Jam#4 Amazing Grace Notes
Now, as Christians, we attribute our personal renaissance to the Grace of God, through the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Grace is something else. You can’t earn it, you can’t get it on your own, and you can’t buy it. It’s totally a gift from Love. Grace is the stork that brings us the renaissance baby. And when you start to think about this gift and what it does to us, it’s enough to make you want to spend the rest of your life telling others about it!
Ephesians 2:7 & 8 says, “In the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are we saved, through faith, and not of ourselves, for it is the gift of God”.
Everyone knows the tune, Amazing Grace. You’ll hear it churches and then you’ll hear it on the six o’clock news. You’ll hear it in the movie theatres and then hear it in the funeral halls. One thing I find so amazing about this song is how universally accepted it is. It has it’s own way of getting into people’s homes, hearts and lives, even without mentioning Jesus, by name.
Think about that, for a moment. Why is it that the most popular hymn of all time has no mention of the name of our Savior in it? Not once will you see the name of Jesus in any of the six or seven original verses. Yes, there’s mention of the “Lord” and “God”, but no Jesus.
Now, I only mention this to emphasize the point that was made in Ephesians chapter 2. It’s through our faith in Christ that we come to know how we are saved by grace, by God’s grace. Now, I can see all you seasoned Christians looking at this saying, “Whoa there cowboy! What are you saying? That Jesus is not the way the truth and the life?”
Ah, come on. I didn’t say that. Did I say that? No… a thousand times, no. I’m just asking us all to look at how Love works. It’s by His grace, His gift, that we are saved, and that being through our faith in Christ… yes. This does not, and cannot, ever diminish what Jesus did for us. Because when He died on the cross, Love was actually showing us His grace.
But still, in order for us to understand fully that grace saves us, we need to know more about what grace saves us from. First of all, grace saves us from our sin. Notice I use the singular word “sin”, because it’s more important to recognize the state of our lives, instead of focusing on every little transgression. When we live our lives in a way that’s contrary to the way that God would have us live, we are living in a state of sin. Our hearts are closed to any jams that the King might want to turn us on to, and the music we make is all on our own, (or so we think).
More tragic is the direction we’re headed… straight for destruction. And there’s no use trying to turn ourselves around. Trust me, I know. We keep trying to convince ourselves that if we just do this one good deed, it will somehow offset that bad thing we did yesterday. It’s like we think there’s some kind of cosmic meat balance up there, somewhere that’s weighing all our actions, good on one side and… not so good on the other. Well, if this were the case, then why would we need a savior? Why would we need the grace of God? We wouldn’t. All we would have to do is… just keep track of our cosmic balance, and make sure the scale’s always tipping in our favor, right? Wrong!
Remember the thief on the cross, next to Jesus? This was a bad dude. This guy didn’t even deserve to live another day, let alone make it into the great gig in the sky. Did he have time to tip the balance back? I don’t think so. Yet all he had to do, was to ask Jesus to remember him. At that moment, something major happened to this guy’s state of life. It was turned around! He knew that he couldn’t turn it around on his own, he needed someone to do it. And, he knew that only Jesus could do it. He knew it deep down.
How did that happen? Grace… that’s all anyone can say… grace… total unmerited, undeserved, non-partisan favor, a gift from Love.
Jesus didn’t have to help this guy. I’m sure He was quite… preoccupied at the moment. But this was the reason He was born. It was to show us all the grace of God, even to the thief bleeding to death next to him… even to the point of praying for the soldiers as they tortured Him.
Ever wonder why John Newton called his song Amazing Grace? Well there you have it. To know why Jesus would come to earth, put on a skin suit, deal with our stinkin attitudes, our dirty, smelly bodies and our pea brained ideas, then to give His life, all just to turn our lives around from destruction, is beyond human comprehension. And to dwell on this truth is to constantly remind us of what an awesome God He really is.
Still… the only time God’s hands are tied is when we’re living in sin. Because, you see, sin is basically this… it’s the decision we make to not live the way He intended for us to live. It’s a conscious choice to ignore what we know is the right thing to do. And when that happens, God has to step back. He has to watch while we fall flat on our face.
Why? Because we’ve been given another gift in this life… it’s called Free Will. Free will is the wild card of life. It’s the one thing that gets us in more trouble, and at the same time the one thing that opens the door to our salvation. We’ll jam more on free will later cause it’s a subject that you can’t just touch on. It deserves a jam of its own, and we will.
The next thing that grace saves us from is from ourselves. Even after we turn our lives around and we accept the gift of grace in our lives, we still live out this present age carrying a lot of baggage and doing a lot of unhealthy things that tend to get us in trouble. Some are intentional and some are not. No matter what the reason, we still need a Savoir, a Shepard, a Physician, a Morning Star… the list goes on and on. And grace is the means by which God provides us the help we need. This is the main way He protects us from our own bad habits and stupidity. Does this mean that we can continue living the way we want, simply because we can expect grace to cover us? Far from it!
For those of you with children, I think you know what happens if you let your little one do whatever he or she wants. You can’t always stand there with a loving and understanding smile. Sometimes you’ve gotta jump in and save their little behinds, or eventually, something’s gonna break, fall, burn, puke, bleed or worse. No… as good parents, we know that parental discipline and correction are essential to your child’s healthy growth and development. So why would we think that God’s any different with his kids?
Finally grace saves us from Hell. What’s that? You say you don’t believe in Hell? Ok… fair enough. You’ve never been there, never seen it, so how can we say it exists, right? Well, do you believe in Hell on Earth? Have you ever been through Hell on Earth? I know I have. And the worst part of my “hell on earth” experiences was that I could not sense God. It was mixed with feelings of absolute anguish and loneliness, and the feeling that my life had no direction or purpose. The Psalms are a good example of how our hearts fall into despair when God seems to be out of the picture.
Well, the bible describes Hell as the place of total darkness, void of any light or presence of God. Forget about all those images of fire and brimstone, piercing pitchforks and crooked politicians. Isn’t it bad enough to imagine your life in a perpetual state of “hell on earth”? Jesus spent a lot of time talking about Hell, because He wants us to come into the presence and knowledge of God, and He is willing that none should perish.
Well you might say, (or you have said at some time in your life), “What about all of the countless people who have lived throughout history, not knowing about the name or the person of Jesus Christ? Are they forever cast into darkness, simply because they were unfortunate enough to be born in the wrong place or time?”
Good question. Well, let’s think about that for a moment. Is it possible that in some way, the grace of God was presented to them? Is it possible that they were able to make a choice; similar to the choice we’ve been given?
The apostle Paul said in Romans 1:20, “For from the first making of the world, those things of God which the eye is unable to see, that is, his eternal power and existence, are fully made clear, he having given the knowledge of them through the things which He has made, so that men, (all mankind), have no reason for wrongdoing.” (Bible in Basic English / BBE)
Maybe, just maybe… God has shown Himself in some way to every living human being that has ever walked this earth, and maybe… just maybe, He has spoken words, something like this, “Hey… I got a deal for you. Why don’t you stop trying to impress me with your sacrifices and offerings? I know that you recognize there is a gap between us. But, stop… OK, just hold on. I want you to know that I’ve made another way for you, because I love you that much. You may not know how to describe it. It probably goes totally against your own religious beliefs and traditions… you know all those things that you’ve been told to do, so that you can gain my favor?
“There’s a name you may never hear of… a person you may never see, but just remember that I love you enough to tell you right now that I have made a way for you, and all you need to do is to accept it and believe. The choice is yours. So what will it be? You gonna keep doing the ritual thing or you gonna give me a try?”
Now, that’s amazing grace! Maybe that’s why everyone can relate to that tune. You see… grace is ultimately what saves all of us. We’ve just been fortunate enough to hear the whole tune.
We must never forget that God is in the restoration business and whichever way He decides to reconcile people is entirely up to Him. And ultimately, anyone who finds the grace of God will find Christ, if given the opportunity, because the two are one in the same. He’s the face on the body, the name on the marquis, and the title on the book. He is the embodiment of the grace of God.
We Christians have been commissioned to “Go into the whole world and preach the gospel”, the good news that Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life. You know why? Because the seeds of grace that have been planted, will be watered and grow when people like you and me bring the message of Christ. Renaissance babies are waiting to be born, new visions ready to take off and affect this world with Love, true Love. Isn’t this how God is made manifest in our world? Oh… yes it is.
I know that all this has kicked up a lot of religious dust, and some of you are really having a hard time with it. That’s OK, because; remember what Jesus said about not coming to bring peace, but a sword? Well you’ve been challenged. You’ve been asked to think outside your normal comfort level on a subject that you thought would never be challenged. But, before you start taking your swings, I want you to consider a new principal.
Let’s call it the Pendulum Swing, and as you’re probably guessing, it’s the subject of our next jam, so hang in there, ‘cause you’re gonna dig that crazy pendulum swing!
Jammin exercise: Here… check out John Newton’s words to Amazing Grace. Don’t sing them, I want you to read them as a prayer to the King. If you haven’t already noticed, these jammin’ exercises all end up as prayers, anyway. So let this one resonate with the words of this old hymn, while you jam on what it means to you. Think about where your life was before grace intervened. Think about where you were headed without Love leading the way. By the way, the fear mentioned in verse two… that’s not fear, like we know it. That’s really talking about how we become awestruck in the presence of Love… not afraid of it… but ultimately how it relieves us from our own fears.
Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear,
And Grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come.
'Tis Grace hath brought me safe thus far
And Grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me.
His Word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures.
When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.
Amen
