Sola Gratia | The Five Solas

What if the most life-changing power isn’t something you earn, but something you receive? We open with a rapid tour of the Five Solas and then linger on grace alone—the unmerited favor of God that meets us in our mess and remakes us from the inside out. A youth ministry turkey-bowling fiasco becomes a living parable: where you expect judgment, grace listens, instructs, and restores. That story sets the tone for a journey through Romans, Ephesians, John, and Acts, showing why salvation is a gift, not wages, and how grace breaks sin’s dominion without turning a blind eye to holiness.

Together we trace the line from the mercy seat in the wilderness to Jesus Christ, where grace and truth embrace. We explore how Scripture, not tradition, anchors our confidence; why “shall we continue in sin?” still demands a clear “by no means”; and how humble communities correct with gentleness, not pride. Along the way, Judas and Paul stand as stark contrasts—one who let small compromises bloom into betrayal, and one who learned to boast in weakness so that Christ’s power could rest on him. The early church’s “great grace” wasn’t a slogan; it was a lived reality that fueled bold testimony, radical generosity, and resilient hope.

If you’ve wrestled with church hurt, felt stuck in old patterns, or wondered whether God is still good when answers feel slow, this conversation is for you. We offer three clear takeaways: grace reminds us of our brokenness, grace reminds us of God’s goodness, and grace compels us to encounter God personally. Expect practical counsel, honest self-examination, and a call to extend the same grace you’ve received—at home, at work, and in your church family. If this encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a quick review to help more people discover the power of grace.

Chapters

• 0:00 Luther, Reformation, and the Five Solas
• 1:32 Grace Illustrated: The Turkey Bowling Story
• 5:20 Cornerstone’s Mission and Following Jesus Together
• 6:29 Scripture’s Authority and Faith Alone
• 9:39 Grace Alone in Romans and Ephesians
• 14:05 Mercy Seat to Scripture: God’s Near Presence
• 18:08 All Have Sinned: Gift, Not Wages
• 22:01 Shall We Continue in Sin? No.
• 25:37 Community, Church Hurt, and Gentle Restoration
• 28:09 Not Under Law but Under Grace
• 30:16 Humility Over Pride: Receiving More Grace
• 32:36 Grace and Truth in Jesus, Fulfillment of the Law
• 35:12 Lavished Grace and God’s Purpose
• 38:04 Great Grace on the Early Church
• 40:16 Judas, Small Compromises, and Obedience
• 43:20 Paul’s Weakness and Sufficient Grace
• 46:10 Three Takeaways: Brokenness, Goodness, Encounter

Transcript

AI Video: 0:00

500 years ago, a monk named Martin Luther ignited a fire that would reshape Christianity forever. His stand against the prevailing doctrines of his day wasn't just a protest, it was a call to return to the foundational truths of the faith. This pivotal moment of Protestant Reformation wasn't about creating a new religion, but about rediscovering the gospel. At the heart of this rediscovery were five core principles, Latin phrases that became the rallying cry for reform. These are the five solas, sola scriptura, scripture alone. The Bible, not tradition or human authority. It's our ultimate and infallible guide for faith and life. It's the final word, the highest course. Sola Fidel, faith alone. We're justified, declared righteous in God's sight, by faith alone, not by our words. We trust solely in Christ's finished work on the cross. So is God's gift, grace alone. Salvation is an earth, it's a gift from God. It's this unmerited favor that saves us. Nothing we do can ever deserve it. So is Christus, Christ alone. Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and humanity. He is the one and only way to salvation, our one true King, and our sole redeemer. Solid Day of Gloria, to the glory of God alone. The ultimate purpose of everything, including our salvation, is to bring glory to God. Our lives are to be lived for his praise, not our own. These aren't just historical slogans, they're living truths that anchor our faith.

Jason Brown: 1:32

Do you give the grace you have received? You know, thinking about this idea of grace is so pivotal. And it reminds me of a story that I experienced some years ago. Now, I was a youth pastor here a few years back. And in doing so, you know, it's the adventure of trying to deal with students and young adults. And man, they're different, they're a different time of life, right? So during your teen years, your parents don't know anything until you get to be a young adult and they know everything, and you realize you don't know anything. You guys know what I'm talking about? And so during that phase, you're trying to wrestle them together and get a group of them going. And man, we love and revere our students. We want them to know Jesus. They are the church today. And so that's who we want to be engaging with. And one way to get students to show up to anything is to provide food. And so we provided food, and I was thinking about that. I was like, okay, so it's fall, it's almost Thanksgiving. What's the best food to give them? Turkey. And so we're gonna give turkey, we're gonna figure out turkey, turkey, turkey with the game. You know, we have the master ceremonies of games right here, Travis in the front row for our youth department. And it's like, what game can we go? Students love bowling. Okay, we're gonna put bowling together with turkey, and we're gonna have turkey bowling. And so we're gonna take frozen turkeys and we're gonna hurl them down at some pins. But we don't have any pins, Pastor Jay. That's right, we don't. We're gonna use two-liter soda bottles because this is a great idea. And it's gonna be wonderful. There's gonna be no problems with this idea at all. It's gonna be super fun. And as we did it, man, it starts knocking them over, and you know, we're thinking about, man, they're gonna explode. It's gonna be crazy. We have some plastic up and we have a little bit of a thing of a backstop. I really thought it out, you guys. I'd thought it out. There's no problems. Until the first, you know, 15-year-old power-packed boy grabs this ginormous frozen turkey and he chucks it down towards the bottles, and it knocked off all the bottles, and then went right over everything I had put there to block it, and into the wall, leaving a frozen turkey hole this big in the multi-purpose wall. And all of the leaders turned and looked at me, they're like, ooh. And I was trying to look for anybody else but me. I was like, oh no, it's me. And I knew the gavel was coming. You know, I knew there was gonna be judgment. I knew I was to blame. It was my idea. I was the one that planned it. And now there's a huge hole in the wall that's perfectly cut out for a turkey. And in the morning, we have our daycare here that they're gonna use this room. And I'm like, ah. And of course, you know, I was trying to like posture and think of a way to explain this to my dad, who's the pastor. And uh, you know, I'd grown up with him, I was expecting, you know, there was gonna be a J-size hole next to the turkey in the wall. So, you know, I thought I was gonna see the bright light of going to see Jesus. I was like, Yes, Lord, I see you, I'm coming. That's not what happened. What happened is I came in and talked to him, and you know, instead of getting the reprimand for what I had done, he started asking me what I was doing. And I said, Well, we did this game, we want to engage these kids, and we have these new kids coming, we want to get them tied in. And he started to hear the heart behind what I was doing. And instead of giving me judgment, he gave me grace. And so he said, We're gonna fix it, we're gonna make sure that you follow up with it and you get it fixed. Yep, yep, we can do that. And what happened was it it turned from being a judgment moment into a learning moment. And it is a moment where the the grace that my dad had received had changed his character that he now is passing on, and I was experiencing the grace of God through his life to me. Because I didn't get what I deserved, but instead I got grace that was extended to me. Friends, do you give me the grace that you have received? Today we continue with this idea of the five solas, these are the five statements of faith of the reformation, and we're glad that you're part of us, we're glad that you're here with us at Cornerstone. Uh, you know, very much here at Cornerstone, we see ourselves as people who are imperfect. We are all in need of a savior. And so that's how we view ourselves. We are people on a journey following after Jesus. And we use this imagery of Christ walking with his disciples because that's how we view ourselves, as people who are following Jesus where he's leading us to go. And since that's true, then we want to be more like Jesus. And our ambition is to do that collectively. It's why we do it throughout the week, throughout the city and life groups, so we can be an intentional to connect with each other, to grow in our relationship with God, and to serve. It's also why missionally we love God, we make disciples, and we reach the world. That's why we believe in missions and we want to see people both here where we live and across the world know the love of Christ. Now, looking to the five solas, this is something that goes back to the idea of the Reformation. And there are five statements of faith, as you saw in the video, that talk about these key pieces of what we believe. And so as we look at it, you see sola scriptura, scripture alone. You see sola fide, that by faith alone. Today we're looking at sola gratia by grace alone. We'll take a look at solus Christus or Christ alone. And then last, solide o gloria, or God's glory alone. Glory be to him alone. And we looked and saw how Martin Luther was talking to in his day, speaking to these very things and recalibrating the hearts of the church back towards the very thing that made our faith our faith, which is a walk in Jesus Christ, and about his work on the cross for us. So as Martin Luther, who he himself was talking about, I'm not, it's not going to be driven by tradition or by relics or by praying to these other things. No, I'm going to have a faith that's in Jesus Christ because that's what the book says. And so we talked about how the scripture is so important to us, it's the revelation of God's word. We talked about that with sola scriptura. Our Bible, we looked at 2 Timothy 3, and it says, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And so for us, the word of God, it's alive. It's not a dead document written thousands of years ago, but by the Holy Spirit, it can be made alive so that it impacts our life. So it challenges our character. So it's something that washes over us and in us and through us. And so that's something that's imperative and important to us. So as we go into the word, it envelops us. And as we spend that time in the scripture, it starts to wash over our character and align us with where he's asking us to go. It's also why the scripture is a higher authority than even the way we do what we're doing, which is traditions, because the scripture is the alignment of God's word for us. And so what we say is that you don't have to belong to the church to belong to Jesus, but we belong to the church because we belong to Jesus. And so you see how those things are aligned and how they come together. So my encouragement to you would be be people of the word, be people that go into the word of God and let it wash over you. The next thing we talked about was sola fide or faith alone. And we looked at the scripture here, and it says in Ephesians 2, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing, it's of the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. And so we talk about how faith is the way that we make a make an understanding of our belief in Jesus. We're saying, Lord, I believe you are who you say you are. And it's placing our trust in the unknown, which is found in the eternal God of our faith. Today we're taking a look at Solo Gratia, grace alone. And if you have a Bible, your tablet, your phone today, let me encourage you to highlight. We're gonna be looking through Romans quite a bit, but starting here in Romans 3, verses 23 and 24. Let me encourage you to highlight that so you can take a look back over it this week and let it let it soak into your heart. It picks up here Romans 3, 23, it says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word and we pray over it today. Oh, that you would spark it and make it alive in us. Lord, that you would challenge us in our character to be more like you. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. So sola gratia, grace alone. As we look at these pieces, we talked about last week how the scripture in Ephesians it starts out talking about it's only by grace that we've been saved through our faith in God. And so that's something that sparks this idea of that it's not our own doing, it's not by works. And this is imperative because we as people who are broken, we know we're broken. We don't have to have someone convince us otherwise, do we? All of us have made mistakes. And since that's true, then as we come towards God, it's the question always has to be what can we offer a holy God? We don't have anything that we can earn our way into his presence. There's not enough steps. How can we do it? We can't make ourselves holy because we are unholy. And so God needed a holy sacrifice to make those things in alignment. And by the law, he would make that be a substitute of a sacrifice where this animal takes my sin upon it, and as it's sacrificed, my sin is dead. But as Jesus comes, he does that for all of us. And so he's the one that takes the sin upon himself. And so for us, whenever we start to look this way, we have to understand it's by the grace of God. It means that uh that we get something that we don't deserve, and in a positive way. And so this grace that he gives to us, he comes all the way to us. He abandons heaven and glory and all those that were worshiping him before the throne, and he comes down in a way we can understand. He becomes mortal man and lives this life. And in doing so, he becomes that very sacrifice that we need. He's the one that pays the price for us. And so we can't earn it, we can't do enough good things. I mean, you can't give enough money, you can't serve enough time, you can't do it. But what we can do is we respond by faith in obedience to God, accepting his work for us. And that is the grace, the gift of God for us. As we look to our Bible, we do so intentionality. It's like, Lord, speak to me of what this looks like for today. What is my daily bread? And as it becomes alive, it challenges us in that way. You know, in this thing, in this theme of grace, we see it often that it was written by the church fathers. We see it in Paul and Peter's writings as they would write epistles to the church. That's the letters that we read as books of the Bible and the New Testament often. They would write and actually lead with this idea of grace. And you can see three examples here. It says, Grace to you and peace from our God, our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ. See, what they were living in is the grace of God that had been extended to them as a Christ follower, and therefore we're extending grace to each other. And this is so what's pivotal for us because we want to be like they are, that they're leading out saying, Listen, grace and peace to you. We together are on this team. We together are living this life for God. We together are walking in grace. And in doing so, it starts to challenge us to be in alignment with Him. You see here the example from Peter, it says, My May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Friends, that's what I pray all the time. Lord, give me your wisdom beyond my experience, beyond the things that I know. I need your insight. And so, Lord, speak to me. Give me your download of your spirit for me for today, that my daily bread would be walking in alignment with you. Would you say amen to that? So we pick up here in scripture, walking forward a little bit, taking a look at Exodus 25, and it's the reference from where mercy starts to be an establishment for the people of God. And obviously, the mercy of God had already been there, an extension to Abram becoming Abraham, and then later with Joseph and the salvation of Israel, later with Moses and their freedom from Israel. But there was a need for Moses, who lacked wisdom, to get wisdom from God. Exodus 25 says, And you shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about what I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel. It says a little further in in Numbers 7, it says, And when Moses went to the tent of meeting to speak with the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim, it spoke to him. So the Lord gives them a tangible representation of his glory. He wasn't encapsulated in a gold box, but what he did is allowed his presence to rest here with the artifacts of what he had given him, the law and the miracles that he had done that had been put inside the Ark of the Covenant as testimony of God's glory and his love for the children of Israel. And in doing so, what happens is you see that this gilded box becomes the presence of God. And it would say that Moses would go into the tabernacle to meet with God, and God would speak to Moses in this way. And he's doing so because why? Because Moses needs wisdom from God. And he needed wisdom to rule the people of God as their leader. Why? Because Moses was a broken person like all of us. And though Moses has this amazing story of God sparing his life and being raised up in Pharaoh's house because his his uh adopted mother was Pharaoh's daughter, so he gets this education to be a ruler and a ruling class in Egypt. But then he throws it all away because he lets his anger take hold and he murders somebody. And then he covers up that murder and then he's trying to get away with it, and then he flees for his life whenever it becomes apparent that everyone knows what's going on. And he's hiding out in Saudi Arabia as a shepherd when God speaks to him and calls him to be a leader and a liberator of the children of God. So you can only think about himself as he goes back before Pharaoh, how broken and how inadequate he felt to do this job that God called him to do. And so he would go, and as he's leading the children of Israel now back in the desert, he's going and meeting with God, and God is speaking to him. It's an opportunity for him to draw near to God. And it's that very same thing. That's where we see Joshua learns from Moses about this very process about going in and listening to the word of God, about how God wants him to draw near to himself, to have a relationship with him. And as he does, and Moses passes on and Joshua steps into the seat. That's why the Lord is speaking to him, saying, Listen, you got to be strong and courageous. You have battles that are ahead of you. But I am with you. You are not alone. And so for us, we see this representation of this golden box, the Ark of the Covenant, as a representation of God's presence here. For us today, after the after the work of Christ on the cross, we have that same impartation in the scripture. It becomes the opportunity for us to draw near to what he's speaking to us. It's an opportunity for him to speak to us and say, This is the word, this is the guidance I have for you, if you'll draw near to me. And so for us, that's why we look to the scripture and hold it in such high regard, because God will use it to guide us. Now, looking here to the scripture, it continues forward. And it says in Romans 3, as we talked about, for all have sinned. How many? All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift. His grace is a what? It's a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That means that we are all sinners. And that means that we're all broken. It means that we all have something inside us that separates us from God. Sin is literally, it's an archery term, it's a military term meaning to miss. And so as we are people are missing God's plan and God's grace and God's law for us, then what happens is we make these things that separate us from God. We are creating these sins, these mistakes, this brokenness that separates us from God. And that's why us as Christ's followers, we need to deal with that sin and ask him to forgive us so that we don't have anything that starts to develop in our lives to drive us away. And so we see how his grace is then extended to us in such an amazing way, because it's nothing that we could do and nothing we could earn, so it's given to us as a gift. Now, we're about on the season of giving gifts, and I don't know if any parents in the room have already received a hit list of the gifts that they're expecting at their house from their children. But uh, it's starting to happen to us. And so, you know, it's one of those things that, you know, it's a different thing where it's like, you know, I appreciate what you get me as a gift, but I want these things here on this long list. So if you could provide them, that would be great. That's not quite the same thing, is it? If you give a gift out of your heart, man, it's received so different because it's like they didn't do anything to warrant this gift, and you're not giving it for that reason to try to get anything from them. You're just doing it because you care for the person or you want them to receive something special. And that's what God has done for us, is that he gives this redemption as a gift. And that's his grace for us. Here in the word, going back to Romans, and now in chapter five, it says, But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of one man Jesus Christ abound for many. This goes back to the story that we learn in Genesis about the creation of mankind. And it says that the Lord placed Adam and then gave Eve, and they were there together in the garden, and they had everything, and they felt no sin, and they felt no shame, and they felt no guilt. And God just created them and said, Listen, you have all these things, and he gave them authority over all the living things. But he said, Don't touch this, this tree, don't touch it. But somehow they started to listen to the enemy of their soul, the devil. And he convinced them to go against what God had instructed them to do. And in doing so, they were free of sin, but now they've made a mistake and they've broken that covenant with God, and it creates a rift, it creates a chasm between us as man and mankind and God. And suddenly there's this sin that enters in the world. And so we growing up, we know we don't have to learn how to sin. It becomes inerrant in us when from the time we're small. And so it's something that's already happening in our life, and so we need to be put back into right standing with the living God. That's why the fall of man came through one person in Adam or him and Eve and their decision to say no to God. And so that brokenness started to flow through them in that way, down to all of us. In the same way, Jesus comes and he restores us back and redeems us all through his sacrifice, one person, holy and unto God as a sacrifice for God. And we're redeemed back to God's presence. And so we can see where God's plan for us is made whole in Jesus as he comes and empties himself of all glory and he pours his love out on all people, though he didn't sin, he takes on our mistakes. The word says in Romans 6, it says, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Friends, that's the challenge for us, and that's why we celebrate with those that follow their faith commitments in water baptism. Because what they're doing is the decision they've made by faith in their heart to ask Christ into their life, they're going public with that and saying, I'm going to be dead to sin and alive in God. And so we don't sin because we experience grace. Just because we don't have instant ramifications for our bad decisions doesn't mean that we should continue to sin. No, instead it means that we're supposed to be in alignment with God because his grace is so sufficient for us. And here's the thing you know, I grew up in church and I got church hurt like many others have got church hurt, which means I had people say to me things that I didn't like, and they they said things in mean ways or did things to my parents that I didn't like, and I got bitter. And that bitterness it became a root of anger, and that bitterness really took shape, and it started to drive a wedge in my heart, not just towards church people, but towards God. And what happens is that we're called to be those that are walking collectively together with grace. And the reason it's a grace, the reason we hear that these epistles are written with that as the forerunner of Christ's grace on us and our grace with each other, our peace with each other, is that we are walking in this tension of justice and grace together as a group. And that means that whenever we go to see something and challenge something in a brother or sister's life, the reason is not because I am pious and I'm telling you to do better. No, it's because I love you and I want us to do better collectively. It also means in the scripture that I look first at my own self and the plank in my own eye before I try to go get the speck out of my brother or sister's eye. And that means it's very much not just what you say, but how you say it in living the love of Christ and saying, listen, not oh you're messing up, oh you're this, oh you're backsliding. No, no, how about this? How about instead we say, hey, you doing okay? What's going on? Hey, we're on this journey following Jesus, he's going this way. Where are you going? Feels like you're wandering off a little bit. I love you. Can we walk this thing together? How can I help you? Doesn't that hit differently than oh, you're a mess. Bye. You know what I mean? Like we're going this way. And then people are like, oh, they didn't even love me. They didn't, and then they fill in all the things and they get hurt and they run from God. And the very thing that they need the whole time is God's presence in a community of faith. But now they're hurt, and so they're out looking for everything out in the world, trying to fill the hole, the God-sized hole inside of them with experiences and substance and blah blah blah blah blah. Because none of it will suffice. Because he built us to be the people of God living as a community of faith for him and for his purposes. He continues in scripture here. It says in Romans 6, 14, for sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace. Friends, that means that the control of sin that it once had over your life is now done and gone by the power of Jesus Christ. And as we accept his work for us on the cross, what it means is that we're coming to alignment with him. And so it's no longer has the chains on us. As we say, Lord, I believe you are, and you accept his work on the cross for you, that sin control is broken off of your life. And so it behooves us as Christ's followers not to go get re-chained back up to the stuff that Jesus freed us from, but instead to live free of the control of sin and be those that walk in step with where God is taking us to go. Continuing in Romans, we see here in Romans 11, it says, But it, but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. So we know it's not by work. We know it's not something we earn. And anybody who would tell you otherwise, friends, what it happens is that they they start to align these things with systems or religious ideas, and they're trying to work their way in because we're trying to do good and make that count for something. You know, see, we as Christ followers, we do good and do good works as a response to God's love for us. So it's not because we're trying to earn our way into heaven. That doesn't work. Because you can make a saint out of anybody it that way, they could just give enough money and get counted. Man, if that was the case, I checked all the boxes a long time ago. I'm gonna just retire right now and go do whatever I want. Peace. You know what I mean? But instead, we're not there. All of us, all of us are on the journey to be more like Jesus. And so that means every day we go and we pick up our cross and we follow Jesus. It's not a one-time done and dusted, and oh, I'm forgiven and I can live however I want. That's not what it says. What does it say? It says that you will be those who daily pick up their cross and follow me. So we need to be those who are in alignment with Christ and what the word of God says. Now, as it continues here, we see that it starts to speak in James 4, a different perspective. It says, But he gives more grace. Therefore, God says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. We can see how easy it might be to be those who start to get puffed up in how our life is going because we get the benefits of living for God, and and things start to come together in our life differently than they did than when we didn't have God. And some people might get that messed up, that it's they're getting their show together, and so therefore they start to get pride about something. But instead, that we would be those who have the correct perspective of God, our Savior, and He who is doing a good work in us, that He is above us and not the other way around. Whenever we start to elevate ourselves above God, then we're struggling for control on our life. And what that means is that we're very much fighting against the very God that we're saying we're trying to serve and live for. And so he says that he actually actually resists the proud. He actually will put his hand out against you instead of being the one that elevates and gives grace to the humble. So let us be those who are humble, who have our hearts in alignment with God and say, Lord, we thank you. Lord, today I give you praise. Lord, today I lift up my face and my voice towards you, that you would be worshiped with my life. Not how great am I and what am I feeling. Friends, you don't want God to resist you. You want God to give you grace and lift you up. So let's be those that humble our hearts after him. Amen. Continuing here, we see where it talks about in John 1, returning to that narrative from last week. For from his fullness we all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. That's why when Jesus came, he said, I came to complete the law, not to throw it away. And so the law becomes completed in Jesus as grace and truth. The law was given to Moses by Jesus, remember? He's the one that gave us the law. So the law, what it did is it put us into right standing with trying to live a holy standard for God. Not just in what we did and what we thought, but also in in in in in other ways where it's like I'm separated away from the other cultures around me. We're gonna dress a certain way and do a certain thing. And have certain traditions because it's a reminder of my commitment to God. But every time that this came up, the standard, everyone made sin. Everybody made mistakes, right? Nobody was righteous. No, not one. And so what happens is that Jesus comes and he, because he lived a sinless life, because he was the sacrifice of God, he fulfills the law because he lives the law all the way out perfectly. And then he, not of his own sin, but our sin, he takes it upon himself and he pays for our sin. And so what we receive instead of judgment is we receive grace extended to us. And it's such a powerful thing to think about. When we think about all that we've done, all the mistakes we've made, all the evil thoughts that have run through our minds. We know we can't approach a holy God like that. But his grace is extended to us in such a powerful way. That while we are still broken and messed up in a disaster, he came all the way to us because he loves us that much. And he takes us and he calls us his children, sons and daughters of the Most High God. And he makes us into a new creation that sin does not have control over you anymore, but you are free in the name of Jesus Christ. That no addiction and no brokenness and no kind of thing from the past will rule and reign in our lives, but instead we can walk free of that in Jesus because of the grace extended to us. Now, here in Scripture we see it a little bit more robust in a different way. In Ephesians 1, it says, In him we have redemption through his blood. That's the sacrifice of Christ, the forgiveness of our trespasses, which is our sin that we've made against him, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Friends, when we say that God has a plan and a purpose, it's not just a cool idea wrapped in alliteration. No, it comes from the scripture. The word of God said he has a plan for you. Says that he has a purpose that you're here for, a plan and a purpose. And he you were made on purpose with purpose. And he wants to do great things through your life. And so as we come to this place, we understand that he is there available to us, and he'll reach us and meet us in every bit of brokenness. I think of so many that are going through difficult seasons. I think of people that are wrestling and walking through difficulty and loss, difficulty in some kind of prognosis that a doctor has given. We're thankful for the wisdom he's given us in medical ideas, but we still contend for the God of the universe who does miracles and who is divine and will heal and restore. He'll bring peace to hearts that are broken. He will restore marriages, he will restore family relationships, he will do all this and more. I have seen it, I will proclaim it. God is good and has good things planned for us. It's by his plan, it's by his purpose. And sometimes we get angry because it's not the timeline that we want when we start to pray. Oh God, how come? The Amazon drone, it dropped off stuff today. I just ordered it an hour ago. How come my prayer hasn't got answered already? He's like, maybe it's because I'm doing a plan and a work in and through your life, and that takes time. Friends, we're so we're so dialed in, we're so small on just our little world, and God sees everything outside of time and space. And he values you and hears your heart in the midst of all of that, so much that he came just for you, for the redemption of the cross. We see the scripture here, it talks about how the early church they started to really take this idea of Christ's love for them, and they they rejoiced it. It started to the work of the Holy Spirit in them started to spark something different, and it was dynamic. And what happened, it says in Acts 4, verse 33, and with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. Friends, I think about the people that Jesus picked. He he picked like a ragtag group of people. He he has like these salty sailor guys, and he has a tax collector. He's got all sorts of people mixed together. He didn't pick the cream of the crop, like these people like you know, Paul. He didn't pick those guys. He picked these other guys first. And they were dedicated, they left everything to follow Jesus. And you see what happens in their life is that he empowers them to do the work of Christ, and then amazing things, miracles start to happen out of their life. Why? Because they embraced the grace of God for them and they believed in faith, and because of it, God used them as a tool in his hand to do miraculous things. But here's the thing I also thought about was that all that time that Jesus had those people following him, in the midst of them was also Judas. And Judas was there as someone who left everything to follow Jesus. He was someone who was there when he fed the 5,000 with someone's lunch. He was there and saw the miracle of him walking across the water and calming the seas and healing the multitudes. He saw it all. But there was something inside of Judas' heart that he had not aligned yet. He did not let that healing come to some part of his heart. And because of it, Judas became a traitor. A guy who walked with Jesus for three years was a traitor against him. And it breaks my heart to think about it. Because it starts talking about how he was so motivated, he was a thief first, and this small thing starts to happen in his heart, and it started to crescendo towards the end of everything, and it was a disaster. But even here, where there's a beautiful moment where Mary cracks open a box and there's all these amazing things that happen, and she's she's anointing Jesus' feet, and this aroma fills the room, and all these things happen. He's bitter in his heart because he wanted a piece of that money that they could have sold that for. It says it here in scripture. It starts to talk about it in John 12. It says, But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, Why was this ointment not sold for the three for 300 denari and given to the poor? He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. And having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself what was put into it. A traitor. I think sometimes about that same thing. When God starts to speak to me about something that he's like saying, Jay, I want you to give towards this. Not about a tithe, like something about generosity. But I had a plan for what I wanted to spend that money on, and so maybe I didn't do it. Think about how I'm stealing that away from what God wanted me to do. Think about when he asked us to do something and be obedient to our time, the thing that's most important we can't buy more of. Whenever he asks us to give us of our time or our talent, and we don't do it. Am I more in alignment with Judith than I am with Jesus? Heaven help us, Red. Heaven help us. That we would be uh those that say yes to God. That we would be those that don't get caught up in our own thing and allow the small things to take root and divide a wedge in our heart with God. But instead we would be like those of the rest of the eleven who gave their all for Jesus Christ, and in the end they get to hear, well done, good and faithful servant, instead of trying to walk towards Jesus to betray him with a kiss. See, the grace of God is available even for Judas if he would have turned back. Because Jesus loves us that much. Second Corinthians, Paul's writing to the church at Corinth, he says it like this But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. See, Paul knew very much what it was like to break the heart of God. He knew what it was like to have weakness. He was the jihadist persecutor of the church in his day. He was seeing to it that Christians were put into prison or killed, and he was looking to it, and God chose that guy to become the greatest church planter of all time. And he turned him around and he blinded him for days so that he could see spiritually what he was supposed to do. And then he charged him to go and do great things. So Paul knew what it was like to be a Judas because he had done it. But God chose even people like Paul to change their life and do something drastic, because that is the grace of the Almighty God. He loves us that much that even the enemy of the church is loved so that they can have a relationship with the living God. So when you think of your own frailty, you think of your own weakness, you think of your own mistakes, know this that even in those things God can use them for his greatness, that he would be revered, that he would be glorified if we're obedient to respond to him. Come back to that question. Do you give the grace you have received? Three takeaways today, and we'll close. The first is this grace reminds us of our brokenness. It reminds us because it means that he's given us something that we don't deserve, as we talked about. We know that we're fallen people. We know we're broken. And so his grace is a gift to us. It reminds us of our brokenness. But then, two, it also reminds us of God's goodness. And that's something that we have to hold in our mind because sometimes we get we get let down because maybe the prayer that we pray doesn't get answered in our timeline, that we wouldn't be those that think God is no longer good. No, friends, God is good despite the circumstances. And he's working things, even things that are heartbreaking and lost. He's working those things and using them even for his purposes. So grace reminds us of God's goodness. And the third is this grace compels us to encounter God personally. It calls us to the mercy seat, to draw forward, to hear from God, to meet him, and to hear from him for our own lives, to transform us into what he wants us to do. So you have to answer the question Do you give the grace you have received? Today, as we come to the end of this service, we ask the question so often of what it means to be a Christ follower. Each one of us has to answer have you embraced Jesus? This is the question that every Christian has said yes to, is that they've accepted Christ's work on the cross for themselves. They say, Lord, I believe you are who you say you are, and invite you into my heart and life. I ask you to forgive me of my sin, cleanse me of all unrighteousness. I want to live my life with you. And that's why to us the symbol of the cross is so profound, because the cross was a symbol of torture and death. And as Jesus went to the cross, he took all the sin of the world, all my mistakes and all of yours. He took it upon himself. And when he died upon the cross, he did so because he loved us that much. Because his grace was extended to us that much. The Apostle Paul, he writes to the church at Rome, he says it like this: because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Friends, today is your day. It's your opportunity to say yes to Jesus. That wherever you are today, either in this room or online, under the sound of my voice, that you embrace what Christ wants to do in your heart and life. Maybe you're here and you've never made that commitment to Jesus today. You can say yes to him. Ask him to forgive you of your sin, start a new relationship with him. Or maybe maybe you have. But that like Judas, you let something get into your heart and life to drive a wedge between you and God. Friends, don't end up the way Judas ended up. You have an opportunity to repent and to start a new relationship by committing your life back to God, to live in the thing you know you should be doing, to not let church hurt and other things take you out of what God wants to do in and through your life, but instead that you would embrace the healing that He has for you that's only found in Jesus Christ. I'm gonna ask if you're here in the room, if you just stand to your feet as Christians are praying and people are working to respond. Friends, wherever you are online, if you just take a moment and stop to open your hearts for what God wants to do. We've already had people respond this morning to make a commitment to Jesus. We've been praying for you that you would make the same kind of decision today. So if that's you and you're here in the room, you say, Pastor, I just want to be included in that prayer today. If that's you, if you just raise your hand right where you're at. Say that's me. I just want to make a decision to follow Jesus, you the hand that's there. Others making decisions. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Friends online as well. Thank you, Lord. People make decisions. I'm gonna ask if everyone would, if they'd pray this prayer out loud after me. Lord, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you. In Christ's name I pray. Amen. Amen. Friends, we rejoice if you make a decision to follow Jesus today. What a powerful decision. You saw the hands that were raised here today. Hey, that was you, take a take a moment, take a snapshot of next steps. You want to be able to follow and be successful in your life with Christ, and we want to be able to connect with you to encourage you in this way. Today, friends, we have an opportunity to respond here about the grace of God extended to us and us extending to others. Or maybe you're here and you just need more of his presence. You need more of his guidance, you need more of his understanding. If you come forward and make a place with God, we're gonna have people come and just to pray alongside you. Maybe you're needing of a physical touch and your body and healing will come and pray with you. Maybe it's restoration and relationships for brokenhearted that we'll pray with you that the Lord will meet you right here in this moment. You expect you experience the grace of God. Lord, we thank you for this word. And Lord, as we open up this altar today, Lord, we do so with hearts that are turned towards you. Lord, in saying thank you for the gift that you've given us of your grace, the gift of salvation which you've given to us that we cannot earn. But Lord, instead we turn to you with our whole heart, Lord, in worshiping you with everything we have. Will we come to this altar, Lord, seeking more of your empowerment, more of your presence, Lord, in our lives? We thank you in advance for what you're doing in and through us. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. It's exciting because today is party with the pastors. You haven't had a chance to meet some of our pastoral team. Take a chance to do that. Grab your kids if you have them, and then meet over here in the east side. There's a conference room right down the hallway. We have some refreshments for you. We just want to be able to connect with you and say hello.

Celeste Brown: 47:18

And we have Fall Family Day coming up. It's gonna be amazing. And we need you. We need volunteers. So if you go on the app, you can sign up. There is time slots, so you don't have to do it the entire time, but we would love to have you be involved and then invite someone. Invite neighbors, colleagues, friends, invite the whole neighborhood if you want. But it's just gonna be a great day to get them onto the campus and get to know them.

Jason Brown: 47:41

Before we go, I want to pray this blessing over us. The Lord bless you and keep you. Lord, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. Or lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Lord, I pray a blessing upon your church, your people. Will you empower us by your spirit to live your love out to those around us? Pray all this in the powerful name that is Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Know this. We love you very much here at Cornerstone. God bless you and have a great week.