heat heat heat up here heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat good morning welcome to the stand another brilliant week ahead of us a week of great expectation a week of hope unfolds and grace abounds and we are looking to see the hand of God in our lives it's also been a time in which we have expressed our sha back to the Lord if you joined us on Sunday either physically or through the live stream and you still can go to our platforms on Twitter on on X rather on Facebook and on YouTube and you can connect with our broadcast the Lord spoke to us tremendously in diverse ways and we learned again that even though the fig tree does not blossom from Habac 3:1 17 it means that there's no new season even though there is no grapes in the vines meaning that there's no wine for celebration and even though there is there is no grain in the fields meaning that there's no staple food and there's no olive meaning that there's no light at the time when we need light because we get oil from the olives and there are no sheep in the stalls and there is no there are no cows and cattle he says and that speaks about our industry says yet will I praise him and that's a shabbak there a loud shout of praise to the lord and he says he will cause me to walk upon my hands his feet and so I would have agility because God is taking me to my high places hallelujah and that was such a powerful time and that was how we ended you know that service on Sunday and it's there you you need to connect with it and be blessed by it and so this is a brilliant week and we're truly looking that God will speak to us and one of the things you know God said and I want to extend it to this platform was that he said you know he just dropped in my heart the word second opinion and as much as that wasn't necessarily speaking about you visiting a doctor and it could apply depending on um how you receive that word God was simply saying that the second opinion will nullify the first negative opinion and I don't know who that is speaking to out there that you've gotten some bad news it may have to do with your health but the second opinion will nullify the first opinion and it's it's just going to be a tremendous miracle of God that you're going to see take place in your life god is mindful of you god is a good God i've been saying that lately and it's because I see his goodness and I know him to be good and so this morning we will while we bring our friends to this platform we'll be worshiping the Lord with a song and this song um interestingly has no music but there's just such wonderful harmony such great singing here and the song says behold our God seated on his throne come let us adore him nothing can compare with him and I pray that you may just sing it along it's a beautiful song that truly just honors God and adors him and I just want us to sing it together this morning behold our God os who has every grain of sand kings and nations tremble at his voice all creation rises to rejoice who has gi to the Lord who can question any of his words who can teach the one who knows all things each and all his wondous deeds behold sing the nails upon his and buring all the guilt of sinful man god eternal humble to the grave jesus savior risen down to reign behold our sing you will reign forever fill the earth you will rain let your glory fill the earth you will fill the earth heat heat yeah heat heat heat such beauty in voices you know um the words of of the song are so rich who has held the oceans in his hands and um that's coming out of the book of Isaiah who has numbered every grain of sand kings and nations tremble at his voice all creation rises to rejoice behold our God seated on his throne come let us adore him behold our king nothing can compare let us adore him who has given counsel to the Lord who can question any of his words who can teach the one who knows all things who can fathom all his wondrous deeds who has felt the nails upon his hands bearing all the guilt of sinful man god eternal humbled to the grave jesus Savior risen now to reign behold our God seated on his throne come let us adore him behold our king nothing can compare come let us adore oh him and truly we adore you Father today thank you we behold you our king you behold you our God nothing can compare to you and we bless you Lord we give you praise in the name of Jesus hallelujah this week we're looking at the topic anchored in grace anchored in grace and as long as we leave and continue to follow the Lord the subject of grace is one that we will constantly need to visit and revisit again and again and you know that grace is the foundation of our lives and without the grace of God we wouldn't be saved without the grace of God we don't even have the enablement to do the things that we do and so as we look at um this exciting topic anchored in grace I want us to begin by looking at the power of an anchor what is an anchor anchors are you know metal objects that are attached to ships and every ship has one you know the thing about a ship is that it's a moving vessel on an ocean of water and if you leave the ship in you know in a large ocean of water it naturally without it being anchored or being you know tied somewhat um you know to the pier the ship is going to drift as the water of the ocean drifts and so in order for us in in order for man as great as the sheep is man has not yet been able to find what you call an advanced piece of technology that will keep the ship stable without the engines running and the only thing is a piece of metal that is connected to the ship that is often dropped until it gets to the bottom of the ocean and as long as it's at the bottom of the ocean it serves one purpose to stop the sheep from drifting and so when we say anchored in grace and we're looking at you know the the grace as an anchor it means that our lives have a tendency to stray and please hear me it is possible to stray away from go from God it is possible to stray away from truth it is possible to stray away from purpose it will take the anchor of God's grace to keep us constantly anchor to God without strain and so imagine a ship at sea during a violent storm waves are crashing winds are howling visibility is gone the captain can't see anything the only thing that keeps it from tossing into the rocks or lost to the ocean's chaos you know an eventual disaster is an anchor it is heavy it is stable but once it is rooted deep in the seabed no matter that wind that ship is going to stay now it's interesting that an anchor cannot stop the storm an anchor has no capacity and ability to stop the storm but an anchor can keep the sheep from drifting in the midst of the storm and what we need to understand is that grace is our anchor when life shakes us up and life will shake you up you don't have to pray for it it's just something that's going to happen because that is the way life is our lives are like a ship on a sea that is often being pummeled by the waves of the sea and the storms of life so when life shakes us up when temptation lurs us when our strength fails grace holds the anchor holds hallelujah the anchor called grace holds and keeps us from drifting glory to God forever more so let's let's go again and and try to just understand grace so what is grace grace is more than kindness it is simply an unearned sustaining empowering presence of God i'll say that again unearned sustaining empowering presence of God and the text we'll be looking at this morning is um Ephesians in the book of Ephesians uh chapter 2 we we will just I believe be blessed by this text and what does it say it says "For by grace are you saved through faith." For by grace grace is the enabler that causes you to be saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast here is a scripture that clearly undergards the definition of grace and I just try to break down what this text is saying number one it says grace is God giving you what you don't deserve so grace is God giving you what you don't deserve what is it that you don't deserve it is salvation and salvation because our nature by virtue of being plugged into the first Adam is satanic because we receive the spirit of death and the nature of Satan and so grace is God giving you what you don't deserve and we also see that you and I are saved by grace then Paul the author writing by the spirit of God says also that this grace is a gift of God which means that even for you to come to Jesus God gave you a gift for us and it is the gift of grace can you imagine that that you're the one who needs him but he starts by giving you a gift the gift of grace he hands it over to you so that your journey to salvation will be enhanced by the gift of grace and so we are saved by grace it is a gift of God it is not of your works which means you cannot earn it and this is what needs to be understood because you cannot earn it you cannot work and say I am working to earn the grace of God remember it is the gift of God and so it says it is not of your works and there is no boasting with grace if there is ever boasting then it means grace is clearly not at work and so we establish that grace is God's unearned unmmerited favor and this text we just read furthermore says that God is the initiator of salvation and I've often said this that it is so inconsistent for you with the revealed truth of God's word to you to say "I found God i found Jesus." No way where how would you find him where where is he that you think you find him where is his house what is his address does he have an email address does he have an inbox how do you locate him so God himself cannot be found except he reveals himself to us now let's look at the life of Paul on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9 chapter 8 you know chapter 8 chapter 9 then verse 10 we get to the house of Cornelius Paul was on a mission he thought he had God but on that mission he had a divine coalition with God god found him on the road to Damascus it wasn't him that found God it was God that found him and he said to him "Why do you kick why are you stressing your life you can't succeed against this you will wound yourself." That's what he was saying you're kicking against the goats you would wound yourself let me show you a new life and so God initiates salvation not because we deserved it or earned it or worked for it but because he is good and because of his love for God so loved the world that he gave what did he give he gave us grace so that we can access salvation years ago um I was studying on grace and God gave me this um definition of grace and it says simply goes grace is that attribute of God that takes you from where you are way down where you are lifts you up to where God is and sustains you there so grace is a lifter it will sit you and establish you and then it is also a sustainer and we we see you know that as we look at God's word in John 1:14 it says the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us in order for God to take us from where we were he had to become flesh he came to our level so that he could take us up and then he dwelt amongst us full of grace and truth so God's grace meets us in our weakness in our sin in our lowest state and doesn't wait for us to climb up to him no he comes to meet us so that he can lift us up glory to God forever and grace just doesn't find you grace elevates you it takes you from your fallen state and sits you in heavenly places um in in heavenly places together with Christ Jesus and so Ephesians chapter 2:6 says "He has raised us up together and made us sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus far above principality and power." Again we'll see that grace is not a one-time lifter it is an eternal support system and Jude verse one and verse 24 says "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his throne to him be glory forever and ever." So he's able to keep you from falling that's to say it has sustainability embedded within it in 2 Corinthians chapter 9:8 the scripture says "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you that you having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work." So we see that in the abounding of God's grace he sustains us for every good work now the grace of God that we speak about gives you forgiveness when you failed that's the grace of God it gives you strength when you are weak it supplies hope to you when you are sinking it grants you a future when you feel that you have wasted your life grace just doesn't save us it keeps us and it anchors us it keeps us stable it keeps us holding on you you know something and this is an interesting thought have you gone through moments when you were so weak in your spirit you were so weak in your faith that that you did not know how you were going to just you know sustain yourself and just keep walking with God and suddenly strength comes from nowhere and you suddenly find strength sometimes you were too weak to even pray or ask God but strength came how did that strength come the grace of God supplied that strength to you hallelujah and so we we we cannot deny grace we cannot deny um the the the the unearned favor that the Lord himself sends to us constantly one of the proofs that God is in your life is that when you look at your life and you look at the things that you've achieved you are clearly going to see that some of those things and many of those things and even most of those things were not by the strength that you had but it was by the grace of God by the grace of God of the things my beloved father before he passed on used to always speak about was the grace of God upon his life because he he'll tell you that he was not the fastest he would tell you that he was not necessarily the most brilliant my father would always share this story about the grace of God keeping him when he did not even know God you know we sometimes think grace is only extended to those who are believers there is a grace that is extended to sustain certain people even when they are not saved so that they can come to know salvation he said he was on a farm with his uncle and while they were farming he saw something that looked like a stick it was short and fat and so he obviously was you know stealing the ground towards his direction and he saw this stick and he grabbed it and while he grabbed it my uncle looked at him and saw my father holding a puff adder and my uncle froze because he didn't want to shout in case you know he shouts and my dad gets startled and the puff adder back bites him you know the puffer in northern Nigeria is called goa and what goa means is that tomorrow is too far meaning if he bites you tomorrow is a long distance you won't make it till tomorrow and so my uncle froze and just stood the look looking at my dad and then suddenly my dad flung it and he was fine it was then he ran and grabbed him and said "Do you know what you just flung that's a puffer." Now what could I mean that is out of this world what could have caused that it was God's grace extended to him to sustain him and bring him to a point in his life when he will of his own free will accept Jesus Christ to be his Lord and he would always say I am a child of grace and I can tell you the same that I am a child of grace if there's anything that has helped me is the grace of God i'm not the smartest i'm not the fastest i'm not the most intelligent people think I am i know my own inadequacies i know my own shortcomings i know I you know when I when I was in school I would have to read again and again and again in order to pass exams i had friends who would read once and they were done i I know I know me but I'm thankful for the grace of God so when I'm running fast is the grace of God when I'm sounding smart is the grace of God when I'm sounding intelligent is the grace of God when I'm making strides it is because I am anchored in grace so this morning I want us to just thank God for the gift of grace for by grace you are saved and so Father we just want to lift up our voices to you this morning and we want to thank you for the grace the gift of grace that has been given to us there's no way we could earn it there's no way we could even deserve it you gave it to us freely and we want to thank you thank you Father for for for saving me for not leaving me until I get to a point where salvation is beyond my reach thank you Father for saving me early enough thank you Father for for stepping down just to to visit me early enough thank you for lifting me and thank you for keeping me and sustaining me ephesians 2 also makes us realize that the grace that we have is not of works lest any man should boast i want you to pray and say Lord help me not to trust in my own strength or my own righteousness help me Lord not to trust in my own strength deliver me from pride deliver me from self effort and worksbased living let me always rely on your grace help me to always rely on your grace the third thing I want us to pray for is hinge on the principle of the anchor the anchor does not stop the storm but it will keep the shift from the ship from drifting and I want us to pray and say "Father let your grace anchor me through every storm of life let your grace anchor me through every storm of life when the winds are boisterous when the winds of temptation blow when the winds of fear are blowing when the winds of uncertainty are blowing let me stand firm in you let me stand firm Father anchor anchored in the midst of the storm anchored through every storm your grace anchors me your grace anchors me your grace anchors me father in the name of Jesus amen and amen hallelujah well we've come to the end of this broadcast this morning it's an entire week's journey and I believe that with each day and with the facilitators who are you know granting us um you know and guiding us through this time that we truly will learn a lot and as we pray together we will see the will of God done in our lives well right now I want us to um just go to our declaration and let's announce and let the whole world here uh know exactly what we are decreeing i am anchored in the unshakable grace of God his strength holds me his mercy lifts me and his presence sustains me i will not drift in life's storm i walk in undeserved favor divine help and supernatural and stability by grace I stand I thrive and I overcome daily hallelujah what a blessing that has been god bless you again I leave with you with this song behold our God it's not just behold God there's a sense of community behold our God seated on his throne let us adore him behold our God on his adore nothing