God's Character: Grace
God's Character • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Call to Worship
Call to Worship
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
listen to my plea for grace.
In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
for you answer me.
Sermon
Sermon
Continuing on this week, we’ll be looking at the second characteristic listed in Exodus 34:6. Just to recap, here’s our main verse for this series: Exodus 34:6-7 ““And the Lord passed before Moses and said: Yahweh, Yahweh, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, overflowing with loyal-love and faithfulness. He maintains loyal-love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He won’t declare innocent the guilty, He will bring the iniquities of the fathers upon the children and grandchildren, to the third and the fourth.”
The first week we looked at the context behind the verse, and at the Israelites sin with the golden calf at Mount Sinai, and we learned about the name of God: YHWH. Then last week we looked at the first characteristic listed in the verse: compassion. Compassion means to suffer with, and it’s closely associated with the Hebrew word womb. And so we looked at how God’s compassion was like the love of a mother, how it often causes Him pain to give compassion and yet He chooses to do it anyways, and then we saw how sometimes we can be like Jonah and like the older son in the parable of the two sons, and we can be angry at God or at others because God shows them compassion.
This week we’re going to be going into the next characteristic: grace. Like I said last week the road map for the sermons the next few weeks is this: We’re going to define the word, then we’re going to look at how it’s used, specifcially about God, in the Old Testament, then we’ll look at how Jesus exhibited in the New Testament, and we’ll finish with how we should be showing it.
Just a note before we really start, two resources have been really helpful in preparing this sermon. The book God Has A Name by John Mark Comer, and the podcast series on the Character of God by the Bible Project.
So let’s start. What is grace?
When we say that someone is gracious we typically mean they are kind, maybe courteous, pleasant even. We hear this word used to describe someone’s surprising and kind attitude towards another person or in a difficult situation—“she was so gracious with the rude customer,” or “he carries himself with grace even under pressure.”
Another common way we used the word is as a synonym of forgiving, merciful, and compassionate. We might say “it was very gracious of you to give me a warning,” or “their consequence was very gracious.”
These definitions of “grace” and “gracious” can be connected by the idea that to be gracious is to extend kindness or show favour or delight to someone who may not be deserving of it.
One definition that I’ve heard before is: Grace is unmeritted favour.
The Hebrew word for Grace is Khen (Hren), Khen is anything that induces a favorable response. Anything we find ourselves drawn to. It might elicit a favorable response because something is charming, or beautiful. Basically anything that we encounter that brings us delight could be called khen.
In Proverbs 3:22 God’s wisdom is compared to a necklace and is called “an ornament of khen,” usually translated as “an ornament of grace.” God’s wisdom is a delight to look upon, similar to a beautiful necklace.
In Psalm 45:2 a gifted poet is said to have lips of khen, most often translated as “lips of grace.” The poet’s lips create beauty when he uses them for his poetry.
In Proverbs 5:19 a deer that moves swiftly and elegantly is called a “deer of khen,” or a graceful deer.
All of these examples of khen are describing beauty, elegance, and things worth treasuring. To find khen is to find a treasure.
Another way we see this word used in the Bible is when someone asks to be treated like a treasure, that is, to be treated favorably. This is what it means to be “found as khen” in someone’s eyes. That phrase, “to find khen in the eyes” is a popular biblical phrase, used 47 times throughout Scripture. And it is exclusively used when someone of higher status looks upon someone of lower status with favor.
For example in the story of Joseph in Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, and bought by an Egyptian man named Potiphar, and Genesis 39:4 says “So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had.”
Potiphar thinks highly of Joseph, and so he looks on him with favour, or with Khen, or Grace.
Similarly, in the story of Ruth when she and her mother-in-law Naomi are in poverty, Boaz a wealthy landowner takes care of them and helps them to find food. And Ruth says: Ruth 2:10 “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”
Someone in authority can find someone of lesser status as worthy of khen(favor). As a result, that person of lower status will be treated with higher regard than their true position would necessitate. And the opposite is true too. Someone in a lowly position can ask someone superior to find khen in their eyes for them. This is what it means for someone to “find khen” in the eyes of another.
Khen when seen in this way is a word that describes action. And that’s one of the ways that it’s set apart from Compassion is more of an emotive word, it describes the feeling that someone has towards someone else even when it’s not deserved. Khen which is Grace or Favour often is putting a higher emphasis on the action that is involved.
Like in the story of Esther. Haman has tricked the king into killing all of the Jews, and Esther the king’s bride risks everything to come before him and plead the king to change his mind. And this is what Esther says: Esther 8:5 “And she said, “If it please the king, and if I have found favor (khen) in his sight, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let an order be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the provinces of the king.”
And the king does, and he hangs Haman, and saves the Jews, all because he acted on his Khen towards Esther.
One more story to illustrate the point
In Genesis, Jacob was known as a deceiver, he had made his brother sell his birthright for soup, and then went on the run, and it wasn’t until years later that he finally sees his brother Esau again, but when he finally does see him again. Jacob makes his whole family come and bow before Esau, and this is the interaction they have: Genesis 33:8-12
Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company that I met?” Jacob answered, “To find favor in the sight of my lord.” But Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.” Jacob said, “No, please, if I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present from my hand. For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me. Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.” Thus he urged him, and he took it.
Then Esau said, “Let us journey on our way, and I will go ahead of you.”
I hope that these have helped to show that when the word Khen is used in the bible it can denote both grace and favour, and other it’s when favour is poured out on someone that hasn’t earned it. The word is used a lot in the Hebrew bible, and many of these occurances are about God.
Like in 1 Samuel when an older woman named Hannah is asking God to give her a child, and it’s not that she’s earned the ability to have a child in any way, but she goes to the temple and asks for it anyways, and the priest Eli asks her what’s wrong, and she explains it to him, and this is the rest of passage. 1 Samuel 1:17-20
Then Eli answered, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.” And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.
They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the Lord.”
So Hannah asks for God’s favour, His khen, and God gives it to her. Not because she’s earned it, but because God is gracious.
And we can think of Hannah as more of a neutral example, we’re not told of anything wrong that she had done that would require consequence, so perhaps it was easy for God to give her favour and act graciously. But in the Old Testament there are also lots of cases where God gave his grace or favour to someone even when they actively didn’t deserve it.
One example is in 2 Kings chapter 13 and it says this: 2 Kings 13:1-6
In the twenty-third year of Joash the son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned seventeen years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin; he did not depart from them. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them continually into the hand of Hazael king of Syria and into the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael. Then Jehoahaz sought the favor of the Lord, and the Lord listened to him, for he saw the oppression of Israel, how the king of Syria oppressed them. (Therefore the Lord gave Israel a savior, so that they escaped from the hand of the Syrians, and the people of Israel lived in their homes as formerly. Nevertheless, they did not depart from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin, but walked in them; and the Asherah also remained in Samaria.)
Jehoahaz did not earn God’s favour in the slightest, there are very few verses in the bible about him, and two of them specifically state that he did what was evil in God’s sight. And yet even though he did evil, God still acted graciously, and delivered him and his kingdom from their enemies, even though they really didn’t earn it. God gives them unmeritted favour.
And it’s in these sorts of passages that we really see God’s Grace, His favour, His khen, because here we see that someone actively does not deserve something and yet God gives it to them anyways. It happens all the time throughout the bible, and it’s in these actions of God where He provides for people or delivers them that we’re really able to see how Grace is a part of His consistant character. And the same continues on through the New Testament. In fact, the gospel of John introduces Jesus as being full of Grace. This is what John says:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Jesus embodied grace. He often showed favour to those who didn’t deserve it. It’s the very reason that He came to earth to come and give us unmeritted favour. And when we read in the gospels about His earthly ministry, for three years He went around showing people unmeritted favour. And quite often people would come and ask Him for things that they couldn’t deserve, they were poor, hungry, sick, disabled, and they couldn’t fix themselves nor could they give Jesus anything He didn’t already have, and yet they come and ask Jesus to look upon them with His grace, His khen, anyways, and to act on it and help them.
I think of the story in Mark 2 where Jesus is teaching in a house and everyone has crowded in on Him trying to hear Him, and there’s a paralyzed man and He obviously can’t get to Jesus himself, so his friends take him and put him on a stretcher and lower him through a whole in the roof, and Jesus looks upon the man with grace, with khen, and in grace Jesus both forgives the man of his sins, and heals him from his paralysis.
Later on in the gospel of Mark, Jesus heals another man who cries out to him. This is what it says: Mark 10:46-52
And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.
Another time in John 5, Jesus and a few of His disciples go to a pool called Bethesda, and around the pool there were all sorts of people who were blind, lame, and paralyzed who want to be healed, and Jesus approaches a man who has been paralyzed for 38 years, and Jesus looks on him with grace and asks him if he wants to be healed, and the man says he has no way to get to the pool for healing, but Jesus tells him to stand up and walk. And Jesus heals him, even though he could do nothing to deserve it.
What I find interesting about all of these encounters that people had with Jesus is that it never entirely matches the word khen. Like we said at the beginning it often denotes a thing of beauty, like a necklace or good poetry or a graceful deer. And yet here these sick and disabled men wouldn’t likely have been things of beauty, one might look at them and feel bad for them, but they probably wouldn’t delight in what they looked like.
And yet Jesus is looking at things differently than we do, sometimes when someone asks us to look on something favourably even though it wouldn’t automatically generate a pleasurable response we do.
If you think about a young child who has drawn you a picture, it likely isn’t all that beautiful, it’s all scribbled on, it’s hard to make out exactly what the object is, the colour scheme is all wrong. If you were to randomly see it in an art museum you would think that it was awful. And yet, when the child shows it to you, it’s endearing becaue of your love for the child.
That’s how God’s grace works, He looks on people with favour, not because they deserve it, or because they’re innately favourable, but because a, that’s who He is, and b, He loves them as His children and so He’s willing to look on them with favour and act on their behalf even though they haven’t earned it.
And when we get our heads wrapped around this concept that we start to have a better understanding of our salvation. The apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
We aren’t saved from sin from anything that we could have possibly done on our own. We’re saved only because God has chosen of his own volition to look on us with favour, and He chose to act on it on our behalf because we couldn’t. Like in the story of Esther she couldn’t enter the throneroom and ask for the King to save her people without appealing to the favour and grace of the King. We also cannot be saved from our sin and enter before God without appealing to His grace and favour. And we only have His favour because He has chosen to give it to us, and He gives it to us when we ask Him for it.
Various times throughout the bible it tells of people who were not afraid to plea to God and ask for grace and God is willing to give it to them freely. They couldn’t earn it, they didn’t deserve it, they didn’t bargain for it. But God gives it anyways. One of these times is David, after He sins by stealing Bathsheba and having her husband Uriah killed, and David says this:
Psalm 51:1 “Be gracious to me, God, according to Your faithfulness; According to the greatness of Your compassion, wipe out my wrongdoings.” (NASB)
David appeals to God’s faithful graciousness because He knows that God consistantly looks on people who cry out to Him with grace even though they don’t deserve it.
And we also are invited to come before God and appeal to His grace, the author of Hebrews writes:
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
There are two major things that we need to consider when it comes to grace, first, how do we appeal to God for it our ourselves, and second how do we embody it in our relationships with others.
For the first, the passages we’ve just read answer that question. We are saved from our sin only by grace, only by appealing to God to see us with favour that we haven’t earned. And once we are saved then we need to continually turn to Him and ask for His favour, not for salvation because we’ve already been given that, but like Hebrew says for help in times of need.
The second thing we need to think about with grace is how do we show it to others. Like we’ve seen over the past few minutes, grace is unmeritted favour, to look on someone with favour and act on behalf of what’s best for them even when they haven’t earned it. Quite often we end up in scenarios where we need to give grace or forgiveness to people that haven’t earned it. Sometimes it’s a friend or family member, or a random person at a store, other times its for people that we don’t like right away and we need to work on being gracious to them, showing them love and forgiveness even when we don’t feel like it.
I was in a conversation with my Dad this week, and we were talking about how to respond to a certain situation, and he said something that struck me. He said: “we can’t control how they’ll respond, but we respond with grace”.
And I think that that’s very wise and really hits home what it means to show grace. Hundreds of time throughout the bible, throughout our lives even, we can point to times that God looked on people favour and acted with grace even though they didn’t deserve it, even though we didn’t deserve it. He did it anyways. And we too need to have that attitude, to look on people with favour and to act with grace even when they really haven’t earned it.
Grace is a part of God’s consistent character, and we can take comfort in that. And we can, and should, also choose to make it a part of ours, to become people who seek to show grace because we have been shown grace, that are known for being quick to give grace to people. And it’s not always easy but it’s important and so we should pray, thank God that grace is a part of His character, and pray that it becomes a part of ours.
Benediction
Benediction
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.