The Triumphant Church, Part 3

I’d like to talk about growing in grace. It makes me think of a group of women who recently went on an Encounter Retreat with my wife, Vickie, leading the way. That Encounter Retreat was simply an opportunity for the participants to grow in grace. Peter said that we should grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord. How do we go about doing that?

Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” The preceding verses tell us how we can do that. It speaks of Jesus Christ as being our Mediator and our High Priest, the One who was tempted in every way such as common to us, but He was found without sin. He becomes our qualification. Through faith, we are made ready to go before Him, and nothing that we do in and of ourselves qualifies us to do so. In fact, as we all know, if we go before the throne of God unworthily, that makes us eligible for death. You have to meet the requirements to go before the throne of a king.

You’ve seen movies where some crackpot goes before the king unworthily, and what happens to him? His head is cut off! He’s either thrown into a dungeon, set on fire, or some other equally terrible outcome. Nobody just walks in boldly before a king, no less the King of the Universe! I mean we’re talking about God, the Creator of everything that we see, right? He’s the ultimate King! We dare not approach His throne in an unworthy manner. So the writer of Hebrews gives us the qualification: only through Christ. Can you imagine? We have the privilege and honor of coming before God’s throne! He says not only can we enter boldly, but once we get there . . . BOOM . . . what happens? Two key things take place.

• We obtain mercy. That’s automatic! Mercy is waiting for you at the throne. Why? Because without it, you’d be zapped! In and of yourself you don’t qualify. So without mercy, the moment you step before the throne, you would turn into a pile of ash! Praise God, mercy is there just waiting to be obtained. 
• The Scripture says that we find grace. We don’t just obtain it; it’s not automatic. We find it! There is a biblical principle connected to “finding.” Jesus teaches the following lesson. Knock and the door will be opened; ask and you shall receive; seek and you will find! What is it that we seek? We are seeking grace. What is grace? Grace is the divine influence on the heart and the reflection seen in the life.

What have you been seeking? When you ask God for grace, what are you asking for? Many Christians don’t even know. They simply ask, “Oh God, give us grace, give us grace, give us grace.” What is grace? I’ve become a bit more calculated in this. Do I really want to ask for grace? Because when I ask for grace, I’m asking for God to divinely influence my heart. “God, I need grace in this relationship; I’ve been offended by a brother. Give me grace.” Do I know what I’m asking for? Literally, what I’m saying is, “God, I need Your divine influence on my heart and the reflection of that influence to be seen in this relationship.” “Oh, oh, oh, I thought maybe I was asking God to change the other person, God would dump some mercy on them, or that God would just move and do something!” What I’m asking is that God would change my heart and the evidence of that transformation to be seen in my life. That’s what grace is! Do we understand that? We might be a bit more careful asking for grace after we’ve grasped this. No, we need to ask for more grace. We need a greater grace. Why? Because many times our hearts are not right.

The good news, no, the really great news is that we can come boldly before the throne of grace, obtain mercy (which is right there waiting for us), and we find divine influence for our heart. We know that the reflection of that influence can be seen in our lives.

Now what does this have to do with the triumphant Church? Next week we’ll pick up with the topic of being an overcomer. God is trying to show us that this is the way for us to live a victorious life! This is how we succeed! We’re going to read how Paul goes through so much in his life, yet he says, “Thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph!” He says things like, “In all these things we are more than conquerors.”

God hasn’t called us to simply conquer; He’s called us to do more than that. We’re going to do it by the grace that God provides every time we go to Him and ask for divine influence. It’s through the work He does in our hearts, my friends. It’s not through our own strength, ability, good looks, or just because we think we’re all that. Without Christ we are nothing, but through Christ we can do all things, which means we are more than conquerors through the grace of God that is working through us! 

~ pg