Thirst Student Ministries

Sermon on Grace, by Josh Thom - April 15, 2007

Answers.com

Supernatural grace is usually defined as being actual or sanctifying. Actual grace turns the soul to God; sanctifying grace confirms and perpetuates the ends of this conversion and makes the soul habitually good. Most theologies (except in Calvinism), wishing to maintain humanity's freedom in addition to God's complete freedom in granting grace, distinguish prevenient grace, which frees a person and awakens him or her to God's call, from cooperating grace, by which God assists to salvation the free person who seeks it.

We are all flawed, defective, unreliable, evil, self-absorbed rude creatures of habit who tend to forget the good and over emphasize the bad. We judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions, and truth be told we all too often talk about "getting rid" of people who annoy us, as we judge their worth and find it to be very undervalued and so not worth keeping around.

The question before us is how can the God of the universe not see the nastyness that we are and with a blink on an eye and flick of the wrist, poof out of creation we go.

Love, the name that is given to the Father, the Lord Almighty, Creator, Judge, Maker and UnMaker is a name that was self appointed. He, the Father, called Himself Love, because that is the essence of who he is, what he does, and why he does it. We must remember that He loved us before we loved Him, and in fact he Loved us before our human creation, and will love us after of earthly death. It is the very nature of God to love, because He IS Love, and the outpouring of His love to us, this vile creature that does not deserve love, that my friends is the Grace of God.

John 1:6-18 (New International Version)

⁶There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. ⁸He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. ⁹The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.[a]

¹⁰He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹²Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- ¹³children born not of natural descent,[b] nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

¹⁴The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,[c] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " ¹⁶From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. ¹⁷For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,[d][e]who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

If Love is a noun, then Grace can be described as a verb, and it is a description of how love works. Grace is a non human thing. Human nature is to do only what benefits the one that is doing it. For example, work is done for money and eating is done for energy and for the pure egocentric pleasure of "I love food." When humans "do" we mostly do for ourselves, everything seems to boil down to a selfish action of "for me."

Grace on the other hand is a purely selfless action, it is a one sided action, it is something that can only be given, it can never be taken. I believe that Grace comes from God and that Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection are the ultimate outpouring of Love through his Son which can only be described as Grace. We pitiful, allegiance shifting humans, we did not take Grace from the Father, but we were given, gifted, Grace from the Father who through Love, his Son Jesus Christ, gave what never could have been taken.

The funny thing is, Grace is a thing that cannot be taken, but can be rejected. This is yet again a purely human folly. Some will not understand how something can come with no strings attached. Some will rebel and think that they are able to do "it" on their own. Others are in Grace, but never grasp what they would be without it.

I would propose one more clarifying statement about grace. Grace is not mercy and mercy is not grace. If Godly grace is a purely selfless expression of Love, than it can not be confused with mercy. Mercy is a selfish version of grace, when someone is merciful they are normally gaining something from their actions. In the Old Testament God would show mercy, but it was normally in conjunction with showing his authority, He did it to emphasize who he is and to gain credit with the people he saved. Grace was a concept not used often in the Old Testament with one notable exception, David.

1 Chronicles 17:16-25 (New International Version)
David's Prayer

¹⁶ Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said:
"Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? ¹⁷ And as if this were not enough in your sight, O God, you have spoken about the future of the house of your servant. You have looked on me as though I were the most exalted of men, O LORD God.

¹⁸ "What more can David say to you for honoring your servant? For you know your servant, ¹⁹ O LORD. For the sake of your servant and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made known all these great promises.

²⁰ "There is no one like you, O LORD, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. ²¹ And who is like your people Israel-the one nation on earth whose God went out to redeem a people for himself, and to make a name for yourself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? ²² You made your people Israel your very own forever, and you, O LORD, have become their God.

For what reason does the Lord of the universe gives us, his rebelling creations, Love instead of what we deserve? Like David what have we done to deserve this gift? It is good to think about this every once and a while, but it goes against the gift of Grace to wallow is self pity, doubt, and hate.

The most Excellent One pours out love, Grace abounding, it is not something that covers us and hides the evil in creation. Grace is not God turning a blind eye. Grace, I believe, is the marvelous ability of Love, in spite of the evil that offends it, Grace outshines the evil nasty gunk that.

As a human, who is a Christian, one whom has accepted the ultimate in Grace, Jesus Christ taking on the sins of the world. I again must be compelled to be a "Christ follower" not just a "Christ accepter." Because of this I am commanded by I AM, to "love one another." If I am to love like HE loved, then I must also exhibit grace they way He did.

To exhibit grace the way Jesus and the Father exhibit grace is doomed to failure from the very beginning. There is no way that a human can be a giver of grace without it being corrupted. Again recognizing that I can not do this, I must ask for help from the Father and his Son, so that through them I am able, even though I am weak, the persistent Grace of God works in me and through me to achieve grace from me to the rest of the world.

Ephesians 2:6-9 (New International Version)

⁶And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast.

The Grace of God is an ongoing action of the Father that is so un-human that it is hard to understand. The concept of grace is responsible for splitting the Church because it is so supernatural, so extraordinary that we have a very hard time putting into words, the thoughts, and deeds that should be a part of it. We can only produce a poor reflection of what God displays eternally. Thank God that his Grace allows us to keep trying and refining our spread of grace to a world who doesn't deserve it, but desperately needs it.

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