Followed By Mercy

Grace and Peace Come From the Father, Not Just Jesus

• W. Austin Gardner • Season 3 • Episode 25

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This recording is a message preached at Shady Grove Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia.


Do you picture God the Father as stern and angry, while Jesus is the kind one who shields you from His wrath? You’re not alone, but that picture is far from the truth.


In this episode, we explore a life-giving reality from Ephesians 1: grace and peace flow straight from the Father’s heart. When Paul greets believers with “Grace be to you and peace from God our Father,” he’s not just being polite. He’s pulling back the curtain on who God really is.


Many of us grew up with fathers who were harsh or distant, which may have contributed to shaping our perception of God. But Scripture tells us something different. God so loved the world that He gave His Son. God demonstrated His love for us in sending Christ to die while we were still sinners. When He chose to describe Himself in Exodus 34, He said He was merciful, gracious, patient, and overflowing with goodness and truth.


Through Christ, we don’t just have a fragile truce with God. We have complete reconciliation. The Father looks on us with love, not condemnation. We can meet His gaze without fear. And His presence brings peace, like children who feel safe just knowing Dad is in the house.


This episode will help you discover the Father you may have never really known, not a judge waiting to condemn, but a loving Dad eager to welcome you home.


If you’ve never trusted Christ, today can be the day. Simply tell Him, “I believe You. I give You my life.” He’s already paid the price.


Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

AustinGardner:

Go be in the house of God today, isn't it? Amen. Good to see you. Thank you for being here. Take your Bibles if you would and open them to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. I am so excited because today I want to tell you about my dad. My father. The guy that you have a little bit of a misconception about. From the time I was about 11 or 12 years old, I wanted to be a dad more than I wanted to be anything. I didn't even want a girlfriend, didn't want to get married. I just wanted to be a dad. Because I wanted what I saw on this TV program called the Rifleman. Lucas McCain. How many of y'all know who Lucas McCain was? He and that boy, Mark. And I thought, my goodness, you don't need a wife? Just you and your boy against the world. And I wanted that so bad. My dad didn't have that relationship with me. I know my dad loved me now, but he was kind of strong, the strongest man I ever knew. Gruff, stern, lots of rules, lots of work, and I never could please him 100%. It was always like, whatever you did, you could have done better. And whatever you did bad, you know you could do better. And so I wanted to be a dad. I think somehow I kind of transferred some of that over to God. I think maybe you did. And sometimes we look at God and He's kind of like my dad was. You know, stern. You see him as a judge, and you kind of got the idea, thank God for Jesus. Because Jesus is a nice guy and he loves us. Thank the Lord for Jesus, because God's going to judge us and Jesus is going to protect us. And we kind of develop that attitude. That's not a biblical attitude. And so I want you to go with me to Ephesians chapter 1. But first let's talk to our Father. He's your Father, my Father. Let's talk to Him. Bow your heads with me. Father in heaven, I love you. More than anything, I want to thank you for loving us. If I've learned anything, it is that you are everything. And I thank you. I thank you for showing mercy to us and loving kindness to us and grace to us and peace to us. And I thank you for who you are. And I am nobody to stand here and tell them how good you are, but Holy Spirit, if you would just take control and help your people fall in love with our Father again, like we should, I'd appreciate all you do. I'll give you praise and honor and glory for it all. In Jesus' name. Amen. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 1 says, For Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Now we've seen that we are faithful in Christ Jesus. It's because we're in Christ Jesus. We have seen that we are saints because we're in Christ Jesus because we're saved. That's what he called it. This is a greeting. He's writing a love letter. God is sending Paul through Paul a letter to the church in Ephesus, and he talks to the saints, and he talks to the faithful in Christ Jesus. And then he says, what we're going to read next. Now, I don't know if you pay attention to greetings. You know, nowadays we get so much email, but back in my day, 53 years ago, I was writing letters, love letters, and I wrote one just about every day to a girl that I called my hotshot, that I call my girlfriend. I've been married to her for 52 years. She didn't write me one letter a week. She didn't average one a week. I wrote a letter every day because I'm a faithful guy. I'm disciplined, amen. And she's like, I'll write you a short little note, and uh she'd write, but buddy, I'd memorize them things. I'd read them looking, see if she thought I was good looking. I'd check it out everything I could. You know, when you read a letter from somebody you love, you pay attention. Can I get an amen? But you know, when you read the book of Ephesians, you typically don't do that. You typically read these first two verses and you just fly by them. Like, yeah, we just let's get to the meat. Let's get to what's going on here. But he's telling you, I'm talking to you saints, and I'm talking to you faithful. And then he says two of the most beautiful words you can imagine. He says, Grace and peace. I want you to read verse two with me. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. And I just, that's where I want to stay today. Grace to you be to you and peace. Now I want you to check this out. Are you ready? He didn't say that was from Paul. Paul didn't say, I wish y'all grace and I wish y'all peace. Paul didn't say, me and the evangelistic team here, the St. Paul evangelistic team, like the Billy Graham evangelistic team, we send you grace and peace. No, he didn't say that. He didn't say, me and Timothy and me and Titus and me and the boys, me and Silas, and me and Barnabas, we send you grace and peace. He said, I'm sending you grace and peace. Look at it, from God our Father. Now look at me, listen to me. You know you've divided God and Jesus. You got a dichotomy going there. You got God, the stern judge. Tell the truth. He's the guy that's going to play the video of your life when you're dead and embarrass a fool out of you for everything you ever did wrong. You know you're like, I don't want to see him. Because when you see God, he's going to play the big old screen. It's going to show all your lies and all your cheating and all your stealing and all your drinking, all your corrals that's going to show all that, and you're going to be embarrassed. That's the God I kind of grew up with. I don't think you I don't blame it on anybody. I remember as a kid thinking, I don't really want to go to heaven. Because man, when you get to heaven, you're going to embarrass the fool out of you. I don't like getting embarrassed. And I know we didn't believe in purgatory. I grew up in the SBC. We didn't believe in purgatory. But when you get to heaven, you're going to answer for it, buddy. I know what that meant. I know. I know what it meant as a boy coming home from school. You know, y'all didn't have these rules where you come from because you're liberals. I'm a country boy. But when I got in trouble at school, when I got home, I got it again. I got it worse. Hey, it's a lot. I told the teacher when he paddled me one day, I said, I don't care how hard you hit me, just don't tell daddy. Amen. He gave me his word. I got on the bus at three o'clock. I got home at four o'clock. When I walked indoor, Daddy said, You got a whooping, huh? I said, How do you know? He said, I stopped by the Monroe's, and their boy told me. I said, The teacher promised me he wouldn't tell you. He said, That's all right. I always find out. No matter how you kind of feel about God, come on, tell the truth. And you kind of got God sitting over here. He's gonna judge you. He's gonna bring up all these things you've done. He's kind of upset with you. He's got a checklist and he's looking at you going, ha ha ha ha ha, X. You didn't do that one good. Okay, that was okay. Come on. And then you look at you, you say, but Jesus, he's a nice guy. He's smiling at you, he's loving you. You know he's kind to everybody. That's not the Bible's teaching, that's religion's teaching. That's performance-based Christianity teaching. And no one really believes that, but we believe it without believing it. It's kind of ingrained in us. But I want you to pay attention. It's grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to know Paul is talking to them and he's sending them greetings, and I want you to pay attention in the verse to these words. Our Father. Now you gotta understand that's not normal. Bible people didn't call God our Father in the Old Testament. He was our Lord, our sovereign, our king, the Almighty. He was all those words which are true. And there are maybe two verses that talk about him being the father in the Old Testament. But when Jesus got ready to teach the boys how to pray, he said, I want y'all to start praying like this. Our Father. Jesus said, He's my dad. He's my father. I'm the Son of God. But he's yours too. And he said, I want you to know who he is. And I want you to know my father. And I want you to know him, our Father, which are in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. And he taught us how to pray. I want you to know the first thing I want you to know this morning is you don't have to prove yourself to your father. You're his child. You don't have to prove yourself to your father. You're his child. Only a dad or mom understands this. But once you hold that kid in your arms, something changes. Something changes in you. But before that kid, before that little brat was born, you were one guy. And when that kid's born, I do not know what happens. How many of you would agree it changes us? When we become parents, it's like torrent of God. I remember when I took little old Chris, little old Chris, y'all see how big he is. But I took little old Chris and put his little head here and his little bottom here. And I was like, on cloud nine. Daddy. That's the word he's using here for us. He says, Grace be to you and peace from God our Father. That's a super intimate relationship. You don't have to prove yourself to your dad. That's the problem. Fact is, dads have a real problem. Most of the time we can see the other people's kids' faults. I can see your kids' faults. It's pretty easy. You have got a brat for a kid. I can't see my kids' faults. You're looking at my kid saying, so do you. And I'm like, oh no, not my kid. Come on. Is that true? Amen or not? Because when you're a dad, you just got that connection. If you agree with that, say amen. Now wait a minute. He's our father. Our father. And he says, grace to you. Grace to you from our father. And you see, that's the whole point. Salvation's not of ourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And I want you to know that he is at work in your life. And by the way, you may be thinking to yourself, yeah, but I'm not worthy to be called his son. And as we grow and get older, sometimes our relationship changes, and maybe you're estranged from your dad. And maybe you're not as your dad's not as in love with you. Maybe he is, but he won't express it. Or maybe you're not. And you you do express it. I don't know. But I want you to know our father still sees you as his kid. And our father still loves you as his child. And when your sin abounds and you do a lot of wrong, his grace abounds even more. Romans 5.20. You don't have to prove yourself to your dad. You don't have to prove yourself to your father. You are loved and accepted right now by the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't have to run, you don't have to hide. And what I want you to really get in your heart is it's God, the Father, doing it. I want you to just look at me just a second. See, you think salvation's a Jesus thing, and you think salvation maybe is a you thing. You think it's something you did, you think it's something Jesus did, and somehow the salvation is Jesus rescuing you from God. That's not what it says. Grace and peace from God to you. From God, yes, from the Lord Jesus Christ, but from the Father. Do you know that God loves you? I want you to know before you go home that the Father, not just Jesus. You see, God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one. And the Trinity, God, all three persons love you. That's what you got to get a hold of. I want you to see Daddy different. Come on, you're honest. Family sits around talking. We talk about how stern dad was, how hard dad whipped, and how rough dad was, how many rules dad had. And at the family conferences, like talking about dad. And as we get older, we start saying nicer things. But I want to talk to you about our dad. I want you to know in John 3.16, the Bible said, For God so loved the world. You know that. But it was God who loved the world. So much that he gave his only begotten son. In Romans chapter 5, it was verse 8, it was God who commended, God who showed, God who proved his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, it was God. God the Father gave his son, God the Father committed his love, and Christ died for us. I love this verse. That's one of my favorite verses. 1 John chapter 3, verse 1. You know, can you imagine that God is ready and willing to tell everybody, that's my boy. That's my girl. He is not ashamed to say that in public. See what he says in 1 John 3 1? He says, Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore, the world knows us not because it knew him not. But listen to this. God, in front of everybody, God walks in this room. God the Father walks in this room. He puts his arm around you and looks at the rest of us and says, My boy. This is my boy. This is my daughter right here. I'm not ashamed to be called. I love being her daddy. I love being his daddy. The Father bestowed on us that we should be called the sons of God. The children of God. I hear you. I hear you. You're sitting there going, but wait a minute. It was Jesus who suffered, and it was Jesus that died. God was the one that beat him up and hurt him. Well, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 19 that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Listen, it's a religious thing for you to think of God being like, I'm mad at them, I'm gonna kill them, I'm gonna kill them, I'm gonna kill them. And Jesus stepped in going, no, no, no, don't be so mean, don't be so mean. That's not what happened. That's not what happened. Can I just remind you of some simple basic truths? For God so loved the world. Can I just remind you of some basic truths? We've already looked at them, but God committed his love toward us. And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You say, yeah, yeah, but it's still the brutality of what happened. No, no. God was in Christ. Because Christ is God. Jesus is God from God. God was in Christ. The Father loved you. He felt every blow of the whip. He felt the crown of thorns placed on his head. He felt the nails as they drove through. He felt the spear in his side. God was in Christ. And I know this is being redundant. Because we went over this in the 23rd Psalm. But even in the Old Testament, when God wanted you to know who He was, you remember? You pay attention to what He said about Himself. In Exodus 34, 6, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful. From the very beginning, from Adam and Eve, from before that time, from when he planned the salvation of the world before the world began, when he planned that Jesus would die and pay the sin debt before the world began, he was merciful. When Adam and Eve sinned and were to die that day, he let a substitute die in their place and made a promise that his seed would kill the seed of the devil and stomp his ugly old head. He made a promise that God himself would intervene. He is merciful. I want you to know my dad. Yeah, he, you know, my dad was tough, hard. Oh, my dad. One day on the farm when I was just a toddler, he chopped his foot with an axe and split his foot almost completely open. He walked back to the house with the blood gushing out of the boot, one of them old rubber boots that farmers wore. And he walked in the house and told my mother we got to go to the hospital. And he didn't pass out. He drove to the hospital. And when he got to the hospital, the doctor said, Oh my goodness, I hadn't seen a foot dismissed up in a long time. He said, I'm going to put you asleep. My dad said, No, just numb my leg. I'd like to watch. That's them tough old buzzards, amen. And you look at your dad, you think about dad's tough. And you look at God and you say, Man, he's almighty. He's all powerful. He's tough. He's the judge of the universe. And you forget. He said, Can I tell you who I am? Could I introduce you? Myself to you? If I had a LinkedIn account, here's my bio. If I was on Facebook and I was telling you who I am, this is who I am. I'm merciful. And then the next word he used was gracious. I told you this when we went through it, but the Hebrew word for gracious is just a synonym for merciful. So basically he starts off saying, hey, this is who I am. I'm merciful and I'm merciful. In other words, I am really merciful. Fact is, he goes on down a little bit further and says, I am long-suffering, super patient with my mercy. Now look at the verse. Exodus 34, 6, I'm merciful, I'm gracious, I'm long-suffering. Now come on. You've kind of got your dad painted like your heavenly father, like your earthly father. My mother used to say, when your daddy gets home, I'm going to tell him. He's going to whip your backside. Come on. How many of you ever heard that say, man? Come on. Oh my goodness. I did not want to see him. I didn't want to hear that truck turn onto that gravel driveway. I did not want to see him. When he came in, he didn't even have to understand if I was guilty or not. There was no trial. There was no discussion. There was no, can I prevent my defense? He simply said, go to my room. Now he always held my hand when we went to his room. He'd grab my hand, take a belt, and I'd run around circles. He'd beat me. I thought I was going to die right there. So you think of God that way, don't you? Come on. And God likes to introduce himself. Before he's talking clearly about Jesus, he says, Can I tell you who I am? I'm merciful. I'm gracious. I'm good to people. I have long-suffering, super loving kindness towards you. I'm patient. I'm not out to whoop you. I'm not out to hurt you. Can I just real quickly tell you God hates sin? But he hates sin because of what it does to you. He doesn't hate the sinner. He hates that sin. You listen to this. I got cancer. And we never know what's going to happen. It just works around in my body. And right now it seems to be hiding behind some intestine or something. Who knows? But my family hates cancer. But I don't think they hate me. And God hates cancer or hates sin because of what it does to you. He doesn't want to see you get hurt. People say, well, God hates divorce. Yeah, he does. It hurts his people. He hates anything that hurts you. All dads hate things that hurt their kids. Is that a right? Amen or not? I mean, we hate what hurts our kids, and our father hates it. But he is merciful and gracious and long-suffering. He's abundant in goodness of mercy. He's loaded down with goodness. And then it says and truth. And remember, that means he just never changes. He's when he says it, he means it. I love this one. He keeps mercy. He said, He said, Can I tell you who I am? I'm merciful and merciful, and I'm long-suffering, and I'm abundant in goodness, and I just keep on keeping mercy. I'm like mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy. You want to know my name? Mercy. You want a nickname for God? Mercy. And then he said, I forgive iniquity. And he forgives. And then he said, I judge sin. But you know how you judge sin, don't you? He went to the cross. And he took all the sin on himself. And he paid to sin debt. Sin always has consequences. Guess who took the consequences? Jesus. Now, Paul writes a letter and he says, I'm writing a letter, but I'm just a writer and author of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit wants y'all to hear this. Grace be to you. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father. Now, I want you to accept the grace and believe that by grace you have peace. You see, you have to accept the grace. Do you know we we tend to wander around a little worried? A friend of mine died in Prue a year or two ago, a few years ago. And boy, he called in every religious group by the end. He was like, he's like, I need to touch all the bases. I need to make sure I'm fixing to die. This guy was a faithful, strong believer, but before he died, he he called for the priest, and he called for this and he called for that. Because we don't always experience the peace. But by grace, you have peace. You have peace from God our Father. So I want you to listen to this real quickly. The Bible says in Romans 5:1, it says, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, because God was in Christ and Jesus died and took the consequences of your sin, we have peace with God. We are complete, we are whole, we're restored, we're at harmony, we have a right relationship with God. Our God looks down at us and he says, Lift that head up, look me in the face, then eyeball. You remember when when your mama, I'm gonna say this about your mama because sometimes it wasn't true about your daddy. Your mother whipped you. How many of y'all ever got whipped by your mother? Say, Amen. I know this new generation never, they don't understand any of that. But after mama whips you, she calls you and sets you in her lap and reaches out, picks your head up, wipes your tears off, looks you in the eye. I love you. I don't like having to thank you. Daddy's like, you do it again, I'll kill you. But but mama's like, well, you know what? The father's like the mama and that. Our father's like, you got peace of me, buddy. It's all taken care of. Jesus took care of it. You see, because we were enemies in Romans chapter 5 and verse 10. But he reconciled us. We were mad at God and angry at God, but he has reconciled us. In Colossians 1.21, we were alienated, separated from God. But the chastisement of our peace was laid on him for us to have peace. Jesus died for us. In Colossians 1.20, he made peace through the blood of his cross. So we have peace with God. I don't know when the Lord's going to take me, but this much I know. My father loves me, and there's nothing between us. There's no sin. There's no shame. There's no, you know how you lowered your head and you couldn't look at your mama because you got caught and whipped and hurt and you was angry, and you know, and then she said, Look at me. God says, Look at me. I've made peace with you through Jesus Christ. But then you get to experience the peace of God. You see, it's grace and peace. And that having peace with God gets to affect everything about this world. It gets to affect everything about this world. You see, in Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 through 7, it says, it says, When we we're not to worry about anything, but by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, we tell God everything we need, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, comes to us through Jesus Christ. We have peace with God through Jesus, and now we have the peace of God in our world. Because we pray and trust and cast it all on Jesus. Now listen to me, God wants you to live in peace. With peace. He writes a letter, and I know it just sounds like a greeting, and you went rushing right by it, but he said, I'm writing to you people at the church, and I want you to have grace and peace. And this comes down from God, our Father, and Jesus Christ. So focus on your father's love. Let me give you one last little story and I quit. I don't know if you understand how dads are. And I'm using dads because we're talking about God the Father, but mama's the same way. You see, your father loves you. That's like the most intimate relationship you could possibly ever imagine. Yeah, you ever been to that Christmas play at church, you know? And all the kids are up here, and none of them are doing what they're supposed to do. And one kid's got his fingers slapped up his nose. Come on, talk to me. And and and they're dancing around. Do you know what the parents are doing? They're taking pictures. Not a one of them's going, that ain't my kid. I don't know that kid. No, they're like, ha ha ha, I see you. Oh, yeah, you're doing good. Because moms and dads are just in love with their kids. If you know that's amen. You ever think that's how your father feels about you? He birthed you again. He forgave you every sin. He's in love with you. And he wants you to know he's mercy, grace, grace to you. Mercy, long-suffering, kindness, gentleness, meekness, loving kindness to you. And guys, live in peace. I'm your dad. Live in peace. I'm your dad. Growing up on the farm, and things sometimes being a little scary out there on the farm. There'd be animals howling and people making noise outside. Of course, we're out in the country, no people around us. And sometimes a goat could sound like a child and a and a cowote, and all that noise could go on out there. And when daddy wasn't home, I didn't have peace sometimes. The babysitter's there and I'm crying. But you let Daddy walk in the house, big old, gruff, tough, mean dad. You ain't gotta be scared of nothing. He'd grab a line by the throat and kill it. It's no problem, dad's in the house. Grace to you. Peace. Because our Father, God, and the Lord Jesus love you. Now you're going this week, and I don't know what's going on in your life. I don't know where you're going, don't know what's happening, but you can mark this down. Your Father loves you. And he wishes you grace and peace to all you saints and all you faithful in. Christ Jesus. And if you're not born again yet, that's fine. Be born again today. Just trust Jesus and what he did on the cross right now. Just tell him, I believe you. Just right there in your seat. I believe you. I give you my life. Just tell him. He stands ready. He's already paid the price. Everything's done. Put your trust in Jesus. Father in heaven, I love you and I thank you for the chance to serve you.

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Austin Gardner

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