Grace is Stll Amazing

The first verse of Amazing Grace says:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now am found

T’was blind but now I see

Many find the word wretch describing humans as offensive. I find it very accurate in describing me before I experienced the grace of Jesus. My thoughts, my desires, my words, and my actions were self-focused, negative, and ungodly. They were wretched because I was a wretch.

Grace does not minimize or ignore the terrible reality of our sin. Grace emphasizes the depth of our sin by focusing on the unthinkable price paid to redeem us from it.

Romans 5:6-8

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one would scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare die – but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus died for utterly unworthy people, not for good people who deserved it. It shows Jesus’ unfathomable and unearned love for us. It is so huge and unlimited and powerful that it frees us from our sin.

In admitting that we are wretches, sinners that are undeserving of Jesus’ gift of salvation, we acknowledge that it is all about Him and His finished work on the cross. We tend to try and qualify ourselves so that we are no longer powerless and unworthy. We are no longer wretches. That makes grace no longer grace.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is acknowledging the awesomeness of Jesus’ gift of salvation.

A person with a strong and healthy heart has no need of a heart transplant. It is the person with a weak and sick heart that needs a transplant. God offers grace to the needy. To the people who know they are sinners, not the people who see themselves as righteous with no need for God’s grace.

In Luke 5:31-32 Jesus says that it is not those who are well who need a doctor, but the sick. He had come to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is acknowledging our needy condition and thus our need for the grace of Jesus.

According to Ephesians we were not just sick in our sin, we were dead in our sin. The fact that we were dead in our sin means that we were utterly incapable of earning salvation. My salvation is completely the result of the grace of Jesus.

Our utter incapability of earning salvation should lead us to bring our need to the only one capable of securing salvation for us – Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is bringing our need of salvation to Jesus.

Since we were dead in our sin, then what was needed was life. When a person is dead, only new life can bring them back to life.

Ephesians 2:4 says that God, because He is rich in mercy and because of great love, made us alive.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross to make us better people, to reform us, or to make us look better on the outside. Jesus died to give us new life. The only thing you can do for a dead person that is going to make a difference is to give them life. Jesus out of His grace gives us new life.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing new life in Jesus.

Grace:

Changes us from sinner to saint

Gives us a new heart

Meets the real needs of our lives

Brings us salvation

Enables us to experience new life

Because I was a wretch, I needed the grace of Jesus.

Because I received the grace of Jesus, I am now a God-declared righteous person.

In God’s Grace Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                        Joe

Grace Overcomes

Grace overcomes. There is no better picture of grace overcoming than what is pictured in Mark 5.

Jesus and His disciples had crossed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to the Gerasene region. He encountered a man possessed by a demon.

In this passage we see Jesus by grace overcoming the forces of Satan and society.

Mark 5:2-5

And when Jesus stepped out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountain he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

Here we see the power of Satan to kill, steal, and destroy. The man was:

Spiritually and Emotionally Tormented

Physically Harmful to Himself and Others

Living in an Environment of Death

This man had lost his peace and purpose for living.

This man had lost his home and family.

This man had lost his decency and his humanity.

Satan is our enemy and wants to destroy us and make us children of disobedience, who disobey God’s will.

Mark 5:6-13

And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before Him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have You to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For He was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” And he begged Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great heard of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged Him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” So He gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

We see the destructive power of Satan as the demons enter the pigs and they rush down the steep bank and drown themselves. But we also see the reality of who Jesus is and His power to overcome Satan. The demons acknowledge who Jesus is, the Son of the Most High God. The demons recognize Jesus’ power by begging Him not to send them out of the country. The demons recognize Jesus’ authority by doing what He commands them to do.

Jesus out of His grace uses His power and authority to rid this man of the demons.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing Jesus can and letting Jesus overcome Satan’s influence in our lives.

Mark 5:14-17

The herdsman fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.

Society had labeled the man possessed by demons. They labeled him as a crazy, dangerous, demon-possessed man. When they saw him, they didn’t see the person; they saw the label. But when they saw him with Jesus, they realized he had changed and they didn’t know what to do with that. They also were fearful of Jesus because He had done something that they believed to be impossible. Their response was to ask Jesus to leave.

Society is fallen and naturally doesn’t understand Jesus. They feel safer when Jesus is at a distance. Jesus in His grace still works even in the midst of a nonbelieving society. Society does not determine what Jesus can do. Grace works in any and every situation.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is trusting in God’s grace, no matter the situation.

Mark 5:18-20

As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged Him that he might be with Him. And He did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

The result of Jesus by grace overcoming Satan and society was the transformation of the man. He was no longer controlled by Satan, but by grace was directed and guided by Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being transformed by the grace of God.

By God’s Grace Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                        Joe

Grace is Accepting the Outcast

Jesus shows grace in many ways. He did not let circumstances or what others expected Him to be or do stop Him from displaying grace.

In Mark 2:13-14 Jesus calls Mathew to leave his position as a tax collector and come and follow Him, Jesus. Later Jesus appoints Matthew as one of the twelve apostles. Jesus called a man who, because of what he did for living, was hated by his people, the Jews.

Jesus shows grace by accepting and calling an outcast to be not just a follower, but one of the Twelve.

Then in verse 15 Jesus is at Matthew’s house eating with Matthew’s friends. Matthew’s friends are other tax collector. Eating with another person in eastern culture shows acceptance. Jesus not only accepted Matthew; He showed acceptance to many other outcasts.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing God to manifest His grace through us by us accepting those who are cultural outcasts.

In verse 16 the Pharisees question why Jesus was eating with sinners. Jesus responds in verse 17 by saying, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteousness but sinners.”

Jesus can do nothing for those people who see themselves as righteous apart from what Jesus did on the cross. When we recognize our sin and admit our sin and our need for Jesus then we can and will experience the acceptance and forgiveness of God.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is acknowledging our sin and seeking Jesus as the solution.

In Mark 2 :18-19 Jesus is asked another question. Since the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, why did His disciples notfast?.

In verse 20 Jesus asks why the wedding party would fast and not celebrite while the groom is still with them. He tells them in verse 21 that there will be a time to fast after the groom has left.

Jesus says that He as the bridegroom is reason for celebration, not fasting.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is focusing our lives on Jesus and celebrating Him.

In Mark 2:21 Jesus points out that no one sows a new cloth patch on an old garment. If they do, it will shrink and make the hole bigger and worse. In verse 22 Jesus says that you don’t put new wine into old wineskins because it will burst the old wineskins and both the wine and wineskins will be ruined. You put new wine into new wineskins. Jesus came with something new, the gospel, and it needed a new container, a new structure. If not, then everything will be ruined.

 

Jesus is pointing out that grace cannot be contained in the old structure of the law. The gospel needs a new container. It needs the faith community of the church to effectively impact the world.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting grace, not rules and rituals, control your life.

Jesus in these passages is:

The Physician who heals the sick.

The Bridegroom who brings joy to His friends.

The Tailor who fixes the hole.

The Winemaker who provides new wine.

Grace is accepting outcasts and the unlovable no matter what others think and living based on a relationship with Jesus, not religious rules.

In Grace Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                      Joe