WELCOMING GRACE FAITHFUL GOD SERIES

Transcription

1 Good morning Life Fellowship. Today as we delve into our passage I want us to kind of understand a perspective that we have as Christians, or that we can take on, I should say, that can make a big difference in our lives as it relates to the world that we live in. There is something that the church can offer that the world cannot offer and it is this: God s welcoming grace. We can do philanthropic duties in the world, we can do all sorts of things, but we cannot offer God s welcoming grace if we are not part of His grace based community, if we don t understand grace ourselves. And so when people think about the church, and they think about going to visit a church, the thing that saddens me is I am not convinced that people wake up in the midst of their moral failures, in the midst of their shame, in the midst of their guilt, in the midst of their hurts, in the midst of their rejection, and say Boy, if I could just get into a local church. And it is because many people think of us here inside the church, so to speak, as buzz killers, as being self-righteous in our attitudes, as caring more about being right than about people. They often will perceive the church as divisive, harsh and hypocritical. These types of labels have become the church s brand. And I don t know about you but I don t want us here at Life Fellowship to be associated with that brand whatsoever because the brand that the gospel offers is one of welcoming grace. It is a brand that says no matter what you have done, regardless of your social standing, regardless of your past, regardless of how beaten down and worn out you feel, God receives you when you come to Him by faith through His welcoming grace. As we look at Romans Chapter 11 today we are continuing to work our way through the Gospel of God s Series overall, and in the midst of this mini-series within the book called, Faithful God. Romans Chapter 11 is one of these head scratching passages and we don t want to get too lost in the details and miss the bigger picture of what is taking place. As I mentioned last week when we were talking together, basically the flow of Romans Chapter 11 is looking at the people of God, the Jews, who rejected the gospel. And then the gospel went out to the Gentiles, which would be all non-jewish people. The Gentiles would then begin to receive the gospel. But then, as we will see next week, there is this future promise of a Jewish outbreak in salvation and they will be white hot in their evangelistic efforts. So as we think about last week remember I shared why this is so hard for Jews to embrace the gospel in the first century. And it is because they were living by a moralistic effort. They were trying to obtain God s approval by their own self-righteousness. And when Jesus came on the scene He flipped the Law on its head for them, and He told them they erred in understanding the Scriptures. In fact Jesus is the only one who ever fulfilled Page 1 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

2 the law. So it was important for the Jews to come to a place and recognize that they couldn t keep the Law, and then to admit that they couldn t keep it. They needed to recognize that the Law devastated them and they needed grace. But instead they had built their entire community around feeling better than others, being self-righteous, being judgmental and isolating from others. And that is what the Law does, it ruins community. And the kind of community that God invites us too where grace wins, is a community whereby we all realize that at the cross the ground is level. We need to realize that we are all in need, that we are not to have a superiority complex, and look with distain at others. We need to realize that but for the grace of God we would all be hosed. So we are to come to the gospel knowing that we are all needy, that all of us are fallen, and that we are to welcome one another because we too were welcomed in the gospel. But the Jews couldn t own up to that. They didn t want to engage in it, and so they were blinded by the gospel, they were deafened by it, and they stumbled over the gospel promise. Now we come to Chapter 11 and let s pick up in verse 11 where Paul writes this: So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? Now the word stumble as I mentioned last week is like a trap. It is like a mouse trap that you would put a little bit of cheddar cheese on. And what happens when the mouse comes and smells the cheese? What happens is it is so long for the mouse. Now there is nothing wrong with cheese in and of itself. Cheese is good, but if you try to use cheese for what cheese isn t used for like baiting a mouse trap with it, it will destroy. In the same way the Law does that. The Law is a good thing. It is good that we have it. But if we think that we can achieve it perfectly, if we think that we can earn God s approval in and of ourselves, we are going to fall in the same trap that the Jews did, and we are going to stumble over the stumbling block of the Law. And so it is grace that every single one of us needs. Paul answers the question, By no means! And then he gives two reasons for their stumbling. Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles. So because the Jews who were supposed to be the light to the nations rejected the gospel it was taken to the Gentiles. And there was concentrated efforts of really spreading the gospel throughout the known world at the time. That is not to say that the Jews didn t get the opportunity to continue to hear because they did. Jesus would show up in synagogues and Paul would show up in synagogues, but the majority of the Jews had too much invested in their wrong idea of the Law, in their error in understanding the Scriptures. And their sort of puffed up-ness, this better than others attitude kicked in. They looked down on Jesus, they looked down on the Gentiles, they felt superior in their views and they missed the gospel. Page 2 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

3 So basically, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles. And the second reason Paul gives is this: So as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! Now here is what Paul is getting at. He says the Jews bit the cheese off of the mousetrap. They stumbled and they ended up being so attached to their way of seeing things that they could not see the truth. They could not get grace. And what ends up taking place in their lives is the Gentiles then start experiencing an abundance of salvation. Not that there weren t any Jewish people being saved because there was, but there wasn t an ample or an abundance of Jewish people placing their faith in the Messiah who came. So what ends up happening then Paul tells the Gentiles they are to be the ones that live their lives in such a way that they will make the Jews jealous. Now what is Paul getting at there? What he is saying is that when we embrace the gospel, when we embrace grace, we want to live our lives in such a way that when the Jewish world looks at us, when the world sees us, they will see something that trumps the Law. When the Jews look at those who have embraced the gospel they should realize that grace wins. They should realize that grace will welcome them in. They should realize that there is no way that they can keep up the moral efforts that they have been living by. God would want you and He would want me to live our lives in such a way that grace becomes absolutely beautiful and attractive in the way that we relate to one another in our marriages, in our relationship with our kids, in our work relationships, in our church family, in our friendships and in our interaction with others. And that grace kind of relating towards one another will be a beautiful witness to those who are trying to morally earn their way toward God s approval. Paul lets us know how important it is then that our lives are meant to create this spiritual jealousy or envy. But sadly many people look down on us. And sometimes you have people in the church who struggle with life day in and day out while other people have never truly given their life to Jesus. They have never really been transformed by the gospel. I am thankful if that is you and you keep coming, but I want to encourage you to place your faith in God s welcoming grace. When I was younger back in the days when the Lakers were the bomb with Magic Johnson, Abdul Jabbar, A C Green, James Worthy and Byron Scott - this was the team back in the 80s. Well my parents got some tickets and they told me we were going to go to a Laker s game, but I rejected their free offer to go watch the Lakers play. And since they knew the gift was too good to be thrown away, the gift went outside of their natural biological family member, me, and they extended it to my friend, Wes Mason. Page 3 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

4 And as a result Wes was invited to watch the Lakers and he had so much fun. Had I had any sense about me I would have been jealous, I would have created a healthy sort of envy like, Oh man, shucks, what did I miss out on? Why didn t I go? But that s not the way I replied. Why? It was because I was stubborn and I stumbled over what I wanted and my own desires. And to this day I had to miss out on seeing that game. But because my parents are gracious, the next time they would buy tickets they would present another offer and I would go that time. So too were the Jews who felt like they were the promised children of God. He offers them the free gift of salvation and they reject it. They were too set in their own ways so Gentiles got to watch the Lakers play. But later on when the Jews watched the Gentiles watch the Lakers play they realized that it was pretty cool. And God is going to say, absolutely, because God is a gracious God, He is a welcoming God. Now let s continue on in the Scriptures in verse 13 where Paul says this: Now I am speaking to you Gentiles, inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles. Now Paul was a Jewish convert himself. He was saved on the Damascus Road where he experienced an awesome experience when God radically gets a hold of him. And Paul then realizes he has a ministry to the Gentiles. But we know he would also always go into synagogues and offer the gospel first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, in accordance with Romans Chapter 1 and verse 16. Paul goes on to say, I magnify my ministry. Why is that, Paul? In order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. Now if Paul was in a Bible study today we would start to correct Paul. We might say, Hey, you don t save anyone, Paul. What s up with that? And Paul would be like, I know that. You are being rigid with me here. I am not saying I save anybody. Paul is the one teaching us that Jesus is the Savior - right? But imagine if I showed up out in the street and I just really wanted to save some people, how many people would be ready to correct my false theology? Well, that is what Paul said. So does Paul think that he is saving them? Of course not, he is just a part of the saving business. He knows Jesus is ultimately the Savior, but it is kind of fun when we read these things to always be reminded that God is our Savior. And Paul no doubt knows that. So he says, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. What Paul is saying is that he wants to live in such a way that they see that grace wins, that they see God s welcoming grace through his life. And we know when we look at the Scriptures that Paul is someone that was heavily zealous. He was taught under Gamaliel, he was basically a Pharisee of Pharisees. He kept a lot of stuff in order, but his heart went about it all the wrong way. He had this outward look of moral righteousness, Page 4 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

5 but his heart was decaying. And God showed him grace and he realized that grace was so much better than that. Do you know the pressure that falls off of our lives in relationship to God when we get grace? When we realize that He loves us right where we are, as we are, and that every single thing that we do in the future has already been paid for? That He loves us no matter what. Like, we could blow it immensely and God s gospel has us covered on the cross. Do you know what God is doing in all of that, in the gospel? He is saying, You are covered. Come to me. Come into my presence. But we often feel shame and we cover ourselves. We hide out. We feel shame in our marriages, in our church, in our workplace. When we get grace, when we understand this concept of grace, what it does is tell us to come near to God. It is beautiful and it heals things. But when we lose sight of the gospel, it can be devastating. Let s go back now to verse 15. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? In other words when the Jews get the gospel, when they see it, and their eyes are opened it is going to be amazing. It is going to be lights out, and it will be awesome. Verse 16, If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others you now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. So we get this language then of this olive tree and this wild olive shoot. And it can get a little bit confusing. Now first of all as we go into these next several verses, Paul is not trying to teach botany here - okay? This is not a horticultural lesson; rather it is a theology lesson. And if we try to press the metaphors too tightly we will make Scriptures say something that they are not meant to say. So we have to just kind of get a sense of what Paul is saying. So what he does is he talks about this idea of a root, then branches and then he talks about this wild olive shoot. Obviously God is the one who plants the seed, the seed of His promise in Genesis Chapter 15 to Abraham, but the root would represent like Abraham and the patriarchs from which this seed, this promise, this blessing of the gospel would come through. The seed is planted when we read Genesis 15 and God gives this promise that all the nations are to be blessed through Father Abraham. Abraham means Father of many nations. In other words they are going to be the containers of truth, containers of the revelation of God. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob represent Israel, and that is who these tree Page 5 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

6 branches represent. Then when Jesus comes on the scene, many of the Jews reject Him, so because of unbelief the branches are broken off. And this wild olive shoot, namely which was most of us - the Gentiles, is then grafted into the promise tree, the olive tree. And therefore we get to experience God s abundant grace. And Paul warns us then in these verse when he says, Listen, don t get arrogant. Don t get prideful, because it is not you that supports the root, but rather the root that supports you. So Paul is concerned then about this reversal of pride. Whereas the Jews on one occasion got puffed up and they were prideful feeling this sense of racial and spiritual religious elitism toward the world, now Paul is concerned about the Gentiles in Rome when he says, Guys, you have to be careful here that you now don t get puffed up, arrogant, prideful and end up with reverse elitism thinking, like, Man, why won t the Jews just believe? How did they miss it? Have you ever found yourself wondering how did the Jews miss it? I mean He fulfilled the Law and all this stuff. Well, when we do that we are kind of falling into what Paul was talking about - this elitism. We are warned then not to do that. So without going into every verse, I have explained kind of a metaphor, let s look again at Paul s warning in verse 18. Do not be arrogant toward the branches. In other words, Gentiles, you are the wild olive shoot, so don t be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. So that remembering thing - we have to do that a lot. I mean how many times have you woken up, had some great quiet time with God, and then you went out and got into some intense fellowship with your spouse. Wait, how did that happen, God? I prayed. But it just does - right? It is the fallen stuff of our humanity. We have to remember when we start seeing these attitudes in our life what is behind them. Why are we feeling this way? What is contributing to this? And we really have to come to terms with our hearts. So this idea then of Paul saying not to be arrogant continues in verse 20. That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. Now some would ask, Did they lose their salvation? No, they just didn t believe. They were part of it but they didn t believe. And the branches then were broken off, but they can be brought back in again through belief, through faith, as it goes on to say. Paul says, So do not become proud, but fear, so he warns us against pride. Pride is a destructive trait, and Paul says to be careful that we don t become prideful. The gospel is not designed to make us puffed up; rather it humbles us. And he realizes that we can lose sight of that and we can get puffed up. Page 6 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

7 This makes me think about Martin Luther, and we are going to really talk about him in a couple of weeks. Five hundred years ago the reformation breaks out October 31, 1517 there in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther would post his 95 theses there at the Castle Church and all kinds of stuff begins to go down as a result of this. Now for all the good things that Luther was used by God to do, we sometimes forget that these characters we esteem so much were also deeply flawed. Luther was a man of his times, and he started off early in his ministry with a respect and a love for the Jewish people. But then in a tract that he would later write in his later years of his ministry he would write vehemently against the Jews, encouraging Christians to go and burn down Jewish homes, burn down Jewish sanctuaries, and even take the lives of Rabbis. Now many Jews that remember Martin Luther in that way struggle. And here is the thing. Here is the guy, Martin Luther, who is saying let s get back to grace, and he understands the gospel, and through his precepts on Romans that he would write later another great evangelist, John Wesley, felt his heart strangely warmed as he heard it being read aloud. There is no doubt that God used Luther, but he got the gospel in one way and he missed it in another. And you know that is what can happen to us. We can get fragmented in our lives and compartmentalize where we get the gospel in many ways, but then we will write off a certain person, we will write off a certain family, we will write off a certain group of people, and we will even justify it and feel like we are entitled to that. And Luther missed it, and you want to know what happens? He wrote many books but fast forward to World War II and you have Hitler and his posse digging up this German fellow, Martin Luther s writings, from many years before. And it reminded the German people of God s feelings toward the Jews. And they used it against the Jews. And Luther basically planted the seed that later would turn into the plant that Hitler and his crew would water. Ideas have consequences and so does bitterness and pride and arrogance in our lives. We don t have the right to feel entitled to writing off people here and there when God welcomes the world. He asks us to do the same. So Paul tells us not to look down on others. I think about this young man, Gideon, who is my daughter s boyfriend. Give me a little wave, Gideon, as I humiliate you a little. Now I love Gideon. He called me a few years back and asked me this, Reverend Conway, I would like to get together with you and talk to you about your daughter. So I told him okay that would be good. We went out and I brought my shotgun - no, I am just kidding. We went out to Starbucks and he was shaking like a leaf. He was very nervous, but he asked me some questions. And he started telling me that he really liked my daughter and all that. So we connected, and then we got together at other times. And then he wanted to know if Halley and he started dating what my boundaries would be for that. Page 7 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

8 So I laid out my boundaries, and I talked about how I felt about those boundaries. I said, Look, when you guys go out I want you to always stay three feet distant from one another. When you drive she is in the back seat. Okay? Well anyway Gideon has been a real blessing to our family and we love him. He came over to our home after one of their dates and he brought over this brown paper bag full of groceries. Then he literally cooked us a family dinner and then cleaned up the entire mess. I thought that was pretty impressive right there. He became an Eagle Scout at 14 years of age, and he is a very responsible, Godly young man. And one of the things that I love about Gideon is he comes from a home where his dad was a pastor as well. And I love that Gideon s heart is one of gratitude for the gifts that are given to him. Now Gideon got this pickup truck, and I m sorry but this is not like the best pickup truck in town - okay? But here is the thing that always impressed me about Gideon. He loves his Chevy S10 pickup. And I am telling you it is not the nicest truck, but he thinks it is. He loves this truck, and I love watching him and my daughter drive around in this old beat up Chevy S10. I am not kidding when I tell you that I do not know anyone more thankful for their vehicle than Gideon is for his Chevy S10 pickup. And I see other kids sometimes, like at a recent event at Starbuck s where a kid pulled up in this unbelievable Mustang. He gets out just doing his stuff and I am sitting there thinking, Look dude, you think you are something, but you didn t buy that thing. You are driving it around and you didn t pitch in a penny for that thing. It was a gift. Wait till you have to go earn the money for something like that thing. So listen, none of us deserve this grace that we have been given. And we should never go around looking down on other people like we have our lives all together. But rather the sooner we realize that we are just a bunch of disasters in need of relief, the better off we will be. I don t like being around the moral perfectionist. It feels like pressure, makes you want to isolate, it is a self-righteous mentality. And guess what - do you know who the hardest people are for me to show grace? It is those who don t think that they need it, the self-righteous. Remember how Paul got on to Peter and said, Peter, what are you doing? You have lost sight of this, man. You are isolating from the Gentiles. You can t do that. And Jesus told us that it was not the healthy that need a doctor but the sick. That is why it is so hard to show grace to people who just stand in their sense of rightness. You want to offer grace to them but it is just like they don t think that they need it, so it gets really difficult relationally. Paul goes on to say in verse 22, Note then the kindness and the severity of God, severity toward those who have fallen, but God s kindness to you. And you know that Page 8 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

9 is God s balance right there. It is justice and love. God is a kind God, and He is happy to offer His welcoming grace to any who by faith come to Him. But if we want to live according to our own pseudo gospel, our own way, then we are going to experience His severity. And by severity it is not like He is just sitting there trying to crush us, it is just the severity of being left to ourselves, left to our own devices, left to doing things that we think are best for ourselves. Verse 23, And even they if they do not continue in their unbelief, (the Jews), will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. It is belief that God asks of us. Verse 24, For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree, (when they believe. So now let s step back and tie this message together with five takeaways. The first takeaway is this: When we lose sight of God s welcoming grace toward ourselves we will most certainly struggle to offer His welcoming grace toward others. When we struggle to offer grace toward others, it is because we are forgetting the fact that God s grace has met us. We need to understand that if we are looking to dispense grace, we need to mediate a little bit on the grace that has been given to us. Josh McDowell, a great Christian apologist, early on in his life set out to prove Christianity wrong, and he ended up writing Evidence that Demands a Verdict, a book that would go on to sell some three million copies. McDowell grew up with a father who was an absolute alcoholic. His dad would get so inebriated that Josh would tie his dad s hands and feet, then take him out to the barn. He would put him in the barn, close the barn door and then back his car up against the barn door because he didn t want his dad making a fool of the family when they had people over. It was that bad, because otherwise they would find him in a gutter and all that. Not only that, but there was another person in the community that started homosexually raping Josh McDowell at about the age of six until he was about the age of 13. Josh couldn t even conceive of a welcoming, gracious God. He was just overwhelmed. But when he ended up believing in Christ he said it wasn t the evidence, while the evidence helped him, it was realizing that God loved him in Christ. And when that registered for him, he ended up getting his life transformed. Later on he was in an accident where he was hit by a drunk driver and ended up in the hospital. His dad came to see him and Josh told his dad that he forgave him, that he loved him, and that God loved him. The father couldn t understand how it was that his son could love him after everything he had put him through. The father said if God could help Josh to forgive him in light of everything that he have ever done, that he was going to trust God with his own life, that He could change him too. And his life was so Page 9 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

10 completely transformed that it was like some 200 people in the community ended up placing their faith in Jesus because of seeing this town drunk change his life after placing his faith in Jesus Christ. And then he would die about eight months later. Josh McDowell also met with the man who had raped him. He told him what he had done was wrong, but that he wanted him to know that because of what Jesus had done in his life, and because of His grace, he forgave him. Only grace when it is recognized in our own life can cause us to be highly forgiving of others. Those who struggle to forgive haven t recognized how much they have been forgiven of. Secondly, when we lose sight of God s welcoming grace, our more challenging relationships are sure to be tainted by competition, moral superiority, self-righteousness, division, high justice, bitterness and a wide array of other relationally destructive attitudes and behaviors. Third, when we grasp grace, we will find ourselves refusing to look down on others by feeling a sense of moral superiority over them, remembering that we too, apart from the grace of God, are just as needy as every other person. I shared this story with you before of being in New York City walking in Times Square and seeing homeless people up against the walls, inebriated, or lying on the streets with blankets. And how I remember just standing there looking at these drunk people asleep and what was going through my brain wasn t, Look at this scum of the earth. No, what was going through my brain was, I get that. It makes sense to me. You get enough rejection in life, you get enough pain, you get enough hurt, you get enough resentment and I understand where they are. So often we can just look down on people like that who have made a mess of their lives. But what would it look like when we see homeless people in Charlotte sitting up against a wall if we would just walk up and sit down next to them and say, Hey man, what s your story? What led you to this? I had a friend call me the other day and he wanted to apologize for some things and actions he had worried about. I told him it was okay. Who of us doesn t blow it? I spent time with this person as he continued to feel beat up, like he was self-shaming himself. I told him that I just felt profound love toward him right now and if I feel that kind of love and grace towards him I can t imagine how much our Heavenly Father feels towards us. He was worried about the kind of judgment that the church was going to give if it gets out, and I told him that people have to deal with their own self-righteous attitudes. Those who understand grace will wrap their arms around you, brother. Fourth, when we get grace our lives are marked by gratitude. Grace toward others and a desire to model our lives in such a way that other observers of our lives will long to come to God by grace through faith. That is what Paul wanted, for us to magnify our Page 10 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

11 ministry, to magnify God s grace. I would love to be able to just walk in just perfect righteousness and magnify the Law in my life; unfortunately I know that I am not going to do the best on that. I want to please the Lord, I want to honor the Lord, but I am flawed. But do you know what we can model? It is just this whole idea that we are all in need of reckless grace and we all fall short, but we all can just wrap our loving arms around each other. Fifth, when we get grace we realize that no one is beyond God s saving reach. Like Josh McDowell s father, who eight months before he died, was saved. Like the thief on the cross who was saved right before he died. There was a story last week of a friend whose parent was saved at the end of their life. When we walk through life thinking this person is just too jacked up to be saved, that is not the perspective that God wants us to live from. I read this story this past week about a family who adopted a young girl. They already had a few kids but they adopted this young girl who had already been a part of another adopted family. But unfortunately she was no longer a part of that first family. And this new adoptive family learned that the girl s former family would take their biological kids on vacation to Disney World, but they would drop their adopted daughter off at a friend s house while they were gone. Now this obviously created massive wounds in this adopted girl making her feel like an outcast, and feeling like she was on the outside looking in. So eventually the new family decided to take their newly adopted daughter to Disney World with their kids. And as the trip got closer for the family to go off to Disney World, the girl started acting out. She told lies and she stole food that she would have been given anyway. She was sort of self-destructing. The adoptive parents became in a position where they were scratching their heads wondering what was up with this adopted girl. So the adoptive parents and the young girl sat down to have a conversation and she said, You aren t going to take me to Disney World, are you? See, she was already convinced from her past adoptive parents that she couldn t be good enough to go to Disney World, so she was self-destructing. The father said to her, Sweetheart, are you part of our family? And she said, Yes. And the father then said, This is your home. And because you are our daughter, and we are your family, you are going to Disney World. They took her to Disney World and after a long day of waiting in lines and experiencing the fun together they went back to their hotel. The dad took the girl on his lap and asked her, How was your first day at Disney World? The girl looked up in his eyes and she said, Dad, you didn t take me to Disney World because I am good enough, you took me because I am yours. Those parents understood welcoming grace. Page 11 of 12 pages 10/15/2017

12 Jesus will take you right now just as you are too, just as you are. The question is do you want to perform your own salvation plan, or do you want to surrender and fall into the grace that welcomes you home, to the grace that triumphs over Law? Look folks, the world can offer everything the church can but this one thing. The world cannot offer welcoming grace. Let s pray. God, I pray that your word will sink deep into our lives and that we will realize we need to show some grace toward our spouses, some grace toward our kids, some grace toward our parents, some grace toward our work relationships, and some grace toward strained relationships. That is the key. And help us to realize what you have given us in Christ, in the gospel. In Jesus name. Amen. The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes the actual words of the message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context. Hebrew and Greek words are spelled using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some cases. Page 12 of 12 pages 10/15/2017