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How is Biblical Community Different? 3. Grace in an unyielding world Eph 2:1-10

Bible College doesn’t teach you ...

... how to comfort parents who just lost their daughter in a car crash

As a young pastor in Tauranga I was completely out of my depth

Alana Tallon was a beautiful 19 year old with a whole life ahead of her

But the driver of her car had a history of dangerous driving

He decided to overtake on a blind corner

... and collided with an oncoming car

Each day we would go up to intensive care...

... where Alana was kept on life support

... and we’d write in a journal that we were going to hand to her when she woke up from her coma

And we prayed our hearts out for Alana for a whole month

But after a full month in intensive care,... they turned the machines off

And there was nothing

The word ‘unyielding’ would describe the pain...

... of her mum and dad and her two brothers

It was a cosmic injustice

But it can’t be changed

God didn’t answer the prayers the way we wanted

For the sake of her family...... and the many other families who similarly have lost loved ones before their time

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... can we hold on to Alana for a while, in our mind’s eye

Beautiful young 19 year old Alana

Her life cut tragically short

Today’s sermon title is: Grace in an unyielding world

It’s part of a series called How is Biblical Community Different?, based on the book of Ephesians

So far we’ve discovered that the church is called to be a special and different kind of community characterised by:

- Oneness

- Hope

... and as we’ll see a third quality is that it’s called to be a community of grace

What does that title mean to you?

I wonder when life has seemed unyielding to you?

And that word ‘Grace’ - what does it mean to you?

It’s a deceptive little word

Most people walk right past it, as if it’s innocuous, meaningless

It’s as if most people see that word in black and white, but just a few see it in vibrant colours

Or you could say, it’s like the word, ‘Grace’ goes around with a disguise on, so that only a few people really get what it means

One who did is author Phillip Yancey... who reckons it’s the best word in the English language

And another is CS Lewis who reckons if you’re ever asked if anything makes Christianity different to all the other world religions, you can sum it up in that one tiny word: ‘Grace’

With such a spectacular word...

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... in my sermon title, I feel a huge responsibility to bring grace alive today and paint it in the vibrant colours it deserves

And I’m convinced that to really understand grace, you’ve got to feel it

With those things in mind...... please turn with me to Ephesians ch 2 from verse 1

2 Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. 2 You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. 3 All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.

4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.

8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

As you may have noticed...... the word ‘grace’ appears three times in the passage

... as well as some unpacking of what it means:

- ‘a gift from God’ - v8

- something ‘you can’t take credit for’ - also v8

- ‘not a reward for good things we have done’ - v9

But to get the overall meaning of this passage...... it seemed worth making a diagram out of it

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Paul’s divides the whole human race into two categories

On one hand there’s the New Community - known as the Church

... and on the other hand there is ‘the rest of the world’

A simple two way division

Then he talks about influence

... so on one hand evil has influence over the rest of the world

... operating through the desires and inclinations of our sinful nature

Then on the other hand

... the New Community is under God’s influence

... and is characterised as a ‘Community of Grace’

And with that comes an astounding statement

We’ve had two metaphors for the church in Ephesians so far:

‘We are a family’

‘We are the body of Christ’

... and now, ‘We are God’s masterpiece’!!

Wow! While some people criticise the church, here it’s described as ‘God’s masterpiece’

Surely it’s totally unrealistic to call the church a ‘masterpiece’

Not at all - I’ll come back to that in a minute

The next difference is ...

The new community is alive to spiritual things

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... while the rest of the world are dead to them; or unaware of them

Then a really interesting one:

The Devil involves people in his work by operating through the desires and inclinations of their sinful nature (v2)

God also involves us in His work, in the New Community

- verse 10 speaks of the ‘good things he planned for us long ago’

As a community, we join in with what God is already doing

Because this rest of the world category...... live as if their Creator doesn’t even exist, and with disregard for what He values

... he has every right to be angry with them

verse 3 says: ‘By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger’

As one commentator writes...

... if God decided to destroy everyone on the right, he would be entirely justified

... but instead...

... because of His grace, he pulls people out of this undeserving category

... and brings them into the New Community

No one actually earns their way ...

... into the church

It’s almost as if God sneaks up to a prison and pulls people over the back fence

We all got here undeserving

And this is why the church can be called a masterpiece

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Because it’s entirely made by God

‘Look at the church’, says Paul... ‘God created this, out of that’

‘And the church is there through the centuries, as a testament of what God has done

... constantly pulling people over the back fence

That’s what the passage teaches And it’s appropriate to add today, that Baptism is saying: ‘I joined this side’

‘I’m one of the recipients of God’s grace’.

‘I’m another one of the people that God pulled over the back fence’

‘Now I get to be a part of this new community of grace’

So we’ve got a God here...... who goes around pulling people over the back fence

Doing acts of grace

And you see it not just in the salvation sense

Think of the woman caught in adultery In an act of grace she is forgiven and released from punishment - completely undeserved

Think of Paul - a killer of Christians - met and forgiven and redirected in a vision from Jesus - completely undeserved

Think of the criminal on the cross - a life of crime, yet suddenly forgiven and given entrance to paradise

In fact think of every healing and every page of the gospel

... what Jesus goes around doing ... is Acts of Grace

And here in today’s passage, verse 10...... it talks about us joining in the work God does

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Being Christlike by definition

... means doing acts of grace like he did

We come in to a new community that’s defined and marked out by grace

Grace has to become who we are and what we do, and how we relate to eachother

... otherwise we’re no different to the other circle

This is something churches have to intentionally work at

That’s all of us

The stark reality of it is portrayed in this quote by author Phillip Yancey:

‘I left the church for a time because I found so little grace in it. I later returned because I found grace nowhere else’

What do we really mean by doing acts of grace?

I’d love to have more time on this

But for now, look at this graphic

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But the best way to understand grace is to feel it

That happened to me the day I went to Alana Tallon’s funeral

How incredibly insensitive, it seemed, that the idiot driver of the car

... who had driven Alana to her death

... had the gall to show up at the funeral

I mean, here were people grieving over...

... a life cut short

... and not because of some natural disaster or accident beyond our control

... but because of the stupidity of this young guy already with convictions for dangerous driving

Who just loved to drive too fast, to show off

To cut blind corners

And his previous warnings ...

... obviously had done nothing to change him

And I honestly worried there’d be an outpouring of anger at the funeral

... as people started to talk

That’s the guy who did it, just over there... how insensitive

... someone’s got to deal with this and take him out

... people are hurting

And in the middle of this rife emotion...... that everyone there was feeling

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... Alana’s mother and father walked over to the idiot driver who’d cost them his daughter’s life

... and wrapped their arms around him

And they hugged and cried together, for a long time

In a scene that makes no sense to the world at all

A scene of grace

It’s the most powerful thing I’ve ever seen in a funeral It’s the kind of grace Jesus displayed multiple times in his ministry

It’s the kind of grace that was shown the day Linda was pulled over the back fence into the new community

... and it’s the kind of work that you and I - the church - are called to model

Can we do that? Can we make our church, not just a place of oneness and hope as per this series so far

... but a place where profound acts of grace are a habit, and a lifestyle