- We begin a new series on the subject of grace
entitled "Amazing Grace".
And this is the first lesson for sermon
in this preaching series entitled
"What's So Good About The Good News?"
They'll be six lessons in this particular series.
I encourage you to follow the series by attending
the evening service.
That's when we'll be preaching those.
Now the hymn, which we sang before the lesson
entitled "Amazing Grace", is one of the best known hymns
song by believers and by unbelievers alike.
And it describes the beauty of God's grace,
which is the theme of this preaching series.
It's interesting that it is this concept of grace
in the Christian religion that captures
the imagination of people
when they think about Christianity.
I think when they think about Christianity,
really think about it deeply,
they're not just thinking about buildings
and so on and so forth,
they're thinking about the heart and soul
of this religion.
And the heart and soul of this religion
is the concept of grace.
And that concept is so beautifully captured
in this particular hymn.
Now, not a lot of people realize that John Newton,
who wrote "Amazing Grace" also wrote nine additional verses
to the four that are usually printed in our songbooks.
John Newton's life was an embodiment of this song.
He writes with experience.
When he was seven years old, he lost his mother
and then later he became a sailor,
and eventually, worked on slave ships.
In a cruel irony, he himself became a slave
and was sold to a black woman,
who treated him like an animal as revenge for the people
who were so badly treated among her own race.
Now he was saved from this degrading life
and became a minister and a writer of hymns
that stirred the hearts of people,
the world over, and of course, the many hymns that he wrote.
Probably the most famous one is "Amazing Grace".
Shortly before his death in 1807,
he wrote the following.
And I quote, "Though I am not what I ought to be,
"nor what I think, rather what I wish to be,
"nor what I hope to be,
"I can truly say that I am not what I once was;
"a slave to sin and Satan;
"and I can heartily join with the apostle Paul,
"and acknowledge, 'By the grace of God I am what I am.'"
And so in our series, we're going to try and capture
and describe this amazing grace that John Newton
so powerfully felt and so eloquently wrote about.
Now there are several ways of learning
what the Bible says about a particular subject.
One of the basic steps, however,
is to begin with the original meaning
of the word itself and then examine how Jesus
and the apostles use that word.
Now the meaning of the word grace is the following.
The original Greek word, the New Testament was written
in the Greek of course, so the original Greek word
translated into the English word grace was charis.
In early Greek literature, the word chara,
from which charis is taken, meant beautiful or lovely
or attractive, charming.
That which is delightful.
By New Testament times,
the word had come to signify joy or rejoicing.
In later Latin translations, the word also included
the idea of gratitude.
And like all words, this word evolved in meaning with time.
So when all of the ideas are combined,
our word grace refers to that which is lovely,
happy, generous, as in giving or receiving a gift.
We know that grace is not itself a thing.
You can't touch grace.
It's not an object.
It's not a chair or something like that.
It's not a physical object.
It's a word that describes the nature and the value
of something else, usually someone else.
In normal literature, it was used to describe
a spirit of generosity and kindness and loveliness.
In other words, we would say he is gracious.
We understand what that means.
Someone who's merciful and kind.
Or she is graceful, something, someone, a female,
lovely to look at and her movements and her attitude,
and so on and so forth are graceful.
Now in biblical terms,
the word was used to describe God's attitudes
and God's actions towards mankind.
What God has done for man from the creation
of the universe to the saving of his soul,
all of this is referred to as grace.
God's grace.
Now the word is used in a variety of ways
in the New Testament, actually 170 times.
It's also fascinating to note that Paul the apostle
uses it 101 times.
He's the champion for the word grace in his writings.
Also interesting to note that Jesus
never used the word grace, because the Bible refers
to Him as the epitome of grace.
John, in John chapter one, verse 17 says,
"For the Law was given through Moses,
"but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."
So because grace is that once a simple yet vast subject,
there are a lot of misunderstandings about grace.
Although the word grace can be used to describe
God's essential character, His kindness and generosity,
or God's attitude in creating the world.
He was joyful in doing so,
or how we should treat one another
with mercy and kindness with grace.
The most repeated and most important idea
that this word describes, however,
has to do with mankind's salvation from sin.
So you understand what I'm saying here.
The word grace is used in a lot of contexts,
but the one context that is used in the most
is when talking,
when the Bible is talking about man's salvation.
The basic doctrine of the Bible
is the doctrine of salvation.
The entire Bible has been produced in order to explain
this one basic idea.
Now, in the process, God has also managed
in the Bible to describe how the world and mankind
were created, how sin came in to the world,
how he created a special nation of people
called the Jews, and all other related information
that tells the story of Jesus, the early church,
and the eventual end of the world.
We talked about that in the New Testament.
However, all of this revelation and all of this information
has been given in order to provide a kind of a backdrop,
if you wish, and an explanation for the most
important thing that God wanted to accomplish,
and that was the saving of mankind
from the destruction of sin.
And so this salvation, this saving was motivated,
watch for it, by His grace.
That's why the Bible calls it salvation by grace.
Let's read the passage, shall we,
if you have your Bibles.
Chapter two in the Book of Ephesians, verses eight and nine.
Here Paul says, "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,
"no one may boast."
So salvation by grace is the essential doctrine
of the Bible.
It's the key idea.
It's the bottom line if you wish.
Salvation is what God did, and grace is why He did it,
and how He accomplished.
This is why the study of grace is so important.
It is the study of God's character and motivation
in doing what He has done for us,
especially in the area of salvation.
So when we will be using the term grace
in our series, we'll be referring to God's kindness
and generosity and joyfulness as well as his method
of saving sinful man.
Now, believe it or not, there are some people
who think that grace or too much grace is dangerous.
We tend to kind of go from one side to the other here.
Too much grace, not enough grace.
Some people think too much grace is dangerous,
and there are reasons for this.
First of all, they don't understand the idea of grace
in the first place, that's why they think that
too much grace is dangerous.
They think that grace is liberty.
In other words, they think that grace is really
the freedom to indulge in small vices.
They think that grace means the freedom to do
what you want or that God excuses sin
because of His goodness.
I can continue in this vice.
I can continue in this weakness of character.
I can continue in this secret sin,
because I'm under grace.
But we know as Christians that we have a duty
to reject liberalism hiding as grace.
But we musn't reject legitimate grace.
And so many people have this idea about grace,
that it's dangerous, that it leads to sinfulness.
They think that because they haven't been taught correctly
about the subject of grace.
And hopefully we'll kind of remedy that in this series.
Others prefer a works system,
that's why they reject the idea of grace.
Human pride prefers the law where man can pay something
or do something in order to achieve salvation.
For example, they're going to live the highest moral code
that they can, which is fine, mind you.
But they're thinking, I'm living a high moral code,
therefore I'm acceptable to God.
Or they're going to follow strict ritual rules.
We're going to do Bible things and Bible ways,
and I'm just going to make sure that we do everything
just so, and in this way I'll be acceptable somehow to God.
Or I will work, I will make personal sacrifice,
I will do things that demonstrate my holiness.
And of course, these costs meant something, right?
High moral lifestyle, sacrifice, and doing things,
so on and so forth.
That's a high cost.
And it feels religious.
But the truth of the matter is we cannot exchange
these things for forgiveness or for the perfection
that is only available through Christ.
Why?
Why, why can't we exchange these things?
Well, very simply because these things
are themselves not perfect.
It can never be, your moral code can never be high enough.
And you can't do enough works.
You can't follow strictly enough in order to exchange
that activity for salvation or for perfection.
And so the grace system requires man to abandon
these types of efforts at self salvation.
And that's very difficult, because as I've mentioned,
we're proud as people.
We want to chip in.
We want to do our part in all of this.
And another reason why people are afraid or reject
the idea of grace is that they fear
living by faith.
Let's read another passage, shall we?
This time in Philippians chapter three,
beginning in verse nine.
Paul says about himself that he wants to be found in him,
meaning in Christ, not having a righteousness of my own
derived from the law.
There's the high moral standard.
There's the righteousness derived from the law.
There's the I do all the rituals correctly,
and so on and so forth.
So he says, "I want to be found in Christ
"not having the righteousness of my own
"derived from the law,
"not something which I accomplished
"through strict law keeping, but that,"
and what is he talking about, "but that"?
That meaning that righteousness.
That acceptability before God.
He says, "But that which is through faith in Christ,
"the righteousness which comes from God on the basis
"of faith, that I may know Him and the power
"of His resurrection and the fellowship
"of His sufferings being conformed to His death
"in order that I may attain to the resurrection
"from the dead."
So among other things, Paul is saying,
"Grace requires that we totally depend on God
"for righteousness."
he'll give us the righteousness.
We can't accomplish it.
And Paul says, "You know what, that's the righteousness
"that I want."
And this offer many times sounds just too good to be true
to people who are afraid of grace.
Wow, I'm going to be, I'm going to be okay with God
because I depend on him,
and not because I quote, "Do things."
And so people are a little suspicious of that,
and they kind of try to hedge their bets
with another method.
Yeah, yeah, this grace thing is good,
but I'm going to, you know, I'm going to chip in, so to speak.
When it comes to the Gospel, when it comes to salvation,
we have to accept the fact that it's grace or nothing.
There's no other system.
I want us to read another passage, this time in Galatians
chapter one, verse six to eight.
Paul, again, saying, "I'm amazed,"
and he's talking to the Galatians here,
this particular group of Christians.
He says, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him
"who called you by the grace of Christ
"for a different Gospel, which is really not another,
"only there are some who are disturbing you
"and want to distort the Gospel of Christ.
"But even if we, or an angel from heaven,
"should preach to you a gospel contrary
"to what we have preached to you,
"he is to be accursed!"
Now we need to realize in this passage that the danger
in this particular church that Paul is writing to
was not that they were going in the direction
of too much grace or cheap grace, but rather they were
letting go of grace and they were trading it in
for a more comfortable and predictable system of law.
Where the law said, well, if you do this,
you get that.
And they felt more comfortable with that idea.
And Paul is saying, "Whoever's preaching this to you,
"whoever's teaching this to you,
"even if it's an angel teaching this to you,
"that person should be accursed."
Why?
Because they are talking you out of your salvation.
You're trading in salvation based on faith
because of God's grace in order to go back
to I do this, I get that type of thing based on the law.
So in order to avoid these types of mistakes
in our day, in our age,
we need to go back to the apostle's teaching
to the early church about this subject.
And so I ask you to go to the Book of Acts, shall we?
And just read a very familiar passage with you,
and we'll see.
What were the apostles teaching the early disciples?
Acts chapter two, this time beginning in verse 37.
And this is where Peter is preaching the Gospel
to the people on the day of Pentecost.
He's preached to them about the birth and of course
the life, the ministry, the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
And of course he tells the people,
you people are guilty of having crucified Him.
That sin is on you.
You've rejected your messiah.
You've put him to death with your own hands.
And so we pick up the verse in verse 37,
and it says, "Now when they," the crowd meaning,
"when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart,
"and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles,
"'Brethren, what shall we do?'
"and Peter said to them, 'Repent, and each of you
"'be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ
"'for the forgiveness of your sins;
"'and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
"'For the promise is for you and your children
"'and for all who are far off,
"'as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.'
"And with many other words he solemnly testified
"and kept on exhorting them, saying,
"'Be saved from this perverse generation!'
"So then, those who had received his word were baptized;
"and that day there were added about three thousand souls.
"They were continually devoting themselves
"to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship,
"to the breaking of bread and to prayer."
So I read this familiar passage to ask this question:
What exactly, what doctrine exactly was Luke referring to
that the apostles taught?
We see them teaching the Gospel and so on and so forth,
but then it says that the new disciples were continually
devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching.
What were they teaching?
Well, what they were teaching was who was Christ.
And what were His teachings?
Because the Book of Acts and the epistles
were not written when this particular
event was taking place.
So what were the apostles teaching
these people in Jerusalem?
Well, that Jesus was the Messiah,
and how they were to be saved, and so on and so forth.
That's what they were teaching.
And what exactly would they be saying to these people?
While we read further on that they were teaching them
about the person of Christ and His teaching,
obviously the plan of salvation that God sent Jesus
and their response to God's plan of salvation,
which in their case they understood and had obeyed
repentance and baptism.
The point I'm trying to make
is that what the apostles taught
was Jesus Christ and God's grace in saving us through Him.
John chapter three, verse 16, right?
"For God so loved the world,
"that He gave His only begotten son,
"that whosoever should believe in Him
"shall not perish but will have eternal life."
That's what they were teaching,
kind of the nuts and bolts of the salvation.
They didn't have to teach these people about Jewish history.
They were Jews, many of them.
And many of them were in Jerusalem.
They understood the religion of the Jews,
the sacrificial system, so on and so forth.
What the apostles were doing was putting all of those things
that were written in the Old Testament into context
and demonstrating how Jesus was the fulfillment
of all these things
and how God used Jesus in order to save them.
So we make a fundamental mistake when we begin
teaching someone the Gospel and we begin by teaching them,
and here's my point, we begin by teaching them
church history or organization.
Someone wants to study the Bible so we start teaching them
about what is the church and how the church is organized,
and the New Testament church is the church of the Bible,
so on and so forth.
Or we begin by teaching them the falseness
of other religions.
This religion is not true,
that religion makes a mistake, and so on and so forth.
Or we begin teaching them how to respond to the Gospel.
We start teaching them that, well, they need to be baptized,
they need to repent.
They need to confess Christ, so on and so forth.
When we do these type of things rather than
teaching them the good news of the Gospel,
which is the fact that we are saved
by God's grace through faith.
See what I'm saying?
I'm not saying these other things are not important;
I'm just saying we've got the thing backwards.
When the apostles were teaching the people at Pentecost,
notice when Peter was preaching,
he wasn't preaching about Jewish history,
he wasn't preaching about how the church
would be organized.
He was preaching the Gospel, the good news.
And so the first point I really want to make
in our series about grace and salvation is this.
We are saved through God's grace.
In other words, because of His kindness and mercy and love
and generosity, this is the motivation for salvation.
This is what moved Him, this is the why.
So when we say we're saved by grace,
that's what we're talking about.
The reason that we have access to salvation is because
God is gracious.
All right, number two.
We are saved through faith in Jesus Christ.
This is the method, as opposed to no salvation
or salvation through law.
Listen, God has got a choice to make here.
Man has sinned, Adam has sinned.
Man's nature has fallen.
He's condemned.
So God has a choice of three things.
One, well, no salvation.
You know what, you messed it up.
I told you what to do.
I gave you everything, you just went and messed up,
too bad, so sad.
You're on your own.
And eventually, the devolution of mankind
and the earth eventually everybody kills each other off.
There's nothing left.
That's one way to go.
Secondly, well, maybe then I can just make robots.
I made a mistake with Adam, I gave him free will,
I'll do something else.
The people that come after him will have no free will.
They'll have to obey.
That's a second choice.
And then the third choice is to maintain free will
but offer salvation.
And the method through which an individual is saved
will be that they believe in God and trust in Him
to give that to them based on their faith in Jesus Christ.
So we are saved through faith.
That's the method that God chose.
He could have said, "You're saved through law,"
or He could have said, "No salvation at all,"
but He said, "You know what, you're going to be saved
"through a method of faith."
All right, the third thing we can say.
We are saved through baptism.
Oh, wait a minute, is that a contradiction?
In 1 Peter 3:21, Peter says,
"Now that baptism does save you."
How does that mesh with grace and faith?
Well, baptism is the proper biblical demonstration
of our faith.
That's where that fits in.
As opposed to responding by intellectual ascent.
Just my brainwave decides I do believe.
Okay, that intellectual ascent, that's the response
or demonstration of faith that God wants.
Or maybe we should cross ourselves.
Maybe that's the demonstration of faith.
Or maybe we should just save the following words:
I accept Jesus as my personal savior.
Maybe that's the response of faith.
Or maybe we start speaking in tongues or do miracles.
There's a response of faith.
But the Bible says that God gave baptism,
emerging in water, this is the response of faith.
This is the expression of faith that God has given to man
in order to demonstrate his belief in Jesus Christ.
So when it came to the apostles' teaching
concerning salvation, this is what they taught
the early disciples.
Jesus taught that a person was saved
in all the following context.
A person is saved through grace.
Well, of course.
Without God's merciful intervention there,
there'd be no salvation.
And so grace is the motivation.
And we can't say we're saved through grace.
We are saved through faith.
Well, yes, we are saved through faith.
That's the method.
That's the system that God uses.
As opposed to a system of law,
He uses a system of faith to save us.
And we're saved through baptism.
Yes, that's equally true.
Baptism is the biblical response of faith
that we make to the offer of salvation.
All right, let's talk about this idea
that grace is free.
People are always saying grace is free
but they put qualifiers.
In Romans 6:23, Paul says,
"But the free gift of God
"is eternal life through Jesus Christ."
So Paul is talking about salvation being free,
that God's grace towards us is free.
What does that mean that grace is free?
Well, let's go to another passage in Romans,
this time Romans chapter four, verses four and five,
and let's read the following.
Again, Paul, he says,
"Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited
"as a favor, but as what is due.
"But to the one who does not work,
"but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly,
"his faith is credited as righteousness."
So what does Paul say about the one who works?
And what does he say about the one who believes?
You know, the difference?
The one who works is the one who is trying
to be saved through work, through the law,
through rule keeping, perfectionism, so on and so forth
as opposed to one who is saved through a system of faith,
a system of belief, okay?
What does he say?
Well, he says, "The one who works gets what he earns,
"and the one who believes receives a gift."
That's the difference.
In the Book of Roman, Paul uses the term grace
to encompass not only God's love and mercy
but also the end result of that mercy,
and that is our salvation.
When he says grace is free, in a sense he's saying
God's love and kindness towards us is free.
It's a gift.
There's nothing we do to earn that.
He's also saying that the final result
of that love and mercy,
which is our salvation, this also is free.
It is also a gift.
There's never a problem with God's attitude
or God's gift.
The problem always is with man and his understanding
and his attitude.
Now, one idea that causes a problem with many
is the idea of God's grace,
the idea that God's grace is free.
And here's why they have a problem with this.
First of all, they think that free grace implies
that man is totally helpless.
Well, that's true, he is.
If grace, which is God's kindness and man's ultimate
salvation, if grace is free, it means that man
can do nothing to earn it even if he wanted to.
Secondly, free grace eliminates this kind
of bootstrap religion, you pick yourself up
and you lift yourself up.
Free grace eliminates Christianity
as a self-improvement course.
All you have to do is believe in yourself.
Just do it, and so on and so forth.
And it also takes away this free grace idea,
also takes away this self-reliance that somehow
you can bootcamp, train yourself spiritually
to get where you want to go.
We don't know what it means to be totally,
totally dependent on God,
and we usually don't want to learn.
And yet the idea of grace necessitates us to realize
that we are totally dependent on God
for everything including salvation.
Another fear, if you wish,
is that free grace or another fear of the idea
of free grace, because they think that it eliminates
human responsibility.
"Yeah, yeah, grace is free," but we got to do something.
You know, in my experience, I found that you can preach
all you want about the five steps of salvation:
hear, believe, confess, repent, (mumbles).
You can preach that all day long,
and all the things you have to do in order to be saved
without ever mentioning the word grace,
and nobody will say a thing.
But don't preach free grace without mentioning human
responsibility and obedience or else you'll be labeled
a liberal or a heretic.
Brothers and sisters, are we more concerned about
what a person knows concerning baptism
or concerning grace?
I know they need to know both.
Of course.
But I'm putting forward the idea that there will be
no baptism, no meaningful one anyways
if they don't know about grace first.
Preaching grace does not eliminate baptism.
But we need to remember the role of each.
Preaching the grace of God is the message of the Gospel.
It is what is good about the good news.
I mean, the fact that you're immersed in the water,
that's not good news.
The fact that you're going to be coming to church
to listen to a lot of sermons,
that's not good news.
The fact that you're going to have to deny yourself
your sinful urges, that's not good news.
The fact that you're going to have to kind of turn the other
cheek, that's not good news.
Where's the good news there?
That's not good news.
But the fact that you, the sinner,
who has done things that you will never
be able to go back and fix,
the fact that you the sinner cannot do enough
to please God, the fact that you will receive your
salvation because you trust God to give it to you,
that's great news.
Great news.
And so preaching baptism becomes necessary
when the hearer has understood and believe the good news.
I mean, once you understand the good news of grace,
the next, where is the water?
That's the normal thing.
What must I do?
Charles Hodge, a Christian preacher and writer says
the following: "Tell men what God did
"before you tell me what they should do."
So the beauty and power of the Gospel
is that despite our sins,
God chose to be kind and merciful towards us,
there's grace; and He arranged for us to be forgiven
and receive eternal life through not merit or effort
on our own.
Man, that's great news.
Now, again, and I know some of you are thinking this.
Where does human responsibility fit in?
Don't we have a part to play in this?
If grace is free, God's kindness and salvation,
then where does repentance and baptism and faithful
until death, where does that fit in?
Because that's also in the Bible, is it not?
If grace is free, well then everyone in the world
receives it and is saved, aren't they?
If it's free.
If grace is free, then why do I have this daily struggle
as a Christian?
Well, it's not that grace demands or requires.
This is the way the law speaks.
The law demands, the law requires obedience,
perfect performance, so on and so forth.
That's the language of the law.
Grace does not demand.
Grace produces.
That's the difference.
Grace gives, grace motivates, grace provokes.
That's what grace does.
The law demands perfect obedience and it produces death
because it shows you that you are imperfect,
that you are incapable of being perfect,
and that the consequences of being imperfect is death.
Romans chapter three.
So you know what I'm saying?
That's what the law does.
That's exactly what the law was designed.
Grace, on the other hand, demands nothing.
It requires nothing.
It reveals God's awesome love in the cross of Jesus
and in doing so, watch for it, it produces faith,
it produces repentance, it produces obedience,
it produces joy and peace, and so on and so forth.
In Romans chapter two, verse four,
listen to what Paul says.
He says, "Or do you think lightly of the riches
"of His kindness and tolerance and patience,"
three words that simply mean grace,
"not knowing that the kindness of God,"
the grace of God, watch, he says,
"leads you to repentance?"
What is that?
Notice it said leads you, not demands.
That's what grace does, it provokes, it leads, it produces.
And then if we were to go to the next book in the Bible,
1 Corinthians chapter 15, beginning in verse 10,
just verse 10, Paul says the following.
He says, But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and His grace toward me did not prove vain;
but I labored even more than all of them,
yet not I, but the grace of God with me.
What was working inside Paul?
What's he saying?
He said, "The grace of God inside of me
"is what produced this yearning to go into all the world,
"produce this desire for righteousness,
"produce this desire to do away
"with sin and so on and so forth."
It produced these things.
So grace does not demand or require, it produces,
it creates in man all the things that lead to salvation.
The things we actually do
from our initial confessing of Christ
to repentance and baptism to every day struggle
with sin to live as a Christian life is not a list
of rules or works done in exchange for salvation.
That's the law.
We do these things as a result of grace
working in our hearts and minds.
In other words, the law represents "I have to".
Grace on the other hand says, "I want to."
I want to please God.
I want to do what is right.
I want to do away with sin.
Sin in my life makes me sorrowful.
I hate the sin in my flesh.
I want to get rid of it.
Who produces that desire in you?
Not the devil.
Not yourself.
Not the law.
Grace is what produces that in a person's soul.
And so God's grace turns us from have to people
to want to people.
I want to repent.
I want to be baptized.
I want to serve, I want to give.
I want to do what's right.
I want to remain faithful.
Grace produces that kind of people.
I become this kind of person because of grace.
The law does not have this power,
only grace which has this power; and grace is free.
And so what's so good about the good news?
Well, because of His grace, God offers salvation
and eternal life to everyone based on faith, not law,
or knowledge or culture.
I'll say it another way.
What's so good about the good news?
God's grace makes it possible for all persons
to go to heaven because they believe
and not because they're perfect.
As John Newton wrote long ago,
"Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
"I have already come;
"'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
"and grace will lead me home."
And so as we close this first lesson in the series,
I invite you to come and hear the remaining sermons
on this topic in the weeks to come on Sunday evenings.
And the next lesson in the Amazing Grace series
will be entitled "The True Plan of Salvation".
But as we close out,
I invite any here who have been moved by God's amazing grace
to repent of their sins, to confess Christ,
to be baptized today without hesitation.
And I also call on those Christians
who need to be restored because of their unfaithfulness
or their pride to come back to the comfort
and the protection of God's grace.
And as I close out,
I leave you with the 13th and final verse
that Newton wrote for this great hymn,
which is actually not in our songbooks.
He writes:
♪ The earth shall soon dissolve like snow ♪
♪ The sun forbear to shine ♪
♪ But God who called me here below ♪
♪ Shall be forever mine ♪
So if God is calling you here below,
as John Newton writes,
please come now as we stand and as we sing.