January 11

Transcription

(Transcribed by TurboScribe)

As we, when your word, Lord, thank you for this amazing word that you've given, we pray again as we always pray that we might see Jesus, and only Jesus. Amen. Starting a three-piece, three-piece, three-part series on grace this morning.

So for the next three weeks, we'll, we'll talk about God's grace, an amazing, amazing, beautiful gift that comes from God. The author, preacher, teacher, Max Lucado, writes, he says, some years ago I underwent a heart procedure. My heartbeat had the regularity of a telegraph operator sending morse code, was fast, fast, fast, slow.

So after several failed attempts to restore a healthy rhythm with medications, my doctor decided I should have a catheter ablation. Plan went like this. Cardiologist would insert two cables in my heart via blood vessel.

One was a camera, the other, other was an ablation tool. To ablate is to burn. So if all went well, the doctor, to use his words, would destroy the misbehaving parts of my heart.

As I was being wheeled into surgery, he asked if I had any final questions. Not the best choice of words. I tried to be witty.

You're burning the interior of my heart, right? Correct. You intend to kill the misbehaving cells. Yes, that's my plan.

So as long as you're in there, doc, could you take your little blowtorch to some of my greed, selfishness, superiority, and guilt? He smiled and he answered. He said, sorry, that's out of my pay grade. Indeed it was.

But it's not out of God's. He's in the business of changing hearts. And God is in the business of changing hearts.

Sometimes it happens like this. Sometimes it takes a little longer. But if we allow him, he will do that because of one big word, the word called grace.

So let's read about that. Then we'll talk about it from the book of Titus chapter two. And I'm going to read from the Amplified Bible.

For the remarkable undeserved grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all people. It teaches us to reject ungodliness and worldly immoral desires and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives. Lives with a purpose that reflect spiritual maturity in this present age, awaiting and confidently expecting the fulfilment of our blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Christ Jesus, who willingly gave himself to be crucified on our behalf to redeem us and purchase our freedom from all wickedness and to purify for himself a chosen and very special people to be his own possession, who are enthusiastic for doing what is good.

For the remarkable undeserved grace of God has appeared to all. For this life change that has to happen, we have to do something. We have to let go.

Let me talk about the let go for a second. We have to let go of those things that stand between us and God. We have to let go of those selfish, self-righteous things that are part of our lives.

We have to let go of those things that often will stand between us and God, where we look at ourselves and think I'm not good enough. We have to let go and allow ourselves to fall completely and fully into the grace of God. Because here's the thing, all of those poor choices that I've made, all of those failures, all of those messes, God specialises in those to clean them up.

If only we'll allow ourselves to fall and let that grace immerse us. Here's the thing with grace. I think that we use the word so loosely sometimes that we forget what it means in God's words.

We talk easily about, well, I'm a little overdrawn at the bank, they'll give me grace. Or that seedy old politician has fallen from grace. Or, oh, look at her, she danced and she was so graceful.

Cool. But grace is not just a cool word or a pretty word that we use. In God's words, grace is an action that also expects an action that comes back from us.

So grace will ask questions of me. It'll say, so you've fallen into God's grace. How has grace changed you if you live under the grace of God? Has it changed your life in any way? How has grace strengthened you in your faith and in your faith walk? How has grace softened you to be gentle and gracious and kind towards others? How has grace shaped your life? Because did you hear that grace shapes your life? Can I read verse 12 again? It teaches us to reject ungodliness, worldly, immoral desires, to live sensible, upright, godly lives, lives with a purpose that reflect spiritual maturity in this world.

See, there's a little bit of a wildness, an upside downness to grace. It'll come after you. It will rewire you.

It will change you from the inside out. Question, does anyone like me need to stand under the grace of God? But here's this cool thing. Can I go back to what Max said about his heart? When God changes our lives through His grace, He doesn't do a catheter ablation.

God actually cuts open this whole chest and He does a complete heart transplant. That's what grace does. Listen, Ezekiel 36, 26 from the New Living says, And I, says God, by my grace will give you a new heart.

And I, by grace, will put a new spirit, the Greek word ruach means wind, breath, life, spirit in you. And I, by grace, will take out your stony, stubborn heart. And in place of that, I will give you a tender, responsive.

When God's grace comes into our lives and we let go and fall into that, God just takes this old heart out. But here's the cool thing. I want you to think about this for a second.

When God takes this heart out and He replaces it with another heart, it's not another Aubrey heart because it's just going to be another stony heart when it's mine again. When God takes this one out, He gets rid of it and He takes the heart of Jesus Christ and He transplants that into my life. And when God puts on that stethoscope and He listens to this heart, He doesn't hear my heart.

He hears the heart of Jesus Christ. If I allow Him to do that, because by grace, that's what God wants to do. He wants to change your life completely.

He wants to make you a new person because of His grace. That's why Paul could write Galatians 2.20. He could say, but it is not I. I do not live anymore. It is Christ who lives in me.

Not kind of hanging around there. He's taken over. He's cleaning it up from the inside out.

It's called grace because if that did not happen, imagine where I would be. That's why Paul can write in verse 21. This is so cool.

I read this in the Passion Translation. It says, I will not nullify the grace of God by adding my own old works. Because you see, without grace, we think I have to do this.

I have to act that. I have to go work for this. Grace is a gift, and I'll come back to that in a second, where I can just say, God, will you just flow that through my life so that I do not nullify that remarkable free gift that God gives? Because here's the thing.

Through grace, God does not tell you to change. Grace is God causing you to change. Because I can't.

On my own, I can't. But if I allow that grace to flow in, that's when the change comes. I can say, I can't forgive my enemy.

I can't forget what that person has done to me. I can't forget my past. I can't come over, get past what I've done.

You're right. But Jesus can. Because you see, grace is a gift.

You can't buy it. You can't earn it. It's a free gift that God gives freely into your life.

And I don't think sometimes with our small minds, we get that. We can understand this grace because sometimes we don't know how to give that. And we don't understand how God can do that so freely.

We might not get grace, but grace gets us. Because that same grace that hugged the stink out of a lost son, that same grace that loved the hate out of Paul, that same grace that went looking for Peter even after denying the Lord, it's that same grace that's coming after us and looking for us. And all I need to do is to let go and to fall into that grace.

Will you do that? Allow Him to just flow over you. Thank you for your grace, Lord. Help us to give that grace freely to each other too.

Help us then if you have changed our lives and changed our hearts to allow you to live that grace through our hands and feet and our actions. Thank you for the grace of coming into this world. Thank you for the grace, Lord Jesus, of living in us.

We love you with all that is in us as we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.