Since grace is so important we need to know what it is.  Grace is the specific, concrete expression of the fatherly heart of God.  Grace is the overflow of the deep affection, love, and kindness of God.  Notice how this is expressed in Ephesians 2:4-5:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great, passionate love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgression, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been permanently saved).

Grace is driven by God’s mercy, which is carried along by His great affection.  We who are Christians have been saved by grace because God loves us.  Salvation comes out of the loving heart of God.  Wanting a relationship with us, God uses grace to create it.

How does grace work in the Bible and Christianity?  The Bible has two main parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Grace, or the outworking of God’s heart, was at the beginning of the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis. When God created Adam and Eve - humanity - He graciously used Himself as the template.  The Trinity used itself as the pattern and image for the making of the first couple.

Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image, according to our likeness, in order that they may rule . . ."  Genesis 1:26

Graciously, God wove into humanity abilities and attributes similar to His own.  After that, God blessed humanity and pronounced great future good upon them.  God did not ask them to pay rent upon their existence or the created world.  He gave it to them as a gift.

Then an unimaginable, strange and weird act of rebellion took place.  Adam and Eve, who were made like God, decided to rebel.  They heeded the serpent’s voice and ate of the tree of the experience of goodness and wretchedness.  They wanted what the serpent offered, which was to be more like God and to know good and evil.  They chose to rebelliously pursue that which had been freely given, a similarity to God.

Now His intention to bless humanity had a great obstacle:  humanity’s evil and guilt.  The rest of the Bible contains the remarkable story of how He removed the obstacle.  After judgments were pronounced upon the serpent, Eve, and Adam, God subsequently reintroduced the goal of blessing humanity.  When He called Abraham, who would become the father of the nation of Israel, He said, “ . . . through you the nations of the earth will be blessed.”  From that point the rest of the Bible became the history of God’s determination to bless humanity.  The means to bless would be grace, the gift of the free favor of God.

As the history of Abraham’s descendants unfolded with its jolting ups and downs, the driving motive of God was to bless Israel and, through Israel, the nations.  As the history developed, so did a significant group of individuals called prophets -  spokesmen for God.  It was the prophets that predicted the ultimate display of grace.

Before we examine that display let us remind ourselves what grace is.  Grace is God’s practical, undeserved outpouring of the kindness and affection of His Heart upon humanity and His people.  Grace is a harmony of God’s love, holiness, and righteousness for our benefit.

Grace is always an undeserved gift.  Adam and Eve did not deserve to be made in God’s image, nor were they asked to pay rent on Paradise, the Garden of Eden.  Lavishly, God provided unlimited water for irrigation, a gorgeous garden to be kept, and mineral wealth in the earth (Genesis 2:8-14).

Grace is always undeserved, and its ultimate great and infinite display was predicted in the Old Testament and realized in the New Testament.  The Old Testament predicted that God would be born as a baby and would grow into an adult.  This one is the almighty God who would become the gracious Prince of Shalom, or "abundant well-being!"

For a child will be born for us, and a mature son will be given to us, and the government will rest on His shoulders, and His name will be called:  an Astonishing Wonder, a Counselor, Mighty God, Father of Continuous Time, Prince of Peace.  Isaiah 9:6

The same prophet Isaiah also predicted a suffering servant of God who would infinitely satisfy God concerning humanity’s great moral weaknesses and sin.

But the LORD was delighted to crush Him, making Him sick.  If He will give Himself as a guilt offering, He will lengthen His days, and the satisfaction of the LORD will sprout in His hand.  As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see and be satisfied.  By His knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many as He will bear their iniquities.  Isaiah 53:10-11

Notice in Isaiah 9:6, a person will come who will bring astonishing benefit to humanity, and further, one will come who will satisfy God concerning the issue of human wrong.  Positive blessings will be joined with deep forgiveness – that is grace.

The New Testament states that the God-man of Isaiah 9:6 and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is the same person, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Grace, the outpouring of God’s heart, becomes both a person and the poured out life of that person for our sins.  Blessing and satisfaction for sin join in the person of Jesus.

Humanity’s long and sordid history is a display of meanness and evil.  Yet God created all and seemingly put up with the evil.  How would He satisfy the kindness of His heart and His own inner demand for justice and fairness?  How would He satisfy His “conscience” concerning the volcanic eruption of evil on the earth?

In an amazing display of grace He met both concerns through the person of His Son.  The Son of God was born as a human person in 3 or 4 B.C. so that He could illustrate the kindly intent of God through His courageous life.  He was also born to harmonize God’s desire to be kind with the demands of His “conscience,” which said that wrong must be paid for.  He who created everything, the Son of God, would pay for the unleashing of evil by creation.  Humanity really cannot complain about the presence of its own evil, because it is God who has paid the price tag.  The dying person on the Cross becomes the absolutely ultimate display of grace and mercy.  Grace displays and pays.  Grace displays God’s heart and pays for the creature’s sin.

Without asking our permission Christ suffered and died for our sin.  He was an equal opportunity sufferer for Christians and non-Christians alike.  After Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died and rose again, God started the church to experience and teach grace throughout the earth.  Those who trusted in Jesus - that He suffered, died and rose again on their behalf - became the church.  God’s treatment of the church also illustrates His grace.

God calls those within the church His children.  He wants to nurture them to have the same gracious heart.  To create a heart like His He does not put them under rules but a relationship of grace, and at the same time raises them like well-loved children.  Only the greatest of fathers could take well-practiced wrongdoers and, through kindness and discipline, turn them into people of compassionate character.

He does this through child training of grace.  Grace is the way God teaches His children.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to everyone, child training us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.
Titus 2:11-12

God raises us as a good “dad” who wants to drive folly and maliciousness from our hearts.  When we do wrong He does not give us the punishment we deserve.  Instead, He child trains through discipline the withholding of blessing, as well as by allowing us to experience some of the effects of our folly and by weakening us.  He does this so that the consequences drive us back to Him.

At the completion of God’s plan for the church He will bring those who believe in His Son to heaven forever.  Just as the beauties of Paradise were a gracious gift to Adam and Eve, so heaven will be freely given to God’s children.  No expulsion from heaven will occur, because the One who died for them will keep them securely there.  Endless ages will not be enough to contain God’s loving grace for His own.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great, passionate love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgression, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been permanently saved) and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus in order to show in the ages to come the surpassing wealth of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7

How can you experience God’s grace and come under the reign of kindness?  The only requirement is to believe in a God who would die for you without you asking Him to do so.  Believe in Jesus who suffered for our sin, died and rose again.  God does not impose His love upon us.  Not without our permission will He impose His companionship upon us.  He is gracious.  Grace will not impose heaven, but it will permit hell for those who want no part of the God who died for them.

Let us summarize:  Grace is the expression of the kindness and affection of God's heart.  His love led to His intention to bless humanity.  Since we deserved none of the blessing God dealt with our sin and works for our good.  This kindness and practical help to the undeserving is grace.

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