Sustaining Grace
It is in our
daily walk with Christ after salvation, that we see the need, the necessity,
the absolute centrality of God’s unmerited favor and undeserved blessing. And
not just in our daily walk, but every hour, every minute, every second, we are
kept, we are sustained and we are in need of and are the recipients of God’s sustaining
GRACE.
Now where in the
Bible do we see God’s sustaining grace? Virtually on every page and not just in
the New Testament but from the beginning do we see God’s favor upon His people.
For this study, let’s look at a few passages.
In Acts 14:26,
we see this gem of a verse: “From there they sailed to Antioch, where they had
been commended to the grace of God for the work which they had completed.” It
wasn’t salvation that was commended to Paul and the missionaries, but His
sustaining grace, His presence and power which enabled them to do the work.
Let’s look
somewhere else for God’s sustaining grace. 1 Corinthians 15:10 says, “But by
the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I
labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which
was with me.”
It is God’s
Saving Grace that raises us
from the mire of
sin and shame,
It is God Sustaining Grace that
restrains us
from returning to that from
whence we came.
It is God’s
Saving Grace that He bestows upon us
without cost,
requirement or price
It is God’s Sustaining Grace that
beckons us
to labor in love for our merciful
Christ.
It is God’s
Saving Grace that grants us faith
to have the promise
to walk in heaven above
And it is God’s Sustaining Grace
that gives us cause
to spread on earth His Saving
Grace, Peace and Love.
God’s grace was
not just to save you from the penalty of sin, grace is also freely given so
that we can be delivered from the very power of sin. Paul says if you see
anything good in me, it is not I who do it but it is God’s grace which makes me
who I am. His grace wasn’t a one-time shot, nor was it in vain but his grace
compels me to labor all the harder, all the more abundantly for He not only
saved me, He sustains me. To underscore the power of grace versus the power of
sin, Paul concludes chapter 15 to the Corinthians with this great word in verse
, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.”
For one more
example of God’s sustaining grace, look at Acts 20:32, “So now, brethren, I commend
you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give
you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”
Look at what not
only grace does to the believer but what the word of His grace does. The word
of grace builds us up (sustaining grace) and gives us an inheritance (supreme
grace). Some people say that we are saved by grace but we are kept saved by our
works. Just think about that for a moment and you will see how ridiculous that
is. Why would God save us by grace if He did not intent to keep us saved by His
grace. It would be like a child receiving a gift at Christmas and the giver
saying, “Now, son, this here toy is a gift and it is yours because I gave it to
you. But now, if you want to play with it, or if you want to keep it, you are
going to have to pay me for it each and every day.”
“Now wait a
minute,” some may say, “My phone company gave me a gift of a I-phone, and it
was free, but in order to use it, I have to pay a monthly charge.” If that is
the case, that phone is not free, nor is it a gift, it is a shrewd motivation
that hooks you into a contract of paying for that phone through monthly
installments. Manufacturers of “free” and low cost printers do the same thing
and then recover the cost of the gift by sticking you with super expensive
printer cartridges. Buy one, get one free, is not “free” and neither is it
truly a free salvation if you receive it by grace but keep salvation by works.
When Peter explained
to the others in Acts 15 that those who received salvation by grace did not
have to put on themselves the yoke of legalism and works that they could not
bear, he was addressing the issue of circumcision. It was “no small dissension”
among them and I should say so. We have people in our church who won’t join
because they won’t get baptized by immersion—I cannot imagine how many men we
would lose if we put the yoke of circumcision on them, let alone keeping the
other elements of the law.
Grace doesn’t
bind us to the law, grace builds us up in liberty from sin. If it weren’t for
grace, we could not keep ourselves saved. We would not grow in respect to our
salvation. I always want to know from people who believe saving grace is free,
but sustaining grace is somehow merited or kept by works and could actually be
lost, what make them think that supreme grace is eternal and everlasting. As
Acts 20:32 says, we who are being sanctified by the word of grace also have an
inheritance of eternal life by grace.
