grace abounding

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Of all sinners, I am the worst
Nothing in me is lovely or pure

Short-fallen and depraved, I am found
Amazing is the grace that abounds

Your grace abounding
My sin not counting
O to be bounded
to the blessed, blessed flowing fountain...of grace abounding

I'm so good at all that I hate
I fall on mercy forever and today

Short-fallen and depraved, I am found
Amazing is the grace that abounds

Your grace abounding
My sin not counting
O to be bounded
to the blessed, blessed flowing fountain...of grace abounding

All redeemed now sing your praise
O for God's abounding grace
All redeemed now sing your praise
Grace alone, your soul, has saved

1 Timothy 1:15
"This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all."

Romans 7:15-20
"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."

Many of you have more than likely read or heard those words from the Apostle Paul a number of times. And maybe our familiarity with them has dulled their edges for us a little bit, but the truth is...it is absolutely amazing that Paul thought this way and spoke this way about himself. Its actually pretty scandalous.

Paul is obviously and undeniably one of the most important leaders in the Christian faith through all of history. And he considered himself a horrible sinner? The worst? And not just pre-conversion Paul, but after his Damascus Road experience? After his baptism?

Yes. And I believe it is absolutely vital that we, likewise, understand the depth of our own sinfulness. A "wise man" once put this quote on his blog (by they way, I still don't know whose quote this is), "If your sin is small, your Savior is small. But if your sin is large, then your Savior is large."

I think that is so true...not in the sense that you should sin big as a way of increasing God. Paul was pretty clear about the falsity of that belief.

No, rather in the sense that the deeper the understanding of your own sin and depravity, the deeper your understanding of grace. If you don't take your own sin seriously...acknowledging that, regardless of how moral and upright you have become, you deserve nothing less than death because of it...than you don't take grace seriously.

In other words, if your sin is not a "big" deal to you, than grace is not a "big" deal to you...and my understanding of the Bible is that grace should the biggest deal in the world.

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