Deus Ex Machina

praise the Lord everybody good morning to you so good to be with you I'm so thrilled to be with the NZ family sister enzi's mother has been like a mother to our family particularly my wife growing up they went to church together for many years and um she's always been kind and caring compassionate the really the model Apostolic mother and so I'm so grateful for her I'm grateful for the apostolic family at Large I'm so thankful to be with you all I'm good friends with your pastor we've served together in various capacities throughout the years what a great great pastor Michael I knew in I knew him of course before he was a pastor but he had Pastor written all over him a long time ago good to be with you good to be with um the Kirk family as well I give honor to

them today would you open your Bibles to First Corinthians chapter 15. I'm grateful my wife was able to make it with me Laura she doesn't always travel with me but we were able to make it happen this time and so glad she's with me First Corinthians 15 and 8. the Apostle Paul is giving a summary of the Gospel the gospel that he received directly from the Lord and he has already described the death the burial the resurrection of Christ who Christ has visited the Risen Lord has appeared to and then he comes now to himself last of all as to one untimely born he appeared also to me for I am the least of the Apostles unfit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God but by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace toward me

has not been in vain his grace toward me has not been in vain oh that that might be said of me he gave Grace and it was not in vain oh let that sentence be pronounced over me at the end oh God on the contrary I worked harder than any of them do you notice here he he speaks of Grace in one moment this is the work of the Lord but that translated into him working harder than everybody else grace and works are not two separate things but they go in tandem it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance the work of repentance it's the goodness of God that carries us inspires great work in US though it was not I but the grace of God that is with me I'd like to teach this morning and preach really proclaim the grace of

God I would like to if I can do anything today I would like you to be able to recognize the grace of God at work in your life right now how it has worked in your life how it has brought you to where you are and how it is functioning in your life today at this present hour in the name of Jesus I ask for your help this morning help me to teach your word Faithfully let everything that I say be true to your spirit your heart and your word I pray that we would receive the word that is preached in the manner in which it is preached in the spirit in which it is preached in Jesus name we pray amen you can be seated thank you for standing there is a term in literary studies as the study of literature the mechanics of

literature the Latin term or the Latin phrase really is deus ex machina I would give that title for what I'm what I'm preaching here this morning but it just means god in the machine deus ex machina it might be a little too early for Latin so let's go with God in the machine the idea is there comes a point in a story in which the hero or the protagonist has no other options the writer has written him into a corner There's No Escape the ultimate expression of this might be Moses and the children of Israel at the Red Sea behind them is the enemy they are in the proverbial between the Rock and the hard place there's no way out and then the sea opens God in the machine the idea came from the Greek stage the ancient Greek stage which you would play a

place such as Oedipus Rex you would have playwrights like eastcholus and Sophocles Etc writing great dramas and oftentimes the playwright finds himself in such a corner that no human being really can rescue the hero it must come from above the rescue must come from above and so very very often in the ancient Greek stage the story would involve almost literally a character or an actor playing one of the Gods being attached to a rope and the Rope on a pulley and the pulley is loosened and swooping down to save the hero is the god in the machine or on the machine deus ex machina sometimes this was considered particularly by literary critics To Be A Fault In The Writer's skill it's a storyteller don't write your your hero into such a corner that's such an improbable Plan of Salvation is needed that's a literary weakness

make the rescue more plausible has often been the call of the critics but nevertheless this idea this this way of constructing a story persists it's perennial the very best Stories We Tell the stories we remember there is some kind of rescue that comes not from within the hero himself or herself but there's a very external form of Salvation God in the machine the stories you may remember I'll go through a couple of them Cinderella she is down on her luck of course she has the wicked stepmother she has the cruel stepsisters she has no hope she's beautiful inside and outside but she is her name quite literally means one who lives in the ashes Ashen poodle is her German name she uh Cinderella is the French she's born and lives amongst the senders she is her beauty is obscured and there is the moment the

moment of Despair there's no way out for her her situation her circumstances are more powerful than she is and so there must be some kind of Grace that appears from the outside something Supernatural that happens and sure enough as she is in her moment of Despair she's weeping in the garden suddenly there appears the Fairy Godmother who Graces her her life with something to overcome all of her circumstances the the mice the rats turn into Coachmen or are they horses I can't remember the pumpkin turns into a stage coach she's given a beautiful dress and beauty beautiful a beautiful gown and slippers to wear to a ball and so she is assisted from the supernatural Snow White on on a whim a prince comes by and and there's a magical and Enchanted kiss that awakens her out of her sleep the same story I believe

happens or occurs in the same way in Sleeping Beauty Pinocchio has a father out looking for him but he's ultimately swallowed by a whale very much in the manner of of Jonah and then there's the evening star that appears to him and turns him into a real boy there's in this in the Bible there's the story of Jonah and uh the the whale comes or the great fish comes as it seems as a a kind of a tragedy that's going to be the end of his story but really it's just the beginning of of his story this is God's grace to him uh now I can rattle off many stories and this does not mean any in any way that this is an endorsement of the story or whatever so don't take this as an endorsement but but Star Wars uh Luke is at the

am I okay there on a Star Wars uh the the hero is is is literally he's flying through the Death Star this is the end this is the end of everything and then and then he's got the machine right there the machine's going to tell him when to press the button to destroy this form of death but but then some kind of external force force uh the force appears or it's a sound in his ear says put away the machine which is really important by the way because this his father got swallowed by the machine put away the machine use the Force and and all of a sudden there's a form of Grace and he lets go he lets go in something greater takes control Ebenezer Scrooge is Carol you've come to the end of your life in your fabulously wealthy but your soul is

so small you live so miserly that you can't even start a fire really to warm your hands at night and then three spirits come in the middle of the night to rescue this man this man who's betrayed himself a Frodo and Lord of the Rings he's brought the ring to the to the to the mission he's brought Earth he has fulfilled the mission there he is he's right there he can he can literally end suffering just drop it Let It Go but he can't he can't there's there's something within him that just can't let go and then Grace in the form of his enemy comes to fulfill the mission in all of these circumstances it seems that we can't quite escape this the stories that are best the stories that make the biggest impression on us the stories that we most like to tell and

hear and remember are the stories in which there is almost an improbable ending something from the outside many many writers over the last few hundred years have tried to escape this and tell stories in which there are no improbabilities but those are stories we just can't really remember there's a reason why we quit telling them there's something almost artificial in the lack of improbability could it be that this is the storyteller's way of mirroring something that is very real in our life that if we are ever going to be saved if we're ever going to be rescued that rescuing won't come from within there has to be something bigger than us something stronger than us something much more improbable scripture speaks of no good thing being within me my heart being deceitfully Wicked conceived in sin shapen by iniquity I was without hope and then

Christ and then Grace this is the story of all of these uh fairy tales and and uh biographies the list that I've just gone through these kinds of myths and and then a a Bible story or two um all have this common pattern um mirroring the text that we read the Apostle Paul this is the the young man that has been recruited very specifically by the Sanhedrin this is a group of Elders and they want a young man who who can carry out missions that require nerves of Steel great intelligence and competence wisdom Beyond his ears and seal for the law and Saul of Tarsus fills this this resume quite nicely he's he's so um he's so callous in one sense he's so zealous in in one sense that that he's able to watch the first Christian martyr after Christ Stephen stand there and preach

and he gets to that particular moment in the sermon that the the unbelievers don't like it's almost as if he's there to steal the harps of the persecutors maybe he gives a nod to the crowd right there and then on cue all of the men pick up stones but before they're going to throw these Stones they want to make sure they can throw it real hard and so they need to take off their coat you know what this means if you're a if you're a guy this is trouble right here and you've probably got about a dozen men doing that and then they put their coats into the arms of a young man with ice water in his veins they pick up their stones and while while he's uttering father forgive them they Pelt him with stones and Saul watches look what has become of

him a Zeal for the law has turned into a almost a hatred for human beings look at how he's been betrayed and then this is the kind of young men man that the Sanhedrin can hire to send on a mission to Damascus to go and do their dirty work there too now Damascus is way way out of the sanhedrin's purview they have no jurisdiction there it's a completely different country be like the heath Police Department going to San Francisco it's not going to work but there's one young man who can pull this off he has the smarts he can fly under the radar and he has a way of being able to show up and put fear in people's hearts send him and so they sent him and he had as a great great great um great fervor for the purity of Israel and he

considered Jesus to be turning into an idolatrous leader and it's even worse now than when he was walking the Earth because now they're they're worshiping a resurrected Jesus things have gotten a lot worse and so the Sanhedrin is extremely desperate to put this out and Saul is on his way he's going to put this out he's going to make sure that this thing in Damascus doesn't work with every step under the hot sun he gets closer to ending the Christian Movement confidence in hatred for what he believes the enemy is doing he's ready to execute this Mission at whatever the cost there's a hatred for the very name Jesus and there's a hatred for all those people who worship him they have betrayed Israel so he's on his way and then out of nowhere there appears a light like Cinderella in the garden Saul Saul

why do you persecute me who are you Lord he falls down some say he was riding a horse I doubt it I doubt it a very uh devout Pharisee like himself would have had an aversion to horses maybe a donkey but probably not there either fell down off of his feet his knees gave way he trembled and suddenly everything that he hated has turned upside down and everything that he loved inside out the rest of the Apostles had three to three and a half years to come slowly to grips with the identity of Jesus sometimes they would take a step forward and they'd they would say things like Thou Art the Christ they would recognize who he is but then they would take 10 steps back progress regress progress regress and on the night where it counted all of them fled they went away they

failed they had so much time to come to realization but Saul Saul did he have three years no he had three seconds three seconds and this is why he says and last of all he appeared to me as one born out of due time in other words he uses the phrase out of due time to refer to it's a physician's term to refer to a cesarean section he was born by emergency when the womb is cut open suddenly and the baby is brought into the light suddenly with no preparation with no birth pangs not through the birth canal but suddenly into the light here he is kicking and screaming trying to keep out the light one born out of due time everyone else had time to grow into this I had a moment in other words I had nothing to do with my birth I

had every intention of going the opposite way I had every intention of ending this I had of every intentioning intention to carry out this hatred to my last breath but when I hit the ground my hatred turned into love and everything I once loved now I hated and I considered it as he said later but done Grace God in the machine and this is the Apostle of Grace he has had a revelation of Grace that there must be something from the outside that rescues us well life is like a story and think about it as a story sometimes we place ourselves in a story that we perceived was written before we existed we've come along and we've become that stories or part of that story's latest edition the story gives us meaning makes our lives intelligible the story is the standard by which we judge

the rightness and wrongness of our actions and the actions of others we deliberate in what to do at decision time on the basis of this story's plot who am I in the story you understand yourselves as part of a story whenever you're talking to somebody always know that you're speaking to a particular narrative um I heard a really great exercise one time I saw a Drama teacher she gives pieces of papers out to her students and says all right I'm going to give you a part and you play it real well and I'm going to give somebody else a part and you play it real well and you interact together it's kind of like improv and she gives one a boy a the part he's going to play as a principal principal his job is to take care of this student who's unruly he's rebellious

he's bad for the school and you're trying to deal with him and then the the the the the teacher gives gives another piece of paper to a girl and says you're the mother of this child and he's an angel all right does that sound familiar now you two interact and and it's just it's amazing watching this unfold how much this is like life two different stories we've been given two different narratives and we have to work it all out somehow Nations go go to war over different stories they believe they're in it's their myth it's their Legend it's their it's their story the story they believe about themselves goes to war with the story that another Nation believes about itself it's really everything comes down to stories it's stories that fight it's stories that get along stories a story can change though we may believe

ourselves to be in one story but then wake up one day and find that we're actually in another um we may even find that we that we've uh we thought we were in a a comedy genre but we were actually in a tragedy or vice versa that's the way stories can work sometimes um Grace Grace is this moment in the story that gives definition to the story and makes the story work I don't want us to think about that for a few minutes the Apostle Paul declared repeatedly that by Grace we are saved faith is our approach to God but God's grace is his approach to us Grace isn't merely a synonym for forgiveness sometimes we think of of Grace and forgiveness as two interchangeable things but they're very much not the same forgiveness is only one aspect of Grace Grace is so much bigger

than forgiveness Grace is the strength of God in Christ when we ask for Grace from God we aren't merely asking for forgiveness we're asking for God to grant us his strength Grace to overcome sin Grace to resist the enemy Grace to pray for our enemies Grace to walk Faithfully Grace to endure endure hardship Grace To Face what we fear Grace to overcome the world Grace to see grace at work in our lives I love how the second verse of the song Amazing Grace goes it's it's often forgotten but to us Grace that taught My Heart To Fear now you wouldn't think of Grace and fear as being so unso compatible a term but they are for without Grace we would never know the significance of Our Lives the significance of of sin we wouldn't know but it was Grace that taught my heart to fear

but then here's the second part but Grace my fears relieved look at the Dual role of Grace in our lives it will teach you guilt but it always has the answer for Guilt guilt is the first step but it's not the last step in Grace Grace comes in and solves the problems that it makes us aware of every time let me also propose that Grace is the favor of the author favor of the author think about that for a moment the story of David Goliath is great for this I tell my grandkids the story of David Goliath all the time I told all three of my kids growing up the story of David Goliath I think it's a really important foundational story for them psychologically emotionally in every in every possible way life is going to be like Goliath but be brave be strong and

be courageous in the moment of fear pick up the five smooth stones and approach the enemy I love telling that story I love telling it my dog my granddaughter personally and as she hears it if I mess up any part of it she always corrects me if I forget one part of it she corrects me I like to elaborate on this on all the food that David was supposedly bringing to his brothers I I like to tell ice cream cheese steak all of her favorite food I'm gonna load up David full of that kind of food now and if I forget any particular food item She'll always go you forgot about ice cream I forgot about ice cream tell that part and then David shows up and there is there are brothers there hiding in the tent and the great big shadow it's cast by

the by the enemy out over the valley of Eva tell the story her favorite part is when I lift up my hand and I start doing the slang like this I come to you not with sword and shield but I come to you in the name of the Lord and on the name of the Lord the stone is released and then my my granddaughter she finishes the story for me she goes boom falls down I love telling this story but I want you to think about the story for a second think about the improbability here's a here's a we're we're given the idea that he's kind of he's very much a youth he's very much outmatched he's not nearly as mature as his brothers in in at least physically and and yet and he even puts on he puts on someone else's armor and it

doesn't fit that sort of thing and and and and out there is the greatest of all enemies so many times bigger than the youth but I want you to step back from the story for a moment from within the story and take yourself out of the story and watch and consider the author who's writing the story for a moment what chance does Goliath have in this story none why because the author favors David for the author David is the hero of this story in a way he's at least the protagonist and you just can't kill the protagonist can't kill the hero and so really in many ways it's David that's the Goliath in the story and it's Goliath it's the David that's not going to stand a chance why is this again it's because of the favor of the author think about that for a

moment if God is authoring your story what chance does the enemy have against you in fact you just if you're a Storyteller you inflate the size of the of the of the enemy make him as big as possible make him as big as a skyscraper it doesn't matter the bigger he is the more heroic the outcome in fact the size of the enemy is only there to to give a platform to the hero a stage and that's that's what's Happening Here this is why when when Paul says take this Thorn from my flesh this thing that is constantly hurting me Jesus answers my grace is sufficient for you it is sufficient and I think that might be maybe the single greatest one-word answer for what does grace mean sufficiency it's enough it will take down all your enemies it will clear the path in front

of you and when you walk into Dark Places and you face big enemies it's only so that the grace can look all that more that much more graceful well in scripture Grace acts as the surprising turn of events the Twist and the plot the unexpected intervention of God Grace doesn't only alter our present and our future but it also seems to alter our past when I've listed before things God won't do aside from the usual behaviors like lying and cheating Etc I usually assume that for God the past was untouchable it was one thing he couldn't change he accepts the validity of the past he works miracles but only for the present and for the future he doesn't perform a miracle on our past that was my assumption I've only been comfortable though saying that God won't change the past but he'll change what the

past means to us but I'm not sure that this is strong enough for what Grace actually does if God changes what the past means then surely he has changed the most significant thing about the past be God's grace not only gives the hero gives the protagonist and gives you strength to overcome but also changes everything in your past what it means what it does it's a great reversal it's kind of like the story and um I think it's Kurt vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five there's a man sitting in front of a TV in the middle of the night if I recall and he's watching in black and white film of a bomber taking off of an aircraft carrier with a full payload and winging its way over the enemy City and then dropping bombs on buildings and destroying the city and its inhabitants that's what he's watching

but suddenly the man started seeing the video for some reason backwards instead of bombs dropping on buildings and buildings crumbling watching this in reverse something changes by some strange power as the bomber flies over the city it's pulling bombs out of the ground healing the Earth wherever it flies the buildings with surprising ease by some invisible hand in invisible design reassemble like Lego blocks and the bombs fly upwards and harmlessly back into the plane's bay doors and the bomber lands backwards on the carrier and men take out the bombs and put them on a train and the train takes them back to the factories where women disassemble the bombs and load the chemicals and explosive powders onto carts and the carts roll backwards into mines beneath the Earth where men take the dangerous material out of the carts and pack them safely back into the

Earth and bury those dangerous chemicals forever I think the Apostle Paul had something like this in mind when he wrote first Corinthians 16. he wrote for as in Adam all die but in Christ shall all be made alive every man in his own order Christ first and afterward they that are present at the Lord's return then come at the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God even the father when he shall have put down all rule in all authority and power and The Last Enemy that shall be destroyed is death and when all things that have been subdued to him are subdued then shall the son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all in other words in the beginning everything came from God and in the end everything goes

back to him everything even death come to think of it this reversal is the heart and soul of the Gospel message in the beginning all was perfection but mankind rebelled weeds wrap themselves around every beautiful thing and strangle the life out of it sickness and disease appear death and destruction but the grace of God steps in and the years the locusts have eaten are restored Jesus is born as a great reversal not a wife giving birth to a child in the normal course of events but a virgin giving birth to the son of God it's God that gives birth to us but here it's a woman giving birth to the son of God and when he grows into a man when wherever he goes there's a reversal a Blind Man's eyes are restored back to health lame hands and feet go back to their original

state a dead man a dead man instead of being put in a tomb walks alive out of a tomb covered in grave clothes that friends and family instead of winding the great clothes around him unwind the grave clothes around him the graves around the city when Jesus dies expel the Saints Saints they that had been entombed for centuries 40 Days Later the son who came down from heaven and was wrapped in swaddling clothes ascends into the Sky swaddled by a cloud 10 days later men repent that is they turn around and become like children again staying sons of Adam are washed white as snow like babies men and women speak tongues they don't know and the angels who spoke to the disciples promise that just as they watched Jesus ascend into heaven so they will one day see him likewise return and all the host

of Heaven shall be dissolved and the heavens shall be rolled together like a scroll and the Eden that was lost in the beginning shall be restored the Tree of Life shall be planted in the middle of the Heavenly City if you think our work is hard in this world try being the devil for a day you think you've wrecked God's plans his plans for this precious world of his you've talked Eve out of obedience you sit back with Glee and watch the world become a little more like your hell every day but there's always trouble for the devil constant gnawing anxiety a terrible sense that his whole eternity's work is being undone piece by piece he has to keep a constant watch over his human slaves but even those he watches very carefully are always in danger of being tempted by our awesome God Satan's

human subjects are only one Sunrise away from hearing the soft strings of Heaven there are only one smile away from seeing the sky part and the Golden Light Of Glory gleaming through he has to be careful very very careful very careful that he keeps his patience in a kind of equilibrium not too high or not too low of a state of mind because if they get too low they might hit rock bottom they're in danger of seeing their life's choices all too clearly if they get a little too high well God scatters gratuitously His Marvelous Light everywhere just when the devil thinks he's outsmarted God and he's hung Christ like a curse from a tree he finds out that way too late that this was God's plan all along and then when Christ was on Calvary God was actually flexing his muscle and pulling the

hell out from under the devil's feet and everything the devil does ends up compelling God to make things even better than they were before Satan beats up Paul but then Satan finds out that all his work had managed to accomplish in the end was making Paul a better worthier man a humble man a man who refused to be carried away by Pride and in the very end in the very end the Eden Satan helped destroy will be replaced but not just by another Eden in its place will be a golden City 1400 Miles High 1400 miles deep 1400 miles wide look what God does in response to Satan's work oh you're in trouble you're in big big trouble devil do your worst and watch what my God does so I say this last I want to give you an example of Grace at work in

my life and you think about your own example this is an example that's very unique to a particular vocation but I think it has very Broad applicability when I was about 25 20 I was going to a a Minister's conference in our district state of Washington and it was just our custom to go I was in the ministry but there was no thought of of doing anything other than what I was doing and I just went and we were supposed to discuss a few problems that we were having and vote on a few issues in the district and then vote on new Personnel for to fill the offices of ministers who were stepping out and so I went and I was sitting in a meeting where we were discussing problems some issues we were about to vote on something important and there was a there

was a minister sitting up towards the front an elder and he stood up and said something and I think I just had a chip on my shoulder I was not in the right frame of mind or something and I just interpreted everything he said is deeply personal to my family now he lived on a different part of the state so I don't know why I was thinking this but I thought he was singling out my father getting uh he was upset with him I I thought that he was directly embarrassing my dad dad sitting next to me I should have asked Dad I didn't ask Dad he could have corrected me I don't know but I felt like this was being targeted at my dad and I'm I'm a boy and and so I don't really have a lot of patience and I don't have

any discipline I just say things and I'm about ready to stand up and I'm so angry in this meeting I'm about to rebuke against the word of the Apostle Paul who said rebuke not an elder I was about to rebuke him publicly man I had the best speech it had sprung up within me I had the most acidic things to say I was going to unleash a withering torrent upon his soul at least that's what I imagined it was going to be horrible and wonderful and I put my hand on the back of the seat in front of me and I started to stand up and I had one word out of my mouth and I'll stop there here's what it was at stake what I didn't know the man in the front wasn't speaking about my father had nothing to do with my father

it had to do with some other problem he was having in his own church so I was about to really really wreck things also at stake what I didn't know what I didn't know was that there was going to be a change of offices in the in the Youth Department and there was going to be the need for a new youth president tomorrow all right and I was going to be elected in that place as the other one was resigning all right all of this was at stake and I'll tell you what else was at stake because of that office that I ended up taking on I met some very dear friends and in fact it ended up pointing me these friendships ended up pointing me in the direction teaching at Ocean which would have never happened had I not taken that office and and

my my vocation has been very essential for my family it's been essential to me a lot was riding on what was about to happen right here is what I'm trying to say my whole family's future was on the line and I was about to stand up and wreck it all all I had to do was be quiet and all the best things were going to happen but I was about to stand up in spite of it all and wreck it just take a hammer to it and I had a word out of my mouth and all of a sudden another Minister over on this side stood up this guy that never speaks in public stood up and he said point of order now he wasn't doing point of order for me he was doing point of order for the gentleman up front but it made

me it knocked me off my feet a little bit I I was here's the day of sex Machina the god in the machine the that I I couldn't quite recover I forgot what I was going to say I I was stumbling I I was determined to say something evil but I I just was momentarily just like a memory erased I was so confused as to what was happening that I ended up just sitting down in the chair said that he granted the point of order that we needed to get back to the discussion it was all and I sat there and I was mad and angry that I wasn't going to be able to say what I was going to say but I was going to say something to him afterwards but then you know it just didn't work out that way tell you that

very personal story um to illustrate what so often happens in our lives our flesh is determined oftentimes to destroy ourselves we're making decisions that we shouldn't be making we can be very impetuous get very angry very quickly and the problem is we don't understand the whole situation very well and even when we do are we responding correctly because it's not always the big big fights don't always occur because of what what that other person did it's because of your response to that other person what they did and that's what ends up creating the real controversy we really start messing things up when we respond incorrectly to wrongs that are done to us that's when our lives start falling apart but I was determined to take my family's future and throw it in the waste bucket all for a moment of passion and anger when I

could say what I wanted to say but like the angel standing in front of balaam's donkey something said no point of order that's been my whole life story right there point of order you're not in order I'm going to restore order what Grace does and your story if I talk to you so many of you could tell me you were like Paul and you were on your way to destroy something came something appeared something took you sideways Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound saved a Wretch like Me I was lost and found blind but now I see to us grace that brought My Heart To Fear and Grace my fears relieved how precious did that Grace appear the hour first believed and when we've been there Ten Thousand Years bright shining as the sun we've no less days to see God's praise and when we

first begun my grace efficient for you my grace Jesus says is sufficient for you do you believe that my grace is sufficient for you if you have my grace you don't need anything else and if you have everything else but you don't have my grace you have nothing my grace is sufficient for you my grace is sufficient he will lead you through and his grace will appear even when you didn't ask for it and so this is why Paul can say he can truly say and last of all he appeared unto me as one born out of due time because I persecuted the church but the grace of God that appeared to me did not appear in vain and so he can say he can say at one moment there's a temptation of self-loathing look at me and look at horrible things I've done and

then in the next moment say by the grace of God I outworked everybody the grace of God will do and he says by the grace of God I am what I am I've arrived here not because I brought myself but because something intervened and it has carried me every step of the way do you believe in a God Like That I do I do you're in that story and he's that author would you stand with me praise God praise God praise God praise God glory to God glory to God glory to God is for us who can be against us greater is he that is in me and he that is in the world this is what the apostles have been trying to tell us for all these years believe in this the grace of God the grace of God by the grace of God

I am what I am strange mixture of an instinct for self-destruction but marvelously saved time and again a Grace that can't be defeated I pray that your people would see your grace popping up all over in their lives their past is populated by Grace peopleed by Grace it's just full of grace and even the enemy's work in my life has only LED to a grander vision in the end the Broken Road that I walked as the songwriter said the road that led me straight to you Jesus let your people have a revelation of your grace you come and pray this morning and give God thanks for the grace of God if God has been at work in your life come and surrender to that Grace throw up your hands in the air and surrender to that Grace come down to the altar and let his

grace carry you carry you