The Reach of Grace

Amazing Grace

Do you know what’s so amazing about grace? Do you know what’s so amazing about God’s unmeritted favor for humanity? It is the reach of grace. God’s grace reaches those we would least expect in the places we would least expect it.

The reach of grace even reached a ship captain working as a slave trader. John Newton was that man, he came to Christ, became a pastor and wrote a hymn so popular that seemingly everybody knows it. That hymn is Amazing Grace.

The reach of God’s grace meets tax collectors in their tax collecting booths. It reaches an irreputable woman at a well in the middle of the day. It meets someone bent on killing the Christian movement while he is on his way to do it. It even meets slave traders. God’s grace reaches us in whatever circumstance, whatever place we might be. Thanks be to God he doesn’t leave us there, but transforms our stories.

The main point to remember today is no one no matter who they are, where they are or what they are doing is beyond the reach of grace.

Seeking Grace

The work of grace is best thought as a journey. It begins with God’s seeking grace.

Often testimonies begin with “I found Christ” or “I came to Christ”. We celebrate Christmas because Christ came to us.

John 3:16–17 NRSV

16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Zacheus was one of the tax collectors Jesus came to, in Luke 19. At the end of that encounter Jesus says this in Luke 19:10

Luke 19:10 NRSV

10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

God sent his son into the world to seek and to save those who are lost.

Luke chapter 15 I refer to as the lost chapter of Luke. Not because it was missing but three parables explain the lengths God is willing to take to seek and to save the lost. With the lost sheep we see a God who is willing to leave 99 sheep to find the one that is lost. With the lost coin we see a God who willing to turn over couch cushions, sweep the house to top to bottom again and again to find a lost coin. In the parable of the prodigal son we son, we see God as the patient father waiting for his lost son to return home.

The seeking grace of God knows no boundaries or barriers. The love of God relentlessly reaches even the most difficult, resistant, and hostile people. God’s seeking grace is everywhere, reaching everyone without exception. Some people may ignore God’s grace, and never respond favorably to it, but God keeps reaching out and extending grace. May God give them ears to hear the seeking grace of God.

When we respond favorably to God’s seeking grace it becomes saving grace.

Saving Grace

Ephesians 2:8–10 NRSV

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Romans 3:23–24 NLT

23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.

Romans 6:23 NRSV

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 10:9–10 NRSV

9 because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

These scriptures so us how to respond to God’s seeking grace. First there is nothing we can do to earn or deserve God’s grace, it is freely given. We receive it through faith in the Son of God who loves us and gave himself for us.

We cannot attain saving grace through good works, kind words, or thoughtfulness towards others, only God can save us by his grace.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

When we respond in faith to God’s seeking grace a new life in and through the Spirit begins. Jesus confuses Nicodemus in John 3:3 when he tells him you must be born again.

This is all made possible because God in his love and mercy came into the very world he created in the person of Jesus Christ. He came to live and die as one of us. Thanks be to God he didn’t stay dead but rose victorious over sin and death. He paid the penalty for our sin and broke it’s curse by rising from the dead. When we embrace life in Christ the same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is at work in us.

Hebrews 10:14 NLT

14 For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.

The Reach of Grace

I read a story this week from the people of grace book about someone who fell in a whole. There are 2 people that pass by acknowledging that he’s there, but they don’t help to get him out. Eventually someone comes by jumps down in the whole to help. The person in the whole is shocked. He asks why did you do that? Now we are both stuck down here. The person responds oh but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.

Seeking and saving grace are a lot like that. Jesus jumps into whatever whole we are in offering to lead us out safely if we trust him.

Grace is a journey it doesn’t stop with God’s relentless pursuit of the lost. God’s saving grace at work in our lives is just the beginning.

The life of Matthew the Tax collector was completely transformed to a disciple of Christ having a gospel named for him. Jesus encounter with the irreputable woman at the well in John 4 completely transformed a community. A lead persecutor of the church, became a lead builder of the very movement he sought to destroy. Finally grace found a slaver trader and transformed the story of John Newton and inspired the Hymn Amazing grace.

No matter where you are, who you are and what you are doing, God’s seeking grace is there for you. Are you going to trust Christ to lead you? May God give us ears to hear, and may the work God began in you continue.