Open—Michelle Payette
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Jesus.
My blessing of his own.
Beginning for the Lord Himself.
And prayers and.
We may often hear a man giving forth to his fellows that on which his own mind has been dwelling in private with much interest and profit.
He may utter truth and important truth, but it is not the truth for the moment. He has spoken according to Scripture, but he has not spoken as an Oracle of God.
Says the Lord's help.
Would have prevented me from getting up unless I had.
Confidence in the grace of God.
And that I would find with my brethren.
A spirit of grace in judging what I would have to share with you and so.
I like to start with John's Gospel chapter one.
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John chapter one and verse 14.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
Pro of grace and truth.
John bear witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I speak. He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for He was before me, and of his fullness we have we have we all we received, and grace or grace?
For the law was given by Moses with grace and truth came.
By Jesus Christ.
You know.
We often talk about each other, but languages, Spanish, English, German, French.
But for a French speaking person.
There is a regular problem in speaking English.
For example.
I could say, and I would hear this with people around myself and I could have said this myself.
I would take the thing through.
What you saying take the team through?
Well, if I write it out, you'd know what I was saying. Think the theme through.
But we're not used in French to have that little sound, you know?
We say duh, you know, THED. We say duh and something that we just do currently. And you know, if you listen to my speech, I do it on occasion. I just lose it, you know?
Missing the pronunciation of the H.
And I'd like to suggest to my brethren here humbly this afternoon.
H stands for him.
And you know, we might be speaking English, French, Spanish, doesn't matter, but it's possible for us to have a Christian conversation and we forget about the H. We're not talking about him. We're not connecting what we're saying to him.
We're talking about things.
Things, elements, they're all good in themselves, but I don't believe they're really profitable until we connect them to Him. And So what we have in this 17th verse.
The law was given by Moses. Grace and truth came.
By Jesus Christ.
We use the expression. I'm probably guilty of it myself, of Speaking of truths in the plural.
Unless I'm mistaken, I haven't found that in my Bible.
Jews in the plural.
I found it in a singular.
And I found it connected to him.
What about grace? Beautiful topic, Grace.
But Grace is connected to him.
It came. Grace and truth came.
By Jesus Christ.
So I'd like to just spend a few minutes speaking about Grace.
Grace appeared in Titus.
Titus.
Chapter 2.
Verse 11.
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation had appeared.
To all men or you can read the grace of God.
That bringeth salvation to all men had appeared. Read it either way.
How did it appear?
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Through Jesus Christ.
There's no salvation out of the person of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, who partook of flesh and blood so he could die.
So the grace of God appeared when the Lord Jesus Christ appeared.
And went through a perfect life and offered himself and our stead on the cross.
It's appeared.
Now this grace of God had appeared in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We want to benefit from it.
And to benefit from it, it has to be received. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 2.
And verse 8.
Verse seven That in the ages to come. Chapter 2. Verse seven That in the ages to come you might show the exceeding riches of his grace, and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved. True faith, and that none of yourself. It is the gift of God.
You know this morning.
Had some thoughts in connection with what we read in John chapter 10. A being in the Father's hand. I mean in the Son's hand. The position God has given us has sheep and perfect security.
I always think that before we could come into the Father's hand.
And the son's hand. There was something else in the father's hand.
We find that in the story of Abraham and Isaac.
It says that Abraham he had the fire.
In his hand.
Probably had it in a vessel, but it's not recorded this way.
He had to fire in his hand.
It was that fire for.
It was for you, it was for me.
You didn't give it to you. You didn't give it to me.
He gave it to his son.
I can't take that in.
That my father.
Would not spare.
His own son to have me.
Have you?
How could that be? That's the grace of God through Jesus Christ.
And the Lord Jesus would say, give it to me.
The cup which my father give it me. Shall I not drink it? I'll take it, father.
And we'll be glorified.
And their hearts will be moved.
It's going to do something to them.
So Galatia Ephesians two and eight, it says by grace.
That's the offer of God's hand.
Are you saved?
Through faith.
That's your hand taking God's hand, I believe.
What God says about me.
And about Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, and his work on the cross.
Some might not agree with this interpretation of that verse, but I do believe that when it refers to that none of yourselves, it refers to the offer of God's grace.
Received by faith no merit of us in any way.
The gift of God's grace.
That's grace received.
Let's go to Romans chapter 6.
We'll read chapter 5, verse 21.
That as sinneth reign unto death, Even so my grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Sin reigns through death.
On what basis does grace reign?
Through righteousness.
God is absolutely satisfied.
He couldn't be more satisfied.
By what the Lord Jesus Christ, his beloved Son, did for him.
On the cross.
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And on the basis of that satisfaction?
We can be as gracious as he wants.
Gracious to you and me, and be patient over this world because he is satisfied.
His righteousness is forever satisfied, and grace reigns through righteousness.
A bit further on chapter 6 of Romans.
Verse 14.
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but.
Under Grace.
The law is given by Moses.
Principle of the law is that you do something.
To merit God's favor or to avoid its chastisement?
Based on your performance.
But Grace is not based on your performance.
Is based on the performance of someone else.
And that's someone else's him.
Our Lord Jesus Christ.
What rest we can find?
For our souls in Him.
This morning in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
We could be there in perfect peace.
In the presence of God himself, we will be in a moment when he comes from heaven.
How can we be at such peace?
Because of him.
The only reason?
Now some people.
Confused grace with.
Legality or legalism?
And others abuse it.
And doing whatever they want.
And it's easy to fall in one or the other.
Being liberal.
Are being legal.
And like this example, you know.
If I'm walking on a narrow path.
I mentioned this before, but I tried that in the snow a little while back with one of my sons a few years ago. The fields were white with snow and that we were walking through the fields and there was no footsteps anywhere. And so say, OK, let's go for a few 100 meters, you know, 300 feet or something, and we'd be really careful how we walk.
To walk straight, as straight as we can. And we did that. And when we were down a little wage, we turned around, we looked.
It wasn't bad, but it wasn't straight. It was a little bit of it, side movement to the left and to the right.
And then we did something else. We said, OK, the next few 100 yards, we're going to look at that light over there and we're going to walk towards that lake. And we did that.
And sure enough, we turned around after these 100 yards and it was almost perfectly straight.
And the example of that is if we watch our feet occupy with your feet occupy with your walk, you're going to do pretty good.
But you'll never do as good. And if you've got your eye on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then your heart's going to be set right. You're going to know that's not pleasing to the Lord. You're going to know ahead of time.
Because he's the object of your heart.
It's connected to him.
Don't forget about the age when you talk to Christian. Talk. Talk about him, what you have in him.
Well, it says, here we are under grace.
When a young man was brought up in a Catholic Church and what I was under was boy.
I wasn't under Grace, let me tell you.
I was under a God who wanted to punish every disobedience.
Well, he has punished.
You talk about legalism and.
Vessels are doing your own, will says in Scripture.
God has something called his government. Brother Bob touched on that yesterday.
There's God's way of dealing with those of us who need a little bit of help because we've got our eye off the Lord and our way of walking or talking or doing things might be a dishonor to Him. It might be discouragement to one another. And so we need to help each other. I think probably does a good job in looking at all these different levels, you might say, of the way we can help each other, but we're under grace.
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First, Peter.
Chapter 5.
First Peter 5.
Verse 12 by Sylvanus, faithful brother unto you, as I suppose I have written, briefly exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God, wherein he stand.
If I could translate it from the French, it says the true grace of God in which ye are.
I look up, I'm under the grace of God because the Lord is there.
I look around. I'm in the grace of God.
The Lord is watching over me, watching over us to do us good, to encourage us to have us grow, all the opposite of what the enemy seeks to do.
So grace appeared in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you received it by putting your trust in Him. It pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
If God commands us to believe, it's because he thinks we're responsible to believe. We had the gospel last night to be another gospel tonight. I don't know if you're saved. You're a young person here. You're not saved yet. God wants you to have what the Lord Jesus did for sinners. He's offering it free, and it's yours on the basis of faith.
And I think of that. Teeth on the cross.
He didn't have time, perhaps to realize what he was getting when he said, Lord, Remember Me?
He thought when the Kingdom was going to come and he was going to have a place with him, you know?
He went to heaven that very day.
Had he realized it? You know, and maybe I'm going to heaven. I'm going to heaven. You didn't.
You're going to, I'm going to heaven. You're going to heaven. I knew with the Lord forever. You're going to be with the Lord forever.
You excited?
Well, you will, yeah.
I think it's exciting, the future is exciting, it's glorious, it's connected with Him and what is His and Grace is going to share with you and me.
Well, there's the appearing of Grace. There's yet that chapter to fulfill, and it's in.
Chapter One.
Of first Peter.
I'm not a Bible teacher, so but I I found that Peter maybe doesn't go into that aspect that Paul had of the Lord's coming for us and taking us up with himself. He speaks a more general way of the Lord's appearing, you know, when, when it's going to be this world is going to know.
That that one in whose face stays back.
And he's away with him. He's coming back.
As a victor to take possession of what is his and to share that with you and me, and to bring that people of Israel into blessing through Him alone. No other way. So he says in first Peter chapter one. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind and be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Or hope perfectly as it says on the margin.
Hope perfectly.
How can it be?
That among Christians.
Some fear.
They might lose their salvation.
How can that be? It's connected with him.
He's up in heaven. We're seated in the heavenlies in him. How can that change?
It's not connected with him, it's connected with you and me and how we live and how we transfer in our lives the things that we know we might not be that confident.
But God wants you to be perfectly confident of what's coming, and he says hope perfectly for the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Expression in French, it says you're talking to your hat, Michelle, I don't have a hat, so.
When the Lord Jesus comes.
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For us, in a twinkling of an eye, I am going to be changed, and I know most of you will too. I'm going to become incorruptible.
And immortal.
Just like that.
That's my perfect hope. What's it based on him? That's about him. Because it's not about him. It's never going to happen to me, and most likely not to you either. But if it's connected with him, oh, how can it be? Just in a twinkling of an eye because of him and his finished work and the God's satisfaction.
What I wonder, brethren?
How can it be?
That we're not pronouncing the H all the time.
That it's not coming out in our conversation. We talk about things, not about things H is missing. And so I would just encourage my brethren, you know, we have so much good ministry.
But the apostle Paul said to Timothy, Those things that thou hast heard from me.
From the Word of God. I enjoy ministry and I would encourage everyone here to benefit from what's available.
But when we come together.
To be ministered to by the Spirit of God.
I can read ministry at home.
And I don't need someone to read it for me.
I want to be sitting in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, where the Spirit of God is free to entertain my poor soul about Him.
Who he is, what he's done, what I have in him, what he wants us to do for him.
And so I just had these thoughts here once. I want to share with you, Grayson, truth came by Jesus Christ.
And I do believe.
That if we look around either in creation or in this book.
That God has connected everything to him.
We just follow the threads.
And it leads to him, but sharing this with some brethren a few days ago in different occasions, going to a meeting on one Lord's Day morning and it was cold outside. And I came back to me something I heard in school about, you know, absolute zero, absolute cold, no heat at all. And then I thought, oh.
What did that happen?
Well, that happened on the cross of Calvary.
It got dark.
Everybody flew from him, his people said we don't want this man to rule over us. Away with him, crucify him.
And the father who had the fire in his hand.
Poured it on him and heaven was clothed for him. Nobody ever was so absolutely forsaken.
Than him.
And so when you feel forsaken, you feel alone.
Just go connect that with the Lord.
Just quickly, my wife was in the hospital a few years ago and I mentioned it. I didn't tell I was going to say that, but anyway, she'll forgive me after.
She had an operation for lung cancer.
And we're thankful for the Lord who took care of that. And she's in hospital and hospital bed, and she had these tubes on her side.
And as she looked in the tubes, they were transparent and it was coming out.
Blood and water.
And, you know, she didn't think. Oh, no, she said, oh.
Blood and water came out of my Savior's side.
Connected that with him, it made all the difference in the world to enjoy that fellowship with him in the circumstances of our lives. So I just encourage you, dear ones, follow the threads. They all lead to him. You're never going to be sorry.