[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]

Let’s go to Acts 18:27.  Now it’s talking about the preaching of the Lord and so forth.  “And when He [Apollos] was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace.”  So you believe through grace.  And what we’re going to see is that the grace of God is the main vehicle that God uses in everything relating to us.  We believe through grace.  We are granted repentance (Romans 2:4) through the grace of God.  We then stand in grace and this brings us in contact with God all the time.  So we see this grace upon grace as we’re continuing.

Now let’s go to Romans 4:16.  I tried to make it this way so we would progress through all the scriptures without having to go back and forth so much.  I just wanted to mention in this one scripture out of Romans in particularly, that’s not to exclude the others as I mentioned from Romans 3:24 through chapter 8:4.  Romans 4:16 says, “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace [that is, salvation, the promises of God, belief in Christ]; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all.”  So it is by faith.  It is by grace through faith.  And those go hand in hand.  It’s very much like, if I could use the analogy which I have before of water.  You have to have hydrogen and oxygen to make water.  You need them both.  You need to have faith so that you can have grace.  And you need grace so that you can increase in faith.  You have to have both.

Let’s continue.  Let’s go to 2 Corinthians 2:14.  What I’m covering now is the grace of God having to do with faith, with belief, with salvation, with redemption, and hope.  That’s quite a bit.  It has to do with the grace of God concerning faith, belief, salvation, redemption and hope.  “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place.”  Now the scripture I wanted was 2 Corinthians 2:14 where it says “Thanks be to God.  The word thanks there actually is “grace be to God”.  Remember one of the definitions of grace is thanks.  This is grace be to God for all that He has done, is the summation of it, so that we can be in God’s sight pure.

Now let’s continue here in verse 15.  “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.”  And what he’s saying to the world, if you really believe in Christ it’s like death unto death, but before God it’s like life unto life.  We are a sweet savor to God because of God’s calling.  We may appear to a foul stench to the world because they don’t understand us or Christ.  And I think that would be self evident, especially in a public setting if you really had to say what needed to be said.  You would become an absolute foul stench in their nose.

Let’s continue in verse 16 now.  “And who is sufficient for these things?  For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God…” Now that’s an interesting statement.  Lot’s of times we read it “not as many which corrupt the word of God”.  Were there a lot of people corrupting the word of God?  Why sure there were a lot of people.  We’ll see in a little bit some of the other categories here.  “…Not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ” (vs. 16-18).

Now just to give you an example.  In some of the dealings that I’m having now, I’m in contact with a man who is a minister of a church in San Francisco.  And he’s a black man and he has his own church.  And we were discussing several things concerning some project he is working on, and I said, “Well, maybe I can come up and have a conference with you.  But I’ll make you a deal…”, because he knows I’m a minister too.  I said, “Maybe I could come up on your Bible study night and I would cover the topic “What you will look like in the resurrection”.  And he said, “Oh boy, that sounds good.  Yeah, I’d like to know what we’ll look like in the resurrection.  You’ve got yourself a deal.”

And I thought to myself, if I had to stand up there and really lay everything open the way it is in the word of God I would be just like this - a savor of death unto death and might not escape with my life. [Laughter]  So I think the best way to do is do like the apostle Paul when he was in Athens.  He wanted to tell them something about God that they didn’t know anything about.  So I think that’s the best approach if I have that opportunity.  But notice what he said.  He said, “Boy that is interesting.  I would like to know that.”  And here he’s the pastor of the church and has regular Bible studies and so forth.

Let’s continue on.  2 Corinthians 6:1.  It has to do with salvation.  Now let me turn to the Interlinear because some of these are not evident necessarily in the King James.  This talks about the day of salvation, and this is why I wanted to be sure and have this here.  “We then, as workers together with Him beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain” (2 Cor. 6:1, BGI, paraphrased).  Now why would he say that, that you would not receive the grace of God in vain?  Because it could be misused.  And I think that if you read all of 1 and 2 Corinthians you will see that obviously they were misusing the grace of God.  If, and as I have mentioned before, 1 and 2 Corinthians were not there you would not realize what could happen in a Church of God.  It becomes very mind-boggling.  It really does.  And it becomes very, very hurtful the things that go on.  Let’s hope that we can learn the lessons from that.  So let’s not receive the grace of God in vain.  Let’s receive it in profitability and in truth.

2 Corinthians 8:5, KJV.  “And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.”  Now this is about helping and serving and relieving the brethren who were in deep poverty, and so forth.  “Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also” (2 Cor. 8:5-6).  Now this, if you have a King James you will see the word gift in the margin, if you have a marginal reference.  This is the gift of helping someone in distress.  So this is part of your belief in helping people who are brethren in the Church, that is brethren indeed.  Not brethren in wolves clothing who come along just to take.  But those who have need, that when you help them this is an act of grace on your part as motivated by God’s Holy Spirit.  So this is part of our salvation in helping each other.

Now, it blends in, continuing on now, into the spiritual salvation rather than just the physical salvation of food to eat while you are hungry, or food to eat because there’s a famine.  “Therefore, as ye abound in every thing [now see, he carries this on into the spiritual aspect], in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also” (vs. 7).  In other words, let all of the physical things that you do show the grace that God has given to you.  Not that you use it as a gauge or a measuring stick, but as the scripture says when you do your alms don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.  In other words just do it abundantly from the heart as you are led from God’s Holy Spirit.  That’s what it’s mainly speaking of here.

Verse 8, “I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others [that is who have already given for this relief going to the brethren in Judea], and to prove the sincerity of your love.  For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.”  Now what he’s saying here is that you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And then with the background, with that thought, what he’s really saying is, Who was God before He became Christ in the flesh, Who came to this earth, Who offered Himself in sacrifice, and that is the grace.  He became poor.  He gave up everything so that we could become rich, that is that we could receive eternal life.

Now let’s continue on.  Galatians 1:6.  Now here’s where the apostle Paul was also having trouble and he makes this statement.  Let’s just go back to verse 3 so we can pick it up.  “Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Now that is interesting.  We’ll talk just a little bit about the openings because I’m only going to cover a few of those.  You will notice in almost every one of the epistles of Paul in either verses 1, 2, 3, or 4, and in one occasion it was in verse 5, where he says, “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ”.  Now that’s really a very comforting statement when you read it and understand it.  If you take away the grace from our Lord Jesus Christ and from God the Father then you have what?  You have friction.  You have hostility.  Isn’t it much better to be in harmony and be in the grace of God?  Yes.  So when he’s saying grace and peace, now that’s the peace that comes from God.  Because before we are called, we were what?  What does it say in the New Testament?  We were enemies of God by wicked works in our minds.  Which means that if you were an enemy you were what?  You were at war.  You were at war with God through your sins.   So here is peace from God.  You are no longer an enemy.  There is peace.  That’s what reconciliation means.  You are reconciled.  You have peace.  So that’s quite a thing.

He says you have “…peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world [and that is through grace, by grace have you been saved], according to the will of God and our Father: to Whom be glory for ever and ever.  Amen.”  Now verse 6.  “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him [the Father] that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel” (Gal 1:3-6).  We’re going to see a little later, as I mentioned before, he talks about the true grace of God.  So here’s the warning, that if you get into another gospel you are falling or removed from the grace of God.  Now that is very profound when we think about it.  Because we have all experience what?  We’ve all experienced the process that happens when you are being removed from the grace of God by a change in the gospel which rejects Christ.  And you can see what happens, “…unto another gospel.”

I think I’ve heard another gospel preached.  Verse 7, “Which is not another…”, which he’s saying there is not another.  There is not another gospel.  There’s only one gospel, see.  “…But there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.”  How does one pervert the gospel of Christ?  We’ll just make a little summary.

1).  You leave off the name of Christ.  You cannot preach the gospel of Christ without the name of Christ.

2).  And you cannot preach the coming Kingdom of God as an unseen hand from nowhere coming to save everything everywhere.  That is perverting the gospel of Christ.

 3).  And you cannot say that it is in the person of one being, human being, like the Pope or some other person who claims something, because that is perverting the gospel of Christ.

The gospel of Christ and the grace of God, as it says here, notice verse 3.  “Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.”  And the gospel of Grace is that you have access to God the Father and Jesus Christ directly.  Anything else is a perversion of that.

Ok, let’s continue.  Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.  I do not frustrate the grace of God…” Now how could you frustrate the grace of God?  Or that is, to make or to render not as effective, the grace of God in your life.  How can you make the grace of God not as effective in your life, but by relying on the do’s and don’ts, rather than relying on Christ.  Where he said here when they withdrew themselves, when Peter came down.  They separated themselves, all the Jews.  Did that make them better before God?  No.  Did that frustrate the grace of God?  Yes, because it gave two stages of salvation.  Gentiles over here and Jews over here.  And that Jewish attitude is still a problem in the world today.  Not concerning salvation, but just that attitude in general.  So he doesn’t blunt the grace of God.  “…For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal. 2:20-21).  His whole act of the death and resurrection and His act of grace is a thing in vain.  So this refers back to what he was talking about perverting the gospel of Christ.

Now let’s just drop back to Galatians 1:8.  “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”  There’s the penalty for changing the gospel of God.  I think we’ve seen in the lives of people we know what happens when they change the gospel of God.  Have they not been under a curse because they’ve done it?  Yes, sure.

Now, what he’s saying very strongly here, even if we - any of the other ministers under the apostle Paul, and even the apostle Paul himself came preaching any other gospel than that which was given to him by Jesus Christ, that you’re cut off from God.  Or even if it be an angel from heaven or a purported angel from heaven it isn’t true because God’s way and God’s grace and God’s salvation is absolutely set through Jesus Christ and through the grace of God.  Can’t come any other way.  So that’s what it’s saying there.

Then verse 9, “As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.  For do I now persuade men, or God?  or do I seek to please men?  for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (vs. 9-10).  So that has to do with the grace of God.  We just read in Acts 15 where God put no difference between Jews and Gentiles, and then how dare Peter come down there and some of the other Jews and then separate themselves and say, “Well, we’re not going to sit down with these other Gentiles and fellowship with them.  We’re going to go into another room here because we are better than they are.  And so therefore because we are better than they then we stand before God better than the Gentiles, so we are justified by separating ourselves.”  That’s the whole rational in what they were doing, see.  That is not the case and that’s why he was so hard on Peter.

Ephesians 1:6-7, which we’ve covered before but I just want to touch on it having to do with salvation and redemption.  “To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.”  Now that is very profound verse there, that we have been accepted of God in Jesus Christ, and we could also say as Jesus Christ.  That’s why the grace of God is so fantastic.  “In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace; wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence…”, so that’s what it is, grace upon grace.  And what we’re doing today is going through and seeing all the aspects of grace upon grace that is given to us.  Now we are not going to cover these verses in Ephesians 2:4-10, but I just want to put them on the tape so if you’d like to stop the tape and go back and restudy that, that would be fine.

Let’s continue on to the book of Colossians 1:6.  Now as we’re going through this will maybe give you an example of how you can do a word study in the Bible or a concordance study, because this is literally what we are doing.  We are going through every place that has the word grace in reference to the grace of God.

“Which is come unto you [that is the word of the truth of the gospel] as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth.”  There we have the grace of God in truth, which means as we can see in the book of Jude…

Let’s just go back to the book of Jude right now, and there are no chapters so it’s just verses 3 and 4.  And Jude is the very last little book before the book of Revelation.  Jude 3 and 4, and this would be showing the grace of God not in truth.  So let’s pick it up here in verse 3.  “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”  So here again is this attack upon the truth of God.  For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness…” Now I wanted to tie that in directly with this verse in Colossians 1:6, to tie that in with Jude 3 and 4 because this shows that the grace of God in truth is going be the message the Christ brought, whereas there may be a counterfeit which turns the grace of God into lasciviousness or license to sin, which goes against what the apostle Paul taught when he said, “What, shall we sin that grace may abound?”  He said, “God forbid.  Don’t let this thought even come into your mind.  Don’t even let it come into existence.”  But here they were “…certain men crept in unawares ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Ok, we’ll finish this section here, I hope.  Now let’s go to 2 Thessalonians 2:13.  Now 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17 is a real key section because this, in addition with Romans 3:24 through Romans 8:4 shows the process of salvation.  “But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation…” Now that is a gift, isn’t it?  That is grace.  The very calling of God is grace.  So He chose us to salvation, and salvation is grace.  “…Through sanctification of the Spirit [and we receive the Spirit by faith through grace, don’t we?] and belief of the truth [we believe the truth of God]: whereunto He called you by our gospel [which is the gospel of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God], to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:13-14).  Now that’s quite a statement isn’t it?

Now how do you obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ?  There are two ways you obtain it.  Number one, remember just before He was crucified He said, “Now am I glorified.  Now is the Father glorified.”  You receive the glory of Christ by accepting His sacrifice for you, which was an act of grace that God brought to the world.  And that is called a glorious thing.  And that is why we observe the Passover so you receive the glory of God that way.  And it also has to do with the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ at the resurrection, referring to what we will be when we are resurrected.  So these statements here, though you read through and they sound very beautiful and flow right along, they are jam packed with meaning, aren’t they?

Verse 15, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught…” Now these were obviously then the things that they were to carry on traditionally based upon God’s word, not some new tradition that they could invent.  “…Whether by word [as they were taught], or our epistle.  Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace…” Now, if you follow all the way through everything the apostle Paul is talking about in verse 13 about your calling, about your salvation, about the sanctification, about your belief in truth, the calling to the gospel, the obtaining of glory, the standing fast in what were taught, that God has directly dealt with us and has loved us, given us an everlasting consolation and good hope…  All of that is through grace.  That’s why this is a very key section in understanding the operation of grace.  All of that is through grace.  Then he says verse 17, “Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work” (vs. 15-17).

Let’s go to Titus 2:11 now.  This also talks about grace and salvation.  “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.”  The grace of God that brings salvation.  And that is the whole operation of salvation.  You are saved through grace.  There again, and again, and again.

Let’s go to Titus 3:3.  Here again it shows another part of the operation of grace.  Now when I have said that you cannot overcome on your own, but the grace of God in you with God’s Spirit will do the overcoming if you are led of the Spirit of God.  I do not mean in any sense that we are not to do anything.  We are to do all we can.  Just like it says here in verse 3, “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers [different] lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.”  That sounds like some churches I know.  “But after that the kindness…” Now the kindness here refers to the grace of God.  “…The kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared.”  The kindness of God refers to the grace of God.  “Not by works of righteousness which we have done…” In other words if you got every good person together everywhere and had them all doing good, would that constrain God to appear to you?  No.  Christ appeared because it was the time that God had determined, not because anyone was doing good.  So that’s what he’s talking about.  “…But according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy [Spirit] Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by His grace…” (Titus 3:3-7).  Now notice, I went through several scriptures before we came down to this of justified by grace, showing again the whole operation of grace depends upon the love of God, the kindness of God, and that’s how we are justified - by grace.

Ok, I think we are going to be able to… No, I don’t think we’re going to be able to finish it.  We’ll have to have one more on grace.  So we’ll go ahead and end it here.  I won’t end it just exactly here.  I will go to two more scriptures.  Hebrews 12:28-29 and then we will end it there.

“Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace…” Now it’s interesting if you have a King James version you will see in the margin, if you have a margin, “…[let us hold fast the grace] whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”  Now notice we have something here very interesting.  That we still serve God with reverence and godly fear though we are of the family of God, though we are the friends of Christ, etc.  “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28-29).

One more verse.  Hebrews 13:9.  Let’s just back up to verse 8 because this carries the thought.  “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”  So what we’re talking about, the grace of God as received by God the Father through Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  “Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.  For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace…”  So we are established in the salvation of God and our hearts are established with grace.  With God’s goodness and kindness and mercy.  “…Not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

Ok, we’ll pick it up next time at this point so we will actually end up with six tapes in the New Testament on grace and seven on grace altogether.

[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]