Sermon Synopsis for May 4, 2008

“Grace and Peace” Romans 5:1-5

Maybe you heard about the elderly lady was well known for her faith and for her boldness and talking about it. Each morning she would stand on her front porch and shout, "Praise the Lord!"

Next door lived an atheist who was so angry at her proclamations he would shout back, "There ain't no Lord!!"

This would go on every morning.

Hard times set in on the elderly lady and she prayed for God to send her some assistance. She stood on her porch and shouted, "Praise the Lord!! God, I need FOOD!! I am having a hard time. Please, Lord, send me some groceries!!"

The man next door thought he would have some fun and prove a point to the lady. So he went a bought her some groceries, and set it on her porch.

The next morning, the lady went out on her porch and saw a large bag of groceries and shouted, "Praise the Lord!!"

The neighbor jumped from behind a bush and said, "Ha Ha!! I told you there was no Lord. I bought those groceries. God didn't."

The lady started jumping up and down and clapping her hands and saying, "PRAISE THE LORD!!! He not only sent me groceries, but He made the devil pay for them!!"

I’m sure that didn’t build a peaceful relationship between the two; it’s not very graceful!

The Apostle Paul wrote a long letter to the Christians in Rome, people he hadn’t even met yet. He knew some of them from his missionary travels, but most of them were new Christians living in the capital of the world, Rome.

The world was controlled by the Pax Romana – the Roman Peace. Peace at a price – submission, you had to submit to the Lordship of the Roman Emperor: “Caesar is Lord” was the phrase inscribed in many places, including the coins they used for trading. As long as Caesar was your Lord, you would have peace.

Those were dangerous times. When they put their faith in Jesus and became Christians, they were putting their lives in danger.

Paul wrote a letter to the faithful who lived in Rome, yet proclaimed “Jesus is Lord”:

LETTER WRITING IS DIFFERENT TODAY

The internet has changed the way we write a letter. We used to write: “Dear (name). But in an internet communication our greetings can be almost anything (Hi or Hey), buy usually nothing. Where is Miss Manners these days?

The Apostle Paul started his letter by wishing the folks in Rome “Grace and Peace.” Almost every letter in the NT begins by wishing grace and peace to the recipients (some add love and mercy). The authors do not just wish “grace and peace,” but add “from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This is not a common letter writing practice in the ancient Greek/roman world. The traditional letter is written, “From (name) to (name), greetings (salutations) and (sometimes included) wishes of health and soundness. A few have “I pray you are well.”

For the great number of gods the Romans and Greeks had, they do not include or mention the name of a god in their greetings.

But Paul and the other NT writers have this habit.

It makes me wonder, why, for the early Christians, was “grace and peace” joined together as something wished upon others?

GRACE AND PEACE
Grace and Peace were the two basics of the faith that we receive by being a Christian.

Grace and Peace are the things we need most to get the most out of our Christian life, to live the Christian life in a world that doesn’t care about Jesus.

Rome was the center for Christian Martyrs during the late 1st and early 2nd centuries. At that time, in Rome, you could believe anything (they had a whole pantheon of gods) as long as it didn’t interfere with your allegiance to Caesar – “Caesar is Lord” is the standard for Roman Citizenship.

As the early Christians were hauled into court for treason, history tells us that they did not try to justify themselves – they were already justified, by their faith in the Lord.

Ultimately, it was better to be at peace with God than with this world.

If you are at peace with God, you can withstand anything this world has to dish-up.

Fox’s Book of Martyrs – gives account after account of the faithful who gave their lives simply because they believed in Jesus and lived that belief. Many accounts speak of those who died with a smile on their faces, content to suffer for their Lord. In the midst of tribulation and suffering, they were at peace. Many died forgiving their oppressors.

Martyr’s Mirror – tells of Anabaptist martyrs during the last 500 years. Many gave up their lives, praying for and caring for their accusers. That’s the peace of God working in their lives.

Paul writes to the Romans: “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1)

When we lived in Bolivia the “Shining Path” (Sendero Luminoso) sent threats to the churches we worked with. They threatened to burn their church buildings. When we have peace with God, such threats can only make us stronger in the faith. They also realized that adobe walls and tin roofs don’t burn very well.

Peace with God can get us through any difficulty this world has to offer.

But Peace alone is not enough!

Paul continues writing to the Romans (5:2): “through him (Jesus Christ) we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”

BY THE GRACE OF GOD
By the grace of God we stand … and proclaim our faith (a little like the lady in the story I started with)

Grace is an undeserved, unmerited, gift. It includes mercy, pardon, favor, kindness.
We are to live by the grace of God:
- we wake up in the morning, by the grace of God
- we have food on our table, by the grace of God
- we have health, go to work, drive our cars, all by the grace of God
- we live each day, by the grace of God
- we face life’s difficulties, by the grace of God
… Because it is a gift from God

God wants us to have a life full of Grace; it’s the Grace that Jesus had and showed.

JESUS LIVED GRACE (some examples):
In the face of attitudes that only the clean could eat with the clean. Jesus was accused (correctly) of eating and fraternizing with sinners. Jesus was not made unclean in this process, but he made them clean. Jesus graciously welcomes sinners and other shady characters to his table.

The woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus in the temple court; the scribes and the Pharisees want justice served and want her stoned (death penalty) and want her ground into the dust for her actions; Jesus doesn’t. He graciously forgives her and bids her sin no more (John 7:53-8:11).

The Samaritan woman did not expect Jesus’ treatment and graciousness to her; the disciples couldn’t understand why Jesus is talking with her; Jesus knows her and bids her come to him. The prejudices of the day treat Samaritans like an dirt; Jesus loved her (John 4:1-38).

The Prodigal Son dishonored his father, took off with some of his father’s estate, and ruined it all with sinful living; the Older Son couldn’t comprehend why the father was so graciously forgiving when the prodigal returned home and why the father didn’t punish his son with the system of justice in play at the time; Jesus teaches that God is like that father and that is why he graciously welcomes prodigals and sinners to his table for fellowship (Luke 15:1-32).

In the parable of the vineyard workers, the astounding thing is that those who entered the labor force at the end of the day got as much as those who entered it earlier in the day; the owner paid them “what was right” (the Greek word is just); when the owner paid everyone, the early-to-work crowd protested, on the basis of justice, that the owner was unfair; they didn’t evidently care that the others made enough to make ends meet (Matthew 20:1-16).

Jesus seems to be teaching, Grace subverts what most think justice is; some demand justice anyway.

WHAT ABOUT JUSTICE?
Jeffrie Murphy, in his book Getting Even (Oxford University Press, 2003) argues that forgiveness is far too easy for far too many, and that a sense of justice must be maintained. Murphy’s book is sophisticated, intricate, and makes as good a case as anyone for a Christian theory of retribution. I think he’s wrong — but his study will make you think.

Jesus subverted this sense of justice and created an alternate system of grace and love. This system still maintains discontent with our sinfulness and repentance, but creates a world in which we love and forgive. That’s grace in action.

Jesus taught us to pray everyday, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

I find that I need grace because every other alternative doesn’t work.

WHAT IF, IN THE MIDST OF CONFLICT, GRACE AND PEACE BROKE OUT?

History tells the story …
Amid the horrors of World War I, there occurred a unique truce when, for a few hours, enemies behaved like brothers. Christmas Eve, 1914, and all was quiet on France’s western front, from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps. Trenches came within 50 miles of Paris. The war was only five months old and already over 800,000 men had been wounded or lost their lives. Every soldier wondered whether Christmas Day would bring another round of fighting and killing, but something happened: British soldiers raised Merry Christmas signs, and soon carols were heard from German and British trenches alike.

Christmas dawned with unarmed soldiers leaving their trenches as officers from both sides tried unsuccessfully to stop their troops from meeting the enemy in the middle of no-man’s-land for songs and conversation. Exchanging small gifts—mostly sweets and cigars—they passed Christmas Day peacefully along miles of the front. At one spot, the British played soccer with the Germans, who won three to two.

In some places, the spontaneous truce continued the next day, neither side willing to fire the first shot. Finally, the war resumed when fresh troops arrived, and the high command of both armies ordered that further “informal understandings” with the enemy would be punishable as treason.

With God every day is Christmas. Grace and Peace flows from heaven and will never cease. God will never take up arms against you again. You are no longer an enemy (see 5:10). You have been reconciled to God. There is peace in your relationship.

But it is more than the peace which ensues as a result of a truce. It is a peace that is founded on justification which we receive when we trust Christ. This ushers us into a place of grace with God. We cannot and did not earn it. It was given to us!

We receive grace and peace …
… so we can live graciously and peacefully in this world.

We live in a world that desperately needs grace and peace …

IT TAKES TIME
I told the children that I planted flower seeds, but when I looked this morning, there were no flowers. They helped me solve my dilemma. When they realized that I only planted the seeds yesterday, they told me I needed to wait and be patient.

Sometimes we’re the same way with God and our lives.
We pray and ask God for something, and when a day or a week has gone by, we get discouraged if it hasn’t happened. The Bible says that if “we hope for what we do not have, we must wait for it patiently.” (Romans 8:25)

If we could only have a little more grace and peace …
…what a great difference it would make in our world.

It might be slow coming, but we can start with our greetings.

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.