P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

Full of Grace and Truth

(CONNIE AND LONNIE)
Hello, I'm Connie Jeffery. And I'm Lonnie Melashenko

CONNIE: Lonnie, I suppose that when you were a little boy, you were a perfect angel. Never got into any trouble at all.

LONNIE: Well, Connie, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I think you maybe overstate the case--just a bit! So were there times when your mom or dad had to get after you about something?

CONNIE: I will have to admit, once I was particularly naughty. My dad had asked me not to throw the football in the house about 5 times, but when his back was turned I threw the football to my little friend that was over, and I broke a very expensive lamp.

LONNIE: Uh-Oh.

CONNIE: So punishment was in order, and I knew he was going to give me a spanking which was one of the first and only ones he gave me, but it was so difficult for him, he barely tapped my little backside, and tears were streaming down his face, so I really got off on the side of grace on that one.

LONNIE: Grace is a great concept, isn't it?

CONNIE: But it's not always easy to know how to apply it--when to exercise grace and when to come down on the side of law.

LONNIE: Well, do we always have to see them as standing in conflict with one another? Or is it maybe possible to enforce LAW in a GRACIOUS way that will win over the heart of the offender.

CONNIE: I suppose that would be every parent's goal, wouldn't it?

LONNIE: And not only that, I believe it is God's goal in working with us. You know, one man that truly typifies this--a man who's "been there, done that" as far as focusing on the Law is concerned, who's come to value the Grace of God deeply, is Chuck Fullmore. David Smith spoke with him recently.

CONNIE: And here is that interview--let's listen:

DAVID: Chuck Fullmore, we're so honored to have you on our weekend radio broadcast. You know Chuck, you and the trio have sung on our Homecoming Concert videos, and many of our viewers have heard just pieces of how God has intervened in your life, but this is a first, having you join us on the radio.

CHUCK: Well, this is a privilege.

DAVID: We're so glad to have you with us here from Placerville on the telephone Chuck. Now Chuck you're known really around the world for one, great unforgettable song, I guess like Bill and Gloria Gaither for "He Touched Me", but for Chuck Fullmore, it's "Never Give Up," and I want to ask, what events in your life prompted that song?

CHUCK: Our oldest daughter who also sang with us. When she was 12 years old we found out that she had leukemia, and she made it to her 13th birthday, and a few days later she passed away, and that was an extremely trying time for me.

DAVID: And that was how long ago, Chuck?

CHUCK: That was in 1969, and it was just a little earlier that year that she and I, and our whole family had attended an evangelistic series, and she and I had been baptized together. It was a re-baptism for me, but it was a very special occasion. And as I made a new commitment to give my life to Christ, and it was on new knowledge for me because the pastor that baptized us is the one that had introduced our whole family to righteousness by faith, which was a new concept to me. I had not grown up on that theological diet.

DAVID: Were you more into a legalism and obedience by the law?

CHUCK: Extremely so. It seems like I went to church school and my teachers taught more of a work oriented religion, and in church also. So this was new to me, in fact he gave me a book that was written by H.M.S. Richards called "Feed My Sheep".

DAVID: Of VOP fame, sure!

CHUCK: That's right, and I devoured that book.

DAVID: So for the last 30 years, Chuck, you have been basking in the grace of Jesus, walking in grace, and yet your own life has continued to have hardships. You have had a lot of illness.

CHUCK: Yes, we were traveling full time with our family, working in evangelistic meetings, and singing concerts across the country. In 1981 we had just opened a series of evangelistic meetings in St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota, and we discovered that I had lymphoma.

DAVID: Oh my. And you dealt with that for a long time then.

CHUCK: Yes, the last treatment I had for that was in 1990.

DAVID: Well let me ask you this Chuck because Lonnie and Ken are using it as a theme text for this weekends program. You know John chapter 1, right there where the disciple John talks about Jesus being the Word, and dwelling among us, and there's a fabulous line in there which says, "Because of Jesus' abundant grace, we've all been blessed time after time." I notice that the NIV says, "From the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another, but Chuck your whole life has seemed to be one relentless hurt after another, not blessings, just one boulder crashing in after another. How do you keep holding on, and how do you keep celebrating grace despite that?

CHUCK: I am a firm believer, David, that with the trials, comes more grace. I believe that with all my heart. The bigger the trials, the more the grace, and that just shows the wonderful love of our God. He wants us all to be saved, everyone. I believe that totally.

DAVID: And so as you say in your song, "Keep Holding On." Chuck, we have about a minute here, I understand that you and the great Christian writer, one of my favorites, Phillip Yancey, are kind of sharing a title together, he wrote a great book back in 97', "What's So Amazing About Grace" and now I hear through the back door that you and the trio next March are going to debut a brand new song with that same title, "What's So Amazing About Grace". Give us just a few lines from that song, and how the Lord brought that into being through your life.

CHUCK: The opening line of the first verse, "If you have to ask the question, what's amazing about grace, then you've never known the fear of being lost. If you have to ask the question, what happened there on Calvary, then you do not know how much Salvation cost." A friend of mine came to me all excited with that book, and I went out immediately and bought a copy. I've read it twice, and I know I will read it many times more because I think God has given Phillip a special gift to relay this message to all of us, of how precious grace is, just what a gift that God gave us.

DAVID: And to you as well Chuck, we know that that song is going to make grace come to life for so many people around the world, and we appreciate having you on the program today.

CHUCK: Thank you.

Thank You for Loving Me," Chuck Fullmore, from A New Name in Glory CD, Track 10.

CONNIE: Thank you Chuck, for your testimony, and for the reminder of the grace and love of God revealed at Calvary. That song is just one of 22 songs on the CD A New Name in Glory produced by Voice of Prophecy last year at the Tivoli Theater in Chattanooga. The CD, along with information about all the music heard on our program, is available on our website at www.vop.com.

LONNIE: Grace is a powerful word.
CONNIE: A powerful concept.

LONNIE: And sometimes it's powerful hard to exercise.

CONNIE: Especially when someone has done something against you and you're the wounded party.

LONNIE: You might think it's just Outrageous for them to come to you expecting Forgiveness of all things.

CONNIE: But what if you're God and someone has killed your Son? Would it be outrageous to be gracious to such a person?

LONNIE: It certainly would.

CONNIE: But that's the kind of God we serve, as Dwight Nelson points out in his book Outrageous Grace. Now, Dwight is a popular preacher, known for his ability to give a new and fascinating slant to old topics, I know you'll love this book. And it's our gift of grace to you today. Just call 1-800-872-0055 and ask for Outrageous Grace, and we'll send you a copy.
We noticed in our program last week that God's grace shines through even in the Old Testament, but when Jesus came to earth He revealed whole new dimensions of God's goodness that people hadn't understood before, didn't He Lonnie?

LONNIE: Yes, he certainly did. Ken Wade and I were just talking about the concept of LAW wrapped up in GRACE.

KEN: That's right, Lonnie. We both were present just this week at our offices when a mutual friend shared a story that I think helps bring this point home.

LONNIE: Our mutual friend, Dan Matthews, long-time host of the Lifestyle Magazine television program was telling us about his recent encounter with the law.

KEN: The funny thing is that it was just over a parking ticket.

LONNIE: Yes, a $60 parking ticket, but by the time it was all over, Dan had invested hours and hours in trying to get the issue resolved.

KEN: I guess you could say he was looking for grace.

LONNIE: Well, grace maybe, but in his mind it became a search for justice too--he really didn't think he deserved that parking ticket.

KEN: That's right, he told us that he had parked in a place where many other cars were parked, but when he returned, his car had a ticket on it and none of the others did.

LONNIE: And later he even had his wife stop by the place with a camera. She photographed dozens of cars parked there, and none of them had been ticketed.

KEN: I know how it is when I feel I've been singled out or treated unfairly--it's bad enough to get a ticket--but to be the only one who gets a ticket out of a whole line of cars! That would get my hackles up.

LONNIE: What I found interesting about Dan's story was that when he made a phone call to try to get the situation straightened out, he had to wade his way through the interminable voice mail systems, just as if he were guilty. When he went into the office, the woman who interviewed him treated him like a guilty criminal. He even had to be frisked before he could be interviewed.

KEN: And then, after he went through all of that, he still had to appear in court to try to get justice--

LONNIE: or find grace.

KEN: Well, Dan felt he was looking for justice. He just wanted to be treated the same way all the other drivers were.

LONNIE: Short of that, I believe he would have accepted some grace--some forgiveness for parking in the wrong place.

KEN: No doubt he would have. But what intrigued me, after all was said and done, was what the judge said. He told Dan that he had made a very good case for inequity--that he had been treated inequitably. "But," he said. "This is not a court of equity, but a court of law, and it's my duty to enforce the law. You have to pay your fine!"

LONNIE: And of course the judge was right. It was his job to uphold the law, and the law called for a fine.

KEN: But Lonnie, there are ways that law can be softened without losing its force. We sometimes see law and grace as opposed to each other, but Jesus didn't see it that way. And that's the point of your message today, isn't it? "Full of Grace and Truth." Share with us.
SERMON
LONNIE: What does this world need most, more laws, or more grace?
The answer you get to that question depends, of course, on who you ask.

Talk to Marc Klaas whose 12-year-old daughter Polly was kidnapped from a slumber party and killed by a habitual criminal. "Seven years ago I might have been a death-penalty abolitionist," Marc wrote in Newsweek in June 2000. But now he wants to be in the room to watch his daughter's murderer die. "I'd like my eyes to be the last thing he sees, just as his eyes were the last thing my child saw," he wrote. The man who killed Polly Klaas was no stranger to the law system. When he killed her, he was out on parole after serving only half his sentence for pistol-whipping and robbing a woman.

Ask Marc Klaas whether he thinks our world needs more grace or more law, and I think you know what answer you'll get. "Why should that man have been let out of prison? Why should he be given any mercy at all?" After his daughter's murder, Marc helped to get California's "Three-Strikes and You're Out" law passed. The law calls for criminals to be given a mandatory life sentence after their third violent crime--no mercy, no grace at all.

But what if you were to ask the same question of any one of the 3,600 inmates currently on death row in the U.S.? Try Gary Graham, for example. By the time you hear this program, he may already have been executed. He was convicted based on the testimony of one witness who claimed she saw him from 30 to 40 feet away in a dark parking lot. Others at the scene were sure he was NOT the man who committed the crime, but the Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal.
Ask Gary, Does this world need more grace, or does it need more law? I think he would ask for grace.

With that in mind, let's look at our text for today, John 1:16, 17

From the fullness of [Jesus'] grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (NIV)

What does it mean?

Does John's Gospel begin by setting up a powerful dichotomy--a conflict between the Old Testament and the New Testament?

In a recent program we looked at the book of Leviticus--at the many laws given there regarding sacrifice. And in that Old Testament book we found ample evidence of the grace of God. We found mercy and forgiveness there.

We also found grace when we looked at Genesis and Exodus, and we'll find it again in Numbers and Deuteronomy as we continue our journey through the Bible.

So, why the contrast? Does Jesus stand in opposition to the Old Testament? What does John mean here?

Well, to begin with, let's lay to rest the idea that Jesus opposes the Old Testament. We know from Matthew 5:18 that Jesus said

I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (NIV)

And John's Gospel clearly reveals that Jesus and the God of the Old Testament are one and the same God. John quotes Jesus as saying "Before Abraham was, I am!" directly identifying Himself with the God who revealed Himself to Moses and Abraham in the Old Testament.

So let's get that clear in our minds. Both the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are "full of grace and truth." They are one and the same God.

So, why does John tell us that "the law was given through Moses, Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"?

Here's where the potent power of the gospel shines out.

In the stories of Jesus' life, we discover how He dealt with the Old Testament laws. Take the Sabbath commandment, for example. In Jesus' day that particular commandment had been expanded and buttressed by hundreds of additional laws. The Pharisees exercised extreme caution to be sure that they didn't break the Sabbath--even sewing their handkerchiefs to their robes so they wouldn't be guilty of carrying anything in their pockets on the Sabbath day.

But then along comes Jesus. On a Sabbath morning in a synagogue He spots a man with a withered hand. Now, the Pharisees would consider healing a man to be work that shouldn't be done on the Sabbath. But what does Jesus do? He tells the man to stretch out His hand, instantly removing the deformity.

LAWBREAKER! The Pharisees shout.

But Jesus just turns to them and explains what the law is all about: It's about goodness, not about avoiding badness: "Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath!" He tells them (Matthew 12:12).

Notice that. He doesn't throw out the law. He doesn't give some new teaching that supercedes the law. He simply takes the law and makes it GRACIOUS. He wraps the law in grace.

The Ten Commandment law was written on cold, hard stone. Jesus adds flesh, blood, and a loving heart to the law.

One of the biblical passages that best illustrates how Jesus fleshed out the law is the story of the sick woman who sneaked up in the crowd, hoping to touch Jesus' garments and be healed. Matt 9:20 tells us she "came up behind him and touched the EDGE of his cloak." (NIV) What's fascinating here is that the word used for "edge" of His cloak was the same word used to describe the special tassels that Jewish men wore on their clothes in those days.

Those tassels were supposed to remind them of the law of God.

So it's likely that what the woman touched was the tassel representing the law.

Now, according to the LAW, she shouldn't have been touching Jesus' clothing at all, because the illness she had made her unclean--just like a leper.

When she touched Him, she was instantly healed. But then--horror of horrors--Jesus turned and asked WHO had touched Him!

I can picture the woman cowering in fear, wondering what to do. She had broken the law and reached out and touched the very part of Jesus' garment that was to remind Him of the importance of the law!

But once again Jesus wrapped the law in grace. Rather than condemning her, He smiled at her and said " ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.' " (NIV)

Go in peace? Go in peace with God, though I've touched a man--against the law?

Yes, go in peace. The law was never meant to stand between you and your God. God has reached out to you. God has met your timid touch with a firm handshake of grace!

God has given you what the world needs most: Grace.

And, dear friend, He wants to reach out to you with His grace as well. Wherever you are, whatever you've done, He doesn't want the law to stand between you and Him. But remember, He doesn't throw the law away. He simply wraps it in His grace, mercy, forgiveness, and invites you to come to Him just as you are, so He can touch you with His grace and healing power.