Pastor Dan Eddy
Romans 6:1-11
Cheap versus
priceless Grace
1-16-11
Priceless Grace,
unbelievable Mercy, and everlasting Peace be yours from God our Father and from
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
I.
Introduction: Treating the priceless,
cheaply
Ray Barone is not
a good husband. In the TV comedy series, Everybody
Loves Raymond, Ray continually shows his wife and family how he treats his
priceless gift of marriage, cheaply.
In one episode he
and his brother, Robert, were playing with his wedding band, twirling it on the
table until it landed way down in the heat duct of his hotel room. In another
episode, he grabs a video tape to record a football game and thoughtlessly
tapes over the only copy of their wedding video.
He frequently
doesn’t want to spend time with his kids, often doesn’t support his wife when
she is right but rather takes his mother’s side because he fears his mother
more than he loves his wife.
Ladies, how much
fun would it be to be married to a man like this? I hope you’re not married to
a person like Ray.
In fact, after
awhile the title of the show “Everybody
Loves Raymond” takes on more of an ironic tone. Most everyone loves him, flaws
and all, but often he doesn’t show it in return. He says he loves his wife and
family but his actions say otherwise. He
doesn’t value what he has.
In this morning’s
Epistle reading from Romans 6, the Apostle Paul challenged those who are
members at the Church of Rome to look at how much they value the grace of God
given to them by faith in Christ Jesus at their Baptism.
II. How
we treat Grace cheaply?
Here’s what Paul
was dealing with in this congregation. He had two very different groups of
people who were treating God’s gift of grace, cheaply.
The first group
were people who just simply could not believe that there was nothing they could
do to earn their salvation. They felt they needed to add to Christ’s sacrifice.
In Romans 3:23-24 Paul states that all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God and are therefore freely justified by the redemption that came through
Christ Jesus. For these people that was oxymoronic.
So, on one end
he’s got people that are trying to earn their way to heaven…thinking a lot more
of their works that they should. Christ’s sacrifice from the cross just wasn’t
good enough for these people… They say, “I
need to supplement it. I need to do
more.” And they were sarcastically taunting Paul by saying, “We should sin some more so more grace may
abound.”
“No way,” they thought, “My good works solidify my grace.”
We see this in
our modern day with those who come to church. They do so to fulfill their
obligation to God and they donate to the local food pantry, volunteer for the
church boards, and have participated in community activities…all with a wink,
nod, to God that that’s what’s really going to save them. They
think “I will do God favors and He’ll do
favors for me….all the way to heaven.”
Then the other
group of people, in Paul’s day, who were treating God’s gift cheaply, were
those that because they could only be saved by faith in Christ, then they
didn’t have to do anything. God’s gift of grace did not compel them to do any
good works. Here Christ’s sacrifice from the cross is totally disregarded…without
even a shred of thankfulness. They thought seriously, “Great. With this grace I can sin some more so more grace can abound.”
“If I just go to church, and confess my
sins, pastor will forgive me and then I go to Holy Communion and everything
will be alright. I’m on easy street. I don’t need to follow the 10 Commandments.
I don’t need to do much of anything. If I promise to do something for the
church and I don’t get around to it…no big deal. If I am asked to help out the
congregation…I’ll just say I don’t have time. I don’t need to serve the Church.
No big deal. I don’t need to give that much of tithe. No big deal…because I am
already saved.” So they
think.
Our inactions in
failing to do good are just as sinful as the actions we think save us, or just
any sinful actions that condemn us.
In any event, Paul
wanted to set the record straight. Both of these ways cheapened grace. And they
are, by no means, acceptable to God in Christ Jesus. And that they were endangering themselves in
losing the very priceless gift of grace that they were treating so cheaply.
In this text Paul
is saying grace changes our relationship to God. At our baptism, we go from His
enemy because of our sins to His child because of the actions or righteousness
of Christ Jesus. Grace conquers sins, because Jesus conquered sin. Because of
Jesus, our sins were drowned, killed, destroyed at our baptism. Christ
conquered sin because we can’t.
Then when Christ
rose from the dead…in a mystical way, we rose with Him at our baptism. We may
still die physically, but by the power of Christ and the faith we received, and
did not reject, we will rise with our new bodies on the Last Day. Christ gives
us life, because we can’t live forever without Him.
Grace is
priceless because through Christ this is the only way we are forgiven. It is
the only way we have power over death. It is the only way we have life now and
the perfect life to come. How much is that worth to you?
Marva Dawn, a Lutheran
writer, in critiquing the modern church says that the teaching about God given
by many churches today is not a true teaching – God is made small and
powerless. She says, “His truth is too
distant, His grace is too ordinary, His judgment is too benign, His gospel is
too easy, and His Christ is too common.” We must let God be as big as He
really is. When John the Baptist spoke he shouted, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near,” Matthew 3:2 NIV
His kingdom is the
mighty rule of Christ. He fought all the forces of evil and won. He faced the Devil
in the desert and on the cross, and then He descended into Hell to show He won.
He rules in His kingdom when He carried the sins that we repent of and
announces that we are forgiven and cleansed. The Old Testament gives this
picture of His reign in a priceless grace that is not bland or ordinary, but
something big, huge, larger than life, “In
Your love You kept me from the pit of destruction; You have put all my sins
behind Your back,” Isaiah 38:17 NIV
It is something big
that Jesus has done in coming to this Earth and bearing our guilt and dying for
our life and rising on that great day for our everlasting life. It is something
big when God tells us that faith in Jesus brings to us the promise of life
forever in heaven. It is something big that God does for us when He gives us a
new passion for His ways, dwelling in us with the fullness of His Holy Spirit!!
That’s how we see
God’s gift of grace as priceless…and its value is brought to you by (slight
pause) the Word of God. The Word is
not just letters in the Bible. It’s the Word you hear from Scripture. The Word
you hear proclaimed now. The Word that was made flesh that dwells among us. The
Word that you received by faith through the water. The Word that is eaten, and
drank in Sacrament of the Altar. The Word that is in your heart right now.
That’s why we
confess our sins…it’s our conscious recognition that we have treated God’s gift
of grace cheaply.
We’re in the
season of Epiphany where God reveals Himself to us, so we can see Him in our
everday lives. And, by seeing Him we can respond to Him by doing things in our
lives to see His gift of grace as priceless.
God’s
forgiveness, because of Christ Jesus sacrifice takes the dirt, muck, and mire
we put on our priceless gift and polishes it up so we can again see how
priceless it is, again. It’s like when I go to the jeweler to get my wedding
ring polish…when I put it on…it looks like the day I married my bride. The
Lord’s forgiveness at this altar for Holy Communion does the same thing to your
salvation. If polishes it up to look like it did the day you were baptized.
Now the question
is how we do we live our priceless gift of grace so that we don’t cheaply show
it to others?
III. How to better live
this priceless gift of Grace
The answer is
right in your bulletin under the sermon title in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
“All
Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man (person) of God may be competent, equipped
for every good work.”
God’s Word
corrects our misunderstandings, dispels our ignorance, works on our bad habits,
and show us our inactions, and equips you to do good works. The more we know
about God’s Word the better we can show this priceless gift…the more real it is
in the way we live it. When something is
this valuable you do lots of things with it.
Think of something you are good at. Didn’t you have to read, obtain
knowledge, practice, learn more, and practice more to get really good at it?
Learning God’s
Word is no different. Scripture’s knowledge is given for the sake of a more
valued life. In Romans 6:1-11, Paul uses the word “know” three times. He recognized
the power of God’s Word. Knowledge is power. The more we know God’s Word the
more we value this priceless gift of grace.
Knowledge is not there for its own sake, but to provide you with joy, comfort
and happiness.
There was a
recent survey that found that people who are engaged in religious communities
tend to enjoy life a lot more. I would add from my observations the more people
engage in Scripture and wrestle with the Bible the more they are content with
their lives. It’s not that they have fewer problems. Rather, they look at their
problems a whole lot more differently.
But if you’re not
willing to engage Scripture and learn more…then grace can seem cheap.
And that’s why we
have our new adult Bible study here this morning. (Pull out Bible) I realized
that if you’re not use to reading and studying the Bible (hold up Bible) this
can seem quite daunting when we look at how enormous this book is.
So we are starting
a new adult Bible study today entitled: “How
you can better care for yourself and others.” And part of this study is to
show easy, practical and effective ways to study God’s Word using a host of
ways. Members will share how simple daily studying of the Word of God has
helped improve their lives...offered practical answers, and enrich the way they
look at our Lord and others.
With this
knowledge of Scripture when we face a moral dilemma…we ask, “What does the Bible say?” And care
less about what public opinion polls say, or the latest self-help book or
popular websites, characters in the movies, Oprah Whinfrey, Rush Limbaugh,
Keith Olbermann or Bill O’Reilly…because you are going to here (point to Bible)
first to see what God’s Word says.
A good friend of
mine many years ago when they were going to have their first child…the doctors
told them there was a possibility that the child might be born with physical
and mental disabilities. This couple had been raised in the church. Their
doctors, friends and some family were encouraging them to abort the child.
Don’t deal with that kind of thing. They wrestled with it and they searched
God’s Word to see what He had to say. They found passages like Psalm 139:13-14:
“For you formed my inward
parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful
are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
They determined
that it didn’t matter in what condition the child was born. They knew God was
going to guide them in how to best raise that child. I’m happy to report that
child turned out healthy and today is doing very well in college.
That’s the value
of studying God’s Word. They knew enough about it to know how to apply it to
their everyday life. The Word is a treasure chest. We keep opening it and we
keep finding valuable things. That’s what it means to be alive in Christ is to
learn, to live, to do…and when you do that you end up treasuring this priceless
gift of grace evermore.
IV. Conclusion
Ray Barone got
his ring back. His wife forgave him for recording over the wedding video. But I
don’t know whether he treated his marriage with any greater value.
Don’t be like Ray
Barone.
Let the Holy
Spirit help you live the more valued life that shows Jesus conquered sin for
you by giving you His priceless gift of grace, through living the power of His
Word. Amen.