[1] #325, God’s Secret Ingredient, Pastor David McIntosh, Sunday 08-24-2008

Text: Romans 1:4-6

INTRODUCTION

1. In the story “A Cranberry Thanksgiving” grandma makes the greatest cranberry bread in the land and a city slicker is trying to steal her secret ingredient for this cranberry bread.
2. Grandma uses something that is so powerful everyone wants her cranberry bread!
3. Well, in a day when many are seeking answers to life we Christians should be demonstrating the power of Jesus Christ in our personal lives to attract others to Him.
4. Instead, multitudes of believers seem powerless against the same forces that destroy the world.
5. Marriages are falling apart, raising children that respect others, anger, bitterness, addictions to sex and pornography are reigning in the land whether you claim to be Christian or not.
6. What is the missing ingredient that will propel us to be genuine overcomes of the sins that destroy in this world? That our light would shine with words & works!

EXAMPLE (Psalm 106:9-16)

1. Read verses 9:11 – “He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it dried up; So He led them through the depths, As through the wilderness. He saved them from the hand of him who hated them, And redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. The waters covered their enemies; There was not one of them left:
2. V.12-16 on the PowerPoint:
   1. They believed his words & sang his praise (look what God did for me!)
   2. They forgot his works…causing them to not wait for His counsel
   3. This led to lusting after and testing God
   4. God’s consequence is He gives them what they want (but leanness to the soul)
   5. They then envy God’s leaders (Moses & Aaron)
3. Now look at this pattern, God does something they don’t deserve, limited belief and praise, they soon forget, turn from God’s ideas, this leads to lust, consequences and envy.
4. This is a picture of what happens over and over again to believers today.
5. Listen to what James 4:1-4 says; “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasure. You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?”
6. Wow, that’s tough, that hurts! What is that secret ingredient that can change everything?
7. How do we live everyday in the ways of our faith? How do break out of this cycle that we see in the O.T. people of God and the N.T. church of believers?

THE SECRET INGREDIENT

1. Romans 1:4-6 – “And who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his name sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.”
2. We received GRACE to call people to obedience that comes from faith!
3. The missing ingredient is GRACE. It’s not that we haven’t heard of grace but rather we have misunderstood it.
4. To many believers today, being under grace means that they are not under any obligation to fulfill the righteousness of the Law of God but are under a covering of God that allows them to do whatever they think is right and God will approve…this is grace.
5. We need to receive a fresh biblical understanding of God’s grace for our lives!

GOD’S GRACE FROM GOD’S WORD

1. In Romans 1:5 we saw that we received grace to call people to obedience.
2. Look at Romans 5:21 – “So that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
3. We see that grace rules through righteousness it is not a ticket for unrighteousness.
4. Romans 6:14 – “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.”
5. So one of the main purposes for grace is to help us work out God’s righteousness in our everyday lives.
6. This can only be done through the power of God not the efforts of man.
7. Listen to Ephesians 3:7 – “I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.”
8. You see, grace is more than God’s loving favor; it is God’s gift of power to do His will in our lives!
9. 2 Peter 1:2-4 – “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
10. Peter is speaking of multiplied grace as divine power by which we have given great & precious promises that we can partake of the divine nature and not the corruption of lust!
11. From God’s Word we see that grace is a gift of divine power that God freely gives us so that we can obey Him, live in righteousness, overcome sin and partake in His divine nature!

GOD’S GRACE OUR TEACHER

1. If anyone is going to truly partake of God’s grace you have to have one thing…a teachable spirit.
2. Titus 2:11,12 – “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.”
3. We learn here that grace is our teacher and we are her students. Grace teaching us (through divine power) to say no to ungodliness & worldly lusts. Grace is not going to just cover over these things, grace teaches us to say no to our way and yes to God’s way!
4. Are you teachable?
5. See the law demands, but gives no strength to obey it, grace promises and gives power to perform for us. The Law points its finger, grace opens its arms.
6. But are we willing to see and be students in the school of biblical grace?

WHERE TO BEGIN

1. Well we know that grace is a gift so you can’t earn it. But there is a qualification that God is looking for.
2. James 4:6 – “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
3. So we see that God considers the opposite of grace is pride.
4. Pride is doing it on my own, pride is reserving the right to make final decisions, pride resists grace!
5. Humility is the key to this incredible gift, daily humility may I add.
6. So here is the first step, completely accept and confess our personal failure and inability to live life in a way that pleases God.
7. With this, we realize our helplessness to do anything good that God accepts, and unless God’s grace moves in my life I really can’t do anything, I am helpless and all the gifts and talents and experience I have won’t do me any good, save for the grace of God.
8. In 2 Corinthians Paul said, “For when I am weak then I am strong,” this is what he was talking about.
9. Humility is realizing that I need God’s help for every decision in my life.

ALTAR CALL

• I would like to open the altars and invite anyone who knows they need the grace of God (the favor, power and desire) to fill their lives like never before that they would become partakers of the divine nature and escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust.
• Grace to say no to this world and yes to righteousness living!
• Grace to obey, grace to grow in faith, grace for self control, grace to overcome!