We
are starting a nine-week sermon series today on God’s amazing grace.
Grace
is the overarching, grand narrative of the Bible. Grace makes the foulest
clean. Grace is amazing. Grace is a rags to riches story; from the filthy rags of
our sin to the riches of being adopted as a child of God. Grace is getting the
best prize when you were the one who least deserved it.
In
the 19th Century, nobody went anywhere near the poor and wretched and exploited
in the rat-infested alleys of London. All the churches were rich. You had to be
respectable and well-dressed to walk into one.
But
outside, little children died hungry, women wept as their men went in and out
of prison for trifling offences, people got smashed on cheap gin to deaden the
pain of existence, the streets were full of poor lost girls to be preyed upon.
So
God, in grace, raised up William Booth and the Salvation Army. He said, “Where
there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight to the very
end.” Tens of thousands came to Christ and were delivered from addictions and
filthy lifestyles. That’s grace.
There’s
a Christian drug rehabilitation mission near Madrid called Betel. It has given
birth to a church of several hundred young men and their families and friends.
They are a church full of former drug addicts, dealers, prostitutes, and even
murderers. But through Betel, they met Jesus Christ, found forgiveness of sin,
freedom from addiction, a family to belong to and a future to live for.
When
they worship, they shout loudly and dance passionately. A man called Raul was
one of the first to be delivered from heroin addiction. He became a pastor there.
Someone asked him once why people celebrate in worship so enthusiastically there;
he just said “We dance because we cannot fly.” That’s grace!
The
Manhattan-based church leader and author Tim Keller once gave the perfect
one-sentence definition of the Gospel: He said, “We are more sinful and flawed
in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are
more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” That’s the
gospel – it’s the gospel of grace.
I
wanted to use that quote because it gives you both sides of the gospel coin. If
I give you a £1 coin and on one side it has the Queen’s head but on the other
side it is blank it is not legal tender. The coin needs to be minted on both
sides for it to have value.
It’s
the same with the gospel – the gospel is bad news before it’s good news. If our
gospel is just “Christ died for us” we have only preached half of it. The full
gospel is this: “While we were still
sinners Christ died for us.”
It’s
precisely when we were alienated from God, entrenched in our own rebellion
against his ways, spiritually empty, disinterested and apathetic about anything
to do with God, eternally lost, up the creek without a paddle that Jesus loved
us and died in our place.
If
our message is just “you are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than you ever
dared hope” we have only told people a half truth.
Diamonds
sparkle finest when they’re set against a black, velvet background. You see the
full majesty of the stars only when you are away from light pollution in town –
you have to go to the country where it’s pitch black to really see them.
The
glory and the majesty and the sheer exquisiteness of grace is only really fully
visible when we realise how spiritually bankrupt, how deeply lost, we are
without Jesus.
In
the film Trains, Planes and Automobiles
Steve Martin and John Candy play a couple of guys trying by any means possible
to get home in time for Thanksgiving. In one scene, one of them accidentally
sets a car on fire with a cigarette while he’s driving along the freeway. The
car becomes a smoking ruin, but miraculously it’s still able to cough its way
forward. Anyway, the highway patrol pulls them over, and a cop leans over this
smouldering wreck and says, “Do you feel this vehicle is safe for highway
travel?” And the driver says “Yes sir, I do. It’s not pretty, but it’ll get you
to where you want to go.”
It’s
a funny and off the wall scene but that is how many people feel about their limited
religious achievements or moral successes – yeah, it’s not perfect but
hopefully it’s just about good enough. God says, “Do you think that’ll get you
to heaven?” People say, “Yes, I really do.”
We
delude ourselves about our own moral goodness. “We are more sinful and flawed
in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are more
loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
The
thing is, the Bible is full of characters who were deeply sinful or flawed in
themselves before God got hold of them.
You
may have heard this before but Methuselah was ancient, Noah got drunk, Sara was
impatient, Jacob was a con man, Moses had a bad stammer, Miriam was a gossip, Gideon
was insecure, David had an affair, Elijah was depressive, Jonah ran away from
God, Peter denied Jesus, Martha was a worrier, Thomas was a doubter, Mary Magdalene
had three demons, Nathaniel was a cynic, Zaccheus was short, Paul was a
murderer, Timothy was sickly and Lazarus was dead.... these are the heroes of
the Bible.
Because
grace changes everything.
But
the character I want to speak about this morning is not one who was obviously
flawed or in any way disabled. On the contrary; the Bible presents Joseph as a
man of great integrity and extraordinary ability. The thing about Joseph is
it’s hard to think of anyone (apart from Jesus) who was so good, so upright, so
virtuous, so talented – and yet so mistreated.
The
story of Joseph is found in Genesis 37-50. It’s one of the Bible’s great stories.
It’s enthralling. It’s heart-breaking. It’s moving. It’s nail-biting. Read it when
you get home.
But
for now, let me try and give you a brief outline, condensing 14 chapters of
scripture into about 4 minutes.
Joseph
is the 11th of 12 brothers. He is a bit precocious and has a remarkable gift
for interpreting dreams. As a result of being his dad’s favourite, he attracts
the jealousy of his brothers, who decide one day to sell him as a slave to a
passing caravan of travellers. They fake his death and tell his father he was
killed by wild beasts.
Meanwhile,
he is taken down to Egypt and sold in the slave market to a high-up official
called Potiphar who soon sees how exceptionally gifted and reliable he is and
puts him in charge of his entire estate. One day, Potiphar’s wife tries to
seduce him but Joseph refuses to sleep with her and, humiliated by this
rejection, she frames him for attempted rape.
So
Joseph gets set down for something he didn’t do. But such is the favour of God
on his life that the Prison Manager ends up trusting Joseph with running the
entire prison.
While
in prison, Pharaoh’s cupbearer and chief baker, both locked up for some
misdemeanour, each have a dream. Joseph interprets them both and asks the
cupbearer to remember him to Pharaoh. He says “I’ve done nothing wrong to be in
here, please help me when you get out” - but the cupbearer forgets about him as
soon as he’s free.
Years
go by. Then one day, Pharaoh has a puzzling dream. No one knows what it means
but the cupbearer says “I know a Hebrew in prison who can interpret it for
you.” They send for Joseph, clean him up and present him to Pharaoh. Joseph
tells Pharaoh what the dream means. There will be seven years of bumper
harvests followed by seven years of drought.
He
advises Pharaoh to store up grain ahead of the famine. Pharaoh is so impressed
that he promotes Joseph, on the spot, to be his right-hand man and run the
country for him. So Joseph oversees the construction of vast grain silos and
arranges for the harvests to be stored there before the years of famine come.
When
they do come, all the neighbouring countries, including Israel, come to Egypt
to buy grain to avoid starvation. One day, Joseph sees his brothers queuing up
to get supplies for their families. Joseph is dressed as a high Egyptian
official and speaks the local language so they have no idea who he is. Finally,
after a bit of intrigue, he cannot hold it in any longer and takes them into a
side room and says to them in their own language, “I am Joseph!”
They
are terrified; this is their brother they beat up and sold into slavery, now
the second-most powerful man in the world. But Joseph bursts into tears and
embraces them all. So their families come down to Egypt to live like royalty and
the story ends in chapter 50 with Joseph saying “Don’t be afraid. You intended
to harm me…, but God intended it for good.”
Grace
changes everything.
It
changes everything for people who are badly treated. Joseph was:
·
hated
by his jealous brothers
·
rejected
by his unscrupulous captors
·
falsely
accused by Potiphar’s wife
·
wrongly
imprisoned by his indignant master
·
and
he was forgotten and left to rot by the ungrateful cupbearer
That’s
a pretty bad run of luck isn’t it? Thirteen years elapsed between his brothers
selling him into slavery and his elevation by Pharaoh. Thirteen years of
constant mistreatment, rough justice, abuse and exploitation. And he did
nothing to deserve any of it. How would you feel if all that happened to you?
But
grace changes everything. I read about a church the other week where instead of
a creed they recite a kind of statement of faith claiming amongst other things
“cheques in the post.” Listen, when Jesus died without a shirt on his back, his
body broken and spattered in blood, he was not doing it to make us wealthy. He
died to make us holy and fit for heaven. God didn’t show grace to us in Christ to
make us super-healthy or mega-rich. He died to save us from sin, and spiritual
death, and a lost eternity in hell.
As
an aside, I want you to notice something very important here; Joseph’s attitude
during the years of loss, during the years of personal misery, the years that
seemed utterly wasted and futile… his attitude in this season of misfortune will
actually shape his anointing in the season of blessing to come.
In
years of pastoral ministry I have met many people who had difficult experiences
in life but who allowed those experiences to frame their personality
afterwards. Sometimes people just can’t move on. Sometimes they don’t seem to want
to. Whatever it was that happened to them came to define them. They keep coming
back to it and they talk about how so and so did such and such to them.
Joseph
in Genesis never does. He talks about his innocence, and the injustice, and he
feels the pain of it - but he never speaks ill of his wicked brothers who sold
him, or the heartless traders who trafficked him, or Potiphar’s evil wife who
framed him.
Joseph
makes the decision to not be a victim. He decides that he’s going to let it go.
He chooses to not bear a grudge.
Think
about this for a minute. The Prison Governor gets fired if a prisoner dies
unlawfully on his watch. If a prisoner escapes on his watch it’s over for him.
And yet he hands over the running of the entire jail to this nobody, this Hebrew
slave. He gives Joseph the keys. He puts him in charge of the whole operation. He
doesn’t feel he needs to check what Joseph is doing.
Either
this man is a complete lunatic or he has seen that Joseph has got something that
is absolutely outstanding in character and ability – and it’s the latter. What
he sees in Joseph is the anointing of God that is on those who have learned to forgive
from the heart. He sees the presence of God in him. He sees an innocent man who
says, “Even in this prison, I’m going to give my absolute best and not become
embittered.”
In
our Gospel reading (Mark 11.22-25) Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, if
anyone says to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,” and does not
doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be
done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask
for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” But he
doesn’t end it there. Look what he says next about that prayer of faith. “And”
he says, “when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive
them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
Jesus
makes it clear that authority and anointing and favour in prayer flow only from
a heart that holds nothing against anyone.
How
can I get to that place of being able to let it go? There is a grace to
forgive. The Lord has the power to heal and he imparts the grace to forgive.
Grace
changes everything. It enables us to see that even in times of hardship and
mistreatment, when evil seems to be on top, God’s purposes are higher still.
The
end of the story of Joseph says this: “His brothers came and threw themselves
down before him. ‘We are your slaves,’ they said. But Joseph said to them,
‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but
God intended it for good to accomplish … the saving of many lives. So
then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he
reassured them and spoke kindly to them.”
God,
in his greatness and foreknowledge and sovereignty is able to weave those dark
threads into the great tapestry of his glory. He takes the flats and minors and
off notes and blends them with other notes into the magnificent song of his
greatness. Grace changes everything.
Let
me finish by sharing a modern day story of this grace. Some of you might have
seen this on the BBC news website earlier this year. It was a news feature
called “My 25 Years as a Prostitute.”
It was an article about Brenda Myers-Powell who was
just a child when she became a prostitute in the early 1970s.
She
grew up in Chicago. Her 16 year-old mother died when Brenda was six months old.
Her grandmother, who drank heavily, took care of her. She would bring drinking
partners home from the bar and after she got intoxicated and passed out these
men would do unspeakable things to Brenda as a little girl. It started when she
was just four or five years old and it became a regular occurrence.
“These were not relationships,” she said, “no-one's
bringing me any flowers here, trust me on that - they're using my body like a
toilet.” By
the time she was 14, she'd had two baby girls.
Over
25 years, she was manipulated, raped, locked in a closet, trafficked, shot 5 times, stabbed 13 times, but
couldn't go to the police because if she did she wouldn't be taken seriously.
When
she was nearly 40 years old, a customer threw her out of his car. Her dress got
caught in the door and she was dragged six blocks along the ground, tearing the
skin off her face and the side of her body.
She
went to hospital and they immediately took her to the emergency room. A police
officer looked her over and said: "Oh I know her. She's just a hooker. She
probably beat some guy and took his money and got what she deserved."
They
pushed her out into the waiting room as if she was worth nothing. And it was at
that moment, while she was waiting for the next shift to start and for someone
to attend to her injuries, that she looked up and said to God, "These
people don't care about me. Could you please help me?"
And
this is her testimony: “God worked real fast. A doctor came and took care of me
and she asked me to go and see social services in the hospital. They admitted me
to a place called Genesis House. It was a safe house, [run by the Catholic
Church]. They told me to take my time and stay as long as I needed - and I
stayed almost two years. My face healed, my soul healed.”
She
started to do some volunteering with sex workers and helped a university
researcher with her fieldwork. She told the girls, "That's who I was,
that's where I was. This is who I am now. You can change too, you can heal
too." So far, 13 girls are now in University or have got full
scholarships. At 11, 12, 13 years old, they were totally damaged. And now
they're reaching for the stars.
After three years, she met an man who wooed her and
loved her and married her. She says, “He didn't judge me for any of the things that
had happened before we met. When he looked at me he didn't even see those
things - he says all he saw was a girl with a pretty smile that he wanted to be
a part of his life. We celebrated 10 years of marriage last year.”
Three
years ago, she became the first woman in the state of Illinois to have her
convictions for prostitution wiped from her record.
Her
two daughters, who were raised by her aunt, grew up to be, in her words, “awesome
young ladies.” One is a doctor and one works in criminal justice.
“So”
she says, “I am here to tell you - there is life after so much damage, there is
life after so much trauma. There is life after people have told you that you
are nothing, that you are worthless and that you will never amount to anything.
There is life - and I'm not just talking about a little bit of life. There is
a lot of life.”
Grace
changes everything.
Let’s
stand to pray…
Sermon preached at All saints' Preston on Tees, 4th October 2015
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