Read 2 Corinthians 12
I like to write. Business writing is typically active
voice, indicative mood. People tend to gravitate to the passive voice and
subjunctive mood. I think the terms have changed somewhat over the years, but I
know the voice and mood parameters.
Traditional drama, the Shakespearean stuff, climaxed in
Act III, Scene II, though there was always more to follow that you didn’t want
to miss.
Today, if you want to read a joke online or get the most
current news, you have to read and follow a link and then jump through the hoops
of these crazy advertisements. That’s monetized social media.
The sermon usually builds to the end. I like to end mine with
affirmation, challenge, or both!
This morning, I will use the newspaper article mantra.
This isn’t the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the reporter. I wish
they would teach that again in journalism school. The press so valued in our Constitution
was to be the watchdog of government, not its lapdog or attack dog. Some
recalibration is needed, but that’s a Tom thing, not necessarily a universal
truth. I miss Walter Cronkite.
This newspaper mantra to which I refer is this: DON’T BURY THE LEAD. So, I jump right to the
heart of the matter. God, your grace is sufficient for me.
Your
grace is sufficient for me!
Imagine starting your day with thanksgiving. It makes
sense. We are thankful people. We know how much God loves us, and starting our
day with a thank you is just good stuff.
We are a grateful people, but what if we continued that
spirit of thanksgiving by telling God every morning, “Your grace is enough for
me.”
Imagine telling God every day, “I don’t have to ask you
for anything for my life to be complete. Your grace did it all. I do not fear
death. Sin thinks it can get the best of me, but your grace goes way beyond my
sin. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Imagine stepping into each day already having won the day
by rejoicing in the grace of God. Imagine—maybe some of you don’t have to
imagine because it’s reality for you already—but imagine starting each and
every day like this.
You are singing Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate as
your feet hit the floor.
C’mon, Tom. You don’t deliver sermons designed to make us
feel good. What happened to “You will have trouble in the world?”
It’s still there along with the second part of the verse,
“Take heart, I have overcome the world!”
To live is Christ, to die is gain.
Still there.
Picking up your cross every day and following
Jesus. Still there.
Persecuted for the name of Jesus.
Still there.
These seem to be in conflict with “Your grace is
sufficient for me.” They are not. There should be no dissonance in your mind.
God’s plan is for us to live in right relationship with
him for all eternity, not as sheep and cattle in blissful ignorance and without
the mind of Christ and an understanding of sin, death, hope, despair, trouble,
salvation, kindness, gentleness, anger, hate, and more. And through these, we
see the love of God at work in our lives.
Paul continued in that vein.
The victory for us was won in the blood of Jesus on a
cross atop Golgotha two thousand years ago. It is realized in us with our
profession of faith. It is the free gift
of God.
And you know what I will say next. What will we do with
this incredible gift? I hope you stayed awake for this part over the years. The
top response is love. Love God. Love each other.
For those who really want to be complete in Christ, love
others as much as Jesus loved and still loves us.
Of course trust and obedience come next. Of those, trust
is generally the most difficult, but surely has a big payoff.
Obedience is not simple lock-step compliance. I have
shared my continuum of acceptance on occasion. Quickly, it’s Reject, Comply,
Accept, and Embrace. The obedience target is embrace. God, I’m doing what you
told me to do, and I am so in tune with the Spirit that you placed inside of me
that it feels like it was my own idea.
This course that I am set upon is our discipleship. That’s
no surprise. We have heard that more than a thousand times over the past
several years. Typically, that involves some work.
I want to touch on something that I covered last Sunday
at the first service. It will be repeated only for a few of you. Here goes.
We are motivated to please our Lord and be faithful to
him, but motivation doesn’t get us to the goal. It might get us started but it
can’t finish the work.
What gets us there? Discipline.
You might think that is just modern leadership wisdom,
and it is, but it is in concert with the concept that we know as discipleship.
Discipline is following a course for efficacy. Do the
things required for as long as necessary to achieve the desired results. This
is not just when I feel like it or get around to it. It’s daily picking up your
cross.
Disciples follow a leader and put his words into
practice. For a disciple to achieve the desired results of becoming more like
his teacher—his rabbi if you will—he must have discipline.
Motivation is great for getting you started. Discipline
stays the course. Discipline moves you closer to the goal. Discipline corrects
you when you veer from the course.
And discipline, I dare say, promotes passion.
Motivation: I want to please God.
Discipline: I take this step to draw nearer to God and my
goal of pleasing him.
Passion: l love it
when I sacrifice, face resistance, get slapped on the back of the head, stumble
and get back up and press on towards the goal. I can’t think of what life was
like before I was compelled to bring glory to God with every step, even my
missteps, when I am strong and especially when I am weak. Hopefully, you associated the weight lifting
and rope climbing analogies with our weakness and God’s strength in this
service last week.
Passion, purpose, and pressing on towards the goal is
more than alliterative, it pleases God because we continue in steps big and
small, and even some repeated, towards the goal we have been given by our Lord
and Master.
And here’s the thing, you can’t get me off course. You
can’t sell me a bill of goods. I am all in.
So what’s with this "your grace is
sufficient" business if we still have to go through trials, work at
pleasing God, and do this whole overcomer thing?
Your grace is sufficient for me, and we affirm that we
are part of God’s victory over sin and death. We acknowledge the unfathomable.
We have already won the day. You can do anything you want to me, and you can’t
change the fact that I will be in right standing with the Lord and in the
presence of the Lord. I know that whatever comes at me in this world is not
enough to take that away from me.
That victory is mine. It is blessed assurance. It is well
with my soul. It is peace that is more than I can comprehend.
Well then, why did Jesus say ask, seek, and knock? Why
the Parable of the persistent widow? Why pray at all?
You are not God’s great experiment. You are the crown of
his creation. He wants to dialogue with you every day. He wants to see you grow
and learn, even if it takes a couple of attempts, even if it’s a couple of hundred
tries.
He loves the overcomer spirit that you desire so you can
please him. We are his children. He loves us. He will never kick us to the
curb.
We should acknowledge, celebrate, and rejoice in the fact
that none of our trials can take the ultimate victory that we know in Christ
Jesus away from us.
God is sovereign.
God won the victory for us.
God wins. We win. There is some win-win for you.
But ask God for what you need. He wants to give you good
gifts. Sometimes, that gift might be to let you grow in the trial and come out
closer to him at the end. Sometimes, it is to take away anxiety but let you pay
off the house like you scheduled your mortgage to do.
Sometimes, it is to take a problem away or show you that
it was never really your problem.
Sometimes it is to rock you out of your comfort zone so
you can get into this abundant life mode and do some real living.
Whatever it is, it is part of our growth. Our victory,
our blessed assurance is already in place.
God, your grace is enough, but let’s see if we can build
upon that foundation and reach as high as we can in bringing glory to your
name. That’s moving from discipleship to discipline (pick up your cross daily
if you will) and graduate into passion.
There is a parallel track that I might label purpose. You
may get my mantra on purpose again before I leave, just not today. But it runs
in parallel to passion.
I should discuss Paul's letter a little more. He is still
arguing about weaknesses and strengths.
He is still asking for some indulgence with his
foolishness, and by that, he means boasting in his resume. You have seen the
meme that someone not capable of violence is not peaceful; he is harmless. If
you are capable of violence, you must choose to be peaceful because there are
other tools at your disposal.
That’s generally on target, but it parallels Paul’s
thinking on this foolishness business. He could play the resume game and
probably win. He didn’t do the three year tour with Jesus, but he suffered for the
name of Jesus more than anyone else I see in the Bible.
Paul could have done well in the resume game, but he
chose not to, mostly. That is to say, I could play that game. Here is a glimpse
of what it might look like, but I count all of those worldly accolades—to
include the religious ones—as dung.
What counts for everything is the grace of God on which I
build everything else. God, you have laid the foundation in grace, and that in
itself is enough. If I botched up everything else, I would still be with you
forever, even though it might be like escaping a fire with only the singed
clothes on my back.
I want to do more, and I want you—church—to do more.
Let’s build on what is already enough, not for our glory but to bring glory to
God.
For the believer desiring to grow in the Lord's ways, our
requests and petitions become more about glorifying God. This must be a big deal
for us. It is a big paradigm shift for those who have only been consumers of
God’s mercy and grace.
How did we get here? Paul had some affliction. We are not
sure what, but likely it was his vision or arthritis that made writing
difficult. When you end up writing a
whole bunch of the New Testament, either would be important.
There is a sovereignty discussion to be had with his
thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment him. Every good gift is
from above. There was an incredible revelation that came from this gift, so I
am calling it a good gift and not a punishment.
Like the Law of Moses, it was given for Paul’s own good,
and as it turns out for our enduring benefit as well. But we have this whole
God using Satan thing so was it directed, permissive, the syntax of the day or
something else.
That’s a study, not a sermon, but surely worth the effort
if it’s on your heart. Remember this.
Paul was given this thorn in the flesh. He asked God to
take it away three times. It was obviously something that Paul wanted out of
his way in this ministry.
God said, “Better than taking it away, I will use it to
reveal a truth to you. It’s worth sharing.”
My
grace is enough for you.
No matter the trials of the day, the week, the years, and
the decades, you always have my victory, my strength—especially in your
weakness, and this blessed assurance that your salvation is assured in Christ
Jesus.
This grace is sufficient. If that’s all we ever received,
we have enough. But we know that God wants so much more than enough for us. He
is the God of good gifts. We might call him El Shaddai.
Do you remember Jesus saying that even you with corrupt
and sinful hearts know how to give good gifts to your children? How much more
does your Father in heaven know how and desire to give his children good gifts?
I’m not burying the lead. I’m not holding the best for
the last. I’m not venturing into figurative language or even more Marine Corps
examples and analogies. I do have to ask, did anyone try to climb a rope this
week?
Start thanking God from the moment you awaken tomorrow.
Then, let him know that his grace is sufficient for you. That’s an affirmation,
a celebration, and cause to shout for joy to the Lord.
Then say, “Show me, teach me.” What? Your ways and your
paths. Now you are ready to tackle the day in a life that’s already claimed
victory.
In the words, “Your grace is enough,” you are saying:
GAME ON.
Here is the thing about living in God’s mercy and his
grace. It’s kind of a big deal. Not only am I good with God’s grace being
enough, but it also brings me quickly to the worst that could happen to me,
which is that someone kills me. But all that would do is change my geography,
and maybe the search committee schedule.
Let’s live an abundant life and see how much glory we can
bring to Jesus. This grace thing is big—it’s bigger than our sin. It is our
foundation for an abundant life. Let’s live to the full.
It’s Game On! Your grace is sufficient. Game On!
Amen.
Read also: It Would Have Been Enough
