A man full of grace

Acts 6: 1 – 10
Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 15 Jul, 2007

THE NEW TESTAMENT speaks repeatedly of fullness. It speaks of receiving from Jesus’ fullness. It speaks of being filled with the Spirit. It speaks of being full of grace.

Do you think you are like an empty jar, getting filled with some kind of liquid called grace? Maybe you paid too much attention when some teacher told you to be quiet in class because “...an empty vessel makes the most sound!”

What does it mean to be full of grace?

I attended a seminar at Randwick Baptist Church and met a delightful Malaysian Chinese student. She told me her story.

Her family were Chinese Christians. When she came to Australia to study, being a good Christian, she looked for a Baptist Church, and found Randwick.

She was shocked at first, then found herself greatly liberated. “My family were Christians for generations,” she said. “We learnt the Bible, we knew all the terms, but I did not understand grace until I came here. The Buddhist culture is so much part of Chinese life in Malaysia that you talk about grace, but you live by works. Coming here, I saw grace in action, and it has changed my life!”

She was one of the most at ease people I have ever met. She was in love — in love with God and with life itself. I have only met a handful of people like that in my lifetime.

How can I define it? She was confident with herself and with people around her. She focused on others more than herself. I watched over several days and was fascinated by how she related to the people at that conference.

I wonder what Stephen would have been like? A man full of grace.

Today we will talk about being full of grace. It’s not a static thing, like having a jar full of jam; it’s a dynamic, life–changing thing, like a dam which keeps overflowing down the causeway and watering the farms and fields below.

I think of it as a procession: grace flowing to you and me from God then working in us before flowing through us to the world. God’s grace from beginning to end, watering a dying world and causing life to spring up wherever it lands. Grace to us, in us and through us

Grace to us

Stephen had received the grace of Jesus, and he was overflowing with it. In fact, he was not only filled with grace, but he was also filled with power, and, as we read, he

...performed great wonders and signs among the people.

But first we think about where that grace came from.

Over the past few weeks, we have seen how grace was manifested in the giving of the law, and how grace is ours through faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ.

I said that grace is getting the good things that we don‘t deserve, mercy is not getting the punishment we do deserve, and peace is what we have when we have the other two.

There is a consistent story throughout the gospel, a story of grace.

Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, but God made them clothes to protect them away from Paradise’s bliss.

God called Abram out of Chaldea and promised to make a nation of his descendents. Abram had done nothing to deserve it, but God, in his grace, gave him everything.

He called a cheat named Jacob and turned him into Israel, a prince with God.

God called Gideon, and made him a mighty warrior when he was a mere kid working on his father’s farm, he called a young man named David — a fighter and a womaniser — and promised him an ever–lasting kingdom.

Grace reaches out to us when we least deserve it. He makes mighty men and women of us, empowered and equipped for God’s work.

And, when you come to the New Testament, that message of grace is everywhere. Jesus was full of grace and truth. Paul proclaimed faith and grace. He said,

^{Rom 3:23} for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

²⁵ God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood — to be received by faith.

and again,

^{Rom 4:16} Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring — not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham.

The grace of Jesus is a constant throughout the Gospel, because God has acted in love to call us to himself.

That’s the point of what Paul says:

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood.

When we deserved nothing but condemnation, Jesus died for us.

There’s an old tale of a magistrate whose own son was brought before him, accused of a serious crime.

The magistrate heard the case, and decided against his son.

“You have shown yourself a person of bad character who has little concern for others. You have seen to your own interests even when it has hurt innocent people. I can do nothing but find you guilty and impose the maximum fine. The evidence given today has shown that you have squandered even what you gained from your crime, and I know you have no resources to pay. Still, if you fail to pay the fine, I will have no option but to imprison you.”

The young man was devastated, because he saw nothing but prison in front of him — and at the hands of his own father.

In deep sorrow, he went to see the clerk to declare that he couldn’t pay his fine.

When he got there, the clerk handed him a receipt for the full fine. “Your father paid this,” he said. “You can go — you are free.”

Grace is like that. We deserved death. And Jesus, God come as human, did the dying for us. That was the only way that God could possibly taste death for us.

Surely we can all see it: God sent his son who died for us; we can go free; and the only possible way that we can receive the benefit of that death is by faith — by believing that it is ours and accepting it for ourselves without relying in any way on our own abilities.

Grace comes from God.

Grace in us

Then again, grace works in us.

This is the sort of thing I mentioned at the beginning about that girl at Randwick church. Her family knew about and trusted in God’s grace, but grace was not working in them. But, in Sydney, she began to discover how grace works in her and not just for her.

I’ve told you before about how I found it difficult when I was younger to really accept forgiveness for myself.

I had the feeling that I had to wait for a while until everything cooled off.

It’s a delicate balancing act. Some people give their sin no thought. They don’t even forgive themselves, they just can’t care less about what they have done.

On the other hand, other people, maybe the majority of people, find they can’t fully accept that forgiveness is real.

That’s the kind of thing that makes the differnce between people like Stephen, the man full of grace and power, and the vast majority of believers.

Stephen was a man who knew how real grace is. He knew that God fully accepted him despite his sins and failings.

Grace began to work in me when I realised that same truth. I began to know by experience and not just by intellectual assent.

I am not holding myself up as a latter–day Stephen, full of grace and power; what I am saying is that we can all move to new levels of extending grace to ourselves. When I realise that God’s grace is real, I can begin to accept myself, as God accepts me.

There is a lot of criticism of Christianity these days, and much of it focuses on an unhealthy emphasis on sin. What people don’t realise is that they are talking about an unbalanced kind of Christianity, which focuses on sin and fails to understand grace. Balanced Christianity knows the reality of sin and the depth of human depravity, but also rejoices in the breadth of grace.

Some of you might know the old hymn,

Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus,
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea;
Higher than the mountain, sparkling like a fountain,
All-sufficient grace for even me;
Broader than the scope of my transgressions,
Greater far than all my sin and shame;
O magnify the precious name of Jesus, praise His name!

(-— Haldor Lillenas, d 1959)

Once you and I know that grace, what liberation it brings!

It is no wonder that Paul writes,

Acts 20:32 “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

It is like in Ephesians 3, where Paul prays

...that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

He was speaking to Christians. Why pray that Christ should dwell in their hearts when he was already there by faith, anyway?

In John’s gospel, some would–be disciples ask Jesus, “Where do you live?” The Greek is, “Pou meneis?” i.e., “Where are you staying?”

But in Ephesians, Paul doesn’t pray that Jesus will stop over in their hearts, the word he uses is not meno, to stay or to stop over. It is katoikesthai, which means to settle down and be at home.

When Jesus settles down in our hearts, when our lives are fully open to him, then his grace fills us, because grace comes with Jesus, and his grace is wherever he is.

Chris and I took the kids on holidays down the South Coast many years ago and stayed in a rented house. We could use any part of that house, except for one room which was locked. I imagine that the owners kept their belongings in there, the really important bits.

When we first invite Jesus in, there are many rooms where the really important bits are, and they are locked to Jesus.

Some people won’t let him into the part where their ambitions are; some won’t let him in where their sexuality lies; some won’t let him touch their family life; some won’t allow him in to some sin that they feel so bad about that they never really face it for themselves, let alone bring it to Jesus.

When we face those dark, locked areas, and don’t run from what is in them, or treasure up the contents lest someone take it from us, then grace begins to penetrate, because grace is accepting, grace is forgiving, and grace is, above all, liberating.

It is sin when I hold it in and refuse to face it; grace says, “I know what is in there, and I am no longer so afraid that I won’t face it.”

I knew a woman some years ago who was severely sexually abused as a child, and refused to face it. She admitted it, but she said, “That’s the past. I am not going back there again.”

She was physically abused.

She emotionally abused her husband and her child. She wanted her husband and hated him at the same time. He never knew where he stood with her. He is a broken man today.

She so protected her child that the poor kid could only grow up by rejecting her. And another baby in an adult body perpetuates the abuse into another generation.

Grace could have liberated that entire family.

Grace through us.

Grace has to become our lifestyle.

If I have received grace, I must extend grace to others.

As Jesus said,

^{Mt 18:23} ...the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.
²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.
²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶ “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’

²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. 7He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,” he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.
³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive a brother or sister from your heart.”

What is mercy, but the other side of the coin of grace? What is forgiveness, but grace applied to sin?

Exercising grace

We live in a world where grace is in short supply. The loudest voices shout about zero–tolerance, about harsh punishments, about forcing people to comply. They are voices of rejection and oppression. They are voices from hell, because that is where their attitudes arise from.

It is our task as people touched by the grace of Jesus to allow it to soak into our souls, so that we live it out to other people.

It’s not about toleration of what is wrong. Stephen was stoned for his intolerance of ignorant self–satisfaction. But it is about an acceptance of people which heals and liberates.

When I give someone a carton of drink in Jesus’ Name, no strings attached, I say to that person that I am a person who will be gracious in the way that Jesus is gracious.

Let’s all choose to reveal to a needy world the grace in us through Jesus our Lord!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)