The Amazing Grace of God — Zac Poonen

The Broader Meaning of Salvation

I was thinking when we were singing of Amazing Grace, I wonder if we know how amazing that grace is. Because most people, when they sing that song, they only think of one aspect of it. And that is, I was a wretch, and he forgave me.

But when we sing Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. What did it save you from? What did this Amazing Grace save you from? Has it saved you from losing your temper? Has it saved you from the love of money?

Has it saved you from lusting after women? Has it saved you from being dishonest? Has it saved you from being jealous of others? Has it saved you from anxiety? Has it saved you from bad moods? Has it saved you from discouragement?

What has it saved you from? Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like me. We don't think about that because our mind has been brainwashed through years and years of singing songs meaninglessly and through reading the scripture carelessly to think of salvation as only salvation from hell.

But it may surprise you to know that saved from hell is never found anywhere in the New Testament. Most of us, if not all of us, would say the Bible is the word of God. But I have found that lots of people who say the Bible is the word of God don't read it carefully.

There are many Christians who haven't even read through it once. Then I don't believe that such people believe it is the word of God. When I was converted 54 years ago, I didn't know much of the Bible.

But I believed it is the word of God and so I decided I am going to study this book. If there is only one book that almighty God wrote for man, then I must know that. It's more important for me to know that than any other book in the whole world.

And so, I first read through it all quickly in six months and then I spent the next seven years while I was working in all my spare time, I was in a full-time job, studying it, studying it. I said, Lord, this is the only book you ever wrote for man.

There is no other book in the whole world and if my relationship with God is the most important thing in life, then definitely if he has written only one book for man, I must study it because otherwise I could have all types of wrong ideas about how I can have a relationship with this God.

I can't afford to be dependent on some preacher giving his opinion because he could be wrong. I mean, when I have the source itself, why do I need to go to somebody else talking about it? And that's the reason I studied the scriptures to say, Lord, this is so vital that I cannot afford to be mistaken.

There are lots of things on earth that I can be mistaken about but not about my relationship with God. I cannot afford to be mistaken. I must be absolutely right. I must be 100 right in this matter.

But I don't find many Christians who study the scriptures so seriously. And I have made a statement that I have repeated often and that is if you got a Bible in your language and you don't read it, you don't study it, you deserve to be deceived.

Definitely. You can't blame anybody else if you are deceived. Now, if someone doesn't have the Bible in his language, there are lots of people like that. You can't blame them. But I am amazed how many people have the Bible in their own language and don't understand a simple word like what it means to be saved.

Studying Scripture Through Careful Word Study

So, one of the very helpful things we can use to study the Bible is a thing called a concordance. A concordance is a book, in case you don't know, which lists every occurrence of a word in the Bible, whether it's faith or grace or love or….

Right from Genesis to Revelation, every place where that word occurs. And since the Bible was, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, some concordance even help you to know exactly how it was in the original.

So, if you take a concordance and look in the New Testament, for the word save, you will discover that the very first mention of the word save, which you just sang, amazing grace that saved a wretch like me, is in Matthew 1 verse 21.

And there it's not talking about being saved from hell. Now, the whole world has been taught, it's been preached, Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from hell. But I challenge anyone to find that verse in the New Testament.

It's not there. It's nowhere in the New Testament. Some preacher told you that and you blindly believed it. He never showed you a verse for it. Most preachers don't show verses for what they preach. That's one difference.

I always refer to the scripture. In my sermons, I refer to scripture frequently because, like Paul said, I don't want your faith to rest on my cleverness. I want your faith to rest on God's word. My words are not eternal.

God's word is eternal. Matthew 1 verse 21 says, The angel told Joseph about the baby being born to Mary,. You shall call his name Jesus. Because Jesus means savior. And what's he going to save you from?

He's going to save his people from their sins. Not from hell. Saved from hell is a by-product or end result of being saved from sin. And I need to be saved from sin now to be saved from hell finally.

So, this is a completely new message. It's the first page of the New Testament, you know. The New Testament was a new era in God's dealings with man. It's called a new covenant age. It's different from the old covenant age where God dealt with Israel under certain laws.

In the entire Old Testament, which is three quarters of the Bible, there's no promise that God would save them from their sins. He saved them from Egypt. He saved them from snake bites. In the wilderness, He saved them from dying of thirst by providing them with water.

He saved them from starvation by giving them manna from heaven. He saved them from enemies, the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites. He saved them from dying of famine by sending rain. But never in the Old Testament do you read that God saved them from their sins.

Never. Not even once. But as soon as the New Covenant opens, New Testament, the very first page, the promise is now something new is going to happen. God is sending His Son to earth. He could have said to Joseph, you call His name Jesus because He's going to die for the sins of humanity.

That's not what He said. The message from God was He has come to save His people from their sins. So, it's right there. So, when I sing amazing grace that saved a wretch like me, I ask myself, has He saved me from my sins?

Not have I saved myself. The message in the church is not a self-improvement program where we work out on ourselves and try to make ourselves better and save ourselves from wrong attitudes and wrong habits.

No. It's another person saving me from my sins. Every sinful habit I have is like a pit. And when I'm falling in a pit, there's no way I can come out of it. Somebody else has to take me out of it. And every sinful habit that I have is something that Jesus wants me to save me from.

Can you imagine what a difference it will make in your home, for example, if both husband and wife are saved from sins? I mean, let's take just one sin, anger. If both husband and wife are saved from anger, your home is going to be a foretaste of heaven.

Or if Jesus succeeds in saving husband and wife from bad moods, imagine what will happen in your home. Can Jesus do it? When the children of Israel looked at the giants in Canaan, they said, no, it's too tough.

We can't overcome the giants. But the two people who looked at God said, it's possible. Got in. So, there's a law in God's dealings with man in the New Testament, which is not so much true in the Old Testament, that we get according to our faith.

Faith as the Measure of Receiving Grace

How much we get depends on how much faith we have. There's no partiality with God. To use an illustration, suppose there's a shortage of water and God sends rain. How much rain I collect for my use depends on the size of the vessel I put outside.

If I put a cup outside, I get a cup of water. If I put a bucket, I get a bucket of water. If I put a huge tub there, I get a tub of water. If I make a big tank, I get a rain. A whole lot of water in that tank.

According to the size of your vessel will be the amount of water you get. Faith is something like that. Faith to receive from God is going to be according to the size of my faith. If I come with a teeny-weeny cup, that's all I'll get.

If I think that God can only save me from hell, that's all I'll get. But if I believe God can save me from my sins, I'll get it. But if I don't believe it, I don't get it. In Matthew chapter 9, see, there are two words that are more frequently found in the New Testament and almost never found in the Old Testament.

One is grace and the other is faith. By grace are you saved through faith. That's another New Testament verse. Ephesians 2 verse 8. By grace are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

So, salvation is by grace and through faith. I picture it like this. Grace is God stretching out His hand and saying, Here, my son, my daughter, here's a gift for you. And faith is my reaching out my hand and saying, Thank you.

It's as simple as that. God reaching out His hand and giving us something which I'll never get unless I reach out my hand by faith and say, Thank you. So, here's a promise. Jesus can save you from your sins.

And you look at your sinful habits and say, No, I can't get a victory over that. I'm not reaching out my hand to receive what God offers. I'll never get it. And the other guy, he gets it. I mean, God offered the same thing to him.

But he reached out and took it. That is the thing that makes the difference between people of different levels. You find some Christians have grown spiritually so much in one year and some others don't seem to make that progress even in 25 years.

What's the reason? God's not partial. Some have gone to the promises and claimed it by faith. So, in Matthew chapter 9, there's a story of two blind men who followed Jesus in Matthew 9, verse 27. And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, saying, Have mercy on us, son of David.

And if you look at the parallel passage in another gospel, he asked them, Don't just say, Have mercy on me. What do you want me to do for you? That's the first question he asks us. What do you want me to do for you?

Believe it's a question the Lord asks us also. We may say, Lord, have mercy on me. What exactly do you want me to do for you? Supposing you say, Lord, I'm a slave to a lot of bad habits. I want you to save me from this particular bad habit.

Name it. What is the bad habit, that's sinful habit, that's polluting you most frequently, that's destroying your relationship in your family or with others, or destroying your relationship with God. What is, I mean, there may be many, but what's one habit that you can think of?

The Goliath, the biggest one. And will you say, Lord, I want to be saved from that? Will you believe like Joshua and Caleb, that God is more powerful than that bad habit? That's the next question. First of all, what do you want me to do for you?

I don't have time to show it to you, but it's in a similar passage in another gospel. That's the first question. What do you want me to do for you? The second question is mentioned here. Verse 28. And they say, Lord, to open our eyes.

Do you believe that I'm able to do this for you? So, basically, there are just two questions the Lord asks us. He asks us even today. What do you want me to do for you? Be specific. Don't just say, bless me.

Be specific. They were specific. I want my eyes opened. Second question. Do you believe I'm able to do this for you? And there, it depends on how much faith you have. They said, yes, Lord. He touched their eyes.

And be it done for you according to your faith, he said. Not according to your desire. That's the very important thing to understand. God cannot give us according to what we desire. He gives us according to our faith.

A lot of us desire many things, but we don't get them. Because the law is not, be it done for you according to your desire, but according to your faith. Now, I don't have time to go into it, but there are many reasons why God has chosen faith to be the vehicle through which he communicates salvation to us.

Because, one reason I'll mention, is because when our forefather Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, it was primarily a failure of faith. That means he didn't trust God. He didn't believe God. He believed the devil.

God had told him, if you eat of that tree, you'll die. The devil said, you won't die. And he didn't believe God. He believed the devil. And he discovered the devil's a liar. He did die. And all these 6 ,000 years since Adam, every man who has believed the devil has found that the devil is a liar.

Sin, Deception, and the Seriousness of Disobedience

The devil cheats people. Look at all these young people who are going to drugs, being fooled by the devil that you'll get a kick out of it. You'll get a high through taking it. And it's true, temporarily they do get something, but it finally destroys their mind.

They can never be the perfectly normal people they could have been if they had never touched that polluted thing. The devil's a liar. He's come to steal and kill and destroy. And that's what happened to Adam in the Garden of Eden too.

It was a failure of faith. You don't believe that what God has said is true. The first lie that the devil told Eve was, it's not serious to disobey God. Not at all serious. I know God has said don't do it, but it's not going to be so serious, don't worry.

You won't die. And that's the lie he has been telling man throughout all these thousands of years. It's not serious to disobey God. I mean these small things that all God overlooks. It's not serious. And Adam and Eve discovered that it was a pretty serious thing.

Because not only they got turned out of Eden, as a result of that their first son became a murderer who killed their second son. It was pretty serious. It is a serious thing when we disobey God. And even children suffer because of the failure of their parents.

See, it's a tremendous thing for children to grow up in a home where the parents are God-fearing. It's a great inheritance. I mean like the world would say, children of very rich families inherited a lot of wealth.

Spiritually, God-fearing parents, their children inherited tremendous spiritual wealth. And parents who treat God's word casually, their children pick up on that. And the children become wayward and all the parents begin to weep, saying my children have gone astray.

Well the children went astray, but the parents went astray. That's why the children of the righteous are blessed. Because the parents decided to fear God and obey Him. So remember this. So when Jesus asked them, do you believe that I can do this for you?

Because they said, yes, you can do it for us. They got it. They got it immediately. And some things God gives us immediately, some things God takes time to give us. There are reasons for that. But we definitely get what God has promised, that's for sure.

And the great tragedy today is because, you see another thing, the devil knows that all men love material comforts, money and health. So he tells them, why don't you trust God for money? Why don't you trust God for health?

Well, a lot of people try to do that and a lot of them are frustrated because it doesn't work out as they expect. Because that's not promised in scripture. In the Old Testament it's true, God promised to save Israel from poverty, to save Israel from sickness.

There are many promises like that in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 28. Deuteronomy 28 is a chapter that promises Israel that if you obey me, God says, I will bless you, I will prosper you, I will heal your sickness.

And if you don't obey me, there are 54 verses in that book, in that chapter rather, that say if you don't obey me, you are going to get all kinds of sicknesses, you are going to suffer financially, etc.

But in the New Covenant, and that's an Old Testament gospel, and unfortunately a lot of people are preaching that Old Testament gospel today, and people who don't read the Bible deserve to be deceived with that false gospel.

But the New Testament gospel is, He will save us from our sins. Because sin is much more serious than sickness. It's much more serious than poverty. I don't know whether most of us believe that. It's like, if I ask you, do you believe that cancer is worse than getting a cold?

Or a cough? Do you believe that AIDS is much worse than getting a little fever? You say, oh sure. We have no doubt about that, because we are educated, we know that cancer is more serious than getting a cough, and AIDS is more serious than getting a fever.

But I want to tell you that sin is more serious than all of that. But that's where we don't really believe that, because we are spiritually illiterate. You know, like if you tell an illiterate woman in some village, who has never got any education, that you got cancer, you are not disturbed.

Because she thinks cancer is just like a cough or something, you will go off tomorrow. But if you were told by a doctor that you got cancer, you are not going to take that lightly, because you are educated.

Education teaches you that cancer is very serious. It's not like a cough or a fever. The uneducated person doesn't think cancer is serious, because they don't know what it means. Now apply that spiritually.

The spiritually illiterate person thinks that sin is not serious. He takes it lightly. He can watch pornography and think it's not serious. That is a spiritually illiterate person. He doesn't know the seriousness of sin.

Just like that illiterate lady doesn't know the seriousness of cancer. And I find that a lot of Christians are spiritually illiterate, who are very educated when it comes to earthly things. So, when the Lord says, according to your faith, be it unto you, I must go on a promise.

The promise is, He will save you from your sins. And I come to Jesus and I say, Lord, it says in your word, it's the very first promise in the New Testament, that you will save me from my sins. That's what I want.

And the Lord says, do you believe I can do this for you? That's where people say, well, I am not so sure, because I have been a slave to this sin for so long. It's like saying the giants have ruled Canaan for so long, do you think they will give up their territory after having ruled there for 20 years or 30 years?

Joshua and Caleb, sure, God is going to approve them. But all the other Israelites said, no, no, no, it's not possible. And if you want to know from the Old Testament, how many believed and how many did not believe God's promise, here is the proportion.

600 ,000 did not believe. And if you were to ask me, among born again believers, how many people do you think believe that Jesus can save them from all these sins I listed earlier? Two, out of 600 ,000.

You get a group of 600 ,000 believers, you find two people who believe that Jesus can save them from all their sins. That's the reason they never overcome. They don't believe it's possible. Exactly like it says in the Old Testament.

So, I want to be in that small number. I want to be in those like Joshua and Caleb. These things are written to challenge us. And because it's going to change my life, it's going to change my home life.

It's going to make my home a little bit like heaven. It's going to make my children grow up in a God-fearing way. So, I thought of this, these two eyes, you know, they were blind in both eyes. And I thought if one of them said to Jesus, Lord, I'm not too sure whether you can open both eyes, but I've got faith you can open one eye.

Jesus would have said, well, according to your faith, be it unto you. He would have gone out of the room with one eye open. And the other guy would have said, I trust you for both eyes. He would have come with both eyes open.

And when both these people compared notes, this guy with one eye open says, how in the world did you get both eyes open? I've got only one eye open. He says, is the Lord partial towards you? He said, no.

He just asked me the same question he asked you. And you said you could trust him for one eye. You've got one eye open. I trusted him for both eyes. I've got both eyes open. I want to think of these two eyes as forgiveness of sins, and being saved from sin.

One person says, I trust the Lord. He can forgive my sins. According to your faith, be it unto you. Your sins are forgiven. Another person says, he'll not only forgive my sins, he'll save me from my sins.

According to your faith, be it unto you. Now when these two people compare notes, the one who's only got forgiveness says, how in the world did you get saved from your sins? I just trusted him. Both promises were there.

I believed both. You believed only one. You got only one. It's not because God is partial. It's not because one is more wholehearted. It's because one believed that God would do what he said. So, I want to encourage you to see this, my brothers and sisters, that if you missed out on something, it's because you didn't believe what God promised he'd do for you.

Receiving Victory Over Sin

And I've come to see that when we don't believe God, it's an insult to God. God says, I'll do this for you, and you say, I don't believe it. Can you imagine how God feels about that? Supposing you're in college and dad says, I'll pay your fees.

It's expensive, I know what I'll pay. And he says, no dad, I don't believe it. It's like saying you're a liar. It's almost like slapping him in the face. Your dad says, I'll pay your fees. You say, no, I don't believe it.

God says, I'll save you from your sins. And you say, no, I don't believe it. I don't believe you can do it. Many Christians don't realize how they're insulting God every single day. It was true in my life for many years.

I'm so ashamed of it now. But I'll tell you why, because in all the years, in all those years when I was a believer, nobody ever preached to me what I'm preaching to you right now. And there's hardly anybody preaching it even today.

I was thoroughly defeated. Probably more defeated than anybody sitting here. And I was born again. My sins were forgiven. My one eye was open. I believed with all my heart that my sins were forgiven. And if you were to ask me, are your sins forgiven?

I'd say, I'm absolutely sure my sins are forgiven. And every time I sinned, I would confess my sins and He would forgive me. I would sin, He'd forgive me. I'd sin, He'd forgive me. And now I realize that it was wrong for me to call Jesus Savior.

I should have called Him Jesus, my forgiver. Because He hadn't saved me. He forgave me. After He forgave me, I would fall into the same sin again, as a born again believer. And I would ask Him to forgive me again.

And He would forgive me. He never stopped forgiving me. Never. The next day I'd do the same thing again. I'd ask Him to forgive me. He never saved me. No. I was just defeated, defeated, defeated. And I'd be forgiven, forgiven, forgiven.

So how could I call Him Savior? So many Christians who are calling Jesus Savior. He's not really their Savior. They must be honest. And say, Lord, You're not my Savior. You've saved me from nothing. You've forgiven me.

And I thank God that a day came in my life when I discovered that He was a Savior too. It was written on the first page of my New Testament. I just didn't read it. And when I don't read the New Testament, like I said, I deserve to be deceived.

So, as I battled through seeking God and studying the Scriptures, I discovered these wonderful promises. That God could save me from my sins. God could give me a foretaste of Heaven in this life. Let me show you a passage in Hebrews 6, which describes what a born-again person can experience.

It's referring to how a person can lose his salvation. But before that, it describes a born-again person in Hebrews 6 like this. I want you to look at verse 4 and 5. Just 4 and 5. That's all I'm looking at.

Hebrews 6, verse 4 and 5. And there are a number of things mentioned there that describe a truly born-again person. Number one, he has been enlightened. Enlightened means light has come into the darkness in his life.

The sun has risen. The darkness is gone. He's come into the light of God. When he reads the Scriptures, he gets light. You know, it's like if you're in the pitch dark and you try to read the Bible, you can't understand anything.

But when you shine the light on that book, hey, you read it. It's something like that. When the Holy Spirit comes and brings light, you read the Bible. The difference between reading the Bible with the Holy Spirit enlightening you and reading without the Holy Spirit's instruction is like the difference between trying to read the Bible in pitch darkness and trying to read the Bible in light.

Enlightened. Wonderful word. And tasted of the heavenly gift. The gift of God is forgiveness and eternal life. And I taste of it. Taste something of a heavenly life which is very different from the earthly life.

It says that I can taste something of heaven. Isn't that amazing? While on earth I can taste a truly born-again person. He can't have the full blessing of heaven. That will take only when Christ comes again.

But I can taste a little bit of it. And that makes me long for more. Have you tasted something of the peace and the joy of heaven? I have. And have been made a partaker of the Holy Spirit. It means Almighty God himself, the third person of the Trinity, has come to live with me.

I've been a partaker of the Holy Spirit. A truly born-again person. He's got light. He's tasted a little bit of heaven. Of heaven's peace and joy. And he's got the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. He's a partaker of the Holy Spirit.

And number four, he's tasted the good word of God. That means he's able to hear God speaking to him. God speaks to him through his word. And he's tasted that. It's like Israelites tasting the manna which came from heaven every day.

He's tasted the word of God. And number five, he's tasted a little bit of the powers of the age to come. You know, in that future age, when Christ comes back, one of the things that's going to happen to us is he's going to transform our body into the likeness of his body.

There will be no sickness there. There will be no death. There will be a body of perfection. That's in the future age. I can't have that now. But it says here, I can taste a little bit of it. I'll tell you honestly what I have done many times.

I say, Lord, I'm a child of God. I'm born again. One day you're going to give me a body that's absolutely perfect. I can't have it now. I know that. But I want a taste of that now. I'm a bit sick and I want you to heal me.

Healing is a little taste of that future age when I shall never be sick and I shall never die. I can't have it fully, but I can get a taste of it. Now the mistake that a lot of Christians make is to go to extremes.

One, that I can have it all fully now. The other is that I can't taste anything at all. Both are wrong. And many a time I have come to God like that and the Lord has said to me, according to your faith be done.

We'll all die because we can't have the fullness of the power of the age to come. But if you don't believe me, ask the Lord the next time and say, Lord, I'll tell you why I've asked for help. I'm traveling almost constantly, preaching the word of God here and there in the villages of India and many countries.

I find it useful to have help when you travel so much. It's useful if you don't lose your voice, if you have to speak so much. Almost every day of the year I'm speaking somewhere or the other. And I say, Lord, I'm not asking you to give me help to make more money.

I'm just asking you to give me help so that I can serve you. So, salvation is from sin, but one of the by-products is that we get certain other earthly blessings according to our need. You know, Jesus said, if you seek the kingdom of God first, these other earthly needs will be added to you.

You don't have to go running after them. He won't make us millionaires, but he'll give us enough for our needs. We may not have perfect health. I don't have perfect health. I don't have much hair on top and I still wear glasses and I have a little backache.

And so I don't have perfect health, but enough to serve him. That's all I'm looking for. And so I'm not saying that we have it in fullness, but a taste of it. Sometimes I say, Lord, just give me one teaspoon of that powers of the age to come.

And boy, does it do something. Can you imagine getting a teaspoon of the powers of the age to come? It's one of the blessings of being born again. So, everything is according to your faith, be it unto you.

You believe God can do this for you, but start with being free from sin. Because the primary purpose of salvation is not healing. And the primary purpose is being free from sin. Jesus didn't come primarily to heal our bodies.

He came to save us from our sin. But he does do things for our bodies. I mention that because sometimes we do suffer in our bodies and God does care for it. I'll tell you a passage in 1 Corinthians 6 that's helped me a lot in relation to my physical body.

Giving the Body to the Lord

1 Corinthians 6, there are three verses here I want to show you of the promise that a wholehearted disciple can claim for his physical body. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 13, the last part. The body is not for immorality.

God didn't give you eyes for purposes of immorality. And you know how you can use your eyes for immoral purposes. You can use other parts of your body for immoral purposes, but usually it begins with the eyes.

God didn't give us our eyes or our hands for immoral purposes. The body is not for immorality, but it is for the Lord. So, if you say, Lord, my eyes and my hands, etc., are not for immorality. Maybe I've used it in the past for that, but no more.

It is for you. Then the promise is, the Lord will be for your body. How do you like that? It's a fantastic promise. If you give your body to the Lord, the Lord says, I'll be there for your body. I've claimed it many times.

I said, Lord, my body is for you. I believe you'll be for my body. And anything I do with my body, I go to work and earn my living. It's for the glory of God. Everything I do is for the glory of God with my body.

I don't want to use my tongue to sin. I want to use it for the glory of God. God says, I'll be for your body. I want to encourage all of you here, let the Lord have your body. Don't just, you know, a lot of people say, I'll give your heart to Jesus.

That's easy. I want to take you one step further and say, give your body to Jesus. Give your eyes to the Lord. Give your tongue to the Lord. You've used it for many sinful purposes like I have. A day came in my life when I said, Lord, I have given this body to the devil for so many things.

My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my legs, my thoughts, my mind, it's not going to be like that anymore. It's going to be for you. I owe it to you. You purchased my body on the cross. You bought my body. It says in verse 20, the same verse, chapter.

You've been bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body. You know, your body was bought with a price. Supposing somebody paid the price for your, supposing you are living in a house and you sold it.

And the person paid you the full price and not only the full price, as a generous man, he paid you more than the full price for the house you sold. What type of person would you be if you refused to vacate the house?