By Grace…

Ephesians 2:1-10

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:11).”

We use a lot of spiritual jargon in the Church.  Some Church jargon we understand but others we don’t quite comprehend.  We use words like forgiveness, salvation, justification, regeneration and the love of God.  I know that in our culture we use the word, love, mostly as romantic love.  For example, it is the love between husband and wife.  Sometimes, maybe often, people confuse love with lust.  In English we have one word for love.  However, in biblical Greek there are three words denoting love.  One big word we use in the Church is grace.  It is a big word even though it has only five letters.  It is big because it encompasses the key understanding of Christianity.  One of the meanings of grace is the undeserved, unmerited favor of God.  He pours on us his grace, his undeserved, unmerited favor.  The popular misconception of grace is that we have to work to receive God’s grace, his undeserved, unmerited favor.

Years ago, I attended the annual banquet of the Saline County Kansas Red Cross.  When I served at ACS in Kansas, I worked closely with a wonderful Red Cross worker, Wilma Ray.  She had a servant’s heart and did good things for the military families who needed assistance.  At the banquet, the speaker titled his speech, “Niggiesop” or something like that.  The key point he made was that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  He indicated that everything in life has a price on it.  Nothing, even what we call free things, is free.  To receive anything of value, someone has to work for it, pay for it, or expend effort in getting it.  I cannot remember more of his speech than this for suddenly we heard a huge bang and rain began to fall in torrents.  There was concern for tornadoes and the meeting quickly ended.  We had a challenging drive back through flooded streets to the post.  It rained 19 inches in 24 hours.  However, I still remember the key point in the man’s speech: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  It is quite on target that everything requires effort and there’s no such thing as a free lunch or free anything.  I cringe when flu shot season comes and I see signs at CVS and Walgreens that say one can get free flu shots at no cost there.  Don’t they know that we pay for the so-called free immunizations out of our taxes or we from the insurance we purchase?  Americans sure like free stuff but don’t realize that nothing is free.  Someone has to pay for the so-called free stuff.  However, when it comes to salvation that we receive from the Lord Jesus Christ, we receive his grace without condition, unmerited, undeserved and unearned.  We do not work for or earn our salvation.  It is a free gift from our gracious Lord.

I find it interesting how some people get caught up on misunderstanding the qualities of the Lord God.  There are those who see him like a negative earthly father—perhaps distant, aloof, critical.  There are others who see the Lord God as a super-spy.  Once I found an old hymn entitled, “There’s an Eye Watching You.”  When I first read the lyrics, I had images of looking into the sky and seeing a big eyeball gazing down at me waiting for me to do something wrong.  Some see God up in the sky just waiting to give us what we deserve when we sin and violate his commands.  As I was thinking about this unbiblical understanding of the Lord God, the second thing that came to my mind was the theme song for the television program Cops: “Bad boys, bad boys, what y’a goin’ to do when he comes for you.”  That’s a horribly false image of the Lord God.  He is not distant and aloof, and is not the critical one who is out to get us.  If you have such images of the Lord God, erase them from your mind.

Here's another image that we do well to erase from our minds.  God does not require us to manipulate him in order to receive his grace.  It is the false idea that in order to be forgiven for our sins and receive his grace we must first do certain things to please him.  People who have that notion believe that if one does not get the desired results or responses from God, they have not worked hard enough to please him.  They may believe that God is up there somewhere, and their goal is to get his attention and please him in order to get him to do something for them.  Jesus had serious issues with the Pharisee sect of Judaism because they believed in a rigid keeping of the Law of Moses so that they would please God and get what they want from him.  For Jesus, God is not one who needs to be pleased or manipulated into caring and loving you.  Such a belief system exists in Islam where one has to work hard to please Allah and one has no guarantee that one will get salvation. 

The Lord God pours on us his blessings and his loving kindness regardless of our merit, abilities, performance or our working to please him.  The Apostle Paul was educated in the Pharisee religious system but after he received God’s gift of salvation, he had a 180 degree change in his theology.  He wrote the Christians in Ephesus: “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 (Ephesians 2:8-9).”  God pours on us his grace regardless without our having to manipulate him in any way.  A former Senior Pastor of a large church in the Chicago Area wrote: “Grace is an outrageous blessing bestowed freely on a totally undeserving recipient.  It is scandalous.  It is too good to be true.”  While it is good to pray, to read and study Scripture, and to give generously to the church and other ministries, God pours on us his grace as a blessing freely given without cost.  Our religious performance will not save us.  However, our participation in worship, prayer and other means of grace will help us grow in grace and in the heart knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are a performance driven people.  We admire other performance driven people.  In the military, it is the one who is performance driven who is likely to be promoted and have a successful career.  Who does not want to get promoted?  We admire people who have picked themselves up by their bootstraps.  The most decorated soldier in WWII came from a terrible background.  He was not a 6’ 4”, 220-pound stud but was a short 5’ 5” skinny fellow.  He rose to the occasion and became a hero.  We tend to evaluate people on the basis of what they produce, whether it be parts, jobs completed or work performed.  I am not knocking performance driven people.  It is just that when we see God rewarding us with salvation through our religious or spiritual performance it is not what God is about.  What did Paul write?  “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 (Ephesians 2:8-9).” 

In the culture of religion, performance counts too.  I use the term “religion” in a pejorative sense.  People talk about sincere Christians and call them religious.  One of my goals is not to be religious but to be a genuine follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Being religious in the negative sense is what some call works-righteousness.  The First Century Pharisees were good examples of this type of “religious” person.  They worked hard to please God.  They read the Jewish Scriptures.  They went to synagogue.  They went to the temple.  They tithed on everything they earned.  They gave to the poor.  They obeyed the Ten Commandments.  They prayed to and worshipped the Lord God.  They did everything right but they were “religious” and missed Jesus’ teaching points completely.  God does not want us to have faith like the religious Pharisees.  He wants us to receive his gracious blessings, his unmerited favor, his grace.  Religion is about our performance; grace is a free gift from God which we do not earn or merit.

Thank God that he is about grace, not works.  The spiritual reality is that grace is the foundation of Christianity.  The apostle Paul could best be characterized as the “apostle of grace.”  He saw grace as the very essence of the Christian faith.  He recognized that, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came from Christ Jesus (Romans 3:23-24).”  Sin pays but not in the way we would like.  Paul tells us, “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).”  The truth is that we are all broken and sinful.  We were born that way.  Anyone who has raised babies know just how they are naturally self-centered and self-focused. 

We were born curved in on ourselves, self-centered, and desiring to get our own way regardless.  If God were not a God of grace and mercy, we would all be toast.  However, God is a God of grace.  Instead of punishment, he gives those who seek salvation in Christ Jesus his grace and eternal life.  The psalmist tells us, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love (Psalm 103:8).”  Take heart that God is a God of grace and mercy.

There are many ways that we can open ourselves and receive the Grace of God.  John Wesley taught that we receive his grace in several ways: Through prayer, searching the Scriptures, worship, fasting, receiving the Lord’s Supper and what he called Holy Conferencing.  He called such disciplines of faith as the “means of Grace.”  They are special ways God pours on us his grace.  We open ourselves to God’s grace when we practice the disciplines of faith.  The best place to receive God’s grace is to be where he regularly dispenses it. 

Everything we receive from the Lord is the gift of grace.  We receive it, not because we are worthy or deserve it.  When one is honest with oneself, one recognizes that one does not deserve God’s free gifts.  When we receive God’s grace, he works within us transforming us into the very image of Christ Jesus.  As we receive God’s grace, our lives are being transformed into Christlike lives.  For most of us, this is a slow, and sometimes frustrating life long process.  That does not mean that God cannot transform us immediately, but for most of us he works this transformation over time.  Grace is not a payment for being good or doing good; it is a free gift from a gracious God.

We will be celebrating Holy Communion.  As you receive the elements of bread and juice, remember that God has invited you to his free lunch.  You are worthy not because of what you have done.  You are worthy because of what Christ Jesus has done for you.  You are worthy because Christ Jesus invites you to his table.  The Lord’s Supper is one of the means whereby God in Christ Jesus gives us his grace.

A Sermon preached by CH (COL) Michael W. Malone

at Veterans Memorial Chapel on July 13, 2025