11/15/15---Grace: It's Free

Although it seems like we hear of and experience God's grace all the time, focusing in on it gives us a great opportunity to be attuned to what God is doing in our lives and the world around us. We know something about God's grace, as we just celebrated 50 years of ministry here at Gray Memorial last Sunday. We know something about God's grace, too, as we anticipate the coming holidays in which we are intentionally thankful to God, and celebrate the birth and sending of Jesus.

For the next 2 weeks, grace will be our focus. I will be preaching on how grace is free, and the ways in which we experience grace in the world and in our lives (John Wesley calls these ways "means of grace.")

John Wesley preached about grace, too. His, and my, focus verse when talking about the nature of grace, that it is free for all, is Romans 8: 32 "He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?" The key word here is "give." God gives us grace. God does not make us earn it; God gives us opportunities to respond to the grace God has given us. There is a world of difference there. Wesley wrote a sermon called "Free Grace" in which he describes the nature of grace, largely up against the idea of predestination. He argued that since grace is free, it is also "in all." The idea of the "elect" still exists in Christian thought, although I believe the idea that we have to "earn" God's love is more prevalent (although the ideas are related). We have inside of us a mind that cannot conceive the fact that God freely loves us because of God's goodness. We cannot imagine having something like that for free, and so this idea creeps into our minds and our hearts.

However difficult it is for us to fathom, God still makes this true. On our worst days, our best days, and all of them in between, God's loving grace never runs out or is diminished. Grace is not performance based. Grace gives us a reason to be our best, to run our race with perseverance, to walk our journey with hope, to reach out in courage, and to speak with boldness of this grace.

I pray that these 2 weeks before Advent give us a way in which we may approach the holidays, knowing that it is because of God's grace that we have reason to celebrate.

I'll see you on Sunday!