GRACE OF GOD SERIES PART 7 CONTINUE IN THE GRACE OF GOD2008 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

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Date: 2008-01-06

Title: Grace Of God Series Part 7 Continue In The Grace Of God

Teacher: Jerry B Simmons

Series: 2007 Grace Of God Series

Teaching Transcript: Grace Of God Series Part 7 Continue In The Grace Of God

The title of the message is Continue in the Grace of God.

We've been studying about the grace of God for several weeks now, and we've just about come to the end. We'll look at one more subject of grace next Sunday, and then following that, we'll go back into 2 Timothy and continue our journey through the New Testament. But here this morning, I want to encourage you and hopefully, Lord willing, persuade you to continue in the grace of God.

As we've been looking at the grace of God, we've learned over and over again that grace is undeserved and unearned favor. It's God's blessings towards us. It's salvation. It's forgiveness. It's the hope of eternal life. It's the opportunity to minister to one another. All of these things are as a result of God's grace, his goodness towards us that we can't earn, that we don't deserve, and that God

God did for us and accomplished it there upon the cross. Two weeks ago at our Christmas service, we looked at the cost of grace. Grace is free to you and I. We have the free gift of salvation, the free gift by faith in Jesus Christ. But it was very costly, very expensive to Jesus Christ. He had to sacrifice much in order for this opportunity to.

And so I hope I encourage you this morning as we look at the subject of grace, recognizing the cost of grace, that you would be persuaded to continue to not sway, to not stray, to not turn away, but to press on and continue to do so.

And continue in the grace of God. And that's what we see happening here in Acts chapter 13. The apostle Paul and Barnabas have been sent out by the church. They're on a mission trip. They're going out proclaiming the good news. Jesus Christ has died. The work is finished. By believing in Jesus Christ, you can have life in his name.

And as they're going out to proclaim the news, they come to this church or this synagogue in Antioch. And there in Antioch, there are the Jewish believers or the Jewish people rather. And they're there worshiping God. And Paul and Barnabas are there proclaiming the fulfillment of the Jewish religion, the fulfillment of the old covenant that Jesus Christ has come and has fulfilled all the requirements of the law on our behalf.

And it's in that context that we find verse 43. Let me read it to you again. It says, Now, when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.

Here we find that Paul and Barnabas, after the service was over, the congregation had broken up and there were the Jews and these devout proselytes and they were interested in what Paul and Barnabas had to say. As they're preaching the gospel, sharing the good news, it intrigued them, it inspired

Peaked their curiosity, and so they wanted to find out more. They wanted to hear more of what Paul and Barnabas had to say about this man, Jesus Christ. And so they go up to them, and Paul and Barnabas spend some time talking with them.

And in doing so, it says at the very end of the verse there, they persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. And that's where I find the title for this morning's message, to continue in the grace of God. But notice that it says that Paul persuaded them.

He persuaded them that word persuade. It means to induce by one's word to believe. We would perhaps use another word like convince. Paul convinced them to continue in the grace of God. It was something that by his words and what he presented to them, the things he shared with them, convinced them, persuaded them that they should continue in the grace of God.

I think that's so important for you and I because, well, it means that continuing in the grace of God, if you can be persuaded to continue in the grace of God, that means that continuing in the grace of God is a conscious, deliberate choice that must be made.

If you can be persuaded to continue, that means you must make a choice to continue. And it's something you must determine to do consciously and deliberately. It won't happen by accident. It's not something that will come naturally to us. And so the question for us is, have you been persuaded to continue in grace? Have you made the conscious decision, the deliberate choice, right?

To continue in the grace of God, because grace is not natural and grace is not natural. Check this out. Grace is not natural, even for the people who love God, even for the people who are devoted to God. Who is it that Paul is talking to here in Acts chapter 13, verse 43? It says that the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas.

The Jews, we know much of the Jews from the scripture. They were people who were raised in the knowledge of God. They were raised in the scriptures. They were raised in the ways of God. And then there was these devout proselytes. Now, what they're referring to there, a devout proselyte, was a person who is not Jewish of Jewish descent. They weren't Jewish. That wasn't their nationality. They were from a different country.

Of a different nationality, but they had been convinced of the reality of God. And so they convert to Judaism in order to have relationship with this God. That's what a proselyte is. It's this one who has converted to Judaism.

This is a person who desires to know God, believes in God, loves God, and so is willing to convert. And in doing so, they were following what God had revealed of himself up to that point in the first covenant. They wanted to know God. They wanted to walk with God. And so they followed what he had said in his word. They were devout converts or proselytes.

They were people that loved God, that were devoted to God, and yet they needed to be persuaded, they needed to be convinced to continue in the grace of God. And that can include many of us today. Yeah, you love God, you're devoted to God, and that's great. But we need to make the choice, the decision to continue in the grace of God. Grace can be such a difficult concept for us as believers in Jesus Christ.

Even if we've read the books, perhaps you picked up why grace changes everything, as I encourage you to. Yeah, maybe you've read the book. Maybe you've spent time. Maybe you've been listening as we've been studying for the past seven weeks or so about the grace of God.

And yet still, grace can be such a difficult concept for us. I can share with you personally, even studying and preparing and teaching these things, that there's a battle that rages sometimes. There's, well, a tendency to go away from grace.

to be distracted or confused or to forget about the grace of God. Maybe you've read the books or heard the messages or maybe you've been a Christian for a long time. We still need to continue in the grace of God. It's still difficult for us and we need to be reminded to continue in the grace of God because grace is not a normal part of life. If you think about just your natural life for a moment,

Take it to the workplace. We've looked at that several times throughout our study on the grace of God. Grace is not naturally fitting within the workplace. Grace, as we've defined it, is unearned and undeserved favor. So at the end of the year or at your annual review, when you are there, does your boss give you unearned and undeserved favor? Well, that's not normal in the workplace.

Normal in the workplace is you get what you worked for. You labor, you work hard, and as a result, you're rewarded accordingly. That's why they're called wages. Wages are something that are owed to you. They don't just, you know, give you extra or, you know, give you stuff you have not earned or have not deserved. Even bonuses are usually based upon what you've earned and what's been met and how well the company is doing.

So grace is not a normal, natural part of life in the workplace, even in our relationships, perhaps in our home lives or or relationships that we have with others. Grace is not always a normal part of a relationship.

Relationships are usually... Now, there might be some exceptions to this, and I can understand that. In fact, there should be some exceptions to this, especially as Christians. But understand, in normal life, grace is not a normal part of relationships. Relationships are conditional. Well, I like you, and we're friends...

as long as you don't say this about me or do this or do that. And we have this kind of mutual agreement that we're going to be friends and not hurt one another. But if that changes, well, then that relationship is severed. It's cut. It's not the same anymore. Relationships are conditional for the most part. And so grace, unearned, undeserved favor, that's not usually a part of our normal earthly relationships.

When it comes to the law or the legal system here in the United States, here in the state of California, you're probably not going to find a whole lot of grace there.

No, what you get when you deal with the law is what is just and what is right. I've paid several thousands of dollars worth of tickets and fines and those kinds of things to prove it. Not just to prove it, but just so that I would be assured and know, hey, when it comes to the law, you don't want to mess around. It's not something you play around with. If the sign says go this fast, then you probably don't want to go faster than that.

You won't find grace there. You'll find what's just. You'll find what's right, what's due and what's owed. Even amongst religion, we often say Christianity is not a religion, but it is a relationship. And that is so true. Religion, whether you're looking at Christianity or anything else, religion is really the system by which man approaches God.

And this system is what you must follow and you must keep these things and walk in these ways in order to please God, in order to have right relationship with God. Religion, outside of Christianity and what Christ offers to us, there's no grace in religion. It's you have to do these things and follow these works and and do these things and then you will be saved and then you'll have all that God has promised for you.

Grace is not a normal part of our life. In what we see and what we experience in this world, we don't experience a whole lot of grace.

And it can be a difficult concept for us as a result that God relates to us differently than everybody else in the world, that God has this special relationship with us of unearned and undeserved favor, right standing with him, not based upon how good we are or how bad we are, but based upon what he has done there upon the cross.

And since it's not normal for us, and since God is the only one who relates to us in this way, it is very easy to forget. It's easy to drift away from grace. In fact, I would share with you that it's our natural tendency to drift away from grace and go back to and rely upon other types of relationships with God.

It's like trying to swim against the current. You know what it's like to be out there in the ocean and there's the riptide pulling against you. And you have to make a conscious, deliberate effort to not go with the flow, to not be swept out to sea. If you don't make a conscious, deliberate effort, then you will find yourself either out there swimming,

In the depths. Or you'll find yourself, you know, four lifeguard stations down the beach. You'll find yourself carried away and swept away by this current. If you don't make a conscious, deliberate effort to stay where you are. To continue in the path that you're in. In the same way, in the grace of God. We need to continue. Our natural tendency, the rest of the world, is trying to pull us a different direction. Trying to sweep us away.

But we need to be persuaded to continue to press on in the grace of God. What happens if we don't? If we don't swim against the current, if we don't make the choice to continue in the grace of God, what's the alternative? Well, there's three alternatives that I'd like to share with you this morning. If you do not continue in grace, you will be in one of these areas. Number one, either you'll be falling from grace or

Or number two, you'll be perverting grace. Or number three, you'll be abandoning grace. Falling from grace, perverting grace, or abandoning grace. Let's look at the first one. And for that, turn with me to Galatians chapter 5, please. Galatians chapter 5. In the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul is really combating some bad false doctrine that's taking place in Galatia. There's some...

destructive teaching going on. And Paul's trying to write to the Galatians to save them from going down the path that they're on. And he tells them some very important things here about grace and Galatians chapter five. Let's look at verses one through four. Verse one says, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. Verse four, you have become estranged from Christ. You who attempt to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. That's the first alternative to continuing in grace.

falling from grace. It's a state that none of us want to be in. To be fallen from grace is to fall into legalism or works based relationship with God. To fall from grace is to try to be justified by the law. Paul is writing to the Galatians because there are those who are teaching that in order to be saved, you must be circumcised. You need to keep the law.

They're trying to be justified by the law. And Paul says, look, if that's you, then you have fallen from grace. Now, I think as Christians, for the most part, we would tend not to think of ourselves as legalistic because we don't stress every element or every point of the law. For example, we're not necessarily regulating diets or other people's diets based upon the law. You probably have had some experience

Bacon or some ham, maybe at Christmas and Thanksgiving. And those were things that in God's law he had forbidden for the Jewish people. And so we would not consider ourselves legalistic because, no, we don't enforce all of those things. But we need to watch out because even though we don't enforce the whole law, legalism and works trying to be justified by the law is not only legal.

It doesn't only happen when the whole law is being enforced. It can also take place. We can begin a works-based relationship with God. We can become legalistic. We can try to be justified by the law if we're just holding on to one element of the law and requiring that. And that's Paul's point here. Those that were there in the church of Galatia, they were teaching, you have to be circumcised in order to be saved.

Paul says that's legalism, that's works, that's attempting to be justified by the law. Even if it's just one point, it becomes a works-based relationship with God. And the problem with that, if you hold to any part of the law, you're accountable to all of the law, Paul says.

That's what he says in verse three. I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. He says in verse two, if you become circumcised, that Christ will profit you nothing.

Because now you're not approaching God on the basis of what Jesus has done for you upon the cross. But now you're approaching God based upon that work, the work of circumcision. That's the basis. Now, that's the thing. And he says, if you do that, if you rely upon and look to that piece of the law, then now you're a debtor to the whole law. You're required to keep the whole thing.

I came across this article this last week that I thought was quite humorous and appropriate for the subject of keeping the whole law in January because we're just at the beginning of the new year. So there's many laws that have been taking effect both here in the United States and around the world.

And specifically in the area of Portugal, there was a new law that took place on January 1st that began and went into effect on January 1st. And the new law, much like we have in places around here in California, is that you're not allowed to smoke in public places. And so this is a new law. It just came into effect January 1st, just a few days ago. Well, the day that it went into effect, right?

The person who is the head of the agency that's responsible for enforcing that law

So this is the person who is the head of the whole agency that is to enforce this law and, you know, assign penalties if the law is broken and write up citations and things like that. The person who is responsible for the whole unit that will be involved in that task this year as they're enforcing this law, the head guy, the head person was caught on film,

lighting up a cigar and smoking it in a public place. The very law that he is responsible to enforce, and he's the head guy in charge of everybody who's enforcing this law, he was the one who was caught and seen breaking this law. And what did he have to say in response to this? Well, he told the reporters that he was not aware that the anti-smoking law that just went into effect also included casinos where he happened to be.

So he's in charge of enforcing this law. He's breaking the law. And he's saying, well, I didn't know it included that area, that specific thing. I thought it was only for these other areas. And so he says, well, I guess we'll have to look at what is in the law. Said this guy who is breaking the law, yet in charge of enforcing the law that has just gone into effect. And this is what will happen to us as believers, guys. If we hold on to one element of the law,

One element, this is necessary. You can't be saved if this is not in place. Aside from faith in Jesus Christ, then we are bound to the whole law. And you know, you can't keep the whole law. And even if you think you can keep the whole law, there's going to be that one area that you'll scratch his head and say, well, I guess we'll have to look and see because you'll get caught because history has proven, your life has proven, you can't keep the whole law.

It's impossible to meet God's standard of perfection on your own with your works and what you do. The only way to be saved is by grace, by faith in Jesus Christ, because he met the standard, because he accomplished the work for us.

But the moment we add anything to that, the moment we say, okay, you believe in Jesus Christ, and this is what the Galatians were saying. You believe in Jesus Christ, that's good, that's important, that's essential. But you also have to, and you can fill in the blank, the moment you add anything there, now it is a legalistic relationship. You're relating to God on the basis of works, and now you are bound to keep the whole law. Because if you're going to approach God on that basis...

then you need to keep the whole law in order to have that standard met, the standard of perfection. The moment you say there's this one thing that you must have, what you are really saying is that Christ's death on the cross was not sufficient, that it wasn't enough for him to die, that you also have to add on these other things. But the Bible is very clear. His death upon the cross was sufficient. He hung there and said, it is finished.

And yet there are those who make this same mistake that we see in the church of Galatia today. There are those who say you must be baptized in order to be saved. You believed in Jesus Christ. Good. You prayed the prayer. That's great. But unless you be baptized, it's not real. It didn't actually happen. You're not saved. It's the same thing as saying that you must be circumcised to be saved. Anytime you take one thing and hold to that point of the law,

You become now bound to the whole law. You become trying to be justified by the law. But let's take it one step further. Because I think we would understand and most of us would agree that salvation is accomplished by Jesus Christ. Circumcision, baptism, all those things are not necessary. But you're saved by faith in Jesus Christ. But here's where we can get tripped up as believers, as Christians. We can get tripped up

And often we do so in thinking that our works are the basis, not necessarily for salvation, but for God's blessing.

Our works are the basis, sometimes we think, for how pleased God is with us or how much God loves us. And it can go two ways. We can have the mindset and get caught up in the thinking that God is going to bless me because, and we list our reasons why we think God is going to bless us, why God owes us blessing. For some of you, you've again committed to read through the Bible in a year with us.

This is not an avenue so that now you'll be more pleasing to God or that God will bless you more or that he will love you more. No, you receive the fullness of that by faith in Jesus Christ. Now, on the other end of that, on the other side of that, you've been reading through the Bible and now you've missed a day. And here's the other side that we can get tripped up on. Man, God's not pleased with me today because I didn't read today. I fell behind. I'm not caught up.

We could say, God's not going to bless me today because, you know, I really haven't been in prayer and I missed that prayer meeting that I was committed to. God's not going to bless me. He's not pleased with me right now. I haven't been reading or God's going to bless me because I went to church or God's not going to bless me because I miss church. God's going to bless me because I've been staying away from sin or God's not going to bless me because I fell and I've been involved in sin. We can get tripped up on both sides.

And it comes back to legalism, a works-based relationship with God. Even in our commitments to the Lord, the vows that we made, Lord, I want to do this for you. And then we think because we fulfilled that vow, God owes us something. He's going to bless us. Or we think, I blew that vow. I blew that thing. I didn't fulfill that commitment. And so God's upset with me now. God does not relate to us on the basis of our works, but on the basis of grace.

Ephesians chapter one, Paul goes into great detail of all the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ. And they're all in Christ and they're received by faith in Christ of the riches of his grace. Ephesians 117 says it's his grace and in his grace that God loves us.

That he is pleased with us, that he desires to bless us. It's all by his grace. We can't earn it. We can't deserve it. It's not based upon works. And so I want to encourage you this morning. Don't fall from grace, but instead stand in grace. Romans chapter five, verses one and two. You don't have to turn there, but I would encourage you to look it up later and spend some time meditating on what God will speak to you there.

But Romans chapter 5 verse 1 and 2 says, Paul says two things here that I want to point out. First of all, having been justified by faith. The Galatians, Paul says, look,

You who seek to be justified by the law, you've fallen from grace. Here, Paul tells us, how are we justified? By faith. It's by faith in Jesus Christ. That's the only requirement to have right standing before God. By believing in Jesus Christ, we have life. So we're justified by faith. And then he goes on in verse two to tell us we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. It's by faith in Jesus Christ.

By faith in what God has said, by believing him at his word, that we have the fullness of what God desires for us. It's not by us keeping the law. And the moment we say, man, I didn't read today. That means God's upset with me. We've gone into legalistic works based relationship. The moment we say God's going to bless me because I've been praying. I've been praying so faithfully and so fervently. God's going to bless me.

We've gone into a legalistic and works-based relationship with God. God desires to bless you. He gives you full access to himself. He desires to work in your life. He's pleased with you. He loves you. And he gives to you the fullness of what he has for you through Jesus Christ. So don't fall from grace. Stand in grace and continue in the grace of God. The last two...

We'll look at more briefly, but this is the one I believe that we struggle with the most. And as I shared with you personally, this is something that's easy for us to get caught up in. For me in my mind to think, man, I can't minister today or share today because I've been struggling with this or I had this issue or I missed a day reading or that's going back to legalism, not relating to God on the basis of His grace.

God wants to work, guys. He wants to bless you and minister to you. He wants to transform you and give to you the abundant life that he promised. And he does so. You receive it by faith in Jesus Christ, by believing him and what he said. So when you notice, when you begin to think and get discouraged because you've been blowing it, you've been messing up and man, God's not happy with me right now. He's remind yourself.

Make the choice to continue in the grace of God. Don't get swept away by those things, but make the deliberate conscious choice. God relates to me on the basis of his grace. Now there's other opportunities for us to go into if we stray from grace. First of all, that's the one we've been looking at. You can fall from grace. The second thing I'd like to share with you is that you can also pervert grace. And for that, turn with me to the book of Jude.

Jude, it's the book right before the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. So it's right there towards the end. It's only one chapter long. Jude chapter one. And in Jude, Jude is the brother of the Lord Jesus. And he is sharing with those he's writing to that it's important for them. And he found it necessary to write to them that they would be encouraged to contend earnestly for the faith.

Now, why was it important for them to contend earnestly for the faith? Well, he tells us in verse four, this is why you need to contend for the faith, because in verse four, he says, for certain men have crept in unnoticed who were long ago marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

In regards to grace, Paul says, you need to contend. I'm sorry, Jude says, you need to contend for the faith because these men have crept in and they turned the grace of God into lewdness. Jude's writing to warn them. There's these people there that will turn the grace of God into lewdness. What is lewdness? Well, it's a list of things. And I'd like to read these to you. And we won't spend a whole lot of time, but you can meditate on them later.

Lewdness is unbridled lust. It's excess licentiousness, lasciviousness, wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness or insolence. Lewdness first on the list is unbridled lust. This is really the other end of the spectrum from what we've just been looking at and falling from grace.

In falling from grace, you go over here and you become legalistic in nature. You're relating to God on the basis of your works. You become strict about the law. But on this side of the spectrum, perverting grace is really the exact opposite of that. It's unbridled lust. It's saying, I don't need to...

bridle my lusts, my cravings, my desires. I don't need to cut back on sin, but it's just let it all go. Go ahead. Do anything you want, whatever you want, because of the grace of God. They turned the grace of God into lewdness, into shamelessness on the things that we should be ashamed of. The lewdness or those who turn it into lewdness say there's no need to be ashamed. There's no need to have shame in regards to that.

There's no need to bridle the lust because of the grace of God. At this end of the spectrum, the grace of God becomes a license to sin. People begin to justify themselves. And now the grace of God means I can sin. I can be involved in this and continue in this. Now, for some of you, it might not really seem believable that this could happen. But I could share with you that it happens all the time.

There are those who turn the grace of God into lewdness. It happens all over the place within the church. And it's something we need to watch out for. Jude is writing to the people and writing to us to say, hey, you need to contend for the faith because there are those who turn the grace of God into lewdness. It's a danger we must watch out for. We've seen, sadly, many pastors and leaders fall into this category.

They're involved in immorality, adulterous relationships, abuse, sexual abuse, and all kinds of just wickedness and things that are just sickening to our hearts. And yet they're there and they're involved in those things and it's unbridled lust and they look to the grace of God. Oh, there's grace. No conviction. It's okay. It's no big deal. It's just grace.

It's like what Paul was referring to in Romans chapter six in verse one, when he asked the question, hey, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Since where grace abounded, I'm sorry, where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. Hey, why not just continue in sin and grace will abound much more? Yeah, someone said it. Certainly not. Certainly not. Of course not. That's turning the grace of God into lewdness.

In verse 15 of Romans chapter 6, he asks the same question a different way. Hey, shall we sin because we're not under the law but under grace? You know, don't judge me. I'm not under the law. I can see this movie if I want. I can be involved in this if I want. We're under grace. It's turning the grace of God into lewdness. And as a warning indicator, as a red flag in your mind, you can know that you are perverting the grace of God when your attitude towards sin is, you know, God will forgive me.

Now, I'm not talking to the person who's struggling with sin, who's beat up with sin, who's really having a difficult time and desiring to be set free from the bondage of sin. For those people, I would say, hey, God loves you. He wants to set you free. And he who the son sets free is free indeed. There is the grace of God and God will forgive you. But for the person whose attitude is.

Going into the sin, making the choice deliberately to continue that act. Well, God will forgive me. It's OK. I can do this because I'm not under the law. I'm under grace because there's grace. And so I can do this and I'm going to do this. Then, you know, let the red flags, let the warning lights go off in your head. You're turning the grace of God into lewdness. Don't twist what God has said. Don't twist what God has given you.

Don't pervert the grace of God. Instead, grow in the grace of God. Another portion. Again, don't turn there, but I encourage you to write it down and spend some time in it later. Second Peter chapter three. The end of the chapter there is Paul is wrapping up her. Peter is wrapping up the book rather.

He's talking about those who pervert the things that God has said, who twist the things that God has said, including the words of the Apostle Paul. He says there are those that take Paul's words that are difficult and hard to understand, and they twist it for their own purposes as they do the rest of Scripture.

And he gives them a warning, just like we saw a warning earlier. He says, look, just like Jude gave a warning. He says, since you know this beforehand, since you know there's people who are going to twist the word and twist what has been said and been given to us by God. He says, beware, lest you fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked. But he says, grow in grace, in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

As opposed to twisting and turning the grace of God into lewdness. He says, here's what you need to do. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God gives you grace. He sets you free. He forgives you. He gives you hope. And that's not a license to sin so that you can just go out and do whatever you want with unbridled lusts.

He gives you these things so that you can grow in his grace and in his knowledge. Draw close to him and enjoy the fullness of a relationship with him. Don't pervert God's grace. Grow in grace. You need to continue in the grace of God. So if we don't continue in the grace of God, on the one hand, we can fall from grace. On the other hand, we can pervert grace.

And third and finally, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10. A couple books to the left. Hebrews chapter 10. The last area alternative to continuing in grace is we can abandon grace. Abandon grace. Hebrews chapter 10. Look with me at verse 28 and 29. Hebrews 10, 28 says,

Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment do you suppose will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the spirit of grace? Thirdly, the danger, if we don't continue, is we may abandon grace altogether.

Here the author of Hebrews is saying, look, under the first covenant, under the law, if you disregarded the law, the penalty was death. If you as a Jewish person there under the law in the Old Testament times, if you disregarded the law and you just did whatever you wanted to without regard for what God said, the penalty would be death as a result of your disobedience.

Now, the author of Hebrews, who's been looking at the supremacy of Jesus Christ and how what Jesus has given to us is far greater than what whatever else has been offered. He goes on to say, look, if the penalty is death for those who break the old covenant, the law, how much worse is the punishment deserved for those? And he says some pretty graphic things here.

For those who trample the Son of God underfoot. Just walking all over Jesus. How much worse is the punishment for those who would trample upon the Son of God? Or to count his blood as a common thing. Oh, no big deal. He died. He shed his blood. Lots of criminals did. Lots of people died. People shed their blood all the time. No big deal. Nothing special about his blood that was shed.

How much worse is the punishment deserved for those who trample the Son of God, for those who count his blood as a common thing, or for those who insult the Spirit of grace, the Holy Spirit who has been sent to say to us and to announce to us, hey, God will save you, he'll forgive you by believing in Jesus Christ.

By receiving him as your Savior and Lord. By walking in relationship with him. You have the fullness of what he has by his grace. How much worse is the punishment for the one who rejects that covenant? Salvation is only found in the grace of God. There's no other way to be saved.

You cannot be saved if you fall from grace. If you fall from grace and you're relating to God on the basis of your works and you are looking at your own self and how you keep the law and looking at the standard that you set, that is not sufficient for salvation. Salvation is only found in the grace of God. If you turn the grace of God into lewdness, again, it's twisting what God has done and given, saying, I have the license to sin.

Salvation is only found in grace. If you twist it into lewdness, you're in great danger. If you abandon grace, if you reject Jesus Christ and what he has done for you, there's no salvation for you because salvation is only found in the grace of God, the completeness of the work that he did for us upon the cross and us receiving that by faith in him, believing him at his word.

And so Paul encouraged the Jews and the devout proselytes, those religious people who came to him. He said, continue in the grace of God. Don't stray. Don't wander. But stay in the grace of God. Don't relate to him on the basis of your works. Don't twist it into a license to sin. Don't reject it altogether. Continue. Don't abandon grace, but press forward in grace. Because the only alternatives are to fall down.

to pervert or to abandon. And none of those will bring salvation for you. We need to continue in the grace of God and receive the grace of God by faith. And I think in this thought, in this mindset, is the perfect opportunity for us to partake of communion together.

Because communion represents Jesus gave it to us as the symbol, the representation of what he did for us upon the cross, the cup, which represents his blood that was shed for us and the cracker or the bread, which represents his body that was broken for us, where the fullness of this covenant was fulfilled and completed because Jesus Christ died in our place, paying the penalty for our sin.

that we might receive the fullness of what God has for us. Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Salvation is something that takes place. The fullness of what God has for us, His blessings, His work in our life, is received by grace through faith.

Believe God at his word and let this time of communion be your commitment to the Lord, your conscious, deliberate choice to continue in the grace of God and to receive the fullness of what God has for you by faith in Jesus Christ.