A Sermon Based Upon Romans 3: 19-25.
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Sunday, August 30th, 2014
…..they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (Rom 3:24 NRS)
When I was in high school, especially during Football season, we had pep
rallies. Often this would take place
either last period, or close to the end of the day, and all students were
released from class to come to the Football stadium where Cheerleaders, Coaches
and Players would encourage us to get ‘fired up’ to support our team.
I didn’t like pep rallies, although I did like sports. I just thought pep rallies were a waste of
time. During one particular Game Day, as
the class was canceled for the pep rally, a few friends (who also didn’t like
pep rallies) and myself decided to skip the rally and leave school early. No one told us we couldn’t. People had done it before. Normally no one check the attendance. Things were a less structured in those days,
so we decided to get into my friend’s car and cut the rally and go home.
We thought we it didn’t matter, but the next day they told us that after
the pep rally, everyone was told to report to their class before loading the
bus or going home. When I heard that, I
just knew I was in trouble. During “Home
Room”, the vice principal came on the intercom and read a long list of names of
people who were now being invited to come to the office. He informed us that all these had skipped the
rally and were now going to punished for cutting class. I listened nervously, as all the names were
being read. Both of my friend’s names
were read and I expected mine to be next, but surprisingly, it never came.
When I went to my last period class that afternoon, which was World
History, my teacher, Joe Holpp said he wanted to talk to me. I got nervous all over again. I figured he was going to ask me where I
was. Mr Holpp came to me and said, “I know you left school. I value you as a student, and I don’t like
Pep Rallies either. I let you off this
time, but don’t you ever let this happen again.”
Now, if you want a definition of what amazing grace, there it is. At least that’s one way that I have
experienced it in my life. I tried to
get this same “grace” from a Highway Patrolman once, when I was caught speeding
in Lincoln County. I had the flu and
was hurrying home from college. I was
doing 66 in a 55 zone when he stopped me.
We sat in his car and talked a long time. I hoped that telling him I had the flu and
fever, would get his sympathy, but I couldn’t talk him out of it. It was the last speeding ticket I’ve received
and it was over 37 years ago. I guess
you could say there is even some ‘grace’ in fact gained a good lesson for life,
but it didn’t feel like grace at the time.
Grace is cornerstone of Christian living, but just what is ‘grace’? Last week we learned that the Christian Life
is founded upon thankfulness in all things.
As Christians, we are to live in a continual spirit of gratitude and
thanksgiving, because life is a gift.
Today, we want to also understand that the gift we should be most
thankful for in life is ‘grace’.
GRACE IS STILL AMAZING
In Bible, ‘grace’ is, for the
most part, a Christian word. Although
Israel’s God is revealed as both “gracious”
and full of “mercy” (Ex. 33.19-20), the fullest understanding of grace does not
appear we come until Paul begins to interpret the good news of Jesus Christ.
“Grace to you!” Paul writes
over and over to begin his letters (Rom. 1.7; 1 Cor. 1.3; Gal 1.3, Eph. 1.2; Phil
1.2). He wants his readers to know just how
important, foundational and amazing grace is.
Before we can grasp the full impact of Paul’s first detailed description of
grace, we need to understand what Paul means when he says that both Greek and Jew
(‘there is no distinction’) are captured
‘under’ the ‘power of sin’ so that none are righteous; not one or any of
us. Based on the Hebrew Bible, Paul
makes his case unmistakable: “No one has understanding… No one seeks
God. All have turned aside…. no one
shows kindness… there is no fear of God…(3: 11-18). While Paul is talking specifically about his own
world, he could be talking about our world too, made of Jews, Americans,
Europeans, Arabs, Asians or Africans. It
doesn’t matter who we are or when or where we live. Sin is a force of its own, and it has the
human race within a powerful grip of deception, destruction, and death.
But don’t misunderstand what Paul means by ‘the power sin’. He is
talking about much more than our ability to sin or about specific sins we might
commit. Think of this this way: Do you
remember that popular ‘junkie’ song from the 70’s which Kenny Rogers used to
sing. It had a catchy line which went, “I just dropped in to see what condition my
condition was in. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Oh
Yeah. Being ‘under sin’ or capture by ‘the
power of sin, does not mean that everyone is bad, dirty, rotten or unredeemable. It means: “This is the condition (everyone’s) condition is in.“ We are not all evil people, but it does means
that any of us are capable of evil because we can be destructive to ourselves
and to others.
The Biblical teaching about sin not only points to who we might become by
being evil (Roms. 1.18), but it also points to who we already are, even if we claim
to be right and righteous (Rom. 2.1). Being
‘under the power of sin’ (3:9) means
none of us could ever achieve the goodness or righteousness God has intended for
us on our own. As Paul says, “There is no distinction, for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3.23). Coming up ‘short’ means that even our best behavior is flawed by the
shortsightedness and limits of our human situation. Although
we have God’s image stamped in our soul (Gen. 1: 27) and we are ‘crowned with glory and honor’ (Psalm
8:5) we fail to live up to this image and we are unable to keep the crown rightly
placed upon our head.
Sin’s powerful grip upon all of us, can be aptly illustrated in the life of
the recently deceased 97 year old Olympian and war hero, Louis Zamperini. As an
Olympian Track Star, he met Hitler faced to face, and then went on to serve as
a Bombardier in the Pacific Ocean that was shot down. He
survived 47 days on a raft in shark-infested waters, but then was captured by
the Japanese having to endure 2 years of torture as a Prisoner of War. His torturer
was the infamous Imperial Japanese Army Sergeant Mutsuhiro Watanabe, perhaps
the cruelest of all. Zamperini, along
with other prisoners under Watanabe, were beaten daily, starved, made to
perform humiliating acts, and left exposed to the bitter cold and untreated for
illnesses.
On outstanding example of what Zamperini suffered, but also of his great
strength and determination, was when he was ordered by the sadistic Sergeant to
hold an extremely heavy wooden beam above his head. He could barely raise it. Watanabe told a guard to strike Zamperine in
the face with a gun if he dropped the beam.
No one expected Zamperini, in his weakened state, to hold it up for more
than a few minutes. Watanabe waited for
Zamperini’s quick and inevitable failure.
Minutes ticked by. Then a half
hour. Zamperini recalled the intense
pain but also the fierce resolve not to let Watanabe defeat him. After 37 minutes elapsed, Watanabe grew so
frustrated, that he charged Zamperini and slammed his fist into the prisoner’s
stomach, sending both to the ground.
Zamperini’s bold act of strength and defiance inspired all those other
POW’s who witnessed the event.
After the war was over, Zamperini barely survived, and was released. Who could blame him for not being able to
forgive Watanabe and the Japanese? He
suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, was haunted by nightmares, and he
turned to alcohol, having all kinds of revengeful thoughts of returning to
Japan to murder Watanabe, the man who ruined his life. Zamperini
also fell in love with Cynthia Applewhite, and they were married in 1946. But
she had no idea what she was getting into, and by 1948, she was ready to
divorce this man who had been so strong, but now had so much emotional pain,
hate, and anger bottled-up in side of him.
Cynthia was at her wits-end, but decided to go with a friend to hear a
young evangelist, named Billy Graham. She decided that her last hope to save her
marriage was to get her husband to that tent revival. He
agreed to go, though he detested the thought of ‘tent meeting’ preachers, but
he quickly realized, this evangelist was different. He was transfixed to hear what Billy Graham
said about forgiveness, but he didn’t like being reminded that he was a sinner,
and he vowed not to go back. But his
wife was all over him, and after a 3 hour argument, he agreed to go back, under
one condition; “When that fell says every head bowed and every eye closed, we’re
getting out of there.” Cynthia agreed.
When Billy Graham started quoting Scripture again Zamperini grabbed his wife
and said, ‘We’re getting out of hear.”
They started out, but then he began to reflect and remember all those
prayers he prayed for God to save him on the life raft, in the prison dungeon, and
during all those days for two-and-a-half years, making thousands of promises—but
then return home and turning his back on all those promises. Then he heard Billy Graham quote Jesus,
saying, “Cast all your cares on me for I care for you.” Zamperini then thought to himself, “If I can
get that kind of help, there might be a chance for me.” So, he said,
“I went forward to the prayer room and first of all I asked God to
forgive me for not having kept not even one of the thousands of promises I made
Him on the life raft. I then
acknowledged to God that I was a sinner and invited Christ in my life.” “Then the most remarkable thing took place”, Zamperini concluded, “True to His
promise. He came into my heart and into
my life…. It was the most realistic thing that ever happened to me…not because
there was any kind of emotional experience…. God simply made a statement: Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. I took him at his
word and I believed.”
What I think is most amazing about this story is what came afterward. Louis Zamperini, this “unbroken”, strong,
determined, and gifted man, was also weakened under the power of sin so that he
could not heal, he became an alcoholic, and nearly succumbed to his own vices. But then, when he heard the good news of God’s
forgiveness and turned his life over to God,
and then even was so filled with God’s grace, he was able to forgive his
Japanese captors, even traveling back to Japan to communicate this forgiveness
to those former prison guards. The only way to correctly describe his life,
is not as much “unbroken”, as the book written
about him and the movie, about to be released about him. It
should be amazing grace received by
Zamperini and now amazing grace given by Zamperini, which enabled him to
overcome the ‘power’ that was in the Japanese, and had also been at work within
him.
BUT GRACE IS NOT CHEAP
We are held captive by and ‘under
sin’, but we don’t have to stay there.
Through Jesus Christ, the possibility
of human redemption is made probable for
all humanity. “Since
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Paul writes, “they are now justified by his grace as a
gift” (3.24). This ‘gift’ of amazing grace can be realized
in any and everyone ‘through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of
atonement by his blood….” (3.25).
When you read the word ‘gift’ (3.24)
you might immediately think that grace is “easy” or mistakenly think that God
is a ‘pushover’. But look how this word
‘gift’ is also accompanied with the
words ‘sacrifice’ and ‘blood’ (3.25) and you realize that
God’s grace isn’t easy or cheap. While
grace is rightly understood as the unearned, undeserved, and unmerited favor of
God, it must never be misunderstood as easy, cheap, or worthless.
The term ‘cheap grace’ came from another
prisoner of war named Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
While Hitler was on the rise in Germany, Pastor Bonhoeffer opposed
Hitler, opposed his own country for supporting him, and he even opposed the
national churches not willing to stand up against Hitler. He made his greatest appeal to live the
Christian Life, to follow Jesus, and to take a public stand as a Christian, in
his greatest work, “The Cost of
Discipleship”. His words still
resonate, reminding us of the difference between ‘cheap grace’ and ‘costly
grace’. Bonhoeffer writes, “Cheap
grace is the deadly enemy of our church….”
It is: ‘justification
of sin without the justification of the sinner… the preaching of forgiveness
without requiring repentance, or baptism without church discipline, communion
without confession… Cheap grace
is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus
Christ, the living and incarnate…” who is alive in us.
On the other hand, costly grace,
reminds us of what grace really means: “Costly
grace confronts us to follow Jesus and compels us to submit to the yoke of
Christ and follow him…. Costly grace the treasure hidden in the field
that we must sell everything to obtain. Costly
grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift that
must be asked for, the door at which we must knock…. It is the grace which calls us to follow
Jesus so that it costs us our life, while it also gives us our only true
life. It is costly because it condemns
sin, and grace because it forgives and justifies the sinner through the cost of
God’s own son. It is costly grace
because “We are bought with a price” as God did not consider the cost of his
own Son too high of a price to pay to pay for our sins! (Quoted and adapted from The Cost of
Discipleship, D. Bonhoeffer, Macmillian
Pub. Co., 1963).
Today we can cheapen God’s grace if we take it as a free gift, but are not
willing to give ourselves to God in return with love, trust and obedience. As
Christians, our lives are ‘bought with a
price’ and that ‘price’ was the sacrifice
of God’s own innocent and sinless son.
This is exactly how Paul explains the price of our ‘redemption….’ ‘put forward
as a sacrifice’ and accomplished ‘by
his own blood…’ (3.25).
This word ‘redemption’ comes
directly out of the ‘slave-market’, where humans were once bought and sold as
property. To be ‘redeemed’ implies that
a loving master has bought and paid for us, to set us free and give us our life
back. Since most of us are descendants
of the slave owners and not the slaves, we will have a difficult time fully
appreciating what it means to have a price on our heads or to have a price paid
to free us. What you could do to better
understand the cost of grace, is to rent and pay attention to that recent
movie, 12 Years A Slave, based on a
true story of how a free, intelligent, and talented African-American named
Solomon Northup was kidnapped and enslaved during the pre-civil war south. The movie is based upon Northup own memoir,
written back in 1853, and you will learn just what terrible fear, humiliation,
and terror he and others endured. (http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/12-years-a-slave.php)
But don’t watch that film to
rehash the awful sins of the old south, but watch the film to understand again,
just what it might mean to be released from the kind of oppression that can rob
you of your own life, when you live life under the power of sin, which can
become a very unjust, unfair and unreasonable master. This is the kind of terrible master the
world, the flesh, and the devil could be in our own lives, if it were not for the
righteous life and the precious ‘blood’ of Jesus, whom God gave to free us from
sin’s enslavement, so we can have our lives back.
The ‘undoing’ of the enslaving effects of the sin, the world, the flesh,
and the devil, are clearly seen in that great literary classic entitled, “All’s Quiet on the Western Front”. The author Erich Remarque, tells about those
terrible trenches on the front lines in France during World War I. In one confusing moment of war, a German soldier
dives into a shell hole where he finds a wounded enemy, either a Frenchman or
Englishman, we are not told. The sight
of the man’s fatal wounds moves the German soldier so much, that he gives him a
drink from his canteen. Through this act
of kindness, a brotherly bond springs up between them. The bond becomes deeper as the dying man
wants to tell the German about his wife and children, pointing to his shirt
pocket where family pictures are stored.
By looking at the pictures, the German soldier is so touched, realizing that
only minutes ago he would have stabbed this enemy with his bayonet, but now this
dying man is seen no longer as his enemy, but as a man, a father, a husband,
one who loves and is loved, but is now dying for the sake of his country.
What happened in that trench is more than a foe being transformed into a
friend, but it is picture of how the reality of our humanness, mortality, dying
and death, should transform us all. In
the same way, through the dying man on the cross, we can all be redeemed and
have our lives transformed by God’s costly grace. Of course, there are many ways to interpret
what happened on the cross, but there is only one right way to take it into our
hearts. On the cross, the dying Jesus is
proven to be the man in the right, while we are proven to be people in the
wrong. But in spite of what the facts
are, we also quickly discover that this dying man is dying to prove God’s love
for us, loving us even while we are his enemies, so that now we can become both
friends of God and brothers and sisters to each other.
GRACE IS NOT ACHIEVED BUT
RECEIVED
Why this ‘sacrifice’
of death happens is ultimately because of God’s great love and his ability to
pay the cost. But how this costly
grace redeems and remakes our lives is the most amazing thing of all. Paul
names it “a sacrifice of atonement by his blood….” (3.24-25) Jesus’ blood becomes ‘atonement’
being made ‘effective (or received,
ESV) through faith’ (3.25). Faith is what makes is all work. It is ‘through
faith for faith’ that ‘the
righteousness of God’ is ‘revealed, ’
says Paul. Here, the final lesson of what makes
grace amazing is not only what God does for us, but now, if grace is true, it is
also about how we respond to God’s
love because ‘the one who is
righteous will live by faith.’ (Rom.
1.17). This willingness to respond and
live by grace is what happened in Louis Zamperini’s life, it is what also
happened in Bonnhoeffer’s life, and it
is transformed those soldiers’ in the trench.
Though grace is never achieved by us, it must be received by faith, so
that it will become effective and real in our own lives. The gift of amazing grace must be unwrapped by
living our life ‘by faith’.
A moment the life of the biblical patriarch Jacob serves as a great example
of what grace means and how it calls us to live by faith. If you recall, Jacob had a dream where he
awoke, saying, “Surely, the LORD is in
this place, and I did not know it! (Gen. 28:16). That sounds like grace, but how did Jacob
know it was true? If you recall
Jacob’s dream of God’s grace came not long after Jacob had deceived his Father,
cheated his brother out of his inheritance, and his made a fortune at the
expense of his uncle. But instead
of striking Jacob dead in the desert, God gave him a blessing. Kathleen Norris rightly says this blessing
was much like looking into the face of a baby who similes at you, no matter who
you are. That’s what God’s grace looks
like, and do you know what it does? Well look at the difference it made in Jacob’s
life as he wrestles with God, loses the match, now walks with a limp, but is
enabled to move beyond his past, and move forward and overcome all his fears of
the future. This starts, right now, when
he must meet his brother he has deceived face to face. Jacob must go forth, and receive this gift
as a life of faith, and as a blessing of a life to be lived without fear. (From K. Norris, Amazing Grace which can be read at: http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Grace-A-Vocabulary-Faith/dp/1573227218).
I don’t know of a better definition of
what still makes grace amazing. Like
Jacob, because of God’s forgiving love, we too, can become people who are able to let go of the past and only have a future. In the French
Drama, “Traveller Without Luggage,” Jean Anouilh, tells of another young
soldier who received a head wound in battle that robs him of his memory. When
he tries to find his family, he learns that they are not the kind of family
anyone would want to be a part of. They prove to him that they are his family,
but he pretends not to recognize them because he sees so much baggage he must
pick up and carry. Instead,
the young soldier is drawn to another family. He knows that he does not belong to him, but
for some strange reason, they are willing to take him in and make him their
son. He decides to become their
son. Why? So that he can again be a person without a
past, a “traveler without luggage.” (Based Helmut Thielicke’s mention, in “Being a
Christian”, Fortress Press, 1981, pp. 36-37).
While God does not remove our past, he is
willing to forgive and forget it and he can give us the power to overcome our past, and release ourselves of all
our baggage. This is how grace begins,
but the most amazing thing about God’s grace is that it can give us a new life
and a new future that can be lived in God’s grace. Amazing grace is a gift of a new life given
to a deceiving Jacob, given to a murderous Saul, and it was given to an angry and
unbreakable, Louis Zamperini. But God’s
grace is even more amazing still, because it is that keeps on giving and is still
available and receivable anyone who will have faith. Amen.
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