The All Powerful Reign 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, welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us again today. It's always a pleasure to have your company. And just as we start, we invite you just to bow your heads for a word of prayer. Gracious Father in heaven, we're so grateful for all your love, your mercy and your grace, Father, your grace, your superabounding grace. And today, Father, as we discuss the power that God has given us, delegated us through Jesus Christ, his Son, we just pray that you would bless us, help us to understand what you mean to us, what this means for us in our lives and the victory we can experience through Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless us. Now, as we open the Scriptures, we ask in Jesus name, amen. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C So today's program is called the All Powerful Reign of Grace. SPEAKER D That sounds so good, doesn't it? SPEAKER C It is a wonderful title. And look, as much as that sounds like great news, the news is far greater than that. We don't have the language to actually explain it. SPEAKER D That's like what the Bible says eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has gone to prepare for those who love him. SPEAKER C Yes, not entered into the heart of man. And we even can look at that text there in Ephesians chapter three. We may have even quoted this in previous programs, but it's such a wonderful text, it's probably one of my favorites. Ephesians chapter three and verse 20, where it actually says there now to him who's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. So here it ties in with that has not even into the hearts of man what God has prepared for those that love him. SPEAKER D Exceedingly abundantly above. It's a triple adjective there. Exceedingly abundantly above. SPEAKER C Any of those would be great. If it's just above, that would be wonderful. Because above means obviously it exceeds. And then when it says exceedingly well, that is obviously exceeding again and then abundantly there's not overshlowing overflowing a super abundance of above what we ask or think. And it says according to the power. Now that word power, there again is Dunamis power. We've unpacked that previously, the power that works in us. So there's a power that works in us that can do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think. SPEAKER D Now, if we realized that and truly had that internalized wonder, what our experience with God would be? SPEAKER C Well, I think it'll be one of joy. Absolutely. Like one of peace, one of happiness, one of victory. SPEAKER D So many people bemoan just and they say it's so hard to be a servant of God, it's so hard to be a Christian, it's so hard to do right. But when you've got God working in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure, when the spirit of God is upon you, when you've had your heart recreated, it's kind of like that ancient prophecy about the work of the Messiah in Psalm 40 and verse eight. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER D Where it says, I delight to do your will, o my God, your law is within my heart. Imagine that. Delighting. What's another way to say that? Like being super excited, being that's right, just passionate, just over the moon, excited to serve God. I delight to do the will of God. And this is what the plan of salvation entails. It's not just some little another way to say it would be this the plan of salvation is far greater and far more extensive and far more impactful than we could possibly think. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER C Wow. Now it tells me about us not conforming to the world, but being transformed by the renewing of our mind. We're actually able to, through this transformation, the renewing of the Spirit of God. And by the grace of God, we're able to prove what is good and what is acceptable and what is the perfect will of God for our lives. And as we unpack that today, we actually want to get to this text, but we're going to take a little bit of a route to get there. Just want to tell you what the destination is. I think this will be a part one because there's a lot to unpack that's right under this topic of the all powerful reign of grace. And this text comes from Romans chapter five and verse 21. So, dear listener, if you're not driving in your car listening to us, grab a Bible and keep it close to you because we're going to refer to a few beautiful texts out of the Scriptures today. It says, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So we're going to talk about sin reigning in death and then talking about grace reigning through righteousness to eternal life. So sin reigns and the ultimate reign of sin is death, but the reign of grace, which is the reign of righteousness, actually the result is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So we want to unpack that a little bit. Now, in the previous programs we've looked at Romans chapter 12345. We've looked at quite a few of the statements that Paul makes in Romans about grace and this wonderful topic of faith and righteousness, faith and justification. So we want to unpack that a little bit. But the way we get to chapter chapter five, Romans chapter one, introduces to us the Gospel, where Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power, the dunimous power of God unto salvation. And then it has this little caveat for all who believe because the power is there. But unless we believe, unless we exercise our free will, our choice, we may actually be denying the power. We may receive the grace of God in vain as we unpacked in a. SPEAKER D Previous program to say something very quickly, paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And then he gives the reason why he's not ashamed of it. Yes, because it's not a dry theory. It's the power of God to salvation, or it's God's power that produces salvation, transforms and it saves. It says, for the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel as well. And I think just a great application from this is if we in our experience are ashamed of the gospel ODS are it is because we have not experienced the power of God that produces salvation in our lives. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And secondly, have not beheld the righteousness of God in it. SPEAKER C We've undervalued the power that is available undervalued. SPEAKER D And if I was the devil the Bible says that the devil is exceedingly angry. He's angry with God's church because he knows he has a short time, he's on death row and he knows it. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER D But he's just trying to cause as much havoc as possible and he's trying. SPEAKER C To convince people that that is actually not the case. When it is. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C It's all propaganda, isn't it? SPEAKER D It's totally propaganda. And if I was the devil, what I'd be trying to do is hide or basically slip the wool over people's eyes, trying to blind them to the power of the gospel. I wouldn't mind them reading the Bible so long as they don't experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a brand new heart. And so what the devil wants us to do is to be kept in a place where we're afraid to do right and we're afraid to do wrong. We're just stuck in the middle somewhere and he wants us to just feel it's just hopeless. We're just a hopeless case. We're always going to sin, we're always going to be struggling. He wants people to stay there. He doesn't want them to know that there is power in the gospel. There's this power that can transform our lives exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think. SPEAKER C That's right. Yeah, that's beautiful. And I like the analogy there with the wool being pulled over people's eyes. In other words, they're being blinded to the reality that we actually see in the gospel two Corinthians, chapter four. And verse four talks about whose mind the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe lest the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. And that's chapter four of Two Corinthians, chapter three of First Corinthians talks about a veil was left over the people of Israel. It says that their minds were blinded in verse 14 of chapter three. For until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament. They don't actually see the power of God, they see the power of His Christ. It says, because this veil is actually taken away in Christ. So we got to allow Christ now through his word and through the Holy Spirit, to take this veil away so that those minds that have been blinded would be given an eye self so they can see and they can have their discernment regarding the awesome power and the beauty of the Gospel. SPEAKER D Isn't this interesting? The only power that the devil has, according to this Two Corinthians, chapter four, is just to hide from our eyes the things that really are. He doesn't have an alternative. All he does, and he's done it from the very beginning, he has no good alternative. He just simply hides from view the glorious goodness of God and his plan for our lives. And so for someone who's got a blindfold over their eyes and they don't realize it, they're convinced that they know what's going on. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER D But what they don't realize is the glorious beyond. It's who God is. And what it says here is the glory of Christ, who is the image of God shining on them. And so God wants to reveal his goodness and his mighty long suffering and his ability to be able to save us. All the devil can do is just hide that from us. SPEAKER C That's right. And when you hide the truth, what are people going to swallow? SPEAKER D Yeah. SPEAKER C Lies. He is the father of lies. He's going to sell you a lie regarding the character, the nature of God. SPEAKER D Now it's interesting. In verse six of that same chapter, it says, for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness. That's obviously an allusion to creation. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER D For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So here God equates the void dark abyss of the earth before light shone with our hearts. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER D It's a place where no light is dwelling. And it reminds me in Isaiah chapter 60 and verse one, okay, it says, arise shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. And then it describes the earth, for behold, the darkness shall cover the earth. And deep darkness, the people. But the Lord will arise over you and his glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising. SPEAKER C That is so powerful. So what happens is, in that darkness, the light of Christ, the light of the glory of Christ will shine, and this light will do something to transform and change these people who previously were sitting in darkness. SPEAKER D It's interesting, right? And darkness isn't anything. Darkness is just the absence of light. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D And that's the devil's kingdom. It's just nothing. SPEAKER C It's referred to as the kingdom of darkness, isn't it? SPEAKER D That's right. It's the kingdom lacking all things good and all things wholesome. And he wants to keep us trapped in that. Just a few chapters back in Isaiah, chapter nine, we have this ancient prophecy about the coming of the Messiah king who will set up his kingdom, this eternal kingdom of peace on this planet. He's actually called the Prince of Peace. But at the beginning, I find it very, very interesting. This is verse one. It says, nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first he lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward more heavily oppressed her by the way of the sea. Beyond the Jordan in Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light, and those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. This is so fascinating a Gentile stronghold where paganism was just rife. It describes that they were living in darkness. Living in darkness, the region and shadow of death. And it describes, prophetically, the time when Jesus, the king of glory, would come to this world to take the Gospel to them and to set them free. Down in verse four, it says, for you have broken the yoke of his burden. See, the devil wants to put a yoke on us. He doesn't want us to experience true freedom. SPEAKER C That's right. And, you know, that introduction you read there talks about those who live in gloom who are distressed, and it talks about them also that those who are heavily oppressed, this is the result of the principles lived out in the kingdom of Satan. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C And we have examples of know, when people get rid of God altogether in society, we see examples of that where oppression and terror takes. You know, one of those places in history we can think of is the French Revolution. And in the French Revolution, you've got is it Voltaire and Rosepier and all those guys who introduce this reign of terror and for a period of what, just over a year, I think it was 13 months from about June 1793 that's about July 1894, you have this reign. SPEAKER D 1794. Yep. SPEAKER C What I say 1794. Yes, yes. Only 13 months during that reign how many people were sentenced to death? SPEAKER D There was officially 16,594 official deaths. SPEAKER C Wow. That's a lot of deaths on a daily basis over just over a year. So we've worked it out before that's about what, 42 executions per day? Per day. During the reign of terror. No one would have been secure, no one would have felt safe. That is a typical example of when you get rid of God. Now, what they were actually doing there, they were getting rid of false Christianity, a corrupted Christianity, but they got rid of everything. They threw the baby and the bathwater out, and what was left over was this reign of terror where secularism got involved with them and no one trusted anybody anymore. SPEAKER D That's right. And that is just a little tiny microcosm of the entire reign of terror. The great reign of terror or the not so great reign of terror of the devil. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER D And he's kept this world in darkness, viciously holding them in darkness. And I love this ancient prophecy because it says that the yoke of their burden will be broken. It says, the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his Oppressor, as in the days of Midian. SPEAKER C The days of Midian, it says. SPEAKER D Yeah, which is interesting. That's an allusion back to Gideon with his 300 men who delivered the nation of Israel from the Oppressors, the Midianites. They had what was it? 135,000 men? SPEAKER C That's right. About 120,000 of them actually perished during this war with 300 men pursuing them. SPEAKER D 300 men, and that's one for every 450 Midianite soldiers. SPEAKER C Wow. SPEAKER D So we've got this picture of a massive deliverance. We've got a leader, Gideon, with a very small group of people who lead an assault on the camp of oppression and wickedness. And all they take is trumpets and some lanterns or some lights, and they stand all around the camp, they blow their trumpets, shine the light, and in terror, this enemy of darkness, just they would get frightened, they start killing each other. And there's a massive slaughter, a little tiny group, one man with a little group of people taking on this massive force of darkness at nighttime and shining the light into it. And it's very fascinating that in Galilee of the Gentiles, as this prophecy predicts, a man by the name of Jesus, who happens also to be the creator of the universe, gathers a small group of people around him and leads a full scale assault on the kingdom of darkness. It says here, for unto us a child is born. This is Isaiah nine, verse six. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the Zeal or the Passion of the Lord of Hosts will perform this. SPEAKER C Wow, what a powerful promise. What I love about that is when Jesus establishes the government, there's obviously two phases to it, that's the kingdom of grace and then there's the kingdom of glory to come afterwards. But even during the kingdom of grace, it says of the increase of his government and his peace, there will be no end. So what Christ started 2000 years ago was never to finish. It run all the way through. And the only thing that can actually hinder it at an individual level is our lack of belief that's right in the promises of God. SPEAKER D What we're seeing here is a full takeover. The devil who's got this, keeping people in darkness, this region of the shadow of death, which is really the whole world as well. And then the Prince of peace comes to this world and just like Gideon, he leads this assault against darkness and shines the light of his truth and opens blind eyes and he's a conqueror and it says that his kingdom will last forever. And if we have that victorious picture of Christ and everything that he's trying to accomplish, how will that affect our Christian lives? To know just how much power he has that's right to conquer the powers of darkness. SPEAKER C So as we look at the book of Romans, chapter five, verse 21, we're actually talking about the all powerful reign of grace and it contrasts it with the reign of sin which leads to death. And that's Romans 521. Now all the way through Romans we see about this issue with people sitting in darkness and then how God brings them back. Because it's very clear if we go to Romans chapter two, there talks about how it's the goodness of God, it's the light of God and the glory of God and his righteousness that leads people to repentance. Romans chapter two and verse four says there that do you despise the richness of his goodness, his forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that it is the goodness of God that leads you to repentance? It is God's glory, it is his justice, but more than his justice is his righteousness that brings us to repentance. And as we go through the Bible, then we see there in Romans chapter three, for example, there that there's no one righteous, no not one, there's no one that understands, there's no one that seeks after God. So it just shows you how all encompassing the grace of God is to take all of these people in and to offer them salvation. It says that all have sin and fallen short of the glory of God. And then it says that we are justified freely by his grace. Going to chapter four then of Romans, it says there Romans chapter four and verse five, but to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. So taking those people out of darkness, the people who were in darkness themselves, and then changing and transforming their lives through Jesus Christ and making them a light to the world, jesus says to them, you are the light of the light of the world. SPEAKER D What an interesting I love those words, justifies the ungodly. I praise God for those words because if it was not for that hope that God can do something to save the ungodly Jesus. It says in Matthew 121, you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D Not just from the consequences, but from the very disease itself. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D He's going to totally fix us and that's his glorious work of salvation. SPEAKER C That's beautiful. Then you get to Romans chapter four and verse 25. There it says that Jesus was delivered because of our offenses, but he was raised because of our justification. So here we can see that God took all that bad and because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, he was able to deliver us all from our offenses and raise us justified in Him. So from there then, we get into Romans chapter five. We read about having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So where we maybe in the past had warfare against hostility, it says that the natural man or the carnal mind is enmity towards God. It's not subject to his law, nor indeed can it be. There's a transformation now we lay down our weapons against the Lord and we take up the gospel of peace. And it says that being justified by faith in others, by believing the Gospel, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Then it also talks here in verse five of Romans five, that God has poured out in our hearts, his agapa, his self sacrificing love by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Now that pouring out just reminds me of what we covered in some previous lessons. When God pours something out, it overflows our cup overflows there's more than we can bear. And the agape love. And this love is the love that fulfills the law of know that self sacrificing love is poured in in our heart so abundantly that it overflows. So we can't even hold it back. We can only share that love with others and is demonstrated in the lives we live because of our faith in Jesus Christ. Then we get into Romans chapter five proper now where it talks about that Christ actually died for the ungodly, again for those who sit in darkness. And that's verse six. And then in verse eight, we told that God actually demonstrate what love looks like and he demonstrated his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners so bad people again, right? Christ died for us, he didn't come to save and rescue the good, he came to rescue the bad. And through that rescue process, he's able to transform and change what was bad once into good. And then we get into verse nine there. And there's some words used here, the two words that are used together. And it's used a number of times. Matter of fact, it's used five times in the rest of the verses, right to the end of chapter five. SPEAKER D Now, praise God for these two words. SPEAKER C These two words are much more then it says there in verse nine much more than having now been other words, past tense. Having now been probably past continuous tense, we could say justified by his blood, the blood of Jesus Christ we shall be future tense, shall be saved from wrath through Him much more the first time. Now much more happens to be repeated the second time. In verse ten it says for if when we were enemies, we just spoke about being enemies before we were past tense, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son much more. Those two words again, much more. Having been that's past tense. Having been reconciled, we shall be future tense shall be saved by his life. So we have much more having now been justified by his blood. And then in verse ten, much more having been reconciled. So having been justified having been reconciled, it talks about the much more component there. From there I just want to go through to verse 15 because that's the third time the words much more are used again it says, but the free gift is not like the offense. It's talking about the offense of Adam and the offense of sin. Right. For if by one man's offense many died, much more. So as bad as the offense is and the fact that many dies and. SPEAKER D The consequences have been disastrous, disastrous, there's. SPEAKER C Something that is greater and far better than that. We spoke about the cup overflowing this. Much more means overflowing again much more. The grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ, abounded to many much more. The grace of God and the gift by the grace of one man Jesus Christ, abounded to the many. Then we go two verses down. SPEAKER D Could I jump in there very, very quickly? Sure. The extent which is huge, the extent of evil's reign on this planet, it's massive. It's just total. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER D The reign of grace and God's gift, it just overflows all of it. We struggle to get our heads around how dark the reign of terror has been and just how extensive it's been, right to our very core of our hearts. Grace overruns it, grace overflows it. It's far greater and far more than anything. It can meet the challenge 100% and more. SPEAKER C That is so true. What you often are used to, you think is normal. But this reign of terror is not normal at all. This is a discord and note in the whole of the universe which is in harmony with God. And when you're used to something, your familiarity with something bad or familiarity with sin becomes normal after a while. And now I was raised in a country that has had a lot of political problems over the years. They had apartheid and everything. And at the moment the murder statistic in South Africa on an annual basis is around 23 to 24,000 people are murdered on an annual basis in that country alone. And people talk about the crime rate there. But them, it's normal. They think that's just that some of them still call it the best country in the world to live. It is just simply because that's their normal. For us here, if those numbers all of a sudden started happening overnight, there will be an outcry and an outrage and they'd want the demand change immediately. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C Now, they said some call for demand because of all the murders and the farm murders and so on. But for them who live in that environment and live in that conflict situation, that's common. It's common day to day stuff for them. So for us here, what we're saying is basically God is trying to open our eyes to see that the reign of terror under Satan is not normal, that there's something that is much more better, that is much more abundant. And this is actually the reign of grace that we are talking about today. It says that so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Braedan, it looks like we have run out of time and we've just started scratching the surface. We'll have to do a part two. We're going to come back to your listener, but listen some of the things that we've touched on here. You can actually go onto our website, Threeabnaustralia.org Au and just click on the Listen button or go to the radio one. There's a lot of On Demand programs at the moment. There's almost 40 programs that you can listen to. Some of our programs from the past if you've missed out on any of those, which will help you understand some of the things we're talking about today because we're just skimming through some of those as we quickly went through the first few four or five verses of Romans. But if you want them to be unpacked a little bit further, feel free to go and listen to those. They're available for you there whenever you want to listen to them. Dear listener, thank you for joining us again today. We pray that God would bless you as you contemplate the exceeding abundance of grace that has been offered to each one of us. Until then, God bless. 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.