“Perfect Grace”
Revelation 21:1-7, 9-10, 22-23; 22:1-5
The Bible is the story of a God Who seeks us out.
It’s a story about a God Who initiates the whole deal.
It’s God’s idea to create us.
It’s God Who went searching for Adam and Eve as they hid naked in the Garden of Eden.
It’s God Who made the first clothing.
It’s Who God approached Abraham and called Him to be the father of many nations, initiating the Covenant.
It’s God Who came to Moses in the Burning Bush, calling him to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.
It’s Who God came down to us from heaven in Jesus Christ, took on human flesh, and made His home with us, providing for us the model of how to live and love.
It’s God in Jesus Christ Who compares Himself to a shepherd who goes out searching for the lost sheep until he finds it and carries it home.
It’s God in Jesus Christ Who compares Himself to a woman searching for a lost coin.
She lights a lamp and turns over all the furniture in the house until she finds it.
Then, she calls all her friends and throws a great big party because the lost coin has been found.
And in that story, we are the lost coin; we are the lost sheep.
All through the Bible, it’s God Who is seeking us out, coming to us, yearning for us to turn to Him and be found—it’s not the other way around.
This is what theologians call Prevenient grace or the grace of God that goes before us, nudging us, searching for us, calling us into a life-altering relationship and journey with Him.
In Ephesians, we are told that we are saved by grace through faith.
And even this faith doesn’t come from us, it too is a gift from God.
We are told in 1st John Chapter 4 that we love only because God has first loved us.
And in our theology of Communion, we believe that the Real Presence of Jesus Christ comes down to us and meets us at the Communion Table.
We don’t go up to Him; He comes down to us.
It’s all about grace.
Even in the story of the Prodigal Son, it is God Who is waiting and looking and hoping we will return.
And when He sees us far off, He runs to us, put’s new clothes on us and throws a party, before we can make an excuse or beg to be welcomed back into the family.
And so, it should come as no surprise that we see in our Scripture Passage for this morning that at the end of this present age the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, comes down to us—we don’t go up to it.
It’s all God’s doing from the beginning to the end.
God created us, God searched for us when we went astray; God died for us, God makes it possible for us to believe this and accept it, and finally, a loud voice from the throne of God proclaims: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people…
…They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
Ultimately, this is all God’s design, God’s desire, God’s idea…
…not ours.
It’s all a gift from beginning to end, and thus it is all Perfect Grace.
And to top it off, we are called God’s Bride!
God has been trying to woo us to Himself from the very beginning.
It is God Who fell in love with you and me even before we were born.
It is God Who has made the first move and has never given up on us no matter how many times we have turned away.
God has been courting us all along; did we even know it?
(pause)
A counselor summed up his career this way:
“Many years ago, I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems are these: the failure to understand, receive and live out God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people.”
This sounds to me like the failure to live out the Greatest Commandment, as put forth by Jesus Himself: “Love God and love other people.”
For us to truly love God—not to mouth the words because we are afraid of the consequences of not doing so—is to first receive God’s love.
Receiving God’s love transforms our lives and our worldview to the point where we can begin to love others because we have been loved with the true source of REAL LOVE
…because without experiencing God’s love, how in the world can we even know what real love is?
I can say, “I love chocolate or I love pleasure or I love money.”
But that is not real love.
Real love is unconditional, unselfish, and constant.
For instance, if chocolate suddenly no longer tasted good to me, I would no longer say I loved it.
But unconditional love is a love that continues even when others hurt us.
It is a love that loves even our enemies.
It is really the greatest form of grace.
It is free.
It is unmerited.
It is a gift offered and given to another.
It is of God.
How are you doing, how am I doing at offering the grace God gives us to others?
Erma Bombeck, who used to write a popular newspaper column from 1965 until she died in 1996 once, wrote the following: “In church the other Sunday, I was watching a small child who was turning around and smiling at everyone.
He wasn’t making noise, spitting up, kicking, tearing the hymnals, or rummaging through his mother’s purse.
He was just smiling.
Finally, his mother jerked him around and in a loud whisper that everyone could hear said, ‘Stop that grinning! You are in church!’
With that, she sat him down in the seat roughly and as the tears rolled down his cheeks added, ‘That’s better,’ and then returned to her prayers…”
Bombeck continues, “Suddenly, I was angry.
It occurred to me that the entire world is in tears, and if you’re not, then you better get with it.
I wanted to hold this child with the tear-stained face close to me and tell him about my God.
The happy God.
The smiling God.
The loving God.
The grace-filled God.
The God who had the sense of humor to have created the likes of us…
…What a fool, I thought.
Here is a woman sitting next to the only light left in our civilization—the only hope, our only miracle—our only promise of infinity.
If this child couldn’t smile in church, where was there left to go?”
Are we a smiling church?
Are we graceful to one another?
Do we offer one another the degree of grace that God offers us?
If we do, we will grow.
If we don’t, we will die.
Before Jesus was taken off to be crucified, He told His disciples: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this, everyone will know you are my disciples if you love one another.”
Love and grace are meant to distinguish the Church of Jesus Christ from the hard and cold world.
Every institution runs on the opposite of grace and the insistence that we earn our way.
Justice departments, airline frequent-flyer programs, and mortgage companies can’t operate by grace.
Government hardly knows the word.
A sports franchise rewards those who complete passes, throw strikes, or make baskets, and has no place for those who fail.
Fortune Magazine annually lists the five hundred richest people; no one knows the names of the five hundred poorest.
How did you first experience grace?
Or have you?
Author Phillip Yancey writes: “Grace did not come to me initially in the forms or words of faith.
I grew up in a church that often used the word but meant something else, such as legalism.
Grace, like many religious words, had been leached of meaning.”
It was only through a person who conveyed grace that he learned what grace is.
And through that relationship, he came to know God.
Love and grace are why people turn to Jesus.
People don’t come to Christ in order to secure fire-insurance.
Or if that is the reason, it’s probably not real, and it most likely won’t last long or go deep.
(pause)
Love and grace are how people will know.
Love and grace are of God.
As a matter of fact—they are the essence of God; they are Who God is.
In our Scripture passage for this morning, John is given a most amazing revelation.
God shows John that God’s desire is to live with us forever and ever and ever.
And it’s not just about living with us…it’s about loving and sheltering us.
“He will wipe every tear” from our eyes; the angel tells John, “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.”
And then John notices a curious thing: “I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”
The focal point for generations was the temple.
It was thought to be the dwelling place of God.
But now, God has become the dwelling place.
Not only that, but God is also the light, shining and radiant.
There will no longer be a need for the sun and the moon, not to mention electric lights.
As we read on into Chapter 22, John writes, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.
On each side of the river stood the tree of life…no longer will there be any curse.”
This is the same tree of life that used to stand in the Garden of Eden in Genesis, from which, the first humans were no longer able to eat due to the fall of humankind.
But because of the grace of God and only because of God’s grace, we will return to the garden.
God will dwell with us.
We will dwell in Him.
“We will see his face, and his name will be on” our foreheads.
This is grace—perfect grace given to faulty humans whom God is head over heals in love with.
Are you a receiver of this grace?
Have you met Jesus?
Do you know He loves you despite your sins, your flaws, your past?
Have you experienced this?
If so, how does it affect your life in the here and now?
Walter Wink tells of two peacemakers who visited a group of Polish Christians ten years after the end of World War 2.
“Would you be willing to meet with other Christians from West Germany?” the peacemakers asked.
“They want to ask forgiveness for what Germany did to Poland during the war and to begin to build a new relationship.”
At first there was silence.
Then one Pole spoke up.
“What you are asking is impossible.
Each stone of Warsaw is soaked in Polish blood!
We cannot forgive!”
Before the group left, however, they said the Lord’s Prayer together.
When they got to the words “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive…”
Everyone stopped praying.
Tension swelled in the room.
The Pole who had spoken so vehemently said, “I must say yes to you. I could no more pray the Our Father, I could no longer call myself a Christian, if I refuse to forgive.
Humanly speaking, I cannot do it, but God will give us his strength.”
Eighteen months later, the Polish and West German Christians met together in Vienna, establishing friendships that continue to this day.
We love because Christ first loved us.
We are to extend grace because Christ has extended it to us.
In this way, others will come to know Christ and the Perfect Grace which comes from God.
And one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth with a tree, the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations.
And the throne of God will be there.
We will no longer need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give us all the light we need.
And we will be with God and one another forever and ever and ever.
Let us pray:
Dear God, we thank You for the Perfect Grace given to us through Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ the Lord.
Enable us to accept this grace for ourselves and extend it to others.
We look forward to the day when wars, violence, pain, suffering and all the rest will be no more.
And we thank you for the promise of eternal life with you.
In Jesus’ name, we pray.
Amen.
