When Jonathon and Daniel were younger, I used to say to them, “You’re full of blarney!” To which they would respond, “BJ!” as they thought I said that they were “full of Barney the dinosaur” because BJ is Barney’s friend.
“You’re full of it” is an expression we use either in teasing or in all seriousness when we reply to someone who makes claims that are outrageous or self-centered. Being full of it is an indicator that someone believes your attitudes and/or ideas are out of shape and out of touch with reality. It is a statement about what is inside you and Jesus had something to say about that from time to time.
In Matthew 15, a discussion takes place between Jesus and the Pharisees about what makes a person unclean or unholy. The Pharisees said it was the lack of following certain traditions such as ceremonial hand washing that made one unholy or unclean. Jesus replies that it was something deeper.
In verses 10 and 11 He says, “Then Jesus called to the crowds and said, “Listen to what I say and try to understand. You are not defiled by what you eat; you are defiled by what you say and do.” He goes on to say in verses 17 through 20: “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes out of the body. But evil words come from an evil heart and defile the person who says them. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands could never defile you and make you unacceptable to God!”
For a few moments this morning I want to have each of us ask our selves, “What am I full of?” by considering the importance of being full of grace – God’s grace and we begin our reflection with a review of our dramatic reading for this morning.
Joseph was in a tough place and he had two choices to make – one was to turn his back on Mary (and as we read in Matthew 1:19 he had determined to do that so as to not cause her public disgrace) or he could accept the word of the Lord via the angel and marry her, which he did. What made him choose the second option? What kept him from deciding to make a clean break with Mary? After all, Joseph had a reputation of being a “righteous or just” man. That description gives us an answer to why Joseph chose to marry Mary and become the earthly father of Jesus Christ.
Joseph was a “righteous and just” man because he was full of God’s grace. But what is grace let alone God’s grace?
The Greek word that is translated grace is charis that is related to joy or chara. It ties in with the ancient Hebrew words of hen that means to be favorably inclined toward someone and the word hesed that means faithfulness.
Grace then is a favorable attitude or disposition toward someone by someone. In other words, God was favorably inclined toward Joseph and Mary.
There are three important things about grace that we need to remember this morning and they may be what we don’t expect to hear about grace.
In Ephesians 2:8 and 9, Paul writes, “God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”
We need to remember first that grace is a gift that comes freely from the heart of God. I would also suggest this morning that grace is perhaps the most important Christmas gift because God in His grace loves us so much that He sent Jesus Christ to earth to bring us back to Him. God’s grace is also at work through the work of the Holy Spirit to help us become favorably inclined toward God. (That is called “previenent grace” or “grace that helps us be open to God.)
These are actions from the very heart and love of God that we cannot replicate or take credit for because it is a gift and a gift that is truly given comes from the heart of the person who gives it because that person is favorably inclined toward us just like God is!
I cannot tell you why God chose Mary … and Joseph to be the earthly parents of Jesus, but He did! But I do think that we can say with some certainty that God saw a grace and openness in Mary and Joseph that contributed to God making them a part of His plan. They did not choose this tremendous gift of life in the form of the baby Jesus; they received it however with obedience and faith that God honors in all who are so inclined.
Again, Paul reminds us just how great God’s grace and love is in Romans 5 and verses 6 and 8. “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners…God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” In these verses, we find a second thing about grace that is very important. Grace is rooted in the reality of the human condition.
The very act of sending Jesus to earth is one important proof of this statement for why God’s heart is “inclined toward us.” The human condition is in terrible, terrible shape and only the grace and forgiveness offered by God through Jesus Christ can truly change the human condition! God knew that when Adam and Eve disobeyed a direct order not to eat a certain fruit in the garden and from that point forward God saw first hand the terribleness of the human condition. Jesus acknowledges that in his comments that we have just read from Matthew “from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you.”
The world, into which the baby Jesus was born, was a world in turmoil just like ours. There was war and occupation by foreign armies. There were families torn apart by conflict, greed, resentment, and a whole host of other things. Children were abused and mistreated. Divorce took place and was probably easier to get than today. But, God in His great love was “favorably inclined” toward the human race in spite of centuries of disobedience and disregard of Him!
Grace is not a fragile thing. It is not one of the characteristics and attitudes of God that was designed to sit on a shelf like a fragile peace of china to be admired and looked at from a distance. Grace is a tough thing. It gets down from the shelf, it goes out into the streets and avenues of humanity, and it calls out, “Come home! Come to God! Come to Christ!”
Grace is tough and cannot be abused or misused. Grace is not something we can used to “wink” sin and the need for deep and profound change in our life that only God can make. To do so is to make a mockery of Christmas and Easter.
Paul wrote in Romans 6 and verses 15 and 16, “So since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does this mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! Don’t you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval.”
We cannot misuse or abuse grace as some kind of a lightweight response to “our character flaws” because of the third thing that we need to remember about grace: Grace is a very expensive gift.
Jim, just how expensive a gift is grace? What did it cost God the Father? His only Son! What did it cost God the Son? Great pain and suffering and, for a time, His life!
Nearly 60 years ago, the Nazis just prior to his prison camp being liberated by the Allies, executed a German pastor named Dietrich Bonhoffer. Bonhoffer had become a member of a resistance movement to Hitler and the Nazi regime of Germany. He wrote several books including one titled, The Cost of Discipleship.
The first chapter of the book is titled, Costly Grace. In the opening paragraph he writes, “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church…The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits.”
He goes onto say a few pages later, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
Now we need to remember that Bonhoffer came from a high-church perspective that was liturgical and less “free” than our church is. But, his point is Biblical because several times throughout the gospels Jesus reminded His followers and His audiences that to follow God required great sacrifice. The story of the Rich Young Ruler and the statements to those who said, “I want to follow you Lord, but first let me…” are cases in point.
Now Jesus is right in John 3 when He speaks of God’s love as a motivation for sending His Son to die for the sins of the world. God’s love for us is great! He loves us deeply and profoundly. But that love is a love that is different from our contemporary version of love that has no boundaries or limits.
Many years ago now, the love and grace of God put me in a corner because I had abused and misused that love and grace. I had been living as if a flippant “I’m sorry” from time to time would do the trick to keep me right with God.
In Hebrews 12 we read, “For the Lord disciplines those he loves…Whoever heard of a child who was never disciplined?”
The purpose of good discipline, divine and human, is to correct us, not punish us, so that we live the right way. Grace uses discipline from time to time to remind us that there are boundaries and limits to life.”
I had to be reminded of that back then and it was not pleasant. But because the Lord was still “favorably inclined” toward me, He would not give up on me and so He put me in a corner for a while so that I would surrender all over again to Him and so that grace, His grace would sweep my life clean. Grace is costly.
Now some of you this morning are asking, “Gee Jim, why such a heavy sermon for Christmas time?” “Why can’t we have a nice warm sermon with snow flakes and mistletoe and hot chocolate and love like they have on the Hallmark Channel?”
I have no problem with warmth and snowflakes. In fact, I have no problem with chocolate for as I recently read in my daily funny from Mikey’s Funnies.com, “Save our planet...it’s the only one with chocolate!” And I certainly have no problem with mistletoe, especially when Susan is underneath it!
But we don’t live in a “Hallmark” world. We live in a world more like “TNT!”
Such was the world in which Mary and Joseph lived and into which Jesus was born. I would remind us again this morning, “God is still favorably inclined toward us” because as we have heard Paul say this morning, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.”
There are days when I think that our entertainment world is way, way off base. There are days when I think that it should just shutdown and start over.
But then there are moments when out of that world, out of that culture, a character comes along and stops us cold and makes us truly think about our lives and the assumptions that we make about them. I believe that one such character is present this Christmas season.
It’s not Ebenezer Scrooge! It is not the Grinch although I think we see grace at work in that story for what else would make his heart grow three sizes! It is not necessarily the conductor on the Polar Express although he exhibits grace through patience with the main character!
The character I am thinking of is Luther Krank in the movie “Christmas with the Kranks”! Here is this upper middle class person who lives in the suburbs who really represents all of us in so many different ways.
He is “cranky.” He is self-serving. He becomes indifferent to the feelings of others. Yet his ill neighbor keeps bringing him back to reality. Toward the end of the movie, he stands in the middle of the street, alone, between his house and that of his ailing neighbor and looks first at his beautiful daughter and wife along with his friends and neighbors and his future son-in-law. He then looks back at his ill neighbor and her husband who are in the twilight of their lives (and she closer to death) and grace invades his heart as he realizes what he truly has and where he is in life.
That experience makes him do a graceful thing as he gives this older couple a gift that has cost him a great deal of time and money. His heart became “favorably inclined” toward them. (What was the gift? Go see the movie!) Luther was full of grace and it changed him for the better.
As we conclude this morning I ask you during this Christmas season, “What are you full of?”
God is “favorably inclined” toward us in spite of all the poison in our hearts and souls. He loves us with a great love that keeps pursuing us even when we turn our backs on it.
This morning, I offer you the gift of grace – God’s grace. “Grace that is greater than all our sin.” It is free, it is a gift, and it is costly as it costs our personal agendas and plans for the freedom and joy and life of God’s agendas and plans.
What it requires on your part is a simple act of faith and belief in God through Christ as you make the personal decision to confess your sins to God, repent (or turn away) from them, allow Christ into your heart, and for this point forward to obey God and follow Him for the rest of your life.
Would you like to do that this morning? You can! Let us bow our heads for a moment and for those of you that would like to make that commitment this morning, I ask that you simply pray something like this, “Jesus, I realized today that I need your forgiveness. I have sinned. I am graceless. I admit to that sin in my life. I turn away from and ask that you forgive me of my sin. I choose to live for you and with you from this point forward. Thank for answering this prayer of confession. Amen.”
