grace

Beyond Saving? A Look at the Foremost of Sinners

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After the founding of the church on the day of Pentecost, the church begins to provide a vibrant witness to Christ. Unfortunately, with that witness comes a great deal of persecution. Stephen becomes the first martyr due to the leadership of a Pharisee named Saul. Ironically, it’s just this guy who Jesus has picked to be the leader of his mission to the Gentiles, and even though a murderous persecutor of the church, Saul finds himself being overwhelmed by the grace of Jesus.

In Acts 9, Jesus stops Saul in his tracks on the Damascus road with a light so bright that he is immediately blinded bringing his spiritual reality to physical manifestation. Brought to a blubbering mess before Jesus (and who wouldn’t be after persecuting the guy that now has total power over you), Saul recognizes and embraces him as Lord. He humbling submits himself to Jesus, receives the Holy Spirit, and follows in faithful obedience through baptism.

Later, after taking the new name “Paul,” he writes about his salvation in 1 Timothy 1:12-17. He explains that as a blasphemer and persecutor of God and his people, he was the foremost of sinners. He highlights this to draw attention to the amazing, incomprehensible, and unending grace of Jesus. Essentially, Paul is saying, if I can be saved, anyone can!

In his grace, Jesus not only pursues us but he saves us while we are still sinners, no matter how great or small our sins. We all desperately need a Savior, and Jesus died in our place so we could live. So whether you are an axe murderer or a teller of white lies, we all can find our hope and life in Jesus Christ. We must simply repent and trust in Him.

The glorious thing about God’s grace though is that it doesn’t end there. He doesn’t just save Paul on the Damascus road and then leave him there to figure the rest out. Instead, Jesus continued to pour out his grace upon Paul. He gave him a mission, and he produced great results through Paul as a result. What we see in the story of Acts 9 is this:

We are saved by grace, we obey in grace, and we experience fruitful results because of grace.

DOUBLE RAINBOWS!!! – Are You Freaking Out Over God’s Grace?

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About five years ago, a man shared a video via youtube of his experience viewing an incredible full double rainbow at Yosemite National Park. It went viral…

He was FREAKING OUT over this double rainbow! He was absolutely stunned with wonder and joy at its sight. Back and forth between tears and laughter, he marinated in the beauty of it all.

Check it out:

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Rainbows should stun Christians in a similar way. But we’ll get to why that is in a moment. First, we’ve got to reconnect with the story we’ve been following the past two weeks.

Genesis 1-3 showed God’s power and goodness in creation and man’s original sin that corrupted it all. Just a few short chapters later in Genesis 6, sin had multiplied exponentially, and rather than God’s glory filling the earth through mankind, evil filled the earth.

God was grieved by the brokenness and evil that had consumed his creation, and he would have been just to completely destroy this world full of evil. Yet while God does judge the world through a flood beyond any proportions we can imagine, He makes a covenant with Noah to make clear that his purposes and promises made in Genesis 1-3 will not fail.

In Genesis 6-9, we see God’s grief over evil and it’s destructive influence in the world. His grief leads him to shorten man’s life in order to inhibit the growth of evil, and it ultimately leads him to justly judge the evil before Him. In these dark chapters of destruction, we must realize that God did not delight in the destruction. He mourned for his creation.

Yet we also see that God sustains his promises and purposes despite our incredible failures. In verse 8, God declares that Noah had found favor in his eyes, but what does that mean? Had Noah been righteous when everyone else had not? Had he earned a free pass through the flood?

No, just one verse later (v. 9), Noah is described as walking with God. The idea of walking with God in the first chapters of the Bible carries with it the idea of faith and relationship. Noah was not saved from the flood because of his good works compared to others, but he was rescued because God saves us from sin by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8).

WHAT INCREDIBLE GRACE! While the rest of the world was being destroyed because of sin, God saved Noah because of grace. And to wrap it all up, he provided him with a reminder of that grace and his enduring promises and purposes: rainbows.

We should freak out when we see a rainbow, too! It’s a picture of God’s grace toward us, a reminder that his purposes do not fail, and a means for strengthening our confidence in his promises.

When was the last time you were in awestruck wonder at God’s grace?

May we be stunned by the evidences of God’s grace in our lives!