This morning in church, our pastor said something in his sermon that I think gave me a sudden glimpse of understanding into the doctrine (?) of grace. Sure, I'd learned about grace from my dad and read about it and heard sermons about it countless times. And I'd learned the cool little word thingy:
God's
Riches
At
Christ's
Expense
But I'd never really quite gotten just how freeing the grace of God is until our pastor said it this morning, in words about like these (quoting from memory after sleeping 6.5 hrs between then and now, folks): "Not only do we not have to earn God's love and forgiveness, we can't." There's nothing we can ever do that could earn it, so it's totally a gift from God. And since we can't do anything, we don't have to do anything! Which is why our good works are fruits of faith, not points toward heaven. I don't know why, but this just all seems much clearer to me suddenly than it ever has before. And I don't know about you, but when somebody requires me to do something I get really bucky and stubborn and don't want to do it, but if I don't have to do something, I suddenly really want to!
...revealing my thoughts about movies, writing, and life to the audience...
For me, when he said "God's Riches At Christ's Expense," I was thrown into a reverie on economics. "It's as though Christ is subsidizing God's riches," I thought. "That means people will consume more of them than otherwise. Good policy. But, there's a moral hazard when people get God's riches without working for them. People will be tempted to behave in ways that put their salvation at risk, because grace is there to pick up the slack if their bet goes wrong."
ReplyDeleteThe meditating matters as much as the message with sermons. What you get out of it is what you put in.
I just noticed your entry is datestamped on the 19th. Does he do the G.R.A.C.E. thing at every service?
Grace was sort of our Advent theme at church this year. The sermons looked at lots of different aspects of the Means of Grace and of grace itself.
ReplyDeleteI'd actually learned the G.R.A.C.E. thing from Daddy during Catechism class. And our pastor only particularly mentioned that the day you were there and then the following Sunday. But grace was the focus of his previous sermons, including the one I blogged about.