Unlimited Grace

Bryan Chapell: This God says, though you have put your sin upon my Son that resulted in his crucifixion on your behalf, though it be that bad, the door's wide and the welcome mat is down.

Guest (Male): 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 John. Dr. Chapell highlights the miraculous working of Jesus in the story that once again reveals that God's grace is offered to those who are unworthy.

You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. And while you're there, look for this wonderful resource from Dr. Chapell, Holiness by Grace. In this book, Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the second half of the lesson, "He Too Takes All Kinds."

Bryan Chapell: Let's look at John chapter four. John chapter four as we'll be looking at verses 46 and following. Last week during the 8:30 service, just in the course of recognizing the message itself was about praying for the power of God in the lives of others, we just stopped right in the middle of the sermon and we prayed for Campus Outreach and Mike Jackson's ministry in St. Louis because we knew he was speaking that morning to a large gathering of college students—many who understood very clearly what he would be talking about, others who would be just gaining a knowledge of the gospel.

Since it was right in the middle of the sermon, people thought that was unusual. So a number of people, just by instinct, after the service said to me, "All right, now you need to go to Mike and you need to check what was he doing right at that moment in St. Louis that you were praying right here in Peoria right then?" What that instinct was saying was, you recognize the power of God can work across time and space.

If you have an instinct for that, you're going to understand very much what's happening in this portion of John's gospel. Because there's a man who comes and asks Jesus for help, and later he discovers that the son that Jesus has blessed has been healed. But the son's in another place, and so the father asks a question: "When did the healing begin?" Because he wants to check it against the time that Jesus said to the father in another time, in another place, the son's healing would occur.

That's what's happening here. Let's ask for the Lord to bless again as we stand and look at his word. I'll tell you just a little more as you're standing. I asked Mike later how the time went in St. Louis. You know what he said? He said after the very first talk that weekend, he lost his voice. So he said he needed people to pray for him so that he would have the strength to continue. What did we do? We prayed that he would have the strength to continue and the Lord blessed.

Let's ask that the Lord bless again as we look at his word and the power that is expressed through it. John 4 and verse 46, speaking of Jesus, John says this: "So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

"So Jesus said to him, 'Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.' The official said to him, 'Sir, come down before my child dies.' Jesus said to him, 'Go; your son will live.' The man believed the word Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, 'Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.'

"The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, 'Your son will live.' And he himself believed, and all his household. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee." Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, what you are showing us in this passage of the Bible is that the word of Jesus is powerful. It transcends time and space and human difficulty. It transcends personal sin. It transcends personal differences. It can even reach into our hearts here and now. And that is why we pray that the Holy Spirit would take the word of Jesus and send it into our hearts to do your will for Christ's sake. For this reason we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Sometimes you see when you reach out to people who are kind of at the periphery of faith and family, they don't know much about the gospel. Our tendency is to reach to those who already have their lives straightened up, already have understanding of what the gospel is, already know about the church and the things expected here. But what Jesus does even with this man is saying, even if you don't have much light to the gospel, even if there's not a lot of window in your understanding yet, he is still willing to extend the welcome.

That message, I suppose, is most clear in verse 48. Jesus is speaking to this man who's asking for help with his son. Jesus says in verse 48, "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe." Now listen, this is not a compliment. You should believe, but I understand you're not going to believe until something special and great and miraculous happens.

The amazing thing is that Jesus, saying, "You're not going to believe until something special happens," that Jesus is willing to help the man anyway. I mean, he doesn't have much gospel understanding. I would guess if you quizzed him and tested him, he would not get many answers correct. He's not living that way. And yet, Jesus is willing to come to this man at his point of weakness and lack of understanding and provide some help. The man just says, "I want my son to get better, and I understand you can do it. Would you?"

Now listen, I've already said to you, miracles don't just happen every day, even in the Bible. But when it's time for the message to go out, it seems that Jesus is willing to do what's needed for that message burst. And so what he does with this man is, he heals his son. Now the reason I say that to you, that Jesus is willing to work with a man who doesn't understand much, is because I recognize that's true of almost everybody who becomes a follower of Jesus Christ in their adulthood.

They don't have much understanding. They may have walked away from Jesus a long time ago. They may not have sat in a church for a long time. And so they don't have wide understanding, but if they just come to say, "Can you help me?" that's when the welcome mat of the heart of Jesus gets expanded. If you will, I think of it this way. I have a pastor friend who has a church that just amazes me because so many of the people in the church are adult converts.

They are people who decided in their adult childhood that they would come to Christ, that there was some reason to follow him. And yet, if you ask my pastor friend, "Why did these people in their adult years decide to follow Christ?" he would say, "Actually, there is one story that is the common denominator of all of them." He said for those who become believers in Jesus Christ as an adult, they all tell the same story. Here's the story.

I was going along in life and everything was going pretty well, and then this big rock came and fell on me. Now, the rock varies in dimension and kind, right? My marriage came undone. My job came undone. My kids got sick. Something happened that I recognized I wasn't in charge. I needed some help, and I recognized that help wasn't going to be on this earth and wasn't going to be in a doctor's cloak or a stock analyst computer. I mean, I needed some help from heaven.

For those persons who may have been the enemies of God, who may have been walking the other direction, who may have been working against his people, who may have been ridiculing his people at work, who may have been the abusers of his children, that those people, when the big rock comes and falls on them and they say, "God, will you help me?" they begin to understand the God of the Bible is saying, "I will."

The very reason he sent Jesus to people who were not just family and faith and heritage kin, but were the enemies of God, was because we can be the enemies of God and need to know that he will welcome such people. And that's why this man is here. For people who wonder, "Am I worthy?" Jesus is saying, "That's not the issue. You happen to be not worthy at all. That's not the issue. The issue is whether you're welcome."

Jesus is saying for those who say, "Jesus, will you help me?" the answer is, you are welcome to come into his heart and to know that he will care for you. I'm not promising a miracle every time. What am I promising? That all things will work together for good. That ultimately you enter a life that is eternal, and in that eternity, God says things will be made right and set right, and you will be made whole.

Will it happen today or tomorrow? That's in God's timing, not mine. But this is what God is promising: you can have peace with him, forgiveness of the past, forgiveness of your enemy action against God, and the presence of God to walk with you through whatever you have to walk with. I'm not even saying there won't be miracles. I believe there can be such things. I just don't believe they happen every day.

You know, in the first hour here, I gave this sermon and afterward even Kathy came to me, my wife, and she said, "Listen, I know what you're talking about." She said, "Just a few years ago when my father died, my mom," her mom, "said, 'I can't keep his chair in my living room anymore. It hurts too much. Get the chair out of my house. I can't take it.'" And so Kathy said she was driving home with the reclining chair that was on the swivel, you know, as the chair is just rocking back and forth in the van as she's going.

Kathy says she was just crying and she was saying, "Lord, as I see the chair rock and I think of my dad, I don't want the chair in my house either." You know? And she said, "God, this doesn't seem right, my dad gone at such a young age. I just need to somehow know that you're here to help me." And because she didn't want the chair in her house, she called one of her friends and said, "Do you know anybody that needs a chair, a recliner?"

Do you know what the friend on the other end of the phone said? "My teenage boys just broke my chair and I was just in prayer asking God for a chair." I'm not saying that will always happen. I am saying that if you've turned from God, if you wonder where he is, that God is saying the question is not whether you're worthy. The issue is that you are welcome when you turn to him, confess your sin, and ask his help. That God is here and he's working and his welcome mat is wide and here for you.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. God instructs us in his word to be holy as he is holy. How can God expect us to be as holy as he is? Such a standard seems either to ignore our frailty or to impose certain failure. That is, until we understand how God views us.

In this challenging yet heartwarming book, Holiness by Grace, Dr. Bryan Chapell illustrates the principles of grace, the practices of faith, and the motives of love in living a life of holiness. Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy.

Holiness by Grace draws straight from the heart of God, as Pastor Bryan's encouraging words will help you understand that your holiness is not so much a matter of what you achieve as it is the grace that God provides, a grace so rich as to make the pursuit of his holiness your soul's deepest delight. You can request your copy of Holiness by Grace when you go online to 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 am saying that if you've turned from God, if you wonder where he is, that God is saying the question is not whether you're worthy. The issue is that you are welcome when you turn to him, confess your sin, and ask his help. That God is here and he's working and his welcome mat is wide and here for you.

You want to see how true it is? I want you to remember what John is doing here. Would you just track in your Bibles with me if you've still got them open? And we're just going to follow a gospel train and see what God is doing in his word to invite friends and enemies and you to himself. This gospel train begins in John 2 and verse 11.

Why are these miracles here in John? In John chapter 2 and verse 11, we read these words: "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him." What was the first sign for? So his disciples would believe. But is that all the gospel is for, just for his disciples?

If you will, look at verse 23 of the same chapter. John 2 and verse 23: "Now when he," that is Jesus, "was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing." Now, not just the disciples, but many Jews believe. Well, is it only for the Jews? You know the answer to that. What did Jesus say to Nicodemus? "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes."

Well, how wide is the whoever? Look at John 4 and verse 39. John 4 and verse 39: Jesus has just had the conversation with the woman at the well, and in John 4 and verse 39 it says, "Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me all that I ever did.'" Now it's not just disciples, it's not just Jews, it's half-Jews. Many Samaritans believed.

Well, is it just for those of Jewish heritage, even if it's not full heritage? What do you know? John 4 and verse 53. John 4 and verse 53: "The father," this official of the king, "knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, 'Your son will live.' And he himself believed, and all his household." Now, not just half-Jews, but enemies and their households, even if they have no Jewish status whatsoever.

Is that the end of the story? One more place, all the way to the end of John. John chapter 20. John 20 and verse 30. What was the purpose of all these signs? "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

What's the great purpose? So that you would recognize the circle is wide enough to include you. The door is wide enough for you to get in. Though you have turned away, walked away, been an enemy, sinned your worst, this God says, though you have put your sin upon my Son that resulted in his crucifixion on your behalf, though it be that bad, the door's wide and the welcome mat is down if you will follow him.

Believe in him. The question is not whether you're worthy, but whether you know you're welcome. And all these signs are for one purpose: to say if you believe in him, you're welcome, even if you're not worthy. I asked you to sing with me at the very beginning of this message, "The Love of God." If you were to look it up in your hymnal, you would find that the person attributed to have sung, to have written the lyrics for that particular hymn is Frederick Lehman.

Frederick Lehman wrote all the verses but the third. Let me read to you the third verse. You sang it earlier. "Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky."

Frederick Lehman did not write those words. He found them scratched on the walls of a cell in an insane asylum by a man who had just been taken out to be buried. And Frederick Lehman, recognizing the wonder that this man who only had fleeting moments of sanity could nonetheless be so welcomed by God, that he would know even in those moments of sanity, the love of God above was as big as the sky, enough even to include him in all of his brokenness, hurt, and disability.

If God's love was that great, Lehman said people have to know this. And he wrote in his own account, he sat down on a wooden crate of lemons and wrote the first two verses so that the world would have the last verse of a man who said the question is whether you are worthy. The answer is, you're not. But that's not the issue. The issue is not whether you're worthy, it's whether you're welcome. And Jesus says, you are.

Heavenly Father, as we begin to grasp the power and the love of Jesus' passion for us, we reach toward him and we know that's what you want. You want us to turn to our Savior with the confidence that he can and will hold us through all of life's trials and for eternity. So when we see how Jesus gave his life in order to save sinners like us, we love him, we turn to him, we trust him.

Help us to do that right now. Even if our circumstances are tough and our sins are great, help us to believe that no matter how great is the difficulty or how heavy is our baggage, how deep may be our shame, there really is hope for each of us when we trust in Jesus. Your Son has your heart and your power. So we ask that your Son, Heavenly Father, this Jesus Christ that we're turning to, would pardon our sin, help us to live for you, and hold us for eternity.

That's a big prayer, but his grace is big enough. And so we ask that you would apply it to our lives as you know is best, for then we will be truly blessed. And so we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you'd like to hear more from Dr. Chapell, you can find a collection of valuable resources at unlimitedgrace.com. When you visit, you will find today's message and many others from Pastor Bryan.

Also, be sure to request a copy of Dr. Chapell's book, Holiness by Grace. We'll send you this book right away as our way of saying thank you for your most generous financial support. 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.

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