Put The “Amazing” Back Into Grace

1^st service, 10 May 2009

preached by Pastor Joseph Prince

as noted by Yeo Choon Meng Terence

The epistle to the Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul. Ruins of library of Celsus in Ephesus. 16 April 2009. Day 6 of Turkey Tour.

EDITOR’S NOTE

I am not publishing notes of the 19 April 2009 sermon (Pastor Lim Lian Neo), 26 April 2009 sermon (Reverend Kenneth W Hagin) and 3 May 2009 sermon (video of Pastor Joseph Prince’s 24 April 2003 sermon “God’s Protection Plan Against Deadly Viruses” was screened).

It was remarked that an invitation has been issued by American youth pastor Judah Smith to Senior Pastor to preach at his assembly in the USA.

PREACH JESUS AND MORALITY WILL FALL INTO PLACE

A testimony was shared in which an ex-homosexual recounted that he was effortlessly transformed after hearing the recent messages on the High Priest garments in NCC. He has lost all desire for members of the same gender and is now even trusting God for a female partner in life.

Preach what you are for, not what you are against.

If you are asked repeatedly on what you are against, say, “Can I tell you what I am for? I am for Jesus”. Often if your questioners refuse to hear you speak about Jesus, you can say, “there is nothing more to dialogue since you refuse to hear my view.”

If we want to be against something, we will have to be “anti” against so many things. The church is oftern characterised by what it is against rather than what it is for. If we are to be “anti” then let us be anti-fear, anti-slander, anti-gossip.

Kill the roots of sin by preaching Jesus. No one sin is greather than another.

Let us be FOR Jesus.

Interestingly, sowing discord appears to be most grave amongst the 7 sins listed in Proverbs 6:16-19 “These six [things] doth the LORD hate: yea, seven [are] an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness [that] speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. “

ENTIRE NEW TESTAMENT CAN BE DEPICTED IN ONE WORD – GRACE

The Jamieson, Fausset, Brown commentary write concerning “GRACE” being the chosen New Testament word for the whole fullness of the New Covenant, all that dwells in Christ for men.

When you touch Grace, you touch holiness. You don’t need to teach obedience.

When someone says obedience is separate from Grace, you can tell that they don’t really understand Grace. Grace is not the opposite of obedience.

True obedience is not slavish adherance to the 10 commandments, it is borne out of Grace.

We see this in the principle of submission. True submission by the wife is not being conscious in submitting to her husband. True forgiveness is not counting the number of times, you are forgiving towards a friend or relative.

If you are going through something in your life now, you need more Grace.

GREAT GRACE IN THE EARLY CHURCH

In the early church, they lived in so much grace that there was Great Grace.

Acts 4:33 And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.

Acts 4:34 Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold

The word power in Acts 4:33 is the Greek – dunamis – dynamite power, the power to effect miracles.

The word “and” in the original Greek of Acts 4:33 indicates that Grace was already in existence to produce the dunamis.

Because the apostles with dunamis gave witness of the resurrection of Jesus, there was Great Grace and no lack amongst the people!

In the early church, they came to a place where there was none lacking i.e. no poverty, sickness, etc. Not so in the 21^st century church, as we seem to have forgotten about Grace.

Grace is the answer to everything in the Christian life!

BIBLE’S DEFINITION OF GRACE

Rom 11:6 And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

How did NCC grow to its present size? Through formulas, emphasis on cell groups, etc. No. Purely by Grace. Hallelujah.

Just like you cannot touch water without getting wet; you shall be holy, when you touch Grace.

What is true freedom? Freedom is not freedom until you have the freedom to fail – Grace. When you know you are free and forgiven from your entire life of sin by Jesus, this does not stir up license to sin, instead it produces true love for Jesus. We see this illustrated in the story of the woman in Luke 7:38 who anointed Jesus’ feet. Those who realize that they are forgiven much, love Jesus much. Whereas the self-righteous believe they have little to be forgiven off, and correspondingly love little.

GRACE IS ONE SIDE OF THE ‘COIN’

Eph 1:7 In whom [JESUS] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace

Once we believe in Christ, we have forgiveness of sins. This is according to the riches of God’s Grace. No according to your confession, good works etc. Purely by Grace.

Grace and Holiness are like 2 sides of the same coin. How well we rest on this side of the ‘coin’ will impact on the flipside of the ‘coin’ which is how well we have dominion over sin.

Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

The Greek word translated as “dominion” is kyrieuō, which means, to exercise lordship. It is from the root word kyrios which means Lord.

The Greek word translated as “sin” in Rom 6:14 is a noun. So you can substitute sickness, poverty, or the devil himself (as he personifies sin) for sin in Rom 6:14.

We can understand Rom 6:14 as sin [sickness, poverty, devil, etc] shall not exercise lordship over you for you are not under law but under Grace.

You cannot touch Grace without having holiness and power over sin.

How much power you receive to overcome depends on how much you believe in Grace and forgiveness of sin.

WORDS CHANGE WITH TIME

Words change with time. When the KJV was written, the word “conversation” meant conduct.

1 Pet 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives

Today, words like “wicked” can have a positive connotation and mean excellent or good. Similarly, a word like “cool” can carry a meaning of having a calm or composed disposition.

It is unfortunate that Oprah was said to have rejected the Bible because she read that the Bible depicts God as “jealous”.

Back then, “jealous” had a positive connotation of God loving us so much that He did not want any evil spirit to destroy us. It did not have the negative selfish connotation of today.

It is thus important for us when studying any English translation of the Bible to understand it in the context of the meanings of the English words at they stood at the time that particular translation was made.

FAVOUR CAN COME IN TWO WAYS

Favour can either be from God or from man.

God’s favour is the one we should be running after.

For a while, Joseph, after he rejected Potiphar’s wife (man’s favour), there seemed to be no favour from God. But watch out, it’s coming! Joseph’s story is ours too! Joseph was subsequently elevated to become the viceroy of Egypt. This was the favour of God in action.

There is no such thing as bad publicity. After the recent negative reporting on the church by the local media, the church experienced a new record attendance.

ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD?

The word that was proclaimed to this church at the beginning of the year was that 2009 is the “acceptable year of the Lord”.

Why then the recent ‘attacks’ on the church?

Look at the scripture where the proclamation of the “acceptable year” came from.

After Jesus proclaimed that He had come to “preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:19), the people were filled with “wrath” (Luke 4:28) and they wanted to throw him off a hill (Luke 4:29). But Jesus simply passed through the midst of the people and went His way (Luke 4:30) and His preaching further improved because when He taught in Capernaum on the Sabbath days, His words was “with power” (Luke 4:31-32).

Drawing inspiration from Luke 4, Pastor takes comfort that his preaching will now improve because his experiences were similar to Jesus in that after proclaiming the acceptable year to the church, he experienced attacks.

Luke 6:26 Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.

A Jewish brother is said to have remarked that you are not of God, if all men speak well of you.

SUPERABOUNDING GRACE

Rom 5:20 … But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound

When the whole world’s sin seems to be increasing, grace super abounds to meet it, and it is not a case where you lose the victory!

To the extent we don’t experience victory, our believing is lacking.

PAUL’S EXHORTATION TO TIMOTHY

1 Tim 1:14 And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

1 Tim 1:15 This [is] a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

1 Tim 1:16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

1 Tim 1:17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, [be] honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Tim 1:18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;

1 Tim 1:19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck

True spiritual warfare according to Paul in the above scripture is to quickly return to Grace. Those who have rejected faith in the God and His Grace have been made shipwreck.

WORKS OF FLESH

The works of the flesh always follow the abandoning of Grace and an adherence to the Law. Case in point, the Children of Israel.

There was no Golden Calf during the period before Sinai as they were still operating under the Abrahamic Covenant of pure Grace. During this period of time, every time the Children of Israel sinned, God provided for them and every provision revealed a new aspect of His Grace. None died. Pre-sinai was a picture of pure Grace.

After Sinai and boasting that they could keep the Law, the flesh of the Children of Israel was stirred by the Law and they produced the Golden Calf and other sins. Now post Sinai, every time they sinned, there was judgment from God and people were killed.

It was observed that a particular church which is very against a specific sin usually has this sin as a problem within its leadership or some other part of its congregation.

1 Cr 15:56 … the strength of sin is the law.

DISTRIBUTION OF GRACE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

Grace is used 128 times in the New Testament.

Out of the 128 times, it appears 94 times in Paul’s writings.

Paul write two-thirds of the New Testament.

Twenty-seven times, Grace appears in the book of Romans which is a doctrinal epistle, not a corrective epistle.

Grace is used Twenty-six times in Galatians and Corinthians. Both epistles were written by Paul to these churches to correct them. Galatia was the most unscriptural of churches since it had gone back to Law, whilst Corinth was the most immoral of churches (members of the Corinthian assembly were visiting prostitutes; suing each other, etc).

Thus in the very 2 churches which were abusing Grace, Paul gives them more Grace!

We seem to be doing the opposite today!

We in the Latter Day Church ought to be experiencing greater Grace than the Early Church.

When we experience favor from God, we gain the power to overcome sin. The story is told of a certain pastor in NCC who had a quarrel with his wife. This pastor refused to apologise to his wife and in fact demanded an apology from her. Later that day, after Senior Pastor had re-emphasized Grace in his sharing with the pastors, this pastor apologised to his wife and reconciled with her. Even pastors need to hear Grace being preached. Why? Grace is not natural to man, it is supernatural. It has to be preached and emphasized again and again. Only Grace can defeat sin, not rigid obedience to the Law.

There is an OT law that states that the disobedient son can be stoned by the public (Deu 21:21). However in the NT we see the prodigal son’s father running to intercept his son while he was still a far off. Why? He wanted his son to avoid being stoned by the public. This is a picture of the Father Grace’s towards us. Hallelujah!

29 APRIL 2009

When the H1N1 Mexico Swine Flu seems at its most threatening and Singapore went on high alert. The “Destined To Reign” daily devotional (published last year) had this in the first para for the 29 April 2009 reading “…God does not play a game of counterattack with the devil — the devil does something bad, then God steps in to bring something good out of it. The truth is, when something bad happens, it is the devil reacting to something good that God has started. The Lord once told me, “Tell My people that if they want to understand what I am doing, just look at what the devil is doing and see it in reverse. That is what I am doing, multiplied many times over.”

God in His providing for our future, had aligned the devotional with the situation (which was future at the time of publication of the devotional)! Hallelujah!

The devotional goes on to say: “… I see this truth in the Bible. When Christ was born, soldiers were sent to kill all baby boys under the age of two in Bethlehem. The folks in Bethlehem then would have seen only evil. But there were those like Mary who saw God’s goodness. They knew that God had sent a Savior into the world! The killing of the infants was just the devil’s reaction to the gift of salvation that God had sent. The Lord showed me that this was how we were to look at the bird flu when it hit our region not too long ago. While I was pondering the significance of birds, the Lord showed me Matthew 6:26: “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” If God takes care of the birds, how much more will He take care of you! So, by attacking the birds with disease, the devil is, in essence, reacting to God’s provision for His people. In other words, he saw that God’s provision had already been released on His people in a big way! With every new virus that the devil throws at us, you must discern that the devil is trying to pervert and reverse what God is already doing. Then, you will know that something good is going to come out of it. You see, every new strain of virus tells us that God has already released a new anointing of health for His people. And I believe that He releases new levels of prosperity for His people too. So don’t just see the evil. See the good that God is already doing!”

So this new strain of swine flu simply indicates that God has given us a new strain of anointing of health and blessing on us.

If you are being attacked in any area, just know that it is the devil re-acting. Keep standing in Jesus. You are about to be swept up in His Grace.

If we lack healing, etc, we need to receive more Grace.

Don’t use the word “Grace teaching” so much, use “the Gospel”. This is because it is easier for people to reject “Grace teaching” but difficult to reject the “Gospel”.

BEFORE JESUS WENT TO THE CROSS

In the period before the Cross, the world was still under Law. Thus when Jesus ministered, it was a mix of law and grace. For example, Jesus used the law to expose the rich young ruler’s heart that his lord was money. Thus when we approach the Sermon on the Mount, we must also realize that this is a mixture of law and grace. It is only in Paul’s epistles where we see the words of the post-resurrection Jesus. These are words of pure Grace. We must rightly divide the Word.

When Jesus told the people to cut off their hands and pluck our their eyes if they “offended thee” (Matt 18), this was primarily aimed at the Pharisees. This was to magnify the Law so much so that the Pharisees too would be guilty and see their need to receive Grace. All would be on the same level, so all might receive Grace.

GOOD WORKS ARE BORNE OF GRACE

Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:

Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship [Editor: Greek is poiema – where we get the word poem], created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

When the Church gave SGD 100K to Mendaki (a local self-help group), there was no publicity. Nevertheless, the church’s capacity for giving and good finances arises because of Grace. Good works are birthed from Grace.

The best kind of good works is when they are produced as an overflow of Grace, sometimes without even being conscious of it (recall the example of the Pastor above who reconciled with his wife).

Example: The worse kind of humility is when you fake humility. True humility is when you are humble without being conscious of it.

THE MOUNTAINS OF BURUNDI

For centuries, it was thought that the ultimate source of the river Nile was Lake Victoria. It was only discovered in the 20^th century, that the true source was determined as the mountains of Burundi. This discovery was made in 1934 by the German explorer Burckhard Waldecker.

Likewise, let’s trace the source of good works:

We start in Eph 2:10 where we learn that We are God’s workmanship created in Christ unto good works. We probe deeper and learn in Eph 2:9 that good works is “not of works”. But this is still not the true source of the river (figuratively speaking).

Tracing the river further to its source, we look at the second part of Eph 2:8 which states that “not of yourselves: it is the gift of God”.

We are getting close now to the source.

The ultimate source of the river lies in first part of Eph 2:8 – Grace. It is for Grace which we are saved through faith. This is the source of good works.

SOMETHING ABOUT GRACE THAT PAUL KNOWS

Paul opens and closes all his epistles with the word “Grace”

There must be something powerful that Paul knows about Grace.

DON’T CONDEMN YOURSELF

If you condemn yourself, you are bound to repeat the same sin. The best way forward is to look up to heaven and thank God that your sins are forgiven. Don’t get into guilt. Psychologists say that the root of every addiction is guilt.

If we tell the people to don’t sin anymore before they qualify to receive no condemnation, they will go and sin some more!

Follow the example of Jesus. He gave the gift of no condemnation to the woman who was caught in adultery and only then said, go and sin no more. No condemnation gives power to sin no more.

BOOK OF REVELATION

Fear, according to Revelation, produces all the other sins.

Rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

[Side note: In “whoremongers”, we can understand that this includes pimps who subject women to prostitution.]

Thus, practically, we ought not to put one sin above another.

Let the Church be known for what it is “for”, We are for Christ and the Gospel.

If we must be anti, let us be anti-fear, gossip and slander.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: THE ABOVE NOTES WERE DRAFTED BY, DEVELOPED, COMPILED AND ORGANISED BY YEO CHOON MENG TERENCE IN HIS PERSONAL CAPACITY ON 27 MAY 2009 AND ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS ARE HIS ALONE. THE ABOVE NOTES ARE NOT REPRESENTATIONS OF, ATTRIBUTABLE TO OR IN ANY WAY CONNECTED WITH NEW CREATION CHURCH OR JOSEPH PRINCE MINISTRIES.