El trono de la gracia

The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. Therefore, go around the world teaching and preaching the gospel to every creature, to the last of the earth. En Contacto, the biblical teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Today on En Contacto, the Throne of Grace. If I asked him, why doesn't he spend more time praying and speaking to God, I wonder what he would answer. Or if I ask, why isn't his friendship, his relationship with Him, closer and why isn't it more significant and much more gratifying, there may be many reasons, but I think one of the main ones is that we don't know Him, we don't understand God. And when he talks about coming to Him in prayer, how does he visualize it? What does he think when he talks about coming to God in prayer and talking to Him? And when the Bible talks about the throne of God, what does he think? Does he think of something, something far away, somewhere in this ethereal blue, and a person sitting on a throne? What does he think when the Bible talks about coming to the throne of grace? I think that if we all understood who God is, how He really is, and if we really understood what it means to come to Him, we would come to Him more often. We would talk to Him more often. Our relationship with Him would be much closer than it is. We would feel more confidence with Him, more joy about Him. A sense of fullness, satisfaction, strength and power. Our faith would be stronger, our confidence would be greater if we understood who God is to whom we come and what He means when He says that we come to Him in times of difficulty to find grace, to find timely help. I would like you to join me in Hebrews chapter 4,

and the title of this message is The Throne of Grace. It is a throne to which all of us, and sometimes many others, who are believers, often, I hope, come to this throne. There are some who believe that when they come to Him, they will not have an answer to prayer because the door is closed due to their relationship with God. Well, let's go to this passage and see what it says. And let's start with verse 14 of chapter 4 of Hebrews 4. It says, Therefore, speaking of Christ, having a great High Priest, who went through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us retain our profession. Now listen to this. Because we do not have a High Priest who cannot bear our weaknesses, but one who was tempted in everything according to our likeness, but without sin. It is his way of saying, Look, the one with whom you speak is someone who understands where you come from, where you are, and everything you will face. So let us approach faithfully to the throne of grace to attain mercy and find grace for timely help. Listen to this. Let us approach faithfully to the throne of grace to attain mercy and find grace for timely help. What is this idea of the throne? Speaking of the throne of grace, what does it mean? When we think of a throne, we think of royalty, we think of power, we think of authority, we also think of dignity, and what he is saying here is that God, our heavenly Father,

is sitting on a throne. Dignity, royalty, power, authority. Here is the head of humanity, Almighty God sitting on his throne. And he will remember in Romans chapter 8, come with me there for a moment, Romans chapter 8, that he does not point out who sits with the Father and what he does. It says in verse 34 that Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God the Father, sitting and interceding for us on the throne of God. There is God the Father and God the Son. The throne of God is a place of position, of power. And I would like you to come with me to Isaiah chapter 6 for a moment because Isaiah, in this chapter 6, gives us the best description of the Old Testament, of the throne of God. Isaiah tells us here what he saw. It says in chapter 6, starting with verse 1, listen to this. In the year when King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, tall and sublime, and his skirts filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, that is, angelic beings. Each had six wings, two covering their faces, two covering their feet, and two flying. And one to the other gave voice, saying, Holy, holy, holy, King of the armies, all the earth is full of his glory. And Isaiah says, when he saw this, and the gates of the gates were shuddered

with the voice of the one who cried, and the house was filled with smoke. And he said, when he saw this, then I said, Oh, I am dead, because being a man with a foul mouth, and living in the midst of the people who have foul mouths, they have seen my eyes to the King of the armies. And he flew to me, one of the seraphim, having in his hand a burning coal taken from the altar with some ashes. And touching it on my mouth, he said, Here I am, that this touched your lips, if your guilt is removed, and your sin is cleansed. Then, says Isaiah, I heard the voice of the Lord, who said, Whom shall I send? And whom shall go for us? Then I said, Here I am, send me, I wish you had this. When he, in the presence of the Almighty God, contemplates this throne of holiness, his first reaction was this, Oh me! That is, he felt his own guilt and all his condemnation. And here, in this passage, he says, Let us approach, then, faithfully to the throne of grace, not of judgment, not of holiness, not even a throne of glory, nor reverence, nor wonder, nor the majesty of God,

but rather a throne of grace, where, he says, we will find mercy and timely help. All right, now let's think about something. How would we respond to the holiness of God if there was no grace? If we all here had to come to the presence of God each time to face a holy God, a God who will judge and condemn all injustice and all, all impiety, how would we feel when we came to a God in his majesty and power, and therefore, how would we come? We would come with a feeling of fear. We would come with a feeling of a little anxiety and with a feeling that we are unworthy and insecure of how we could be accepted. Because if you think about the judgment, the condemnation, the holiness, and the sublimity of his presence, I think no one here could conceive how we are going to feel and what impression we will have when we are in the presence of God. For example, in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, when it talks about the judgment of Christians and says that we will be judged as well as by fire by being in the presence of Christ in his court and realizing our life,

how do you think it will be to be in the presence of a holy God? We live in a time that is totally impious and irreverent. We lost all sense of the holiness of God. We are very, very irreverent in many things. And each generation, apparently, adopts a lifestyle that is less holy and more irreverent than it was before. So when we think about what a holy God is and a just God, we hear people say, just talk to the one above, or just talk to God. In any way, any person, in any way can talk to God. The Bible does not say that. And in the Old Testament, consider the sacred and the holiness with which everyone entered the presence of God. Remember? In the tabernacle and the temple, in the Most Holy Place, where only the High Priest entered once a year. Before the propitiatory that was on the ark of the covenant, which was the symbol of the presence of God. And with the sole idea of the presence of God, a God of justice and holiness

and a God of glory, they would not even think of trying to pass after the veil to the Most Holy Place. And even the High Priest designated by God only went once a year. And if he violated the rules, God would immediately kill him. But God wanted them to learn the lesson of His holiness. And that is why He gave them the tabernacle, the Most Holy Place, and the temple, with the Most Holy Place, because God was in the process of teaching them His holiness, His justice, His righteousness, and His judgment. But what happened when Jesus Christ was crucified? Do you remember? The Bible says that the veil of the temple tore from top to bottom. God opened it suddenly, saying, Now every man can have access to the All-Powerful. In this passage it says that we have the privilege of coming to what? Of coming to the throne of grace,

because that means that we all have the opportunity to enter into the presence of God, the All-Powerful. And this is now possible, because if you remember, it says in this verse 14, that we have a great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. How and for what reason would God go from a situation where the symbol of His presence was so sacred and holy that no one would be able to see it? No one, except the High Priest, could access it. And that is why we have the privilege And then, suddenly, he says that anyone, that all people, can come to the presence of God. of coming to the throne of grace, because that means that we all have the opportunity to enter into the presence of God, Because when Christ died, what he did was this. the All-Powerful. And that is why we have the privilege He carried the debt of the sin of the world on the cross. of coming to the throne of grace, And what he did was to take away our guilt, and those of us who received Jesus Christ as our Savior, we were clad in the justice of Christ. And now we all live and reign in justice because God did something inside us that is truly spectacular. He changed us so much that he even says that we became saints, that is, sanctified before his eyes. Listen carefully. Maybe we don't always act like this, and our behavior may not be holy,

but he says that inside us, the one who lives in us is holy. He calls him the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ says, I remain in you and you in me. We are the saints, sons and daughters of a holy God, and although our behavior outside is not always the same, inside us we are the holy children of God. And that is the work of Christ, and apart from him, that is why Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. That is, coming to him for salvation will not reach his presence, to make requests apart from him, except for some sinner who wishes to be saved by the grace of God and thus recognizes it. So when we look at this throne, we speak of a throne of grace. Look, in the throne of grace, God does not impart judgment or condemnation. He is not there to point out our evilness, iniquity, and our wickedness, but to remind us of what his Son did for us, and that he is a just and holy God, but also a God of grace. In the throne of grace, God dispenses love, mercy, kindness, and sweetness. Does it mean that he does not remind us of our evilness? It does not mean that. We have the Holy Spirit who lives inside us and convinces us of sin, but he says, come to the throne of grace, and there you will find mercy, and also timely help. Well, let's think about this for a moment. Here the author encourages us to go to the throne of grace. He says, let us approach faithfully. Look, approach faithfully to the throne of grace. God made it possible for all of us to approach his throne, right where we are, because we are not talking about going somewhere or entering a certain place.

We are talking about a relationship. The throne of grace symbolizes the presence of God, where we speak to him and have communion with him. And look, God does not want us to go to him and ask him to give us something all the time. The purpose of God for us is friendship, conforming to his image, and the more we conform to his image, the closer we want to be to him, the more we want to be with him and be like him. And we want to go frequently to grow in our intimate relationship with him. He says, therefore, let us approach the throne of grace. Is it because we are worthy of it? No, that is what grace is about. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with what Christ did on the cross to make it possible. That is why I continue to emphasize the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins, and without the shedding of blood there is really no access to God. When Christ died on the cross, what the Bible says is that the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom and opened the doors of access to God so that everyone who wants to come to him, who is willing to come, willing to enter through his way, which is through his Son Jesus Christ, has access to the Father. Well, look at this. When he says, let us approach, he says that I must come with confidence. Look at this. He says, let us approach with confidence, that is, without fear, to the throne of grace. What he does not say, I will tell him what he does not say. He never says irreverently, lightly, rudely, using a language that is abrupt. Well, God, you know, we are friends. Yes, we are friends. But listen, it does not matter how much you know him.

I remind you of something. The better you know him, the more reverent you will be before him. And I think there is a terrible sense of irreverence still in the body of Christ today. There is an irreverence towards God because we live in a society that is so impious and so irreverent that it has very little respect for everything that is divine and holy. And if you are not careful, you can learn the attitude of the world. We call it relaxing, and that's what we say, just relax, it's just casual. I can be relaxed and I can be casual, but I'll tell you something. I've been a Christian for 48 years, and the more I know God, the more reverent I am in prayer, the more aware I am of His holiness, the more aware I am of who He is, more than ever before in my life. And I believe, and I hope, and I pray, that the body of Christ may become from its informality to the consciousness of justice, holiness, and all-powerful dominion. And once we begin to understand who this Father God is, we will notice that He is a God of holiness and justice, but also a God of such great, great, great love, that He is the way of coming to Him. By saying that we come with confidence, what does it mean? It means that I can come to Him without fear. You'll say, wait a minute, and if I have sinned, is there no reason to fear? No. Why not? Isn't that an irreverence? No. Why not? Does it mean that if I sin against Him, I don't come to Him with fear? No. You see, when the Bible says that we should fear, it refers to a reverential fear, reverential. I kneel before Him, and I acknowledge that He is my God, and that there is no one like Him anywhere, and He deserves all my, all my fidelity, all my loyalty, all my devotion, and all that I have.

Yes, He is God. But we come to Him as children, not with fear. He says, with confidence to the throne of God, with confidence to the throne of grace, I must come to Him without fear. I can come, look, listen, come to Him without fear, and therefore we must come to Him with confidence, with confidence to the throne of grace. What is my confidence based on? It is based on verse 15, a verse from Hebrews. It says, because we do not have a high priest, he speaks of Christ, who cannot bear our weaknesses and our wickedness, but one who was tempted in everything according to our likeness, but without sin. When we all come to the throne of grace, to be intimate with Him, to tell Him our need, our situation, and whatever happens to us, He says that we can come with courage, we can come with confidence. Why? Because He will see, even though God is holy and just, and even though one day He will condemn and judge them, we come to Him as children of God. We come to Him through the blood of His Son Jesus Christ, we come to Him, therefore, as redeemed, clean and continuously purified by the blood of Christ. Therefore, we have the privilege of coming without fear. We have the privilege of coming, as He says, with confidence to Him. We have the privilege of coming to ask for great blessings. He is God the Father, the Omnipotent God. By making great requests, we honor His infinite power and His love.

But often, when we ask for small things, out of fear of asking for great things, we do not think we are worthy of asking for the best things. Look, here He does not say, come to the throne of dignity, He says, come to the throne of grace. And grace is His kindness and mercy for us, without considering our merit or personal worth, and despite what we deserve. That is what grace is about. We come to that type of throne, this is the God to whom we come without fear. He says, with confidence to ask for blessings. And listen to this, we must come often. That is the implication, it is the implication of this phrase that says, let us come, well, confidently. Continuous presence, we have to come again and again and again and again. How often do you think God wants you to come to Him for communion and prayer? I believe that the heart of God wants us all to walk in continuous communion with Him, talking about Him continuously, in the midst of our works, of our worship, of the church, of anything that happens. God, God wants continuous communion, a continuous conversation, a continuous sense of unity and awareness of His presence. We must come often and thank God at any time. I should not ask for an appointment, and you know what?

There is no crowd, I should not make a line. There is always instant access, that is one of the riches of God's grace, that we all have instant access to His presence. You see, this God of grace loves Him so much that He says, come, He says, I want you to come, you have access, come. He is a God of grace and He says, He dispenses love, kindness, mercy, and sweetness, and he forgives his children. And although he is a holy God, and we must come to him in spirit with a sense of reverence and fear, we also come as sons to a father, and daughters to a father. Personally, when I think of coming to God in prayer, I always think of it in two ways. I come to him first as a son to a father, and then as a servant of my Lord. Let's look at it this way. So we must come to him. What can we expect when we come to the throne of grace, when we come to God and speak to him? What can we expect? Let's analyze these two words. Mercy and grace are not synonyms. Sometimes we think so, but no. Someone expressed it like this. Mercy is the heart of God, and grace is the hand of God. Because of mercy, God does not give us what we deserve. Because of grace, he gives us what we do not deserve. When I think in terms of mercy and grace, mercy solves my past faults, and grace solves my current and future task, what I need now. Although mercy symbolizes the heart of God, grace is the hand of God. Let's look at it this way. I come to him first as a son to a father, and then as a servant of my Lord. Let's look at it this way. I come to him first as a son to a father, and then as a servant of my Lord.

What can we expect when we come to the throne of grace, when we come to God? What can we expect? Let's look at it this way. Mercy is the heart of God. Well, listen to me. He may be as good as he may be, he may do everything right in life, and he may be a very religious person, but I assure you that until Jesus Christ is his Savior, for the faith in what he did on the cross, he will not have access to God to come to him, to ask for help in times of need. First he must be a son. You see, that is why he calls himself God the Father. And we, who are his children, we are his children created in Christ Jesus, as he says, or we are his children because we have been adopted into the kingdom. We are born again. This birth made us, made us sons of God. And God says that before being a son of God, you were far from God, separated from God, far from God, in blindness and in darkness, and in death, and without a relationship with God. But you see, that is why Christ came. He came to take care of sin, so that we could look at the Almighty God, the eyes with confidence, courage and security, and come to him again and again and again

as sons of a Father, who is King of kings, Lord of lords, God of the heavens and the earth. He says that we should go to him to find mercy. Thus we were saved. God was merciful to each one of us. Look at the rest. He says that he will find mercy, and that he can find something else, grace for the timely help. Listen, that phrase, timely help, literally means, when we say it in our terms, it means just in time. That we can find grace just in time, a moment, it means that God will wait until the last minute, right? But let us see what he does, and that is the most wonderful thing about God. It means, listen to this, that in my need, God will supply the need when it arises. Because he will see, as sons of God, all that must be done is to think, Father, and the access is instant. For example, all of a sudden there is an attack. What happens?

My God, instantly, we all receive help. Listen, divine, supernatural, adequate, sufficient, sufficient help in that precise moment to solve that problem that we are facing. He says, come to the throne of grace, and you will find mercy for the timely help. I ask you, what is your need? Is it material? Being on the throne of grace, is it emotional? Is it something spiritual in your life? Is it forgiveness? Is it consolation? Is it encouragement? Is it that the Father takes away the burden? Whatever it is. God says in this passage, I want to encourage you to have as a custom, to come to the throne of grace many times a day to find mercy, help, grace, kindness and unworthy love of the Father for the opportune help. Father, thank you for your patience with us. We struggle to learn to know you and sometimes we struggle in our relationship. And thank you for that which you call the throne of grace, of mercy, where there is grace for the opportune help. And I ask that everyone who hears this message understand that no sin is so great as not to obtain your forgiveness,

because the blood of Jesus Christ covered it all in Calvary. And no burden is too heavy for you, Lord, nor is there such a deep pain that you cannot console, nor is there such a great wound that you cannot heal. We thank you for being a God of grace, kindness, love and mercy. Infuse in our hearts a deep and burning desire to know you, so that this relationship of love may be as you want it to be. And I ask this in the name of the Savior. Amen. For more information visit www.fema.org