PAPERS F R O M T H E F A L L S C H U R C H

Transcription

1 PAPERS F R O M T H E F A L L S C H U R C H GRACE CHANGES EVERYTHING Grace in Practice 12. Grace to Do the Unexpected (final Grace sermon) A sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. John W. Yates, II July 8, 2018 Ephesians 3:14-21; Luke 18:1-8 Since the musical Hamilton has become so popular, some of us have been reading about Alexander Hamilton I learned that even though he served throughout the entire Revolutionary War in a number of strategic, trusted positions, once the war was over, Hamilton never received any of his soldiers pension to which he was entitled. After he died, his wife was in serious financial need and she petitioned every person of influence she could find in an effort to get what she was entitled to including the President of the U.S. A woman of great compassion as well as persistence, she also made a commitment to establish orphanages in New York for the many homeless children there. She became known as a woman to whom it was very hard to say no. Much like the persistent widow in Jesus story, she kept asking because she was so certain of the rightness of her cause in both cases. Jesus told this story of the persistent widow to encourage us to bring our needs to the father in heaven and to continue to pray, even when it seems God isn t listening. There are four simple points that I want us to see from this story: 1. God hates injustice 2. God loves to answer our prayers and do unexpected, good things for his children. 3. When we experience God s abundant grace, it causes us to want to work and pray on behalf of others. 4. And when we work and pray according to the will and purposes of God, we can have confidence he will bless our efforts. So first, about injustice Like the widow, many of God s people do suffer injustice, and Jesus promise is that God will give justice to his chosen children who call out to him for mercy. God will vindicate his children who have been treated unjustly this is a wonderful promise to victims of injustice, and there are some of us here now This is also a powerful encouragement to the many passionate and persistent, praying believers who have dedicated themselves to pursuing justice on behalf of others. The Lord inclines his ear to do justice to the fatherless and oppressed (Psalm 10:18) He loves righteousness and justice (Psalm 33:5)

2 2 The Lord IS a God of justice (Isaiah 30:18) Let justice roll down like waters (Amos 5:24) What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8) However, it s another facet of Jesus words here in this parable that I want to emphasize. Jesus describes a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. This judge did not care about the woman s problem but even he eventually saw that she got what she was entitled to, and Jesu says God your father is not like this. He does care, He knows your needs, and he loves to answer your prayer. Over and over Jesus emphasized this. Your father in heaven loves you and knows your need and he will help you. This is a hard thing for us to believe, but the truth is that the love of God goes way beyond our ability to conceive it. This is why, for six months we have preached on the glorious grace of God. The grace of God is love that covers all our ugly sins, it s generosity that gives us more than we could ever earn or deserve, it s a flood of kindness from God that will not be discouraged or stopped. The widow in Jesus story was persistently asking for what was justly hers grace is about something quite different. Grace is about overflowing love and provision we could never deserve. I believe this because Jesus taught it. When Jesus rose from the dead his resurrection verified all that he taught. I came long ago to the conclusion that the New Testament documents are reliable and tell us what Jesus taught and what the first Christians believed. They believed in the unlimited love of the father so do I. I want you to know dear friends that God loves to give us good things God delights to show us his favor. And God is delighted when we ask him for good things. Jesus said in the most straightforward way, Your father knows what you need before you even ask. (Matthew 6:8) And just as a loving father loves to give his children what they need, so, too, with our father in heaven. Of course, many of our needs are slight when compared to people in Jesus day, and in comparison to people in the majority world. We talk here about first world problems. (Conversation with a friend about her new car. Boy, that s a first world problem, isn t it! ) Sometimes, living in a culture of so much abundance, we get confused about needs and wants, but sometimes it is even God s good pleasure to give us things we may not really need just because of his grace. God is a cheerful giver to his children and loves it when we too learn to be cheerful givers that s the third point. In 2 Corinthians 9, St. Paul wrote about this. God loves the person who gives cheerfully. And God will generously provide all your need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. (2 Corinthians 9:7b-8 New Living Translation)

3 3 Literally this says, God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every good deed. God loves to abundantly meet our needs so that we can do the same for others. St. Paul was so certain of this he wrote, My God will supply every need of yours according to his wealth, which is limitless. (Philippians 4:19) How great is God s love? How great are his resources? To the Ephesians, Paul wrote: I pray you will know the breadth and length and height and depth, know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge and he is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think. (Ephesians 3:19-20) The love of Christ surpasses knowledge. No one can describe how great is God s love. It s not only indescribable, it s inexhaustible, just like God s resources. He is able to do far more than you can request in your wildest dream! So if we know the grace of God, if we know God loves us and cares about our needs, we know we can ask him to provide what we need. And when we see loved ones or others truly in need we want to help them. I expect that a few of our people who have just returned from Haiti will be from now on passionate about finding ways to help our brothers and sisters in Haiti. This week a group of us met with Bishop Amos Madu from Eastern Nigeria to learn more about the many needs of our Christian brethren there we came away wanting to do more for them. Often the way God answers the prayers of the poor and needy is through the aid of others who have more resources. Sometimes you and I can be God s answer to another person s desperate prayer, as we come to help them and be with them. As we grow in Christ our lives become more concerned about praying for and helping others than about getting what we feel we ourselves need or want. I expect the widow in Jesus story was due money which was needed to care for her needy family. This is something we know God cares about. When you know that your passion is something that God cares about deeply, you can pray with confidence and persistence. That s the last point The Apostle John, who perhaps knew Jesus best of all told us this: This is the confidence we have towards God, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us and if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. (1 John 5:14) Another way of translating: How bold and free we become in God s presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he s listening. And if we re confident that he s listening, we know that what we ve asked for is as good as ours.

4 4 I can t always be sure that what I want is in keeping with God s will, but I do know some things that are the will of God. God s will is justice. God s will is mercy. God s will is repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation. God s will is peace. God s will is providing for the poor. God s will is that Gospel be proclaimed. These are things that we know are pleasing to God so when we pray for them we pray with confidence. When you are trying, for example, to raise money for something you believe with all your heart is right and good and pleasing to God, then it s not a burden to ask. You are simply giving others the opportunity to join in and participate in something you believe God is doing. I told you that Eliza Hamilton persisted in her difficult work of attempting to establish an orphanage in New York in the early 1800s she persisted year after year, praying and working, and not only seeing the establishment of this orphanage but seeing it enlarged repeatedly over the years. She led the effort for over 50 years after her husband died. Countless young people have been helped over the centuries and this work still continues in New York today this became her chief ministry, her constant prayer she knew this is what God wanted her to do. When you pray and work for something that you know is in the will of God, don t be surprised if you find the need to persist over many years. Very few prayers are answered instantaneously. Friends, here is what I want you to remember: Ask God what pleases Him. Then get to work. Pray for God s blessing. Don t judge what CAN happen by the way things are NOW. God loves to reward our humble, persistent faith by doing great things. I want to close with a true story about a couple here in our own church. Over 30 years ago, Sam and Lynn Owen, who had been deeply involved here (Sam was on vestry) went back to East Africa where they had served early in their marriage as missionaries. They went because of a deep sense of calling to work among East African leaders, many of whom have been Christians because of the East Africa Revival, but still these Christians have been terribly divided by tribalism. These divisions could be just as fierce and painful as those between Jew and Gentile in the early church. The Owens wanted to quietly build friendships with leaders and future leaders, particularly in Kenya and to work to build bridges, bringing these men and women together in Christ so for years and years Sam and Lynn developed relationships with political and professional and business leaders, and brought many of them into little groups for prayer, for Bible Study, and for building trusting

5 5 friendships. They found that if they could bring people from different tribal backgrounds together into groups like this, gradually they because more trusting in spite of tribal differences. I myself have visited and been with many of these people over the years, and have seen a host of ministries develop in the slums of Nairobi and in rural areas, too, because these leaders began, together, to see the need to work on behalf of the poor, the sick, the young who had little hope of breaking out of poverty. But in the area of politics, over and over we saw tribal differences divide these men and women even though many were Christians had met together repeatedly in the spirit of Christ. Democracy is still new to Kenyans and whenever election time comes, the old tribal animosities seem to erupt worse than ever. This has been true right up to the present a few years ago during the lead-up to elections there were terrible riots across the country and hundreds and hundreds were killed. 16 years ago Sam Owen convinced some of the leaders that they needed to attempt an annual gathering of Kenyan leaders for prayer this became the Kenyan National Prayer Breakfast gradually this event has brought together more and more of the leaders and has been a time of real inspiration and unity but some key leaders have stayed away and especially around election time. This year s national elections in Kenya were particularly ugly. The party in power won. However, the opposition party protested the election, and a second election was held. But the opposition leader Mr. Odinga then pulled out of the second election, and when President Kenyatta was then re-elected, Mr. Odinga declared himself the true president in spite of the election. It has been a terribly unsettling time for the country, a time of violence and tribal animosity. The Owens and many others prayed and worked behind the scenes that somehow peace might be restored. That there might be reconciliation/something they knew God wants. For 30 years our friends have prayed and worked to bring unity through Christ to Kenyan leadership praying like the persistent widow, and working tirelessly to bring people together. Now, just recently in the last several weeks, something unexpected and utterly surprising has happened it seems quite clear that God has moved in the hearts of these leaders. First, some weeks after the election, President Kenyatta met with the opposition leader Mr. Odinga, and out of that meeting they began to talk about trying to work together. Then the president appointed his opponent a member of his cabinet. People doubted that such a thing could work and perhaps it won t time will tell. But then at the Prayer Breakfast in May something so unexpected happened that I want you to see the film clip. This is edited down radically, but it shows President Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga apologizing to each other and asking each other forgiveness for the way in which they had attacked and behaved towards one another I wish there were time to view the whole thing. The men were clearly nervous and uncomfortable not quite sure how to do this but they do it, and 2,500 people attending the Prayer Breakfast under a huge tent at Nairobi Safari Park Hotel saw this, and 25 million other Kenyans watched on television. (video clip)

6 6 Those who were there and witnessed this unprecedented act of public reconciliation by the president and his longtime opponent were deeply moved. They seemed to know that something extremely important had happened Washington cynics will look for political reasons for this act but to those who were there, as one commented, It was as if God s Spirit met the Kenyan leadership in the Tent of Meeting that day. Last week we looked at Daniel and his friends in Babylon, and talked about the huge influence humble, faithful followers of Christ can have, as salt and light in government. This story today reminds us as well of the power of persistent, faithful, prayerful, untiring efforts to bring about the will of God, and how sometimes we get to witness the power of God at work in answer to our prayer. We must never put God in a box our God is greater than any of our problems. Our God loves to step in and work in the hearts of men and women and change them and lead them to actions that can bring about great, great good. The Owens, of course, take no credit for what happened. However, I doubt it would have happened but for their persistent, prayerful, imaginative ministry over the years. As we close I want to ask the Owens to come up so that we can pray for them as they prepare to return to Nairobi now, after a time of rest here at home. An audio version of this sermon may be heard through a link on the church s website, It is also available on CD if you or someone you wish to give it to would find that more convenient. CDs are available for $4.50 from the Sermon Ministry, bookstore@tfcanglican.org, or The Falls Church Anglican, 6565 Arlington Blvd., Suite 300, Falls Church, VA