"He Giveth Grace unto the Humble: It Does Not Run Out" – James 4:6 To have a steady life, a fighting life and a victorious life, we must understand that we live in a battle, because our state in the flesh is unsteady. If we let our life be ruled by circumstances, we are defeated. But if there is one thing we must know, it is that grace does not run out for the humble: grace is permanent. The church is founded not on religion but on grace; and grace is God doing for you what you could never achieve by yourself.
I. But he giveth more grace (James 4:6).
A. We live in a battle.
1. Our state in the flesh is unsteady; your thoughts are unsteady, today you are content and tomorrow you are not.
2. Gladness is given you by circumstances and vexation is given you by circumstances.
3. If we let our life be ruled by circumstances, we are defeated.
4. If you live as a warrior, you will see the good when the time of harvest comes.
5. Your harvest will run to the last minute of your life, and you will discover it all when you reach heaven.
6. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
B. Grace does not run out for the humble.
1. Grace is permanent, and the more we know it, the more we see the well-being the righteous have.
2. The church is spoken of as religion, but the church is founded on grace.
3. Many times grace has been taken crookedly and sects have formed, as if to say: you are saved no matter what you do.
4. And no: you must live a life of godliness, with a transformed heart, because God is holy, holy, holy.
5. If the righteous man strives for anything, it is that his life not perish along the way.
6. He who perishes along the way never was; he who is, is. That is called predestination, that is called election.
C. The essence is to be humble.
1. To be humble is not what you refuse to own.
2. To be humble is something very deep: it is the heart, it is our soul.
3. The outward part the worms will feast upon.
II. What grace is.
A. To live under God's favour, His strength and His help.
1. It is not that one has more character or more strength to act.
2. You have an accuser: Job records it, and shows it clearly and precisely.
3. The books are opened, they are read, and the enemy accuses; what he accuses you of, only you know.
4. But God defends, for that is why our Lord Jesus is at His right hand.
5. In Job's time there was none; in the time of grace, Jesus says: he has the blood, he has prayed, asked forgiveness, humbled himself and risen.
6. For the Bible says that to know to do good and not do it is sin.
B. Grace is the unmerited favour of God.
1. From the day of our conversion we live under His favour, His strength and His help, though we deserve nothing.
2. It is all the good God gives us without our deserving it, out of love.
3. Grace is not something earned by works: the Gospel is not by works, it is free, because Christ paid it all.
4. If anger takes you, fall on your knees and ask God's pardon and say: make me meek.
C. Grace is what carries us to the gain.
1. Life slips away; and where we were able to reach that far, we got this far and stayed here.
2. At one moment you have more strength, and as life is spent the strength is lost.
3. Sometimes we have tears and sorrow and do not know what to do or say; but grace will always shine upon our life.
4. Grace is God doing for you what you could never achieve by yourself.
5. It is not by impulse, nor by your strength, nor because you feel like it, for God is the one who works both to will and to do.
D. The manifestation of grace.
1. It is so that we may taste understanding, open our ears and dispose the heart.
2. So that your heart may die and the heart of Christ be the one in each of us.
3. Thus we will be useful and wise, and we will know what to do, what not to do and what to let pass.
4. For as soon as your heart is affected, it produces the desire to act according to the mind, and then grace cannot be there.
5. God overrides our frailty and with strength sets grace in place; it is a gift that equips your existence to fulfil what is yours to fulfil.
6. God always has more help, more strength and more favour to give: it does not run out, because grace does not run out.
III. God resisteth the proud.
A. The proud person meets resistance.
1. The self-sufficient one, who thinks he does not need God, meets resistance from God.
2. That is why, whenever I go to prayer, I go in humiliation.
3. I have never said nor will I say that a brother is difficult, because that would already be pride on my part; and who would be punished? I would.
B. God cannot bless a haughty heart.
1. What do we gain by haughtiness? Talking a great deal once we get home.
2. All my battles I have won in humiliation, in prayer, in tears and in sorrow.
3. And do not think I was so meek: I used to sting and bite.
4. But as one seeks God, that meek spirit bends us; this haughty back must be bent.
IV. And giveth grace unto the humble.
A. To acknowledge one's own need.
1. Being humble is for our own good.
2. It is not that someone made a fool of you: you wanted to do good, and if people took it with ill intent, that is not yours to carry.
3. You step back and let the justice of God show itself.
4. When you acknowledge your weakness and draw near to God with a simple heart, there is nothing better.
B. Do not weigh the heart down.
1. The more you pile on the heart, the heavier it becomes.
2. And then the heart drives you, leads your thinking and makes your feet heavy.
3. The night becomes a tragedy, the day becomes a tragedy, life becomes a tragedy; and we should not want life as a tragedy.
C. All we have lived has been under grace.
1. The missions, the long journeys, the sleepless nights, the places where more care had to be taken: who was with us if not grace?
2. Paul too was under grace, and received more stripes, ill-treatment and hunger; they took him from his nation to the Roman power and executed him.
3. We live under a grace and they lived under that same grace; theirs was what fell to them.
4. The life of grace is when God chooses you: you are no ordinary person, you are selected for the time of grace.
5. Here you can pay nothing and claim no effort: this is the time of grace, and everything has been given to you.
V. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16).
A. Let us come, and boldly.
1. Let us be able to draw near: without fear, without shame, without feeling unworthy.
2. God invites us to come to Him.
3. No one here is a judge: all are sheep, and the shepherd leads the sheep.
4. A shepherd's is the simplest and most ordinary work: week after week he takes the sheep to pasture in the hills and the valleys.
5. And if there is drought, they go where the good grass is fresh so the sheep can eat. That is why the comparison is made.
B. From the throne He is watching.
1. He sees what you lack and what unsettles you today that did not worry you yesterday.
2. Where you find yourself, when you never thought you would have to live what you are living.
3. These are our realities; we must live them, and one should never fear what falls to him to live.
4. And when we see the love of God, what it does is make God trust us.
C. That we may obtain mercy.
1. God forgives you, God has cleansed you and God has compassion on you.
2. Mercy is His not giving you what you deserve; and what do we deserve? Judgment.
3. How many times can we do good and do not? How many times could we sow and do not?
4. And what does one do with anger? Nothing good: anger leads to wrath, wrath to getting even, getting even to revenge, and revenge to the sorrow that destroys you.
5. Imagine if anger had taken Jesus and He had told the Father that these people did not love Him: where would we all be today?
D. And find grace to help in time of need.
1. Grace is God giving you what you do not deserve: strength, help, favour and rest.
2. Help in time of need means help at the exact moment, when we need it most: neither before nor after.
3. So there is no need to despair.
4. God reigns seated on a throne full of grace, full of unmerited favours, not of condemnation.
5. For if it were to condemn us, He would have condemned us already.
6. When we draw near, what we receive is love, pardon and help; He does not reject, we are the ones who reject ourselves.
VI. For by grace are ye saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9).
A. Not of works.
1. God saves you out of love, not because you deserve it: it is a wholly unmerited favour.
2. None of us deserve to be saved; and since the day of your conversion, do you never think ill of someone, never grow angry with mankind, never think yourself better?
3. Afterward we must humble ourselves again, for such are we mortals.
B. Through faith, which is the gift of God.
1. Faith came into your life and there you began; it does not come from you, it is not your effort: God gives it, God makes it a gift.
2. Neither grace nor faith come from human beings: they are a gift of God.
3. We have faith and it is a gift: it must be used. We have grace and it is a gift: we must use it.
4. Everything has been given us without paying anything; so I am faithful to Him who loved me, who keeps me, who gives gifts, who prepared a dwelling for me in heaven.
5. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God. Why do you give place to the flesh and to the devil?
C. Lest any man should boast.
1. No one can be saved by the good deeds he performs.
2. To say I help here and I help there is boasting.
3. So no one can say he earned salvation, and all the glory is God's.
VII. Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace (John 1:16-17).
A. Of His fulness have all we received.
1. All of us who have believed.
2. Jesus is wholly full of grace, of love, of truth, of mercy and of power.
3. Of that fulness we receive, and we do not receive a little: we receive of His abundance.
4. Why be carnal? There is no reason.
B. And grace for grace.
1. Grace upon grace, more grace, continual grace.
2. Grace never dries up nor runs out; grace never stops.
3. That is why you suffer loss: because you do not make use of grace.
4. Like waves of the sea that do not stop, God goes on pouring out grace again and again upon us.
5. Our garden of grace is one of abundance; there are many plants in it.
6. And though you say today I am unwell and carnal, grace is upon grace, to bring us always to green pastures.
C. The law was given by Moses.
1. The law showed what God requires, and still shows it; but it gave no strength.
2. Why did the people sin again and again? Because the law gives no strength to keep it.
3. The law reveals sin, but does not take it away; when you live under the law, the law condemns you and keeps making its claim.
4. And that law we impose on ourselves destroys us, making us feel miserable over anything at all.
D. But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
1. Jesus brought what the law could not give: grace, pardon, salvation, help and power.
2. And the truth, that real revelation of who God is.
3. In Jesus, God draws near to our lives, forgives, restores and equips our existence.
4. Under grace, the Holy Spirit leads us to humble ourselves, to confess and to repent.
5. And it is in Jesus, for Jesus carries what comes out of your mouth to the ear of the Father; no one can see God, but they are one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
6. Before, pardon came by sacrifice; today it comes by the name of Christ, because He paid it. That is why on the cross He said: Father, why hast thou forsaken me? And it was for you.
VIII. My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
A. My grace is sufficient for thee.
1. My grace is enough: with what I give you, you can go on.
2. You do not need more human strength: you need my strength.
B. My strength is made perfect in weakness.
1. You are weak, and there the power of God is perfected.
2. We think God expects us to be strong all the time. Well, no.
3. When you are weak, God shows Himself strong; your weakness is where His power works best.
C. I will glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
1. Paul learned not to hide his struggles nor his limitations; he was very sincere.
2. He knew his limitations, because he knew those weaknesses drew the power of Christ.
3. To rest is repose: if you learn to love Him and you keep yourself, because you do not want to soil your feet, a rest will remain in you and you will be happy.
4. We must acknowledge our weakness and know ourselves. Have you ever set yourself to know yourself, or only to know other people?
IX. He is the propitiation… for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).
A. It was for the whole world.
1. When Jesus went to the cross He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world, not ours and a few others'.
2. Such is God; and we barely love the one beside us, because there we see every fault.
3. Life is to fight, and life is to conquer oneself. For it is not the other, not the other, not the other.
X. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men (Titus 2:11).
A. It hath appeared.
1. The grace of God became visible and we have seen it; it is no longer hidden.
2. God showed it openly, and it was manifested in Jesus Christ: in His life, His death and His resurrection.
B. That bringeth salvation.
1. The grace God showed has a purpose: to save mankind.
2. From sin, from condemnation and from spiritual death.
3. That is what the minister strives for on behalf of the people: that the grace of God be upon you.
C. To all men.
1. Grace is available to all: Jews, Gentiles, poor, rich, young and old.
2. To anyone who believes.
XI. That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs (Titus 3:7).
A. Being justified by his grace.
1. To be justified is to be declared innocent, pardoned and clean before God.
2. And this happens not by works, but by His grace.
3. It is God saying: you are forgiven and accepted. And who makes one forgiven? Christ.
B. We should be made heirs.
1. Thanks to Christ we are now children of God, part of His family.
2. Heirs: what Jesus won, we have received.
XII. This cup is the new testament in my blood (Luke 22:20).
A. In remembrance of me.
1. This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
2. Today we can be here without a burden and free; we have no condemnation, we have humbled ourselves.
3. We have learned to follow His voice by the word and we have learned prayer.
B. And thy blood, which was shed.
1. Today everyone who has believed Him has His blood, and when He looks at us, His blood calls to Him, because it is His and He knows it.
2. That blood cleansed us and forgave us, and today we are free: no chain, no curse, no pain, no anguish.
3. And we carry every trial with His blood in our body and in His holy name.
Christian Church Mega Zoé · Pastor Edermira Cruz
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