Jesus is …..

Take a moment and watch this 2 minute video before you go on.That’s such a beautiful picture of what grace is. Grace in its fullness usually brings tears to our eyes, causes us to say “WOW” at humanity. It usually causes goose bumps to go up your spine. If you are a rules oriented person it makes us angry to see it happening. But It always stirs the heart and causes something to happen in us.

Grace is not a principle to learn. If it were a principle then it could be learned
Grace is not a nice idea to practice. If it were an idea then you could practice it and perfect it. Grace is person we need to follow. This person will change the way you think. Change your attitude. Change the direction of your life.

Jesus is grace.

After people met Jesus, they probably, said things like, “this man is different, that man has grace all over him.” Jesus gave people a picture of grace. They watched him. They listened to him, and for the rest of their lives they didn’t have to wonder what grace looked like. Anyone who met Jesus knew what grace looked like.

Jesus tells us a beautiful story in Luke 15 of what grace looks like.

Luke 15:11-21

11 To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. 12 The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
13 “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 14 About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. 15 He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’
20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. 21 His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’

When we read this story we typically compare ourselves to the son in regard to our sinfulness, our rebellion, and our desperation. We tend to focus on our waywardness and our need for God. Romans 3:23 constantly reminds us that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. It is true that if we don’t have a relationship with God we are lost. But that’s not the main message of the story. There is another similarity that we often over-look that is harder to spot, and is much more dangerous. It’s the way he related to the father. It’s the tendency he had to measure his worth and his identity by his own good or bad deeds.

The prodigal son deserved to be punished. Disowned. Banished from his father’s presence. He knew it and so did the crowd listening to the story. The people listening to Jesus’ story have been under the tyranny of legalism and law their whole life. The boy deserved to be punished.

Jesus throws them a curve.

Before he could reach his father, his father runs to him! Filled with love and compassion. He ran to him. He ignores the constraints and constructs of society says is the right thing to do and hugs and kisses him ….. a lot! As you look at the passage , while the son is buried in his father’s arms , he remembers something. He doesn’t deserve this! He’s thinking, “This is isn’t right. This isn’t fair.” I picture him wiggling out of the embrace so he can give his speech.

He gets his speech out and the people are listening and thinking, “Oh, I’ll take notes on that speech. This speech is going to work. You watch, he’s going to win his dad over with that one.” But the speech is interrupted. He ignores his logic. I picture the father telling him to “shut up.” What he’s trying to say is flawed anyway. Instead he does the most logical anything any parent would do after their kid has messed up. Throw him/her a party!

What did the son do to get the party? Nothing. He didn’t deserve it. But it wasn’t about what he deserved or didn’t deserve. It wasn’t about what he did or didn’t do. This story is about the grace of the father. The wayward son simply had to accept the forgiveness the father offered him. He simply had to show up at the celebration. 

The father never stopped loving him. The father never gave up on the relationship. The father patiently waited for the son’s return.

He has never stops loving. He never stopped loving Hitler. He never stopped loving Osama Bin Laden. They just never loved Him back.

He will never give up on the relationship. There is nothing you can do to get Him to stop loving you. There is nothing you can that can separate you from the love of God. There are some people who  never love him back.

The father is patiently waiting for your return. He is always waiting for you to return. He never slumber or sleep. He is like that parent that waits up for their child to come home at night.

What we learn from this story is that we cannot earn the love of the Father. You cannot stop the Father from loving you and you can’t stop Him from waiting for your return.

Isaiah 53:6 reminds us the only we can do is stray away..

Isaiah 53:6
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.

Like the prodigal all of us have strayed away and left God paths to follow our own. Like the prodigal, many of us try to explain to God why we left. We explain to him that we don’t believe we are worthy to be in a relationship. We just want to be his hired hand.

Like the prodigal we try to earn our back into God’s good graces.

God simply says shut up and listen.
• “Stop trying to earn a relationship with me.”
• Stop trying to earn My love
• Stop trying to earn My favor.
• Stop trying to make yourself holy
• Stop trying to make yourself pure.
Accept the fact that a relationship with God cannot be created by you.

It cannot be done without a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says,
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

Let’s think about his for a moment. Do you buy your kids gift because they deserve it? Do you buy your friends gift because they deserve it? Do you buy your parents gifts because they deserve it?

I don’t think any of us buy anyone a gift because they deserve it. Why do you buy it? Because you love them. You care about them. Because you have a relationship with them.

God is wanting you and I to receive and open this free gift.

Brennan Manning in his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, shared this true story:
A story is told about Fiorello LaGuardia, who, when he was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of WWII, was called by adoring New Yorkers ‘the Little Flower’ because he was only five foot four and always wore a carnation in his lapel. He was a colorful character who used to ride the New York City fire trucks, raid speakeasies with the police department, take entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever the New York newspapers were on strike, he would go on the radio and read the Sunday funnies to the kids. One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself.  Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. “It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor.” the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.” LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said “I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions–ten dollars or ten days in jail.” But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: “Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.” So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.

Did this woman do something wrong? Yes …. She stole a loaf of bread for her starving grandchildren.
Did she deserve to be punished? Yes …. The law required it.
Was she required to pay the fine? Yes ….. she had to pay it.

But then grace stepped up in the form of a person. What she deserved she didn’t get. The fine she had to pay was paid for by grace. Then grace went the extra mile by not only paying her fine but giving her 47.50 so she could put food on the table.

The woman accepted the gift and let the mayor paid the fine. How do you think the woman felt when she left the court room?

Grace is more than a principle to be taught
Grace is more than a good idea.
Grace is more than doctrine or dogma.

Because of God’s kindness …. God’s grace would not be what it really is …. Free and undeserved. He is asking us to accept his kindness.

God showed his kindness by sending grace with skin on.

Grace was nailed to a tree. Grace was abused, ridiculed, mocked, beaten, and suffered because he believes having a relationship with you is the most important thing in the world.

He died for one simple reason – to be in a forever relationship with you. So like the young boy, like the old woman, you could have a relationship with grace.

Do you have a relationship with Him? If so,what kind?