In this faith-building sermon, Gary explores how Jesus Christ embodies both perfect grace and uncompromising truth. From Proverbs to the Gospels and Hebrews, discover how mercy and righteousness come together at the cross - not through compromise, but through Christ. Learn how the Gospel empowers us to live transformed lives, holding fast to God's high standard while walking in His boundless mercy.
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TVTranscript
00:00God did not reduce the level of righteousness, the level of truth, so that we could come over it.
00:10Praise the Lord!
00:13Well, it's great to see everyone here today.
00:17Welcome again to this wonderful service in God's presence.
00:23Now we have the privilege of gathering around the Word of God to hear some words of encouragement and edification.
00:33So let us pray.
00:35Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you once more for your Word, our daily bread.
00:42Lord, may your Word be living and active like a two-edged sword dividing between soul and spirit in our hearts today.
00:58Lord, let your Word cleanse us. Let your Word investigate us.
01:04And give us the grace to have hearts which are receptive to your Word.
01:10In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
01:14So, for our first scripture today, I want us to turn to the book of Proverbs.
01:21And it's Proverbs chapter 16.
01:25I found this a very interesting verse because, as we'll see in a moment, in the midst of all these words of wisdom and practical advice,
01:38we have what really amounts to a prophecy about our salvation.
01:45So let me read it.
01:46Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 6.
01:50In mercy and truth, atonement is provided for iniquity.
01:59And by the fear of the Lord, one departs from evil.
02:06And really here we have a summary in advance of the good news of Jesus Christ, of the Gospel.
02:16That God, through the atonement of Jesus Christ, shedding his blood for us, has forgiven our sin.
02:26But, at the same time, we are, by the fear of the Lord, to depart from evil.
02:35And I just want to spend a few moments today going into this, understanding this a little bit more.
02:48And first we see that it's in mercy and it's in truth that God has provided this atonement.
03:01And I just want to quickly read another verse in Psalms, Psalm 85 and verse 10, where we have a similar theme.
03:20But it expands a little bit.
03:23It says mercy and truth have met together.
03:28So it's not just mercy and truth as two static things.
03:32They've come together.
03:34Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
03:39And this is a very interesting picture, a very interesting metaphor.
03:46Mercy and truth are like two sides of a coin.
03:52Righteousness and peace are also like two opposite sides of a coin.
03:57They don't normally go together.
04:00They're more opposites.
04:03You can have people who are very merciful, but there can be a tendency then to downplay the truth.
04:14You can have people who are very truthful, but they can tend not to be so merciful.
04:23Similarly, we can have those who are really strong on the subject of righteousness.
04:30You've got to do it right.
04:33But then others who are more conciliatory, let's we say, and are more about peace.
04:40And peace often means some kind of compromise between different positions.
04:46And they seem like different, almost opposites.
04:50But here is another prophecy, really, about our Lord Jesus Christ.
04:55Mercy and truth have met together.
04:58Righteousness and peace have actually kissed each other.
05:01They've come together.
05:03And that is in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
05:09So, let us turn now to the New Testament.
05:13And I'm going to look in John's Gospel.
05:17And it's John chapter 1 and verse 14 that we are going to read.
05:26And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
05:34Now, I want us to read this slowly.
05:36The Word, capital W.
05:40This is Jesus Christ.
05:42This is the Word that in the beginning was spoken by God and creation happened.
05:48The living Word of God, which created you and me as well as everything we see around us, became flesh and actually dwelt among us.
06:00And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
06:11This message today, let's give it the title, grace and truth.
06:20So, please, if you have a neighbour, tell your neighbour, grace and truth.
06:26Or tell me, grace and truth.
06:33Now, grace and mercy are very similar concepts.
06:38I think the simplest way of explaining them is mercy, the word we were reading about there in the original scriptures, in Proverbs and Psalms, where mercy and truth came together.
06:49Mercy expresses the fact that we do not receive what we deserve.
06:56We deserve punishment for our sin.
06:59But in God, in His mercy, we do not receive that punishment.
07:05Grace is just the other angle on that.
07:09We receive what we don't deserve.
07:12We receive a blessing that we do not deserve, and that is grace.
07:20Now, in Jesus' life, as we read here, grace and mercy and truth came together.
07:29They kissed each other.
07:31They touched each other.
07:33They worked together.
07:35And the thing about our Lord Jesus Christ is He wasn't half grace, half truth.
07:44He was full of grace, and He was full of truth.
07:49Just as Jesus Christ was fully human, but also fully divine, so He was full of grace, but also full of truth.
08:04These are concepts which are difficult for us to grasp because, as human beings, the only way we can see apparent opposites coming together is some kind of balance, 50-50.
08:14A bit of grace here, a bit of truth there, a bit of human here, a bit of divine there.
08:19But no, Jesus was 100% on each side.
08:23He was 100% human, 100% divine.
08:26He was 100% grace, and He was 100% truth.
08:31And let me just refer to a couple of examples in His life.
08:36The first one in John, chapter 8.
08:40This is Jesus dealing with the issue of the woman who was caught in the act of adultery.
08:48Now, the situation here was that the scribes, the Pharisees, the religious leaders, or some of them at least who were around then, wanted to catch out Jesus.
09:03They wanted to find something to accuse Him with.
09:07So, they found a case which was clear-cut according to the law.
09:13Let's say, according to truth, this was a clear-cut case.
09:19One of the Ten Commandments is, do not commit adultery.
09:26Here is a woman who was caught in the act of committing adultery.
09:31You couldn't get a more black and white case in terms of the truth of the law.
09:40We'll just go to verse 10 here.
09:44When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, because Jesus had said,
09:51let anyone who is without sin themselves cast the first stone,
09:57because the judgment under the law was stoning for this sin.
10:01He said, if you are without sin, then you cast the first stone.
10:05No one came forward.
10:07Jesus' response was, verse 10,
10:10He said to her,
10:12Woman, where are those accusers of yours?
10:17Has no one condemned you?
10:19She said, no one, Lord.
10:21And Jesus said to her,
10:23Neither do I condemn you.
10:27Go and sin no more.
10:33Now, this is a very interesting reflection, isn't it?
10:37This was Jesus full of grace.
10:41Apparently, giving a clear message of grace,
10:46which someone interprets as diluting the truth.
10:50Because the truth was, this woman was caught in a sin
10:54which should be judged by stoning.
10:58But Jesus was full of grace,
11:02but He demonstrated in that grace of forgiveness,
11:07what He said on another occasion.
11:10He said, I didn't come to condemn the world.
11:15I came to save the world.
11:18And we have an important message,
11:21because He didn't just say to the woman,
11:25Your sins are forgiven.
11:27He said, Go and sin no more.
11:30And that, again, is a summary of the good news of the Gospel.
11:36We are forgiven in order to change and go and sin no more,
11:46or as we read in Proverbs,
11:48in order to depart from evil.
11:52So that was an example of Jesus full of grace.
11:56Let's turn to an example of Jesus being full of truth.
12:02Now, there are many, many, many such cases where,
12:06particularly when Jesus was talking to the religious leaders,
12:11or some of them, those who were trying to catch Him out, etc.
12:17He did not pull any punches.
12:19He did not mince His words.
12:22He gave them the truth directly.
12:26And I'm just going to take one of many examples
12:29and read it to you from Matthew chapter 12.
12:33And I'm going to read from verse 34.
12:38And here Jesus says to these religious leaders,
12:44You brood of vipers!
12:48How can you, being evil, speak good things?
12:53For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
12:56A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart,
13:00brings forth good things.
13:02And an evil man, out of the evil treasure,
13:05brings forth evil things.
13:07But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak,
13:12they will give account of it in the day of judgment.
13:18Now, what a dilemma!
13:20We've just read about Jesus Christ,
13:24apparently overlooking what you might call a major sin,
13:30a sin that was clearly explained in the Ten Commandments.
13:36On one occasion, but on this occasion,
13:39he's saying,
13:41you're going to be judged by every careless word that you've spoken.
13:45This is the Jesus who is full of truth.
13:51And how are these reconciled?
13:56Well, they're both a hundred percent true.
14:01And I think it's a challenge for you and me,
14:04because we can tend to see-saw.
14:08We can tend sometimes, or on some occasions, or perhaps some people,
14:15to be overly judgmental and truth, truth, truth.
14:19And it's not that the truth is not true and it's not important.
14:23But we are also sinners.
14:26And we need to have some humility and grace.
14:29But then another day, or another person, or another occasion,
14:32can be so full of grace,
14:35we're forgiven, we're forgiven,
14:37that we can underestimate and downplay the truth.
14:42You know, ultimately, it's only God
14:46who can be both of these things fully at the same time.
14:51But thank God, because what we've just read,
14:56and not just words and facts about a man who lived many years ago,
15:02they're the living word of God.
15:05And Jesus Christ is alive today.
15:08The Jesus who dealt with the woman caught in the act of adultery,
15:13and who dealt with the religious leaders,
15:16and gave them the unadulterated truth,
15:19he is alive, and by his Holy Spirit,
15:24can help us, direct us, to be like Jesus.
15:30So that when the occasion demands,
15:34we don't water down the truth, we speak the truth.
15:37And when the occasion demands, we're full of grace.
15:44Those were two examples from Jesus' life.
15:47It's perhaps even more evident,
15:50this coming together of grace and truth
15:54in the death, sacrifice, and ultimately the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
16:01And I just want to quickly turn to one or two scriptures here.
16:06There are literally hundreds of scriptures in the New Testament
16:11that we could turn to,
16:13outlining what is really the gospel message.
16:16I'm just going to quickly take three.
16:19And there's a lovely summary here in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21.
16:23It says,
16:24He which is God, made him who is Jesus,
16:27so God made Jesus,
16:29who knew no sin to be sin for us,
16:34so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
16:43Let me read another one.
16:45And this one is in 1 Peter chapter 2.
16:48Let's read from verse 23.
16:51When he was reviled, that is Jesus,
16:55he didn't revile in return.
16:56When he suffered, he didn't threaten,
16:58but he committed himself to him who judges righteously.
17:03Who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree,
17:10that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness,
17:16by whose stripes you were healed.
17:20Jesus bore our sins in his body on the tree, on the cross.
17:27Jesus, who knew no sin, was made sin for us,
17:34so that we might become the righteousness of God,
17:37so that we might be saved,
17:39so that we might be lifted to live above the level of doing evil.
17:45Romans 6 is the last of the three scriptures I want to read here.
17:50Romans 6 and verse 23.
17:54For the wages of sin is death,
17:56but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
18:04So, just bringing together those scriptures,
18:09we can see how ultimately,
18:13grace and truth have come together in Jesus Christ,
18:20and in his sacrifice for us on the cross.
18:25The truth of God demands that our disobedience is punished.
18:33From the very beginning, when Adam sinned,
18:37it was clear that the result was going to be death.
18:40The wages of sin, the result, the consequence of sin, is death.
18:47The penalty for disobedience to the commands,
18:52not of some benevolent ruler, but of God himself who created us,
18:57the penalty is death.
19:01That is the truth.
19:03How can you sidestep that truth without sacrificing it?
19:09How can we be forgiven without ourselves physically dying,
19:15without sacrificing that truth?
19:17Well, it's simply there in the Gospel.
19:20The one man who ever lived, who did not sin, died on our behalf.
19:28He was the sacrifice for our sins.
19:30He took the punishment that we deserved.
19:36And he was the only one who could do it.
19:39If anyone else had died for you and me to take away our sins,
19:45they would have actually been taking away their own sins.
19:49Only Jesus, who knew no sin, was made sin for us.
19:57And it's important that we remember this.
20:00Because the truth of the Gospel is the truth that empowers us to live a Christian life day by day.
20:11It's not that we have the truth of the Gospel and then that's the kind of Sunday school
20:16and we move on to university and we learn about lots of complicated things.
20:21Actually, that fundamental truth is what transforms our lives
20:27and gives us the strength to live a different kind of life which is pleasing to God.
20:36Now, we can't really appreciate the solution unless we appreciate the magnitude of the problem.
20:44And sometimes we can minimise the nature of the problem.
20:49We had a serious problem. Mankind has a serious problem.
20:55Disobedience to the one who created us results in death.
21:02And the solution of the Gospel is all the more sweet and all the more precious
21:09when we realise how bad the situation actually is or how bad the situation actually was.
21:18We need to understand the problem, the sickness, before we can appreciate the solution,
21:23the medicine through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
21:28I've explained how mercy and truth have come together in Jesus.
21:33Now, how can this affect us in our practical life every day?
21:39First of all, it's not a compromise between one and the other.
21:45You know, compromise is an interesting word, isn't it?
21:49In human relationships, where we're dealing with preferences, then we need to compromise.
21:56There needs to be give and take.
21:58We can compromise on preferences, but we cannot compromise on truth.
22:04Our dealing with issues in our own lives, issues around us.
22:11We must be careful of trying to balance what I've called grace and truth here,
22:18or mercy and truth, or forgiveness and righteousness, whatever you want to call it.
22:24Trying to balance those in a way which basically means compromise.
22:29Well, we'll reduce God's standard a little bit, because I think what we see in this message of the Gospel
22:36is God did not reduce the level of righteousness, the level of truth, so that we could come over it.
22:46The level of truth is still up here, way above where we can get.
22:53But He has promised us, He's given us the hope that He can lift us over there.
23:00And fundamentally, He's done it for us.
23:05The point I'm making there is that it's quite easy actually, as a Christian, to start to think that the standard that applies to us is actually a bit lower.
23:19That the standard of right and wrong for us is not as high as it used to be, perhaps in the Old Testament under the law,
23:27or even before we were Christians, even when we first became convicted of sin, we just realised how bad it was.
23:34But it can be that as a Christian we can get familiar with God's grace, with God's forgiveness.
23:44But God has not adapted or reduced His level of truth in any way.
23:52His truth, His truth, His righteousness, His righteousness, His standards are perfection.
23:59God has not reduced it so that we can get over it.
24:02And as a believer in Christ, I think this can help us not to take sin lightly.
24:11But then the other side, of course, is when we are convicted of that sin, to recognise that there is a way out.
24:22There is forgiveness, and then there is grace to learn from our mistakes and move on.
24:31So that's the key point here.
24:33It's neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.
24:38It's atonement and forgiveness of sin.
24:41It's depart from evil.
24:43It's those two things.
24:46And God gives us the grace.
24:49So it's not a matter of compromise and allowing a bit of sin, a bit of reduced standards here.
24:56Rather, it's a matter of being 100% truth and 100% grace.
25:03And only God can help us.
25:05It's the living God.
25:06Without a relationship with the living God, this cannot be managed.
25:11The other little point I wanted to make here, practical for ourselves,
25:15is that the Gospel message, this mercy and truth coming together, this being forgiven through the atonement of Jesus Christ,
25:25is not just God feeling benevolent one day.
25:30It's not like he wanted to curse us and then he woke up one day in a good mood and he just felt benevolent and said,
25:37OK, generally, I'm going to forgive you.
25:41And I'm putting it in an extreme way just to emphasize how wrong that kind of thinking is.
25:47And if we're not careful, we can just start to think that God is a bit like that.
25:52He's just generally good.
25:54So if we kind of feel like it, he will forgive us.
25:58But no, this is a truth, which is an eternal truth.
26:04And I've been reading Hebrews recently and I encourage you to do so.
26:09Because the writers of the Hebrews really spend the vast majority of this quite long letter
26:15explaining how Jesus Christ is really the fulfillment of all that we had in that covenant before, that old covenant.
26:24It's not some general, random, benevolent feeling.
26:29You look at Abraham and God had a covenant with Abraham that he said he was never going to break.
26:34He was going to bless his descendants.
26:36We see how Jesus Christ is actually the seed of Abraham.
26:40And through faith in him, we can inherit those blessings.
26:44We see how there was a sacrifice for sin given by the high priest once a year.
26:53We read how Jesus was the ultimate high priest because he had no sin.
26:59He didn't have to keep offering a sacrifice.
27:02He did it once and for all.
27:04It goes further.
27:05He was the sacrifice.
27:08Now what I'm saying here is that there is a plan of salvation.
27:12God had a plan of salvation.
27:16Jesus is the truth.
27:20And God's grace is not just a general benevolence of a loving God.
27:29It's connected to a plan, a covenant of salvation.
27:37And I just want to draw towards a conclusion by reading this scripture.
27:44Hebrews chapter 8, it's actually quoting the Old Testament, but it's talking about the New Covenant.
27:52I'm going to read from the middle of verse 8.
27:57Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
28:11not according to the covenant I made with the fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt,
28:18because they did not continue in my covenant.
28:22And I find that very interesting actually.
28:25The Old Covenant, let's not give it too bad a press, it was a good thing, but the people were not able to continue in it.
28:32And throughout with the New Covenant, so offered in Hebrews and in the other letters,
28:38the encouragement is we have to continue in it.
28:41The difference is we have the grace to continue in it.
28:45And let's read on to see how we can continue in it.
28:49So, they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord,
28:54for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.
29:01It says, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts.
29:09And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
29:14None of them shall have to teach his neighbour, and none of his brothers, saying,
29:17Know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest.
29:22For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.
29:31Now, here we have the promise, again, of the Gospel.
29:36But, what's the big difference here, let's say, of the New Covenant?
29:43I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts, and everyone from the least to the greatest.
29:52I love that. As a Christian, one who's believed by faith in this New Covenant,
30:01from the least to the greatest is the privilege of knowing the living God,
30:08of having the law of God, the truth of God, written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
30:20And let me just say, that is the only way that we can live anywhere near the way that Jesus lived.
30:27If the law is not written on the heart, then you don't know whether to be full of truth or full of grace,
30:34you know, to use that example.
30:36If the law is only written on a book, you have to try and work out whether this is the right way,
30:41or that is the right way, and that seems just as logical as that.
30:45But if the law is on your heart, there's something of the nature of God that is written there.
30:54So that you respond as Jesus would respond.
30:58You and I, from the least to the greatest.
31:02How is this law written on our hearts and written in our minds?
31:12Well, it's the work of the Holy Spirit, but he has to work with a word, and that is the Word of God.
31:21Through meditating on the Word of God, through praying over the Word of God, God can supernaturally write it,
31:32not just up here, but here in our hearts.
31:37That is the transformation which we are seeking.
31:41And going back to the very first verse that I read in Proverbs,
31:46where we talked about, by the fear of the Lord, we depart from evil.
31:52What a wonderful description of the fear of the Lord is having the Word of God written on our heart and written in our mind.
32:04The fear of the Lord is the consciousness of Christ's presence at every moment.
32:13Let us be conscious of Christ's presence in every situation.
32:21Because the devil will use our situation, whether it's a nightmare, whether it's a sickness, whether it's a disappointment, whether it's what someone says to us, whatever it is.
32:35The devil will use our situation as a bait to trap us into sin by forgetting that we're a Christian.
32:44And by forgetting we're a Christian, I don't mean that if someone came with a questionnaire saying, are you a Christian, you'd forget the answer.
32:53What I mean is forgetting, not having that law written on our heart.
32:59It's a memory and it's not there in the heat of the situation.
33:02In the heat of the situation, we act as though we're not a Christian because a nightmare has come, a challenge has come, a struggle has come, a sickness has come, whatever it is.
33:14We need the law of God written on our heart.
33:18We need to be conscious of Christ's presence.
33:22And as Prophet TB Joshua used to say, we must be conscious of our faith in the midst of our challenges.
33:33And this is a very, very simple thought to end today's message.
33:40I believe most of the time what we need is not much deeper understanding and lots of more knowledge.
33:48And all that can be very, very useful as we grow as a Christian, but we need to be more consistent.
33:55So, when the challenge comes, we don't lose that consciousness.
34:02We remain conscious of our faith.
34:04We remain conscious of the very simple truths that we've been explaining today.
34:09I want you to pray that God would give you the grace to remain conscious of your faith
34:20in the midst of trials, difficulties and situations.
34:27So, pray after me.
34:28O Lord Jesus Christ, make me conscious of my faith in the midst of my difficult situations,
34:41in the midst of my trials, in the midst of my disappointments.
34:48Lord Jesus Christ, give me the grace to remain conscious of your presence, conscious of my faith
35:01in every situation.
35:04In the mighty name of Jesus Christ we pray.
35:09Amen!
35:11Thank you Jesus Christ, and the power available to fulfil that prayer.
35:18This is not an empty prayer.
35:21The result of the sacrifice, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.
35:28God is living. He is here. He is there to help you. Call on Him.
35:33And you will become conscious of His presence by His grace.
35:40Oh, I will be with you!
35:41He is here.
35:42This is not so important in the climate.
35:59Take a humility.
36:04We'll see you next time.