exhaust His grace in any manner.
The only thing I remember from Economics 101 or 102—Linda will correct me—is that economics is the study of how nations deal with limited resources. Brothers and sisters, what we are handling in the promise of God is unlimited resources, inexhaustible riches.
When the apostle Paul wrote Ephesians, he spoke of the unsearchable riches of the grace of God. They are unsearchable. How tremendous they are. They are unlimited. They are inexhaustible.
Ephesians 1:7 says:
In whom we have redemption through His blood,
The forgiveness of offences,
According to the riches of His grace.
Ephesians 2:4–8 speaks of the surpassing riches of His grace. You cannot exhaust them, try as you might. You may think, “I have asked God too many times. He is finally going to say no.” But when it comes to the grace of God, there is never a no.
Grace is the inexhaustible, the inexhaustible gift of God.
But then Psalm 84 speaks about glory. You would think grace would be enough, would you not? You think, “Grace—that is enough.” But He gives grace and glory. Can you imagine?
Jim spoke of Hebrews 2:10. His whole mission is to bring many sons to glory—many sons to glory. That is what He is doing. How do you describe glory and grace? D. L. Moody said:
There is not such a great difference between grace and glory.
Grace is the bud,
And glory is the blossom.
Grace is glory begun,
And glory is grace perfected.
Do you understand that? In the end, brothers and sisters, not only are we promised the inexhaustible gift of His grace, but in the end He brings us to glory—many sons to glory.
It is almost too much to take in. I believe when we are standing in the presence of the Almighty, once and for all with unveiled face, there will be two words that roll from our lips. We will utter with tears in our eyes, “Grace. Grace brought me.” And we will utter with amazement in our eyes, “Glory.”
For the first time, you will understand what glory is when you see Him face to face.
This is the promise. Second Corinthians 9:8 says:
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you;
That ye, always having all sufficiency in all things,
May abound to every good work.
Grace is our beginning, and grace is our end. May we discover the promise that grace is all-sufficient for every situation. May we discover the inexhaustible grace of God, His promise that will result in glory.
Now let me mention a few verses. I am afraid that even though my time is spent, sometimes we like to say, “Grace, grace,” and take the strong encouragement, but there are also strong warnings in the Word of God about grace.
We must not be those who set aside the grace of God. Galatians 2:21 says that we can set aside the grace of God. That is a warning.
We must not be those who have fallen from grace. Galatians 5:4 says we can be those who fall from grace. That is another warning.
We must not be those who receive the grace of God in vain. What a warning. Second Corinthians 6:1 speaks of receiving the grace of God in vain.
We must not be those who have insulted the Spirit of grace. Can you believe it? As believers, we can actually insult the Spirit of grace.
You may say, “Rubbish. It does not apply to me.” But Ephesians 4:7 says clearly, not just to Paul but to each of us:
But unto each one of us was the grace given
According to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Finally, we must not be those who lack the grace of God. We would not want to say at the end, “I did not have sufficient grace. My home life was so bad—not mine; mine is delightful. My work life was so oppressive. The things I endured were so unbelievable. There was not grace for me.”
We would not be those who lack the grace of God. These are warnings. When we think of the encouragement, let us also think about the strong warnings.
Hebrews is a good book for that. The encouragement is, “Let us lay hold of the promises of the grace of God.” The warning in Hebrews is, “Lest any of you fall short of the grace of God.” Lest any of you lack the grace of God. This is God’s Word.
Brothers and sisters, there is grace for us. That is the promise: all-sufficient grace, grace in the person of the Lord Jesus, the fullness of grace and truth. May we this year appropriate that as our promise.
Lord, we know there is a lot in this subject. Forgive us, Lord, for all the things we did not cover or covered inadequately. We ask that Your Holy Spirit breathe upon what was of You, to leave a deep impression in our spirit of the promises.
The promises are beyond seeing, beyond anything we could imagine, yet they are all true. All are yes. All are amen in Christ Jesus. They are exceeding great and precious. They are You Yourself.
You are the promise maker. You are the promise keeper. You give the divine power. There is nothing that lacks. We ask You to write those things upon our hearts, that we need to hold this year as we walk with You. Cause us to rejoice in the surpassing riches of Your grace in Christ Jesus.
For we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.