Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

SIBKL/Pastor Lee Choo/17/3/12

The whole season of Easter is the most powerful in the Christian calendar. Sadly, Good Friday is least understood by Christians. Today’s message is based on the word Amazing Grace, and the cross is where amazing grace is. Christianity is not like any other religion because it is about a person, and not just about teachings. The cross is both a historical event and a cosmological event. Before the cross, it is B.C., Before Christ. After Christ, there is A.D. which stands for Anno Domini – in the year of the Lord’s favor.

Christianity is about the death of man, and about how that man conquered death. All other religions teach people to do good. They focus on works, whether Buddhism or Islam or Hinduism. Christianity is about faith in God’s grace alone, without works. Christianity is about salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. It is about what He has done! The word grace or Charis, occurs about 150 times in the Bible. There are 2 main meanings of grace. Firstly, it is goodwill, loving kindness, the favor of God. Secondly, it is the merciful kindness by which God exerts holy influence on souls to turn them to Christ, keeping, strengthening them and helping them in their Christian faith, and kindling them to exercise Christian virtues.

Imagine I have a neighbor that drives into my car, smashing it up. Then, my husband, a merciful man, goes and tells him, “it’s ok, you don’t have to pay for my car, I will repair it myself. You just repair your own car”. That would be amazing. However, imagine, if my husband said, “it’s ok, I will pay for the repairs for both my car and yours”. That would be grace – undeserved, unwarranted, unexpected.

If we really understand God’s amazing grace, we would understand how deep and wonderful is our salvation. We cannot earn grace. We cannot merit grace. We can only receive grace. The grace of God is that He accepted me, not that I accepted Jesus Christ. We must know that we cannot merit grace, and that we can only humbly say “thank you” and receive.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says “For 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”. We cannot improve on God’s grace. We are not a Christian because we serve God full time or read through the whole Bible or fast for 40 days. We are Christians because we have received Jesus Christ. Romans 4:25-5:11  reads “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. “

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us! When Jesus died on the cross, something happened. After that, it became possible for God to justify us. Now we have the amazing grace of God, and we have access to God. But who are we that God would want to die for us.

The passage shows us 4 things about us long before God sent Jesus to save us. Firstly, we were powerless to save ourselves (vs.6) There is nothing we can do to be saved. Secondly we were ungodly. We were among those who resist God, who hate God, who were opposed to God, who did not want God in our lives. Thirdly, we were sinners, devoted to sin. We even thought that sin was great. Finally, we were enemies of God.

Imagine, if in the previous example, the neighbor who banged my car was a terrible neighbor, who played loud music late into the night, who scattered rubbish on my driveway, who would call DBKL to make complaints against me. Still, my husband decided to pay for his car as well. That would be really amazing grace! We don’t appreciate God or love Him intensely because we have never understood who we are without Jesus Christ. Some of us may even think that although we are saved by grace, it is also partly due to my dedication and good works. We must never forget to appreciate God’s amazing grace which alone saves us.

When Jesus died on the cross, our sins were forgiven. Forgiveness of sins is paramount to having a relationship with God. Sin is falling short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23. Sin is the barrier between God and man. When God appears, we will be so aware of our sin. Christ cut off sin and took the penalty of sin. Because He forgave our sins, God can now accept us. Jesus has accepted me because He died on the cross to forgive my sins. Peace comes after we have been forgiven and we can have peace within ourselves. Individually, we don’t have peace because we don’t feel good about ourselves. When Jesus comes in, we feel ok.

The most precious thing to God is Jesus Christ. All of want to make good investments. A bad investment is investing something precious to get back trash, like changing a carat diamond for a stone. When Jesus died on the cross, it was God’s greatest investment and He received in return the souls of men. Because Jesus is of incredible value and He died for us, we are also valuable. We are more valuable than the angels, the oceans.  Jesus not only paid for the penalty of sin, but also gave us power to be free from sin! The penalty of sin is separation of God but His saving grace has given us access to God. And His Empowering grace has delivered us from the power of sin. Romans 6-8 explains is how this is done. How? Firsly, we are united with Jesus, with the nature of Christ. Romans 5:6-8 says “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him”. We are not to waste life. Sin destroys human potential. Jesus died to save us from losing our potential. We live to our full potential when we live Christ-like lives.
Reverend Andy Lim shared how he used to smoke, and his pastor told him that if he smoked, Jesus was smoking with him. So he prayed and was able to stop. The desire to sin had gone.
Romans 8:1-2 says “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” In Jesus, we have the power of the Holy Spirit which helps us overcome sin. Praying in tongues is not about loudness. It is about the Holy Spirit taking control of our human man, to let Him take centre place in our spirit. As many are led by the Spirit, as many are sons of God.
1 John 1:9 tells that God forgives us whenever we sin and confess our sins to Him. In our new nature, we will not want to sin, and we can say no to sin. If we do sin, we can come to God and receive His grace and forgiveness. When we agree with God that sin is sin, God is faithful and takes away the root of sin. Romans 8:34 tells us how Jesus is interceding for us!
Is this then license to sin? God forbid. If we really understand sin, we will understand grace. Many Christians do not live victorious life, because they have never really repented. They have not understood that sin means separation from God and living below your potential. Sin just causes people to feel bad about themselves.
In Amazing grace, sin is serious, sin is condemned. However the sinner is forgiven. We have peace with God and peace with ourselves. We are indebted to God’s grace and live to please him. In Cheap grace, sin is trivialized and condoned. The sinner is still condemned. He insults God’s grace and lives to please himself.
If we see sin as just a mistake or a cultural phenomenon, we do not realize the seriousness of sin. When sin is condoned, the sinner is condemned. Some live in condemnation, guilt and shame. If we are not happy, we blame other people. Hebrews tells us that if we keep on sinning, we trample Christ underfoot, and there is no more sacrifice of sins left. The amazing grace of God is such that He loved us even when we did not want to worship Him.
Christianity is about a God who came into our lives, not a  human being who came to God. Amazing grace tells us – I was once a sinner, but now I am a son. The writer of Amazing Grace, John Newton said “I am not the man I ought to be, or wish to be or hope to be, but by the grace of God, I am not the man I used to be”.
You may struggle in Christian life but we have a God who does not give up on us. It is His amazing grace that will see us through as we hope in Him.