• Grace is the unmerited favor of God toward people.
• Grace is something we have not earned and do not deserve.
• Grace is unconditional love and acceptance.

“Grace is something you can never get but only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.” Frederick Buechner

We Need Grace to Grow

Genesis 1:26-27 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

2 Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

We Need Truth to Grow

John 1:16-17 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

• God’s truth leads us to what is real and what is accurate.
• John 17:17 “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.”

 Sanctify – G37 –    To make holy, purify or consecrate; mentally to venerate.

Romans 8:3 “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,”

“The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.” MSG

Ephesians 4:13 “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—”

Grace and Truth in Action

John 8:1-3a

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery.

John 8:3b-6. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?”  This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.

John 8:7-8aSo when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last.

John 8:8b-11 And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

• Grace – “Neither do I condemn you”
• Truth – “Go and sin no more”

Jesus Christ has the fullness of Grace and Truth

• Jesus Christ, in His life, death and resurrection, met all the demands of the Law of God.
• Now God is free to share the fullness of Grace and Truth with those who trust Christ.