MK040 Sermons
The Gift of Grace (Audio)
my son and I were in the car together, and as we were driving on our way back from Coatsville through an unnamed town from here to there, we were coming down, we were coming down this steep hill, came around the bend, pulled through a stop sign, all of a sudden I saw flashing lights behind me, and my son was like, where did that come from? And what's that all about, dad? And for those who don't know, my son's 17 just started driving recently. So he's like, I didn't think you did anything wrong, like I certainly didn't either, you know? So, you know, pull over and the officer says, is this your car? And I'm like, yeah, it's my car. Never been asked that one before when I got pulled over. But he proceeded to inform me that I was 13 miles an hour over the speed limit. And because I was 13 miles an hour over the speed limit, he had to write me a nice little ticket. And in spite of the fact that I didn't think I deserved it 'cause I wasn't in a hurry, I've been asked that a few times when I've been pulled over, where are you in a hurry for it? Where are you in a hurry, day sir? I broke the law and I was hit with the consequence of the ticket. And so as you think about consequences that come your way, what are some consequences that might come your way in these scenarios? You're taking a test in your eyes, a room next to the person next to you. And right as that moment as you pick your head up, the teacher makes eye contact with you and you are expecting some consequences. You don't practice hard enough and you're kind of just taking it easy and you get in the game with your arch rival and all of a sudden you realize you didn't put in the time and effort and preparation and you're about to be embarrassed and you know what the consequences are that are coming your direction. You're in a dating relationship and you treat that person poorly and you don't think a whole lot of it until all of a sudden you're the relationship status change and you realize there's consequences for your actions. You don't put in the time, necessary time at work on a project and what comes time for a bonus, you know what the consequences are going to be. You have them making time for your wife and you want some intimate time with her and you know what the consequences will be for those actions. You fudge the numbers on your income tax and you get a call or letter in the mail saying that you're about to be audited and you know what those consequences are going to be. You cut corners on a job and the client gives you a call and you're like oh no, I've been had and you know what those consequences are going to be. But what if instead of the expected consequences, what if instead of what you anticipate was coming down the pike that you were going to experience? What if instead you experienced grace? What if instead of failing that test the teacher came in and said I'm going to give you a second chance? What if instead your opponent didn't run up the score? They let the clock run out. What if your boyfriend gives you another chance or your boss included you in that group that got a bonus? Your wife says I'd love to be with you. The IRS says just pay what you owe with no penalties. And the client says instead of firing you, I'll give you a chance to finish the job. What is it like to experience grace? And when was the last time you experienced an undeserved favor in your life? Something completely undeserved that came your way. If you haven't been with us this month, we've been spending time looking at the gifts of Christmas and some gifts that you might be surprised by, some gifts that when you receive them, they're unexpected. Tim talked a couple weeks ago about the gift of generosity and what would it look like for me to be able to give generously every opportunity that came my way? And he shared with us some opportunities that we've had here as a church to do that. And we'll have some more of our benevolence offering on Christmas Eve and our Studio 252 kids back raising money for kids to provide malaria nets for them. And they'll tell you more about that. Stop at their table in the back and ask them about it. And then last week we talked about the gift of words. And if you weren't here with us, I challenge you, encourage you to go back and listen to either of those two messages. But we talked about offering the gift of words that matter, words that have weight. And because our words have weight, we should weigh our words very carefully. Well, this would go on to talk about the gift of grace. And as we've done every week, I've encouraged-- we've provided an opportunity to give a gift to someone who wasn't expecting it. So on everybody to reach under the front of your chair and someone should have a little white, yellow sticky under the front of your chair. Everybody reach underneath your chair. Right in the front there. Somebody should hold it up if you got the yellow sticky. Come on up here, Ethan. You got the yellow sticky. So come on up here. All right, so he probably doesn't want a Lowe's gift card. He probably doesn't want that. Probably doesn't want an Applebee's gift card. $25 you can do whatever you want. How's that? All right, give him a hand. He got the gift. Now, Ethan, did you come and ask me before the service where to sit? OK, just check him. Just want to make sure he didn't do it. Did you do any work for me this week that I had to pay you for? OK, just check him, just check him. So he just got that gift just because of where he sat. No other reason, other than where he sat this morning. And we're going to talk about these kinds of gifts, the gifts of grace. Because the reality is most of us want to extend grace, unmerited favor. But the reality is most of us don't like to admit that we need grace. We don't like to admit we need grace. Because to admit that I need grace means that I have to be at a place of need, a place where I am at someone else's mercy. I need someone else to help me. No need to show a hand. But how many of you want to be at the place where you need someone else's help? You're at the mercy of someone else physically. You're trying to lift something, and you need someone else's help. How about the mercy of someone relationally? You can't figure this thing out, and you've got to get some help with it. How about the mercy of someone financially? You are stuck. You have more bills than you have money to pay, and you need someone's help. How about the mercy of someone intellectually? You have a problem to figure out, and you do not know how to solve it. And you've got to get someone to help you with it. The reality is, is if I took a poll of the teenage and young adult men in this room and asked them, how many of you like to be at the mercy of someone else? I doubt I would get many takers. But I think if I took a poll of the men in this room that are 30 and 40 years old, most of them would not put their hands up and say, I want to be at the mercy of someone else and need their help. And it's not just guys. It's ladies that as well. But the reality is, is until you are at a place of need where you cannot do something yourself, you rarely will know and experience grace. You rarely will know and experience grace until you've blown it, until you've messed up big time, until you've gotten yourself stuck in a place where you do not know how to get your way out. You're out of options. You're out of ideas. All your plans, all your strategies, everything you've tried in the past doesn't work. It's only then do you get a taste of what grace is truly about. And this value that is so vitally important for us to understand this morning is a value that's hard for us as a community to understand. Because we live in an area, we live in a community that's kind of a get it done community. Solve your problems, figure it out, make your way. And sometimes we can be perceived as weak if we ask others for help. But this morning we're going to look at a passage of scripture that dies into this issue of grace. And so if you have your Bibles, if you would turn with me to Ephesians chapter 2, if you have your Bible or a wireless device, a tablet or phone, if you don't have a Bible with you our guys have some of them and they'll make them available. Ephesians chapter 2 is where we're going to start this morning. And as you're turning to Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians is a book that was written by the Apostle Paul. And so he's writing a letter to a group that had helped us start a church in the city of Ephesus. And in the city of Ephesus, he'd help to start this church. And he was now away, likely in prison. And he's writing this letter back to them, saying to them, let me tell you some things that are important for you to know and understand and remember. So we're there in the book of Ephesians chapter 2. And Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1, Paul begins by making a statement that is going to be hard for us to hear. And the thing Paul says in the very beginning is he says, you are worse than you think. You are worse than you think. The truth is most of us don't think we're that bad. I mean, for goodness sakes, you took time out on Sunday morning to get up and come to church on a beautiful day like this, you can't be all that bad. Some of you may have been here for two services because you are serving and some of you may have given something in the offering boxes. Well, you can't be a pretty decent group of people. But Paul says, the painful reality is that you are worse than you think. You are worse than you think. Look what he says in Ephesians 2 verse 1. He says, as for you, you are dead in your transgressions and sins and not talking about a physical death. He's talking about inside spiritually. There's something about your spirit inside that's just not functioning right. There's a deadness about you. You know, it's a little bit like this drill here. This drill looks like any other drill. There's a whole lot of drills like this drill. But if I go to squeeze the trigger, there's nothing, right? It's dead. It looks like a drill. It's got a bit and it should function like a drill. It should do everything a drill should do. But there's a problem with the drill. And it is dead. It is dead. And Paul says the reality is, and he's saying, as for you, he's writing to a bunch of Gentiles, non-Jews, which I would assume most of this room likely is that. He says, there was a point in your journey. There was a point in your spiritual journey where you were just like that. You were dead. You looked like you should be able to function. You had all the features. But you were dead in your transgressions and your sins. He goes on to describe why in verse 2, this is even harder to swallow, but he says in verse 2, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom era, the spirit who is now working those who are disobedient. He said, you follow the ruler of the kingdom of the air. There's another hard pill to swallow because Paul says, you're either following God and following the direction of your maker, your creator, the one who's designed you and said, this is the way you should live for you to experience life the best way possible. Or you have decided, you're not going to follow him. And if you're not following him, there's only one other person you're following, that's Satan. He said, but John, no, I'm not following Satan. I don't follow Satan. I just do what I want to do. I'm not fully into the God thing. I haven't bought into it completely. I'm here. I'm listening. But I'm not all the way there. I still-- you know, there's things I want to do. And it's about me. It's not about Satan. And God says, no, no, no. Paul says, no, no, no. He says, when you're dead, you're following Satan, prince, the ruler of the kingdom of the air. He goes on to describe what our condition is like in verse 3. He says this. He says, all of us have lived among them. Now Paul includes himself. You know, he's initially talking to the non-Jews. And then all of us, he's including himself, even the Jews. So does everybody that's ever lived? He describes three ways that we've lived, two ways in a result. The first is gratifying the cravings of our flesh. He said, the first way we've lived is we've just done what we wanted to do. Just paid attention to what we wanted to do. Didn't think about other people. Didn't think about other needs. If I want it, I'm going to take it. I'm going to get it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to have it. Gratifying the things that I want. And then he goes on to describe that a little bit more. And the second part of the verse he says, "And following its desires and thoughts." So not only did I think about the things that I wanted, but that's what I did. I thought about what I wanted, and then that's how I lived. My desires, my thoughts. My way, my time, all the time. You say, "But John, that's not really-- I'm not really that bad." Well, you know, every once in a while, I just kind of do what I want to do. And I don't really care what my wife or husband thinks or my parents-- I just want to do what I want to do. You know, don't you ever just get tired of doing what everybody else wants you to do, and you just want to do what you want to do? Yeah, I think we all do that. I'll do that. And Paul says, that is what is true about us. And the result is in the end there, he says, "We were by nature deserving of wrath." The result is, when we choose our way, when we choose a way opposed to God's design as our Creator, there's one result, and God says it is a judgment for our sinfulness. A consequence that we have to pay. We break God's laws and we pay the price for them. The Bible says, "The wages or the penalty for my sin, for my opposition to my Creator is death." Is spiritual death, separation from God? The problem is, we don't see ourselves as being that bad. You say, "But John, I've never had my name in the police report in the effort or review. It's never shown up there." You know, it's never shown up there. I haven't had my name. My picture hasn't gotten shown on channel 11 or channel 13, or channel 12. Because I got arrested and they flashed my picture. That hasn't happened to me. And God forbid, I've never shot anything like those San Bernardino Terrace. So our first struggle with understanding this gift of grace is the fact that we do not see ourselves as bad as we are. And God literally says that we are hopelessly, hopelessly lost. Paul puts it this way. He says, "Every person who's ever lived has sinned." We've all missed God's target. And we've come up short of God's glorious ideal. We've come up short. But as hard as it is to accept the fact that we are not as bad as we think we are, the converse of that is God is better than you can even imagine. He's better than you ever dreamed possible. Look what Paul goes on to say in verse 4. He says this, "But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy." You know, grace is unmerited favor. Grace is getting something. We didn't do anything to deserve it. You know, like Ethan got that gift card. He didn't do anything to deserve it. He just got that's unmerited favor. Mercy is when I deserve something. And instead of getting the penalty, I get to go free. Mercy is when you get pulled over and the officer says, "Take it easy when you're driving. Have a nice day, ma'am, you know, or sir, you know, and let you go." I don't know if I subtly did that, that women get off more than men. I don't know that, you know, subtle thing. Or when you say something cruel to someone and inside your spirit, you know, like, "Oh, I shouldn't have said that." And you're like bracing yourself for what's going to come at you from the other person. And as you're bracing yourself for what's going to come at you, they speak to you in a gracious way and you're like, "Wow, I did not deserve that. I clearly didn't deserve that." You see, that's mercy. And Paul says God is rich in mercy. He has loads and loads and loads and loads of mercy. Jeremiah said it this way in the Book of Lamentations. He says, "God's mercy is our new every morning. Every day we wake up and every day we take a step out of our bin. Every day we live life. God pours out his mercy to us." And the reason he does that is because of his incredible love. And the result of that is what he makes possible in verse 5. He says, "He made us alive with Christ. Even when we are dead, it's by grace you have been saved." What is this idea about being saved? We talk about that church, talk about that in church. What does it mean to be saved? Well, to be saved, there's two things that have to happen. The first thing that has to happen is to be saved. You have to be in danger. You have to be in trouble. You have to need to be rescued and not be able to help yourself. That's when you need to be saved. And the second thing that needs to happen is there has to be a savior. There has to be someone that's going to rescue you. There has to be someone who's going to redeem you. There's someone that's going to deliver you. That's going to spare you from this situation that you had no way to get yourself out of. Sander McCracken on her album, "Live Under the Light and Wire," shares a story of two boys in Mississippi who spent their days growing up along the banks of the Mississippi River. Playing by the sandbag levees that held back the extreme flooding from the Mississippi River. And one time these two boys were playing near one of the levees, and as they were playing near one of the levees, they encountered some quick sand resulting from breach in the levee. And when rescue workers finally found them, they only found the younger brother. And they said to him, "Where is your older brother?" And he said to them, "I'm standing on his shoulders." He gave his life for me. And see, that's what Jesus did. Because the reality is that you and I are sinking in a quick sand called my own sin. And there's no way possible for us to get ourselves out of it. And the more we attempt to get ourselves out of it, the more we get mired in it. And it's not until someone climbs in there with us in the muck and mire of our lives and says, "Stand on by shoulders." And gives up his life. And not only does he give up his life, but when the rescue workers come to deliver us out of our own sin, their name is Jesus as well. I want us to take a couple minutes and just sit with the reality of this. Sit with the truth of what Jesus has done. The Bible says that he came to this earth and then he lived on this earth and he died on the cross to pay for the awfulness of my sins regardless if I saw how bad I really was. And so in just a moment, we're going to take the bread and we're going to take the juice. And I want to invite you just to remember what Jesus has done for us. So the band is going to come and join me on stage and then we're going to celebrate communion together. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] When Jesus was there with his followers, they didn't really know what was going on in that room that night. They didn't know that he was preparing to offer them a gift. They had no way to know how much it would cost him. And as he passed this little piece of bread, which we're going to pass in just a moment, in this little cup, he was reminding them, establishing for them actually a practice that he wanted them to continue. To remember the relationship that he was offering to them. So this morning, as this bread gets passed, we invite you, if you have or desire a relationship with Jesus, to enter into this with us. You see, just as we don't think often of how bad we are, we do this regularly to pause and remember how amazing God's love for us is. And the picture of us, of that for us, is the cross. And so the guys are going to pass the bread, and as they pass the bread, we just ask that you would hold that. You know, when he did that, the Bible says that he saved us. There's something else that happened. In the verse 5, it's going to come up on the screen. It says he made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions. You know, this drill that I showed you earlier, that looks like any other drill, looks like it should function just like any other drill. But the problem is, it won't function. It's dead. I take this battery out, put this battery in, all of a sudden, it works. It works. You realize, it was not a problem with the battery, but the drill, there was a problem with the battery. As soon as I put something else in it, all of a sudden, what happens? It comes to life. And what Paul goes on to say is, he goes on to say, I want you to understand that God is greater and God has done more than you can even imagine. Not only has he saved you, has he rescued you, has he sent his one and only son to stand in that pit for you to stand on his shoulders, but he's given you life. When you were dead. He goes on to describe this life in verse 6 and verse 7. Look what he says in verse 6 and verse 7, he describes this life. In verse 6, he says, God raised us up with Christ. He did this with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. There's something that's a little confusing, it's a little hard to understand, but the Bible says that when you become a follower of Jesus, when you give your life to him and he makes you alive, that God pictures you as seated there with him in the heavens. Right next to Jesus. And all of that is possible because of who? Because of Christ. Because of Christ. He then goes on to add this in verse 7, he says, in order that in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness. Just like we talked about God being rich and mercy, God says, Paul says, God wants to keep showing this to you over and over and over and over again, not only now, but for all of eternity expressed in his kindness to us. If you were here with us a few weeks ago when Tim was talking about the gift of generosity, Tim challenged you and he had actually begun this exercise himself and started to write down everything that he owned in his whole life that he personally owned at this point in time. Long, long, as he has over 700 things on that list at that point in time. But I want to challenge you to think about something different. I want to challenge you to think for a moment about the things in your life that you have received through no merit of your own. I started thinking about some of those in my own life. I started thinking about my family and, you know, my family, like any family, has its problems and issues and struggles. I thought, why did God allow me to be born into a family in the United States versus in a third world country? Why? Is this something I did? Was it something that I earned that? I basically got this privilege? There wasn't any reason I got that privilege. That's simply the grace of God in this kindness towards me. And you go down a list of all the things in your life. I thought about, you know, my marriage and my relationship. And I thought, why has my wife stuck it out with me all these years? And, you know, it's because I'm such a great, you know, wonderful, you know, engaging, loving, personable, you know, dynamic. I'm trying to think of all these words, you know, a person. But as a part of that, this is simply the grace of God. As I sit with people whose marriages are struggling or failing or coming to an end, you know, they lose their spouse. I think for a moment about your health. I was texting this morning with someone from our churches in the hospital just kind of checking on them, finding out their condition. And you think, why have I been blessed with what I have? Because I did something to deserve it because of something. It's simply the grace of God and His kindness towards us. You know, think about your job and the career that you have. And maybe you're at a place where you're able to retire and you have your resources or even the grandchildren that God has blessed. Think about all these things that you have in life. And just think, what did I do to deserve all of those things? Did I do some good things? Yeah, certainly some, but to deserve all that God has blessed you with. I think there's an element of this in our lives. God says, I want you to keep knowing the incomparable riches express of His grace, express in His kindness towards us. You see, the reality is that if you are a follower of Jesus today, that God has done something in your life. He has given you this gift of grace that you have never done anything to receive. There's nothing you could do to earn it. And He's going to keep pouring out this grace in your life as long as you exist. I don't know about you, but that would be something worth talking about, wouldn't it? You know, imagine students, if you finish school with a big school, with quite a bit of school loans and someone paid your school loans off. Someone says, I'm going to take care of that mortgage for you. I'm going to finish up that car. You would be telling other people about that, wouldn't you? And Jesus has taken us from being a place of being dead without any possibility of life. And His Spirit has come inside of us and all of a sudden we are now alive. That's what He has done. As Paul's writing this, it's as if his hearers needed a little more clarity to really grab hold of this and walk out the door with it. There's a story of a woman who had someone knocking at her door and there was a guy who was pretty destitute, kind of down on his luck and he said, do you have any work for me? I really need to do some work so I can have some money to get some food. And she said, well, what are you good at? He said, well, I'm a painter. He said, all right, well, if you're a painter, here's a gown, a painter, there's a brush, I need my porch on the back painting. Go paint the porch and I'll come back and check you an hour. If you've done a good job, then I'll pay you. So he comes back around about an hour with a big grin on his face and she says to him, did you do a good job? And he said, yes, I did a good job. And he said to her, he said, there's just one thing I'd like to point out to you. He said, that's not a Porsche back there, but it's a Mercedes. Now, just like that woman should have provided a little more clarity to the guy doing a little work for you. It's still settling in for some of you. Paul assumes we need a little more clarity. He says, OK, if you didn't get it the first time, I want to make this really, really simple. Really, really simple. Verse 8, he says, it's by grace you have been saved through faith and not of anything of yourselves, nothing you've done. It is the gift of God. Boy, there's one thing we should talk about on Christmas. It should be grace, isn't it? Because grace is a gift that you do nothing to get. Not a single thing. And he says, and by the way, you can't boast about this in verse 9. Why does Paul tell us about it? Because Paul knows the propensity of the human heart that if you are involved in something with someone else, whether it's your spouse, whether it's your siblings, whether it's your coworker, whether it's your best friend, and you accomplish something, complete something, get something, move forward faster, quicker, sooner than they, you're going to tell them about it. You're going to tell them about it. I'm in an online class with a group of individuals that, you know, we stay connected with one another, and one of the individuals has finished up faster than the rest. And she certainly let us all know that she finished before everybody else did. Paul said one of the reasons, not the only reason, but one of the reasons that there is nothing you can do about this is because you would put it on your resume. You would put it on your business card. You would let everybody know this is true, and I made it happen. And he says, "I don't want you to have any sense of you "be involved in this at all." He says, "Why is that so important? "Why is that so important?" Because he wants us to live every day in this sense that you are worse than you ever imagined, but God is greater and has done more magnificent things than you could ever dream possible. And the reason for that is because God has a plan for you to live your life offering this everywhere. You go, look what he says in verse 10. He says, "For we are God's hand, you are created." There it is again in Christ Jesus all because of Jesus to do what? Good works. Good works. You see, Paul has no picture of someone who is a Christ follower who doesn't offer good things, and in this case we're talking about grace to other people. He has no picture of a Christ follower that's like that. He says a person who is a Christ follower is looking for ways to do good things, to offer grace to other people because that's what you were made to do. And God, playing this a long, long, long, long time ago. Long time ago. See, Christianity is about a relationship and it's not based on anything that we have to do. It's all based on what has been done for us. And then God says, "Because I've done all of this, I want you and go and reproduce that same thing in the lives of people who don't deserve it, who don't expect it, who never see it coming." Because then God gets the credit for all of those things. You know, last week I asked you to take a piece of paper out. I asked you to write a couple names and a couple words about individuals that hopefully you had a chance to share with them. If you haven't already done that, I encourage you to do that over the holidays. This week's a little different. This week's a little different because I don't really have anything to assign you to do. Because my goal this morning is that you would walk away amazed and overwhelmed with the grace of God that's been poured into your life. Amazed at how little you deserved it and how much more you got than you ever deserved or ever imagined possible. And because of that, you move out into your life towards the people in your world who really don't deserve it. You move towards that sibling who just treated you badly and you offer them the gift of grace. You move towards that spouse who hasn't given you the time of day and you offer them grace. You move towards that coworker who's only taken advantage of everybody around them. You say what would it look like for me to offer them grace? You move towards that family member who you feel like it's a gift to them that you're even there tolerating them at this family gathering, but you say what would it be like to offer them the gift of grace? See, that's what living out our faith is. It's not trying to earn our salvation. It's living as a result of all that God has done in our lives. So what's that going to look like for you? What's it going to look like for you? I hope you walk away overwhelmed with the grace you received. And if you've never received that grace, I'd love to talk with you about what does it look like to what this passage talks about to be saved, to invite Jesus into your life and to know and experience that grace that God has offered to you. But if you have received that gift of grace, what's it look like for you to offer that? And who's God calling you to offer that to today? Because me, you, we didn't deserve it. We were worse than we thought we were. And God did more than we ever imagined possible so that we could offer it to someone else. Did you join me in prayer as we close? God, I thank you for this amazing gift of grace. Something that just doesn't seem remotely deserved in our lives. And yet, God, you have extended this to us when we deserved it least. And given us more than we could ever imagine. And you invite us, God, to look for opportunities, to look for ways, to look for settings, to look for people that we can offer something completely undeserved, completely unexpected. That's a reflection of the grace of God. God, people who are Christ followers should be dispensers of grace and all the time, all the time. God, help us to do that this Christmas season. In your name I pray. Amen. Tim?