Receiving and Extending Grace

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Channels of Grace"

"Grace to Walk in Obedience"

"Grace for the Sandwich Generation"

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Dannah Gresh: Hi! I’m Dannah Gresh. And the sad truth is, I’m a rotten sinner. By that I mean I’m very good at sinning. So Psalm 130 has become a balm to my often guilty heart. Verse 3 reminds me,

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? (Psalm 130:3)

Not me. My record would be so long. Except . . . that sea of forgetfulness God has. (Thank you, Jesus.)

What would your record look like if it were not for Jesus? Yeah. Thought so. But by God’s grace you’re not only forgiven, you have the riches of Christ at your fingertips to access every single time you are in need.

• When you can’t pay the bills or mend a friendship,
• When your marriage is broken or a child has gone prodigal,
• When a parent needs all your time and energy or you’ve run fresh out of both,

God’s grace shows up!

And not only do you get it when you need it, you are commanded to pass that grace—the stuff God applies to your record—on to others.

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m your host, Dannah Gresh. (Oh, we already covered that! And a few other personal details, didn’t we.) We’re going to take a closer look at how we can receive grace from God and others, and how we can then turn that grace outward toward those around us.

I wish you were sitting with me at my kitchen table, since we’ve gotten so personal and all. No one escapes my kitchen table without real talk—transparent, vulnerable, deep stuff. That’s just how I roll. And we don’t usually say the word, but the conversations are oozing with “grace.” 

How would you define grace? Sometimes people turn the word into an acronym: G-R-A-C-E, which stands for:

God’s 
Riches
At 
Christ’s
Expense.

And that’s certainly true of the grace God shows us. I’ve heard grace defined as “unmerited favor” because sure don’t deserve it.) I’ve heard grace compared to a sort of fuel that we Christians burn as we live life. 

Those are all helpful. 

But maybe the best way to understand grace is to see the different ways the Bible uses the word, and to hear from others who live it out day by day. The cool thing is that each of the kinds of grace is tailor-made by God to fit our needs!

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has studied up on grace, and she's taught all about it in a series based on a study she co-authored, called Seeking Him. Here she is, explaining just some of the ways God shows us His grace.

Nancy: Aren't you thankful for God's grace? Amazing grace, awesome grace, incredible grace—you and I cannot do anything apart from the grace of God. We need God's grace for every single aspect of our lives.

God's saving grace, the fact that it's by His grace that we are justified, that we are made right with God. 

God's sanctifying grace. It's God's grace that is in the process of transforming us day by day into the image or the likeness of Jesus Christ. It's that sanctifying grace that is delivering us from the power of sin, and we've been delivered from the penalty of sin when we came to faith in Jesus Christ and trusted Him.

One day we will be delivered fully from the presence of sin, never to battle it anymore. But in the meantime, God's grace is what is setting us free, delivering us from that grip that sin has in places in our lives. When God convicts us of sin, we need His grace to respond to that conviction and to agree with God about what He has shown us and to cry out to Him and say, “Lord, please forgive me.”

It's God's grace that enables us to obey God and to live in harmony with His Word. It gives us the desire and the power to please Him. So that all comes under the heading of sanctifying grace. Again, aren't you thankful for that grace?

Suffering grace. We need God's grace to deal with the challenges, the hurts, the pains, the losses. I've often said over the years, “Anything that makes me need God is a blessing,” anything that makes me more desperate for Him, anything that makes me cry out to Him and say, “Lord, help!” I don't know if there's any prayer that's more precious to the heart of our Heavenly Father.

How often we need to remind ourselves, God's grace is sufficient for me right now, at this moment, in this circumstance!

Whatever I'm facing is not too big for God's grace. God's grace will enable me, not just to survive what I'm going through, but to thrive in the midst of it, and we need to remind ourselves and each other of the power of God's grace.

Now I want us to focus today on one other aspect of God's grace, and that is serving grace. You see, God doesn't just want us to be recipients of His grace. He wants us to be channels of His grace so that as He pours His grace into our lives—His saving grace, His sanctifying grace, and that suffering grace—we don't just keep it as a reservoir inside of us, but we become instruments through whom He can display His grace to others.

I've heard somebody say, “We need to breathe grace in and grace out.” That's a good way to think about all of life—always receiving God's grace. Breathe God's grace in—for your sin, for your suffering, for your sanctification, for your salvation. For whatever you need, breathe God's grace in and then breathe God's grace out—always breathing in, breathing out the grace of God.

John Bunyan said, “Nothing can be done aright without grace." We need God's grace—to take it in for our lives, and then as we minister to those around us, we do that by means of God's grace.

Now, let me take these next moments just to focus on specific areas where we need serving grace and where God will give us the ability, the supernatural enabling, to serve Him and others. The first one that comes to mind is that we impart grace to others by the words that we speak. God gives us grace so that we can speak words that minister grace to others with our tongues.

I think of Ephesians 4:29, where the apostle Paul says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths.” Some of your translations say, “No useless talk,” no unnecessary conversation, nothing that would be corrupting to the environment or toxic to the situation or the relationship. Don't let any of that come out of your mouth, and you need God's grace to obey that, don't you?

How many times do we want to open our mouth and just give people a piece of our minds? We need God's grace to be quiet, to not speak a word at times. Then we also need God's grace to speak appropriate words, to speak only such words as are “good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29). We want to use our tongues, use our words, to minister grace to those who hear our words.

Now, what is God's grace? It's the divine resource that we need to meet us at that moment. So as we speak words that minister grace, what kind of words are those? They're words that fit the situation, words that are appropriate, words that will minister grace to others at their point of need. So when you meet somebody who's discouraged or depressed, you need God's grace filling you so you can speak words that will minister encouragement, grace, to that person.

Maybe somebody is struggling with a decision or struggling to know God's will. They don't know what to do. They need wisdom, so you ask God, “Lord, would You give me wisdom so that I can speak words of grace into this situation, words that will help that person know how to think about this decision or Scripture that You will give me that will minister grace to this situation”?

Paul says in Colossians chapter four, verse six, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one” (NKJV). So we say, “Lord, pour Your grace into our lives so that we can impart grace to others with our words.”

Dannah: I bet you could tell me about a time when someone’s words washed over you, flooding you with grace. I hope you’ve experienced that, and I hope others would say that about your words. That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, from a series called “Grace: God’s Provision for Every Need.” 

I want to share some examples with you . . . examples of women who are living this out. They not only have received God’s enabling grace, but they’re also extending His grace to others by their lives and their words. As Nancy just put it, they’re breathing grace in, and breathing grace out.

First up: Abigail Dodds. She and her husband, Tom, have experienced the strengthening grace of God as they’ve cared for their children, particularly the youngest, a boy named Titus. Titus has some pretty intense special needs.

Even before he was born, doctors realized there might be some challenges ahead. And once Titus came, some of their concerns proved to be true. 

It turned out that he had some abnormalities in certain areas of his brain that slowed down his overall development. He had difficulty swallowing (so much so that he needed a feeding tube). He had trouble sleeping. Sometimes there were scary, life-threatening seizures.

Mary Kassian and I sat down and talked to Abigail a few years ago, when Titus was six years old. She told us his bed was right next to his mom and dad’s bed. 

I want you to listen for the ways Abigail both receives and gives grace.

Abigail Dobbs: I remember laying in bed one night. Every night Titus would wake up, and I would pray for Titus and I would say, “Dear Lord, please help Titus to go to sleep. Please help his brain to rest. Be with us!” It was kind of this rote prayer that just sort of got ingrained. I would just pray it dozens of times a night.

I remember getting angry and thinking, God, why won’t you answer my prayer? Why won’t You answer this prayer? We’re praying for sleep; we just want to sleep! You say that sleep is good; You say we need it. You say that sleep is an act of humility! I just want to be humble enough to sleep!

And He wasn’t allowing it. After a while, when Titus would wake up, he would turn toward me. He would fling his arm over, and he would say, “Mom, pray! Mom, pray!” And the Lord just flooded my heart at one point with the realization that this unanswered prayer for this sleep was the answer of a much bigger prayer: that my son would talk, that he would ask me to pray! 

Just the kindness of God in that, that He sees, that He may not be answering that prayer that feels so urgent right now, but that He may be answering a much more important one. That was just so precious to me, and reoriented me to His goodness.

Dannah: Can I ask you a question? Is it lonely sometimes to be the mother of a child with special needs?

Abigail: Yes, it can be lonely. One of my big thoughts, one of the big, giant, flashing red light questions that I had at the beginning of the journey was, “Lord, must I make all new friends? Who’s going to understand this? Who will come along with us in this? Who will want to love him?”

And God graciously said, “Abigail, do you really think that it’s your healthy children that bonds you to my people, or do you think it’s something more? Do you think it’s Christ?” I didn’t give my friends enough credit. They are God’s people, and when we invite them in with us, they walk with us. They don’t do it perfectly, and I certainly don’t do it perfectly.

I don’t do the inviting in perfectly, I don’t do the receiving perfectly. I’ve messed up much more on my end than any of my friends have. God just graciously showed me that His people are His people, and we are bonded by something so much more than our circumstances in this world. 

I don’t need somebody who has gone through the same thing I have to receive from them or to be understood. I won’t be perfectly understood, but that’s true of everyone! I’ve been so blessed to have God’s people around me to walk with us through this and to show me that my ideas of what community is are very small.

Dannah: What is a Scripture verse that would be a treasure, a gift that you can give to a friend that’s listening who is thinking, Yeah! The everyday-ness!

Mary Kassian: “The battle never ends!”

Dannah: “I’m so exhausted!” What is a treasure in God’s Word that you can leave her with today?

Abigail: Well my favorite passage I think, as we’ve walked through this, is from Romans 5, starting in verse 1:

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.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (vv. 1–5).

I am so encouraged to know that this suffering is working something; it’s not wasted! And I love that God tells us that we have to endure. Because enduring is not like skipping and jumping; enduring is getting through it, like, “I have to get through this somehow!” 

And so it helps me to think, Okay, sometimes you just have to get through. You aren’t hop, skip, and jumping through it; you aren’t dancing around. It isn’t skippy, happy, chipper. It’s hard! But that endurance is producing character, and then that character is producing hope . . . and just, thank You, God! 

I think we deal with a lot of shame, sometimes, when it comes to disability. But this passage tells me that the hope does not put us to shame. The kind of hope that God gives us, we aren’t put to shame; we are never going to stand before God’s throne at the end of all of this and say, “God, You didn’t do right by me or my son.” 

We are going to say, “God, You did right by me! You did right by my son! You had a plan, and You did not put us to shame!” This just gives me such hope to know that He’s doing right by my son even in this hard thing.

Dannah: Abigail Dodds has been graciously pointing us to God and His Word as the source of our hope.

Well, parents who are caring for a child with special needs do rely a lot on God’s grace. And so do adults who are caring for their aging parents. Holly Elliff told us of how God’s grace helped her when she was struggling to care for her own mother who had Alzheimer’s. Holly’s talking with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Rebecca Lutzer. 

Holly Elliff: I guess when Mother had been with us about maybe two, two-and-a-half years, I really was angry at the Lord that He allowed that at that point in my life. It was just really, really hard. I can remember one day . . . I’m an outside person. When I really need to hear from the Lord, that’s where I go. I’m outside somewhere walking or hiking.

This particular day I ended up by the Arkansas River. I was sitting on a picnic table just kind of complaining, pouring out my lament before the Lord. A little motor boat just putted by in front of me on the river. And just, not an audible voice, I don’t hear audible voices, so far. But just as clear as a bell the Lord in my spirit just said to me, “You know, if you had been on the Sea of Galilee that day when I took the disciples into the storm, you would’ve jumped ship or said ‘no.’” And I said, “You’re exactly right.” Because at that moment I wanted to jump ship.

But the Lord used that moment really in a very profound way to say to me, “This is not accidental. It is in your life, but it’s not by accident. If it’s in your life and I’m in your life, then there is provision for what you need.” Those of you who have cared for a loved one or have in the middle of that struggle and you know exactly what I’m saying. There are just moments when you are so weary or so in need of wisdom, and it’s exhausting.

What I’ve discovered though is that when I opened my hands to that circumstance which was already in my life anyway, so it was kind of foolish to say I don’t want to be here because I was there. But when I opened my hands to that it shifted the focus from my needs to what God was trying to do in the midst of it.

So what it did was throw me onto the provision of God so that I didn’t have to ever sort of work that up or supply it or be strong enough to do it. I just had to throw myself onto the grace of God and say, “Okay, Lord, I don’t think I can go get the dirty laundry one more time," or "I don’t think I can go try to figure out how to solve the next problem here.” The thing is, God is not absent in the middle of that. 

Rebecca Lutzer: I think there’s so much mystery. God is mysterious to me in different ways. The way He plans things like when He calls people home at a young age like your father and various people. God gave me this verse when I would just puzzle over these things and ask "Why?" over the difficulties of life, and why just so many difficulties seem to come at the same time to that have to be taken care of. God has used this verse of 1 Peter 5:10 so many times. It is so rich. You mentioned the word grace, Holly.

“But the God of all grace . . .” You just stop and think about what that one little line must mean. “. . . who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered awhile . . .” I used to think that God just took pleasure in making people suffer and having a hard time. But here’s what it says. “. . . after you have suffered a while . . . make you perfect, established, strengthened, and settled.”

It just helped me see that God does these things in us and through us when we’re suffering and when we’re having to deal with so many things at one time. Are you going to fall apart and not make it? No, because God is there. He’s strengthening you. He’s establishing you. He’s perfecting you to be more like Him. That’s the purpose. That gives me such strength.

Nancy: Rebecca, that’s a verse I’ve been to many times myself. We probably all have, along with a couple others that one brings to mind. I think in whatever season of life, whatever the pressure points are, to have God’s perspective from eternity’s vantage point as to what this is all about is so helpful because we’re just living in this momentary slice of life.

We can’t see what God sees. We don’t know what He knows. If we did, we would be God. So we have to trust that He is wise, that He good, that He is sovereign, that He is at work, that He hasn’t gone to sleep on the job. But also that there’s purpose. I don’t know the reason, but I know that God has a reason.

I know He is working all of those things to accomplish His perfect, eternal, amazing purposes in us, through us. That’s where we have to bow the knee, bow the heart, and say, “Lord, if it pleases You, it pleases me.”

Holly: And too, I think it's critical to be transparent with each other because there are moments that are so hard and are so difficult. There are moments when you need someone else to say to you, “You don’t have to lose heart.” And to remind you of the realities of God’s presence, of His enabling, of His grace even in those really tough times. Be transparent enough to let someone know where you are because somebody else may need to help you put on your armor that day and remind you of the truth of God’s Word.

Dannah: That’s Holly Elliff, with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Rebecca Lutzer, reflecting on the sustaining, perspective-adjusting grace of God.

If you want to re-read those Scripture passages, just find the transcript of this program. It’s at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, click on today’s episode, called “Receiving and Extending Grace.”

While you’re there, you can also find more information about our special offer: a set of thirty-one tabletop Advent cards for you to display in your home during the month of December. Each card is designed beautifully, with a Scripture passage and a quote from Nancy’s Christmas devotional book Born a Child and Yet a King. It’s our thank-you gift to you for your donation of any amount. 

You can contact us to make a donation by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click where you see the word “Donate.” 

Well, next weekend is the weekend before October 31. And you know what October 31 is, right? I’m not talking about a day to celebrate death and the occult. I’m talking about celebrating the day when a piece of paper was nailed to a certain door. A paper that changed the way we look at and understand Christ and His Church forevermore.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Revive Our Hearts Weekend is calling you to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

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