Devotional0804

What Is Grace? (By Pastor Andrew Fortuine: Balfour E.C. Church: 08/2004) (12 minutes)

Well, the summer Olympics in Greece have wound down, and Heather and I have enjoyed watching some of the competitions. But for me, there are certain Olympic events that I just can't watch, expecially the ones where the margin for error is almost nothing. Gymnastics, for example, is Heather's favorite, but for me, every flip in the air, every swing on the bars, I'm just cringing as I watch this. Because I realize that behind those routines have been endless hours of training, of blood, sweat, and tears, all with the singular goal of bringing home that gold medal. And then behind the scenes, there are the coaches and families and friends who are invested in the same goal. And here I am watching: knowing that one little slip or miscalculation can mean the difference between gold

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and going home empty-handed. And then if you do happen to make a mistake, well it's being broadcast to the whole world right there on TV. So, as you can see, I take the Olympics a little too seriously.

Today, we want to ask the question, "what is grace?" And we ask it in light of living in a very imperfect world, where slips and falls and mistakes are par for the course.. So what is this gift of grace that God has given to us? I want to look at three biblical truths about grace today. And the first one we find in Ephesians chapter two.

So this Pharisee is pretty proud of himself. He is filled with self-confidence about his spiritual standing. And we may look at his words and shake our heads or maybe think that we know someone who's that way too -- a know-it-all, someone who's overly pious and self-righteous. But the question for us today needs to be: In what ways might I be like that Pharisee? Because here's a scary truth, that we can actually be too good to receive God's grace. And by that I mean, we can hold such a high opinion of ourselves that we begin to lose our sense of dependence on God. You notice how pride had isolated the Pharisee: how he stood alone, apart from the others. And that's often the first warning sign to us, that pride has gotten a foothold in our lives. Our sense of self-importance causes us to look down in some way on others. You look here at how the Pharisee lifted himself up by comparing himself to this sinful tax collector. And I know in my own life how the comparison game can slip in so easily if I let it: that homeless person, well -- he's just that way 'cause he has no sense of responsibility.' So-and-so here at the Church, well I'm less of a sinner than she is. That teenager with the nose ring -- well, back in my day, teenagers were respectful and dressed modestly. And so this Pharisee is a warning to us about the propensity towards pride, towards looking down on others, of making comparisons in order to feel better about ourselves. And so again, the first principle of grace is admitting that we need help, that we need God, and that we are all equally sinners at the foot of the cross.

"But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner. I tell you, Jesus said, that this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God."

If we have no sense of need for God, or if we claim to have no sin, or if we're trying our best to conceal our sin from others, we probably won't hold grace in very high esteem. But throughout the Gospels, what do we see but the neediest people of all finding freedom and forgiveness through the grace of Jesus. There was little Zacchaeus, a greedy tax

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collector, hated by his own people, but transformed into a generous, joyful follower of God. How? Through the love and grace of Jesus. During Jesus' ministry there were prostitutes, there were lepers, there were Roman soldiers -- all of them with a deep sense of need, and these were the ones drawn to the Lord, while the self-righteous priests stood at a distance and plotted how they might get rid of this giver of grace.

My wife Heather -- she's a pretty good gardener, and that makes one of us. My thumb isn't green and I don't think it ever will be. But we have a lot of plants in our house . And it's interesting to me how some plants need to be rotated every once in a while. Why? Because they grow towards the sun. They're attracted to its warmth and bright rays. As sinners, we should be attracted to grace in the same way, because grace means life and freedom for us. "I have come not to call the righteous," Jesus said, "but sinners to repentance", and that's the starting point for grace: that we acknowledge how lost we are, that our sin separates us from God, but then we also respond to Jesus' invitation to come.

That takes us to the second part of grace. And that is as wonderful as grace is, there's a warning that Paul gives us; even something as wonderful as grace can be abused. In Romans, Paul writes, "What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!" You see, There were people in Paul's day who were saying, "well, if grace is this wonderful thing, then why don't I just keep sinning all the more so there can be even more of this wonderful thing called grace!" So grace was wrongly seen as a license to sin freely. And so here is our second principle: that grace is free and unlimited, but it is not cheap.

It was as a missionary in Japan that I experienced this side of grace in a whole new way. I arrived in 1998 in a land that was foreign to me in almost every way. There was the stifling humidity, there were the masses of people everywhere. I would board a subway downtown and hit my head on the low door post. There was raw fish to be eaten, a new language to learn, relationships to build. And being ripped out of my comfort zone like that, I was forced to depend on God like never before. But an interesting thing happened and it was something that Satan tried to use for my harm, but that God ended up using for good. Even as I was trying my hardest to serve the Lord and do his ministry, I became more and more aware of my own sinfulness, almost to the point of being disabled by it. I would hear these voices in my spirit telling me, "you're no good... why did you come here? Just look at how you've messed up in the past. Just think of what a poor witness you're going to make to the Japanese people." And these thoughts started taking their toll to the point where I would drag myself to work each day, sure that my sinfulness made me unworthy to serve God.

But then the Lord began to work in me. I realized that one of the qualities of the Japanese culture is that honor comes from working hard and never shaming yourself or your family. And that's why suicides are so common there, because if you do fail, there's no way to purge yourself of the guilt -- you're stuck: You're branded as a failure and death is the only escape. And how that kind of belief system can just immobilize people. Then the Lord began to speak to me, "have I not paid the price for your guilt? Isn't my Son's blood enough for you? Don't you know, Andrew, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus?" And one night as I was walking along the beach, I looked out at the Pacific Ocean, and I just saw the vastness of it, and how the ocean was like God's grace, and my sin was a little pebble being washed away. But I also saw that we were bought with a price. And that grace did not come cheaply to the one who gave it to us.

For me, that was a turning point in my understanding of grace. It was my sin that helped nail Jesus to the cross. But Jesus on that terrible Good Friday paid our ransom, and as he died, he yelled, "it is finished" -- the power of sin is broken now by my precious blood. And for me, realizing that, and truly experiencing it, well it taught me never to take grace lightly. I once heard a pastor put it this way, "grace is free, but once you take it you are bound forever to the giver." I'd take it even a step further. When we remember how much it cost our Lord to save us, well, what in the world are we doing holding on to our sin and not confessing it and being made free again?

So that takes us to our final principle...and that is, we are called to live by grace.

If I were to give a definition of grace, I would say that grace is any unmerited favor or blessing from God. In other words, when the sun shines overhead and the rain causes the crops to grow, that is grace. When a newborn baby is born, what a miracle of grace! When we wake up from our sleep each morning, when sitting down to a meal, when we share laughter and tears together, those things are God's grace at work, they're blessings from above that we did nothing to earn or deserve.. And that is why Paul in 1 Timothy tells us that we are to be strengthened each day by God's grace, to acknowledge that it is His grace that sustains us -- and to rejoice in His blessings as the gifts that they are. And by the way, that's in the good times and also the bad. Grace is a gift for every season of our lives.

Paul had an interesting life experience that I think can teach us something about God's grace for us in times of need. We find it in 2 Corinthians. Paul had experienced these amazing revelations from God until he was just way up on a spiritual mountain top. "But to keep me from getting puffed up, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from getting proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.' So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me."

Paul had this thorn in his flesh. And scholars for centuries have argued and speculated about what this thorn could be. Some say it was poor eyesight, others say he suffered from a physical injury, still others think he was in a very difficult relationship, and the list goes on and on. I have another idea: and that's the Holy Spirit doesn't want us to know exactly what this thorn was, just in case we might dismiss it and say, "well, I don't struggle with that problem." Because what is true is that we all have thorns in our lives that we deal with -- it could be a health issue, or an addiction that we just can't seem to break; it could be a painful or disappointing relationship; it could be feeling that we're not living up to God's expectations -- and you know what the Lord calls us to do in these situations? To pray -- and to have faith in Him. And praise the Lord when God reveals his power with miraculous intervention! But there is another answer that the Lord sometimes gives us in our most difficult times, and that is "my grace is sufficient for you."

You look at the life of Paul and how God used Paul numerous times to heal other people and also had himself been delivered countless times -- from being stoned almost to death, from being whipped and beaten and shipwrecked. He had even been bitten by a deadly viper and just shook it off into the fire. Paul was not lacking in faith of miracles in his life. "Because my grace is sufficient for you, Paul." Or you could fill in the blank, "My grace is sufficient for that cancer patient who continues to struggle." "My grace is sufficient for the one who struggles with doubt." "My grace is sufficient for the couple whose infant daughter was still-born." And I think many times that is the way that God chooses to work in our lives. But we need to believe that grace is not some consolation prize, but that it's a gift of God that draws us into deeper dependence on Him, in our most difficult days. And isn't that the greatest blessing of all?

Revelations 3 has a wonderful word for us. It says that Jesus is standing at the door of our hearts and he's knocking... He's not going to huff and puff and blow your door down... He is knocking and waiting for us to open up and invite him in so he can do his work in us... "Lord, I am sorry I've ignored you at the door for so long... I'm kind of afraid to let you in now, because my house is a mess. But then I figure you already know what shape it's in... and I also know you're a lot better at cleaning the dirty parts out than I am... so have your way in me, Lord..." And at such an invitation, with that kind of humility, there grace begins to flow, washing away our dirt and sin, breaking the chains that bind us and restoring the spring in our step. What does that old hymn say, "what can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus." By the blood that was shed that day on Calvary, there is now grace to wash away our every sin, and grace also to strengthen us as we live our lives for Christ. Amen.

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