Grace And Peace With God
- Details
- Sunday Morning Service
- Jeremy Richards
- Copalis Community Church
- 22 September 2024
- Philippians 1:3-5
- Genesis 6:5
This idea of grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ a little bit again. Again. And then we're going to work into chapter one, verse three, four and five. So, Galatians, chapter one. We're starting in verse two, and we'll go through five.
Did I say I said I meant Philippians, Philippians. So, Philippians, chapter one, verse two. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making requests for you all with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. Let's pray.
Oh, Father. Lord, I just would like to bring this time before you, oh, Lord, I don't think I'm experiencing the fullness of what you have to offer, Lord. And I thank God for this time as a reminder to me and to us, Lord, of what you're trying to do in our hearts. Lord, please give us an accurate biblical foundation, Lord, that can fully understand and bear the spiritual weight that you want to put upon it. Lord, I just ask in Jesus name, amen.
We see here, just in starting in verse one, two and three, that Paul has an interesting view. The Philippians, these are individuals who are not necessarily super saints. They are not necessarily more holy or dedicated or sinless than you and I. But Paul has a unique perspective in his viewpoint of them. If I asked you, do you think that you deserve to be have every remembrance of you result in the thanksgiving to God on your behalf?
Let me put it this way. When other people think of you, do they necessarily thank God for you all the time?
Some people might thank God for you sometimes, but there's other people, from my perspective, that don't necessarily thank God for you all the time. It goes like this. A little bit of grumbling, a little bit of complaining, a little bit of bringing up of past problems, a little bit of a history or water under the bridge is normally what affects our thoughts of other people. But Paul says, I thank God upon every remembrance of you. That's a unique perspective.
Some people have close relationships with people, but I'm not sure they actually can accomplish or actually come about to where a person can say, every time I think about that person, it's one of thankfulness. I'm not sure our relationships are so tight that we could say that that individual or our relationship with other individuals says, always in every prayer of mine, making requests for you by joy, a fullness of heart that expects or wants to build into that relationship. I look at my children, my wife and I have lots of good feelings toward them, but I'm not positive that every prayer I make is one out of joy for them. Sometimes it's like, God, would you please do something in that individual before I kill them? Right.
It's just like, Lord, I don't know if I can handle being in the same house as those people any longer. It might be a real prayer from your heart, but I'm not sure it could be described as joyful.
Paul here is being honest in his representation of his spiritual heart towards the Philippians, not because they're more spiritual or sinless, but because it's coming out of a certain perspective that he has. You and I don't necessarily have that same perspective spiritually. And therefore, the blessing that could come through this letter from Paul is sometimes lost because our spiritual perspective is twisted or not correct. So I'd like to just go back before this and look at this idea of grace and peace, number one, before we go there, that Paul's ability to thank God upon every remembrance and pray for them all with joy ultimately is not from his own heart as a person. This was an individual who was burdened with anger and it controlled his life as a person.
Even so that he went into houses and drug out christians and sent them some to their death or jail or persecution. This is not an individual who is better than you and I, but has been affected with God's heart towards those people he come in contact with. That heart is based on the idea of grace, peace, and that is the thing that flows through this book more than anything else. Without a true understanding of grace and peace, we cannot accurately understand God's desire and his nature. For us as people.
You and I have a twisted idea of grace and peace. It is natural, it is normal, but it is not spiritual. Every one of us has been affected with it. As a baby, the training started, right? Anyone know how it works as a baby?
The baby cries and it gets what it wants. That is not necessarily grace. It screams and throws a tantrum. And if mom doesn't listen, do you know what happens? It really gets worked up.
It throws itself into convulsive sobs as young little kids, some will throw themselves onto the floor in Walmart or any other public place, making whatever kind of commotion is possible. Just please give me what I want. That is not grace. Grace is the idea that we receive something back from God. It continues when we become young adults, teenagers, in their parents house.
They think that their rights extend everywhere in the house and that everything belongs to them. And then they get married, and they think that their wife, they deserve their wife to honor them. They think that she should respect him. By nature. It belongs to me.
It's mine by right. They say the woman says the same thing. That is not grace. That is not grace. You and I, if you feel you deserve grace, if you feel the grace you're looking for is deserved, I'm going to tell you a secret.
It's not grace. If you feel you deserve it, you might be sucking a bottle, but it's not grace.
I would like to go into that a little bit. But there's also the idea of justice, this peace with God. You and I have a twisted view of God's justice. It comes about in the saying like something like this. How could a good God allow a bad thing happen to me?
As long as God walks in line with my view of morality and treats me according to my own justice, everything is fine. But the minute things go out of order, I get upset with him, I punish him. I do things to make him feel bad. That's not a biblical view of justice. It's this no headed monster that we call karma.
Karma is a strange thing. Karma, for whatever reason, this brainless beast that we talk about always rewards me and the people I love with good things. It's karma. And they just showers me. But the people I hate, it always rewards them with evil things.
Astonishing. This karma thing, that's our own justice. Peace with God does not come about with him walking in line with our view of justice. It comes about when his righteous judgment is understood. I'd like to bring up a couple things.
My dad brought up the parable of the prodigal son last week. And as I thought about that, I realized, you know, it's just as much a prodigal of the other son as it is about the prodigal son. It's interesting. The prodigal son is invited to share in a feast with the father, but the second son who didn't go away and devour his living with prostitutes. That individual deserved everything the father had to offer, but he participated in none.
He deserved all that the father had, but was nothing able to share in any. That grace which the father had could not be received by the son who stayed home. It took a leaving, the father engaging in prodigal living in order to receive the feasting reward of grace. It says that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 who need no repentance. The thing we get twisted is we don't even know whether there's any joy over the 99.
It says that the shepherd will leave the 99 to go in pursuit of the one who went astray.
The thought has been, the 99 have always had. But in my mind, those 99 don't get anything. They deserved it. The two sons. One said, they said to him, go, come into my vineyard and work with me.
The one said, sir, I go, but did not go. The other one said, no, I will not go. But later went, who is it that pleased the father? The one that said, no. There is an idea that we cannot participate in grace until we understand we don't deserve grace.
The more you feel you deserve grace, the farther it is from you we look at. I'm going to read out of Genesis, looking at the life of Noah.
Excuse me.
In chapter six of Genesis.
Chapter six, verse five. Chapter six, verse five of Genesis.
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air. For I am sorry that I have made them. The wickedness of the heart of man was great intent on doing evil things.
And the Lord was sorry that he had made them and had made a decision. They will destroy. Then we see an interesting verse in eight. It says, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. There is no indication that Noah was any different than the rest of the people that lived on the earth until this moment, that he was under the same curse, the same judgment of destruction.
But it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. In verse nine, it says, this is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generation. Noah walked with God. So we see the first thing in Noah's life regarding him before the righteousness, that he's going to be described to heaven, that he found grace.
First. We see this interestingly, which I'm struggling with this idea, but we see this in the life of lot also. Lot lived in Sodom, a tremendously wicked place. And here grace goes in, in the form of an angel, and rescues lot out of a town that is under destruction, and brings him out forcibly from that town and gives him a future. We see this in other places, this grace reaching into the lives of people and rescuing them.
I was looking this last couple weeks we read about a young man who is the son of Saul son Jonathan, and Mephibosheth is his name. Mephibosheth and Mephiboshethe. Normally, when a new king took the throne, the old king would work to extinguish the lineage of the previous king from the earth by killing them. And so David calls MEphibosheth to his throne. And Mephibosheth is certainly worried at this situation.
Not only is he an heir to Saul, who attempted to kill him Throne, but he's also lame in his feet, right? He had been dropped as a child and had become lame in both of his feet. It's further a little interesting that David, upon taking Jerusalem, was insults were hurled at him and his army, saying, even the lame and the blind could keep you out of Jerusalem. And therefore it became a saying, the lame and the blind whom my soul abhors. Interesting.
And now we have this individual who's lame in his feet, being brought to David. Mephibosheth says something interesting. After David said, you know, Mephibosheth, I want to sow kindness to you. I want to give to you the entire estate of your grandfather, who was king over Israel, who possessed a huge realm of property and goods. I want to give that to you.
Mephibosheth, at that moment, how do you think he felt? I think at this moment, before that moment, he thought, you know, my life is going to end, justice has called out, my life is going to be extinguished. But instead David said to him, I want to give you the entire inheritance that your grandfather Saul has. Mephibosheth responds in this way, who am I? Such like a dead dog that you should show me such kindness.
Who am I? A dead dog, that you should show me such kindness. I would like to say that is a fairly consistent word picture with grace. Grace is the receiving of something we absolutely don't deserve. But actually, not only don't we deserve it, legally, we should not have had the access to it.
Here we see mephibosheth receiving that grace. I'll go back to Philippians, the other idea that we have to understand prior to going into Philippians, in order to gather the most out of it to possible, in order to gain the fullness of the grace that God wants to offer us here. We also need to understand that this of peace with God, the idea that peace with God does not come about as a result of our idea of peace, that God is a God of justice. And as a result of that, as part of the nature there is a calling out of for our sins to be held accountable to. But through that work of Jesus Christ, instead of justice and judgment, Paul is saying that that message to you and I is grace and peace.
Okay, so going to verse three. Before we get there, my question to you is, do you feel that in your heart always when it says, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you? Is that God's heart towards you as a person?
Some of us would begin to be like the Pharisees who just a minute before had a stone to throw at the woman.
And we begin to step back, drop our stones and just turn around. We say, you know, I don't deserve that grace, right? Because of my past issues, I don't deserve God's grace. But it's interesting. I like to bring up three examples to help us in this issue before we go into Christ's heart.
For us, Noah is example, an Old Testament example of God's grace. Noah found grace in God's eyes, and God saved him out of certain destruction, blessed him and made him the father of all. All living people today gave him so much. But we see that after Noah came out of the ark, it says he became a farmer, right? And he began to grow grapes.
And he grew grapes and became drunk. And after becoming drunk, became naked in his tent and experienced something with his son that was shameful, that brought a curse on his son. His other two sons. Member took a blanket and walked him backwards and covered him. This individual with grace was stained with a difficult sin.
We see lot, strangely, in a similar circumstance, having been saved by grace, out of the fire of Sodom, goes to a retreat in the mountain, and there his children get him drunk, participate in something ungodly with him, and then bears consequences. We see David at the height of his. The beauty of his realm, bringing the ark back into Jerusalem, where it had been kind of an outcast for a while in storage as it soared. And now he's bringing the ark back to Jerusalem. Such a beautiful picture of the glory of someone walking by grace.
He said, how is it that you have set my lines in such beautiful places? And then such a painful chapter, he's on his roof and ends up engaging and seeing a woman, beautiful to behold, and engages in adultery. You say, how is it that an individual. How do we respond as people after God has shown us such beauty when we fall so horrendously? I think it's a picture for you and I that God's grace extends to even the absolutely most difficult circumstances.
You can imagine and handle. It's as if God gave us the most brutal kinds of sin, the most absolutely horrendous kinds of ideas in the midst of the pictures of grace. To give us an example that when we stumble under grace, we might have a picture of how God's heart can even extend to those situations. So my encouragement, before we look at this, the picture of Jesus is, is there anything that causes you to shrink back from God's grace and peace? I think if you're like me, you can look back at your childhood, your marriages, the raising of children, and you would just how could that have been possible?
But is that something to keep you from God's grace? I would say that it is an opportunity to experience God's grace. This book, in the opening chapter, says grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse three it says, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making requests for you all with joy as we go into this book. Whatever you're experiencing, Paul's desire is that you would come out of it experiencing God's grace and peace to a deeper level.
That heart is his heart towards you in his prayer in John. Jesus prayer in John, taking up, I think, from chapter 14 to chapter 17 of John is his prayer. The last part of his prayer has to do with his prayer for the disciples, and the very end of the prayer has to do with those who come to be disciples as a result of the disciples in John chapter 17, this is his heart for those believers that would come after he was resurrected and even his original disciples have died.
I'm going to show I'll start in 22. And the glory which you gave me, I have given them that they may be one, just as we are one, I in them and you and me, that they may be made perfect in one. That the world may know that you have sent me and have loved me as you love me. Father, in verse 24, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which you have given me. For you have loved me before the foundation of the world.
O righteous father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you sent me. I have declared to them your name and will declare it that the love with which you love me may be in them and I in them. Grace is the idea of him wanting at all costs to pass on the riches of his nature to people who don't have it. Grace is his goal of taking a people who don't deserve it, who are actually, under a sentence of condemnation, to rescue them, purchase them out of that and give to them something that they don't have. I am such a mess.
I thought that raising children, that my job was to get upset when they did something wrong.
They don't know what to do. It's my job to give them something they don't have, not to make them feel bad for their childish ways. I have transferred this to being a boss and come to the realization, you know, it's not necessarily, necessarily my job to make them feel bad when they make a mistake. It should be my job more to train them to give them something they don't have. And even a deeper way.
God's desire, his heart, is to take a sinful laden burden people, and to give them something that only exists in his heart. That is his nature. It is a beautiful thing. There may be people who are hung up today on the sins they have committed.
There's no excuse for them. But you cannot fully experience God's grace without the realization of the distance those sins put you from goddess, just to finish this message, I'm going to read Philippians and then say one more thing.
It says, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always, in every prayer of mine, making requests for you all with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. Jesus wants people to walk with him who commit their lives to him, whether they have sinned in grievous ways in their own view or not. He wants people to walk with him. The reason he wants people to walk with him is because he wants to share of his own resources with people who don't have them.
In my mind, that comes from the recognition of what our sins have done for us, a hearing of the gospel that God receives us just as we are, and a confession of our mouth that we want to follow him. I would like in your life for you to question your heart. Do I serve Jesus Christ? Have I confessed with my mouth that I want to follow him? And if you have, when you sin, that is the opportunity for God to show his grace to you, that it's time to look up and to receive that from him.
Jason talked about the individual that had committed adultery, and no one wants to think of something so painful infiltrated into a relationship as that. But the truth is, God has given plenty of examples that those who have even walked there can experience God's grace, that it's enough to cover every other sin we see. The individual that was crucified with Jesus on the cross, one on his right and one on his left, both under condemnation from the worldly system, but also from God. And they mocked Jesus. They made fun of him.
But one of them came to his senses. He came to his senses and realized that what he was doing and cried out to Jesus.
He said to the other one, you and I are here for what we have done, a recognition that our sins have put us someplace. We say, well, I don't like to feel that way, but I'd like to say that that place on the cross of accurately coming to an understanding of what your sin has done to you, is actually the very best place to receive God's grace. Make sense the next words. So he said, first of all, our sins, we are under just condemnation. He recognized God's justice.
And the very next words out of his mouth were, remember me. When you come into your kingdom. Everyone make sense. The place of grace is the beginning of faith to receive. And you and I, when you feel burdened, when you feel stuck up on the cross, when you feel condemned, my encouragement for all of us would be that's the closest place to heaven to speak to Jesus, to call out to him.
It's grace he wants to give you. So I hope that's another introduction to the same book of Philippians. Let's go ahead and pray. O Father. Lord, I do just look forward with anticipation.
That work you're wanting to do in all of our hearts, Father, I just ask that this would be a time of growth, Lord, of experiencing the good things of your grace. In Jesus name, amen.