Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
Philippians 3:10-14
How many of you have ever watched a football game on television? I used to love Monday night football before it moved to ESPN. I swear they spend a couple million dollars just on the introduction. How many of you flipped that on, listened for the “Are you ready for some football?” and as soon as the players took the field, shut the television off?
Not many people do that because they would miss the game.
As we come closer to the end of our Friday Night Lights Sunday Morning Insights sermon series, I want to propose that many of us, in our Christian journeys are unintentionally missing out on the best part of the game.
On the wall of my office is a simple, black frame. Inside it is a parchment colored document complete with a golden border and the words, “Certificate of Baptism.” Below that is my name, some fancy words and a date, “
I remember the day I got that certificate, that day that water was drizzled over my head. Honestly, in my excitement of discovering the love of God in my life, that day, I don’t think I really knew what was going on and that is certainly fine because God did and none of us really ever understand what is going on in baptism. But, I certainly didn’t understand that I was only beginning a journey. Looking back, I guess I sort of thought that what was happening was an act of completion, the end of my search for meaning that led me to church. I somehow believed that my journey toward God had been completed. I was now a Christian, I could relax.
But the trip wasn’t over. My personal journey has taken me through a discernment process, through seminary and nearly all the way to my ordination. During my journey, I have become aware that the misunderstanding I had about what was going on wasn’t just mine. It reflected a deeper misunderstanding among my fellow Christians, throughout the denomination and throughout modern Christianity.
Alright, if any of this is going to make sense, we are going to have to have a little review of grace. Pastor John gives a much in depth and certainly more accurate account of this whole thing but we just need a little background for today.
Grace is the unconditional unmerited love of God. Let me expand that. Unconditional, meaning it is for everyone. Unmerited, in other words, you can’t earn it. Grace is really one thing, but we have sort of dividing into three kinds to better understand it.First of all, we believe that God’s grace is constantly being poured out on all of God’s children, whether or not they have an intentional relationship with God. We call this prevenient grace. Prevenient just really means “comes before.” I love this kind of grace, because it is this grace that calls us in, pulls us toward God and it is always working in us whether or not we know it or accept it or do anything about it. This the sort of grace that was in my life in the 26+ years I spent outside of the church, with no relationship with God (that I knew of.) When people ask me, what was it that made you decide to finally go to church? There is the long complex answer about a feeling of emptiness and a journey seeking a way to fill that. But then there is the short answer, “God’s prevenient grace.” God pulled me into relationship and that took place in the context of a church. (A church that had plenty of seats by the way.)
Second, we believe that as God pulls into relationship there is a moment (and I use that word loosely) that God’s justifying grace goes to work in us. This is what people often refer to as conversion or for some being “born again.” I said that you can’t earn grace, but you can choose whether or not to accept it in your life. When we do, we are justified or put into right relationship with God. “When we experience God's justifying grace, we come into that new life in Christ.”[1] Justifying grace accepts us, pardons us, forgives us and restores us into right relationship with God.
I think for a lot of Christians this part is pretty clear. Even if you are new the whole Christianity thing, this may make some amount of sense. God’s grace is always reaching out to you and at some point it convinces you and you accept it and you are changed. But it is this next part that I think we get a little fuzzy.
You see, third, we believe that after we accept God’s grace, after we allow our hearts to be accept God’s justifying grace, God really gets to work in us with something that we call sanctifying grace.
To show you how important this is let me use an analogy that is fairly weak but makes the point. In the life of a Christian, if prevenient grace, that grace that draws us in is the pre-game show and justifying grace, that grace that, if we accept it, put us in a right relationship with God is the opening kick-off, sanctifying grace is the whole rest of the game and even the post-game show.
It is very clear in the writing of John Wesley, the spiritual founder of this movement we now call the
John Wesley spoke of this grace at work in us as a moving onward toward perfection. To our modern ears, that is an unfortunate turn of phrase that causes many of us to give up before we start. After all, nobody is perfect, right? But Wesley’s goal for us was that we grow into perfect love of God and neighbor. Wesley helped us to understand that God wanted to begin a lifelong relationship with us, a relationship through which we would be constantly recreated in the image of God. And his picture of this continual process of growth is straight from scripture.
Let’s look back at our scripture for today. I love this because, in my opinion, Paul is one of the most arrogant characters in scripture. But even he says.
10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Let me read verse 12 again.
12Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, who felt that Christ had personally converted him and had personally delivered the true gospel to him, who had been preaching, converting, starting churches, he knew that not even he was done yet.
13Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let me try this in a different way. Many of us believe that at the moment we accept Christ into our hearts we have crossed the goal line. Actually, when we accept Christ into our hearts, we have just caught the kick off and we are at our own 20 yard line.
Sanctifying grace, sanctification. This all comes from a Greek word, a[gioj which means set apart as sacred to make holy. That’s another term that can be extremely unhelpful, holy. In one of my classes we do an exercise of defining holy and I have to tell you, a lot of the definitions are negative in nature. The word has gotten a little hijacked, but let me try to reclaim it. I think it has gotten a bad connotation because a lot of people and things claim themselves as holy that aren’t so holy. Revelation 14:4 reminds us about what is truly holy:
4 Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name? For you alone are holy.
You see only God is truly Holy and only God can make us more holy. God seeks to “perfect” us, sanctify us, to make us more like God.
Here is the good news: on this journey of sanctification, this journey of holiness, this journey of perfection, God is doing all the heavy lifting. Our task is not to make ourselves holy, it is to find a way to allow God to make us holy.
Reading from a little earlier in this letter, from Philippians 2:12-13
12Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure
As I said, grace cannot be earned and we cannot make ourselves holy. But, “Wesley taught that there were significant practices that put men and women squarely in the path of that grace.”[2]
Wesley referred to these as the means of grace and this is how I am going to wrap up today. You are on a journey and we are all in different places. I hope there is someone in here who is still experiencing God’s prevenient grace calling you into relationship. If you are ready, I hope you come to the Why Grace? class at
John Wesley had two main categories for these means of grace, these ways of keeping ourselves in path of God’s sanctifying grace: acts of piety and acts of mercy. Let me run through some of these, I bet you could find some you can do, starting with works of piety (spiritual disciplines). And you know what, so these don’t sound like these unachievable things, I am going to add to each one what the church does or is doing to help you with these.
Prayer both public and private – We just finished up our course called prayer 101 and are in the midst of another class, The Way of Prayer. Also, you are going to hear next week about another opportunity to come together to pray.
Celebrating Holy Communion – We do that every week in two of our services and once a month at the other.
Christian Community – Small groups, Sunday School, etc
Wesley also talked about works of mercy as means of Grace as ways of putting ourselves in the path of sanctifying grace, that grace that continually makes us more like God. Once again, with ways the church supports you in this:
Visiting the sick – We had twelve people come out this week to learn how to deliver the sacraments of Holy Communion to our homebound members. There will be another training in the spring.
Feeding and clothing people – We have food pantry that supplies very limited emergency food to folks in need. You might not realize the power of our thrift shop. Not only do they sell clothes to folks for pennies, when people come in need, they are able to give them what they need. If you want to feed people locally and around the world, you can support CROP walk.
Giving alms – Every week at our communion services you have a chance to give money to those in need. Our communion rail offering supports our five star mission goals which support various causes for the needy among us.
Consider this. Even if you have been a Christian all your life, compared to the glory that God has in store for you, you are deep in the back field; you have just caught the ball on the twenty. You have eighty yards to run for the end zone. But, if you pay attention, you will realize that God wants to carry you those eighty yards. You just need to put yourself in the path of God’s amazing sanctifying grace.
[1] “God's Preparing, Accepting, and Sustaining Grace” , John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life – A Spiritual Growth Resource, The General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, online at http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/walk.stm
[2] Dan R. Dick and Evelyn Burry, A New Kind of Church, A Systems Approach, (
