Amen. Good morning. Good to see you. If you’ve got a Bible, go ahead and get it out and go with me to Romans chapter five. We’re gonna finish chapter five. What?! You thought it would never happen but here you are for it. It’s a good weekend to be in church. You glad to be here? Good! Would you rather be here than in jail? How many of you have been to jail? I’m just kidding. Let me say this, the title of the message is “The Reign Of Grace” (Romans 5:21). You’ll see why it comes directly out of the text because we’re finishing chapter five, but I’m slow to leave it behind because I feel like we’ve barely gotten started in the doctrine of justification. There is so much truth to mine in Scripture. It’s eternal in its depth and its richness. And I started studying scripture in 1986 It was September, it was late September, and I’ve been doing that since then. Never let the foot off the gas. And by God’s grace, I’ve been doing that, and I always feel like I’ve gotten about that deep into the depth of something that I could never even reach the bottom. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. So, if you’re looking at chapter five at any point and you’re going, “I think we maybe didn’t talk about this detail.” You’re right. There are pieces of that that I wish we could camp on forever and ever. Now, my wife’s response is, “Well, why don’t you just do it?” It’s like, well, I feel like we got to kind of progress through so that we’re holding the concepts together, so that when we see justification, we’re not just doing it in isolation, we’re doing it after seeing our condemnation and now coming through justification, moving on into sanctification. We’re going to always be looking back going, “We’ve got to remember who did what.” So that’s why we’ve spent this much time here doing this. There is one final piece in the text, what I believe could have been simply put in chapter six. Chapter six could have easily started after Romans 5:19, 5:20 and 5:21, and five would have gone into chapter six. But here’s what’s weird, nobody asked me. Isn’t that’s shocking? Can you believe that?
Let’s read the text. I’m going to read Romans 5:18-21 just so we’re in context. Okay, “Therefore, as one trespass (that’s Adam) led to condemnation for all men, so, one act of righteousness (that’s the totality of the work of Christ), leads to justification in life for all men.” In other words, there’s only one Savior. If you’re going to be saved, all men have to come through Him. “For as by one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners…” You remember that? You’re in Adam, you’re born that way. If you have an earthly father, you’re born into Adam. “…So by the one man’s obedience (that’s the second Adam, or the last Adam, Jesus), the many will be made righteous.” Now here these two new verses, again we did from last week. “Now the law came in to increase the trespass…” What does that mean? That means to increase its visibility, make it obvious for all to see, including the sinner who’s being convicted by it comes in…“To increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as (here’s the key right here, we’ll do this first before we get to the reign of grace) sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Sin has a reign, like a monarch, a king, a Caesar. Romans would have understood this. It had a reign. And if it’s reigning, it’s ruling, and if it’s ruling, it’s almost sovereign, it does whatever it wants. That’s what a monarch does. That’s what a Caesar could do. That’s what the king can do. They have all the power. They have all the authority. This is what this comparing to. Sin to grace. There are two different reigns. So, question we’re going to compare them.
Let’s understand the first one. How thorough was the reign of sin? How thorough is the reign of sin? The human mortality rate still hovers around 100%, doesn’t it? Unless you’re in the American social security system, you don’t live past 120 years old, yo. Why aren’t we mad about that? Why aren’t we madder? Anyway, the elders are going to take me to task for me even doing that. So, as sin reigned. Look, “Sin reigned in death.” It had a reign. How thorough is it? Answer? Here’s the answer, 1 Corinthians 15:22a, “For as in Adam all die,…” In the Greek, “all” means all. Everybody. 100%. Wages of sin is death. There was no death before there was sin. Sin comes in death follows with it. And we’re born into that condition. We are born because what? Because Adam, our federal head, our forefather, sinned. A corrupt creature can only produce another corrupt creature. You cannot produce sinless perfection from something that’s been corrupted. We understand this. It is a genetic position. But it’s deeper than that. It is the root that is in every human being, except for one, and that’s Jesus, because what? He did not have an earthly father. His Father was God in heaven. This is the reign of sin. Let’s look at where it started. This is Genesis 3:17-19. This is the curse that God put on Adam. Remember, He cursed the serpent, He cursed Adam, He cursed the woman, Eve. But watch this. This is the reign of sin. “And to Adam, he said, ‘Because you’ve listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken for you are dust and dust you shall return there.’” There it is. That is the curse. The curse is that you will die. Why? Because of sin. Your own sin? No, because of Adam’s sin. Now, your sin does bring judgment but we know that innocent people can die. Innocent babies die. They don’t die because of a transgression that they’ve done. They die because they’ve been born into a sin cursed world and everyone born into Adam dies. So, what’s required for there to be a solution? You have to be taken out of one lineage and rebirthed into another lineage. That’s why the language that Jesus uses is you has to be you have to be born again. Born again. How? Born again of the Spirit, not of the lineage of your earthly father but of the lineage of your heavenly Father through His Son. And what is the seed of that? It’s not the seed of man, right? It’s the seed of the living and the abiding Word of God. 1 Peter 1:21, yeah, 1 Peter 2:23, says, I hope I got that right. But that’s where we are. That’s the lineage. So, when you look at that and you say, “Well, that was the reign of sin.” And, by the way, sin is still dwelling in your members. You can be born again but when you’re born again, your spirit’s raised from the dead, you don’t get a new brain, and you don’t have a new body. You will have a renewed mind fully someday, and you’ll have a glorified body if you’re in Christ. We don’t have that yet, proving we still have sin in our members but we’re in a new lineage.
So, what does the reign of grace then look like? Here’s why we’re making a point of this. It has to be a contrast between the reign of sin and the reign of grace. It’s not the reign of sin. And then you go into the reign of law. If you do that, you’re trying to accomplish what you never could accomplish with salvation. And if you try to do that, you’ll never accomplish anything in sanctification either. Let’s see the text again, Romans 5:20-2. “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased…” Right? A whole lot of sinning, not just Adams, but then sin’s increasing “…Grace abounded all the more.” This is one Greek word right here, “abounded all the more”. And it’s a terrible, terrible translation, if you study what the Greek word means, the Greek word would actually be “super abounded”, for where grace abounded, right? Or rather, where sin abounded, grace super abounded. You know how “super” means over and above, right? You have normal and then you have super. It’s always right. Okay, you got normal man and then you’ve got Superman. See? Superman can beat Batman. I’ll step aside from the pulpit. It’s not authoritative. But if you think that guy in that cape, in that black cape, can beat the red cape, you have a discipleship problem, and we can’t fix it. Super abounded. He doesn’t use a comparative tense in the Greek. He uses a superlative tense in the Greek. He says as bad as sin was, grace outdoes it in the nth degree. It super abounds over it. So, there’s two different reigns. One reigns over these people, one reigns over these people, and this one is transcendent. That word transcendently more awesome. You think I could do this better? I already did it once this morning. Yeah, all the more “So that (here’s an important word, let me back this up) as (here’s the comparative) so that as sin reigned in death, (watch this) grace might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
So, let’s get on the same page when we say, grace, what is it? Here’s the definition. This does not originate with me. It’s a great theological working definition. Grace is this.
Grace: God’s unmerited, empowering favor.
So, in fact, the word “charis” literally means favor. It is having favor from God. It’s not earned. You couldn’t afford it. You never even want to wanted to buy it in your unsaved condition. And it’s empowering. So, it’s not just that you get it for free, it’s that when you get it, it empowers something in your life. The same way that when you have sin, it brings in death. Okay? So, when grace reigns, that means it’s doing something, that means it has authority, that means it has abilities, it does certain things. We’ll cover that. Grace was prophesied. It was prophesied throughout the Old Testament. People said, “Whoa! I thought the Old Testament was the law?” It’s not the law. It’s not just the law, though it is the law in the Old Testament. But it’s not only there’s also grace in the Old Testament. Now, how do we know? Well, because He didn’t wipe out the human race. That was a gracious thing that God didn’t do. But the reign of grace in the Messiah is prophesied throughout all the prophets speak of it. I want to show you one instance, Isaiah 61:1-3. Now Jesus quotes this and says that He fulfilled it in Luke chapter four so just keep that in mind. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me…” Who’s that talking about? Messiah. He’s talking about the coming one to them. For us, we know the fulfillment of this. This is Jesus. “…The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news…” Now do we what do we call that in the New Testament? We call that the gospel. He’s anointed me to bring the gospel. Gospel literally means the word means good news. He’s “…Anointed me to bring good news…” Now watch this. We got to understand what the text says, what it means by what it says, what it says, and how it applies to our lives in the finished work of Christ. “…Good news to the poor…” Now is the Bible saying that the Messiah came to provide good news for those who have low income? No, no. The mission of the church is not to go, “Hey, egg prices are going down. That’s good news. There’s the gospel.” No, no. This poverty right here talking about is spiritual. Poverty of spirit. It’s recognizing, “I can’t do it. Here I am I’m over here in Adam. I can’t do anything to please God. I cannot make it up. And if I could, I could never, ever keep it. I can’t go back and wash away anything I’ve done. I’m not gonna be able to prevent what I’m gonna do. I’m in a hopeless situation. The law is killing me.” So that what? So, the law leads you to Christ, and you come to the tutor, rather, the tutor brings you to the Savior, and you say, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.” That’s it. And that’s by grace through faith. So then here we’re seeing what the reign of grace will look like. “…He sent me to bind up these broken hearted…” Now what does this mean? The brokenhearted? Is that talking about people who their Facebook friends forgot their birthday? No, it’s the brokenhearted when you realize the condition is eternal. “…And to proclaim liberty to the captives…” What’s this? Incarcerated in Huntsville? No, captives, bound to sin, death, the devil and ultimately hell. He’s coming, and He’s saying liberty, “…And the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” Bound by what? Bound by sin, death, hell, the devil, the grave. It’s all of the bondage that comes with being in Adam. He goes on verse two, “To proclaim the year of the Lord’s (here’s the word actually) favor, (the Lord’s grace) and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion (it’s a term to use for the people of God), to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of (what?) mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.” God is most glorified when you’re more sanctified. Think about that. He is. And what’s our working definition of sanctification? It is a growing up into greater and greater love. That’s what it is the Spirit goes to work inside the heart of a regenerate man. He’s standing over here in grace, and it’s not about him turning on new disciplines. It’s not about him stop that and start this. It’s not about bear down and self-improve. No new leaves are to be turned over. In fact, the goal is to get your eyes off yourself, fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. That’s the perfector. And so, we don’t look at us, we look at Him. Therefore, when sanctification is growing and you’re loving as you should, more and more and more, you don’t start walking around like some religious hypocrite going, “I’. really nailing it now. Yeah, I’m killing it. I don’t want to brag. I mean, I’m too humble for that. You know, I do get along in traffic nowadays, you know?” “Oh, that’s really good, Pastor. I’m glad you don’t cuss out people in the fast lane anymore. Boy, he’s on a growth spurt so he’s exaggerating.” No, I had a real issue. I think the fast lane is there so I can go fast and people get in the way. My wife would be like, “What? What? Who are you?” And over time, you know what love did? Love changed my heart, and I started loving the person that’s blocking now they still deserve the death penalty, technically. And I started thinking these thoughts, and it just started coming up out of me like this: “Well, I don’t know what they’re going through, right? Maybe they’re scared, maybe they just got a cancer diagnosis, maybe a loved one died, maybe their heart’s broken, maybe their body’s messed up, maybe they’re just stupid.” You know, in a good way! And the change starts happening. Grace comes into a born again man’s life. It begins to reign in that man the moment he’s born again. Grace now dominates the man’s life, just as sure as sin once did, and powerfully and certain as sin, it dominates every area, only more. And the reign of grace acts like a king. Grace reigns. It conquers every enemy, subdues all resistance, it will never be denied, and it is a reign of righteousness. It starts producing in you the love that brings all the fruit. That’s the reign of grace. We have to have this pr chapter six and chapter seven and chapter eight aren’t going to make sense to you, man. You’re going to read right over it. I love you, but I don’t want that to happen to any of us including myself. I need to be reminded all the time of this that, yeah, I was saved when the law convicted me, it damned me to hell, and I could not fix it, so I reached for the Savior by faith that He gave me. Now He brings me out of darkness into the light. He adopts me into His family. I’m justified fully. I didn’t do anything to earn that. It was monergistic. Only one Actor. God did it, not me, but now sanctification is synergistic, and I’m going to participate in it, right? So here I am in all my stuff, I find myself believing. I’m a Christian. I’m here I am. And now what am I going to do? Am I going to drag the law over with me and yoke it around my neck and if I keep it, then I’m pleasing to God? Or am I going to stand under grace and say this, “I love Your law because it shows me how to love You. It shows me how to love people. I could never fulfill it but I know Jesus did? So, I’m standing under the grace. The law has been fulfilled, and now I want to live it out in a new and living way.” So, it’s not death to me. Now, it’s life. That’s the illustration of grace when it shows up. When grace shows up in a man’s life, and that’s at rebirth. I’m telling you, if you are regenerate, grace is in your life, and it’s working on you by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God to conform you to the image of the Son that the Father may be glorified. This is real Christianity. Okay? And if you’re born again, when grace shows up, if you’ve ever evident grace in your life, it has the force and the might and the power to change anything it needs to change. That’s what its reign is all about.
Some of you probably in here are not old enough to remember the Gulf War. It was the first war you could watch on TV. Y’all remember that? 91, right? You turned on CNN, back when they used to have news, and you turned it on, and you could watch the carrier groups coming into the Persian Gulf. Remember this? You could see the F jets flying around in the desert. You can see the bomber brigades coming over. You watch the embattlements you can see the seventh Marines roll in. Okay? That’s when they all get really nervous. You get the 2 7th in there. You know what they say, when America wants war fighters, they call the Marines. When the Marines need war fighters, they call the 2 7th. Okay, I would hope somebody would say “Hurrah!” or something like that. Thank you! Contrived, completely insincere, at least she did it. Look, grace is not a fluffy, furry, static blob of love. It is a might. It is a power. It is transformative in nature. It does things. It causes you to end up doing things that you would hardly ever even guess you would ever do, not to mention want to, because grace goes to work on your heart. Religion works on your head. Change this, change that. I remember a denomination years ago, I went to a couple of meetings with a friend that was in this denomination. One of the ways they would gage the godliness of a man was how short his hair was. I’m glad you groaned. And I had incredibly long hair, so I felt like man, I must be ungodly. And then when I realized how wrong they were. I do like this. Grace shows up and it’s not passive. That’s the point.
John 1:14, “And the Word (that’s the Word, the breath of God, the theopneustos, the breath) and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory…” What is what is God’s glory? It’s the display of his characteristics. It’s all of who He is. It’s every Omni. His omniscience, His love, His vengeance, His wrath, His patience, all of His attributes on display. That is the glory of God. That’s how God glories. We see those things we’ve seen His glory. “…Glory as of the only Son from the Father, (He’s full of what? He’s) full of grace and truth.” So, it’s not soft. It comes in truth. That’s why, when we grow, how? We grow in grace and knowledge. Grace and knowledge. Knowledge of what? Knowledge of the truth. It’s not static. It’s not passive. It involves true information. And it’s transformative in nature. That’s why we don’t come over here and here and go, “Well, here I am in sanctification. Jesus did His part. Now I gotta do mine.” Well, you’re part of it but He’s the one working in you. Philippians 2:13, what? Both to will and to do of His good pleasure, and if He started the work, He’ll be faithful to complete it. One six, right? Exactly. So, He’s the one doing the work. Sanctification is stumped. Discipleship is thwarted. It becomes retarded in the sense, the true linguistic sense, that things are held back. When people come over here and they say, “Okay, God, stand back. I got it. I’m going to do this.” And then you fall and you stumble, and you sin, and you tell God things like this, “I’m sorry, Lord, I’m trying harder. I’m going to try harder next time.” That’s not the way sanctification works. The way in is the way on. Look down at John 1:16-17, “For from his fullness, (His fullness) we have all received, (what do we receive?) grace upon grace.” Layer after layer. It never, never ends. “For the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” You want the grace, the truth, which is the walk of grace? It has to come through Jesus. Are you starting to see that you’re not going to be able to do it on your own again? It’s synergistic. We’ll see that in six when we get there, you’re a part of it. Monergistic, salvation, regeneration, justification, got it. But synergistic in this, in sanctification, because you have a brain, and you have to use it. You have certain amount of time for the day and you need to take advantage of it. There are things that you have to take advantage of, yes, but ultimately, we have to understand this. It’s grace that’s doing the work.
Here’s the three things that grace does. It’s not an extensive list. Two of these are easy. Not so much,t the third one.
1. Grace Saves
It’s how you got saved. Ephesians 2:8, “By grace, (look, by grace) you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it’s the gift of God.” So, you can’t boast in any of it. God did it. Titus 2:11, “For the grace of God (here it is) has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.” Grace brings salvation for all people. That doesn’t mean all people will be saved. That means it’s only by grace that any will be though. There’s no other option but to come to the Father through Jesus. Couple more, Acts 15:11, actually, just this one. But we believe this is the apostles’ doctrine right here. “We believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus saved, just as they will.” This is talking about who? Jews and Gentile. Jew and Gentile. No matter what camp you’re in, it’s by grace. Somebody saved. It’s never going to be by works. We covered that extensively in this peak.
Here’s number two, though, and I’m not going to spend much time on this until we start into the peak, and then I’m going to spend a lot of time on it because that’s what six, seven and eight of Romans are.
2. Grace Sanctifies
What is sanctification? It is the progressive growth into love where you become more and more like Jesus Christ. That’s what it is. That’s what it is. People tend to think, “Well, it’s when I stop this and I start doing that, or I modify this, and I finally don’t battle there, when I’m nice to so and so are there.” No, no. It’s the issue that love goes toward God and it spills over into love toward people. If love isn’t motivating, it’s not real Christianity, and there’s no true holiness apart from love. So that’s the goal. Well, we read Titus 2:11, let’s add Titus 2:12. “Grace Sanctifies.” “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.” So, your context is right here. Speaking about grace, it says it brings salvation for all people. But the sentence isn’t over yet. Look at the next verse, “Training us to do…” What? These are all statements of sanctification. Grace doesn’t just save once you’re in Adam. It does what? It begins, “Training us to do (what?) to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” That is sanctification. That’s a wordy way of saying sanctification. It trains us to do it. Why am I driving this home? Because the Bible makes it very clear. We don’t get saved and then come over here and put the law on and expect the law to do something the law could never do in salvation. It’s never going to do this over here. It’s only going to be when you’re in a love relationship with the law, when you can say, I love the law. It’s my friend shows me how to please my Father and how I’m to love you. Love fulfills the law, covered that last week, but it’s got to be out of a heart. It has to be a heart issue. “Training us”. So, grace goes to work in you, Christian, not law. And some of us were discipled wrong, and you were told, “Clean up your behavior, straighten up and fly right.” Or I love this one, “Make right choices”. Now, I think right choices are great, don’t you? I would say that right choices are better than bad choices but you can make all the right choices and go to hell. Did you know that? Hell is full of people who made right choices. Right Choices isn’t how you’re saved. Right choices is not how you’re sanctified in love because you’re missing the motivator, and if the glory of God’s not the motivator because of love for God, then your love isn’t real, and then the love that you show people is simply, maybe an outward, convenient kindness. I’m of the opinion that the scripture makes it clear, and we’ll cover this in the weeks and months ahead, that true, genuine love is actually a rarity. It is a very, very rare thing. All Christians have a deposit of love in them but it’s spilling over into those that they’re commanded to love their enemies. That’s a very small percentage. And how do they get there? They get there by being under the reign of grace.
Finally, number three,
3. Grace Strengthens & Sustains
It strengthens and it sustains. Okay, so here it’s His unmerited favor, I got it. It’s His empowering favor, I got it. But if you don’t get the empowering part, you’re not going to know what’s empowering. It empowers spiritual strength. Grace empowers spiritual strength. Without grace, you have nothing left but dead works and law. If it’s not of grace, it’s of works. And if it’s not of works, it has to be grace. It’s an either or. And if it’s works, you’re going to have sin. It’s just going to be sin. But if God’s going to be sanctifying you, it’s going to have to be under you, rather with you being underneath the reign of grace, and that is submitting to it. Hebrews 13:9b says, “…For it is good for the heart to be (what?) strengthened by grace,…” There it is, “Strengthened by grace”. Remember, we saw those things that the gospel would do in 61 of Isaiah. That’s what it’s talking about. “Strengthened by grace” not just in salvation but in sanctification. 2 Timothy 2:1 Paul writes to Timothy, “You then, my child, be (what? be) strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus”. I’ve known people who say, “I feel like I’m spiritually weak.” Like, really? Oh, why do you feel spiritually weak? It’s like, “Well, I mean, my faith feels weak. I feel like I struggle, I stumble in many areas.” They have these things going on. And when you ask them, “Well, what are you doing about it?” What they’ll say is, “I’m going to start doing this. I’m going to do this work, this work, this work, this work, this work.” Okay, all of which, these are good things, by the way. “I’m going to start reading my Bible.” It’s a great thing. As your pastor, you should read your Bible there. “I’m gonna start praying every day. I’m gonna start worshiping at my house. I’m gonna start, I’m gonna go to a d-group. I’m gonna start faithfully attending church. I’m gonna serve God with my time, my money, my heart. I want to do all these things. I’m going to live this way.” How are you going to accomplish that? And they basically say this, “I just told you; I’m going to start doing this. Start doing this. Start doing this. Start doing this. Start doing this.” You need the strength to do those things, and it comes by grace. You have to put your life under grace’s reign. In other words, you have to submit to it. You’re already under it. If you’re a true believer, grace is not going to abandon you. You’ve been adopted into a family. It’s more secure even than the very one that you were born into. And what happens is grace becomes the catalyst to do things that you normally couldn’t. You just couldn’t do it. Have you ever imagined a future where you face something, and you’re like, “I don’t think I could do it” Something scary, maybe a death, some kind of fear, a disease. Now, by the way, there’s no grace in the hypothetical. There’s only grace in the real, in the moment. We’ll cover that in six two. But when you think that through, you think “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to face that. I don’t know how I could ever go through that.” Grace is what strengthens you to be able to do that.
Let me give you an example of this, this is the apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 12:9. Can I get a water? And by water, I mean unopened. I don’t want anybody volunteering. Thank you. You remember what was going on here? He had some kind of affliction in his body. Come on, Randy, run faster, man. You want to hand it to me right here? Thank you. Can you guys give Randy a big hand? Thank you, brother. Appreciate you. Hang on. It has to have that satisfying. Ah, there we go. These allergies ever since the storm, the windstorms have been pretty terrible. Yeah, this is 2 Corinthians 12:9. Remember, Paul had an affliction, and he said, “I went to the Lord three times and asked Him to take it away but He didn’t.” Thank you, Nick. He just wanted to show off his beard. He’s like, “God, take this away from me. Would You take this away from me? Would You take this away from me?” I would say he’s praying faithful. He’s asking for a change. “Please. I can’t make it through this. Take this away.” You’ve experienced this. If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you’ve asked the Lord change this. You’ve wanted Him to change this, or you’ve wanted Him to change him or her. “Fix them, do this.” And then we give God counsel. “If You did this, You’d get a lot of glory from it. I’m trying to help You out.” Personally, I think it was his eyesight. I think his eyesight was ruined from when he saw Jesus. “But he said to me (what? This is what the Lord said to him, I’m not going to take it away), ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’…” So, Paul would look weak. He wouldn’t get what he wanted. The circumstances wouldn’t line up. But grace strengthens and sustains. It allows you to endure and go through and be sustained through things that in your natural strength, you couldn’t do it. And He says what? “His strength is made perfect in weakness”. “…Therefore I will boast (oh, thought we weren’t going to boast) all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Here’s what grace does. It gives you the power of Christ to change the things that He wants changed from the inside out, so Paul was able to live with a physical affliction even, and say, what? Well, “Glory to God. He’s brought me through it. I’m going to be able to endure it.” And Christian, I’m just telling you, you’re under the reign of grace. You’re never going to face anything that the grace of God will not be able to handle. How many of you ever heard this statement: “God will never allow you to face anything that you can’t bear”? You ever heard that? That’s a lie. God will allow you to face all kinds of things that you can’t bear and that you can’t handle and that you can’t get through in your strength. He’ll never allow you to face anything that He can’t bear by His unmerited, empowering favor. This is the reign of grace. Look at 2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make (what?) all grace abound to you, (that’s over and above), so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” It’s a grace walk. It’s a grace life. You walk in the reign of grace. And if you do that, you’re going to grow and you’re going to give glory to Him because you realize, “Oh yeah, You’re doing the work inside of me. You’re the one creating the change. It’s not me, it’s You.” Just as you could look back and you could say, when we get to chapter seven, you’ll understand this, “That a struggle with sin the remnants of the seed of Adam, Paul says what? It’s not me. It’s sin that dwells in my members.” Too much to unpack right here but I want you to understand the reign of this.
1 Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain…” So, what does he mean by that? It means that His grace went to work inside of him and produced something coming out of him. He says, “…On the contrary, I worked (look, I worked) harder than any of them, though it was not I…” Now that looks weird. You said you worked, and now you said you didn’t work. Confused yet? This is what Peter says, they’re complicated things, we gotta understand them. “…But (it was, look, it was) the grace of God that is within me.” Even the work as an apostle that he did, he didn’t take credit for why? Because it was the grace that was producing it. As long as he was allowing the grace of God to work in his life. And that’s a key word, the word, “Allowance”. Romans 5:1-2, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we (what?) we stand (we went over this couple months ago), and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
This is the key, guys. It is the key to understanding how I’ll approach God. It’s always going to be in the position of grace. I’m never going to be in a place where I’m going like this, “I’m going to stay away for a little while until I’m keeping Your law better. Okay? I know You’re watching me.” Some of you, maybe with a Catholic background, like myself, you know, we have to fight off this image of God, that God’s kind of up here just ticked off. He’s like, “Go ahead. Do it again. Do it again. Okay.” You know, and you live under that. That’s not grace, that’s the murderer’s death of law. But grace says this. It says in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Why do you need to receive mercy? Because of your sin. And “Grace to help in time of need”. So, what does that look like? Here’s the Christian over here, stumbling, struggling. You got a sin that easily besets you. It tries to drag you back into it. It may still be in your in your members where you’re operating in it. It may just be in your mind. And you’re finally down to the point of maturity, where your battle is up here. You’re taking it head on. You’re not allowing those thoughts. And you know what? There you go. In a moment of weakness, you entertain that. You’ve sinned in your mind because you’re to love Him with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength. You realize you have it. And so, what do you do? Do you back up? Because that’s law. Law says this, “I’m going to give You some time to cool down. I’m going to go and stay home because I’m pretty sure if I go to Sherman Bible, You’re going to strike me dead if I raise my hands in worship. Or something like that, right?” That’s what law does. Law says, “Stay away”. Grace says this, “Come on. The price has been paid. You can come with confidence. You can come with boldness. Jesus has paid it all. Come on in and deal with sin with the Father.” That’s grace and sanctification does. That’s under the reign of grace. It’s a totally different life.
Now, a quick disclaimer. The only thing that will frustrate the grace of God. Now notice that term “frustrate”. That doesn’t mean it’ll cancel it. Doesn’t mean it’ll ruin it. That does not mean it will end it, but it will frustrate it, and it will hold your growth back. The only thing that will do that. P, R, I, D, E. Pride. It’s pride. Whenever a man begins to say, “I” on repeat, we’re refusing the grace. “I can do this. I’m going to get better. I’m enough. I’ve got this. I deserve credit.” Do you see how that goes? Well how does that work out at salvation? At salvation, if you keep saying, “I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” That’s every other religion except true Christianity says, “I’m going to do something to please the deity, and then we’re going to be okay”. True Christianity says this, “I can’t do anything that will please the Deity, because He is the deity. He’s perfect. His standard is absolute holiness. All my righteous deeds are filthy rags before Him. I need the Savior. I surrender my own and I’ll take what He’s given.” Sanctification is the same way. “Jesus. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I cannot stop. I can’t do it in my own strength. And yeah, I can’t exhibit self-control.” That’s the fruit of the Spirit. I can distance myself. I can flee from youthful lust, right? I can partition myself off from fast lanes so I don’t get mad at that guy, right? I can set up these structures but that’s not me growing. That’s simply me preserving. Nothing wrong with those things but they’re temporary. What I’m asking Him to do is, Lord, “Would you change my heart? I don’t want to react in hate toward the person who’s obviously, you know, an idiot there in the fast lane.” You see? You want a new heart toward them, then that’s not my heart, actually, to call him that anymore. It’s changed, and my wife, no one’s more shocked than Kelly. None of that changed when I bared down on it.
And I told you before I was a thug when I was a kid. I was removed from my parents’ home at 11 years old, CPS took me and my sister out, and I ran with the crowd as 11 years old started getting high and at 19, man, I really just liked getting high. I smoked weed and I just wanted to keep doing it. And I was legitimately born again. And what I realized is this isn’t something that I’m going to be able to overcome. So, I would always go to my pastor. I did it for a whole year, and I would say this to him, “Bob, tell me again why I can’t get high?” And you know what he’d do? He’d give me grace, he’d open up the Bible, and he would go, “Steve, here’s why. Look, your body’s a temple of the Holy Spirit, and we don’t need to be drunk with wine or anything else. But instead, we need to be filled with the Spirit of God. Also, this is illegal. Look at this. You want to submit yourselves to civil authorities, and you don’t want to grieve the Spirit. You don’t want to quench Him at all.” And I would leave there not going, I gotta fight, I gotta fight but I would be leave there being dependent on Jesus. And there came a day, there came a day, I don’t want to get high anymore. Do you know I smoke all the weed I want to? I look right at the camera, I smoke all the weed I want to. You know why? I don’t want to smoke any weed. I don’t. And you think, “Oh, man, that’s terrible illustration. It’s going to encourage people to smoke weed.” No, it’s not. It’s gonna encourage people to do what? To cry after Jesus and stop making it about yourself. That’s true sanctification. Pride always says, “Look at me”. And if you do that, you frustrate the grace of God. And I don’t want you to do that.
I’ll show you two passages, and then we’ll pray. James 4:6-7. “But he gives more grace (that’s God). Therefore it says, ‘God opposes (who? God opposes) the proud but he gives his grace to the (what? to the) humble.’” He gives His grace to the humble child who’s in Christ, who humbles himself, and finally, just says this, “I can’t do it. Lord. Help me. Help me.” The way in is the way on. And then you come to Him and you ask that. And then you know what you find yourself doing. You find yourself doing that every morning, and you find yourself doing realizing you’re going to need Him in prayer, Him in His Word, and your heart extolling Him every day of your life. And if you miss one, you know what you’re going to notice. “Oh no, I’m still tempted back there. I’m going to stay in. I’m going to abide in the vine.” That’s all this is. But that’s the walk of grace. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” That “submit” means to stay underneath.
Peter echoes this in 1 Peter 5:5-6. “Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, (look at this, all of you) with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but he gives his grace to the humble.’” Now you’ve already got saving grace if you’re in Christ, but you know what you need? You need the grace of sanctification, and that thing is going to slow down as long as you’re thinking you’re the one that’s going to do it, because if God did allow you to think that you did it, you’d be arrogant about it, and then we’d have to live with you. And there’s nothing worse than religious pride. It has the deepest stink, and that is what Jesus rebuked with the most fervor in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. May that not be us but let us be people who say, “I am a victim of Your grace. Thank You for saving me. Thank You for changing me. Thank You for sustaining me in the areas I need strength. Give me your grace, God. I want that grace. I humble myself under Your mighty hand. I come under Your Word. I’m going to submit to it. Lord, give me the grace I need.” And you know what? You will not come up short. It’s a guarantee. And we go through six, seven and eight, that will be our constant prayer. May we be growing up in love.
KEYWORDS
Grace, Mercy, Justification, Sanctification, Reign, Love, Romans, Sin, Law, Eternal Life, Jesus Christ, Unmerited Favor, Empowering, Transformation, Spiritual Strength, Humility, Humble Pride, Salvation, Super, Charis, Gospel, Adam, Theopneustos, Truth, Synergistic, Monergestic, Spiritual Strength, Online Sermon, Bible Sermon, Sherman, Texas, Grayson County
SPEAKER
Steve LeBlanc