Beth Moore — Encased in Grace
Now where were we? Romans chapter five. I want to read verses one and two to you. Now listen. If these happen to be familiar words, I pray you will not let them fall on you with such a familiarity that they lose their edge. If you're brand new to the scriptures, I want you to hear this kind of good news.
It says this in Romans 5, verses 1 and 2: Therefore -- everybody say "therefore" -- since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
I've got to read that to you again out of verse 2: Through Him (our Lord Jesus Christ) we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.
You and I are going to talk all through this series, a two-part series that will take us a number of weeks to go through together, we are going to take apart what it means to stand in grace. How deep are you in the doctrine of grace because grace is what puts the good in the news. Anybody know what I'm talking about? And grace has a name, and the name of grace is Jesus -- Jesus, the Christ, Jesus the savior, Jesus the redeemer.
I have a really, really good friend that's super funny and she was telling me the other day that when she went in here recently, if you'll just -- you gentlemen will forgive me for using this kind of personal term about surgery but it is a natural thing. She went into surgery, saw her surgeon before they put her under and she was having to have a hysterectomy. She said, "I just wonder if while we're there, I've got some wisdom teeth that need out."
And he really did not feel that that was going to be doable but told her he could refer her to others that might. But it was so funny to me to think that we think that in that one fell swoop we can have our solution. But you know something? You do have that with grace -- you do have it -- the panacea. You do -- and I do have the solution to every ill, the strength in every weakness; this is what we have by Jesus Christ, access by faith into this grace in which we stand.
Now we throw that word around, in the Christian community, the word grace around like we would say "bless you" when someone sneezes -- grace, grace, grace, grace. But do we begin to grasp what it means?
I want to give you just one definition of it out of the Complete Word Study Dictionary: the New Testament. It's going to be fairly lengthy so if you're taking down any kind of notes just put down some keywords. I'll try to emphasize what I think we're really driving at in this particular session.