1st Nov. 09
Romans 6:14 -23
Today we are going to look at what the Bible says about grace – which is one of the most beautiful words in the Bible and one of the most important words in our Christian life.
Verse 14 says, ‘we are not under the Law but under grace.’
I. The Meaning of Grace
Q. Who knows a definition of grace? There are many definitions and the reason is because no single definition adequately describes grace.
Definitions: Grace is;
i. God’s riches at Christ’s expense
ii. God’s gift of what we need not what we deserve
iii. The power to desire and do the will of God
Characteristics of Grace
1. It is an attribute of God

“The Lord is gracious.” Psalm 145:8
And when God acts graciously towards us He is actually extending/giving a part of Himself to us.
In this sense grace is like love it can’t be separated from the nature of God. God’s love and grace are most perfectly expressed in Christ.
2. Grace comes through Jesus Christ
“For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:17
So it’s only in a relationship with Jesus Christ that we find God’s grace and love most perfectly expressed.
3. Grace is eternal
God’s actions have always been inspired by grace.
“(God) has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time…” 2 Tim. 1:9
Some people think that God acted one way, through Law, in the OT and another way, through grace, in the NT.
But God has always acted in grace towards His people.
Genesis 9 says, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”
Abraham was chosen by grace.
Don’t make judgments about God’s motives – we don’t have all the facts.
When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah He was acting in grace: He was breaking a destructive cycle that could only end in misery.
4. Grace is free
It’s an unconditional gift, i.e. we don’t have to earn it.
“…he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” Titus 3:5;
5. Grace can be resisted
As Christian’s we can most certainly resist God’s grace and the NT tells us three things that will limit or hinder the grace of God in our lives.
i. The Book of Hebrews lists one of these as bitterness. When we become resentful and allow bitterness to build up in our lives this hinders the grace of God.
“See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” Heb 12:15
Don’t become resentful you are only hurting yourself.
ii. Pride also hinders the grace of God
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6
iii. Relying on our good works also frustrates the work of grace.

The Christians in Galatia started walking in the Spirit but then slipped back into the shadows of the Law – they became law keepers.
“You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” Gal 5:4, also Gal 2:21
6. Grace is limitless
Remember Romans 5:20, “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”
It’s impossible to exhaust the extent of God’s grace – no one is beyond its reach unless we choose to be. There are no hopeless cases with God.
II. The Benefits of Grace – 8 benefits

1. We are saved by grace.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” Eph 2:8-9
The big problem for many Christians is that while they understand that they are saved by grace they believe that they must live their Christian lives by good works – keeping the Law.
But God doesn’t ask us to enter His family one way and then change once we get there.
Paul says, “Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him.” Col 2:6
How are we saved? ‘By grace through faith in Jesus Christ’,
How should we continue to live our Christian life? In the same way; ‘By grace through faith in Jesus Christ’.
2. We are filled with God’s Spirit by grace
Paul told the Galatians,
“I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the Law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to obtain your goal by human effort?” Gal. 3:2 & 3
So God saves us by grace and He gives us the Holy Spirit so we can continue to live our Christian lives by grace.
3. Every miracle is a work of grace.
“Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?” Gal 3:5
God answers our prayers because He wants to, not because we obey certain rules.
He loves us.
4. All personal growth comes by grace.
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 3:18
Remember John Newton’s prayer – three things every Christian should be able to say?
By the grace of God I’m not what I used to be;
By the grace of God I am what I am;
By the grace of God I’m not what I’m going to be.
Now ‘growing through grace’ does not mean we will live charmed lives.
People who are preoccupied with success and happiness will find it difficult to understand why God allows suffering and evil to do its work.
The reason of course is because He is committed to growing Christian character.
Romans 5, tells us that God will even use tragedy and suffering to build character in our lives.
Why is it that some people grow through suffering and others don’t? Why is it that some people get better and others just become bitter?
Because trials do not automatically mature people it all depends on how we respond to adversity.
The person who grows stronger trusts in the grace of God, while the person who becomes bitter has not learned to do that – they still rely on their own understanding.
5. We overcome sin and temptation by grace.
There are a lot of wrong things said about God’s grace,
i. On the one hand the legalist that says, I’m saved by grace but I’m still better off if I obey the letter of the Law.

ii. While the liberal person’s attitude is that it doesn’t matter how I live, God will still forgive me.

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” Titus 2:11-12
What Paul teaches us in Romans 6 is that God saves us to become His kind of people; He gives us the plan for our lives and then the desire and power to do it – that’s grace.
Phil. 12:2, “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure.’
6. We can handle any trials by grace.
In 2 Cor. 12:7 Paul shares his testimony.
He had been given the most amazing insights about God through a wonderful vision that he received from God – revealing how God was going to use him.
And then Paul explains, in order to keep him from becoming puffed up with pride God allowed Satan to afflict him with a thorn in his flesh.
(Paul) “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you’.” 2 Cor. 12:7-10.
In the same way God’s grace will always be sufficient for us – whatever life throws at us- as long as we trust in God. Hebrews 4:15 says;
“Let us the approach the throne of grace with confidence that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
7. God uses us by grace
Paul says, God gives us Spiritual gifts and abilities to serve Him by His grace.
8. God secures our salvation by grace.
“To him who is able to keep you from falling and present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy…” Jude vs. 24
As long as we have committed our life to Christ, he will keep us from falling and present us faultless before God’s glorious presence.
Q. Who does the keeping? Not you or me – it is Christ who keeps us.
“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Phil 1:6
Paul says that what God begins He finishes.
It is vital that we understand that salvation is the work of grace – if we are saved by works then obviously we could be lost by not doing enough.
If our faith were just an ideology or philosophy we could lose it when we stopped thinking about it.
Be thankful that your faith is in a person who goes on thinking about you when you stop thinking about him.
And it’s based on a relationship and we begin that relationship by being born into the family of God.
Now once we are born into a family we don’t cease to be a member of that family just because the relationship breaks down.
If you have children they will always be your children – nothing can change that.
The quality of your relationship with your children may change depending on how well you get on with each other.
But a good parent will never give up on their children.
And neither well God ever give up on us.
Hebrews 7: 24 – 25 says,
“Because Jesus lives forever he has a permanent priesthood.
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”
In other words Christ’s full time role is interceding for believers. It is the task of a priest.
For us to lose our salvation Jesus would have to stop praying for us or God would have to stop answering his prayers.
But how can God not answer His own prayers.
That’s grace; God saves us by grace; He fills us with the Holy Spirit by grace; He answers our prayer by grace; work in our lives by grace; uses us by grace; He helps us through trials by grace; gives us strength over weakness through grace all of which adds up to the good news of the Gospel.
Finally
III. Three misconceptions About Grace:

1. Good works make God love us even more
We could spend many hours in prayer and bible study every day but God would not love us more than He does right now.
God’s love is unconditional – one of my clearest memories of God speaking to me concerned this very thing.
I wanted so much to please God that I decided to be a missionary and go to the most difficult mission field I could find and I remember God saying to me, “you don’t need to do that to be close to me”.
And I realised that my thinking was just another form of relying on good works and as it turned out God called me to be a pastor in my own country.
As long as anything we do for God is a duty we will never gain any pleasure from it.
We don’t need to do anything to earn God’s approval but we do need to discover how much God loves us.
Remember Jesus parable of the Prodigal Sons? Neither son understood their father’s love.
When Paul planted a church in the Provence of Galatia he taught the new Christians there to live by grace.
However some Jewish converts came – called Judaisers and they taught the Galatians that it wasn’t enough just to have faith in Christ they also had to keep the Jewish laws to be good Christians.
And Paul wrote this young Church the letter we call Galatians and he was very disappointed,
“You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” Gal. 3:1
2 “I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?”
Paul says its grace that saves us and grace that sanctifies us why would you want to go back to the burden of the law.
You know, grace and works are like oil and water, you can’t mix them.
If you take anything away from this message know this – following Jesus is not about law keeping because rules are not made in God’s image.
God didn’t create us to keep rules He made rules to keep us.
We weren’t made to serve rules; the rules were made to serve people.
The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.
God’s moral law is still very relevant but only in as much as it helps us to grow in grace.
Second misconception:
2. Grace gives us the licence to do whatever we want to do
This is why Paul wrote the words here in Romans 6:15-23
“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”
Paul says that we are going to be influenced and mastered by something in life, unfortunately it’s usually our ‘sinful nature’ that controls us but grace gives us the opportunity to make the Lord our master.
Why would you want to be a slave to sin with its inevitable consequences?
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
3. Grace alters the natural consequences of my actions
Again it’s not true; we may choose to live as we want in this life but we can’t choose the consequences and this does not change because of grace.
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” Galatians 6:7
When we come to Christ, maybe we have had a really tough life – perhaps an abusive childhood, which has been made worse by our own rebellion.
Coming to Christ and receiving forgiveness will make us acceptable to God but we will still carry the scars.
Our broken relationships still need to be healed – they certainly have a much better chance because of grace but it’s not automatic.
And similarly, just because we live by grace, this will not keep us from experiencing the discipline of God here and now.
God disciplines those whom he loves.
Many years ago David Wilkinson wrote a powerful little book, ‘God is not angry at me!’
It’s about grace and he said when we fail God doesn’t get upset or angry with us.
He understands our failure but He allows us to reap the resultant harvest from the seeds we have sown – so we can grow?
He has made it possible for us to live under grace, “sin shall not be our master”.
And every time we struggle, even though we fail we can come back to Him – because we have learned how much He loves us and in this way –we will move forward and through God’s grace ultimately win the battle with our sinful nature.
Prayer
Heavenly Father we thank you so much for your grace. Help us to realise that literally everything you do is the consequence of your amazing grace.
Father, help us to know you as the God grace who through Jesus Christ has removed the condemnation of the Law.
So that we when we stumble and fall we can immediately confess it to you we can go on with our lives without carrying a load of guilt, which we feel we have to atone for.
Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for the cross where you paid the price of our sin, in full and thank you for giving us a new life, which we to can live graciously to your glory.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.