(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

1 Peter 3, what I want to talk to you about this morning really is found in the last verse where it says, Grow in grace in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It says there to grow in grace. You see, there's an importance, there's something very important that we need to understand about growing in grace. Understanding what grace is and what it means to grow in grace, as it's telling us here. That's a very important subject. Grace or graciousness, I mean it's a substantial theme in the scripture. There's a lot of references to that term grace or graciousness. I mean we're admonished over and over in the scripture to be gracious. We're admonished over and over to have a loving and kind spirit. And we see that grace, if you were to count it up, grace, that word is mentioned 170 times in 159 verses. So that would mean that there's several verses in the Bible that use the word grace more than once, even in one verse. So grace is something that just comes up over and over and over, all the way back in Genesis, all the way through the Old Testament and into the New Testament, we see this theme about grace. Grace, grace, it's something that comes up a lot. The word graciousness is mentioned 31 times in 30 verses. So that's 201 mentions in 189 verses of some derivative of the word grace. So it's an important word, it's a word that's used a lot, and it's something that we need to understand what does it mean to be gracious? What does it mean to have a gracious attitude? Now we understand, of course, when we talk about grace from a doctrinal perspective, we understand that grace is a core doctrine of salvation. There's many famous verses that we use if we go out solely that we would mention to people that would use the word grace, and it's something that we have to understand if we ourselves are going to be saved. You see, a person can't even be saved if they don't understand what grace is. If you don't have a proper understanding of God's grace, how can you be saved? How can you understand that you are a hell-bound sinner who needs to be saved by God's grace if you don't understand what grace is? So we see that grace is very important in the sense of salvation. It's something that we have to understand in order to be saved. And there are several verses that we could point to to emphasize that point. Go ahead and turn to Ephesians chapter 1. So just some verses that show us the importance of grace and salvation. The Bible says in Titus 2.11, For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared in all men. So it's the grace of God that brings salvation to all men. That's how we're even saved. If we're going to go to heaven today, it's by God's grace. Of course, the Bible says in Titus chapter 3 verse 7, That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. So we're justified by God's grace. That's how we're justified. We're not justified by our own works. We're not justified by the things which we have done. It's not our own righteousness that saves us, but it's God's grace that justifies us. It's the fact that Jesus Christ came and died for our sins and was buried and rose again. And if we put our faith and trust in Him, that He saves us by His grace. You're there in Ephesians chapter 1, look at verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints which are our emphasis, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. So he's saying, look, grace be to you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. He's giving them a blessing and he's saying, look, grace be to you. That's something that, again, it's an admonishment from the apostle Paul to these people. He goes on and reads in verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us unto Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted. So he says again, there's that word popping up again, that the reason He's given us this grace is to the praise of His glory. God is very gracious toward us in that He has made us accepted, as it says there in the glove, made us accepted in Jesus Christ. It was through Jesus Christ that we became accepted before God. That's how we became justified before God. And that was something that was very gracious of God, and therefore that's to His praise and to His glory. So God's grace is something that we are to give Him praise and glory over. Verse 7, In whom we, having redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. So this word just keeps coming up again and again in the New Testament, and especially in the book of Ephesians is one in particular, and the book of Romans as well, where grace is just emphasized heavily. It says that we have the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. So it's not just that God had a little bit of grace, it's that He had the riches of His grace. God has grace in abundance. It's something that He has a great deal of. He has an abundance of grace. He has great riches of grace, and that's how we receive the forgiveness of sins. You think for God to forgive a sinner. For every sin that we've ever done or thought or will do one day, for God to forgive all of humanity, for every human being who's ever lived, for God may have that much grace to forgive all of that sin and iniquity. How much He must have. How much grace He must really have. That's why it says the riches of His grace. I mean, the riches of God's grace are abundant. There are many. That's what it means to have the riches of His grace. Turn over to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. We're talking this morning about grace, and just emphasizing the importance to begin with, of how important grace is in our salvation. I mean, to be saved, it takes grace. We have to understand what grace is in order to be saved. And when we begin to dwell upon and think about God's grace, you know, we begin to understand that God's grace is great. It's infinite. As it says there, the riches of His grace. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 4. But God, who is rich in mercy. So there again, He's mentioning right out of the way that God is rich in mercy. That God is rich in grace. It's the riches of His grace. It's the riches of His mercy. For His great love, wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace are you saved. So there's that, you know, that's something we might say to somebody. We believe that we're saved by grace. That's one of the core tenets of what a Baptist would believe. You know, a Bible believer would say, well we believe that we are saved by grace. Right? Not of our own works, as it goes on and says. And it raised us up together and made us to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace. So when we get to heaven, it's there to glorify God. Why? For the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. And by grace are you saved through faith in that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. A very famous verse that we use out of soul, but often a verse that I like to leave a person at the door. If there's somebody who doesn't have time, doesn't want to hear the whole gospel, but is willing to hear at least one verse, often you all turn to John 3 16. Or if they've said something that gives me the impression that there's somebody who's trusting in themselves to be saved, I'll quote for them that verse. For by grace are you saved through faith in that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. And it goes on and says, not of works lest any man should boast. So we see that grace is something that God seemed to be glorified in heaven for all eternity. That's something He says there, that in the ages to come, we'll give Him praise for the glory of His grace. And then He's going to show us, that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us. And some of the words that He's using here that He associates with grace, we can begin to get an idea of what grace is. Because often when we think about grace, we just think of it as, well that's just how the transaction of salvation takes place. That we understand that it's not of our own works, that God did everything, and that once we put our faith in that. And that's true, but there's some verbiage that goes along with that word grace that gives us an idea of the kind of attitude that God has. What kind of a person, what His personality is like. And we say that God is very gracious, isn't He? And it says there that the riches of His grace in His kindness toward us. So if we're a gracious person, we're a very kind person. We're someone who's kind to people, right? And it says elsewhere, I read earlier that to be gracious is to be kind. It's something that's to do good to other people. That would be something that we would say someone who's very gracious, someone who has made us accepted in the Beloved. It's not somebody who tries to push people away, but it's a very welcoming, it's a warm spirit. It's a kind spirit if you are a gracious person. And it's important that we understand this because we are commanded to be gracious in the New Testament. It's not something that's optional. We were kind of joking with some friends last night about how the Mormons are always such nice people. And why is that? Why is it when we go to these Mormon homes or for any kind of a service job where we have to go into these homes in certain parts of Phoenix, like if you go into Mesa or especially in Gilbert where there's a high density of these Mormon homes, I mean, you can almost tell before you get in the door that these people are Mormon because they've just got everything put together so nicely and they're so nice and clean cut. Very nice people normally. Well, you'd be pretty nice too if you were working to heaven. If you were counting on your own righteousness to get you into heaven, you believe that you had to do works to accompany your salvation in order to make it to Kolob, the planet where they're going. That's another sermon. But the joke was, we as Baptists, we're saved by grace. Therefore, it's okay for us to just be jerks. And sometimes that was a joke, but sometimes I think that maybe we could develop that attitude. Sometimes people can develop just this kind of attitude where they don't feel like they have to be very gracious towards each other. They don't have to extend any kind of kindness or warmth toward one another. Because again, we understand it's not how we treat people that's going to get us into heaven. But that doesn't mean that we should be, just because we're going to heaven, that we can just behave however we want. I mean, we can go to heaven, but there are certain things that God has commanded us as His children to do. That there are certain ways that God expects us to behave while we're waiting to go to heaven, while we're on our way there. We should be behaving a certain way. Just like when I put my kids in the car to come up here to church. They don't get to just run amok in the back. I expect some certain behavior. They've got to keep the seatbelt on. They've got to stay seated. They've got to talk quietly. They can't start carrying on. Not that they do. But if they started to, that would be something that we would have to correct. We're on our way to heaven while God is taking us there, while we're waiting for the redemption of our body, while we're waiting to be with Christ in glory. God still expects some certain behaviors out of us. And one of those things that we are to exhibit, one of those characteristics, one of those traits that we should have as a part of our makeup as Christians, is that we should be gracious people. We should be kind people. We should be warm and loving people. That's something that we're commanded to do. If you would turn over to 1 Peter chapter 4. Actually, you know what? I may have to turn over to Genesis chapter 47. You see, we're commanded to be gracious. That's something that we're commanded to be. I'll read to you some verses. 1 Peter chapter 4 in the Bible reads, "...as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." See, God has given us the gift of grace. We have received it. Every man has received that gift. What is the gift? The gift of salvation. That's why it says, "...the good stewards of the manifold grace of God." I mean, the grace of God that has extended toward us, that we've received, it's manifold. It can't be counted. It's multiple. There's many of it. It's without number. You can't measure the grace of God that He has towards us as individuals. And he says, "...as every man hath received the gift..." As you've received that gift of salvation, that gift of God's grace towards you, he says this, "...even so minister the same one to another." We ought to be very gracious to each other. You know, that's something I think we all have to work on. And that's something that needs to be preached and we need to be reminded of. That we are commanded as Christians to be gracious. Bible says in 2 Peter 3, you're turned over to Genesis 33, but in 2 Peter 3 he said, "...ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest also ye being led away with the air of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness." As we read in the passage this morning, "...let grow in grace in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ." You see, grace is something that we're supposed to grow in. It's not like we reach a certain level, I've got just enough grace to get me by. It should be something that we're abounding in. It should be something that we're growing in. It should be something that we're cultivating in our lives to be gracious people. You know, it's something that we have to put into practice. It's not automatic. It's not something that's just going to happen. You know, if we walk in the Spirit, of course, you know, the fruits of the Spirit, one of those things is going to be that we're going to have long suffering, that we're going to be gracious. But that's still something that we have to grow in. Walking in the Spirit is something that we have to put effort into. It's something that we have to determine to do. It's not something that's going to just happen. And that's what we need to understand, is that God is, and was and still is, very gracious toward us. I mean, when we consider the verses that we've read thus far as showing the riches of God's grace toward us, we understand that God has been very gracious toward us. And the point of the sermon this morning is to help you understand that we as Christians, we need to develop a gracious attitude toward others. And that's the title of the sermon this morning, A Gracious Attitude. We should be working to grow in grace. We should be working to develop a gracious attitude toward other people. Having grace is having the right attitude. I mean, that's what it is. It's an attitude. It's the way you come across. It's the way you project yourself. It's the way you behave. It's the way you act around others. That's an attitude, right? We are to have a gracious attitude. You're there in Genesis chapter 33. And we'll see where some people... What does it mean to have a gracious attitude? The Bible says in Genesis chapter 33, this is of course when Jacob is coming back into the land from his uncle Laban with his wives and children, the twelve children of Israel. And he meets his brother Esau, who if you remember the last time he saw Esau, Esau was, you know, fixing to kill him. He was getting ready. He said, I will slay my brother after the days of the morning for my father are over. So he was getting ready to kill him. So Jacob fled. You know, Esau was upset for everything that had taken place, how he had deceived his father and taken his birthright. And then he went into the land of Laban and married his wives and now he's coming back. And, you know, Jacob's a little fearful. He's a little afraid of what his brother's attitude is going to be. He doesn't know how he's going to receive him. Is he still upset? It's been many years. And it says there in Genesis 33 verse 8, he said, What meanest thou by all this drove? Which I meant. So if you remember the story, Jacob sends ahead the drove of the cattle. He sends forth all these cattle and things like that. Before, when he hears that Esau's coming to meet him as he's coming back into the land, you're saying your brother Esau's coming. He gets a little fearful. So he sends a drove of some cattle ahead of him to meet Esau on the way before he comes to Jacob. And when they finally meet Esau says, What meanest thou by all this drove? He said, Why are you sending all these cattle before you? Why didn't you send this drove before you? And he said, These are to find grace in the sight of my Lord. So what's Esau saying when he's trying to find grace in the sight of Esau, who he called Lord? Who is he? What is he trying? What is he saying? He's saying, I'm trying to find some, I'm trying to get some kindness out of him, trying to get some mercy. I'm trying to make sure, I'm trying to smooth things over with you. I'm trying to find grace. And that's what it means to have grace towards somebody. It's to overlook. Somebody offended you at one point, or somebody's done you wrong sometime in the past. A gracious person is able to look that over. A gracious person is able to gloss over some of these things. And a gracious person probably wouldn't need a drove to do it. And I don't think, and we know, of course, in the story that Esau did extend that grace, that he was very happy to see his brother. In fact, he even tried to refuse the flock and the drove that Jacob wanted to give him. He said, You know what? I don't need any of that. I have plenty. You know, and he had to insist that he take it. So, you know, a gracious person is somebody who's not out, you know, I'll be good to you. I'm willing to overlook this transgression, this offense that you've committed against me if you do X, Y, and Z. You know, a gracious attitude doesn't expect anything in return, does it? It doesn't expect you to give something back. So that was kind of the attitude we see from Esau that exhibits what it means to be a gracious person or what it means to have a gracious attitude. Genesis chapter 47, I'll read to you from verse 29 of Genesis 47, it says, And the times are nigh that Israel must die. And he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now if I had found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me. Marry me not, I pray thee, in Egypt. So we see, first of all, here, that another aspect of being grace, he says that it is to deal kindly and truly with me. He's saying, I want you to be gracious to me. I want you to have a gracious attitude. When Israel was passing away and he's brought his son Joseph to him, if I have found grace, if you're a gracious attitude towards your father, towards me, he's saying, deal kindly and truly with me. So he's saying, or we can see from this verse, that to be gracious to somebody is to be kind to them, and it's to be truthful. It's not to be deceptive, it's not to be deceitful, it's not to try and trick them or pull the wool over their eyes, it's to be truest, it's to be honest, it's to be upright with them, and it's to deal kindly with them. It's not to take advantage of people or misuse them or mistreat them. That would not be a gracious attitude. A gracious attitude is somebody who's willing to overlook transgression, it's somebody who's willing to deal kindly, it's someone who's willing to be truthful with another person. He's saying, well, that's great, but where does this apply in real life? We can think of a lot of different situations. We can talk about a lot of different relationships in our lives that require grace on the part of both parties, right? I mean, you think, especially in marriage, a marriage is something where they have to have a lot of grace. I mean, whether my wife realizes it or not, very early on in our marriage, she exhibited some real grace towards me, and she didn't have to do that. And there was a chance that through my own shortcomings, we could have had a very rough and rocky marriage. A lot of couples go through that, whether one person does somebody else something wrong or they offend them or they violate some kind of a trust or something like that, and that other person can become very bitter. They can become very angry. They can become very upset and hold on to that. And they can try to hold that over that person's head and they can try to, you know, and marriages end because of this. Marriages are collapsed and fail because there's no grace involved because the people involved don't have a gracious attitude. That's why it's very important that we have a gracious attitude, an attitude that's willing to overlook a transgression, a willingness to just gloss over a fault at somebody, to see past all the faults and shortcomings of another individual is to have a very gracious attitude, to deal kindly and truthfully with them, to be upfront and upright. That's a gracious attitude. And marriage is one, a relationship where a gracious attitude is very important. And then we have to have some grace in our marriages if they're going to stand the test of time, if we're going to make it through this life with the same spouse. There's going to be a lot of grace that's going to be involved on both sides, you know, because we're, you know, the man and the woman, they're both just human. We're both just sinners, you know. We're going to mess up. We're going to make mistakes. That's why we need to have some grace, even as God did, you know. And we need to have those graces. We have to have that grace as it says, you know, the riches of His grace. We have to have an abundance of grace. There should be no end to our grace. I mean, we should just have heaps upon heaps of grace that we're willing to extend to other people, especially our spouses, if we truly love them. When we talk about other relationships, you know, I think, you know, what I think about often is the relationship between, you know, a person, a church member, and their pastor. You know, I think a church member would do well to extend a lot of grace towards their pastor. I mean, the pastor has to be a very gracious person. I mean, you think about how much a pastor has to, I mean, dealing with so many people on such an important level. I mean, being a spiritual leader to a group of people, standing up and putting himself in a position of being an example to the flock. That's a lot of responsibility. That's a lot of work. That's a very serious position to take upon oneself. And it's not something to be taken lightly. And, you know, a pastor, because again, he's dealing with people. You know, there's a lot of things that he has to endure. You know, a lot of situations and things like that that require him to be very gracious towards others, to be very long-suffering, to be patient. That's why one of the requirements to be a bishop is to be patient, you know, to be very patient with people, to be long-suffering, to be gracious towards them. That would be an attitude or an aspect of being gracious is to be long-suffering. You know, but I think a lot of, we don't all understand them and say, yeah, that's right, the pastor should be that way. But a lot of times we don't think about the fact that we should also be very gracious towards our pastors, shouldn't we? If we have a pastor who's doing right, and he's a good example of the flock, we should be willing to cut that guy a lot of slack. I mean, our pastor should have a lot of slack with the people that he ministers unto. I mean, we might see him handle a situation and say, you know, I don't totally agree with that. We might see him slip up here and there. But you know, it should take quite a bit for us ever to confront one of our pastor on any kind of something we consider a fault or a shortcoming. It might not even actually be one. It just might be our opinion, what we think. And we ought to be willing to extend a lot of grace towards people, especially our pastors. So that would be another relationship that would require a lot of grace. But where's another area of life that I really want to focus in on, where we need to extend some grace? Well, I believe one of the greatest areas that we need to extend grace and display grace and see grace put into action is in soul winning. We need to grow our grace in our soul winning. That's one area that we need to have a very gracious attitude in, is in soul winning. You see, it's a gracious attitude. You know, that's not even going to get us out to go soul winning to begin with. Soul winning is just a very unselfish thing to do, if you think about it. At least it ought to be. That ought to be our attitude. We ought to be into soul winning not for our own glory, not so we can rack up a number. I'm not against numbers. I'm not against counting and being encouraged by it. It's very encouraged to see the fruit of the efforts. We shouldn't be in soul winning just so I can have a number to report to somebody. That should not be our motive, and I don't believe it is for many people, and in fact I don't think I know anybody that would have that kind of motive, but we should be on guard against that. You see, it's a gracious attitude that's going to get us out soul winning to begin with. I say, you know, I want to give of myself. I want to give of my time and my energy and my efforts. Why? So that I can tell others of the riches of God's grace that He has towards them. It's a gracious attitude so that we can bestow God's grace into others. That we can minister the same grace that has been ministered unto us unto another. That ought to be a gracious attitude that we ought to have. See, soul winning is a very unselfish thing. It's something that requires grace on our part. Bible says in John 1 17, from the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ came here, that was a very gracious thing that He did for us. And we talked about last week the sufferings of Christ. We went into the things that Jesus Christ went through in a physical suffering that He endured on this earth for our sakes. I mean, what a great gracious thing that was for Him to do. You know, we should have that same attitude, that gracious attitude that's willing to go out and experience, you know, maybe some mild discomfort at the most when we go out soul winning. You know, we might have to get some sore feet, heaven forbid. We might have to, you know, get a little dry mouth and talking a little. Hopefully we have the opportunity to give the gospel to the point where we need some water to drink. You know, we should have that kind of gracious attitude, even as Jesus Christ, who brought us grace and truth. The Bible says in Romans 3 24, we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You know, we should be willing to go out and tell others that they also can be justified freely. That there's nothing that they have to give in return to be in order to go to heaven. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 8 9, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, Jesus Christ was, if you want to talk about somebody with a gracious attitude, it was the Lord Jesus Christ, the most gracious person of all. It says that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor. You know, we ought to have that, you know, there's a lot of other things that we could do with our time and we could get really involved with a lot of different hobbies. There's a lot of things, especially us here in America, you know, we're living in a country where there's just so many things that we can pursue. There's so many ways that we could spend our time. We have such an abundance of free time in our lives these days where we could get involved in any number of hobbies or activities or groups. There's just so much leisure time that we have available to us. I mean, think about it. I mean, Jesus Christ, you know, I'm going to talk about a guy who's got some time on his hands. I mean, He's outside of time. He's not limited by time. But even though He was rich, even though He had all that abundance of time, even though He had everything that He could ever need, yet for your sakes He became poor. That ye through His poverty might be rich. That was a very gracious thing that Jesus Christ did when He became poor for our sake. That we might be made rich through His grace. See, we ought to have a gracious attitude. And if we're going to have a gracious attitude, one of the things we're going to do is we're going to say, you know what, I'm going to sacrifice my time. I know I could go, you know, join X and X group or whatever it is, you know. I think about personally for me, there's a lot of things. One thing I would like to do, let me just confess to you now, my nerdery, you know, I enjoy chess quite a bit. You know, I was talking to a brother last night about the game of chess and chess is something that, you know, it could be very time consuming. It's one of those hobbies. You know, we could go, I think, you know, take my free time. I'm going to join a chess club or I'm going to study all these great, you know, chess games of the past and get online and just play chess and chess and chess. Or, you know, another thing I would really enjoy probably would be hunting. You know, living here in the state of Arizona, there's so much great hunting to be done. There's just so many things that we could do, so many ways we could spend our time. And it would be, but the thing that we ought to do is we ought to have a gracious attitude to say, you know what, I'm going to spend my time winning others to Christ, going out and going door to door, going soloing, getting involved with the program at church, getting involved with leading other people to Jesus Christ. Instead of, you know, studying that, you know, four-move checkmate, I'm going to study the Romans road. You know, instead of, you know, studying some, you know, obscure chess opening, you know, to try and befuddle my enemies on the board, I'm going to, you know, study this book and I'm going to read this book and I'm going to mark my Bible and I'm going to go out and I'm going to take time out of my schedule and be gracious and show somebody else the grace of God towards them. Why? Because God had that same grace towards me. You know, it took somebody else taking time to go out of their way to bring me the word of God and show me how to be saved. And they hadn't done that. Who knows where, if I'd be standing here today, even preaching this message if somebody hadn't done that. So can we show that same grace, have that same gracious attitude and go out and do the same for others? Can we go out and instead of investing all of our time and energy and efforts into vain things that profit nothing in eternity, that might have a pleasure here for a while, that aren't even necessarily sinful, that we could go out and do those things and instead of doing those things, we could be gracious, have a gracious attitude, and extend grace towards others. The Bible says if you return to Luke chapter 4, you see a gracious attitude is what gets you out slowly. When you understand what Jesus Christ did for us, when you understand that there's a lot of other ways that we can spend our time and a lot of other things that we can be doing, then you understand, hey, it's more important for me to bring souls to Christ. That's a gracious attitude. One that says I'm going to give up my own self, my own time, my own energy, to see others saved. That gracious attitude is something that takes opportunity to make opportunity. You see gracious soul winning, if we're going to have a gracious attitude about soul winning, and some people we might fall into the trap of going soul winning just for the sake of, not because out of a sincere love for others to be saved, but just because we're just these great soul winners and that's just what we do and it's our reputation. We have a reputation as a soul winner to uphold. No, that's not why we're in it. We need to go out and make opportunities to go soul winning for the sake of soul winning, for the sake of seeing others saved. You see, gracious soul winning makes opportunity, doesn't it, to take that opportunity. That's something that's very gracious. And we see the example of that in Luke chapter 14. We'll see now where Jesus Christ, He was so gracious that He made an opportunity to do some soul, to preach the Gospel to others. They had to be very gracious towards others. The Bible says in Luke chapter 4 verse 16, And He came to Nazareth. So notice first of all that He came somewhere, that He had to get up and go somewhere. Before this even started, He says, Where He had been brought up as His custom was, and He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. So Jesus, He made an opportunity, didn't He? And how did He do that? He went, the Bible says. He came to Nazareth. To come somewhere, you have to go somewhere. You know, if we're going to go out and make an opportunity to be gracious about soul winning, and display a gracious attitude, we're going to have to go. I mean, you can have the burden, you can have the heart's desire, you can know what's right, you can say, Man, I really want to do that. I really want to be a soul winner. But it's never going to happen if you don't get up and go. That's the first thing we can see from this passage is that Jesus went. That's why He came to Nazareth. He made opportunity. As His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood forward to read, chapter 17. And there was delivered unto Him the book. Notice there, it was delivered unto Him. That book never, that opportunity never would have came, it never would have been delivered to Him had He not gone. He never went. No one's ever going to give you the time of day to crack open the Bible and show them if you're not willing to go and ask them if you can do it. That's the lesson that we can learn from Jesus Christ. He made an opportunity to take opportunity. He made a point of going to Nazareth. He made a point of going into the synagogue so that other people would deliver Him an opportunity to preach. They delivered Him the book to read from it. Now, of course, we're not going to go to a door and say, Hey, we got a Bible. Don't take it that literally. We're going to bring our Bibles with us. But we're going to say, Hey, do you have a moment? Can I show you from the Bible how you can be 100% sure that if you die today, you go to heaven? And it just amazes me. Every time somebody says yes, because you go out for a while and you hear, No, not interested. You hear all these excuses. And we have to really guard our hearts against being discouraged about that and just keep brushing the dust up our feet, shaking it off and going on to the next door and the next door and keeping a good attitude. But when that one person that's just humbly says, Yeah, I'll listen. They deliver the book. They bring the book to you. And you are given an opportunity to preach. That's a wonderful thing. I'm going to try really hard not to sneeze right now and have a fit sneezing. Good old phoenix allergies. But that's the point that Jesus Christ had. That was His gracious attitude. He made a point of going. And that's the attitude that we have to have. We can have the hearts desired, but we need to go. We need to make opportunity. And I've been following these guys. I've been seeing them on Facebook. These brothers from Steadfast that are out there on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. I mean, that's something that's just really near and dear to my heart. But I think that's a great example. What they're doing is kind of similar to what Jesus did. He went. He had to go somewhere. He had to go and find an opportunity. And these guys are going out of their way. I mean, they're going to South Dakota in February. Now, I grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota when I was a child. I know how cold it gets there. And I'm just amazed that some young men would take time out of their day, take time out of their lives, multiple days even, to go up there to the Pine Ridge Reservation, the poorest reservation in the country, and take time out of their lives to go to preach to people that profit them nothing. I mean, the poorest reservation on the earth, just poor, destitute people, forgotten people. But these guys are up there taking time, going out of their way. That's a very gracious thing that they're doing. And I'm just real proud of them for that. I'm really proud that there's some people that we're associated with that have that kind of a burden. That's the heart's desire of people that we associate with, that would identify ourselves, identify themselves with us. But they're the type of people that would go to a people like that up in the Pine Ridge that have just been oppressed and forgotten and are just living in sinful lives and in poor conditions. Like I said, that can't profit us anything. You know, when we go out soul winning, we're not going out hoping, well, maybe this guy will get saved so he can come to church and tithe. Or maybe he'll benefit me somehow. That should not be our attitude. That's why we don't see a lot of soul winning out of a lot of churches today, because they realize there's no profit in it. And that's all they're worried about, is building their buildings. That's all they're worried about, is getting the offering plate full. That's all they're worried about, is making sure that they have a nice salary, that they have a Christian school, that they have a staff, that they have to have all these things so they can appear outwardly to men to be righteous. But inward, they're empty. They've got no life. They're full of dead bones. They couldn't move any more than a corpse to go out and help somebody else be saved. They don't want to do it, because it doesn't profit them anything. But that's not a gracious attitude. A gracious attitude is the one that says, I'm going to go out, I'm going to take the Bible, I'm going to go, I'm going to go to Nazareth, I'm going to go into the synagogue, and I'm going to look for an opportunity for someone to let me open the book. There's going to be an opportunity for the book to be delivered, that I could read from it and show somebody else the good news of the gospel. And that's what Jesus preached, isn't it? He said, it says there, and when he had opened the book, verse 17, he found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he had anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. That was the opportunity that was delivered to him. To preach the gospel to the poor. That's why Jesus Christ came here. When he left heaven's glory, when he came down to earth, when he was rich and for our sakes became poor, it was to preach the gospel to the poor, to people that can't profit him anything. It was a gracious attitude. And that's what we need to have. We need to have a gracious attitude. And soul winning is the best place to display a gracious attitude. If you want to be a person who's going to develop a gracious attitude, you need to get involved in soul winning. You need to be somebody who's willing to go out and preach to others who can't profit you anything, for the sake of them knowing the grace of God. For that sake alone. That's the only purpose. So that they can be saved and not have to go to hell. A terrible place. But here's the thing about it. The Bible says that the book was delivered on it. We can have, we can go, but we have to wait for that opportunity for somebody to say yes. That's a gracious attitude. A gracious attitude is not someone who's going to barge the way into the door. They'll kick their foot in the door and say, hey, let me preach the gospel. They don't want to hear it. And you put your foot in the door. Let me just give you a few verses here and be real pushy at the door. I don't understand it. I don't understand why we want to waste time with people who don't want to hear. We want to get in these arguments. We want to try and one-up them with some argument. The Bible says a man isn't a heretic after the first admonition, reject. Somebody doesn't want to hear it. Just kindly wish them a good day and move along. You don't have to make a point of one-upping these people. That's not a gracious attitude. That's a proud attitude. That's an attitude that's in it for me. Let me show you what I know. Let me show you how much more spiritual I am. Let me show you how much more understanding of the Word of God I have than you by trying to one-up you with what I know. I don't appreciate it. I don't think that's a gracious attitude. A gracious attitude is a humble and meek attitude that doesn't have to exalt itself. It's not puffed up. It's not somebody that has to always be the top dog. It's not somebody that has to show somebody else up. The Bible says there that the book was delivered on him. You have to look for that opportunity. You see, you can only preach to somebody who wants to hear it. We can go door-to-door, door-to-door, door-to-door, but if that person is not willing to deliver us the opportunity to preach the gospel to them, then we'll never have it. That's why it's important that we go out and we go door-to-door, door-to-door, door-to-door, door-to-door, and we put in serious time and effort, great lengths to do it, because it takes a lot of time. Sometimes we catch flak at Faithful Word for the numbers of salvation. What was it last year? Eleven thousand souls saved? And people would scoff at that. They would ridicule it. They would say, it can't be, but they don't see the man-hours behind it. That's the part of the equation they don't factor in, is the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands. I mean, I would like to hear those numbers. How many tens of thousands of man-hours were put in last year? How many different foreign countries were gone into for weeks on end to get those kind of numbers? How many different soul-laying times were faithfully attended by dozens of people for hours every week-in, week-out, day-in, day-out, the entire year to reach a number like that? That's why it takes it, because you have to find that opportunity. That's the gracious attitude, is somebody who goes and finds that opportunity, and it takes time. It's not somebody who just tries to muscle their way in. That's why it takes time. It takes effort. It takes diligence. It takes consistency. When I was in Proverbs 25, a word fitly spoken, it's like apples of gold and pictures of silver. You know, it's that word fitly spoken, meaning there's some tact being spoken the right way at the right time. You know, it's not spoken when it doesn't do any good. That's a word fitly spoken. It says, as an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover on an obedient ear. You know, somebody who's willing to listen is the person that you're going to reach. There's no time. You know, it's not gracious. You know, I'm very gracious because I'm going to sit here and berate this guy. And pester him and bother him with something he doesn't want to hear. That's not a gracious attitude. A gracious attitude is the one who looks for the obedient ear. The ear that's willing to listen. The ear that's willing to be reproved and told, hey, the Bible in fact does say you're a sinner. Hey, the Bible does in fact say that you deserve to go to hell. The good news is that God has commanded his love toward us. That Christ died for our sins. Now you'll notice there in Luke 4, at the very end, after Jesus preached to them, he read out of the book of Isaiah, and it says, and all bear witness and wondered at what? Where did they wonder? At the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. They wondered at the gracious words. At the end of when Jesus Christ got done speaking, they said, wow, those are gracious words that he just spoke to us. And he was speaking the word of God. He said, wow, these are gracious words. These are very good, kind words that he's spoken. As he says there, he is anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight, to set at liberty to them in a bruise. Those are gracious words. And that was his message. That was his message. That's the gospel. And that's our message today. The message that we carry is a very gracious message. The message that we have stems from a gracious attitude that God has. It's God's message. His message of grace. And when we carry a gracious message, we're going to have a gracious attitude. People will wonder at our gracious words. I praise God. The other day I was able to see a young man saved after church on Sunday night. It wasn't anything special. It wasn't anything that the world would look at and say, wow, what an eloquent speaker Brother Corbin is. That wasn't it at all because it wasn't my words. I just simply took him and gave him the same gospel presentation that everybody gets if I have a fine opportunity. And at the end of it, it became so quickly to him. He was that obedient ear that was just ready to hear it. I mean, it was one of the easiest ones I've ever seen somebody get saved. He got saved. And I remember at the end of it, I said, isn't that good news? And if somebody gets saved, I'll say, isn't that good news? Trying to help them understand that, look, you just got saved from hell. You know, they understand that sometimes I don't think it really sets in on people. How great that news is. And he said, yeah, that is good news. I said, man, have you ever heard, you know, would that be, what he said to me was, you know, I've never heard it put that way before. That's what I said. I said, you know, what good are these other churches you're going to if they have never told you that? He said, yeah, I've never heard it put that way before. And it wasn't me. It wasn't my gracious words that I spoke. It wasn't my eloquence. It wasn't my, you know, I wasn't the silver tongue war there. You know, it was the words of God. It was his gracious words of Christ. He wanted that the gracious words which I had spoken out of the word of God. That's, and if we have a gracious attitude, we're not going to go into it to try and, you know, make ourselves look good when we're out preaching the gospel. We're not going to go out there to try and impress people. We're not going to go out there to try and impress the person that made me with us, our partner, going door to door with us. Say, hey, watch how I handled this one. You know, look at my unique way of going through the scripture. You know, I like the old tested, tried and true way of going through the gospel. I remember I went soul-willing with a guy once, a partner. You know what he was impressed with? Well, what I did, I did it the same old way that everybody else, that we've all been taught. That I just used that same basic plan that works. You know, the one that, you know, if it's not broke, don't fix it. I'm not against people having their own unique way. If it's just something that they're more comfortable with, if they're more effective that way, then great. But if we're doing that just because we want to impress somebody, that's not very gracious. Because we've got to remember, it's His gracious words that count, not our own. It was Christ's gracious words that they wondered at. The Bible says in Acts 13, We declare unto you glad tidings of the promise which was made unto the Father. They were preaching Christ to them. They were saying, hey, these are glad tidings. That's what the gospel is. The good news, the glad tidings. That you don't have to repent of your sin, that you don't have to do good works to be saved, that you don't have to quit sinning, that you don't have to live a righteous and holy life, Lord, to go to heaven. But all you have to do is put your faith and trust in Lord Jesus Christ, that He will save you. That if you just believe that Jesus died for your sins, that's the glad tidings. That's the good news. You see, the point I want to make here is that your delivery is as important as your doctrine. I mean, it's great to have the right gospel. It's great that we're going door to door, knocking on the door, and we've got the gospel down pat, and we know what verses to turn to, and we know how to explain those verses, and we've got people to understand that people are getting saved. That's great. But I think a lot of people, they've got the right verses. They know how to do it. But a lot of times, people get turned away because of their presentation, because of their attitude, because they lack grace in their speech. They lack grace. Your delivery, when you're trying to deliver, when you're trying to have a gracious attitude and go out soul winning, your delivery is as important as your doctrine. Your delivery is as important as your doctrine. Now, your delivery isn't what's going to get somebody saved, but it's your delivery that may or may not allow that person to allow you to continue. If you go into it with a haughty and a puffed up spirit, or if you come with this condescending attitude, that person might just cut you off. They might just say, you know what, I don't want to hear what you have to say. You can just stop right there. And we shouldn't allow ourselves to fall victim to that. We need to go to these people humbly. The Bible says that we should, in meekness, instructing others that they may recover themselves from the snare of the devil. That's what we need to do in meekness. You know, I heard a preacher say once, you know, a preacher who could just get up and rip. I mean, a guy who gets up just, you know, fire and brunch, you know, preach hard. And he says, and people, I go out so many times, they're always amazed at how gentle and meek I am at the door. They think it's like another person. That's because we don't preach at the door like we preach from the pulpit. That shouldn't be our attitude. We're not there to rip their face off. We're there to help them get saved. Those are gracious words. It requires a gracious attitude. The Bible says in Ephesians 4, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good in the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. The things that we say, the things that would come out of our mouth, they ought to minister grace to those that hear us. Not give them a bad attitude. Not make them say, man, I don't want anything to do with that. Look, they talk like everybody else. The same things come out of their mouth, just as anybody else, or it gives offense to, you know. Now, if the Word of God offends, so be it. But if it's just our own attitude, if it's just our own personality, if it's just our own opinions that are offending people, that are unfounded in the Word of God, or if we're just, you know, being offensive for offense, you know, just for the sake of offending. No, that's no glory to us. That's no glory to God. That's not a gracious attitude. We ought to have a communication that proceeds out of our mouth that is good to the use of edifying. Why? That it may minister grace unto those that hear us, unto the hearers. The Bible says in Colossians 4, let your speech be always with grace, ceasing with salt, that you may know, and I want people to focus in on this word, how you ought to answer every man. I mean, we hear this first preaching and people say, well, you got to know every doctrine, backward and forward, how to explain yourself, and you have to be able to defeat and debunk and all this false doctrine. And that's great. And as preachers, we should know how to defend what we believe. But notice there it says how you have to answer every man, not what you have to answer every man. I'm not saying that we should know what we believe and why we believe it, but I'm saying it's safe here that we have our speech be always with grace, that we may know how we ought to answer every man. There's a way to answer somebody and it's to be done with grace. It's to be done with a gracious attitude. It's to be done humbly and meekly with kindness. That's what it means by how. How you have to answer every man. It's the attitude that we have when we answer another man. And don't get me wrong, there's a time and a place to draw a line in the sand, to come down hard, that grace kind of gets put aside and it's time to do business with somebody and say, thus say it the Lord and deal with it, right? But that's not outsold any. That's not what we're just trying to help somebody get saved or help somebody who's a little mixed up on doctrine get it right. There ought to be an attitude of graciousness that we have towards others. And not just be so quick to fly off the handle and try to get everybody in line with what we believe. There ought to be a season, there ought to be a grace period, a growing time that we extend to people. That's how we ought to answer every man with a gracious attitude. Now I mentioned earlier how a gracious attitude expects nothing in return. We talked about the soul winners that are going out of their way to these far parts of the country and gave the world to why. So that they could see other, they could see soul winning churches started. So they could see soul winners gathered together because they were so saved and more slowly begun even after they left. The gracious soul winner is someone who's serving for the benefit of others and not himself. And that's the example of Jesus Christ. He had no benefit. The Bible said to himself, but it was for others that he became poor. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 2, But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower to the angels for the suffering of death, crown with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death of every man, for every man. The Bible says in Hebrews 12, Wherefore we receive a kingdom which cannot be moved. Let us have grace that we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. The reason we should want to have a gracious attitude is that we can serve. Not that we can, you know, why I'm such a gracious person so everyone's going to love me and now they're going to be willing to serve me because of how gracious I am. Now let us have grace whereby we may serve. That's how we ought to, you know, answer every man. That's how we ought to have that grace. That's how it would come forth in a gracious attitude is an attitude of service, of humility and meekness. You see, a grown attitude, a gracious attitude is one that's grown and cultivated. It's something that you have to grow in, you know, grow in the knowledge, in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's something that we have to work on. That was the point of the sermon this morning about, you know, a gracious attitude. It's something that we have to put effort into. It's something that we have to work in. You know, it's something that comes, yes, when we walk in the Spirit, but walking in the Spirit takes work. It takes, you know, recognizing, first of all, that we might not be a gracious person. That maybe our attitude, maybe our remarks aren't welcome. They're not warranted. You know, and believe me, I'm one who likes to tease. And if you talk to my friends, they know that I'm a person who likes to joke around. But there's some people, you have to have some discernment and say, you know, some people don't like that. And a gracious person isn't going to insist on having that same attitude that they have with everybody. Certain people, they enjoy it. You get away with a little poking fun and joking around. Well, the people are more sensitive and you have to hold that back. You know, and the point I'm trying to make here is that we have to have a gracious attitude. We have to have an attitude that says, I'm going to watch what I say, I'm going to watch how I say it, and I'm going to use opportunity to serve others. I'm going to use the grace that's been given to me to go out and serve others and help others to know the grace of God. It's something that we have to grow in our lives. That's the point. It's something that we have to cultivate. It's something that's going to take effort to have a gracious attitude. And like I said, one of the first parts is recognizing, maybe I'm not as gracious as I think I am. Maybe there's some areas in my life where I can show a little more grace towards somebody. And you know, we could get into the specifics, but you know, everybody has to apply that to themselves. They have to know the specifics of their own situation and say, where can I extend some more grace? Maybe it's in our marriage. Maybe we need to go to a spouse and start developing and cultivating and growing a gracious spirit towards that person, willing to overlook some past faults. Maybe some things, some shortcomings or some sin or some harm that's come our way because of them and say, you know what, I'm willing to overlook that. I'm willing to show some grace. I'm willing to forgive and forget. And again, as I mentioned, maybe it's towards a pastor. Maybe towards our own pastor or other men of God that we know we need to extend some grace. We need to show them a loving spirit, cut them some slack and understand that they're men and that we can't hold them to the standard of perfection that we all expect. You know, it's real easy. The best place I learned that, to have that kind of an attitude of pastor is in a local church. You know, in the bodily presence of a pastor. You know, not online. And the online guys would do real well to just back away from the keyboard and stop typing and stop saying stupid things and ripping on pastors and men of God that they know very little about other than what they see online. You know, that's something I need to get off my chest, but I'm just trying to make the point that, you know, if you want to develop an attitude of grace towards your pastor, good place to do that is in a church, you know, and not worry so much about somebody else's pastor and what you think or don't think they should or should not do. But an attitude of grace, you know, that's another area we need to maybe grow it in. Towards our pastors, towards our spouses. But especially out-soul winning. You know, to even get us out-soul winning to begin with. And our attitude when we're out-soul winning. How we conduct ourselves out-soul winning. It's something that we need to grow in. It was something that Paul admonished Timothy. He admonished him to be gracious. He said in 2 Timothy 2, Thou therefore my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. He said, be strong in it. Be strong in grace. He said, be strong in it. Let that grace of God be your strength. We ought to be strong in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It ought to give us boldness. It ought to give us strength. It ought to give us, you know, a drive. It ought to give us a willingness to go out and do the work that requires strength to do it. It ought to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. But again, it's something that has to be... It has to be something that is cultivated, you know. And if someone is gracious in their attitude, it'll be displayed. It'll be something that we can see. That's why I said, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who should be able to teach others also. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Timothy's graciousness was able something that you could see. It manifested. He was able to commit those things that he had learned unto others. It was something that he, with that grace, he was able to extend towards others in teaching others. And it was something that we could see in his life when he was able to endure hardness. When he was able to, you know, take some unwanted attacks maybe, or go through a difficult time in his life, he was able to show some grace. You know, and that's the attitude we ought to have. We ought to have an attitude that desires to be strong in the grace that is in our Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to be a person who desires to have a gracious attitude and it's something that we should want to be able to display towards others. Let's pray. And Father, again, thank you for the Bible. Thank you for the great lessons that we can learn from it. Thank you for the opportunity to preach it, Lord. And Father, I pray that you would use it to help others. Lord, help us to be gracious people. Lord, with the brethren, with our pastors, with our spouses, and Lord, with total strangers, with people that we don't even know, people that we may never even see again, that we would go out, that we would move with compassion, that we would help others to be saved, Father, with a gracious spirit and a gracious attitude, that we would take time out of our own lives and our own endeavors to extend the same grace towards others that you've extended towards us, that we could tell them of the grace that you have towards them, Father, that we would go out, that we would go soul winning with the right attitude, that we would know how to answer every man. Lord, with the seasoned speech and with grace on our lips, that we could kindly and gently and meekly lead others to you. Father, be with us this week, be with the soul winning that's done, we ask and pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.