From His Heart

Guest (Male): Now I'm convinced that although we use the word grace a lot, many of us don't really fully understand what that is and what that conveys. Because we don't fully understand it, we don't get in on the fullness of it. We can sing about it, but do we really know what it means, the depth of what it means? What is grace?

Guest (Male): Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve as we begin a fresh series today entitled Beyond Amazing: Understanding the Grace of God. In it, Pastor Jeff provides biblical insights into God's grace, a grace that is truly beyond amazing.

The first message we'll hear today from this series is entitled God's Riches at Christ's Expense. The acronym for that would be the word grace. What does God want us to know and understand about His grace? In 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9, we'll learn three facets to grace that we dare not forget.

Now, we'll be in this series for the next couple of weeks, and if you miss any of the lessons, you can easily go online to listen again at FromHisHeart.org. You can catch up there, and you can also download a free MP3 of any broadcast. Just click the listen link. If you can now, open your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 8. Here's Pastor Jeff to explore the value that we receive by God's riches at Christ's expense.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: The Old Testament is a testament, a covenant, a deal in the law. It's called the Old Testament law. The law was given through Moses, it says in John chapter 1. Grace and truth were realized in Jesus Christ. The New Testament is the New Testament, the new covenant, the new deal in His blood. We're not under the law, Paul says, we're under grace. Grace is a huge concept. Paul said his whole ministry was testifying solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.

Now, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The God of the Old Testament isn't law and the God of the New Testament just grace, like God didn't have any grace in the Old Testament, God just had grace in the New Testament. No, God is a God of grace. I've told you before one of the most important passages of scripture I think every Christian ought to memorize is Exodus 34 verses 6 and 7, where the Lord appears to Moses, He shows Moses the backside of His glory, and He declares His glory, His splendor, who He is.

He says to Moses, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious." Compassionate and gracious. He's full and abounding in lovingkindness and truth. That word gracious that is used there in Exodus 34:6 means to stoop in kindness to an inferior. God is gracious. God stoops in kindness to an inferior, namely you and me, and we are so inferior compared to God.

What is grace? Grace, you've probably heard, is the unmerited favor of God. That word is only used in the New American Standard Bible, which I preach out of, it's only used 11 times. You'll find grace, but in the New Testament, you find the word grace used 122 times. It is the Greek word charis. It means favor, goodwill, God's love, and God's kindness, and God's mercy all mixed together in grace. As one writer said, "What is grace? It's God choosing to bless us rather than curse us as our sin deserves." God's love and kindness and favor and mercy to the undeserving.

Now, you can know the definition of grace and still miss out on grace and not really understand what that means. So that's what we're going to do in this series: Beyond Amazing, Understanding the Grace of God. To help us because Paul told the Galatians, "You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This one thing I want to find out about you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected in the flesh?"

The problem for a lost person is he doesn't understand, she doesn't understand God's grace. The problem for a saved person is we don't fully understand God's grace. we understand it enough to be saved, but we don't understand that we need God's grace to live the Christian life. So today, we want to look at one verse, one verse that is the gospel of grace in a nutshell, one verse that is like a diamond that just shines more brightly than any other verse, perhaps, in the book of 2 Corinthians.

It's just one verse, 2 Corinthians 8 verse 9. It comes in the backdrop of giving, and Paul says to the Corinthians, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." There is so much in that one verse and it speaks of the grace of God, grace that has been defined in the acrostic: God's riches at Christ's expense. That's what we see in 2 Corinthians 8:9.

So here's our question: when it says, "For you know, you understand the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," what does God want us to know and understand about His grace, about this gospel of the grace of God? Three facets to grace that we see in this verse. Number one, God wants us to understand the riches of Christ. The riches of Christ. What's so cool about this verse is it goes from eternity past into time into eternity future, all that in this one verse, 21 words in the Greek.

God wants us to understand the riches of Christ. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich." That word rich means abounding in wealth, abounding in riches. Jesus was so rich because Jesus is God. He is God in the flesh. He is rich because of who He is, and because of who He is, what He has. All the silver and all the gold belong to God. He is Lord of all, and so Jesus Christ is Lord.

He is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says know that the Lord Himself is God. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves. He's the Lord Jesus. Jesus, "Lord" speaks of His deity, "Jesus" speaks of His humanity. He was Yeshua, He was Jesus of Nazareth, and He is the Christ, He's the anointed one, He is the Messiah, the long-awaited one. And so when we think about the riches of Christ, go back in eternity past. What are the riches of Christ? He is the one who spoke the worlds into existence.

See, the most familiar verse probably in all the Bible, the verse that has been read more than any other verse, is Genesis chapter 1 verse 1: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." See, when most people say, "I'm going to read the Bible," where do they start in the Bible? Well, they start at the beginning, Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

And naturally, our minds go to say, well, God, God the Father, He is the one that's talked about in Genesis 1:1. But John in his gospel, he starts his gospel off this way: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."

So who is the one who said, "Let there be light" and there was light? Jesus. Jesus did that because without Jesus, you don't have creation. He is the creator God. He spoke the worlds into existence. Psalm 33 says this: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast."

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich. He is the creator God. He is the one who spoke the worlds into existence. Furthermore, He's the one who sits as king. "The Lord sat as king at the flood; yes, the Lord sits as king forever." Psalm 29 tells us that. And you know Isaiah the prophet, in the classic passage Isaiah 6, he said, "In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord seated on His throne, and the train of His robe filled the temple."

The king was known, the greater the king, the longer the train of his robe. And God is so great the train of His robe just fills the temple. He said, "Seraphim stood above Him, the angels, the burning ones, stood above Him, each having six wings. And with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to the other and said, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.' And the foundations of the threshold trembled at the voice of him who spoke, and the temple was filled with smoke."

Now most of us, as we're reading Isaiah chapter 6, we say Isaiah saw God, and he did see God. But he didn't see God the Father; he saw God the Son, he saw the Lord Jesus Christ. And we know this to be true because John 12:41 says this: "These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, he saw Jesus's glory, and he spoke of Him." He's the one who sits as king. He is the one whose glory and greatness are unfathomable.

Guest (Male): Pastor Jeff will continue this teaching on God's grace in just a moment with the lesson God's Riches at Christ's Expense. Why is Pastor Jeff focusing our programs this month on God's grace? Well, because people across our nation and around the world need to experience God's grace. And through your continued support of this program, you allow us to share this message into countless homes and lives around the world. From His Heart Ministries is a listener-supported ministry.

Grace is one of the most misunderstood truths in all of scripture. Most Christians know that they are saved by grace through faith. Somewhere along the way, still, many begin living as though the rest of the Christian life depends on their works to secure their eternal security. They start striving instead of trusting, performing instead of resting, and before long, they become discouraged or they begin to drift. They need to realize and learn to appreciate God's incalculable grace.

This month, your gift to From His Heart will help Pastor Jeff dispel this misguided walk of faith and bring them back to enjoying the grace that only comes through surrendering to Jesus. For your support this month of any amount, we'd like to say thank you by sending you Pastor Jeff's series Beyond Amazing: Understanding the Grace of God, all seven messages either on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or an MP3 download. Just go to FromHisHeart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE, and request it by name. It's called Beyond Amazing. Now let's get back to part one of the lesson God's Riches at Christ's Expense.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: You know, it's like if you go to California and you look out on the Pacific Ocean, it's unfathomable. You can't take it all in. There's just water as far as the eye can see, and past where your eye can see, there is more water as far as the eye can see. And you can travel deep into the Pacific Ocean and look around and it's just water everywhere, and your eyes can't take it in.

God's greatness is like that. God's glory is like that. It's more than you and I can possibly fathom. It's more than we can imagine. The Bible says Psalm 145, "Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. The Lord is high above all nations; His glory is above the heavens." God is so great, and the Lord Jesus so rich. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich.

Rich in His person, rich in His position, rich in His possessions, rich in power. He is the God of the universe. Understand the riches of Christ. You have to understand where He came from to understand how low He stooped to us. Understand the riches of Christ.

Second facet of grace: God wants us to understand not just the riches of Christ, but the poverty of humanity. Because 2 Corinthians 8:9, well, the Lord who was so rich became so poor. Why? So that we could be rich. Because, as it is insinuated from that verse, we were poor. He was rich and became poor so we who are poor could become rich. We are so poor.

Understand the poverty of humanity. See, just as Jesus is rich in eternity past beyond what our minds can comprehend, you and I and us together are poor, spiritually poor beyond what our minds can comprehend. See, every person is born in total depravity. Total depravity doesn't mean total inability, but it does mean total depravity, that man is corrupted by sin. Now, don't get the idea that total depravity means that every single person is as bad as he or she can possibly be. That's not what total depravity means.

Total depravity means you are as bad off as you can possibly be before the Lord. See, Paul put it this way in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1. He says, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest." And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

Think about that, dead. Is there anything worse than being dead? You know, you see some people sometimes they come to the visitation at the funeral home, and there's the person and they're in the casket and they see them and they say, "Oh, doesn't he look good?" Well, he's dead. Didn't they fix his hair? His hair is so nice. Well, look at his skin, his skin looks so good. His suit is just so nice. You know, you can say a lot of nice things about the dead guy, but that's kind of overshadowed by the fact that he's dead, you know?

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? I mean, your husband is dead, right? So once you're dead, you're dead in trespasses and sins. You've got a massive problem because you're dead. Well, when we talk about the poverty of humanity, we are dead in trespasses and sins. And we're children of wrath, even as the rest.

Oh, we like to say, "Well, you know, everybody's a child of God." No, they're not. Everybody is brought up into this world a sinner, dead in sin, deserving of hell. You are a child of wrath, even as the rest. And as Paul is writing this, he's speaking about himself. He's speaking about you, he's speaking about me, he's speaking about us, he's speaking about himself. He's speaking about every child that came from Adam and Eve, the original two people. All of us, dead in sin. And when you are born in total depravity and you're corrupted by sin, you have a serious problem.

Now, you say, "This is basic stuff, Jeff. Everybody knows about this stuff. And nobody pushes back about man being a sinner." Oh yeah? This was on Twitter just the other day. I saw this on Twitter: "What every parent should tell their children: You are not a sinner. You are an amazing human and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise." Somebody posted that meme, and on the top of it, they put, "This person never taught middle schoolers."

Never had kids, obviously. Any parent knows that my kid, I love them to death, but they're a sinner, right? Debbie and I, we got married, we were so excited, but I married a sinner, she married a sinner, and then we had three little sinners. And the home was filled with some trials and difficulties because five sinners were living in there.

We live in a world today where people say, "How dare you call me a sinner? You tell your child you're not a sinner." And then the child doesn't see how desperately they need Jesus. See, understand the poverty of humanity. Every person is born in total depravity and every person is in desperate need of God's mercy and grace.

So we were by nature children of wrath, deserving of wrath even as the rest. And then it goes on to say, "But God." But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

We're in desperate need of God's grace, and God intervened. God looked down to see our situation: dead in sin, children of wrath, deserving of hell, every single one of us. Nothing we can do to fix that, nothing we can do to change that. God has to do something. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, God intervened. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich...