BE GRACIOUSBrother
Ronny Cham sharing the Word of God on this Father’s Day celebration 15th
June 2008 at the SIB Metro Church at City Mall, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, evening
English Service at 6 pm. Today
is Father’s Day. May I wish all the fathers, Happy “Father’s
Day”, may the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ forever be upon you. I would like to speak to you about
“Being Gracious”. Turn
with me to the Gospel of John 1:16-17 “16 From the fullness of his grace we have
all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law
was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
(NIV) ‘Gracious’
in this case, I mean ‘having divine grace’ – displaying
divine grace, mercy or compassion.
Just as we believe that as our God is Holy, we must be holy (1 Peter
1:16), so therefore, as our God is full of grace and mercy, so we must
exemplify His graciousness. How
often we proclaim that through His grace and mercy He made an
atonement for sin saving us through the grace & mercy of God. We also acknowledge that by His wisdom
and truth, He revealed to us the mysteries of heaven in Jesus Christ and that
through His Holy Spirit, we are taught the eternal truth. In response, we who believe in Him,
having received His grace or mercy to pardon our sins, having tested the
goodness and shared in the fellowship of His Holy Spirit, we testify with great
rejoicing of His grace upon grace on our lives, one blessing after another which
we have received from the beginning until now. Yet,
so often, when we face with problems, troubles, difficulties or things that
cause us anxiety and worries, we can so easily forget His grace and His
blessing which we have received and which He has given so faithfully. Instead of continuing to trust in His
grace and have confidence in His faithfulness, we can so easily take our eyes off
our Lord Jesus Christ and focus on the problems, troubles, difficulties or
things that cause us anxiety and worries.
By so
doing, we literally consider His grace and His faithfulness as a nullity and we
become ungrateful. We sometimes
unconsciously, and at times consciously, turn to our own ability, our own
resources and our own knowledge to try to deal with these problems, troubles,
difficulties or things that cause us anxiety and worries in our own ways. We turn from depending on His grace, His
faithfulness and His truth, to our own ways, our own method, our own judgment
and our own point of view. Instead
of grace, we found ourselves bound by the ways, the methodology, the law of the world. The
Apostle John in the beginning of the Gospel of John,
reminded us that we are the recipients of the fullness of His grace and mercy,
we received grace upon grace, because we no longer live under the law, but
under His grace and truth. I see a
lot of young people here; you may ask in what manner we still live under the
law of this world? Or what does living under the law mean at all? My
brothers and sisters in Christ, those of us who came from the pagan-worship
background, we have been taught the ways of worshipping pagan gods from when we
were young, haven’t we? We
have been subjected to the legalistic religious rituals, including those about
prayers and worship, offering and sacrifice. There are also those of us who have been
subjected to the influence of other religions or religious rituals and
practices, either in school or work place or family or society. We have seen and we have therefore
unconsciously or consciously known ways, usually consist of systems of rules
and regulations governing their legalistic religious rituals and practices. When we take our focus off His grace, we
automatically relegate ourselves back to the arena of legalism, methodology and
ways we have been subjected to or taught when we were young or before our
conversion.. Legalism
is opposed to being gracious, yet, even believers can be so legalistic and not
gracious at all. When we take our
eyes off His grace and mercy, we no longer trust and live under His grace and
mercy. What is the end result? We became ungrateful towards His grace and
mercy and count His grace and mercy which we have been receiving from the
beginning as nothing.
Ungratefulness causes us to turn from His grace and mercy to the ways of
the world. Such Christian no longer
manifest or exemplify His graciousness. This
is a real problem we face in the Christian Church every day. The Apostle Paul instructed us to be gracious
to one another. In Romans 14:1, we
read, "Accept him whose faith is
weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters" (NIV). When
we are confronted with “disputable matters” in the Church, sadly,
there are those who feel so strongly about their religious position that they
will run you out of their fellowship before allowing you to express another
position. That is legalism. For
example, there are those who feel strongly that the local body of Christ must
adhere to their certain established form and structure, rules and
constitution. These form and
structure, rules and constitution do not produce spirituality. It makes us
ungracious people. Many
legalistic believers today make the error of demanding unqualified adherence to
their own biblical interpretations and even to their own culture and traditions.
For example, there are those who feel that to be spiritual one must simply
avoid tobacco, alcoholic beverages, dancing and movies, etc. The truth is that
avoiding these things is no guarantee of spirituality. It makes us ungracious
people. Here
in John 1: 17, the Apostle John is reminding us that we must avoid falling into
the trap of legalism. "For the law was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ". If we hold fast to this simple truth, we
will remember to be gracious, especially to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
In Romans 14:4, the Apostle Paul wrote these words, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he
stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand."
He also said in Romans 14:10, "You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or
why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's
judgment seat." Does
it therefore mean that everything is “ok” in the Christian
Church? Does it mean that there
shall be no law in the Church? Certainly not, Jesus declared that He did not
come to destroy the Law. In Matthew
5:18, He said, “I tell you the
truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least
stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is
accomplished.” (NIV) As
long as there is law, there is always disagreement,
the Apostle Paul referred such ‘disagreement’ as “disputable
matters” in Romans 14:1. Therefore,
while we need to be gracious to one another and tolerant of disagreement over
disputable matters, we cannot accept heresy or any teaching or opinion that is
contrary to sound doctrine. We are
exhorted to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints
( see Jude 1:3 [NIV]). Here
is a guideline for us to apply in love and mercy, to be safe from both legalism
and heresy, it is stated in 1 John 4:1-3, "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see
whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the
world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that
acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every
spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of
the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the
world" (NIV). Therefore,
let us call to remembrance the richness of His grace which He has given us,
which we have received from the beginning and let us trust and believe His
promise that His grace is more than sufficient for us and His strength is made
perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). At the end of the day, there is just one
simple question to ask ourselves, whatever happens to our life now, whatever is
happening round about us now, has it not been the work of His Holy Spirit from
the beginning? Is the Lord Jesus
Christ the “was, is and is to come” in our lives? As
long as we know it is the work of His Holy Spirit, we can graciously accept one
another as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, knowing that He has made us,
each one of us, competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the
letter or the law, but of the Spirit.
In 2 Corinthians 3:6, the Bible declares that “…the letter kills, the Spirit gives life”. Be gracious and by gracious people, the
Lord will bless this new work in SIB Metro Church. Ronny Cham |
Lastest Sermons
More |