Jesus, Full of Grace and Truth

In this week's episode we look upon Jesus, full of grace and truth. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 12:21 Old verses new
• 21:24 The New Covenant of Grace
• 27:03 Transformative Power of Grace
• 30:35 The Drawing Power of Grace

Transcript

Audrey: 1:13

Hello friends, welcome back to Grace From my Home. I'm Audrey McCracken and I'm so glad you've decided to join me here again this week. I hope that you're doing well. We are in the swing of sports right now. I have three boys playing four sports, so we are doing wrestling and soccer and basketball, and I've got something about every night and I'm not complaining. I know there's a day that I will miss it. We had plans this Saturday to take my middle son, luke, out for his birthday. He turns 17 tomorrow but tonight his team won the Lower State Wrestling Championship. So on Saturday we'll be driving to Columbia where he'll play in the state championship, so he's excited about that.

Audrey: 1:59

Last month I did a series on homeschooling and that seemed to be rather popular. So I'm sure I'll circle back around and do some more on homeschooling, because that's something that I do love. I have a special place in my heart for homeschoolers. But this month my goal is to do a series on marriage. Now, today was supposed to be the first in that series, but I don't have that ready because it has turned out to be more of a challenge than I thought it would be.

Audrey: 2:31

When I speak on something, when I put together a series. I'm constantly thinking about things. Are these the most important things? Are these the most important points? Am I living this? That's important, you know, for me to come to you and share something to you, and I'm not really living it. Maybe I believe it in my mind, but I'm not living it out in my everyday life. There's no integrity in that. And so, as I've been preparing for this series on marriage, the Lord's been dealing with my own heart and trying and putting his finger on my own heart, and so I didn't feel prepared today to share that with you. But I am working on it and I hopefully, hopefully I'll have the first one next week. So this week I want to share with you a message that I shared with my church Well back in September September of 2024,. The title of the message is Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth, and I hope that it is a blessing and an encouragement to you in your walk with the Lord. But before I share that message, I do want to mention one thing.

Audrey: 3:37

A few weeks ago, I shared with you that a longtime listener who lives in the UK came to visit me. Her name is Steph and she'd been listening for a while, and she has relatives that live in North Carolina, about three hours from me, and as she was visiting them, she sent me a message on Instagram and said hey, can I come down and meet you? So we met at the coffee shop that I run and we had the best time. You know, she felt like she knew me because she'd heard my voice so much, she'd listened to so many of my episodes and I instantly connected with her. She was so sweet and just so, so, so full of life and and she's had, she's had a rough year and we had an opportunity to talk. She was able to share some things with me and how my podcast had helped her, which helped me, because sometimes you just need to hear that.

Audrey: 4:32

You know I I go back and forth. Am I spending my time wisely? Am I doing the things that the Lord has asked me to do? And so just talking with her refreshed me. It helped me to see that, yes, this is what I want to do. These are the kind of messages I want to share, but sometimes, when I go to prepare messages, I'm kind of I don't know where to go. I don't know what direction to go into. I don't always know why my listeners come. I just share what's on my heart. Some episodes do better than others, but I would love to have more conversations, like I did with Steph, because it helped me, it helped encourage me, but it also helped to kind of point me in a direction and say, to say yes. These are the kind of messages that people come to me for.

Audrey: 5:16

Now, everybody I know everybody can't come and sit with me on the couch and us have a conversation. Some of you may, but everybody can't. So I want to make myself available to anyone, any one of my listeners who are interested. If you're interested in having a conversation with me one-on-one, it could be through a phone call, it could be through Zoom, it could be. You can come to my shop. If you're close by and you want to make the drive, you can meet me at the coffee shop and we could sit down together and have a talk, just get to know each other.

Audrey: 5:48

If you are interested in that, I'm going to put a link in the show notes and I want to invite you to sit down with me and let's talk. Let's tell me about your life, tell me about your kids and your church and the things that you're involved in and the messages that have been helpful to you. I would just love to do that. I'd love to hear from you. So if that sounds like something that you'd like to do, go to the show notes, click on the link and let's set that up.

Audrey: 6:19

Now I'll go ahead and tell you I'm not selling anything. Okay, I have nothing to sell. You're not going to get a sales pitch at the end of our conversation. I just want to have a conversation between two women who are like-minded, that's all. So if you'd like to meet, if you'd like to introduce yourself and have and sit down together, let me know. So I'm going to go ahead now and share the message with you, jesus Christ, full of grace and truth, and I do hope it's a blessing to you and I hope that you have a wonderful week and God bless you. Thank you for listening. I am thankful this morning to be able to share with you.

Audrey: 7:01

My prayer is that God would speak. You know, it's amazing to me every time I get up and speak. It's amazing to me how God can take one word and it can be a different word for everybody in the place. You know, god knows what we need, the only reason we know anything about God, anything true, is because the Holy Spirit gives us grace to understand it. Because, like Michael was saying, we have a natural mind and we're trying to grasp the things that are, that are spiritual, and I just thank him that he, he helps us. Amen, he helps us and we can ask him. We can ask him and say Holy Spirit, help me, I don't get this, I don't understand this, and he promises to give us grace, he promises to help us understand it. And there's so many times when I sit down with my Bible and I sit down to read and I'll just be reading and it didn't make any sense to me, it's just words, and I'll stop and I'll say Holy Spirit, I need you to feed me in this word, I need you to make this come alive where it makes sense. And he does that for me. Amen, because he knows that I am weak. Amen, he knows I am but flesh.

Audrey: 8:10

Today I want to talk with you about tension, tension in the word. You know there are things in the word that, just because we're natural, there's things in the word that just are frustrating to me because I'm natural and they're spiritual things and I don't understand them and I'm praying each day for grace and understanding to be able to understand them. See, I want things black and white. I want it simple and easy to understand, right? That's how I want it. But it didn't always go that way. It didn't always work that way, because God's on another level and you know, think about it.

Audrey: 8:44

Jesus was fully man, but he was fully God. How do you do that? I don't understand. They all understand that. I don't comprehend that, but I know it's true. Right, he's fully man and he's fully God at the same time. My natural man, my natural mind, I can't figure that out. I just have to say okay, lord, whatever you say, you know he is three. God is one, but he's three persons. Amen, he's one, but he's a Trinity.

Audrey: 9:12

I don't understand that. I can act like I understand that, I can teach you that, but the truth is it blows my mind. I mean, if I really tried to sit down and figure it out, it just blows my mind. But I have to trust, amen, I have to trust. That's what he said, that's who he is and I believe it.

Audrey: 9:29

And there's all kinds of things in the Bible that I don't understand, but I have to believe that, when the time comes, the Lord will explain them to me. If I need them, he will explain them to me. You know, one of the things I encourage you to do when you read the Bible is find what is God saying to me? What do I need at this time? You know, sometimes people read the Bible because they want to be impressive to other people. They want to be able to say all the stuff they know. And you know what. You may know it, but you don't know it until you live it. Amen. I can have a lot of knowledge up here, but until I'm walking it out, until it's becoming part of me, until it's who I am, I don't really know it.

Audrey: 10:16

I might can argue with you about the word, but that doesn't do any good. It don't do no good for me. It don't do no good for you. Right? I'll just let you be right and I'll move on, because it doesn't produce any good fruit if we're going to argue about who's right and what's right. Lord, show me the truth that I need to live by. Amen. Give me my daily bread. Tell me something that makes a difference in Monday morning Amen. Tell me something that's going to make a difference in my walk with the Lord. It's going to make me more like Jesus. That's the word that I want, amen, not the word to impress. The word that I need, that my soul needs Amen, that I need, that my soul needs Amen. When Jesus came to the earth, we weren't ready for Him. I don't know that we could have been ready for Him, but we weren't ready for Him. When Jesus came to the earth, we weren't ready for Him.

Audrey: 11:10

And John, the Gospel of John there's Matthew, mark, luke and John. John is different. John talks about Jesus, different John John. It said he was the one who leaned on Jesus at the last supper and it says he was the one who loved Jesus. He was the one who, he was the only one who followed Jesus to the cross. He loved Jesus. They say he was young, he was one of the youngest ones and he was the one when Jesus was on the cross. He looked at his mom and he said Mother, your son, this is your new son, and he gave John the charge to take care of his own mom. He knew he could trust John. Right, and John loved Jesus passionately and he followed him to the cross and he stood by him.

Audrey: 11:59

And so when John writes about Jesus, it's on a whole nother level, it's on a whole nother plane. He's not just saying this is who Jesus was to the world. He's saying and he does say that, but it's like this is who Jesus is to me. I love him. I love him, I walked with him, I saw him. I love him, I love him, I walked with him, I saw him.

Audrey: 12:22

And so I want to read with you a little bit about what John said about Jesus In John, chapter 1, starting in verse 14. It starts in chapter one, verse 14. And I want to set the stage just a little bit. The whole chapter is good, but I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose you by reading too much.

Audrey: 12:42

But understand when Jesus came into the world, when Jesus came and he came at the right time, at the right season but when he came into the world, the Jews, the Jewish people, his people, were in covenant with God, and that was the covenant of the law. Now, god had made a lot of covenant with men, a lot of covenants with men, but at this time there was a covenant that was made with Moses. At Mount Sinai, god cut a covenant with his people and that the rules and the laws. Every covenant has rules, every covenant has promises and has expectations, and the covenant rules and promises were the Old Testament. It was the law that Moses gave to the people and said this is the law of the covenant, this is what you do to keep the covenant that I've made with you today. And so the Jewish people were living under the covenant of the law, the covenant of Moses, and this was the world that Jesus was born into, his people. The Jewish people were in covenant with God. They were the only people at that time that were living under that covenant, that of the law, and Jesus was born into this world. And the only people at that time that were living under that covenant of the law and Jesus was born into this world.

Audrey: 13:55

And the Jewish people memorized the word. Young men went to school and they memorized the entire scripture up to that time. I mean, they knew it. It wasn't just something that they talked about on Sunday or Saturday, wherever they went to synagogue, they knew the word. And so Jesus comes into the world, and it says here in verse 14, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Amen, isn't that good? Full of grace and truth. That's good.

Audrey: 14:41

Let's read a little bit more. It says he said John, bear witness of him, and cried, saying this is he of whom I spake, he that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me, and of his fullness we have all received Amen. So he's saying God's doing a new thing. The Jewish people knew the word of God, they had it memorized, but they didn't recognize God standing right in front of them. They knew the word, but they didn't recognize the word standing right in front of them. He was right there, they could touch him, they could see him, but they didn't recognize him. And he's saying something new has come on the scene Jesus brought. He was full of grace and truth.

Audrey: 15:44

See, the law taught them the truth. The law taught the truth. It was true. It says in the Old Testament it says my law is truth, my word is truth. It was true. It says in the Old Testament. It says my law is truth, my word is truth. And so they had the truth, they had the law.

Audrey: 16:01

But Jesus finished the picture. He said now here's the grace, because see what the law taught them. They could not do them. They could not do. The law said do this. But they found out they could not do it, even if they wanted to. Even if they said I'm going to follow the law, I'm going to do the law, they couldn't do it. You ever felt that way I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. It's not in you to do it. You're not able to do it.

Audrey: 16:33

And the law was sent to show them that they needed something else, that they had a sin nature that was never going to be able to keep the law. So Jesus comes on the scene, but he was foreshadowed all through the Old Testament. He was foreshadowed all through the Old Testament. But he comes on the scene and they're not ready for him because he's not what they expected. You know, they knew a Savior was coming, but he was a different kind of Savior.

Audrey: 17:05

And you know, even in the Old Testament remember the Ark of the Covenant what did they keep in the Ark of the Covenant? Remember the Ark of the Covenant. What did they keep in the Ark of the Covenant? They kept the law. They kept the Ten Commandments, the tablets that Moses handed down, were in that Ark. That was in the holy place. Well, what was over the Ark of the Covenant? The mercy seat, the mercy seat where the two angels, the wings, met full of grace and truth. See, jesus was and is the mercy seat and he covered the law. See, the law was hard and strict and demanding and impossible, but grace covered the law. Even back then it was a foreshadow.

Audrey: 17:56

I know you can't do it. I'm telling you to do it, but I know you can't do it. I need you to see you can't do it. You know, sometimes we have to learn we can't do it. God knows we can't do it. Sometimes we have to learn we can't do it. There are things that the only way you can learn you can't do them is by trying them and falling flat on your face, and I hate that. I hate it. But there are things that that's the only way you can learn. I can't do this and so many times that's how it is with the Lord. He asks you to do something and you step out to do it and it don't look nothing like you thought it was, and then you feel like, oh, I'm such a failure and the Lord's like no, I was just trying to get you to the point where you knew you had to lean on me and that's what the law was like. The law was like okay, this is what I want you to do. And then you step out there and do it and it didn't look like it thought it was supposed to do. And you realize I need help. And Jesus was the help sent at the right time. But see, the ones who needed him most didn't think they needed him because they'd already memorized all the scripture. And he's standing before them and he didn't look like they thought he should look and so they rejected him because he didn't line up with their preconceived idea of what the Messiah should look like, because he was full of grace and truth. Amen.

Audrey: 19:20

Turn to where am I going next? I'm going to Hebrews. Let's look at Hebrews. In Hebrews, chapter 8, verse 7, it says For if that first covenant, the covenant of the law, if it had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for a second covenant. So if the first covenant had done what it was supposed to do, then there wouldn't have been a need for a second one. Right, done what it was supposed to do, then there wouldn't have been a need for a second one right For finding fault with them.

Audrey: 20:00

He said behold the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt because they continued not in my covenant and I regarded them not, says the Lord, for this is the covenant that I made with them, with the house of Israel. After those days, said the Lord, I will put my law into their mind and I will write them into their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people and they shall not teach every man to his neighbor and every brother saying know the Lord for all of for for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more. In that, he said a new covenant. He had made the first old, and that which decays and waxes old is ready to vanish away. So he's saying I'm going to do a new covenant. He promised I'm going to do a new covenant, I'm going to send something new. And he says, when he sent it, he gave them the ability to keep it. See, we don't just need the covenant, we need the ability to keep the covenant. And he's saying you didn't have either, you didn't have either. And he says I'm going to do a new thing, I'm going to do a new covenant.

Audrey: 21:25

And notice, moses. Okay, the old covenant came through Moses, right Through the law. Moses didn't enter the promised land. All that work, don't you feel sorry for Moses? I always felt sorry for Moses. All that work, all that that he put up with, and he didn't get to go in. Why didn't he get to go in? Because, say again, he struck the rock. He struck the rock, that's right. But see, the old covenant can't go into the new things. The old covenant can't receive the promises. The old covenant, it stops right there. It can't go into the newness of life by obeying the law. You can't go into the newness of life, okay, you can't do it. Only way you can go into the newness of life is through Jesus. Only way you can enjoy your salvation is through Jesus, not by keeping the law. Amen.

Audrey: 22:25

So when Jesus came on the scene, he was something different and they didn't know exactly what to do with him because he did not submit to their ways and they could not conform him and they couldn't understand him. And an example of that would have been the woman caught in adultery. Remember the story of the woman caught in adultery? And they were using her to trap Jesus. They wanted to kill him. They wanted an excuse, a reason to be done with him, a reason to tell the people you know he's a false prophet. Look at him. So they're twisting his words and they're finding fault.

Audrey: 23:01

And then they bring this woman to him while he's teaching in the temple. They bring this woman and it says, they throw her in the midst of them and they tell him she's been caught in the very act of adultery. Now, what are you going to do? What did Jesus do? It says he stooped down. He stooped down and he writes in the sand Okay, picture this. You've got all these leaders, all these scribes, all these theses. They come with this woman, they throw her down in the middle and say Jesus, what you going to do with this? They got it Because the law says she should be stoned and they know he's not like that. And they're like either he's going to say she's going to be stoned and she'll be stoned, or he's going to disobey the law. And we got him. It's a trap.

Audrey: 23:56

Now, what was Jesus doing on the ground? I don't know. I'm not Jesus, I'm not in his mind. I don't know what he was doing. I think he was praying. You ever been in a situation and you think I don't know what he was doing? But I'll tell you where he was. He was on the ground with her. See, they were lording over her, they were better and they were judging her.

Audrey: 24:23

So Jesus stoops down. He stoops down with her. He doesn't lord himself over her, he humbles himself. When does he stand up? When he makes a decree, he stands up. He says okay, you want to go by the law, the first one who has not sinned in this way.

Audrey: 24:42

You cast the first psalm and he suits back down and, one by one, they leave, they leave Because, see, they leave. They leave Because, see, they didn't care about redemption. Jesus cared about redemption. He did not come to condemn. He came to save and to redeem and to take those who had no way out and show them a way out. That's why he came. They wanted to condemn. They wanted to condemn her or him. But she was a tool, she was a tactic, she was a thing to them, but to him she was precious. And so he put himself on her level and then he lifted her up. He said where's your accusers? I don't know. I don't see any. I don't see any. I don't see any. And he said well, I don't accuse you either. He's the only one who could. He was the only one who had never sinned in that way, and the one who had never sinned in that way decided not to, decided to show grace and mercy.

Audrey: 25:49

And then he says something important. He says go and sin no more. See, we want to go on one extreme or the other right. Either we want to condemn those who we deem less than us or not as holy as us, or we just want to open the door and just let it all in. Let's not condemn anybody, and then none of us are guilty.

Audrey: 26:11

Jesus was holy and righteous and good, and he's calling us to be holy and righteous and good, and he knows we can't do it without him. Amen, that's the new covenant, and he's inviting us to the new covenant. And you know what I love about the new covenant. It's not just for the Jews covenant. And you know what I love about the new covenant, it's not just for the Jews, it's for everybody. Amen. He opened up the door and said this is the new covenant. He had to preserve the Jews because his savior was going to come through the Jews, through Abraham, through faith. See, it says that the law it was just a, it was a schoolmaster to keep the Jewish people together, right, so he could bring his Savior for the whole world. And we get to enjoy that Amen. Isn't that awesome, isn't that awesome? We have a new covenant in Christ.

Audrey: 27:04

And what I love about this covenant is it changes us from the inside out. See, he comes inside. This covenant is different. They don't just sprinkle blood on the outside, he comes inside. This covenant is different. They don't just sprinkle blood on the outside, he comes inside and he starts working inside and he does the things that the old covenant couldn't do because it just covered up. It just covered up, but now he's in there and he's doing stuff in there and he's changing me from the inside out, because he just can't do it and I don't get to take the credit for it, because I can't do it. And it's not me, it's Jesus in me. Amen, the hope of glory. He's in there, he's doing stuff, you know, and he changes us.

Audrey: 27:39

And grace is so good. Grace is so good, but we can't take advantage of it, right? Romans 6, 7, and 8. Romans 6, 7, and 8. Read Romans 6, 7, and 8. It's the Roman road and it teaches us how this new covenant works, because it's a new covenant but we got an old body and so we're trying to walk in a new way with an old self.

Audrey: 28:03

In Romans 6, 7, and 8, paul lays out how we're going to walk in this new covenant. We're going to walk in it by grace and we're going to fail and we're going to get back up and we're going to keep on walking by grace and we're going to have mercy with ourselves and we're going to have mercy with other people, but we're not going to sin willingly because we have grace, amen. If you love Jesus and you have been born again, you will not say well, jesus will forgive me, amen. You won't walk that way Doesn't mean you won't fail. Doesn't mean you won't mess up, but you won't purposely sin, relying on grace, because grace don't work that way. Amen. If I love him, I'm not going to disobey him and say, oh, he'll forgive me, he'll forgive me. He shed his blood so we could be saved, and so to sin willingly after that is to disregard his blood. Amen. It's to count it as not an important thing.

Audrey: 29:02

I love in 1 John 2.1, john is talking to he's writing this to the believers, and I love what he says. I don't want to get it wrong, so I'm going to turn there. 1 John 2, 1. He says my little children, these things write I unto you that you sin not, and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, jesus Christ, the righteous, amen. So he says don't sin, but when you sin you have an advocate, amen. He's saying don't make it your lifestyle, but you're going to fall. And when you do, you run to Jesus, you run to God, and he's waiting there with open arms because you're his daughter, you're his son and he loves you, amen.

Audrey: 30:03

The law says do not do, and something in me says I will do because it's in me to do, because it's in me to do. But when I come to grace, when I come to the new covenant, it is beautiful and there's love and there's joy and there's peace. And I think I want to do what's right. See, fear drives Fear. The old covenant is fear. You better, you better, you better not. And it makes me want to put my nothing, makes me want to do something, like somebody telling me not to.

Audrey: 30:36

But grace draws me. Grace doesn't push me, grace draws me and I think I want that. See, when I came in touch with Jesus, I thought I want that. I've never experienced anything like that. I'd like to be a part of that. And he draws us. Isn't that good? See, we can live by grace, but we can't live by law, and we have to be careful not to put the law on people and not even put it on ourselves.

Audrey: 31:10

Amen. And we got to be careful not to live in sloppy grace. Amen. I'll just do it and then I'll ask for forgiveness later. That's not love, that's not the love of God, amen. But we have been called and drawled out of sin into the marvelous light because he loves you so much, amen. He loves us so much and I don't know why, but I'm so glad he does, amen, I'm so glad he does. Thank you, lord. Lord, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that it's more than enough, lord. It covers and it calls Lord, like that woman who was called in the act of adultery. You stoop low to lift her up and I thank you today that you stoop low to lift us up, and we thank you for mercy and we thank you for grace today In Jesus' name. Amen.