The Gift of Spirit

Philippians 4:23 | January 5, 2020

How do you close out the year and ring in the New Year?

Curled up in a blanket on the front steps of your house watching your neighbors shoot fireworks in the street?

Curled up on the sofa with a bucket of kettle corn watching Sleepless in Seattle?

Curled up in the recliner with a bucket of wings watching some college football?

Curled up at the table with a platter of collards and a skillet of cornbread?

Curled up in a seat on the church bus heading to Atlanta to join 65,000 young adults worshipping Jesus Christ at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium?

Curled up with a million people on a street corner in New York City with nowhere to go to the bathroom for about 7 hours watching a disco ball drop from a tower at midnight?

Many people put a trip to Times Square on New Year’s Eve on their bucket list of things to do.

But if it is too expensive or if you just really treasure the ability to go to the bathroom, then there are some other options for you to go watch something drop and celebrate the New Year.

You can head to Yuma, Arizona, to watch the Iceberg Lettuce Drop on New Year’s Eve – that’s right a replica of a large head of lettuce rings in the year.

And the tagline that the folks in Yuma have added to their special night is “Lettuce Celebrate”.

If Yuma is too far, stop a few hours back east in Flagstaff, Arizona, for the Great Pinecone Drop – and if you aren’t a night owl, they drop the 6-foot metal pinecone at 10 pm and midnight.

In Plymouth, Wisconsin, they have the Sartori Big Cheese Drop and the first 250 people that show up get free cheese gift bags.

If that’s too cheesy for you, then, head north of us to Eastover, North Carolina where they have the Flea Drop – that’s right, a foam/fabric/wood/wire flea with a ceramic shell that is 3-feet-tall and 30-pounds and named Jasper drops at midnight – bless.

Or maybe you want to keep it spiritual and go to O little town of Bethlehem – Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, that is.

And what do they drop in Bethlehem?

A 400-pound PEEPS Chick – that’s right, they drop a 400-pound replica of a yellow, marshmallow baby chick.

Can you imagine if it was actually made out of marshmallow and the cable broke when they dropped it?

Marshmallow would be all over those “peep-le”.

No matter what you see drop, even if it’s just a couple of Tums in your mouth, how you begin and end the year is not nearly as important as where your life begins and ends.

When we say begins and ends, we’re not talking about what hospital you were born in or what city and state you will be living in when you die.

We’re talking about the definition of your life.

Where does your life begin and end?

What does that mean?

Let’s see if we can find out.

The Apostle Paul is finishing his letter to his friends in a place called Philippi and in Philippians 4, verse 23, this is how he closes things out:

23 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

We know a little about “spirit”, right?

• We just finished hopefully having some “Christmas spirit”
• We might say our BFF is a “kindred spirit”
• You’ve always thought that your Cousin Eddie was a “free spirit”

And, hey, we got spirit, yes, we do, we got spirit, how ‘bout you?

But the idea of spirit that Paul is using here is a little different.

When he was writing the folks at Rome and Corinth and Ephesus, he called it the “inner man”.

John Eadie (Scottish theologian)

… that portion of our nature which is not cognizable (identified) by the senses, and does not consist of nerve, muscle, and organic form, as does the outer man.

In other words, it is who we are on the inside – who we really are – our heart and soul and mind and moral personality and emotional personality – what really, really defines us.

Social media can be a helpful tool for so many things, but it can also be a sad attempt to be seen and noticed and recognized and appreciated – and those attempts can turn into an addiction.

I saw a text this week that put it this way:

Someone

I was comparing my life to other people’s highlight reels.

From clothing to cars to Facebook to Instagram to Twitter to the Alumni newsletter to the church newsletter we are a culture obsessed with having the outer person recognized.

And guess whose culture was just like that?

The Philippians.

And guess who else’s culture was just like that?

• The Romans
• The Corinthians
• The Ephesians
• The Greeks
• The Babylonians
• The Philistines
• The Huns
• The Chinese
• The Japanese
• The Australians
• The Madagascans

You know who else’s culture was just like that?

Adam and Eve’s.

Our sinful nature drives every single one of us to be overtly obsessed with the outside.

Now, don’t take that in some strange direction.

• Decent clothes
• Decent hygiene
• Decent makeup

Those are all helpful, so, you can keep up the good work.

But life is hard and painful and stressful and depressing.

And for all the good that social media might accomplish it is not designed to see and recognize and appreciate your soul.

This past week at the Passion Conference in Atlanta one of the speakers was Ravi Zacharias and he told a story that I think captures this with beautiful intensity.

He told the story of his daughter having a crazy day recently and out loud she said something like, “I’ve lost my mind!”

And Jude, her five-year-old heard her and quickly said, “Ok, but Mommy don’t lose your heart, ‘cause I’m in there.”

And Ravi used that to point out the reality of what it means to be in Christ.

If you are a Christian, the Lord Jesus Christ has made sure that you are in the very heart of God – and God cannot lose his mind and he cannot lose his heart, therefore, he cannot lose you.

So, when you are filtering your picture to post on social media in hopes that someone will say that you or your spouse or your kids are pretty or funny or impressive or creative or amazing on the outside, please know that those likes and those emojis and those comments will never be able to truly touch the heart of your soul because the heart of your soul is a place that can only be hugged by the One who created you.

• And how much does God like your soul?
• What kind of emoji could he post to speak of his love for you?
• What comment could he leave to prove his love for you?

Jesus said it with two words:

John 3:16

…He gave…

He gave, He gave, He gave!

That is exactly why Paul is closing his letter this way.

He knows the Philippians are just like the rest of us.

And he knows that what they needed the most is the grace of Jesus – the grace that God gave the world.

He knows that on any given day what their spirits would need the most is the grace of Jesus – the grace that God gave the world.

If you are a Christian, what you need the most at the beginning of 2020 is the same thing that you will need at the end of 2020 – not a better diet or a better workout or better likes on social media or better spouses or better kids or better work conditions or a better government or better health – although all of those things would be super good and perhaps the Lord will bless us with them all.

But what we need the most day in and day out for every single moment of life is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if you are not a Christian, you may not feel it right now and you might reject it and call it foolish or sentimental or hokey religion, but what you need the most at the beginning of 2020 and what you will need the most at the end of 2020 is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Eternal life and true, satisfying help for daily life begins and ends with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ:

• Blesses
• Cheers
• Encourages
• Strengthens
• Comforts
• Transforms
• Energizes

100 plus years ago, F.B. Meyer said it this way:

F.B. Meyer

Illumination for the soul, love for the heart, strength for the mind, purity for the character, help in every time of need, direction in all perplexity and difficulty – all these are included in the word grace.

F.B. Meyer

It was impossible for the Apostle to know in detail all that his friends might be passing through amid the temptations and perils of Philippi,

F.B. Meyer

but he wished that always and everywhere they might be conscious that the grace of the Lord Jesus beset them behind and before,

F.B. Meyer

encompassed their going out and coming in, enwrapped them in their lying down and rising up, canopied them with skies opening Godward, and was their shield and their exceeding great reward.

But how?

How does the grace of Jesus do this?

Well, it comes back to understanding those two words:

John 3:16

…He gave…

Why did God give?

Paul gives us the clearest and best answer to that question in his letter to the folks at Ephesus.

Listen to how he unfolds this with surgeon-like precision beginning with Ephesians 2, verse 1:

Ephesians 2:1-2

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

 

Ephesians 2:3

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

 

Ephesians 2:4-5

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

 

Ephesians 2:6-7

and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

 

Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

• Grace is not just a religious word
• Grace is not just a sentimental word
• Grace is not just a feeling
• Grace is not just an emotion

Grace is the rich, abundant, undeserved kindness of God in and through Jesus Christ.

Grace is the only word that can ever describe the marvelous magnitude of mercy behind those two words…He gave!

• God gave because we were dead
• God gave because we had no hope
• God gave because we could not give
• God gave so that we would receive

John Reisinger uses the imagery of a shepherd and his sheep to help us feel the weight of God’s gift.

John Reisinger

Imagine you are a four-legged sheep caught in a thicket from which you cannot free yourself. You are cold, hungry, thirsty, and your throat is sore from bleating. The more you struggle to get free, the more the briars dig into your flesh and cause the blood to flow.

John Reisinger

Finally, in utter despair, you resign yourself to your pitiful situation, quit struggling, and prepare to die. If, in that most hopeless situation, you heard the familiar voice of a shepherd calling your name, what would you do?

John Reisinger

You would cry, “Baaaa! Baaaa!” as loudly as you could.

John Reisinger

If you are caught in a thicket of sin and cannot get loose, and the harder you try to get free the more you fail because the bonds of sin get stronger, and you are hungry, tired, and thirsty, then I have good news.

John Reisinger

There is a gracious Shepherd calling your name. Cry out to him. Cry, “Baaaa! Baaaa!” as loudly as you can.

John Reisinger

Tell him how sick you are of sin and its awful consequences. Tell him how totally helpless you are and how desperately you need his grace and power. He will be at your side in a moment.

John Reisinger

He will free you from the thicket of sin, bind up your wounds, give you bread and water, and put you on his shoulder and carry you safely back to the fold.

And then he presses us deeper with this challenge:

John Reisinger

The only person who will not cry out “Baaa! Baaa!” is the person who either does not believe he is caught in a thicket of sin, but imagines he is totally free, or the person who loves the sin despite the misery it brings.

So, have you heard the voice of God?

Have you cried out to him?

Have you seen the gift of his grace?

Have you seen what he gave so that you could be set free?

Have you repented of your sin and your rebellion and received the salvation of Jesus so that no power of Hell and no scheme of man could ever pluck you out of the very heart of God?

Years ago a friend of mine was talking to me about how often in sermons I mentioned our sin and rebellion before we are saved and he said, “I was saved when I was a little boy and I don’t remember being rebellious toward God.”

I said something to him like, “The Bible says our nature is sinful and rebellious from birth – for instance, we don’t have to teach a child how to throw a temper-tantrum. And just because we can’t remember being rebellious doesn’t mean that we weren’t.”

I came across an article that dealt with that same issue.

The question was put like this:

Desiring God

If you were saved when you were six years old, can you feel the greatness of the sinfulness from which you were rescued?

Desiring God

If you have no recollection of ever being an unbeliever, can you really sing, “Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me”?

Here’s just one way that those questions were answered in the article:

John Piper

The memory of what we were before we were saved may fade. But the memory of yesterday is fresh. Yesterday’s pride. Yesterday’s selfishness. Yesterday’s sulking and self-pity. Yesterday’s anger.

That’s why Paul is signing his letter off this way.

He wanted the Philippians and us to see and feel and know that the beginning and the end of our lives – the alpha and the omega – is found in and defined by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why?

Because every yesterday is a reminder that it is by grace and through grace and only in grace that we have been saved.

Let me give just a few more thoughts from that article to help our minds and hearts think about what it means to be saved and what it means to remember and embrace and enjoy and live in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

John Piper

The most vivid and moving picture of our sin is not the memory of lying in our own vomit after an overdose, but the picture of the Son of God nailed to the cross.

John Piper

The person who was saved at six years old is at no disadvantage in seeing the magnitude and horror of his own sin from which God saved him at six.

John Piper

The picture of that sin is not some scrapbook photo of a grumpy, six-year-old face. The picture of that sin is blood running down the face of Jesus.

Were you saved from a wild life of immorality or addiction?

Praise God!

But remember, your amazing grace was not just vomit from 20 years ago – your amazing grace was yesterday!

Were you saved from a normal life of attending church with your family and just being an occasionally grumpy kid?

Praise God!

But remember, your amazing grace is not that you had a good church family and were just an occasionally grumpy kid – your amazing grace was yesterday!

Paul closes out his letter with this prayer that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ would be with their spirit because he knew that without the grace of Jesus they were sunk.

And he knew that with grace of Jesus they could:

• Sing their way through tears
• Pray their way through bitterness
• Serve their way through loneliness
• Read their way through the Bible in times of confusion
• Give their way through financial gifts in times of stubbornness
• Find their way through the valley of the shadow of death

How?

Because of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ begins and ends the life of a Christian and fills and defines every day and every yesterday in between.

Gloria Furman is a writer and editor who lives in the Middle East with her husband and her four kids.

She wrote a book titled “Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms”.

In that book she says makes this graciously blunt statement:

Gloria Furman

In the midst of a venting session with a dear friend I confessed that I felt I’d forgotten the Lord since I became a mother.

For the good of your own heart and soul, look back over your life for a moment.

Have you forgotten the Lord?

• Maybe when you went off to college
• Maybe when you started working
• Maybe when you got married
• Maybe when you became a parent
• Maybe when you became a grandparent
• Maybe when you retired
• Maybe when things changed at work
• Maybe when someone you loved died
• Maybe when a pastor or church upset you
• Maybe when your health got bad

Maybe you haven’t missed a Sunday in 30 years, but you have forgotten the Lord – you are just going through motions.

Or maybe this is your first Sunday in church in 10 years and you know that you’ve forgotten the Lord.

Or maybe you have a different story, but whatever your story is today, what every single one of us need today more than anything else is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Gloria Furman

Jesus fulfilled God’s holy law, was crucified in our place, rose victorious from the dead, and is reigning at the Father’s right hand. Jesus satisfied God’s wrath against sin and purchased us from the slavery of sin.

Gloria Furman

By faith we receive Jesus’ perfect righteousness, and he creates in us new hearts that are prone to love him. Even when you don’t feel this is true about yourself…it is.

Gloria Furman

Even when you imagine that your life is hell and you have forgotten that you’ve been transferred into the kingdom of God’s marvelous light, you’re still his forever.

Gloria Furman

You can be sure that nothing will separate you from God’s love for you in Christ Jesus your Lord.

How can you be sure?

Because on a cross on a hill far away at one moment in history the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ purchased and guaranteed it.

But we live in an uncertain world of impeachments and drone attacks and cancer cells and broken relationships and social media posts that no one acknowledges.

How can we step into this New Year with just a shrivel of hope that everything is going to be okay?

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Whatever may happen in life or in death; whatever may take place in any conceivable situation or circumstances, whatever may be your lot, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ will be sufficient.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

It will hold you, it will sustain you, it will even enable you to rejoice in tribulation, it will strengthen you, establish you, hold you, keep you, answer your every need and take you through.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Ultimately it will present you faultless, perfect, in glory in the presence of God. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.”

Message by Dow Welsh |

January 5, 2020 © Holland Avenue Baptist Church

 

more |

Above are pre-sermon manuscript notes, not sermon transcript

Sermon scriptures NASB unless otherwise noted

Lots of help from many pastors and theologians

Weekly help from Bruce Hurt at www.preceptaustin.org

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/can-i-sing-amazing-grace-if-i-was-saved-at-six

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/god-meets-busy-moms-right-where-they-are/

How do you close out the year and ring in the new year? What do you do? Do you curl up on the porch at your house with a blanket and watch your neighbors shoot fireworks? You curl up on the sofa with a bucket, a kettle corn and watch Sleepless in Seattle. Do you curl up in the recliner with a bucket of wings and watch some football? Do you curl up at the table with a platter of collards and some corn bread and chow down? Amen. Do you curl up on a seat on the church bus on your way to Atlanta, Georgia, with 65,000 other young people to worship? Jesus Christ? Yeah, who all went to passionate conferences? We just stand up just to stand up where you are on our folks to see you. Some back road Come home. My youngest daughter. You can stand up all right. Incidental in pairs. So really. 65,000 kids at Mercedes Benz, 18 to 25 year olds, 65,000 of them at Mercedes Benz Arena in Atlanta. And I stayed up with him that I was streaming live streaming the thing I stayed up past midnight. I watched the fireworks and then, like 12 30 man is just too much singing. I was done. I just needed to go to bed. But it was funny. I had this moment somewhere in that 30 minutes where I was like all right, it's too loud. They're dancing around blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was this moment where I caught myself went Man, you are like a whitewash tune. Now I cannot believe how arrogant and ignorant you're being right now that there's something you don't like about the music when 65,000 young people are worshipping Jesus right now at 12 30 it's an amazing thing. And the fruit of what will happen from those few days in Atlanta is amazing. It's amazing. So some of them curled up on the bus and went to Atlanta. Some people curled up with a 1,000,000 other people on a street corner in New York City, where you can't go to the bathroom for about seven hours as you wait for a disco ball to drop from a tower at midnight. Some people have being a Times Square in New York City on their bucket list of things that they want to do on New Year's Eve night. But maybe that trip is too expensive or too expansive for you. And maybe you just really like the freedom of being able to go to the bathroom. You know when you need to go to the bathroom. So if so, then I have some other options for you to go. Watch some things drop and celebrate the new year. Okay, you can head to Yuma, Arizona, and watch the iceberg lettuce drop. That's right, big huge replica of a head of lettuce drops. It hit midnight for you to enjoy. And the best part is the tagline that Huma uses with their celebration. Let us celebrate. That's nice. If you missed too far, then you can stop a few hours east back on your way in Flagstaff, where you can go to the great pine cone drop. And the great thing about the pine cone drop is if you're not a night out, they drop it at 10 o'clock and at midnight. So you got two options. If you need to go to bed, that's that's kind of good. That's kind of good. Maybe you want to get a Plymouth, Wisconsin. They have the Sartori big Cheese drop. And the best part of this is the 1st 250 people in get free gift bags of Jesus. That's worth the trip right there, Man. Free Jesus is fantastic. Or maybe that's too cheesy for you. And you just want to head north not far from here in Eastover, North Carolina, for the flea drop. Yeah, that's right. The flea drop. It is a three foot £30 flee named Jasper, made out of wood and wired and a bunch of other stuff. And they dropped Jasper at midnight in Eastover. Bless. Maybe you really want to be spiritually, though, And you're going to keep it. O little town of Bethlehem, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, that is. And what did they drop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania? Well, they drop a £400 peeps chick. Yeah, a £400 replica of Ah, marshmallow, baby chick. That's what they dropped. Can you imagine if that thing was really made out of marshmallows and the guy holding the cable dropped it? There would be marshmallow all over those people. I got him all day. Thanks. Look, that extra one made it no matter what you see, drop on New Year's Eve, even if it's just a couple of times in your mouths. And no matter what it is that you do at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, none of those things are more important than how your life begins and ends. Now, when we say your life beginning and ending, we're not talking about, you know, location. We're not talking about the the hospital that you were born in, or or the city and state that you will live in when you die. No, we're talking about the definition of your life. How does your life begin and end? And what is that? Even me? Let's see if we can find out that pasta Paul is finishing his letter to the folks at Phillippi and Philippians. Chapter four, Verse 23. He closes it out with these words the grace of the Lord. Jesus Christ. Be with your spirit. We know a little bit about spirit, don't we? Hopefully, most of us have just had a little bit of Christmas spirit here, there and yonder. Maybe your B f f is a is a kindred spirit with you. You often say your cousin Eddie is a free spirit. You know, we know the idea of spirit and hey, we got spirit. Yes, we do. We've got spirit. How about you? I thought somebody might take me up on a bit. Sorry. We know a little bit about spirit, but But Paul is talking about something completely different here. He's talking about something. When he was writing toe to the church in Rome and an emphasis in court, he called it the inner man, the inner person. Scott's theologian, Johnny D. Put it this way. It's the portion of our nature which is not identified by the senses. It does not consist of nerve, muscle and organic form, as does the outer man. In other words, it's not something that we can see. It's not the out side. It's It's the inside. It's It's what's in our heart and our soul. In our mind. It's our moral personality. It's our emotional personality. It's who you really, really are. I was working on my sermon this week, and our brother by Makowski sent me a great text from his daughter, Melody, and she gave me permission to use. One of the Senate's is in her text was about social media. It was about looking at a life of of using social media too much and paying attention to social media. Two months and a social media is fantastic. It does some amazing things. I mean, even just here in our church. If it's your week to work in the nursery. Extended session man, social media is fantastic. You know, you put a little note on there and somebody takes your place. Social media does amazing things, but social media can also be a place where an unhealthy desire is there to be noticed, to be recognized, to be appreciated, have attention, drone to us to have attention drawn to the outside, and sometimes that attention turns into an addiction. This is one of the things that Melody said in her faults on social media. I was comparing my life to other people's highlight reels. It's victory. See, we we, our culture like that from clothing the cars to Facebook to Twitter, to the alumni newsletter to the church newsletter. We we won't people to see our highlight reels, and we know when we wanna watch other people's Hi agrees. We are a culture that that is overtly obsessed with the outer person with the out side. And guess whose culture was just like that? The Philippians and guess who else is Culture was just like that. The Romans and the Corinthians and the Ephesians, Phyllis Teens and the Babylonian Tze and Huns and the Chinese and the Japanese, the Australians, the matter. Gaskins, you know, all the way back, even to the garden, Adam and Eve. Their culture was just like that. See, our sinful human nature pushes us, presses us to be consumed with the outside, to pay attention to the outer person and almost ignore the inner person. Now, don't take that too far. Decent hygiene, decent clothes, decent makeup. Good things keep up the good work with those things. But but on the flip side of that, life is hard and life is painful. Life is difficult. The life is full of moments of stress and depression, of tragedy, of trial, of tribulation in trouble. And because life is like that, we we have to remember that of all the good that social media or any media might be able to do at the end of the day that media is not designed to truly recognize your soul. This past week at The Passion Conference that are your prose went to one of the speakers was Ravi Zacharias, and Robbie told a story that I think just beautifully and very intensely illustrates this. He told a story about how his daughter, some time here in recent years, was having just a crazy day. And at one point in the day, she just said out loud, I've lost my mind, never been there. And five year old Jud, her little boy said, Mommy, that's OK, but don't lose your heart because I'm in there. And Ravi went on to bring the attention to the fact that that's what it means to be in Christ Jesus. Crisis has made a way for you, Christian to be in the very heart of God, and God cannot lose his mind, and God cannot lose his heart. Therefore, God cannot lose you. That's grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when you're filtering that picture to post on social media, hoping that that somebody might look at you or your spouse or your kids and think the dollar funny or pretty or creative or amazing just just no that those likes and those emojis And those comments are not designed to reach your soul. They can't because the only thing that can reach the very heart of your soul is the one who created your soul. Onley God can I hugged you at the place you needed to be hugged the most. So how much does God like your soul? What kind of emoji would God send out to speak of his love for you? What kind of comment would capture and and prove the love that God has for you? But Jesus gives it in two words John. 3 16 He gave. He gave his Onley begotten son. He gave, he gave, he gave. That's exactly why Paul's closing his letter the way he is. So he knows the Philippians. They're just like us. He knows what they need The most is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows that what their spirit needs the most is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in their inner person. What they need the most is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will gloriously confess my air your bullets and still says, 2019 Appreciate the grace of that being showed to me this morning. It's not 2019 no time traveling going on. But it is the beginning of 2020 and so what you need the most at the beginning of 2020 is the exact same thing that you're going to need all New Year's Eve. And it is not a better diet. It's not a better workout routine. It's not a better spouse or better kids or better conditions at work. It's not a better government. It's not better health. All of those things are fantastic, and and maybe God in his mercy might bring us all those things. But what we need the most is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're not a Christian, you may not feel it now, and you might reject it. You might reject it as as hokey religion or or sentimental or foolish, but what you needed the beginning of 2020 is the same thing you'll need at the end of 2020. And that is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal life. True, satisfying help for daily life, life beginning and ending. All of that happens in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The grace of Jesus blesses it. Cheers. It encourages it, comforts it transforms, and it energizes that there's just nothing like the grace of Jesus. 100 years ago, F. B. Meyer put it this way. It's illumination for the soul. Love for the heart, strength for the mine, purity for the character helped in every time of need, direction and all perplexity and difficulty. All these are included in the word grace. He goes home. It was impossible for the Apostle Paul to know in detail all that his friends might be passing through amid the temptations and perils of Philip II. But he wished that always and everywhere they might be conscious that the grace of the Lord Jesus beset them behind and before encompass. They're going out and coming in and wrapped them in there, lying down and rising up, canopy them with skies opening Godword, and was their shield, and they're exceeding great reward. Listen, I'm just like Paul. It is impossible for me to know everything that's going on in your life. Impossible, no matter how many phone calls, voice mails, text messages, e mails or how many times you stopped me in the hall are at Wal Mart. It's impossible for me to know all the things that will be happening in your life. But like Paul, I can highly commend to you the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, because the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ will always be better than your pastor and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ will always be better than your spouse and your kids and your friends and your politicians and anyone else in the universe. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is unlike anything in the universe. And suppose it, man, I hope you get this in your spirit. That's where I want it down deep, where you need it the most. But how does Jesus do this? How does Jesus bring us this? This kind of grace? It all goes back to understanding those two words he gave. He gave And what are those two words mean? Well, Paul's writing the folks at Ephesus. He I feel like an insurgent like precision clearly gives us the best answer to what he gave is all about. Listen to how it treats visions. Chapter two, beginning with verse one. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formally walked according to the course of this world According to the prince of the power of the air of the Spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we to all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature, Children of wrath, even as the rest. But God being rich and mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions made us alive together with Christ By grace, you have been saved and that's not all. And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ. Jesus. Why? So that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ. Jesus, Can I just say that what that means is it's so that every new year, no matter what happened in the previous year, if you are in Christ you have this unbelievable picture off the kindness of God that will rescue you again and again and again and will one day rescue you forever and imPaul sayss this for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one may burst. Grace is not just a religious word. Graces is not just a sentimental word. Grace is not just a feeling, and it's not just an emotion. Grace is the stunning, amazing, undeserved kindness off God in and through Jesus Christ. Grace is the only word that can ever describe the marvelous majesty of the miracle of the mercy. Of those two words he gave, he gave it its all grace. There's no other way to describe it. There's no other way to think about it. There's no other way to believe it. You see, God gave because we were dead. Who dead? In our sense, we're in a purgatory. We were dead in our sins and God gave because we had no hope. And God gave because we could not give to ourselves and God gave so that we would receive. John Rice Singer uses the imagery of a shepherd and his sheep to describe the weight of God's gift. Listen to this. Imagine you are four legs sheep called in a thicket from which you cannot for yourself. You are cold, hungry, thirsty and your throat is sore for bleeding. The more you struggle to get free, the more the briars dig into your flesh and calls the blood to flow. Finally, an utter despair. You resign yourself to your pitiful situation, quit struggling and prepare to die. If, in that most hopeless situation you heard the familiar voice of a shepherd calling your name, what would you do? I love this answer. You would cry babba as loudly as you possibly could. That's what you do. He takes us into this a little deeper. If you're caught in a thicket of sin and cannot get loose, and the harder you try to get free, the more you fail because the bonds of sin gets stronger and you are hungry and you are tired and you are thirsty. Then there's goodness. There is a gracious shepherd calling your name crying out to him. Cry back back as loud as you can tell him how sick you are sin and it's awful consequences. Tell him how totally helpless you are and how desperately you need his grace and his power. He will be at your side in a moment. He will free you from the thicket of sin, bind up your wounds, give you bread and water and put you on his shoulder and carry you safely back to the full. And then he takes us even deeper. The only person who will not cry out by back is the person who either does not believe he is caught in a thicket of sin, but imagines he is totally free or the person who loves the sin despite the misery it brings. So what about you? Have you heard the voice of God? Have you cried out to him? Have you seen his? His gift that he's given to you? Have you seen the gift that he gave so that you might be set free? Have you repented of your sin, your rebellion and receive the salvation that only comes from Jesus and the kind of salvation that makes it possible that no power of Helen no scheme of an man could ever plucked you out of the very heart of guy. Many years ago I was having lunch with a friend of mine, and he's made a comment. He said, You know how often times in your sermons you will say something about how how we were sinful and rebellious before we were saved, how we were rebellious against got rebels against God before we were saved, he said, You know, I got saved when I was a kid. I don't remember being rebellious, and I said something to him, like, you know, the Bible says that we're really rebellious in our sin from birth. I mean, after all, you don't have to teach a a two year old how to throw a tantrum. And I said, and even if we can't remember I rebellion, it doesn't mean that it wasn't there. I mean, how many of us really remember lots of things from when we were a little kid? Anyway, I came across an article this week that that kind of speaks to the same idea, and it speaks to it, asking thes two questions. The first is this. If you were saved when you were six years old. Can you feel the greatness of the sinfulness from which you were rescued for saving your six? Can you really feel it? And then asked the question a different way? If you have no recollection of ever being an unbeliever, can you really sing? Amazing Grace How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. The article's great. There's there's a link to it on the end of my sermon notes online. But but here's just one answer to that question. The memory of what we were before we were saved may fade, but the memory of yesterday well, that's fresh. Yesterday's pride yesterday. Selfishness yesterday's sulking yesterday. Self pity yesterday's anger. Yeah, those things were there. And that's exactly why Paul is signing his letter off this way. He wanted the Philippians and us to know and to feel the weight of this truth that in our lives, the beginning and the end, the Alfa and the Omega, all of it is found in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, all of it. Why? Because every yesterday is a reminder that the on leeway we could possibly be saved is by grace through grace. That's the only way that we can be made right with God. Jump Piper Go zone In that article and says this the most vivid and moving picture of our sin is not the memory of lying in our own vomit after an overdose, but the picture of the Son of God nailed to the cross. The person who was saved at six years old is that no disadvantage and seeing the magnitude and horror of his own sin, from which God saved him a TTE six. Why, with a picture of that sin is not some scrapbook photo of a grumpy six year old face. The picture of that sin is blood running down the face of Jesus where you saved from a life of immorality, an addiction or some other sin. Praise God, we rejoice with you and your salvation. But remember, your amazing grace is not just 25 years ago in vomit. Your amazing grace is yesterday. Were you saved after growing up in a family that went to church all the time. And basically you're an okay kid, just kind of occasionally grumpy. Praise God for your salvation. We rejoice with you, but remember your amazing grace is not just from growing up in a good church. Going family. You're amazing. Grace is from yesterday. Paul closes out this letter on purpose. This way he wants his friends to know. Listen, you you really need the craze of Jesus. It is what you need most. And so he kind of praise this at the end of his closing because he wants them to see that without the grace of Jesus, they are sunk. They've got no hope. But with the grace of Jesus with the grace of Jesus he knew that they would sing through tears. He knew that they would pray their way through bitterness. They would serve their way through loneliness. They would read their Bible through confusion. They would work through their stubbornness by by giving them financially, they would even find their way through the valley of the shadow of death. How grace, Lord Jesus, the grace of the Lord Jesus. There's there's nothing like it in all the universe. The grace of Lord Jesus is the beginning and the ending of any life of any Christian. And it fills up and defines all the days in between. Gloria Furman is a writer and an editor. She lives in the Middle East with her husband and their four kids. She wrote a book. This is the title treasuring Christ when your hands are full gospel meditations for busy moms. I love it in that book, she makes this graciously blunt statement In the midst of a venting session with a dear friend. I confessed that I felt I'd for gotten the Lord since I became a mother for the good of your own heart and your own soul. Just just ask yourself that question. Have you for gotten the Lord? Maybe it was when you graduated from high school. Maybe it was when you went off to college. Maybe that's when you started working. Maybe it was when you got married. Maybe it was when you became a parent or a grandparent. Or maybe when you retired. Maybe it was when things changed it work. Maybe it was when someone that you love died. Maybe it was when that pastor that church upset you. Maybe it was when your health got bad. Maybe you haven't missed a Sunday in 30 years. You're in church all the time. But you've forgotten the Lord and you're just going through the motions. Or maybe this is your first Sunday in church in 10 years and you know you forgot the Lord. Or maybe your story is different. No matter what any of our stories are today. What all of us need the most is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's what your spirit needs the most is what your heart needs the most is what your mind needs the most. Glory goes on to say this Jesus fulfill. God's holy law was crucified in our place. Rose victorious from the dead and is raining at the father's right hand. Jesus satisfied God's wrath against sin and purchased us from the slavery of sin. By faith, we receive Jesus perfect righteousness, and he creates in us new hearts, that air prone toe love him. Listen to this. Even when you don't feel this is true about yourself, it iss even when you imagine that your life is hell and you have for gotten that you've been transferred into the Kingdom of God's marvelous light. You're still his forever. You can be sure that nothing will separate you from God's love for you in Christ Jesus, our lord. How can you be sure? But you can be sure, because on a cross on a hill far away, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ purchased and guaranteed the way for you, to be sure. But we live in an uncertain world, only an uncertain world where we never know what's going to happen. A world full of impeachment and drone attacks and cancer cells, a world full of social media posts that go ignored and not acknowledged and not liked. So how can we begin 2020 with any notion that there is a shrivel of hope that everything is going to be okay? Well, there's only one way I really mean that. There's only one way. Whatever you want from your pastor, whatever you want from your parents, whatever you want from your politicians, whatever you want from any other person or any other situation in your life. The Onley shrivel of hope for your soul is in Christ. But oh my goodness! What hope it iss demare Lloyd Jones put it this way. Whatever may happen in life or in death, whatever may take place in any conceivable situation or circumstances, whatever may be your lot. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ will be sufficient. It will hold you. It will sustain you. It would even enable you to rejoice in tribulation. It will strengthen you, establish you hold you keep you, answer your every need and take you through them. In this Ultimately it will present you faultless, perfect in glory in the presence of God. Your spouse can't do that. Your kids can't do that. Your for one. A kit for a one K can't do that. There is nothing and no one that can present you in front of the presence of God. Faultless and without blame, nothing but the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why we proclaim it. That's why we sing it. That's why we speak it. That's why we keep saying and may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. May the grace the Lord Jesus Christ be with you and with your spirit and all the people, said a man. And all the people said Amen. And by the grace of the spirit of Jesus all the people said,Amen.