OPENING PRAYER
Forgive us, most gracious Lord and Father,
if this day we have done or said anything
to increase the pain of the world.
Pardon the unkind word,
the impatient gesture,
the hard and selfish deed,
the failure to show sympathy
and kindly help where we have had the opportunity,
but missed it;
and enable us so to live
that we may daily do something
to lessen the tide of human sorrow,
and add to the sum of human happiness.
— F. B. Meyer (England/1847–1929)
SERMON
We are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared to believe.
We are more loved and welcomed than we ever dared to hope.
Isaiah 1:16-17 NRSV
Wash yourselves;
make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.
James 1:27 NRSV
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
EPHESIANS 2:1-10 NRSV
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.
Three struggles of humanity (the before):
1. Sin/brokenness
2. Satan/deception
3. Selfishness/ego
EPHESIANS 2:1-10 NRSV
All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, doing the will of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else, but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace, you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
EPHESIANS 2:1-10 NRSV
For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.
“My job is not to solve people’s problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.” —Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction
POINT: The grace of God is the glue that mends our brokenness.
“Christ’s indwelling presence has freed us from an exclusive orientation toward ourselves and opened us up in two directions: toward God, to receive the good things in faith, and toward our neighbor, to pass them on in love.” —Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace