Common Grace Series on Matthew 5:44-45

The Call of Grace

Matthew 5:44-45

Paul J. Bucknell

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The Rain | Explain Causality | Common Grace | Kinds of Grace | The Shock | Goodness & Doubt | Misinterpetations of Love | Effects of Grace | Examples of Grace | Call to Com
Video | Audio

Purpose

The Call of Grace, the last part of an expository message from Matthew 5:44-45, shows how God uses His kindness and grace, both common grace and special grace in Christ, to call us all closer to Him.

God is good

If you do not know the Lord, put away your doubts. These mysteries that we study in nature, our bodies and telecommunications are all awesomely given to us so that we might better our lives and draw closer to God. God is good all the time.

Coaxing us closer

I am thinking of my 89 year-old Dad. He just loves animals. He will coax the animals like raccoons, opossums and birds by putting food in easy places. After a while, they will come real close. He even puts out food for them right by his windows.

The other day my Dad was telling me how he was sitting in the yard and felt something at his right hand dangling from his seat. It was a raccoon! (You might be scared for him, but it really made his day!)

God in a similar way is coaxing us closer. Like my Dad, the Lord is carefully seeding signs of His care for us.

Satan has done such a sneaky work that few people really trust God any more. People come to believe that God is not seeking our well being. He does, however, love us and want us to trust Him so that we might come closer. As we come closer, it is then we begin to marvel at yet greater signs of His love and grace.

It is here through God’s love in salvation that really brings blessings into our lives through uniting us with God through Jesus Christ. That is special grace. But you must seek Him.

Power of God’s Common Grace

In order to have strong godly lives, we must put our doubts about God and His love away. It is so easy to get dull to Him by focusing on His gifts but neglect Him the Giver. So let us look at four suggestions on how to deepen our affection and trust in Him.

(1) Seek to unfold at least one mystery of God’s common grace each day.

We need individuals who will set up a website that will record the millions of ways that God reveals His fantastic love to us. Meanwhile, we can go on a daily discovery of at least one way God reveals His common grace to us.

Just now as I edit this, I read about the helpful properties of garlic. God made garlic a common plant that can help reduce pain. Isn’t that wonderful?

(2) Consistently treat people nicely, even the mean, stubborn people (parent? child? colleague? etc.).

Jesus’ major point for bringing up God’s common grace was to further stimulate God’s people to love their enemies. Since God regularly and consistently does nice things to everyone including the evil people who oppose Him the most, we should also nicely treat others.

(3) Draw closer to God.

God’s purposes for implanting the many signs of His constant love all around us is to draw us closer. He wants to draw us closer so that we can better understand Him and enter through the door of salvation. He is being patient but the holding back of judgment is soon coming to an end. If God is so loving, why would we hold back?

(4) Delight in being more like God through imitating His ways.

God wants us to be like Him. This does not mean being all wise or powerful. We are, however, to treat people, even our enemies, nicely. This is our opportunity to change the way we think about life. We are now busy understanding what our Heavenly Father is like and imitating Him, including the way that He loved His enemies. We should get excited about the privilege to carry out God’s wonderful ways while on earth.

The Setting of an Amazing Conclusion that Never Ends

God’s display of common grace is so common and regular, that we can actually miss seeing it. God’s love is written over everything that we love and even in the ways that we appreciate life.

In a sense, though, this common grace is a stage for something greater.

When going to a play, one finds all sorts of people in costume, magnificent backgrounds, lively music, etc. We know something interesting will soon start. And so it is with common grace.

The common grace is an appetizer leading up to the real revelation of God’s love which is seen in the giving of His only Son Jesus Christ for the sinner. There on the cross Jesus dies for us His wayward people so that we could come to be with Him forever in a free-from-sin world.

Learn to live your life as a surfer on the waves of God’s common and special grace!

This series on God's Common Grace ends here. Make sure you view the video or continue on thinking about grace through the selection of BFF articles below.

Biblical Foundations for Freedom ( BFF )

Rev. Paul J. Bucknell