The exact and precise meaning of the word GRACE ought to be crystal clear to every child of God.
It is this thing called grace that sets Christianity apart from every religion and philosophy ever in all of time.
Grace is our secret weapon. Every born again believer needs to understand what the Bible teaches on this all-important subject.
Grace is more than a word. It's more than just a way of saying that God is nice or kind. It's more than another way of speaking of God's love. Grace is more than a good feeling.
Grace is a well-tuned engine of blessing, with a complex set of precision-engineered, interconnecting truths and promises, designed in the heart of God, built by the hand of God, fueled by the Cross of God, running by the power of God, and outputting the love of God to any helpless, hopeless, humble sinner who will receive it.
Grace is more complicated than a football playbook, yet simple enough a child can understand. It's like peeking under the hood of a smoothly running Lamborghini. Once you see it, you're blown away. Once you see it, you want to know more.
Grace is the opposite of human performance. It is the opposite of you doing good works or of you being a good person so you can earn God's love in your life.
Which makes it even more tragic to know that over half of self-identified Christians today believe that being a "good person" or doing enough good deeds is what gets us into heaven.
Even among churchgoers, many assume God's approval must be earned—like a spiritual report card. But here's the problem: Scripture tells us something radically different.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
That is crystal clear that salvation by works and salvation by grace are opposites.
So to me it's tragic that surveys show:
52% of Christians think eternal life is earned through works.
60% of Christians believe other religions can lead to heaven, even without Jesus.
If that's correct, then why bother? Why share the gospel? Why go to the ends of the earth? Why suffer for Jesus? Why pray for lost people?
To me this says that the Christian church has a huge problem in clarifying the basic truths that Jesus taught, the apostles taught, and the church taught throughout the centuries, and that the Bible has taught all along.
It's a teaching issue, yes, but it's more than that.
This isn't just a theological debate—it's a heart issue. Deep down, many of us still wrestle with performance-based faith. We slip into thinking, "If I pray more, serve harder, or sin less, God will love me more. God will bless me more."
But grace flips that script. Grace says, "You're loved before you achieve. You're forgiven before you ask. Salvation isn't for winners—it's a gift for anybody."
God loves you equally on your bad days as on your good days because it's not your days that determine his love; it's his heart plus Christ's cross.
Let that truth sink in:
God's grace is not a reward for the worthy; it's a gift for the willing.
Not payment for your work, but a gift without work. Not the outcome of performance, but the outcome of faith. Not human effort in life, but the Savior's sacrifice in death.
To get grace wrong slams the door shut on salvation.
But it does something else too. To get grace wrong pulls the plug on any lasting sense of peace and rest in the human heart.
It could be that some — I'm not saying all, but some — of the stress, the anger, the hostility, the anxiety, the frustration, the fatigue, the depression, the obsession you feel is because your heart is on an unrelenting quest to rest itself in the love of God by means of the grace of God.
"Our hearts are restless until the find their rest in thee." St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430)
Our theme for the year is Resting in the Love of God.
Our case study is a love story in the Bible called the Book of Ruth.
My talk today is called: Why Rest Is Impossible