May 17, 2009

Lesson: Ephesians 2.1-10

Sermon Title: Amazing Grace

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INTRODUCTION

Smoke Detector (1)

One Sunday morning when my son, David, was about 5, we were attending a church in our community. It was common for the preacher to invite the children to the front of the church and have a small lesson before beginning the sermon. He would bring in an item they could find around the house and relate it to a teaching from the Bible.

This particular morning, the visual aid for his lesson was a smoke detector. He asked the children if anyone knew what it meant when an alarm sounded from the smoke detector.

My child immediately raised his hand and said, "It means Daddy's cooking dinner."

    1. Well, we won't be cooking dinner, but we will be creating the heat and spice of the "good news."

    2. We won't set off any smoke alarms, but we will struggle with the conscious and the conscience.

  1. We will begin by singing an old favorite song: turn to Number 85, Amazing Grace

    1. Let us sing verses 1-4, I will sing verses 5 and 6.

1
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

2
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!

3
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

4
The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.

5
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

6
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

    1. The last stanza is by an unknown author; it appeared as early as 1829 in the Baptist Songster, by R. Winchell (Wethersfield, Connecticut), as the last stanza of the song "Jerusalem My Happy Home."

When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. We know who wrote Amazing Grace.

    1. What do you know about John Newton?

Newton's mother died when he was seven years old. At age 11, with but two years schooling and only a rudimentary knowledge of Latin, John went to sea with his father. His life at sea was filled with wonderful escapes, vivid dreams, and a sailor's recklessness. He grew into a godless and abandoned man. He was once flogged as a deserter from the navy, and for 15 months lived, half starved and ill treated, as a slave in Africa.

A chance reading of Thomas à Kempis sowed the seed of his conversion. It was accelerated by a night spent steering a waterlogged ship in the face of apparent death. He was then 23 years old. Over the next six years, during which he commanded a slave ship, his faith matured. He spent the next nine years mostly in Liverpool, studying Hebrew and Greek and mingling with Whitefield, Wesley, and the Nonconformists. He was eventually ordained, and became curate at Olney, Buckinghamshire, in 1764. It was at Olney that he formed a life long friendship with William Cowper, and produced the Olney Hymns.

A marble plaque at St. Mary Woolnoth carried the epitaph which Newton himself wrote:

JOHN NEWTON, Clerk
Once an infidel and libertine
A servant of slaves in Africa,
Was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour
JESUS CHRIST,
restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach
the Gospel which he had long laboured to destroy.
He ministered,
Near sixteen years in Olney, in Bucks,
And twenty-eight years in this Church.

    1. Newton was a prolific letter writer.

      1. When he was the curate at Olney Buckingham shire he wrote a letter to an unknown recipient. (2)

      2. The letter written in 1772 contains a bit or remarkable wisdom and understanding.

        1. I am not what I ought to be -- ah, how imperfect and deficient!

        2. I am not what I wish to be -- I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good!

        3. I am not what I hope to be -- soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.

        4. Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge,

        5. "By the grace of God I am what I am."

      3. Remember this is the man who wrote Amazing Grace.

      4. This is the man who underwent a long and difficult conversion.

      5. You could say that he had it all.

    2. Regardless of the strength of his relationship with Jesus Christ, he could examine his own inadequacies and desire more.

    3. What if we were to use Newton's quotation to examine our own lives in relationship with Jesus Christ?

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  1. What ought we to be?

Mom's Where? (4)

One evening after dinner, my five-year-old son Brian noticed that his mother had gone out. In answer to his questions, I told him, "Mommy is at a Tupperware party."

This explanation satisfied him for only a moment. Puzzled, he asked, "What's a Tupperware party, Dad?"

I've always given my son honest answers, so I figured a simple explanation would be the best approach. "Well, Brian," I said, "at a Tupperware party, a bunch of ladies sit around and sell plastic bowls to each other."

Brian nodded, indicating that he understood this curious pastime. Then he burst into laughter. "Come on, Dad," he said. "What is it really?"

    1. What is what "really?"

    2. What is it that we ought to be?

      1. Hear again verse 10.

10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

      1. We are God's work of Art.

        1. We are not canvass, nor paint, brushes nor solvent.

        2. We are recipiants of the Spirit who is able with each of us to create a work of art that reveals Jesus Christ.

  1. What do we wish to be?

    1. Continue the previous thought, hear again verses 4 and 5.

4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--

    1. To be made alive, means that we were not alive.

      1. Alive means to reanimate.

      2. This is not something done in secret.

It Is No Secret

Words and Music by Stuart Hamelin

The chimes of time ring out the news,
Another day is through.
Someone slipped and fell.
Was that someone you?

You may have longed for added strength,
Your courage to renew.
Do not be disheartened,
For I have news for you.

It is no secret what God can do.
What He's done for others, He'll do for you.
With arms wide open, He'll pardon you.
It is no secret what God can do.

There is no night for in His light
You never walk alone.
Always feel at home,
Wherever you may go.

There is no power can conquer you
While God is on your side.
Take Him at His promise,
Don't run away and hide.

It is no secret what God can do.
What He's done for others, He'll do for you.
With arms wide open, He'll pardon you.
It is no secret what God can do.

        1. All this is done in the open.

        2. All this is done in the light.

        3. All this is done so that it may be seen and appreciated for what it is.

    1. We get to use our intellect and our intelligence.

A Sanity Test (5)

Visiting the psych ward, a man asked how doctors decide to institutionalize a patient.

"Well," the director said, "we fill a bathtub, then offer a teaspoon, a teacup, and a bucket to the patient, and ask him to empty the tub."

"I get it," the visitor said. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's the biggest."

"No," the director said. "A normal person would pull the plug."

      1. We arrive at the logical answer to life's mysteries.

      2. We learn to pull the plug.

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  1. What do we hope to be?

    1. Listen again to verses 5 though 7.

5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

    1. Remember what Newton wrote:

      1. I am not what I hope to be -- soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.

      2. We are all deeply aware of the imperfections of life.

Conductor Problem (6)

The symphony musicians had little confidence in the person brought in to be their new conductor.

Their fears were realized at the very first rehearsal. The cymbalist, realizing that the conductor did not know what he was doing, angrily clashed his instruments together during a delicate, soft passage.

The music stopped. The conductor, highly agitated, looked angrily around the orchestra, demanding, "Who did that? Who did that?"

        1. God is the conductor.

        2. He has written the music with all its annotations.

        3. We are not the instruments, but the instrumentalists.

        4. We each play our instrument.

        5. We play the music that God has written.

      1. We will not attempt to play out of tune or clash our symbols in the wrong place.

        1. We are a symphony of sound.

        2. Beautiful music.

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CONCLUSION:

  1. There is one other thought or point that ought to be savored: We are not what we once were.

    1. Listen again to verses 1 and 7.

1You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

    1. Newton observed:

Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge,

"By the grace of God I am what I am."

  1. In this we are not alone.

    1. There is a legend about a Cherokee youth's rite of passage.

One day at dusk, his father would take him into the forest, blindfold him and tell him to sit on a stump and remain there for the whole night, not removing the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shined through it. The youth could not cry out for help to anyone. Once he survived the night, he would be deemed a man. He could not tell the other boys of this experience because all young Cherokee males had to come into manhood on their own in the same manner.

The boy, naturally, would be terrified. He could hear noises of all sorts. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. A human might even come along to do him harm. The wind would blow the grass and earth, and shake his stump, but the boy would sit stoically, not removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night, the sun would appear and the young man could remove his blindfold. Only then would he discover that his father was sitting on the stump next to him. He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

    1. We do not live by legends, but by the whole word of God.

      1. We can be more than we are.

      2. God is here to help.

Amen!

1. 1Mikey's Funnies [funnies-owner@lists.MikeysFunnies.com]

2. As quoted in The Christian Pioneer (1856) edited by Joseph Foulkes Winks, p. 84 (3)

3. Retrieved from: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Newton

4. 3The Good, Clean Funnies List [gcfl-info@gcfl.net]

5. 4The Good, Clean Funnies List [gcfl-info@gcfl.net]

6. 5Pastor Tim [posts@cybersaltlists.org]

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