We are continuing our study of grace this week. Without grace, we are unworthy to receive
anything from God. With grace, we
receive His righteousness as a gift. Our
operating definition of grace is the unmerited, unearned, and undeserved favor
of God. We are given these gifts because
we are His children, and for no other reason.
Ephesians 5 recounts how our relationship with God is like a
marriage. Husbands are supposed to love
our wives as Christ loved the church. He
washes the bride with His word and presents her to Himself radiant, holy,
perfect, and blameless. It is not up to
us to make ourselves that way, but we still do what we can not sin. Then Jesus does what we can’t. Verses 22-23 refer to how Jesus took a beating in His body in
order to save the church. It also says
we need to submit to Christ. This does
not mean following all the rules or accepting condemnation for our
shortfallings, but it means submitting to His love. That also means we submit to His thoughts for
us and His abilities through us. Outside
of grace, we think we have to earn God’s love.
Christ gave everything when we were at our worst (that is a good lesson
for having a successful marriage as well—love the person when they are not at
their best).
Verses 29-30 resonate the fact that God never hates us. He may not be pleased with everything we do,
but He never hates us, His body. God can
purify us from the inside out. God tried
purifying from the outside in with Noah, but it didn’t work. A good example of this is Paul. God saw his passion. He took out the misguided part of murdering
Christians and used the passion inside Paul to glorify Himself. Let God clean it up. There are things in my life I tried to fix
for years and failed, but when I got into the Word (not about those problems
but just in general), they over time fixed themselves without me trying.
Song of Songs shows a picture of our relationship with God,
the Beloved. The bride starts as “My Beloved is mine,” but at the end “I am my
Beloved’s.” This is maturity. God wants us instead of hanging on to let go
(Hebrews 10:22-23). We are not to hold
onto Jesus but to hold onto hope and rest.
God hangs on to us because we can not do it.
John 14 says the Holy Spirit will teach us all we need to
know and will remind us of all we have been taught. It also emphasizes that we should have peace,
not let our heart be troubled and not be afraid. After this, people were about to push Him off
a cliff, but Jesus just walked right through them. He had a lot of peace to be able to know that
was not His purpose and just walk right in.
When Jesus was in the storm in the boat, He was sleeping because He was
at peace. He woke up because His people
were worried, and He cared.
To listen to the entire sermon go to http://ahwatukeechurch.com/ and click on
online media. To learn more about Living
Word Ahwatukee, visit http://ahwatukeechurch.com/.
