0:18 We continue our study in the missing messages in today's Christianity. And I want to speak today about the grace of God. Beginning with John 1 verse1 17 which says the law was given through Moses but 0:37 grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ and grace leads to truth. When we speak about truth in the New Testament, it's not speaking about truth as opposed 0:55 to lie as we understand it or truth of scripture alone. It includes that, but it means reality. The opposite of truth is lie. So, it's speaking about living a lie and living the truth. You know what it means to 1:15 live a lie? To live a lie means to appear to be one thing on the outside but something completely different inside. You know in the book of proverbs it speaks about people who smile at you and want to shake your hands but they 1:29 got daggers in their heart against you. There lots of people in the world like that. That's living a lie. So the truth it spoke speaks of here is living the truth. Not just speaking the truth but living the truth. When Ananas and Safh 1:44 without opening their mouth, they told a lie and they were killed. This is the first sin for which God judged people in the early church. So the truth spoken of here is that type of truth which was not possible in the Old Testament. 2:01 Nobody could live truth in the Old Testament. Their inner life was much worse than their external life. And their external life became good because of the law. And those nations that did not have the ten commandments, their external life was also bad. But 2:19 because the Jewish people had the ten commandments, that external life was good. But the inner life was still corrupt. They never committed adultery on the outside, but they committed it all the time, every day on the inside. 2:34 They never killed people on the outside because of the ten commandments. They hated people on the inside. And Jesus came and said, "Now listen, sermon on the mount." He was lifting the standard the ten commandments higher and said, 2:47 "You have heard it said that you shall not commit. I say you shouldn't hate. You must come to truth now." Truth on the inside. You got to live the truth. You have heard that it said don't commit adultery. I say don't even lust in your 3:01 heart. You heard it said that when you swear, put your hand on the Bible and swear, you must speak the truth. I say speak the truth all the time. So that is what it means to live the truth where your inner life corresponds 3:12 with your outward life. And I want to say to all of you in the name of Jesus, you must never be satisfied till your inner life corresponds with your outward life. And determine it's a battle to keep that. Lord, I 3:30 never want to give people a pretense of being spiritual when I'm not spiritual. You don't have to confess your sins to everybody. No, you confess your sins only to God. But don't live a lie. Don't try to gain a reputation for humility by 3:48 acting humble. That's a lot of rubbish. Live a truth. Now do you know that even a prostitute can live the truth? You know what it means? Means to say I'm a prostitute. 4:06 Her outer life inner life is just exactly the same with the outward life. That is the beginning. It means being honest. You shouldn't stay there. But when the woman caught in adultery said, "Yeah, that's it. She was forgiven." What is 4:21 the difference between the two thieves on the cross? One was honest and said, "Yeah, I deserve this. I'm a criminal. Jesus said, "Sure, come to paradise." The other thief said, "Hey, I don't deserve this. Pull me down from the 4:32 cross. You go to hell." See, the world of difference between loving the truth about yourself and being honest about it and pretending that everything is okay. That lefthand thief went to hell only because he pretended that he was okay. 4:49 And if you pretend that you're okay, you're going to be in a very serious condition. be don't confess your sins in public, but don't pretend. Truth came through Jesus Christ. It was not possible under the old covenant. But 5:02 since most Christians live under the old covenant, they don't have truth in their lives. In other words, their outer life is far better than their inner life. And everyone sitting here, if your outer life is far better than your inner life, 5:15 you have not yet come into the truth that the New Testament speaks about. But you can come there. You can come there by honesty. Honesty requires humility. And the higher up you go spiritually in the eyes of others, for example, if 5:30 you're an elder brother, it's more difficult to be honest. I'll tell you that because you have to pretend that you're very spiritual because everybody considers you an elder. And that's why there are a lot of hypocrites among 5:41 elders. Even in the first century, many five out of the seven elders in Revelation 2 and three were outright hypocrites. How did they become like that? because they always kept preaching to others and never watched their own 5:52 life. So I think the person who just newly come to the church is very easy for him to be love the truth because he's got no reputation to maintain. He was just converted yesterday and he says I was a sinner. I've just come to the 6:05 church. He has no reputation to maintain. It's very easy for him to live the truth. But the more you live in the church, the more chances of your becoming a hypocrite till you become an elder. You can be the biggest hypocrite 6:16 of all unless you battle battle battle battle against lying in your spirit all the time. Grace is very closely connected to this truth in the sense that you cannot live this life without grace. Your inner life cannot correspond with 6:33 your outward life unless you have grace from God. Without grace from God, you will not be able to live with truth. That's why it says grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Nobody could have it in the Old Testament. Every single 6:47 person in the Old Testament, including John the Baptist, the greatest of all, their inner life was not as good as their external life. But now in the new covenant, we have the wonderful possibility that our inner life and 7:01 outer life can grow simultaneously. As we grow here, we grow here equal. That is the easiest way to grow spiritually. It's the only way. Anything less than that is a hypocrite. Your outer life is here, inner life is here, you're a 7:19 hypocrite. You got to bring that up to here and let it grow together. Don't ever try to give another person an impression about something about yourself which is not true. I sometimes go to homes and I ask the little children who are there, do you 7:37 fight with each other? And what do you think they say? Yes, I know that. I don't need to ask them to find out if they fight with each other. I just want to know if they're honest. And I tell you, almost every one of those children tell me yes. And I say 7:54 there's great hope for you. It's the parents who pretend that they don't fight. It's the children they they're fight. There's hope. The ones who pretend are the ones who have the biggest problems. Remember this in your Christian life. There's nothing wrong in 8:11 admitting failure. But when you pretend, you're in great danger because Jesus Christ came to bring truth. And truth means the complete absence of pretense. Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying you got to go and confess your sins publicly. 8:25 All I'm saying is don't pretend. Now I hope you understand the difference. And now grace is necessary to live this life of truth. If I want to live I know this is the crisis I had in my life. I had two crisises in my life. 8:40 One was when I wanted power and I sought the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And the other is when I wanted reality where I said, "God, I want my inner life to be exactly the same as my outer life. I don't want to pretend I don't want to 8:52 smile pretending I'm happy when I'm not happy inside. Of course, I don't want to make other people miserable. That's fine. But I don't want to pretend to have a joy which I don't have. I want a joy which is inward all the 9:04 time. Even if my outward expression can be heavy sometimes that joy inwardly should never go. So it's better that people think less of us because of what they see on the outside and our inner life is better than the other way around where people 9:19 think so highly of us and our inner life is pretty corrupt. The human tendency is to get people to think highly of us and our inner life is much worse. That's the way to hypocrisy. Hate that. Say Lord it's much better that they think less of me and my inner 9:33 life is much better. That's why Jesus said, "When you fast, don't let anybody know that you fasted. Let them think that you never fast, but fast. God will see." When you pray, let people think that you never pray, but you pray and God will see and he'll 9:47 reward you. When you give money for God's work or do something for the Lord or make some sacrifice, don't let anybody know. Let them think that you don't sacrifice at all. God who sees in secret will reward you. This is the New 9:59 Testament standard. And this is not possible without grace. So grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. There was no grace in the Old Testament. Now many many Christians have believed that grace means the unmmerited favor of God. In fact, the 10:16 Amplified Bible even uses that as an amplification, which is totally wrong. It's not the Bible is wrong. The amplified translation of it is wrong. Uh because that's what all Bible schools teach. I remember in one church in the 10:31 United States I was saying that grace is not the unmmerited favor of God and I explained it as I will in a moment and somebody came to me and said brother Zach you have with one sentence demolished what all the Bible schools 10:44 are teaching I said that's fine but you need to hear the truth of God's word unmmerited favor means I got a favor from God which I did not deserve is that grace if that is grace then All 6 billion people in the world get grace. 11:01 Can you tell me one person in the world who gets a favor from God which he deserves? No. Can you tell me one person in the world who doesn't get any favor from God? They get health, they get money, they get a house to live in, they get sun, 11:15 they get rain, they're getting favor from God and they don't deserve it. Then they're all getting grace. That's a deception. Grace is not the unmmerited favor of God. If you look at the Bible, there are two verses particularly that 11:29 tell us what grace is. And I'll show them to you. One is Hebrews 4 and:12. Whenever people don't study the Bible, they get all these crazy definitions which become very popular and which are never found in scripture. One of the 11:45 things I decided 47 years ago when I started studying the Bible was that I would never believe what another person taught me unless I found it in the Bible. in spiritual matters in Christian matters and that has protected me from all these 11:59 wrong definitions and wrong understandings and wrong doctrines all these years and I that's what I tell people myself don't believe what I say unless I can show it to you in the scriptures some things I'll tell you openly is my opinion but when it comes 12:12 to grace it's not my opinion there's not a single verse in the Bible which says that God's uh grace is God's unmmerited favor in the King James version you find verses like Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord in Genesis chapter 6. But 12:27 you go to the NASB, which translates more accurately, he found favor in the eyes of the Lord. A lot of people find favor in the eyes of the Lord, but that's not grace. Grace came only through Jesus Christ. Nobody had it in 12:40 the Old Testament, not even John the Baptist, because the spirit of grace was poured out only on the day of Pentecost. How could people get it inside? So grace, Hebrews 4 and verse 16 is grace is something that the last part of 12:55 that verse something that helps us in our time of need. That's why the Holy Spirit is called a helper. King James version says comforter. NSB in John 14 says a helper. Jesus said I'll pray and I'll send you another helper. The helper gives us help or in 13:14 other words he gives us grace. Grace for what? to help me in my time of need. And here it's talking about temptation in verse 15. We have a high priest who was tempted in all things as we are and he did not sin. Now let us go to the throne 13:31 of grace. So we also get the same help in our time of need. And I'll tell you what your time of need is when you're tempted. When you're tempted to lust, when you're tempted to get angry. When you're tempted to be bitter. When you're 13:41 tempted to be jealous. When you're tempted to live for yourself. to do your own will, not to die to yourself. You're tempted, tempted, tempted. You You know what? You need grace. In the time of need, you won't get it unless you go to 13:53 the throne of grace and ask for it. You don't have because you don't ask. It says, "Let us go boldly to the throne of grace where we receive mercy." Mercy is forgiveness for our past sins. Mercy and grace are not the same. A lot of 14:08 Christians think they are the same. Mercy is an Old Testament word. They had plenty of it in the Old Testament. Forgiveness for our past sins. Grace is help for the future. Mercy relates to the past. Grace relates to the future. 14:21 Mercy is was there in the old covenant too. Grace only in the new covenant. Grace is help to overcome my sinful nature. And mercy is forgiveness for the sins I've committed through my sinful nature in the past. Jesus never needed 14:38 mercy because he never sinned. Did he need grace? He certainly did. People are shocked when they hear that. You mean Jesus needed grace? Well, if you think grace is unmmerited favor, then of course he didn't need it. Cuz 14:56 everything Jesus got from God was merited. But grace is not unmmerited favor. And I'll show you from scripture how from birth to death, Jesus got grace. It's because people don't read the Bible carefully that they are ignorant. They are so ignorant that when 15:13 we preach from the Bible, they think we are preaching a wrong doctrine. One of the things that happened to me when I got baptized in the Holy Spirit was I got a new Bible. I got a new New Testament. Not new in the sense that it 15:24 was written by somebody else. The same Bible became living. My eyes got open to see a lot of things which I never saw before. So here it is. Let me show you this. First of all, in Luke chapter 2, when Jesus was born, one of the first things written about 15:42 him after he was born and he was dedicated in the temple is this. He came back from the temple. Verse 39, Luke 2:39. This is when he was a baby. They returned to Galilee to their own city of Nazareth, Joseph and Mary. 16:00 And the child Jesus, now read very carefully, this is the word of God, continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom. And the grace of God was upon him, which means he was under grace. 16:20 If grace is upon me, it means I am under grace. And Romans 6:14 says, when you're under grace, sin will not have dominion over you. Why did sin not have dominion over Jesus? Because he was under grace. Luke 2:40. This is when he was a child 16:37 all through his life. Now, let's go to the time when he died. Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews and chapter 2. The missing messages in Christendom. 16:55 Hebrews chapter 2. It says here in verse 9, we see him who was made for a little while lower than the angels. That is Jesus because of the suffering of death. The way in which Jesus was made lower than the angels is that he died. Angels don't 17:15 die. So when Jesus died, he was brought to a position lower than angels who don't die. He's now crowned with glory and honor. By the grace of God, he tasted death for us. How could he go to that death? By the 17:35 grace of God. What did he have as a child? The grace of God. So from birth to death, the thing that helped Jesus all through his life was grace. So he never sinned, never disobeyed the father even once. That's the meaning of 17:51 Hebrews 4:15. He was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin. And we connected with these other vers. And we see that was because of grace. And therefore it says we let's go. Now we can also go because he was like us. He 18:05 was tempted like us and he overcame by grace. Let us go to the throne of grace and say God my father give me the same grace that you gave to Jesus to overcome sin. Did Jesus overcome lust every single time. Did he overcome anger every 18:24 single time except when it concerned the glory of God? There was no question of overcoming that he had to be angry in the temple etc. But when it concerned himself never was he angry when people hurt him or called him names or anything 18:37 because he had grace. He was never offended. You know, I'm amazed that so many believers get angry, get offended, and they just take it for granted. Oh, well, we're supposed to live like that. Why? Because they look at other believers 18:49 around them who get offended, get angry, lust, and say, "That's normal." A lot of young people say, "Well, all young people do all these terrible things. They lust and they sin in so many ways. So, I suppose I'm normal." You're not 19:00 normal. Everybody's abnormal and you're abnormal like them. The normal Christian life is the way Jesus lived. And if you can say Jesus did that, that's normal. But if you lower the standard of normal to the standard of all the defeated 19:14 Christians around you, that's all you'll ever have. If you run the race looking at all the Christians around you, you'll run a defeated life all your life. I decided as a young man, I will not look at all the defeated Christians around me. I've 19:27 said to people in CFC, don't look at all the worldly sisters around you. Look at Jesus. Don't fashion your dress according to the dress fashions of all the worldly people. Don't criticize them. That's not your business. You're 19:40 not to judge them. You're not to criticize them. And you're not to imitate them. You're to look at Jesus. That's the way you're going to keep yourself pure from the world. If you don't follow Jesus, you're going to be worldly or you're going to be critical 19:54 and judgmental. Both are wrong. Some people avoid worldliness, but they become judgmental. I'll tell you one thing. To be judgmental and critical is 1 million times worse than being worldly. And many people who judge and criticize 20:08 others don't realize that when you see somebody who's worldly and you criticize and judge that person, you are one million times worse than that person in God's eyes. I don't know whether you know that. At least you'll know it 20:19 today. That's why I say I don't I don't want to be worldly like that person and I don't want to be judgmental of that person. That person is lives before God. It's none of my business. Maybe they don't have light. God's given me light 20:30 so I will not be like that. Make Jesus your example. That is the normal Christian life. And he lived by the grace of God. And I want to live by the grace of God. I want to overcome temptation the way Jesus overcame. And so we see here 20:46 I want to show you another verse in the book of Zechariah 12. There was a prophecy in the Old Testament. in Zechariah 12 was a prophecy of what God would do on the day of Pentecost. We know that on the day of Pentecost, he poured out his 21:04 spirit. And it's called here in Zechariah 12 and verse 10. I will pour out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the house of David, the spirit of grace and of supplication. That is a spirit 21:23 that makes us pray in dependence upon God for grace so that they will look upon me. So when the spirit of grace is poured upon us, we look at him whom we have pierced 21:41 with our sin. And I will mourn and I will not look at other worldly Christians and judge them. And I will not imitate other Christians and I will not attach myself to some preachers. I will look at Jesus and be connected to 21:59 him and I will mourn because I pierced him. Imagine if you live your Christian life like this that if you refuse to look at other worldly Christians, refuse to get attached to men of God and say, "Lord, I want to be connected to you. I want to 22:16 look at you whom I pierced by my sins and I want to mourn. Boy, can you imagine what your life will be like 6 months from now? It'll be absolutely unimaginable your spiritual growth. And that's why the devil's always going to turn you 22:33 away from looking under Jesus, make you look at that person, pass an opinion on that person, judge the other person, and destroy yourself. My dear brothers and sisters, I beseech you by the mercies of God, give up that habit. 22:51 Give it up. All you senior sisters who judge others, when will you give up this bad habit? You senior brothers who think that you know so much, when will you give up this habit and just look on him whom you have pierced? 23:08 Yeah. The spirit of grace is poured on such people more and more and more and more. And even in the early days, the apostle Peter when he wrote his letter, he had to use an expression called 1 Peter 5. 23:25 1 Peter 5 and verse 12, the last part. He says, "I have written to you briefly exhorting and testifying to you that this is the true grace of God." Now, when do you use need to use the 23:45 word true? Only where there's a counterfeit. If I give you a Indian Express newspaper, I don't have to say this is the true Indian Express newspaper because I've never seen a counterfeit Indian Express newspaper. Nobody wastes 23:59 time making counterfeit newspapers. But if I give you a 100 rupee note, I may have to say this is a genuine true 100 rupee note because people make counterfeits. So the need for Peter in the first century 35 years after 24:12 Pentecost to be able to say this is the true grace of God means even at that time there was a false grace. So false grace is not a 20th century phenomenon. It was there in the first century and the apostles had to fight it and to 24:28 explain people that's not what grace is. This is the true grace of God. And that he writes in this letter, this is the true grace of God where you verse chapter 4 verse one, you suffer in the flesh and you don't sin anymore. You 24:42 spend the rest of your life doing the will of God. It's amazing. This is the true grace of God. 1 Peter 4:1 where you stop sinning and spend your life doing the will of God. That is the true grace of God where you stop sinning 24:56 and do the will of God for the rest of your life. That is the true grace of God. Now take the book of Jude. I want to show you something in Jude is the second last book of the New Testament. You know that Romans is a wonderful book 25:11 explaining the gospel. Did you know that if Jude had written what he originally planned to write, we would have had another book like Romans explaining the gospel? Cuz that was his burden. You see, today 25:30 we say why write another book like Romans? Well, the thing is remember in those days there was no Bible. The book of Romans was not widely circulated everybody that everybody could have a copy. So there are a lot of people whom Jude 25:42 was in touch with who had no copy of Romans. And he had a burden. See, I got to explain to people what justification is, what salvation is. And he had a great burden to explain this. And as he was thinking of writing this big long 25:55 episode on salvation, the spirit of God prompted him and say, "No, I want you to write about something else." That's what he says in verse three. Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you, that means he had collected his thoughts 26:13 and said, "I'm going to write about this common salvation." I suddenly felt the necessity from the Holy Spirit to write to you about something else, appealing to you that you fight earnestly for the faith which was once 26:28 for all handed down to the saints. Why? because certain persons have crept in unnoticed. That is an expression we need very much in the church today. When an elder brother is not a good doorkeeper, 26:46 a lot of people creep in unnoticed. You know, like snakes that crawl under the door. There's a little gap in the door between the door and the floor and the snake crawls in and you're fast asleep. Next morning you get up and you 27:01 say, "How did the snake get in? The door was closed." Yeah, there was a little gap between the door and the floor. Snake didn't walk in. It crept in. And there are people who have crept into our churches unnoticed who are not wholehearted disciples of 27:17 Jesus. They came along because their brother or sister or relative or somebody else was there. They kept to come and sit there. They said this is a good church. They have good picnics. They have good meals and conference time you have three days 27:29 of free meals. Come along here. They haven't come to become disciples of Jesus Christ. Oh no, they have come for fun. They don't come for the prayer meetings. They come for the picnics. These are the people who come who have 27:41 crept in unnoticed because the elder brother was fast asleep and he never discovers even though the snake is now crawling all over the house. Be very careful to have crept in unnoticed. It happened. And it happened in those days. It happens today. But the 27:58 apostles preached so strong. They offended so many people that they drove people out just like Jesus offended people and drove them out of his crowd till he was left with those who wanted to live for God. And we read here these people 28:14 have they have marked out for condemnation. They're going to hell. One day God will judge them. And if the church is faithful, they'll get exposed in the church. If the church is not faithful, they will live in the church 28:26 for years thinking that everything is all right with them. One day they will discover the judgment seat of Christ. They were not even converted. You know, one of the marks of the fact that God has been with us through the 28:36 years is this that when people creep in like that, we've got some elder brothers who crept in like that or who became like that after coming into the church, but God removes them. We have seen through the years how different elder 28:49 brothers have been removed and put out of the church and gone out permanently. We've seen brothers who've been in the church 20 years and who finally left because God exposed them. They fooled me, but they couldn't fool God. Like 29:03 I've said, you know these checkposts where you have a bar like that, the car cannot cross till the that bar is lifted at the check post and you go through. And I've always said, I've got a checkp post, but I'm not perfect in my 29:18 discernment. So, I lift the bar and let this brother in, but he gets caught at the next checkp post, which God is manning. And you can't get past that. You can't fool him. And he sends you back and you get thrown out of the church. 29:33 So, don't be satisfied that you fooled me and went past my check post. And the other thing I've discovered is this that the closer I get to God, the distance between these two checkpost becomes less and less and less and less and less. 29:47 So even though I lift my checkpost, pretty soon the other fellow gets exposed and comes back. But if you're far away from God, it may be many years before he reaches that checkpost because you yourself are living so far from God. 29:58 So if we walk closer to God, this check post gets closer and closer and people who creep in unnoticed get exposed pretty quickly and exposed. They may get offended. They may get angry with you. Praise the Lord. Let them get offended. Let them get 30:12 angry. Don't waste your time buttering them. We have to fight the battle in the church to preserve the church from all these people who creep in unnoticed who do not believe in an overcoming life who sit there getting offended complaining 30:27 to other people about every little thing. I've seen people who you correct them, they go around complaining to others. Where are such people? They've been in the church so many years, they are godless and I think even unconverted, but they crept in unnoticed 30:40 and they sit there or they came in sincerely once but they backslid so badly because it went well with them. I've seen that with many people when they prosper financially, it goes very badly with them. They go up financially 30:51 and down spiritually. I've seen that with numerous people. Be careful when you prosper financially because you go down spiritually usually at that time. And so we see here that these certain persons crept in unnoticed. They were long before marked out for 31:09 condemnation ungodly persons who turn the grace of God into lentiousness and deny our only master and lord Jesus Christ. See, they turned the grace of God into a 31:27 license to commit sin. Did you hear that? They turned the grace of God into a license to commit sin. You know what a license is? You get a driving license. You get a driving license means now you can drive a car. And many people think grace means ah now 31:45 I got a license to commit sin. Now it doesn't matter if I sin because the blood of Jesus cleanses me all the time. I'm okay now. And people who have taken the grace of God like a driving license, a license to commit sin, 32:00 they their standard of life goes below the standard of life of people in the old covenant who did not get that license to commit sin. The commandments, the ten commandments were so strong. If you went and picked up sticks on the 32:14 Sabbath day, you were killed. If you were caught committing adultery, you'd be stoned to death. Boy, people got scared. And that fear kept them from sin. But now how is it that so many believers their standard of life has 32:28 sunk below the standard of people in the old covenant? The reason is they have taken grace of God as a license to commit sin. Is that like is it like that in your life where you treat sin lightly because you say oh I can always ask God to 32:46 forgive me. The blood of Jesus will always cleanse me. then you have turned the grace of God into a license to commit sin and you have less fear of God than those old covenant people who had a far greater fear of God than you have. 33:03 So I want to say to you in Jesus name, learn from this. And the Holy Spirit prompted Jude to not write on the gospel of salvation as in Romans. There's something else which is more serious and that is people are turning the grace of God into a license 33:21 to commit sin and I want you to write about that and the Holy Spirit stole that Jordan wrote it and then he writes to these people and says I want to warn you don't think that just because you were saved once everything 33:37 is okay. I want to warn you. I want to remind you verse 5 that the Lord saved some people out of the land of Egypt, which is a picture of salvation, redeemed by the blood of the lamb, baptized in the water in the Red Sea, 33:48 baptized in the cloud, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and afterwards destroyed them who did not believe. Oh boy, how that destroys this whole doctrine of once saved, always saved. Here are people who were saved out of Egypt and then destroyed because they 34:03 didn't believe afterwards. They backslid. It's a great deception. This once- saved always saved teaching which has turned the grace of God into sin. People can live as they like and they think, "Oh, well, I accepted Christ so and so date. I'm all right." 34:21 Don't fool yourself, my brother, sister. I want to remind you that there were people saved out of Egypt and God destroyed them because they didn't believe afterwards. That's what Jude says. Of course, hardly anybody preaches 34:31 on these things nowadays cuz not very popular. You won't become popular. Your crowds will not increase. Your crowds will increase if you make the grace of God a license. Yeah, everybody license to commit sin. Ah, God is a good God. 34:45 Just do as you like. It doesn't matter. Those are the churches that increase in size. That's the tragedy of today. So, what then is grace? There are many things that people had in the Old Testament, but they could not experience grace. Well, 35:03 let me just quickly tell you something of what the New Testament speaks about grace. First of all, I want to tell you in Hebrews 13 and:8 that grace is not something for our head to understand, but something to strengthen our heart. As you listen to 35:18 me, you may understand what grace is. It doesn't solve your problem. It will never solve your problem. You may be able to understand it so well that you go and preach it to somebody else. But Hebrews 13:8 says, "It is good for 35:33 the heart to be strengthened." Uh verse 9, sorry. Hebrews 13:9, it's good for the heart to be strengthened by grace. So grace is primarily not something to be understood in my head, but something to strengthen my heart to keep the door 35:50 shut against temptation. that all these lusts come and push the door and grace strengthens the heart to say sorry you can't get in here like you did in the old days. That's what grace is. You know, temptation is lust coming and 36:06 knocking at the door of our heart. Come on, get angry. Come on, lust. Come on, speak back. Come on, do this. Come on, do that. Get offended. Get bitter. And grace from within strengthens the door and say, "No, you're not going to get 36:19 into my heart. You're not going to get me to say those words. You're not going to get me to think those thoughts. You're not going to get me to have those attitudes. Grace strengthens the heart. If you don't have grace, the door opens 36:31 and you fall. That's why many believers fall because grace has not strengthened their heart. The first step in grace is to receive to rejoice in the fact that God has accepted us because our sins have been forgiven. Turn to Romans. 36:48 We read in Romans in chapter 3 24. We are justified as a gift by his grace. 37:07 So that's the first thing. You can't begin unless your entire past history has been taken care of. Your past history full of sin, full of evil, disobedience to God has not only to be forgiven, but God has to declare 37:25 you righteous. You, my son, my daughter, are a righteous person by grace. Not because you deserve it, but because my son died for you. His righteousness is put to your account. By grace, 37:44 you are justified. It's very if you don't start here, you got an unshaky foundation. You got to be absolutely convinced that God has forgiven you completely, accepted you. Romans 5:1 says the same thing. First verse two, Romans 5:2, in Christ 38:03 we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. And in this grace, we exalt. Exalt is even more than rejoice. It's like jumping for joy because of the hope of the glory of God. I mean, does your 38:22 salvation make you jump for joy? Or do you weakly say, "Yeah, brother, I believe I'm justified. You haven't understood it. Then you such a criminal who should be going to hell. It's like a man who's been uh condemned 38:41 to be executed and hanged and instead of being hanged he's made the prime minister and not just released from the prison but he's made the prime minister of the country. Such things never happen in the world. Only God does things like that. 38:55 Imagine you should be hanged and you made a prince in the palace. Does it excite you a little bit? We should exalt in hope of the glory of God. Then you know you're really justified and we must live in that enjoyment all the time. That is the 39:14 power of the blood of Jesus Christ. I believe that many of us believers don't value or appreciate what the blood of Jesus Christ has done for us. Justified Romans 5:9 freely by his blood we exalt. That's the first 39:31 thing that grace does. Secondly, from there we mow to step number two. Many people do not get to step number two because they haven't properly got past step number one. You got to exalt in the glory of God. God's forgiven me. I'm justified. I'm 39:47 accepted. I don't have to cover my face when I get into God's presence. The angels may have to do that, but not me. The saraphims cover their faces when they go before God, but I speak to him face to face. Why? Because Christ lives 40:01 in me. I am in Christ. Rejoice in that. Don't let the devil rob you of that boldness because of what Christ did for you. Then Romans 6:14 where we read that sin shall not rule over you. That's the next step. Once my past is taken care of by grace, the next 40:20 step is that sin will not rule over me because now I'm under grace. Just like Jesus, I'm not under law. To be under law means me struggling, struggling, struggling, struggling, struggling to keep the commandments and I can never 40:33 keep them. To be under grace means that grace comes in and gives me the power to keep them. It's the difference between pushing a car and getting inside and starting the engine. And even the steering is power steering. Can you 40:46 imagine that? Have you heard of power steering? It's one of these new things that come in the cars where you just touch a wheel and it turns. It's not like the old days where you had to struggle. It's amazing. Grace is like 40:56 that. power steering and the accelerator is very sensitive and you can shoot off instead of pushing pushing I've got to move this car from here to there I got to keep the commandments that's living under the law this is grace where 41:11 another power moves the car and not your power another power moves even the steering wheel and it's not your power grace it's like you're driving a scooter it's not pushing the scooter It's another power inside the engine 41:28 that moves the scooter. Next time you drive your car or scooter, think of grace. That's what grace is like. And that's how you're supposed to live the Christian life. I mean, 200 years ago when people never had cars and scooters, you if you had 41:41 told them we can move at the speed of 100 miles an hour, 150 km an hour, they' have laughed at you. Today, we can on the roads. That's how it is. Many Christians don't believe that the grace of God can make you go shooting up into God's presence. 41:56 They say no, it's not possible. They have they are living like people who lived in the 1700s. So grace sin cannot rule over you. That's the next thing. The true grace of God is that which that sin will not rule over you, but you rule over sin. 42:15 The third thing is 2 Corinthians 9 and verse 8. Grace makes us sufficient for all situations, not just sin, not just temptation. 2 42:33 Corinthians 9:8 says, "God is able to make all grace abound towards you so that you always having all sufficiency in everything may have an abundance for every good deed." Have you 42:50 noticed the seven superlatives in that one verse? Is the most amazing verse about grace in the entire Bible. God is able to make all grace abound always, all sufficiency, 43:09 everything, abundance, every seven times superlatives in one verse. And it's about grace for every single need that you can ever have, all sufficiency. And you know the other well-known verse 43:28 in 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for your need. There is no need I can face in my entire life for which the grace of God is not sufficient." Paul had a sickness that he never overcame. But grace was sufficient 43:46 to help him to overcome it. Even though he never got healed, he was an overcomer. So there may be some problems, some permanent handicaps that we have that in God's great wisdom, he never allows us to get rid of. But you 43:59 can be an overcomer there more than the people who don't have that handicap. That's what grace can do. Grace can make a lame person a greater overcomer than a man who walks properly on two legs. Yeah. grace made Fanny Crosby who was such a 44:18 blind who was blind to write thousands of hymns and to know God's grace in a way which a lot of people whose eyes are both open can't didn't experience. People can have handicaps and with grace can make them overcome it and be 44:31 overcomers. There are many cases like that in history. Grace is so powerful so powerful it can make a blind person and a lame person a hundred times better than a person who can see and walk. That's the power of grace. Sufficient 44:45 for every single need in our life. All sufficiency. And imagine those of us who got legs, who got eyes, who got ears. Imagine what grace can do to us. But we have to be weak because God gives us grace. I'll come to that in a moment. 45:03 I want to also show you. It says in second Timothy in chapter 2 in the same connection it says my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus Paul tells Timothy meaning that Timothy if you 45:22 really want to serve God you got to have a sufficiency for every situation particularly those of us who are serving the Lord in some type of position of responsibility and I tell you to serve the Lord is not easy it's one of the most difficult jobs 45:36 is the most difficult job that anybody can ever have. The president of the United States has got a pretty easy task compared to a man who's serving God. He's tackling terrorists. We are tackling the devil and demons. Who is 45:48 more powerful? Have you got any doubt whether demons are more powerful or terrorists are more powerful? A servant of God is tackling demons. The devil. And he's got the most difficult task of all. And the more effective you 46:02 are are as a servant of God, the more you are the target of the devil. Sure, he tries every possible way to knock you down, but grace is sufficient. I mean, if grace was not available, we'd all be knocked out long ago. Grace is 46:18 sufficient to warn us in advance of the tricks of Satan, to prepare us for every attack of the enemy that we need not fall. Why is it you hear of so many servants of God suddenly they've been preaching for 30 years suddenly they 46:32 fall into sin and sexual sin. How is that possible? It's because they have neglected the grace of God. They have not understood the grace of God. The grace of God is sufficient for every need. You can be the target of a million 46:45 demons. The grace of God is sufficient for that. You must believe it. I believe with all my heart the grace of God is sufficient for anything that the devil can try on me. You must have that faith. The devil can't put any sickness on me that the 47:01 grace of God will not help me to overcome. The devil cannot tempt me with anything which the grace of God cannot help me to overcome. The devil cannot bring anybody against me which the grace of God will not help me to overcome. I 47:12 am going to be an overcomer till the day Jesus comes. Not because of myself but by the grace of God. Very often Christians say, "Oh, by the grace of God I did that." They don't even mean what they say. Grace is a powerful thing 47:27 sufficient for every single need and grace can strengthen our heart to live for God. Okay. Number four, Titus 2 11 and 12. Number four, Titus 2 11 and 12. Grace teaches us to 47:48 deny ourselves. See Titus 2 11. The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men and instructing us to deny ungodliness, to deny worldly desires, to live sensibly, 48:07 to live righteously, to live godly in the present age. How is it I say no to those worldly fashions that I see Christians around me have? Grace of God, that's all. I'm not here to how is it I don't judge them also. Grace of God. 48:26 When the grace of God comes into you, you don't follow those worldly fashions and you don't judge other people who do follow them. If you don't follow them yourself, but you judge them, you didn't really get grace. It could be legalism. But if you 48:41 don't follow them and you don't judge them, then you really got grace. Have you got that? Or have you got a legalistic attitude where you do something right but judge everybody else who does it wrong? Do you know that I can look at people 48:57 who do things many things differently from me and not judge them at all? I I don't celebrate Christmas. I don't judge anybody who does. I can go to a house where they're dancing around a Christmas tree and well, God bless them. 49:10 That's the light they have. They're doing it for the glory of God. Fine. I don't have to I don't have to do that myself. I have no problem with these things. I don't care if a woman is decked with gold. It's not my business 49:23 to judge her. I don't do it myself. And the same thing with so many things. I'm not here to judge anyone. If they want to go that way and live that way, that's their business. If they want to spend their money that way, that's their 49:33 business. If they want to live like that, it's their business. I don't follow them. I don't judge them. That's what grace does. And if you really got grace, that's the way you'll go. Otherwise, you'll be a legalist till the 49:44 day Jesus comes and get a big surprise when he comes. That you thought you were so holy and the Lord said, "You're worse than those people." You say, "Lord, I was worse than those people." Sure. How you you spent your life judging them. 49:56 You're the biggest legalist of all. Don't get that surprised when Christ comes. The grace of God teaches us to deny this ungodliness and deny these worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in this present 50:11 age as a god-fearing person. It's the grace of God that makes us god-fearing. Number five, Colossians 4 and verse 6. Colossians 4 and verse 6. The grace of God makes us gracious in our speaking, in 50:28 our speech. Colossians 4:6 says, "Let your speech always be with grace." That means there's grace in my conversation. I'm not rude to people. Jesus was strong in his speech, but he was not rude. You need to distinguish 50:47 between being strong and being rude. Rude is where you insult somebody, where you deliberately humiliate him. Strong. Jesus was very strong and the strongest person I've ever heard speaking is Jesus Christ because he loved us so much. 51:07 But he was never rude. And we must not be rude to our children. We must not be rude to anybody. You must not be rude to your wife or your husband or anyone. There may be times when we have to be strong in our speech. Let 51:22 your speech always be with grace. There must be grace in the way we speak. grace that it says here that you know exactly how you should respond to each person. It's not a standard way. Jesus, one person would come to him and Jesus would speak to him 51:40 in one way. Another person would come to him, speak to him another way. We need grace to know how shall I speak to this person? How shall I speak to this person? How shall I speak to this hypocrite and how shall I speak to this 51:50 sincere falling disciple? World of difference. I need grace to discern to know how to speak to this person, how to speak to the other person. and how to speak to the fellow who's trying to pretend that he wants to be a Christian and he's a religious 52:07 fanatic who's just come into the church pretending to be a Christian to sneak in to destroy the church. How to speak to that person and how to speak to this other person who is a sincere falling disciple who's trying to struggle and 52:20 struggle and struggling to follow the Lord to to speak to each person. How to speak to a child, how to speak to each person. Then number six, 2 Corinthians 8 verses 1-9, 1-9, 52:37 it says here about grace makes us generous with our money. 2 Corinthians 8 verse 9, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich. And he goes on to say in that whole 52:56 chapter, now I pray that you will also, verse one, I want to make known to you the grace of God which has been given to the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction, in their deep poverty, they overflowed in the 53:11 wealth of their liberality. That means even though they were poor, they gave money for to help the poor believers. Grace makes us generous to help the poor. Grace makes us frees us from being tightfisted with our money. Teaches us 53:30 to give. If you're still tightfisted and miserly with your money, you there's one aspect of the grace of God you have not experienced. You may be getting a lot. There are some people who just get and get and get and get and get and get. They are the 53:43 poorest believers of all. They don't realize it. Poorest believers of all. The richest believers I've met on the face of the earth are the ones who are generous and have learned to give. They are the most blessed because the word of 53:56 God is fulfilled. It is more blessed to give than to receive. And lastly, number seven is grace helps us to exercise a specific gift in the body of Christ. Romans 12 verse 6 says 54:14 that to each person we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us to some prophecy to some service to some teaching some exhortation some to give 54:30 money some to be leaders it's a grace to exercise a particular gift that is also grace the charisma as it says from you which you get the word charismatic is a Greek word which means gifts of grace. Caris is gift charisma is gifts of grace 54:48 from which you get the word charismatic. Gifts that God gives me through his grace to enable me to do what? To communicate grace to other people. I would never be able to preach if God had not given me the gift of prophecy to be 55:03 able to communicate grace to other people. not just instruct people in their head but to communicate grace. And I want to say to you, it says here, listen carefully, each of us is given. 55:19 Grace is given to each of us. Different measure, different type of gifts. You got to exercise it. Finally, we know the well-known verse in 1 Peter 5:5. God gives his grace to the humble in each situation. If you humble 55:39 yourself and say, "Lord, I want to go down. I don't want to go up in the eyes of the world or in the eyes of the church. I want to go down." You'll find Jesus there and you'll find grace. You know, the devil's greatest aim is to 55:55 make you think highly of yourself. To think, "Ah, brother, see the way God is using you now. Some people despised you, but see how he's using you now. Fool that you are to listen to the devil. You're doomed. Tell the devil to shut up. You're not 56:12 going to listen to him. Go down and every day and every year, go deeper and deeper down and the grace of God will be abundant on you. You don't have to convince anybody that God is with you or he's using you. They'll see it. They'll be blessed. 56:31 And when they are blessed, be careful that you don't get puffed up. Go further down. Okay, let's just pray for a moment. Heavenly Father, we pray that these words will sink into our hearts and we will receive what you want us to 56:50 receive. Grace to meet every need in our life to be overcomers. to experience the true grace of God and never to use it as a license to sin. We pray in Jesus name.
