So, continuing our study on the Better Covenant,
we were looking at Hebrews in Chapter 8,
where we find that expression, that the New
Agreement or the New Covenant God has made
with man is better than the old one.
And we looked at the terms of that
New Covenant in Hebrews Chapter 8, verses 10
to 12.
Today we want to look at the word
grace, all-sufficient grace, which is a very
important part of the New Covenant.
This is a distinctively New Testament word.
The word grace is not found in the
Old Testament in the same meaning as we
find it in the New Testament.
It says, Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord, means he only found favour.
But grace, we are told in John 1,
verse 14, came through Jesus Christ.
Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
There was no grace in the world until
Christ came.
The law came through Moses, grace and truth
came through Jesus Christ.
It is very clear in John 1, verse
17.
And this means that grace cannot be unmerited
favour, as many Christians have defined it.
Because unmerited favour every human being receives.
Even the unbeliever, every blessing he receives from
God is unmerited.
Nobody receives merited favour from God.
But grace is much more than that.
Grace is God's power to help us, to
see us through every need we can ever
face in our life.
It begins with forgiveness of sins because that
is our first need.
So the Bible says in Ephesians 1 that
we have forgiveness of sins according to the
riches of his grace.
The word that the Lord spoke to Paul
in 2 Corinthians 12, my grace is sufficient
for you.
There was a need that Paul had and
God said my grace is sufficient for you.
Grace is the power of God, the help
that God gives to meet our need whatever
it is at this particular moment.
In that connection I said our first need
is the forgiveness of sins.
So here in Hebrews 8 we read about
God dealing with our sins in verse 12
first of all.
I will be merciful to their iniquities and
I will remember their sins no more.
Now this may be very elementary but yet
I found many Christians who never seem to
finish with the memory of something terrible that
they did in their past life.
Even though some of them have confessed it
probably 10, 20, 30, 100 times and they
never seem to be finished with it, with
the memory of it.
It seems to come back in a nagging
way and I want every Christian who has
sincerely turned to the Lord and repented and
confessed his sin to know that those reminders
come from Satan.
Satan is called the accuser of the brethren
and one of his tasks if he can't
lead us into sin is to keep on
reminding us of sins in our past life
that we confessed, repented of, forsook and that
God cleansed.
The Lord says here I will not remember
your sins any more.
And in Revelation we are told that the
only way to overcome the accuser of the
brethren in Revelation 12 verse 11 is by
the blood of the Lamb.
We've got to understand what tremendous power there
is in the blood of Christ not only
to cleanse us but to justify us.
In the Old Testament there was no cleansing
from sin.
You know we sometimes sing I'm covered by
the blood.
It's not true.
It's theologically not true.
There's no expression in the New Testament of
being covered by the blood.
That is an Old Testament expression.
Blessed is the man in Psalm 32 whose
sins are covered.
In the New Testament the blood of Jesus
doesn't cover us.
It cleanses us.
And there's a lot of difference between being
covered and being cleansed.
See if I were to use an illustration,
if all our sins were written on a
blackboard and I put a sheet over it,
that's covered.
But somebody could easily lift the sheet and
see what you did.
But cleansed is if I took a wet
sponge and wiped it all out.
You could never retrieve it.
It's impossible.
It's cleansed.
It's gone.
And that's the difference between the Old Covenant
and the New Covenant.
This is why it's a better covenant.
I thank God my sin's not covered.
Nobody can ever lift a sheet and see
what I did.
God's cleansed it.
The blood of Jesus cleanses us.
If we walk in the light, in other
words if we are open with God to
be completely honest about everything in our past
life, his promise is that the blood of
Jesus cleanses us.
Completely.
Totally.
And not only cleanses us, but I will
not remember their sins anymore.
Now we need to understand this.
It's not that God does not know what
I did 40 years ago.
He knows very well.
I remember what I did 40 years ago.
How is it that God cannot know that?
But what he's saying here is, I choose
not to remember it.
And that's important for us also when we
forgive others.
We can feel guilty that, hey I can't
forget what that person did.
Well you'll never forget.
That's the problem with my memory, not with
my heart.
And the memory cells in my brain may
remember the evil that somebody did to me.
But that doesn't mean I haven't forgiven him.
Forgiveness means I choose not to remember it.
In all my relationship with that person in
future, I deliberately choose, just like God does
with me, not to remember what he did
against me.
Because that's how God deals with me.
I choose not to remember.
I will not remember your sins anymore.
It's liberating to know what the grace of
God does, what the blood of Jesus Christ
has accomplished for us.
But it's not just cleansing.
It's not just blotting out our past.
In Romans 5.9 it says that we're
justified by his blood.
And this is a distinctively New Testament word.
The way Abraham experienced justification is only a
shadow of the reality of it in the
New Testament.
What does it mean to be justified?
Just as if I'd never sinned, to be
declared righteous.
I want to try and bring out this
distinction by an illustration again.
If I were taken to court and accused
by a prosecutor of many, many charges, and
the judge is merciful, and maybe I'm a
great criminal and the whole town is waiting
outside to see what judgment is going to
be given to me.
And the judge is merciful and says, OK,
I'm going to forgive you.
Of course I'm excited.
I'm forgiven.
And I come out of the courtroom delighted
that I'm forgiven.
But yet I know that I'm a criminal,
a forgiven criminal.
So even though I come out forgiven free,
I come out with my head hanging down.
Because everybody knows I'm a criminal.
Now on the other hand, if the judge
goes through the charges and says there's not
an atom of truth in all these charges.
These are all false charges.
I declare this person righteous.
He's not guilty at all.
It's not just that he's forgiven me.
He's not guilty.
Again I come out of the courtroom free,
but this time my head's lifted up.
I'm not a criminal.
This is the difference between forgiveness and justification.
A lot of Christians have only experienced forgiveness.
They haven't understood the joy of being justified.
That God hasn't just forgiven me.
He doesn't just say that he'll not remember
my sins against me.
He says you're declared righteous.
The glory of this.
I myself never experienced the glory of it
because no preacher explained it to me in
my younger days.
I wish they had.
The Bible says that God is our glory
and the lifter of our head.
He doesn't want any Christian to go through
life with his head hanging down in shame
because of sin that he's confessed.
The only sin that God cannot forgive is
the sin that you haven't confessed.
That's all.
And if you've confessed it, you don't need
to confess it a second time.
If you really turned and confessed it to
God, we're justified.
We're declared righteous.
It doesn't matter how wicked our past may
have been.
It doesn't matter how many times we have
fallen.
We're justified by the blood of Jesus Christ.
This is how we glorify and exalt the
power of the blood of Jesus Christ.
And it's very, very important that we have
this clear foundation in our life concerning the
past.
That our past has been dealt with permanently,
once and for all, so that we can
press on to the future.
And if you're not clear in this, I
want to tell you that the devil will
nag you and nag you and nag you
endlessly.
We need to know the power of the
blood of Jesus Christ.
In computer language, if you use a word
processor, you know that you come across the
word justify.
And justify in a word processor means, you
know exactly what you see here in a
book.
The right-hand edge comes absolutely straight.
And it's an amazing thing.
You just hit a button and the entire
right side of your letter is justified.
Now in the old days when we used
typewriters, we could never do that.
You could get your left-hand edge right
in a typewriter, but the right-hand edge
would all be jagged.
But now we can produce these wonderful letters
where you hit just one button on a
computer, justify, and all your right-hand edge
is justified.
Whether you wrote three lines or a hundred
lines, it was all jagged.
And you highlighted it, justify, and the whole
thing gets straight.
And that's the picture of what God does
for us too.
Our life could be like those jagged edges
on the right side of the screen.
Whether it's been for three years or fifty
years, it doesn't make a difference.
In a moment, God says, justify, and that
right-hand edge is absolutely straight.
It's just as if we'd never sinned in
our whole life.
Unless we believe what God has said, we're
not really glorifying God.
The Bible says in Romans chapter 4 concerning
Abraham and this great truth of justification, that—let
me read these words to you—he became strong
in faith, Romans 4.20, giving glory to
God.
Do you know that we don't give any
glory to God when we don't express our
faith in what God has said?
If God has said that my past is
blotted out, I give glory to God by
saying, yes, Lord, that's true.
I'm never going to think about it anymore.
I'm not going to let my past weigh
me down.
I'm going to finish with it.
This is the foundation for something further that
the grace of God offers us.
The first is, we have forgiveness of his
sins, justification according to the riches of his
grace.
It's a wonderful gospel.
It's the most wonderful news that this world
has ever heard, and that's why we need
to share it with other people.
But going on from Romans chapter 4, grace
also leads us to victory.
Romans 6 and verse 14 says that God
has given us grace.
Sin shall not have dominion over you, for
you are not under law, but under grace.
This is more than forgiveness.
This is a second step.
This is talking about what grace can do
to deliver us from the power of sin.
Sin shall not be master over you.
That's how this translation reads it.
Why?
Because you're not under law.
That was the old covenant.
You're now under a better covenant, grace.
So if you were to give that verse
to a little ten-year-old boy and
ask him to read it, and then ask
him a simple question, even a ten-year
-old.
From this verse, how do you know whether
you're under grace or under law?
There's only one answer.
You know you're under grace when sin does
not have the mastery over you.
So how is it that many imagine they're
under grace when sin still has the mastery
over them?
They must be something wrong.
We haven't availed of our privileges under the
new covenant.
It's so clear and so simple.
Sin shall not be master over you or
shall not have dominion over you because you're
not under law, but under grace.
And if you were to ask that ten
-year-old another question, just from this verse,
how do you know whether you're under law?
Well, sin has mastery over me.
Then I'm under law.
So does that mean I've not experienced God's
grace if I'm still defeated by sin?
Yes, I may have, but not the full
provision of it.
I may have experienced forgiveness, but I've not
availed of everything that God's provided for me
in Christ.
Think of a verse like Ephesians 1 in
verse 3 which says, Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with every, that's very important,
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
Christ.
That verse teaches us that every single spiritual
blessing that God can give any human being
in Christ is already potentially mine.
It's been given to me.
It's like a money put into my bank
account.
Now my father may put a million dollars
into my bank account, and if I draw
only ten dollars every month, that's all I'll
get.
This is how it is, where God has
in Christ blessed everyone who is in Christ
with every spiritual blessing, but says, how much
you get depends on what you have faith
for.
Because that's a law of God, according to
your faith, be it unto you.
And many people don't draw of the resources
of God's grace, and that's why they've got
forgiveness, because they took out that much from
their bank, but they're hesitant to take more.
Perhaps they don't know there is more.
Perhaps they think that a defeated life, an
up and down defeated life, is the best
we can expect on earth.
No, there is more.
The first step to anything God has for
us is to believe that God will give
it to me, that it is for me,
and that it is freely available.
Think of the matter of forgiveness to sins
itself.
Christ died for the sins of the whole
world.
He took the sins of the entire world
upon him, and yet why is it that
millions and millions and millions of people in
this world have not received the benefit of
that?
What is it that's holding them back?
They won't believe.
That's all.
Why is it multitudes of people who call
themselves Christians have not become born again and
have not entered into this forgiveness of sins?
Christ died for their sins.
The only thing missing is they will not
believe.
They will not humbly come and accept that
provision that God made for the forgiveness of
their sins on Calvary's tree.
Now apply the same logic or analogy to
the believer.
Here it says that sin shall not rule
over you if you are really under grace.
Why is it then so many believers are
defeated by sin?
Why is it so many believers say, I
can't control my temper?
Why is it so many believers are defeated
by the lust of their eyes?
Why is there bitterness among believers?
Why is there jealousy?
Why is there backbiting and gossiping?
How do these sins have mastery even over
people who claim to be filled and baptized
in the Holy Spirit?
Something is seriously wrong.
They have not understood the provisions of grace.
They have not appropriated what God has for
them.
They have not believed that the same Lord
who forgave them can also keep them.
Being saved from sin is more than being
forgiven.
Grace not only forgives me, but saves me.
Do you know what is the first promise
in the New Testament?
I have often asked this question to many
people and they don't know.
The very first promise in the New Testament
is found in Matthew 1 verse 21.
You shall call his name Jesus.
The word of the angel to Joseph.
You shall call his name Jesus and here
is the promise.
For he shall save his people from their
sins.
The very name Jesus means saviour.
Jehovah is saviour.
The Lord is saviour.
He will save his people, not in their
sins, but from their sins.
He will save his people from their sins
is the very first promise in the New
Testament.
It is not found anywhere in the Old
Testament.
In the Old Testament God would forgive them.
Think of David in Psalm 103.
He could stand up in the temple every
week and say the words of Psalm 103.
Bless the Lord O my soul and forget
not all his benefits.
Who forgives all thine iniquities, who heals all
thy diseases, who crowns thy life with good
things, who delivers thee from the pit.
These are the blessings they had in the
Old Testament.
Forgiveness of sins, healing from diseases, material blessings
and being saved from hell.
What is it they didn't have?
What David could not say was, bless the
Lord O my soul who delivers me from
sins power.
That David couldn't say.
Bless the Lord O my soul who forgives
my sins, who heals my diseases, who blesses
me with multitudes of material things, who saves
me from the pit of hell.
That is Psalm 103.
He knew where to stop.
He couldn't be honest.
If he was honest he couldn't say, bless
the Lord who delivers me from sins power.
That is the blessing of the New Covenant.
Something more than what David had.
Something more than even what John the Baptist
had.
And that is the wonderful message of the
Gospel.
He will save his people from their sins.
Now to illustrate the difference between forgiveness and
salvation.
You know we ask people, are you saved?
But very often when we ask a person,
are you saved?
What we mean is, are you saved from
hell?
But do you know that the New Testament
hardly ever speaks about being saved from hell.
In fact that expression is not even there
in the New Testament, being saved from hell.
It is being saved from sin.
And there is a lot of difference between
being saved from hell and being saved from
sin.
To use an illustration.
Supposing my little boy is playing outside the
gate of my house and the construction workers
are digging a big pit over there.
And I tell him, be careful, don't go
anywhere near that pit because you can fall
in.
And like little children do, he disobeys me
and falls into the pit.
And then from there he cries out and
says, daddy, daddy.
And I go up and say, what happened
son?
He is down there in that six foot
pit.
Well daddy, I am sorry, I disobeyed you.
Please forgive me.
I say, okay son, you are forgiven.
Goodbye.
Have I forgiven him?
Sure.
Have I saved him?
No.
There is a difference between being forgiven and
being saved from our sins.
If I lose my temper and I say,
Lord, I am sorry I fell, forgive me.
He forgives me.
But if he hasn't saved me from that
habit, I am just going to keep on
losing my temper for the rest of my
life and assume that that is the normal
Christian life.
I want to tell you, it is not.
It may be what you see in a
lot of Christians around you, but it is
not the normal Christian life.
That is not the will of God.
Let me show you a verse in Ephesians
chapter 4.
Ephesians chapter 4, it says, Do not grieve
the Holy Spirit, verse 30, by whom you
were sealed for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness be washed away and all
wrath and all anger and all clamor and
all slander be put away from you along
with all malice.
You know that one verse alone we could
work with for a long time.
Does God mean what he says?
Is it possible?
Is this book full of suggestions or commands?
Is that a suggestion?
Does God say, well, if you can, do
this?
No, he doesn't say that.
It is a command.
Don't grieve the Holy Spirit.
Let all anger be put away from you.
Now if I put away all the chairs
from this hall, how many chairs will be
left?
None.
If I obey that command to put away
all anger from my life, how much anger
will be left in my life?
None.
Why is it Christians don't take these commands
seriously?
I believe the reason is because they look
too much at the standard of life of
other believers around them and because they see
hardly anybody who is living a life free
from anger, they say, well, I suppose it's
not possible.
They assume that this is the normal.
We fall, we ask the Lord to forgive
us and then we fall again and we
ask the Lord to forgive us and we
fall again and we ask the Lord to
forgive us.
But that is not the normal Christian life.
That is a sub-standard Christian life.
The normal Christian life in the New Covenant
is what we read in Romans 6.14.
Sin shall not have the mastery over you.
I remember years ago hearing a story of
how they would test people in a lunatic
asylum to see whether they had come to
their senses or not.
It was a very simple test.
They would put that person in a room
where a tap was open and the water
was flowing and they'd give him a mop
and a bucket and ask him to dry
the room.
And if he tried to dry the room
without turning off the tap, then you knew
that he hadn't come to his senses yet.
He needed to stay there a little longer.
What would you do if you were given
that mop and a bucket?
Well, the first thing you'd do is turn
off the tap.
Now, what does the Lord do for us?
We have a tap in us where sin
is gushing out all the time.
We know that every day through our eyes,
through our tongue.
What does the gospel promise?
Does it only give us a mop and
a bucket that we endlessly dry the floor?
Or can Jesus do something about that tap?
I would say it's not really good news
if all that the Lord's given me is
a mop and a bucket.
It's pretty depressing to keep on mopping up
the floor.
Is it possible, dear brother or sister, that
you could have experienced something far more in
your Christian life if you had known the
truth about the grace of God?
Grace is a power that is sufficient for
every need.
When the Lord said, My grace is sufficient
for you, it means whatever your need is,
it's sufficient for that.
If you send your son to the market
to get something worth $5, you'll give him
$5.
If you send him to the market to
get something worth $50, you'll give him $50.
That's the meaning of sufficient.
That means whatever the need is, God's grace
is going to match up to that need.
Okay, you may have inherited a bad temper
from your parents, so what?
Grace is sufficient for that.
Maybe you have a tremendous problem in some
other area.
Maybe someone's done some terrible evil to you,
and you find it so difficult to get
over the bitterness.
Is God's grace not sufficient?
Where sin abounded, doesn't it say grace abounded
even more?
Is grace greater than our sin or less
than our sin?
We've insulted God by our unbelief.
You do not have because you do not
ask.
You ask and do not receive because you
don't believe that you will receive.
Some of the saddest words written in the
scriptures are Matthew 13, 58, where it says,
He could not do many mighty works there
because of their unbelief.
God's grace is sufficient.
The Bible says in Jude verse 24, He
is able to keep us from falling.
Is that true or not?
That's all we need to know.
There are some wonderful promises like this.
He is able to keep us from falling.
It's not a question of what I am
able to do.
He is able to keep us from falling.
See, Romans chapter 8, it
says here, He is able to keep us
from falling.
It says here, first of all, that there
is no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus.
That's the first part of God's grace.
And the second is the law of the
Spirit.
Now, here it speaks of a law.
Not the Old Testament law of commandments.
This is called the law of the Holy
Spirit.
And the law of the Holy Spirit is
not found in written words.
The law of the Spirit is life in
Christ Jesus.
This law is not a written law of
ten commandments like in the Old Testament.
It's the life of Jesus Christ, which is
the law of the Spirit.
What did it do?
It has set me free from this other
law of sin and death, which is in
my body.
There is a law of sin and death
in my body, always dragging me down into
sin.
But the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus sets me free from this
law.
The law of sin in our body is
something like the law of gravity.
It operates just the same in every generation,
in every country, in every part of the
world, the law of gravity.
It always pulls things down.
And we who are born of the race
of Adam, we've got this law which always
pulls us down.
It's easier to be angry than to be
patient.
It's easier to tell lies than to speak
the truth.
It's easier to hate than to love.
It's easier to be anxious than to be
at rest.
This is the law pulling us down.
It's like saying it's easier to go down
than to go up.
But think of this book for example.
The law of gravity operates on this book.
And wherever you take it, you cannot escape
gravity.
And our life is something like that.
The law of gravity is just pulling it
down all the time.
But now see what happens.
It's not falling.
Why isn't it falling?
Is it because the law of gravity is
not operating in this area?
It's operating very much.
But the law of life in my body
is setting this book free from the law
of gravity.
He is able to keep us from falling.
What does this book have to do?
It has to just submit and rest in
the Master's hand.
It's real.
It's not just an illustration.
This is exactly how the Lord keeps us.
The law of the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus has set me free from the
law of sin and death.
Now if this were only a theory, I
wouldn't waste my time talking about it.
But it's real.
It actually works.
According to your faith, be it unto you,
it's based on the promises of God.
He is able to keep us from falling.
This is what grace does.
Let me turn you to another verse in
Hebrews in chapter 4.
I believe that if we would only hunger
and thirst for this, we could come to
a level of the Christian life that perhaps
some of us have never experienced so far.
A lot of the frustration and the gloom
and depression and many other things are because
we're not availing of the riches of God's
grace.
There's so much that our Father has put
in our bank account, but we're living on
a measly little amount every month and struggling
to survive when there's millions out there.
Riches of His grace.
Hebrews chapter 4, it says in verse 16,
let us therefore draw near with confidence.
You know it's like my going to the
bank with confidence because I've got a million
dollars there.
I mean I'm not going in there like
a beggar saying, can you give me a
handout today?
I'm again hungry.
No.
I'm going there as the son of a
millionaire who's got my father's inheritance put there
into my account and I can go and
boldly present my check because my dad's name
is at the bottom.
He signed it and said, could you give
me a hundred thousand dollars please?
Think of that.
Let us draw near with boldness, with confidence
to this bank of grace, to the throne
of grace.
What for?
That we may receive mercy and find grace
to help in time of need.
Now here's another thing that I never understood
for many years in my Christian life, that
there was a difference between mercy and grace.
Mercy is an Old Testament word.
It's found frequently in the Old Testament.
His mercy endures forever.
But grace is New Testament.
Now when we come to the throne of
grace, we first need mercy because we have
sinned.
Mercy deals with my past.
Grace deals with the future.
We have a past and a future.
A past where we have fallen so many
times.
What do we need for that?
Mercy.
Forgiveness.
And that's the first thing we get so
that there's no more condemnation.
There's no more sense of guilt about my
past.
I get mercy.
But am I to stop with mercy?
No.
It says after I've received mercy, there's something
more at the throne of grace for me.
To deal with this sinful nature in the
future, to deal with this wretched temperament of
mine, this temper of mine, this, the lusts
in my flesh, to deal with them, there's
grace.
And grace to help me in my time
of need.
So we can say grace is something which
comes to help.
Grace is help in time of need.
That's what grace is.
Mercy is also God's help, but grace is
something more.
It's like if you were climbing a mountain
and you slip, like a lot of mountaineers
do, and you're hanging there by your fingertips
about to fall, but you're too proud to
ask for help.
You say, no, I can make it.
This is the Christian struggling for victory.
I can make it.
I can.
And he struggles and struggles and he falls
to the bottom and breaks his bones.
And then he cries for help.
And the ambulance comes along and picks him
up.
That's mercy.
After he's fallen, the ambulance is coming and
picking him up and taking him to the
hospital and binding him up and fixing his
fractures and things like that.
Oh yeah, that's good.
The ambulance is available and God's mercy is
always available.
Okay, once you're healed, you go back climbing
again.
And again, you're too proud to ask for
help when you're about to fall.
And again you fall down and break your
bones.
And you say, God, please help me.
And the ambulance comes along.
This is the experience of most Christians.
They're always calling for the ambulance.
And thank God it's always there, available.
Mercy, mercy, mercy.
But the good news is that there's something
else we can get there if we are
humble enough to say, God, I can't do
this.
I'm about to slip.
I'm about to fall.
Will you please give me grace to help
me?
And before I fall, not after I've fallen,
and a few moments later I find that
somebody has lifted me up and placed me
on top of that cliff.
I say, how did that happen?
That was grace.
Now, if you don't believe this, let me
give you a little homework.
This is real.
This is practical.
This is not a theory.
This is not theology.
This is real life.
Think of what is your greatest problem?
What's the area where you're tempted the most?
Which is the area where you find yourself
falling frequently?
Is it lust?
Is it anger?
Okay.
The next time you're tempted in that area,
before you actually fall, you know the pressure
coming.
You're going to fall.
You're going to lose your temper now.
You're going to fall into lust now.
Pray this little prayer.
The prayer that Peter prayed when he was
about to sink.
The prayer that Peter, who had overcome the
law of gravity, walking on that water for
a number of minutes, suddenly found himself losing
that power, and gravity was taking over and
was pulling him down.
He prayed a simple prayer, Lord, save me.
That's all.
And it says immediately Jesus held his hand.
He didn't scold him.
James chapter 1 says, God never scolds.
Praise God for that.
Our parents may have scolded us, but God
never scolds us.
He's always there to help us to stretch
out his hand, to help us to stand.
You'll find the same Lord who helped Peter
to overcome the law of gravity that day
and to stand will help you.
Grace to help me in my time of
need.
God, I'm falling.
I'm falling.
Please help me.
And you'll suddenly find a little later, hey,
how is that?
I didn't lose my temper this time.
I didn't lust this time.
And after you go through a few experiences
like that, you discover that grace is a
real power sufficient for every need in life.
It's not just forgiveness of sins.
It's not just victory over sin.
Paul had a thorn in the flesh, we
read in 2 Corinthians 12.
He had a thorn which he calls a
messenger of Satan that kept on buffeting him.
I don't know what it was.
It could have been a physical ailment.
It could have been a human being who
kept on harassing and hounding Paul wherever he
went.
But whatever it was, it was a messenger
of Satan.
Now this is another thing that grace can
do for us.
When we are being harassed or troubled, not
by sin, but maybe by a persistent sickness
or some human being who is nasty and
troublesome, a difficult son, a difficult boss, anything.
Messengers of Satan take different forms.
Buffeting us, buffeting us, buffeting us.
And we pray, God please deliver me from
this.
And he doesn't.
But he says, my grace is sufficient for
you.
You can be an overcomer even though this
messenger of Satan remains.
Isn't that wonderful?
I remember hearing of a servant of the
Lord who was facing a difficult problem in
his life and he was asking God to
remove that problem and it was not removed.
And one day God gave him a dream
at night.
He saw himself trying to cross a river
in a boat and he was always hitting
a hidden rock under the surface of the
water.
The water, the boat was hitting that rock.
He moved aside and he found the rock
was there too.
He just couldn't get across.
And he found himself praying in his dream,
God remove this rock, remove this rock.
And God said, no.
I'll raise the level of the water.
You can still go across.
My grace is sufficient for you.
That difficult person who is harassing you will
remain.
But you will get grace to be an
overcomer.
And that won't bother you anymore.
You'll be an overcomer.
I'll put my character into you through this
difficult person, through this sickness, through this trial.
And you will be an overcomer.
Grace is sufficient for every need we can
ever face in our life.
Let's believe that.
Let's trust him.
Say, Lord, it's not just mercy that I
want now.
I want grace that justifies me so that
my past doesn't bother me anymore.
That gives me power, real power to help
me in the moment when I'm slipping and
falling into sin.
So that I'm no longer that mean-tempered
wife or husband that I have been till
now.
But grace takes over.
That I'm no longer disturbed by that person
who is harassing me, harassing me.
I'm going to use that to be a
conqueror in Christ.
To allow God to transform my character.
Make me Christ-like.
Grace is the wonderful message of the new
covenant.
And it's freely available.
If we hunger and thirst, Jesus said, we'll
be satisfied.
If, however, we are satisfied with our defeated
condition, then there's not much hope for us.
But if you say, Lord, I'm not satisfied
with the substandard life I've been living so
far.
I'm not the type of Christian husband or
wife or mother or father that I should
be.
I'm impatient, irritable, upset, anxious, worried.
In church I present a good face.
I'm not the same person at home.
Lord, can grace do something for me?
Yes, it can.
It can change you from a mean-tempered
person to a gracious person whose life at
home is just like the front you present
to other people at church.
But there's no difference.
This is what grace can do.
He who has ears to hear, let him
hear.
Let's pray.
Again, I want to invite you to respond
to the word of God that you've heard
this evening, this morning.
What does God expect of you?
You don't have to take a decision.
You don't have to say, I'm determined, Lord.
Just say, Lord, I trust you.
I want to believe your word this morning.
That's the first step.
I want to believe that there's a power
and grace that I've not experienced so far
in my life.
I believe this is the answer to every
problem I ever have in my life, the
grace of God.
Lord, I believe and I want you to
explain this to me more clearly through the
Holy Spirit and the circumstances of life.
I trust you this day.
Lead me to a life of victory over
the sin that easily besets me and over
to be an overcomer in the trials that
I face in life.
You want me to be more than a
conqueror and I believe you can keep me
from falling.
Thank you, Lord.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.