Grace

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. My name is Todd, and I believe this is, what, the fourth or fifth time that I've been able to fill in and give John a break. He just arrived back from D.C. I was a little worried that he was maybe not going to get back, you know. with all this weather going on, but he's here and I'm honored to be able to give him a break and share what's on my heart. And today is probably something that is really the most basic message there probably is, but I think it's one that we need to be reminded of from time to time and maybe have a little refresher on where we're at and where our faith really is. I want to start this morning by asking you two questions. They're questions that were developed back in the '70s as a witnessing tool. They were created by a pastor in Fort Lauderdale at a Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. D. James Kennedy came up with these two questions, and he called it the evangelism explosion. And then a few years later, a guy by the name of Leroy Beezenthal, did you ever meet Beezy? He was a Lutheran, was he a professor? Or just in the synod? He came up with kind of a Lutheran version called dialogue evangelism. And the two questions are very basic, but very telling in our answers. So I'm gonna ask them, and I don't want you to answer out loud, but I just want you in your mind, to just kind of let it bang around for a while, then we're going to pray, then we're going to get into it. Question number one, if you were to die tonight, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? Question number two, if you were to die tonight and you were to stand before God, And he was to say, Why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? Let's pray and then we'll talk about that. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be here to worship in warmth. Yay. To celebrate the goodness, the life, the grace that you have given to each one of us, Lord. And I just pray that we can maybe come to understand that in even a new way today, how much you love us and all that you have done for us and just what we can stand in each and every day. Lord, that's my prayer this morning, and I pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. How you answer those two questions has everything to do with your understanding of one word, and that word is grace. So I'm trying to kind of enfold into John's series about wonder, and so we're gonna call this today the Wonder of Grace, and it really is a wonder. Or some have even said it's amazing. Now, in the Bible, there are two words that get translated in English as the word grace. The first is in Hebrew, which the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the word for... I've got to get ready for this Hebrew word. The word is khen, K-H-E-N, not ken, you know, not the name. You've got to kind of hock it up, hen, okay? And in the Old Testament, ken is translated grace or favor. And it's most often used to describe a gift given with delight or favor. So in the Old Testament, when someone of low status was treated favorably or with delight by someone of higher status, they were asking for ken. So, giving a gift of favor is kin, because it's motivated by delight. And then here's what the Bible Project says about this. The most extreme kind of kin is someone of higher status showing favor to someone of lower status who should get what they deserve, not a generous gift. So, 47 times in the Old Testament, someone of higher status shows favor of someone of lower status, who should get not what they deserve, but they get a generous gift. So, kings offer hen to their subjects. Brothers offer hen to their brother. God offers can to screw-ups and sinners and misfits who don't deserve it. And that's the Old Testament. But in the New Testament, the Greek word for grace is the word charis, C-H-A-R-I-S. It's where we get the word charisma or charismatic. And the one person in the New Testament that grace or chorus is used to describe is? Anyone? Jesus. John chapter 1, verse 14 puts it this way, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory. Glory is the only Son from the Father, full of what? Grace and truth. Jesus, says John, was full of grace, full of favor, delight, kindness, expressing it and extending it to misfits, folks of lower status, like us, who don't deserve it. Here's how Paul put it. He uses this word in his letter to his friends at Ephesus. He says this, But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love for which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, did what? He made us alive together with Christ by grace, Horace, Chen, You have been saved. This rich in mercy, great in love, God, makes spiritually dead people alive. How? By grace. God's favor, God's delight, giving us not what we deserve, but what we don't deserve. By that, says Paul, we have been saved, rescued. delivered from our sin that f...