Good morning. We're going to be completing our series in 1 Thessalonians this morning. The title of our message is The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ Be With You. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 28. And for those who may be making tally marks every time I say the key word, the key word today is grace. So every time I say that word, just make a little mark, count it up at the end, let me know how many times I've said the word grace, okay? So once again, the title of our message is the entire verse, almost the entire verse from scripture, 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 28. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, amen. So let us pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you for your mercy. We thank you for your grace. We ask God that you would open our eyes to see the wonderful things that are in your word, and specifically today on this topic of grace. Help us, Lord, to understand so that we may walk in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we may rejoice in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And may this day, Lord, be a day of new victory over sin, of new comfort from the Holy Spirit, of a new security in Christ because of your grace. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Now, by way of review, in our last message, We looked at the topic of read this letter in 1 Thessalonians chapter five and verse 27. I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren. And we saw that Paul was concerned that the leaders in the church might not read his letter to the entire church. Now, why would that be? It's because by withholding and presenting God's word in a selective way, some church elders could use that to gain greater power over church members. Now, it's sad to think that Paul would find it necessary to give them that charge, but we know from church history that this definitely was a concern. It wasn't just theoretical, it wasn't just a possibility, it was an actual reality in some places. For instance, this was done by diatrophies in the third epistle of the Apostle John, where he has to deal with diatrophies who refuses to receive him and those he sent, and refuses to read his letter to the church. We see this in the reference to the Nicolaitans in the book of Revelation, as our Lord Jesus refers twice to this group called the Nicolaitans. And we saw that just for the name itself and the sufficiency of scripture, we can have some confidence that the Nicolaitans were exercising an extreme authority over the church and actually abusing their authorities as elders or leaders within the church. And Jesus said that thing that they were doing and that they were teaching, that he hated it. And so we want to take notice of that. Later in church history, we saw how in Roman Catholicism, there was a tendency over time to lock the truth of the gospel away in the Latin language, the Latin scholars language, and for the the ordinary Christian to not have access to the word of God, to only know those parts that the clergy saw fit to present in their homilies and their sermons. And the result of that was eventually the need for the Protestant Reformation and the return to sola scripture, only scripture. And so we see church history confirms this issue that we are intended to present the whole Bible to the whole church, that there should be no secret parts, no secret letters, no Gnosticism in the church that would separate the clergy from the laity as we see with the Nicolaitans. So, We should be zealous to make the whole Bible available to all. Now, coming to this morning, Happy Father's Day. It is a wonderful thing to celebrate Father's Day, and it is a good day to teach on the doctrine of God's grace. Because although we have need, we all have need of grace, as fathers, we often feel our need for God's grace in particularly painful ways. As fathers, we are constantly confronted with our inability to be as good a father as we want to be. And so we need to turn to God and ask him to give us the grace to be the dad our children need, to be the husband our wives need, because we are frail, and weak, and inconsistent, and dumb, and all the other things. I could keep going, but I'll just stop right there. We need God's grace. As we sang this morning, I need thee every hour. Other than God, there are no perfect fathers, even in the Bible. And we see that over and over again. Some of our greatest heroes in the Bible do not turn out to be very successful dads. And the consequences are often on display there in the stories, especially in the Old Testament. And so we must rely upon the grace of God in order to do this job well, to be a father, is to be dependent upon the grace of God moment by moment. So I hope that this message will prove to be an encouragement to you, not only to fathers, but especially to fathers. And so happy Father's Day. Now, as a Bible teacher, I can't resist the opportunity to make a little contribution on how should we honor fathers? Okay, this is a little side trail for a moment, if you will, just one slide. But I just found this, I'm intrigued by the way God reveals himself to us in his word. And sometimes we, Sometimes we're unable to see the passages for what they're saying because we have this impression of God as being very serious and very, you know, that he has no sense of humor. And I think in this passage, there's an element of God having a sense of humor, okay? Now you let me know what you think. In Malachi chapter one in verses six through eight, we read, a son honors his father and a servant his master. If then I am a father, the father, where's my honor? And if I am a master, where's my reverence? Says the Lord of hosts to you priests who despise my name. Now, I want to point out that the word despise historically means to ignore, to neglect. You know, it is not a matter of animosity. You know, Jesus despised the shame of the cross. He didn't have animosity toward it. He just ignored it as he finished the task that he'd been given by his father. So that word despised needs to be seen as these priests are ignoring the weightiness and the importance of God's name. And then he continues. Yet you say, in what way? Have we despised your name? And God responds, you offer defiled food on my altar. But you say, in what way have we defiled you? And God responds by saying the table of the Lord is contemptible. Now the word contemptible is another word like despise that we've lost touch with the meaning of that word. If you look it up in the dictionary, you'll find that when something is contemptible, it means it is being disregarded. It's being treated like it's not important, okay? Like in the contempt of court is one place where we hear this word contempt used in modern context. And it means you've disregarded the orders of the court. You've disregarded it, you've ignored it. You've acted like it didn't matter. Okay, so that's what's going on here. You've said the table of the Lord is, it doesn't matter. And when you offer the blind, that's a blind lamb or a blind goat as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and the sick, these are cattle or livestock, is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor. Try to get away with that by offering it to your political official. Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably, says the Lord of hosts? Now, We could take this passage entirely seriously and just say, man, these priests are really blowing it. And they were. They were disregarding the word, the name of the Lord. They were treating the table of the Lord as though it didn't matter. They were offering up sacrifices with inferior cuts of meat from animals that were not acceptable to God. And so we can just take it to that level and say that was wrong. But I think it also reveals the heart of God that if he wants to be honored properly, he would prefer to be honored by bringing him a better feast with a higher quality cut of meat. And that might also be a good way for us to honor the fathers in our lives. So there you have it, that's my biblical insight on how to honor your father. Throw a feast with some really good meat, and I'm sure that he'll be pleased. So, Paul begins and ends his letters with grace. This is one of the marks of the authenticity of a letter from the apostle Paul. He begins and ends with his references to grace. For instance, Romans 1.7, to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 6.24, the other end of the book, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. 1 Corinthians 1, verse three, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The end of 1 Corinthians, verse 16, 23, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 1 Corinthians, or 2 Corinthians rather, chapter one and verse two, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then again in 2 Corinthians 13, 14, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, amen. So we see a pattern here. We see how important grace is in the doctrine of the Apostle Paul, the theology of the Apostle Paul. And so what is grace? And how does it work? How does grace work? Now I know that it's very easy for us to just camp out on the emotional aspect of this topic. And we're gonna do that a little bit, okay? But as a pastor and a Bible teacher, it's my responsibility to feed the flock, right? And feeding the flock is not just feeding things that feel good and taste good, but actually getting into the nuts and the bolts of things so that you are understanding the truth and able to embrace that truth and able to teach that truth to your children and to your wife and teach that to your neighbor so that we have a community that understands grace and doesn't confuse it with other things that are not grace, okay? So, what is grace? Grace is God's unmerited favor toward undeserving sinners. That's the basic definition of grace. It is God's unmerited favor. You don't deserve it. You're undeserving. You don't merit it. In biblical terms, grace can be defined as God's favor toward the unworthy. or God's benevolence toward the undeserving. The key thing here is that the person receiving this grace does not deserve it and therefore cannot earn it and cannot pay it back. It's undeserved kindness. Now in his grace, God is willing to forgive us for our sins and bless us. even though we fall short, far short of living the righteous life that he intended for us to live. In Romans 3.23, we read, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And this is a verse that needs to be understood because it's so central to salvation. All have sinned, all. There's not one who is righteous. All have sinned. So what is that sin? How has that sin occurred? The answer is we have fallen short of the glory of God. Like an archer with an arrow, and he's aiming at a target and he pulls back the string, but he doesn't pull it back far enough. He lets go and the arrow flies. It's flying toward the target, but it doesn't make it all the way there. It falls short of the target. So what is the target? The target is the glory of God. You were intended to hit the target of living as a part of the display of the glory of God. You have fallen short. Your part of the display is unacceptable. It is a defilement. It is a distortion. It is the disruption of God's purpose. You have sinned against God. You have fallen short of what he intended your life to be. You do not deserve to be forgiven. You don't deserve to continue to exist because the great artist of this grand display of the glory of God is offended by the fact that you have corrupted his work. And like any artist would look into the kiln and see a pot there that was intended to be beautifully round and it's slumped and collapsed within the kiln. He doesn't take it out and say, oh, look at that beautiful thing. No, he breaks it because it doesn't represent the skill the competence that he has as an artist. He has no reason to keep a distorted, corrupted work of art. We have all sinned. We have all fallen short of the target we were intended to hit. And we cannot save ourselves. We cannot fix it. There's nothing we can do to make it better. Now that's the foundation upon which God offers us grace. It's as though God is this great artist with his own gallery. And if you walk into this hall, you see perfection on display. You go into another hall and you see another form of perfection on display. But over here, there's a new wing in the gallery. There's a new wing, and a banner over that gallery as you walk in, it says, Amazing Grace Displays of Mercy. Displays of tender, loving kindness toward undeserving works of art. That's what we are. We're in that wing of the gallery. We are not in the wing of perfection. We are in the wing of trophies of His grace. Think of it that way. And it's such a privilege to be a trophy of God's grace. In Romans chapter five in verse one through two, we read, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. This is why Paul repeatedly refers to this grace as being the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because he is the one who bought it for us. He is the one who paid for it with his own blood. And he is the one who administers it to us as we walk with him by faith. Now I have some real quotes for you here from some real people. I thought that might be helpful. Justin Holcomb, the professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, and he really is a real person, and he really is there, and the Reformed Theological Seminary really is there too. Just wanna let you know, these are not Chet GPT concoctions, but he writes, grace is the opposite of karma, which is all about getting what you deserve. Karma is the idea of what goes around comes around. And that whatever you do, it's gonna come back at you. And you're gonna experience either the blessing or the cursing of your own behavior. Grace, on the other hand, is getting what you don't deserve. And both in the sense of not being punished, but also in the sense of being honored and cherished and loved. Grace is God reaching downward to people who are in rebellion against him. Jerry Bridges writing in The Pursuit of Holiness. And this is obviously a reference to Romans chapter five in verse eight where Paul writes, but God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And so we see the awesome, amazing grace of God in that he didn't wait for us to stop and apologize. He died for us while we were still sinners. So the basic idea of God's grace is that it is totally undeserved loving kindness towards sinners, even before they stop sinning. God is loving you even while you're out there running away from him, and he's setting the stage to draw you to himself through the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, whenever we're dealing with a topic as big and important as the doctrine of grace, we need to be reminded of the principle of rightly dividing the word of truth. We find that in 2 Timothy 2 in verse 14, where Paul writes to Timothy, remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers. In other words, this is the kind of bickering and arguing that was found, especially in the Middle Ages during a period of slavery. scholasticism is what it was called, where people were just relishing in getting into the tedium of words, and they would often just waste huge amounts of time arguing about things that didn't even matter. And so Paul is saying, don't do that. Don't strive about words to no profit. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed. Notice, rightly dividing the word of truth. but on the other hand, shun profane and idle babblings, for they increase to more ungodliness. Now in the context where Paul tells Timothy to rightly divide the word of truth, he's dealing with how words matter. We want to get it right, but we want to get it right in such a way that there's benefit, there's profit, that we're not just becoming academic about this. And so as I get into this doctrine of grace, we're gonna look at some categories of grace, and not in order to just turn it into an academic presentation, a kind of a bloodless presentation of God's grace, but rather to help you understand the stages of grace. that you've been through if you're a believer. Okay, these are the ways in which God's grace has appeared in your life and for you to then now look back and rejoice over that. So there are three different kinds of grace for people in three different kinds of situations and conditions and positions in this world. And so God's grace shows up, first of all, as common grace. Common grace is toward all of mankind. Everyone gets the benefit of God's common grace. In Matthew chapter five and verse 43, we have reference to this when Jesus says, you've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. Okay, this is how you can be like dad. We need to be reminded, Matthew chapter five, the Sermon on the Mount, this is spoken to a group of people who are intended to see God as their father. When God teaches them to pray, it's our father who art in heaven. This is a sermon to people who are believers and who are in the family of God. Whether they are in that moment or whether they will be in, after Christ rises from the dead. The point is the content of the Sermon on the Mount is addressed to believers who can call upon God as their father. Okay, so he says, you will be like sons of your father in heaven for he he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends his reign on the just and the unjust. Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." And so God's common grace is provided to everyone. Bonnie commented this morning as we were getting up and getting ready to come to church that God's common grace was falling all around us outside, you know, as the rain was falling. God didn't specify, okay, this guy's a pretty bad guy, I'm going to just skip his farm, he's getting no rain today, whereas the farm next door is going to get lots of rain because I like that guy. No, common grace, everybody gets the rain, everybody gets the sunshine, and everything else that comes with God's kindness as our creator. Now, I have a few passages of quotes here on God's common grace, which I found very helpful. First of all, Sam Storms, who I know for a fact does exist, and that he does write this, common grace is every favor, listen closely, common grace is every favor falling short of salvation, okay, everything except for salvation, which this undeserving, sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God. This includes the delay of his wrath, the mitigation of our sin natures, that means he's withholding our passions and keeping us from going ballistic, natural events that lead to prosperity, such as a good economy, and all the gifts that humans use and enjoy naturally. These are the things that are God's common grace. It's showered upon all of mankind around the world. And so that is his goodness. Louis Burkhoff, writing on the subject of common grace, says, common grace curbs the destructive power of sin. It maintains in a measure the moral order of the universe, thus making an orderly life possible, distributes in varying degrees gifts and talents among men, promotes the development of science and art, and showers untold blessings upon the children of men. And so that's common grace. And before you came to Christ, you were a beneficiary of God's common grace. And you still are. You are still enjoying the sunshine and the rain. You're enjoying the benefits of various technologies and the benefits of whatever is left of good government. You're getting the benefit of these things. And when God chooses to judge a nation, these are the things that begin to kind of dry up, disappear. He does send famine. He does send drought. God does judge nations in history. And so when you see these things happening, as we saw in Egypt, this is God's judgment. Well, how does he judge? He withdraws this common grace. He just begins to withdraw that common grace. Now, God's saving grace shows up in the courtroom scene of God's justice. Just to remind you of the principle here, that we have two important scenes in which we must rightly divide the word of truth. There are all these passages of scripture that address the courtroom scene of God's judgment. And in the courtroom scene, we have words like justification, okay? Where we are, let's see, where Christ is the propitiation for our sins, where God is giving us mercy because of what Christ has done. And so we've got the justice of God in the courtroom scene. And it's important to keep all those passages that relate to God's judgment and justice and the gospel of our salvation in that context, because if you don't keep them where they belong, they slide over into the other context, which is the family room scene, okay? We're going to deal with that next, but in the family room, God is our father. He's dealing with us as his children. He's disciplining us not to destroy us, but to grow us up and to help us mature. All these passages that deal with God as our father in the family room scene do not work in the courtroom scene, okay? The courtroom comes first. Then we get transitioned over into the family room scene, okay? So the saving grace of God shows up in the courtroom scene of his justice. In the courtroom scene as a lost sinner, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ appears in his making his substitutionary atonement for our sins. While we were yet sinners, he died for us in order that we might be justified in court. and reconciled to God by faith in Jesus. And so we read in Romans 3 in verse 21, 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 Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now, Paul is describing here the reality that we stand before God guilty of falling short of the glory of God, and that God has now dealt with that by allowing the blood of Jesus Christ to pay for that sin. So no one gets away with anything. Either Christ's blood pays for that sin, or the sinner will have to pay for that sin, him or herself. And so we have this courtroom scene in which we enjoy the grace of God as a saving grace. God has rescued us and saved us. So saving grace is where God, as our judge, forgives us for Christ's sake, okay? That's an important scenario that we wanna make sure that we keep intact. And so in the courtroom scene, we have a passage like this, Ephesians chapter two and verse four. But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together in Christ or with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. "'that in the ages to come, "'he might show the exceeding riches of his grace "'in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.'" That's that new gallery in the, that new hall in the gallery, the mercy hall. That's where God's grace is on display. Then he says, "'For by grace you have been saved through faith.'" And that, not of yourselves. I believe that the word that is referring to faith. The faith itself is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works. lest anyone should boast. If there's any element of the idea that I am going to earn my way in this process, that I'm going to somehow put God in my debt because I have been a good person and have done the right thing, then we are dealing with works. And as soon as we allow works to come into this process, then we have a basis upon which to boast. we will be able to say in heaven, I am here because I was smarter and better than the average sinner. I had the good sense to see the error of my ways, and I repented, and I'm now, yes, God is merciful, but I had to do my part. I repented, I turned, I was, I'm better. I'm better. There's not going to be any basis upon which we can boast. Now, I know some people get really tedious about that. And sometimes we violate what Paul was saying about, you know, getting in too deep in the weeds, and we get wrapped around the axle of our own systematic theologies sometimes. But the point here is, you're not supposed to have any reason for boasting. that you are a believer, that you are saved. It's all a gift of God's grace through faith, and even the faith itself is a gift from God, so we can't boast about that either. Okay, so, for we are his workmanship, his craftsmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Now, these good works don't get us saved. They're an evidence that we now have been saved. He has created good works for us to walk in, And God has prepared those beforehand for us to walk in them. Now I've got whole sermons about that, and I gotta resist the temptation to get into them now. This courtroom scene sets the stage now for the family room scene. God's sanctifying grace shows up in the family room scene. And in the family room scene, as a born again child of God, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ appears as the power of the Holy Spirit working in us to will and to do what is pleasing to God through the obedience that springs from faith in the goodness of God. Now, I know that I can sound a little redundant on this point, but I believe that it is so important that we understand that the only obedience that pleases God is an eager, joyful obedience that springs from our actually believing that his ways are good and wise. There's got to be this sense that we're doing ourselves a favor when we obey God, that because he's so good and so wise, that doing things his way is doing ourselves a favor. a favor, okay? So as long as we have this idea that, oh, I got to do this, I think it's stupid, and I don't know why God even cares about all this, but it's really hard, and I have to do it, and I'm not having any fun at all, and it's just because God's a control freak. I don't know what's going on. That's not pleasing to God. We need to be able to obey God with eagerness and joy, knowing that it's because He's good and wise that He requires this. And because He is good and He is wise, it's the best of all possible futures that we have. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse seven. Here is a family room scene for you, okay? If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. So what the writer of Hebrews is saying here is, if God's not spanking you once in a while, it's because you're not his kid. God spanks his kids. He doesn't spank the neighbor kids. He spanks his kids. And if you are his kid, then one of two things has to be true. Either you are so perfect, you never need chastening, or you're not in the family and you need to go and check your spiritual birth certificate because God does chasten his kids. He disciplines us not to destroy us, not even to punish us, but in order to grow us up, to train us. And so he continues, furthermore, we had human fathers who corrected us and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them. In other words, they were not perfect fathers. but He for our profit. He never does anything without a good reason, and it's a good reason for us that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now, there's so many ways we could go whenever we read a passage like this. I'm gonna try to just let it, stand on its own, but sanctifying grace is where God, as our Father, trains us to become like Christ. And all of his actions toward us from that point on are in order to bring us to that likeness of Christ and take us into eternity. Now, which would you prefer? that God coddled you in your immaturity and allow you to stay just the way you are and then go into eternity and for all eternity you be this spiritual pygmy. Or would you like God to put you through some things in order to grow you up and expand your capacity to appreciate who he is and what he does so that you spend all eternity as a much more, let's just say, a much more impressive specimen of humanity, okay? That's the question. God is not offering you a life of ease because this world is the place in which he grows us up and gets us ready for eternity. And so when you face a trial, which this is not a sermon on that subject, but when you go through trials, rejoice. because God is growing you up. He's training you and preparing you to live with him forever. Now in the family room scene, we have passages like this, 1 Corinthians 15, nine, for I am the least of the apostles who am not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than them all. Yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me." This is a passage that gives us a window into what's happening when God works in us to will and to do his good pleasure. Having come to salvation by grace, the grace of God, as justification in the courtroom scene, Paul then goes on to live and serve God in the family room scene as a child of God, where he goes through progressive sanctification. And that included being graciously called as an apostle. And he knew from the very beginning of his calling that he was going to suffer, that it would not be easy. but that it would be good in the sense that it would have a good effect in him and a good effect upon all those that God sent him to reach. Now think about this. He's a Jewish rabbi and he's being sent to the Gentile nations to take the gospel to people who, he cannot enjoy their food, okay? He cannot enjoy their customs and their way of life without a whole lot of God's grace. And that's what he has. He's got the grace of God to be able to become all things to all men in order that by all means he may win some. Now, do not presume upon the grace of God. This is where we need to be careful that our systematic theologies and our definitions of doctrines don't begin to get in the way of what the scriptures actually say. Sometimes we find things that we can't quite understand, but yet they are there and we need to accept them. And so in 2 Corinthians 6, in verse 1, we read, we then, as workers together with him, also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, in an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. So we should never presume upon the grace of God by assuming that we will be able to repent and obey him at some other, some later date. You know, Lord, I hear what you're saying, and I agree that it's wrong, and I need to do something about it, but I'll get back to you tomorrow, okay? It doesn't work that way. Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart. God intends for us to respond to the grace of God when it is extended to us, and it does seem to have a shelf life. We need to not presume upon the grace of God that we will be able to come back and deal with something later. Our ability to hear and obey his voice now is entirely due to his saving grace. And we must not squander his unmerited favor when it's extended. So when we presume upon God by hearing his word without immediately obeying his word, we are receiving the grace of God in vain. And that's a very dangerous thing to do. Don't do it. Now we must also be careful. I hesitated as to whether to include this, but because of the world in which we live and the history of the church in recent decades, I think it's important to say this. We must also be careful not to allow sanctifying grace, or as others call it, enabling grace, to morph into a new version of the law. And let me explain what I mean. Galatians chapter five and verse one, stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed, I Paul say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ. You who attempt to be justified by the law, you have fallen from grace. Now, since both our salvation and our sanctification are entirely accomplished by grace, That means both are unmerited favor of God. They are entirely accomplished through our enthusiastic obedience of faith in the goodness and the wisdom of God. the wisdom of God's will rather than as a burden that we must bear. Now here, let me get to my point. Some Christians and some Christian leaders have been hurt by Bible teachers who overemphasize the sanctifying grace of God at the expense of the idea that grace is God's unmerited favor. And when that happens, Biblical principles in square quotes here can begin to function as a new version of the law by bringing courtroom salvation passages into the family room. When that happens, we are confused about our position before God. A lot of young people have been hurt by being under the instruction of Bible teachers who put such an emphasis on Bible principles that if you don't keep these Bible principles, then God's not pleased with you. And suddenly we have these kids who are trying to keep God happy. You know, like he's there ready to lower the boom if they don't continue to honor the principles that they've been taught that are required by God. We are free in Christ to do what we believe to be pleasing to our Father without turning our obedience into a way to curry favor with God. In other words, if you think that by what you do, and it's something as simple as having your devotions, If you think that when you have your devotions that you have in some way put God in your debt because you've been a good boy or girl today, you're walking in a new kind of the law, okay? If you think that you don't have God's blessing upon you today because you didn't have your devotions this morning, you are under another form of the law. It doesn't work that way. God is not going, you didn't have your devotion, so you're on your own. No, that's not God's grace. That's bringing family room principles into the courtroom session and courtroom principles into the family room scene to the point where we're trembling before a God who we think is just ready to swat us down if we don't do all the things that we know we ought to do. There... It's like a child who's afraid of his father and can't climb up onto his lap and just be held and loved and hugged because the child is only thinking about the discipline, only thinking about the, you know, the harshness of God. Now, there is no condemnation to those of us who are in Christ Jesus, in the family room with Christ Jesus. provided we walk or endeavor to walk in the Spirit. Romans 8.1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. We don't have time to unpack all the implications of this verse and those in the context of this verse, but let me just sum this part up with this statement. Beware. when your Christian life starts to become just an unending list of biblical principles that you have to follow or else. A lot of kids have walked away from God because they cannot handle the stress of this version of Christianity. When you hear somebody who's walked away from the church and walked away from their faith and deconstructed their faith, it is often because in some degree they have been raised in an environment in which God is always looming over them, ready to lower the boom. if they are not fulfilling all the biblical principles that somebody taught their parents were absolutely necessary in order to be a true Christian or a good Christian. So it's a It's just a kind of thing we have to deal with today. And the fallout, you know, the wreckage of that emphasis on God's enabling grace and the loss of God's unmerited favor towards helpless sinners has created a lot of spiritual casualties. So summing up the doctrine of grace, God's grace is his unmerited favor. expressed through mercy and kindness toward us in spite of our unworthiness as rebellious sinners. God loves us just the way we are, but he loves us too much to leave us just the way we are. And so he begins a process of transforming us. God's grace shows up first as common grace, where God, as the creator, provides all the good things people need in order to live and prosper in this world, short of saving grace that brings salvation. It's everything but salvation. That's God's common grace. Saving grace shows up in the courtroom scene when God, as our judge, forgives us and saves us by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, by a gospel revealed in scripture alone, for the glory of God alone. There's a good Protestant reformed statement there. So God's saving grace rescues us in the courtroom scene from the judgment of God. And finally, sanctifying grace shows up in the family room scene, where God, as our Heavenly Father, trains us to grow up in Christ by continuing to live for the glory of God in the obedience of faith as His beloved children. Now, it's important for us as fathers To be able, on the one hand, to be deeply affectionate with our children and our grandchildren, to hold them, to hug them, to let them know they are loved, that they are welcome, that we enjoy them, that we like them. There's another part of us that sees their future. That if this attitude, this behavior, this bad habit is not dealt with, it will interfere with their life in the future. And that if we really love them, we'll bring it to their attention. As a father, you can deal with them in discipline. As a grandfather, you can deal with them not only in conversation, but also in having conversation with their father. and doing what you can to draw attention to what needs to be done in the area of training. It's hard to hold these two together in the proper mix. And I have to admit, I have been guilty of veering into the grumpy old man version of this, you know, when my grandchildren begin to just get out of control and I feel helpless and I just wanna, you know, take a walk, you know. So I had to discipline myself to stay and love and nurture and be there with them and love them in spite of the fact there are things that I would like to improve about them. It's the same with God, our Father. He does love you. He does feel affection toward you. You can love Him. You don't have to be afraid of Him. But He does have an agenda. He intends for you to grow up. There's a future coming where he wants you to have the capacity to appreciate the amazing truths of who he is and what he's done. And that may come through some level of training and even of discipline. But don't lose heart. Don't become discouraged. The God who administers the discipline is still Abba, Father. He loves you. First Thessalonians chapter five and verse 28. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness. Lord, we receive our fatherhood because you are a father. And in you, all fatherhood is named. Lord, help us to be like you, to hold these responsibilities in proper balance. Lord, that our routines would be constantly attending to all aspects of what it means to be a good father. And Lord, may we come to the end of our lives and to be able to look back upon our lives with a sense that you have coached us and helped us by your grace to be good fathers. And Lord, all of us, we need your grace. We need you every hour. Lord, may we step into this new week encouraged by the fact that we have this amazing grace that not only saves us, but also sanctifies us and provides for us. and we give you all the glory and all the praise in Jesus' name, amen.