BIG IDEA

Grace is a wow at work.

MESSAGE NOTES:

WHAT: 

What is grace?

“So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” Ephesians 2:7-9 NLT

Grace is:

• God’s kindness toward us.

• God’s saving us.

• God’s gift and...

• Grace is something that's God’s incredibly wealthy in. He’s got a lot of kindness, saving, and gifts in him.

SO WHAT:

Ultimate act of grace.

“So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.” Ephesians 1:6-7 NLT

This is the big wow: salvation. The ultimate act of grace is Jesus giving his life to give us new life.

That’s the big wow of grace: salvation through Jesus. Jesus took on what we deserved, and we get what he earned as a gift. But there’s another, little known fact about grace. The wows keep on coming. Here’s the little known fact about grace: It’s always at work. There’s the ultimate act of salvation, and then there’s the ongoing work.

NOW WHAT:

This is why Paul writes: “May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians 3:19 NLT

Grace constantly touches our daily lives. It is the way God interacts with you and me. It’s too good to be true, it messes with our sense of justice, our words fail to capture the wow of it, but it is the very way God changes you and me. That’s why the gospel of grace is simply known as “the good news.” It’s the wow at work.

Everyday grace.

• Grace is revealed through Jesus.

• It continues in our everyday.

  • It’s not one and done.

    It’s stacking and building.

  • And we have today, tomorrow, and all of eternity to keep discovering the fullness of God’s love and goodness.

You can’t earn it. You can’t be good enough. The only way to experience the wow of grace is to accept it as God’s gift and God’s work.

• Christians: don’t forsake the work of grace in your life. Don’t put it back on your shoulders. Don’t go back to, “I should know better, I should do better, I should try harder.”

• God didn’t bring you here to now stop gracing you and put the work back on you.

  • You need his grace today as much as you needed it when you first accepted Jesus.

  • And God’s willingness to keep giving grace is actually what moves you forward. You didn’t earn it, you never will, so move forward in grace. Here is the good news, here is the wow we will explore in this series and in everyday of our lives: Everyday, from here on out, it’s grace forward.