"Amazing grace how sweet the sound….”
I have sung that song countless times. I remember singing it when I was younger in church and I sang it a few weeks ago at church. Growing up and until recently I didn’t really understand what grace was. I knew what amazing was. When I was younger green and purple ketchup were things that were amazing (honestly I don’t know why). But grace I didn’t understand. I thought I did, but I really didn’t.
Growing up I was told that in order to receive grace I had to say certain words to God, that I had to read certain Bible passages, hang out with a certain group of kids at school, and that if I messed up I would loose the grace that God gave me and I would have to start over. If this is true I spent most of my childhood loosing grace and even now at 20, I loose it a lot.
Over Christmas break I was told that I can’t be a pastor because I don’t have enough of the Bible memorized and because I haven’t even read the Bible from start to finish. So I decided I would tackle part of that statement. I started reading my Bible, and I came across a lot of stuff that is just useless, interesting but useless for my life. I really don’t think that I want to go sticking tent pegs into people’s heads and I happen to enjoy braiding my hair on a Sunday morning (when I am awake enough to do so). But I found many things that have opened my eyes, one of them being in II Corinthians, “In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself, by not counting people’s sins against them.” I was always taught that my sins were counted against me and that when I sinned I lost the grace that God gave me. But God isn’t counting my sins against me and I am not loosing grace, receiving grace, loosing grace, receiving grace (I think you get the picture).
Many people think that they have to do something in order to earn God’s grace, that they have to say certain words and then they will have grace. And then once they have this grace they better not mess up because they will loose it.
What kind of God would do that? What kind of loving parent would give their child something and then take it back because the child didn’t read their Bible enough or because their child didn’t pray the right way. No parent in his or her right mind would do that. And I believe and I think you will all agree with me on this, God is a parent who is in their right mind.
So back to this amazing grace, because it really is amazing. I came across this definition of it, the free and unmerited favor of God. Did you get those first few words, free and unmerited? Free meaning we don’t have to give anything to get it. We don’t have to say certain words, read certain passages, and ask for certain things, the only certainty that we have is that we don’t have to do anything. Now for unmerited, something that is not deserved, unworthy, ineligible, unqualified, and unfit.
People who give something to others when they don’t deserve are called selfless. We serve a selfless God. A God who loves us no matter what we do, a God who loves us even though we are unworthy, unqualified, and unfit.
Back to something we have all heard time and time again, John 3:16; “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” It was one of the first verses I ever memorized. What I didn’t understand at the age of four or five is that it was a specific kind of love that God has for all of his creation. In the Hellenistic world there were three words for love; eros-the stuff of romance, philos- the stuff for friends and then there was agape- selfless love, unmerited and undeserved. In case you were wondering the book of John was first written in Greek not in English and the word that was used for love is agape. So if we read John 3:16 with agape in it, it sounds like this; For God so agaped the world that he gave his one and only Son…For God so selflessly loved the world…For God so graciously loved the world.
The first Christians, the ones who wrote the Gospels and the letters, the ones who baptized Ethiopians along side of roads, the ones who healed crippled beggars outside the temple, the ones who took part in the new humanity understood agape and grace as gifts. Gifts that were freely given, gifts that didn’t have to be earned, gifts that required nothing in return, gifts that would never be taken back.
In the letter to the Philippians the writer says, “Only let us live up to what we have already attained.” The writer doesn’t tell the people at Philippi that have to say certain words, that they have to dress a certain way, that they have to exclude themselves from people because they believe different things, the writer simply says let us be who we already are, let us be who God created us to be. That is what grace is.
When you finish reading this I want you to walk away trusting that grace is enough, because it is. Trusting that you are good enough for God, because you are. Trusting that God has agape running through God’s veins, because God does. Trusting that you don’t have to do one more thing to earn God’s agape, because you already have it (and you didn’t have to do anything to get it).
go in PEACE. live PEACE. be PEACE.
