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The Goodness of Grace, Part 2

December 30, 1992 • Pastor Star R. Scott

Let’s turn to Romans 3. We’ll also look at Matthew 20 and just spend a little bit of time on this subject that we’re just beginning to deal with. It’s going to be, I believe, a very rewarding time for us. As I was sharing Sunday, I believe that we’ve tried in every way to stay in the center of the road and to bring the wisdom and the counsel of God’s Word, not to be swayed by any established theological standards, but to just purely allow the Word of God to speak to us. You can do that and at the same time, as we shared Sunday, emphasize one of the two great messages of the Word of God (which are to be seen as one and are amalgamated by the Spirit, yet can be emphasized from either perspective). We talked about the obedience factor and what many would term the “works perspective” of walking in obedience to God versus what would be considered the “grace perspective.” In fact, as we were sharing with you Sunday morning, grace and faith do what? They work. We can’t become guilty of isolating on one or the other. You can’t have one without the other. If you have experienced the true grace of God and faith that has been generated by the Word of God has been impregnated into your spirit, you will produce good works that remain. That’s the thing that we understand. The problem is that many of us who are aware of that and are zealous for God and for good works (and I believe we are a people like that) are many times guilty of being works-oriented, judging ourselves and others by our and their performances, not by Jesus’ performance. How many of you have ever been guilty of judging yourself based upon your performance rather than through the total redemptive work of Jesus by the free gift of God’s love and grace? Have any of you ever been guilty of that? Yeah, I think most of us here have. We have to understand how the package works...