The Amazing Grace Of Jesus
Prelude
Ushers will collect Prayer cards during the first hymn.
Welcome
Call to Worship
“If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23 NIV).
*Praise # 410 Heaven Came Down
*Invocation (Lord’s Prayer) Creator God, as we gather in your name, we stand in awe at the works of your hands. As we view the world around us and, through discovery, learn more about it, we are all the more overwhelmed at your greatness. And the more we discover of the discernable, the more we anticipate our need of the eternal. Lord, meet us here today. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen
*Gloria Patri (Sung together) #575
Psalm for Today Psalm 14 NRSV
1 Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is no one who does good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.
3 They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good,
no, not one.
4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the Lord?
5 There they shall be in great terror,
for God is with the company of the righteous.
6 You would confound the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.
7 O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
Our Offering to God “A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor” (Prov. 22:9 NIV).
*Doxology #572
*Prayer of Dedication Gracious Father, give us such a vision of your glory that no sacrifice will seem too great. Strengthen us in our walk of faith that we may move from selfishness to generosity.
*Hymn of Prayer # 506 O Jesus, I Have Promised
Pastoral Prayer . Dear Father, we praise you for your good character. We praise you for your faithfulness, when so many of those around us do not seem to be so faithful. Your constant love surrounds us, even when we do not clearly sense it. We are confident in your complete provision for our needs, even when it is not yet obvious to us. Father, we pray for the many hurts that we have, some known only by you. For those in marriage near divorce, for those whose
loved ones are very sick, for those whose emotions have been deeply wounded by those they dearly love, for those needing money and seeking employment where, we believe, you have called us, and for those who need to express deep emotions—let us be near you now. This morning touch our lives with your strong and powerful hand. Help us to see ourselves, your provision for us, and your everlasting love for us through your caring eyes and sensitive heart.
Prepare our minds, wills, and emotions, as well as our spirits, for worship of you this morning. Look clearly into our hearts as we sing and speak praise to you. We pray to receive all that you have to give us this morning. May our lips and lives glorify you. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord—Larry Ellis
*Hymn of Praise # 35 Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
Scripture Text 1 Timothy 1:12-17 NRSV
2 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. 16 But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Message THE AMAZING GRACE OF JESUS
Paul remembers the days when he himself was hooked on the law. As an energetic young Pharisee, he was so enraged by the followers of Jesus that he became their chief persecutor. But Jesus Christ met him on the road to Damascus — and turned him right round. He forgave Paul’s ignorance and unbelief, poured out his grace upon him and filled him with faith and love. Paul reckons that if Jesus can do that for him — the worst sinner in the world — then he can do it for anyone! [1]
1 TIMOTHY 1:15-17 tells us –
‘This is a true saying and everyone should believe it; Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and I was the worst of them all. But that is why God had mercy on me, so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of His great patience with even the worst sinners. Then, others will realize that they, too, can believe in Him and receive eternal life.’
Paul was fully aware of the change in direction that the grace of God brought to his life. Before encountering the risen Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9), his life was lived for the sole purpose of persecuting the church right out of existence. He did this out of commitment to God! He was truly a religious, anti-Christian fanatic. In fact, we first meet him as he stood by in approval of the stones being thrown at Stephen, the first Christian martyr (Acts 7–8). Here is Luke’s portrait of him: “But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison” (Acts 8:3; see 9:1–2). To be honest, this brings to mind the terror of Nazi Germany or Idi Amin’s regime. From his Christian perspective, Paul described himself in the past as a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man (1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13–14), yet he experienced God’s mercy (v. 13). He was saved. The outpouring of grace from the Lord produced in him faith and love (v. 14)—that is, genuine spiritual life
Paul’s references to faith and love and to his prior condition of ignorance and unbelief are again directed at the false teachers. On the one hand, he seriously questions any “Christian” spirituality that is not marked by faith and love, belief and godly response. On the other hand, the false teachers’ Christian background—they know the gospel and have been members and probably even leaders in the church—makes the game they play an extremely dangerous one (compare Heb 6:4). Their history is marked by movement away from the faith, while Paul’s life reflects growth in the faith. The false teacher and the Christian teacher are opposites.[2]
Paul never forgot the wonder of God’s choice of him. The word used here for service is very general and covers the many aspects of the apostle’s work. His recollection of what he had done through ignorance and unbelief served to heighten his awareness of the mercy and grace of God. What struck him was the abundance of that mercy. It reminds us that God does not hold our past against us when we are in Christ Jesus.[3]
God does so much for us. He protects us, He loves us, He forgives us, and He reaches out to us. But perhaps the most important thing God does for us is offer us His amazing grace. Without His grace, we would have nothing else going for us.
There are so many true stories that reflect that amazing grace, but I ran across one that really seemed to say it all. It is a story written by Elisha Coffman for Christian History Magazine, entitled “Beyond Pearl Harbor”. This story is how God caught up with the man who led Japan’s surprise attack. And it is a true story.
The man’s name was Mitsuo Fuchida. He grew up in Japan, hating America for the way we treated Asians. He graduated from the military academy and became a pilot in Japan’s Air Force where he excelled and by 1941, he became the best pilot in Japan. So, when the Japanese government decided they were going to attack Pearl Harbor, they chose Fuchida to lead the attack. It was his voice that radioed back to his aircraft carrier those infamous words, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” This let the carrier know the success of the mission.
Fuchida was to learn later that out of the 360 pilots that were in the mission, he was the only one to return. Upon returning from Pearl Harbor, he inspected his plane and found 20 large antiaircraft holes and the main control wire barely held together by a thread. Although he was not in any sense "religious," this was the first of a series of near-death incidents that made him believe something was watching over him.
He later had another close call when he was shot down in an attack against Americans on Midway, but even though he was injured, he survived. Still later, he was below decks in sickbay recovering from an appendectomy when Americans started bombing the ship. He crawled up to the flight deck just as another bomb hit, and he was blown into the air and when he landed, he broke both legs. Everyone below decks was burned to death. Fuchida wrote later that, even though he was not religious, he started believing that he had a destiny of greatness ahead of him.
By 1945, he was the highest-ranking officer in the Navy’s Air Corps. He was visiting a newly built military headquarters just outside Hiroshima and received a call to report immediately to Tokyo. The very next day, Hiroshima was bombed and everyone in the military complex died a horrible death.
He went back to investigate and found total devastation. He wrote a letter to the Emperor, and it was this letter that convinced the Emperor to stop the war and surrender.
On the same day that Hiroshima was bombed, an America POW named Jacob DeShazer said he felt terribly moved by the Holy Spirit to pray for peace. He had been captured in 1942, and had become a Christian while in the Japanese POW camps. After the war, he was released and he wrote a book entitled “I Was a Prisoner of the Japanese”. In this book, he detailed his experiences of capture and how he converted and finally forgave.
In 1950, DeShazer returned to Japan as a missionary to those who had held him captive. It was on this trip that he met Fuchida, the pilot who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor. As it happened, Fuchida had read DeShazer’s book. He said he contemplated the message in the book continually, not really knowing what to do with it.
After the war, Fuchida was curious how Japanese prisoners had been treated while they were in captivity. He spoke to a friend who said they had been treated very well. Fuchida was introduced to an 18-year-old girl named Peggy Covell, who had volunteered to help the Japanese POWs.
Fuchida asked her why she had wanted to help the enemy so badly. She told him that her parents were missionaries to Japan and had been evacuated to the Philippines. After sending her home to America, they were captured by the Japanese forces and while kneeling in prayer were beheaded.
She said that she knew her parents would have forgiven them by now, so that was the least she could do, too. And when she prayed and forgave them, God put it in her heart to help them. This was Fuchida’s first encounter with the amazing grace of God.
He had already read DeShazer’s book, and after meeting this young lady, he bought a Bible. When he read the Bible, the power in God’s Word gripped him and he fell to his knees and received Jesus. This was in September 1949. He said he wept openly as he realized for the very first time that Jesus had prayed and died for him. Fuchida and DeShazer continued to work together for several years after their meeting.
Fuchida died in 1976. He said that he wanted to be remembered for His service to Jesus more than his bombing of Pearl Harbor. He wrote,
‘I lifted the curtain of warfare by dispatching that cursed order, and I put my whole effort into the war that followed, but after buying and reading the Bible, my mind was strongly impressed to evangelize. I can say today, without hesitation, that God’s amazing grace has been set upon me.”
Fuchida was right after all. He was destined for greatness, wasn’t he? He was destined for greatness in the kingdom of the Almighty God. And Fuchida stepped up to receive that calling. Fuchida became a true disciple of our Lord Jesus.
There are three things in this true testimony that we should remember in our lives, too.
1. WE SERVE A POWERFUL GOD
God is all-powerful, and many people focus on just that part of God. It is true that God is powerful, but it is also true that God is all faithful and all loving.
He is capable of reaching down and saving the worst of the worst. Those that are so vile they would purposely kill hundreds, if not thousands, of their fellow man can be touched by the sweet hand of God’s amazing grace.
John Newton wrote the first four stanzas of ‘Amazing Grace’. What was his testimony? He was the captain of a slave ship. It was his job to transport slaves from Africa to America, so they could be sold to plantation owners. There were times when he came upon fierce storms that threatened his ship, so he had to lighten their cargo load to keep afloat. How did they do this? They did this by gathering many of the slaves, chaining them together and throwing them overboard at sea. We are appalled at how despicable a human can be.
But, we are also told in ROMANS 8:28, that God can use anything for good. Mr. Newton received Christ Jesus, and felt such deep remorse at what he had done, he wrote the song that has since touched millions upon millions for Christ.
We write people off as ‘too bad to handle’, or we start seeing nothing but the bad in them. But we must remember that God is so powerful He can reach anybody for His glory; even those we have condemned and left with no chance of revival for Christ.
2. EVEN THE WORDS OF GOD HAVE POWER
In GENESIS 1, we read how God created this world. The Scripture says God created the world by His spoken Word. Just think; the sound of God’s spoken Word is powerful enough to create everything in existence.
But, it is even more powerful than that. There are three words that God says that is the most powerful of all. Those three words are, “You are forgiven.” Those words are spoken from the love that fills God’s heart. That love that He has for you and me.
ROMANS 10:17, says –
‘… faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ.’
God’s Word has power to actually produce faith. Nobody can ever come to a saving faith in Christ unless he hears the Word of God.
Our business as a church is to unleash the Words of God through Christ so that others may receive them and realize salvation, and still others might grow to a deeper level of maturity in God’s Word. Our business as individual Christians is also to spread the Word of God through Christ so that some might hear and have faith and others might hear and be uplifted.
3. GOD STARTS WORKING WHEN WE START PRAYING
DeShazer was moved to pray for peace while he was a POW. There is no doubt in my mind that this helped start the ball rolling to end the war.
My mother prayed daily for my oldest brother’s salvation. The night before he died, I had the most realistic of dreams. I dreamed he was in the emergency room, tucked into sheets that were military cornered. I was sitting on the edge of the bed and he opened his eyes and smiled and said he had met Jesus. Then, in my dream, he lay down and closed his eyes and died. But he kept the smile on his face. It was the happiest I had ever seen him.
Now, I wasn’t with him, when he died. I was in Arizona and he was in Ohio. But I cannot help but believe that he actually did receive Christ moments before he died all because my mother had been praying for him for years. The word of God, spoken in prayer, is a very powerful tool that Christians seem to be unaware of.
Who was it that prayed for you before you received Jesus? Who are you praying for? Whether you pray for someone you know, or someone you will never know, the power of God will be unleashed and His word will never come back void.
Yes, things happen when prayer begins. Jesus prayed that God would forgive us, and God does offer us His forgiveness. He offers it through His amazing grace, which is only found through a belief in Jesus – as the Christ.
Nowhere in Scripture does it say that God causes everything. Reread the book of JOB and you will see that God did not “cause” Job’s devastation, but He did “allow” it. And even though God may not be the author of every situation, He is certainly the Master of every situation.
Through a Holy Spirit- inspired prayer, an ex cook who was now a POW in an obscure Japanese POW camp, God started the miracle of a famous enemy coming to Christ and ending up spreading the Word of God to millions of others.
Things happen when we pray in the amazing grace of our Lord.
*Hymn of Response # 288 Amazing Grace
*Sending forth
*Postlude
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[1]Knowles, A. (2001). The Bible guide. Includes index. (1st Augsburg books ed.) (647). Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg.
[2]Towner, P. (1994). Vol. 14: 1-2 Timothy & Titus. The IVP New Testament commentary series (1 Ti 1:13). Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.
[3]Carson, D. A. (1994). New Bible commentary : 21st century edition. Rev. ed. of: The new Bible commentary. 3rd ed. / edited by D. Guthrie, J.A. Motyer. 1970. (4th ed.) (1 Ti 1:12). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA: Inter-Varsity Press.