What’s So Amazing About Amazing Grace?
We’re starting a series of messages this morning from the book of Romans, that I’ve entitled… “What’s So Amazing about GRACE?”
I’m not talking about Grace Kelley, the famous actress… but the word ‘grace’.
When you stop and think about it… we use the word ‘GRACE’ in our language a lot more than you might imagine…
Many people “say grace” before meals… acknowledging that our daily bread is a gift from God.
We’re ‘grateful’ for someone’s kindness… ‘congratulated’ when successful… ‘gracious’ when hosting guests…
When we get good service we leave a ‘gratuity’…
Now we also use the word in the negative or shameful sense…
Politicians, ‘fall from grace’… When we insult someone we say, ‘You ingrate’… or worse ‘You are a disgrace’….
Someone who is really despicable has no ‘saving grace’ about him…
We use the word ‘grace’ in a lot of different ways, in many different situations…we even sing about, “AMAZING GRACE”… but do we really know what the word means?
Well, beginning today, we’re going to start an 8 week series exploring the amazing meaning of this word ‘grace’.
Paul in the letter he wrote to the Roman church took 16 chapters to talk about the many facets of grace… and he only scratched the surface!
You need to know about ‘grace’… because this one word can revolutionize your life… if you fully understand it’s implications and applications.
The word ‘grace’, comes from the grk. ‘charis’… and means lit. ‘gift’, ...but if you trace it’s roots a little deeper, you find a verb form that means, “I rejoice’, or ‘I am glad’.
In otherwords, people who have learned to live under ‘grace’… are the most joyful and fulfilled people you’ll ever meet.
Paul was the great “Apostle of Grace”. Of the 155 N.T. ref. to grace… 133 belong to him. He introduces his letters with grace, he closes them with grace… and grace is the theme of everything in between.
The word ‘grace’ always appears no later than the 2nd sentence in every one of his letters.
When Paul talks about grace… he’s talking about what God has done for us, in and through Jesus Christ. It’s God’s love freely given…
Grace is…God’s love in action, freely giving us His forgiveness, His acceptance, and His favor.
This gift from God isn’t motivated by our worthiness, or somehow by our works… it’s not based on whether we deserve it or not… but solely on God’s passionate love for us. That’s it! Nothing less… nothing more!
Eph.2:8 states that grace and grace alone… is, and always will be… the basis for our relationship with God. (READ Eph.2:8)
This is God’s “GRACE BASE” and without this foundation firmly in place… nothing else in the Christian life matters.
So to make sure that you leave here this morning with a thorough understanding of what grace is… let me give you 5 Characteristics of Grace and how it relates to your life… from the book of Romans
1. Grace is UNDESERVED
Grace has nothing to do with merit or demerit, our sinfulness or our worthiness.
In fact, worthiness and deservedness... are the opposites of grace.
Paul knew better than anybody that grace comes to us undeserved. Knocked flat on his face on the way to Damascus, he was never the same after his 1st encounter with grace.
Paul called himself the ‘chief of sinners’, and knew beyond a doubt that God loves people because of who HE is... not because of who we are!
During the Napoleanic Wars, a young, battle weary French soldier fell asleep while on guard duty. He was court-martialed, found guilty, and sentenced to death.
His widowed mother somehow arranged to see Emperor Napoleon himself. Falling prostrate at his feet, she begged for her son’s life to be spared, explaining that he was her only means of support.
Napoleon grew weary of her pleas... “Madam, your son does not deserve mercy. He deserves to die, “ he said coldly.
To which the mother immed. replied, “Of course, sire, you are right. That’s why I’m asking you to show mercy on him. If he were deserving, it wouldn’t be mercy.”
Napoleon was so touched by the logic of her statement that he pardoned the soldier.
See, if we were deserving... it wouldn’t be grace!
(READ Rom.11:6)
The problem is... that almost by instinct, we feel that we have to DO SOMETHING in order to be accepted by God.
But the fact remains: The only way to miss out on God’s mercy, is by trying to deserve it!
What’s interesting about the life of Jesus is that nowhere in the bible do we have him using the word ‘grace’. Isn’t that surprising?
Yet John used it to describe the very essence of who he was...
(READ John 1:14,16,17)
Jesus’ attitude was... “Why waste words?” He would rather convey it than explain it! His entire life was a nonstop demonstration of grace!
Daily, he personified grace - love, mercy, and free salvation to people who if anything... deserved punishment.
Now...this whole idea of God loving sinners - bad people- is completely unheard of in any religion.
Religion offers good VIEWS... be good, straighten up your life, clean up your act... and then you can come to God.
...Then you’ll be pleasing to God and He’ll love you...
But the message of Christ isn’t just good ‘views’...it’s Good NEWS...
And the good news is this...
“There is nothing we can do to make God love us more... And
There is nothing that we can do to make God love us any less!”
Grace is God’s undeserved, unmerited favor!
But not only is grace undeserved...
2. Grace is UNNATURAL
The most unnatural, difficult thing in the world to do... is to try and show grace to somebody who deserves punishment.
It’s really kind of a contradiction, because while grace is the most needed thing in the world, it’s also the hardest thing to find.
It’s like someone wrote...”Despite a hundred sermons on forgiveness, we do not forgive easily, nor find ourselves easily forgiven. Forgiveness, we discover is always harder than the sermons make it out to be”
Forgiveness is achingly difficult! It’s much easier to nurse our wounds, or rationalize our behavior... or punish others (and ourselves)...
It’s a lot easier to try and get revenge than it is to give grace to people!
I think of the prayer Erma Bombeck once prayed… “Lord, if you can’t make me thin… then make my friends look fat!”
Forgiveness is one of the hardest things you can ask a person to do. And that’s why so few actually do it!
If you read the gospel accounts, it seems that forgiveness wasn’t necc. easy for God either! Praying in the garden, Jesus cried, “If it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”
Jesus was contemplating the cost of forgiving to the point that sweat rolled off him in great drops of blood.
Finally, in one of his last statements before dying, he said...
“Forgive them… all of them, the Roman soldiers who drove the nails in my hands and feet, the religious leaders who lied… my own disciples who fled in the darkness - forgive them ALL! Because they don’t know what they’re doing!”
You think that was easy to say? And not only to “say it” but to mean it!
To forgive someone is very difficult... but the alternatives are even harder! There are 3 alternatives to grace and forgiveness...
1. Revenge
The “Law of Revenge” states...For every atrocity, there must be an equal and opposite atrocity.
Vengeance is the passion to get even. It’s the desire to give back as much pain as someone gave you.
The only problem is... revenge never gets what it wants. It never evens the score. All it succeeds in doing is to escalate the pain.
For example... the Serbs of Yugoslavia, in their campaign of “ethnic cleansing” in the early 90’s, killed tens of thousands of innocent people.
But what people forget is that during the Nazi occupation of the Balkans in the 1940’s, the Germans and the Croats killed hundred’s of thousands of Serbs, Gypsies and Jews.
Neither of them are right, but they’re just carrying out the terrible logic of unforgiveness.
The fact is... If everyone followed the ‘eye for an eye’ principle of justice... eventually the whole world would go blind!
To strive for revenge instead of forgiveness, keeps you tied to the escalator of pain that never stops and never lets anyone off.
If you’re going to break this cycle of of ungrace you have to take initiative, and defy the natural law of revenge and fairness by forgiving.
Forgiveness, when you really think about it is an act of faith. When I forgive somebody... I’m trusting that God is a better ‘justice-maker’ than I am.
I release my own right to get even, and believe what God says in Romans 12:19 (READ)
The 2nd alternative to forgiveness is to become…
2. Rooted in Bitterness...
Heb.12:15
This vs. tells us to be very careful not to ignore grace… because the consequences are disastrous!
Someone once said that “Bitterness is the poison we swallow, while hoping the other person dies.”
If I refuse to forgive... I choose to be a “bearer of bitterness”. And is will surface in all kinds of destructive ways. Not only will that bitterness kill me… but it spreads like gangrene to others. (”defile many”)
Charles Manson murdered an innocent family because of bitterness he held towards a record producer who didn’t like his music…
Cults develop when people become bitter towards main-line churches or denominations. Take Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism for example. Jim Jones who led 100’s to a mass murder in the jungles of S. America is another example…
I read of one man who didn’t speak to his wife for 40 years, because of a fight over how much money she had spent on sugar. He stayed married to her, but the bitterness buried itself so deep that one day, he took out his chain saw and cut their house exactly in half! (no kidding!)
He nailed up planks to cover the open ends, and there the two of them lived out the rest of their lives... in separate ½ houses!
Now can you imagine being so silly and ridiculous? But you know, we do some pretty ridiculous things when we refuse to extend grace to others… don’t we?
3. Resentment
That’s the 3rd alternative to grace-giving. Did you know that the word ‘resentment’ literally means “to feel again”?
When we refuse to forgive, resentment begins to cling to the past and we’re doomed to re-live what that person did to us over and over & over.
When I refuse to forgive, I end up imprisoning myself in the past and throwing away the key! Locking out all potential for change.
In fact, my enemy now controls me... and they don’t even care! I’M the one who loses not them!
It’s like the immigrant Jewish rabbi who made an incredible statement... He said, “Before coming to America, I had to forgive Adolf Hitler... because I didn’t want to bring Hitler inside me to my new country!”
See, when we forgive... we set the prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was... US!
Even though forgiveness is unnatural and difficult... the only thing harder than forgiveness is… unforgiveness!
After the Civil War, politicians and advisors urged Abraham Lincoln to punish the South severely for all the bloodshed it had caused. He responded... “Do I not destroy my enemies, when I make them my friends?”
God destroyed his enemies by making them His friends! As difficult as grace is... he suffered and died so that He could bring peace to the Civil War that separated us from Him.
But not only is grace unnatural...
3. Grace is UNFAIR
Grace is really a scandalous concept when you think about it. It flys in the face of true justice.
It’s totally unreasonable to expect a woman to forgive the terrible things her father did to her… just because he apologizes years later…
It’s totally unfair to ask a mother to forgive the drunken driver who killed her daughter in the prime of her life.
Behind every act of forgiveness lies a wound of betrayal, and the pain of being hurt doesn’t go away very easily.
It reminds me of the story of Joseph in the O.T. If you get a chance, read Gen.42-45 sometime.
At first it’s hard to understand all the loops and twists, as Joseph (now 2nd in command to Pharoah himself) tries to reconcile with the same brothers who years earlier had sold him into slavery.
One min. he’s throwing them in jail, the next min. he’s crying like a baby, overcome with sorrow.
He played tricks them... hiding money in their grain sacks, seizing one of them as a hostage, accusing another of stealing a golden cup.
For mo. (maybe years)... this dragged on until finally Joseph couldn’t hold it back any longer... he called his brothers in and dramatically forgave them.
It’s so realistic, because it shows how unnatural it is to forgive.
The brothers that Joseph struggled to forgive were the same ones who had bullied him, cooked up schemes to murder him, and eventually sold him into slavery.
Because of them, he had spent the best years of his youth rotting away in an Egyptian dungeon.
Even though he triumphed over this adversity, and wanted to forgive his brothers with all his heart... he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not yet... the wound still hurt too much. (Ever been there?)
When grace finally broke through to Joseph...Gen.45:2 tells us that “he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharao heard it.”
As his cry echoed through the palace, I can imagine a servant asking... “What was that wail? Is Joseph sick?”
No... Josephs health was fine. It was the sound of a man forgiving!
Grace isn’t fair, but then again... grace isn’t about fairness.
If it was... none of us could receive it. Paul explains in Rom.5:7,8 (READ)
He’s saying, “You know, we can understand somebody giving their life for someone worth dying for... and we can even understand how someone who was good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice...
But what’s impossible to understand is how a person could die for someone who has absolutely no worth to them whatsoever! It’s like the Pope giving his life up for a homeless bum.
But yet, that’s what Jesus did for us! No... it’s not fair... but aren’t you glad? I mean... I’m not complaining!
So why do we demand fairness? Listen...when we refuse to forgive someone, because ‘it’s not fair’... we’re in effect determining that they are unworthy of God’s forgiveness...and the minute we do that... we condemn ourselves... because we don’t deserve it either!
Jesus said in Mt. 6: 15 “But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
It’s like George Herbert once wrote... “He who cannot forgive another breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself.”
Yea...grace may be unfair, but it’s the only way to stop the cycle of revenge, bitterness and resentment.
4thly, according to Paul...
5. Grace is UNEARNABLE
A lot of people start out believing that they are saved by grace, but then over time begin to fall into the trap of thinking that “If I expect to continue to receive God’s grace... I need to perform.”
They turn God’s “GRACE Base” into a “Performance Base”.
It’s so easy to slip into the habit of taking the very channels of grace - prayer, Bible reading, witnessing, serving... and turn them into Christian works of performance.
And so...slowly, over time, the converts of one decade become the Pharisees of the next.
You say, “Well, I thought that we were supposed to do good works as Christians”
And you’re right... but we don’t do those things to earn God’s grace or to somehow win His approval. We do them because of the deep abiding knowledge that God loves us and accepts us as we are.
We do what we do as Christians, not in order to win his love... but out of gratitude for His love.
According to Eph.2:10... we are saved FOR good works... not BY good works.
Works aren’t the ROOT of our salvation... they’re the FRUIT of it!
5. Grace is UNCONDITIONAL
God’s love is unconditional. What that means is that His love doesn’t depend on what we are... but on what He is!
He loves us, because He is love.
Now we can refuse God’s love... (and many do...), but we can’t stop God from loving us!
God never says....
I love you because...
I love you since...
I will love you if... or
I will love you when...
Adding any of those phrases in front of God’s love makes it conditional.
Now, I agree, it’s hard to imagine love without strings attached, because that’s all most of us have ever experienced... but that’s the kind of love that God offers.
A lot of people say, “Well, what if I mess up? What if I fail or fall away? Will God still love me then?
What we don’t understand is... we already failed! God has already examined us... and we flunked!
That’s what the first few chapters of Romans is all about...
Whether we were moral do-gooders who kept all the
commandments like the Jews.... OR just out & out sinners who broke them all... it makes no difference!
God, in his love has provided a new basis for a right relationship with Him... free, undeserved, unmerited, unrepayable favor! That’s grace!
READ Rom.3:21-24
Stypulkowski illus. pg.121-Seamands
There was a man named Stypulkowski who was a fighter in the polish underground resistance movement during WWII. Unfortunately, at the end of the war, he was captured by the Russian Army.
He and 15 other Poles were taken to Russia to stand trial for war crimes. In order to get full confessions out of them, they were put under rigorous interrogation in order to break them mentally, emotionally and spiritually. 15 of the 16 men broke under the grueling pressure. But Stypulkowski held strong.
For 69 out of 70 nights he was brutally questioned in a series of 141 interrogations. Not only did he endure them, but at one point, his interrogator broke down and had to be replaced!
Over and over, his tormentors examined everything he had ever done (or hadn’t done)... looking for fears and guilt that they could use as leverage.
Weeks of starvation diet, sleepless nights... even his best friends signed confessions blaming him. They advised him to plead guilty or consider himself dead. But Stypulkowski refused. He said he had not been a traitor and would not confess to something he didn’t do.
He went on to plead not guilty and mostly because of foreign pressure... he was finally freed.
Later when asked the reason for his incredible endurance, this was his response... “I never felt it necessary to justify myself with excuses. When they showed me I was a coward, I already knew it. When they shook their finger as me with accusations of filthy lewd feelings... I already knew that.
When they showed me a reflection of myself with all my inadequacies, I said to them...’But gentlemen, I am much worse than that.!’ For you see, I had learned it was unnecessary for me to justify myself. One had already done that for me - Jesus Christ!”
Because Stypulkowski was able to be totally honest about himself before God, he was able to be totally honest about himself to his accusers.
He could freely admit his personal failures because he knew that they had all been taken care of at the Cross!
How about you? See, when we realize that being “justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...” then we are free to be ourselves, and we have nothing to fear.
Conclusion....
Christ took our shame, our sins, our worst mistakes and paid the price so that we don’t have to. Grace costs nothing for the recipient... but everything for the giver.
The Last Emperor... pg.67 - Yancey, Grace
In the movie, “The Last Emperor”, the young child annointed as the last emperor of China lives a magical life of luxury, with a 1000 eunuch servants at his command.
One time his brother asks, “What happens when you do wrong?”
“When I do wrong, someone else is punished”, the boy emperor replies.
Then to prove his point, he breaks a jar... and a servant is beaten.
What’s so amazing about grace is that Jesus reversed the pattern... when the servants erred... the KING was punished!
Grace is free, only because the GIVER himself has taken the punishment!
