God Grace is With us

Grace Under Fire

God’s Grace is With us

Good morning and welcome to worship! It is such a joy to get to be with you today! Joey is finishing up his vacation this week and that gives me the opportunity to gather and worship with you here in Common Ground today.

How many of you were able to be here last Sunday for our Covenant Renewal Service? Amen. It was certainly different than what we usually experience in worship, but I hope it was meaningful for you. If you missed it, we took time on the first day of the year to renew our covenant, our commitment to God. We said unashamedly, “I am a follower of Jesus and I will seek to become who God created me to be.”

I talked about the fact that we, as followers of Jesus Christ, are to be going on to Christian Perfection… we are to be going on to become more and more like Christ. This isn’t just something to talk about as happening when we die, but a fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, we believe that it is possible in this life and we don’t have to wait until we die to be made perfect in Christian Love. That is my prayer for you

We ended the service together in prayer. by gathering at the altar and praying and reflecting on John Wesley’s Covenant Prayerthat says,

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

A pretty powerful prayer, Amen! I hope it is one that you will take to heart and live out! You do have a copy of it because we have added it to the announcement inserts you received as you came in today.

Now, here is the thing about this covenant prayer, and about Christian Perfection – or the Second Baptism, or Experiencing Perfect Love, or what ever you want to call it… This isn’t something we can do on our own. It is only with God’s help, with God’s presence in our lives that we can accomplish this.

And that is what this season we have just been through is all about. Christmas reminds us that God is with us… that God’s grace is with us… that God became flesh and lived among us and we will never be forgotten or forsaken.

So, I am beginning a brand new series this week. A series for the new year called Grace Under Fire.

How many of you have been feeling any stress? And pressure? Have you gone to buy a dozen eggs recently? How about your Credit Card interest? Any one looked at their retirement accounts lately? Anyone having any trouble in your relationships? Spouses? Kids?

Students, have you had any tests or grades to worry about lately?

Here is something I learned a long time ago… stress is real and stress ain’t going away. But here is the thing about stress. Sometimes it is necessary to get the desired results.

Some of you know that I have a few grape vines at the parsonage. It’s fun to go out and train the vines and branches to grow where I want them. It’s fun to go and see the grapes starting to develop.

Now, it’s not fun when the Red Breasted Robbins eat all my grapes before I can harvest them, but that’s another story.

Here is something I learned about the grapes this past year. Actually it was church member Trent Thompson that taught me this. With out stress, the grapes will never ripen the way they need to. He told me how I needed to stress the vines in order for the grapes to ripen and develop the right amount of sugar to be used in wine making. They need heat and drought to develop. If I pamper them, and water them, and keep them cool and protected, they will look wonderful. The leaves will get big and green. The vines will get long and strong… but the grapes will be puny and bitter. Without stress they never become what they were intended to be.

Here's another example of something needing stress… something requiring pressure… of something being under fire to become what it was designed to be.

Turn with me to

1 Peter 1:6-7

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

Anyone ever watch Bearing Sea Goldor any of the other Gold Rush shows? They spend all this time gathering the dust and nuggets of Gold, only to send the to smelting pot, why, so they can be refined. By refining it, but putting it under pressure and heat, by adding things to the gold that then get burned off and removed, the gold is purified.

In the same way, the blacksmith will take iron and heat it over and over, strengthening it as it is molded and melted and remolded.

Peter is reminding us that we are more precious than silver or gold, and that sometimes we experience trials, sometimes we feel like we are under the fire, sometimes we feel the pressure and stress… but it is in those times that we are being purified. Through the fires of life we are being made stronger and slowly but surely becoming what we were meant to be… and all through this, we must remember that God is with us… even in those moments when we don’t feel God’s presence, God is with us.

I want to take a little time today to talk about a familiar story from the Bible. It’s one of those stories that remind us sometimes, that we really don’t have it that bad. Right?

Let me tell you about someone who was under fire, someone who experienced stress, someone who’s trials, through God’s grace, helped form him into who he was called to be.

We know him as Moses. Born in Egypt during a time when all males were to be killed at birth, and yet he slipped through and was spared. When it became too apparent that he was a boy and the soldiers were going to find him and kill him, his mother crafted a basket and floated him down the Nile River, hoping he would survive and be found.

You want to talk about starting a life under stress. I don’t think very many of us were born into these kind of circumstances.

But through God’s grace, the Pharoah’s daughter found him and raised him in the palace of Pharoah.

Later when he discovered that he was a Jew and not Egyptian, he saw one of the task masters beating one of his fellow Jews and he killed him and buried him in the sand. When he was found out, he ran for his life, knowing that his adopted brother who was now the Pharoah was out to kill him. Again, trials of life that few of us have ever faced… but yet, through the grace of God, he wanders into a family in Midian and is again welcomed and saved. He marries one of the daughters of the family and becomes a Shepherd with them, learning the ways of the wilderness and how to lead animals that weren’t very easy to lead. Then, one day, he is leading the flock into a new area near one of the mountains, looking for new places for the animals to graze when he sees an odd sight. A bush that is burning, but doesn’t burn up!

Moses goes to the bush, and God speaks to him. God tells him that he is to go back to the very people who are trying to kill him… the very place he ran from… that he is to go and lead the Hebrew people, the enslaved Jews, out of Egypt. God tells Moses how this will happen, shares the eternal name of God - YHWH, and yet Moses still questions.

And that’s where I want us to pick up in the story. Turn with me to Exodus 4. If you want to read the rest of Moses’ story, you can either watch the movie The Ten Commandments, or read the book of Exodus. Today, we are going to stick with the Scriptures.

Exodus 4:1-12

But Moses protested again, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say, ‘The LORD never appeared to you’?”

2 Then the LORD asked him, “What is that in your hand?”

“A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied.

3 “Throw it down on the ground,” the LORD told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back.

4 Then the LORD told him, “Reach out and grab its tail.” So Moses reached out and grabbed it, and it turned back into a shepherd’s staff in his hand.

5 “Perform this sign,” the LORD told him. “Then they will believe that the LORD, the God of their ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—really has appeared to you.”

6 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Now put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out again, his hand was white as snow with a severe skin disease. 7 “Now put your hand back into your cloak,” the LORD said. So Moses put his hand back in, and when he took it out again, it was as healthy as the rest of his body.

8 The LORD said to Moses, “If they do not believe you and are not convinced by the first miraculous sign, they will be convinced by the second sign. 9 And if they don’t believe you or listen to you even after these two signs, then take some water from the Nile River and pour it out on the dry ground. When you do, the water from the Nile will turn to blood on the ground.”

10 But Moses pleaded with the LORD, “O Lord, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.”

11 Then the LORD asked Moses, “Who makes a person’s mouth? Who decides whether people speak or do not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the LORD? 12 Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say.”

What a story, Amen! I’ve always heard it said that “Hindsight is 20/20.” We can look back over Moses’ life and see where God’s grace was with him, where God was working within the circumstances to develop Moses into who God was calling him to be. Even in the bad times, even when Moses messes up, even when he sins egregiously, God is with him… and I have a feeling you can look back on your life and see the same thing. During all the “even when’s” of life, we can see that God is with us. Maybe we don’t see it in the thick of the moment, but looking back we can see that God’s grace is with us.

In the final couple of minutes, I want us to consider 3 “Even When’s” that God is with us, that God’s grace is covering us.

First,

Even when we have questions, God’s grace is with us.

“What if?” That’s the question Moses keeps asking. What if they ask me who sent me? What if they don’t believe me? What if…

Do you ever ask that question of God? Do you ever say, “God, I know you are urging me to talk to that person about my faith, but what if they get upset?” “I know you are calling me to this new job, but what if they don’t like me?” right… The what if’s of life, right?

Often, it is easier to dwell on the what-if than to respond to what God is calling us to do. The problem is, just like with Moses, often that “What if” is coming from a place of doubt. We doubt the providence of God. We doubt the goodness of God. We doubt the plan of God. There’s a story in the Gospel of Mark of a man who begs Jesus to heal his child, and he says in essence, “If you can please heal my son.” But Jesus tells him,

Mark 9:23-24

“What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”

The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”

Here’s what I’m saying. It is OK to bring our questions to God. God can handle our questions. Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God has made a way for us to come to Him in prayer. God is big enough to handle our questions, and it is through bringing our questions to God that we take another step on the road to Christian perfection.

Even when we have questions, God’s grace is with us.

Here’s another fact.

Even when we don’t believe, God’s grace is with us.

In Methodism, we call this Prevenient Grace. It is that Grace of God that goes before us, before we believe, before we see God in action. Through this prevenient grace, God reveals himself to us.

Moses questioned God in the wilderness… Moses didn’t believe in himself, much less in God before he stood before God at the burning bush, and yet, God’s prevenient grace was going before him… God was with him.

You know, when I was taking the step to go in the ministry, to leave the upward path that I was on at the Farmer’s Insurance Claims departments, I had my moments of doubt, my moments questioning God, maybe even a lack of belief at times.

Everything seemed to have fallen into place for me to leave my cushy job and go to Seminary. I had been accepted at Truett Seminary. I was approved by my local Church as a ministry candidate. Everything was falling into place… except, I didn’t have a job if I quit. I had spoken to the District Superintendents in the Methodist Church. I had applied at the Bible Book Store in Waco. I had even talked to them at the Saturn dealership. I mean, I was desperate. I needed some kind of a job to pay the bills and take care of my family, but every door kept closing in my face. I couldn’t even get a job flipping burgers!

As Christmas approached, I knew I was either going to have to postpone Seminary or resign without a job. You want to talk about doubts. You want to talk about fear. You want to talk about questions of God and challenging my faith… that was my daily existence.

I finally made my decision. I walked into my bosses office and told him officially, December 31 would be my last day. It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders when I walked out… then I was overwhelmed with the fear of the unknown. I said, God, it’s in your hands now… and the phone rang.

It was Grady Brittain, pastor of Salado Methodist Church. He was offering me a full-time ministry job.

God’s Prevenient Grace was covering me. God’s grace was going before me, preparing the way for me once I submitted.

Even when we don’t believe… God’s grace is with us

And finally.

Even when we don’t know what to say, God’s grace is with us.

Moses told God… I’m not eloquent of speech. How will I know what to say? And what did God say back to Moses?

Ex. 4:11-12

Who makes a person’s mouth? Who decides whether people speak or do not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say.

Sometimes, we are at a loss for words, amen!

Grace Under Fire

I was once asked to pray at a 4thof July event. I was to say the prayer, there would be some introductions, then US Congressman Chet Edwards was to speak. So, here I am sitting next to a Congressman for the United States. Politics and political party aside, I was sitting next to one of the people who helps craft legislation for our great nation. So, I had prepared this awesome prayer, and when my turn came I stood and gave my eloquent and profound prayer. I was sure I was going to wow the people of Hill County and they would flock to my church after my amazing prayer. But, as soon as I said, “Amen” the host of the event came almost running forward saying, “Wait, wait, there was a problem with the sound. Can you pray again?”

So, here I stood, on this flatbed trailer turned into a stage, having just prayed the most amazing prayer anyone had ever heard, and now I had to come up with a new prayer… so, as I stood at the microphone listening to the nature around us, in the silence of this holy moment, I said, Dear God, thank you for the birds and the bees… and it went down hill from there.

When I sat back down after what seemed like an eternity, Congressman Edwards leaned over and said, “Birds and bees huh…” And, we both had a laugh.

To be honest, that 2ndprayer was probably more memorable and heartfelt than the first.

Here’s the thing. God’s grace is with us… always.

When we feel it and when we don’t. When we have doubt. When we lack faith. When we don’t know what to say… God is with us.

I want to invite you to bow your head.

Some of you here today need to hear that. You are facing decisions this week that you need to know God is with you.

Some of you are doubting God. You’ve had some hardship, some illness, some breakdown of a relationship, and it doesn’t feel like God is with you. It doesn’t feel like God’s grace is covering you.

Maybe there’s some of you here that are struggling with believing in God, and today that struggle has taken a new turn. You’ve felt something. God’s grace has been revealed to you in a new way and you know that it’s time to give your life to God.

I’m going to pray for you now, and the band is going to come and sing the final song… and as they sing, if God is urging you to make a decision, If you are ready to give your life to God, if you are ready to stop doubting and accept the grace of God that has been going before you, I am here to talk to you about it.

Let’s pray.