Grace

Scripture: Various (see below)

Title: G.R.A.C.E.

Structure:

• Introduction
• God                   (Romans 5:6-10 & Luke 10:30-36)
• Realisation        (Luke 18:9-14 & Luke 15:11-24)
• Acceptance        (John 13:6-10 & 2^nd Corinthians 12:7-9)
• Change              (Luke 3:7-14 & Matthew 18:23-35)
• Evangelism       (Luke 8:26-39)
• Conclusion

Introduction:

Hi everyone

• This morning we are taking a break from our series in Ephesians for a one off sermon on grace. The word grace simply means gift.
• We can’t earn grace; we can only receive it, like soil receives a seed or like a baby receives her mother’s milk.
• Grace is a good gift, a beautiful gift, a valuable gift, a treasure.
• God’s grace is also a process, but it’s not an entirely easy process.  

God:

Not surprisingly God’s grace starts with God Himself.

• Grace is always God’s initiative and God’s grace is often at work long before we are even aware of it. In Romans 5 Paul writes,

You see, at the just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us…

For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life.  

These verses are saying; God’s grace was at work to save us when we were still enemies of God, long before we were even aware of our need for God’s help.

• God does this because that’s who God is. He saves us out of his goodness and love. When God shows grace He is simply being true to himself.  

Many of you will be familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

• You know the one; where some poor bloke got mugged and left for dead on the side of the road.
• Most people of that time were easily identifiable by what they wore.
• You could tell who was Jewish and who was Roman and who was Samaritan and who was Greek by their clothes.
• But the man who had been beaten up wasn’t wearing anything because the robbers had taken his clothes.
• The Samaritan had no way of knowing whether the stranger was a friend or foe.
• Maybe the wounded man was Jewish, a sworn enemy to the Samaritans.
• But that didn’t matter, his need trumped everything else.
• The Good Samaritan showed grace and mercy to that man, even though he didn’t know the guy.

Jesus is like the Good Samaritan and we are like the stranger, unconscious and bleeding out in the gutter.

• Jesus shows us mercy and grace while we are helpless to save ourselves and indeed, while we are still concussed and unaware of how vulnerable we really are.
• So often we can only see God’s grace in the rear-vision mirror.

Realisation:

The next step in the process of grace is realising our need.

Have you ever had the experience of losing your keys, needing to find them in a hurry and frantically searching everywhere for them?

• Robyn has and I’ve been the mug frantically looking with her.
• After about a minute or two, when it becomes obvious the keys are not in any of the usual places, we realise our desperate need and start praying, asking God to help us find the keys.     
• Then, when they finally turn up, we are very relieved and thankful. 

Of course, looking for lost keys is a frivolous example, at least in hindsight.

• Realising our need can be far more painful and difficult, but it’s necessary if we are to become aware of God’s grace
• Without realising our need, we can’t really accept, let alone appreciate, God’s grace.

They say, ‘You can’t trust someone who has never lost anything’ and its true.

• In Luke 18 Jesus tells a story of two very different men, a Pharisee and a tax collector.
• The Pharisee, who is at the top of the pecking order in his society, has never lost anything – he isn’t aware of his need for God and consequently he looks down on others.
• He thinks he is better than everyone else and reminds God of all the good things he does.
• The tax collector, on the other hand, knows loss all too well – he is somewhere near the bottom of the social ladder and is acutely aware of his need.
• He stands at a distance, not daring to look up to heaven, beating his chest saying, “God, have mercy on me a sinner”. 
• Jesus concluded his story by saying it was the tax collector who went home justified by God.

Before God’s grace can find its home in our heart, we have to realise our need for it.

• When life is tickety boo and everything is going along fine we usually aren’t aware of our need for God – we tend to think we can manage on our own, without God.
• It’s not until we are faced with our need that we cry out for help
• We come to a realisation of our need for God by having our heart broken.
• To paraphrase Richard Baxter, ‘God breaks every person’s heart in a different way.’
• Perhaps through illness, maybe through the loss of a loved one, sometimes through betrayal or our own failure or in some other way.
• But having our heart broken isn’t enough in itself – we also need to reflect on our situation.
• Reflection (thinking time) helps us to join the dots. Reflection allows the penny to drop.

The problem is, many of us don’t take the time to reflect – we don’t sit with our pain long enough.

• We find some way to distract ourselves or we numb the pain with alcohol or by keeping busy.
• Not all pain is good, but sometimes pain is God’s messenger if we would only listen to it.   
• Having said that, we need to find the right balance between reflection and action.
• We don’t want to spend so long sitting with our pain that we become stuck, feeling sorry for ourselves.    

The prodigal son, in Luke 15, didn’t come to his senses (he didn’t realise his need) until he hit rock bottom and became so hungry he would have eaten the food he was feeding to the pigs.

• But it wasn’t just being hungry that made him realise his need – it was also honest reflection.
• As the younger son thought about how well his father’s servants were treated he realised his best bet was to return home and ask for help.

If God’s grace is a sapling plant and our heart is the soil, then realising our need is the spade which opens our heart to receive God’s grace.

• Or if God’s grace is a wholesome meal, then realising our need is the hunger which opens our mouths to dine on God’s grace.
• The same God who breaks our heart also heals our heart.

Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

• The poor in spirit know their need for God’s grace and they’re not too proud to ask for help.

Acceptance:

After we have realised our need, the next step in the process of grace, is accepting God’s help.

• This might seem obvious and it might seem like the easy part but it is neither obvious nor easy. Accepting God’s help can be humiliating.
• The problem is we often want to stay in control. We want to accept God’s grace on our terms. But that’s not how grace works.

The night before he died Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and when he got to Simon Peter, Peter refused because he thought it was beneath Jesus to do this. [1]

• Perhaps Peter meant well but it’s not for us to set the terms of grace.
• Jesus said, if you don’t let me wash your feet (if you don’t accept my grace on my terms) you have no part in me
• Peter couldn’t argue with that and neither can we.

We don’t dictate the terms of God’s grace. All we can do is accept or reject what God decides to give or withhold. 

• In 2^nd Corinthians 12 Paul talks about two of God’s graces given to him.
• Paul was given a wonderful vision or revelation but then, to stop him becoming conceited, he was also given a thorn in the flesh.
• Paul writes; Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
• The vision and the thorn were both forms of God’s grace.
• The vision was pleasant and the thorn wasn’t.
• Paul would rather not have had the thorn, but we don’t decide the terms of God’s grace.
• We are not God. We are his creatures and our part is to come to terms with God’s grace for us – to learn to accept what God gives, as Paul did.

When it comes to God’s grace we may also have a hard time accepting what God does for others.

• Returning to the parable of the prodigal son, in Luke 15, the older brother certainly had a hard time accepting his father’s grace for the younger son.
• We see his resentment at the father welcoming the prodigal home with a party.

The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look, all these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him.    

God’s grace for others requires us to be gracious too and that can be difficult.

The process of GRACE starts with God. Next comes the realisation of our need, followed by acceptance and then change.

Change:              

Sometimes we long for change don’t we. Other times we prefer to keep things as they are.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said…

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy, for which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow… Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.”

Those were Bonhoeffer’s words.

• Grace requires change. The technical words for the change grace requires are repentance and sanctification.
• Repentance means a change of mind and a change of behaviour.
• And sanctification is the process of becoming more like Christ.
• Repentance goes hand in hand with forgiveness and sanctification should follow justification.
• We can’t expect God’s grace to leave us unchanged or untouched.
• We can’t say, ‘Thank you God for your forgiveness. I’ll be on my way now to live as I please.’

In preparing the way for Jesus (the Messiah) John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He didn’t mince his words.

• Here’s a sample of John’s preaching from Luke 3…

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance…⁹ The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”¹⁰ “What should we do then?” the crowd asked.¹¹ John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”¹² Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”¹³ “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.¹⁴ Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

John preached costly grace and so did the apostle Paul. In Romans 6 Paul says,

• What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

I said before that we were taking a break from Ephesians but actually today’s sermon, about the process of grace, follows the pattern of Ephesians.

• In the first part of Ephesians Paul talks about what God has done for us in Christ (all the good gifts that are ours because of Jesus).
• And in the second part of Ephesians Paul talks about the change God’s grace should effect in us.

Now in saying that grace requires us to change we need to know that God is not asking us to be something we are not.

• The change is from our false self to our true self.
• It also needs to be said that God is willing to help us change.
• Sometimes we want to change but we can’t, at least not on our own – we are stuck, frozen like statues. We need the help of God’s Spirit.
• God’s grace comes with truth to set us free from the lies that trap us.   

The ultimate test that God’s grace has changed us (made us more true on the inside) is our willingness to forgive others. As we say in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’

Jesus told some chilling tales – real horror stories. One of his scariest parables, in Matthew 18, was told as a warning against cheap grace.

• The story goes that a servant racked up an incredible debt with the king. We might say a billion dollars in today’s currency.
• I don’t know how this man did it. Maybe he had a gambling problem or maybe he just liked fast cars and expensive parties.
• Anyway, when he was brought before the king and asked to give account the servant fell to his knees begging for more time to repay the debt.
• The servant thought he could set the terms of grace and buy his way out.
• The King (and everyone else) knew the servant had no hope of repaying the money and yet the King did more than the servant asked for – he forgave the entire debt outright.

Now, you would expect the King’s generosity to change the servant.

• Sadly, the servant went out, found someone who owed him about $50, grabbed the man by the neck and demanded payment.
• When the man begged for more time the first servant refused and had him thrown into debtors’ prison.
• The other servants were extremely upset and told the King.
• The King, who was a just man, became angry saying, ‘I forgave you the whole amount, you should have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you’.
• Then the King sent that servant to jail to be punished until he should pay back every penny.
• And Jesus concluded: ‘That is how my Father in heaven will treat every one of you unless you forgive your brother from the heart’.

God’s grace may be free but it’s not cheap. We need to be careful not to forfeit it. The real proof that grace has done its work in changing us is our willingness to forgive others.  

God, Realisation, Acceptance, Change and Evangelism – spells GRACE.

Evangelism:

Evangelism simply means, passing on good news.

• Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.
• True evangelism is the fruit of a thankful heart – a heart that has been touched and changed by God’s goodness.

I remember as a kid my grandparents had a Newton’s Cradle, like this one, only bigger. [Hold up Newton’s Cradle and set it going]

• When you lift one metal ball and let it fall, the energy passes all the way through the row causing the metal ball on the end to swing up.
• The device is named after Isaac Newton because it demonstrates one of the laws of physics; the conservation of momentum and energy.

God’s grace is an energy – it must find release or expression somehow, somewhere. Evangelism and praise are two natural ways in which the energy of God’s grace is released.   

• If the process of God’s grace is like a Newton’s Cradle, then God’s goodness is the metal ball on one end and evangelism is the ball on the far end. [Set the Newton’s Cradle going again]

Often when Jesus healed or forgave or delivered someone, that person would then tell others what Jesus had done for them.

• Even when Jesus warned them to be quiet they couldn’t help themselves; the positive energy of his grace needed to find release and expression.
• Sometimes though Jesus did instruct people to pass on the good news.

In Luke 8, Jesus crossed over to the other side of the lake with his disciples to Gentile territory.

• No sooner had they stepped off the boat and they were confronted with a man who was possessed by a legion of demons.
• This man was so troubled, his life in such chaos, that he used to live among the tombs.
• People tried to restrain him, for his own safety and their own, but he broke the shackles and lived like a wild animal. 

Jesus commanded the demons to leave the man. The demons were afraid of Jesus and begged him not to send them into the abyss.

• So Jesus showed them grace and let them enter a herd of pigs, which promptly ran off the side of a steep bank and into the lake. 

When the villagers saw the man sitting with Jesus, clothed and in his right mind – his dignity (and humanity) restored, they were frightened.

• The grace of God is a powerful energy and divine power can be terrifying.
• Because of their fear the people of that region asked Jesus to leave.
• Jesus is meek (strong & gentle at the same time) so he did what they asked of him.
• As Jesus was leaving the man who had been delivered begged to go with him, but Jesus said; Return home and tell how much God has done for you.

Here we see the wisdom of God’s grace.

• The man had been estranged and alienated and lonely for a long time.
• He needed to belong again – to be restored to his community.
• The man was a Gentile. If he went with Jesus, back to Jewish territory, he would be excluded all over again.
• The man also needed to find expression for the energy God’s grace had created within him.
• By sending the man back home with the task of telling his story of grace, Jesus was releasing the man.
• So the man went away and told everyone in town how much Jesus had done for him.   

Conclusion:

This morning we’ve heard about the process of God’s grace.

• Grace begins with God’s goodness, before we are even aware of it.
• But for grace to do its work we must realise our need for God.
• Once we have realised our need we must accept grace on God’s terms.
• Then comes change for good; personal repentance, proven in the crucible of forgiveness.   
• Eventually though, the energy of grace must find release in evangelism, and praise; telling others the good things God has done for us.

This process of God’s grace isn’t just a one off thing though – it is a cycle which repeats itself, going deeper and deeper into our soul each time, until we reach maturity in Christ-likeness.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1. What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
2. Thinking back over your life, can you recall a time when God’s grace was at work before you were aware of it? (When have you seen God’s grace in the rear-vision mirror?)
3. Can you recall a time in your life when you realised your need for God? What happened?
4. Why is it important for us to reflect on our situation when things go wrong?
5. What has been your experience of accepting God’s grace? Is it similar to that of the prodigal son, or of Peter having his feet washed or of Paul’s thorn in the flesh? Or is it different to that?
6. What is the difference between cheap grace and costly grace?
7. What change has God’s grace brought in your life?
8. How can we release the energy of God’s grace?
9. Is there someone who would benefit from hearing about the good things God has done in your life?
10. Take some time this week to reflect on the different times God has led you through His cycle of grace. Where are you at in the cycle of grace right now? What are the next steps for you?    

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[1] John 13:6-10