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1 SOLA GRATIA – GRACE ALONE Sermon Preached by Pastor C 1 SOLA GRATIA – GRACE ALONE Sermon preached by Pastor C. John Steer Autumn Ridge Church October 7-8, 2017 No. 2: Sola Power Scripture: Titus 2:11-15 This month of October is an important one for us as Christians, because it marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. On October 31st it will be 500 years to the day since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. I am proud to say we have our own Wittenberg Door out in the Main Lobby. If you haven’t nailed up your own thesis of faith, please do so after the service. It was Luther’s hammering that started the Reformation which had an impact not only on church history but on Western history and on world history. This month we are celebrating with Christians all over the planet by looking at the five great Reformation solas. 500 years ago scholars spoke in Latin and the Latin word “sola” means “only” or “alone.” Last week we looked at Sola Scriptura – the Bible alone. Kris Wiens, who is a longtime member of Autumn Ridge, sent me a copy of a letter from the Rev. Erasmus Westcott, who was the first pastor of this church. The letter was published in the December 28, 1859 edition of the Rochester News, which was the name of the Post Bulletin then. Mr. Editor: Being aware that considerable scepticism as to the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, is indulged by numbers, and openly declared by some in this community; and feeling it incumbent on me as one who has somewhat investigated this all important subject to do what I can to lead men to investigate this matter upon which so much depends: I have therefore resolved, (by God’s help,) to give a course of lectures on the Evidence of a Divine Revelation of God to man, as contained in the Bible. That all who desire to do so, may attend, I have taken this method to notify the public. The first lecture will be at the Baptist Church on next Lord’s day evening, at 6 ½ o-clock. Subject: The Necessity, Reasonableness and Vitality of a Divine Revelation to mankind. To be continued each Sabbath evening. E. Westcott It wonderfully demonstrates that our fellowship has had a commitment to Sola Scriptura for the past 158 years. 2 This week we move on to SOLA GRATIA which is Latin for GRACE ALONE. Luther lived in days when people were desperately trying to earn or even purchase their salvation. So they would go on pilgrimages, they would visit the relics of the saints, they would do good works – all hoping this would give them enough merit in order to be saved. Luther cried out “No! You don’t need to do those things. They are unnecessary, for we are saved by grace alone.” Grace is the glory of the gospel. During a conference on comparative religions in Oxford experts from around the world were discussing whether any one belief was unique to the Christian faith. C.S. Lewis wandered into the room and asked “What’s the rumpus about?” He was told that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. In his forthright manner Lewis responded, “Oh that’s easy. It’s grace.” Now we might think that if grace is so important it would be easy to define. But in fact it is not. When I was a child I was taught that G-R-A-C-E stands for God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. That’s not a bad start, but the best you can give it is a C minus. Here are some other definitions of grace. “Grace is the eternal and absolutely free favor of God, manifested in the granting of spiritual and eternal blessings to the guilty and the unworthy.” Abraham Booth “Grace at its heart is getting what you don’t deserve and not getting what you do.” Philip Yancey “Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.” John Stott “Grace heals our vision letting us love a person by seeing them as God intended them to be.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky “Sola gratia is salvation by the grace of God alone. Believers bring no merit of their own before the judgment seat of God, but rest solely on God’s mercy and grace.” R.C. Sproul All these definitions are helpful but they don’t fully capture what we mean by “grace.” Down through the years Christians have found the best way to explain grace is with a story. One of these comes from the slums of London in the 19th century. Back then there was a social worker called Henry Morehouse. One evening as Henry was walking home he saw a little girl come out of a store carrying a pitcher of milk. Suddenly she slipped on the wet pavement. 3 The pitcher fell from her grasp and shattered on the ground and all the milk ran into the gutter. The little girl began to cry as if her heart would break. Morehouse stepped up to see if she was hurt. He helped her to her feet saying “Don’t cry little girl.” But there was no stopping her tears. She kept repeating “My mummy will whip me. My mummy will whip me.” Morehouse replied “No she won’t. I’ll see to that. Look, the pitcher isn’t broken in too many places.” As he stooped down beside her he picked up the pieces and began to work as if he was putting the jug back together. The little girl stopped crying, for she now had new hope. She came from a family in which milk jugs had often been mended. Perhaps this stranger could repair the damage. So she watched as Morehouse fitted several of the pieces together until working too quickly he knocked it apart again. Once more she began to cry. Morehouse repeated “Don’t cry little girl. I promise that your mother won’t whip you.” He picked her up in his arms and carried her down the street to a shop that sold crockery. There he bought a new pitcher for her and still carrying her he went back to where the girl had bought the milk and had the new pitcher filled. Henry then asked her where she lived and when he was told he carried her to her home, set her down on the step and placed the full pitcher of milk in her hands. Then he opened the door for her. As she stepped inside he asked “Do you think your mother will whip you?” The question was met with a bright smile and the little girl replied “Oh no, sir. Because this is a lot nicer pitcher than we had before.” That story is an illustration of the grace of God. The Bible teaches that we were all created in the image of God but when our first parents Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s righteous laws that image was broken beyond repair as far as human effort is concerned. This doesn’t mean there is no value at all to human nature. Even a broken pitcher has value. Go into a museum and you will see lots of bits of broken pottery on display. Some of them are worth a great deal. So broken pottery is not worthless but it is worthless as far as carrying milk is concerned. In the same way human nature in its broken state is useless for pleasing God or earning heaven. But this is where the grace of God shows up. The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world which was weeping in its failure. Jesus became the means by which an utterly hopeless situation was transformed. Jesus never attempted to patch up fallen human nature. He did not come to reform us. He came to recreate us. 4 Instead of trying to put together broken pieces of our fallen nature, Jesus gives us a new nature that is a lot better than the one we had before. The little girl did not do anything to deserve Morehouse’s favor. She didn’t pay for the new pitcher and the milk. She didn’t hire Morehouse’s services. She had nothing to hire him with. She didn’t even prevail upon his sympathies because she was feeling so miserable. Morehouse acted solely out of goodness. Spurgeon wrote “Because God is gracious, sinful people are forgiven, converted, purified, and saved. It is not because of anything in them that they are saved. It is because of the boundless love, goodness, pity, compassion, mercy, and grace of God.” In the same way the Bible does not try to define grace. Instead it tells us stories. A passage that wonderfully illustrates the story of grace is Titus 2:11-15. “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope— the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. These, then, are the things you should teach.” In this story Paul tells us four great truths about grace. First we see WHAT GRACE BROUGHT.
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