Unlimited Grace

Bryan Chapell: We are made right with God not by what we do. Jesus made us right. Our lives now are hedged about by the grace of God and nothing enters the hedge but what is best for us and our loved ones eternally.

Narrator: So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's episode, Pastor Bryan shares the second half of a lesson from Isaiah 44. Dr. Chapell highlights the unmerited grace of God that redeems His people.

You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. And while you're there, check out the new daily devotional from Pastor Bryan. Throughout this year, Dr. Chapell will take you through the entire Bible with a new devotional each day as we discover the ways that God's redeeming grace unfolds throughout all of scripture. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the second half of the lesson, Grits and Grace.

Bryan Chapell: The prophet Isaiah speaks in Isaiah 44, verse 9, and we'll read through verse 23. Isaiah 44 and verse 9. "All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified. They shall be put to shame together.

The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails. He drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line. He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it out with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.

Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself. He kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also, he makes a god and worships it. He makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat. He roasts it and is satisfied. Also, he warms himself and says, 'Aha, I'm warm, I've seen the fire.' And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, 'Deliver me, for you are my god.'

They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge and discernment to say, 'Half of it I burned in the fire. I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it into an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?' He feeds on ashes. A deluded heart has led him astray and he cannot deliver himself or say, 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?'

Remember these things, oh Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant. I formed you. You are my servant, oh Israel. You will not be forgotten by me. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing oh heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout oh depths of the earth. Break forth into singing oh mountains, oh forest, and every tree in it. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and will be glorified in Israel."

God is actually promising forgiveness before repentance. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for repentance is simply the word *shuv*. It means to turn. But I want you to recognize where the turning is relative to the forgiveness of God in verse 22. "I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you."

The command to return is in the present tense, which means the people have not returned yet. They are still in their exile. They are still in their sin. They're still in their lack of understanding. And yet God is saying to them, past tense, "I have blotted out your sin. I have forgiven your transgression. I have redeemed you."

Now, this begins to trouble us. Wait, I thought that forgiveness came after we repented. You don't expect God to forgive you if you haven't really repented. Repentance is still important. I'm going to say that. But you have to understand if you think that God's rescue of you depends on something that you are making, even your repentance, you have fallen back into the idolatry of Israel. Your salvation depends upon you.

The way in which we understand it is understood well by people who are coming out of the darkness and understand that the work has to be entirely God's, not ours. Anne Lamott wrote about how God began to reach to her. She said, "Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rage and ribbon, Eastern and Western spirituality, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink or Jesus."

Then one afternoon in her dark bedroom, the cracks webbed all the way through her. It's like ice on a lake and you step onto it before it's fully firm. The cracks began to web through her. She said, "I believed that I would die soon from a fall or from an overdose. I knew there was an afterlife, but felt they couldn't possibly take you in the shape I was in. I could no longer imagine how God could love me."

But in her dark bedroom, out of nowhere, it crossed her mind to call the new minister at St. Stephen's. It took her 45 minutes to walk there, but this skinny middle-aged guy was still in his office when she arrived. He listened. And so she let it all tumble out. The X-rated motels, her father's death, a hint that maybe just ever so often she drank a little too much.

She said she didn't remember much of his response, except that when she said she didn't think God could love her anymore, he said, "God has to love you. That's God's job." Now I confess to you, that language scares me a bit. But listen to what happened. Years later, the minister explained why he had put the responsibility of Anne Lamott's redemption entirely on God, saying to her, "It's God's job to forgive you, not your job to get it somehow."

He said these years later to her, "Here you were in this desperate situation, suicidal, clearly alcoholic, going down the tubes. I thought the trick was to help you extricate yourself enough so that you could breathe again. You said your prayers weren't working anymore, and I could see that in your desperation you were trying to save yourself. So I said you should stop praying for a while and just let me pray for you."

And right away, she seemed to settle down inside. What settled her? Not trusting in the God of her making, not trust in the adequacy of her prayer, but letting another take the load entirely. First the minister and then ultimately God, simply trusting that it was God's job, as a covenant-keeping God. It was His job to love her.

And it wasn't her job to make Him do that, just somehow leverage God with the adequacy of what she could bring to the table. Were her prayers good enough? Was her life straightened up enough? Did she say repentance in the right terms? It wasn't her making of anything that was going to be the basis of her forgiveness. It was instead resting upon what someone else had provided.

That message is a tough one for us even now. Because if I tell you that forgiveness precedes repentance, we get very concerned. Are you saying that repentance isn't required in order for God to forgive us? Are you really saying that repentance isn't required? Well, before I answer that question, I want you to think of what the alternatives could be.

Is God's forgiveness dependent on the adequacy of our repentance? If we are saying really, God's forgiveness depends upon your repentance, and by the way, all of us will agree it has to be sincere, then what? God happens to be holy and perfect.

So if God's pure and perfect forgiveness of you depends upon your repentance, it had better be perfect and with no wrong motives. It had better be absolutely holy or will actually be abhorrent to Him. It's why the Puritans when they wrote about this actually said we have to learn to repent of our repentance. Because if you don't, you don't actually recognize the imperfection of what you're bringing to God.

But if you actually begin to say, "Okay, I know it can't be perfect repentance." Well, that's not the only problem. Now you have the problem saying, if God's forgiveness depends upon the adequacy of your repentance, what about the sin that you can't remember? Anybody willing to confess there might be sin in their lives that they can't remember?

The ancient Hebrews actually had to bring a sacrifice to the temple for the sins they couldn't remember. And that's not the only problem. If God's forgiveness depends on the sin that you adequately, fully, and rightly repent of, then what happens if you die before you repent?

Some of you have faced awful, terrible situations in your families and lives where there are issues of accident and suicide. And I want you to know something: God is not waiting for the adequacy of anybody's repentance to forgive them. Forgiveness from a covenant-keeping, holy, gracious God precedes even the adequacy of our repentance.

Narrator: You're listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. It may seem hard for younger Christians to believe, but people over 50 were raised during an era where 90% of Americans identified as Christian. These older believers were once part of a majority group that understood the mission of the church was to take control of our culture, to halt its evils. At the same time, Christians under 50 have lived their entire lives perceiving themselves as a minority that needs to make credible their faith to a secular, pluralistic culture. These distinct experiences and perceptions have a profound impact on the priorities different generations have for church ministry. It's no wonder that younger and older believers don't always see eye to eye.

In his new book, *The Multi-Generational Church Crisis*, Dr. Bryan Chapell asks the question, what could be accomplished in the name of Christ if we could better understand each other? This practical and hopeful book is backed by thorough research, revealing how to open the lines of communication, appreciate the experiences that shaped each generation in your church, and unite in one mission to impact your community and the world. You can request your copy of *The Multi-Generational Church Crisis* when you donate online at unlimitedgrace.com or by calling 844-41-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. And now more from Bryan Chapell on today's Unlimited Grace.

Bryan Chapell: I love the way the apostle Paul says it in Romans 5:1 where he says, "In Christ, we have received access into the grace in which we now stand." As though we've already entered the ocean of grace in which we swim day after day. God is not somehow waiting to let the dam breach by our repentance so that he can let the water of mercy flow. We live in grace.

Listen, how much of your past sin did Christ take the penalty for? All of it. How much of your present sin did Christ take the penalty for? All of it. How much of your future sin did Christ take the penalty for? All of it. What that ultimately means is God is not waiting to say, "Listen, when your repentance gets adequate, when you've remembered enough, when you've done enough, when you've shed enough tears, when you have done all that you can do to make it right, then I will love you."

That is not what God is saying. That's actually the form of idolatry that is saying it's the work of your hands or of your heart or of your tears or something in you. That it's your work that makes things right with God. Jesus made it right with God. We rest upon Him. I love the way the reformers say it: We receive and rest upon Him alone for our salvation. Repentance is not so much a doing as a depending. It's not so much an action as an attitude. It is resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Well, if that's the case, why do we repent? Not to make Him love us. It is actually to return the embrace of the one who already holds us. It's to claim the grace that already claims us. It's to experience the wonder of the love that has been ours because of the work of Jesus Christ, not because of the work of my repentance. If God is waiting to forgive me fully until my repentance is full, then I die in the shame and the harm of my own sin because I don't know how to repent fully and well.

But I do know how to put my faith in the one who took the full penalty. And that one is my hope. Not my repentance, His provision. And when that is my hope, I'm suddenly free. I mean, really free from the limitation of thinking, "When am I going to repent enough? When are my wife and I going to have paid the penalty enough? When are we going to do enough to make God truly, really set us free from the guilt and the burden of the sin in this hurt that we families are going through?" And you have to say, "No, listen, you are free. Really, really free."

Oh, but doesn't the Bible say, "If we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all our..." Yes, 1 John 1:9 is really there. But you have to understand what's being said there. God is not saying this condition, "If you confess your sin, then I will forgive your sin." This is a statement of fact. Those who are confessing their sin, those who recognize the wonder of the grace of God, those who are living in the land of confession, know the wonder of the grace of God.

He's faithful to forgive your sin, not because you confessed it, but because even in confessing, you are understanding the glory and the goodness of the grace of God that has already captured you. It's the wonder of really, really being set free. If that's our joy, what results? Profound security.

Ricky Gray is a friend of mine, a missionary who's very honest in what he writes about the troubles of his own heart, particularly since a son named Chase was born with multiple birth disorders. And Ricky writes occasionally how, after the multiple operations and the trips to the doctor, they watch every growth chart and every piece of progress, and when there's any setback, how their hearts automatically revert to, "Have we not repented enough? Is there some reason we're experiencing this now that we haven't done enough for God?"

And then he says we have to take our hearts back to the gospel. We are made right with God not by what we do. Jesus made us right. Our lives now are hedged about by the grace of God and nothing enters the hedge but what is best for us and our loved ones eternally. And that's the promise of a God who has forgiven even before our repentance is all that it ought to be.

And then profound humility. If I really believe that forgiveness precedes my repentance, then I get beyond comparison. I get beyond the sense of, "I've got to be right enough now for God to love me and better than you or something like that." We so much pray and want a lot of people to return to grace, and we know there are all kinds of issues of past. But what if we actually believed that God's love were just not based upon our appearances or goodness?

Would we be able to say to people, "Listen, we're sorry. Either we didn't or didn't even know how to make the worship experience what it should have been for you, and we're just sorry." How it might change you. "Wait, you can't tell me that." No, listen, I'm right with God. I'm eternally, totally right with God. So I can be humble before you.

And the last result, if we actually believed that forgiveness preceded repentance, wouldn't just be security, wouldn't just be humility. You know what the final result would be? Repentance. He's that good? He forgives me even before I've got everything worked out right? I want to be with him. If that's how good he is, I want to be with him.

Some of you remember that famous painting of the prodigal son done by Rembrandt. And the reason it became so famous is because lots of people have done paintings of the prodigal son, but Rembrandt's is so famous because it's the painting of the son in his absolute destitution. He's been living with pigs and feeding on the pods that they were eating. And so Rembrandt really represents him in the deprivation and the destitution of his clothes are filthy and torn, and because of malnutrition he's going bald and he's emaciated.

And there he is just clinging to the father in the royal-seeming robes who does seem like he shouldn't be touched by this filthy young man who's at his knees. But instead what you see is the face of the father. The face of the father has no reproach, no repulsion, but deep and abiding love. "This is my son who has come to me." And it is the love of the father that welcomes the return that has caused the return.

So God calls you today. I don't know where you are in repentance. If there are things in your life that you know you need to repent of, if there are things you think you have repented of, but listen, I don't want you to wait to think, "I've got to make this right before I can be all right with God." I want you to know a forgiveness that is free, really, truly, fully free, so that you're freed from you and rest in him fully, entirely. And then you would really know the freedom of his forgiveness that is offered to you.

Narrator: That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If this message has been an encouragement to you, you can find a collection of more valuable resources at unlimitedgrace.com. When you visit, you will find today's message and many others from Pastor Bryan. While you're there, make sure to sign up for Pastor Bryan's daily devotional sent right to your inbox.

Once again, go to unlimitedgrace.com or you can give by calling 844-41-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by his unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.