What do Baptists Believe about Grace?

OK guys, this is a weighty topic. Get ready to either ignore the following, or choke on it.

Mercy is when you don't get something that you do deserve, grace is when you get something that you don't deserve.

We've all heard it before, and we know that mercy is when God looks on us and forgives us of our sins. But what's grace? In the song, "Amazing Grace" we're told what it does, but we don't know how it comes around.

If you were going to give a definition of God's grace, what would it be?

From The Baptist Faith and Message:
Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. It is the glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes humility.

Eph. 1:3-6, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved."

This verse says that:
1) God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
~ before there was a Garden, God planned that we as believers would be saved in the name of Christ Jesus
2) All of this was done according to the purpose of his will.
~ God loved mankind so much that he purposed that they would be adopted as sons and daughters through believing in faith in Jesus Christ

What's this about an election?
He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners by electing us. Of course we think of a political election when we hear the word "elect" but throughout the New Testament, the Bible refers to believers in Christ as "the elect". The Bible does this because all who believe in Christ Jesus have been elected unto salvation.

There are two disagreeing viewpoints, however, on how God elects people in Christ. These viewpoints have been around for hundreds of years, at least, and both views can be found in Southern Baptists

One view, known as Calvinism, claims that God chooses individuals to which he wills to come to Christ (this means that the individuals could only comply with the will of God when believing in Christ). A second view, known commonly as Arminianism but also known as believing in the free-will of man, says that God could never will a person to come to Christ, but instead allows man to choose to believe in Christ, and the whole idea of election is that Christ has been elected, and therefore everyone in Christ is a member of the elect. Calvinists would say that God's grace is so powerful that it is only by God that a person is saved. Those who believe in the free agency of man would say that God has given us grace through Christ, and then we choose to live in the grace God gives us in Christ. (I know this sounds crazy and unfamiliar, but if you have questions about exactly what I'm saying--just ask.)

Regardless, all Baptists believe that it is only because of God's love in sending his son that we could have a relationship with him, and God is much greater than anything we can imagine.

Questions to think about:
1) When we're saved, how much does God will in our salvation and how much is man's will?
2) What do you think election means according to Scripture? (check a concordance for references)

From The Baptist Faith and Message:
All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

One Baptist mantra is "once saved, always saved." Another form of God's grace is that once we have received God's grace, there is no way we can fall out of God's grace, which is losing salvation. Because of this, all people who have really been born again will stay believers until they die. In a sense, once you are adopted, you are not going to be un-adopted, even if you become disobedient. In real life, if you have an adopted child, you're not going to kick the child out just because he does disobedient things, and how much greater a Father is God?

This does not mean that just because you pray for salvation OR walk the aisle OR get baptized OR become a pastor that you are saved. Scripture says that those who are saved will persevere to the end, and that is one of the only ways we will know.

So how do we persevere, and what happens if we go for a while without giving God a second thought?
The key to walking in Christ isn't doing all the right things or checking off a list of godly things to do. Instead, the key to walking in Christ is, well, being in Christ. Practicing putting on Christ. Abiding in Christ. As Christians we are like a branch that shoots off of Christ, the tree. Because we are connected to Christ (every moment of every day, in meditation of His Word and in deep times of prayer), we will bear fruit then that is the same fruit of the tree we are connected to. However, if we are not connected to Christ, our tree, there will not be any fruit. So, we don't focus on being gentle, loving, or peaceful. Instead, we focus on abiding in Christ, and then those things will just happen. If you stop being connected to Christ, then you won't be healthy.

That's all for now. There are several Bible verses, and I know I haven't put down hardly any.