Grace is God at Work - Louie Giglio

0:23 So I just want you to understand today that your story, our story, is a story of grace and glory. And we're going to see this not today, but in the weeks following. And I hope you'll be as excited about this as I am. We're going to start on the very first page of Scripture. And we're going to go to the very last page of Scripture. We're not going to stop on every page, but we're going to stop on a lot of pages really quickly. and you'll be surprised to see grace on every single page. You're like, no, grace happened when Jesus came. Grace happened in the Gospels. Grace happens when the New Testament church is born. No, grace is there from the beginning and grace is there at the end. And then we're gonna look and see on the first page, glory and all the way through all of scripture to the very last page, we're gonna see the glory of God because these are the themes of faith in Christ. Today, God is offering grace to anyone who needs it. Amen? He's offering grace today to anybody who needs it. Does anybody need grace today? Does anybody need grace in this gathering today? He's offering grace to anyone who needs it. Psalm 84, an anchor text for our church. It's where we got, by the way, the idea of being door holders and not just volunteers. It comes out of Psalm 84. But the end of this Psalm, it says, for the Lord God is a sun and a shield. In other words, God lights the way and illuminates things for us, but he also covers us and protects us. He's a sun and shield and he gives, this is the key word today. He gives what? He gives grace and he gives glory. So we didn't just pick this title out of thin air. We let the word of God and the theme of the word of God speak into the title. The Lord, Yahweh, is what this word is when you see Lord in the Old Testament. Yahweh gives grace and Yahweh gives glory. He withholds no good thing from those

2:31 who walk with integrity. He gives grace and he gives glory. We don't earn it. You can't achieve it. He gives it. And you know who he gives it to? He gives it to those who know that they need it. So our relationship with God is a relationship where we are self-aware. Hello. Anybody looking around some of the people in your family at Thanksgiving and going, man, these people need some self-awareness. Thank you. Got one clap over there. Anybody change your plans and leave a little earlier than you thought you were going to leave right here? Oh, sorry. Just got a call from work. I have to go in today. Self-awareness is one of the greatest gifts that God can give us. And when we are truly self-aware and realize what we need, then we are candidates for grace.

3:36 When we realize I can't do this, we are in the right spot. Because the Lord, Yahweh, gives grace. He doesn't force it. He gives it. And who does he give it to? He gives it to those who know that they need it. And I'm telling you, you may agree or disagree today, but I think the church, hello, is full of people who are totally underusing the gift of grace, who are leaving so much grace on the table. When Yahweh is in a position that he loves to give grace, and he's even willing to give glory. Now it says in the Old Testament that he won't give his glory to another or share any of his praise with idols, but that's not the same idea.

4:33 That's saying that he's not gonna let somebody steal his glory, but he's willing to share it because it says in the New Testament that when he appears, we will appear with him in glory. Not our glory, it'll be his glory, but he's letting us come into his glory with him. He gives grace and he's ushering us in to a glorious future with him. So what is grace and what is glory? Let's just start with a couple definitions today. And this is the definition that I've sort of landed on personally. You can work your way around to your definition of grace, but early on in life, it was the acronym. Does anybody know the acronym G-R-A-C-E? Anybody know that one?

5:23 God's riches at Christ expense. That's how we were taught the gospel of grace. But I think grace has a fuller meaning for me. And for me, grace... is God at work. in other words, grace is God doing something that I can't do. So whenever grace is in the equation, that's God moving. And at the end of grace, you say, God did it. That's grace. If I did it, it's not grace. If you did it, it's not grace. If we can all collectively say somehow we are responsible for it, it's not grace. Grace is God doing something that we can't do.

6:19 So what is glory? Glory. is the weight and worth. of God, or God's weight and worth. Grace, God at work, glory, God's weight and worth. And when we start with grace, we start with saving grace. And everybody understands saving grace. We've looked in this text so many different times at Passion, and even recently, It says in Ephesians 2, but because of his great love for us, reading in verse 4, God who is rich in mercy, in other words, he's got all the mercy in the world. He made us alive with Christ even when we were dead and transgressions. And so that's where we get the idea that God did it because dead people can't do anything. So he made us alive. We didn't make us alive. And he made us alive when we were dead. So that's grace. That is God at work. We were dead in transgressions.

7:32 It is by grace. Can you say this with me? It is what? By grace, you have been saved. So that's saving grace. That's God at work. I didn't do it. He did it. I didn't die for my sins. He died for my sins. I didn't come to earth, a perfect son of God. He did that. I wasn't buried in my tomb. He was buried in my tomb. I wasn't raised from the grave by the power of Almighty God. He was. I didn't ascend. He ascended. I didn't come out of that tomb. He came out of that tomb. And he gave to me the power, the life, the victory that was his when he did all that. It is by grace you have been saved. In other words, you didn't do it. If you did it, you're not saved. because it is by grace you have been saved. And it is not any footnotes on grace.

8:29 He gave me grace, but I also did a pretty good job and was a pretty nice person and I did my best and I went to church and I read my Bible and da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. No footnotes on grace. He did it. It's by grace that you have been saved. Praise God that the greatest thing that happens to a human being happens by grace. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order that in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of his grace. In other words, this is not a one-time story. When I was 11, I put my faith in Jesus and by grace I was saved. That's what happened. No, he said there is an unfolding story of grace that is going to be seen into the coming ages that we're going to understand in heaven more of the grace of God than we understand right now. We're going to see more of his kindness in grace than we understand right now. We're just scratching the surface of grace and it's pretty fantastic, but we haven't seen anything yet expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

9:45 For it is, here it comes again. Can you say it with me one more time? It is, you with us Trillith Cumberland? I'm not doing super loud here at 515. Hopefully you all are coming through. Can we just try it with a little more, a little more oomph, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith. So there's an operational component here, and it is faith. Not works, but faith. Faith in the grace. He did it. I put my faith in what he did. Someone should get saved today, by the way, because this is it right here. And if you've been wondering, how do you get saved? Today might be your day. And this is not from yourselves. If it were from yourselves, it wouldn't be grace. It is the gift of God.

10:38 Why? Because Yahweh gives grace and Yahweh gives glory. It is not by works so that no one can boast. for we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works. I want to make sure we see that today. It's not sitting back in the recliner of grace and doing nothing. No, we're going to do the things which God prepared in advance for us to do, but we're going to see how we do the things that God has prepared for us to do. And it is beginning by grace. It's like realizing that you have a flat tire. I'm coming down the connector years ago, and all of a sudden I have an immediate flat, not one of those that you think is kind of going down. It's like, oh my goodness, I got to pull over right now. 17th Street exit, I pull over, and fortunately I'm off the connector by now.

11:35 But I mean, the back tire is just done, totally flat, and I'm self-aware in that moment, and I go, wow, this is not going to work. I understand, I have a problem. and I start going through all of my options and I'm thinking I'd call somebody, I have the care from the car company, I can call them, they'll send somebody. But then I'm also thinking about the trunk. Anybody change a tire? Does anybody do that anymore? Or we just leave the car on the side of the road now and get another one? You thought about it, right? You're like, you know, it's not that great of a car anyway.

12:14 And I'm thinking about, okay, I know in the trunk, when you lift up the thing, there's stuff in there and it's gotten more complicated. It seems like as the cars have gotten nicer over time, but somewhere in there is one of these guys. Have you ever seen this thing? You got one of these in your trunk. Anybody seen that before? Did anybody know you had one of these? Somebody's like, I do? Yeah, you got one of these in your car. And what you do is, is you get down on the ground beside the road and you put it under the side of your car. Here's the tire that's flat. And there's a little place up there that you can see. And that's where this goes under. And then you get this stuff out of the little bag that's in there. And you're like, what am I supposed to do with this? And you go, oh, okay, well, I do this like this. And I put this in here and I put that in there and then watch this. This is crazy. I do this.

13:06 or I can do this. It's even better. Look at that. Do you know what that is? Who knows what that is? No. I mean, it is a jack, but more. It's the lift. You're getting warm now. It's grace. Now you're doing it so it's not total grace. It's not God's grace. But that's grace. He's lifted up several thousand pounds. and I brought this today because I want you to think about this all day every day so all of a sudden and I don't really know how it happened and I honestly don't remember how this story all played out but I'm sitting there realizing I have one of these in the back but I haven't gotten it out and I don't really want to get down in there and dig all that stuff out and get on the side of the road. And this car, true story, pulls up behind me. And a guy, he's not like the emergency, you know, guy, the rescue guy. It's a guy. He opens his trunk and in the trunk, he has a floor jack. This guy. And he plops it out. This handle comes out. He puts it in. He rolls it over. He goes, you need some help. He just puts it right under the thing, right where that thing would have gone if I dug it out.

14:39 And in about four of these, car's totally up in the air. I went, where did you get that? Because I had it in my trunk. A child, a small child could do this. Look, I'm barely touching it. A pet could do this. That's super grace. that is 3 000 pounds worth of lift grace that will hold some of your entire car up in the air grace and when you're ready to get it down you just turn the thing look at that happened so fast most of you didn't see it I want you to think that when you were dead, you needed lift.

15:43 And there's nobody who can hold up a car and undo lug nuts with the other hand. but God. when we were in the grip of death, super grace came and lifted us out by the resurrection power of God. He had it in the trunk, if you will. And God did it. Unlike these things where I'm still doing something, not much.

16:29 I mean, that thing's really doing everything. I'm just doing a little and this thing doing a little also. And you got to dig it out and all that. I'm talking about a grace of God where God does all the work. And most of us, I think, in the building today are like, that's how I got saved. I put my faith in the grace, in the God at work. God did it. I put my faith in it. So it's by grace through faith. That's how I got saved. But guess what? That's also how God wants to invite you to live in the very same way. This is what he says in Colossians 2. Paul. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him. The ESV translation says, therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.

17:30 Live your lives in him and walk in him. How do I live in him and how do I walk in him? This is the question everybody in the room is probably wrestling with. I know I'm saved and I know God did that, but I'm struggling in this relationship right now. I'm struggling in these decisions I'm making. I'm struggling in this temptation. I'm struggling with this situation that I'm walking through. How do I do this? I know how God did that, but how do I do this today? And he tells us, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him or so walk in him so how did you receive Christ as Lord back to Ephesians 2 how did we receive him as Lord you see it say it with me How? By grace through faith. How'd you receive him? By grace through faith. So now he's inviting you. Same way you received him is the way you walk in him. So how do you walk in him?

18:45 How do you live in him? All of a sudden, grace isn't a salvation event only. Grace is a sustain me again in this moment, God. Grace. It's not the day I got saved, grace. It's every moment that I know that I'm self-aware that I have need.

19:09 God at work. in the same way I received him is the way that I walk in him. That means every step for every step, there's grace in every situation. There is grace in every moment. There is grace. And here's the thing about this sustaining grace of God. He does not give it to you before you need it. Don't you wish we could just load it up and have it in a backpack, you know, put it all out on the counter and say, oh, that's all the stuff I got. All right, now I'm ready to go. He goes, no, you're going with me. And when we get there, I'm going to give you what you need. I am what you need. And you'll have the grace that you need in that moment. I'm not giving it to you before. I'm not giving you more than you need. I am giving you what you need when you need it. And maybe right now, he's not going to give me the grace for tomorrow, but he would give me the grace for today to trust him that he's going to give me the grace that I need tomorrow.

20:04 amen we're over here all freaked out i i need to know how it's all gonna go he's like i'm gonna be there and i'm gonna give you what you need but i'm not gonna give it to you today i'm gonna give it to you when we get there but what i want to give you today is the ability to trust by faith that my grace is going to be sufficient so that you have peace today and not freak out today, knowing that when we get there tomorrow, it's going to be by grace through faith. I was using an example this morning, just kind of out of the top of my head, really, because it's in difficult situations that this plays out the most. It should play out in the best of times and the worst of times. But I'm telling you, if you've been through hard times, you start understanding this mostly in the rear view mirror. But if we can remember the faithfulness of God, it changes things. And I was talking about a friend of mine some years ago, whose father had died. And this friend of mine lives in a different state and he is a pastor.

21:14 and I've been in that situation before where you're losing your dad and your heart is crushed and as a son you're in a puddle but yet at the same time you're a shepherd and you have to lead. and you have to rally people, and you have to speak hope and speak life, but what you really want to do is just mourn and grieve, that somehow you've got to do two things at the same time, and I said to my friend, there's a grace for that, and I said, you've never known it before. It's not like any grace you've ever experienced in your life before, but you will experience it now and it will be enough for you. And over the course of about seven days via text and phone calls, we had that same conversation multiple times. I remember the day that he was going to the funeral home to see his dad's body. And I've been in that moment.

22:24 Lots of you have been in that moment. And it is one of the most difficult moments that you're ever going to be in in life. Not unlike going to the cemetery and putting your dad's body in the ground and turning around and walking away and getting in a car and driving off. All these moments are some of the most difficult moments of life. And I just kept saying to my friend, I just want you to know there is a grace for going to the funeral home to see your dad. There's a grace for that. How do you do that? You do it by grace through faith. You believe God and you say, I don't know how this is gonna go. I've never done this before and I'm never doing this again. This is a one-time deal. So I'm trusting there's gonna be one-time, unique, special grace for this moment. I'm going in there by grace, through faith.

23:23 I'm going to stand up and I'm going to preach the gospel. I'm going to point to Jesus. I'm going to somehow rally and put my arms around people and family. I'm going to lead because that's what God's called me to do. But I'm also going to have a broken heart that is grieving the loss of my dad. and I'm gonna be a grieving son and a leading shepherd at the same time. You know why? Because there's grace for that. and you only get it one time you don't get to practice it you don't get it again you don't get to learn the benefit of oh i've done that once before and the next time i do that i'll understand how to do that more that is a one time moment for god to show off again that he can do it some of you are hours away from difficult things and you're you're stressed out and I'm not saying you shouldn't be concerned of course you should be concerned but there's a grace for it you've never been in the conversation you're going to be in tomorrow but there's a grace for it you may never be in that conversation again after tomorrow but there's a grace for it and even today I met a brother and a sister who don't go to this church one of them lives in another state the reason they're in Atlanta together is because their dad died a few days ago and one of them said to me I am not a church attender but we came today and I said well that must have been pretty encouraging for you to sit there and hear God basically say to you, I see you and I love you and you're not a church attender, but I'm attending to you.

25:22 and they both just got huge tears in their eyes they're like how did you know to talk about that particular illustration today There is a grace for showing up at church as a non-church attender a few days after your dad passed away when you're going home after this to plan the funeral. that's God saying nobody can do this but I can and I'm going to because there is grace for that there's grace for that work situation that you're in there's grace for every moment there's grace for every mountain there's grace for every valley there's grace for every kind of grief every season of grief, every temperature of grief, there is grace for it all. And how do you walk in him? In the same way you received him. It is like the manna that was on the ground every single morning.

26:32 yes it saves you his grace but it also sustains you and we leave so much of it on the table and we're i gotta go in here and have this conversation i gotta go in here and work this out i gotta go in here and figure this out i gotta go in here and suck it up i gotta go in here and somehow make this thing work i gotta somehow get through all this and he's like yahweh gives grace and Yahweh gives glory. Do you need it? If you need it, put your hands out and open your mouth and say, I'm desperate for you to do what only you can do. Come through and get glory in my life. Paul, I'll close with this, had a thorn in his flesh. He called it a messenger of Satan. Anybody got one of those? It was tormenting him. Hello? Anybody got a thorn? And so he did what you and I would do, he asked the Lord three times. I pleaded with the Lord. And this is Paul. He got bit by a snake and he went, get off me. This guy beat up and put in prison. And he said, praise God, I'm going to write an epistle to the church. Pleaded with God three times. And then right here in the middle of this, this is in second Corinthians 12 in verse nine, right in the middle of him telling all of this. He says, but he said to me, and then it's in red after that, Jesus interjecting, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

28:32 So I'm not taking your thorn away. You know why? Because there's grace for that. and it's going to keep you close. It's going to keep you humble, but it's also going to give you the opportunity to show my glory because my power is going to be made perfect and weakness. So Paul goes on and says, therefore I'll boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses. And I want you to watch me carefully here. Watch the text. He says, I'll boast all the more gladly about my my weaknesses so that, this is the most important little phrase in this passage, so that Christ's power may rest on me. This power that is made perfect in weakness, I want it to be made perfect in my weakness. In other words, I'm not going to hide my weakness. And when he says I'm going to boast in it, it doesn't mean he's going to go, yay, yay, my weakness. He's just going to go, hey, I'm weak. But I want you to know I'm weak because if I let you see that I'm weak, you're gonna really understand that God did it when I'm strong.

29:41 That's why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Why? Because when I'm weak, his power rests on me. that's grace that is sufficient it's enough it works if you can be self-aware enough to say i need it Yahweh gives it and it's sufficient even for the thorn that feels like a messenger from Satan it's tormenting you he says there's grace for that and when it comes it's going to make you strong but it's not going to be your strength because people are going to understand that you weren't strong it's going to be evident that it's his strength in you I pray that our generation will get this because I believe what the enemy wants to do is tweak this a little bit.

30:51 And he wants us to give the glory to the thorn. Oh, the grace is real. But man, if you listen to me talk, I'm just giving all the glory to the thorn. And God is saying today, no, the thorn is real, but the grace gets all the glory. don't hide that thorn it's real but make sure the grace gets all the glory hello this is deliverance this is salvation this is freedom this is the gospel at work not just on the day to get me to heaven this is a gospel to get me out of the grip of things that they want to take me out and in our generation and our culture there's so much glory going to the thorn and his grace is sufficient that even though you're weak hello I'm just reading the text you can be strong