Let's talk about Grace

Over the last couple of months, I have had a number of conversations with folks about what it means to be united Methodist.  We’ve talked about what we believe, what is distinctive from other denominations , as well as how we are similar to folks in other denominations.  And even in Bible study, we’ve talked about church laws and structure and many have remarked, “I never knew that!”  So we’re going to take the next few weeks to go deeper into what it means to be a United Methodist. 

                Today, we’re going to start with grace.  Some would say, “we are people of grace.” And we are, but not because we are the only ones to receive grace. God’s grace is for all, it’s not reserved for a select few.  Grace is a gift that God gives us.  We can’t earn it. We don’t deserve it. It is freely given to all not because of what we’ve done to deserve it, but because of God’s abundant love for each of us.  There aren’t contingencies.  There are no strings attached.  It’ a loving gift offered to all. 

                Now, some would say, “grace is grace is grace.”  But John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and the namesake of our church, says something different.  He says, “Well, grace is grace, but, it does different things at different times in our faith walk.”  And to distinguish between those different things, he came up with 3 names for grace:

1)      Prevenient grace

2)     Justifying grace

3)      Sanctifying grace

In some ways, to say, “we are people of grace” means we categorize our faith journey in terms of these types of grace.

#1  Prevenient grace.  Prevenient means: comes before.  This is the grace that connects us to God, no matter what.  It’s the hold God has on us from before we are born until after we die.  It’s the grace that’s there when we don’t’ know God, when we are selfish and self-involved.  God uses it to call out to us, but even when we deny it or ignore it, it’s still there. 

Now, I’m a visual person, so I like to see things in order to understand them better.  So I think of it like this.  Prevenient grace is this rope.  God ties it around us before we are born and whether we know it or not, God has a hold on us through prevenient grace.    Even if I am completely unaware, totally clueless, God has this hold on me. I can’t go anywhere that is beyond God’s reach.  And I can’t do anything to untie this knot.  God’s got a hold on me….period.  That’s prevenient grace. 

The second type of grace is justifying grace.  This is the grace that draws us into awareness of who we are and who God is.  It shows us that we are sinful and broken and God is perfect and forgiving and that we need God.  It is the grace that prompts us to repent and ask for forgiveness and it is the grace that forgives.  To say it “justifies us” means it sets us right with God. This is what God does for us through Jesus—God bears our sins, sets us free, and gives us new life.”

John Wesley says it this way: “[Our] sins, all [our] past sins, in thought, word, and deed, ‘are covered’, are blotted out; shall not be remembered or mentioned against [us], any more than if they had not been.  God will not inflict on [a] sinner what [we] deserved to suffer, because the Son of [God’s] love hath suffered for [us].  And from the time we are ‘accepted through the Beloved,’ ‘reconciled to God through his blood’, he loves and blesses and watches over us for good, even as if we had never sinned.”

God forgives us, not because of what we’ve done to earn forgiveness, but because of what Christ did—at no cost to us—but all FOR us.  Some folks talk about justifying grace in terms of our conversion.  That’s the moment where we acknowledge our sin, see and proclaim Christ’s sacrifice, repent and ask for forgiveness.  It is in that moment we are saved from the eternal consequences of our own sins.  Justifying grace is a part of our journey throughout—we don’t stop sinning simply because we believe in Jesus.  All professing Christians sin.  That’s why we need God.  That’s why we receive grace.  And we need justifying grace to keep forgiving us for our sins.  Each time we repent we receive justifying grace. Each time we take communion, God pardons us through justifying grace. 

To go back to our visual, God has a hold on us through prevenient grace, that’s the rope.  Remember it’s there and connected to us whether we know it or not.  But then when we see the rope, when we understand that God is on the other side of it, beckoning us to draw near, that’s because of justifying grace. 

Now, some folks are inclined to leave it at that.  Once you’ve professed Christ and asked for forgiveness you’re done.  But Wesley says no.  That’s not enough.  Faith life shouldn’t be simply sinning and asking for forgiveness and sinning and asking for forgiveness over and over again with nothing in our life changing.  An attitude of “I can do what I want because God will forgive me,” is essentially hedonism.  But it’s not how we walk faithfully.  There’s more.  We have to engage this rope and try and get closer to God.  Justifying grace is holding onto the rope, but we need something to make us use the rope to get closer to God.

That something is sanctifying grace.  Sanctifying grace helps us grow and learn, it teaches us to be more like Christ with each step we take.  This is the grace where God says, “I love you just as you are, but too much to leave you that way.”  Sanctifying grace gives us the courage, wisdom, and strength to keep saying “no” to sin and “yes” to God.  When we use sanctifying grace to grow in relationship with God, we bear the fruits of the spirit as found in Galatians 5:22-23:

·         love,

·          joy,

·         peace,

·         patience,

·         kindness,

·         goodness,

·         faithfulness,

·         gentleness

·         self-control

We see more of these as sanctifying grace takes a stronger and stronger hold in our lives. This is where the real work of faith lies. Growing closer to God and becoming more like Christ is a continuous journey of self-reflection and self-discipline.  It can be very difficult. But it also reaps some of the greatest rewards as we love God more deeply and see God more clearly. This is also where we see others with greater insight and treat them with greater compassion.

To use our visual again, sanctifying grace is what helps us pull ourselves closer to God.  Now, the thing about sanctification is we can work at it a lot, or we can work at it a little, or we can refuse to work at it at all.  That’s all our choice.  God never forces us to be faithful—that is a choice we make. God constantly offers us grace—wherever we are in our journey. Faith is our response. 

So, we are saved by grace through faith.  If we refuse to receive the gift, which is salvation, then we won’t have it. God can give us gift after gift after gift. But if we leave them all unopened then we haven’t actually received it. Believing in who God is and what God has done and can do is faith—it’s how we open that gift to truly experience what God has for us.

(Summarize)

Matthew 27 & 28--Easter sermon

I have had Judas on my heart for the last couple of days. There are lots of people who demonize him for his betrayal of Jesus. Others who demonize him for committing suicide.

But these last two days have given me a heart and a sense of compassion for Judas. I believe Holy week as such, the week before the crucifixion, was not-so-holy the year Jesus died. I mean think about it: Mob mentality. Persecution. Pride. Ignorance. Betrayal. Murder. Not really a holy combination. And when things are not holy, there is often a palpable presence of evil.

I don't know if you've ever felt the power of evil...the presence of evil...not simply in some emotional-temptation way, but in a physical way....cold, weighty, dark. It's debilitating. It's suffocating. 

Being in a place that dark, that enveloped by evil and having dark thoughts is a desperately scary place to be. It's lonely. It's isolating. And, as one might assume, it can be deadly. There is no reason there. Logic won't work. I remember counseling a friend one summer in college. She was suicidal. I knew from previous conversations that she had been there before and so somehow I wasn't alarmed when she told me that summer. We talked and I reminded her about her family and how much they loved her and the life ahead of her and....and...and...it didn't matter. There was no reasoning with her. The place of darkness and despair where she was did not welcome logic. 

I do not remember how our conversation ended. But I do know that she is still alive and well today. It wasn't until later that year that I finally had a glimpse of that reason-less place where she had been. I hit rock bottom emotionally and it felt like there was no coming up for air. I was ready to die. Really ready to die. I don't know what stopped me then, but I am grateful I did not go ahead with my plan.

I have felt the overwhelming power of darkness. I have been plagued by evil thoughts of worthlessness and hopelessness and I have counseled with many others who have dealt with the same. I have heard stories from the depths of despair as people begged for God to do something in their lives and have prayed earnestly with them for God’s light to shine and Jesus’ victory to be made real. 

Friday I felt the overwhelming presence of evil. I couldn't even track it to one particular moment or thing, but it was there--dark and heavy. Deadening, sucking the life out of me. And I thought of Judas. I thought of how powerful the presence of evil must have been that week. How consuming it had to have been to convince the masses that Jesus, the Son of God needed to die. I'm sure it was palpable. I doubt there was much reason available there--we see that in the trials of Christ. No reason, just accusation and judgment. And then Judas' betrayal in the garden. But more striking still, his suicide. I'm sure that by collaborating to kill your friend, your mentor, you teacher, a great healer, and the Son of God, that the presence of evil became suffocating. My guess is the only way Judas thought he would ever breathe again was to die. And I hurt for him. I hurt that he didn't know that death on the cross would not be the end of the story. My heart broke that he would never hear or see that part of the gospel--the part where Jesus raises from the dead after he has conquered sin and death.

Judas didn't know the story. So he didn't have the hope. He couldn't have the hope for it had not yet happened. And there was no possibility of finding the light in the midst of the darkness. And I hurt for him.

And then it occurred to me that there are others in Judas' place...no they haven't facilitated the death of Jesus--not in that direct way...but they are like Judas in that they don't know the story. So they don't have the hope. And without the story, without the hope, there is no possibility of finding the light in the midst of the darkness. 

I would say hell looks different for different people. For one person hell is failing classes and getting kicked out of school. For another it is when a parent dies. For another it is not being able to hold her newborn baby because she is in the Neonatal ICU. For another it is knowing that she will never be able to see her child grow up. For another it is losing a spouse and not being able to grow old together. For another it is divorce. For another it is facing his spouse’s addiction and watching it ravage their family. For another it is losing a job and finding it impossible to find work. For another it is being sick and having no health care and no insurance. For another it is chronic pain. Another chronic illness. For another it is sending a child off to war. For another it is living in a war torn country hearing bombs and gun shots day in and day out. For another it is being abused by her husband. 

Hell isn’t just some eternal destination to be avoided. Hell is something we are bound to experience at least once in our lives. It will look, or has looked, different for each of us.

And without hope, we can be ravaged by the pain of evil. We can be overtaken by the feelings that nothing will ever change and nothing will ever get better. We need the gospel. We need Christ’s victory on the cross, the victory over sin and death to tell us our hell will end. We need God’s prophets to say there will be a different day in our future, a day where God’s glory will prevail and there will be victory and fruitfulness, contentment and fulfillment. We need the empty tomb. Even for those of us who have been believers for years, we need Easter as a regular reminder that God is the most powerful and that God will prevail over sin and death. After all, even as believers, we are still human and our bound to pass through hell, the difference is, we know the story—we have the hope. 

But there aren’t just those of us who do believe or have believed for years in this world, there are many who have never heard the Gospel story of hope. There are thousands, if not millions, going through their own version of hell who are stuck like Judas. They don’t know the story. They don’t know the hope. They don’t know that Christ can overcome their hell too. 

And that's where our responsibility lies. For those of us that know the story, we must spread the gospel--the hope. We must make known the rest of the story--the part where death and sin and shame do not have the final word, and we must shine God's light for people so that they might know there is the possibility of escaping the darkness--of finding life (again).

The Gospel reading from Matthew tells us of the women finding the empty grave and being told to go and tell the story. People needed to know that Christ was alive. They needed to know that God was more powerful than the rulers and authorities of this world—more powerful than Cesar, more powerful than Pilate, more powerful than the religious leaders. God’s justice was greater than any injustice that could be executed here on earth. Go and tell the story! And then the women meet Jesus and he too tells them to go and share the story…so they go and tell and the word spreads and so does the hope…it spreads so far that it reaches the ends of the earth…it spread so far that it reached each of us. 2000 years later. We know the story. We have the hope. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. 

Today is the day of victory. Today’s is the story of hope! Go and tell the story!