*I’ve tried to give credit to the source when credit is due, but much of the information hase been in my file for some time and I cannot remember the source. If you see any information in this sermon and can identify the source, please let me know so I can give due credit.
MEANS OF GRACE
by Byron K. Maynard
(Reflections of God’s Goodness)
So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace . And if by grace , then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace .
Rom 11:5-6 NIV
Of all the talks given this weekend this is the one which could cause the most disagreement. We must agree that there will be some disagreements.
Means of grace are tools that God uses to produce and strengthen faith in a person.
Means of Grace are means of illustrating God’s grace at work. They are conduits which help us better understand God. They are not an end in themselves. They are not means of attaining grace. Only through Jesus Christ can we obtain such grace. Means of Grace help us understand real grace. The means of grace are the visual aids God uses in our lives to accomplish the goal of grace, transformation though the atoning work of Jesus Christ.
Real grace which calls people to real holiness. The means by which we can understand how we can rise above our bankrupt and ruined lives. Real grace draws us closer to Jesus than ever before. "Prove" the Bible says, "what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." That is, live it out, put it to the test, test the character of what God is willing to do through you. By grace we live an experience that is "good."
But so many who claim to be living under grace are not living an experience that is good; they are living an experience that is at best marginal. So many Christians are living beneath their privileges. Why settle for an enhanced experience of death, when we can live an exchanged experience of life? The Christian life is not a modification or improvement of the old, but a transformation into the new life. There is a death to self and sin, and a resurrection into a new life.
We have already heard about prevenient grace - God wooing us to himself, and justifying grace - us receiving this marvelous grace that God has to offer. The means of grace helps us to see that living a consistent life of daily anointing in Christ is ongoing possibility. Real grace transforms the minds of those who let it into their minds. Real grace will really change you. Otherwise it is not real grace. The means of grace teaches you the daily object lessons to help you maintain strength to experiences this victorious life in Christ.
The Christian life is the uninhibited response to the gospel, a life that stretches our abilities and imaginations.
The gospel invites us to abundant and eternal living. It comes to us as our lives are weak, stuck, battered, burdened, broken, and perishing. We are still in a mess, God is watching us, working among us, and weaving even unlikely elements of creation into place to bless us and redeem our misdirected, mistreated lives.
The gospel calls us to personal, radical, and urgent conversion. We are called to a new and liberated way of living, the Way of Jesus. As we take up the path of discipleship, we are transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ, living our lives as Christ to one another.
What are means of grace? They are first of all, created things, thing that belong to our world, to the world in which we live, with which we have contact. There are adapted to us, they touch us, and are able to influence us. We can see them, we can touch them, we can understand, intellectually apprehend them. We can use them, eat them, drink them.
The preaching of the Word means that Christ and salvation, which in themselves belong to another world than ours, to the supernatural, heavenly world, now, through the means of grace they are proclaimed in our language. The purpose of the means of grace is to help us see Jesus more clearly on a daily basis.
The means of grace, when separated from the end (God), are less than nothing and full of hollowness; if they do not actually draw us to the knowledge and love of God, they are not acceptable in his sight.
Definition of the Means of Grace:
The means of grace are those acts of worship, instituted by Christ and celebrated by Christians, in which we are visited in a special way by God’s Holy Spirit.
The are sacred moments in which Chris is re-presented - incarnational moments.
History of the Sacraments:
For 12 - 13 centuries, there were two sacraments recognized by churches: baptism and communion. Then at the Council of Trent, 1341, in an attempt to respond to the sacramental needs of the people, five more were instituted: penance, holy orders, matrimony, confirmation, and extreme unction. During the Protestant reformation, most churches returned to the original two, because the means of grace was being confused as the source of grace. That merely doing them was grace. Therefore as people were participating, and performing, and abiding by the means of grace they felt they were pleasing God. Often there was no heart felt transforming in Christ. Christianity to some became a religion of works.
The sacraments were intended to only be a picture of God’s redemptive work in the believer.
Catholic/ Eastern Orthodox/
Anglican Tradition:
(Sacrament = Gk: "musterion" or mystery of God; or translated in Latin: "sacramentum"
Baptism
Eucharist
Confirmation
Holy Orders
Holy Matrimony
Extreme Unction (Anointing the sick)
Penance - receiving forgiveness from the pastor as from God himself.
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The sacraments can be broken down to three categories:
Sacraments of initiation (the work of God in the heart of the believer): Baptism; the Eucharist; Confirmation. A period of purification and enlightenment.
Sacraments of healing: Reconciliation; Anointing the Sick
Sacraments of Vocation: Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders
The intent of practicing these sacred moments is to make the presence of God more real.
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Roman Catholic /
And a Few Protestant Traditons such as: Anglican /Episcopal / Eastern Orthodox Sacraments:(Means of Grace consisted of seven –Originally there were as many as thirty but were eventually reduced to seven.)
Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist are sacraments of Christian initiation
They confer the graces needed for the life according to the Spirit during this life as pilgrims on the march towards the homeland.
Baptism -
Eucharist - (Protestants commonly refer to it as Communion or the Lord’s Supper)
Confirmation - is know what God did (study); repenting of one’s past (knowing who one is in Christ); accepting what God has done for us in Jesus Christ (act of will); having a changed heart ( re-birth); and acting on one’s new commitment (witness Jesus in the world)
The next two sacraments, Holy Orders and Matrimony, are directed towards the salvation of others; if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is through service to others that they do so. They confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to build up the People of God.
Holy Orders - episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate. Holy Orders is a Sacrament by which bishops, priests, and other ministers of the Church are ordained and receive the power and grace to perform their sacred duties. To receive Holy Orders worthily it is necessary to be in the state of grace, to have the necessary knowledge and a divine call to this sacred office. Christians should look upon the priests of the Church as the messengers of God and the dispensers of His mysteries.
Holy Matrimony - The primary task in a marriage is to give 100% of yourself. The New Testament draws several parallels between the marriage bond and the relationship that exist between Christ and the church.
Extreme Unction - anointing with oil as a symbol of repentance and healing, usually when a person is on death bed. Extreme Unction is the Sacrament which, through the anointing and prayer of the priest, gives health and strength to the soul, and sometimes to the body, when we are in danger of death from sickness. Extreme means last, and Unction means an anointing or rubbing with oil, and because. Extreme Unction may be given to all Christians dangerously ill, who have ever been capable of committing sin after baptism and who have the right dispositions for the Sacrament. Hence it is never given to children who have not reached the use of reason, nor to persons who have always been insane. The parts of the body anointed in Extreme Unction are: The eyes, the ears, the nose or nostrils, the lips, the hands and the feet, because these represent our senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, which are the means through which we have committed most of our sins. everything about the sick-room, the sick person and even the attendants, should be made as neat and clean as possible. Especially should the face, hands and feet of the one to be anointed be thoroughly clean.
Penance - confessing sin and preforming a penalty for it. Confess to the priest as a symbol of confessing to God.
Protestant Sacraments:
(Observed and acknowledged by the majority Protestant Denominations --Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Episcopal, Lutheran & Other Traditions, Etc., Some Denominations may acknowledge and practice a few other Sacraments othe than the basic two)
The two most common Sacraments practiced by Protestant Traditions are:
Baptism - a sign and testimony of God’s grace, awakening and creating faith. Here we receive Christ’s body and blood and God’s gifts of forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation to received by faith for the strengthening of faith. Baptism is a sign that each person is sinful and needs salvation. We are liberated from sin and death by being joined to the death and resurrection of Jesus. In baptism we are given the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ.
The Lord’s Supper - is a sign of Christ’s death providing life for those who believe in Him. It is a sign that I am to feed on Christ for spiritual food and growth. Holy communion accentuates the holy koinonia (community) established by the Holy Spirit as we encounter Christ and are formed into one body with him and so with each other.
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We must remember, there may be many "means (or pictures)of grace, but they are not an end in themselves. Christ is the end. He is above all and over all.
Abraham Kuyper reminds us, "What you need is the anointing of grace itself, not merely a reflection of it. "
Before you use any means, let it be deeply impressed on your soul; there is no power in this. It is, in itself, a poor dead empty thing.
In using all means (or pictures of grace), seek God alone. In and through every outward thing; look singly to the power of His Spirit; and the merits of his Son.
God calls the Church to exercise care and adherence in its use of the means of grace, so that all people may hear and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be gathered into God’s own mission for the life of the world.
The New Testament word that is usually translated "grace" in Greek charis, which literally means "gift."
"The nature of Divine grace in not only to open to those who knock, but also to cause them to knock and ask." Augustine
"If we really believe that we are helpless to save ourselves, as Christians any more than pagans, the Sacraments become for us not a means for attaining grace, but for receiving grace."
Means of grace are tools that God uses to produce and strengthen faith in a person. Preaching is the primary means of grace and the sacraments are secondary means.
The sacraments are connected to salvation but they are not necessary for salvation. They are meant to strengthen faith and to help me understand my salvation.
Sacraments are for the eyes, the teaching of sacraments is for the heart.
The Means of Grace are means by which God brings us to faith in Christ, and sustains us in that faith throughout our earthly lives.
We use our baptism when we daily repent of our sins and take comfort in the fact that God has baptized us into the atoning blood of our Savior.
We use the Lord’s Supper when we receive forgiveness of our sins and when we receive the very body and blood of Jesus that He gave for our sins.
The Sacraments strengthen our faith in Jesus. This faith is the very thing that saves us.
Christ came to give his life for us. To be an agent of forgiveness, of restoration, of transformation. To be the means of grace to us. We are to go and do likewise as we empty ourselves for others.
Ways in which we are touched/transformed by God. In a world of yearning and brokenness, the church’s clarity about the Gospel is vital. God has promised to come to all through means of grace: the Word and the sacraments of Christ’s institution. As a church in this time, we seek to give and receive God’s Word and sacraments as full and reliable signs of Christ.
Discipleship is not a means of grace it is a response to grace.
______________Don’t mention in talk__________________
How could penance be a Sacrament, a means of grace from God to us, when in fact it consisted of three human acts (contrition, confession, and satisfaction--that is, making restitution)? Like many of the new Sacraments we invent as Protestants, medieval Rome had confused human actions (good and important as they are in the Christian life) with divine grace.
"Christ uses these sacraments, not only to represent and seal, but also actually to apply, the benefits of his redemption to believers."
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The Sacraments do not give us something different from the Word; rather, both conspire to give us Christ. We have no trouble when Scripture tells us that "the Word of God is living and powerful" (Heb. 4:12), or that the Gospel is "the power of God unto salvation" (Rom. 2:16).
The Reformers wanted to emphasize that the Sacraments, no less than the Word, are means of grace, made effective by God, not merely an occasion for grace, made effective by us.
God first appeared to us through His Word in his role as Creator. We learn nothing from general revelation that is able to save. It can lead us to the Gospel, but it is only in the Gospel given in Word and Sacrament where we see God in the particular act of saving people. The Grand Canyon can show you God’s majesty, but only special revelation--in particular, the Gospel of Christ, reveals God the Redeemer as your Savior. Omnipresent Spirit has met us in the Incarnate Word, and he continues to meet us but only where he has promised to meet us for the purpose of saving us.
We are not called to obey in order to be blessed. We are called to obey because we have been blessed, immeasurably, in Christ. "Now you are light in the Lord; walk (therefore) as children of light." (Ephesians 5:8)
God calls the Church to exercise care and adherence in its use of the means of grace, so that all people may hear and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be gathered into God’s own mission for the life of the world.
Many not only failed to be sanctioned by Christ, but were recent in origin (dating officially from the 13th century). Further, they did not offer grace, but merit. Was marriage a divine action, or a human pledge? Is God rewarding me by making these vows or is he bestowing unmerited favor? It is quite strange to think of marriage as the bestowal of the Gospel, a means of grace rather than a Christian vow. How could penance be a Sacrament, a means of grace from God to us, when in fact it consisted of three human acts (contrition, confession, and satisfaction--that is, making restitution)? Like many of the new Sacraments we invent as Protestants, medieval Rome had confused human actions (good and important as they are in the Christian life) with divine grace.
We allow farther, that the use of all means whatever will never atone for one sin; that it is the blood of Christ alone, whereby any sinner can be reconciled to God; there being no other propitiation for our sins, no other fountain for sin and uncleanness. Every believer in Christ is deeply convinced that there is no merit but in Him; that there is no merit in any of his own works; not in uttering the prayer, or searching the Scripture, or hearing the word of God, or eating of that bread and drinking of that cup. So that if no more be intended by the expression some have used, "Christ is the only means of grace," than this
Lutherans ever since: sola fide, sola scriptura, sola gratia. This was not a Madison Avenue approach to define what Luther taught--it is a term with substance. Against the Calvinist use of Reason Luther answered, "Sola fide (by faith alone)". When confronted with Rome’s use of Tradition, Luther answered, "Sola scriptura (by scripture alone)". To both, when their doctrines led to work-righteousness, Luther answered, "Sola gratia (by grace alone)"
"The Bible wasn’t given for our information, but for our transformation." D.L. Moody
Application is the central reason for God’s revelation.
