God’s Amazing Grace
Scripture: Ephesians 2:8; First Corinthians 15:8-10; Romans 6:1-2
The title of my message this morning is “God’s Amazing Grace.”
On Monday morning I went downstairs to my office to begin working on this message. I had the day off because it was our holiday celebrating the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin L. King. As I went into my office, I once again felt God’s presence. I had felt His presence since Sunday, and I knew that He was developing in me a message that He wanted me to share with you. You may have experienced those times when you just knew there was something God’s wanted to say but you had not received the fullness of it yet. As I lay in bed Sunday night I prayed and asked God to reveal it to me as it was weighing on my heart. So on Monday morning, as I sat at my desk, God took my mind to a song I heard growing up in my home Church. This song was led by Deacon Isaiah Marshall, a truly humble man who served God. He loved this song and I grew to love hearing him sing it as I could tell it meant something to him. The name of the song was “Mother’s Amazing Grace” by Roberta Martin. My grandfather also loved to sing this song as he worked as a carpenter building homes. I want you to listen to the words of this song as I am sure some of our younger members have probably never heard of it.
It says, “I was young but I recall, singing songs was mother's joy, as the shadows gathered at the close of day, and I'd sit upon her knee, in those days that used to be, as she sang of God's amazing grace. Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I see. Mother was so good and kind, oft she told me I would find, not another who would share my griefs and woes. So I took her at her word, and sought the blessed Lord, and today my mother's God is mine. 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved, how precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed. At the closing of life's day, Christ will be my hope and stay, I shall meet my blessed mother face to face, and I'll tell her over there, in that land so bright and fair, I am glad I trusted God's amazing grace. Thro' many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come, 'Twas grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”
I went to YouTube to find a performance of this song. As I listened to the song, it took me back to Friendship M.B. Church some fifty years ago. I saw in my mind’s eye and heard in my spirit Deacon Marshall singing that song. I could visually see the tears flowing down his face as he sung, imagining the memories that possibly flowed through his mind with every verse. Deacon Marshall died many years ago and I remember attending his funeral. As they went through the program I had vivid memories of him singing this song at the funerals of others. I found peace during his service believing that he was now in the presence of his Lord and Savior and heard the words “Well done my good and faithful servant!” As I continued listening to the song I closed my eyes as my tears started flowing. I sat at my desk with tears flowing thinking about the amazing grace that God has shown me. As I sat there crying, I could not help but ask God once again to forgive me for my sins, for all the times I had failed Him and for those times when I did not act according to His will. When I opened my eyes I could barely see my computer screen. It was at that moment I knew what God wanted me to tell you this morning – He wants me to remind you of His amazing grace.
Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Everything that we have is through the grace of God – and I do mean everything! There was no possible way that I could have been saved based on my own merit. Nothing I could ever do would be good enough to save me. If it were left up to me to work my way into the presence of God, to work out my own salvation, I would be on my on going in the opposite direction. No one knows my failures better than me and God and that’s why the tears began to flow as I listened to that song. No one can tell my story better than me and I am here to tell you that I am a living testimony of the grace of God.
The song “Amazing Grace,” from which Roberta Martin’s version was based on, was published by John Newton in 1779. Newton was a man who understood the grace of God. The words of the song were personal for him. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by others' reactions to what they took as his unmanageable insubordination. Newton was a slave trader prior to his conversion at sea, when his vessel was being battled by a violent storm and he cried out to God for mercy. It was recorded that he had fallen into such disgrace that his father ostracized him and his fellow sailors reviled him. He was held in such low regard that on one occasion when he fell overboard in a drunken stupor his shipmates rescued him by throwing a harpoon into his leg. His reputation as a cruel shipmaster while hauling loads of slaves was well known. This was the man who wrote “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” After his conversion he became an abolitionist. This was a man who knew his past and what the grace of God had done for him. After he repented, he had to live with the memories of the lives he destroyed through the slave trade and his many other actions. By the standards of many Christians, he was not a good man and YET God used him! You see, like me, he too was a living testimony of the grace of God. Because of God’s grace, we can sing the song “Amazing Grace” some 242 years later!
First Corinthians 15:10 says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” Paul wrote that “But by the grace of God I am what I am…” New Light, this is the same Paul, who was known as Saul, who gave his approval for the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7. This is the same Saul who went into the homes of Christians, dragging out men and women and then putting them into prison in Acts 8. But because of God’s grace, he was no longer that man. He was no longer the Church’s worst nightmare. Because of God’s grace, Saul became Paul the apostle, the one to whom God would entrust the writing of the majority of the New Testament. None of us have persecuted the church like Paul, but God changed him and God used him. Do you believe this verse? Do you truly believe that only by the grace of God you are who you are? Some of you have accomplished some amazing things and it’s hard when the world is telling you how great you are for you not to believe it. But when we start to believe and accept the credit that the world gives us, we begin to believe we truly are what they say we are and that God’s grace had little to do with what we have accomplished.
When I was young most of the other boys around me loved to play sports. It was the thing to do for young black boys and if you did not do it you were “different.” It was not unusual at that time to be called a “sissy” if you didn’t want to play baseball, football, basketball, and any other sport utilizing a “ball.” I grew up playing sports in the streets, but I found no enjoyment playing in school. I never played organized sports in school with the exception of playing on a team in gym class. I can say that God made me to enjoy other things. My father taught me to bowl and I spent years bowling with him. He also instilled a love of boxing within me. Nothing can replace those times that I spent with him bowling or watching boxing on TV - doing something we both loved. But that was the extent of it. When others were playing sports or watching sports on TV, I was in my room listening to music, mainly gospel music unless it was during one of those periods when I thought I was in love with some girl. My mother once told me that I was different, which was reinforced by my father’s sister who told him the same thing. I was different by the grace of God! I cannot tell you how many people have given me weird looks through the years because I was not interested in sports. I was introduced to golf in 1993 by a co-worker and in 2005 I started watching football because my customers would want to talk about the recent game results and I had nothing to contribute. I enjoy both sports now but again, that is the extent of it. I recognize that I am different in that way and that is okay because I am what God made me through His grace.
Paul said, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain.” Do you know why God’s grace proved not to be vain in Paul’s life? He tells us in the next phrase: “but I labored even more than all of them.” The word “labor” means to “work hard to the point of fatigue.” Because God’s grace was so precious to him, Paul refused to not use it to its fullest. And what was Paul’s labor? The preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. New Light, God’s amazing grace does more than just cleanse us from our sins and save us; it equips us to labor for the gospel just like it equipped Paul! Think about it. Do you not think that maybe there were times when Paul felt inferior to the original disciples because he did not walk with Jesus three and a half years like they did? I think that is a possibility. I believe it is a possibility because he wrote in verses 8-9 that “…..last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (First Corinthians 15:8-9) When we read what he wrote it was his recognition that everything that made him who he was had uniquely prepared him to fulfill God’s purpose for his life – a purpose that could only be achieved through the grace of God. None of the other disciples were uniquely qualified to do what Paul did! So instead of focusing on the fact that he was different, Paul continued to serve by saying, “But by the grace of God I am what I am….” Paul was convinced that who he was and everything he had been through by the time he spoke as an apostle was by the grace of God. Even as he faced all of the hardships of being an apostle – the shipwrecks, beatings, angry mobs, and fellow believers making accusations against him, he maintained his belief that he was who he was by the grace of God. His confession reminds me of something the Rev. Billy Graham once said: “We can be certain that God will give us the strength and resources we need to live through any situation in life that He ordains. The will of God will never take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us.” Amen!
I want to share something with you. We often talk about the “joy” of the Lord and how joy is different from happiness. Happiness is an emotion we experience when something happens to us while joy springs eternally based on our relationship with God. Well there is a relationship that joy shares with grace. The Greek word for “joy” is chara. The word chara is derived from the word charis. Charis is the Greek word for “grace.” This tells us in no uncertain terms that “joy” is produced by the “grace” of God! This means “joy” isn’t a human-based emotion that comes and goes. True joy is divine in origin, a fruit of the Spirit that is manifested especially in hard times. So when we think about God’s amazing grace, we cannot just think of it in relationship to Him saving us or forgiving us of our sins. We need to think of it as all encompassing. His grace touches every aspect of our lives – from the highest moments to the lowest moments.
In the first three messages of this year God has told us that the choice is ours as to the decisions we will make in 2021. Every decision we make should be made with the end in mind – the end being what would Christ have me to do and where will this decision lead? Then God told us that when our backs are against the wall, they are against the wall in our minds – how we are thinking about the situation. He told us that when someone’s back is against a wall they have retreated as far as they can go and they are incapable of further retreat. They have exercised all of their options and have no other choices to make. But then He told us that His back is never against the wall. He is never without options and through His grace, neither are we! We just need to decide (make the choice) as to whose battle it is. If we truly give it over to Him, then it is no longer in our hands to figure out. The battle is His to fight and ultimately win. Finally, on last Sunday, God told us not to open the door. What door you ask? The doors that lead to us sinning against Him, especially any door that He has told us to keep close. The only doors we should be opening are the ones He is knocking on. And this morning He is reminding us of His grace. His amazing grace!
People continue to misunderstand God’s grace, so before I close I want you to know that while God’s grace is truly amazing there are limitations to it. Before you shut down your computers and stop listening, please hang on for a few more minutes so that you can hear what I am about to say as proven in His Word. There are a couple of things God’s grace cannot cover regardless of what we are hearing from some pulpits.
First and foremost, if you have unconfessed sin, you are cutting off the flow of God’s grace in your life. Why do I say this? Romans 6:1-2 says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? And Romans 6:14-15 says, “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!” Because we are covered by the grace of God, it does not give us a permission slip to sin. However, when we confess our sins and repent, then grace kicks in overdrive to cleanse us. First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” You see the first word of this verse? It’s “if.” That word means when one thing happens then something else will follow. But the first thing must happen in order for the second thing to take place. In this case, we must confess our sins in order to receive forgiveness. To confess or not to confess – the choice is ours. But if we choose not to confess our sins, then grace does not cover our unconfessed sins no matter how much we might believe that it does. God will never act contrary to His spoken Word – the Bible which leads me to the second thing God’s grace will not do.
God’s grace cannot cancel out His Word – especially as it relates to the law of sewing and reaping. Galatians 6:7-8 says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” This verse has nothing to do with a church offering. But it has everything to do with our relationship with God. We cannot live a life contrary to the will of God, die and expect to enter heaven. People have been taught that they should just do the best that they can do because God knows their hearts and He is a forgiving God. God surely knows our hearts and everything else about us! And for some, that’s the problem. But God is also a forgiving God. What we must remember is that God will not do the opposite of what His Word says. This is why we need to search God’s word for ourselves so that we know what it says versus just believing what someone else says about God.
Someone sent me a statement that someone posted on Facebook. The statement said the following: “This really just made me cry. When God shows you it’s time to let someone go and you refuse to accept it, He will allow the person to hurt you to the point you have no choice but to let go.” The person who sent it to me responded to the post and said “That’s not how that works” because there were many people saying “Amen” to the post. After they posted that, someone else recommended that they should read the Bible because that’s absolutely how God works! It is this type of thinking that people readily accept without understanding God’s word. This statement gives the impression that God is controlling the person who will hurt you if you do not leave them. God cannot stop us from doing anything we choose to do and that is why grace is applied when we choose to repent and ask forgiveness. Anything less than that is our pride speaking.
The song Amazing Grace was written by a slave trader; a man who destroyed people’s lives for money. A man so despised by his fellow sailors that they used a harpoon to save him from drowning when he fell overboard. A man whose own father ostracized him because of how he lived. This was the same man whose heart was changed when he accepted Christ. This was the same man who found forgiveness through the grace of God. When he wrote this song, it was a testimony of what God had done for him. What would your song say?
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
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