This is from In the Grip of Grace by Max Lucado and and was called "Major League Grace." I put it in my own words. It was a great message for our Saturday evening service.
Think back to 1995 major league
baseball season. Remember what baseball was like that year? That was the year
the players all went on strike, major and minor league players.
The owners were set on going ahead
with the season so they invited anyone who knew anything about the game and
could perform all the basic plays with energy and excitement to come and play.
It was a different year. Batters
hustled to the plate, some questionable calls were made but they went
uncontested; umpires were actually being thanked after the game and fans
returned the foul balls they caught.
These guys weren't in condition and
they huffed and puffed as they chased fly balls and ran the bases. But, boy did
they have fun. They were playing ball because they loved playing ball.
I read that in Cincinnati the general
manager stepped out on the field to thank the fans for coming out to the game.
The Phillies gave away free hotdogs and sodas. And the Cleveland Indians gave 5
players to the Cincinnati Reds for free!
They weren't the most exciting games
to watch but it was neat to see men playing for the sheer joy of playing a game
they loved. They were living a dream, a life they didn't deserve. It was pure
luck they were able to be there. They were chosen because they had a particular
skill; they were picked because they were willing to play. And they knew it!
Never did we read about any of them
arguing over the poor pay they received. They wasn't any grossing over the fact
their names weren't stitched on their jerseys. No strikes were threatened. No
one was trying to get someone else's position. They were all just happy to be
on the team.
Now, in light of the passage we heard
read from Romans, do we deserve to be here? No, but we don't want to trade the
privilege for something else either. God's grace has given us a place on the
“dream” team.
Because of God's grace we've also
received blessings. Blessings of peace, hope, joy, and love. Paul said, “Since
we have been made right with God by our faith, we have peace with God.”
Peace with God...just because we have
faith! Imagine that! This isn't just peace with our neighbors or our family or
even other countries, this is real peace...peace with God. Salvation brings
peace...with God.
Max Lucado told a story about a monk
and his young apprentice traveled from their abbey to a nearby village. They
parted for the evening and met again the next morning.
The apprentice was unusually quiet the
next morning so the monk asked if anything was wrong. The response was short
and snappy, “What business is it of your?”
The monk could tell that his brother
was troubled but he held his tongue and continued the walk back to the abbey.
The distance between them grew greater
and greater as the apprentice walked slower and slower. When the monk arrived
at the gates of the abbey he stopped and waited for the apprentice to
arrive. He asked him, “Tell me, my son,
what troubles your soul?”
The boy started to snap back but
stopped when he saw the warmth and compassion in the monks eyes. “I have sinned greatly. Last night I stayed
with a woman and abandoned my vows.” “I'm not worthy to enter the abbey at your
side.”
The teacher put his arm around the
student and said, “We will enter the abbey together. And we will enter the
cathedral together. And together we will confess your sin. No one but god will
know which of the two of us fell.”
Isn't that a good description of what
God has done for us. We keep our sins silent. We withdraw from God. We see him
as our enemy. We try to avoid being in his presence.
But when we confess our sins, lay our
faults at his feet, our perception is changed. God isn't our foe anymore, he's
our friend. We are at peace with him. He did so much more than the monk did for
his friend. He didn't just share in our sin, he was crushed for the evil we
did. He accepted the shame. He leads us into the presence of God.
Because of what God did for us through
Jesus we have a place with God. Jesus has brought us into that blessing of
God's grace that we now enjoy. In the Greek that is translated as being ushered
into the presence of royalty.
In Ephesians Paul said, “It is through
Christ that all of us are able to come into the presence of the Father. Now we
can come fearlessly right into God's presence...
Christ meets us outside and takes our
hand and walks right in with us into the presence of God. That's where we
encounter pure grace, no condemnation, no punishment, just mercy. We wouldn't
have been able to gain an audience with God with Jesus being by our side.
When Jesus takes our hand and walks
with us into God's presence it's a little bit like one our children walking in
with a friend we've never met. We welcome them because our child has their
hand. They're okay since they're with our child. If they just showed up at our
door and wanted to come in for supper or to play we might not be so quick to
let them in.
When we become friends with Jesus
we're able to gain access to God.
Because we're his friends we have access to the throne room in heaven.
This isn't just a one time event but a
permanent “access by faith into this grace by which we now stand.”
This is where we're different than
those baseball players. Their time playing on the field was only temporary
where our privilege will last as long as God is faithful, and his faithfulness
has never been questioned. Paul told Timothy, “If we aren't faithful, he will
still be faithful, because he cannot be false to himself” (2 Tim. 2:13). David said that the Lord's faithfulness
“reaches to the heavens” (Ps. 36:5).
Notice the sequence of these
blessings. One is in the past; we have peace with God because he's forgiven our
past errors. And the second deals with our present. We have a place with God
because Jesus presents us to the Father.
And the next blessing is our future.
“We are happy because of the hope we have of sharing God's glory.”
We were washed up but now we are
called up and put in. How do we share in God's glory you ask. Friends, that
will have to wait for another time.
God loves you my friends and so do I.
Thanks be to God for his grace. Amen.
