Grace

Grace Intro: Grace,grace,grace. Everyone wants us but not everyone is willing to offer it. Grace is God giving us something we don’t deserve. There was once a boy who got angry and threw a very old, very valuable vase out of his bedroom window. His mom looked outside, saw the broken vase on the floor, and said to him “You deserve to have to pay for that, and buy it back!” But the boy had no money, he couldn’t repay the cost, and so his mum chose to demonstrate her love. She said, “If I forgive you now, and let you off, that will show that I have mercy.” “But instead, I’m going to not only forgive you, but take you to McDonald’s as a treat, so that you know I have grace.” As humans, we all have a price to pay; God is perfect, we are not, and so we don’t deserve to come into God’s presence. However, God loves us so much, that he was willing to sacrifice himself, to pay the cost, so that we would be able to know him. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, so according to that we deserve death. But God’s grace gives us forgiveness, it protects us and it restores us. Aren’t you so grateful for God’s grace today in your life? Common truth: Grace,Grace Grace Points: 1. Why do we need His Grace? How many of you think you have your life all together? Thinks are going so well that you can’t even see any room for improvement. You consider yourself very gifted and talented and you are what they call an over achiever in life? I would guess most of us here don’t feel that why, I know I don’t. Many times the enemy even reminds me of my limitations and short coming, he also seems to point out my weaknesses. But thanks be to God for His grace. I know longer need to be ashamed of my weaknesses but can use them to strengthen my walk with God. 2 Corinthians 12:9 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. You see it’s difficult for God to be lifted up in a prideful person; if I am naturally gifted in an area of my life I tend to take the credit for it. But areas I fall short in which are many God gets the glory. Those areas that I struggle with causes me to reach out to God more and to rely on Him instead of my own strength. His strength is far stronger than mine and because of His grace I don’t have to feel bad because I might not be the best at something. Our limitations not only help develop Christian character but also deepen our worship, because in admitting them, we affirm God’s strength. 2. So how to I achieve this grace? First grace is freely given to us but the problem is we don’t always accept it because of pride. Pride hinders us from experiencing God’s grace in our lives. James 4:6 6 But he gives us even more grace to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but favors the humble. Think about it there are people out in this world who because of their pride to accept help are going without. No one wants to admit they are struggling and might need help. As a husband and father who wants to provide for his family doesn’t want to accept a hand out from another man even though he desperately needs it, his pride won’t allow it. Then you have those who at just the opposite and goes around with their hand out to everyone and what do we say about those people? We say I could never imagine doing what they are doing; don’t they have any pride in themselves? But little do we know that these people are very prideful. You see pride makes us self- centered and leads us to conclude that we deserve all we can see, touch, or imagine It creates greedy appetites for far more than we need. Just because someone is offering free food someone people won’t just take what they need they will load their plates to over flowing and end up wasting most of it, they will even take food they don’t even like just because its free. You see just because we have God’s grace doesn’t mean we need to take advantage of it. 3. What are we to do with His grace? Rom 6:1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? If God loves to forgive, why not give Him more to forgive? Of course not. What it needs to do is cause us to worship Him more, cause us to serve Him for effectively. Imagine someone came up to you and paid all your debt, wouldn’t you feel very appreciative to them, feel indebted to serve them and go out of your way to show them honor? Or would you just go get in more debt because you know they will bail you out again. Hopefully none of us would do the latter but that’s what we do to God, we seek His forgiveness and grace just to turn around with our hands out expecting more. We need to show others the same grace that has been showed to us. The Parable Of The Unforgiving Servant Matt. 18:21- Common truth: Grace,Grace Grace