Grace Alone

Scripture Lessons: Exodus 19: 2-8a and Romans 5: 1-8 Sermon Title: Grace Alone Preached on September 11, 2022 I remember where I was when the planes hit the Twin Towers on September 11th, 2001. It was the day of opening convocation at Presbyterian College. We were just starting to gather outside for the procession, and the two or three students who had cell phones were the only ones who knew anything. Looking up from their phones, they were saying things like, “Another is on the way to the Pentagon.” At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. Today, it makes sense. That day it all sounded impossible, and because being attacked was an impossibility, no one was prepared. No one knew what to do. The opening convocation was cancelled. Most students went back to their dorm rooms to call their parents or watch the news. On every channel were the same images again and again of airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. A dust cloud. First responders running in. Eventually, not knowing what else to do, I walked into Professor Smith’s history class. About half my classmates were in there with me. It was a class on the history of India. Without saying anything, he opened a book of ancient Indian folk stories and read to us, one story after another. He just read stories to us, as though we were back in kindergarten story time. Once an hour had passed, he said something like, “Thank you for letting me read these stories to you. On a day like today, it felt good to read these beautiful stories and to be reminded that, while we humans are capable of inflicting terrible violence on each other, we are also capable of creating beautiful stories.” That’s true. Both of those qualities are true of humans, and they are true at the same time; there’s evidence of both on that same day, for the reality of September 11th is both what those men did after hijacking airplanes and the phone calls people made from the upper floors of the Twin Towers, which were not one last word of hate, but desperate calls to the people they love. Last year at the foot of Kennesaw Mountain, I heard a first responder speak, and in hearing him, I knew that the terrorists didn’t win; that the last word on September 11th is not violence but the sacrificial love that pushed that firefighter to drive into the city even though it was his day off and to climb flight after flight of stairs in the hope of saving someone he didn’t even know. Yes, on the one hand is terrorism, genocide, slavery, racism, greed, and war, yet still, on the other is love, literature, music, kindness, mercy, and grace. Therefore, Martin Luther, the great reformer who started the Protestant Reformation which resulted in the formation of the Presbyterian Church, coined the Latin phrase, “Simul justus et pecator,” or “We are simultaneously sinners and saints.” We are marked both by Adam’s sin and Christ’s perfection. We can do what is right in one moment while doing the wrong that hurts us and our neighbor the next. Therefore, an old man once told his grandson, “There is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.” The boy thought about it and asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?” The old man quietly replied, “the one you feed.” What I want you to know this morning is that there is sin in the world. There is also grace. And grace wins. How do I know? I know because Christ died for us and conquered sin. Therefore, the Apostle Paul writes, we have peace with God; and we boast even in our afflictions, for God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Sometimes, you read Paul’s letter and you think to yourself, “That’s a lot of complicated information in a few short phrases,” so let me say it another way: 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. You know that song. Knowing where it came from makes it even more powerful. The whole story is in this month’s church newsletter in an article written by Connie Caird. Basically, the story goes that John Newton, then the captain on a ship transporting men and women from West Africa to be sold at auction in the New World, all at once recognized what he was doing. Here he was, a human being, transporting others just like him from freedom into slavery: from their homes to a land where they would be whipped, beaten, and forced to work without pay. When we find ourselves in such a situation, we all look in the mirror and say to ourselves, “Who could love a wretch like me?” Yet then came the whisper of grace, amazing grace. What do you know about grace? We are saved by “grace alone” says one of the five standards of the reformed tradition. When I say “reformed tradition,” you may not know exactly what I mean. “Reformed” is just the word we use to describe the style of Christianity that emerged from Germany about 600 years ago when Martin Luther broke from the Roman Catholic Church and started the Protestant Reformation. Thanks to the printing press, from Germany, his ideas spread throughout Europe, eventually making it to Geneva, Switzerland, where John Calvin started the Presbyterian Church. Calvin’s ideas spread to Scotland, where the Presbyterian Church really took hold. As Scottish Presbyterians immigrated to the United States, there were so many that some in England called the American Revolution “the Presbyterian Revolution.” We, as members of the Presbyterian Church, are a part of the reformed tradition, which comes down to five theological statements: We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, for the Glory of God alone. The next several Sundays are focused on those statements. Today, it’s “grace alone.” What does that mean? It means that when we look in the mirror and can’t imagine ourselves as anything other than a wretch, lost and alone, defined by sin and shortcoming, the love of God is there. It means that while there is sin in the world and in our hearts, there is also beauty. It means that there are two wolves inside us all, but one will triumph over the other by the power of God, for despite our imperfections, in Scripture, God’s love for us is described as the love of a mother hen for her chicks, or as the love of a father for his prodigal son. A preacher you know named Ray Jones told it this way: He was walking his daughter down the aisle at her wedding. She told him again and again, “Daddy, just don’t make me cry. Don’t say anything that will make me cry at my wedding.” He kept his mouth shut through the rehearsal dinner. He didn’t give a toast or anything, but as he walked her down the aisle, he whispered to her, “I love you, and as long as you live, you will never fully know the gift you are to your mother and me.” If God is our Father in Heaven, is God not this kind of a father? The kind whose love for us, in just a few simple words, brings tears to our eyes? What does it mean to be saved by grace alone? It means that whatever you’ve done or not done, wherever you’ve been or not been, no matter how far you’ve strayed or how weak or stubborn you’ve been, your heavenly Father is waiting with open arms to welcome you home. To be saved by grace alone is to remember that the God of the Exodus is still delivering His people from slavery out of profound and powerful love. To be saved by grace alone is to know that the debts incurred by all of our imperfection have already been paid off by a loving Savior who laid down His life to settle our account with His body and blood. It’s grace that we’re talking about this morning. Amazing grace. Do you know what I mean when I say grace? Grace changes us. It replaces our shame with gratitude, and so John Newton got off the ship and dedicated his life to ending slavery. Why? He did that because God had set him free. What else could he possibly do? Likewise, the Apostle Paul told much the same story. To anyone who would listen, he would tell them: I was a persecutor of Christians. When the disciple Stephen was stoned, I was the one holding the coats of those who threw the stones. I neither objected nor protested but encouraged the execution of an innocent man. Still, Christ died for me. That’s grace. Once Paul felt it, that was all he cold talk about. Letter after letter. Sermon after sermon. Everything he wrote can be reduced down to this one statement: Christ died for me. In the same way, I stand before you today as your preacher, who, in 7th grade, was nearly a confirmation class dropout. When I was 16, I could be seen driving the streets of Marietta in a Chevrolet painted checkerboard. I was probably speeding. I don’t know whether I was or not because the speedometer didn’t work, but one day grace got a hold of me and wouldn’t let me go. One day, I felt God’s love, and I didn’t feel it because I deserved it. I felt it because it’s real, and having felt that grace, I knew what I wanted to spend my life doing: not skipping church, but leading one. My question for you today is this: Have you felt it? Have you felt forgiveness? Have you felt God’s unconditional love? Do you know what it is to be down in the pit, sure you would drown in the darkness, only to feel the light of hope break through? We are saved by grace alone, so our wretchedness will not define us. No. Christ died for us. Christ died for you. Christ died for me. We are worth dying for. How will you respond to this good news? As I said before, in the coming weeks, we’ll be thinking about what we believe as reformed Christians: that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, which leads us to live for the glory of God alone. If you’ve felt God’s grace, how has it changed the way you live? I want you to know that God’s grace has changed me, and I’m all in. Are you?