“Saving Grace!” – FBC Morning Light (1/2/2024)

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you, January 2nd. I hope you had a good New Year's Day yesterday, were able to just take a day and have some relaxation. I don't know if you were into football, watching bowl games or not, but whatever you did, I just hope it was a good day.

And on this Tuesday, we're in the second day of our new Bible reading plan. And I should have pointed out yesterday that if you'd like a copy of that plan or like to see someplace online where it's available, you can go to our church website, faithbaptiststerling .com.

And let me see here, make sure I give you the right information to be able to pull that up. So faithbaptiststerling .com. And then if you go across the menu bar at the top, there is a tab forth across articles and devotions.

And underneath that, there's a tab for the 2024 Bible reading plan. You click on that, and it takes you to some downloads. You can either see it online or download it by quarters. And it might be easiest just to download it and print it off, but whatever you need to do there, it's available for you online.

Sin Crouching at the Door in Genesis 4

Well, today we're reading in Genesis 4 and 5, and then we jump to 1 Chronicles 1, verses 1 to 4, and then we come back to Genesis chapter 6, reading verses 1 through 8. And very early on in Scripture, we discover one of the reasons for our internal struggles, and it's found in Genesis 4 in verse 7.

This is the account of Cain and Abel. Abel brings a good sacrifice to the Lord, and Cain brings a crummy sacrifice to the Lord. The Lord accepts Abel's, he doesn't accept Cain's, and Cain is ticked, because the Lord hasn't accepted his sacrifice.

And the Lord asks, why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen? And then he says this, if you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

There it is. Why is it that we have such internal struggles in life? Why is it we can't just say, I want to do this good, virtuous thing, and then just do it all the time? Why? Because we have this indwelling sin problem, it's just crouching at the door, it's just ever ready to pounce, and its desire is for us, it wants to rule us, it wants to control us, our indwelling sin.

But we must rule over it, and can we? Can we? Well, we discover not in our own strength, that's for sure, because right after this, Cain in his anger goes out and finds Abel in the field, and in his jealous rage, he takes him out, kills him.

There we are, at the very beginning of human history, we see the root of all of our own internal struggles, and all of our external strife. It is this matter of sin that's crouching at the door. Things just escalate very quickly, I should say, spiral downward very quickly.

Judgment on the Earth and Noah's Grace

You read through chapters 4 and 5, and you skip over to 1 Chronicles to get a genealogy, but then you come back to chapter 6, and in verses 1 to 8, we're told that the wickedness of man is great in the earth, and every imagination of the heart is only evil continually.

The Lord made the determination that he is going to send judgment upon the earth. There's going to be this global flood. He says, I will destroy man and whom I have created from the face of the earth.

But then it says in verse 8, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So here's another thing we see that's going to run throughout Scripture as well, at the very beginning of the Bible. In the despairing account of man's fall, his inevitable death, the widespread and incessant evil, the pronouncement of judgment, God graciously chooses one man and his family to save from destruction.

Then that family will start things all over again, and then throughout the course of human history, God in his grace saves some, and they become a remnant of grace to his glory. That's a wonderful reassurance at this beginning of the Bible when it seems everything is going absolutely in the wrong direction, and nothing but doom is coming.

Grace, Salvation, and the Hope of Redemption

Ah, yeah, there's doom, but there is also a light. There's also grace. There's also salvation in that God of grace. So our Father, we thank you today for the promise and hope of salvation that is ours because of your grace.

Thank you for that redemption. Bless these thoughts to our hearts today, we pray. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well listen, you have a good rest of your Tuesday. May the Lord bless you in it.

Good day.