WEBVTT 00:00:00.360 --> 00:00:14.782 So, yeah, we're talking about grace, such an important concept for a United Methodist and I thought what is a better example of grace than the love of a mother on Mother's Day, am I right? 00:00:14.782 --> 00:00:16.469 Is that a good one? 00:00:16.469 --> 00:00:19.240 Right? 00:00:19.240 --> 00:00:45.130 You know, being a parent myself, I feel like sometimes we love them unconditionally and sometimes we're not even really happy that we love them unconditionally, right, you know, you have that sense, because they just there's this tie, that there's something there in the biology or what have you, in the divinity of intimate relationships. 00:00:45.130 --> 00:00:54.195 And you know, I started thinking of some of our images of perfect moms that we have culturally, the ones we all kind of share. 00:00:54.195 --> 00:00:58.429 You know, I'm thinking was it June Cleaver from way back when? 00:00:58.429 --> 00:01:02.109 Right, carol Brady, the perfect moms? 00:01:02.109 --> 00:01:02.481 I don't know. 00:01:02.481 --> 00:01:03.304 Can you think of others? 00:01:03.304 --> 00:01:05.953 I don't know. 00:01:05.953 --> 00:01:06.555 Can you think of others? 00:01:06.555 --> 00:01:09.225 I don't know, pastor got bad ears. 00:01:09.225 --> 00:01:14.426 Harriet Nelson, right Now we're going way back there again. 00:01:14.486 --> 00:01:14.847 Are there not? 00:01:14.847 --> 00:01:16.524 See everybody today? 00:01:16.524 --> 00:01:17.466 They're just on their. 00:01:17.466 --> 00:01:19.251 You know, the TikToks and things like that. 00:01:19.251 --> 00:01:23.311 The moms are influencers that I wouldn't recognize, right? 00:01:23.311 --> 00:01:28.944 But other moms that you think of, like, oh, that was a good mom, I'm trying to be a mom, just like that. 00:01:28.944 --> 00:01:38.441 Nobody said, Roseanne, that one didn't come up, see, and part of it. 00:01:38.441 --> 00:01:55.346 I really appreciate Roseanne as a mom, as a parent, because there was this reminder that we're not quite perfect as parents, right, you know somebody that was willing to embrace that and not have it all the rough edges evened out. 00:01:55.346 --> 00:02:03.748 It was like it was just there and it was, in that sense, I did appreciate that because it helped me to remember. 00:02:03.748 --> 00:02:11.149 You know, I'm trying to be a good parent, you know, and I'm working hard at it, and I think moms probably would feel the same way. 00:02:11.149 --> 00:02:21.581 And every now and again, every now and again, I get it right, surprise, surprise, and we hit it strong and I celebrate that when that happens. 00:02:22.463 --> 00:02:42.211 So, taking that sort of model, that metaphor, into mind here, as we go into Ephesians to learn a little bit more about grace, as Linda said, the letter to the Ephesians is supposed to be this kind of grand vision of a Christian future. 00:02:42.211 --> 00:02:52.251 Right, this is what it's going to look like for us down here when we all start living into God's love better and more passionately and more continually. 00:02:52.251 --> 00:03:08.542 Now here is one little question that lurks in the midst of all of that and it gets us here on verse 6, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 00:03:08.542 --> 00:03:20.506 Sometimes people will read Ephesians and they'll start thinking that Paul or the Pauline writer here is talking about something beyond this world. 00:03:20.506 --> 00:03:25.854 And so we wrestle right, oh, this is the world we're going to get to go to, you know next. 00:03:25.854 --> 00:03:38.002 But I've always wrestled with that idea that he's talking about some other world, or at least that that's all that he's talking about. 00:03:38.002 --> 00:03:53.151 I really feel like this writer is trying to get us into the place where we are, are talking about how our behavior in this world is affected, and I see it here in verse 10. 00:03:53.151 --> 00:03:55.956 For we are what he has made us. 00:03:55.956 --> 00:04:04.288 Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. 00:04:04.288 --> 00:04:08.093 Created in Christ Jesus for good works. 00:04:08.093 --> 00:04:40.444 I'm kind of thinking if good works are the priority, are the goal, then that must mean here, that must mean building this world that God wants built down here, that our Pauline Ryder wants built down here, that that our Pauline writer once built, and it would make sense for a, for somebody who was really close to Paul, or even Paul himself, this idea of the grace of God and how important God's grace is. 00:04:40.744 --> 00:04:46.153 Do you remember in in verse 3, when it started talking about children of wrath? 00:04:46.153 --> 00:04:49.487 I mean, that was kind of Paul. 00:04:49.487 --> 00:04:59.829 Some of you know the story of Paul, who was Saul, somebody who was chasing Christians down, somebody who was oppressing Christians. 00:04:59.829 --> 00:05:11.430 And then has this awakening God Jesus comes to him, blinds him and says I'm looking for you to change your ways, paul. 00:05:11.430 --> 00:05:12.507 And he fights it. 00:05:12.507 --> 00:05:22.129 And then he gets awakened to this new understanding of what it means to live in this world, what it means to live life in a more bountiful way. 00:05:22.129 --> 00:05:40.644 And for him, being that kind of creature of wrath, this person who wasn't very nice, in fact doing some un-nice things, for God to come to him, well, what other word is there but grace, unconditional love. 00:05:40.644 --> 00:05:46.867 You could argue he didn't deserve unconditional love and yet he got it. 00:05:46.867 --> 00:05:54.793 So it makes sense to me that Paul would be talking about grace and the importance of grace. 00:05:55.139 --> 00:06:00.161 Even John Wesley right, who we've been talking about last week, we're going to talk about for a few more weeks. 00:06:00.161 --> 00:06:03.107 Grace would be so important to him. 00:06:03.107 --> 00:06:08.242 You were here last week, you may remember, when I was talking about how he had. 00:06:08.242 --> 00:06:09.966 He had that experience. 00:06:09.966 --> 00:06:19.230 His heart strangely warmed for me, an experience of realizing God's grace, god's love for him. 00:06:19.230 --> 00:06:34.706 He thought, if he worked really hard and he created this absolutely brilliant method for following Christ and understanding scripture, that that was what was going to get him into God's good graces, that was what was going to make God love him. 00:06:34.706 --> 00:06:47.653 And then he has that experience at Aldersgate that says wait a minute, I don't have to earn this, I probably can't earn this because it's already coming to me. 00:06:47.653 --> 00:06:53.547 That's the type of grace that we're talking about here. 00:06:53.547 --> 00:07:06.413 That's the grace that Paul, that John Wesley wants us to know, the grace that God wants us to feel as we walk our way in this world. 00:07:06.413 --> 00:07:12.927 So I use that as my avenue into Wesleyan grace. 00:07:14.095 --> 00:07:24.627 Wesleyan grace it is grounded in the grace that we have been saved through faith and that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works. 00:07:24.627 --> 00:07:35.148 Both verses from our Ephesians passage today and Wesley this could be a good passage for him as he reaches into that understanding. 00:07:35.148 --> 00:07:42.372 He breaks it up into three different types of grace, three different types. 00:07:42.372 --> 00:07:43.716 How many engineers out there? 00:07:43.716 --> 00:07:48.802 All right, we got a couple, aren't you glad? 00:07:48.802 --> 00:07:49.944 I'm numbering it. 00:07:49.944 --> 00:07:51.848 You can take some notes. 00:07:51.848 --> 00:07:53.149 Have some organization. 00:07:53.149 --> 00:07:56.923 Finally, pastor, all right, this is for you Three. 00:07:56.923 --> 00:07:59.060 I might even give you bullets. 00:07:59.060 --> 00:08:08.281 I'm teasing the engineers but they're just staring at me Like right, you guys are very ordered. 00:08:08.281 --> 00:08:10.781 John's not smiling at all. 00:08:10.781 --> 00:08:13.237 Come on now, we're having fun here. 00:08:13.237 --> 00:08:19.517 The number the first one the grace that comes. 00:08:19.517 --> 00:08:21.404 Before we call it provenient grace. 00:08:21.404 --> 00:08:23.451 I have a definition up here. 00:08:23.892 --> 00:08:32.197 Provenient grace in Christian theology is the grace of God that proceeds and enables a person to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:08:32.197 --> 00:08:42.225 It suggests God initiates the process of salvation by drawing individuals to God, making it possible for them to choose to believe. 00:08:42.225 --> 00:08:45.243 So a little bit complex there. 00:08:45.243 --> 00:09:03.063 The simple way to say it is the gift from God that comes to us, of a love that finds us before we even know it exists, before we even know that God loves us unconditionally. 00:09:03.063 --> 00:09:11.928 That love is coming to us and it's coming to us in a way that we start to understand that love. 00:09:13.736 --> 00:09:22.586 I always think of baptism when I think of pervenient grace, baptism, remember, we're making some commitment to God. 00:09:22.586 --> 00:09:29.462 Do you ever wonder in baptism, that commitment to God that babies are making? 00:09:29.462 --> 00:09:38.145 When we do the infant baptism, do you ever ask yourself well, wait a minute, how's that baby making a choice Anybody. 00:09:38.145 --> 00:09:41.153 No, you've all got it figured out. 00:09:41.153 --> 00:09:42.735 We're mature theologians. 00:09:42.735 --> 00:09:47.202 Don't just patronize us, pastor. 00:09:47.202 --> 00:09:52.676 All right, let's pretend I'm the one who asks this question. 00:09:52.676 --> 00:09:56.759 We ask ourselves okay, well, what promises are being made then? 00:09:56.759 --> 00:09:58.322 What's the commitment that's happening? 00:09:58.322 --> 00:10:06.951 And if you look at the actual ritual, you look at the liturgy, the baby's obviously not making promises. 00:10:06.951 --> 00:10:19.787 It's the parents, it's the grandparents, it's the community around the child, it's the parents, it's the grandparents, it's the community around the child, it's the congregation around the child. 00:10:19.787 --> 00:10:22.429 Those are the promises that are being made. 00:10:22.429 --> 00:10:25.054 And why is that? 00:10:25.054 --> 00:10:38.230 Except that they are promising to live God's unconditional love so powerfully, to live God's unconditional love so powerfully, so intentionally, that the baby is going to know that love. 00:10:38.230 --> 00:10:46.312 The baby's going to know that it exists. 00:10:46.312 --> 00:10:58.426 At a time when a baby can't really understand the idea of a God, or even that a God might love them, what they can know is that their parents love them unconditionally, that their congregation loves them unconditionally. 00:10:58.426 --> 00:11:18.174 To me, that is the best example of what provenient grace is, because in that unconditional love that's delivered from God through that community, that person's going to know that they are loved, that community, that person's going to know that they are loved. 00:11:23.815 --> 00:11:25.820 The next type of a Wesleyan grace is called justifying grace. 00:11:25.820 --> 00:11:27.585 Here's the big words. 00:11:27.585 --> 00:11:29.089 You know where I got the big words Google? 00:11:29.089 --> 00:11:31.595 Google's like it's a pretty good tool, everyone you know. 00:11:31.595 --> 00:11:33.943 I thought, all right, maybe I'll start writing something out. 00:11:33.943 --> 00:11:36.202 What does Google have to say about this? 00:11:36.202 --> 00:11:38.342 And then it turns out they're actually pretty good. 00:11:38.342 --> 00:11:39.658 So what are you going to do? 00:11:39.658 --> 00:11:50.826 Right, Justifying grace in Christian theology, particularly within Wesleyan traditions Like I said, wesleyan traditions, very much integrated with grace. 00:11:50.934 --> 00:11:55.839 It's an important concept for us, united Methodists and other Wesleyan churches. 00:11:55.839 --> 00:12:06.826 It refers to the grace by which God declares a person righteous and forgives their sins, restoring them to a right relationship with him. 00:12:06.826 --> 00:12:17.129 This grace is a gift from God, received through faith in Jesus Christ, and it's the foundational step in the process of salvation. 00:12:17.129 --> 00:12:20.383 So again, thick words. 00:12:20.383 --> 00:12:22.261 I wanted to give you the formal definition. 00:12:22.261 --> 00:12:24.383 Let me simplify it for you a little bit. 00:12:24.383 --> 00:12:46.188 This is God's gift of our being able to know that we are justified in God's sight, the gift that we can know that God loves us and know that we are I like to use the word worthy we are worthy in God's eyes. 00:12:46.188 --> 00:12:52.868 That's a gift that God gives us, an unconditional gift to be able to recognize that love. 00:12:54.395 --> 00:13:00.886 Personally, I think this is the experience, this is the type of grace that Wesley experienced at Aldersgate. 00:13:00.886 --> 00:13:20.644 Like I said earlier, he's sitting there working really hard, developing those holy groups that have this highly routine method of following God and learning faith and deepening in your relationship, and he's getting really intense with everybody around him. 00:13:20.644 --> 00:13:26.523 You might think I don't know Danny DeVito out there trying to convince you to follow God. 00:13:26.523 --> 00:13:38.908 You know that kind of image Hmm, you guys are laughing really loud on the inside is what I'm hearing. 00:13:38.908 --> 00:13:52.889 Yeah, he felt like he had to do it right, he had to do it perfect, he had to work harder than everybody else and that is what God was going to see and that is what was going to save him. 00:13:52.889 --> 00:13:59.124 And then he's at Aldersgate and he realizes wait a minute, I'm already saved. 00:13:59.124 --> 00:14:01.368 God already loves me. 00:14:01.368 --> 00:14:07.561 I just need to believe it, I need to have faith in it. 00:14:07.561 --> 00:14:11.125 That's why he says we are saved by grace, through faith. 00:14:11.125 --> 00:14:19.184 It only works if we believe it, if we live it, and I think that is what happened with Wesley. 00:14:21.796 --> 00:14:38.264 Then we think about that and we hear that story, I offer that story, and then we think of justifying grace as some sort of epiphany, some moment right when God comes down and the lights shine bright and we get this ultimate answer to all the challenges of our life, and God bless them. 00:14:38.264 --> 00:14:46.004 Some people get that, and I hate them, because it was never that easy for me. 00:14:46.004 --> 00:14:57.298 It's been a long journey of just working with God and walking with God, and so we think of that justifying grace moment as being such an epiphany. 00:14:57.298 --> 00:15:14.407 But isn't it for most of us, a lot of small epiphanies, a lot of small moments where we start looking at our lives and at ourselves and we're reminded of something that we haven't been able to do right and we continue to do it wrong. 00:15:14.407 --> 00:15:21.327 I'm not supposed to eat these anymore, and yet here I am again. 00:15:21.327 --> 00:15:45.609 I'm not supposed to be getting angry about these anymore, and yet here I am again, these moments of questioning in ourselves whether we're justified, whether we're worthy, because we can't figure out how to be perfect, how to do it right. 00:15:47.975 --> 00:15:50.620 A lot of us wrestle with just that self-love. 00:15:50.620 --> 00:15:55.748 We think that this whole new movement of loving yourself is something new. 00:15:55.748 --> 00:15:56.850 It's not new. 00:15:56.850 --> 00:16:06.503 We've just changed the language Right, where today we might say something like instead of saying you've got to love yourself, we would say. 00:16:06.503 --> 00:16:22.594 We would say the creator of all, that is, the source of love itself, loves you with all of your imperfections, so maybe you should love yourself too. 00:16:26.044 --> 00:16:32.818 Justifying grace is an important grace because it might be the one we wrestle with the most. 00:16:32.818 --> 00:16:36.594 All right, a third type of grace, sanctifying grace. 00:16:36.594 --> 00:16:39.692 This is the big definition. 00:16:39.692 --> 00:16:51.677 Sanctifying grace In Christian theology, it's a divine gift from God that dwells within the soul, enabling it to live a life pleasing to God and ultimately achieving eternal salvation. 00:16:51.677 --> 00:16:54.865 Pleasing to God and ultimately achieving eternal salvation. 00:16:54.865 --> 00:17:01.254 It is often called habitual grace or deifying grace, as it becomes a permanent part of the soul, transforming it into a child of God. 00:17:01.254 --> 00:17:01.754 You got it. 00:17:01.754 --> 00:17:04.369 Would you pass the test right now? 00:17:04.369 --> 00:17:06.913 Right, if I pad the quiz? 00:17:06.913 --> 00:17:08.045 I threw it out there. 00:17:08.045 --> 00:17:09.089 Does it all make sense? 00:17:09.089 --> 00:17:14.086 Here's a simplification, pastor Darren's simplification. 00:17:14.807 --> 00:17:23.526 To me, it means God has given you the gift of the capacity to grow in your depth of faith. 00:17:23.526 --> 00:17:37.674 You are able to work in your own way towards getting closer to God and what God wants for you, to being the person that God wants you to be, to reaching the people God wants you to reach. 00:17:37.674 --> 00:17:50.356 There is a part of the divine in you that draws you to the deeper, the depths of our existence, and it shapes our soul. 00:17:50.356 --> 00:18:19.099 And God is always inviting us into those depths, not only from outside ourselves inviting us into those spiritual depths, but it's also coming from inside, a desire to want to be in a deeper intimacy with the source of love for this world, an intimacy that leads to some peace, to some comfort, to some feelings of justice and context. 00:18:19.099 --> 00:18:33.058 It's like God is always inviting us into that depth and, as a Wesleyan, that invitation to me is driven by justifying grace. 00:18:33.058 --> 00:18:39.974 We get a little affirmation You're worthy, worthy of God. 00:18:39.974 --> 00:18:40.817 God loves you. 00:18:40.817 --> 00:18:45.517 We get a little affirmation and we want more of that. 00:18:46.724 --> 00:18:47.848 Why do people grow? 00:18:47.848 --> 00:18:49.294 As a Wesleyan? 00:18:49.294 --> 00:19:07.794 It's because we get a taste of justifying grace and we want more and we start working into those ways of sanctifying grace and what you find is that the more you want that, the deeper you want to go, the more you got to engage in it. 00:19:07.794 --> 00:19:13.056 So you'll come to church and you'll learn and you'll be being fed by that. 00:19:13.056 --> 00:19:29.594 And then all of a sudden you're like you know, I might, I might need to do a study, I might need to do a mission project to get to, to get you know we're we're god junkies now and we need to get our fix of that affirmation of that love. 00:19:29.594 --> 00:19:34.931 And then we do that for a while and then we realize, you know, I really I think I could run that thing. 00:19:34.931 --> 00:19:42.954 I feel like God maybe wants me to go even a next level and start organizing the mission, leading the Bible study. 00:19:42.954 --> 00:19:45.259 That's kind of how it rolls out. 00:19:45.259 --> 00:19:48.332 We United Methodists we're counting on that. 00:19:48.332 --> 00:19:49.093 That. 00:19:49.093 --> 00:20:05.173 You get a little piece of that and then you just start moving closer and closer because we've got that capacity, the gift of God to be able to work on it and we're just drawn into that depth and we want more and more and more. 00:20:05.494 --> 00:20:12.172 It's like Pringles, really Right, you get into that, can you know? 00:20:12.172 --> 00:20:16.619 It's barely food, and yet you're like one. 00:20:16.619 --> 00:20:21.557 And then there's two, you know, and before long you're halfway through the tube. 00:20:21.557 --> 00:20:25.990 Or maybe for you it's like carne asada. 00:20:25.990 --> 00:20:29.699 You ever had really good carne asada? 00:20:29.699 --> 00:20:36.169 It's like it's candy and you're like I'll just have a little bit. 00:20:36.169 --> 00:20:36.810 Are you with me? 00:20:36.810 --> 00:20:38.034 Say amen, if you're with me. 00:20:38.034 --> 00:20:39.778 Oh, yeah, you've been there. 00:20:39.778 --> 00:20:42.665 What else would be on your list? 00:20:42.665 --> 00:20:44.748 I got carne asada on mine. 00:20:44.748 --> 00:20:55.580 Chocolate oh no, genetically engineered to grab us. 00:20:55.580 --> 00:21:04.634 Yeah, it takes hold of us and I'm making light of it in a certain way, but that's the idea for United Methodist. 00:21:04.634 --> 00:21:11.759 That's the draw for us is that affirmation, that context, that is a loving context. 00:21:11.759 --> 00:21:13.230 It just draws us in. 00:21:13.531 --> 00:21:18.013 Now I want to finish by talking about perfection, because this is a provocative thing. 00:21:18.013 --> 00:21:25.115 It's mostly a Wesleyan thing, because most faith movements don't want you to talk about perfection. 00:21:25.115 --> 00:21:30.732 They want to steer you away from arrogance and feeling like you have too much control. 00:21:30.732 --> 00:21:31.775 God is the source. 00:21:31.775 --> 00:21:33.818 Stay focused on God. 00:21:34.244 --> 00:21:47.439 But Wesley did not shy away from the idea that there was a state of perfection that can be reached, and I think the reason he was able to do this is because he realized that it was temporal. 00:21:47.439 --> 00:22:12.500 You could reach a state of perfection, but then life would move on and you may not be in that state, but you could, for a moment, be exactly who God wanted you to be, doing exactly what God wanted you to do, reaching exactly who God wanted you to reach, living deeply in that spirit. 00:22:12.500 --> 00:22:15.952 Wesley felt like you could get there. 00:22:15.952 --> 00:22:37.271 But there are moments of that and my guess is the people in the room have had similar moments like that where you're like ah, this is it, this is where God wants me to be, this is where God has me getting nourished, this is where God wants me to be, this is where God has me getting nourished, this is where God has me living out my call using my gifts. 00:22:37.271 --> 00:22:50.785 And there was that moment, and you were fed by that moment in deep, deep ways and it was, in its own way, perfect, if just for that moment. 00:22:50.785 --> 00:22:53.471 Perfect if just for that moment. 00:22:53.491 --> 00:23:03.005 To me, I can feel that metaphor, that understanding, when I think about parenting. 00:23:03.005 --> 00:23:05.171 You know, we're talking with all the moms today. 00:23:05.171 --> 00:23:11.792 You know, on Mother's Day and about parenting and about being a mom, and maybe you're like me just a little bit. 00:23:11.792 --> 00:23:15.035 You want to love them unconditionally. 00:23:15.035 --> 00:23:23.391 And sometimes you do Full confession. 00:23:23.391 --> 00:23:27.055 I'm not a perfect parent. 00:23:27.055 --> 00:23:51.093 My daughter's here, she can attest Don't do too much attesting though, friends here after all but I'm not the perfect parent, but I, you know, I'm doing the best that I can and hopefully, with with God's help, with God's grace in all its forms, I get better as I go along. 00:23:51.093 --> 00:23:55.439 Every now and again I make the right decision. 00:23:55.439 --> 00:24:04.220 Every now and again I say the right thing and sometimes I get it just right, if only for a moment. 00:24:04.220 --> 00:24:12.939 But aren't those the moments that we live for, the moments that we cherish in life? 00:24:12.939 --> 00:24:23.190 And we have that moment and we go back to God and we say give me some more of that, amen. 00:24:23.190 --> 00:24:25.133 Amen.