Embracing Grace – Part 2 – Skin Deep Grace
Introduction and review
Last week I introduced this sermon series and the key concepts concerning grace. For those of you who were not here, I urge you to get the audio tape or cd and get on the same page as the rest of us.
Let me quickly review our key term Grace: the underserved, un-merited favor of God.
Grace isn’t just getting something you don’t deserve, it goes beyond that to getting something gracious in spite of you doing something extraordinarily bad.
We are going to look at grace at a much deeper level than just an intellectual level, but rather on the level of how it impacts our lives.
Ask Bill and Grace to come up to the front. Tell them to hug each other. “see, Bill understands how to embrace Grace!”
This series is entitled “embracing grace” because as I read through various Christian authors and teachers, I find that there is quite a discussion about what kind of role WE have in the scheme of being saved.
I find that there are some who say “Oh, you are saved by grace alone” and others who say, “it is grace plus obedience” and still others who say, “It is grace plus baptism” or “grace plus works.” Others say “sure you’re saved by grace but you go to work to keep it.”
I rather imagine the average Christian wading through these varied opinions would be pulled one way and then another as they struggle to make sense of each of the arguments that people make for their point of view.
It is very important for us to believe the “right thing” about grace. I want you to understand that there are consequences behind what we believe. What we believe influences how we behave and live.
Believing something that is just 90% true will have profound effects on your life.
Being off by 10 degrees may not seem like much, but as you multiply your journey over miles and years, it will lead you far from your intended goal.
So when I teach that we are saved by grace alone, I do not want to say that we have no role or responsibility in the process of grace working in our lives. There are a few key things we need to know about our role:
We are not the initiators of our salvation: God moved first, while we were still sinners.
The bible is clear that God sought us, we didn’t’ seek Him.
We are not able to earn or merit our salvation. It is God’s gift alone. Totally free and undeserved.
The bible says that God’s love is a gift, not something we deserved or earned.
But we do have a role in how grace works in our lives.
Our role in salvation lies in how we respond to God’s grace.
When we “embrace grace” we are responding to God’s graciousness and kindness instead of simply absorbing it passively like a rock.
I want to use an illustration of a plant in contrast to that of a rock.
When we embrace God’s grace, we are like a plant that is responding to the sunlight and rain that God gives freely to it.
It grows and uses the grace (sunlight, rain, co2) to produce fruit.
Would the plant grow much less survive if it weren’t for the sunlight and the rain?
Of course not. The plant is totally dependent upon it!
So when you and I respond to God’s grace, we are “embracing God’s grace,” we are allowing it to work its supernatural power in our lives.
One of the most poignant pictures of this is found in Luke 17:11-19
11 While He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him; 13 and they raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" 14 When He saw them, He said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they were going, they were cleansed. 15 Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, 16 and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine--where are they? 18 "Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?" 19 And He said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has made you well (sozo – saved you)."
Jesus is passing through the border country between Samaria and Israel. Along come ten leprous men, who because of their disease, stand at a distance and plead for mercy.
In biblical times, leprosy was a terrible problem.
The word was often used to describe a variety of skin diseases, but doctors believe most of the people suffered with what we now call Hansen’s Disease.
It starts with a white patch of skin that becomes numb, so much so that the victims cannot even feel a needle piercing the spot. The patch begins to spread all over the body and often manifests itself on the face, so the disease is impossible to hide. It then begins to form spongy tumors on the face and, at the same time, attacks the internal organs as well. The nerve endings become numb so the victim cannot tell when something is hurting him, like fire burning his hand. The leprosy itself was not fatal, but lepers died from other diseases they contracted because of their weakened condition.
Lepers were outcasts from society…they were kicked out of their homes, villages and families and forced to live in the countryside where they would have no physical contact with healthy people. They couldn’t work jobs or worship at the temple. They were literally walking dead.
These particular lepers know that they cannot approach Jesus, so they appeal to Him from afar. And Jesus replies to their request in a rather strange manner. He says, “"Go and show yourselves to the priests."
He sends them to the priests. This action is what the LAW required whenever a person who had a skin disorder that had cleared up had to do to be certified as clean and non-contagious.
Interestingly, they obey what Jesus tells them and are healed as they start on their way.
Last week I mentioned a few facts about faith, and I want to continue to give you insights into faith, because faith is required for the act of embracing grace.
Don’t you find it remarkable that Jesus tells them to go to the priests while they are still leprous?
For them to act upon what he has told them to do requires that they believe that something would happen that would permit them to be declared clean by the time they got there. All ten of them chose to do this. All ten of them believed Jesus!
This was truly stepping out in faith, like putting on the new man even when we still look and feel like the old man.
These ten lepers, who had previously given up hope of ever being a part of human society again, in desperation, cry out to Jesus for help and then when He tells them to go to the priests, they ACT on His instructions and are healed.
Do you think that if several of them had broken ranks and sat down and refused to go…that they would have been healed as well? Of course not.
These ten lepers were all the recipients of a marvelous healing grace given by God…and they could not have received it without faith.
God’s grace must be received by faith to unleash its power in our lives.
In this case, God’s power was not released until they stepped in the direction of where the priests were. God’s power is released when you step out in faith.
There is a powerful lesson about faith here. It wasn’t until they stepped out in faith and obeyed Jesus, that they experienced His healing power.
Jesus gave them the Word–they stepped out in faith and–BOOM! That’s when it happened.
They didn’t stand there and say, “Well, after you heal me Jesus, then I’ll go show myself to the priest.”
That’s the way faith works. Faith is trusting and obeying God even if you don’t have any visible, physical evidence supporting your decision.
Faith consists of acting on the Word of God.
Faith doesn’t need evidence, it simply obeys.
This book is full of God’s directions on how we are to live, but with every single directive, He also provides the power to accomplish it. Our job is to step out in faith and simply obey Him.
Years ago, heard a quote about faith: “Faith is coming to the edge of all you can see and feel and taking one more step into the darkness–trusting that God will either catch you or teach you how to fly!”
15 Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, 16 and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine--where are they?
All ten are healed, all ten act in faith upon Jesus’ instructions. Yet only one returns to Jesus to give him thanks.
Where was the other nine? And what was the difference between the one and the nine?
I dare to say that the nine who didn’t come back experienced a change in their lives that was only “skin deep.”
“Where are the other Nine?” –
Were they satisfied to get their wish granted to go on about their way, to live as they wanted, and to do as they pleased?
They came to their magic genie who granted their wish and didn’t even nod a word of thanksgiving.
They had not embraced grace. They had only used it, consumed it, received it, taken it…and gone their way.
They were satisfied with reaping the benefits of God’s grace, and were content to go on about their lives. It is doubtful that they saw the hand of God in what had happened to them. They are like countless people who are healed, delivered, strengthened, re-financed, who get prayers answered, who go on with their lives without another thought toward God other than perhaps that that is why God exists…to make my life easier.
They remind me of the foxhole conversions of soldiers, who are certain they are going to die and make deals with God only to quickly forget them once the war is over.
Why do we have a praise and testimony time in our services?
To give you an opportunity to express your gratitude to God for who He is and what He has done in your life before others!
To give everyone an opportunity to praise God together for what we hear Him doing in our midst!
The one who comes immediately to Jesus, instead of obeying the letter of the Law (which was to see the priests) instead poured out his heart to God with gratitude for his healing.
He acts like a man who is overcome with love and devotion, who has just measured the power and magnitude of a great earthquake and realized what a mighty mercy he has just received in having survived it.
When you are overcome with love for God, you set aside rules, regulations and tradition and ritual and simply express your worship for God.
It is what I see in people who come to Christ and who have experienced the magnitude of what has occurred in their lives that they drop everything to express their love for Him.
Preconditions:
When we are touched by God’s grace, a momentous decision, (although it may be unconscious) must be made. Will our heart yield?
The day God’s grace came to me, across my mind came all of the questions of “what about this or that” that I loved to do and that I knew God was not pleased with.
But the grace of God was embraced at the moment when I laid everyone of those “what ifs” down, holding nothing back and saying in my heart, “I’m yours” to God. Total yielding.
He was LOUD ABOUT HIS THANKS. (that’s a heart response, not a legalistic response). He lay prostrate at Jesus feet and did not rise until Jesus invited him to do so.
The nine acted obediently, following the law. The tenth acted like a man in love. When you’re in love, the law, tradition and ritual, all those normal borders and boundaries, are shoved aside. In response to God’s grace, the Samaritan follows his heart to find and thank the one who is the source of his new life.
? 18 "Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?" 19 And He said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has made you well (sozo – saved you)."
There was more than just a healing for this tenth leper. Jesus declared that his faith had done more than received grace, it had embraced grace…and had saved him (made him whole and delivered him from destruction) SOZO.
The other lepers by only receiving the grace of God but failing to embrace it, got whole bodies, but still had sick hearts.
Embracing Grace Application
On the way to the priest, one of the guys looked at the other and said, “Hey Reuben, your skin is clean!” Then he looked at his own hand, and the color and life returned. They began to look at each other and suddenly they realized they were healed. Can’t you see them jumping up and down hugging one another?
At this point, we don’t know what happened to 90% of the group. Perhaps they journeyed on to show themselves to the priest, or maybe they ran back to their families–we don’t know. One of them could have said, “I want to see if this really lasts.” Or, “I was getting better anyway, I knew it was just a matter of good exercise and diet.” But we know from Jesus’ response only one of them did the right thing.
Ten men were exposed to God’s power, but only one sought a personal relationship with Him.
Nine of the men were content to receive the blessing of God, but only one of them cared enough to return to the source of the blessing to worship God.
That’s so true today as well. God’s blessings are poured out on all people, not just His children. The bible says that God makes it rain on the just and unjust alike. (Mt. 5:45 “for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”)
But only a relatively few people are interested in having a personal relationship with God.
In John 6:26: “Jesus answered them and said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.”
Have you found you only come to God when you have a shopping list?
Or maybe you use God like a heavenly 911 call?
“Help, God I have an emergency, bail me out!”
God loves you and wants you to spend time with Him. He desires for you to worship and fellowship with Him.
Jesus wants to do immensely more for us than cure our physical ills.
He wants to give us a relationship with him that will not only last forever but will give us much more than “normal” life.
Apparently nine out of ten people are willing to settle for less than that.
They are interested only in this life, its comforts and its pleasures.
It would not occur to them to pray for anything other than the tangible and visible realities, the only ones they know.
What they got, physical cure, was miraculous and it was good. However, it is not really good enough.
They missed the chance to embrace God’s grace.
They responded to his commands and received what they hoped and asked for.
But, they merely received grace, they did not embrace grace, they did not seize the opportune moment to go beyond.
Which are you?
This Samaritan’s example teaches us that conscious thanksgiving- constantly recalling God’s past graces- fuels faith. It brings us to a higher level or takes us further into a mutual relationship where we savor and enjoy grace.
Embracing grace is not obedience to law but gratitude, responding with our lives to the gracious love of God for his gift of physical life, but more so, for his gift of eternal life.
The nine got changed but only skin deep.
They only got a benefit to their flesh, not their spirit.
Perhaps that is where you are. God has been your genie, the One you come to for help, but you aren’t willing to embrace His grace, you just want it on your terms.
