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[ Silence ] [MUSIC PLAYING] God is a good God. God won't ever change.

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God is a good God. Does not ever praise his name. I keep on telling you that God is a good God. God won't ever change.

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God is a good God. That's why I never praise his name. Mmm, he's captain of the ocean. He's captain of the sea.

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He rides on every windstorm. And he moves within my heart. I keep on telling you that God is a good God.

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Won't ever change. God will never change. God is a good God. That's why I'll never praise his name.

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Mmm, he's Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He'll save your soul from a burning hell, and he will save you from your sins. I keep on telling you, God is a good God.

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God won't ever change. God is a good God. That's why I'll ever praise his name. Oh, God led the children of Israel

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Across the mighty Red Sea. He led them to a promised land And he will do the very same for you. I keep on telling you that my God is a good God.

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God won't ever change. God is a good God. That's why my ever praise is me. ♪ There is nothing too hard for my God ♪

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♪ There ain't nothing he can't do ♪ ♪ If you're looking for a miracle ♪ ♪ He can work one just for you ♪ ♪ I keep on telling you that God ♪

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♪ God is a good God ♪ ♪ God will never change ♪ ♪ God is a good God ♪ ♪ That's why I'll ever praise his name ♪

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♪ I keep on telling you that God ♪ ♪ Is a good God ♪ ♪ God won't ever change ♪ ♪ God is a good God ♪

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♪ That's why I'll ever praise his name ♪ Oh, that's why I'll ever praise His name. That's why I'll ever praise His name. The subject, "The Free Gift of Grace," the free gift of grace. In this particular section of the letter to the Romans, Paul addresses a common human

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need, a common human need. I remember some years ago we were giving away things at the Mission Center, clothes and shoes, and a lady came and she said, "I understand this is the place where you're giving things away."

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I said, "Yes." "What do you need?" She said, "Whatever you've given away I need." But this is a common need that Paul speaks of.

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All of us are sinners, and we need to be saved, not only once in a lifetime, but we need to be saved again and again. We need to be delivered from those forces that would destroy us every day of our lives. Deliver us from evil is not a prayer for just one occasion.

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And forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So all of us have trespassed. We've all seen those signs. Sometimes on a tree, sometimes on a fence, "Do not trespass."

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And we know what that means, not to go in there. That sign was on the garden, on the fence of the garden, where the tree was. Do not trespass. Don't even touch it.

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You know the story well. Adam and Eve did not obey. They trespassed. They ignored the sign.

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But all of us are affected by the sin of Adam and Eve. We see the sign, we read it, we understand it, but we trespass, we sin. We have done that which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone that which we ought to have done.

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Through Adam, sin entered the world. Through Adam's sin, through his fall, we sin all. The entire human family is affected by Adam, and the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

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We all fall, but the difference in the sinner and the saint is the saint falls down and gets up. news that those who trespass faith is that they are under judgment, the judgment of the eternal. The good news is that the old humanity, the old Adam, is taken away. The second Adam

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comes to redeem us through Jesus Christ. This Paul calls the free gift of grace. You know, we have often attached certain meanings, certain interpretations of what's free. If it's free, we ordinarily think it's not much to it.

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If it's free. But this is the most valuable gift, and yet it is free. Free.

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I've noticed from time to time they have what is known as a grab bag. You pay a certain amount and you grab a bag and whatever's in it, that's what you've got.

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Well, this is not like that. You don't have to pay anything. And this has been difficult, extremely difficult, for the church to understand,

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and many people feel that there must be something we have to do. So we try to work ourselves. We engage in what we call works salvation.

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And at one period in the church, we had what is known as indulgences. The more you paid, the more assurance you had of making it into heaven. Just shouldn't be free.

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So Jesus Christ is God's free gift of grace. Jesus Christ is the God-ordained means by which this grace reaches humanity, that humanity that is in need, and that includes all of us. Grace, unmerited favor, it's not earned, not like a Boy Scout receiving a merit badge for

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the completion of certain tasks, it's a gift. No strings attached. But let us consider again God's free gift of grace. We may have a mortgage, a payment that's due on an account, and the payment is due on the

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first and then you're given a few days some may give you 10 days those are days of grace and then if you don't pay those 10 days you have a penalty it may be $20 it may be 50 whatever the system is you're responsible for paying when I was in school, we had Bishop College, and your bills were due on the first of the month.

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And you had until the fifth of the month to pay. After the fifth, you were shut out of the dining hall, and you weren't supposed to go to class until you had made arrangements with the business office. Those were days of grace, days of grace. Well, here is a situation where all your days are free gifts from God. All of them are days of grace. So through

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the first Adam, we're driven out of the garden because of sin, and we become slaves, slaves of appetite, slaves to the things of this world, slaves to habits that cripple us and ultimately destroy us. But in Jesus Christ, we are set free to live our lives and we are to be, not merely exist, a lot of people just exist. They eat, they drink, they sleep, they

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engage in all of those basic things but to really be who you are designed to be by the creator. It was the innocence of a man, you know, he went all through his life and at the end there came the demand for his soul, "I want your soul," and he reached for his soul and he

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didn't have a soul. And the story goes on, he had spent all of his life trying to be somebody else, rather than to be himself. So let no person define who you are.

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No other person define you, but to be, to actually be. So in a sense, every one of us is engaged in a romance of becoming the person God designed you to be. So the good news of the old humanity is that Jesus Christ comes to redeem us from it.

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If a person be--listen to this--if one should be in Jesus Christ, to be in Jesus Christ, He is a new creature, a new person. The old humanity is passed away and all things are become new. If a person should be, if you were to be, to be.

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People used to say all the time, "Boy, what are you going to be?" The young lady, "What are you going to be?" And of course we have a way of saying "I be." But we're on the road to becoming, and there are gifts that we receive.

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The first gift is the free gift of Jesus Christ, the gift of grace, gift of grace. And the most wonderful gift we may receive is this free gift of grace which is acceptance. Acceptance. You know, some people aren't able to accept who they are.

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They want to change the shape of their nose, you know, or change the shape of other parts of their body, you know, because they're not pleased with the way God made them. They're not pleased. But to actually accept who you are took me some time to accept the fact that my hair

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was not going to be straight, you know, in its natural form. But to accept that, to accept, you know, who you are, to accept it, and to be able to accept others, accept others as they are, to accept them. Not to try to make them over into the kind of person that we want them to be, but to

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accept who they are. The grace, that's the grace, the grace of accepting ourselves, the grace of accepting others, and the grace of accepting the eternal. There are some things that we cannot change to be able to accept them.

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And to live with them, we can accept certain things because we can change them, and then there are certain things we cannot accept because they cannot be changed. So this salvation of acceptance, the free gift, this is a free gift, is God's gift to humanity.

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God so loved the world that he gave his only beginning. This gift comes to us through Jesus Christ and if we look at his life, he teaches us how to accept ourselves, how to accept others, how to accept the eternal. This is God's gift to us.

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He gave his only begotten Son. So through the first Adam we become slaves, slaves of appetite, slaves of the things of this world things that would destroy us, but in Jesus Christ we are set free to live our lives.

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So we asked ourselves the question, "Who am I? Who am I?" And that's the--what does God want me to do? am I at this particular junction in my life? Who am I? The gift of grace is being yourself.

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It's a gift from God enabling you to embrace whatever is uniquely you. So the free gift of grace is accepting others, but it is obeying the laws of the Eternal, not because we have to, but because we have the Spirit of Christ in us that moves us to do the right thing, for any reward but just for the joy of pleasing the Heavenly Father. Jesus tells

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the story of a man who gives a banquet and he invites people to come and some come some do not come and yet there's plenty of room and he sends the messenger out again and says tell them to come there's plenty of room let them come to the banquet and so they come and as he moves around in the banquet he finds a man who

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doesn't have on the proper banquet dress. We say the proper banquet garment. He has come in without the proper garment. Now the garments were prepared. The host had garments prepared. You didn't have to worry about the You just stopped at this particular place and had a garment put on you.

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And that was your badge of admission into the banquet hall. But this man ignores the fact that this is prepared for him. He breaks in. He crashes the party.

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And while they are engaged in the celebration, the host moves around. And he sees this man, "Fellow, what are you doing here without a proper dress?" And he has him cast out. Now the banquet was available to him, it was a free gift.

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You didn't have to have any money, it was a free gift of grace to enter into the highest joy possible. The banquet was there, free, no cost. the banquet was there free no cost but he ignores it he's rebellious he's

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arrogant he ignores the expectation of the host and there's people all over the world like that today who ignore the free gift of God's grace. It's there open to them, all they have to do is embrace it, and yet they ignore the free gift of God's grace. In other words, every one of us has the opportunity of being rightly related to God.

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This is a free gift. Everyone has it available to him. So we can accept God's acceptance. That's wonderful.

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Accepting God's acceptance. Some people can't accept themselves, as I say, but accepting God's acceptance. God has already accepted us through Jesus Christ, and yet there are some who cannot accept God's acceptance.

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acceptance. There was a man in Oklahoma some years ago who had committed a crime and he left the state. He disappeared, stayed gone for many years. In the meantime there was a family estate that had oil on it, vast oil wells, and people tried to locate him. They forgave him of the crime he had committed, trying to find him

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and get him back, but he thought that there was some sort of trick and he just kept running and running and running. But it was a gift, so to speak, for him there, but he never received it, so he died on the run. God's free gift. God's free gift. how do we receive this gift? We receive it through Jesus Christ, we receive it

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through his life, we receive it through his ministry, we receive it through his suffering, we receive it through his death, we receive it through his resurrection. That's the way we receive this free gift because Jesus paid it all. So really what happens when Adam sins, he is driven out of the garden and the gate is

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locked where he can never get back in of himself. But Jesus Christ comes outside the garden and dies outside the garden on Calvary's rugged And he comes back into the garden and he leads man, a new creature in Christ, he leads him into the garden of life to live the good life and to be with him in a world that has no end. That's good news. It's so good many people think it's too good to be true.

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But that's good news, that's what Paul is saying here as he writes. Through one man, Adam, the human family transgressed, but through one man, Jesus Christ, we're all made alive. that Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

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I hear the Savior say, "Thy strength indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray. Find in me, thine, all in all, everything we do to live the good life is in Jesus Christ. So this free gift of grace is the gift of God, not the outcome of our deserving, not a merit badge that we get for some work we've done.

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So you see, being a Christian is both a gift and a task. It's a gift in that it is a work of grace. God accept us. It's a gift of His Spirit and a work of His grace.

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So His acceptance is our free gift. So through grace we make this journey from existence to being. To be or not to be, that's the question for every one of us. And our ancestors put it well when they said, "Lord, I want to be.

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Lord, I want to be a Christian. I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart, in my heart, yes, in my heart." heart Lord I want to be a Christian in my heart well he makes that possible because he's provided for everyone you know what I grew up most of the people

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in our neighborhood were on welfare and it was during the days Franklin Roosevelt was president and you could go to a place, a certain place, during that time and get food, a bag of food. Another time they had it where you went to the store and you had a form of that you would present to the merchant and you got the food you need or you needed. It was free. It

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It was free. And there was a time or two when my parents could not go for some reason, and I went to pick up the food.

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And it has a way, when someone is giving you something that's free, it has a way of humbling you. If you have any sense of humility at all, when someone is presenting you the food that you need,

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It has a way of humbling you. Well, that's what God does for us. We're all on God's welfare roll. And he supplies our every need.

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And so when I hear people say over and over again, say, he put bread on my table. He woke me up this morning. He took care of me.

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And he's been my battle axe in time of war. It has a humbling effect because I remember how far the Lord has brought me. He has brought me from a mighty, mighty long way and he has lifted me up over the valleys and leveled the hills.

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He's been good. And it just fills me, it makes my cup run over when I hear the choir sing about God is a good God. Because it causes me to go back to memory lane and remember how He has walked with me

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and talked with me and how He tells me that I'm His own. God is good. He provides us with the free gift of grace, and that's all we need. I won't hold you too long, just let me tell you this.

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This is a song, we call it an anthem of us, Amazing Grace, but John Henry Newton was a slave holder. He was a pirate, he engaged in sending slaves. His mother told him that was not a good thing for him to do and tried to get him to be converted

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to Jesus Christ, but he didn't listen. But one day he was on a voyage and on this particular voyage there was a terrible storm and it was thought that they would lose their lives, but somehow God miraculously delivered them from that storm.

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And later he wrote this song, Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I'm found. And isn't it interesting how a slave trader and slaves all find commonality in that song? It shows how Jesus Christ comes and unites us

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into one bond of fellowship. Amazing it is, amazing grace, how sweet the sound, saved a wretch like me. Through many ages, I like this,

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through many ages, toils and snares, I have already come. It was grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

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As we sing the hymn, we extend the invitation. It's a free gift. Don't let anybody tell you you have to pay a certain amount because you can't pay enough. It's a free gift that God extends to all who would accept.

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It's the gift of Jesus Christ. Come. It's an open door. You can come into the banquet. It's an open door. provides the dress, the garment that you need.

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Come. It's a free gift. Come. ♪ Amazing grace ♪

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♪ How sweet the sound ♪ ♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ I once was lost ♪ ♪ But now I'm found ♪

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♪ Was blind ♪ ♪ But now I see ♪ ♪ He was grace ♪ ♪ That call ♪

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♪ That call ♪ ♪ To me ♪ ♪ And raise ♪ ♪ My feet ♪

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♪ Beneath ♪ ♪ The fresh ♪ ♪ Sunshine ♪ ♪ And praise of thee ♪

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♪ Beyond ♪ ♪ I've heard ♪ ♪ Believing ♪ ♪ Through many ♪

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♪ Many ♪ ♪ Just roads ♪ ♪ I have already come ♪ ♪ God's praise and glory ♪

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♪ He's made us all ♪ ♪ I praise and thank you ♪ ♪ That grace will lead me home ♪ ♪ With thee this thousand years ♪

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♪ I shall be blessed ♪ ♪ It has ♪ ♪ Come strong ♪ ♪ With glorious pain ♪

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♪ To see God's grace ♪ ♪ And make ♪ ♪ Me glad ♪ ♪ We will be one ♪

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(music) ♪ Was great and tall ♪ ♪ He saved us all ♪ ♪ And praise ♪

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♪ Will be ♪ ♪ His ♪ [Music] Lord God, how we thank you, how we praise your name, for your free gift of grace through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

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Be with us as we face the challenges of this week that you've set before us. Grace, mercy, peace be with you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [ Silence ]