Grace: Walking with Us Romans 3: 21-26

Author and speaker, Lisa Harper, writes in her book Stumbling into Grace that far too many people, including Christians, think that God is preoccupied with big things, so preoccupied in fact, that God doesn’t have time to care about us. If anything stands in contrast to the idea of a distant God who doesn’t have time to care about each and every person, it is grace. We are currently in our second week of our sermon series on grace. Last week we discussed how God loves us so much that God laid the foundation for our relationship with Christ before we could ever even know about God. This week we will be discussing a God who doesn’t just notice us but passionately loves us enough to offer us salvation. 

Prevenient grace, the grace that comes before us, as discussed last week, can lead us to justification, or faith in Christ through which our sins are forgiven. To be clear we cannot earn forgiveness for our sins through our own good works, rather it can only come through Christ’s saving work on the cross and our faith and trust in Christ. Because we cannot justify ourselves, this faith is seen as a gift from God, called justifying grace. This is often seen as the moment of conversion, when we experience new birth and the change that accompanies it. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed that justification restored both our relationship to the Divine and our soul in God’s favor and image.

United Methodists believe that we are not only dead to sin in justification, but that we are raised to new life, or born again, in Christ. Regeneration is the word often used to describe being born again and is the beginning of our seeking to live a holy life.While justification and regeneration can occur at the same time, they are also distinct in that it is something God does in us and not for us.

But what does all of that fancy theological language mean for us today? What does it matter for our life with God? It means that God loves us so much that God invites us to be in a relationship through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But God knows that many steps exist between starting to know who Jesus is and truly believing that Jesus is enough for all of our needs. The beginning of this journey to growing in Christ is what the fancy word justification represents. Choosing to start to be in a relationship with a Holy God. Realizing that we will never be enough or have enough on our own. Moving from an image of a distant God to one who loves us even more than an earthly parent; loving us with a perfect love. 

The word justification means pardon. To be freed from. To be forgiven. To not experience the consequences that we deserve. The apostle Paul writes in this morning’s letter to the church in Rome that justification, or this pardon, that comes from God, is truly a gift. For we are all sinners, fallen short from the glory of God. In other words we all deserve punishment, but instead God offers us grace in the form of pardon. Sometimes though we forget that grace is a gift - so we start to try to work to earn God’s forgiveness, forgetting that we will never be able to earn our salvation. In fact, even after we have been saved, even after we have accepted this gift, we are still sinners in need of grace. 

This semester the college students at the lunch time Bible Study I lead have chosen to look at the less known epistles, or letters, in the New Testament. While working through the letter of 1 John, one student noted that she was really struggling with the writer’s very black and white writing that says either we were holy and a child of God, or were sinners and children of the Devil. She quoted from Paul in Romans about all of us being sinners, and we got into a wonderfully honest conversation about how we still sin even after we accept Christ. That’s one of the reasons we pray a prayer of confession as part of our worship service week in and week out. But we realize that we are sinning and are in need of God’s pardon, so we repent, knowing that God will forgive us, if only we honestly confess how we have screwed up and fallen short. None of us can save ourselves. 

John B Cobb is a United Methodists who’s book on grace I had to read while in college. He writes, “God saves despite our human condition. Christians are saved by grace.” We cannot shed our human condition that traces the whole way back to Adam and Eve, this brokenness from sin that separates us from God. So God chooses to allow divine love to redefine our human sinfulness, allowing Christ’s sacrifice to speak on our behalf and lay claim to us being children of God. But God so deeply loves us that the gift of grace doesn’t stop with the sacrifice of Christ - it is further seen through the presence of the Holy Spirit, present to and in us, confirming to us the message that God loves us and the truth of the gospel message! Praise be to God!

One of the things we celebrate in the life of Methodism is John Wesley’s Aldersgate Experience. Prior to this experience Wesley had gone to school to be a priest. He was serving in the Church. He even was part of a dedicated small group - praying daily, giving alms, serving the poor and those in prison, and pouring over Holy Scriptures. If you asked him before the Aldersgate Experience if he was a Christian he would surely say yes. But as someone was reading at a service in Aldersgate one day from the book of Romans, he felt that his heart was strangely warmed, as if the Holy Spirit was illuminating his life and calling him into a deeper relationship with God. Now Wesley was clear that didn’t mean he wasn’t saved, forgiven, and pardoned before that experience. In fact, justification isn’t necessarily about our experience, its about what God does for us. Yet, through that experience, Wesley accepted that he was pardoned and that his soul was restored to life.

As a pastor, one of the questions I get asked is how do you know that you are saved. I for one, never had a life altering salvation experience. I grew up in the church and have known nothing else but the love and grace of God. However, I know that Christ has pardoned me because I realize that God’s gift is greater than anything I could ever deserve. For me, personally, I might not know the exact date and time I was saved, but I do know it happened, because I am growing in grace, moving on towards loving God and neighbor more deeply, which we will talk about next week. I know I am saved, because I pray to God to search me and know me so I can repent. And I know I am saved by grace because in the words of Cobb, “through justifying grace once sees that spiritually that in spite of one’s sins God loves him or her, and for the sake of Christ, forgives.” I know I am saved, because I know that God loves me and loves you. 

I think Paul might have understood some of the apprehensions and questions around knowing if you are saved or not, even after his profound experience on the road to Damacus, because he writes to the church in Rome that it is by the righteousness of God that we can have faith at all. And, brothers and sisters, faith exists even when we cannot see something and even when we might not have a feeling of assurance. It is in those moments of question and doubt that we take a leap of faith of trust in God’s love and grace, even when it seems contrary to everything the world tells us. Justifying grace is the leap of faith - one that we take when we take the step of accepting the sacrifice and pardon of Jesus Christ, but also the leap that we take each and every day that we get up and choose to follow Christ anew. May you trust and believe that you are pardoned, not because of what you have done, but because God loves you oh so deeply. Amen.