Grace Alone

And not know me. My name is Mike Barry. I've been a pastor here at Cornerstone. Since 1998.

Wow. I met my wife here in '93. Pastor Milton married us in '95. And yeah, we've raised our kids.

Here at Cornerstone. I want to start off by sharing just a little bit of my testimony. I remember attending. Sunday school when I was around 4, maybe 5 years old, and just listening to the Sunday school teacher and just having a sense of God's presence.

I, a lot of the other kids in the classroom were fooling around and goofing off, but Even as a young child, I, I sensed that God was real. And somehow I felt like I had some special connection to God. I don't know how to describe that. I wasn't born again, but then I, I came to live with my dad.

me and my sisters came to live with our father when I was about 9 years old. And our live-in babysitter was a Christian. We ran off the first two live-in babysitters because we were naughty little children. True story.

And, but the third one was a believer and she started sharing with us the gospel. She said she'd work for my dad if she could tell us Bible stories and he said, as long as you don't talk to me about it, you can talk to the kids. And so she started giving us Bible stories and I remember sometimes listening to these Bible stories and just sensing the presence of God and, and I remember her sending us to Sunday school on the weekends when she was off and a Sunday school bus would come around and pick us up and take us to Sunday school.

And I remember for the first time hearing words like grace.

Mercy. And I can remember just the word grace, what that sounded like to my little 9, 10 year old ears. It was a very strange word. I gotta say that we didn't walk around the house at the Barry household saying, hey, Grace.

Let's show grace. It was a very weird religious, it sounded foreign to me. I had no idea what it meant. but I do remember it being a strange sounding word.

And And over time, at 14 years old, I heard Chuck Smith on channel 13 out in Orange County and he was preaching the gospel and I went into my room and got on my knees and I cried out to the Lord for grace that he would save me. And right there in the middle of my room, total, I was the only person in my room that was a believer. Now the Lord just fell on me with His grace and opened up my eyes to my sin. And I began to believe that Jesus Christ was my savior.

How does that happen? How does it happen that a 14 year old kid who did not grow up in a Christian family is suddenly on his knees, crying out for grace? How does it happen that a high school kid is sitting in his room with a guitar singing to Jesus? That's just weird.

My parents thought I was something strange had happened to me. This teenager is in his room playing his guitar, singing to this imaginary Jesus. This morning we're gonna talk about grace. this is, what we would call reformed.

Reformation Sunday, we're actually celebrating the 500, 500th year of the Reformation on October 31st. This is the Sunday that's closest to that. And part of what the Reformation is all about is, is this rediscovery, not like a, a new doctrine, but a rediscovery of the doctrine of grace alone. And what is it that God is doing when he's pouring out his, his grace alone?

Gresham Machan, who is a A scholar of the Princeton. college or Princeton University in the early 20th century has this to say about grace. He says, the very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace of God. The grace of God, which depends not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is absolutely undeserved, resistless, and sovereign.

The center of the Bible, the center of Christianity is found in the grace. Of God That's quite a statement that grace is the very center of what we would call Christianity. And so this morning we're gonna talk about this doctrine, grace, and particularly grace alone. And when we say grace alone, it fits within a certain context.

the reformers talked about various different doctrines that define that period, in the late 1400s leading into the 1500s. And it's come down to us today, even though they didn't speak in these terms, they didn't talk about the five solas, we talk about the five solas, but they did have 5 main ideas that were trumpeted throughout the, throughout Europe and, and eventually throughout the world. And the first of those solas was Sola scriptura or scripture alone. That we come to know God, not through popes and councils that we primarily and we only depend upon God's revelation in His word.

And sec the second soul is Christ alone, that we're saved based upon Christ's life and His righteousness alone, not by moving beads through our fingers, not by saying Hail Marys, not by penance. But it's through Christ and His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. The third sola is sola fide or faith alone that we receive the benefits of Christ's life and death simply by faith, not by our own works or keeping of the law. And then the reformers said that all of this flows to us by grace alone, and there's much overlap in these, in these solos, but we're gonna spend time this morning on grace alone.

And then finally, This is, this is all to God's glory alone. In the end, we receive no credit for our own salvation. God gets the credit from beginning to end because he who began the good work in us what will complete it to the day of Christ Jesus. He began it.

He will complete it. And so these are the five solas, and this is what we celebrate today. We celebrate a justification by grace alone. Through faith alone because of Christ alone.

There are those that would say that today we, we really need to repent of the Reformation, that Reformers or Protestants have missed the boat that there's been, there's been this grand misunderstanding between us and Roman Catholics that we should join those who signed the Roman, the Protestants and Catholics together type of doctrines and In forms that we've really misunderstood each other. that really the Catholic Church has always taught that we are saved by grace and really if we're honest, it's true.

Martin Luther himself as a monk before he nailed the 95 theses at Wittenberg, taught grace. He taught that we were saved by grace, that everything flowed from God's mercy.

If you talk to some Mormon missionaries that will come to your door these days and if you ask them how are you saved, they will say we are saved by grace. And if you talk to many people today, most would agree that we are saved by Grace. The question becomes how do we define grace and what exactly do we mean when we put that little modifier on the end of it and we say grace. Alone This is really where the crux of the matter is.

BB Warfield. says this that grace. is free, sovereign favor to the ill-deserving. It's free, it's sovereign, it's favor to those of us that don't deserve it.

In fact, it's It's ill, we are, we are, we, we are deserving of judgment and wrath. So what I want to do is I want to take a little time to do an exposition first of all of this thing that we call grace. And then, we're gonna give a couple of examples from the Bible and then we're gonna basically ask the question, why does this matter? What are the effects or the uses of the doctrine of grace, particularly the grace, the doctrine of grace alone.

Does that sound fair? And then maybe in the end, we'll decide that the reformation was needless and And Protestants should have stayed within Mother Church, and we should all go back to The Pope. What do you think? We'll see, we'll see what we decide by the end.

So let's, let's start here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give a, a few other, I'm gonna give a couple ideas and analogies and we're gonna look at a couple of passages of scripture like we have on the screen behind me. Let's start with the word alone. That we say makes such a difference.

Why is it that a little word makes such a big difference? Imagine that I was having breakfast with my family and we passed out some glasses and we're having my favorite breakfast is French toast, probably French toast and bacon, I love bacon. And we're passing around and pouring orange juice into the glasses and then I open up my Bible and when I try to read my Bible during family devotion, I have to take off my glasses and And to look at the Bible and then I read the Bible and we have some time together and I get up and I take some plates back to the sink and I come back and I say to one of my children, would you please hand me my glasses?

But what they think I said is, could you please hand me the glasses?

What's the difference between me saying my glasses and the glasses? It's just one word. If I say hand me my glasses, what does my child think? The glasses on my face.

If I say hand me the glasses, what might my child think? The glass, empty glasses of orange juice that are now on the table. One little word makes quite a difference, and the word alone makes an incredible difference when we talk about this concept of grace. Again, the Roman Catholic Church and Mormonism and many different groups around our world have no problem with the idea of grace, but grace is more of the energy drink that you drink that helps you get the rest of the way to heaven.

You've been endowed with strength and you use your strength to work your way as close as you can, but none, none of us are ever going to make it. But then grace comes along and we drink the energy drink and it gets us the rest of the way. Or perhaps grace can be a pictured as yeast. We have this lump of dough that is our, our works, the thing that we're offering to the Lord on the plate of salvation and we bring this dough and there's not much that we can do with it, but once you put the yeast in it, the yeast causes it to rise and it gives it It's bread and so once grace enters the dough, then it provides this thing called bread that gets us to salvation.

And what Martin Luther believed before he came into recognition or to to recall what the early church had taught, he believed in the dough. We provide the dough, God provides the yeast. We provide the labor. God gives us the energy drink to infuse us.

What he began to see is he began to study the scriptures and the scriptures were open to his eyes, is that it is not the grace is not the yeast, grace is the whole lump. It's everything. It is grace alone that brings salvation. Grace isn't just a key ingredient added to our performance.

Grace is the whole loaf. we are not just providing a molehill and hope that God creates a mountain out of the molehill. There is no molehill, Luther began to realize. One word makes a difference, and this is coming from, a man, mind you, that if he could be saved, as he said, by his monkey, he would have been.

He was the best monk there was around. He worked the work that was demanded of him as a monk in the Roman Catholic Church, and yet he was always left with the nagging feeling, have I prayed enough? Is my conscience stricken enough? Have I repented over all my sins or have I left one out?

Is there some sin that I have forgotten about that I have yet to confess? Have I cried enough tears? Have I slept on enough cold floors? Have I worn enough garments that make me uncomfortable?

Have I prayed enough on my knees? Have I recited enough scriptures? Have I memorized enough of the Psalms? There was this endless list of things and he never knew when it was enough.

When did his molehill rise to the point to where God's grace could enter in and bridge. The gap What he began to see is that God's grace does not come and add to our righteousness. God's grace comes and declares us righteous, that we have no righteousness in and of ourselves, but that God grants us righteousness and that we wear the very clothes of Christ. We wear the righteousness.

Of Jesus Christ. Which leaves out all boasting. God does not give us a boost to help us achieve heaven. Instead, we look completely, entirely To Christ and therefore, when we pray, we're not praying to achieve the gap.

If you don't have your quiet time, that does not remove you from grace. If you are, if you have a position at Cornerstone right now and then two weeks from now you lose that position, you do not lose your position in Christ. Grace does not build on the foundation. Of your righteousness is what Martin Luther began.

To rediscover. And this wasn't primarily a movement just about scholars and writers and teachers, but this doctrine spread throughout Europe and then throughout the world as people began to suddenly realize. What it means to repent by grace rather than just do penance. That Christ is all.

So let's look at some passages of, of, of scripture today. I'm gonna ask you guys to fill in. You have the big ideas. I'm gonna give you now some of the subpoints as we do this exposition of sola gratia or salvation by grace alone.

I wanna first of all suggest that the type of grace that we see in the pages of the New Testament that was rediscovered by the reformers, the type of grace that we're talking about, a grace alone is first of all, timeless grace. You can write that down. Timeless grace and you can turn to 2 Timothy 1:9. This is a timeless grace.

Listen to what Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:9, God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. But according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ when in Christ Jesus before time. Began Grace alone is a grace that is granted to us, that is given to us before time even began. And so if grace is given to us before you and I existed, is there anything that we contribute to this grace?

That's impossible because you and I did not even exist. And yet God, because of his own purpose and grace, had given it to us in Christ. We begin to realize when we just contemplate what the Bible says about grace, that this is something that can only be done by a creator for a creature. The type of grace that we're talking about, really, there are a few things in life that parallel this grace because it's something that God does for His creatures.

Particularly those whom he has called. God has saved us and called us, he says, with a holy calling, not according to our works. But according to his purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. But this grace is also An awakening grace.

It's not just a timeless grace, but the type of grace that is being rediscovered by the reformers, it's timeless, but it's an awakening grace. An awakening grace. Turn to Ephesians chapter 2. We'll come back to this chapter a few times.

Ephesians chapter 2. I want everybody to really do a good job with your Bible drill here. Either whether it's, I don't care if it's electronic or if it's paper, I want everybody to just try to be the first one there, right? Do you guys ever see that injuana?

Do you guys still do Bible drills? So you say turn to this verse, I got it, right? Then you Then you get a prize for your work, right? For your work of turning the fastest to the Bible.

This is an awakening grace. Listen to what Paul says in Ephesians 2:3, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath. Just as the others, we were just like everybody else, children of wrath. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were what?

Dead in trespasses made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. That statement at the end, by grace, you have been saved is a summary statement of everything that's come before. To summarize what I've just said, I'm gonna say, Paul says, by grace, you've been saved.

So what does it mean by grace, you've been saved? You've been awakened by God. You were dead in trespasses, but God has awakened you. You were just like everybody else.

You were under the wrath of God because of your lusts, the flesh, you were by nature children of wrath, But God, who is rich in mercy and because he loved us, he comes along and he takes dead sinners and makes us alive. Now, who is the subject of the verb make alive? All of you grammarians. No Who is the subject of Make Alive?

God makes alive and the object is us. Good. So God makes alive us. He is the subject.

He is the actor. We are the objects of the action, correct? And then the summary of all this is by grace, you have been saved. So if God's grace is timeless, and if God's grace is done by God Himself, then God's grace is His alone, correct?

What else can we say about this particular, well, let, let's, let's finish this, this idea here of awakening grace. What is it that God awakens us to? Well, first of all, God awakens us to his wrath. Paul is saying to believers right here in this text, remember who you once were.

You were just like everybody else, children of wrath. And so part of what God does is he awakens us to our condition, just like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, Christian begins to read the word of God and the Holy Spirit begins to convict him and this big burden grows on his back, right? And he begins to cry out for his sin and says, who will deliver me from the wrath to come? I think John Bunyan does an excellent job in picturing the work of grace in the life of a sinner where it first develops this burden and there's this sensitivity of the fact that we are under the wrath of God.

And if we stay in the city of destruction, we will be destroyed like everybody else. But that grace also awakens us to mercy and love through Christ's death, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, that suddenly we're awakened to the fact that I don't have to stay in the city of destruction. I can run to Christ, and I can find paradise through Christ. Romans 3 tells us that by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

We get the knowledge of sin, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Christ. To all and on who, all who believe, for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely, what, by His grace. And then the, the passage later on goes on to, to tell us that there's this propitiation of the wrath of God. And so there's this awakening, awakening to wrath in my condition and awakening to God's mercy, that he imputes to me God's righteousness.

That my sin is placed on Jesus, His righteousness is placed on me, and that God is both, both just and the justifier of those who believe in Him. So this type of grace is a timeless grace. What is it? Secondly, it's an awakening grace.

But thirdly, it is an enriching grace. Turn to 2 Corinthians 8:9. It's timeless, it's awakening, and it's enriching. Disgrace alone that Luther rediscovered that had always been.

In the Bible Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, who's there? Who's, who got it first? All right, there we go. Robert Anthony.

For, Paul says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become Rich. This is an enriching grace. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ was rich. He was in heaven, he was enjoying the fellowship with the Father, comes down to earth, becomes poor on our behalf, right? Dis in our place in order that we might become what? Rich, that we might have the riches of His grace, which involves as the rest of the New Testament develops, righteousness, fellowship with the Father, and so on.

And that's where we get this, what they call like like an acrostic, grace is God's riches at Christ's expense. You could write that down. God's riches at Christ's expense. That's a, you take the word grace and you attach different words to each of those letters, God's riches.

God has mercy at Christ's expense. He pours out his judgment and wrath on Christ, grants to us Christ's righteousness, that is grace. And so We have pastors like Galatians 2. this, this richness, this, these things that, that God grants to us, where Paul says, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes to the law, then Christ died in vain.

We get righteousness. One of the things, the rich, one part of that richness we get is Christ accomplished the full law, right? A lot of times I'll tell young people or people I'm witnessing to then have some background in the Bible. How many sins did Jesus commit?

Answer Zero. He fulfilled the whole law. He completed all righteousness, and yet he died. The wages of sin is what?

Death. So why did Jesus die? Not for his own sins, for ours, so that we would have his righteousness. But if, if righteousness comes through lawkeeping, Paul tells us, then Jesus Christ died needlessly.

If we can be saved by our own works, if we can bring our own lump, if we can work real hard before we take the energy drink, then Christ's death is needless, Paul says. There's no reason for it. But if salvation is all of grace alone, then Christ died for a purpose. What, what's another aspect of this richness that we get?

Ephesians 1:7. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. According to the riches of His grace, we get forgiveness of sins. Brother and sister, when you come to understand your own sin and, and how that your sin is against the holy God and how that your sin has consequences for yourself, for your family, for people around you.

And that sin really is as bad as God says it is. When the Spirit awakens us to our sins, then forgiveness of sins is beautiful. Amen. When we're not awakened to our sins, and we don't think sin is that big of a deal, and we just compare ourselves to each other and we try to justify our sins, then who needs forgiveness?

But we get forgiven as part of the riches of His grace. Turn to Titus 3. One of the most, and I, I just love this passage. I learned this as a young person in our youth group.

We had our, our youth pastor created a song that went along with it. It has just stayed with me to this day. Titus 3, starting in verse 4, but when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, we have done. But according to His mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration, renewing the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

That having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs, according to the hope of eternal life. One of the, the rich things that comes to us, that is accrued to us because of God's grace alone is eternal life. If you've believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you sit here and you are a son or a daughter of the Lord, then you are an heir of eternal life. That is, and that is purely based upon God's kind favor to you, who were, you were a child of wrath, deserving God's wrath, But God who is rich in mercy has poured out his riches on you.

He's granted you forgiveness, the righteousness of Jesus, and he's given you heaven. I don't know about you, but when I read the pages of the Bible, sometimes I feel like I'm reading about an overly permissive parent. who looks at me and all the knucklehead things I've done in my life, and he says, I'm gonna call you my child. I'm gonna grant you the righteousness of Christ.

I'm gonna forgive you all those knucklehead things you've done, and I'm gonna give you a place in heaven. And by the way, this is all by virtue of my grace. You can't bring a single lump, you can't bring, a piece of the pie. You can't bring a crumb to this salvation.

It is all of me. It's stuff like that. When we realize what grace really means, it leads us to the rhetorical question of Romans 6:1, which says, what? Well then, shall we go on sinning that grace may abound?

Right? If you don't come to Romans 6:1, guess what? You don't understand grace. A true understanding of God's grace in the Bible demands Romans 6:1.

When you're talking to people about salvation, and they say stuff like, and I'm sure you've heard this, well, does that mean you can just go live like the devil and do whatever you want? Guess what? They're starting to understand grace. Now, that's not the end of the story.

Grace is also what moves us through life and grace gives us this desire to live for Christ. And when we really understand grace, that's what motivates us properly towards works of righteousness. But if we put the cart before the horse, we never get to Romans 6:1, and if you don't get to Romans 6:1, you don't understand grace. Read through Romans 12345, and then you're just, you're sitting there like scratching your head, Paul, this isn't working, buddy.

Shall we sin that grace may abound. Let's talk about another aspect of grace. So we've got grace, grace alone is timeless. It's an awakening grace.

It's an enriching grace, and then it's an exclusive grace. And this is where we've been leading. This is an exclusive grace that will allow no competitors. Look at our main passage that you see, I think behind me here, Romans 11:6, but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.

Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. And this type of statement is said all over the, the New Testament, that grace is antithetical to works, that grace and faith, this whole grace and faith thing is antithetical to law. you could think of it this way. one of the traditions that Our family has developed is on Christmas Eve, we blindfold all of our children.

And we lay out all of their Christmas presents around the house hidden. And we demand that they must crawl around on their hands and knees, and they must find their own Christmas presents, and then they must find the scissors and find the paper and wrap their own Christmas presents. And if they get all of this accomplished by midnight, then we will allow them to open one present the next morning. Right?

Is that true? No, slave labor is antithetical to Christmas, right? They do not mix. And the Bible comes along and says, grace and works do not mix.

God says, this is gonna be all of me, or there is nothing. It's all of me. It's all of grace. I was gonna use another analogy that doesn't quite work about Aragon who goes up to the mouth of Sauron and the return of the king, remember, and they're trying to negotiate and then he cuts his head off and then glimly says negotiation is over.

Therefore, negotiations and decapitation do not mix. That doesn't quite work as well, but, But just think about it. God says, My grace is not an energy drink. It's not the yeast.

It's the whole lump. Consider what Romans 404 says. You can turn there. You, I think you guys are close in Romans.

Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as great, but grace, but as what? Debt. But to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Now we hear as Christians, we hear this stuff all the time and so it becomes Charlie Brown's teacher and we're like, yeah, yeah.

Just think about what we've just read there. Him, for him who works, wages become dead. And so therefore, if God grants us salvation based upon our works, he owes it to us. But if it's by grace and not by works, but simply by us believing in Him who what justifies who?

The ungodly. This is a God who justifies not people who have worked really hard and then they just can't quite get there. He justifies the ungodly through faith and then he accounts their faith as what? Righteousness.

This is crazy talk. In fact, sometimes you hear people tell analogies to try to get at the idea of what grace looks like on the human scale and then you just sit back and you're like, that's not, that doesn't work. And there's a reason why it doesn't work. One is we're not God.

This is the God of the universe that is granting grace to His creatures according to his rules. But also there's just something, it's just antithetical to our human fallen nature. That we feel like we must add something to the salvation plate. We must add something to our own salvation.

It's offensive that we would just receive the handouts of God. It wasn't too awful long ago, really, within the last couple of weeks that somebody offered me quote unquote, a handout and I said no thank you. I will pay for the whole thing myself. And then God got a hold of my heart and humbled me and said, wait a second.

You need to humble yourself. I am a gracious God. So God's grace is exclusive, right? It is enriching, it is timeless, it is awakening.

And we need to be careful that even our own faith, grace even excludes our own will. because faith itself is wrapped up in this grace thing. This whole grace present thing, faith is inside of it. So God gives us this present called faith, called grace, and faith is actually inside of the present.

That may sound weird, but just listen to like what spoken of about Apollos in Acts 18:27. It says Apollo greatly helped those who had believed through grace. They believed how? Through grace.

How did they believe? Through grace. In other words, no grace. No belief.

So even we can't even boast about our faith. Consider Romans 4:16. This is in the new, new American standard. For this reason, it is by faith that it might be in accordance with grace.

Grace and faith work together. And then you guys know the famous passage Ephesians 2:8, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and guess what? It's not of yourselves, the whole package is not of yourselves. It's a gift of God.

This grace saved faith thing is all a gift of God. So even at the end of the day, when I say, hey, I believed I can't go up to my unbelieving family members. I've got people in my family who don't know the Lord. I can't walk up to them and say, well, I believe, why haven't you?

I was smart enough to believe. My faith was sufficient. Why haven't you believed? No, the Bible forbids me to, to even brag or boast about my own faith because it's all of God.

He began the good work and me will complete it the day of Christ Jesus. So what does this grace imply about us? It's humbling and humiliating if you think about it. If we really consider what the Bible says about grace, grace alone rediscovered by Luther and the reformers, that was always there in the New Testament and the Old Testament, by the way, it's another sermon.

What does grace imply? It implies our need. It implies several things. We are enemies.

We were dead, condemned without hope, under the wrath of God. Grace implies all of that, and grace awakens us to all of that. But then it implies God's goodness, it implies our need, but it also implies God's goodness, that he comes before time, and he gives us grace in Christ, then in time, he convicts us through the Spirit, who the Spirit he sent out to convict us of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And then he's provided everything that we need for life and godliness and the atonement of Christ and his life and death.

He even grants us the very faith to then turn to Christ. And even when we're lacking belief, we say, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. And we just come as crippled individuals, deadened individuals, and he gives us this timeless awakening, enriching, exclusive grace alone. I don't know about you, but it's just befuddling to me.

And sometimes we, we grow blind to the type of grace that we're, we're talking about. We need a fresh awakening of the Holy Spirit through His word to help us remember. Let's turn to Luke chapter 23. I'm gonna give a couple.

Illustrations of this type of grace that the Bible exposits for us. And then we'll talk about some uses and pray. Luke 23. We're gonna consider one of the thieves on the cross.

Luke 23, starting in verse 32. I'm reading from the New King James. There were also two other criminals led with him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left.

And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And they divided his garments and cast lots. And the people stood looking on, but even the rulers with them sneered, saying, he saved others. Let him save himself if he is the Christ, the chosen of God.

The soldiers also mocked him, coming and offering sour wine. And saying if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. And an inscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews, no doubt mockery.

Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other answered, rebuked him, saying, Do you not even fear God? Seeing you are under the same condemnation. And we indeed justly, for we received the due rewards of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.

Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with me. In paradise. This is an amazing passage because one of the things that we see about the thief is, first of all, he is a thief.

He is a wicked man, and he acknowledges that, that he is on this cross, He is being given capital punishment because he is a wicked, wicked man. But secondly, he is also a blasphemer. If you look at the parallel passages like in Mark and Matthew, he was also mocking Christ early in the crucifixion. He was also saying such words as are recorded here for us of the other thief.

But at some point, maybe after Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, a turn of heart came over him, an awakening came over the thief. Where suddenly there seemed to be in his heart, a realization of his own sin, and you see the hum the humility in this passage. And something came over him. Why would such a man think that he could call upon Jesus next to him, who was also dying?

Jesus didn't look kingly. And why would Jesus have mercy upon such a man who had been such a criminal? And yet by God's grace, the thief turns to Christ and says, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. I want you to note that the thief had no opportunity for baptism, communion, to attend church, to become a deacon.

He had no opportunity to go out and feed the poor. To say his prayers on a daily basis. He could not take a trip to Rome or Mecca or Salt Lake City. He could not go on his two-year mission.

And yet Jesus Christ says to him, assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. Based on what? There's no doubt. This is The exclusive awakening.

Enriching timeless grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ awakens this thief, and if Jesus Christ can awaken this criminal to his sins and grant him the ability to cry out on the cross, what can he do for you? What can Jesus Christ do for you who are there out here, maybe feeling the condemnation of your own sin? If he awakens your heart this morning, you can cry to him as a thief.

And you might say to me, Pastor Mike, that's great that Jesus did that for sinners who had not come into a relationship with Jesus Christ yet. But I've been a Christian, I've, I've named Christ and I find myself doing things I never thought I would do. What hope is there for me? I feel as if I am trampling the blood underfoot.

I want you to turn to Luke chapter 22, just back one chapter. And consider Peter, who had walked with Christ, who was called to be one of his disciples. And who we know later writes the book of 1 Peter and 2 Peter. And I want you just to see.

How Christ interacts. With Peter in this text. Starting in verse, we'll start in verse 24. This is the The Last Supper scene and all the disciples and even the scary stuff that happens with Judas.

And right on the heels of that in verse 24. Now, there was a dispute among them as to which of them should be considered the greatest. This is great. These are the future leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ, right?

The biggest organization that's gonna be on the planet for 2000 years. And here they are at the upper room, not talking about their grand plan for expansion. They're not having a seminar on how to win friends and influence people. They're talking about who's gonna be the greatest.

Way to go, guys. Verse 25, and he said to them, the king of kings of the Gentiles exercised lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors. But not so among you. On the contrary, he was greatest among you, let him be as the younger and he who governs as he who serves.

For who is greater, he who sits at the table or he who serves? Is it not the one who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the one who serves Christ's grace in their life. Verse 28, but you are those who have continued with me in my trials, and I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my father bestowed upon me, and that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

Now this is just weird. These guys are like debating about who's the greatest. Jesus gives them some instructions about being servants, gives them a gentle rebuke. And then says, oh by the way, yeah, you will be sitting on thrones judging and you will be ruling in the kingdom.

It just feels in some ways like an overly permissive parent in some ways, doesn't it? But then verse 31, the Lord said, Simon, Simon, indeed, Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat. How about you, but if Jesus said that to me, the hair would go up on the back of my neck. Satan has asked for you.

That he may sift you as wheat. I'd be like, no, thank you. We'll pass on that Jesus. But notice what he says in verse 32, but I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail.

That is crazy. And when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren. Now he's saying a whole lot in one sentence. I prayed for you.

That your faith may not fail. By the way, I'm the Lord Jesus Christ, my prayers been answered, and your faith will not fail. And when you return, which implies you will leave and deny me, strengthen your brethren, you're still gonna have your position of, of strengthening the brethren in the church. Verse 33, Peter doesn't have any idea what's going on, but he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.

He has no clue what Jesus has just said. He's, he's just filled with all of his pride. And so Jesus has to tell him plainly, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny me 3 times that me. And Jesus does deny that he even knows Jesus Christ.

In fact, he even asked for curses to come upon him. Think about that, that Jesus or that that Peter actually is inviting curses, invoking curses upon his head. In saying that he does not know Jesus Christ. I don't know about you, but that's bad.

Not, I would never encourage any of you, hey, go invoke curses upon yourself in your denial of Christ. And yet, what do we know from the scene? Jesus has prayed for him. Jesus' prayers get answered, He will return.

And when in fact do we see it, we get after the resurrection, it seems like the disciples have somehow repressed the truth and unrighteousness. They forgot that Jesus was supposed to come back and, and, and be with them. And so Peter says, let's go fishing. They go back to their old job, they're out there fishing.

And then Jesus on the shore and they're not catching anything. He says, hey, throw the net over on the other side. So they don't even realize it's Jesus, they throw the net over on the other side. All of a sudden, there's all these fish, and Peter realizes it's the Lord, Jumps in the river, swims like a maniac to the shore.

Jesus has already made breakfast, right? Breakfast is there. And then you see that whole scene where Jesus says, hey, Peter, do you love me? Notice what Peter does not say.

Lord, I am ready to go with you, both to prison and to death. Doesn't say that. He says, yeah, Lord, I care about you. Jesus, feed my sheep.

What's that? That's a, that's going right back to this verse that you're gonna encourage the brethren. Think about that. And here Peter denied Christ calling curses upon himself.

Yet Jesus is reaffirming his call. In the church. Three times and, and Peter is now humbled by God's grace, the Lord has humbled him, made him aware of his sin, and made him aware that it's all of Christ. Christ is the one that protected me from the devil.

Christ is the one that prayed for me. Christ is the one that's providing breakfast for me right now, and loving me. I don't deserve any of this. I'm sure Peter's just sitting there.

What? No, I don't deserve any of this. And the ladies, they're going through first Peter right now. And if you read through First Peter, you just see this all over the book, right?

His humility, he's even, he's saying, be clothed with humility, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Where does that come from? His own experience with Jesus Christ. Where does, where does, Peter get the idea of be sober, be diligent because your adversary, the devil walks around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

But make the God of grace. Who has called us to an eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After you've suffered a little while, perfect perfect, establish strengthen and settle you. To Him be the glory.

Sola de la gloria, soli de la gloria. Peter gets all of these lessons through his experience. With Christ. And so, we serve our Lord who gives us grace alone.

He saves us by grace alone. Our works, our keeping of the law, whether we do works as, as, as an aspect of our praise and our thankfulness. It is antithetical to salvation to say that I need to bring my lump, my little lump to save this wrath, ill-deserving person. God comes along and says, no, no, no.

Grace, it's all of me. I settled this matter before time. I'm the one who awakened you. I'm the one that's pouring my riches out upon you.

It's exclusive, it's grace or nothing, it's Christ or nothing. And so we just reach out to Christ and we say, Lord, It's all you And that's what gives us the power to, to then go on and deal with some of the other issues that we have in life, the sins, the struggles, the cycles. We start with grace, we end with grace., I think Josh, Josh, did you get to read that quote this morning from Newton or? Yeah, OK.

OK, that was, this is a really cool quote. Just the, John Newton, if you guys, have any of you guys ever read much of John Newton? Anybody know his story? So John Newton's the guy who wrote the hymn, Amazing Grace, right?

before he came to know the Lord, his mother had imparted to him a knowledge of the Lord, and he really had a sense of God's presence. And, and he had a sense of who God was in his grace when he was younger. But then his mother got sick and he got sent into the life of, of, of working on being a sailor and, and just became totally corrupt, blasphemy the Lord. He even tore down somebody else's faith and, and just ridiculed them.

And he eventually became a slave himself, a slave under a slave, and, And just was a wicked, wicked man, both in sexually, his, his mouth, but then the Lord got a hold of him and he began to recall just many of the, the tender readings of the scripture that his mother had given him when he was young. And the grace of God began to overwhelm him, first of all, with the fear of judgment. And secondly, with the fact that Christ had paid his price. And throughout his life, he would frequently just refer to him as that, that old blasphemer, is the way he'd refer to himself.

And he just wanted to remind himself of who he was outside of Christ so that he could really take hold of that grace. And so let me just read this again where John Newton says, You have one hard lesson to learn, and that is the evil of your own heart. something of it, but it is needful that you should know more. For the more we know ourselves, the more we shall prize and love Jesus and his salvation.

I hope what you find in yourself by daily experience will humble you. But not discourage you, humble you, it should, and I believe it does. Are not you amazed sometimes that you should have so much as a hope? That poor and needy as you are, the Lord thinks of you.

But let not all you feel discourage you. For if our physician is mighty, Our disease cannot be desperate. And if he casts none out that come to him, why should you fear? Our sins are many, but his mercies are more.

Our sins are great, but his righteousness is greater. We are weak, but he is power. This coming from a man who knew that by experience. He said at one point, what a poor creature I am in myself incapable of standing a single hour without continual fresh supplies of strength and grace from the fountainhead.

it is, he's the one that wrote, it is grace that has caused my heart to fear and grace, my fears relieved. I just pray that the Holy Spirit through his word would cause each of our hearts to fear appropriately, that we would be awakened in a fresh way to our sin, what our sin really deserves, that it really is wrath deserving, that God really is that powerful to cast any person, any one of his subjects into hell forever. But because he is such a merciful God, he says, whoever comes to me, I will in no wise disregard or cast away.

We serve a God who is so merciful and so patient.

Just think of the many times throughout the Bible where God was ready to, to bring his wrath down in Nineveh, but he brought grace. He sent Moses to preach for 120 years before he brought down his wrath. Even Jonah himself, God tells him to go preach and Jonah runs away and, and God is just bringing him along like a child. We serve a gracious, gracious God.

So look to Christ alone for your salvation. Don't try to do the energy drink thing. Don't try to bring your little molehill. He has finished it.

When you feel convicted as a Christian of your sin, take those convictions back to the Lord, confess them daily. Lord Jesus Christ has given us the Lord's prayer. He says, we, we are to pray daily. Lord, forgive us our debts as we forgive one another's debts.

Why do we pray that daily? Because there is daily need for us to ask for forgiveness, daily need for us to forgive one another. even the best Christian in this room will probably sin at least once a day, you think? Maybe more But let's say each of you sin once a day.

And let's say you live, let's say, let's say you only live for 50 years, Lord takes home a little early. You send once a day, 365 times 50, you're gonna send 18,250 times in your lifetime. That's that's probably the best of us. maybe the worst of us, we're sending 30,000.

I think I'm already up to 50. I'm only 49, 50,000. That's, that's thousands of opportunities that we have to cry out on a daily basis for God's grace and to be reminded that he is ever willing to forgive if we simply humble ourselves. And that's all kinds of opportunity for you to forgive one another, by the way.

If the Lord is forgiving us of thousands of sins and even overlooking thousands of sins that we are completely unaware of, how much more should we be looking at our brothers and sisters and seeking to walk with them in peace, and forgiveness, compassion and mercy, not to hold their sins against them, but to imitate our Father who has been so kind and compassionate towards us. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this amazing grace.

We thank You, Lord, for this grace alone. We look and we are amazed that you have granted us grace, from all eternity. Lord, that you have awakened us both to the consequences of sin, but also to the finished work of Christ. Lord, thank you that you have granted us faith to believe, that we ask that you grant more faith to believe in this room.

We think of our children, we think of visitors. Lord, that your spirit would fall upon them and do what only you can do, and that is awaken them to their need for Christ. We thank you for the great riches of your grace, Lord, that you give us forgiveness, redemption, eternal life. Lord, we just thank you so much for helping us understand that your grace is exclusive.

That it cannot be combined with works or the law. Thank you for the wonderful examples that we have in your word that, that really ministered our hearts that we are so much like the thief on the cross. We're so much like Peter. And yet we see your care and your saving of them.

Help us to forgive one another. Help us to walk in a merciful way towards our brothers and sisters in Christ and have great compassion upon those who do not yet know you. We ask that you receive our offerings. Everything that we have is from you.

And so we give back to you what is really yours. And we pray, Father, that you would use it for your glory and for your kingdom until you return. In Christ's name, we pray, and all God's people said, Amen.