What does a proper understanding of grace lead to?

Jeff Pollard explains in this video that if we understand grace properly, it leads us to worship, magnify, and glorify God. God saves us, not only to make us holy, but to make us worshippers. Accordingly, we worship Him both at church and throughout our daily home life.

God's eternal purpose in salvation is to make us holy and without blame before Him. The Spirit of God through the grace of God works in our souls and makes us a holy people which leads to a desire to honor and obey and serve Christ. When we do that in daily life, we bring Him glory. When we gather together as a group of Christians, it also brings Him glory.

Similarly, we know that we know God when we keep His commandments. This is not legalism but rather, the heart of an individual who is saved and who desires to follow after God. The new life of God and the soul of man presses them onward to follow after God in obedience and submission. In fact, following God's law is something we desire as Christians.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” - Ephesians 1:3-6 (NKJV)

To the praise of the glory of His grace in Ephesians chapter 1 is the climax of a very beautiful portion of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. It's the very beginning of the epistle in which He is offering up praise to the living God and to Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, according as He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." And then when it reaches that, to the praise of the glory of His grace, This entire paragraph points to the fact that if we really understand grace properly, it leads us to worship. It leads us to magnify and glorify God. He saves us not only to make us holy, but to make us worshipers.

We are born again. We are brought into the kingdom of the Most High to become worshipers. We worship Him in our day-to-day lives and the things that we do, and we worship Him in the corporate times that we meet in the name of Christ to offer Him praise and thanksgiving. What's at the root of that? His eternal purpose.

And what is that eternal purpose? To make us holy and without blame before Him in love. So as the Spirit of God, through the grace of God, works in our souls and makes us a holy people, that there is that desire to honor Christ, to obey Christ, to walk with Him and serve Him with every fiber of our being. When we're doing that in day-to-day life, we are bringing Him glory. And when we gather together, of course, as His people, a group of people who really understand that God's grace has saved them, God's grace alone has saved them, and that He gives them what they need to be a sin-mortifying and righteous-loving people, or I should say, righteousness-loving people, it is to bring Him glory.

It all works out into worship. So there's no way to live in disobedience and honestly worship or honor the living God. As a matter of fact, John addresses this in a slightly different way in his epistle, the first epistle of John. He says, Hereby we do know that we know Him. Well, today if you ask most people, how is it that you know you know God?

They would say something to this effect. Well, I made a decision. I joined a church. I got a big black Bible. I go to Bible studies.

But John says, Hereby we do know that we know Him if we keep His commandments. This is not legalism. It's the heart of someone born again desiring to walk in the things that their loving Heavenly Father commands them to. They've been broken in repentance. They've been humbled as the truth has been brought to their souls.

The new life of God in the soul of man presses them on hungrily to follow after their God in obedience and submission. We know that we know Him because what we used to despise and what we thought were strict rules that robbed us of all the fun of life actually become the very desire of our hearts. God has written His law in our hearts as the promise of the new covenant says. Thank you.