The Sacred Journey: Amazed by Grace Biblical Text: Ephesians 2:4-10

Transcription

1 July 8, 2012 Page 1 of 6 The Sacred Journey: Amazed by Grace Biblical Text: Ephesians 2:4-10 Dr. Michael F. Gardner, Senior Pastor Old Mission United Methodist Church, Fairway, KS. Some of you know that I am a Kansas City boy. I grew up in Hyde Park. I went to school at Longfellow Elementary and Westport High School. Though I have been a Methodist for more than forty years, I came to faith at Central Presbyterian Church. I grew up with the Kansas City Philharmonic, Nelson Art Gallery, Loose Park, the City Market District, and most of all the Kansas City A s. My roots go deep. My heroes were Kansas City A s baseball greats like Lew Krausse, Campy Campaneris, and Catfish Hunter. Later in High School, my loyalties shifted to the Royals, and stars like Lou Piniella and George Brett. I also loved Chiefs football players like Buck Buchanan, Lenny Dawson and Jan Stenerud. I also became a semi-passionate opponent of all things Oakland a Raider Hater. So you ll understand that it seems a strange thing today during All- Star week in Kansas City that a story about football and Oakland s bad-boy Kenny Stabler would be on my heart. But here it is! Ken was being interviewed by a reporter who read Stabler these lines from a poem by Jack London: I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them, I shall use my time. The reporter asked, "What do those words mean to you?" Stabler (in his Alabama accent,) said, Seems to me he's saying, Throw deep. 1 I think that s a metaphor for the kind of risk-taking Christian life that I find in the New Testament. Throwing deep has the potential for tremendous rewards. It also carries significant risk for failure. The 1 Told in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Heart-Pounding, Jaw-Dropping, and Gut-Wrenching Moments from the Oakland Raiders by Steven Robert Travers, Copyright 2008, Trojans Essential.

2 July 8, 2012 Page 2 of 6 baseball equivalent is swing away. Risk and reward go together. But, most of us live our lives so fearful of risk that we often miss the reward. Consider the evidence. Politicians, afraid negative response, play it safe, pander to our fears, tell whatever constituency they are courting what we want to hear. As individuals, we react to fears over our security by becoming even more fearful. We play it safe, we protect us and ours. We became distrustful or afraid of change, adaptation, or adventure. Steve Sjogren, says in Ohio, where he lives, fear is so much a way of life that men wear belts and suspenders at the same time just in case! Well, Ohio isn t the only place fear seems stronger than faith. A friend of mine says in tough times you have to, Hunker down, close ranks, and ride it out. Sound like good, practical advice? But I just have this to say! Show me where it says that in this book...! (Hold up the Bible) That s just not what you find here! Instead you find a confidence that God s grace is sufficient for our every need. You ll find that God s perfect love casts out fear! You find that God strengthens the weary and lifts up the fallen. You find that faith in God is stronger than whatever you face today! I believe that in our country, businesses, in our families, we need to get out of fear, and lean into faith. We need to risk swinging away and throwing deep. But, as a Christian, I learned this a long time ago, Before you can throw deep, you have to grow deep. When Ann and I were house hunting, we were drawn to our house by the trees. We have giant oaks in our front yard. Sometimes when the Kansas wind blows, I watch those trees, astonished that they aren t blown away. But here s the thing. Their branches reach high, but their roots are deep enough to ensure that they stand firm. There is a lesson about faith in the trees in my yard. Here it is.

3 July 8, 2012 Page 3 of 6 Only those who grow deep roots can grow tall branches. And the root or foundation for confident Christian living is grace Like many of you, I heard these words with pride last week on Wednesday, America, America, God shed His grace on thee. Kathryn Lee Bates words are really a hymn, a prayer for grace. We need that prayer. Grace is our foundation as Christians. It s what helps us root and grow our lives in something deeper than the news of the day, or the circumstances we face. Look at our text from Ephesians 2:4-10 it s all about grace! 4-5 Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions it is by grace you have been saved. 8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. 2 The first thing to notice in this passage is that we are confronted with a whole list of spiritual-sounding words: grace, saved, faith, gift, works. Even those of us who have been in God's church for many years may not clearly understand how these words work together. Those words are actually based on five Greek words, in the original language of the New Testament, each important. Grace charis (khar'-ece). Undeserved, unearned, favor. Saved sozo (sode'-zo). To be healed, made whole. Faith pistis. Best translated as assurance, trust, belief. Gift doron. A present, an offering, an extravagance. Works ergon. Deeds, our labor, our work. Each following word is based on the first one each an expression of 2 Ephesians 2:4-10. New International Version, Copyright by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission.

4 July 8, 2012 Page 4 of 6 grace. If there ever was a United Methodist Scripture this is it. Our Methodist founder John Wesley, believed in prevenient grace - the grace that comes before we ever respond to God. In verse five, Paul says,..even when we were dead in our sins. In Romans 5:8 he says, While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 3 God takes the initiative. Salvation is God s doing and not ours. His grace gives us faith to trust in Him, His grace saves us from sin. And it comes as a gift, not something we earn. But we spend the rest of our lives doing good works in gratitude for that gift. For a long time now I ve answered the question, When were you saved? this way: Two thousand years ago when Jesus died for me. That s usually not what they are looking for, but it is the message of the Bible. Being a Christian? That s something else. There is in every life a time when God s grace must be claimed as our own. We must accept what God has done for us. In Wesleyan or Methodist lingo that s justifying or saving grace. That moment comes in different ways, sometimes early in life, sometimes late in the game. Sometimes suddenly, dramatically; sometime gradually, or cumulatively, but it must come for each of us. But when that happens, we are not finished. Grace is not done with us once we believe. That s another Methodist distinctive. We believe in salvation, but we are not just saved from our sins, we are saved for God s purpose in our lives and in the world. Wesley called that sanctifying or perfecting grace. God has plans for our lives and for what we will do for him all our Christian life! Grace is the hallmark of the Church. Unless our lives are personally overflowing with that grace, why would we tell anyone about it. Unless that grace overflows from us, we are no different than my 3 Op. Cit. Romans 5:8. New International Version.

5 July 8, 2012 Page 5 of 6 Rotary Club, or the Red Cross, both great organizations. Gordon MacDonald puts it this way: The world can do anything as well or better than the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace. 4 Only the Church can do that. The question is of course, Does that grace live in us? It makes all the difference! It leads us to take risks impossible without knowing that the grace of God will never fail us. It s all about grace. And we know that. Someplace in us, we know that, just like we know the song. We know that grace is amazing. (CUE organ and choir. Congregation joins me to sing one verse of amazing grace. I will move to center of Chancel.) Fred Craddock tells about traveling to an unfamiliar city, and since he was there over the weekend, he was looking for someplace to worship. He asked the hotel clerk if there was a church nearby. The clerk said, Well, not really but there a little Church of some kind three or four blocks down that way, So Fred walked to a small, modest building just off of downtown, where he was warmly welcomed. By the time the service it started the entire sanctuary was full. At the appointed hour, they began to sing Amazing Grace, the choir came down, followed by the minister. Fred said he was completely shocked. He was very tall, almost 6 4, and very large. But the most noticeable feature was his lumbering gait. He was awkward, almost falling, with his large arms at his sides barely moving. His head was misshapen, his hair was askew. He stumbled up the three or four steps to get to the pulpit. When he 4 Gordon MacDonald, Rebuilding Your Broken World. Varsity Press, Copyright 1988.

6 July 8, 2012 Page 6 of 6 turned to face us, Fred says, I saw the thick glasses. When he read, he held the Bible near his nose. His speaking came with struggle. Fred says he was sure he d never been to seminary. But as soon as he started to speak, Craddock lost all sense of that. He read 1 Corinthians 13 and spoke on the subject "But the greatest of these is love." Fred says He wasn't a great preacher. But he was so warm and full of love and joy, with the conviction that what he was preaching he had experienced deeply in his life. His lack of attractiveness on the outside, his lack of training, became invisible when you saw the beauty that shone from his spirit. Fred says he listened to people as they left the Sanctuary. Again, there was such love and affection in every word. One of the women as she went by said, "I wish I could know your mother." He answered her and said, "Well, my mother's name is Grace." When it was just the two of them, Fred said to him, "That was an unusual response you gave to that woman - my mother's name is Grace." And the preacher explained. When I was born, I was put up for adoption. I never knew my mother. As you can see, nobody wanted to adopt me. So I went from foster home to foster home; and when I was 16 or 17, I saw some young people going into a church. I wanted to be with young people, so I went in too, and there in that church I met grace. When I found grace, my life began. Grace is my mother. 5 Final Conclusion: You hear what he was saying? Grace accepted me. Grace loved me. Grace believed in me. Grace is the birthing place for joy! It is the source of hope. If you believe, like him, like me, you are a child of Grace. And if you don t yet believe or trust in that grace. You can. Nothing is more important! 5 Craddock Stories by Fred B. Craddock, Mike Graves, Richard Ward, ed. Chalice Press, Copyright 2001, p