Bucket-loads of Grace

SPEAKER A You once to every time in the sight of the good or evil sky don't break on you that I choice of life forever with that darkness. And. SPEAKER B The Bible assures us in Ephesians two, verses eight to ten, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Welcome to faith to faith Here are your hosts, Ettienne McClintock and Braedan Entermann. SPEAKER C Dear listener, greetings and a warm welcome. We are glad that you've joined us again on the program. Braedan and myself are delighted to have your company. Now, in the intro of our program, we quote that wonderful text from Ephesians chapter two, where it says that by grace are you saved through faith. It is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So every time we've been running this program, and I think this is about program number 38, Braedan wow. SPEAKER D We've been flies. SPEAKER C It is. We're flying this for sure. We are quoting that text about grace. Well, today we're going to talk about grace. And our title for the program is Bucket Loads of Grace. So I'm intrigued by the title and I look forward to us unpacking it. But just as we start, we just invite you to join us for a word of prayer. Gracious Father heaven. We are so grateful. We refer to you as Gracious. We refer to you as loving. And Father, we know that you are through experience, as we've been claiming the promises in Your Word. And thank you for your grace and your love. We know that of ourselves we cannot do anything and we cannot be saved. But because of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, because of the abundant grace we receive through Him, Father, we are saved. Not only that, Father, you're also able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior and Father, as we unpack this beautiful story today about the abundant grace, superabounding grace, bucket loads of grace, we just pray for Your blessing and grace upon each one of us. This is our prayer in Jesus name, amen. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C So when you think of bucket loads of grace, quite often you think of buckets filled with something, it could be maybe water or something. And people quite often, if they have a leak in the bucket, they think, well, that's a little bit of a challenge. I know of a story, for example, where a man had a leak in a bucket and there's an allegory where the buckets started talking to each other. One bucket was whole and kept all the water, and the other one had a bucket that had a little bit of a leak in it. And as it was walking, he had to walk one or 2 miles to go and get the water and then get back to his property. The whole bucket was saying to the leaky bucket, listen, you are a leaky vessel. At least I'm whole. I retain all my water, but you are actually not suitable for your purpose. So the broken bucket, the wonderful crack in it that was leaking as it was walking, was actually feeling pretty bad. And then through the allegory, it actually then goes to the bucket feeling despondent. And then the owner saying, Why do you feel despondent? Saying, because I'm not fulfilling my responsibilities. Like the whole bucket is the one on the right hand side, the one here on the left. I just feel like I'm not living up to expectations. And then the owner of the bucket said to him, but did you realize next time we walk down that path, you have a look along the path? On the left hand side, there's a lot of green and these beautiful flowers that I've planted. And as I go past, you actually water them. But on the right hand side, there's just barrenness and nothing. So God is able to use what you have, your abilities to his honor and glory because of his grace. That's basically what it's saying. So today we're going to talk about bucket, loads of grace, not necessarily ones that leak, but ones that are super abounding and overflowing. And there's a text, I think, Braedan, we were just talking about it before we started the program found in Isaiah 44. And I wonder if you could just share that with us, please, about God pouring his water on those who actually need it. SPEAKER D So Isaiah, chapter 44 and verse three, and this is an amazing promise, and before I read it, god is the most generous being in the universe. He is the great fountain of blessing. Every blessing that we ever receive comes from Him. The Bible actually says in the Book of James that every good and perfect gift comes from God. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D He doesn't change, and he's faithful and he's kind. He's the most generous being in the universe. In verse three, it says, for I will pour water on Him who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit on your descendants and my blessings on your offspring. They will spring up among the grass like willows by the water courses. I just find this such beautiful imagery. You've got this imagery of God pouring out his spirit, his blessing upon this earth. And the world is likened to a desert. It's very much like our hearts. We are dry and barren. But God says, I'm going to pour out my spirit. I'm going to pour out these floods of water on the dry ground. And it's interesting when it rains. My family, I grew up living on a place where we didn't have town water. We just had tanks, okay? And we had big tanks, but they weren't enough for the droughts of Queensland. And so we get to the stage where the tank is almost empty, and we're on water restrictions to the max. We're having small showers. We're not watering the garden anymore. We have to get some water trucked in. And it's getting to that situation. It's pretty dire. And then the rains come and it's just so nice. You hear the water rushing through the gutters and just splashing on the tin roof, and then it's filling this tank, and it's just wonderful. But then it gets nearer and nearer and nearer the top, and then it starts to overflow. It's just pouring out. It's just flooding on this. We actually lived kind of near a quarry, so the ground is super rocky and super dry and very infertile, but the water is just flowing out of the tank and we just can't contain the gift anymore. God has answered our prayers and the water is rushing down. That is kind of what God is willing to do to our spiritual lives and to his people. When we ask, he says, I will pour water on the one who's thirsty. If you're crying out for something more, if you're crying out for the blessing that I can give, I will pour it out on you just like a flood on a dry ground. That's the amazing promise that God gives to us. SPEAKER C I love that analogy, especially when there is a shortage of water and all of a sudden the floodgates of heaven, in the sense, are opened up, and then you have more than you could ever need. Matter of fact, you don't even have enough vessels or tanks to capture all of it. SPEAKER D We would grab random buckets just to put it under the overflow, just to catch it. You want to use it for something, but it's just too much. SPEAKER C And this is what God offers each one of us. That reminds me of the text there in Malachi, chapter three and verse ten. And then it's the second half of the text. It says that God says, I will open for you the windows of heaven and pour out in you such a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. Amen. So your tanks are full all of a sudden, and you've got so much more water. Now you're trying to find other extra buckets just to capture the blessing that's coming from heaven. So that's what we're talking about today, bucket, loads of grace. Now, there's also another text. This one is in the New Testament, and this is found in Luke, chapter six and verse 38 that deals with this abundant blessing that God is able to pour out on us. And we want to link this up with the concept of grace, because once we're done with this program, I don't know if we can have a part two because quite often that happens when you start talking about these things, we'll see how abundant the grace of God is, that it is actually super abounding. And this is found in Luke, chapter six and verse 38. And God actually tells us something here. He says, Give, and it will be given to you. So quite often you've got to cast your bread on the water. You know that text in the Bible, cast your bread on the water and not many days from there I'll return back to you. So here God is actually saying, give, and it will be given to you. So this is a step of faith. So if you trust God, if I give, will I lose everything? No, you give. God says he will give more to you. And how much will he give? He says given. It will be given to you. Good measure. Okay, so far, so good. Good measure. Thank you for that, lord. Press down, shaken together. Quite often if you have to put something in a little jar and you can't fit it all in, just give it a bit of a shake and all of a sudden there's a little bit more room above the rim. Just below the rim. Sorry. And you can fit a little bit more in. So here God's saying, now press down, shaken together, and then not only that, running over will be put into your bosom. SPEAKER D Isn't that amazing? It is incredible because I've been in that situation where I'm trying to fit something into a jar and you just don't want to have that little bit left in the bag. Or if you got some granola or some kind of thing you want to put inside this jar, you keep shaking it, you keep patting it down, you keep pushing it, just hoping to get that last little bit in. This is a beautiful metaphor of God giving us more than we could possibly begin to fathom. We're trying to contain it. We're shaking it down, we're trying to pat it down, we're trying to fit it, and then it just starts to overflow. And I love what because what I said before is that God is the most generous being in the universe. He wants to use his generosity to promote generosity. He wants to pour out this beautiful water of his spirit and grace into our lives so that we in turn can be like that bucket, overflowing rather than leaking, but overflowing and being a blessing to those around us. That reminds me of what Jesus said in John, chapter four. He said that his people would become like a fountain of everlasting life, a fountain springing up to everlasting life, just refreshing everyone around them. And so the great fountain, which is God, the fountain of blessing. I remember that song. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Yes, praise him. All creatures here below. He then designs that we should become number one. We should receive his gift, then give that gift out to others. So we're basically like the miniature fountain. He pours himself into us and then he pours his blessing out of us, to the world around us. And that's the great plan of salvation. We receive his kindness to show kindness to others. Very interesting that there's a story where Jesus fed the 5000. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And he gave to his disciples and what did they do? SPEAKER C They gave to all the other people. They got them to sit down and they were handing out this food and handing out this food. But it all started with something that was like was it five loaves, two fishes, something like that? SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C Just Amiga Pittance for five. And there were 5000 men, wasn't it? Besides women and children. SPEAKER D Could be well over 10,000 people. SPEAKER C Yeah, and a significant amount of people. How do you feed people? Just with a little bit like that? SPEAKER D This is so interesting because you've got Jesus at the middle and by putting his trust in the Father and praying that the needs of the people around him would be supplied, he becomes, as it were, the fountain of blessing. The fish and the bread are being handed out and the disciples are coming back to that great fountain. They receive basket loads of this bread and this fish, and then they don't sit down and eat it. SPEAKER C The interesting thing I like there is Jesus. Before he eats, he gives to the others first. SPEAKER D Interesting. SPEAKER C But he gives to his disciples. And before the disciples eat, they've got to hand this food away. Now, there's not a lot of food to go around with when this starts. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C But as they start handing out, it's just more food and more food and more food coming. An example of what we just read about there in Luke, chapter six and verse 38. Give and it will be given to you. Jesus demonstrates that he gives first. Before he eats, he gives to the others first. The disciples give before they then have for themselves. And when everybody then has got food, then the disciples eat, then Jesus eats. But what happens subsequent to that? How much food is left over? Because everybody eats to the full. SPEAKER D Jesus did this on two occasions, the Bible records. And on both times basket loads. Bucket loads were left over. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D And one time it was twelve with. SPEAKER C The 5000 was twelve baskets. SPEAKER D Twelve baskets full of food. SPEAKER C And then with the 4000, I think, was it seven baskets? SPEAKER D Seven baskets or something like that? That's right. There was always more than enough. Always more than enough. And this is just an example of everything that God is. We make a huge mistake when we consider God to be stingy, when we consider Him to be a miser who just holds back and will only give. If you meet these certain little you got to jump all through all the hoops and all the hurdles. God is presented as someone who distributes his blessing because he wants to bless. It just pours out upon everyone. Would it be right of us to say that every person in that audience of 5000 was worthy? Not at all. SPEAKER C No, you couldn't say that, could you? SPEAKER D No. There was people there who were there for the wrong reasons. There were people who were there because they were curious. There were people who were there because they wanted to crown him king. There was a few people there for the right reasons, but Jesus did not ask, Are they here for the right reasons? He bestows a blessing upon them because he sees they're hungry and he wants to help them. He is the fountain of blessing and he is calling his people to receive the blessing and then hand it on to other people. This great big torrent of grace and mercy that's flooding out to the world, and a great torrent of healing. Jesus is the great fountain of healing as well. You can think of all the times where he healed the sick and raised the dead. And what did he give to his disciples? The commission. To do the same? SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D To carry this work of healing and blessing and teaching the gospel to the world. It all starts with Jesus, and it's limitless bucket, loads of it. SPEAKER C And I love what you brought out there in regards to our worthiness or our qualification to receive this. It's not because we're qualified for it's, not because we are worthy or we've done any works of righteousness. It is because God just does this. It is in his nature, it's in his character to be merciful and gracious, whether it be good or whether you be bad. And really, if we look at the Gospel, we know that there's no one good. No, not one. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And Jesus, even when he has the Sermon on the Mount, he's talking to the people. He says to them there that they are to be merciful as their Father in heaven's. Merciful or even says that you shall be perfect as your Father in heaven's. Perfect? But in what sense are they to be perfect? He says there that you may be like your Father in heaven who makes His Son rise on the evil and on the good. And he sends his reign on the just and on the unjust. So then he says to them, based on that, you want to copy what your Father is? He says, I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you and do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. It says, well, if you love those who love you, what reward of you do not even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet your brethren only, what more do you do than others do? Not even the tax collectors do so. Therefore, you shall be perfect, even as your Father in Heaven's. Perfect. So that giving that we've just been reading about, that giving, as God demonstrates, is how we are to give, and we are to have the same spirit and the same attitude that Christ had. Now, how do we receive a spirit and attitude like that? Because by nature, we are a little bit more egocentric, aren't we? We like to hang on to stuff. When you look at little kids, and I've observed this over the years, a boy might have two cars, and a little friend comes to play. And especially early on, they're not used to friends visiting all that often, but their little friend comes over. They're excited to see the little friend. But now the little friend all of a sudden wants to play with this little kid's toy. And he go, Hang on, but this is my toy. You can't play that. Because in his mind, playing with a toy means ownership. That's right. These are mine. And then he hangs onto both of them. And his little friend standing there with. SPEAKER D No toys, even if he wasn't playing with them before, even if he wasn't. SPEAKER C Playing with them before that. Or she's got two dollies. And then so what happens is the mum comes and says, no, it's nice to share. I know it's yours, but you've got to share with your friends. You've got nothing, and you each can play with it. And then they realize, okay, well, there's fun in sharing and giving. So kids need to be taught this, and God teaches us as well and demonstrates this. But how does he enable us to have the same mind, the same attitude that Christ has? How do we get this? How can we become like Christ? SPEAKER D Well, I'd just like to read a verse before we answer that in Ephesians, chapter four and verse seven, and it just, once again, just takes that little bit step further with understanding the proportions of this gift. The bucket loads of grace, verse seven, it says, but to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Each one, every single person. SPEAKER C Okay? So there's no exclusion. So this is what we call good or bad. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C Irrespective. SPEAKER D Every person has been extended the right hand of God's favor. Or another imagery, like when Esther was extended that scepter. Yes, god has extended his scepter of peace, reached out his hand of favor towards us, to everyone, no matter what their background, no matter what they've done. And it then teaches us and tells us in this verse how big this gift is. Paul writing here, there's nothing that he can do to show us how big it is except to equate it with the vast proportions, the limitless proportions of the gift. Of Jesus Christ, which is God, the fullness of the Godhead being packaged in a human being as a gift to the human race. God giving everything for human beings. And so Paul says, You've been given a gift. Every single person has been given a gift of grace that is so big and so vast, bucket loads of it, it's as limitless as the very gift of Christ himself. That is the amount of grace that you've been given? SPEAKER C Yeah. Wow. And this is given to everybody. Now, is it possible for people to actually have received this grace and not even really know about it? Yeah, I guess one of the reasons why we're having this program today is to make people aware of this. Know, something interesting happened to me barely a week ago now. My wife and myself had just been to New Zealand. We had done some programs there with a couple of churches, and while we were there, we went to the ATM just to get some cash out. So we had some cash, local currency, New Zealand dollars, so we could use that. And we realized then when we went back into our app on our phone, the bank account, it actually had taken it not as cash out of our bank like it used to. And I think this is something that's changed only in the last two years. It actually took it as a cash advance out of our credit card and there was no income. Yeah. And there's interest, and, I mean, it's around 2020 1% or something, like some crazy percentage. And we're thinking, how can we this is not the first time it's happened. How can we change this? So normally when we find that out, we just go and pay the whole credit card, clean it out, so there's zero balance because we don't want to pay interest. I don't want to pay money because there's money in the bank, in our check account, but we can't access it at the moment because for some reason they've disallowed that. So we come back to the bank and we say, Listen, how can we change this? We very unhappy about the fact that every time we used to be able to go in the past and just get money out of your account, now it just takes it automatically out of the credit card, which means now we have to pay interest. That just doesn't make any sense when there's money sitting there that we can use interest free. And the lady said, but you have a debit card. I said, yeah, but that's hooked to a special account only used for special purposes. She goes, well, you realize if you set up a special account with us for those who are over 50, I'm giving my age away now for those who are over 50, do you realize that you can actually use your debit card anywhere around the world with this facility and you don't pay any bank fees whatsoever. I said, Right around the world? She goes, yes, it's an agreement amongst the banks that it's a global thing. If you go to any ATM, you can withdraw money after your 50 years plus and there's no fees on it. Why hasn't anybody told me? I've been qualifying for this for more than a year. SPEAKER D I was getting precise there. SPEAKER A Yeah. SPEAKER C And no one told me. So what I'm saying is, this is such a blessing, because if you do travel a little bit and you want money out now, I can now use my debit card. I just have to have that bank account set up. So what we're saying here is that to each one of us, grace was given. So this has been available all along to me through the bank. But what we're saying is, through the bank of grace, god's bank, salvational bank, grace has been given according to the measure of Christ's gift limitless. So how big is the gift of Christ, then? SPEAKER D I think it might be in Ephesians as well. It talks about to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And it describes the limitless dimensions of the love and goodness of God. SPEAKER C Just the previous chapter there talks about that. It says that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. I'm in verse 16 of Ephesians, chapter three, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. SPEAKER D There we go. SPEAKER C So can we really be filled with all the fullness of God? SPEAKER D The Bible says so. SPEAKER C Wow. But wasn't Christ filled with the fullness of the Godhead bodily as well? We read that in Colossians, chapter two and verse nine. So is that the size of the grace, the measure of the grace that's been given to us? SPEAKER D That's exactly right. What Jesus was and what he received from the Father, that limitless measure of the Holy Spirit, god is willing to pour that into our lives so that we can reveal the character of God to the world. And people often misunderstand. Grace is given for a purpose. God's goodness toward us is designed to achieve a certain effect, and that is to reproduce in us the character of God. When we receive God's right hand of favor, when we don't deserve it, that messes you up. When you're a wretched sinner and someone shows you kindness, that makes you spin out. You don't know what to do with that and it overcomes you. It's this tide of grace that washes over your soul and just transforms you. God's grace is designed to make us graceful. God's kindness is designed to make us kind. And that's just how it is. And I think of a verse here in Titus, the apostle Paul writing to Titus, and it summarizes it so perfectly in verse eleven, it says, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. SPEAKER C So here we have that all men. SPEAKER D Again, everyone has got this right hand of fellowship extended, but they don't realize it often. SPEAKER C Yeah. Wow. SPEAKER D Then it says teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and Godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless, deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous or passionate to do good works. SPEAKER C That is incredible. So there's so many things to unpack there. The grace of God, which brings salvation has appeared to all men. So the merits, the attributes of God's character that brings salvation for every single person is not limited to only some people. It's all men. So that's all men and women, because that word men there is obviously generic. And it says that the grace of God, and it can actually teach us. So we can actually learn from God's grace, that we can deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and that we should live soberly and righteously and Godly. Now, when are we just supposed to do that? Because quite often we think us somewhere. SPEAKER D In the future one day. SPEAKER C One day. Yeah. But here it says in the present age. SPEAKER D In the present age. SPEAKER C So God's grace is sufficient for now. Don't think about just God's grace somewhere in the future. He'll bestowow it upon you. It's come to all men, including you, dear listener. And also it says that it is available in the present age. And because of that, we can then look forward to this blessed hope and glorious appearing of a great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. SPEAKER D It's interesting, the words so believe righteously and Godly. We've been unpacking some of those words. Righteousness is God's character, godliness is God likeness. It's being like, yes. And so God's character, as it's revealed to us in the right hand of his favor, extended to us the gift of Jesus. It does something in our lives to produce the character of God, righteousness and Godliness and sobriety in our lives, in this present world. That's what grace does. And it's limitless. If we think that we've done too much, if we think that we're too bad. The Bible makes it very, very clear where sin abounds. So that means where there's a lot of sin grace much more abounds, that means there's a whole bunch more grace, there's more bucket loads of grace than there is sin. God has more grace to deal with our sin than we could possibly begin to fathom or. Imagine. SPEAKER C That is incredible. Now, as we have just a few more minutes left in this program, dear listener, we hope you've been able to realize through the words from the Bible that we've been able to share with you the measureless grace of Christ. That it's super abounding. There's bucket loads of grace available for you today if you believe it and accept it by faith. And that also that it doesn't miss out any single person. It's available to all. The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. So we've read a couple of texts on that as well. But there's a text we just want to close on because it actually talks there in two Corinthians, chapter six. And verse one that we are not to receive the grace of God in vain. So in other words, we've all received it, but some people actually don't effectively utilize it. So, dear listener, we pray that you would consider how you can experience the joy of the grace of the Lord, and how the grace of the Lord is abundant and efficient for you, because you are also a person that is the object of God's supreme regard. We look forward to catching up with you next time. SPEAKER B Thank you for joining us on Faith. To Faith. If you would like more information about today's program or if you have any questions, please contact 3ABN Australia Radio by Phoning. 02 4973 3456. Or you can send an email to [email protected] You can also contact us on our 3ABN Australia radio Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you.