God’s Grace And Our Response If you are truly grateful for God’s grace, you need to live a grateful life. How?

Introduction No matter what kind of sinner you were, God found you and by His grace took you in. Where would you be if He hadn’t found you? How does that make you want to respond to Him? Just how wonderful is our God? 2 Corinthians 9:15

Introduction Sometimes we are not grateful as we should be. It is a sad thing to see an ungrateful child; It is even sadder to see an ungrateful child of God. We should be perpetually grateful for our spiritual blessings. Ephesians 1:3; 5:20

Titus 2:11-14 “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds”.

With God’s Grace, We Have A Hope The difference between hope and faith is that faith accepts things while hope expects things. We anticipate the blessings of the future because we have faith in God and trust Him to do what He says. Because so far, God has an excellent track record of doing what He says. We have hope in Christ. “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness”

With God’s Grace, We Have Hope Why are you faithful to Christ? Wrong reasons would include family, feelings, friends, the preacher, fun and entertainment, even guilt would be the wrong reason. The main reason we are faithful to Christ is because we have an excited expectation of His future return and what He will bring with Him—eternal life in heaven. Philippians 3:20-21

God’s Grace Is The Reason We Have Hope In the past, when we are saved from sin. In the present, as we are being sanctified and becoming more holy. In the future, as we are looking forward to the return of our Savior

We Have Freedom From Sin No statement cuts to the heart or has as much impact of what God’s grace does for us. We were sinful people who were: Separated Colossians 1:21; Isaiah 59:2 Under bondage to sin John 8:34; 2 Timothy 2:26 Lovers of darkness John 3:20 Living in impurity and wickedness Romans 6:19 Blinded to the Truth 2 Corinthians 4:4 Dead to God Ephesians 2:1

God Is A Just God Therefore God cannot overlook our sins. Such would be against His nature. If He ignored one sin, He would cease being a just God---or he could ignore ALL sin. Yet God so loved us, He paid the price Himself Romans 5:8; John 3:16 Without Christ, we would die in a fiery and eternal hell. Revelation 20:14; Matthew With Christ, we have gracefully been given an eternal life John 14:1-4; Revelation 21:1-4

We Have Authority and Direction The message we have been given comes directly from God. It is God-breathed (inspired) 2 Timothy 3: It will never change Mark 13:31 The Bible tells us who and what we are when we obey God’s message.

The Bible Empowers Us Seeing the grace of God and responding to it, We should have no problem but to speak or declare the message of God’s grace. We should have no problem but to exhort (encourage) the disheartened and discouraged, by sharing the facts of God’s grace. We should have no problem rebuking and correcting the sinner with God’s grace.

Conclusion Most of the discouragement we face and the church problems we experience can be traced back to a failure to appreciate God’s grace. 2 Corinthians 9:15 Are you enjoying the benefits of God’s grace?