Grace for Grace

Fitchburg Nazarene Church

March 19, 2017

by

Rev. Charles W. Pendleton, Jr.

(Outline compiled from work by A. Raleigh, D. D., and Charles H. Spurgeon

inThe Expositor’s Commontary)

(These are the Pastor’s notes. He may have said more which is not noted here. He could have ignored certain portions of these notes in our actual service.)

Grace – This is now Sermon #5 in our current preaching series.

Do you remember our definition of grace?

(Slide)

GRACE - the unmerited favor of God to people.

Good!

Now, what about our memory verses…

Ephesians 2:8-9

(Slide)

This morning we turn to the Gospel of John to develop anexpanded understanding of “grace.”

John 1:14-18

(I have to admit to using the KJV this morning, but I’ll put it up on the screen for you – okay?)

(Slide) (Slide)

Key Verse (Slide)

John 1:16 (KJV)
And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.

John 1:16 (NIV) (Slide)

16Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.

I.Past Expositions of this passage.
1.Some have taken this phrase to have reference to the Law and the Gospel;

butSt. John is speaking of what takes place after Christ comes and the Law is abandoned.
2.Others point to faith in Old Testament saints and light in New Testament saints. That does not hold, because both had faith and light.
3.Others, note that grace in the believer resembles grace in the Savior; but that would only give us the moral qualities of Christ, and leave us destitute of those evangelical blessings which He came especially to bestow.

4.The real sense isthat of exchange;

"for" (KJV) — instead of a new grace coming in the place of the old, and, when that is done with, another fresh grace from the fullness of Christ, and so on until grace becomes glory.

I suspect that this sounds almost heretical to some of you this morning, but I assure you that you will join with me in believing this concept before I am done preaching. More on that in a few minutes…

First – let us look at an illustration.

II.AN ILLUSTRATION:
1.Grace in the believer dies – it wastes away, as all living things do, and the faster they live, the faster they die. We will speak of this more next week when we look at the “Means of Grace” that God gives us opportunity to draw from.

For now though, we look at these new expressions of God’s grace.

Granite rocks might last forever, their life and motion are so slow; but the most exquisite flowers stand in their prime rich-blossomed state only for a short time.

"You must come to-day," we say, "or you will not see the best of it."

It is much the same with thisvery living thing called grace.

GRACE is indestructible in its fountain (its’ source) and principle – but it comes and goes, flowing in, flowing out, blossoming, fading.

In the human soul, if there were not replenishment, graceforgrace, it would soon be empty and dead.

2.This does not mean simply a steady continuance of the same class of gracious ministration.

You stand by a river and watch the flow, the drops of water coming and going to the ocean.

But then other drops succeed them, and others them, so evenly and incessantly that we hardly realize that the waters are passing away. So it is with the supply of grace.

Suppose with this metaphor of the river, that the color of the river should change with the day:

  • now black from muddy hills,
  • now yellow as the Tiber River,
  • now blue as the Rhone,
  • now crystal as the Tweed,

It would be anunusual phenomenon; but graceforgrace means a change like that.

There is an element of sameness in all graces, just as water is water, but in many respects one kind of grace is not like another.

Let’s look at what I’m talking about.

3.Understand that while there is no uniform order of GRACE, there is a general pattern, or flow —
(1)We like to say that the grace of forgiveness is the first bestowed. But actually, that isn’t even true. The very first grace that appears in our lives would be the “prevenient grace” of God that works in our lives, which brought us to a place of accepting salvation through Christ Jesus.

In our sin we were very far from God, as our scriptures have told us, but in grace He sought us, and affectedour thinking until we were able to receive the good news that had before that seemed like foolishness.

(2)Our actual salvation is that work of grace that our memory verses speak to us about. This may come after much anxiety, or quite gently; but, come as it will,the peace of our salvation is a special grace.

(3)But the believer does not rest long in his peace. Next comes a totally different kind of grace — active strength and the spirit of boldness.

This new grace does not deprive the believer of his peace, but that becomes secondary.

This is very necessary, as uniform tranquility would be injurious. To root the tree firmly rough winds are necessary.

(4)The grace of patience for the grace of active strength. Working time comes to an end, or work goes on, patience comes to prevent discouragement.

(5)The grace of victory for the grace of preservation in battle. “…as thy days so shall thy strength be.” (Deut. 33:25)

(6)And yet another grace, is the dying grace that comes nearthe time for the deathof a believer. Think of the number of saints of God who you have had the privilege of watching – confident that they were passing into the presence of the King of Kings and LORD of Lords.

Don’t dismiss this – it is the active work of the Spirit – an action of an impartation of dying grace.

III.THE APPLICATION:
1.Do not try to live in or by the past. We may draw upon a grateful memory that will help us; but not so as to get some presentliving nourishment out of conditions, and borders, and feelings that are dead and gone.

You would not get on well in June seeking the withered leaves of last autumn. Let them sink into the soil. Trust nature to get all the good that is in them, and send that good up again.

2.We ought to be afraid of stagnation, but never of new experiences or enterprises.

3.Christ offers grace FOR— what we are engaged in NOW.

Not the past – GRACE for now!

Remember back a few minutes when I told you that:

“In a real sense, there is an exchange of grace that occurs in the heart and life of the believer.”

As our Key Verse stated this morning:

John 1:16

- NIV -

16Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.

We could not receive any other grace except for PREVENIENT GRACE before we came to faith in Christ.

Our temple could not contain it…

  • boldness for Christ
  • dying grace

NO – we needed the grace of God that would bring our sin-hardened souls to a place of recognition that we were separated from God, and in need of His forgiveness.

When we became children of God through faith – THAT is the grace we needed.

SALVATION – Our adoption as sons and daughters of the Living God, through Jesus sacrifice FOR US.

We did not lose that grace of SALVATION, but we certainly didn’t need Prevenient Grace anymore – we are children of God!

The extra measure of grace which we needed after Salvation was for inner strength and boldness.

Our Salvation grace didn’t disappear – but it was not the grace we needed for witnessing to the wonderful change in our lives.

So too with Patience and Victory and Dying Grace – as our need for an effective new grace became/becomes REAL – God supplies us with the grace that is needed.

I like how Charles Spurgeon put it: (Slide)

GOD GIVES GRACE TO PREPARE FOR US FOR FURTHER GRACE —

He felt that God offers…

  • the grace of a broken heart — to make room for repentance; (Slide)
  • the grace of hatred of sin to make way for the grace of holy and careful walking; (Slide)
  • the grace of careful walking to make room for the grace of close communion with Christ; (Slide)
  • the grace of close communion with the Lord Jesus Christ to make room for the grace of full conformity to His image; (Slide)
  • perhaps the grace of conformity to His image to make room for the higher grace of brighter views of Himself, and still closer incomings into the very heart of the Lord Jesus. (Slide)

Let me give you an example of how that,

“The grace that you currently have expands your heart, and gives you capacity for receiving yet more grace.”

Example:

Before you send your child to school you help them to learn their A B C’s.

This is the grace of learning his alphabet.

But it is preparatory to the grace of the spelling book, which is a preparation for further acquisition of knowledge.

There is an expansion which occurs as we move “From Grace to Grace.”

In a very real way there is a…

GRACE that is ANSWERABLE TO GRACE.

If God should give me grace to be a preacher, then He will give me grace to discharge the office.

If you have the grace of resignation(giving up) you may need the grace of patience.

As children of God our zeal in seeking His benefits, should be matched by our dogged determination to reflect the nature of Christin our manner with people. In this we admit that we are answerable to the grace that is in Christ. He is our All, our Sufficiency and our well-spring!

I say this to spur us on toward victory, not to beat the weary.

A young heir to a large estate, even when they are not yet of full age, generally gets an allowance suitable to the station he is to occupy. If he inherit$100,000 a year in upon majority, he would hardly be limited to a penny a week as a minor.

When I see a child of God…

always mourning,

another always doubting, and

yetanother always scheming,I see they are living below their privileges.

They do not seem to have grace in possession answerable to the grace they have in reversion. We always teach and instill the priority on the part of all believers, of living within their incomes; butthe child of God cannot live beyond his income in a spiritual sense.

IV.GRACE IN ABUNDANCE.

Like the waves of the sea, where one comes there is another close behind it.

V.GRACE FROM HIM TO PRODUCE GRACE IN US.

The grace of gratitude should be produced in us by the grace of generosity from God.

I am going to speak in direct contrast to what I said last week about music in the Church. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe what I stated last Sunday about a need for room within our churches for Much more contemporary music – BUT

Here’s another one of those big Buts I was talking about last week…

BUT, I wonder sometimes if one of the reasons we have grown cold to the old hymns of the church is that, their words bring depth of conviction for burden of sin, and I think many times Satan uses this HYMN HATRED and allows us to keep focused on the feel good – AND THEY DO – and the Praise the LORD songs – and shouldn’t we praise Him?

Well there you have it on the music.

Isn’t it a dichotomy?

A dividing in two.

Let’s pray

Benediction:

Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.

(2 Peter 1:2-3)