Randy Bell | Amazing Grace Episode 10: Jesus' Grace for Righteous Living

Understanding God's grace as a powerful force that reigns within us.

The true meaning of Jesus' name, Savior, and its significance in the Christmas story.

How Jesus' birth fulfills the prophecies of the Old Testament and brings salvation from sin.

The importance of recognizing Jesus as God with us, Emmanuel, and his role in bringing freedom and righteousness.

Thank you. Now this week then basically is the ending message on our series about the overwhelming mighty power of God's grace. So with that in mind, I want to make sure that we bring it all to a head. Remember when we talk about grace, our basic definition is God's giving us the desire and the power to do his will. Remember that's kind of the core idea, but it's related directly to mighty power, mighty power. And so when we look at this, I want you to see it has to be a force that's reckoned with in your life. It has to be a forceful expression of God. Now we're going to tie it into the Christmas story again because it's all related to the coming of our Savior. So if you look at our screen here, I want you to notice first of all the introductory thought that I want you to begin to ponder with. Number one, the amazing gift of Jesus Christ not only means forgiveness, which is kind of what people look at it. They stop there mostly. It's not only forgiveness for our past crimes or our past sins, but also floods us with grace power to stop offending God through a life of crime, if you want to use that term, and instead drives us to a changed life where righteousness reigns and controls us. this is the thought that we have to deal with all through this hour here and i want you to make sure you get it that the the power of grace doesn't stop at forgiveness if you're not experiencing the power of grace to change your life you're missing the very point of christ coming at christmas all the way through the easter point of his death on the cross the whole message is that grace is a powerful force that reigns within you and that's what i want you to see because remember the whole message of what they heard at the time of Christmas was a king is coming. The king was born. Remember the wise men came because they saw the star of the king who was born in the east and so forth. That reigning force power is what we're talking about and it's got to be real. Matthew 1 21 says she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. Now remember the word Jesus. A lot of people have confusion of what that means. It's nothing more than a Greek translation of the Hebrew name Joshua. Jesus had a common, yeah, if you say it right in their language. In the English language, we say Joshua. In the actual Hebrew, it would be Yeshua. They don't use a J sound, so it would be Yeshua. But we always call it Joshua in English. So again, our languages keep splitting things up, so you think Joshua is different than Jesus, is different than Yeshua. It's not. It's all the same name, but different language groups. Understand that Joshua is his name. Well, who was the famous Joshua of the Old Testament? Who was that guy? He succeeded Moses. In fact, he served under Moses and was the arm of force used to bring deliverance to Israel and then continued throughout the time that they received their overwhelming promise to them. I want you to see that same idea when we think of Jesus, also the Savior with the same name. Remember, God didn't bring them into the wilderness and say, okay, you're saved from Egypt and I'll die out here in the wilderness. He said, go into your promised land and get all your victory, all your blessings. That's the same picture you want you to see. He wanted them to go in and get what was theirs. A lot of people in our culture and our churches think you get forgiveness and go out and stand out in the wilderness and starve to death when God said, no, no, my grace gives you the whole package. I'm giving you the eternal life now, a force worth reckoning with in your heart that brings you salvation through your daily life. You don't have to live under the bondages that other people are living under. It's freedom. And that's what we need you to see. I want you to understand that for your life. And so it comes with this idea that from the Hebrew Joshua, which means Savior, for he will save his people from their sins. notice it didn't say save his people from hell did it say that we only think that he came to save us from hell that's what people always talk about that's not what it says he came to save you from your sins if you're out drowning you want to be saved from the water if you're going to be saved from sin and you're drowning in sin the salvation is getting you out of that life of crime or the life of sin that you're suffering under does that make sense That's what he's talking about. And so many people just don't get it. He says he wants to save you from their sins that prevent them from failing and missing the true scope of life, which is freedom and righteousness of the law. The freedom to do what God wants you to do. Let's look at the Christmas story, a portion of it again. Matthew 1, 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place under these circumstances, it says. When his mother Mary had been promised in marriage to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. And her promised husband Joseph, being a just and upright man and not willing to expose her publicly to shame and disgrace, decided to repudiate and dismiss her quietly. In other words, divorce her secretly. She could have been stoned to death. That's what the law said. She could have been stoned to death for what she did. But as he was thinking this over, trying to figure out how to show mercy to the woman he loved, it says, An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from out of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. Notice, they didn't have to struggle with the name their son. God told them. Now that makes it easy, doesn't it? God told them what the name was, which means Savior. For he will save his people from their sins, just like, remember, John? The angel told them to name his son John. Both those guys had an easy naming process. Here's what the name is. Like it or not, you're going to name them. Okay, so you obey. He will save his people from their sins, that is, prevent them from failing and missing the true end and scope of life, which is God. All this took place that it might be fulfilled which the Lord had spoken through the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son. They shall call his name Emmanuel. Now you say, wait a minute. It says in the prophecies to call him Emmanuel. Now you're saying call him Jesus. Did they disobey the Scriptures by calling him Jesus instead of Emmanuel? Well, how do you get around it? Okay. So does it mean that he was to have a name to designate him as Emmanuel or to understand that he's God who's with us? A lot of times when you use those terms, you're designating what that person is. And Jesus, if you talk about he has many names, because when you talk about names in that sense in their culture, you were designating who that person is. Jesus was God with us. What are you going to say, Mike? Exactly. Describes them, who they are, their character, whatever. Exactly. Even God is known by more than one name. Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah this and that. Describing his character of who he is and what he does. So it a descriptiveness of that It not saying that his designation But when it came to the time of his birth they clearly stated that to call him throughout the land he was to be known as Joshua So that was the name given for the people to call him that. But early in prophecy, they were making it clear, this is not a normal kid. This is going to be God living right among men. Powerful. And then Joseph, being aroused from his sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him. and he took her to his side as his wife. But he had no union with her as her husband until she had born her firstborn son and he called his name Jesus. Now look at the first idea here. No one believed Mary's story and no one would believe it today. Mary comes along and says, yeah, I'm pregnant, but it's a miracle. Her husband didn't believe her. Her mom and dad didn't believe her. The community, and who would? Who would believe something like that? And you have to understand, the picture of this is, here he's supposed to save people from sin, and he's known as the son of sin from the beginning, because no one would believe him. No one would believe her. No one would believe such a story. It's a rough part to begin with, isn't it here? Known that she's trying to tell everybody a miracle happened, she can't convince anyone. And that's the same as we find. Who are you going to convince in this world that Jesus is a powerful God he is? You tell people, they look at you like, you believe what you want, I believe what I want, who cares? They won't believe us. Unless a supernatural intervention happens, no one believes these kind of things. Isn't that correct? It took that angel to knock Joseph awake to reality before he would believe. He wouldn't believe her, even though she said, I'm not telling us a lie here, I'm telling you the truth. No one believed it, so they basically called her a liar, right? She was known as a liar. Boy, that's a bad start. But Joseph had to be forced to believe with a supernatural intervention. Just like any man has to be broke open and awake by God himself to be born again. No matter what you do, unless God sheds his powerful grace upon a person, they are not going to believe the truth, are they? Same thing. We have the same need for supernaturalness from the beginning till today in the church. And so I want you to see the seriousness of what this was by her being accused of committing adultery. And even think about this. Remember their day. They basically were under a type of a thing called truffle. But the point was, it's like engagement, but a legal marriage. In our culture, you get engaged first. A lot of people do. And that period of time, you can break it off. In their day, the engagement was a legal binding force that they were married by law. And the marriage day or the wedding day was when they could actually physically be together as a husband or wife. And they couldn't break out of that legally. They were required to act just as faithful as if they were already married. And if they did anything outside of that, change their mind and go with someone else, they were committing adultery. Committing adultery. So it's a lot different in the culture of that point than we look at. We, first of all, don't see adultery as a criminal act, do we? And we certainly don't see it in engagement that you would have any problem if you decided to go with someone else. That's nothing wrong with that. But in their culture, that was a horrendous sin. So her being found pregnant inside of an engagement was the capital crime of adultery. Now, going back to the Old Testament, I want you to see that God has never changed his mind. He sees adultery as a horrific sin at the same level as murder and anything else. We see murder as sin. We see being a thief as being sinful and wrong. We see other things as being wrong. But in the middle there, we say there's nothing wrong with having moral issues. You can choose what you want as long as you don't hurt anybody else. You can do anything you want. And our culture propagates immorality according to God's standard, right? Now look at here. Notice in Job how Job describes adultery. He says, adultery is a heinous and chief crime, an iniquity to demand action by the judges and have punishment. Now, that's a strong look at an act that we consider in our culture something you just kind of say, oh, no big deal, right? Nothing happens. You don't have to face anybody for that. God's word says it's a crime that has to face a judge for. Wow. We sure change from God's concept. Look at what he explains in verse 12 of Job 31. For uncontrolled passion is a fire which consumes to Abaddon. Now, Abaddon is a place of eternal flames of judgment, basically. If you go to the book of Revelation, you'll see it mentioned. To destruction, ruin, and the place of final torment. That fire once lighted would rage until all is consumed. What he's saying is when you break into that sin, it's so heinous because it never stops. You start to live that way and it's a sin that grabs your heart and your body and you can't shake it. It sticks with you and it ruins a person and you find that in the case of our culture. The people who divorce and go find somebody else, they get more divorces than the people that first stuck together. and they tend to divorce three, four, five times more again. They didn't do it again. And it's a continual passion that seems to not go out. You can't put the flame out once it burns inside of a heart. The passions of immorality are such a problem with cultures that that's why if you look back in history, think about Sodom and Gomorrah. You think of one thing, don't you? What is it? But it's not true. If you go to the book of the prophets, you'll find that God said Sodom and Gomorrah was a great, terrible, sinful place. First of all, pride, not letting God rule over them, was their sin. Then there was an abundance of idleness. In other words, pleasure was their only concern. And then thirdly, he says, and they did many heinous acts, immorality. pride first seeking pleasure second brought them down to the level of immoral actions all day long but the birth of that came up at the pride level saying God will not tell us what to do does that make sense? that's out of the book of Ezekiel I believe it is the prophet talking about the sin of Sodom now that's what we see here once you break loose from the law of God which is like an anchor keeping you safe. Think of a ship put in the harbor. Why do they put an anchor down? So they don't get drifted away. It keeps them safe so they don't smash other ships and knock around and destroy themselves. The law of God is an anchor force that keeps you safe from destruction. The moment you rip out the chains of that anchor, you only face the cost of your sin. When you cross the line and go into the sin of adultery, you're entering into the path of destruction that ruins your entire life in all areas. This is why you must see how important this is and why God sees it so bad in the sense of Mary. Matthew 15, Jesus even explains when he's older in his life, says for out of the heart comes evil thoughts, reasonings and disputings and designs such as murder first adultery second Notice that adultery is put right in the same framework along with the idea of murder sexual vice theft false witnessing slander and irreverent speech Notice how important he sees that these are the same level. Murder, theft, sexual vice, and adultery. All terrible crimes, God says. Crimes. Mark 10. You know the commandments. Do not kill. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Right between being a thief and being a murderer is adultery by God's standards. See that we have looked at this and really toned it down to it's not important. It is important. And it was important in that day. Mary faced strong concerns by the community. They threatened her. They didn't like her at all. And they didn't buy into anything she said. And they wanted her punished by a judge for what she did. She couldn't hide it. her belly stuck out. They knew what she had done. And they wouldn't believe Joseph when he started defending her any more than they believed her from the beginning. They faced a harsh crowd to try to deal with the issues of bringing the Messiah to save us from our sins. So notice how clouded this was. Number two, it took supernatural invention, which I mentioned, to change Joseph's mind. Because no one believed her. The truth is, Jesus was the Savior promised from the days of old, but no one would even believe that. If you already think she's an adulterer, who's going to believe he's the Messiah on top of that? They had an impossible job to convince the world that Jesus was the Savior of the world. We have an impossible job to convince the world that they need to repent and follow Jesus, right? Same problem. It's not going to be any easier without the supernatural powers of God. And even though it's promised, though, that the Messiah would come to save His people from their sins, we have seemingly the same problem of trying to get people to understand that God wants to save you and I, not from hell, but from your sins. From the power of the sin over your mind and heart, from the power of sin that ruins people's lives. Well, like Joshua saved the people of Israel in a similar way, so Jesus came. Notice, if you think about Joshua being the Savior of Israel, It's not like Israel was sitting there and there was hordes of armies attacking them and attacking them and they were at their last like the Alamo. Help us, save us. That's not the kind of saving we're talking about. Instead, God said, Joshua, bring the people into the salvation I've offered. Get your promised land. Get all your blessings and all your goods and all the riches. Go get it. See, the salvation is a different idea than what you think. God is saying salvation through Jesus is go get it. I've given you mighty promises and all the power you need to get it. Go get it. And people say, oh, you don't know my problems. And you don't know my situation. You don't understand my marriage. And you don't understand my job. You don't understand the pressures of the financial issues I have. You don't understand. You don't understand. Really? Really? You sure that God doesn't understand? You sure that God doesn't have a power beyond what you've even dreamed of? and you're missing it because you're sitting there going, I'd rather stand here in the wilderness and have nothing than go into the promised land where God's promised me all the goods. Let's just stay here and have no food and no water and no grass and no trees and no money and no flocks and just sit here and just starve to death. Oh, you don't know my situation. Does God know your situation? I hope so. If you understand God, He knows your situation. He says, I'm giving you something. Go get it. And so we have to understand the salvation comes by the way God works. Look at how he told Joshua. In Joshua 1 it says, After the death of Moses, a servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of Nun, Moses' minister, Moses, my servant's dead, so now arise, take his place, and go over to Jordan. Notice what he's saying. Get up. Don't sit there and mope. Get up. You're now taking his place, just like Moses was the salvation quote of Israel. You've taken his place to do that. Now get up and go get what I've given you. He says, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land which I am giving to them, the Israelites. Every place upon which the sole of your foot shall tread, that I have given you, as I promised Moses. Get up. They could sit there and say, well, Lord, bring it here. I believe you, Lord, but bring it here and give it to me. And God said, no, get up and go over there and get it. Notice the difference. notice how we do the same thing god help me i have a great need lord help me come and save me from my problems god says what get up and get it come get it come and get it so how do we see that through remember if we go back to understand grace what is grace according to the definition It's a Greek word, charis, which we get charismatic, the word from. It means simply the graciousness or a manner of act that comes flowing from God. And here's a good idea under the underlining. Especially the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life. It's a forceful influence pushing at you. Grace pushes at you. It's something that keeps coming. It doesn't stop. It keeps coming and coming like a river overflowing its banks keeps coming at you. It's like the hurricanes that keep bearing down on the city. Grace keeps coming at you. It doesn't cease. It doesn't stop. It's a divine influence that pours at you, blows into you like an atomic force that keeps moving at you, moving at you, moving at you. Does grace have power? Does grace have power in your life? That question you'll have to answer, right? Notice the idea in Matthew chapter 2.2. Talking about Messiah, it says the wise men came to town and said, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Where is the king? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. What I'm talking about, basically think about it when a hurricane bears down. Who's in control? The hurricane or the United States Weather Service? Who's in charge when a hurricane comes down upon us? Is it the United States government or the hurricane? The hurricane has all the control. There's nobody that can do anything about it. It's in control. I want you to see it in the same idea. The grace, if you understand it, is in control. It's a force that must be reckoned with. It's a grace force that is coming as a king under the King Jesus. That's why he's called King. And notice when it says here in John 1.14, The Word became flesh, dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Full of grace, meaning completely covered over. completely overwhelming like a hurricane completely overwhelming is the grace of jesus christ now romans 5 17 brings it to bear upon your personal life look what it says in in verse 17 for if because of one man's trespass talking about adam started this whole problem right adam and eve sinned against god brought our nations and our peoples into the reign of sin basically they sin controlled mankind and brought them to death and destruction right Nobody could stop it It reigned over man It controlled like a hurricane of death blew in and every man was ruined Every woman was ruined No one could stop it. They used to live forever. Now they have to die. Not only that, they get old. Not only that, they have to face the consequences of sin that brings destruction to them and everybody around them. No one could stop it. It flowed week after week and generation after generation. Death ruled and destroyed. Sin controlled mankind. It was a horrible, terrible day, wasn't it? And notice he says, because one man's trespass, their offensiveness of sin, death reigned through that one. Death reigned. Death reigned. Never can be stopped. Everyone has died that has been here, except for an exception. Anybody remember? Actually, two exceptions. Two exceptions. Elisha got to fly straight to heaven and not die. Who was the other guy? No, no. Moses died, remember? On the mountain. And it says, in fact, the angels in Judah says they fought over his body. Enoch. Enoch says he walked with God and he was not. He didn't die. He was taken by God. Two men are the only exceptions. Both supernatural interventions. Without intervention, every person since Adam is dropping dead. It's facing us like a brick wall. No one can get around it, right? All because of disobedience, a crime against letting God reign over them. And what does reigning mean when a king reigns over you? You submit to his kingship. You do what he says. And in our day, kings rule simply. You obey or lose your head, right? That's the way kings work. You obey them or they force you to obey them. You don't get out of it. The same idea here is under the reigning power of God, you have to submit to the authority of God. In the reigning part, death reigned since Adam. But the point is when Christ came to this earth, there's been a change. Notice what it says. Much more surely with those who receive God's overflowing grace and the free gift of righteousness then there's a change in the wind. There's a change in the storm. There's a change in control. Grace changed everything. It stopped that flow that always had been there, and the ones who receive it are now changed and motivated and moved, the true ones. Now, there's a lot of people in church that don't have this and understand this. Now this means Jesus flooded mankind with a force similar of an atomic bomb blowing away the power of sin. You ever seen those movies from the atomic bomb test where the force comes and the trees are just blown over, the houses just shatter and disintegrate? You ever seen those? Anybody not see that? Incredible force. What I'm trying to get you to understand is this is the same impact, the atomic bomb force that grace brings into the life of any man who received Jesus as Lord and Savior. It's a force that blows you away because it doesn't blow you away. It blows away the rain of sin inside you. Sin is blown away. You don't have to wrestle with it to win. You don't have to take it and try to do in your strength to get rid of it. It's blown away by the cross of Christ. Like the force of wind and a raining power of a great storm, it blows sin off the map. Does that make sense? And I want you to see how this is real here. Notice what we're saying. Notice how it's worded. For if by one man's offense death reigned through the one, the reigning changes. The new king comes to town and takes over and rips out the old king. The sin that reigned is no longer boss. Number two, instead of leaving destruction behind when this grace atomic force comes by, a new thing happens. It removes the reigning force of sin, but replaces it with the grace force of overwhelming power that's called righteousness. Righteousness is not an abstract thought. It's actual life change where you do what's right. That's why it's called righteousness. You begin a life doing the right thing instead of doing the wrong thing. Does that make sense? Now, this is a forceful change, not by your power, but by an atomic blast of the cross of Jesus. Does that make sense? It comes through you. It's got to rattle your cage if it's real. Have you experienced the grace of God where it's changed your life? Change your direction. I mean, it's just like this. You're going this way and the atomic bomb comes in. It just blows you back. You ever seen movies where they show that kind of thing? Wham! Suddenly you're going with the wind. You're heading this direction. It's a force of incredible reality and truth and goodness as God changes who you are all the way through the core of your being. Now, that's what's worded here in this verse. Much more those who receive abundance of grace. Notice that. Much more. That's why I look at it as an atomic bomb blast. You're living in sin. You're ruled by sin. Sin beats you up. You can't think of what's doing right. You only do selfish acts all the time in your life of sin. As a lost sinner, the only thing you think of is me, me, me, and what I get for my family. That's mankind's norm. I'm going to do what I need to do to get there. I'm going to get what I need as I can get it. We just were looking good at the Christmas story, The Cranks. You ever seen that movie where they're going to skip Christmas because their daughter left to go to the Peace Corps? She left them for their first year. After 23 years, their only daughter was gone. Christmas didn't mean anything to them. And so they wanted to change to keep the pain away. So they decided that they would take off and go on a cruise down here by Florida and skip Christmas. Well, the issue was always selfish this and selfish that. And I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. We don't care about the people that need us. We don't care about the Boy Scouts, the Cub Scouts, the needs of this, the needs of that. Only me, me, me, and I want to make myself happy is the thing. The idea is the same here. But I want you to see when that change only can come is by the reality of grace. Grace blows it apart because it says those who receive abundance of grace, they get more grace than the reigning force of sin that once ruled them. And when I say more, look at the word even abundance. The Greek word at the bottom, it means super abundance, which is like an atomic bomb. It's so much power, you don't know what to do with it. you off the field. So much grace that it takes you and moves you to a whole different plane of life. Grace is such an impacting reality that it leaves you a new person. Does that make sense? Grace has to be powerful in your life. My question is, have you experienced it? Is grace that real to you? Have you noticed the change? Thank you.

Playlist coming soon.