Word of Salvation – Vol.48 No.7 – February 2003

 

Our Gracious God

Sermon by Rev W Van Schie

on Isaiah 30:18-19

 

Scripture Reading:  Luke 15:11-32

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today I would like you to use your imagination. I know you are good at that! I want you to imagine that you have your annual holidays coming up. You have three weeks. And you decide that instead of going away to relax, you are going to stay home and work in the garden. Excited? Some are, some aren’t.

You want to get that front lawn and front garden at your place done. Instead of spending money on your holidays, you’re going to spend money on sleepers, lawn, bushes, mulch, soil, and you are going to spend money on that picket fence. You are going to make that yard look beautiful, and you are going to spend your holiday time and money to do it.

And you do it. For three weeks you work real hard getting that garden established. You put in a beautiful irrigation system. You get the fence up. You get the lawn laid, get the bushes in place, it’s all nicely done. Then comes the day when you look at all that you’ve done. You sit there with a drink in your hand and you enjoy the result of all your hard work. You think, “This is beautiful, this is great, I’m really enjoying this.” Yes, it’s done, it’s finished, the shrubs are taking hold, things are blossoming and it’s just great.

Then the next morning, as you pick up your paper in your beautiful new front garden, something happens. That fourteen year old kid from down the street, that kid who has vandalised your letter box and other things so often, well, he has pinched his father’s car and is roaring down the street and swerving all over the place. He plows through your fence, churns up your new lawn, rips out your irrigation system and destroys all your shrubs. You are standing there with your newspaper in your hand. What would you do?

I asked this of a colleague who is a keen gardener. He said, “I would go over to the car and check if he’s still alive, and then I’d kill him!”

You could say, “I’ll call the police. This kid is nothing but trouble, he’s been trouble for years. I’ll call the police, and the police will give him his just desserts. He deserves the law on him. He deserves the consequences of his irresponsible actions. I’ll call in the police and apply the full force of the law.”

Friends, that’s justice. He gets what he deserves, nothing more, nothing less. That’s justice.

Or you could say, “I don’t want him to have a criminal record. I don’t want him to feel the full power of the law. I’ll just go to his parents and I’ll sit down with them and work something out. Maybe he can help me rebuild my garden, maybe he can pay it off over a period of time. What he can do, he can, and what he can’t do, well that’s just bad luck. I’ll take the softer approach.”

Friends, that’s mercy. Not applying the law to the full extent. Not giving what is deserved, that’s mercy. Giving in somewhat and taking the softer approach. That’s being merciful.

Or you might do something that is quite outlandish. Quite irresponsible, some people might say. You might take the kid out of the car, sit him down and then you sit with him and say, “Son, don’t worry about it. I’ll pay for everything. I’ll pay for the fence, the lawn, the bushes, and the irrigation system. You don’t have to pay a cent. And I’ll fix it all up in my spare time, don’t worry about it.”

And as you sit there alongside him, you try to understand him, and work out what makes him tick. What’s caused this problem in him? Why is he so irresponsible and so dysfunctional?

And friends, that’s grace. Grace is not justice – grace is not mercy. Grace is going and paying the price yourself, and getting alongside with the hope that what you are doing will change that person from the inside out. That’s grace.

Friends, you and I are that fourteen-year-old kid. And God is the garden owner. God who made this beautiful creation, who made this beautiful world, also created a perfect Adam and Eve. Then man turned against God. Man broke the relationship with God and became a rebel against God and ruined that garden. He tore it up, crashed it and trashed it. And ever since, we have been trashing our own lives with junk, and filling it with garbage. And ruining what God has for us. We keep trashing and ruining his creation. What should God do?

God could say, “Hey, fair’s fair. You’ve ruined what I’ve made so beautiful; you have hurt me and you’ve destroyed all my efforts, all that I enjoyed so much. When I finished making it all, finished with creating it all, I said that it was good. I enjoyed it and you ruined it. And you keep on ruining it even today. You deserve death, separation from God and eternal punishment. That’s what you deserve. Nothing more, nothing less. I’ll just apply the law.”

God could have gone down that road and applied the law of justice. But He didn’t.

God could’ve also said, “Hey listen, you can’t cope with that, so I’m going to go soft on you. I’m going to be a bit lighter, a bit easier on you. I’m going to be merciful to you. We can work something out together.” But He didn’t do that either.

You know what God did? He took the outlandish grace road. He said, “Hey listen, you can’t pay for it, but I can pay for it. And I’ll pay for it with my own Son. I’ll pay for your sins, and your guilt and your mistakes, and your ruining everything, and I’ll pay for it with the blood of my Son.” And then God sits down with us and says, “Let’s talk this through. Let’s work this through. What’s causing this in you? What’s the remedy?” You see, God wants His grace and His favour to change us from the inside out.

Friends, God’s grace is awesome! It’s outlandish! Some would even say it’s irresponsible. But you know what? God can’t help Himself. It says in Isaiah 30:18-19, “The Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you His compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him. O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you.”

God is gracious! And the word gracious means He stoops down from heaven, and He comes down to our level and He wants to pour out His favour on us. He wants to make us His favourites by stooping down from heaven to our level. And He does so with compassion in His heart. He cares for us so deeply. And it says in this passage that He longs to do that. He’s just waiting for an opportunity to do that. His heart bursts to be compassionate and gracious. It’s part of His being. It’s Him. It’s who He is. He can’t help himself but be a gracious God.

And friends, we see that most clearly in Jesus, when He was on His way to the cross, on Palm Sunday. When He cried out on that road, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Mt 23:37).

Jesus longs to bring the lost in. He longs to gather the broken, and heal them. He wants to restore them. His heart goes out to them. Jesus is showing the heart of the Father, who longs to pour out His favour and restore and heal the lost and broken.

And you know what? This gracious God is truly amazing. His grace is so amazing that it frees us. Remember the story of the prodigal son? The son abused his father. He took his inheritance and treated his father as if he was dead already. Then he squandered it all on loose living. Justice said that the son deserved to be abandoned. Mercy said he could come home as a servant. However, outlandish grace said, “Welcome him home as a son and let’s celebrate his return!”

You know friends, in so much of my life I was trained to believe that one needed to work hard to get rewards and to get ahead in life. “Son, work hard at school, at work, perform well and you will get ahead”, said my father. I adopted this same approach in church. Believe the right things, work hard, and God’s blessings will be yours.

However, one day someone said to me that the gap between God and I was so huge that I could never bridge it with my efforts. My moral improvement plan would end up short of what God required. If I went down that road I would be a slave to the law all my life. However, God has a ‘grace-freeing’ plan. He reaches down to me in pure grace and forgives me, cleanses me in the blood of Jesus, and gives me a new start. You see, God’s grace is so wonderful, it frees us from our slavery to the law. God’s grace frees us!

Then secondly, God’s grace is amazing because it makes us secure. Over the years I have heard people tell me, “Yes, we are saved by grace but we are kept by our obedience and service.” Unfortunately the result of this approach is insecurity, doubt, and another form of slavery. People are driven to perform for God because they might lose their salvation.

But you know what it says in Romans 8:32? It says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Friends, we are saved by amazing grace, and we are kept by that same amazing grace.

Can you imagine receiving a beautiful gift of a Rolls Royce from a generous compassionate billionaire, only to find out that he has been stingy with the extras? The radio is inferior. The air conditioning is cheap. If the gift truly comes from a generous giver then all the extras will be of the same quality as the original gift. There is none more generous than our God.

Jesus said He came that we could have life and have it abundantly (Jn 10:10)! And you know what this means? We don’t have to live in fear of losing our salvation. He will not let us go. We can live secure in God’s abundant grace. That same grace that saved us now keeps us for eternity.

There is something else that is amazing about this grace. One, it frees us from having to earn points with God. Two, it keeps us secure for eternity. Three, it actually changes us from the inside out.

Think of the prodigal son who made such a mess of his life. He ruined so many relationships. He ended up in helplessness and despair. Then, going home, he expecting to be rejected, getting justice, but hoping that he would get mercy and be welcomed as a servant. But lo and behold, he receives this outlandish grace. He is forgiven. He is reinstated. He is celebrated over. Can you imagine him not to be effected by that in the centre of his being? Can you imagine him returning to the pigsties of life? Friends, this explosion of amazing grace that was poured all over him would have changed him for life.

Friends, when you have experienced the outlandish amazing grace of God impacting on your life, you will never be the same again. When you experience this outlandish grace of God, then you experience incredible relief. I don’t need to perform to impress my God. In Christ He has accepted me fully. Then you experience the incredible joy of knowing that you are a special child of God. You experience this amazing optimism as you face the future. You are secure in Christ and He wants you to have abundant life.

You know what happens then? As you experience this amazing grace, this outlandish grace of God? Then you become more gracious in relationships with others. Then you want to share this grace around with your brothers and sisters in the church. Grace changes us from the inside out.

Friends, we live in a graceless world. Grace is not a concept that is easily understood, let alone experienced today in our society. Justice yes, mercy maybe to some extent, but not grace. However, grace is an ingredient that our world desperately needs. It is a quality that our world hungers and aches for.

There are people in your street, living in your neighborhood, who are desperate for the grace of God. There are people at your job who are desperate for grace. Guess what? You and I have it! We have been changed by it. We can share it around. By just simply caring for another when it is not expected. By not asking for justice when others deserve it. By not even just giving mercy, when that would be seen as doing more than enough. But by being gracious. Outlandishly gracious, as God in Christ has done for us.

God’s grace is amazing. It freed a hopeless slave trader from a destitute way of life. It gave him security when he was plagued by doubts. It gave him confidence to live a new grace-filled life for Jesus. His name was John Newton. He wrote the hymn, “Amazing Grace.” So let’s sing it and praise our God for His amazing grace.

Amen.