Wholeness of Grace

This morning I am confessing that I am a walking testimony of God’s grace. Every morning when I wake up I receive God’s grace. I receive Grace which is God’s gift. It’s a gift given to us by God to be applied into our life so that we have the strength to come before a Holy and just God and ask Him for forgiveness of our sins through the atoning work of Jesus Christ.

Paul tells the romans (5:20), Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Simply put, the more sin we have in our life, the more grace God has for us. Honestly, in this context of our lives. What we must realize is that there is no sin in our life that is greater than the grace that can be applied. For me, grace is like a salve to a wounded Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit, as the great comforter will come into the heart of man and he will apply this grace willingly…. But it can only happen when we are repentant. I stand before you today as a man who’s washed by the blood of the lamb, and I receive this holy treatment every morning. Every morning I am a man who must receive grace to…. Crucify the love of self praise Who still wakes up to struggle with the same fear I had at 8 that I do now as a 40 year old man, the fear of looking foolish, feeling left out, being unloved, abandoned and unwelcome.

Who is prone to feel self pity and pout when he doesn’t get loved the way he wants; Who is almost never sure he has used his time in the best way and therefor struggles with guilt. Who is short on compassion and long on criticism. Who can freeze up emotionally when he’s tired, and feels that it is someone else’s fault. Who loves to praise God in the assembly of the saints and feels constraint in his Spirit in his own living room and office.

Who’s willing to pursue a church but feels that he doesn’t pursue his own family with the same zeal. Who has loved his wife imperfectly and spent countless times wondering if she loves him in return. And who never feels sure that his motives are pure… I too am scared, I doubt at times, I fall short many days of my life, I find it easier to give up than to get up from the pit of depression and anxiety.

I trip, I stumble and I get confused at goals. That’s a part of my life, I want to be completely honest with you and open with you but there’s a part of my life that knows that for many, these words will fall upon deaf ears and hardened hearts. Some may even hear these shortcomings and begin to load their cannons of hurt and criticism. But my prayer is that you will take a moment to look at the shortcomings of my life and wonder to yourself…

how does he even walk with God? And if that is what he goes through.. what hope do I have in this life for myself? I will admit that God already has.. infinite reasons to throw me away and to say that’s enough. To say, I have no use for you… He has infinite reasons to tell me I’ve missed it. You had your shot and you blew it. But he hasn’t done it.

This week I have found deep comfort in reading from Psalm 63:3… “ “The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life” I love that phrase that He has steadfast love for me. Love that is sweeter than anything I can find here on earth. That’s the kind of love I really need. God’s love is loyal, faithful, committed, devoted, dedicated, dependable, reliable, steady, true, and constant. His love is built on the solid ground of His holiness.

It’s stable and not shaky. But yet i ask the very old question that has plagued mankind throughout the generations….., “Can I, in all of my utter failures in life. Failing at so many things in my life, Ever live a life of sanctification to be holy and utterly surrendered to Christ in all area’s of my life? My job, my marriage, my friendships.. can i be utterly and totally surrendered?

Can I when sin is uncovered in my life be able to give it up to be washed by the blood of the lamb? So that I can walk forward in perfect unity towards eternity with the Holy Spirit in my life? Will I ever be able to hear the call for my life to be holy and has given me all the tools and power I need to walk in that holiness here on earth?

The answer to that question is yes. Holiness is possible in our life and in this life and it begins with grace. Paul tells us in his prayer in 1 Thessalonians 5:23: and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 NLT This morning that is what I want to dive into… How does God make our Spirit, soul and body whole?

To which we call holiness and sanctification. What does it mean to keep our whole Spirit and soul and body blameless? Where do we begin… Well, to get somewhere we need to what? Begin somewhere. And this morning I want to begin with grace. What is grace? Well, some would say that grace is unmerited favor. But it’s more than just that. The best way to describe grace is like this: Grace is: “God's life, power and righteousness freely given to us by unmerited favor for us to live a life of unified holiness with Him and with others.

It’s not just unmerited favor. It’s more than than. It’s unmerited favor with power and with a purpose. And I believe it’s purpose it to be applied to our lives like a salve on a wound. Have you ever put salve on something? Salve it’s real thick and sticky and robust. And when it’s applied it fills and coats and brings healing to the wounds we have. To me, that’s what God’s grace is like.

We’re being filled with the fullness of His presence and we are filled with the fullness of His grace. John 1:14 tells us that “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” There is a fullness that comes with his grace… and it comes because we know the truth, that he is complete.

There is no lacking in God’s presence. Jesus even tells us, that he is the way, the truth and life. The problem we face when it comes to grace is our wrong views on how to receive it. We think our works bestows upon the right for God’s unmerited grace. We think being kind and loving on the outside but greedy and unrighteousness on the inside will help us receive God’s grace.

We think coming to church earns us a spot at the banquet table of the marriage supper. We think serving in ministries and outreaches earns us treasures to show the world the glory of our works and inclusion with God. We make all kinds of excuses and rebuttals to God when things do not go our way…. We look to God and we say, well I’m giving you my best. I’m giving you what I can.

I come to church, I serve, I do this and I do that. What else do you want from me? What if God doesn't want any of those things? What if God doesn't want our service. That’s right.. what if he doesn’t want your service. What if instead of trying to serve God, we let Him serve us? What if instead of what we can do, we trust in what he has already done for us and given to us and will for for us?

What if we actually believed that all we have is given by God. Every ounce of strength, every ounce of love, every ounce of grace. What if, it’s all through His fullness and what he gives to us and there is nothing we can do to earn it? Isn’t that what the Bible’s teaches us in Acts 17:25 says: “that God is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything.

He gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. If that is true of God the father, it’s also true of Christ as he comes into the world, as the word full of grace and truth. Not to be served but to serve. Mark 10 verse 45 tells us, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” We don’t serve him — he serves us.

The problem is that we try to serve without first being served by Christ in our lives. We’re needing to be surrendered and served by Him. The first act of salvation is not to just jump into serving, but it’s learning to humble ourselves so that we can be served and ministered to by the Holy Spirit. God is always on the ramparts of His glory and he’s on the lookout for anyone who is humble enough and weak enough to let him be strong for them.

He must become our portion, he must become our strength, he just become all that we need in this life…and When we humble ourselves before the fullness of God, we are served by Him. He’s pouring his salve of grace into our lives. He’s pouring his life into us. His fullness is overflowing from the bottomless fountain of His grace. We always try to jump into serving… we always correlate serving as faith.

But real faith comes through surrender and trust, not by doing. This is where so many Christians fail. Picture it like this… God’s grace is like an overflowing and never ending mountain spring. In our life we are looking to glorify God. We are looking to please God. We even want to have more and be closer to God, but in our humanness we try to earn it through our service.

And so every day, by our works, and by our deeds, by our words we pick up the overflowing abundant grace freely available, that is flowing at our feet in buckets of works. And we tirelessly try to carry it up the mountain to throw heaping buckets of human labor towards a pure, unending mountain spring of God. As if God needs us to replenish Him with our works. But that isn’t being served, that is us trying to serve.

Being served by God is putting our faith and our face in the water that is at our feet through humility , and then coming up for air and saying, Ah… that was so refreshing. Thank you God for the overflow and the fullness of all that you are. You are the giver of all things. You over flow into me, you serve me first, and give to me so that i may overflow into others.

David puts it better when he writes Psalm 42. He says, “I long to drink of you, O God, to drink deeply from the streams of pleasure flowing from your presence. My longings overwhelm me for more of you! 2My soul thirsts, pants, and longs for the living God.” V. 1-2 What we learn is that it is far better to be served by God than trying to serve God. Thats how we receive grace.

John said, From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. We don’t earn it, we receive it. For what? To transform us. Paul tells us and he tells the Corinthians, “Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. We are being transformed. Into what? Into the same image of Christ from one degree of glory to another.

When God created mankind, He made us in the image of God, or as Genesis 1:27 says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” and “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) He keeps repeating it over and over.. he created them, he created them, he created them… it’s a reminder that we are created for Him, to be sustained by him, to bring glory to Him.

Resemble That was the original plan of God, that we would resemble God in so many ways, that we would seek to do nothing but good. And everything was fine until the fall. Now instead of reflecting God’s Goodness, We try to take matters into our own hands. There’s nothing good in me apart from Christ. Paul tells us that: “good itself does not dwell within me, that is, in my sinful nature.

FOr I have the desire to do what is good, but i cannot carry it out.” “David writes in psalm 16 “You are my Lord, apart from you i have no good thing.” When I step out to serve God in my own strength and in my own power and in my own understanding. I will always fail. Because there’s nothing good within me apart from Christ. When we see evil go unpunished, we desire to see justice brought upon that evil.

When we see someone hurt another, we know that it’s wrong. When we see unfairness we want to see judgement. The time will come when God will judge the whole world and every knee will bow, but until then we must understand that He will and must transform us into His likeness first. We’ve got to stop trying to get the cart before the horse. Judgment comes, but we must be in his likeness.

Because if we are not turned into HIs likeness then when the Father looks upon us will he see Jesus or will he see an imitation of Jesus? Think of that condemning Scripture in matthew 7. Jesus said depart from me for I do not know you. What was their reply to Jesus, we served in your name, we did this and we did that for the glory of God…. No you didn’t.

All you did was imitated me. But I was never in you because you would not surrender and let me serve you first. You kept building relationship with work and not with the son. Imitation is not indication of a life given to Christ. It’s actually worse. It’s worst to know what we should do and not do it to the full degree that we’ve been instructed and entrusted in. We need to behold Him and allow Him to do the transforming work within us.

Jesus must serve us first! What i am trying to say is what John the Baptist said, he must increase and I must decrease if any good is going to come to a world where we find that it is hard to see the good in All things. And God does that through humility, and repentance and surrender. To be transformed into His likeness is to surrender ourself to the fullness of His grace so that the work of holiness can begin in our lives.

What’s holiness… simply put it’s Christ in me. More of Him, less of me. Jesus must first serve us, and then he serves others through us for Himself.. this is why we must rely on his strength and provisions in life. This is the reason we must learn to abide in him. He must serve us first..if we are going to belong to him. How do I know this… Would you do something for me?

Would you turn your bibles to Johns gospel and find with me chapter 13 and verses 4. In this moment Jesus was sharing Passover with his disciples and he begin to prepare to wash their feet. When Jesus was washing the feet of the disciples, in verse 6 peter looks down at Jesus and says, Lord, are you going to wash my feet. We know Peter didn’t understand what Jesus was doing.

We look at this moment and say to ourselves… this is Jesus showing us that we must serve others because Jesus is a servant…. And i believe were wrong for thinking that… the feet washing wasn’t to teach us to serve because Jesus was serving, it was to teach us that we must be willing to be served first by Christ if were going to belong to Christ. Jesus said to Peter, you don’t understand what I am doing now, but someday you will.

So peter protested in verse 8 and said, you will never wash my feet…. Isn’t that how we treat God most times in our lives. No Jesus… you don’t serve me I serve you. No Jesus let me go out and serve in the church but my unrepentant heart refuses to surrender. Look at what Jesus said in John 13:8… he said, unless i wash you, you wont belong to me.

What Jesus is saying in this moment and he is saying to every heart here this morning… is this… Unless i serve you first, you wont belong to me. Jesus message when he came to earth was to call people to repentance and to build the kingdom. Just because we celebrate and will celebrate the resurrection here soon doesn't mean that this isn’t still his plan. We forget that don’t we..

Luke tells us that Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” His plan is to still serve, to call sinners to repentance and to build his kingdom and he does that through us. He does that through us because we’ve not made it about our works, but about the grace he gives to us by serving us first. And then as we surrender and we go from one degree to the other…

When was the last time you made a visit to the alter of your heart and sat down and said Lord, wash me? When was the last time you came to be served and ministered to by God? When was the last time you felt the overwhelming presence of love and forgiveness? That’s grace….. That‘s His overflowing grace readily available where you are and all you need to do is stop trying to take it to him, just fall where you are and let him serve you.

Let him minster to you. It’s not by action. Love isn’t about action. My wife can make me a sandwich and say she loves me but deep inside be totally mad at me for walking on her mopped floors. Love isn’t just an action. If someone tells you that love is by what someone does for you.. they are leading you down the wrong path. Love is willingly surrendering to Christ to let him serve you to love someone enough to lead them to the mourners bench of repentance so that Jesus can serve them too.

I want to close with this one last thought…. God’s grace is abundant.. it’s grace upon grace, and it’s transforming us from one glory to another. And he’s sanctifying our body, soul and Spirit through this precious gift called grace. And when we surrender he serves us through peace and humility. But why and for what purpose? Well, that is why Denny read the last Scripture to us in Ephesians 1:6…

“To the praise of His glorious grace.” Church we are called, adopted, predestined to be in Christ for the purpose of his will, to be served by Him and to the praise of His glorious grace. Did you know that? We are served by Christ to become more like Christ so that Christ can serve others through us so that our lives end up praising His glorious grace. In john 2:11, he writes “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory.

And his disciples believed in him.” He manifested his glory. What does that mean? Basically, Jesus is beginning here to show his identity, and this progresses throughout the book of John. We’re learning more and more about who Jesus is as he does different miracles and he delivers different teachings, but it’s all under the banner, the umbrella of him manifesting his glory. Showing his attributes to those who follow him.

I was reading this and I started thinking. I want to encourage you to think about all the ways God has manifested his glory to you. Obviously, ultimately in Jesus. We have seen the glory of God in Jesus. That’s John chapter 1. The word has become flesh and dwelt among us. We’ve seen his glory. The glory full of grace and truth. We see his glory in creation. Creation is shouting the glory of God.

But how does he do that through us? How do we see the goodness of God in us? He does that by serving us, and pouring his presence into us, and revealing his glory to us and we are growing from one glory to another and by doing so we rejoice and worship to praise his glorious grace among the nations and those around us. We’ve got to stop making it about ourselves.

We’ve got to stop serving just to serve. Everything we do, must be through the humility of surrender so that Christ can shine and manifest himself in us, so that others will believe. *