Together in Grace

Today we are beginning a new sermon series called ‘Together.” We will be discovering ways that we are all united together as humans and as believers in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We will begin this series looking at how we are “Together in Grace.”

Our scripture comes from Ephesians 1:3-14.

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship n through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Our prayer hymn was Amazing Grace and it begins with these words “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found was blind but now I see.”

This hymn offers a great reminder for each of us that we have a God that changes us from who we were to who God makes us to be. Grace is a gift from God that we will never be able to fully pay back.

We have been blessed with a God that loves us enough that he has given us this gift for no reason except for his love for us. All he asks from us is our willingness to agree to be in a relationship with him. God is our creator, our Lord, our Savior.

So, what is grace? Christian pastor and author Kyle Idleman explains grace this way.

“Grace is powerful enough to erase your guilt. Grace is big enough to cover your shame. Grace is real enough to heal your relationships. Grace is strong enough to hold you up when you’re weak. Grace is sweet enough to cure your bitterness. Grace is satisfying enough to deal with your disappointment. Grace is beautiful enough to redeem your brokenness.”

Idleman is saying if we allow it, grace can help us through it. There are no obstacles that grace cannot help us overcome. We are not alone, because when we allow grace to enter into our lives, we will always have God with us, helping us, comforting us, blessing us.

Why does God offer grace to us? Someone gave me this coffee mug to remind me what God thinks of me. God thinks that “I’m kind of a big deal.” Let’s say it together God thinks “I’m kind of a big deal.” God thinks “I’m kind of a big deal.”

(Transition)

We ask and we receive grace. What we often want to do when we receive a gift is to figure out how we are going to give that person a gift back or how we can in some way pay the person back for what they have done for us.

God has given us grace and does so without any expectation. In fact, he knows there is no way that we can pay him back. There is nothing we can do to deserve or earn the right to receive grace from God. God gives us grace because of his love for his creation.

(Transition)

We believe in the United Methodist church that our journey with grace begins before we begin our relationship with God. We believe that where our scripture tells us that we have been “predestined for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ.” This tells us that grace is open to all people, all the time. God is at work helping us decide that we want to be in a relationship with him.

The fancy word for this is prevenient grace. It is viewed as God attempting to woo us or direct us toward an understanding of the blessings, we receive through being in a relationship with him. God wants all people to make that decision.

It does not matter what you have done in your past or what you may be doing now. There is nothing that will prevent the love of God from allowing you to be in a relationship with him. It is a decision that God allows you to make. He tries to help you make that decision through offering you hints at what being in a relationship with him is like.

God will direct you towards ways in which you can get to know him better. God will use any means possible to help us make that decision. I was listening to a podcast the other day and it spoke about how God is at work when we don’t even know it.

This church had a person show up because they had googled a topic not related to the church and their church popped up on the search. According to the person speaking they didn’t have any ads directing people to their church through these searches. In fact, they tried to get the search used to pull up their church again and found that it never pulled it up.

The point is that God will even use a Google search to help those that are lost find their way into a relationship with him. He will also use you and me. He will lead people towards us in order to allow us to tell them about Jesus. Guess what, we can also invite them to church. We can give them a way to hear about what they are missing in their lives, God’s grace.

God will use our stories of how Jesus has impacted our lives to help those around us know about him. I call these Jesus stories. A short description of a way that Jesus has impacted your life. You may find yourself next to someone who has a similar story to you that you can tell them about how Jesus has helped you.

We as individuals and as the church are not responsible with bringing people into a relationship with God. God is at work doing this. Our job is to be open to what God desires to do. We are to make sure that our actions lead people towards God and not away from God.

Prevenient grace is God’s way to prepare the way for a person to begin a relationship with him. It is God desiring to allow each person a chance to decide that something is missing in our lives and that something is him.

(Transition)

What we often view as grace within the church is called “saving grace” or receiving our salvation. This type of grace also has a fancy name, justifying grace. We are justified through faith. We are made right with God through the decision that we make to be in a relationship with him.

Our scripture points out that justifying grace became possible through Jesus. He redeemed us so that the grace of God could save us. Jesus was arrested for us, convicted of a crime he didn’t commit for us, beaten for us, and died on the cross for each one of us.

The word redeemed was a slavery term during that time which was referring to paying the price to buy someone. We know that Jesus redeemed us, in order to free us, from the bondage of sin. He paid the price of freedom. Jesus became the sacrifice that frees us from the power of sin.

This reminded me of another hymn, “Nothing but the Blood,” which asks us “what can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” “What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

(Transition)

It is through God directing us towards a relationship with him through prevenient grace and him accepting our request to be saved from the power of sin through justifying grace, that we are able to become adopted children of God.

This is a focus that is often overlooked. It would be my guess that there are many people in your life that you have forgiven but how many of those people do you call family. God didn’t stop at paying the price for our sins and forgiving our sins. He adopted us as members of his family.

Christian pastor and author Max Lucado says it this way

“Adopted children are chosen children. God saw our entire lives from beginning to the end, birth to hearse, and in spite of what he saw, he was still convinced to adopt us into his own family.”

Judaism gave the adopted son or daughter the same rights as any of their natural born children. Just like in every case the oldest son, in this case Jesus, would be looked at as the most important. At the death of the father the oldest would get the land and a larger inheritance.

But each of the other children would receive the same amount of inheritance. It didn’t matter if you were the second oldest or the youngest, you received the same amount. We are all equal in the eyes of God.

It does not matter if you have been a Christian your whole life or if someone asks for forgiveness as they are about to die. Each one of us is viewed as the same in the eyes of God. Each one of us receives the same inheritance.

This is lived out through the story of the thief on the cross. He is with Jesus hanging from a cross when he acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah. What does Jesus do, he promises him that he will see the thief in Heaven.

Among what each of us inherit is eternal life. The reason our sins have to be removed is so that we can go into Heaven. God and sin do not mix. Sin cannot be near God. Therefore, upon our death we believe we are perfected in our faith. All sin is removed so that we can live with our Father, and brothers and sisters in Heaven forever.

It is through the inheritance of eternal life that we are able to have hope today and in what is to come. We are able to have current hope due to the grace given to us by God. We are all sinners but as followers of Jesus we should know that we have been forgiven.

We have hope in the future because we know that time on earth is not the end. The struggles we face on earth will eventually lead to being able to have our spirit live beyond this place and be with our Father in Heaven.

Once God leads us into a relationship with him, his work in us and through us is not complete. He continues at work through what is called sanctifying grace. If you have ever worked at a restaurant when you clean dirty dishes you not only have to wash them, but you have to sanitize them.

That is what God is desiring to do within us through sanctifying grace. He is attempting to lead us that have already accepted him as our Lord and Savior into becoming more Holy. He is trying to lead us into a closer relationship with him. For us to have our relationship with God to become closer we have to have more of the dirt of our corrupted world removed.

Our view of God directly effects our ability to believe that God can work in us and through us. In order for God to have us become closer to him we have to believe that he is at work. We needto believe that he can even change a wretch like me.

It is through believing that God has forgotten what we have done in the past that can help us remove our guilt and shame. It is through a willingness to trust God has ability to transform us from who we were to who he desires for us to become that allows us to be open to becoming changed.

This is lived out through what our first reading calls “becoming like little children.” We can connect with God best when we have a “child like faith.” We do this when view God as our parent.

We should listen to God. What do we know about a parent? They never quit giving us advice. God will constantly try to improve the relationship between him and us and the relationship with those around us. We have to trust that God’s advice is the correct advice.

We should follow the will of God. Did your parents or you ever use the phrase “my way or the highway?” In the case of God his way is the right way. We need to believe that his way is going to be the best way.

We should go and do what God tells us to do. How many times did you or your children if you have them tell you they will do it in a minute? And then the minute turns into hours, days, or maybe even weeks.

We should respond right away and do what God asks for us to do. This can sometimes be tough because what we have been asked to do may seem impossible for us. We have to believe that God would not ask us to do it if we couldn’t be successful at it.

God will help us. It may be possible that we won’t be able to be successful on our own. A parent will help a child with a task to allow them to complete the task. God doesn’t leave us alone.

We have within us the Holy Spirit to help us, guide us, and direct us. Jesus told his disciples that he would leave them a helper. That helper is also available to us, the Holy Spirit, within us to help us be who God desires for us to be.

This is true both individually and as a church. God has plans for Church of the Good Shepherd. We have to be open to what God desires for us to do. We have to trust that God is with us and will help us accomplish what he has called us to do both individually and as a church.

I want to end with one last reminder. God has given us grace; therefore, we need to be willing to give grace to those around us. We live in a time of divisiveness in which we can find many reasons to disagree with those around us.

We should instead choose to show grace. We should choose to love those around us instead of focusing on what divides us. We are called to love our neighbor because God first loved us. Let us choose to be like Jesus and offer grace to others because God first offered grace to us.