The New Grace Order (Last 20 Minutes)

Internet issues caused us to lose the first 20 minutes of this sermon.  

Pride sounds brave until you hit the ground. We start with a simple but uncomfortable idea: humility is how we receive, and pride is how we refuse. When we act like we don’t need God’s help, we cut ourselves off from the very grace that can carry us. But when we come like children to a Father, asking for strength, wisdom, and godliness, grace meets us with more supply than we can exhaust. 

From there, we slow down and define what we mean by Christian grace. Using John 1:17, we contrast “law through Moses” with “grace and truth through Christ,” and we get honest about what the law can and cannot do. The law is holy, but it was never designed to fix you. It exposes the heart, demands perfection, and leaves you condemned without providing power. We lay out the law’s core message in plain terms: be holy, be loving, and be perfect, then we show why Jesus doesn’t lower that standard, He fulfills what we could never perform. 

We also talk about forgiveness and identity in Christ. The blood of Jesus is not God squinting at you and pretending you’re clean; it’s actual cleansing that breaks condemnation’s grip. If you’ve been stuck replaying the past, we offer a simple practice to bring your mind back under grace and let love shape how you live today. If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s tired of striving, and leave a review. What part of your life still feels like law instead of grace?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Because it he can give and we can receive something when we're humble. But if you're prideful, you say, I don't need God's help. I don't need God's help. I can do this on my own. And God says, Okay, okay, okay. Let's see how that goes for you. And then when you fall, because pride comes before a fall, he will be there to pick you up and say,

Pride, Humility, And Receiving Help

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Do you want to try it my way now? Do you want to try it my way? He gives more grace than we will ever need. He has more supply than we could ever need. He never gets tired of giving grace. He never runs out of. That's what it means when it says, of his fullness we have all received. This is the total plan that God has in Jesus. This is the reason he died on the cross and rose from the dead. There is B is no I do my part and you do your part. It's all Jesus and we come into that covenant. There's no mixing of the two covenants. There's no I'm halfway under the law and halfway into grace. I Jesus saves me, but I do my best. It's not that at all. We have to receive his grace for every part of life, both starting out with God and growing with God is all 100% by grace. It's simply grace upon grace, he says. Grace for grace. And this new grace life is designed to be received day after day, grace upon grace, moment by moment, as a free gift. It's never earned, never deserved. You can walk right into your Father's presence and say, I need your grace today. If you want me to live a godly life, then I need your godliness. If you need you want me to do something for you, then I need your strength. I need your wisdom, I need your everything. It's directly received from relationship with God, where we ask and he gives. We ask and he gives. That's what a child father relationship is. And today, Father's Day is a great day to remember that. Our Father loves to be the giver of grace. So what is grace? If it's grace upon grace that we received and walk in and we study and understand this grace, how do we know what it is? Well, I'm going to give you a kind of a definition here. Uh see that? Okay, like a whole paragraph. But this is just scratching the surface of what we could give

Grace Upon Grace As Daily Gift

SPEAKER_00 2:50

as a definition of grace. And I don't take credit for this. This is something that's been developed over years from many wonderful people getting involved. But it says, Grace is God's free provision for us through his free, which manifests itself as we humbly trust. There's humility, right? Hear it, we humbly trust in the person and work of Jesus by giving us all that we would need, all that we would yearn for, and all that we um we are commanded to walk in and become. And all this is granted despite our inadequacy and the fact that we could never deserve that we could never earn and could never produce these gifts on our own. I love that definition. I've read it hundreds of times in my life, and always something new stand out to me as I as I read that definition. Now the next verse that we look at is John 1 17. It says, For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Christ. So the Bible clearly teaches that this grace that we just defined replaces the law. Grace and truth replaces the law in every way. Now, is the law bad? No, there's nothing

Defining Grace Through Jesus

SPEAKER_00 4:48

bad about the law. The law was just never designed to fix you. It's only designed to tell you how bad you are. It's only designed to tell you how much you need a savior. And it's really good at its job. Remember when Jesus came on the scene and he's like, You've heard the law say, don't commit adultery. But I say to you, if you've ever looked with lust at another person, you've already committed adultery in your heart. You're guilty. Why did he say that? Or murder, you've heard it said don't commit murder. That's law. But I say to you, if you even hate somebody, you're guilty of murder already in your heart. Why did Jesus say that? Because the law doesn't just judge what you do, it judges what you want to do, what is in your heart. And that's never good news. The law is not the gospel, the law is not good news for any person. It's good, it's holy, but it's not good news for me because I can't keep it. My heart has obviously not measured up to those standards. But God comes and he replaces the law as a way of salvation, as a way of knowing God. God replaces this law with this new grace to order. Grace is the new way to know God. God gave Moses this law so that the people could know the character of God and can know how high and holy and perfect he was. But it was never a way to be saved. No one was ever saved by keeping the law because no one ever kept the law. And the law doesn't help any person, it doesn't offer any help, it demands perfection, but provides no help when we fail, only condemnation. The law can't save anybody, it can't change anybody, only grace. So what is we're gonna we got it? Moses gave the law, so we're gonna discover what is the message of the law then. What does the law tell us? Like, why is it? I I think it's good, I know it's good, but what does the law actually say? We you guys have to know this. We have to know this. It's so important to understand that the law says three things be holy, be loving, and perfect. You're gonna have that memorized by the end of today,

Why The Law Can’t Fix You

SPEAKER_00 7:05

I promise. So if you look at Leviticus chapter 19, verse 1, it says the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to all the congregation of Israel, say to them, You shall be holy, for the I, the Lord your God, am holy. So, way back in the law, God commanded all the people that they had to be holy. How holy? Holy means pure. How pure did all the people have to be as pure as God? That's the standard, that's what the law is saying. Okay, well, let's look in the New Testament. Maybe God changed his mind on the standard. So let's look at the New Testament. So Peter, first Peter says, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, be holy, for I am holy. So Peter, New Testament, after Jesus, he agrees with the standard of the law. He now, I didn't share with you verse 14 and verse 13, which Peter gives the gospel, and he says, This is how you're gonna be holy, but the standard is still the same. This says, I did not come by the law or the prophets, I came to the life. In you, through you, it's through the light. How holy does Peter say we're supposed to be as holy as God? There's no flexibility, there's no mercy in the law. That's the first message of the second one is really simple. You've heard this in Deuteronomy 65. The Ten Commandments, the law says you have to love God perfectly from the moment you're born to the moment you die. Got it? Easy? This is not good news for us. Now I I do this syncally. Do you love God? Right? I hear, I hear, yes, yes, I do, I no, you don't. Let me let me fix that for you. Let me figure you out. Do you love God the way he deserves to be loved all the time, from the moment you were born to the moment we died? No? Well then what's the standard? Love God meh meh meh, or love God perfectly, the way he deserves love. Well, that's obviously the standard. That's what the law is saying. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's the law. Law, law, law, law. I want you gotta understand. Love God is a law, not good news. Alright, the second, look at look at this next one. It's uh in Leviticus 19, 18, you shall not take vengeance to bear any grudge against children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. So love others perfectly. Let's do the trick again. Do you love other people? Well, I thought I did. So Pastor says, I don't. No, if you love other people the way God would love them, 100% of the time, never failing, all from the moment you're born to the moment you die, you love, you love anyone like that. You don't even love yourself that. We're as selfish as we can be. So, no, love God, love others. This is law. If we just love God and love others, guess what? The Ten Commandments would be easy. We would just kind of do them by nature. You know, I wonder if someone ever came that kept the Ten Commandments perfectly. I wonder what he would say. Well, let's ask him. Matthew chapter 22, verse 36. Teacher, they found a teacher that kept the law perfectly, right? They come to Jesus. He kept it perfectly. And they say, Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the uh, what's the question? They're asking him, what's the greatest commandment in the law? See, I find a lot of people really think that Jesus love God and love others. When he didn't invent that, I mean it proceeded from him because he gave the law, but this is not something Jesus came and said, Oh, that old testament God, he was a fuddy duddy that was so just mean. He was all about vengeance and anger. No, he's like, Love people, love me, love is what it's all about. And Jesus said, Look, you suck at loving people. That's why I have to come change everything. I have to come here and transform you. So they asked him, What is the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus said, You

The Law’s Three Demands

SPEAKER_00 11:30

shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Well, he's quoting Deuteronomy 6.5. And then this is the first and great commandment, and then the second is like you shall love your neighbor as yourself. He's quoting Leviticus 19. On these two commandments, hang all the law prophets. So you can summarize the law. First, be holy, we learn. Now, be loving. Love God, love others. How loving are we supposed to be? As loving as God is. So Jesus agrees with the law perfectly. The law came through Moses, but grace and truth come through Jesus. Jesus doesn't have to disagree with the law to replace it. He doesn't. He agrees with it perfectly, and that's not good news for us. And he takes it even further. In Matthew 5, 48, he says, Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your father in heaven is perfect. Now I've seen some silly pastors teaching this verse. And they're like, you know, that doesn't mean perfect. It just means mature. God, obviously, God can't expect you to be perfect. Is that really what it means? Because it says you shall be perfect, just as your father in heaven. So is he is it saying mature just means old in experience? Is God just old? No, God is perfect, and you have to be perfect as perfect as God, and the law does not make anything perfect, Hebrews chapter 7 says. The law makes nothing perfect. So the law can't be the way that Jesus is bringing. This new grace order has to be completely different than the law. It has to be 100% different. As perfect as God. Moses is not your friend. Now he represents a lot of good things. The law is good, but the law that he brought is not your friend. Deliver us from the condemnation of the law. That's what his blood can do. You know, a lot of times I think we minimize what Jesus does for us. We're like, yeah, I've been washed in the blood of Jesus, so now when Jesus looks at me, he doesn't see my dirty sinfulness. He puts on rose-colored glasses and he says, Oh, I know in my brain that they're dirty, rotten, but I'm just gonna

Perfect Forgiveness Through Jesus’ Blood

SPEAKER_00 14:05

pretend like they're good. That's how we act. It's not believing that Jesus' blood actually cleanses us. The Bible says that God would be unrighteous to not forgive anyone who comes to him claiming the blood of Jesus Christ. That means be sinning if he didn't forgive you if you believe in the blood of Jesus Christ. And will God ever sin? No. So that means you have been, if you've asked Jesus, believed on him, you have been fully, completely, 100% forgiven. And God is not faking himself out. He's telling you, I have forgiven you, you are pure. But I hear voices in my ear that I am not pure, that I'm a dirty, rotten sinner. Well, who do you think is telling you that? It's not me. That doesn't come from your new brand new cleansed heart. The enemy doesn't matter what you do in your life. All he wants of you is for you to still believe that the blood of Jesus does not cleanse you of your sin. Because if he knows he knows if you're stuck in that sin, that you're never gonna walk forward in the freedom of Jesus. Your identity is bound up in sin still, even though you're free. It's just like the slave, you've been set free by the Emancipation Proclamation, and didn't believe it. Jesus kept on slaving away. Why? Just that simple Jesus lifts us up. Alright. The next verse, the last verse, it says, No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared it. So no person has seen God. Now the word God here in the Greek is the word deity. Okay? So what he what he's saying there is no you know, no one can see God and live, basically. In Exodus chapter 33, he's told,

Jesus Reveals The Father To Seekers

SPEAKER_00 16:25

uh, you cannot see my face, for no man shall see me and live. Okay? Sounds pretty good. But the Son Jesus will reveal the Father to any person who seeks him. Look at John chapter 14. We're gonna fast forward to there. He says, Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father. And for us, Jesus said to him, have I been there so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, Show us the Father? So John is gonna go to great lengths to show us that prove over and over and over again that Jesus is one with the Father, that Jesus is deity, he is God. That's what we kind of use an eagle. Eagles represent God in the Bible, so they kind of we use an eagle for our symbol of the of this book. And he's gonna, and Jesus does this so that he can reveal God to anybody who will seek him. Whoever wants to know God, if they come through Jesus, God will reveal himself to that person. Incredible amazing. It is supernatural. You could be a Muslim living on the other side of the world in the middle of a Muslim country, and if you ask Jesus, God, reveal yourself to me, Jesus, if you are the true God, reveal yourself to me. And God will and does and has many, many times revealed Himself to people in that simple situation. He'll use dreams, he'll use supernatural things all the time. It's I've heard story after story after story. And it's true in our island too. Anyone who wants to know God can. Luke chapter 11, Jesus says, I say to you, ask it, seek and you will find, and knock, and it will be open. So I have to ask you, and you on the internet have you sought the Lord? Have you delighted yourself in the Lord He is a He's never gonna just pound down the door of your house your heart? He's a gentleman, he will never force you, but he will beg you not seeking it, and you will find it. So I'm gonna give you a quick practical way without striving that you can you can expect you know when dealing with your past and thinking about your past, I want you just to remind yourself to say, Jesus, you saved me and thank you that I'm forgiven and accepted. It's that simple. You are washed clean. It's really that beautiful. And then

Let Grace Shape Today’s Response

SPEAKER_00 19:48

for my present life, you know, you need to think and act like that is true. What you talk, what you thought about in the past, what you said, just need to let that shape how you respond today. Let grace shape your response today. Which means receive his love and forgiveness with humility and faith. Say, My life belongs to you. Not because you require it of me, but because I freely offer it to you out of a love response. I give you everything. This is the new grace order, right? That Jesus replaces law with love, he replaces uh darkness with light.