God's Amazing Grace #5 (Do unto Others)
How wonderful it is to be back together with you again looking at the most important
subject that any man or woman of God can: God’s Grace!
It is so important as we have seen in the first four lessons to understand how we come into a
relationship with God: through His grace! Romans 5:1,2!
As we have looked we live in a world that is truly fallen and as such we all hunger to have
someone who loves us and accepts us no matter who we are or what we have done and we have that
with God the Father. Then, we need to stop attempting to ‘earn’ the favour of God because
simply put:
we are all sinners and we cannot earn it so instead we recognize that it is only by grace but
that grace is offered freely to all. (Romans 6:23)
Last week we saw that through grace we find the greatest motivator to do what is right or what
is good. We engage in God’s way now because He loves us so much. We make our beds in the
Father’s house not to prove what a good child we are but to show what a good Father we have.
How do you know someone loves you?
When they no longer live out their relationships with you by what can I get away with!
2 Cor.5:14,15
Okay, now that we understand this about grace and what it means for our relationship with
the Father the next thing we need to focus on is our relationship with others! Both those who
would be classed as followers of Jesus and those who would not be.
The key verse that Jesus ever gave us concerning relationships with others is known as the
golden rule: Matt.7:12-So, whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them,
for this is the Law and the Prophets!
This is a challenge that sweeps over all areas of life and one of the things we need to be
reminded of is that it includes this area known as grace. As children of grace- we are
supposed to be covered with grace!
Phil.1:7- we are partakers of grace!
Col.4:6- our speech is seasoned with grace!
Heb.12:15- obtain grace- don’t have a root of bitterness inside you.
Now, just to make sure we have it clear in our minds here: people are accepted by God not
on a basis that they have achieved some form of piety or religious achievement because that is
impossible to do.
Instead people are accepted by God by simply leaning on His precious Son and giving their lives
over to Him. So, we then as people who have responded to that grace are to be purveyors of
grace. In what we say, feel or do we are to be people who sell this grace to others.
We also
know that we are not to look at others, as somehow we are the bar that others must measure up
to in order to be called a precious child of God and welcomed home into the Father’s house.
Here is the problem:
how do we who have been in the Father’s house avoid the following trap?
There was a young man one time that cast a spell on himself and died because of it. One
day he was lying by a river and leaned over to look into the water and saw his own reflection
and simply fell in love with himself. To be exact he fell in love with his image. He couldn’t
take his eyes off the wonder of the vision, and he died adoring himself.
It’s an awful enchantment and all the more dangerous because the self-adoring have a hard
time seeing themselves as self-adoring. And what’s more they aren’t repulsed by what they see,
so they’ve no wish to be rescued. 1
One of the things Jesus taught was people who never needed forgiveness or smoothing over
their rough edges could not treat other people gracefully!
Do you know why Jesus taught the parable of the Pharisee & tax collector?
Luke 18:9- to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others
with contempt.
After Jesus had cured a blind man of his blindness the ruling class was ready to ban him from
community worship forever and the reason:
John 9:41- if you were blind you would have no sin but because you say ‘we see’ your guilt
remains.
We soon understand that after being a prodigal who returns to the Father’s house and is
thrown a celebration of acceptance there is still the problem of elder brothers and sisters who
are not that excited about us being in the Father’s house. When the elder brother should have
ran and embraced his younger brother and even let him know that because he has been around the
father so long the father would welcome him home the elder brother could not believe that this
sinful pathetic boy could have a place with him in the house of the Father!
Elder brothers cannot give grace- they can only give judgments (what most people around
here need or deserve is),
stern warnings (you need to understand how bad you have been)
and cold shoulders (you will only be welcomed in my house when you have earned it like me).
So, we ask the question of what to do when people lose the wonder of grace?
When they lose sight of how magnificent it is to say like Paul ‘it’s by the grace of God that
I am what I am’ (1 Cor.15:10).
Now, when we come to God through the blood of Jesus Christ the scriptures describe this
process for us as a new birth! John 3:3,5 & 1 Peter 1:3!
What are we saying by this?
When we are baptized into Christ we start over- a new way of believing, a new life begins,
everyone by the way starts over at the same spot: clean by the blood and nurtured by the Son.
Isn’t it amazing that as surely as the blood of the crucified One has cleaned all some can
begin to hold out against others?
Matt.18:23-35- the parable of the unforgiving servant! Listen if you have been delivered from a
great debt, what amount of debt is appropriate for you to deliver another?
Yet, some will hold on to debts. Some do it noticeably and others subtly.
You know what I believe one of the greatest controversies Jesus had with the Pharisees?
Matt.23:13- they kept people from the kingdom of God!
Now, if we talk, feel or act in an ungraceful way towards another we are treading closely to
doing the same thing!
Like Jonah we get upset with God for being too good to some people. He goes & preaches
destruction to a people who deserved it and look, they repent and God saves them. 4:1- this
displeased Jonah and he became angry.
There are two passages I want us to look at to see today how God handles enemies and their
offspring!
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43!
Notice here- the kingdom of heaven is like a field where good seed is sown and someone comes
and sows bad seed in it.
Vs.28- notice what the Master knows- an enemy has done this!
The workers want to go and take all out with a vengeance.
Vs.29- the Master says NO!
Later on Jesus explains this parable- vs.38,39- the weeds are the sons of the evil one and the
enemy is the Devil.
Remember the Master says leave the enemy alone & his sons & daughters.
God is comfortable with leaving them grow.
Okay, and God tells us who would be reapers of righteousness- warriors of God- pit bulls for
Jesus- leave the enemy and his offspring alone!
Now, there are two reasons that I will get to but now turn to Amos 1 & 2-
Back in Israel, the nations that surrounded God’s people were brutal people- people who did all
sorts of wrongs that would just make you shudder. Also, the number 7 meant divine perfection
to the Israelites.
1:2- God is coming!
The Lion is set to roar. Usually God’s people rejoiced with this.
7 different nations are mentioned for judgment from God:
vs.3-5- Damascus,
6-8- Gaza,
9,10- Tyre,
11-12- Edom,
13-15- Ammon,
2:1-3- Moab,
4,5- Judah!
Now, Israel would all agree that God should punish these nations for their crimes but lo and
behold God is not done! There is one other nation that God considers his enemy and it receives
the worst judgment of all:
2:6-16- Israel!
The worst culprit of them all was the covenant people of God! Why?
Because God had done the great works for them in making them who they were & they should have
known better!
At times if the church takes the attitude that the enemies of God need to be punished and
we say Amen the loudest when we hear condemnations of today’s governments and peoples we need
to see the face of the enemy!
It is nice to judge those around us. It is convenient to look down with a heavy hand upon
those who don’t live like us. Let us remember that we are the covenant people of God and my
friends I have seen the face of the enemy and it is us!
Let us remember that in our reaction to gay-rights issues, immorality, the cruelty that is
done around us, the false gods people bow down to, the wars that men rage, the lies people tell,
the adultery that happens- let us remember to never give the impression that
ah! I can feel religious now because I have something to preach about!
(Love never rejoices in evil but delights in truth).
Here is the reason God allows the enemy’s offspring to co-exist with the sons of the
kingdom- because our God is such an awesome God that He can transform a weed into a good solid
crop of grain!
We are or were the enemy- so let us not now look to gladly be a person who roots out of the
kingdom of God all those whom we deem do not belong. I have seen the face of the enemy and I
am he. That is not a nice message but it is the message I must tell myself.
Christians today who march at funerals of gay youths cheering that ‘gays are hated by God
and deserving of hell’, Christians who expect sympathy for ‘bombing abortion clinics in the name
of God, Christians who announce that Aids is an appropriate result of an immoral lifestyle,
Christians who do not feel sympathy that drug addicts and alcoholics live in a constant
nightmare, Christians who almost look forward to the government leader they do not like to be
found with a sin, Christians who cannot care that someone is hurting and not acting just
perfect and so simply dismiss them because the bottom line is if you do anything wrong God is
not pleased, Christians who look to others as cases to expose as why they are damned to hell
and we are lifted up to heaven—
my friends I am confident that if God were to run through the peoples He had a controversy with-
He would be upset with the nations of the world- but these types of Christians that I have
just mentioned would be the last and worst.
The types of Christians that come in from the field and see another person in the house of
God and say ‘tsk, tsk, tsk’ how dare they feel happy in God’s house doing what they have done!
We must always remember that there are two kinds of kingdoms not one in this world-
there are the kingdoms of the world that need the light of grace and then there is the kingdom
of God. The kingdom where enemies have been turned into wheat and therefore instead of looking
to root out the bad, we show them the greatest thing that God can do to an enemy! Colossians
1:19-22
He asks you, do you want to be in my kingdom?
Do you want to be a child of grace?
Do you want to be accepted in the one place where you will never be known by a tag but as my
child?
Come as we stand and sing…
1. Adapted from Jim McGuiggan, Where the Spirit of the Lord Is…(West Monroe, LA: Howard Publishing Co., Inc., 1999) p.8
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