Let’s turn to the Gospel of John. We just want to start this subject, and all we’re going to do this morning is introduce it. That’s all my brain has the capacity to do! We had a very long day yesterday and enjoyed getting to spend most of the time just reading and fellowshipping with the Lord, so we had a good flight home. I want to share some of these principles that I think are very important for us. I’ve been telling you for weeks that we were going to start a study on the grace of God. How many of you are thankful for God’s grace this morning? If it weren’t for grace, we wouldn’t be here, so we thank God that He is a merciful God. God is tender and merciful, and His mercies endure forever. God is a God of grace; He is gracious.
Here in our fellowship, I would say that if we leaned in one direction, we would probably have a tendency to lean toward legalism rather than license. Would you say “Amen” to that? Of course, we know that it’s very important for us to walk in balance in the Word of God, and yet, not everybody does. Not everybody even realizes there is a balance, because so many have a tendency to emphasize and to move in excess in the doctrines that are appealing to them and in that aspect of the Word of God that is necessary for them to walk in obedience. I think we are a fairly balanced group of people, but if we do get out of balance, we would have a tendency as a people to lean more toward legalism. So, when we talk about grace, we need to realize that in no way are we implying license. Grace is not a license to sin or a life that is without regulation...
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...
The Goodness of Grace, Part 3
January 3, 1993 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Have you been able to be truly thankful for this last year and the presence of the Lord? In everything give thanks. How many of you have had a rough year this year? Let me see your hands. Anybody? Give thanks. Amen? Just thank God for His presence—not for the problems—but for the presence of God, the strength of God to bring us through. Amen? You’re still standing. I don’t see any of you wiped out yet. You’re still standing, praise God, and having done all to stand, what do we do? Just keep standing. Praise God. I mean, after all, who do you think you are? There’s no trial that’s taken you but such as is common to man. Amen? You’re not special. We’ve all had problems. Let me see again. How many of you have had a rough year this year? Hold your hands up. Hold them up. Look around now. Don’t you feel ashamed that you’ve been feeling sorry for yourself? You thought you were the only one. “There [is] no temptation taken you but such as is common to man….” With every temptation He makes the way of escape, praise God. He will not allow you to be tempted past that that you’re able to stand, and with every temptation, He makes the way of escape, praise God. God has confidence in you. How many of you thought this one was going to put you under? Let me see your hands. Come on, truthfully. Hold your hands up. How many of you thought this one was going to do it? Okay. See, you’re stronger than you thought you were...
The Goodness of Grace, Part 4
January 3, 1993 • Pastor Star R. Scott
In the fifth chapter of Romans, we want to pick up and take a few verses out of there, and then go into a couple of topics that this grace extends itself through in our lives and how it expresses itself, and begin to take some of the principles and see if we can make them practical in our daily lives. We’ve been talking a lot about principle, we’ve been looking at different spiritual concepts, and many times in our thoughts they become abstract and we want to try to put these into some practical use. As we look at the fifth chapter—it’s interesting how he starts this fifth chapter off. He says, “Therefore…” And when you see the word “therefore,” you always stop to see what it’s there for, right? There’s a conclusion coming up here. He’s made some points and now he’s going to come and he says, “Here’s the conclusion, here’s what I want you to understand from what I’ve said.”
Okay? So he makes this statement. He says, “Therefore being justified [how?] by faith,[pronounced righteous by faith—here’s the good news] we have [what?] peace with God…” How many of you are glad you’re at peace with Almighty God this evening? Amen? He said we have peace with God. We’ve been justified (proclaimed righteous) by God and therefore our spirits should be at peace. So if you’ve experienced true grace, if you’ve already been a recipient of the grace of God, then we know that we’re saved by the peace that we have with God. We’re at peace with God. “There is no fear,” John says, “in love.” There’s no fear of judgment in love. Once I understand that while I was a sinner, not on my merit, God loved me, Jesus died for me, I comprehend the love of God, I’m never afraid of judgment, I’m not afraid of God...
The Goodness of Grace, Part 5
January 6, 1993 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Hallelujah. Let’s turn to the book of Romans. We want to pick up where we’ve been in our study concerning the grace of God. How many of you are thankful for that grace today? Do you realize that’s what got you through the day? Amen. Without it you wouldn’t be here tonight. We’ve been talking about the different aspects of the grace of God, how it manifests itself in our lives. We mentioned, of course, that this grace is understood from the two primary perspectives. We realize that grace, as it relates to our justification, is the unmerited favor of God—while we were sinners He loved us and died for us. Amen? That declaration of us being righteous because of God’s mercy, because of the free gift of the redemptive work of Jesus, we understand that that grace has affected us and, as we’ll see as we survey a couple of the Scriptures again tonight, that it has nothing to do with our ability.
Look at Romans, the 3rd chapter, verse 20: “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified…” Amen? You can’t do anything in response to the law of God—[not] the ceremonial laws of man or the laws that we’ve established throughout history, not only from the time of the Judaizer but also into our twentieth-century little dos and don’ts lists—that can cause you to be holy before God. There’s not anything you can do in the natural man that’ll make you holy before God. We saw over in the 24th verse it says we were justified (or pronounced righteous) how? “…freely [How? Say it with me.] by his grace…” Say it again: “by his grace.” Okay, it was done freely by the grace of God, and no man, then, by the deeds of the law can be justified before God...
The Goodness of Grace, Part 6
January 10, 1993 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Galatians, second chapter. “Knowing [verse 16] that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? [The answer to that is no] God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law that I might live unto God.” Very familiar Scripture, verse 20, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” [Verse 21] “I do not frustrate [I do not frustrate—set aside, really, is what this word would imply to us] the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” How many of you are glad righteousness does not come by the law? Amen? How do we then relate to the law? We’re not going to spend all of the time going back through Galatians here, but how do we, then, relate to the law if we read passages like this, and we read passages like the passage over in Ephesians...
The Goodness of Grace, Part 7
January 10, 1993 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Let’s turn to the book of Galatians. We want to pick up where we left off this morning. See if we can wind up the main emphasis that we’ve been putting on this particular study of grace and works. Aren’t you glad grace works? Let’s start in the third chapter of Galatians again. We’ll read just a few verses and see what we can do to cut back, take a couple of minutes and review. Look at Chapter 2 verse 16. “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ…” Amen? Now, notice that justification isn’t faith in Jesus; it’s the faith of Jesus. Okay? Later, the grace of God will give us the capacity to believe in Jesus, but it’s not our believing in Jesus that justifies us. It was Jesus’ faith, His work, and His obedience that brought about the death of sin, the death of the power of sin over the flesh, as we saw this morning in Romans. Because Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin. Amen? We saw that in Romans this morning. He came in the likeness of flesh; He came in flesh. He came for sin. His mission was to come and to take sin upon Himself. So, in the likeness of flesh, He came for sin, and in His death and in His life of righteousness, He abolished the power of sin over the flesh, over humanity. Thank God for it! You see, that’s what redemption is all about.
So it tells us here that we, no man, is justified by the works of the law, but we are justified by the faith; or we can say it another way, the works of Jesus. Okay? By the faith of Jesus. As He had faith in the Father, as He committed Himself into the Father’s hands. “Into Your hand, I commit My spirit.” As He righteously assumed upon Himself, the just, for the unjust. He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. See, that took faith in the Father...
