Passionate Amazing Grace
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Point: God’s Grace is so amazing because it is free from a heart of love. Grace is made cheap when we do not respond with the same love and passion of Christ, as He loves us. Grace is costly because it costs us to love well and love freely. The church of Ephesus forgot this. They forgot their first love and the cost that goes along with love.
When you hear the word grace, what comes to mind? A prayer before dinner? A sister, spouse, or girlfriend? Maybe someone famous comes to our minds like Grace Kelly. For many of us grace means salvation, “saved by Grace alone”. Others a definition, “unmerited favor”, “loved by God”, or the word “undeserving”. The song and tune, “Amazing Grace” - How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I am found, was blind, but now I see”, may come to mind. Did you know there have been over 3832 recordings of Amazing Grace. The song is sung at Olympic Openning Ceremonies, the Grammy’s, for the Queen, and even in prison (the most requested song by inmates, during my time serving as chaplain at Peace River Correctional Center). Why such popularity? Why such pull? Because the song talks about failing and finding forgiveness and new life. Desiring love and kindness, and receiving it, even though we know we are so utterly undeserving. It’s a song about second chances. Everybody desires a second chance…even a third and forth.
Grace captures our attention because it is so unusual and unexpected in our world today. Everybody pays, everybody is owed, nothing is free. But, when someone pays for your coffee going through the McDonald’s Drive-thru, how humbled, thankful and sweet our demeanor becomes because we have just experienced grace. Someone else paid for your debt…THANK YOU! you say, with a wave, words or a nod. I like that person.
John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, experienced such unmerited favor at the hands of God (but not at a McDonald’s Drive-thru). John Newton was the son of merchant ship captain and housewife. Just before his seventh birthday, his mother, being his primary caregiver, and spiritual guide, passed. His father re-married shortly thereafter, and John found himself in a boarding school, unwanted and abused. Not finding this to his liking, his father removed him from school and began taking him on his travels by sea.
By the age of seventeen, John Newton’s spiritual condition was non-existent, his world was composed of the sea, rebellion and wickedness. He neither “feared God nor regarded men” and was “a slave to doing wickedness and delighted in sinfulness” (Captured by Grace; Dr. David Jeremiah; p. 18). He deserted from a short stint in the wartime navy, found himself whipped and shackled, and then made his way to Africa, the Dark Continent, where he could get lost and not be found.
Newton found harbor with a Portuguese slave trader on the island of Plantain, just off the western coast of Sierra Leone. Newton became a slave trader. Unfortunate, or fotunately, for Newton, the slave traders wife did not take a liking to Newton, and he ate scraps from her plate, like a dog, just to survive. Newton finally hit the bottom of his life’s bucket. March 21, 1748, on a new ship, with a new captain, somewhere in the North Atlantic, a storm awoke Newton from slumber. Water began to flood the hold, Newton scrambles for the upper deck for air and to face the fierce broading storm upon them. A rogue wave, meant for Newton, plows another man overboard, standing in the very spot he occupied seconds before. Pumping water, for 9 hours, with one hour snuck for sleep, the fearful Newton stammers, “If this will not do, the Lord have mercy upon us!” (Ibid;p.102).
Mercy was a foreign concept and word to Newton at this point in his life. What mercy, favor, or compassion had anyone ever shown to him? His only present parent had been taken from him just before his seventh birthday. He was shipped off to boarding school as an unwanted bothersome afterthought by his newly married absentee father. He survived eating table scraps from a woman who treated him like a dog. And he was employed as a slave trader. He captured, enslaved and sold people for money. He knew nothing of grace and mercy, but yet here he was asking for, the Lord’s grace and mercy in a storm threatening to take his life.
Having been finally relieved from navigating the ship, and the hope of survival now looking promising, Newton found a Bible and paged through it to find verses remembered and treasured by his mother…Luke 11:13
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
Newton knew he was evil to the core, but if the Bible was true (like his mother had believed and proclaimed), then this verse was also true and he would accept it as such. Newton wrote,
“I have need of that very Spirit, by which the whole was written, in order to understand it aright. He was engaged here to give that Spirit to those who ask: I must therefore pray for it; and if it be of God, He will make good on His own word” (Captured by Grace; Dr. David Jeremiah; p. 103).
Three weeks later, Newton and his companions, finally arrived in Ireland. Newton spent those three weeks “deep in thought, lost in prayer and buried in Scripture” (Captured by Grace; Ibid; p.103). Newton would say, “he had embraced the truth of the Gospels and the power of their Savior to rescue him from the hell he had fashioned of his own life (Captured by Grace; Ibid; p.103). Newton had found the One and only Hope that could rescue his soul from the anguish and despair that had become a permanent home. It was hard for him to accept that all his sins were forgiven and blotted out in one moment of surrender.
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved;for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
John Newton ended up answering the call to pastor in 1754 and pastored two perishes for the next 44 years. At the age of seventy-two he marveled that, “such a wretch should not only be spared and pardoned, but reserved to the honor of preaching the gospel, which he blasphemed and renounced” (Captured by Grace; Ibid; p.19). Pastor Newton preached the Gospel until he was 81 years old.
The grace John Newton lived and preached was a costly grace, there was nothing cheap about it. God saved his life, Newton gave his life because of Christ’s grace and love. A heart of gratitude and a life of passion to Christ, is John Newton’s legacy (not to mention the end of the slave trade, which Newton fought passionately to end, of which he had once made his living). The slave trade ended a year after John Newton’s death.
Newton’s life is a living testimony of God’s amazing grace, shed upon a life so undeserving. Newton’s life is also a testimony of the passonate love and gratitude expressed of a life saved by such costly grace in Jesus. Newton’s life symbolizes and represents the church of Ephesus found in Revelation 2:1-7 of which Jesus commends for their work, endurance and labor to expose and reject evil, liars and false teachers and teaching. The believers possess an endurance, tolerance, and relentlessness for the name of Christ; but they have fallen out of love with Him.
“Write to the angel of the church in Ephesus: “The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand and who walks among the seven gold lampstands says: I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars.
You also possess endurance and have tolerated many things because of My name and have not grown weary.
But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.
Yet you do have this: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. “Anyone who has an ear should listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. I will give the victor the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in God’s paradise.
Is it possible to fall out of love with Jesus when you are busy doing things for Jesus (supposedly)? Is it possible to lose your passion for Jesus as you serve for Jesus? Is it possible to keep up the appearances and expectations of the fellowship and fall out of love with Jesus? Is it possible to consider oneself a Christian, but abandon Christ? Jesus says, yes it is and that unless you and I repent, Ephesus, our lampstand, the Church, the Body, this Bride will be removed. As reported by The Sunday Times of the UK, 368 Church of England churches are earmarked for closure within the next two to five years; up 8x times the rate than before the pandemic (thetimes.co.uk; Oct 31, 2021; Kaya Burgess). Nearly 1000 church of England churches have closed in just over 30 years (telegraph.co.uk; Jan 3, 2022; Gabriella Swerling). The United Kingdom was homebase for John Newton, the place of many Jesus revivals and churches). A CBC article from May 27, 2019 reports that 9000 church buildings over then next 10 years could close (cbc.ca; May 27, 2019; Conrad Collaco). Reason being, Canada is becoming more secular, the margin of Sunday as being the Lord’s Day has been replaced with numerous more “important activities”, and people are attending faith services less and less. According to Pew Research Center, 55% of Canadians consider themselves Christians, including 29% being Catholic and 18% Protestant (pewresearch.org; July 1, 2019; Michael Lipka). We used to be a Christian nation at one point.
Fifty-five percent of Canadians still consider themselves Christians, but a lot do not attend faith gatherings. Reason, grace is no more seen as costly, but cheap. Salvation is easy, simply pray a prayer of confession, that you are a sinner, read your Bible and find a good church. John 3:16 is seen as easy grace. Romans 10:9-10 salvation is a simple call out to God and He accepts you.
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Has there been a call to change? A call to repentence? A call to serve Christ? A call to die to self, and live to Christ; His work and His will, with His love? A call to live and present the Gospel with accountability? A real love for Christ and what He has done for us? Was I really such a wretch before I meet Jesus? Has being a believer of Christ become more about intellect and theory, than love, passion and action? Have I answered ‘YES’ to the demand of Christ?
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
“I assure you: The one who believes in Me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer summarized the struggle of the church back in 1939, just before WWII, and it is our struggle today, as it is the struggle of the church of Ephesus,
Discipleship Chapter One: Costly Grace
CHEAP GRACE IS THE mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.
Costly grace is held onto by holding onto our first love, Jesus, and doing the work He has instructed us to do…Love God, love people, and love well. Ephesus was doing work, but not the primary work. They were keeping evil out, but were they transforming evil to light? Rules and regulations are not the Gospel. Jesus is the Gospel-His sacrifice, His love, His willingness and love to do His Father’s will and work. Jesus gave His life to do His Father’s will and work, with proclaimation of Who He was and His love for His Father and the world (Romans 10:14-17). What about us? Does the Great Commission and Great Commandment still apply to us today? Absolutely, because God is the same today, as yesterday, as tomorrow and forever (Hebrews 13:8). And that’s how we are supposed to live today…love is costly. Passion is costly. If you are passionate about something, do you do it cheaply? Do you cut corners? No, you give it everything you got! Jesus gave it all He had…and it cost Him his life. For most Western Christiandom, costly is two hours on a Sunday, if that. St. Augstine said, “God always pours His grace into emtpy hands” (Captured by Grace; Dr. David Jeremiah; p.17). I would add, “God always pours His costly grace into empty hands, with an expectation of love in return” (italics mine).
For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
Grace can only shine out of the darkness if it costs. Costly grace is the Light that shone in the darkness, to give salvation to man if He wants it.
Sermon in a Sentence: Grace is made cheap when we do not respond with the same love and passion of Christ, as He loves us. Grace is costly because it costs us to love well and love freely.