I want to think together today about the steady work of grace. We don’t usually pray for requests like, O God make me a better person. Our prayers are usually, Thank you God for the raise at work. I’m sorry God that I lied to my friend. Please God, heal my aunt. Our day by day encounter with God is like eating at a fast food restaurant. We ask for a lot of items on the menu, God chooses a few for us and we are more or less happy – well, we would have liked all of them.
But there is a lot of spiritual work that will never get done in your life if you just live at the fast food level. I sometimes am amazed and discouraged at the number of spiritual leaders, writers, speakers, and pastors who claim the same faith that I do and yet our views on basic questions of the spirit are just 100% different. The problem is that we focus too much on very specific spiritual requests and we are not expecting God to do a work in us.
As a child, we were in a church that preached two definite works of grace, salvation where you pointed your life towards a new star, and sanctification, where you accepted the steady work of grace that would change your opinions, overcome your temptations, and release the full potential of the Spirit empowered life.
Guess what? The steady work of grace takes a little longer than that. But God has left us with ways to receive the steady work of grace and the Scripture this morning looks at two people who had a chance to experience it. You can too
Matthew, the writer of this book, was a tax collector. This story is biographical. He was structurally involved in a job that was oppressive. We don’t know anything else about his circumstance except that he was ready to receive Jesus’ invitation to reorient his life. He was willing to make a quick change to be in atmosphere where he could receive the steady work of grace. Even better, he threw a rich party where he could introduce Jesus to his friends and make sure that everyone knew that he had made a quick change – adding a new social structure in his life.
The Pharisees complained about the people that Jesus was willing to be at a party with. What they missed was that Jesus was seeing the new Kingdom break in and offering a chance to oppressors to reorient their lives, drop their support for a wicked structure that was stealing land from middle class people and developing large farms for rich people. Jesus was invited to the meal – he was not there like a street preacher calling in from outside.
Matthew goes on to become an apostle, one of the leaders of the church with his influence affecting us today. He used the quick change to get with people and prayer and talk and work together to let the steady work of grace change him. The Christian church is often in disarray because its people and its leaders do not want the steady work of grace. I read this week that only 1% of Southern Baptist pastors support Barack Obama. I saw an article yesterday, trying to tie him into prophecy as a Muslim born person in his 40s who will rise suddenly and become the antichrist. Now I don’t think Christians have to support him. Maybe these pastors don’t like his ideas about health care or relations with Iran or whatever. But when I read that only 1% support him – you basically have a lot of racists who have turned to God for fast food grace but never placed themselves where they could receive the steady work of grace.
The lesson continues with the raising of the synagogue leader’s daughter. She had died. The flutists had been called for and the funeral was underway. Jesus says she is only sleeping. The metaphor is for a religious system that had died – the temple worship. And the metaphor is about Jesus’ power even over death. With God’s power it is reversible.
We all struggle with the steady work of grace. The good news is that grace changes you in ways to make you the person that you will enjoy being. You will be harder to threaten, greater sense of security, better self identity, more relaxed. The bad news is that the steady work of grace is entire sanctification – you have to change something in your life to get access to it. Matthew was willing to join the Disciples, I'm sure that the leader of the synagogue and his family did the same thing after their daughter came back from death.
The way to experience the steady work of grace today is to make a change so that you get experience the grace. And our church has a way to do it.
Our church is about to work on new small groups. I have listed some topics in your bulletin that we could possibly support. The small group training today comes after a year of work and meetings. The leaders first met to think about this last July. We had meetings with a consultant, 30 people took the profile in October, a large meeting was held in March and now we are at the brink of a major change in our church.
I want your support. I am asking you directly to support the new small groups as something that God is doing in our congregation. I actually want you to be in one.
What I know is that we need to each become like Christ. And I know a lot of people who say they are Christians, but they never hit the high note, they never get the peace they should have or the success they deserve. Of course, oppression is a part of life’s story, but we all have to hunger and thirst for righteousness. And that steady work of grace only happens if you make a specific decision to change your relationships and make it happen.
