Grace: It Really Is Amazing! Series: Part 1: An Amazing 5 Letter Word. February 18, 2007 Castalia Baptist Church. Ephesians 2: 1-10
Chrysta’s parents have a house on a lake in Danville VA. I remember one time we were up their years ago and Chrysta was going to pull me on the innnertube. Now the innertube is this huge round tube on which you lay on it and you hold onto the handles as the boat takes you up and over the waves. It is a exhilarating ride and also hard to hang on. Well I had been talking to her parents about Chrystas driving. I think I was asking her dad for some help in trying to help improve Chrysta’s driving skills ( as you can see I’m still working on it). Well she overheard and then said she wanted me to go innertubing and she was going to drive (yes, my mind was not as quick as it is today. I should have seen the warning signs). Well, into the boat she goes and as I get on that innertube she says Honey, hold on tight. I don’t want you to fall off. And I said don’t worry about me honey. You can’t throw me off (note to self: never say that to an aggressive driver whether it’s a boat or car) well for the next ten minutes she swerved and figured 8 and found the highest wakes and waves she could find. It was the worst ride of my life. She turns around surprised I am still on and I give her a big smile. And the next moment she hit this wave that no kidding threw me ten feet into the air off the innertube and crasing into the water. When I came back up and got my bearings straight and realized I had all my bones in order, I realized that I had a serious problem. I had made the mistake of not tying my bathing suit and as I sat in the middle of Lake Hyco I came to the frightening realization that I had lost my swimming trunks and they were nowhere to be found. As Chrysta pulled alongside me to make sure that I was alright and to ask if I was ready to go again (amidst the laughter and smile) I told her that I had a problem. Now I did not know how to tell her I did not have any pants because Chrysta’s sisters Kendra and Dana along with 4 other friends were in the boat. Needless to say everyone got a big kick out it and the way I treated Chrysta I did not deserve for her to ride around looking for my britches but because of her grace she went and found my trunks (although she put them on the back of the boat and challenged me to get up their and get them.)
Well, today I want to begin a new series that will probably take us through Easter. It is going to focus on probably the most popular Christian word used by many but probably the least understood word. It is the word GRACE. We begin this series today in preparation for a new movie that is about to come out on February 23. It is a movie that is known as Amazing Grace. I am somewhat dismayed that religious groups spent a lot of money and time talking about the Passion of Christ and Facing the Giants and have not given as much attention to this movie. This movie centers around a man named William Wilberforce who is a member of the British Parliament and through his relationship with John Newton the writer of the song Amazing Grace, Wilberforce is able to change the course of history by helping to abolish the slave trade in Britain which would lead to the abolition of slavery here in the United States. And the reason that all of this came about is through two men’s discovery of God’s grace. God’s grace changes lives and I pray that over these next few weeks that it will change our lives as well.
But to do that we must first understand what Grace is exactly. According to the dictionary Grace can mean many things: 1: elegance (my wife moves with grace) 2: politeness (dignified and polite behavior); 3) a generosity of spirit (by being able to forgive, tolerate and accommodate people; but it also means the infinite love and mercy favor and goodwill shown to humanity from God.
The word Grace appears 155 times in the New Testament with paul writing about grace 130 of those times. For Paul, the essence of life is grace. He opens, closes and dominates every letter with the subject of grace. His teaching is hinged upon grace. Now you may be surprised to know that Jesus never used the word grace himself. Rather he just taught it and most importantly he lived it out through not only his words but his actions.But what is grace:
Someone once said that “there is no more wonderful word that grace. It means unmerited favor or kindness that is shown to one who is utterly undeserving. And so today as someone who is utterly underserving of this grace, I want us to look at Ephesians 2:1-7 and discover how this dominating word can have a everlasting impact on our life.
There are three things that I want us to focus on this morning to help us understand how dominating GRACE truly is.
I. Grace Frees Us From Our Past
Now twice in verse 5 and in verse 8 we see that Paul tells us that we are saved by grace. Now the first thing that we are saved from is Death. Now you might be here having been saved for many years and maybe it’s possible that we have forgotten what our past condition used to be. Or you might be here and for the first time you are hearing that you can be saved. Whatever the case, it is important to see that Paul says that you and I are saved from DEATH
He does not put it lightly saying we were sick or undergoing some “spiritual issues” but he says that we were dead. Did you catch it. Paul says we are dead not that we are going to die. But if we do not have Christ in our lives then we are dead not in the future but right now.
Now only were we dead but we were also disobedient as before Christ our focus is on following the ways of the world and not that of God.
Now you look at that passage and say Gosh Paul, you are being harsh but he is just calling it out as it is. He is showing how powerful sin can be. It causes us to be separated from God and relying on the desires of this world and not of God. All of us were born into sin. Noone here is perfect. See the same sin that Adam and Eve had has been polluted into us. And sin still tries to destroy us. The message translation says that we let the world which does not know a thing about living try to teach us how to live. The bible tells us that we are to be rid of sin and not let it control us, but it still affects us.
Have you ever seen a sign that says Wet Paint on it? Now what usually happens when you see that sign that says Wet Paint? What is the first thing that we do. We touch it just to see if it is wet. Now if someone would not have put that sign up there telling me it was not wet odds are I never would have touched it. But when it says DO not Touch, I have to touch it. Something inside me forces my fingers onto wet paint. That is how corrupt sin is.
The bible tells us to stay away from sin but even though we know not to do it, sin continues to increase. So how can we be free from sin? Well that is where graice comes in Romans 5:20 says that where sin increased, Grace increased all the more. Grace is provided as an undeserving gift to sinners so that grace can overshadow sin, overpower sin and grace will bring us hope.
2. Grace Embraces Us.
The great thing is that we do not have to stay in that condition of a sinful life all because of one word. And that word is found in verse 4. Pauls says “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ…”
The first three verses of this chapter present a hopeless group of people. We are under the power of Satan and there is no way to save ourselves. Yet in verse 4 in the simple yet powerful words we find that but God. In those 2 words God shares his love and concern for each of us that it is beyond our human comprehension that all we can do is to simply and humbly recive it. Instead of leaving sinful humanity to live worthless and hopeless lives ending only in death, God acted on behalf of humanity because he is so rich in mercy.
I think that we say so many times that God loves us that it becomes just a simple phrase. Love is the starting point for any journey into the realm of God’s amazing grace. In order to receive God’s grace in your life you must begin with hearing and believing the Good News that He loves you.
Have you ever thought why God loves you? What have we done to deserve His love and the cool thing is the answer to that is that we have not done anything to receive his love. He freely has given it to us. If you want to understand why God loves us look at the definition of God in I John 4:8 which says that God loves us because God is love. It’s his personality to love. The word love that he uses is an agape love which means that has a selfless love that is focused on seeking the very best for others. And because his love is so great he was willing to give his only son to die so that we might have everlasting life.
The story is told of a Queen who had a young daughter who was faced with a deadly illness. The doctors told the Queen that she needed to stay away from her daughter’s face and under no circumstances was she to breath her breath because she would contract the disease herself and it would kill her as well. A few days after hearing this warning the Queen went to visit her daughter. The daughter began to choke and as the Queen lifted her daughter up to help her from choking and held her in her arms as her daughter died, the final words out of her daughter’s mouth were “mommy would you please kiss me.” Even though the Queen knew that she would die from that act of love, that mother leaned over her daughter and kissed her daughter. Two months later the Queen was dead from the same disease.
Because of God’s amazing grace Jesus kissed you and me. He died because He loves us. The Father in Heaven sent Him because He loves us.
If you want to experience the wonderful joy of God’s grace it begins by learning about and believing in the love of God!
And friends when God gave us that love through Jesus and as she breathed into us, Ephesians 5 tells us that it does not cause us to die but it causes us to be made alive. That life is available not through a life of sin but through a life of Christ.
The only way that we can truly be alive is to be saved and to say that Christ lives in me. In John 5:24 Jesus said I tell you the truth that whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condembed for he has crossed over from death to life.
Friends if today you are living in sin, if we have never given our lives to Christ, then we are not alive. Yet if we will simply believe in Him we will forever have life. That has to be one of the most encouraging promises ever given! I will never be condemned for my sins if I believe in Christ! I have eternal life by accepting the free gift of God’s amazing grace!
This is such a vital truth that people stumble over it’s sheer simplicity. I John 5:12 says that He who has the son has life and he who does not have the sond of God does not have life.” It happens because of Grace
The choice for each one of us as to whether or not we have true spiritual life – eternal life – is in the choice we make concerning Christ. If we place our reliance upon Him and begin a personal relationship with Him by accepting His gift of grace – then we have life!
III. Grace is Priceless
I don’t know about you but some of the best commercials I have seen on T.V. are the commercials by Mastercard. You know the ones that say tickets to the game $500 hotel expenses 200 dollars, seeing the tarheels defeat Duke: Priceless. What those commercials are saying is that the experience cannot be described in terms of money. And that is the same with a relationship with Christ. You can’t put it into money. It’s priceless. The gift that God gives us is absolutely 100% free. But here is the thing. It’s not just a priceless free gift, but it is a free gift given to those who deserve the exact opposite and is given to us while we are without hope. It’s given to us not on the basis of what we do but on the basis of who God is.
Someone once said that GRACE stands God’s Richness at Christ’s Expense. Yet I think that the best word that can describe Grace is a five letter word which is spelled as JESUS. For when God gave this gift of grace he gave it freely for all. It is a gift that is unsought unmerited and unlimited. I want to tell you today that if we will simply give our lives to Christ we can have an eternal life with God our sins can be forgiven and we will have a secure reservation in the grand hotel in heaven. We can have it all because of this one word known as GRACE. It’s not by what we do but it’s all by GOD. No matter our sins, no matter our failures, God wants us to have this grace.
One of my favorite movies is the movie Dead Poet’s Society with Robin Williams. The poem O Captain My Captian written by Walt Whitman
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
Another poem that says it all about God’s amazing grace comes from Dorothea Day an amazing religious servant. In her poem My Captain she ends her poem with these words:
Beyond this place of sin and tears
That life with Him and his the aid,
Despite the menace of the years,
Keeps and shall keep me unafraid
I have no fear, though straight the gate,
He cleared from punishment the scroll.
Christ is the master of my fate,
Christ is the captain of my soul.
Let me ask you Is Christ the Captain of your life. Have you let Grace free you, Have you let it Embrace you. Have you accepted the priceless gift of Grace. Because it’s a matter of life and death. For Jesus is the only name that will take us from earth to heaven when we die. And heavens’ doors will not open because of our fame, fortune or achievements. Rather the only way that we will get into heaven is because you and I accepted the free gift of eternal life—nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. And as we get to heaven you will have to know the password to enter. But the good news is today you have already heard the password. It’s grace. And that is what is so amazing about Grace. Let’s pray.
