God’s grace

Grace Flows for All

Posted on by Jesse Walker

How would you feel if you worked all day for your employer, and at the end of the day, he paid everyone the same wage? Even those who came to work a little late that morning. Or even those who only came to work for a couple of hours. All received the same amount of pay.

Did you know, there is a story like this in the bible. In Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus tells of a farmer who hired workers at various times of the day. All of the workers who were hired early in the morning agreed to work for one day’s wage. While the others agreed to accept whatever the farmer thought was fair. In other words, they trusted the farmer to pay fairly.

At the end of the day, the farmer calls all of the workers together, and pays them all the same wage. You can imagine how this made the early workers terribly unhappy. By their calculations, they were do more. They had worked longer and harder than those who only worked a very few hours. They believed because they had worked longer, they deserved more money. Which I’m sure is what you and I would have done if we were in that same situation. But Jesus replies in Matthew 19:13-16, “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” “So, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

There are numerous messages we can take from this story. One is that we are not to be people who are jealous when others are blessed, and we aren’t. Are you mad that Jesus offers grace to those that you think are worse sinners than yourself? Are you angered that he accepts a thief’s request upon his death bed and promises him he will be with him in paradise? Are you mad when another church is growing faster than your own?

This story contradicts our thinking. It makes no earthly sense. But that’s the point. It’s not supposed to make earthly sense. Jesus isn’t telling a story about working and getting paid. He’s telling a story about grace. And how wonderful it is. And how it’s offered to everyone. Salvation is a gift. You don’t earn your salvation.

Jesus is still addressing the rich young rulers’ question in Matthew 19:16, “What must I do to be saved” and with Peter’s question in Matthew 19:27, “we have left everything to follow you, what will be left for us.” The answer is found in Matthew 19:29-30 where Jesus says, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for the sake of My name will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

What the rich young ruler needed to know, is putting Jesus first, not the perfect keeping of the law, is what made the difference. What Peter needed to know, is no one who has sacrificed for God, will go unrewarded. What the early morning workers needed to know, the midday workers and the late day workers, is salvation is a gift. You can’t earn it. No amount of work will ever pay our debt. That debt was paid in full by God when he accepted the sinless life of his Son.

I don’t know where you are today, in your walk with God. But the good news is, it’s not too late. If you’re listening to this message, then you can receive grace. Your age, your wealth, your efforts don’t matter. What matters, is do you know Jesus. If you need help, please leave me a message. And I will do all I can to share the wonderful message of salvation with you.

Forgiveness

Posted on by Jesse Walker

 

In Colossians 3:13 Christians are told “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Forgiveness is neither easy nor clear-cut, as many of us have found out when we are deeply hurt. I have experienced murder in my family. It is hard thing to forgive the person who took the life of your loved one. I have been abandoned by some, laughed at by others and sold short by others. Many of you have experienced the same or worse.

Why does God command that we forgive others. If you know anything about God, it’s for our benefit. God only wants the best for you and me. I believe one reason is, because without forgiveness you can never be fully free.  Hatred is of the devil. So, you will either choose to serve the devil or your heavenly father. The bible is clear, no man can serve two masters.

If you allow anger to build up inside of you, your enemy the devil has won. Your anger will turn to hatred, and as a result, all of humanity loses. The way a society goes will be determined largely by the grace it offers.

Forgiveness is the required step to a grace filled life.  Does this mean we forget. No. Does this mean what they did was ok. Absolutely not. Does this mean we should seek their release from prison. No.

In his book The Prisoner and the Bomb, Laurens van der Post recounts the misery of his wartime experiences in a Japanese prison camp in Java.   He writes, “The only hope for the future lay in an all-embracing attitude of forgiveness of the peoples who had been our enemies. Forgiveness, my prison experience had taught me, was not mere religious sentimentality; it was as fundamental a law of the human spirit as the law of gravity. If one broke the law of gravity one broke one’s neck; if one broke this law of forgiveness, one inflicted a mortal wound on one’s spirit and became once again a member of the chain-gang of mere cause and effect from which life has labored so long and painfully to escape.”

Why is our society so full of anger, and hatred? Why do we seem so divided? Could a large part of it be due to the lack of our willingness to forgive. Forgiveness does not come to us easily. We must work at it. It is a choice we must learn to make as painful as it can be.  We have to see the necessity of it for the greater good of society. A society that doesn’t practice grace is a society that is doomed to fail.  If the church wants to make an impact on the world, it must learn to practice forgiveness. How many of our churches have split over refusal to forgive.  Where did that practice come from?  I can surely say it did not come from God. For he commanded us to forgive. His Son dying words from the cross were “Father Forgive them”.

Will you take a step today to practice a grace filled life. A life of forgiveness. Ask God today to help you forgive. Lord, please forgive me when I allow anger and bitterness to fill my heart when I refuse to forgive someone who has hurt me. Teach me Lord to forgive as you have forgiven me.

Where are you?

Posted on by Jesse Walker

Have you ever wondered why God’s first question to Adam after he sinned, wasn’t “What have you done now”?  Or “Why can’t you stay out of trouble?”  Or maybe something like, “I hate you; I never want to see you again.”  Isn’t that sometimes how we respond when were angry?

But God’s first words to Adam were, “Where are you”.  Do you believe God didn’t know where Adam was?  I’m certain God knew exactly where Adam was. What God was indicating is, come here Adam.  I’m looking for you.  I want to talk to you. God was restoring a broken relationship.

God did a very similar thing with the second recorded sin in the bible when Cain killed his brother Abel. God said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother”.  In James 1:15 we read, “Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”  Like Adam and Cain, they first desired something. For Adam it was the fruit of the tree.  For Cain it was jealousy of his brothers offering being accepted while his was rejected. The result of both their sins was spiritual death. This is true of all sin.  For in Isaiah 59:2 it says, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”  Can you hear from Isiah’s words how sin destroys our relationship with God. Words like separation, removed from His presence (face) and that God will not respond (will not hear).  Friend this is a broken relationship that must be restored in order to function as it was designed.

This is why God came to Adam and said, “Where are you”, let’s restore our broken relationship. Let’s remove the separation.

In Mark 12:30-31 we learn that the greatest commandment according to Jesus is to love God with all your heart, and that the second is much like it to love others like yourself. Then Jesus sums up his teaching, and says, there are no greater commandments than these.

The kingdom of God is not made up of rules.  Nor is God seeking a bunch of rule keepers. Is obedience important.  Absolutely.  Jesus said, those who love me will keep my commandments. But loving Jesus, and doing good, is not rule keeping. It’s evidence of a loving relationship.

God is asking you and me today, “Where are you”? I pray today you will take time to mediate on this very important question, “Where are you?” And this is Jesse Walker with the Glenwood Church of Christ.

God Cried

Posted on by Jesse Walker

How do we (mortal humanity) obtain Intimacy with an all-powerful God? I surely do not have the definitive answer. But for me, it helps to see Christ as my father. I know how a father loves his children. Especially since I am a dad. I know how much I love my children. How I would do anything for them. And how it hurts when they rebel.

God is not a force. He is a person. Jesus the Son of God in John 14:8-10 when asked by Phillip to show them the Father replied, Philip if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. Do you not know that I am in the Father and He is in me. Jesus also said in John 5:19, I can only do what the Father is doing. In a true sense, what Jesus was saying is that me and my Father are a mirror image. In John chapter 7, when Jesus saw Mary and the Jews weeping over the death of Mary’s brother Lazarus, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And then in verse 35, it says “Jesus Wept”.  How can mortal man cause an Almighty God to weep? To be grieved in the spirit, and to be troubled. Because He cares. He desires the best for us, and he wants to be with us.

Then in 1 John 4:29, we learn that God loved us before we ever loved him. It’s as if he walked into the orphanage and picked me out as the best kid. I know he picked us all. But it’s personal, God picked me, and he picked you. He is your father and my father.

God is not seeking religiosity. What he is seeking is a relationship. The entire reason God created man was to be with him. To commune with him. God came looking for Adam. And he is looking for you as well. As unfathomable it is to me, God loves us and wants to be with us. He picked us to be on his team when others did not want us. It makes no earthly sense. We are full of flaws and wrinkles. Yet God loved us when we were unlovable. Will you join me today and thank God for selecting you to be a part of His family. I pray you will. And this is Jesse Walker with the Glenwood, Church of Christ.

The Grace of God

Posted on by Bob Mathews

The mediate source of grace flowing from the Father’s throne is the Son of God, Christ Jesus (Rom. 1:5). Our assurance that divine grace will be extended to all men (Titus 2:11-12) is evidenced both prophetically and by promise (1 Peter 1:10; Zech. 12:10). The grace of God serves distinct and wonderful purposes, including our personal salvation (Eph. 2:8), our justification (Rom. 3:24), our receipt of the imputation of righteousness (Rom. 5:15-17), our sufficiency in all things (2 Cor. 9:8), our abounding to every good work (2 Cor. 9:8), and our receipt of the gift of eternal life (Rom. 5:20-21).

Knowing that such wonderful blessings flow from the grace of God, we must endeavor to access the Father’s grace by personal faith (Rom. 5:1-2) working in harmony with the Abrahamic promise (Rom. 4:16), the expressed Word of God (Rom. 10:17) and the calling of God (2 Tim. 1:9; 2 Thess. 2:14) in association with the Word. Because of the importance of these issues, we must remember that grace is always in harmony with truth (Col. 1:3-6) and it requires obedience of faith (Rom. 5:21; 6:16-18). Meritorious works have no role to play in the Father’s system of redemption (Rom. 11:6). Our efforts to safeguard our standing in the grace of God is essential because we can so conduct ourselves so as to no longer be in the grace of God (Gal. 5:4).

Biblical motivation to continue in the grace of God by God-approved means includes our desire to escape the dominion of sin (Rom. 6:14), our desire to be a member of the elect of God (Rom. 11:5), our desire to be blessed with spiritual gifts (Eph. 3:8), our desire to maintain our hope (2 Thess. 2:16-17), and our desire to be the recipient of all the expressed purposes of the grace of God. The Father’s grace is surely worth our full personal dedication to all that the grace of God demands.

Will God always honor man’s repentance?

Posted on by Bob Mathews

30Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him. 31He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. 32He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. 33Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. (1 Kings 16:30-33)

20Ahab said to Elijah, “So you have found me, my enemy!” “I have found you,” he answered, “because you have sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD. 21‘I am going to bring disaster on you. I will consume your descendants and cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel-slave or free. 22I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat and that of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin.’ 23“And also concerning Jezebel the LORD says: ‘Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’ 24“Dogs will eat those belonging to Ahab who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country.”…27When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly. 28Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite: 29“Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.” (1 Kings 21:20-29)

Is your life so bad that you could compete with someone who “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of [the kings] before him”?

Have you ever felt like such a sinner, like you’ve made so many fall-on-your-face blunders that you’re beyond hope and God will never forgive you?

Ok, let me ask you this — is your life so bad that you could compete with someone who “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of [the kings] before him”? Unless your name is Jeffrey Dahmer, I’d be willing to bet your life can’t even come close to that of Ahab’s on the scale of “badness”. (Oh, and Jeffrey Dahmer? I fully expect to see him in heaven. If you want to learn about his conversion story, write me or add a comment below and I’ll tell you about it.)

Ahab doesn’t even come close to comparing with King David, but the way he reacted after hearing Elijah’s curse was reminiscent of David’s reaction after Nathan’s confrontation (2 Samuel 12:1-9). Make no mistake; this was real repentance. Ahab was not simply putting on a show to get Elijah to change his curse to a blessing.

So does this mean we can expect to see King Ahab in heaven? Sorry, not my call — nor yours.

Nor is it the point of this post.

The point is God noticed and God honored Ahab’s repentance. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). He waited patiently for Ahab to repent. He waits patiently for you too, but He will not wait forever. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:1-3), when neither you nor I expect it.

God is waiting; what are you waiting for?

Maranatha.

How can I ‘work out my own salvation’?

Posted on by Bob Mathews

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. Philippians 2:12-13

Outside of a cult here and a splinter group there, you don’t much hear anyone talking about salvation being by works. So let’s agree on that — we’re not saved by works.

The work of salvation was accomplished by Christ on the cross (John 19:30).

Then what in the world was Paul talking about when he said we need to “work out our salvation”? There are a couple of important points that will help us understand this passage.

First, who was Paul writing to? He was writing to Christians — a body of believers in Philippi who were already saved! (Philippians 1:1). Thus, this was not a group of unbelievers he was writing to who needed to go from a state of being unsaved to a state of being saved. He was not urging them to “come to Christ”; they were already there!

Second, let’s see Who it is that Paul says is doing the work: “…for it is God who works in you…”. So if God is the One doing the work, what is there left for me to “work out”?

Clearly Paul does not mean that there can be anything we can do as a meritorious act that will contribute to our salvation. The work of salvation was accomplished by Christ on the cross (John 19:30). The debt for our guilt of sin has been paid.

Therefore, we are not to work out our salvation from the guilt of sin; we are to work out our salvation from the power of sin. In a different letter, Paul wrote

11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires…14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Romans 6:11-14)

As a member of the body of Christ, sin does not “reign in [our] mortal body”, but that does not mean we do not sin. This is how we are to “work out our salvation” — we are to think as Paul thought and to work as Paul worked:

12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)

You work each day so that sin has less and less “reign” in your life. You “press on toward the goal”. You let the Holy Spirit continue the work in you that Christ started. You work out your salvation from the power of sin by giving sin less and less control over your life, as you allow the Spirit more and more control.