God Of All Grace

James 1:19

¹⁹ Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak,slow to anger;

This afternoon I listened to a Francis Chan sermon title "Slow Down and Show Grace." It was great, and it was definitely just what I needed to hear after last week. Francis started off the sermon focusing on this verse in James. Do our lives look like that? Are we slowing down and taking the time to show grace to those around us? Are we just showing grace to the people who treat us well?

The story of David and Saul always amazes me. It was the first place Francis Chan went after discussing his lack of restraint and grace. David was anointed by God to be the next king of Israel, but his popularity and status angered Saul and he attempted to kill him several times. And in two instances in particular we see David slow down, not rush into action, and show Saul grace. Twice Saul is delivered to him and it seems like the perfect opportunity to kill him, but David responds with grace.

1 Samuel 24:10

¹⁰Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the LORD gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, 'I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the LORD’s anointed.'

1 Samuel 24:12

¹² May the LORD judge between me and you, may the LORD avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you.

After this Saul seems to make peace with David. Two chapters later he tries to kill him again, but David's response is no different.

1 Samuel 26:9-11

⁹But David said to Abishai, "Do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand against the LORD’s anointed and be guiltless?" ¹⁰And David said, "As the LORD lives, the LORD will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish. ¹¹ The LORD forbid that I should put out my hand against the LORD’s anointed. But take now the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let us go."

Saul is still trying to kill David, but he shows him nothing but grace again acknowledging that Saul is the Lord's anointed. David recognized that God put Saul in power and that he must not strike him. Later in David's life a descendant of Saul's came to David throwing stones at him and cursing him and all his men. David's response was just as simple then as it was with Saul.

2 Samuel 16:11

¹¹And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, "Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Leave him alone, and let him curse, for the LORD has told him to.

David responds by saying let him curse me because the Lord has told him to. When was the last time any of us listened to someone cursing us because we thought it might be from the Lord? We are prideful so we are quick to defend ourselves and to get angry and that's sin. When we are stressed out and exhausted it is so hard to exhibit the grace that David did, because when we are stressed we aren't focused on God. In Francis Chan's sermon he said stress shows: a lack of humility, a lack of rejoicing (Philippians 4:1), and a problem in your prayer life. In Crazy Love he defines Stress as this: "Stress says that things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control."

He goes as far as to say stress is sin. And we don't like that, but we are supposed to offer all our anxieties up to the Lord. We need to listen and respond with love and grace, and the only way we can do this is by meditating and dwelling on God's grace more often. Last week I was stressed and I was begging for God's grace, and I now see that as ignorance of the grace I have already received. There are promises of God's grace all throughout Scripture and we need to remember them and focus on them daily. We are saved by grace. We are justified by grace. And there are so many more promises of God's grace that we just need to read and take the time to praise God and rejoice over.

At the end of his sermon Francis read some Scriptures discussing the grace of God and just asked for the congregation to listen and rejoice in the promises of their Lord. I'm going to put the references on here and I really encourage anyone who reads this just to take thirty minutes and read over these passages and to rejoice and dwell on the grace we have been given.

Ephesians 2:1-10

Romans 5:1-11

1 Peter 5:6-11

Lets remember and find peace in the fact that we are safe in God's arms, so that we may take the time to respond with grace and love to those around us.