What is grace?
Grace is “the power to live out God’s plan.” Without grace, we are dead. Without grace, we have no power. Without grace, we are unable to live the life we were created to live. We obviously don’t deserve it, and we certainly can’t earn it by our own efforts.
Unfortunately, when we think of grace, we usually limit it to what happened in the past, on the cross, 2000 years ago. We think of it only as a PAST event. However, the cross is the means by which God has made grace available. We believe in what God did in the past, but do we believe in what God wants to do with us in the future?
We need grace every single day of our lives. We are nothing without God’s power… God’s grace.
God has a plan for us… a radical plan… a plan for us to be intimate with Him… a plan for us to influence the world to follow Him (AKA “Be disciples. Make disciples.”) God’s plan is that we would become even more intimate with Him today than we were yesterday. His plan is that we would make more disciples tomorrow than we did today.
However, we will NOT experience God’s plan for our lives without faith… faith in future grace. It’s not enough to have faith in what happened in the past. We must have faith in what God wants to do next.
In Exodus 14 we read about the miracle of God parting the Red Sea, delivering the Jewish people from the Egyptians. In Exodus 15, the people sing a new song about this event. The first 2/3rds of this song focus on what God just did, “in the past.” However, it’s the final 1/3rd of the song that is the most powerful. I invite you to read Exodus 15:13-18 and notice how many times the people use the word, “will.”
Their focus has shifted, from past grace to future grace. It’s their experience with past grace (the Red Sea), that gives them faith in future grace (that God will do even greater things to accomplish His plan in their lives).
Probably all of us have had dramatic experiences in the past where we knew, “Wow, that was God!” Unfortunately, when we don’t experience those things, we start to lose our faith… However, when our faith decreases, so does God’s power in our lives.
Let us remember our past encounters with grace (our Red Sea victories), and may our experiences with past grace give us greater faith in future grace… increased faith that God has even greater things in store for us!
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Wednesday, 11. November 2009
I enjoyed this sermon, it really made some good points. God didn’t do miraculous things in our past so that we would forget about them. Unfortunately us humans are a fickle people and we quickly forget our past. If only we could hold on to the miracles in the past like we tend to hold on to the guilt from the past.
I do want to ask you a question though. In the sermon you use the term Yaweh instead of God. But on this post you use the word God. Personally the word God has much more meaning to me than the word Yaweh. Yaweh to me sounds like a new God and in fact I cringed many times during the sermon because of it. It felt impersonal where as the word God has much more personal meaning to me anyways.
Wednesday, 11. November 2009
Re: Jon
In Exodus 3:13-15, God reveals His Name, Yahweh, to Moses. Yahweh says,
“This is My Name forever,
the name you shall call Me
from generation to generation.”
Every time we see the Old Testament word, “LORD,” in all capital letters, the actual Hebrew word is “Yahweh.” When we see the word, “Lord,” without all capitals, the Hebrew word is “Adoni.”
Many centuries ago, it became popular among Jewish people to say the word “Adoni” instead of “Yahweh,” because they believed this would be more reverent. They were afraid to say “Yahweh.” Whenever they read the Bible and came across the word “Yahweh,” they just substituted the word “Adoni.” So, many Jewish people today still refuse to say the Name Yahweh altogether.
English Bible translations follow this same methodology of thinking…
God has many Names, and I don’t think we should stop saying any of them, as long as we speak them with absolute reverence. God gave us these Names, because He wants us to use them.
Thursday, 12. November 2009
I was actually pleased to see that TNIV uses “Yahweh” instead of LORD. I hadn’t known that before.
My Hebrew prof made the point that in the OT, there is no suggestion that there is anything wrong with pronouncing the name of God. Evidently that was a development in Judaism after Malachi was written.
I understand Jon’s point that “Yahweh” lacks resonance if you’re not used to it, though. But there’s only one way to get used to it….
Thursday, 12. November 2009
Re Keith:
Actually, the TNIV uses “the LORD”. I replaced it on Sunday. Sorry for the confusion!