Reclaiming Your identity: Amazing Grace

Pastor Robarge’s Sermon

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The English language is kind of fascinating, isn’t it? Sometimes we don’t stop to look at some of the ways that it’s used because it’s our primary language. Sometimes it’s our only language. But have you ever tried to look at it as though this wasn’t your primary language? When you go through some of these examples today, you’ll know what I mean.

When we look at the word “buckle,” we would say it’s to fasten or tighten something. But then we also buckle under pressure. We look at the word “execute.” When we have a good plan, we want to execute it. But we also execute prisoners. When we turn off the lights, the lights are out and we say it’s dark. But then when the stars come out, there’s light. Quicksand is not quick. A guinea pig, neither from Guinea nor a pig. We recite at plays but we play at a recital. We say your house is burning down as it burns up. You fill out a form by filling it in.

Can you see how the language is something we change and transform over time? Today, when we look at this topic of grace, I believe that grace is one of those words that we have transformed, changed over time. But we’ll look at this topic today because let’s look at the way we use grace. When it’s time to eat, we’ll say, “Who wants to say grace?” When we see someone dancing beautifully, we say, “Look how graceful they are.” We want to always be gracious hosts when people come to our house. When we go out to eat and the serving is good, we say, “We’re going to leave them a gratuity.” Can you see all these different forms of grace? We can look at even grace in the negative as we would say that someone who has high political clout or maybe just in the public eye and when they do something wrong, the media always reports that they’ve fallen from grace. When we’re upset with somebody, we would say sometimes, “You’re a disgrace.” And when that person’s a disgrace, we would say, “They are without saving grace.” Can you see the way that we have looked at grace and kind of transformed it? And over time, this word “grace” can lose its meaning to something where we can’t even recognize it anymore.

This morning, we could take a look at this word “grace.” I could dig into the original languages for you, pull out what it means in the Old Testament, look at what it means in the New Testament, but like one theologian said, “You can take grace and you can dissect it like a frog but the only thing that’s going to happen is you’ll kill it.”

This morning, as we talk about grace, we don’t want to dissect it. We’ll look at a definition but we won’t dissect it because we don’t want it to die. Because when you look at that word, when you dissect the word, all you’re going to do is kill it. But this morning, as we look at grace, we can’t just say we can define it. You have to experience it. And we look at the confirmation students. The confirmation students, even recently-confirmed students can probably come up with a very good definition for the word “grace.” God’s undeserved love. Maybe they come up with the acronym, God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense. All very good definitions for this word “grace,” but they’re just definitions.

Here at Gloria Dei, we hear the word “grace” all the time. Right before the sermon, we hear “Grace and peace to you.” And our vision statement is the acronym for grace. So we hear it used. We see it defined but has it lost its meaning? Is there no experience of grace?

Today, as we will go through this, I want to make sure that we’re kind of on the same page when we’re understanding this word “grace” and I think when we look at it, as the confirmation students have it defined as undeserved love, that’s where we’re going to go back to, this idea that God’s love is undeserved. We know that. We already said it today in our confession. “We as poor miserable sinners confess unto God all of our sins.” We know that it’s undeserved.

We look at Romans and all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We know that it’s undeserved. We know it’s undeserved as Paul himself even looks at that and says, “I do what I shouldn’t do. I do what I hate to do. I do those things that are against God.” We know that His love is undeserved.

And that’s what I want you to keep in mind as we go over this word “grace” because, as we can look, the online dictionary has 28 different definitions for the word “grace” and you could pick any one of them and use it correctly. We can even look at what grace isn’t or maybe even the opposite of grace. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once put it, he said, “There’s cheap grace.” That’s the idea that we can continue to go on sinning because God’s grace abounds even more than our sin. And there is a true statement there. God’s grace is bigger than our sin. But should we, therefore, go out and continue sinning because God’s grace abounds. Paul would say, “By no means. Don’t continue to do that.”

So we have this definition. We have an understanding of what God’s grace is, this undeserved love towards us. We see it every day. We hear the words. But we can’t simply leave it as a definition. We have to experience it.

We continue our look at 1 Peter. In 1 Peter, he really bookends his letter with this idea of grace. And let me give you a good idea of what that looks like. Chapter 1:2, “Grace and peace be yours in abundance.” He goes on in Verse 10, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you searched intently and with the greatest care.” So we have it right here in the beginning of his letter and then we turn back over to Chapter 5 which is the last chapter in his book and this is what he says in Verse 10, “And the God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ after you have suffered a little while will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” We just read that today. But then in Verse 12, he continues, “I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.”

Did you notice that never once in Peter’s letter there does he ever say, “Alright, the people of 1 Peter, let’s gather together. Let’s have a good understanding of what grace is.” He doesn’t go ahead and then define grace for us. There’s no definition. He doesn’t say, “Well, we need to make sure we have a baseline.” No, he doesn’t even say that. He continues to talk about grace as though these people have already experienced it.

This identity in Christ starts with grace and ends with grace. These people understood about their identity. They understood that their identity began with God’s grace, His undeserved love and ended with His underserved love. This isn’t a new concept in Scripture either. We can see that God’s grace abounds throughout His Word. Grace starts in the very beginning, in the very first time as God created the first man and the first woman. This is what He did for them. He set up this paradise. He said, “Go ahead and eat and drink of whatever it is here in this paradise.” They enjoyed time with God. They walked with God. They talked with God. They enjoyed their time in paradise. But God had said, “Just don’t eat of this tree.” It’s the only thing He told them. “Just don’t eat of this tree. Everything else you can enjoy. You can live life to the fullest. You can eat and drink. You can enjoy yourself here. Just don’t eat from this tree please.” What’s the one place they went to? They took the fruit from the tree that God didn’t want them to eat from. They took it and they ate it. And then they hid from God, acting like God’s never going to see them behind a bush.

God rightfully should have wiped them out right there. There is no reason that Adam and Eve should have continued to go on living. God should have started over right there and said, “You disobeyed me. The one thing I asked you not to do, you did.” God should have taken them and killed them. And He didn’t. Some people say even Him moving them outside this paradise, not just giving them kind of a little bit of a warning, that was harsh on God’s part. But He should have killed them. They shouldn’t have been living anymore. And yet when God put them out, this is one of the greatest statements of grace that I can find in the Old Testament, this is what God does in Genesis 3:21, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” That’s grace. When they rightfully should have died, when they rightfully didn’t deserve anything God had given them, God put them out and He clothed them. He said, “I’m going to take care of you.” That’s grace. They should have been wiped out and yet God found them and He said, “I love them. I’m going to clothe them. I’m going to take care of them.” That’s grace.

We see in the New Testament, as Jesus walked and talked amongst His earthly ministry, there were many moments of grace amongst the people. One of my particular favorite passages of grace comes from the gospel of Luke. And in this gospel of Luke, we can see many things that Jesus did. He was invited over to this Pharisee’s house, Simon, to eat. And this is the story, “So He went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume. And as she stood behind Him at His feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, He would know who was touching Him and what kind of woman she is, that she’s a sinner.’” There’s Simon and there’s a woman. Simon sees this and says, “How dare this woman come into my house. This is by invitation only.” And Jesus sees this. He hears what Simon’s thinking and so He tells him this story. He tells him a parable and He says, “This is what it’s like. There’s a master and he gives a certain amount of money to two of his servants. One is a greater amount and one is a lesser amount.” And He says, “Both the servants come back and they say, ‘I can’t pay. I don’t have the money.’ And what the master does is he says, ‘Well, you know what, I’m going to forgive both of your debts.’ So then Jesus turns to Simon and He says, ‘Well, which man is more grateful? Which man is going to love his master more?’ Simon thinks about it. He says, ‘Well, I suppose the guy who had the most debt.’ And He says, ‘Yes.’” And this is what He says in Verse 47 then, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, for she loved much but he who has been forgiven little loves little.” This woman, this woman of great sin, we don’t know what brought her to the feet of Jesus. What brought her to this place of repentance? We don’t know. But all we know is she was there. She was there at Jesus’ feet and she was weeping. She was showing Jesus the kind of hospitality that this Simon, this Pharisee didn’t show Him. But she was there at the feet of Jesus weeping and taking in His love and forgiveness.

Max Lucado talks about this particular story and I think he has sometimes a beautiful language when he talks about this and I wanted to share it with you this morning. “We don’t know when she received it. We’re not told how she heard it. Did she overhear Jesus’ words, ‘Your Father is merciful?’ Was she nearby when Jesus had compassion on the widow of Nain? Did someone tell her how Jesus touched lepers and turned tax collectors into disciples? We don’t know. But we do know this: She came thirsty, thirsty from guilt, thirsty from regret, thirsty from the countless nights of sin. She came thirsty. She sat at the feet of Jesus. She wept as she drank in His love and His grace and His forgiveness.” But he says this, “Simon, on the other hand, he didn’t even know he was thirsty. People like Simon didn’t need grace. They’d analyze it. People like Simon only wanted to continue to have this concept of grace. They didn’t feel they needed to experience it. This woman sat at the feet of Jesus and she drank in His love and His forgiveness. She experienced grace.”

Today, we celebrate Reformation. Last week, we sang the songs but this week, we can really see that 492 years ago yesterday, Martin Luther took those ideas that he had thought about and nailed them to the church door. The church at the time really wanted to have this idea and concept of grace and Luther was one who could talk about grace. But he never experienced it yet. Luther would go through his life and beat and torture himself. This is physically and mentally. He would starve himself. He would spend six hours in confession talking about all the sins that he had done. He said, “If I can’t remember them, then how can I expect God to forgive them?” And so he’s tortured himself with this idea that he would somehow need to reconcile himself with God before God could love him. He went on this trip to Rome. One of his loved ones had died. And in order for them to get out of purgatory earlier, they had to go through this process. They had to walk on their knees up these steps up to the church in Rome. And up these stairs they went on their knees. And when they got to the top, they dropped some money in the box and your loved one would be released from purgatory.

When Luther got done with that experience, it’s the first time he had ever experienced that portion and he said, “It didn’t comfort me. I wasn’t comforted knowing my loved one was out of purgatory. It didn’t comfort me.” Luther was finally broken. He was broken when he came to the thought and the understanding that he could never do enough, that there was nothing he could do to build this relationship between God and himself. He was broken when he finally realized that there was nothing that he could do and then he heard it. Romans, “The righteous shall live by faith.” And then he heard Ephesians, “By grace you are saved through faith.” Those were like sweet words to him. It hit his heart. That’s what brought him to the place where he said, “I can finally experience grace.”

Grace alone was what one of the pieces of the Reformation was founded on. Grace alone is what saves us. Undeserved love towards us. To question today, have you experienced grace? In many different forms, have you experienced that undeserved love of God? Have we merely left grace as a definition? Or have you experienced it?

This morning, I want to do something maybe a little bit different. This morning, we’ve already gone through our moment of confession as we did that corporately but I want you to take a little bit of time this morning and think about those times that you have run from God. I want you to think about those times when you have said, “Well, I don’t care what God wants me to do. I think I know the right path.” Those times that we have sinned, we have outright rebelled against God. Think about those times right now and I’m going to give you just a second to think about those times that come to mind. I know it doesn’t take too much time to think about those times, especially some of the ones that are more fresh in our minds. But picture those as you picture this: We stand before God. We see Him face to face. And God tells us that the last day, He says, “Welcome home.” But we have this idea, “We have all these sins, God. I don’t understand. What about this sin and this one over here and the times that I ran from you and the times that I doubted that you were even real? What about all those times, God?” And God looks at you with a blank stare on His face. He said, “I’ve remembered your sin no more.” And God looks at you and says, “Welcome home.” That’s grace.

That’s grace for you today. That’s the experience of grace as we know that it’s undeserved. And God says, “Welcome home.” Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church