God's Grace is For Us (2)

Grace Under Fire

God’s Grace is for Us

Good morning and again, welcome to worship! Before I get into today’s message, I want to invite Bart Johnson up. He has a few words to share about how God still answers prayer!

Johnson Photo.

… Bart Speaks…

Grace Under Fire

It is such a joy to get to be with you today. It was good to be in Common Ground last week and Conner did another amazing job preaching, but I certainly did miss being in here. Don’t worry about my new sermon series, you won’t miss anything, I’ll cover what we talked about last week, then move into today’s message that God’s grace is for us.

But first, a little update, I wanted to let you know that the end of this week Priscilla, Joey and I will be attending the Mid-Texas Conference Annual Awakening. It is a new way of doing Annual Conference with teaching from some of the leading scholars in Methodism. We will hear from JD Walt from Seedbed publishing. We will hear from Todd Still from Truett Seminary… We will hear from Rev. Leah Hidde-Gregory, our president Pro-Tem and Bishop Emeritus Mike Lowry. I can’t wait for all that God will have for us.

And, for those interested, on Saturday, January 21 starting at 3:00, we will have an ordination service, where our own Joey Wilbourn will be ordained as an Elder in the Global Methodist Church! carpool

God is on the move and great things are happening! Speaking of…

How many of you were able to be here January 1st for our Covenant Renewal Service?

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 Christ 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 Prayer that 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!

Now, here is the thing about this covenant prayer, and about Christian Perfection – or the Second Baptism, or Experiencing Perfect Love, or whatever 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. We need God’s Grace to be with us and for us.

That is what Christmas reminds us of… 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?

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. Without 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 Gold or any of the other Gold Rush shows? They spend all this time gathering the dust and nuggets of Gold, only to send them to smelting pot. Why? so they can be refined. By refining it, by putting it under pressure and heat, by adding things to the gold that then get burned off and removed, the gold is purified.

GUF

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’s grace is with us and God’s grace is for us.

Last week, I shared three what I call, “Even When’s” from the story of Moses and the Exodus.

The first one was

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

When God called Moses at the burning bush, Moses kept saying, “But, What if…” What if they don’t believe me… what they don’t think you sent me… what if they ask me your name… He questioned God.

Do you ever ask that question of God? I bet you do. Sometimes it’s easier to dwell on the what if than to follow God’s leading in our life. We doubt the providence of God, the plan of God, the goodness of God…

When we need to be more like the father from the Mark 9 who said, “Jesus, I believe, help me in my unbelief.”

It is Ok to question God, as long as we are bringing those questions to God in prayer.

So, even when we question God, God 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.

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.

So, that was a very short version of last week’s message reminding us that God’s grace is always with us, before we even know it, God’s grace is with us.

This week, I want to take a couple of minutes to share how we know that God’s grace is for us… and it is for us to give away.

Turn with me in your Bible to Genesis 50. As you turn there, I want to remind you of the back story if you aren’t familiar with it. This is the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob who came to be known as Israel. Jacob had 12 sons, who became the 12 tribes of Israel. Like I’ve said before, Israel wasn’t a nation, it was a family, the descendants of the man known as Israel.

One of these 12 sons of Jacob seemed to be the goodie two shoes of the family. He got special favors, he had all these dreams, and the 10 older brothers despised him for it. So, one day they are out in the field when Joseph comes in his fancy clothes to bring them some lunch. When they see him, they plot and plan how to get rid of him. First, they take his fancy cloak and then throw him in a well… but when some Ishmaelites (the relatives of their great Uncle Ishmael) come by, they sell Joseph to them. They make some money, Joseph goes off to Egypt to be a slave, and everyone lives happily ever after, right… well, maybe not.

Joseph ends up in Potiphar’s house as a slave and becomes his most important servant. Then Potiphar’s wife took a fancy to Joseph and when he refused her advances, she concocted a story that he tried to rape her and had him thrown in jail.

But, God wasn’t done with him yet, so while in jail he interprets the dreams of two prisoners, one of the prisoners was released and began working for the King of Egypt, the Pharoah, and shares Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams with the Pharoah.

Joseph is called before the Pharoah, properly interprets his dreams, and through a chain of events becomes the 2nd most powerful person in Egypt behind the Pharoah.

Because of God’s grace being for Joseph, the interpretation of dreams led Joseph to prepare the country for a 7-year famine that followed 7 years of plenty. This wasn’t just for Egypt. Egypt became a resource for all the nations during this 7-year famine. And that is where the story takes a turn. You see, Joseph’s own brothers come to Egypt to buy grain so they can survive. They don’t recognize their grown-up brother at first… But Joseph finally reveals his identity and they come to live with him.

When his father Jacob dies, they all go back to Canaan to bury him. And then once they return to Egypt, that is where our story picks up:

Genesis 50:15-20 (NRSV)

Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?” So they approached Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this instruction before he died, ‘Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.’ Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, “We are here as your slaves.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.

I love that. “What you intended for harm, God used for good.” This passage has come up in several conversations over the past week and I am reminded of a church I served years ago. When I arrived at the church, I soon heard about “The Split.” The church had a pastor that left the church and took “half” the congregation with him. The more I dug into the story in the year that followed, I began to realize that this had happened 20 years earlier, nearly everyone who left was back at the church, and both churches were growing.

I used this passage to talk about the pain that had happened, but also the good that had come from it. What had been a source of pain, should now be a source of joy. God’s kingdom had more than doubled. There was another church in town now with a completely different style of worship and way of being in relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Both churches were worshipping more than before “the split.” And that was something to rejoice, not lament.

God was for that Community, working in and through that pain to grow the Kingdom.

So, in these couple of minutes, I want us to look at three things that happen when we realize that God is for us… that God’s grace is FOR US.

1) We show forgiveness. Joseph didn’t have to forgive his brothers. He could have held a grudge, but he didn’t. he forgave. Billy Graham is credited with saying, “It’s the Father’s job to judge, the Spirits job to convict, and my job to love.”

When we realize that God’s grace is for us… that God has forgiven us… then we begin to show forgiveness as well… not just with words but with our actions. Full forgiveness needs both words and action… and it is often followed with an invitation. When we realize God’s grace is for us…

2) We invite people in. Joseph not only forgave his brothers, he invited them into relationship. He invited them into the story, into his life, into his new family. He promises to care for them.

We are better together. We are stronger the more we have serving together. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12 that we are all parts of One Body! When we come to know Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, we become part of the family of God, the body of Christ. We each have our place and our part to play and share.

I really don’t know where I would be today if I hadn’t run into Neal McClendon coming down the hall at a Stephen F. Austin’s dormitory. Neal had been my camp counselor when I was 14, and by God’s providence, he was the Campus Minister of a church in Nacogdoches. Even through I was drunk, even though I had walked away from my calling, even though I wasn’t who I needed to be, Neal invited me to church… and my life has forever been changed… all because of an invitation.

When you realize that God’s grace is for YOU, when we realize that God’s grace is for us, we are changed… and when we are changed we have to share it with others…

Here’s the thing about an invitation. I was invited in… you were invited in… but if we don’t go out, then everything dies. We can sit around talking about our invitation day after day… but without new invitations to others, we will simply begin to die away.

That is why, when we realize that God’s grace is for us,

3) We are sent. To keep the story of God’s love and grace… to hold onto what God has given you and not share it with others is shameful… It is selfish… It is sinful… God’s love and grace aren’t meant to be kept in a box and opened when we think we need it… it is meant to be shared with everyone we meet because it is always needed. God’s grace is always for us.

Roman’s 12 tells us that we are to be living sacrifices. As you look back on your life, I bet you can see time after time that God’s grace was working for you and for His glory. Over and over, we see it – and as a living sacrifice – we are to give that away!

Maybe you are sitting there today thinking, “Yeah, that’s great for Joseph and for you preacher… but you don’t understand my sin. You don’t know my pain. You don’t know what I’ve been through or what I’ve done.”

Well, you may be right. But I’ll tell you this… there has never been a time when God’s grace was not with you, when God was not for you, when God didn’t know and feel your pain.

Generations after Joseph, when the people of Israel were exiled and life was horrible, God’s raised up a prophet to remind them:

Jeremiah 29:11

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

God sees you. God knows you. God is with you. And God is for you.

And, as we gather around this table, we know that God’s grace is with us.