GOD OF GRACE
In his book ‘The Ragamuffin Gospel’, Brennan Manning tells the following true story. One night in January 1935 the mayor of New York, Fiorlla LaGuardia, turned up at one of the courts in a poorer area of the city. It was during the Great Depression and a woman was brought before the judge for stealing a loaf of bread. LaGuardia dismissed the judge and sat as judge in the case himself. He listened to all the evidence. At the end of the case he found the woman guilty and he said: a fine of $10 or 10 days in jail. As he was saying those words he was reaching into his own pocket to pay the fine. He then said this: ‘I am fining everyone in this courtroom 50cents for living in a town where a woman has to steal a loaf of bread to feed her grandchildren. The total came to $47.50, the last 50cents coming from the pocket of the baker who had brought the case in the first place.
What an extraordinary moment of grace. Everyone in that courtroom experienced grace that night. What would it take for you to experience grace? Or more importantly ‘What would it take for you to understand, believe and experience the grace of God today?’ Today I want us to consider the statement: Our God is a God of grace.
At the very beginning let me give you a definition of grace:
Grace is God’s favour freely given to those who do not deserve His favour. Or as someone else has put it more succinctly: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. You and I live in world today where there is not much ‘grace’ around. It is sad to say but sometimes the place where it is found the least is in the Christian community. Ghandi once said ‘I like your Jesus but I do not like your Christians.’ You only have to tune in to Talback some lunch times and you wonder if ‘grace’ was ever preached in the Christian church in Northern Ireland. We live in a world where ‘ungrace’ actually holds power and sway. Let me explain that for a moment. The world in which you and I live says that ‘everything in my life depends on what I do, who I am and where I am going.’ Grace says the very opposite. In fact grace says: ‘Everything depends not on you but on what God has done in and through Christ for you.’ Grace not only confronts this self-centred, selfish idea of self but actually shatters the illusion that I determine the ways of this world, and my life in particular.
I want to look at four areas of God’s Grace:
GRACE TO SAVE
GRACE TO SUSTAIN
GRACE TO SCHOOL
GRACE TO SERVE
Grace to Save.
I want you to imagine that this morning I have loaned you £1 million. The loan is to repaid at the rate of £10,000 per month, interest free. At the start of October an invoice arrives at your door for the first instalment of £10,000. The next letter you open is a cheque from me for £10,000 to repay the loan. Every month the same thing happens, an invoice for £10,000 and a cheque for the same. Friends that is grace. You don’t deserve it, you did not earn it and you did not solicit it – yet it is not only freely given but fully paid.
In the film The Last Emperor the child anointed as the last emperor of China leads a very magical and luxurious life. In one scene he asked the following question by his brother: ‘What happens when you do wrong?’
Child: ‘someone else is punished.’ As if to prove this he breaks a jar and a servant is beaten. With the grace of God the very opposite happens. The servant does wrong and the King is punished.
In our reading this morning from Paul’s letter the Romans that is what he seeks to explain, Grace. Look at Romans 5 verse 6 following. It was while we were dead in our sins, weak and unable to save ourselves that Christ died for us. In his letter to the Ephesians (2.8-10) Paul tells us that it ‘is by grace you have been saved, lest any man should boast.’ Paul tells us that grace is the very heartbeat of the gospel. You and I have nothing that we could contribute to merit God’s grace. There is nothing and there never will be anything in our lives which merit God’s grace being bestowed upon us.
Friends in the four gospels Jesus went to great lengths to teach grace. He taught it not only to his disciples but to everyone who would listen. He not only taught it in parables, the Prodigal, the Labourers in the vineyard for example, but he also demonstrated it in his dealing with others. Turn with me to John 8 – this familiar story of the woman caught in adultery. You remember the story. The religious leaders are trying to trap Jesus and they drag this woman before him and ask him what is to be done with her. Now note, only the woman is dragged before Jesus, the man has obviously been allowed to go free. Added to this some people, probably the same religious leaders, must have been skulking in through windows to be able to bring this accusation. Jesus kneels down and in the sand starts to draw with a stick in the dirt. He simply says ‘if you are without sin, cast the first stone.’ Maybe I am wrong but I wonder if in the dirt he started to write down the sins of the men who stood before him. When he looks up the crowd has gone. He then speaks words of grace to the woman – I do not condemn you but go and sin no more. Friends an example of the Grace of God. The Law stated death by stoning for adultery but Jesus knew that he had come to take that woman’s death. He sets her free from the punishment of death and calls her to leave the life of sin and live for him.
In his book Mortal Lessons, Richard Selzer writes of standing in a private room in a hospital with a young couple. The woman lies in the bed with her mouth twisted in a palsy, clownish grin, the result of a facial nerve being cut in order to remove a tumour in her face.
‘Will it always be like this?’ she asks.
‘Yes’, I reply, ‘it will. It is because the nerve was cut.’
‘I like it,’ he says. ‘It is kind of cute.’
Selzer goes on to describe what happens next. He describes how the young husband twists and contorts his own lips to show his wife that their kiss still works.
Friends let me say to you this morning that God did more than contort lips in order to demonstrate his grace to us. He contorted the body of His only beloved Son to as the hymn says ‘kiss this guilty world in love.’ God’s grace saves us from our sins. We did not deserve to be rescued, we deserved death, like the woman caught in adultery. Our sins just mount and mount and mount and there is nothing we can do to get rid of them. We have not the power to cleanse our souls from the stain of one single sin. Yet God in His love and by His grace wipes them all clean.
There is a wonderful story told about a woman who claimed to have visions of Christ. The local minister was so concerned about this that he sent for the Bishop. The Bishop interviewed the woman and in closing said this to her. ‘when Jesus next appears before you ask him what sins I confessed to him that morning in my prayers.’ The next night the minister sent for the bishop again. The bishop went to the woman and asked her if Jesus had appeared to her. She said ‘yes.’ ‘Did you ask him what sins I had confessed.’ ‘Yes, I did.’ ‘What did he say.’ ‘He said He did not remember.’ We may laugh at such a story but the essence of it is true. When God forgives us our sins he forgets them. They are as if they never happened. That is why Paul begins Romans 5 with the statement about ‘justification.’ By grace we are not only forgiven our sins but also counted righteous in the presence of God. friends we are in the dock, found guilty and the punishment is death (Romans 6.23 the wages of sin is death) but because of God’s mercy (Romans 3.22-23) we are saved from death and given eternal life in its place. So the first thing which the grace of God does is to save us from a lost eternity.
GRACE TO SUSTAIN.
Sometimes in the Christian church we are guilty of thinking of the grace of God only in terms of salvation. However, the Bible teaches that God’s grace, like his love, pervades everything He does for us. His grace is there not only to save us from our sins but also to sustain us as we live our lives on this earth. Let me read you some verses from Ephesians (1.4-6). Do you understand what Paul says here? Before the world was created Grace towards us was in the heart of God. The reason grace was there was that we might bring glory to God. God the Father was and is the fountain of that grace. God the Son is the channel of that grace. God the Holy Spirit is the administrator of that grace. The supply is inexhaustible. God’s expression of grace cannot be increased nor diminished. In 2 Corinthians 12.9 Paul speaks of the grace of God being sufficient for him. Paul had been given a thorn in his flesh and three times he pleaded with God to remove it but God told him his grace was sufficient to sustain him in and through such weakness and or hardship. When God saves us through grace he also intends to sustain us through grace. You see it is not that God saves me from my sins and then sets me down and tells me now to live a good, perfect and pleasing life on and in my own strength. I would not last a day as a Christian in my own strength. But friends how many of you are trying this morning to live a life pleasing to God on your own strength. Let me share with you the result of such a life: Guilt, shame and failure. Is that not true? The result is that the language of grace which speaks of freedom is replaced by one of guilt, shame, demands, condemnation. The language of grace is the opposite of all of those. Grace tells me I am no longer under condemnation but that I am a new creation in Christ. Grace tells me I am no longer an orphaned sinner but an adopted child of God, heir with Christ to the glories of heaven. Grace tells me I am no longer condemned to strive to live a perfect life in my own strength but that all has been accomplished in Christ. God has promised to sustain me through this life and to bring me safe to the Promised Land. Is that not the promise made by Jesus to his disciples in John 14. Look it up with me now. Look at the promise in verses 2 and 3. He promises to prepare a place for me and to come and take me to be with him. Then look at verse 26 – the promise of the Holy Spirit – we are not abandoned by God – he has promised a Helper – the Holy Spirit. Then look at verse 27 – he promises us peace. Not a peace where nothing ever goes wrong or no illness ever befalls us. No he promises us peace in our hearts that even though all around us are storms we are secure in the knowledge that because of God’s grace we will be saved. Friends he has promised us grace to sustain us till he brings us home to glory.
GRACE TO SCHOOL.
Let me draw something on this board for you. The Past which takes us to the Cross where the grace of God was revealed in all its majesty. The Future when the Lord appears again when the glory of the King of kings will be revealed in all its majesty. You and I live here, in between the Cross and the return of Christ. Now God calls us to live ‘holy lives’ in this intervening period, but how are we to do that? How do we know what a holy life is like? This is another aspect of God’s grace working in our lives. Listen to these words of Paul in Titus 2.11-12. Verse 11 tells us that grace appeared to bring salvation but note verse 12. Paul goes on to tell us that this same grace will train us in godly living – how? By training us how to renounce the ungodliness of the world and its passions. The grace of God will move our hearts towards the things of God. The grace of God moves us to deny and renounce certain ways of life and then motivate us to do certain things. Paul says these are so that we might live upright, godly and self-controlled lives. He says that the grace of God moves us to live aright with God (grace to save), with regard to ourselves and other people. Friends God’s grace is there to save us, to sustain us and then to school us in godly living. We cannot be schooled, taught, if we refuse to learn. Just as in school the child who refuses to be taught does not learn so we are the same in the Christian life. We must have a humble and teachable spirit. We must open the Word of God and we must be open to the Spirit of God. Remember God’s grace is administered by the Holy Spirit though Christ by the Father. So the grace of God is there to teach us how to live godly lives. You see out of your character flows your conduct. Out of your character flows your conduct. Without the grace of God you and I will be unable to live godly lives. I know my heart. I know my mind. I know my will and without the grace of God I would be the Prodigal in the mire of the pigsty very quickly and very easily.
GRACE TO SERVE.
Finally friends we come to Grace to Serve. Do you remember when Jesus said these words to his disciples: ‘I have come to serve and not to be served.’ On another occasion he said to them that if ‘you want to great then be a servant.’ It takes grace to serve, doesn’t it. Think of the people who have most reflected God’s grace to you. I guarantee if I asked you to describe them ‘humble’ and ‘servant’ would be included in the list. The tone of our temperament and the tenor of our lives are to be such that they reflect God’s grace to others. If Christ, whom we claim to follow, set an example of servanthood then what choice have we? In the gospels Jesus taught about being a servant of all. Yet we know in our own hearts how difficult it is to serve others. Our natural inclination is have others wait on us and not for us to wait on them. We find it difficult to do what we consider to be menial tasks. Yet I want you to stop and think for a moment – when you came in this morning this building was clean and tidy. The chairs were in their place, table for books, crèche room open and manned. The sound system in place, the electric piano here. Those things have been done for five months now by people each week. Friends everyone of them is an act of grace. As you leave this morning I want you, and I mean this, I want you to thank the lady at reception for opening up the building and for keeping this place so clean. It is not our building but I don’t recall in the past 5 months seeing one piece of paper lying about. In fact this place has been tidier than HT has been some Sundays. I don’t know if that lady is a Christian or not but I know that she serves us each week.
Grace to serve is I think the one field we all need help in. We need servant hearts at HT. We need people who are willing to serve on the chair rota, the crèche rota, the open Sunday school rota. We need teachers for Sunday school which by the way is now called The Potter’s House. We need help in the BB, GB, Youth Club. Friends there are more opportunities for service here than people to serve. So you may have grace to save, grace to sustain and grace to be schooled but is it being seen in service.?
I have pointed us on many occasions this morning to Paul. I want you to consider the transformation that grace had in his life. Paul was a persecutor of Christians. We read in Acts 9 that those who stoned Stephen to death laid their garments at the feet of one Saul of Tarsus, Paul. Yet when he met the risen Christ he was transformed and became a servant of Christ and a servant to all to win them for Christ. Paul this great man of learning. Paul this man with great Israelite and Jewish pedigree became a servant for the sake of the gospel. On one occasion he went back to tent making so as not to be a burden on the local church. Grace saved him. Grace sustained him through shipwrecks, persecutions, beatings and imprisonments. Grace schooled him in the great truths of the Gospel. Grace transformed him into a servant.
CONCLUSION
Counterfeit grace is common today. It is common in the world where it is more important to look good than to be good. Unfortunately counterfeit grace is also common in the church, where people accept grace in theory but deny it in practice. To live by grace is to know tremendous freedom. To know that I am what I am in the sight of God because of Christ frees me from this desire, this drive to impress other people in order to be accepted. Living by grace leads me out of the house of fear, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear that I am not loved nor lovable and leads me into the house of God’s love where I am loved, lovable and loving. It leads me out of the fear of death into the freedom of life. It removes not only the punishment of sin but the guilt of sin from my life and in its place God through His Holy Spirit pours in His transforming grace.
Let me finish with a story and few questions for you. Bill Moyers is a documentary film maker. He made a documentary about the hymn amazing Grace. The last scene of the film is set in Wembley Stadium. A rock concert is going on and all sorts of groups, such as Guns’n’Roses, are playing. The last act is to be an opea singer called Jessye Norman. She decides to sing Amazing Grace. The audience are screaming for an encore from Guns’n’Roses as she walks on to the stage. She starts sings ‘Amazing Grace how sweet the sound..’ Bill Moyers does not have to say anything at all. He does not have to give a commentary it is there for you to see. The crowd fall silent. By verse three they begin to join in. Moyers says he does not know what happened. Philip Yancey says this about that occasion: ‘I think I know. The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.’
Are you living each day in the certain knowledge that by grace you are forgiven and saved?
After falling flat on your face, are you still convinced that the fundamental structure of reality is grace and not works?
Are you still trying to do it all in your own strength?
Are you still striving to be liked by what you do?
Do you truly believe that God loves you just the way you are and that you do not have to change, grow or be good to be loved?
Grace calls to us all and grace will lead us home.
AMEN.
