CPAC Sermon 16 Nov 2008 "Strengthened by Grace" by Pete Watson
What does Grace mean to you? (Underserved love, freedom & salvation.)
Two of the verses in the readings that jump out to me are:
“See to it that no one misses the grace of God “and...
“It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace.”
So, this morning we are going to look at three things:
· How we can go deeper in grace
· How we can be strengthened by grace
· How we can look to Jesus for grace
1 How we can go deeper in grace
Grace is a free gift but it’s how we respond to it that matters!
Abraham Lincoln story: (1860-1865)
Buying the rights to a slave and giving them to her after out bidding everybody else
When he told her she was free, she wanted to serve him anyway.
We do the same for Jesus.
Grace sets us free, but then because of the magnitude of it, we serve!
Once we enter into that grace, what’s the next step? How do we continue to grow in it?
· We can choose to re-position ourselves in grace to receive more
· God shows us the depths of his love – Ezekiel 47 – depths in the river
2 How we can be strengthened by grace
A lot of what we have read in Hebrews has been about hearing God’s voice and this chapter says we can be strengthened by grace and by hearing God...
In the O.T Daniel said: “When he spoke to me I was strengthened.”
And in Psalm 27:14 it says:
“Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”
In Ephesians 3:16:
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being.”
That helps see what the writer means, when he says:
IT IS GOOD FOR OUR HEARTS TO BE STRENGTHEND BY GRACE
3 How we can look to Jesus for grace
What does it look like to have a heart strengthened by grace?
It could mean turning our eyes upon Jesus
13 V8 from the message bible tells us:
“For Jesus doesn't change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he's always totally himself”
We change, circumstances change, but he is the same.
We can take strength from this.
The reading says we are also running a race...
· There is a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us – although they can inspire us, they cannot strengthen us. We rely completely on Jesus, because he ran his race to the finish.
· Lance Armstrong story – recovering from a fall quickly. Spiritual parallel – we need to focus on Jesus to get back up and run the race and rely only on him.
· God’s grace cannot be pursued in our own energy!
So, we have seen...
· How we can go deeper in grace
· How we can be strengthened by grace and...
· How we can look to Jesus for grace
We have the opportunity to respond to that this morning...
A final verse from the book of Hebrews, which for me, sums up this series:
Chapter 4:16:
“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Prayer... End.
