SA Ep86 - Articles of Faith #9 Grace

SA Ep86 - Articles of Faith #9 Grace

In this episode, we examine the doctrine of salvation by grace. The Bible teaches that salvation is the free gift of God, not something that can be earned by works or deserved by merit. We will look at what grace means, why man cannot save himself, and how the finished work of Christ makes salvation possible. This episode also highlights the difference between religion and redemption, and why grace humbles man while exalting God. Salvation is not about what we do for God. It is about what God has done for us.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelser from Gilead Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. Have you ever gotten to the end of the week and opened your paycheck and thought, boy, the company really gifted me this week. No, usually we look at that paycheck and say, yep, this is what I've earned. But if you ever had a true gift, something you didn't expect, maybe you didn't even do anything to earn it. Well, that is what we call grace. Grace is a free gift. It's something you don't earn. It's often said that mercy is not getting what we deserve, and grace is getting what we don't deserve. Salvation is presented to us as a free gift of God grace. By grace through faith. Now we must be careful because the doctrine of grace has really been changed over recent years, I would say maybe uh the last hundred years or so, uh, but really as uh more and more uh online podcasts like this one or uh YouTube, Facebook, and different uh uh platforms where more and more people are gaining voices, there's more and more uh muddy waters to get through. And Jude warned us, and so did uh Second Peter, I think, chapter two, that uh men will turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. What does that mean? That means it will take God's grace, which is a free gift that He has offered to all of mankind, and they will turn it into something other than that, something that you have to earn, something that you've got to do by work, something that's kept through or earned through sacraments or holy orders, uh, something that is uh maybe even given by election, selection, or predetermination. And that's not the way it's presented in Scripture. Grace is always presented as a free gift of God to all of mankind. When we come to this article of faith, we are really at the very heartbeat of the entire gospel message, the gospel, the yuangellion, the good news from a far country. Everything that we have seen thus far dealing with God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the fall of man, the sin in our life, everything that we've looked up to this point leads us to grace. Because God is holy and man is sinful. And the fall has left all of humanity broken and separated from God in sin, and has brought guilt, shame, and judgment upon you and I. So the question then becomes if if we're all made sinners, if we're all sinners by one man and then by our own sin as well, if we're all sinners and we come short of the glory of God and the uh the wages of sin is death. I mean, that's what we looked at in the last article. That doesn't leave a lot of hope for you and I. So how can then we may be made right in front of God who is in enmity with sin, who can't even be in the very presence of sin? How do we enter into a throne room where a holy and a righteous God is? How can we do that? It's not found in human effort, I promise you that. It's not found in your works or my works. It's not found in uh just because of who we are or what family name we carry or or uh how many uh uh uh hours we've set into in a classroom or uh because we've wear a white collar around our neck. That's not what makes us that way. It's not through uh any type of human effort, race, class, or creed, but it's through his divine free gift of grace. Grace means unearned favor. It is God giving us what we haven't deserved or earned. It's kindness shown to the guilty. It's mercy extended to those who have no claim to it. I I had heard it said this way once before many years ago. I can't remember the preacher, or I would I would quote him, but I've sat in so many services and listened to preachers, uh many of which I didn't know who they were, just uh maybe uh uh you know an old country preacher that didn't have a big name or anything like that. And I love hearing those men preach, but one of them explained it this way. He said, if you want to know the difference in mercy and grace and what they are, he said, uh imagine that you had a child and someone broke into your house and uh harmed your child in some way, and you being the father or or the mother, but uh for me being the father, I I chased that man down and uh I beat that man severely and just uh uh give to him uh what uh uh was uh owed unto him. That would be justice. That would be justice. But if I chased that man down, grabbed my hands on him and uh drug him back to the house and called the police and and gave him over to the police, that would be mercy. If uh I chased that man down and put my hands up on him, hugged his neck, and said, You must be a hurting man. Please come to my house, stay in the room of the child of mine that you have just murdered or or or whatever the case may be. Eat of our food, fellowship with us, be part of our family. That's grace. That is what you and I got. For we were the ones, like it or not, we were the ones that sent Christ to the cross. I know that's not popular preaching in today's world. People don't want to think that their hands have blood on it of Christ, but you and I are the ones or the reasons. We we had to be. I needed a savior, I had to have him on the cross. So we're the reason. John 3 16 tells us that. Isaiah 53 tells us that. And and it was his son that we did that to, that we rejected, that that we put on the cross because we need a savior. And it's that very same God who says, Now, once you come, be part of my family, be a be a brother, be a a joint heir with the one that you just murdered, that you just took his life from. We didn't murder him, he gave his life really, but the one that you just you know that you put upon the cross. The reason that salvation must be grace is because man cannot save himself. If we could save ourselves, then the death on the cross would be made vain, in vain. Titus 3 5 says, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. This is where many people struggle with salvation because they need something tangible, they need something to hold hold on to. They, you know, if if you said that, you know, salvation would cost you uh, you know, a thousand dollars, a million dollars, then people say, okay, good, I've got something I can grab on to and and uh let me go to the bank and I'll take out loans and you know, do whatever. That's what the rich young ruler was wanting. When he showed up to Christ, he said, I've I've kept all the commandments, look what I've done. I give to the poor and and uh I do all these things. He wanted something tangible that he could see, a checks and balances. Uh he wanted that that accountant's um uh a log sheet where he could say, Okay, my my income is is far greater than my uh than my outgo, so I must be alright. And Christ said it's not about that. Sell everything you got, give it all away. Deny yourself, follow me. And he couldn't do it. So it's not what we can earn, it's not what we can do. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says, For by grace are you safe through faith, that not of yourself. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Grace magnifies the work of Christ. It magnifies the cross. A sign that at one time that uh uh if you think about it back in in the uh first century, the the cross was one of the most cruel punishments anyone could could face. And now today we wear that cross on our jewelry, on our Bibles, we have stickers on our cars and I mean have hanging in our homes, on the top of our churches. That would be very similar to someone uh you know, a hundred years from now having uh, you know, an electric chair uh hanging on their neck on the top of a building somewhere. It was a sign of torture. But for you and I it's no longer a sign of torture because Christ changes everything that he touches. And when he touched that instrument of death, that instrument of torture, it no longer was an instrument of torture. That was that became an instrument of grace, where grace is poured out for all men. All men. It's a big word you can't get around in Scripture. I know there's a lot of system theories and frameworks out there to try to get around that with election and works, and you gotta have a certain uh uh spiritual gift and uh speak in tongues or handle snakes or or do some uh holy dance or ride your bike or knock on doors or you know go on a you know some kind of excursion for a while. I mean, they've they've done all kinds of things. But it's not by those things, it's a free gift of God given unto all men. The difference between religion, which a lot of people have today, and religion has sent more people to hell than anything else, I think. The difference between religion and redemption or relationship is that religion says do this. Redemption says it's already done. Religion says work harder. Redemption says have more faith. Religion says you can't go free. You must earn it. Redemption says you can go free. Christ paid it. Religion is built on human effort, where redemption is built on the finished work of Christ at Calvary and the resurrection on the third morning. Religion tries to climb, but the gospel declares that God came down. Religion tries to produce pride, but redemption says, lay your pride aside. Humili uh humble yourself, become almost humiliated at the sin that we have in our life. The the difference in religion and redemption or relationship is a stark difference. It's different as day and night. So what this grace shows us, it reveals the the true character of God. And people have changed the character of God in the name of trying to keep him sovereign. Because they say, well, if if Christ died for all men and all men don't accept it, then that means that his his death was wasted. No, it was not wasted. He died for all men, he gave his life for all man, all men, all sin. Not part of sin, not limited, for all men. Not all men accept, and that's not on him, that's not on God, that's not on Christ. But in order to justify their their their framework and try to what they say to exalt God and his sovereignty, they'll say, Well, God only died for a certain few, and those are the elect, that that's the only ones he can die for, because those who don't accept him, he'd die for those. It's just it's just a it's a it's it's insanity. That's not the heart of God. When was when has that been the heart of God? What? Salvation by grace is not something that we need to toy around with to make it fit our framework. Because this is no small detail in the Christian walk. It's the foundation of the gospel. It answers the question of how can a sinner be made right with God? How can a sinner crawl into the throne room and pray to God in the mornings? It removes pride, it gives God the praise, and it calls every person to respond, not by working harder, but by trusting more fully. Because in the end, salvation is not about what we bring to God, but it's all about what God or who God sent to us and what he did for us. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.