|
|
II.A. GRACE II.A.1.a. ROMANS 6:23 Heaven is a free gift. The Bible says that "the free gift of God is eternal life." II.A.1.b. THE GIFT Do you see this (a pen, for example)? I want to give it to you. What have you done to deserve it? (Nothing). And what did you do to obtain it? (I reached out my hand.) That's the way it is with God. He offers us eternal life as a gift. And all we have to do to receive it is to reach out our hand. But we often misunderstand. How much does a gift cost the one who accepts it? (Nothing). Imagine that you try to give me a little money for the gift I offered you. What will my reaction be? (You would be troubled or sad that I did not accept your gift freely.) And if the gift were of great value? Let's say I offer you a house, and you want to pay me a small sum for it like 5 cents. Now, what will my reaction be? (You will be insulted or mad). The gift of eternal life does not cost anything! Many are trying to buy their way to heaven for a price: They go to church out of obligation, they read their Bibles to deserve heaven, they help their neighbors to gain God's favor, they pray as if it were a traditional ritual that should be respected. The practices in and of themselves are good, but the motives behind them are bad. God want us to do good works, not to obtain His grace, but to thank Him for grace already received. When I give you a gift, what is your normal response? (Thank you). Likewise, God wants us to accept His gift, simply and humbly, then to show Him our sincere gratitude. II.A.2.a. EPHESIANS 2:8-9 So, heaven is not earned or deserved. The Bible declares that, "you are saved by grace, not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of so that no man will boast." II.A.2.b. THE CABINET Imagine that I am a master craftsman and that you are a good friend. I decide to surprise you with the best gift that you have ever received. Without your knowing it, I spend all of my savings to buy the best woods. Day and night I work in my shop to build the most beautiful cabinet that anyone has ever seen. Finally, when it is finished, I visit to offer it to you. You welcome me into your home, and when I uncover the cabinet, you thank me and accept it with gratitude. Now suppose you decide to put the cabinet in a room with furniture of another color. So, you want to go out and buy varnish to change the cabinet's color. And since the cabinet is too big, you decide to saw off the legs. When I see what you are planning, I stop you: "No! Don't touch my work! It is finished!" Our salvation is like that. God does not want us to try to change it by adding good works to the plan. He wants us to receive it as it is. Where do our good works fit in? Well, they serve to honor the creator. The best compliment that you could pay me would be to put the cabinet in a prominent place where everyone could see it. Likewise, we are to display our salvation where the world can see it. When people ask you who made such a perfect cabinet, you would speak kindly of me, wouldn't you? And we honor God by accepting his gift and telling others what He did for us. TRANSITION We can better understand this when we see what the Bible says about us. II.B. MAN II.B.1.a. ROMANS 3:23 Man is a sinner. The Scriptures declare that "we have all sinned." Have you ever done anything wrong? (Yes) II.B.1.b. 3 SINS A DAY How many mistakes, bad actions, wrong thoughts, or neglected acts have there ever been in your life? If you only make ten mistakes per day, you are undoubtedly a good person. If you only commit five errors, you are certainly very good. Try to imagine a minimum of wrong things you do per day. Let's say that you think or do three bad things per day. How many does that make in a year? (more than a thousand) And if you permit me, may I ask how old you are? (30 years old) So you have accumulated how many mistakes in your lifetime? (30,000) What would the judge do to a criminal in a court of law if he had 30.000 crimes on his record? (condemnation, execution, life imprisonment) God is a judge, and we are in the same predicament as a criminal who has many crimes against him. What will happen on the day you appear before your Judge? II.B.2.a. PROVERBS 14:12 This explains in part why man cannot save himself. God says that "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to death." II.B.2.b. THE OMELETTE Let's say I have five guests who are coming to dinner, and I decide to prepare an omelette. I need twelve eggs because I would like two eggs per person. I mix the eggs together in a large bowl; but one of the eggs is bad. So I ask you this question. "What will happen to an omelette if I mix eleven good eggs with one bad. (The whole thing is bad.) So it is with our lives. I am sure that you have done many good things in your life, but if you have done even one bad thing, you have ruined all the rest. Before I received eternal life, my logic was that each time I committed a wrong act, I would do a good deed to make up for it. But I was mistaken: We cannot undo our mistakes. Only God can undo them. If you have made just one mistake in your life, your whole life is ruined just as that omelette, and God will not welcome you into His heaven as you are. II.B.2.a. MATTHEW 5:48 The Bible says, "Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." You must be perfect to enter into His presence. TRANSITION This becomes clearer when we look at what the Bible says about God. II.C. GOD II.C.1.a. 1 JOHN 4:8b God is merciful and does not want to punish us. The Scriptures say that "God is love." II.C.1.a. JEREMIAH 31:3b And God said to the prophet, Jeremiah: "Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love." He wants all of us to have eternal life. II.C.1.b. FATHER-SON He is like a father waiting for His unruly son to come home. Just because a son disobeys or dishonors his father, this does not mean the father hates or abandons the child and stops wanting him to rejoin the family. We can do as the prodigal son, taking all our Father gives us, going and squandering it all, and God will not stop us from doing wrong. But that does not mean He does not care or that He likes what we are doing. No, He loves you and me, and He patiently waits for us to come back to Him. II.C.2.a. ROMANS 6:23 Yet, this does not mean there are no consequences of our sins. God is also just, and He must punish sin in us. "The wages of sin is death." II.C.2.a. EXODUS 34:7 And God warns all of us that He "will by no means clear the guilty." II.C.2.b. JUDGE-THIEF Let me illustrate God's perfect justice: Suppose I am a thief and that one day, I go into a store, appoach the clerk, and demand that he fill up a bag with all the money in the cash box. I make all the people in the store lie on the floor and keep silent. But without my knowing it, someone in the street sees the crime and quickly goes and gets the police. At the exact time I am leaving the store with the money, the police arrive, arrest me, and take me to prison. A month later, I am put on trial, and as I come before the judge, he asks me if I declare myself guilty or innocent. I look around, and I see they have all the evidence against me: the money I stole, the witnesses, the policemen, the clerk. I confess my guilt, and the judge prononces the sentence: five years in prison for theft. Imagine that I say to him at that point: "But your honor, I am very sorry for my act, you have recovered all the money, and no one was hurt. If you give me my freedom, I promise that I will never try to rob another store." Would the judge be just if he freed me? (Non) Absolute justice demands punishment for transgressions; if not, it is not absolute justice. If all judges freed thieves because they were sorry for their crimes and promised to never rob another store, none would be safe. God is more righteous than any human judge, and He cannot simply turn His eyes awa |