Sunday's Message: Easter in Seven Words - Grace

There are many words and images that we associate with Easter, both secular and sacred. During the Sundays leading up to Easter, we'll focus on seven words that the Apostle Paul used when he described the importance of the crucifixion and resurrection. We'll consider the following:

• February 26 – Grace (Romans 5:12-19)
• March 5 – Faith (Romans 4:1-5)
• March 12 – Peace (Romans 5:1-11)
• March 19 – Light (Ephesians 5:8-14)
• March 26 – Spirit (Romans 8:6-11)
• April 2 – Humility (Philippians 2:5-11)
• April 9 – Life (Colossians 3:1-4)

During the first service, we'll use Romans 5:12-19 to consider the word GRACE. Below is a copy and a recording of the sermon. You can stream the service by going to the Sligo Presbyterian Church YouTube Channel at 10:00 a.m.

******

Listen: 67, 17, 56, 20. Now, if you’ve either played or follow football, you might expect that the next thing I should say is “hike,” right? But let me tell you, I’m not giving signals like a quarterback at the line of scrimmage. No, these are four of the high and low temperatures we’ve had in the last week. And if we decided to look at the whole month, we’d have to throw in another 68 and 64 as well as a 4 and a 2. Now that’s what we’ve seen in Sligo in the last twenty days or so. And I haven’t even mentioned that there was some snow in the air yesterday morning. I think I’m safe in saying that, as it relates to weather, February has been a roller coaster ride around here.

And I’ll tell you, in my opinion, this is really the perfect way to enter the season of Lent, and I’m talking about the 46 days that lead up to Easter, and I’ll tell you why. You see, in a very real way, I think this pretty much describes the life of Jesus as he entered his last seven weeks. I mean, for him and his disciples, man, it was a genuine roller coaster ride, with lows like him praying that God would let this cup pass and his betrayal and arrest and highs like his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and him besting the scribes and the Pharisees when he was teaching in the Temple. Now that’s what happened, ending with the ultimate low point, and I’m talking about his crucifixion, and the ultimate high, his resurrection. This up and down season we entered last Wednesday.

And since we’re all moving toward Easter together, we’re starting a new sermon series this morning that I hope will help us better understand some of what was going on as Jesus was heading to the cross and the empty tomb. And to do that, we’ll be looking at seven passages from some of Paul’s letters, scripture in which he focused on seven different words that, when taken together, described what this journey meant to him. And so, as we move toward our own Easter, we’re going to spend a little time looking at those seven words, each of which I believe can help us better understand what the crucifixion and resurrection was all about and why it was and still is important and how it can shape our lives and our faith. Now that’s what we’re going to be doing for the next seven weeks.

And this morning, we’re going to start with a passage from Paul’s letter to the Roman, scripture that, based on the number of times it’s used, focuses on the word grace, an idea that a lot of Christians talk about but that, when you listen to what they say, either doesn’t reflect what Paul actually wrote or that may be pretty hard to see in the lives they choose to live. 

And so, as we move toward Easter, we’re going to start by talking about grace, using what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 5:12-19. And to do that, you know, to get a handle on what this grace business is all about, we’re going to focus on three things Paul outlined in this passage: first, the human condition, and second, the divine response, and third, the end result. Now, that’s the plan.

You see, according to Paul, for us to experience grace, first, I think we’ve really got to understand the human condition. And even though I know this is sort of a spoiler alert, who we are and what shapes our actions and attitudes can really be summed in one word: sin. You see, for us to experience God’s grace, we really have to talk about human sin, something Paul did right at the beginning of our passage when he wrote this to the Romans:

Adam sinned, and that sin brought death into the world. Now everyone has sinned, and so everyone must die. Sin was in the world before the Law came. But no record of sin was kept, because there was no Law. Yet death still had power over all who lived from the time of Adam to the time of Moses. This happened, though not everyone disobeyed a direct command from God, as Adam did.

In some ways Adam is like Christ who came later. [Romans 5:12-14, CEV]

Now that’s what Paul wrote.

Of course, this is just sort of the tip of the iceberg. In Romans, Paul had a lot more to say about human sin.  And since our Wednesday morning group just finished talking about Romans a couple of weeks ago, if any of y’all want to learn more about sin, just spend a little time with those who attended that study, you know, while it’s still fresh in their minds. Trust me, they know about sin. But be that as it may, let’s just say, Paul went into a whole more detail about how it’s shown, particularly at the beginning of his letter. But you know, in what we just read, I think he was pretty clear about both what human sin is and what it does. You see, this trait, this quality, this reality that was present in Adam, the first person, for Paul, man, it affects all of us, which kind of makes sense, especially since the word “adam” actually means “human” in Hebrew. In other words, sin is universal; therefore, whether we like it or not, we are all sinners. As a matter of fact, by this point in his letter he’d already said as much when he wrote, “All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.” [Romans 3:23, CEV] And remember, he was writing this to Christians. But before we go any farther, let me be clear about this, the fact that Paul said we’re all sinners, that doesn’t mean we’re all rotten to the core or that we’re all running kicking dogs and tripping old ladies. No, we can still be good dancers and fun at parties and upstanding citizens. Man, we can even be fine, moral, Christian people. And yet for Paul, we’re all still sinners, because at some point in our lives, we’re all going to face something that sin does 100% of the time; it always leads to death. Put another way, all sinners die, but not because they do naughty things. For Paul, sin is just part of our nature, part of our world. And since, barring the return of Jesus Christ, every person here this morning is going to die and that’s going to happen whether or not we obey the Father or believe in the Son or trust in the Spirit,  for Paul, that shows that we’re all sinners. Like it or not, that’s who we are; that’s the human condition, the first thing we need to understand if we want to experience grace. 

And then, second, according to what Paul wrote to the Romans, we also need to understand the divine response. In other words, to experience grace, we need to understand how God deals with sinners, you know, how God deals with us. And even though, it may be tempting to assume that God is actually like us; therefore, he’ll give everybody what they deserve, because that’s what we’d do, I think we can all be grateful that God is not just a reflection of who we are. I mean, as we continue through our passage, just listen to how God responded to human sin:

But the gift of God's undeserved grace was very different from Adam's sin. That one sin brought death to many others. Yet in an even greater way, Jesus Christ alone brought God's gift of undeserved grace to many people.

There is a lot of difference between Adam's sin and God's gift. That one sin led to punishment. But God's gift made it possible for us to be acceptable to him, even though we have sinned many times. Death ruled like a king because Adam had sinned. But that cannot compare with what Jesus Christ has done. God has treated us with undeserved grace, and he has accepted us because of Jesus. And so we will live and rule like kings. [Romans 5:15-17, CEV]

Now again, that’s what Paul wrote.

And just think about what this means. Instead of turning his back on sinners, instead of letting us stew in our own juices and instead of giving us what we deserve, God gives us something else, doesn’t he? He gives us a gift, a gift that we just don’t deserve. You see, in response to our sin, God gives us something that we didn’t earn and that we don’t have the right to expect. In other words, he doesn’t offer us an allowance for being good boys and girls. And he doesn’t award us a prize for promising to give him our lives or our hearts or our minds or any other internal organ we know that God probably isn’t going to collect anytime soon. As a matter of fact, God doesn’t pay us a wage for believing in him or for making Jesus Lord or for asking the Holy Spirit to come into our lives. Man, for Paul, that’s not how God works, because if it was, we’d be getting what we earned; we’d be getting what we have the right to expect. But according to Paul, we don’t deserve grace; therefore, when God gives it, man, it’s got to be a gift. And do you know when that gift was given? It was given when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross. Just listen to what Paul wrote to the Romans in the very next chapter:

Don't you know that all who share in Christ Jesus by being baptized also share in his death? When we were baptized, we died and were buried with Christ. We were baptized, so we would live a new life, as Christ was raised to life by the glory of God the Father.

If we shared in Jesus' death by being baptized, we will be raised to life with him. We know that the persons we used to be were nailed to the cross with Jesus. This was done, so our sinful bodies would no longer be the slaves of sin. We know sin doesn't have power over dead people. [Romans 6:3-7, CEV]

Don’t you see? When Jesus died on the cross, we died too. Two thousand years before we were born, two thousand years before we’d done anything good, two thousand years before we’d made any promises, two thousand years before we believed or made or asked for anything, we died in Christ. And the power sin has to distort and to separate and to convince us that what we think is what God thinks and what we want is what God wants us to have, without our permission or help, that power was destroyed forever and this was given to us as a gift. Amen. You see, when faced with the human condition, this was the divine response, God gave us a gift, and to experience grace, I believe this is the second thing we need to understand.

And third, if we really want to experience grace in all its divine glory, I think we need to understand the end result, and I’m talking about how the divine response affects the human condition. And you know, it’s interesting, if our condition is grounded in sin and God’s response is offered as a gift, the end result is all about reconciliation, in other words, a new relationship with our heavenly Father. Just listen to what Paul wrote: 

Everyone was going to be punished because Adam sinned. But because of the good thing that Christ has done, God accepts us and gives us the gift of life. Adam disobeyed God and caused many others to be sinners. But Jesus obeyed him and will make many people acceptable to God. [Romans 5:18-19, CEV]

You see, this is the result of what God has done, and I’m talking about what God has done for us. Through Jesus Christ, we’ve been made acceptable to God. And again, that just makes sense. I mean, since we died with Christ and since the power of sin was destroyed on the cross, God no longer sees us as sinners. Do you realize that he no longer sees us as sinners? Instead, he sees us as his children, something that Paul described a little later in this letter:

God's Spirit doesn't make us slaves who are afraid of him. Instead, we become his children and call him our Father. God's Spirit makes us sure that we are his children. His Spirit lets us know that together with Christ we will be given what God has promised. We will also share in the glory of Christ, because we have suffered with him. [Romans 8:15-17, CEV]

You see, brothers and sisters, WE are the children of God. We ARE the children of God. We are THE CHILDREN OF GOD. And as such, we have the same kind of choice every child has. You see, we can choose to say thank you to the one who’s given us so much and we can do that by simply doing what our father wants us to do, namely to “love others as much as [we] love [ourselves].” [Romans 13:pb, CEV] Now this we can do. Or we can decide to do something else. I mean, we can deny our human condition and we can deny the divine response and we can deny the end result. In other words, we ignore the sin, and we can refuse the gift, and we can reject the reconciliation. In fact, we can deny everything that God has done, is doing and will do in the future, and we can live however we please. This we can do. But regardless of our choice, God will still be our Father, And even though we’ll have to face the consequences of our actions, God will always be ready, even anxious to welcome us home. You see, for sinners who’ve been given this incredible gift from God, reconciliation is the end result, the third thing that I think we need to understand, if we want to experience grace. 

Now, as we move into the month of March, the ten-day forecast I looked at yesterday seems pretty stable and unexciting, with the highs in the forties and the lows in the twenties. But let’s get real, how often are those forecasts right? In other words, right now, we really don’t know if March will come in as a lion or a lamb or some kind of weird blending of the two. We just don’t know. But even though the weather may be a little iffy, we can be confident that grace is not, because this is something we can experience when we understand the human condition and the divine response and the end result, and I’m talking about the sin and the gift and the reconciliation.  You see, this is what grace is all about, our first word of Easter. And next week, we’ll look at something else Paul wrote to the Romans and focus on our second word, faith.