Online Sermons
Lesson #9 – Does God’s GRACE Negate Obedience?
Series: Baptism 101 - What The Bible Says About BaptismLesson #9 – Does God’s GRACE Negate Obedience?
1) Have you ever had someone insist that GRACE is all that’s needed to be saved?
One passage that is often cited is Eph.2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
Notice that this text says we are saved by grace through faith.
Faith always require belief, trust and obedience / cf. Rom.1:5
It is not biblical to conclude that salvation by God’s grace renders obedience unnecessary.
2) Consider three Old Testament stories of God’s grace.
Num.21:5-9 tells of God’s remedy to Israel’s grumblings.
God sent fiery serpents to punish the Israelites.
After they acknowledged their sinfulness, God in His grace provided a cure (Num.21:8-9):
Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about
that everyone who is bitten, when he looks upon it, he shall live.
If those bitten had refused to obey, would they have been saved?
cf. Jn.3:14-15 / As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.
- In their entrance to the land of Canaan, God promises to give them the city of Jericho.
The Lord said to Joshua, ‘See, I have given Jericho into your hands’… / Josh.6:2
The city of Jericho was held by enemy hands and was a wall-fortified fortress.
How did God by His grace GIVE the Israelites this city?
His grace came with conditions (Josh.6:3-5): march around the city once a day for six consecutive days
and on the seventh day march around the city seven times, blow your trumpets and shout.
Would Jericho have fallen had the Israelites not obeyed God’s specific commands?
Although God’s grace gave them the city, Heb.11:30 adds, “by FAITH the walls of Jericho fell down…”
2Kgs.5:1-14 tells the story of Naaman’s cure for leprosy.
It was God’s grace that cured Naaman’s leprosy, but His grace came with conditions.
Go wash in the Jordan seven times…and you shall be clean / vss.10 & 14
Would Naaman have been cured if he had not obeyed God’s simple directions?
