He is the light, the truth, and the way. Thank you, Duane. Beautiful. Turn, if you would, please, to 1 Peter chapter 5, 1 Peter 5. If I am in a giddy mood, and my wife as well, she's here, by the way, and it's because we're going this afternoon to Charlotte to pick up my grandchild, who is I think two years old. I'm not sure exactly how. I think she's two years old. I'm more the kind of guy that keeps up with grades and what grade they're in than the age. But I think she's two, Savannah. My sister is bringing her down from Philadelphia. My oldest daughter had her fourth baby here the other day. She has a set of twins that are three. And then she has the baby that's two. And then she had just another one the other day. So her hands are full. So she thought we could probably help out. But it is good to have somebody around the house that thinks that I am probably the greatest thing since indoor air conditioning, I guess you want to say. But she does think a lot of me. I really enjoy having her. I remember several months ago, I took her, I would pick her up, drive to Richmond, Petersburg area, Virginia, and pick her up, bring her back. Her father would take her halfway. And I remember taking her back one morning, and I was by myself, and she was in the back seat in a little chair that she has, a little seat. And she was asleep, and I thought to myself, she's got a tough road ahead of her, a tough life. And we think things are rough for our young people today, but for a two-year-old, it's really going to be rough as time goes along. The world's going to be after them. Satan's going to be after them far more. than ever. And that's one of the things I appreciate about this church. So many good things I hear, I know about our youth department here. And I appreciate young men who are willing to take their life and be a pastor to our young people. But I also appreciate the parents that take the responsibility to raise their children in a Christ-like atmosphere and not just give them to someone else to train. And with this day that's coming and the hardships on our young people and devil fighting is so important to maintain that home atmosphere and where the father and the mother both look to Christ and train those young people. I want to talk to you this morning about something, probably something we're not familiar with a great deal. You know, there are certain words that we use in our vocabulary that we think people understand and many times they do. But if we had to define a word, it would be many times difficult to do. For instance, if I were to use the word infinity, infinity. It'd be very difficult to define infinity, how how big is the universe? I mean, how how far, how fast can you go and reach the end of the universe? Well, there is no end of the universe. That's very difficult to comprehend, difficult to understand. How do you define infinity? Sometimes we use words and we don't even understand what they mean, I remember when I was growing up, we had the song. In the meadow, we will build a snowman. Remember that song? And pretend that he is Parson Brown. Well, we would sing that when I was in junior high in a chorus. And I always thought Parson Brown was a color, you know, like a candy apple red or plum purple. I thought Parson Brown was a color. And I couldn't understand why, you know, he's going to, so man was going to marry him. It wasn't until later I understood what Parson Brown really means. Maybe you've got some little idiosyncrasies like that. I'm not very smart, so it was easy for me to get off on the wrong track. I heard the story of a little boy who came to his teacher one day at lunch and said, Ms. Smith, she said, why can't Jose see? And she said, what do you mean why can't Jose see? Well, every morning we say, Jose, can you see by the dawn's early light? And I was just wondering why he can't see. So a lot of times we get our Our words mixed up, for instance, if I were to say the word M-I-N-U-T-E, we could pronounce it minute or we could pronounce it minute. What does that word mean? Well, it's all based upon the context. For example, I would say, what does the word minute mean? You say, well, 60 seconds. Or a part of a longitude and latitude. I would say, what does minute mean? Well, it means something very small. So we've covered it all, right? Except when I say to my daughter, sugar, we need to leave, she says, I'll be downstairs in a minute. And I know that's within the next hour. So it all depends on the context. Well, in scripture, we have a number of words that we have a difficult time with. We really can't define it, but we know what they mean. Justification being one of those words. Sanctification, regeneration, sometimes they're hard words to understand, but we use them and we we but we really don't know how to define them. We talk about the love of God, but how do we find how deep and how wide it is we sing about it? But the word I want to gear in on is what C.S. Lewis felt was the most important element of Christianity, and that is the word grace, G.R.A.C.E. What does grace mean? What does grace mean to you? There was a large conference that was held in Britain back in the last century, early part of the last century, I understand. And they were beginning to argue, what is it about Christianity that makes it unique? And so someone said, well, I think what makes it unique is that we have a Christ that came down and was was was the son of God and and he became man. And they begin to argue about it and say, well, some of the other religions say that their God came down and walked on the earth. So that doesn't necessarily make us unique. Another said, well, maybe it's because of the resurrection. And they begin to argue about that and finally decided that, well, there are other religions that have fables or legends that their gods were resurrected and that people were going to be resurrected. So they couldn't come to a conclusion as to what was the most important element of Christianity. What made it unique? And then C.S. Lewis walked into the conference there and asked what the ruckus was all about. And they said, well, they're trying to find out what is unique about Christianity. And he said, oh, that's easy. It's grace. It's grace. What is grace? If you think about the notion, the notion that God gives us. Life at no charge whatsoever, there's nothing we have to do. to have eternal life, just just somehow just doesn't fit with our human way of thinking. The fact that a God would come down from his heavenly throne and to take upon himself the mantle of a man and be tempted in all points like as we are just doesn't jive with the way we think. Grace, what is grace? We sing about it. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound saved a wretch like me. Pastor mentioned that just the other day when he was talking about John Newton's song. I was talking to a gentleman, we were discussing a brother, a brethren that had fallen from grace, from immorality into immorality. And he says this where he said these words here, he says, but for the grace of God, there go I. What does he mean? But for the grace of God, amazing grace talks about salvation. But for the grace of God, there go I. What was he talking about? We say that we sit down before a meal and and we say grace. Paul talked about when he was suffering a great deal, he said he asked God to take away his infirmity three times and God said, no, I'm not going to do it, Paul, but I will give you the grace to endure. And Paul said, therefore, I glory in my infirmity. What is that grace? The grace of salvation, the grace for suffering, the grace over our meal, the grace to avoid immorality. What is that grace? What is grace? And that's what I want to share with you, if I could hear this morning from Ephesians or first Peter, chapter five. But first of all, I looked up a few definitions I've been studying Greece, Greece, Greece. I've actually got some lessons down by 13 lessons down in Greece, you realize how many types of grace God gives free of charge. He has the grace for dying. You people, you've seen people or heard of people who die knowing that they're going to meet their savior and they have no fears whatsoever. The grace of dying. There's the grace of giving talked about in second Corinthians, the grace of hospitality, the grace of forgiving others, the grace of suffering, the grace of thankfulness, the grace of purity, the grace of humility. And I could go on and on and on. These are God's riches, God's gift to us at no cost whatsoever. All we have to do is accept. But they're going to look, we're going to look at this morning, four different areas of grace, the kind of all the rest are kind of clumped into. So I hope by the time you leave here, you'll understand what grace is all about. I looked it up and in Miriam Webster's dictionary, it says it is an act of kindness, courtesy or clemency, forgiveness. When I was In the early years after I was saved, the evangelist came to town, a man by the name of Scotty Alexander, and he spoke on grace. I wish I had tapes of that. And every day we would begin by saying grace is God's riches at Christ's expense. Many of you probably heard that little definition of grace. But really, what does that mean? What does it mean when someone says it's unmerited favor from God, unmerited favor from God? Another said, God is everything for nothing to those who don't deserve anything. Grace is everything and cost you nothing for those who don't deserve anything. Another said, Grace comes free of charge to people who do not deserve it. And I am one of those people. What is grace? What is it about grace that makes it so special? And what is it about grace that C.S. Lewis would say that's the unique part of Christianity? It is grace. There's no perfect definition of grace, but I want to share with you here in chapter five, verse 10 of first Peter, what he says grace is maybe a verse that you've never really thought much about chapter 10. Or chapter five, verse ten, first Peter, chapter five, verse ten. But the God of all grace who had called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ, after that, he has suffered a while, make you perfect, establish you, strengthen you and sell you. He says that through Jesus Christ. He gives grace in these four areas. You have to suffer a little while on this earth. Christians, you will be here for a little while and then you'll have your reward, but right now I give you grace in four areas. Those four areas are perfection, establishment, strengthen you and to settle you. And what I want to do is look at each one of these four and a few minutes we have remaining and see how it fits our life and see before we finish here this morning that you can understand what grace is really like. We may not be able to define it, but perhaps we'll have a clearer understanding of what grace is all about. First of all, he says this, he says that grace provides or makes you perfect. Makes you perfect. Now, what that means is it causes you, it gives you the gift of salvation and it gives you the opportunity to grow spiritually. The question we have to ask is why should God want you as his child? Why should God want me as his child? I don't deserve to be his child. Every way I turn, all my works are as filthy rags in his sight, he tells us that. I'm sure many times during the day, every day, I do not please my creator. Why do I deserve to be a part of his family? Why would he reach down and save me? I had a friend who was a grad student several years ago, his name was Terry Metzger. And he worked with people in the United States who wanted to adopt children, and I think it was Romania. Forgive me if I don't remember exactly the country in Eastern Europe. And he would try to hook up people in America to adopt these waifs, these young people there in Romania that didn't have parents. And so he told me the story and told it in our class one day about how this couple went over to Romania. When they got over there, he went with him or either him or his wife went with him and they wanted to look at babies between the ages of 12 months and 24 months. And so they went into a room of the hospital there or the orphanage and they looked at the babies and they were almost like buying a car. They would bring them the nice ones, the pretty ones, the pleasant ones. As they begin to walk through the orphanage there, He said they saw one who did not utter a sound, could not cry, did not laugh because he could not make any sounds at all. His mother had been an alcoholic. His head was deformed and he would lay quietly. With his eyes open, staring into space, the only movement that he made was when a bright light, the nurse would bring a bright light and shine it and he would follow the bright light. He had eye problems. They chose that lab. Terry Metzger said to our class one day, somebody asked him, why did you choose this one? When there were others that you could have chosen. And they said we fell in love with him because he was so unlovable. That's grace. That's the kind of grace that God shows toward us. The Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Why? Why would God save me? I don't deserve it. only because of grace. I said this many times, my favorite, my favorite, my favorite of all portions of scripture is the incident occurs when there are two thieves on the cross. You know the story. I don't have to turn to Luke, tell you about it. Luke 23. There are two thieves there. Two ungodly people. One on the One side of the Lord turned to him and said, while they were hanging on the cross, he said, look, if you're really the son of God, like you say you are, why don't you come off that cross and and save yourself? And while you're at it, why don't you save me? And the other looked at this thief and he says, why do you harass this man? He's done nothing wrong. We deserve our punishment. And then the most beautiful words or portion of words in the scripture, he turned to the Lord and he said, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And the Lord spoke these words. Today, thou shalt be with me in paradise. He did not deserve it. He had not attended the temple. I doubt if he had ever done anything that would be righteous. And yet he simply said, Lord, remember me and God forgave him. That's grace. Unmerited favor, it cost him nothing. God paid it off. The second thing we see there, he says he gives us grace to establish us. To give us a sure foundation. I remember when they were building the big building in Charlotte, the Bank of America building. My wife and I were standing in the hotel across the street one weekend and I could see him boring these deep wells into the ground there. They were going to put this, this, I don't know, a hundred stories, the biggest building I understand between Philadelphia and Houston, this huge building. And there were these deep holes that they were putting in the ground and filling up with concrete so that this building would have a sewer foundation, no matter how harsh the winds would come. It would stand. Even the buildings on 9-11 in New York, the foundation never gave the building structurally gave, but the foundation is still there and they'll build a new building on that foundation. God says he gives us the grace to put our roots deep, to have a strong foundation. So I ask this question. Why do we doubt God's direction in our life? When he established the foundation, why do we doubt what he does in our life? Why are we discontent? With what he does in our life, the reason that we you can see people who are not discontent, who are discontent, excuse me, who are discontented with with what God has given them is because they have never asked for the grace to accept. The situation they're in. First, first Corinthians three, eleven, for the foundation can no man lay than that which is laid in Christ Jesus. Romans eight, twenty eight, for we know we don't speculate. There's some things that we kind of guess about one thing we know. We know that all things work together. For good to them that love God, to to them who are the called according to his purpose. What kind of events in your life do you question God about? For 30 years, I have worked with young people. I worked with them as a teacher, as a principal, 30 years. And I've seen young people come and go, and I've seen them, their parents come in and they are they are distraught because of some discipline that maybe has to take place. Just this Friday, I had a man come in and talk to me. We didn't have to discipline, but we had he had separated his child from another child. The girl is a boy and we sit down and we talked about it. He says it has crushed him that we're having. It has crushed him. And I said, you know, God does these things for a purpose, and one day One day he will be able when he's when he's a youth director, perhaps, or he has a child, he'll be able to sit down with his child when the same thing happens and says, you know, I walked in the same shoes you're walking through now. And I understand sometimes God puts us through those things so that we'll be able to understand what God others go through. God wants us to understand what others go through. My cousin, I went to her funeral here a couple of years ago, April was with me. And her husband had passed away. And I said, Connie, I understand. She said, no, you don't. Your spouse has your wife hasn't passed away. She's right, I don't truly understand, but God sometimes puts us through difficulty so we can say to somebody, I truly understand. I truly understand. What are you going through? Lost a job. Perhaps in debt. Maybe sickness. My sister lost her husband Christmas Day or the day after Christmas. I'll never forget her calling. The day after Christmas and she'd call me a couple of days before and she said, please pray for Larry, my husband. She's the one that's bringing our child, our grandchild down. She said, please pray for Larry. Just found out he's got cancer. Pancreatic cancer. And right after Christmas, we're going to the doctor and they're going to tell us what the treatments are. And then Christmas, the day after Christmas night, she called and I said, Carol, how's Larry? We all set up the appointment. Yes, you say, well, he passed away tonight during the news. And you think about that, that's that's a terrible thing to go through. I have never gone through it. It's an unpleasant experience. But we have to ask God to give us the grace to accept the fact that he is in control, he established us. No matter what you're going through. You have to lay it down to the fact God knows that. And did it for a purpose. My wife is here, she knows that. Back in the mid 1960s, 1965, I worked at the Ford place and bought me a brand new Mustang. Brand new. Brand new. I mean, they'd only been out a few months. Bought me a brand new one. Yellow. Didn't like the color, had it painted blue. Paying on that thing, $100 a month, and that was a lot of money back then, particularly when you made about a dollar an hour. Ford place. So, New Year's Day, 1967. Coming back from somewhere and driving on the wrong side of the road, wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Gone. I use that car to say, Lord, I cannot get into your program, Lord, I cannot go to a particular college, Lord, I cannot do what you want me to do because I'm paying for this car. And God took it away, sad day for me that time. Went to the hospital. My youth director, a couple days later, didn't have a car. My youth director, Bill Boyd, came picking me up at home. I went to the Allstate place so I could pick up the check for my broken car so that I could go buy another car, only I didn't know all that goes on. And the guys figured out, well, you still owe this much on it, and it's worth this much blue book value. Here's a check for $14. And I remember sitting in Mr. Boyd's station while he looked at me and said, $14, my whole life, $14. I've been paying $14. It was crushed. And I remember him telling me, don't forget Sid, Romans 8, 28, all things work together for them to love God, them to call according to his purpose. I didn't necessarily believe that. But I look back now as one of the greatest days of my life. Those things work together for our good. It takes grace to accept those things. Grace, and only God gives the grace. Discontent comes about because we don't have grace. Paul cried out, I said a while ago, Lord, take this infirmity from me. He prayed three times. Nobody could pray like Paul. Three times, Lord, take this away from me. And God said, no, Paul. I'll give you the grace to accept it, though. And Paul said, did I glory in these infirmities? The third thing. He said, I will strengthen you, strengthen you. Grace can strengthen us. Grace can give us salvation. Grace can establish you in a sure foundation and grace can strengthen you. Question, why is it that some can resist temptation and others cannot? Why is it? I, I yield to the temptation. I don't have the power to overcome my temptations. God tells us this in first Corinthians 10, 13, there have no temptation taken you. There's no temptation that you have, but such as is common to every man. But he says, God is faithful who will not suffer to you be attempted above that you're able. But will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear? Do you realize what he's saying? God will never allow you never to be tempted. Above which he's given you strength to resist that temptation, that's grace. Satan came to God and said, can I tempt Job? And God allowed him to tempt, but he wouldn't allow him to go so far because he knew what The strengths were of Job, how he could resist. He will never allow you to be tempted. So when we say we're tempted and we yield to the temptation, he basically says, then ask for God's grace, then he'll give you the ability to resist the temptation. I told you the man who came the other day. He was talking about one of our brothers down in Christian education, brothers down in Florida, falling away. and immorality, to say those words, except for the grace of God, there go I. What did he mean? God gave him the grace to resist the temptation. That's what he promises. What are you tempted about? Cheating and unfaithful, stealing, rebelling against authority. What are you tempted? God says, I'll give you the grace, I'll give you the strength. To resist the temptation. You remember David and Bathsheba? David sinned. David went on his porch one day and there he saw Bathsheba. He saw her baby. Don't know exactly what was going on, but you know, he yielded to that temptation. God, he did not have the grace to resist. He was in a fallen state, I guess, at that time. Even David. We all can fall. But God assures us he will give us the grace to resist the strength to resist. If we could ask. Remember, God says you've got the power. That is grace. And lastly, he says this, he says, I don't want to give you the grace to perfect your savior and help you to grow. Not only will I give you the power to establish yourself with a firm foundation. Not only that, I'll give you the power to resist, the strength to resist. I can do that. And then he says the last one, which was a somewhat confusing one to me. Even looking up in some of the commentaries, the power to settle. The power to settle, the grace at no cost to you to settle you. You know, I wondered a little bit about what does that mean? Even looking up, it wasn't real clear to me, looking at some of the commentaries and trying to find out what does that word mean? It wasn't really until last night that I really effectively, I think, understand. But that word means to settle. You know, you say sometimes that Something traumatic has happened in a person's life and they go through a terrible time and then they say, well, I think he's settled in his mind to accept that. Or we say that two friends have gotten at each other and maybe there's some aught between them. They have settled their differences. I think that's what this word means. It means basically to settle you means to have an inner peace with yourself and with others. The question here is, how do I get rid of the turmoil I have within and with others? Now, the psychiatrist would give you all kind of answers to get rid of the turmoil within you. The inner conflicts. Basically, it comes down to this understanding when we talked about establishing that understand what has taken place in the past. God allowed it to take place. But what about the settling with others, the grace that you show to others in the grace of forgiveness? You see. This person has done something to me, I will never forgive him. I can't forgive him. You don't know what he or she did to me. There's no way on God's green earth that I would ever forgive that person. I can't do it and you can't. That's what he means here. He gives you the grace. To forgive. One of the hardest things in our life to do is to forgive someone who has wronged us. Yet, if we go through life with an unforgiving attitude to someone, it can easily turn into a root of bitterness and affect our entire attitude toward life. But when God gives the grace to forgive, he also gives joy. Do you remember the prodigal son left his father? Left his brother, he took his inheritance, his portion of the inheritance. He took it and he spent it in wine, women and song and wildlife. Things surely had to be bad back at home when he took half the inheritance. No wonder the older brother was angry. Possibly the father was angry as well. But if you read that story carefully, you see that when that boy He laid out with the hogs and he had to eat the slop and lay there and say, even the servants in my home are eating better than I am eating. He went back home. And if you're really careful, you see that the father saw him afar off. He was waiting for him, waiting to forgive him. And he ran toward him. And he said, let's get the best, the cloth, the ring, the fatted calf, and let's have a party. When forgiveness is made to those that have wronged you, bitterness is gone and joy takes its place. If I understand what that parable is all about. But it's not easy to forgive someone who's wronged you. It can only be done through the grace of God. That's why he says the grace will settle you. Do you have aught against another? Joseph would have had off with him. Remember, he was sold into slavery. Went down to Egypt. Terrible things happened to him. And then his brothers came back years later asking for food. They didn't even realize that he was now vice president of Egypt. He recognized them and they came begging for corn. And of course, the events that I don't want to go into the story, but near the end, they found out that this is Joseph, the one they had sold into slavery, the one they had lied to their father and said he was dead. This is Joseph. And they come to him and they are humble because they thought he might kill us now if he forgave them. And he said, you meant it for bad, but God had a purpose in it. God meant it for good. Grace, the grace to forgive. God has plenty of it. And it's free. And all you have to do is ask. I read this story several years ago, and no wonder they call him the savior. I'm actually kind of. The story goes that a little girl, 17 years old, was living in a Brazilian neighborhood about 20 miles from the capital of the large city of Rio de Janeiro. Sometimes they would go into Rio and she longed to live and live in Rio de Janeiro with all the lights and all the sparkle that was there that she would see when she'd visit Rio. But she lived in a little farmhouse, two rooms. The room she slept in had no floors, dirt floor, cardboard was on the floor, and at night she would have to sleep on a pallet on the cardboard. And she would dream about Rio. She'd dream about the nightlight. And she talked to her mother how she wanted to go to Rio. She wanted to go there and to live. And her mother told her no, she couldn't go. And then one night, 17 year old girl slipped out and went to Rio. And her mother realized that she had gone to Rio. She knew that in order to survive in this city, you had to do things with your body that were totally unthinkable. And she wept for her daughter and she went down to the local store and she set in a photo machine and she took all the money she could possibly afford to make pictures and she made picture after picture black and white picture of herself in the photo machine and she wrote on the back of the pictures. She took what money she had left and she went to Rio and she went from nightclub, the nightclub where her daughter might hang out. And she posted on the windows, on the mirrors in the bathroom, a picture of herself with the message on the back. And she spent several days there, she was putting these pictures up all around and she put them in the lobbies of hotels, cheap hotels where she might go and serve her customers and so forth. Not finding her daughter, she came home disheartened. Not too many days later, a young, disheveled 17 year old girl was walking down the steps of a hotel to leave. She'd finished her job and she was wanting to get another job. And the little girl with the with the twinkle of youth from her body and from her life, from her eyes. She was walking out the door and she saw the black and white picture of her mother that she was so familiar. And she took the picture and Turned it over and on the back it said these words, whatever you've done, whatever you've become, it doesn't matter. Please come home. And she did. That's grace. Didn't cost anything. That's grace. God gives us at no cost the grace for salvation, the grace to resist temptation. The grace to have the inner peace and the grace for a sure foundation. All we have to do is to take part in that race. Let's stand.