Principal & Principals of Grace, Introduction
Mike Doyle · Jul 1, 2007
Principles of Grace, No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926031245981

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Grace class, there are two operating systems under which men conduct their lives. You know what they are? Every single man's under one or the other of these systems. Law and grace. Every human being, every human being, when they come into this planet is under a law system. Every one of them. Nobody gets to escape. Only believers live in and under a grace system. Now, God operates, though, in grace all the time, even though those outside of Christ don't live or operate in that grace.

So, no matter who imposed this law system, it can be imposed a couple of ways. God can do it, which he did with the nation of Israel, or you can do it yourself. We're so prone to be under some sort of system of law that we impose it on ourselves. If you study the first couple of chapters of Romans, you'll find that Paul clearly delineates between the Jews, who God put under a law, and the Gentiles, who were sort of moral and became a law unto themselves. There seems to be, or doesn't seem to be, there is innately built into every human being, in Adam, this thing that can be described as, tell me what to do and I'll do it. That's a law system. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. And so rules of conduct seem to be what most men show up on the planet with in some form or another. We teach our children to live under a law system, don't we? We give them rules of conduct. We expect them to obey them.

So when grace shows up in our life, as we're going to discuss it further, it's uncommon to us. We don't understand it. We don't know anything about it. Can you think of one incident before you came to Christ of grace in your life? Anybody? If you can, I'm open. So, the course is going to be guided by one single verse. I know it might get boring if we're going to spend the whole time on one verse, but we're not going to spend the whole time on the verse.

If we had to put a banner over the top up here, it would be Romans 6.14.

Somebody go to Romans 6.14 and read the verse. Anybody?

Okay, so sin won't have dominion over you because you're not under law, but you are under grace. That's the verse that will sort of override everything we're going to talk about for the next 12 weeks. That we are under grace. We live under grace. We live totally in a position of grace.

Two questions that we're going to try to answer as thoroughly as we can. The first one is, what is grace? What is it? And the second one is, what does it mean to be under grace? If we can answer those two questions clearly and adequately, I'm convinced it'll change the way we live. It'll have to.

What do you think grace is? Ben taught me a great lesson about a month ago that if you if you start a class and you have a question like, what is grace? And you go around the class, ask everybody to give you a definition of whatever the subject is. Maybe by the end of the last person, you got to if you put it all together, you got a fairly good definition. So let's do that.

What is grace? Unmerited favor. What do you think? Grace is. Guys, genius. It's gone. Great. Okay. What they said for you guys are creative. Love. You get something you don't deserve? Okay. You don't have to work for it. Cool. Something done for us that we can't add to. Okay, that's good. Undeserved love? Unmerited favor. It's a gift. Cool. Something you haven't earned. Okay. Jessica. Unmerited favor. Steve. Something given. Unlimited. Ooh, I like that. What do you think? Have you already given me an answer? You guys have great answers to. Grace is receiving something we don't deserve. That's cool. She thinks that to unmerited favor. So now.

If you took all of those and put them together and took out the repeats, you'd have a pretty good definition. The best definition I've heard came from those from a guy named Chester McCauley. Oh, by the way, that reminded me. If you want to read some cool stuff while we're going through the class, I'd recommend two books to you.

One is Lewis Barry Chaffer's book on grace, which is readily available. Looks like this. It's called Grace. An Exposition of God's Marvelous Gift. This is a terrific book, but I must warn you, it's a very difficult book, at least initially, to get a handle on because it's totally gracious and it's really tough.

Another book I might recommend is this one by Alva McLean called Law and Grace. Both of these are, I think, available at Amazon. someplace like that. The third thing I would recommend that you listen to is go on a website called Word of Truth and under a man named Chester McCauley. Yeah, it's wordoftruth.net, Chester McCauley, and there's a bunch of stuff to listen to, but there are four tapes on grace in there, and I recommend that you all listen to them, because a lot of what we're going to do is going to be taken from those tapes, because they're wonderful.

They are really terrific on the topic of grace alone. And he came up with what I think is a really good definition. He says that grace is the unlimited and unmerited Blessings from God based on the totally adequate work of Christ. So grace has to have a basis. It has to have a reason. God has to be satisfied about some issues in order to be unlimited and unmerited blessing. Now, we're going to explore unlimited. We're going to explore unmerited.

No, I can't. I only repeat it to people sitting in the first three rows. Ben's got a lot of room over here. He took a shower this morning too. Grace is the unlimited and unmerited blessings from God based on the totally adequate work of Christ. Now, by the time we get done with the class or the course, you might add to or take away from that definition. But that's a pretty good one, I think. OK.

Now, two statements that are made in Romans 6, 14. The one statement is that we're not under the law. We're not under the law, not only the mosaic law, but laws of principle. So what does that mean? Well, maybe a bit easier question is, what does it mean to be under law? If you're under a law system, what does it mean for you? It's an operating system. And how does it operate?

I have to do something or I have to avoid doing something in order to receive... I'm involved and I'm doing. And if I live under the penal code of the state of Colorado, I want to avoid doing all of the things that are on the no-no list. Because if I do do them, and I'm caught, there's a consequence, right? If I don't do them, I get to enjoy a peaceable life. Nobody's going to hassle me, right? I can be designated a good citizen. in the realm of religion.

If I live under a law system, basically what I've been given or what I live under is that if I obey what God tells me to do, he's going to find favor with me and he's going to bless me. If I violate his rules, then I'm going to be punished somehow or I'm going to lose out on whatever benefit I would have gained had I been obedient. Now, this verse says I'm not under that kind of a system. How come? It was done for me. So, the reason that I don't have to be under a law system anymore is because somebody has done all the things necessary for me. There's a better reason than that.

Let's look at Hebrews chapter 7, verse 11 and 12. Okay. There are three verses we're going to look at to talk about why we're not under the law. Hebrews 7, 11, and 12 says, For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. The writer of Hebrews is speaking to and writing to Hebrews who had become believers and he's trying to explain to them Why they're not under a law system that they're really under a grace system. So he says to him look the priesthood got changed So there also had to be a change in the law now this word change Means transposed what it really means is that there was something else put in the place of the priesthood and Something else put in the place of the law. That's what that word means and Changed this doesn't mean that we schmoozed it a little bit, you know and added something on the end it got exchanged or changed so We are not under a lost system because something has been Exchanged or changed next verse 2nd Corinthians 3 verses 7 through 11 That's somebody read it, who gets to it, who's got a nice, loud voice.

But in the Ministry of Death, written and engraved on stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away. How will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away is glorious, what remains is much more glorious.

That's good. What I'm after there is that which is passing away or other translations has been done away. And that's we're kind of familiar with that word ketergeo, which means to abolish, to nullify, to make something inoperative. In other words, in Romans 6, 6, as my old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed. So the King James says, others say put out of business. Same word ketergeo. The law has been put out of business when it comes to believers, and it's another way you could say it's been done away.

We still haven't got the full answer though yet, so let's go to Romans 7.6. Somebody read. So we have been released or discharged, the discharge same word, catargeo. And in this sense, it means it's a legal term that we got discharged from a thing. So, you know, you're doing 50 in a 20. Go before the judge and he says, ah, I discharge you. You're no longer attached to that offense. What is the real reason why we have been discharged or separated from the law? If you were in the identification class, you know the answer. What's the real reason? Not the real reason. What's the reason that these verses point to?

Because I'm in Christ, I've been identified with His death, burial, and resurrection. If I died with Him, and the word death means separation, what did I get separated from? Well, I got separated from my old man, sin nature. I got positionally separated from the world. I got separated from the law system, too. So, does that mean that I got separated from the law system and now I'm just out here floating around and I can do whatever I want? Does that mean that, you think? If I've been positionally, because of my identification with Christ, separated from the law system, doesn't that mean that I can do as I please? What do you think?

You're going to say no, but you know as soon as you say no, I'm going to ask you why. No, you're not. Why? Because you're now under another. operating system. You're now under a system of grace and grace is a controlling factor or a system in which we live. Did you see that? The judge paid the fine. Yes, it would. Maybe give you a better example. I know it's OK to steal. I steal all the time. It's me.

I made a career out of it. Let's say that Norm, you had your Peter Walther out and you let somebody have it and they go over dead and you're charged with first degree murder. And you go to court, and you know, after all your tap dancing, they find you guilty. And we all come and testify for you, but the judge takes none of that into account, and you're sentenced to hang in the gallows. Right? The law has now got you. Not only are you guilty, which you said, yeah, after you were convicted, you say, well, yeah, I was guilty. I am.

And the punishment is that under the law system, you're going to die. Let's say on the way to the gallows you have a heart attack and die. Are they still going to put you in a chair and hang the juice to you? Why not? No, because you're not there. In other words, if you're on the way to the gallows and you die, they're not going to string up your body. Why not?

Because you're gone. It's exactly the same relationship a believer has with the law. We're gone. We died to it. See that? It isn't that Christ fulfilled that for us. He didn't do that. What happened was, when we were crucified with Christ, we left the entire realm of law. And when we were resurrected in Christ, we entered into a whole new operating system which is called grace.

Now most people, I have to tell you, most Christians look at grace is apathy. These guys that live under grace, they are never going to be good Christians. They're going to take license with whatever. They're not going to have to obey anything, so they're going to function chaotically, sinfully. These grace people are weird.

So what we're going to try to discover in this class is that grace is actually a much more powerful motivator than anything else in your life. Anything. That grace will motivate you, by your own will, to function as one of those who are resurrected and in Christ. Willingly, joyfully. Grace. Now, let's talk a little bit about this word grace.

Grace, the Greek word is charis and actually has a ton of meanings and can be used in different contexts. Basically, the stem word means to give pleasure. That's what it means. The stem of the word charis means just to give pleasure from the Greek standpoint. It can mean anything that's charming or attractive or beautiful.

We have the word in English, charisma. What's that word mean? If I say, April, you've got charisma, what am I saying? There's something charming about her, right? There's something appealing. Maybe it's the way she talks or whatever it is, that if you have charisma, you're appealing. You give pleasure to people to be around you. That's what charisma is.

So in Luke 4.22, and you don't have to go there.

And all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, is not this Joseph's sons? This word, gracious words, is this word charis, gracious words. And what it means is, is that the words were beautiful. They were attractive. They were charming, and they appealed to people, and that's why they came and listened to them, because the words were beautiful. So the Greeks would use the word charis that way.

Colossians 4.6, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. Our speech should be Charis should be appealing and attractive to anybody who would hear us. And it should be charming. Now when he says, and this is something I learned by listening to the Macaulay tape, what do you think it means to season with salt? It means you've got a little edge to it? What does it mean? It means what? Tastes just right. Not bad.

If I said Vern Peterman speaks seasoned with salt, or let me give you a better example. Who is a great orator in our society today? Who? Ronald Reagan, you could say Ronald Reagan seasoned things with salt. You know what that means? It means he really knew how to turn a phrase. He really knew how to say something in a way that really connected. It means you have an ability to phrase things in a really good way. That's what seasoned with salt is. Isn't that neat? And we're all attracted to people like that, aren't we? I mean, I'd love to hear great speakers, especially some of the older Christian preachers. Man, could those guys turn a phrase.

J. Vernon McGee can turn a phrase and he's just a hick from Texas. But he has a way sometimes of saying things like, oh yeah, oh I understand. Although I've never heard him speak, but I don't know if anybody here Except for Ben, I think I'm the oldest guy.

Harry Ironside, he was like that. You know, he was the pastor of the Moody Bible Church in Chicago. And they said he was he was he was called the preacher's preacher because he could do this. He could season things with salt. He could say things in a way that really was attractive.

That's what the word charis means. Can mean that the Greeks use it in a second way. They use it as a favor. done for somebody. Our friend Aristotle, you'd think he was a Christian based on this definition. Something conferred freely with no expectation of return and finding its source in the bounty and the free-heartedness of the giver. That's not too bad, is it? That's our pal Aristotle. He never went to seminary. Something conferred freely with no expectation of return. finding its source in the bounty and the free-heartedness of the giver.

Now, if I invite you over to my house this afternoon for lunch, what's your second thought in your mind? Yeah, you better have me over at some point. But if I invited you over, or you invited me over, based on this definition, you would never expect me, nor would you ever require of me, to invite you back. You just did it out of the goodness of your heart, with no sense of return. If there is a sense of return, what system do you live under? Law. Grace functions based on a system where you're doing, others are doing to you, with no expectation of return. That's awesome.

I mean, if we could get everybody in this room to live like that for one day, it would be unbelievably cool. Imagine living with 15, 20 people and all they did all day long was bless you and never expected anything in return and that's the way you were operating too. The question I would have, I'd be laying money on who'd be the first one to complain. Do a favor for someone out of your heart with no expectation of return just because you wanted to.

We all have experienced that. We just did something for somebody just because we wanted to. It had nothing to do with them. We just wanted to do it. That's a cool thing. That's grace. That's how the Greeks used it. Charis. I'll give you an example. Acts 17. And you don't have to go there.

I'll read it. and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor, that's the word charis, and wisdom before Pharaoh king of Egypt, and made him governor over Egypt and all his house." Talking about our pal Joseph. Pharaoh gave Joseph favor because he wanted to. Now obviously Joseph was able to answer or delineate his dreams and that kind of thing, but he just gave him the favor.

The Greeks used this word in a third way. It's used as a response for a favor done. I find this really interesting how the Greeks in some ways are really simple. In other ways, it seemed to be pretty complex. So the question of the day is if if the word Keres is used. as a response for a favor done, as something done to you and for you without any expectation of return. In English, what's the best word to describe your response? Some of you already know because you've been in my class. What do you think? And this is the same Greek word. What do you think? Somebody who hasn't been in my class.

Thank you. Same Greek word, charis. So I charis you, you charis me back. I charis you with a favor totally in the goodness of my heart. And what's your response? Thank you. The word, the Greeks use that word charis the same way. They would say thank you.

So give you a 2 Corinthians 8.16. But thanks be to God. The word thanks there is charis. who puts the same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus.

Grace is one of those things that when you start entering into it, all parts of it are gracious. Do you see that? Macaulay uses another very good example. And he uses it, and it's a tough example around here because we don't do it here. When you take up the collection at a church, it's called, really, it should be called taking up the thank you, taking up the grace.

Because why do you give? Somebody sent you a pledge card. It's expected. If you don't give, you'll hear, from us. Under a grace system, are you obligated to give a grace offering? No. How about if I said, boy, we really need it for the budget? Still no. That's right. I feel like I ought to give 10%. Is that a good reason to give? No. So what would be the proper motive for giving? Under grace. Thankfulness. That's exactly right. The proper motive for giving is thankfulness. What am I thankful for?

In 2nd Corinthians 8 19 Paul says, and not only so, but who was also appointed by the churches to travel with us in the manner of this grace. Now what Paul's talking about is the money that they're collecting to send back to Jerusalem for the saints, the Jewish saints there, who were persecuted and they were having a famine and they didn't have any money. And so Paul, as he's traveling around, he's asking people to be gracious so that they can help support those folks. And so he calls this the matter of this grace, which is ministered by us to the glory of the Lord and to show our readiness.

So the offering itself is called grace. So can you imagine if we were taking up a collection around here, I'd say to Courtney, would you get your guys and go around and collect the grace? Did you ever hear that? That's really what it should be, the grace. The only reason for giving pure grace under no obligation is to show the thankfulness for what the Lord himself has done. That's why.

So, back in 2 Corinthians 8.1, we want you to know, brothers, about God's grace that was given to the churches of Macedonia. Our giving is based on a response to what God has already done graciously to us. That's a good example. So you can see that the motivation for Christian giving and living is a grateful heart and it's not rules. We're going to do the Lord's Table today and we're going to talk a little bit about gracefulness. When grace is understood, I'll say this again, when grace is understood, it always solicits one response and only one response.

Thank you. When you understand grace, your only response is thank you. Have you ever been in that situation with the Lord where either in the study of the Word or some circumstance He puts you in, you become keenly aware that God has acted towards you in a gracious manner. And you get overwhelmed by His grace. The response comes out of you automatically. Thank you. And if you try to, you know, the good old sin nature tries to interfere with that and figure out something you can do to be more pleasing to God or somehow enter into that grace and be responsible for it, the thank you goes away. Because the grace goes away. God does things graciously towards us so that we would only respond one way. Thank you. Thank you. See that? It's cool. Was grace evident in the Old Testament? What do you think? Now, it's either a yes or no answer. Come on. Yes, it was.

So, grace can be seen in the Old Testament in a lot of places because whenever you look at, especially God's dealing with the nation of Israel, what did they always bring to the table? They always brought sin, right? They always brought disobedience. Exodus 32, one through six, is what you might say is an unmerited setting.

And when people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron and said, make us gods. So what they did, you know, they made a golden calf. And so they're being disobedient to God, right? Moses is up on the mountain. They're hanging out. Moses has gone longer than they thought.

So they thought it would be a good idea if they began worshipping a calf. So, and Aaron said unto him, break off the golden arrows. He told him what to do. Bring the stuff to him. By the way, Aaron is a very interesting guy because he is a priest. He's from the tribe of Judah, I'm sorry, of Levi, and he's a priest. So he's buying into this nonsense. And all the people broke the golden earrings, and their ears, et cetera. And all the gold that they brought out of the land of Egypt, they made this golden calf. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it.

And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. They got this golden calf. They're worshiping it. Tomorrow's a feast to the Lord, right? And they rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. So that's the setting that Moses and God are going to come down to.

And so what happens? Is what they did pleasing to God? Absolutely not. So what would you expect God to do about this in an Old Testament system? As a matter of fact, Moses is coming down off the mountain with the Mosaic Law. And the very first commandment is, I'm the Lord thy God, you won't have false gods before me. They broke the first one before they even got it. How does God react? How does he react? Angrily? But what does he do? What does he do? Does he act in grace? And if he does, what about his action is gracious?

He didn't wipe them out. Moses, through the tablets, broke them. But then what did God do? He remade them. It's like he gave them another chance. But those who refused to live under the second chance perished, didn't they? He always acts graciously. Man brings sin and disobedience to the table. God in the Old Testament always comes graciously. When they refused to go into the land in Kadesh Barnea, what did God do?

Did he act graciously? Yeah, he did. Because he, you know, I mean, if I'm God, I got to tell you, if I'm God and the Jews do to me what they were doing to God, I would have snuffed him out and been done with him. I wouldn't have fooled with him. He sends him out in the desert. until all the non-believers die off and then he brings the nation back and they still go into the land.

Isn't that cool? That's grace. Because it's really simple. What's the criteria that God has put on the soul that sins? There's only one. You get 40 years of hard labor, what do you get? You die. It's real simple. The soul that sins, it will certainly, surely die.

So God has operated graciously even in the Old Testament when these people disobeyed him directly. They couldn't plead ignorance. So in almost every context you're going to see in the Old Testament that man is deserving and what God gives him is totally opposite. Along the same context in Exodus in verse 30 shows that this is a sin.

And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said to the people, you have sinned a great sin. So there isn't any question as to whether they have sinned. And now I will go up to the Lord and I will and he shall make an atonement for you. And I will make an atonement for your sin.

If you go on to chapter 33, you'll see that now, therefore, I pray thee, if God has said to Moses, I'm going to wipe these guys out, I'm sick and tired of them. Moses says to God, I pray you, if I have found grace in your sight, show me now the way that I may know thee, that I may find grace in the sight, and consider that this nation is thy people." What is Moses saying to God? He's saying, God, you're a gracious God, and I know you are. I've been hanging around you long enough. I know that you're gracious. And if I have found favor in your sight, don't destroy the people. What does God do?

And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone, like unto the first ones. So we're going to do stones again. And I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tablets, which you broke. And the Lord God, in verse six, was merciful and gracious, and the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth.

That's who God is. So, as you read the Old Testament, there's two things that have always struck me about the Old Testament. One, it's undeniable proof of the sinfulness of man and that he's irreconcilable, you can't fix him. So it sets up, at least in my mind, if I can barely hear that, is that the first buzzer? Okay. It sets up in my mind that when you come to studying in the New Testament the doctrine of identification with Christ, death, burial, and resurrection, that's the right answer. Because if there's anything that the Old Testament proves, it's that man can't be fixed in his present makeup. His position in Adam can't be fixed. So, in all cases, people gave God sin, and God responded in grace.

Zechariah 12.10, I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for their only son. In Numbers and Psalms.

We'll do Psalm 51.1. David's sin. When David sinned, by the way, I mean, think about what David's doing. Commits adultery, and to cover the adultery, commits murder. We'd hang him for that here, wouldn't we?

He goes to God and he says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness. Loving kindness is the word for grace. According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Now, what I've always found interesting about David that he knew God well enough that he could make this appeal. Think about it.

If he didn't know that God was gracious, would he adventure to do something like this? I mean, you would think the first thing he would do is run down to the temple and make sacrifice and follow the law system, but he didn't do that. He went directly to God. and said, you know, forgive me for my sins and my trespasses and don't blot me out, don't take your spirit from me, be merciful to me. Now if you don't know that God is merciful, why would you ever ask him? See, David knew that he was. So the question is, are we as believers under the same grace as these Old Testament examples. Is that how we live? We sin. God has supplied the avenue and the road back and He can be and will be merciful to us.

What do you think? Same? Same deal? Courtney is shaking her head no. Now you know the next question, don't you? Why? Why isn't it the same if it isn't the same? Say that again? The sin issue is already settled. Why does that make a difference? Why is that different? Was the sin issue settled in the Old Testament? It wasn't settled, was it? Why not? Because Christ hasn't come.

So what was God doing? I mean, if he could do it in the Old Testament and forgive sins or cover them over, why did he have to send Christ? You could say it this way, maybe. In the Old Testament, God knowing what Christ was going to do could cover the sins of the people on credit. Right? It's the same mentality.

You pull out the master charge, you go buy something with it. What is the merchant doing or the credit card company doing? They're betting on the fact that you're going to pay the bill. When God was gracious in the Old Testament, He was betting on the fact that the bill was going to be paid. Right? Hadn't been paid yet, but He was betting on it. The difference is that we enter into this with the bills already paid.

You see that? We start out from the position of sin being paid for. We start on a grace basis. You see that? Is that the second buzzer? Okay. We'll continue on next week. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you, how we thank you for your grace and the fact that you are gracious. And we look forward to growing in the knowledge and especially the grace of your dear son. And we pray in his name. Amen.