Living by God’s grace, this message teaches, is not a license to do whatever feels good. It is the power of God to give, to do right and to grow up. Starting from 2 Corinthians 9:6–8, the speaker shows that when we sow our time, talents and finances cheerfully, God makes all grace abound toward us, and from Titus 2 and 1 John 3 he shows that true grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and practice righteousness in this present age.
Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, answers to common questions, and practical steps for living by grace this week.
Sermon at a Glance
This message was posted by NTC Ministries in June 2020 and runs about 37 minutes. The speaker is not named in the recording, so this summary calls him the speaker. He opens by thanking viewers for writing in about what God is doing as they apply the Word, and says he wants to talk about living by God’s grace, a revelation he sees believers growing in by leaps and bounds.
His central claim is that grace is not permission to sin. It is God’s enabling power that abounds toward people who give themselves away, and it teaches us to live soberly, righteously and godly right now. He closes with a prayer of salvation in which listeners commit to become, in his words, a “righteousness practitioner.”
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Not named in the recording (the speaker) |
| Series | Stand-alone message |
| Main text | 2 Corinthians 9:6–8; Titus 2:11–13; 1 John 3:9–10 |
| Key theme | Grace abounds toward givers and teaches us to practice righteousness |
| Length | About 37 minutes, ending in prayer |
A Season of Maturity for the Church
The speaker begins with something the Lord told him in a quiet time. In a season of unrest and unsettling among the nations, God said this is the greatest time of growth the church is coming into. Not growth in revenue, he clarifies, but growth in maturity, in strength and in stature.
He compares it to someone far superior in a sport. That person does not need to show off. Competent people can root for others and encourage them, because they know what they can do. In the same way, this is not a time for the church to be braggadocious, arrogant or proud. It is a time to be raised up in great strength and maturity.
He says he has already seen a greater maturity over the previous couple of months, and that what is coming will far surpass anything we have known. He prays from Ephesians 4:11–13, thanking God for apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers who equip the saints for the work of ministry until we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.
That prayer sets the frame for everything that follows. The mark of maturity in this message is not how much we know about grace. It is whether grace is producing a generous, righteous life in us. Grace, in this sermon, is the way God grows His people up.
All Grace Abounding Toward You
The main text is 2 Corinthians 9:6–8. He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one should give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, “for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you.”
The speaker acknowledges the passage is about finances. But if it is a principle of the kingdom of heaven, he says, it cannot stand just for money. It goes beyond that: giving our time, our effort, our talents and our gifts, thinking of others more than ourselves, helping and encouraging people without looking for immediate compensation.
When God sees we are willing to give ourselves up, the speaker explains, He says in effect, “Because I can trust you with what I’ve given you, I’m going to make all grace abound toward you.” The result is all sufficiency in all things, so that we have an abundance for every good work. Grace is not stored up for ourselves. It flows toward those who keep it flowing outward.
He calls the church to wake up and come alive and to say, that’s me. “I want to be used by God,” he says, not just in the one small area where we think we are strong, gifted or talented, but in every possible way. It can happen, he tells his listeners, and it will happen for you as you start reaching out unselfishly.
He draws a careful line about what counts as giving. If you give away something you no longer need because you have something better, that is a nice thing to do. But if you give away something you need yourself, something you really want, that is an act of love. That is the heart Paul describes: not grudgingly or of necessity, but purposed in the heart and done cheerfully.
The Cheerful Giver and the Car
The speaker admits that cheerfulness does not always come first. He recalls a minister who said he was never cheerful when he gave. In the beginning, the speaker says, you might not be, but you have to become that way once you realize that God’s principle works and that grace abounds toward you afterward.
He shares his own story. He has given away five cars in his life. When his family moved to Merrill, his work was a little over a mile away, so he suggested they give away their car and he would walk. His wife agreed. They told no one. When people asked why he was walking, he said he needed the exercise.
One day a man came and said the Lord had spoken to him to give them a vehicle. He handed over the keys, and that car lasted them for years. “What God does is so incredible,” the speaker says. When you know that, you become a cheerful giver, because you have seen the principle work in your own life.
He ties this to Philippians 2:4, which tells us to look not only to our own interests but also to the interests of others. If you care for others and put their needs before your own, God takes care of what concerns you. That, he says, is the maturity God showed him is taking place in the church now.
He puts the choice to his listeners twice in the sermon, and it can be laid out simply.
| The path | What it looks like | Where it leads, as he teaches |
|---|---|---|
| Whatever makes you feel good | Living by your own will and feelings | Struggling more and more; life depletes and grows into bondage |
| What God is requiring of you | Giving yourself to His will | All grace abounds toward you, all sufficiency in all things, abounding to every good work |
If you hold back, he warns, you will see other people maturing around you and wonder why you are not. The difference is how you apply yourself to the truth of the Word. And this kind of growth, he adds, rarely comes when life is easy. It comes in difficult times, because God wants the glory.
Grace Is Freedom to Do Right
To define the freedom grace gives, the speaker turns to Peter Marshall, the Scottish-born minister who, he notes, came to the United States, pastored the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and served as chaplain to the United States Senate. He quotes Marshall’s prayer: “Make me think of freedom not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.”
The speaker says destruction done in the name of freedom is not freedom at all. It is bondage playing out, and that bondage is not caused by anyone else but lives in a person’s own mind. Real freedom, he says, is the opportunity to do what’s right. “Well, that’s grace,” he says.
He warns against the opposite idea, that because I am under grace I can do whatever I want and whatever makes me feel good. Grace gives us the freedom to do right, to help, to encourage and to give of our finances, time and talents. “God didn’t give us grace so that we could sin better and feel good about it,” he says. “That’s not grace at all.”
He reads 1 John 5:18 from the Amplified Bible: anyone born of God does not deliberately and knowingly practice sin, and Christ’s divine presence within him preserves him against the evil one, who cannot lay hold of him. God wants to perfect us so that grace can do more through us than we ever imagined.
He is honest that this has been costly. In Merrill, he says, the windows of his vehicles were broken out several times a year, doors were kicked in, and his family was threatened for years. There was pressure to say, forget this. “But I knew God has something in store,” he says, and he kept giving of his life and doing what God asked. If God only asked easy things, he adds, why would we need faith?
Then he reads Titus 2:11–13: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.” Salvation is by grace, not works, and it is offered to everyone. But the same grace teaches.
The speaker underlines the words “in the present age.” Not in some easier decade we look back on, but right now. The grace of God is teaching us now to deny ungodliness, while we look for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. “I’m not a spectator,” he declares; grace teaches him to give everything he can to advance the kingdom.
Born of God: The Seed That Remains
Every one of us has committed acts of sin, the speaker says, but a born-again believer will not live in a state of sin. He cites James 4:17: to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. Remaining in a state of sin, he warns, leads into a snare you will not get out of.
He reads 1 John 3:9 in three versions to show what it does and does not mean. It does not mean a Christian will never do or say anything wrong. It means the life of God in us makes a lifestyle of sin foreign to who we are. The table summarizes how he reads each version.
| Version he reads | Key wording, as he reads it | His point |
|---|---|---|
| New King James | Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him | God’s own seed lives in the believer |
| The Message | People conceived by God don’t make a practice of sin | The issue is practicing and parading sin, not a single failure |
| Amplified | No one born of God deliberately, knowingly, habitually practices sin | God’s principle of life remains permanently within him |
“It’s the very essence of God in me,” the speaker says. “I might sin, but I’m going to repent.” When God’s seed is in a person, missing the mark grieves him, and he works at doing better. Grace never gives the room to say it is okay to sin and to feel good about it.
He then reads Hebrews 10:28–30. If anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy, how much worse punishment does he deserve who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? The Lord will judge His people. The speaker notes this was written after the cross, to believers.
His application is personal. He has had to forgive many people who came against him, including those he gave everything to who then turned on him. He still says, “Father, forgive them,” as Jesus did (Luke 23:34), and keeps living to bless them, not grudgingly but cheerfully, because God is making all grace abound toward him.
Practice Righteousness, Not Perfection
The last verse is 1 John 3:10: “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.” John, the speaker says, shows us who the children of God really are.
He explains the word practice with a picture. A doctor receives a license to practice medicine, not a certificate saying he has perfected it. In the same way, “I’ve not perfected this faith walk,” the speaker says. Practicing means sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong, but you keep applying yourself. If you miss it, don’t lie about it. Ask God to forgive you and go on practicing.
But those who are not practicing righteousness at all, he says, need to be saved. They need a Savior, Lord and Master, and they need to humble themselves as servants of Almighty God. Jesus came to do the Father’s will (Hebrews 10:7) and did only what He saw the Father do (John 5:19). Disciples follow the same path.
He urges anyone caught in their own hurt to repent rather than pour out that poison on others. “Now is the day of salvation,” he says, echoing 2 Corinthians 6:2. Then he leads a prayer: God, forgive me of all my sins; I want Jesus Christ to be my Lord; give me a new heart and fill me with Your Spirit. From today on, he has listeners declare, “I’ll be a righteousness practitioner.”
Living It Out
The speaker’s closing question is the one he asked earlier: do you want whatever makes you feel good, or do you want what God is requiring of you? Here are practical steps drawn from this message on living by God’s grace:
- Give beyond money. This week, sow your time, effort or a talent into someone else’s life without looking for anything in return.
- Give something you need. The speaker calls that an act of love; ask the Lord what you could release cheerfully.
- Put others’ needs first. Follow Philippians 2:4 and trust God to care for what concerns you.
- Use your freedom to do right. When grace is used as an excuse, remember it is the opportunity to do what is right, not the right to do as you please.
- Practice righteousness daily. When you miss it, don’t hide it; ask forgiveness and keep practicing.
- Forgive and keep blessing. Say “Father, forgive them” over those who have hurt you, and keep living to bless them.
As he puts it, this is the time, this is the place and this is the hour, and grace is God’s provision for living it well.
Timestamped Outline
- 0:00 Living by God’s grace in a time of unrest
- 1:02 The greatest time of growth for the church
- 2:06 Prayer for maturity: Ephesians 4
- 3:12 2 Corinthians 9:6–8
- 4:19 A principle beyond money
- 6:27 Giving what you need is an act of love
- 7:31 Giving away the car
- 8:34 A vehicle from the Lord
- 9:38 What do you want?
- 10:38 Peter Marshall on freedom
- 12:47 The freedom to do right
- 13:48 1 John 5:18
- 14:49 Pressure to quit in Merrill
- 15:54 Titus 2: grace that teaches
- 18:00 In this present age
- 19:02 1 John 3:9: His seed remains
- 21:14 The Amplified reading
- 23:20 Hebrews 10: the Spirit of grace
- 25:26 Forgiving and blessing
- 27:33 1 John 3:10: children of God
- 28:35 Practice, not perfection
- 31:43 Prayer of salvation
- 33:49 Closing prayer and blessing
Frequently Asked Questions
Does 2 Corinthians 9 apply only to money?
The speaker says no. He acknowledges the passage is about finances, but argues that a principle of the kingdom of heaven cannot stand for money alone. Sowing bountifully includes giving your time, effort, talents and gifts, encouraging people and helping them without seeking compensation. When God sees that willingness, he teaches, He makes all grace abound toward you so you have all sufficiency for every good work.
If a Christian sins, does that mean he is not born of God?
Not according to this message. The speaker says every believer has committed acts of sin and that 1 John 3:9 does not mean we will never do or say anything wrong. The difference is between an act of sin and living in a state of sin. A person with God’s seed in him is grieved when he misses the mark, repents and works at doing better.
What if I am not a cheerful giver yet?
The speaker is honest that cheerfulness may not come at the beginning. He tells of a minister who said he was never cheerful when he gave. But he says you grow into it as you see God’s principle work afterward, as he did when a man brought him a car after he had given his away. Experience of God’s faithfulness makes cheerfulness natural.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- 2 Corinthians 9:6–8 — God is able to make all grace abound
- Ephesians 4:11–13 — equipping the saints for maturity
- Philippians 2:4 — the interests of others
- Titus 2:11–13 — grace that teaches us
- 1 John 5:18 — the evil one does not touch him
- 1 John 3:9 — His seed remains in him
- 1 John 3:10 — whoever does not practice righteousness
- Hebrews 10:28–30 — insulting the Spirit of grace
- James 4:17 — knowing to do good
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
Watch More Messages
If this message encouraged you to live by grace, there are many more teachings from NTC Ministries waiting for you. Browse the full sermon archive and keep growing in the grace that teaches us to live for Him.
