In this sermon, the preacher discusses the events leading up to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. He highlights how Jesus was betrayed by a close friend for 30 pieces of silver, accused by false witnesses, and mocked and struck. Despite the suffering, Jesus' sacrifice was for the sins of the world. The preacher then reads from Romans 1:1-7, emphasizing that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not something new, but rather a fulfillment of what was promised by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures.

Romans 1, chapter 1, verse 1. I'm not gonna review, I'm just gonna read. Don't worry. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle separated under the gospel of God, which he has promised to for by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name, among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ. To all that be at Rome, beloved of God, called saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our objective tonight, folks. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for your word, your ministry. Lord, we thank you for communion. Lord, I pray that tonight there wouldn't be one of us that proceeds in your word with the slightest sense of guilt. Lord, realize that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. And Lord, as redeemed blood-bought sinners, we come before you tonight and just say thank you, Jesus, for your work. I am not worthy of anything, but in your great love and mercy and grace, you have made me your own. And so, Lord, I've taken you up on it, and I don't want to just do it partially, but fully. Therefore, I fully take your cleansing. Lord, I open your word and ask that you administer your truth to each one of us now. You strengthen and bless every one of us. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, here as Paul continues on, after he kind of lays a little groundwork of who he was and what his heart was essentially all about, he tells us there a little bit about the gospel when he says there, which he has promised of for by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness by the resurrection of the dead. Here Paul, as he since kind of introduces us in an interesting and wonderfully interesting way to the gospel, he wants to tell us here that what I am telling you about, number one, is that there's nothing new about it. Essentially, one of the things I love, I heard once many years ago, I think in Bible college or something, but it says the new is in the old contained and the old is in the new explained. In other words, essentially what that phrase sort of means, in a sense, is that the New Testament is all contained in the Old Testament. It's all there and prophetically laid out in seed form. So the new is in the old contained, but the old is in the new explained. All these things that we see in the Old Testament, like for example, so wonderfully tonight as we looked at Isaiah 52 and 53. Somebody reading that for so long, you know, through history for hundreds of years would wonder what is this? But now in the New Testament, when we see Christ coming, when the Lord has laid upon him the iniquities of us all, and we begin to put the lines together, all of a sudden we see this wonderful truth and all these things there that in the Old Testament they're so wonderfully explained. Essentially, in many ways, you might say there is an awfully lot new in the New Testament, but basically a wonderful recording that so much of what was promised to occur in the Old Testament has. There's still much yet, of course, to happen, but essentially there is that we have this wonderful thing in the Bible that in no other book in all the world is like it. No other events have ever happened like the events that are promised and laid out for us in the Bible, which are prophesied. And when you just stop to think of these prophetic issues that laid out Christianity, there is no other religion, no philosophy, no concept of the human mind or in human history that has anything like the Bible has when you look at the prophetic events about it that point to Jesus Christ and prove him to be indeed the Messiah. All the other religions think or hope or dream or suppose. They all kind of wonder and talk and then they have to back up and apologize or re-explain something, but there's nothing like that in the Bible. The Bible, when it tells us what's going to happen, it happens. And one of the wonderful things that God proves himself to the world to be God is he had no trouble at all laying out all of these future events of which he is the king and the master and the Lord over them all. And so as he ushers them in or produces them as he promised he would and then he does it. It's nothing to him because that's kind of one of the nice things about being God. You kind of do whatever you want whenever you want to and then you can tell somebody beforehand you're going to do it and when it is people have to say must be God. And when you start stacking up events like that and here when he talks about the things that the prophets give to us in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord. And he said all these things prophetically there prove him to be indeed Jesus. And I'm just going to run through a few things here. I actually just have a list that you can get in many places, but just a few of the prophecies concerning Christ given hundreds and hundreds of years before about him. And I won't give you the references for them. You can get them from me afterwards for a small price. But just the list of them right now is all we have time for. But essentially here when you just start thinking of these things and then in your mind as we're going through imagine looking five, six, seven, eight, nine hundred years before. Laying these things out of events and of a world that has yet to even come into existence. But events are happening like that the Messiah will be crucified. Well nobody even understood or knew what crucifixion was at the time. Saying he'll be born in Bethlehem. When here this little teeny town saying there that a family that is going to come from. Bible tells us that the Messiah will be a descendant of David and heir to his throne. He would be anointed and eternal. He'll be born in Bethlehem. That he would be born at a very specific time. Daniel tells us about that in Daniel 9. He'll be born of a virgin. No easy task to do by that one all by itself. He'll be right after his birth though there will be a massive slaughter of children and he'll be taken down to Egypt. There's all these things hundreds of years before. Hosea wrote of that one. A way will be prepared before him and he'll have a forerunner that will come before him. And he'll be declared to be the Son of God. Have a ministry of healing. He'll specifically in the region of Galilee. He'll speak in parables. He will have God's own name applied to him. He'll bind up the wounds of the brokenhearted. He'll be rejected by his own people and crucified by them. But then after that there will be a resurrection, a triumphant entry. Though before that he'll be betrayed by a close friend for some 30 pieces of silver. He'll be accused by false witnesses, spat on and struck. And yet there his vicarious sacrifice will be for the sins of the world when he would die. He'll be crucified with malefactors on each side. He'll be pierced through his hands and his feet. Long before crucifixion even known or being used. Mocked. He'll be reproached. They'll gamble for his clothing. Side was pierced yet a bone not broken. Buried with the rich for three days and then he rose from the dead and he ascended to heaven. Now imagine just trying to take 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 events. But in this is only a scattering. Only a few. But when you stop to think who else in all of history and all the world even dreamed of writing something. Pick an event. You go ahead yourself. Good. Tell me you know how's it what anything. 700 years from now what's the stock market going to be? Will there be a stock market? You know will there be a country with a stock market? And when you would stop to just pick different things. You know who will be playing in the Super Bowl? What is a Super Bowl? You know we're all of the things you have hundreds and hundreds of years ahead. But then to have it's like this wonderful thing if you have this I think of it sometimes like a bicycle wheel. There when you've got all of these writers from different times in different places in history. But as God spoke to them and the Messiah was to come. It's almost like spokes on a wheel. That one writes of this and one writes of this and when he'll come and where he'll come. The family that he'll come from. The situation around his birth. You know the the children being slain at his birth. Going down to Egypt. They're the ministry he'll have. The way he'll preach and live and the methods and the parables. One after another. But all of them. Everyone I'm like these spokes have come down to one event. One person. One place that only could have happened at one critical time in history by one person that could have fulfilled it. And there he was. Right in the midst of it. No wonder the Apostle Peter tells us there that he says even if we had been following some cunning devised fables of men. If somehow another we were fooled by Jesus was just the greatest you know dog and pony act that ever came along. He was so clever. He was so shrewd that he could even con us and he did a day in and day out for three years. And he says but we have the more sure word of prophecy. Regardless of what we saw with our eyes. Heard with our ears. Handled with our hands. In every way that we look at. Humanly that can confirm him. We have something greater than all of being with him for three years. We have a book that prophesied this is who he was. And he was. And here Paul as he refers to this is the gospel. This is what it is so wonderfully all about. This is what says Christianity. And what gives Christianity the right to be absolutely dogmatic. To be unbending. To be inflexible. To be something when somebody wants to look and say why does why do you have this Jesus the only way. Why is Christianity when you can be so narrow about it. Well I want to say well who else has been down the road that Christianity is. How who else can you even gather together amongst you know the presence of the Word of God and Jesus Christ. There is none. There's no second. There's nobody near. There's other people that imitated him. There's others that wanted to suggest they were prophets and nothing ever happened. All these other things that only proved a man's inability to produce the future. And set them away from Christ. And ruined their right to even be thought of in his category. And thus we are ones that we have the right to to be what the world may think of as narrow or arrogant or hard or close-minded. And sometimes I've had people come and ask me about Christianity and wanting to tell you know say now can you you know I want to talk to you but you know you will you be open-minded. I said no. No I'm sorry I can't. I mean as if it's something that I'm gonna renegotiate the most awesome truths in the world because somebody wants to sit down and say I'd like you to renegotiate. I said no I'm not open-minded about that. I know that better than my own name. I know that better than who I am. I know who he is. When I was growing up my own brothers used to tell me they traded me in the hospital anyway. I don't know if it's true or not. But the thing is I could I think I might be who I am but I would much rather I'm much more convinced that he is who he is than who you are, who I am, who anybody is. And here when we stop and realize that this is what separates Christianity apart from absolutely every other form of thought. There's nothing near in the category of Christianity. And here when so when when Paul writes and he says they're declared the Son of God but with power according to the Spirit of Holiness and by the resurrection of the dead. You look at what the prophets had to say and then you lay his life on top of these prophetic things and they match. Every line, everything fits flawlessly, gloriously, wonderful. And he says therefore by whom when he talks about Jesus he says the most amazing thing about things that we'll look at and we're gonna spend the rest of our time on tonight. Here is that Paul says hereafter you realize that there is such a God as this who has done what he has done, laid all of these events out meticulously, carefully, wonderfully laid them out, planned them out over hundreds of years, preparing the entire entirety of world history around this event, bringing it to it, wanting to have a tremendous focus upon it that separates it apart from absolutely everything else. Then he says to think that after all that is done to think that now after he has done it he has come to us. He is now after he has risen from the dead he now comes to us and he says by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all the nations for his name. He looks there and he says now to think by God's grace we're included in this unbelievable world that's his. That he obviously came from and has gone back to and now we can be a part of it. That God has literally called us unto himself among whom are ye also that called of Jesus Christ. You stop to think that you and I have you we've come to Christ we are now a part of another world, another economy, another kingdom. We're called unto him we belong to this very one that laid all of these things out. And then as he goes on in verse 7 he says and to all that be in Rome beloved of God called saints grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Jesus Christ. And here I suppose to Paul something that was so awesome to him when you stop to think of it one of the things that just absolutely transformed his life as he makes this comment and he uses it all the way through his life and all of his letters he could never get far from the topic and that is grace and peace. It never goes far. You see Paul was a man who lived an awfully lot of his life outside of grace. He had spent though at the same time a tremendous amount I don't know that you could find a man at least that I can study much of that probably worked so hard to go to heaven. I don't think you can find somebody that so desperately wanted to go to heaven I suppose in the Apostle Paul or Saul of Tarsus as he was before. When you look at his credentials and you realize here's somebody that circumcised the eighth day of the stock of the tribe of Benjamin he tells us in Philippians there and he says in his life separated of the tribe of Benjamin and he says concerning the law he says I was a Pharisee it was perfect I was blameless and all of these things persecuting the church I was zealous for anything that wasn't of what I thought was absolutely totally God and his truth and his work and he says zealously I stood for him in every possible way and here you realize this man the effort that he went to try to live a life that would be acceptable to God it's it's obviously his greatest desire somehow or another you can just see a man there that of all the passions and the dreams of life as I want to be acceptable in heaven I wanted more than anything in the world I think you could safely say that about the Apostle or Saul of Tarsus at any rate and of course about Paul as he later became but tragically though when you look at his life and you follow what we know of him that seemed like the harder he tried the more miserable he was and the more miserable he was the more miserable he wanted everybody else to be around him I suppose if ever misery love company and Saul of Tarsus was one of that every once in a while though when he found somebody with some love or some joy or some peace his first task was I'm gonna wipe that off your face you know sort of a guy anybody that came along his efforts to destroy this terrible heresy called Christianity and as the assault of Tarsus as he looked at these people calling themselves Christians who had never even thought of God never tried to be acceptable of God never some of them put forth an ounce of effort to be right with heaven to be good to obey anything some of them rebellious wicked people by his concept of life far far from God and even thinking of God by God and yet here these people you know they all of a sudden they almost at the drop of a hat you know they had this theology amongst themselves there that they could find God and just like that their sins were forgiven Christ had been risen from the dead in a moment he came into their life and transformed their life and that seemed absolutely incensed him the path the fact that somebody without tremendous effort without putting forth great you know conviction and proving that they truly wanted to be a citizen of heaven that just like that somehow or another that they could just go and have eternal life and that made Saul of Tarsus angry he was here somebody he made it his personal vendetta to destroy this heresy you know called Christianity and to wipe it off the face of the planet if he if he could in watching these people coming to to Jesus and for that I'm sure that he hated Christ even though he was only historical figure to Paul for a time but he ended up he got some papers from the chief priest I gave him the authority and they gave him the right there to go out under the laws laid out by Moses and there was anybody that was such a heretic he could have them dealt with in almost any way from death to imprisonment and all sorts of powers were given to him there and Paul of course later on himself said that he consented to the first martyrs death Stephen and then there were many others that he had put to death and he had imprisoned and people that he had made you know fatherless and families he was a man there that he consented to a lot of people's death and because you see Paul was a man he loved the law he loved there the fact that there was something about life I mean I'm gonna spend my life trying to succeed and fulfilling the law living a right sort of a life good life the way life ought to be lived and he felt that everybody ought to live under that law everybody ought to want to go to heaven everybody ought to want to please God and the way you do it is through the law tragic thing it didn't work but at the same time Paul didn't seem to know that I think is Saul of Tarsus his favorite song his favorite song I think and I wrote these words tell me how you like this song amazing law how hard the sound that pains a wrench like me I once was lost still fear I am was blind and I still don't see it was law that taught my heart to fear and yes my fear still be how miserable my heart still is so miserable I'll be with thee but I think he was somebody there that he just he loved the law had never made him happy Terry you can take that and make a tune out of it I've already got the tune down to I can give it to you but anyway but the but he was a man there that he the law it was virtually everything but it seemed like typical of what the law does it only gives a couple joys you get a little bit of joy in the law for a few fleeting moments when for a few moments you think you might have attained it when you actually think you really did kind of pretty good I suppose there's a little bit of you know happiness for there and then there's also a little bit of pleasure and I think the better pleasure is is that when you find somebody else that hasn't fulfilled it Oh everybody that's living in the law loves to find sinners that aren't and that seems to be quite wonderful because for a lot of people once you're under the law it's kind of a grading system and in this for a lot of people it's kind of like grading on the curve if you remember when you were in school and they graded on the curve you know the the thing about you know grading on the curve is that you didn't do all that good but one of your best joys was whoever you found that did worse you say oh I'm so sorry not really but the and then anybody that did better it was now your job almost to say well they cheated you know or something there and that's essentially the life of a Pharisee that's the life of anybody that lives under the law I mean that has to walk around trying bless their poor hearts but praying publicly fasting publicly carrying on as though they are so much better than anyone else and when all the time they're absolutely no different at all absolutely no different at all human flesh is human flesh in the fundamental nature of us is exactly the same and either we try to deal with our sinfulness and our failures by trying to fix it up on the outside by trying with our own human efforts setting some standards setting some law and trying to keep it or it is done on the inside and that by grace and the law though as Paul also tells later on in Romans and in Galatians the law only deals with the exterior if you achieve it it will promise you life but if you don't you're in trouble and Paul says in Galatians 310 for as many as are under the works of the law are under the curse for his written curse it is is everyone that continue with not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them in other words it promises you life if you do it but if you don't do all of it you're cursed all of it every bit of the law you must do it you know it's the old illustration kind of having a chain link that goes from one side of a mountain to another with a chasm in between and if if you can have every link that's perfect but just one week link and that is gonna hold you in here Paul he makes it clear you've come to find that if you fail in any you failed in all and so here Paul this man who lived under this law who tried for so many years of his life trying to do it never did and now he's actually out there trying to destroy the people that have discovered what he had always been looking for and yet he is angry at them on the road to Damascus he's got papers going down there to imprison you know Christians in Damascus singing another tune that I wrote I've got a river of strife flowing out of me makes the peaceful fear and the happy flea I've thrown prison people through prison doors and thrown away the key I've got a river of strife flowing out of me wonderful another song but that's that's what look at this what do you think well but anyway here this man with this venom with this strife with this hostility I've tried so hard and yet what I've always dreamed of having on my face these people instantly are finding and all of a sudden he's knocked off his donkey blinded and he hears a voice Saul why persecute is now me and he says it hard for you to kick against the goads the Lord asked him he says I mean I just means to offer painful or wasteful resistance you know are you getting tired of kicking fighting trying living to your standards trying to achieve what has never worked and you're so angry at these people that have just found it at the drop of a hat and they're on the road to Damascus is he in a moment just like these thousands of people whose faces he had seen who had professed and who were willing to die for it who he had put to death who when he looked at Stephen and he saw there a man who looked to heaven up with the face of an angel and these things had to torment him he wanted to drive this off their face and all it did was make their face shine all the more because in a moment they had received it and there in a moment on the road to Damascus when he says Lord who art I'm Jesus and at that moment just like that the snap of a finger his heart was quickened all of a sudden he realized it was Jesus Christ that he had always been seeking his whole life every moment of every day and every desire to please God to achieve what was blessed God what would get him to heaven what would satisfy the requirements all of a sudden it all fit and he realized that's it that is it and when it hit him in one moment there all of a sudden Paul introduces and became probably the chief teacher for all the history on this wonderful little word grace this wonderful work of God and as you know the word grace is Greek word charis but it means unmerited favor it means there that pleasure whether that which affords joy there is that speaks of the loving kindness that God in his merciful act where he just looks at somebody and he saves them and he redeems them and he forgives them and he puts his hand upon them and he makes them his child and he pours out his grace upon them and they receive it and there in an instant the Apostle Paul understood there what he could never get under any amount of effort under the law under grace immediately became his and one of the by definition it's an unmerited favor you can't merit it you can't earn it you can't work for it you can only receive it like Paul had to receive it just like you know the woman that had the five husbands or the man that was demon possessed or the the guy over here that had robbed and stolen or the one that had done this or whatever it was he had to stand there in the same line in a moment say give it to me give me life I want to receive it and as far as the Apostle Paul concerned from that moment on every day of our lives are to be lived by his grace according to his grace and I just want to spend what little time we've got here just giving you Paul some of Paul's comments on grace that he said in so many of his epistles because grace became it Paul's entire theme and song it wasn't just a part of the gospel or something he kind of fit in and and he talked about it now and then grace was everything it was something that put to Paul it became everything when he found out about grace from that moment on there was no other way to live grace gave him his whole new identity and first Corinthians you write him down and look at these to go check him out later I hope you will but in first Corinthians 1510 Paul says by the grace of God I am what I am he looked there and from that day on whatever he was now no longer Saul of Tarsus but Paul an apostle a bond slave a servant of Jesus Christ he could look there and he says listen whatever I am now it had nothing to do with my efforts nothing to do with all of that it is all it is God's grace that makes me what I am because you see it was God God's grace that brought him to Christ in Galatians 115 he says but when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb he called me by his grace there on the road to Damascus as it is God at the day and the time in the hour in the event to say Saul Saul and he called him out of death into life as much as when you know the Lord Jesus himself called Lazarus out of the tomb Lazarus come forth there I mean when he spoke there with the power of heaven Lazarus could do nothing but come forth I don't think he's gonna say in it all try me I'm not coming no he keep coming in the in the here when he called and he says you come and there he came it was the whole basis of his spiritual life grace was a daily requirement daily to go on acts 1343 it says now when the congregation was broken up many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas who speaking into them persuaded them to continue in the grace of God should listen you discovered you've come to him now stay in it abide in it don't ever leave his grace it Paul it became his whole ultimate reason for living he told the elders of Ephesus he says none of these things move me neither count on my life dear to myself but that I may finish my course with joy and the ministry that I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify of the gospel of the grace of God he says I'm alive for one reason I exist for one reason and that is to tell anybody everybody all I can of grace of this unmerited favor that God has it's what produces maturity it is this something there you need now and then it's the stability it's the maturity the eternal inheritance of life acts 2032 it says now brethren I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among them that which are sanctified here he looks he says if you want to know how it is that you'll be built up you want to know the secret of you know your maturity and your inheritance it's grace it's going to be the very same thing that you when you were there hopeless and lost eternally cut off and there you just got I can't merit can you do anything he says that's what you need every day that's going to be the source of what's going to bring you into any maturity and any inheritance you're gonna have for all the rest of time and eternity it's all of grace and it's absolutely free Romans 324 says being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus in Romans 4 for he says now unto him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt here he says you know he looks there and he says to me you're justified freely by his grace and not by works if somebody works there is no longer grace Charles Spurgeon once wrote he says if heaven were by merit there would never be heaven to me if I were in it I should say I am sure I am here by mistake I am sure it is not my place I have no claim to it but if it is of grace and not of works then me we may walk into heaven with boldness to realize that God looks and he says not only I'm gonna give you heaven by grace I'm gonna give you every breath you have by grace any service you have anything that you are it's all of grace Romans 11 6 and he says for if by grace then it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be of works then it is no more grace otherwise work is no more work in other words Paul says it's either one or the other if it is by grace then it is not by works but if it is by works then it's not by grace it's one or the other you are a child of God you live you walk you talk you function either by your own energy your own commitments your own convictions your own efforts to be a Christian or there is something that I am what I am by the grace of God totally Spurgeon again he says you might as soon take he said you might as soon yoke a gnat with an archangelist think of your going to help Christ save you to join a filthy rag from the dunghill with the golden garments of a king or queen cannot be permitted Christ will be everything or else he will be nothing you must be saved wholly by mercy or else not at all there must not even be a trace of the fingers of self-righteousness on the axe and the documents of divine grace that when you and I get in find ourself in heaven will find ourselves saying you know there that is only by the blood of Christ not by works of righteousness nothing that I have done at all and you see grace it has a wonderful purpose in somebody's life Paul told Timothy in second Timothy 1 9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began here he looks at us he says now he says God he he loves us he's redeemed us he's forgiven us it is all of grace and by his grace he has a calling for our life and he says I have a purpose for you I have a plan for you not because you're good not because you've earned it not because you're worthy but because living in grace is the message of the Christian life it also is something that keeps the person humble Romans 12 3 Paul says for I say through the grace that is given to me to let every man that is among you to not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly according as God has dealt unto every man his measure of faith he looks there and he says by grace what God has done the result is is that none of us have the right for one moment to think of anybody any different because whatever it is that we have it's God's grace all of it Paul looked at his own ministry everything he said and didn't was it was all God's grace 1st Corinthians 3 10 he says according to the grace of God which is given into me as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation another and he says but he said I look at my ministry and he says and what is it by it's all according to the grace that God has given me Paul you know could look at his life and other people may say you're really something Paul would say you know it has just been according to what I've understood of grace that's it has nothing else to do with it anything that Paul he says all that I've done and anything anybody thinks I've done it's all his grace I didn't do it I didn't help him he did it all the other night and I have three sons to him in the ministry and one of them is up in Santa San Jose and another down here in Capitol Beach and the one from San Jose was down and so the one from Capitol Beach said hey I want the night off you come and speak for me so we all went down and listen to him and he told a story I'd kind of forgotten about but when they were kids I do remember it that is one time but the first when I got a car the first car I had that had power windows and I'm taking the boys out in the car for a ride my three sons and we're in the car and one of them looks he says where where are the cranks you know to work the windows and I turned to him and I said to him I said well this is a different kind of a car and I said this doesn't have cranks I said this is a modern car and I said you just speak to the window and I said you just say window up the window down and he's really I said yeah try it and of course I'm sitting over there on the driver's side it's got all the control so he sits there and he says window down and I do the thing and the window goes down their eyes whoa you know window up and the next thing you know with the windows going up and the other one sitting over here I listen to him he's got a window down so I'm working this one then the other window up window didn't next thing I know they're all going and I lose this wait a minute you're confusing the windows you know and you gotta hold it down but here Paul looked at his whole life all it was was just God did it I he gives us words he gives us a call he gives us a ministry but it's all of him every bit of it and nothing to do with us it's all God's power it's all God's grace that does it this weekend hopefully many here and you'll take many and they're over the harvest crusade and you'll go out there and and maybe you'll listen to Greg as he preaches in youth man is he something boy I wish I could preach like that look at this thousands of people getting saved and coming to Christ well let me tell you don't be impressed with Greg you had nothing to do with him he's one of my dearest friends and I love him dearly but I want you to know it had nothing to do with him at all he's just sitting there saying window up window down he just simply you know God just get that's his ministry God called me says do it and so he sits there he isn't saving anybody any more than he's making a window going up and down God does it God does what it is you know and that's the thing I mean people you know that's why I think the one of the greatest aspects of the whole concept of ministry that's happened in a wonderful fresh way of Calvary Chapel is it in Chuck's book I think it'll be a classic someday but why grace changes everything in the sense when somebody begins to understand grace what it means unmerited favor and God takes us and use that nothing to do with us maybe some of you think a lot of Chuck and well don't be he just says window up and down like the rest you know sort of a thing he just discovered his grace and he loves it and that's the issue when somebody discovers the gospel of the grace of God and they begin to share it and live it in guy he'd God looks at you when he looks at me and he just says go say window up window down go share it go do what it is and live in its power and enjoy its grace yourself in your own life begin to have the boldness there to realize what God wants to do with us and then when God begins doing thing you realize it isn't of you by the way Chuck is very wonderful we'll find out tomorrow if he believes in grace and I still have a job but anyway but it's something there is that it's all of life it's not just a place you go to now and then it's not a place you draw from here and there it's not something that you kind it it's it it's an entire experience like breathing the grace of God the goodness of God you never stop living it 2nd Corinthians 8 6 in so much that we desire tight as he says that he that would have begun so he would also finish in you the same grace also he says God has started you in grace finish in grace stay in it all your life maybe some of you you're you know your life as you you're angry you're empty or hostile you're back trying you're struggling on your own effort and you're not doing it and then of course now when you do that again you're soon as you're under the law one of the ways you know it is you're looking at other people around you and you're grading on the curve and hoping they fail and you pointed out say look at you you're miserable Christian and I have one of my few joys in life is pointing out how miserable you are you know or something and that's how we are but it but if we know grace and we're living in grace then when we see a miserable Christian who is failing we can look at them say you know I got a wonderful remedy for the misery you're in grace unmerited love forgiveness mercy goodness can earn never could never have never will no matter how many years I've been you've how many years you've been in grace you won't be any more worthy of it 50 years afterwards than when you began in God's grace it's absolutely sufficient as Paul's found in 2nd Corinthians 12 9 he says and he said unto me my grace is sufficient for thee my strength is made perfect but here it was something there that God's grace brought Paul through even the most difficult of times the most difficult of trials there's God's grace again and again and it's absolutely without limit without limit say Ephesians 4 7 Paul says but unto every one of us has given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ here as you look there and you realize the limitless nature of the gift of Jesus Christ in other words if tonight you're seeing anything may have exhausted God's grace if I exhausted God's goodness look at the gift of Jesus Christ look at the cross again look at communion and realize there you can exhaust I suppose most anything else but you can't exhaust in a sense the gift of Jesus Christ and grace is given to us that Jesus may be glorified within our life God why does he give all of this because God knows that the more we know his grace the more will glory in Jesus Christ 2nd Thessalonians 1 12 he says that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you and him according to the grace of our God in the Lord Jesus Christ he says there he says when you understand his grace and you live in his grace and you love his grace there is something there that the result is his Christ is just being glorified in you his love his spirit his life his power it begins to take over Thomas Brooks once wrote he says grace and glory differ very little one is the seed the other is the flower grace is glory militant glory is grace triumphant here he looks there and he says grace is glory militant grace is God doing the deep work within our life fighting for the great things within us but glory it was what happens when when grace has been triumphant when finally I just let the grace of God take over my life it results in his glory he's glorified in my life sadly though you can't remove yourself from it Paul looked at this with all of the wonder of it either in Galatians 1 6 he says I marvel that ye are so sorry so so soon removed from him that called you unto grace of Christ unto another gospel Galatians 2 21 I do not frustrate the grace of God Galatians 5 for he says Christ has become of no effect unto you who so whosoever of you are justified by the law you are fallen from grace here Paul looks there and he says now the thing is is just stay in grace don't just think that grace is something that now that I've discovered it now I don't ever need to seek it and live in it anymore the wonderful thing is is just sadly you can you can reject it you can misunderstand it it can be right there and God can do be doing all he wants to give it to you read of a story of a pastor in Scotland somewhere one time that he had a woman in this church a widow that was having a terrible time financially in the church decided that they wanted to help her there with her bills and he went over one day with some money to pay for a house payment and to pay other bills and he knocked on the door and he knocked and then he came back again he knocked again but no one was there it took him quite some time to finally you know find her and then you know weeks later when he found her he said I've come over to your house and I knocked on the door she and you weren't there he says well she said when was that she said on such-and-such a day and she said that was you and he said yes and she said you came twice yes and he said and she said I thought it was a landlord coming to collect the rent and you know sometimes God can be there wanting to give us his grace to forgive and to do a wonderful work but some people think that when God is coming is the landlord coming to collect rent it's it's God coming to hold us accountable for our failings rather than coming to say I love you you're my child you're made in my image it's what it's all about and then I'm out of time I was gonna do grace and peace but you won't have any peace now till next week over and over Romans 1 7 he says there he says grace to you and peace from God our Father 1st Corinthians 1 3 grace and peace be unto you 2nd Corinthians 1 grace be to you and peace from God our Father Galatians 1 grace and peace Ephesians grace and peace Philippians grace and peace Colossians grace and peace 1st Thessalonians grace and peace 2nd Thessalonians take a guess grace and peace look at this are you sharp or what but the 1st Timothy grace and peace second Timothy grace and peace third Timothy there is no third Timothy got you but anyway just checking to see if you're listening but over and over and over he says grace and then peace he looks there and he realizes there anybody don't if you're having trouble with peace I'll guarantee you you're not having trouble with peace you're having trouble with grace because grace will bring peace they're inseparable Siamese twins as they've been called when you and I look there and say God I need your grace tonight I need your grace free me from judging people free me from trying to judge myself or live to a standard Jesus just by your grace unmerited favor take over my life and live powerfully and then where does it come from me grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ he says it's just a gift from God to you father I thank you for your love and I thank you for your mercy and I thank you for your grace and Lord I pray tonight that we may look and take that grace Lord I pray there wouldn't be a one whose theme and song would be law standard Oh the exhaustion the it'll never work Lord I pray that you just knock us all off our high horse down to the ground blind us to where we can see none other than you and here you say is it hard for you to live this way Lord may we say yes who are you and the giver of grace unmerited favor I want you to take it now in a steady diet of it every day of your life I want you to walk by it think by it I want you to serve me by it I want it to be your strength I want it to be your hope I want it to be that which is all-consuming to you so much so as it brings about the glory of God within your life and you free Lord may we understand afresh the grace of God in our own hearts in our own life and realize it's just there you knock at the door may we not hide and say no no I'm guilty I'm in trouble I can't answer the door but rather may that be the very reason we run to the door and say Jesus realizing that never will one open the door to you and you give them law or judgment only to those that avoided grace all of their life will one day stand alone with Lord tonight may we open our heart and be touched afresh in Jesus name amen