Grace is a door, but it’s the house where you live, too.
OCTOBER 23, 2024
Steve Brown:
Grace is a door, but it’s the house where you live, too. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.
Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life, here to communicate the freeing truth that God’s not mad at His children. Steve invited our friend Jerry Parries to teach this week. Jerry is the pastor of Christian Family Worship Center, House of Grace. And the author of Grace: The Real Good News of the Gospel.
Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Jerry.
Jerry Parries:
Hey, sir. How are you?
Steve Brown:
It’s been a great week. I’ve always, and we’ve gotten together a lot. Every time, this is just turning on a microphone because we end up talking about grace.
Jerry Parries:
Yes sir.
Steve Brown:
It started that way and we both are so surprised and so amazed and so blown away with the truth of the Christian faith.
Jerry Parries:
Yes.
Steve Brown:
A lot of people make it into bad news, don’t they?
Jerry Parries:
Yes, they do and i’m telling you grace is the good news of the gospel, it really is. And if you really get the revelation of it, really get the revelation of it. Man, you will be able to just live in the peace and the rest of Jesus.
Steve Brown:
That’s true. So, grace everybody knows that you’re saved by grace. And that when you run to Jesus and you say I’m a sinner, would you save me? That he does and we get saved. But it doesn’t stop there, does it?
Jerry Parries:
No, not at all.
Steve Brown:
It has to do with real life as we live it in the hard places. Talk to us about that.
Jerry Parries:
Well, today’s talk is grace empowers us to overcome challenges and grow spiritually. And one of the places that I like to read of that is Romans the fifth chapter, one of my favorite, Romans the whole book of Romans is my favorite. Romans fifth chapter says.
Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into a place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing in His glory.
I want to read that from the King James Version because it gives it a little bit better thought there.
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom
By Christ
we have access by faith into his grace where we now stand.
So, here’s what I’m going to tell you, Steve. You have to have faith in grace to stand in it. You’ve got to believe in the grace of God to stand in it. If you don’t believe that God loves you, you will never be able to stand in grace. You’ve got to be able to stand in grace, and this is what happens when you stand in grace. And this is the challenge that I want to talk about today. Verse three.
Now we can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they’re help was there to help us develop endurance.
You will think that God is upset with you. He’s mad with you. That the reason that you’re going through all of these troubles that you’re going through is because of something you’ve done in your past. But when you know that you’re standing in grace by faith, you know that when prior problems and tribulations come in your way, that it’s only helping you to develop endurance. And endurance, verse four says.
Develop strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.
And then verse five says.
And this hope will not lead to disappointment.
You’re not going to quit because you know, verse four, verse five.
We know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
Wow.
Steve Brown:
Man, if we leaned on that, we could do this thing, couldn’t we?
Jerry Parries:
Absolutely, because this Scripture tells you that you’re going to have problems. You’re going to have troubles. That’s just life. It’s called lifin’, I don’t care who you are. You’re going to lose some loved ones. You’re going to lose possibly income. Depending on what happens in the economy, you may lose your job, but that’s not God punishing you. It’s things that strengthen your faith in him. And what does it all stems from? You’re standing in grace. Your faith says, I believe that God loves me. I believe that I’ve been forgiven, which we talked about yesterday of my past, my present, and my future sins. I stand in God, holy, blameless, without a single thought. So, if I’m holy, blameless, have imputed righteousness in my life and things start falling apart is not because God’s mad with me. It’s because God is trying to help me develop my character, my faith being strengthened in him. And my faith is strengthened in my weakness. I’m going to see God show up and show out.
Steve Brown:
Why do we, when bad things happen that we more often than not, we say, what did I do wrong?
Jerry Parries:
I think it’s the way that we were brought up. We reward people who do good things and we punish people that do bad things. And we think that’s the way God is, God rewards people that do good things. God rewards people who do bad things.
Steve Brown:
That’s the gospel, isn’t it?
Jerry Parries:
That is the gospel.
Steve Brown:
That’s what’s amazing. That doesn’t make sense.
Jerry Parries:
It doesn’t. It doesn’t. And somebody’s listening to me said, Oh, wait a minute. No, that’s not true. You’re going, you have to pay for your sins. You do. The only reason, I mean, you did, everybody has to pay for their sins. Jesus paid it for you, you still paid for it, but he bore your sins in his body when he hung on the cross. He took your whoopin’, like I talked about, my dad took my whoopin’. My dad took my whoopin’. My dad paid for my sins. It was paid for. And you’ve got to understand that God is not letting you off free. He charged Jesus so that he didn’t have to charge you.
Steve Brown:
You know, we were talking yesterday about our fathers, and both of us, God must like us a lot, the father he gave us. I remember one time when I was a paper boy, we stole cherry pies, from the local grocery store. They used to put them out, and you know, it was a morning thing. We were up at four in the morning and we’d go get one of those pies and steal it and eat it. And I don’t want to be misunderstood here, but those were the best cherry pies I ever ate. And while we were eating them, and you know, we got it all over our face, one of my friends would say, we’re folding papers, would say, if my dad finds out about this, I’m history. I mean, he’ll kill me and I didn’t say it, but I thought at the time, if my dad finds out about it, he’ll love me. And that’s worse because that love becomes the motivator, doesn’t it?
Jerry Parries:
Yeah, yeah. The love part is what makes you, that straightens you out. And you know, if punishment. Listen to this Steve, if punishment could correct people, we wouldn’t have people in jail.
Steve Brown:
Good point.
Jerry Parries:
There wouldn’t be repeat offenders, but if you know what will keep a person from robbing you, if they loved you; will keep a person from breaking into your home, if they loved you; would keep us from arguing about politics, because we love each other.
Steve Brown:
Yeah.
Jerry Parries:
It’s the love that changes a person’s heart, not the punishment.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whomsoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
That’s what God brings. God brings love. And the Bible says.
When you love him and you fear him, that shows that you have not experienced the perfect love of Jesus.
Steve Brown:
Yeah. That is almost too good to be true.
Jerry Parries:
It’s so good, it can’t help but be true.
Steve Brown:
One time I was speaking at a conference, and a guy on the front row, we had a question and answer thing, and I’d said, God’s not angry at His own. And he said, my question is, why not? I think He is, and I’m glad He is. And I said in a very kind, pastoral way, Sir, you’re a fruitcake. There’s something wrong with you. But it is the amazing side of grace, isn’t it?
Jerry Parries:
Oh, it is. It is. And no place you see that illustrated more so when God caught the woman in adultery. She was caught in adultery. Let’s think about, we gloss over that story, but this woman was caught in the bed with another married person or she was married and they brought her up. The church folks, the church folks brought her out to stone her. And Jesus just looked at her and said, looked at the people, and said, he that without sin, Why don’t you cast the first stone. And everybody dropped their stones and walked away and he looked at the woman and said, go sin no more. And here’s the line that people don’t think about. He says, woman, where are your accusers? She says, I have none. He says, neither do I. He didn’t even charge her with the sin. He didn’t even charge her, accusing her. He acted like she didn’t do a thing and say go your way and sin no more.
Steve Brown:
You know, we live in a time, and it’s a hard time. It really is. But we really are divided as people. We’re divided over politics, we’re divided over economy, we’re divided over the people we vote for, we’re going to fight about it, we call other people being evil. Grace not only forgives us when we’ve been forgiven and loved without exception. How can we not do that for others?
Jerry Parries:
Yeah. It is, you’ve got to remember this. That’s one of the things that I share with people. You will always have a heart of grace when you realize how much God has forgiven you for. And when you think that you are righteous on your own, you become judgmental of others. But when you realize that God has forgiven you of many sins, then it’s very easy to forgive others of theirs.
Steve Brown:
It really is. It’s the key to making a difference in relationships in our lives. Of course, you’ll forgive others. Of course, you’ll love others. How could you not when you understand. Hey, you think about that. Amen.
Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve and Jerry. Love it when these men get to teach together, and I’m sure you’re enjoying it too. Still one more day to go in this special series, so we hope you will join us for that tomorrow. And by the way, if you’d like to re listen to any of this week’s broadcasts with Steve and Jerry, or maybe something encouraged you and you’d like to share it with a friend. Great news. All of our shows, all of our podcasts, articles, and videos can be found at keylife.org hey, and while you’re there, take a look at our transcripts. They’re available for each and every episode of Key Life. What we do is we use AI to do a first pass on those, and then we go back and meticulously double check them by hand, line by line, word by word. Is it a lot of work? Yeah, actually, it really is, but of course, it’s worth it. And as always, all of our features on keylife.org are still free thanks to the generous support of listeners just like you. If you’d like to donate, then call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433 and if you’d like to send your donation by mail, just go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Or e-mail [email protected] giving is easy. You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or you can now give safely and securely through text. Simply text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word or two. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.