Calvary Distinctives – Grace upon Grace
Servant
School
May
6, 2021
This lesson is
from chapter 5 of the Calvary Chapel Distinctives class, titled “Grace upon
Grace”
Saved by Grace
The Bible is very clear when it comes to how we are saved.
We are not
saved because we do good works.
We are not saved because we follow the Law of Moses.
We are saved
because God took care of the problem of our sin. He sent Jesus to die for our sins.
It was obvious from the very moment that Joseph found out his fiancé was
pregnant.
The angel told Joseph –
(Matthew 1:21 NKJV) And she will
bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
In Paul’s letter
to the Romans, Paul takes three chapters to carefully show that all men are sinners, and that it is impossible
for man to be made right with God through the Law of Moses. So God sent Jesus
(Romans 3:24–25 NLT) —24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.
He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our
sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made
right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his
blood.
This sacrifice
of Jesus was a gift to us that we didn’t deserve. Another term for “gift” is “grace”.
Grace is doing something for someone that they don’t
deserve.
Paul goes on
make the case that this grace makes us righteous when we make the choice to
believe in Jesus. He uses Abraham as the
example of faith, quoting from the book of Genesis that tells us that “Abraham
believed God, and God credited, or “imputed” Abraham with righteousness as a result of his faith” (Rom. 4). Then Paul writes,
(Romans 4:23–24 NKJV) —23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to
him, 24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in
Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead
Paul will write this to the Ephesians:
(Ephesians 2:8–9 NKJV) —8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of
works, lest anyone should boast.
Salvation is by the grace (or “gift”) of God, which is received by faith.
There are some folks who take this
concept of “saved by grace”, and reinterpret this to
mean the taking of communion. They will
say that you “receive grace” when you take communion … at their church.
You may indeed receive grace from
God when you take the communion elements, but it only will happen if you have
faith, if you believe that Jesus has died for your sins.
And that’s something we believe whether or not we are taking communion.
Grace is not
just the means of our salvation, it’s also how we “stay saved”.
The Galatian churches had picked up some bad doctrine. They had become trapped in legalism, thinking that once they
were saved, they
had to work hard to follow the Law in order to stay
saved.
Paul writes,
(Galatians 3:1–3 NLT) —1 Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the
meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a
picture of his death on the cross. 2 Let me ask you
this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses?
Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you
heard about Christ. 3 How foolish can you be? After starting
your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your
own human effort?
Some churches will give you the idea that you are saved by grace, but after
that you’re on your own.
They make it sound as if it’s up to you to stay saved.
The Bible teaches that we are not only saved by God’s grace, but it’s also
by God’s grace that we stay saved.
We
may indeed stumble from time to time, but when we do, we confess our sin, find
God’s forgiveness, draw closer to God, and keep moving on. That’s grace.
Grace towards
others
Grace is not just the way we are saved (by God doing something for us that
we didn’t deserve), grace is how we are to treat one another.
Paul writes to the Ephesians,
(Ephesians 4:32 NKJV) And be kind
to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ
forgave you.
The word
translated “forgiving” is the verb form for the word we translate “grace”.
We are to grace one another just like God has
“graced” us in Christ.
Chuck talked
quite a bit about his love of restoring things.
It might be a
restoring an old car or an old house.
Bill Sawyer
used to attend our church before he passed away a few years ago. He worked on these old cars with Chuck.
Chuck also
loved to restore people who had fallen.
Chuck learned
not just to be gracious to those who are new to the faith, but also to those
who have been believers, maybe even leaders, but have stumbled in sin.
Chuck would
find that some of these men were not truly repentant and ended up causing
trouble and grief down the line.
If a person is
not repentant over their sin, there is a need for the church bring a sort of “discipline” on the person
with the goal of seeing them restored.
Yet some people claim to be repentant when they are not.
With others who
were repentant, we’ve seen God do a wonderful work of grace.
When I was a young believer, one of my favorite Bible teachers was David Hocking. I loved the way he taught and handled the
Scriptures.
In the late 80’s, David was the pastor of Calvary Church of Santa Ana (not
a Calvary Chapel).
Under his teaching the church had grown huge. In 1991 they built and dedicated the largest sanctuary in
Orange County, with seats for 3,200 people.
But in 1992, David stumbled.
He confessed to having gotten too close to a woman in his
church, and he was
quickly fired by his church.
The elders of David’s church treated him very harshly, even excommunicating
him because he would not submit to their authority.
Chuck reached out to David and invested time with him. For a period of time, the great Bible teacher David Hocking was
sitting in the front row of Calvary Chapel, listening to pastor Chuck.
David never went on to pastor another church, of his own choice, but eventually started first
teaching a study at Costa Mesa, and reestablished a radio ministry with his
teachings.
David’s former church was pretty upset that Chuck had reached out to help
David, but I think they messed up with their lack of grace in how they handled
David.
Chuck made the
statement in the book:
“If I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of grace
rather than judgment.”
There are going to be times when a person has gone down a path of sin, has
no intent on changing, and we need to learn how to respond with “tough love”,
or discipline.
But when someone has gone down a path of sin, and claims to be repentant,
but we are not sure, how do we respond?
Hopefully we will respond with grace.
Over the years, when faced with a difficult situation over how to handle a
person, I’ve found myself seeing the wisdom of Chuck’s lesson.
We need to be gracious, even if sometimes we might make a mistake in doing
so.
Hope that helps