Speaker 1: You know, none of us can earn our way into
Speaker 1: heaven because eternal life is a free gift when you
Speaker 1: accept Jesus as the.
Speaker 2: Lord of your life.
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, and today
Speaker 1: Rick Warren brings a series called Good News about Grace.
Speaker 1: You can't truly understand the Christian life until you understand grace.
Speaker 1: It's at the heart of your faith and your relationship
Speaker 1: with God. And in this series you'll discover how not
Speaker 1: to only understand grace, but to experience it and the
Speaker 1: joy it brings. So let's get started with part one
Speaker 1: of a message called Saving Grace.
Speaker 3: I'd like for you to complete these common American phrases
Speaker 3: for me. If it sounds too good to be true,
Speaker 3: it is all right. We make money the old fashioned way.
Speaker 2: We earn it good.
Speaker 3: There's no such thing as a free You're very good
Speaker 3: at this, okay. There is no gain without pain, and
Speaker 3: this is a very familiar one. God helps those who
Speaker 3: help themselves great. Now, everything about the American way of
Speaker 3: life teaches us that you get what you're in life,
Speaker 3: that there is no free lunch.
Speaker 2: That you make your bed and then you lay in it.
Speaker 2: And in America, we are very aware.
Speaker 3: Of the values of competition and winning, and we know
Speaker 3: what it means to work hard and to use elbow Greece,
Speaker 3: and we value effort and sweat, and we tell people
Speaker 3: you get what you deserve in life, and if you
Speaker 3: want to make something of your life, it's up to you.
Speaker 3: If it's to be, it's up to me. You got it. Now,
Speaker 3: this is called the American work ethic. The only problem
Speaker 3: with the American work ethic is God doesn't operate on
Speaker 3: the America and work ethic, and so it makes it
Speaker 3: difficult many times for us to relate to God because
Speaker 3: we're in this driven work mentality. Now the problem is
Speaker 3: Some one five, verse eight. It tells us that God,
Speaker 3: rather than being in a work ethic mode, it says
Speaker 3: God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and rich
Speaker 3: in love. Would you circle the phrase gracious? The Bible
Speaker 3: says God is a gracious God. That means he he
Speaker 3: loves to be gracious, gracious to you. God loves to
Speaker 3: bless people who don't deserve it. That's his nature. Aren't
Speaker 3: you glad for that?
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that God blesses people who don't deserve it. Now,
Speaker 3: you can't understand the Christian life at all unless you
Speaker 3: understand grace. It is the heart of our faith, it's
Speaker 3: the heart of our relationship to God. When you understand grace,
Speaker 3: you're gonna feel closer to God. The more you understand grace,
Speaker 3: the more you're gonna be drawn to God, the more
Speaker 3: you're gonna love God, the more you're gonna be grateful
Speaker 3: to God, because it is the thing that God brings
Speaker 3: us to himself by that system, the system of grace. Now,
Speaker 3: today we're beginning a new series and I'm calling it
Speaker 3: Good News about Grace. What is grace, Well, grace is
Speaker 3: a multifaceted diamond. There are many aspects to it. There's
Speaker 3: no single definition that can describe what grace is all about.
Speaker 3: One definition is grace is God's love and action.
Speaker 2: Another definition is.
Speaker 3: Grace is God giving me what I need, not what
Speaker 3: I deserve. One of my favorite definitions is grace is
Speaker 3: the face God wears when he looks at my failures
Speaker 3: and he responds in a gracious way. Now, you need
Speaker 3: to understand the difference between grace and mercy is when
Speaker 3: God doesn't give us what we do deserve punishment, Grace
Speaker 3: is when God gives us what we don't deserve blessing. Now,
Speaker 3: I know that many of you probably think, well, I
Speaker 3: understand grace. I know we're saved by grace. I've known
Speaker 3: that for many, many years. But I discovered that even
Speaker 3: many Christians, although they know they're saved by grace, I'm sure,
Speaker 3: don't act like it. In fact, they spend most of
Speaker 3: their life thinking and acting like we're saved by works.
Speaker 3: And for many of you, even though you know you're
Speaker 3: saved by grace, you don't get into heaven by doing good.
Speaker 3: Your entire life is built on pleasing God by trying
Speaker 3: to be perfect. And you think God is some unpleasable
Speaker 3: parent up there in the sky with a clipboard and
Speaker 3: a pen, watching your every move, saying yeah that was good,
Speaker 3: and oh that was bad. Yeah that was good. And
Speaker 3: you think you have to earn God's approval. And you
Speaker 3: think if you do a certain number of good works
Speaker 3: and God's going go good girl, good guy.
Speaker 2: You got it.
Speaker 3: And then if you don't do those things, God goes
Speaker 3: forget it. You're worthless and that's it, and you're saved
Speaker 3: by grace. But you're actually living by works. Now when
Speaker 3: you really understand grace. It's going to bring so much
Speaker 3: joy to your life. It is the most liberating thing
Speaker 3: in the world. And you can be a Christian for
Speaker 3: twenty or thirty years and never really learn to live
Speaker 3: by grace. So we're going to do a series on it.
Speaker 3: My goal is that through this series, you will not
Speaker 3: just understand grace, but that you will experience it, that
Speaker 3: you will feel it, that you will enjoy the grace
Speaker 3: of God in your life because it does bring so
Speaker 3: much joy. Now, today I want us to start with
Speaker 3: the foundation, which is saving grace. Now for the many
Speaker 3: of you, this will be a review. You understand saving grace,
Speaker 3: but you cannot build a structure without the foundation.
Speaker 2: And this is foundational.
Speaker 3: And I think that it's good periodically that we sit
Speaker 3: back and we just remind ourselves what a good deal
Speaker 3: we got when we.
Speaker 2: Received the grace of God.
Speaker 3: And so today I want us to look at five
Speaker 3: aspects of saving grace. How is it you know for
Speaker 3: sure that you're going to heaven when you die? Five aspects?
Speaker 3: And I built it around a little acrostic to help
Speaker 3: you remember grace.
Speaker 2: G r ACEE.
Speaker 3: Now I told earlier service it reminded me of a
Speaker 3: story of a professor who went to Yale University and
Speaker 3: he decided he would speak on what is a Yale student?
Speaker 3: That he said, I'm going to use an across stick
Speaker 3: y a l e and he spoke on four attributes
Speaker 3: of a Yale student there. They're young, they're adventurous, they're loyal,
Speaker 3: and they're enthusiastic. But he went an hour and a
Speaker 3: half on this little four letter acrostick and it just
Speaker 3: wore out the crowd. And by the time time it
Speaker 3: was over, he looked down to the student on the
Speaker 3: front row and he said, what do you think of
Speaker 3: my speech? And the kids said, well, I was just
Speaker 3: thanking God that I didn't go to Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Speaker 3: Now I promise you that my grace across tache isn't
Speaker 3: going to take that long, So let's get right into it.
Speaker 3: G the g and grace stands for God's gift to me,
Speaker 3: God's gift to me. Romans three twenty four says, well,
Speaker 3: let's read it together. All of us need to be
Speaker 3: made right with God by his grace, which is a
Speaker 3: free gift through Jesus Christ. And notice it says it's
Speaker 3: a free gift Now, because of this American work ethic
Speaker 3: that I was just talking about, many people think that
Speaker 3: they're saved by works, that they're saved by earning their
Speaker 3: way to heaven by being good enough that God says, okay,
Speaker 3: come on in. If you were to go down here
Speaker 3: to Eltro Road in Rockfield and ask fifty or one
Speaker 3: hundred people on the sidewalk as they walk by, how
Speaker 3: do you.
Speaker 2: Get to heaven? You get a lot of different answers.
Speaker 3: But basically they could all be summarized in you got
Speaker 3: to earn your way to heaven, And you'd hear things like, well,
Speaker 3: the way you get to heaven is just try to
Speaker 3: be good and do your best, or work real hard
Speaker 3: at being good and just try to be a good
Speaker 3: moral person, or do more good things in life than
Speaker 3: you do bad things in life. And if your good
Speaker 3: pile is higher than your bad pile, well then God's
Speaker 3: gonna say you're a good guy. Come on in. It's
Speaker 3: all based on works, not grace. Now you need to
Speaker 3: understand that God says here salvation is absolutely free. Circle
Speaker 3: a phrase free gift. You don't work for a gift.
Speaker 3: It's a free gift. God says, Salvation is absolutely free.
Speaker 3: You can't earn it, you can't learn it, you can't buy,
Speaker 3: you can't work for it.
Speaker 2: Now, this is.
Speaker 3: The fundamental difference between Christianity and every other religion, every
Speaker 3: other faith, every other belief system. I don't care if
Speaker 3: it's Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, et cetera, et cetera. You can
Speaker 3: summarize every religion in one word, and all the other
Speaker 3: religions grace is the Christianity is the only religion that's
Speaker 3: built on grace.
Speaker 2: It says God just gives you salvation. You don't do
Speaker 2: anything to earn it.
Speaker 3: Every other religion is based on works, and you can
Speaker 3: summarize them in one word, the word do. There are
Speaker 3: certain things you do in order to gain God's approval,
Speaker 3: and it just varies. Each system is different. One religion
Speaker 3: will say, well, you do these things, and another one
Speaker 3: will say no, you do these things, and another one
Speaker 3: will say no. You have the eightfold path, as in
Speaker 3: Buddhism and things like this, where you do certain things
Speaker 3: in order to gain bliss, gain heaven, gain God's approval.
Speaker 3: It's always something you have to do, rules, regulations, rituals,
Speaker 3: et cetera. On the other hand, if you were to
Speaker 3: summarize Christianity in one word, it's the word done. It's
Speaker 3: already been done for you. It was done on the
Speaker 3: cross by Jesus Christ. He paid for your salvation, he
Speaker 3: paid for your sins. It's already been done. I had
Speaker 3: a guy ask me one time. He said, Pastor Rick,
Speaker 3: what can I do to be saved? I just got
Speaker 3: a plan with him. I said, you're too late. I
Speaker 3: kind of shocked him. I said you're too late. He
Speaker 3: said well, and I said, yeah, you're about two thousand
Speaker 3: years too late, because what needed to be done for
Speaker 3: your salvation has already been done and you can't do
Speaker 3: anything about it. Jesus Christ already did it. He paid
Speaker 3: for your salvation on the cross, and now it's a
Speaker 3: free gift to you. That's why Jesus Christ, when he
Speaker 3: was hanging on the cross stretched out his arms.
Speaker 2: One of the things he said was it is finished. Now.
Speaker 3: He didn't say I am finished, because he wasn't. He's
Speaker 3: still alive day he resurrected himself. He wasn't saying I'm finished.
Speaker 3: He said it is finished.
Speaker 2: What's the it? Your salvation?
Speaker 3: The plan to provide for the grace for every person
Speaker 3: who needs it. It's finished, God says here it is.
Speaker 3: It's a free gift, So there isn't anything you can
Speaker 3: do to save yourself. You just accept God's free gift
Speaker 3: of grace. See, I'm not getting to heaven based on
Speaker 3: what I do. I'm getting to heaven on based on
Speaker 3: the basis of what has already been done for me
Speaker 3: by Jesus Christ. Now, folks, that's the greatest gift you're
Speaker 3: ever going to be offered. No, you're never going to
Speaker 3: get a better.
Speaker 2: Deal than that.
Speaker 3: And if you really understand grace, you will accept it
Speaker 3: because it is a priceless gift in your life. It's
Speaker 3: God's gift to me. The R and grace stands for
Speaker 3: received by faith. God's gift is received by faith. Ephesians
Speaker 3: two eight and nine says this, for it is by
Speaker 3: grace that you have been saved through faith. Circle that
Speaker 3: through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It's the
Speaker 3: gift of God, not of works, so that no one
Speaker 3: could boast. And they're saying here that faith is the
Speaker 3: key that unlocks the door to heaven. And he says
Speaker 3: it's just a gift, but you have to receive it
Speaker 3: by faith. If I have a gift for you, and
Speaker 3: I say, here's this gift for you. It's one hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: Come and get it. Well, it'll just sit there unless
Speaker 3: you come and receive it by faith.
Speaker 2: You have to have faith, and I'm going to give
Speaker 2: it to you now, he says.
Speaker 3: Because salvation is a gift, you can't brag about it.
Speaker 3: If you could work your way to heaven. Do you
Speaker 3: realize how miserable it would be in heaven everybody be
Speaker 3: bragging about how they got there. Well, I got here
Speaker 3: because I did this. Well I got here because, oh well,
Speaker 3: let me tell you what I did, and we'd all
Speaker 3: be trying to one up each other with great stories
Speaker 3: of what great people we were on earth. God says, Now, look,
Speaker 3: it's a grace gift, your salvation. I just give you
Speaker 3: forgiveness free. I give you heaven free. Here it is.
Speaker 3: So what do you do with the gift. You can't
Speaker 3: brag about it. You can only accept it and be
Speaker 3: grateful for it. Romans four sixteen says this people receive
Speaker 3: God's promise circle the word promise by having faith.
Speaker 2: This is the promise of salvation.
Speaker 3: This happens so that the promise can be a free gift.
Speaker 2: Now, what's he saying here?
Speaker 3: Salvation isn't based on my performance, thank God. It's based
Speaker 3: on God's promise, not my performance. It's not based on
Speaker 3: my goodness. It's based on God's grace. I'm getting to heaven,
Speaker 3: not based on my merit, but on God's mercy. That's
Speaker 3: why he gets all the credit, He gets all the
Speaker 3: glory because it's nothing that I could do. It's a
Speaker 3: free gift that is received by faith. Now, the Bible
Speaker 3: is full of stories illustrating the principle of grace.
Speaker 2: There are many of them. One of my favorites is
Speaker 2: in the Old Testament.
Speaker 3: It's in Second Samuel, chapter nine, and it's a story
Speaker 3: of a young disabled boy named Maphibischef.
Speaker 2: How'd you like to have that name?
Speaker 3: I probably called him Phiby for sure, Hey, Phiby yo yo, Phiby.
Speaker 3: Maphibischef was the son of Jonathan, the grandson of King Saul.
Speaker 3: In the Old Testament, do you remember the story of
Speaker 3: David and Saul. David was crowned, was going to be
Speaker 3: the king. Saul was the current king, and Saul was
Speaker 3: jealous of David. So most of David's life Saul was
Speaker 3: trying to kill him, and he chased him all over
Speaker 3: the countryside. David spent most of this time hiding from Saul,
Speaker 3: avoiding being killed out of jealousy, but David never retaliated.
Speaker 3: In fact, he became best friends with King Saul's son
Speaker 3: named Jonathan, and they made a secret covenant that either
Speaker 3: of them ever died, they would take care of each
Speaker 3: other's family. Later on, both Saul and Jonathan were killed
Speaker 3: in battle and David became the king. All of Saul's
Speaker 3: relatives immediately were in fear, thinking David, who King Saul
Speaker 3: has been trying to kill all his life, is now
Speaker 3: in control and he's going.
Speaker 2: To kill all of us.
Speaker 3: And so they all tried to escape and hide. And
Speaker 3: one of them that they were trying to hide was
Speaker 3: the son of Jonathan named Maphibisheth.
Speaker 2: And as the.
Speaker 3: Nurse was carrying the young boy out, she dropped him
Speaker 3: in the escape. His legs were broken and he became
Speaker 3: a paraplegic. So here was this young disabled boy living
Speaker 3: in fear, frightened for his life that the man who
Speaker 3: is now king would retaliate against him. One day, David says,
Speaker 3: is there anybody still alive? In Saul's household that I
Speaker 3: could show kindness to Grace. And they said, yes, there is.
Speaker 3: There's one little kid. He's a disabled little boy and
Speaker 3: his name's Maphibischef. He cannot walk. David said, bring him
Speaker 3: to me. Now you can imagine the fear in Maphibischef's life.
Speaker 3: Here's the King invite him to the court. He's thinking,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be killed. I'm executed. It's over, it's done.
Speaker 3: But to his surprise when he arrived, David said, I'm
Speaker 3: going to take you in, Maphibischeff, and make you a
Speaker 3: part of my family. I want you to live here
Speaker 3: in the palace for the rest of your life. I'm
Speaker 3: going to pay all your bills. I'm going to meet
Speaker 3: all your needs. You were to sit at my table
Speaker 3: each night, and you're to dine with me, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to treat you just.
Speaker 2: Like one of my own sons. That's Grace.
Speaker 3: The Bible says that God comes to us and we're broken,
Speaker 3: we're disabled in areas of our lives. We are crippled
Speaker 3: in some areas we have our emotions are crippled, or
Speaker 3: other things are happening in our lives, and God comes
Speaker 3: and says, you know what, I'm going to bring you
Speaker 3: into my family, and i want you to sit at
Speaker 3: my table, and I'm going to treat you like royalty.
Speaker 3: You're one of my own, simply out of my grace.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the story of the prodigal son that
Speaker 3: Jesus told. There was a man who had two sons,
Speaker 3: and one of them got a little anxious and was
Speaker 3: independent spirited, and he came and said, Dad, I want
Speaker 3: you to give me my half of the inheritance. And
Speaker 3: the dad said okay, So he split the future inheritance,
Speaker 3: gave half to one son right then, and the kid
Speaker 3: took off and he, you know, skipped down, went over
Speaker 3: to you know, sunset Strip in Jerusalem, and just I
Speaker 3: did party hardying, you know, and he's having a great time,
Speaker 3: wine women, a song, living it up, blowing all the
Speaker 3: money and everything. And one day he runs out of
Speaker 3: money and there's no ATMs in Jerusalem, and he hits
Speaker 3: bottom morally, spiritually, financially, in every way possible. In fact,
Speaker 3: it said he ended up having to work feeding pigs
Speaker 3: in a pig sty, and he was so hungry he
Speaker 3: would eat the food that the pigs were eating. Now,
Speaker 3: you know, that Jewish people don't eat pork, So that's
Speaker 3: about as low as you can go, living with a
Speaker 3: pig and eating a pig's food, so culturally he couldn't
Speaker 3: get more degraded. And one day, while he's in this mess,
Speaker 3: the younger son goes, what am I doing? My father's
Speaker 3: servants are treated better than this.
Speaker 2: He says, you know what, I think.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go home and I'm going to go
Speaker 3: back to Dad and say, Dad, I've blown it.
Speaker 2: I made a mistake.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, and I don't even deserve to be called
Speaker 3: your son anymore. But Dad, just make me one of
Speaker 3: your hired servants, and I will work for you as
Speaker 3: a servant, not as a son, for the rest of
Speaker 3: my life, because your servants are treated better than I
Speaker 3: was out in the world. And the story goes that
Speaker 3: is the prodigal son was coming home. The father saw
Speaker 3: him from a long way off, and it says he
Speaker 3: ran out to greet the boy and he grabs him
Speaker 3: in a big bear hug, and he hugs him and
Speaker 3: embraces him. He didn't wait for him to get cleaned up,
Speaker 3: to get that smell of pigs off him, or all
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: He hugs him, and then he says, Hey.
Speaker 3: Bring out all the royal robes and bring out some jewelry,
Speaker 3: and let's give him the official family ring and let's
Speaker 3: throw a party.
Speaker 2: My son has come home. That's grace. That's grace.
Speaker 3: The kid deserved condemnation. The kid deserved to be judged, rejected.
Speaker 3: The kid deserved to lecture from the dad' said I
Speaker 3: told you so. But instead he's received with love, unconditional love.
Speaker 2: That is the grace of God and it is a
Speaker 2: received by faith.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for joining us here on Pastor
Speaker 1: Rick's Daily Hope. I've got some exciting news to share
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Speaker 3: Hi, everybody, thanks so much for listening today. You know,
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