God's Amazing Grace

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish Sunday morning, January 15, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 2:1-10.

One of the things we talk about in church all the time is grace.  The word “grace” is all over the Apostle Paul’s letters.  One of our favorite hymns is “Amazing Grace”, which we sang a little while ago.  When we say a prayer before a meal, we call it “saying grace”.  We say that we are saved by “God’s grace”.  Grace, grace, grace--we hear the word over and over again in church.

            But you know, for all that we talk about grace in church, we almost never define the term, do we?  We never say just what it is that we mean when we’re talking about grace.  Maybe we assume everyone knows.  Or, maybe we’re not sure ourselves.  

            That could be it, you know.  I looked in my theological dictionary to see what the actual, theological definition of grace is, and you know what I found?  I found twenty-five different theological definitions of grace.  There’s prevenient grace.  There’s justifying grace.  There’s sanctifying grace.  There’s saving grace.  There’s free grace.  There’s common grace.  On and on and on, all these different types of grace and different definitions of grace.  So it’s reasonable to ask, when we start telling someone about God’s grace, are they going to have any idea what we’re talking about?  In fact, are we going to have any idea what we’re talking about?

            Well, so that you can at least have some idea what I’m talking about, here’s the definition of grace I’m going to use.  It’s the first one in my theological dictionary, and it seems to me like it’s the most general one.  Grace is unmerited favor.  God’s grace, God’s unmerited favor, is extended to sinful humanity--that’s you and me--in providing salvation and forgiveness through Jesus Christ that is not deserved, and withholding the judgment that is deserved.

            That pretty well fits in with what Paul wrote in our reading from Ephesians for today, right?  Paul starts out by talking about how we, as Christians, start out like everyone else.  We “gratify the cravings of the flesh”.  We do what we want to do when we want to do it.  We focus on the things of this world.  And Paul says that because of that, we are by nature deserving of God’s wrath.  We are part of that “sinful humanity”.  

            And if that was the end of the story, we’d be in a lot of trouble.  I mean, if by nature we are deserving of God’s wrath, there’s nothing we can do about that.  We cannot overcome our basic human nature.  No one can.  We can fight it, and we can succeed for a while, but if something is part of our nature, we can never truly overcome it.

But that’s not the end of the story.  It’s just the beginning.  We cannot overcome our sinful nature, but we don’t have to.  Listen to what Paul says next, “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.”

            That’s what grace is.  Even though we deserve God’s wrath, that’s not what we get.  We get new life.  We are made alive with Christ.

            And that’s not all.  Listen to the next thing Paul says, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms.”  God takes us sinful human beings, people who by our very nature deserve God’s wrath, and puts us right next to Jesus Christ himself in heaven.  We are not just made alive with Christ here on earth.  We’re made alive with Jesus Christ in heaven.

            We cannot overcome our sinful human nature.  But God can.  And Paul says it’s better that way.  Paul says, “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.”

            If we could save ourselves, if we could overcome our nature by ourselves, what we do?  We’d brag about it, right?  We’d make sure everyone knew how great we were, that we’d been able to overcome our sinful nature on our own.  Those other people might not be able to do it, but we can, because we’re so much better than they are.  Basically, we’d be like the Pharisee in Jesus’ story in Luke Eighteen.  Remember that story?  Jesus tells about a Pharisee and a tax collector who go to the temple to pray.  And the Pharisee says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”  That’s about how we’d sound if we could overcome our sinful human nature by ourselves.

            We are saved by grace.  It is a gift of God.  But that raises the question:  why?  Why does God give us this incredible gift of grace?  It’s not because we deserve it, obviously.  But what is the reason?  Well, Paul gives us the answer.  He says it’s “because of God’s great love for us.”

            But that raises a question we’ve talked about before:  why does God love us?  I mean, I’m glad that God does.  We’d all be in big trouble if God did not love us.  But think about it.  Why does God love us?  What logical reason could there be for God to love us?  One answer might be, “Because God created us”, but that just raises another question:  why did God create us?  Why did God first create us, and then love us?

            Well, think of someone you love.  Maybe it’s a spouse, maybe it’s your kids, maybe it’s your parents, maybe it’s brothers or sisters, a friend, whoever.  If someone asked you why you love them, what would you say?  What logical reason could you give for why you love them?

Well, maybe you could list their good qualities.  You could list things you like about them and that make you think favorably of them.  But lots of people have good qualities.  Lots of people have more good qualities than the people we love, if we’re honest about it.  I mean, there’s a huge number of people in this world who are better than I am in lots and lots of ways, and yet Wanda loves me.  Why?  What good, logical reason could there be for that?

Well, the answer is that that’s the wrong question.  When we look for logical reasons to love someone, we’re looking at the question in the wrong way.  Love is an emotion, and emotions don’t always follow logic.

I said earlier that we cannot overcome human nature, and that sin is part of our human nature.  But you know what?  Love is also part of our human nature.  We all have a desire to be loved by someone.  And we all have a desire to love someone.  It’s part of who we are.

And of course, as we’ve said many times, God is love.  So if God is love, and if we are made in the image of God, then it seems likely that, God, too, has a desire to love someone.  And so, maybe, God created us because God wanted to have someone to love.  There might not be a good, logical reason for God to love us.  There might not be a good, logical reason for God to have created us in the first place.  But there does not have to be.  Maybe God did not create us because of logic.  Maybe God created us out of love.

            And if that’s so, then it makes sense, really, that God gives us grace.  Remember what we said grace is:   Grace is unmerited favor.  God’s unmerited favor, extended to sinful humanity--that’s you and me--in providing salvation and forgiveness through Jesus Christ that is not deserved, and withholding the judgment that is deserved.  God loves us so much that God does not give us what we, as sinners, deserve.  Instead, God sent the divine Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to take the punishment that we deserve.  And God offers us this incredible gift of grace--unmerited, undeserved favor--providing us forgiveness and salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.  That’s how much God loves you.  And that’s how much God loves me.

            From our perspective, God’s grace truly is amazing.  We know we don’t deserve it.  We know we don’t come anywhere close to deserving it.  And yet God gives it to us anyway.  What an amazing thing that is.

            But from God’s perspective, I suspect it may not be so amazing after all.  God may look at us and say, “Why are you so amazed at My grace?  I’ve told you I love you.  I’ve told you that over and over again.  That’s why I give you My grace.  That’s why I do all kinds of things for you.  Because I love you.  There’s nothing amazing about My grace.  This is what love is.  This is what love does.”

            It is what love does.  It’s what God does.  Maybe to God, it’s not that amazing.  But it’s amazing to me.  And I think it should be amazing to all of us.  So may we truly be grateful to God for the grace and the love that God gives us.