Grace Be With You II Tim. 4: 22 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
Grace is the most important provision that the Lord has for us. We are made from the dust and are, therefore, limited in every capacity to our earthly resources. For intelligence, we are limited to our brain’s capacity for accumulating and processing information. Yet God knows infinitely more than all men combined and by comparison to him we know nothing. As the Lord asked Job, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge,” [Job 38:2]? For health, we are limited to our medical and nutritional resources and yet we all eventually die. We have nothing here that can extend our lives beyond a maximum of 120 years.
In everything, our resources are inadequate. Therefore, God has given us grace. Grace is the Lord’s resource that supplies us beyond our human inadequacy. We must have grace for:
Our Salvation – Eph 2:8-9 – if you think you deserve salvation for the way you have lived your life or for the way you have adhered to your religion, you are wrong. The Jews were very religious and Peter confessed that they had to be saved by the grace of God [Acts 15:11]. Everyone must be saved by the grace of God, no matter who you are. Paul said, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,” [Titus 2:11]. We are saved by grace because none of us can save himself. We are given salvation by our God; “it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” See Eph 1:7.
Our Stand – Rom 5:2 – we are saved by grace and we stand, after we are saved, by the same grace that saved us. There is a common misconception that you can lose your salvation, after you are saved, by sinning. But if you didn’t have enough of your own righteousness to save yourself, you certainly don’t have enough of your own righteousness to keep yourself saved. Paul said, “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith,” [Phil 3:9]. In 1 Pet 5:12 Silvanus said, “I have written briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand.” You and I stand by the grace of God. People who preach that you can lose your salvation but believe that they haven’t lost theirs are proud. We “stand” by staying low. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble,” [Jas 4:6].
Our Sufficiency – 2 Cor 9:8 – God has work for us to do and we cannot do it apart from the grace of God. In Macedonia and Achaia, God desired that these churches supply a financial need for the poor saints in Jerusalem. At the time, the churches of Macedonia were going through their own difficulties with poverty and a great trial of affliction [2 Cor 8:1-4]. By the grace of God, they were able to perform the work. Churches who depend upon the grace of God never minister in short supply. Saints who minister by the grace of God minister by God’s limitless supply. Paul was a wise master builder by the grace of God [1 Cor 3:10, 15:10].
Our Strength – 2 Cor 12:9-10 – in the time of your greatest weakness, you will be stronger than in the time of your greatest strength, when you are strengthened by the grace of God. Just do what Heb 4:16 says to do and come boldly unto the throne of grace. In Acts 4:33, you can see where the apostles’ power to preach the gospel came from. Paul told Timothy, “… be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus,” [2 Tim 2:1]. Don’t trust your strength; trust God’s.
Conclusion: grace is not a finite or static provision. We are to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” [2 Pet 3:18]. That is, the more you depend upon the Lord and his grace, the more you know him and the more you grow in his grace.