Great grace was upon them all

Acts 4:33 (NKJV)

​

What is grace? When I was young, I always struggled with getting a grasp on it. It was like trying to pick up a bar of soap in the bath – it would always slip out of my hands.

​

Grace is a major theme in the New Testament

​

I could give a theological explanation: G – R – A – C – E is: God’s – Riches – At - Christ’s – Expense (to put it simply). Grace is God’s unmerited favour – in other words it could not be earned. Those definitions are accurate but were not fully satisfactory somehow.

​

The great rallying cry of the Reformation was “FAITH NOT WORKS” and this was based on such scriptures as Ephesians 2:8: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.

​

The reformers interpreted this verse as faith being the gift of God because they were fixated on faith - but it’s GRACE offering us salvation that is the gift – see Ephesians 2:5: “it is by grace you have been saved.” See also Titus 2:11: “The grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.” And that salvation is then received by faith in Jesus and what He has done for us.

​

Ongoing Grace is the Gift of God

​

The wonderful thing is that once we have been saved by God’s grace, that is not the end of the story. We are in a constant state of grace, and we go on receiving God’s grace all through our lives. For example, Paul begins ALL of his letters with: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and (usually) - the Lord Jesus Christ.”   In other words, we are in constant need of His grace.

​

We shall also see that there are times when we receive grace in a special way.  For example, when Paul was experiencing his “thorn in the flesh” he testified that, the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

​

In this instance, grace is not just unmerited favour - somehow it is an impartation of  strength and an ability to cope. It can be a new experience of God’s power in a specific situation. I will tell you about my own experience of that later on.

​

Another example is Ephesians 4:7 “To each of us grace has been given as Christ has apportioned it.” The context of this is the five-fold ministry gifts given by Christ within the church and it is clear that He gives enough grace i.e. the wherewithal and gifting in order to fulfil those ministries.

​

These examples seem to take grace to another level and that is what I would like to explore with you.

​

Then there is Acts 4:33 where it says of the early believers that “GREAT GRACE WAS UPON THEM ALL.”

This is the concluding statement of two of the most exciting chapters in the Bible. The man at the Gate Beautiful of the Temple had been healed in THE NAME OF JESUS and everyone who had seen him sitting there begging for years, knew what an undeniably amazing miracle this was!

​

The event gave the apostles an opportunity to preach to the crowd that had gathered and they declared, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. 

​

“But you denied the Holy One and the Just and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.  And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know.”

​

More people were saved that day (4,000 men) than on the day of Pentecost! The apostles were arrested and had to appear the next day in front of the SAME PEOPLE (Annas the high priest, Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin) who a matter of weeks before, had seen to it that Jesus was crucified.

​

Peter dared to tell them: “Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Messiah of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

​

Peter spoke to them with such astonishing boldness that they could say nothing except to warn them not to speak anymore in Jesus’ name, to which Peter and John replied that they could not and would not stop doing it.

They went back to their people and had one of the most powerful prayer meetings of all time which concluded with the words:

​

“Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, 

by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”

​

The result of that was, “The place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.”

​

From then on: “The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.”

​

There was a quality of powerfulness, boldness, togetherness and unselfishness as a result of all of the events that went before, and the final result was that GREAT GRACE WAS UPON THEM ALL in an ongoing way.

​

They were in a new place with God.  It was phenomenal.  It was not just that one or two people were in blessing - it was a place of God’s favour upon them ALL. This is a place that surely we all want to be in - but how do we get there?

​

Look at what went before this great grace being poured on them:

• They had been filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost

• They put faith into action in the NAME OF JESUS

• They were witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus

• They honoured and proclaimed the Name of Jesus

• They preached the way of salvation being only in the Name of Jesus

• They were bold in the face of danger

• They were willing to suffer for Jesus

• They prayed with powerful dependence upon God

• They were in a place of unity and togetherness that the world had never seen before and hardly ever seen since!

 

So those early believers because of all of those things, were in a place where God poured out His grace and favour on them. But let’s make no mistake about this - as Peter himself said: “Why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?”

​

It was not because they were anything.  It was all about Jesus. It was all from God, and the result was a whirlwind of GRACE all around them, following on from the way that they had been behaving.

​

The old-time Pentecostals had a slightly amusing song – the chorus of which went: “I'm happy and glad - I got under the spout where the Glory comes out.”  There is a sense in which we put ourselves in a place, as shown above, where God can bless us even more and GREAT GRACE is upon us.

​

Paul in Romans talks about GRACE ABOUNDING through Christ:

• “By the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the One Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many” (5.15)

• “Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (5:20)

 

But we can equally take ourselves out of that place of grace. We have to be careful because we cannot “continue in sin that grace may abound.” (6:1)

​

As I said before, I had always had a problem trying to grasp the idea of what grace was until I experienced it in a most surprising way. Nine years ago, when my wife was ill and had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer within just six weeks, she got steadily worse until she died. During that time, we began to have a gentle breeze of grace all around us and after she went to Glory it was still there.

​

We experienced grace as a family, not because we deserved it, but because we needed it.

               We were lost, and He was there to pick us up.

                            Prayers were answered in a way that we had not known before. 

                                              God’s presence was with us in the valley of the shadow of death.

 

Instead of being a word or a theological concept – GRACE was an experience, it was tangible. We could feel it. We were suffering and hurting - and it was there all the more!

​

                                It's true that we cannot EARN His Grace

                                                            and we certainly do not DESERVE His Grace             

                                                                                            but we can be in a place to RECEIVE His Grace

                                                                                                                     and STAY in His Grace in a daily way.

 

May GREAT GRACE BE UPON US ALL!

​

​

​

​