His Never-Ending Supply
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, when our strength is gone, or the day is half done, our Father’s full giving has only begun.
Transcript
Alright, thank you very much and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Yes, that familiar greeting establishes the fact that this is indeed your good friend, Dr. Cook. And I’m glad to be back with you to share from the Word of God. I’ve been praying that God might put His love and His grace and His truth and His power and maybe some special encouragement for someone who’s under pressure today into the words that I may say. God bless you. I’m glad you’re there on the listening end. Thanks for being there. And thanks for being my friend.
Well, we’re looking at the last verse of Colossians 4, Colossians 4:18. And I entitled these few thoughts that we began the last time we got together, I entitle them “One Last Word.” Well, it comes out to be several last words, doesn’t it? It’s like a family argument, you know? “And another thing,” somebody thinks of something else to say and the last word doesn’t turn out to be the last word, does it? Ah, well, join the human race, eh? “The salutation by the hand of me, Paul.” We spoke about the importance of the personal touch, you recall that?
Don’t let anything that you do be routine and mechanical when you are dealing with human beings. Remember the personal touch. It’s the personal note at the bottom of your letter. It’s the personal phone call that says that you’re concerned. It’s the personal visit, you show up when somebody needs somebody, to show up to be of encouragement and comfort. The personal touch.
And then he had another thing that we talked about. He says. “Remember my bonds.” Now, Paul never complained but he used his shackles, his handcuffs, we would say today; he used them as a means of testifying to the guards around him and to the people that knew about his imprisonment.
I suppose to be in jail is the ultimate indignity at least for most of us and we would tend to complain. I know I would. I’d say, “God, here I’m trying to serve you and what’s happening? Here I am in jail.” But Paul had learned that the insults and indignities and inconveniences and limitations of his liberty that were involved in this imprisonment could constitute a chance for God to work.
So we’re back to a theme that recurs now and again in our talk, doesn’t it? Look at your problems as being an opportunity for God to work for you and for His glory.
If something breaks, it didn’t just happen to break. This is God’s chance to work, Alright? Either working in you in spite of the circumstances, or working around you through the circumstances, or working in somebody else’s life because of the circumstances, or all of the above.
Remember he said, “My bonds,” then he says, “Grace be with you.” Now this is one of the great closing benedictions that Paul uses, “Grace and peace to you,” he often says and he often speaks about “Grace be with thee,” and “The grace of our Lord be with you,” and so on.
When we speak of God’s grace, of course, we immediately think of salvation by faith because of the grace of God. The passage in Ephesians, of course, is the classic on that. Ephesians 2:8 and 9, “For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.” The classic definition of grace is “unmerited favor.” You have to amplify that a good deal to get anywhere near the scriptural meaning of that glorious term. God’s grace is not simply that He gave you unmerited favor, did something for you, you didn’t deserve. This is true. “When we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son.” “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
It’s not that God did something for us that we didn’t deserve but beyond that, that He called us and saved us and adopted us into the family and made us joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. The joint heir is one who owns everything that the other person owns. If you and I were joint heirs to $2, could you spend the $2? Yes, but not without me. Could I spend it? Yes, but not without you. We would have to spend it and enjoy it together as joint heirs. And that’s your position with the Lord Jesus Christ because of the grace of God. He says, “Grace be with you.”
Now, it’s not only a relationship of salvation, but it is a particular kind of gift that God gives to the undeserving but redeemed person. “Now born from above,” it says, “we are justified freely by His grace,” Romans 3:24 says that. “Justified.” Dr. Pettingill used to say that you should read the word “justified” as though it were written, just as if I’d never sinned. Just as if I’d never sinned.
Completely cleansed, the record has been expunged of all of the facts concerning your dreadful failure to measure up to the holiness of God and now you are complete in Christ and God looks at you through the perfection of the Lord Jesus. Paul says, “We are accepted in the beloved one. Because of the Lord Jesus Christ, the man in the glory, there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” says Paul in 1 Timothy. Because of the fact that the Lord Jesus is there at the right hand of God interceding for us, you and I, with all of our need and imperfection, are accepted because of Him, justified freely by His grace.
“Grace be with you.” Yes that involves being justified. It also involves walking boldly and happily and freely into the very presence of God. We have access into this grace wherein we stand, says Paul in Romans 5:2. And he says, “Let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. It’s the grace of entering into the very presence of God and getting help when you need it.
I never cease to marvel at the wonderful grace of God that a poor guilty sinner such as I and such as you can walk into the presence of a thrice holy God and say, “Dear Father, I have this need.”
And we’re accepted because the Lord Jesus Christ made it possible and we can receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Oh, Hallelujah for the grace of God.
He says, “Much more of those who receive abundance of grace shall reign in life.” There’s the victory that God’s grace gives; victory over feelings, victory over failings, victory over frustrations, victory over the future with its problems looming unsolved before you, victory all the way. We’ll reign in life.
Let me ask you something, when you make the Lord Jesus Christ Lord of your life, we use the illustration of placing Him by faith on the throne of your life. You’ve all seen that little illustration where self is on the throne and then by faith you take self off the throne and put the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne of your life and make Him Lord of your life and He becomes your Lord and Savior. We’re familiar with that. Alright, when that happens, what many people do not realize is that because you are identified with the Lord Jesus, you see, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain,” says Paul, “and nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,” Paul says in Galatians 2:20.
And in Colossians 3, “When Christ who is our life,” Christ is our life, “shall appear,” Alright, because it’s true that you’re identified with the Lord Jesus, when you put the Lord Jesus Christ in control of your life, on the throne, so to speak, you share that victory, that authority, that ability to cope with Him, and all that He is in His Lordship becomes part of the fabric of your life. Can you take that in, today?
“Much more of those who receive abundance of grace shall reign in life,” not sometime, not… We’re gonna reign as saints yonder in the glory and in Christ’s millennial kingdom. That’s what the Bible teaches us. But right now you can be identified with the King who is on the throne of your life. Reign in life. Isn’t that great? Oh, thank God.
And there’s always more of the grace of God than any situation demands. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” And over in James 4, “He giveth more grace,” and under the pressures of Paul’s, what he called his thorn in the flesh, whatever kind of an affliction it was, the Bible quite wisely doesn’t detail what it was or we’d all have that.
But whatever kind of an affliction Paul had under the pressures of that affliction, God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” There’s always more grace, always more than the occasion demands. Can you write that down in the notebook of your heart and mind and make it part of your automatic thinking?
We get to the end of ourselves so quickly, don’t we? We get to the end of our store of patience. We reach the end of our ability to cope. We reach the end of our ability to analyze the situation and know what to do next. We become impatient with other people’s failings and give up on them.
All of this is so true and it happens every day, doesn’t it? Oh, listen. Take this to yourself, beloved. When those things happen, when you reach the end of your resources, then you have the opportunity for God’s grace to show up as being more, being abundant, being sufficient. “When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, when our strength is gone, ere the day is half done, our Father’s full giving has only begun. He giveth more grace.” Hallelujah for that.
Oh, today, make much, dear friend, make much of the grace of God. Let, not only just for salvation. Yes, by grace are you saved but let the grace of God’s presence and God’s power and the free expression of prayer in God’s presence, all through His grace, let that become real in your life and let Him sustain you by His grace in hours of pressure. Oh, we have just a little more to say about this the next time we get together.
Dear Father, today, oh, may we make much of Thy grace. Blessed, wonderful Father God, may the indwelling Holy Spirit show God’s grace through us, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!
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