When man hit rock bottom, God hit the top of His game

Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Sunday,
January 31, 2010

When man hit rock bottom, God hit the top of His game

We have seen the relationship between the calling of God and the purpose of God, which is to glorify God.

The Bible teaches that God is glorified by displaying His grace and mercy.

2Ti 1:9 who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,

God’s plan throughout all the ages is that He might be glorified by the grace that He dispenses to undeserving creatures.

Post-salvation Grace or grace after we’re saved.
 

We live in the Church-age which is called in Eph 3:2 the dispensation of the grace of God (ASV)
 

2TI 2:1
Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
 

2PE 3:18
but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
 

HEB 13:9
Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace,
 

a. Any recognition of human guilt.
b. Any recognition of human obligation.
c. Any recognition of human merit.

God has to be free to exercise His grace without the slightest restriction because of human failure and sin.
 

ISA 43:25
"I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins."

Grace can only be exercised where every question of human unworthiness has been dismissed forever.
 

The last demand of perfect righteousness against sin has been paid for and grace can now be exercised freely.

Once divine justice finished its work and judged sin once and for all, divine grace was free to manifest the infinite glory of God.
 

b. Secondly, there must not be any recognition of human obligation.
 

JOH 10:28
and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.
 

EPH 2:9
not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
 

The complete setting aside of human obligation as payment for divine blessings is the only ground upon which God can be free to act in unlimited divine grace toward sinners.
 

c. The third essential principle which can never co-exist with pure grace is any recognition of human merit.
 

God has now pronounced an all-inclusive, judicial, condemning sentence on the whole race, both Jew and Gentile.

GAL 3:22
But the Scripture has shut up all men under sin,
 

The ground of universal divine condemnation is no longer the sins which men have committed and which Christ has borne but rather the condemnation is now because of the personal rejection of the Savior.
 

JOH 3:18
"He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
 

MAR 16:16
"he who has disbelieved shall be condemned."
 

JOH 16:9
concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me;
 

JOH 3:18
He who believes in Him is not judged;
 

JOH 5:24
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

Man is universally condemned, under sin, and considered to be in unbelief.
 

And at this point God offers one remedy.
That remedy is grace.
 

By the complete removal of all considerations of human merit, God is now unconditionally free to act in grace on behalf of man.
 

And this is why the preaching of law observance or moral reform is misleading because it is contrary to the grace of God.
 

Men are either utterly condemned under the universal decree of the judgment of God or they are perfectly saved and safe in the grace of God through Jesus Christ.
 

The divine objective in reducing humanity to the lowest level conceivable before God is not merely an expression of His hatred of evil; it is the expression of His infinite goodness and love for only in that way could the riches of His grace be extended to them.
 

DEU 23:5
but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you.
 

Grace is all that God can do for the sinner in time or eternity.
 

The objects of that grace are lifted from the lowest level of human standing before God to the highest peak of heavenly glory.
 

The positional transference of men from the lowest level that divine judgment can decree to the highest altitude of heaven is a demonstration of the surpassing riches of His grace.
 

The change from a spiritually dead sinner headed for the Lake of Fire to a son of God and a partaker of the eternal glory is a demonstration of the surpassing riches of His grace.
 

So, God has disposed of the three grace-opposing principles, human sin, human obligation, and human merit and in the same absolute sense, He is now free to lavish His undiminished grace upon whomsoever He will.
 

JOH 1:16
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
 

The supreme divine objective is that infinite love may manifest itself in super-abounding grace.
 

When man hit rock bottom, God hit His stride, and reached the top of His game.

Doesn’t it follow that God will provide very intense demonstrations of the extent of His grace in these last days of the Church Age?
 

We need to understand how our Father treats us in grace and we need to understand how we should treat others.
This is what we call grace orientation.
 

Our Lord Jesus Christ revolutionized man’s understanding of the omnipotent God when He called God His “Father”.
 

Our Lord Jesus Christ revolutionized man’s understanding of the omnipotent God when He called God His “Father”.
 

Each culture carries its own set of assumptions about what a father is like.

But what did Jesus mean by the word “father” when He used it to describe His Father in heaven?
He answered that question by telling us a story.