SERMON                                                                                                                            “Glorious Freedom”

Third sermon in a series,

titled, “The Ragamuffin Gospel”

1.       One of our greatest hang-ups:  TRYING TO PLEASE GOD                                                           (4)

2.       The uniqueness of Christianity is this:  God loves us when we are unlovable                     (7, 8)

                                          and accepts us when we are unacceptable.

3.       Being “justified” means:  God sees me JUST as IF I’D never sinned.                                          (3)

Why?  Christ                                                                                                                          (1)

4.       God’s grace for Christ’s sake leads us to:

·         Repentance                                                                                                           (2, 6)

·         Praise                                                                                                                        (5)

·         Trust                                                                                                                         (9)

Excerpts from The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
Multnomah Publishers

1)   The tilted halo of the saved sinner is worn loosely and with easy grace.  We have discovered that the cross accomplished far more than revealing the love of God.  The blood of the Lamb points to the truth of grace:  what we cannot do for ourselves, God has done for us.  On the cross, somehow, some way, Christ bore our sins, took our place, died for us.  At the cross, Jesus unmasks the sinner not only as a beggar but as a criminal before God.  Jesus Christ bore our sins and bore them away.  We cannot wash away the stain of our sins, but He is the Lamb who has taken away the sins of the world.

2)   The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise.  He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven.  It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness.  Thus the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance, rather than repentance then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace.

3)   Donald McCullough puts it this way:  “Grace means that in the middle of our struggle the referee blows the whistle and announces the end of the game.  We are declared winners and sent to the showers.  It’s over for all huffing, puffing piety to earn God’s favor; it’s finished for all sweat-soaked straining to secure self-worth; it’s the end of all competitive scrambling to get ahead of others in the game.  Grace means that God is on our side and thus we are victors regardless of how well we have played the game.  We might as well head for the showers and the champagne celebration.”

      The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can’t save ourselves.

4)   The hookers and swindlers enter before us because they know they cannot save themselves, they cannot make themselves presentable or lovable.  They risk everything on Jesus, and knowing they didn’t have it all together, were not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.

      Maybe this is the heart of our hang-up, the root of our dilemma.  We fluctuate between castigating ourselves and congratulating ourselves because we are deluded into thinking we save ourselves.  We develop a false sense of security from our good works and scrupulous observance of the law.  Our halo gets too tight and a carefully-disguised attitude of moral superiority results.  Or, we are appalled by our inconsistency, devastated that we haven’t lived up to our lofty expectations of ourselves.  The roller coaster ride of elation and depression continues.

      Why?

      Because we never lay hold of our nothingness before God, and consequently, we never enter into the deepest reality of our relationship with Him.  But when we accept ownership of our powerlessness and helplessness, when we acknowledge that we are paupers at the door of God’s mercy, then God can make something beautiful out of us.

5)   The deeper we grow in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become—the more we realize that everything in life is a gift.  The tenor of our lives becomes one of humble and joyful thanksgiving.

6)   The poor man and woman of the gospel have made peace with their flawed existence.  They are aware of their lack of wholeness, their brokenness, the simple fact that they don’t have it all together.  While they do not excuse their sin, they are humbly aware that sin is precisely what has caused them to throw themselves at the mercy of the Father.  They do not pretend to be anything but what they are:  sinners saved by grace.

7)   How difficult it is to be honest, to accept that I am unacceptable, to renounce self-justification, to give up the pretense that my prayers, spiritual insight, tithing, and successes in ministry have made me pleasing to God!  No antecedent beauty enamors me in His eyes.  I am lovable only because He loves me.

8)   Getting honest with ourselves does not make us unacceptable to God.  It does not distance us from God, but draws us to Him—as nothing else can—and opens us anew to the flow of grace.  While Jesus calls each of us to a more perfect life, we cannot achieve it on our own.  To be alive is to be broken; to be broken is to stand in need of grace.  It is only through grace that any of us could dare to hope that we could become more like Christ.

9)   The question which the gospel of grace puts to us is simply this:  Who shall separate you from the love of Christ?  What are you afraid of?  … your weakness … your inadequacies … your inner poverty … difficult marriage, loneliness, anxiety over the children’s future?  They can’t.

      …

      The gospel of grace calls out:  Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.