The Necessity of Grace

During our 11:00am Worship/Celebration Service yesterday, God made His presence strong among us. We became so moved in worship that I didn't think we could add anything to what He was doing in the hearts of the people. God was drawing people unto Himself as we continued to give him glory.

Since I was unable to preach to the crowd at the 2nd service, I wanted to share some thoughts with you from the sermon: The Necessity of Grace. This message was the third in a Series called "Grace - The Change We Need!" In the picture above you can see that Romans 3:24 says, "being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus". This is what we need to understand about the grace of God in our lives. It is by grace - through faith - that we are saved. We are brought into a right standing relationship with God through the grace found in Jesus Christ. We cannot work for it, earn it by merit, or accomplish anything by our own effort. Grace is a free gift to all who will believe, and it is by believing that we are made righteous.

The Necessity of Grace is found in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." Grace is necessary in the life of a believer because it is only by the grace of God that we can be different. What must be resolved in our lives is that we cannot change in our own ability. Only when we come to Jesus in faith does God activate His grace in our lives to make us new.

Grace is also necessary to make us righteous. In verse 21 of 2 Cor. 5, the Bible says that "For He made Him who know no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Jesus became sin for us so that we could become righteous. This is where we have to abandon the achievement mentality and move into an agreement mentality. In other words, by faith you must agree with God that you are as righteous as Jesus! The need in your life is not that you become more righteous but that you begin to live out what God has placed inside of you. It's just like salvation: BY GRACE - THROUGH FAITH!

Last of all, I shared with the first service that grace is necessary to make us vessels of praise. 2 Corinthians 4:7, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us." This is where we understand that the grace of God moves beyond salvation. It is the actual power at work in our lives so that we may live out what God has done on the inside. The Christian life is to be lived by the grace of God from start to finish. All I have to do is operate in faith. When I believe what God's Word says about my life, I agree with God, and then grace gives me the ability to walk in whatever God says is true about me. I know this concept may sound foreign to us because of our works mentality, but you are going to have to trust me.

Example:
Let's say that you are being tempted in a certain area of life. God's Word says that sin shall not have dominion over you because you are no longer under law but under grace (Rom. 6:14). This means that I am victorious over sin because of the grace of God. What I do next will determine whether or not I am victorious. I encourage you to agree with what God says about you in His Word: I am "more than a conqueror", "Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world", I am "the righteousness of God in Christ", and I am "Holy". The words in quotation marks come directly from God's Word and speak about your identity in Christ. When we confess these things by faith, our heart comes into agreement with God's Word. It is here that we find the ability to overcome any and every temptation that comes our way.

Here's the challenge: Am I going to continue to work out my own salvation in my own strength OR am I going to allow God's grace to give me the ability I need? One of these ways offers effortless change while the other one requires a lot of work. I choose GRACE! When I confess Jesus as Lord over EVERY area of my life, and by faith agree with what God has said about me, I am able to walk in victory. This is The Necessity of Grace.