The Throne of Grace - Grace for Today, Pt. 3

And we'll be back in just a moment. In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Next on In Touch, the throne of grace. If I should ask you, why don't you think you spend more time praying and talking to God? I wonder how you would answer that. Or if I should ask, why is not your intimacy, your relationship with Him, why is it not more meaningful and more rewarding than it is? Well, there may be lots of reasons, but I think that one of the primary reasons is we don't know Him. We don't understand Him. And when we talk about coming to Him in prayer, how do you visualize that? What do you think about when you talk about coming to God in prayer and talking with Him? And when the Bible talks about the throne of God, what do you think about? You think about something way out yonder somewhere in this ethereal blue, and somebody is sitting on this throne. What do you think about when the Bible talks about coming to the throne of grace? Well, I believe if you and I understood who God is and what He's really like, and if we understood what it meant to really come to Him, we would come to Him far more often. We would speak with Him more often. Our relationship with Him would be far more intimate than it is. We would sense a greater intimacy with Him, a greater joy about Him, a sense of fulfillment and contentment and strength and power.

Our faith would be stronger, our confidence would be greater if we understood who is this God to whom we go. And what does He mean when He says we can come to Him in time of trouble and find grace to help in time of need? Well, I want you to turn, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 4, and the title of this message is The Throne of Grace. And it is a throne that all of us at some time or the other who are believers, oftentimes I certainly hope, come to this throne, and some people who think they're coming to it and getting answers to prayer cannot because the door is closed because of their relationship to God. So, I want us to look at this passage and see what He says. And if you'll begin with me in the 14th verse of the fourth chapter of Hebrews, He says, Since then, speaking of Christ, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Listen to this. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. And this is His way of saying, look, the one you're speaking to is one who understands where you've been, where you are, and the things you're going to face. Let us, therefore, draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need. Now, listen to that. Let us, therefore, draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.

Now, what is this idea of a throne? When He talks about the throne of grace, what is He referring to here? When we think about a throne, we think about royalty, we think about power, we think of authority, we think in terms of dignity. And so, what He's saying here is that God, our Heavenly Father, is seated upon a throne. Dignity, royalty, power, authority. Here is the head of the whole human race, Almighty God, seated upon His throne. And you'll recall in the eighth chapter of Romans, if you'll turn there for a moment, eighth chapter of Romans, He reminds us of who is seated with the Father and what He's doing. He says in the 34th verse that Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, sitting there making intercession for us. So, at the throne of God, there's God the Father and God His Son. So, the throne of God is a place of position, of power. And I want you to go back, if you will, to Isaiah chapter six for a moment because Isaiah, in this sixth chapter, gives us the best description in the Old Testament of the throne of God. And Isaiah tells us here what he saw. He says in the sixth chapter, beginning in verse one, listen to this, in the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, that is, these angel beings, each having six wings, with two He covered His face, with two He covered His feet, and with two He flew.

One called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And Isaiah says, as he saw this, the foundation of the threshold trembled at the voice of Him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then he said, when I saw this, then I said, woe is me, for I'm ruined because I'm a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim, he says, flew to him with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. And he touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven. Then Isaiah says, I heard a voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I sin, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I, send me. What I want you to notice is this. When he, in the presence of Almighty God, looked upon this throne of holiness, his first response was, Woe is me. That is, he felt his own sinfulness and his own condemnation. And here in this passage he says, Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, not judgment, not holiness, not even a throne of the glory, and the awe, and the wonder, and the majesty of God, but rather a throne of grace, where he says we will find mercy and help in time of need. Now I want you to think about something. How would you and I respond to the holiness of God if there were no grace? If you and I had to come before the presence of God each time, only to face a holy God, a God who will judge and condemn all unrighteousness and all unholy things. How would we feel if we came to a God in his majesty, and power, and awe, and wonder? How would we come? We would come with a sense of fear. We would come with a sense of a little bit of anxiety. We would come with a sense of feeling unworthy and not sure of how we're going to be accepted. Because if you think about the judgment, the condemnation, the holiness, and the awesomeness of his presence, I don't think any of us can possibly

conceive of how we are going to feel and what we are going to sense when we stand in the presence of God. For example, in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, when he talks about the judgment of the Christians, and he says, we'll be judged so as by fire, and when we stand in the presence of Christ at the bimba seat and give an account for our life, what is it going to be like to stand in the presence of a holy God? Well, we live in an age that is so absolutely unholy and irreverent, we've lost all sense of the holiness of God. We are very, very irreverent about so many things. And so, each generation, it seems, comes into a lifestyle where things are less holy and more irreverent than ever before. So, when we think in terms of a holy God and a righteous God, and we hear people talk about, well, you just talk to the man upstairs, or, you know, just talk to God. Just any old way, any old body, any old person, any old way can just talk to God. That is what the Bible says. And in the Old Testament, if you'll think about the sacredness and the holiness by which they entered into the presence of God, you remember in the tabernacle and the temple, the holy of holy places where only the high priest could go once a year, and at the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant, which was the symbolical of the presence of God, and the very idea of the presence of God, a God of justice and holiness and a God of glory. They wouldn't even think about trying to go past that veil into the holy of holies, and even the high priest appointed by God could go only once a year. And if he violated the rules, God would strike him dead. You see, God intended for them to learn the lesson of His holiness, and that's why He gave the tabernacle and the holy of holies and the temple with the holy of holies, because God was in the process of teaching them His holiness, and His righteousness, and His justice, and His judgment. But what happened when Jesus Christ was crucified? You remember, the Bible says the veil in the temple was rent how? From top to bottom, God flung it open to say, now, all men can have access to Almighty God. So He says in this passage that you and I have the privilege of coming to what? Of coming to a throne of grace,

because that means you and I have the opportunity of coming into the presence of Almighty God. And that has been made possible by, if you will remember, He says in this 14th verse, that you and I have a great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. How is it and why would God then move from a situation where the symbol of His presence was so sacred and so holy that no one except the appointed high priest could come, and then all of a sudden, He says that anyone and everyone and all persons can come into the presence of God. Because when Jesus died, here's what He did. He took the sin debt of the world upon Him at the cross. And what He did, He took away our guilt. And those of us who receive Jesus Christ personal Savior, have now been clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He says, now you and I are living and reigning in righteousness because God has done something on the inside of us that is so absolutely dramatic. He has so changed us that even He says we have become holy. That is, we are sanctified in His sight. Now listen carefully. You and I may not always act holy, our behavior may not be holy, our conduct may not be, but He says on the inside of us that which dwells within us is holy. He calls Him the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ says, I'm abiding in you and you're abiding in me. We are the holy sons and daughters of a holy God. And while our conduct and our behavior on the outside may not always be that, on the inside we are the holy children of God. And that is the work of Christ. And apart from Him, that's why Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me, and that is comes to Him for salvation, nor can they come into His presence making requests apart from Him. Unless it is a sinner desiring to be saved by the grace of God and acknowledging that. So when you look at this throne, we're talking about a throne of grace. Listen, at the throne of grace, God is not dispensing judgment and condemnation. He is not there to remind us of our sinfulness and our wickedness and our vileness. He is there to remind us of what His Son did for us. And that He is a righteous, holy God indeed, but He is a God of grace. At the throne of grace, God is dispensing love and mercy and goodness and kindness. Does that mean that He does not remind us of

our sinfulness? No, it doesn't mean that. We have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us to convict us of our sin. But He says, come to the throne of grace where you will find mercy and help in time of need. Now, let's think about this for a moment. He says, you and I are encouraged to come to this throne of grace. He says, let us therefore draw near to, listen, near with confidence to the throne of grace. God has made it possible for you and I to approach His throne right where we are, because we're not talking about going someplace and entering someplace. We are talking about a relationship. The throne of grace symbolizes the presence of God, where we talk to Him and where we fellowship with Him. And you see, God doesn't just want us coming to Him asking something from Him all the time. God's ultimate goal for us is intimacy, conforming us to His likeness. And the more you and I conform to His likeness, the more intimate we want to be with Him, the more we're going to desire to be with Him and to be like Him. And we are going to want to come often when we are growing in our intimate relationship with Him. So, He says, let us, therefore, come to this throne of grace. Now, is it because we're worthy of it? No, that's what grace is all about. It has nothing to do with it. It has to do with what Jesus did at the cross to make it possible. That's why I keep emphasizing the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, because without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin. Without the shedding of blood, there is absolutely no access to God. And when Christ died on the cross, what He did, the Bible says, the veil was split in the temple. From top to bottom, He flung open the doors of access to God so that anyone who wants to come to Him, who's willing to come, listen, willing to come His way, which is by His Son, Jesus Christ, has access to the Father. Now, look at this. When He says we're to come, He says we're to come boldly. Look at this. He says, let us, therefore, draw near with confidence, that is, with boldness, to the throne of grace. Now, what does that not mean? Let me tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean just coming irreverently, casually, crudely,

using rude kind of language. Well, God, I mean, you know, we're friends. You know, we are friends. But my friend, listen, it doesn't make any difference how well you know Him. I want to remind you of something. The better you get to know Him, the more reverent you're going to be. And I think there is an awful sense of irreverence even in the body of Christ today. There's an irreverence about God because we live in a society that is so unholy and so irreverent and has such little respect for anything that is godly and holy. And if we're not careful, we can pick up on the world's attitude. Now, we call it being relaxed. That's what we call it. We say, well, you know, just relax. Just be casual. Well, I can be relaxed and I can be casual, but I'm going to tell you something. I've been a Christian 48 years, and the more I get to know God, when I am in prayer in His presence, I am more reverent, more aware. of His holiness, more aware of who He is than ever before in my life. And I think and I hope and pray that the body of Christ will swing from its casualness back to a sense of the righteousness and the holiness and the power of Almighty God. And I think once we begin to grasp who is this God the Father, we're going to sense He's a God of holiness and righteousness. But He is also a God of such great, great, great love that this is the way we're to come to Him. When He says, come to Him boldly, what does that mean? It means I can come to Him without fear. You say, well, wait a minute, but suppose you've sinned, don't you have a reason to be afraid? No. Why not? Well, isn't that being irreverent? No.

Why not? Well, you mean to tell me if you've sinned against Him, you don't come to Him with fear? No. You see, when the Bible says we're to fear God, that means a fear of reverence. I reverence Him. I am willing to bow before Him and acknowledge that He is my God and there is none like unto Him anywhere. And He deserves all of my allegiance and all of my loyalty and all of my devotion and all that I have. Yes, He's God. But we come to Him as His children, not in fear. He says, come boldly to the throne of God, boldly to the throne of grace. It means I'm to come without fear. I can come, listen, without, listen, I can come to Him without fear and therefore I can come to Him with confidence. Come boldly to the throne of grace. What is my confidence based on? It's based on verse 15, one verse above it. Look at it. He says, for we do not have a high priest, speaking of Christ, who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses and our sinfulness, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. When you and I come to the throne of grace, to fellowship with God and to talk to Him about our needs and where we are in life and whatever's going on, He says we can come boldly. We can come with confidence. Why? Because, listen, even though God is holy and righteous and even though one of these days He is going to condemn and judge, we come to Him as the children of God. We come to Him through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. We come to Him as those who've been redeemed, cleansed, and are being cleansed continually

by the blood of Christ. And so, therefore, we have the privilege of coming without fear. We have the privilege of coming, as He says, boldly before Him. We have the privilege of coming asking for great blessings. He's God our Father, the omnipotent God. When we make big requests, we honor His omnipotence and His love. And yet oftentimes we ask little things because we fear asking big things. We don't feel worthy of asking for great things. Listen, He didn't say come to the throne of worthiness. He said come to the throne of grace. And grace is God's goodness and kindness toward us without regard to merit and worth on our part and in spite of what we deserve. That's what grace is all about. That's the kind of throne we're coming to. This is the kind of God you and I are approaching. Without fear, He says with confidence, asking for big blessings. And listen to this. He says we're to come often. That's the implication, that's the implication of this phrase when He says, therefore, let us draw near with confidence, present tense continuously. Let us come again and again and again and again. How often do you think God wants you coming to Him for fellowship and prayer? I believe the heart of God desires that you and I walk in continuous fellowship with Him, talking to Him continually in the midst of our labors, in the midst of our worship, in the midst of church, in the midst of whatever's going on. God desires continuous fellowship and continuous conversation and continuous sense of oneness and awareness of His presence. We're to come often and thank God we can come anytime. Don't have to make an appointment. And you know what?

There's never a crowd. There's never a line. Always instantaneous access. That is one of the riches of the grace of God, that you and I have instantaneous access to His presence. You see, this God of grace so loves us, He says, come on. He says, I want you to come. You have access, come on. He is a God of grace and He says, His throne is the throne of grace. This is where He's dispensing love and goodness and mercy and kindness and forgiveness to His children. And while He's a holy God, and while we are to come to Him in the spirit and the sense of reverence and awe, we also come as sons to a father, daughters to a father. Personally, when I Think about coming to God in prayer. I always think about it in two ways. I come to him, first of all, as a son to a father, and second, as a servant to my Lord. Now, let's look at it this way. This is the way we are to approach him. Now, what can you and I expect when we come to the throne of grace? When we come to God speaking to him and talking to him, what can we expect? Well, let's look at these two words, mercy and grace. They're not synonymous. Sometimes we think they are, but we're not. And somebody has put it this way, that mercy is the heart of God, and grace is the hand of God.

That in mercy, God does not give us what we deserve in mercy. In grace, he gives us what we don't deserve. And so when you think in terms of mercy and grace, mercy deals with my past failures. Grace deals with my present work and the future. That is what I need now. So while the mercy may symbolize the heart of God, grace is the hand of God. Coming to him for help in time of need. Let me say this again. And that is that mercy, in mercy, God doesn't give us what we deserve. And in grace, he gives us what we don't deserve. This is the kind of heavenly father he is. And he's encouraging us to come to this throne of grace. He says that you may receive two things, mercy and, listen, and may find grace to help in time of need. Now, my friend, listen to me. You may be as good as you know how to be, and you may do all the right things you know to do in life, and you may be a very religious person, but I want to tell you, until Jesus Christ becomes your Savior, by faith in what he did at the cross, you have no access to God to come to him asking for help in time of need. First of all, you have to be a son. You see, that's why he calls himself God the Father.

And those of us who are his children, we are his children created in Christ Jesus, he says, or we are his children because we've been adopted into the kingdom. We've been born again. This new birth made us children of God. And he says, before you become a child of God, he says, you're alienated from God, separated from God, are far off from God, in blindness and in darkness and in death, and have no relationship to God. But you see, that's why Jesus came. He came in order to take care of our sins so that you and I could look Almighty God, our Father, in the eye with confidence and boldness and assurance, coming to him again and again and again as sons and daughters of a Father who is the King of kings, Lord of lords, the God of the heavens and the earth. He says, we come to him, and that's where we find mercy. That's how he got saved. God was merciful to every single one of us. But listen to what else. He says that you may find mercy, but he says there's something else you may find, and grace to help in time of need. Now, listen, that phrase, in time of need, literally means, if we can put it in our terminology, it literally means in the nick of time. We may find grace to help in the nick of time.

We say, wait a minute, you mean to tell me that God is just gonna wait till the last minute? No, but here's what he does, and this is a wonderful thing about God. What it means is, listen to this, when I have a need, God will supply that need when the need arises. Because, you see, as children of God, all we have to do is think, Father. Our access is instantaneous. For example, suddenly you're tempted. What happens? Dear God, instantaneously, you and I have help. Listen to this, divine, supernatural, adequate, sufficient, all-sufficient help at that very moment to deal with that very issue we are facing. He says, come to the throne of grace and find mercy and help in time of need. So, let me ask you, what is your need? Is it material? It's to be found at the throne of grace. Is it emotional? Is it something spiritual going on in your life? Is it forgiveness? Is it comfort? Is it encouragement? Is it that the Father would lift the burden? Whatever it is, he says in this passage, I want to encourage you to make it your daily habit

and many times a day to come to the throne of grace where you'll find mercy and help, grace, goodness, undeserving love of the Father to help you in time of need. Father, we thank you for being so patient. with us and we struggle in learning who you are and struggling in our relationship at times and we thank you that you've called it a throne of grace mercy and grace a place that we can find help in time of need and I pray that every person who hears this message may realize that no sin is too great to bring before you for forgiveness because the blood of Jesus Christ has covered it all at Calvary that no burden is too heavy for you to lift and no sorrow too deep for you to comfort and no hurt so painful that you cannot heal it we just want to thank you for being a God of grace and goodness and love and mercy and would you instill within our heart a deep yearning desire to know you so that our love relationship will be what you want it to be and I pray this in the Savior's name amen