Infinite Matchless Grace

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV)

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.””  (Lamentations 3:22–24 ESV)

We are saved by grace, not by works.  It is only grace that could save us. We could never possibly pay the penalty for our sins, the payment is too large for our meager resources. Jesus gave himself to be our redemption.  We come to experience this Grace by a special work of the Spirit in our lives.  It is all of God.  Salvation does not build up our self-esteem, it transfers all our hope to Jesus Christ.  We are justified in him. In him there is no condemnation. We will never be in a state of self-security. We will never be in a state where we are no longer dependent completely on his mercy. Psalm 103 :10 is always true: “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.”

We live dependent lives. We are dependent on God’s great mercy and grace. We depend on his commitment to keeping his promise to love us always. Let us grow comfortable leaning on the everlasting arms!  Be reminded that “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…” We always depend on his grace, never our performance.

Recently I had the privilege of doing the high-ropes course at Mount Hermon. The entire time you are on the course you are double tied into the safety cable.  You cannot fall. You do your best to make it through the challenges, but ultimately your security does not depend on you at all. Your safety depends on the hefty safety cable system. This reminds me of God’s grace.  When all is said and done, he alone saves us, and our security totally depends on his strength and faithfulness. There was not one moment on that course where I was depending on my effort to be safe. There is not one moment in our lives when we should be comfortable in our efforts, our performance; we happily are dependent on Christ alone. 

Who’s In Charge Around Here?

Psalm 127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

Matthew 16:18 …on this rock I will build my church,

      and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Acts 2:47 “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

1 Peter 2:5 “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

It is so important to understand that the church is God’s building! We depend upon the Lord to build his church.  We are called to faithful and thoughtful labor, but we depend upon the Lord’s work to make it all happen.  Day by day we ought to be his workers in the field but we depend upon the Lord of the harvest to actually produce the fruit! 

We live next to strawberry fields.  It is fascinating to watch the farmers doing many things to take care of the plants. But all their labor is only supportive of the amazing miracle that occurs when this small green plant produces marvelous red berries.  As the old child’s song might have said, “Oh who can make a berry? I’m sure I can’t can you?”  Only God makes berries!

This is very reassuring for us.  In a way, when it comes to spiritual work, we are called to participate in something that we really cannot do on our own.  The Almighty Father must do the heavy lifting.  We pray that God will work deeply in people and we must trust him for the outcome.

To apply this directly to our local church, it is always the best to be reminded that this is the Church of Jesus Christ. We are clearly called to work hard for him, and to be faithful in the service to which he has called us, but we must always fully depend on him for the results. Our trust in him is demonstrated by our obedience to him.  He calls us to love people, preach and teach the Word, and pray without ceasing.  Remember the Word “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”  (1 Corinthians 3:6–7 ESV). Since God gives the growth we are nothing!  It is so good to be nothing while God is everything!

This also applies to individuals we love.  You may be in a family where people you love are not saved. There simply is no way for us to reach into that person and turn on faith.  There is no way for us to cause them to experience true conviction of sin and then to move into profound repentance and conversion.  Only God can do to this sort of open-heart surgery.  So, what should we do?  We are called to lovingly present God’s word to them and pray pray pray! 

because resurrection

The book of 1 Corinthians is written to address many issues in the church of Corinth.  An important topic in the book is the resurrection of the body.  Even though it was only about twenty years after the resurrection of Jesus, people were beginning to believe that there was no such thing as the resurrection of the body. Paul is very emphatic in his arguments concerning resurrection. From a Biblical point of view, if there is no resurrection of the body, we have no faith. There is just nothing to our teaching; it is a waste of time.  If there is no resurrection of the body we have no basis for ethics, because there really is no tomorrow. This is why Paul’s concluding statement is so powerful and fully wonderful.  “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”  (1 Corinthians 15:58 ESV)

In the context of the reality of the bodily resurrection, and in the context of our loving church relationships, we are to be highly motivated people.  We are to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

My house is not very old.  It was built in about 1970.  I was working in one of our closets, painting and refreshing it, and I noticed that the pole was sagging some in the middle.  As I analyzed the situation, I realized that the original builders did not bother to attach the pole support to the stud inside the wall.  They had just quickly screwed it to the drywall.

Over the years we have found many ways in which the original builders had done a shoddy job.  They built as if there was no future, as if the house was just to look good for a few years, and then, “Who cares?”  We have had to make several repairs because of this, and some were quite expensive.  Walking away from the closet I thought about this lazy builder. He was all alone finishing up details in this corner of the house.  I’m sure he thought no one would ever notice his sloppy workmanship.  But I found it.  As far as he is concerned, he did get away with his poor work, but one day there will be an evaluation.  (See 2 Cor. 5:10.)

This is the complete opposite to the way we should live our lives.   The Bible clearly teaches that there is a bodily resurrection for everyone, and that all we do will be judged by Jesus Christ. So, those who know the Lord, ought to live their lives persistently, unwaveringly, and super productively for Him.  We need to keep reminding ourselves that our labor truly counts for something.  Our work is never in vain.  There is a future.  We are working for the Lord, even if it is in a little corner where it seems no one knows what we are doing. The Lord will be pleased by our faithful work for him.  We know that in the Lord our labor is not in vain.

“Only one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”  C. T. Studd