"A Church Called Grace
" Sermon Transcript for November 11, 2001 By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn
About two months ago I was putting together a brochure that I was going to distribute at Franklin College to the students there to try to help them discover a good reason to come and worship with us here at Grace United Methodist Church. It’s a challenge because if you’ve been on the college campus lately you know it can be a little confusing. You know, what can you say to young minds like theirs that might make them have time for worship and experience Christians? I racked by brain, quite frankly, trying to figure this out. And then one day as I drove in the front entrance of the church parking lot, I looked at our sign and it was all summed up in one word – grace. It occurred to me that everybody could use a little bit of grace. And so as I prepared the brochure, I simply tried to describe my hope and desire that everyone who came through those doors would feel grace.
Now when we think about grace we’re usually more mindful about the kinds of grace that the songs are written about. And certainly it’s true. Remember the beautiful hymn, "Amazing Grace"?
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!Thro’ many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
Tis grace hath bro’t me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures.And ye when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And the mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright, shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,
Than when we first begun.That’s the kind of grace that comes to mind when we think of the word grace. Or maybe you’re like me and this next hymn speaks to you of how you feel about God’s amazing grace.
And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
That Thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?It’s amazing love, tis mercy all, the immortal dies?
Who can explore His strange desire
In vain the first born of men
try to sound the depths of God’s love divine
Tis mercy, all! Let earth adore.
Let angel minds inquire no more!It is mercy. He left his father’s throne
So free, so infinite His grace.
Emptied Himself of all but love
And led for Adam’s helpless race.
Tis mercy! Immense and free
Oh God!, but you found meTis mercy! Immense and free
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Amazing love, how could it be!
No condemnation now I dread
Jesus, with all in Him is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown, thro’ Christ my own.
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
Amazing love! How can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?God’s grace doesn’t make any sense does it? That’s what the writers of these hymns are saying to us when we really get it. When we really receive that grace and realize our own sinful nature, we’re driven to our knees in utter astonishment that God would do such a thing for us. That’s grace; that’s God’s grace. And when we receive that radical, amazing grace and experience it for ourselves in the midst of our sin and despair, then we find ourselves like the new believers in Pentecost in the 2nd Chapter of Acts who stand before the Apostles dumbfounded and astonished at God’s love and say, "Now what do we do? Now what do we do?" And Peter’s reply is simple. He says, "Repent, be baptized." This has been the message of grace since Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem and Israel. "Now go and sin no more. You are free. Your debt is paid. You no longer have to fear death. The penalty has been paid. Go, and sin no more.
And that’s exactly what we want to talk about now. We want to talk about grace, not only as we have experienced it from God but particularly how we will experience it from each other. The Apostle Paul gives us some very specific instruction about that and we’re going to take a look at his words to the Romans in a second. But let’s take a look at Paul for a minute. I think, I’m pretty sure anyway, that he could have written those two hymns that I referred to a moment ago. Here was a guy who persecuted Christians, who made it his mission to try to stomp out Christianity. It was his goal to stop this insidious disease before it ever got hold. And yet in an act of amazing, extraordinary, radical ways God saved the persecutor of Christians and made him the great evangelist that brought us to this place today. No wonder people fall on their face and say, "How can it be that though my God would die for me?"
Paul surely felt that way. And yet Paul didn’t spend a lot of time talking about that. He says to people, "Yes, you must accept the gift of salvation that comes through Jesus." But then he spends the vast majority of time explaining to people how you must live it out. How they must work out this salvation. Join me in reading the words…I’ll read you follow along, from Romans, Chapter 12. Let’s hear what Paul says about living out that grace. "Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is. His good, pleasing and perfect will. Love must be sincere; hate what is evil; cling to what is good; be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope; patient in affliction; faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible as far as it depends on you, live in peace with every one. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written, "It is mine to revenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome with evil; but overcome evil with good."
Paul, who was radically changed by God’s grace, responded by instructing us to live out that grace. He tells us that the living of our lives should be a spiritual act of worship. When you’ve experienced God’s grace in a new and amazing way, you’ve been driven to your knees and you find yourself saying, "Amazing grace, how can it be?" You come to places like this and you worship and certainly you should. But our goal is to worship with every moment, every hour of our lives, in every place that we find ourselves. To worship through our acts of grace and the invitation of God’s grace in our homes, in our families, in our church, in our workplace, in the community. Even in our cars; and that’s pretty hard to do at these monotonous four-way stops they have all over Franklin. But grace is to be expressed as an act of worship with our lives every day, every moment. It begins with the transforming of our minds, Paul says. That’s why you come to church because it is a place to feed the mind and the soul and to be transformed. It is our hope, and I trust your prayer, that never will you come to this place without being different when you leave. And that transformation begins to work itself out in the living of our lives and the expression of the grace that we have received. The grace that changes our lives is ours to share with others so that their lives might be changed.
But let’s look at some specifics that Paul has told us in his instruction. We want to exercise radical grace right here in our church family. And it is ironic I’m afraid to say that often times grace can be lost in churches. It can be misplaced. Put away in the closet with some of the old worship methods. Grace is never more important than it is right here in this place as we who call ourselves sons and daughters of God sit with those who are then logically our brothers and sisters. Do we know their names? Do you know the name of the person sitting next to you, behind you or in front of you?
Unfortunately in churches one of the most destructive forces is self-centeredness. And Paul advises us to guard against that, to be bold in our rejection of it. Yesterday my friend, John Waggoner, sent me a virus protection program via Internet to put on my computer so that it would screen out nasty viruses that might mess up the thinking of my computer. It is our desire then that we should try to put some kind of virus protection on our minds that would screen out selfishness because it is the absolute counterpart to the cross, which is the place of selflessness. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, the one who rules over all of creation was stripped and nailed to the cross. And He went willingly. And while He hung dying on the cross said to God on behalf of those who were torturing Him, "Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do." That’s the message of the cross, selflessness and grace. And we’ve got to exercise that here in this church and in our community and in our families, everywhere we go. It begins with simple things. Simply to share with those in need.
Several years ago I had the privilege of witnessing what would be one of the last performances of the great comedian, Red Skeleton. I grew up watching his show and I loved him dearly. And when I heard that I would have the opportunity to see him live and in person at the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville I was quick to get in line and get my ticket. I sat in one of the front rows and I watched my hero go through his monologue laughing, you know how he did, before he ever got to the punch line. Until a few minutes into one of his monologues a train came barreling down the tracks about 100 yards from the stadium where we watched and the loud horn just completely disrupted his routine. He had to stop and wait. And while the train was passing he began to giggle a little bit; you know how he did. And when it stopped making so much noise he said, "I guess I ought to tell you a train story." And with that he began to describe to us how when he was on the road in the vaudeville days he would travel at night by train city to city sleeping in the sleeping compartments on the train. And if you are familiar with the term, they were referred to as a berth. That was your bed on the sleeping car of the train. There were also coaches on the train that just had seats. And one night he boarded the train and walked through the coach headed for his sleeping compartment berth. And he saw a helpless looking little old woman sitting in one of the seats obviously preparing to spend the night sitting upright in the coach. And he was moved with compassion; felt sorry for her; and gave her his Pullman ticket which was what entitled him to sleep in the bed and sleeping compartment in the berth. Now that’s selflessness for someone in need. But the story doesn’t stop there. It was his custom every morning when he arrived at the next station to send a brief telegram to his wife letting her know that he was okay and that he would be home soon. Now you who are older will probably recall that telegrams were charged by the word so people used economy with their words. When he got home from that road trip his wife met him at the door and quickly took him to the table to show him the telegram he’d sent on that particular morning which read, "Very tired this morning. Gave berth to a woman last night."
That kind of grace is sacrificial. We give up something for the sake of another even if they don’t seem to deserve it. The truth is that for those of us who don’t have a lot of needs at a particular moment, it’s easy to assume that the one who has a need deserves to be in that position. It’s easy for us to assume that that person has brought about this difficult situation. That’s what makes the grace all the more an invitation of God’s grace. To give it to people who don’t seem to deserve it is to do exactly what God has done for us. For none of us has earned our ticket to heaven. It was given to us free of charge by someone who saw us suffering and couldn’t resist the urge to give us that gift of love.
We practice hospitality when we imitate God’s grace. We do that in a variety of ways. Hospitality is to simply make someone feel welcome. That’s not always easy in a church like this one where it is so beautiful, where so many of us are quite accustomed to worship and what it is to behave as an appropriate sort of church worshiper. And so we find ourselves at a loss when someone walks through the doors who just doesn’t appear to fit in. Someone who obviously doesn’t know how most people dress for church. Someone who obviously doesn’t know where they should sit, how they should behave, whether or not they should be quiet at certain times. But Paul says that we have to practice hospitality and the invitation of God’s grace. Therefore we make them feel welcome no matter how different they might seem because we were lost once but then became found. We were blind once, but now we see. And we know that in the invitation of God’s radical grace, we have to be willing to do the same thing for them. Offer them sight, help them know that they are found and watch what happens when we selflessly sacrifice and give over nothing but love and grace.
We rejoice with those who rejoice even when they are doing better than we are. I tried fishing for a while and I gave up when I tried scuba diving. I realized after I dropped down about ten feet there’s lots of fish down there; they’re just really hard to catch. Well my friend who owned a boat was usually looking for someone to fish with and he didn’t know how to swim and so we had a bargain. I would teach him to swim if he’d teach me to fish. He can’t swim and I can’t fish still to this day. But I did rejoice with him when he would reel in a big, fat bass that he’d work for an hour to catch. We can rejoice with those who rejoice even when they exceed our own lives.
We mourn with those who mourn. I received word late yesterday afternoon that Melinda Ramsey is making the trip to Evansville for a dying relative for the third time in the last year as her brother is now dying from asbestos poisoning. I mourn with those who mourn because I can’t help it. As we all grieved at the loss of New York City several weeks ago we mourned as an act of grace. We let them know that we are with them. That as much as we can, we suffer with them. David mentioned that his family was touched by the grace of Grace people who mourned with them as they mourned.
Paul tells us that we must exercise radical grace in the invitation of God’s grace as He gave it to us and he means even to those from whom we are separated--those people that we disagree with, those people whose ideas don’t match our own, those people whose vision doesn’t seem to fall in line with our own vision. Paul says that we exercise radical grace with those we consider our enemies. He says we should live in harmony with one another. You heard the choir just a moment ago. I’m not a musical expert but I happen to know that they were not all singing the same notes. Further more I know that some of them were looking at different places on the page from the person next to them. Yet something beautiful happened; they made harmony and it touched our souls. So much so that we couldn’t resist clapping. You see, God’s grace as it is exhibited in our lives is the same way when we graciously love one another even when we are not singing from the same page. Something beautiful happens, something called harmony. That’s what Paul means when he says to live in harmony with one another. Basically Paul says live in harmony with all, exercise radical grace toward everyone. Even bless those who persecute you. That’s not easy. And yet every time in my life where I’ve felt persecuted, felt that I’ve had an enemy that just had it in for me, I prayed for them. And the more angry I became the more I prayed until finally my anger was released and I realized that it was all about me in the first place. God was saying, "I’ll take care of them. Revenge is mine, not yours. What are we going to do about you?" If anger is eating you up, let it go. Participate in my way of thinking. Extend radical and amazing grace through prayer for those who persecute you. Overcome evil with good. And Paul says that in that way you "heap burning coals on their head". I’m never quite sure how to take that. I’d rather not imagine heaping burning coals on their head, it looks like it would hurt. And yet if you take him figuratively it sounds like he’s saying you can really mess with their heads. If instead of acting exactly the way they expect you to in that earthly way that they think, you act in a radical, amazing, unpredictable way just as God has done in your own life.
Basically what we are challenged to do is to display grace with the spirit of those who have been graced. We are after all like the writers of those hymns that I referred to. People who have at some point in our lives recognized our sin, recognized our unworthiness, our own inability to pay that price. And we’ve fallen on our faces before a God who has given us an amazing, incredible gift we didn’t deserve. And all He asks is that we give it to each other. "As much as we are able, as much as it depends on us," Paul says. And then persevere with zeal and fervor, even being patient in our infliction because we know that’s not the end of the story. We live with joy and hope even in troubling times like these.
I’m glad I’m a part of a church called Grace. I hope you are too. It’s good news and bad news. You’ve got to look at that sign every time you pull in the parking lot too. And there it is. Grace. Reminding you of what you have received and what you must give. Let it be our prayer then that God transforms us even today into people of grace who worship in a place called Grace. Amen.
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