CHARIS (grace) is a gift that brings joy.

This shows that Grace is something that God gives to us or bestows upon us. Eph. 1:6; I cor. 1:4 Gods saving Grace is a package. What do we now possess, as the result of receiving the gift of grace. We are saved from sins guilt and sins power. From Gods wrath and being made pure.

 I. SIN IS A DOUBLE CURSE. A. DEBT

It is a catastrophic debt, caused by an unusual Calamity such as negligence in a serious accident or an especially grave and drawn out illness. Owing such a debt can be a horrendous burden, weighing down the soul to the point of despair.

 B. DEATH This is the physical death that has come upon the world as the result of sin, invading the life of every human being in one form or another. Such death is a crisis not just because of the event itself, which is unwelcome enough, but even more so because of the many painful and heart-wrenching circumstances that lead up to it.

1. SIN MAKES US GUILTY

A. Sin is lawlessness- I jn. 3:4

Lawlessness anomia it refers either to a state of mind or to an action.

Sin is an attitude of opposition to law or rebellion

against the law. To say that anomia is transgression of the law, is a reference to sin as an action or deed. Every sin breaks the law of God, some rules in ones law code. The lawbreaker becomes guiltyhe now stands in a wrong relationship with the law.

 The law includes two components: Commands and

penalties. ..To be guilty means not only to exist as lawbreaker, but also to be subject to the penalty prescribed by the law. Under the law the penalty or wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), Rev. 21:8. James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

 Guilty is enochos which is a technical legal term

meaning guilty, subject to or liable to penalty Rom. 3:19 declares that the whole sinful world is guilty before God. Guilty in this verse is hypodikos means liable to judgment or punishment. It refers to someone who has done something wrong and has been brought before the court to answer it.

 Here is where the concept of debt enters the picture.

To be in debt means to owe somebody something.

Opheilo-(to owe, to be in debt) to refer to sins

consequences. Mat. 6:12 forgive us our debts. Luke 13:4 describe those who are guilty of sin and deserving our punishment as debtors (opheites) Mat. 18:23-35 Unmerciful servant-which uses the image of a debtors prison to convey the idea that sin puts us into debt to God.

 What do we owe to God?

THE DEBT OF PUNISHMENT IN HELL.

The guilt that sin brings upon us is an objective state of

guilt: every sinner is objectively guilty before God whether he acknowledge it or not and whether he feels guilty or not. This state of guilt is the sinners most serious problem. If one dies in a state of guilt, he is lost for eternity.

 Everyone under the law system is still under the curse

of guilt. Apart from Grace we as creatures can either pay our Creator the debt of perfect obedience that we owe Him, or we can pay him the debt of punishment in hell for failing to obey perfectly. Rom. 3:23 all men have sinned.

 II. SIN GIVES US SINFUL NATURE I JN. 3:4 -is also a state or attitude of the heart, a hatred or despising of the law and a desire to be free from it. This attitude is present only in a heart affected by sin just as the body is infected by sickness. HEART in the scripture is equivalent to the soul or spirit, the spiritual side of our human nature. Mat. 12:34,35; Jer. 17:9; Isa. 1:5,6. Sinners are spiritually corrupt, spiritually weak, spiritually depraved.

 Here is where the concept of death comes in. The NT makes it very clear that the sickness of our

sinful nature is so serious that it is actually a state of spiritual death. Eph.2:1,5 The problem: Our sinful nature makes it very difficult to resist temptation and to obey the commandments of our law code. Rom. 8:7,8 The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh can not please God.
SINNERS CAN STILL RESPOND TO THE GOSPEL, BUT

OBEYING GODS LAW COMMANDMENTS IS A REAL CHALLENGE.

 TWO DISTINCT PROBLEMS. 1. One is an objective problem requiring a legal solution 2. The other is a problem with our own inner personal condition and requires a healing of our very nature. Illustration of the distinctions:

GRACE IS A DOUBLE CURE:

When God gives us the gift package of grace at the

moment of salvation, that package always includes two main items; each designed to cure one of the aspects of the double curse. These two parts of the double cure do not come separately; we do not receive without the other (Rom. 6:)

The content of grace: they saved us from sins guilt

and power.

A. THE GRACE OF JUSTIFICATION.

Guilt is the most serious problem-the primary aspect

of grace deals with this problem. The gift of justification occupies most of Pauls attention in Rom. 1-5. Rom. 3:24 we are justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Rom. 3:28 a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.

 Other terms for justification are forgiveness (or

remission of sins), pardon or acquittal. A. Justification is a legal concept.

The verdict: No penalty for you.

When God justifies us (bestows upon us the gift of

justification) He is acting on His role as a judge. He is declaring that the legal penalty for our sins has been taken away. Our debt of eternal punishment has been cancelled. When we die under grace, we die debt free. Rom. 8:1 no condemnation means no penalty, no damnation, no hell for those who are in Christ Jesus.

 To us this wonderful gift of justification is a free gift

but not to God. Remember God must both true to His nature (holiness and love) He can not simply set aside the demands of His holiness, which requires that sin must be punished. The only way God is able to deliver us from the obligation to pay our debt of eternal punishment is for Jesus Christ to pay it for us. Christs death on the cross Col. 2:14 On the cross, He sealed my pardon, paid the debt and made me free. PAID IN FULL

THE GRACE OF REGENERATION AND SANCTIFICATION. This is designed to cure the spiritual sickness afflicting our souls and restore us to spiritual wholeness. God is now a great physician that gives us everything we need to cure the disease of sin that has invaded our natures. This second problem is a blight upon our very being; therefore the cure for it must also bring about a change in our souls condition.

This second part of double cure occurs in two stages or steps. 1. Initial step, a one time event wherein God touches the soul and causes an immediate change in our hearts- this is called the act of regeneration. 2. This is followed by a continuing process of growth and change- referred to as sanctification. The former is the preconditioned of the latter. These two are related as cause and effect. Eph. 2:10 We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus-this is a statement about regeneration, referring to it as an act of new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) Created in Christ Jesus for good works- states the purpose of that event , to enable us to do good works. Doing good works is another way of saying becoming sanctified or holy.

 Ezekiel 36:26 prophesies the regeneration event,

picturing it as God performing heart surgery on the sinner. Titus 3:5 regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit is synonyms. Jn. 3:5 born again Eph. 2:5,6; Col. 2:12, 13

 The divine power that accomplishes this mighty deed

comes from the gift of the Holy Spirit, who at conversion is infused to our very being sort of like a healing medicine is injected into the blood stream of someone who is deathly ill. Our regeneration & renewing are by the Holy Spirit. Titus 3:5 This is the moment when the healing begins.

 The healing of our sin-diseased natures is not

immediately complete, it does not happen all at once but is an ongoing process called Sanctification.
This process is the result of the Holy spirits continuing

to indwell our very bodies (Rom. 8:11; I Cor. 6:19) for the purpose of helping us to make a full recovery.

In this recovery stage we are: 1. Empowered by the indwelling Spirit, but we must use our own spiritual muscles and exercise our way back to health. Phil. 2:12-13 As our live-in physician the Spirit supplies with the tonic that builds up our spiritual systems, but He also gives us instructions that we must follow in order for the cure to progress.

 THE BLESSED DOUBLE CURE. 1. Justification as a kind of spiritual welfare since it is a free gift that the gracious God places into our undeserving hands while we are in a desperate need. 2. Regeneration & Sanctification, as our life of spiritual warfare Though we are protected and empowered by Gods own strength (Eph. 6:10-17) we must be personally engaged in fighting the battle against the world, the flesh and the devil.