The epistle passage from the Revised Common Lectionary for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 14th, is Ephesians 2:1-10 which says..
At one time you were like a dead person because of the things you did wrong and your offenses against God. You used to live like people of this world. You followed the rule of a destructive spiritual power. This is the spirit of disobedience to God’s will that is now at work in persons whose lives are characterized by disobedience. At one time you were like those persons. All of you used to do whatever felt good and whatever you thought you wanted so that you were children headed for punishment just like everyone else. However, God is rich in mercy. He brought us to life with Christ while we were dead as a result of those things that we did wrong. He did this because of the great love that he has for us. You are saved by God’s grace! And God raised us up and seated us in the heavens with Christ Jesus. God did this to show future generations the greatness of his grace by the goodness that God has shown us in Christ Jesus. You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith. This salvation is God’s gift. It’s not something you possessed. It’s not something you did that you can be proud of. Instead, we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.
Life is made up of so many grace filled moments. My old pastor, Dr. Sam Neeley once said, “it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, you're forgiven, and you can accept God’s love.” God wishes for us all to be free from those things that keep us in bondage and wants us to live in freedom. This freedom is a gift that we always have, it’s with us our entire lives, even before we’re aware of it. Our experience of salvation is a process that contain so many grace filled moments. God provides every person on the planet the same things, an abundance of grace, forgiveness, love, mercy, wholeness and joy. It’s so life changing whenever we tap into what God wants for us. Ephesians says it’s like we were dead but God gives us life. And this life is available to us all. So how do we tap into this great gift of grace? How do we receive it and experience it? Heres how…we learn and remember that we are precious to God. Each and every one of us, no matter what, is a child of God. This truth is as fundamental to Christianity as any other thing we proclaim. God loves and values us all equally. Again Sam Neeley once said, “if there was just one, Jesus would have died for them.” This passage from Ephesians is proof positive of this. The salvation we enjoy, our ongoing experience of Gods grace, is not something we have achieved. Salvation is a free gift and it is for everybody. One grace filled moment is when we first receive God’s gift of forgiveness and recognize Gods presence in our lives and in the world. This moment of justification is the forgiveness of all our sins and our acceptance of Jesus. In this moment we repent and receive what has always been ours, God’s amazing gift of new life. This new life begins a journey of striving to love God and then to love all people as God loves us, unconditionally. This is amazing grace. Not only are we forgiven and then provided a new lease on life but we then get to be a part of sharing this life with others. We get to be a part of spreading love and joy. This fills our lives with so much meaning and purpose, so may grace filled moments. Former President Jimmy Carter once told the story of spending a week with the Pastor of a very small church that ministered to Cuban Americans. He spent the week with the Pastor to give Christian witness to people who were very poor, living in very old housing, and there was not a lot of hope in these peoples lives. So Jimmy Carter and this Cuban American preacher named Eloy Cruz went ministering to these people. Jimmy Crater would read some scripture and Pastor Cruz would then say a few words to the people. And Carter was amazed to see how their attitudes were transformed, Pastor Cruz was not all that eloquent with his words but there was something about him and Carter described it as the presence of the Holy Spirit that amazed him. At the end of the week Jimmy Carter asked Pastor Cruz for the secret of his success, and Pastor Cruz became very embarrassed. This was long before Jimmy Carter was president but Pastor Cruz felt that Jimmy Carter was far superior to him. And finally Pastor Cruz said that he didn’t know much about theology but he knew that you had to have two loves in your life, one love for God and the other love for the person who happens to be in front of you at any given time. What an incredibly grace filled moment and understanding of life. I invite you to pray this prayer and I hope that this week you experience grace filled moments… “Gracious God, thank you for your love. Forgive us, heal us, and make us new.” Amen.