Standing In God's Grace

Whether you are a businessperson starting a new venture or a family trying to get out of debt or a young person preparing for a career or someone trying to lose weight—you need a plan. You need a plan.

But as different as these goals are—the plans to get out of debt and build a business and become a doctor and lose weight all share the same characteristics: where are you right now—your goal at the end—how you are going to get there—and what resources are at your disposal to reach your goal. Every plan has those steps.

The same thing is true in our life of faith and Paul talks about those steps in our text today. All of us have the goal of going to heaven when we die. And so we need to know where we are right now in our journey of faith. We need to know how it is that God is going to bring us to himself in heaven. And we need to know what spiritual resources we can count on to get us there. Paul writes:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand…

Standing in God’s grace. That is where we are right now and it’s a great place to be when it comes to our life with God! But what does that mean exactly—that we stand in God’s “grace”? I am always concerned that we hear (and even use) theological words like “grace” and “justification” and we know we should know what they mean—but we’re embarrassed to admit that we don’t. And so I’ll explain what “grace” means.

That we are standing in God’s grace means that when it comes to our relationship with God: we can be confident that God is favorably disposed to us—that he is pleased with us—that his attitude towards us is one of love and blessing—that far from being “out to get us”—God is for us—personally and individually. Right now we are standing in God’s grace. But how did we come to this remarkable place of blessing & favor?

Paul says that we have been justified by faith in Jesus and that through him—we have gained access into this precious place of standing in God’s grace. And so it’s through faith in Jesus. But there’s another one of those words that we hear and use but don’t always know what it means: that we are “justified” by faith. And so I’ll explain.

That word “justified” means that God himself has declared that we are right in his sight through faith in Jesus. It means that God himself has counted Christ’s holy life as our own righteousness --and that God himself has counted Christ’s death on the cross as our punishment for our sins.

The wrath that God has towards sinners has been taken away and replaced by peace-- so that now through faith in Jesus we are right in God’s sight and we can be absolutely confident that God looks upon us with a shining face of love-- and a desire to bless us with every good gift of body and soul.

Grace is where we are and faith has brought us there and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Our goal is to one day live in the presence of the glory of God—that is: to be in the presence of God himself with his light and love and life shining upon us forever and ever. This is THE GOAL of our Christian life.

I want to emphasize that point as strongly as I can because it often gets lost or distorted in modern Christianity. There are countless congregations where Sunday after Sunday all you ever hear is how to improve your marriage or how to discipline your kids or how to manage your money: how to have your best life now.

And there’s nothing wrong with any of these things and God cares about all of them. But the focus in these churches is always on the here and now—rarely, if ever, is the focus on the eternal purpose and plan that God has for your life—that heaven is HIS goal for you.

God has created you by his almighty Word- and redeemed you at the cost his Son’s blood- and brought you to himself by the power of the Holy Spirit- for a single purpose: that you would live with him in heaven—so that his glory would shine upon you forever in joy and peace. And as Christian people we rejoice in that hope.

But there is another one of those words that we need to make sure that we understand: the word “hope”. You hear people say: I HOPE I win the lottery when the odds are 600 million to one. That IS NOT what the Bible means by hope. The Bible says that HOPE is an anchor for our souls. That is because Christian hope, including and especially the hope of heaven, is based upon the promises of God—the fulfillment of which is in the future to be sure—but is nevertheless certain—because God has promised that we will be with him forever in heaven. That is our goal.

So far we have learned: 1. Where we are right now: standing in grace 2. How we got there: by faith in Jesus 3. and what our goal is: eternal life in the presence of the glory of God. The next step in God’s plan is getting us there. Paul writes about God’s process to bring us to heaven:

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame

In sharp contrast to those TV deceivers who tell us that we can have our best life now, God tells us that the best is yet to come- and that there might very well be some hardship along the way until we reach the glories of heaven. But far from bemoaning our bad luck in undergoing hard times, we can actually rejoice in the midst of it because we know that there is a God of love who is wisely, graciously, lovingly, patiently working in those hard times for our good-- to form us into the image of his Son and prepare us for an eternal life in his presence. And so how does God do that exactly? What are the steps that God takes in that plan?

First of all we need to recognize that there are going to be hard times and there is going to be some suffering in this life. We live in a broken world- and we are broken people- and there are going to be times when that brokenness comes to rest on us and those we love. But as we go through those times, we come to see that what we thought was unbearable, has actually made us stronger.

It just like a person trying to get in shape: a little bit of running can seem like unbearable agony, but if they stick with it just a bit—they find that their endurance grows day by day. And that realization changes them on the inside: they begin to understand that they have interior resources that they never imagined- and they are even better fitted to face the next challenge in their life. So it is in our life of faith.

Character is produced in us as we face and overcome the challenges of life. When we discover (through trials) that God will equip us and strengthen us for whatever difficulties we have to endure—ever so slowly we begin to change on the inside—we become more courageous and confident—we develop an inner resolve—we gain a mental and emotional strength that can only grow when it is stretched by endurance. Our character grows. And character produces hope.

This is where God is working to bring us—to a firm hope in him—confidently facing the future and eternity—because we know the God who has been our help every step along the way has promised to remain our help- come what may-til we get to heaven.

Let me just summarize this process with an analogy. All of us who are parents know what we want at the end of our child-rearing years: we want decent, hardworking, Christian adult sons and daughters. And so, is the best way to achieve this goal to give them every thing they want on a sliver platter, to pamper them into helplessness, to never challenge them beyond where there are in any given moment?
Is that the best plan? Of course not! It’s a recipe for disaster!

And if we have sense enough to know that that formula doesn’t work for our children—why on earth would we demand that God work that way among us—his children? That is a recipe for spiritual disaster!

Our loving heavenly Father has an eternal goal and purpose for our life that he is working out—even in hard times—which are A PART of that plan.

But as little as we would spoil our children, neither would we let our children fend for themselves without our help-- and neither does our heavenly Father leave us to our own resources and strength. Every bit of God’s plan to bring us to our heavenly home (through suffering and endurance and character and hope) is accomplished in us by his loving help. Paul says that: God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And so what does that mean? It means that:

Every time we hear God’s Word preached (the law that corrects us and the Gospel that comforts us) every time we hear that our sins are forgiven—every time we receive Christ’s body and blood in Holy Communion—there, in those places, and in those moments—God is pouring his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit—to give us those spiritual resources we need to reach our heavenly goal—which is why he sent his Son in the first place. Paul writes:

While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

All of us understand the challenges of reaching a goal. The vast majority of new businesses fail. Lots of kids want to be doctors until the hard work of physics and biochemistry kick in. Plenty of us have lost and gained back hundreds of pounds.

We know about failure in meeting goals. And so how can we be confident as Christian people that we WILL make the goal of heaven? It‘s because the One who has already accomplished so much in us and though us has promised that we will-- and his track record of accomplishing what seems to us impossible—is perfect.

While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. It you think you are weak now (and that causes you to worry about reaching heaven) think what you were before you came to faith in Jesus! But it was at that moment—when you had no spiritual resources of your own—that God loved you and sent his Son to die for you. It is while you were still sinners—incapable of pleasing God—incapable of even making a start towards God—that Christ died for you.

This is the deep, abiding, everlasting love that God has for each and every one of you and having sent his Son to die for you—having brought you to himself by the Spirit’s work in Holy Baptism—having sustained your faith through word and sacrament up to this point—HE WILL NOT STOP working to bring you to heaven until you are safe and sound, standing in his presence, basking in his glory.

And so when you think about how far you still have to go to get to heaven—when you are in the midst of some kind of sorrow or suffering—when your sins seem to overwhelm your faith—remember what you learned today: that through faith in Jesus you stand in God’s grace RIGHT NOW—that he is at work in your life in hard times to shape and mold you into the image of his Son—and that having sent his Son to die for you while you were still a sinner—he CERTAINLY will not give up on you until you reach your heavenly goal. Amen.