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