THIS FAR BY GRACE!

God is amazing, and so is his grace! Grace is his unmerited favor. God deals with people and circumstances with grace, and it is a demonstration of his (God the Superior) “stooping down” to bless an inferior (you and me). God’s actions are not the results of our goodness. Instead, they are the consequences of his generosity and kindness toward us as he dispenses his mercy, love, truth, and grace towards us. He supplies us with undeserved favor, and his grace is beyond our full comprehension. God’s grace surpasses both our knowledge and time, and it intercepts every dimension of history. His grace changes the world.

The first mention of grace in the Bible is in the Genesis text (6:5-8). This text depicts the world’s condition during the patriarch Noah’s generation. The world’s evil and sin escalate in Noah’s time.

Beforehand, sin enters the world as the consequence of Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God’s commandment early on in human history. God gives the instruction, but the man and woman choose to disobey. “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat it…So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Genesis 2:16-17 and 3:6-7). As Adam and Eve overstep God’s divine boundary, sin enters the world. The curse of sin brings corruption and wickedness to humanity, and the created order from that point forward. Sin’s implications linger.

Noah’s generation is the tenth from Adam’s. God, in divine righteous anger, grieves in his heart and regrets he created man. “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Genesis 6:5-6). As such, in Noah’s time, God makes an executive decision (judgment) to destroy everything he had created on the earth (Genesis 6:7). How sad!

I think we can imagine somewhat how God feels. It must break God’s heart to see people created in his image and likeness (his representatives in the earth) disregard his holiness and violate his will. It impedes his purposes, and what a tragedy that is! But wait, God is good! There is a divine intervention! Remember God’s grace? The text continues: “But Noah found favor (grace) in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8).

Noah’s practice of godliness, righteousness, and justice brought him into favor (grace) with God. His godly lifestyle changed the outcome of God’s universal judgment. Noah’s faithfulness to God served to turn a tragedy into triumph! God spares Noah and his family during a universal flood, and he uses the family to repopulate the earth in the judgment’s aftermath (Genesis 7-10). God, in his independent, all-sufficient, self-existence, does not seek his good but that for others. His grace is sufficient!

Remarkably throughout human history, God demonstrates his love, mercy, and grace. Jesus steps physically into the world in the fullness of time and manifests God’s presence and salvation. God says to Joseph, “Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21). God’s incarnation in Jesus and his embodiment of unconditional love and grace changes everything. It revises history! “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Sacrificially, Christ offered his life for humanity’s sins. His death and resurrection provide divine satisfaction of sins’ penalty before God, and our redemption and salvation. Today, God’s love is present to redeem and save people from eternal death and destruction. “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). God’s grace is amazing.

Jesus Christ not only saves people, but his salvation and redemption change and transforms them too. Christ’s death and resurrection liberate people from spiritual and eternal death. His ministry provides an abundant life and freedom from guilt, shame, and an eternal death sentence. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and he gives eternal life to all who accept him as their Savior and Lord.

“I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture…I am the good shepherd”

(John 10:9,11).