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“Amazing Grace” May 10, 2020 “Amazing Grace” May 10, 2020 2537 Lee Road Cleveland Heights, OH 44118‐4136 Ephesians 2:8‐10 Telephone: 216‐321‐8880 Rev. Andy Call, Lead Pastor Website: www.COTSumc.org Our subject today is Grace. Some understanding of grace is common to all Christian movements. Grace is the loving kindness God shows toward us. All Christians understand grace to be a free gift offered by God that we neither earn nor deserve. The concept of grace is often associated with the great hymn by John Newton: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” We were reminded of that tune in the inspiring prelude for our worship today that Bob Day played so beautifully. The concept of grace is not unique to Methodism or other Wesleyan expressions of faith. What is distinctive is how we understand it and apply it in our lives. I want to read to you from the Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church. We have many negative associations with this book for various rules and restrictions we find tedious or even objectionable. And we often think about what we would like to change in the Book of Discipline to better fit our lived realities. But there are some inspiring and tremendously helpful passages in it, especially when it comes to describing our role in partnering with God in bringing hope and justice in the world. Drawing on our doctrinal heritage from the teachings of John Wesley and others, it defines grace as “the undeserved, unmerited, and loving action of God in human existence through the ever‐present Holy Spirit.” John Wesley understood grace to have three distinct expressions: prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace. These were not separate types of grace; there is only one grace. But Wesley saw grace manifest in different expressions. Prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying were not the only adjectives he used to describe grace; there are many others. But these three are the primary expressions of grace that he taught and that those of us who follow in the Methodist tradition have held as central to our understanding of our relationship with God. Wesley’s understanding of grace is most clearly articulated in a sermon first published in 1765 titled, “The Scripture Way of Salvation,” containing parts of three earlier sermons. Wesley begins with what he means by salvation: The salvation which is here spoken of is not what is frequently understood by that word, the going to heaven, eternal happiness. It is not the soul's going to paradise… It is not a blessing which lies on the other side of death. … The very words of the text itself put this beyond all question: "Ye are saved." It is not something at a distance: it is a present thing; a blessing which, through the free mercy of God, ye are now in possession of. Nay, the words may be rendered, and that with equal propriety, "Ye have been saved": so that the salvation which is here spoken of might be extended to the entire work of God, from the first dawning of grace in the soul, till it is consummated in glory.1 For Wesleyan Methodists, salvation is both a present and future reality. It comes through faith but it is not our doing. Salvation is utterly dependent on God’s grace at work in us. We’re going to spend the next few minutes together taking a closer look at the three primary expressions of grace as Wesley identified them, the ways God is at work in us. The first is prevenient grace (or sometimes preventing grace). Wesley identified this as what some people refer to as “natural conscience” or an innate understanding of right and wrong. But it is much more than that. Prevenient grace includes, in Wesley’s words: …all the drawings of the Father; the desires after God, which, if we yield to them, increase more and more; ‐‐all that light wherewith the Son of God "enlighteneth every one that cometh into the world;" showing every (one) "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.”2 Wesley taught that God is at work in each one of us, drawing us to God’s self, even before we are aware of our need for God’s grace. It is the tug at our hearts, the incompleteness we feel without God in our lives, the yearning for meaning and purpose to which Augustine referred when he prayed, “Our heart is restless until it rests in you.”3 1 John Wesley. “The Scripture Way of Salvation.” Sermon 43. 2 ibid. Retired bishop Kenneth Carder describes prevenient grace as “universally present in all but irresistible in none.”4 A few weeks ago, Rev. Moseng shared with us some of the key differences between Calvinism and Wesleyan Arminianism, one of which is that Calvinists believe grace is irresistible, that God’s chosen are predestined for salvation that cannot be denied. That is not what we believe. God’s grace is always offered as a choice; we can say no. Yet God’s prevenient grace is at work even in those who have not yet accepted it. Justifying grace is more commonly referred to as pardon or forgiveness. An easy way to remember the word justification is that it is God’s grace making it “just as if” we had never sinned. Wesley taught that faith was the condition of justification and the only condition. This belief is held in common with all Protestant Christians, tracing its origins to Martin Luther and the Doctrine of Sola Fide (faith alone is what saves us). One of the questions posed to Luther and faced by every theologian who proclaimed sola fide was the necessity of repentance. If faith alone is what saves us, then what compels a person to change their lives and their behaviors? Wesley taught that repentance is also necessary for justification but not in the same way that faith is necessary. Repentance is a “fruit” of faith, a natural result of having faith. Faith without repentance isn’t truly faith. As the Letter of James attests, “Even the demons believe” (James 2:19). A change of heart bears witness to authentic faith. And repentance without faith is merely good intention; it lacks the grounding and the motivation either to enable it or to sustain it. Every follower of Jesus must at some point decide whether to accept God’s justifying grace in order to experience forgiveness and pardon. Other traditions refer to the experience of justification as being “born again” or “born from above” as Jesus explained to Nicodemus in the John 3. Justification is when faith becomes personal, when God’s grace is experienced in the heart. That experience can be sudden and dramatic or slow and subtle. Wesley himself longed for a “lightning bolt” moment, but his conversion was a process that took place gradually. He finally felt the assurance he had long sought one night on Aldersgate Street while reflecting on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. He suddenly felt his heart “strangely warmed” by the assurance that Christ died not just for all, but for him, that his sins were forgiven. The third expression is sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace is the grace that makes us holy. Wesley also referred to this as “perfecting grace.” Perfection here doesn’t mean being without error or fault but becoming mature or complete. It is the same sense Jesus conveyed in the Sermon on the Mount when he told us that we are to “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Sanctification begins at the point of justification and continues on for the rest of our lives. It is a process, guided by the Holy Spirit, that helps us to grow in love of God and neighbor. Through sanctification, we come to adopt the mind of Christ that Paul described in Philippians, when he urged us to “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Sanctification isn’t merely self‐improvement. It is more than just working to become a better Christian. Sanctification is becoming a new creation in Christ. Again, Bishop Carder: Wesley affirmed that God's grace seeks nothing less than a new creation in the likeness of Jesus Christ. Sanctifying grace is God's freely given presence and power to restore the fullness of God's image in which we are created. … (Its aim is) entire "holiness of heart and life."5 Sanctification does not remove the condition of sin, but it does help us to resist the power sin has over us. This is what Charles Wesley had in mind when he wrote the words of Methodism’s favorite hymn: “He breaks the power of canceled sin/he sets the prisoner free.” Wesley’s understanding of sanctification was unique and sometimes vexing both to his supporters and detractors. He was criticized for preaching “works righteousness,” that the idea of sanctification was no more than an attempt to earn our way to salvation. The strongest criticism came in response to Wesley’s teaching of entire sanctification. Many of his peers scoffed. Could we really expect to be made holy in this lifetime? Wesley believed that we could, though he was very specific about what he meant by Christian perfection. The doctrine of sanctification has 3 Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. Lib 1,1‐2,2.5,5: CSEL 33, 1‐5 4 Kenneth L. Carder. “A Wesleyan Understanding of Grace.” Resource UMC. Online: https://www.resourceumc.org/en/content/a‐ wesleyan‐understanding‐of‐grace (accessed May 6, 2020).
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