06.26.2016 Core Values 3: Generous Grace

We’ll do the offering on the final song

“Better be worth it!”
(Raucous laughter)
This is how we want it to be.
Generous Grace – even going back to the naming of the church – Grace was really critical – we really wanted to be called “Grace Community Church” – but there was one. But you are only allowed to have one per county - - then we thought we would be Summit Community Church – but there was one of those – so we put it together.
There are two types of Grace:
God’s grace toward us – we are saved by grace – God offered us unmerited favor
And God’s grace in us – to be able to treat others with grace – welcoming – non-judgmental – unmerited favor to others – so that they may be saved.
Generous Grace – Welcoming people to come as they are in order that they may grow in a relationship with Christ.
Grace changes us
The grace of God has appeared – Titus 2:10 – it empowers us and teaches us to live right.
This seems cliché – this phrase – not something we would stick on a billboard – but everyone is welcome to come as they are, but no one is welcome to stay that way – and it goes for everyone – not just the other person!
I am welcome to change – to grow – to be transformed into the image of Christ.
Romans 15:7 Welcome/Accept one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God
Welcome/accept – depending on the translation. For us to be a church of generous grace – to really welcome anyone to come as they are – we must first be able to receive and accept one another. If we are unable to accept, nonjudgmentally – we will never be able to do it with those who are outside – it has to start with us.
Sometimes it is hard to accept those in our church family. It is hard not to judge. All churches are diverse places – no matter – a lot of us come from the same general area, but there is a lot of diversity – personalities, quirks, sins, gender, failures, habits, annoyances. We know how easy it is to be annoyed by certain personalities – and it starts there. With diversity, human nature – cliques form and exclusion takes place.
I have been reading a book on this – it has just always happened throughout history – this need to be alike and to exclude those who are not us. Who are not ME! If we cannot welcome and accept one another – we can’t accept the outside world. Don’t deceive yourself
Matthew 9 – the calling of Matthew
Matthew 9: 9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He *said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him.

10 Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and [f]sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. 13 But go and learn [g]what this means: ‘I desire [h]compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew’s gospel makes a big differentiation between the Pharisees – the most religious in Israel – and the tax collectors and sinners –t he least religious. Palestine is polarized. Such exclusion takes place. As I think about that – it should remind that of us.
This election cycle reminds us that we live in a polarized time – and all sides are to blame.
Every side – is to blame.
Tax collectors were despised because they were Jewish people who were working for the Romans. They were traitors. They would cheat their neighbors – take more than needed – in order to make themselves rich, and it was approved by Rome – and the people DESPISED them. They were personally evil and gaining from their neighbors’ hurt. The “Sinners” – were the really bad sinners – the ones who had violated the most important laws according to the Pharisees. There were certain things that were worst of all – and they went beyond what we would consider sin – it even went to social outcasts – Samaritans and others.
The Pharisees were devout, respected, pious people. They knew their Bibles backward and forwards – they recognized that they were under judgment because the people were unfaithful to God.
They began to elevate themselves above everyone else and looked down on them.
Jesus sees Matthew at the tax collector’s booth – and Jesus accepts Matthew in the condition he is – right in the midst of his sin – in the tax booth. Join me – welcome! Follow Me!
What we see about Matthew – he was transformed. He was welcomed as he is, but not welcome to stay that way. I believe the transformation was BECAUSE of the welcome. The welcome always comes before the transformation. It never comes the other way around. Jesus offers forgiveness, and then the transformation takes place.
The next thing we see – Follow Me! Matthew’s transformation is in relation to his following Christ. We welcome and receive so that people may follow Christ. That is the purpose – it is not JUST to welcome and receive people – it is to help them follow Jesus. If they are welcomed, but don’t follow Jesus, something is missing. And the goal is NOT for them to simply become religious people. Or moral people. Or people who believe the right stuff. You can do all of those and not follow Jesus – and then what good is it? He is the one we are called to follow.
Real spiritual transformation can only take place as we follow Jesus – as we become His disciples. We may be able to change some outward things but the inward things will not change until we are changed by Jesus.
The first 12 had their issues – didn’t they? When you read the gospels – they are constantly stumbling – but at the end of John – Peter, who is the greatest stumbler and bumbler of them all – Do you love me? You know I do…. – and then – What about that guy? And Jesus says – what do you care about him? Peter, Follow Me! That is what it is all about. Us, individually following Christ.
We need to be a church of Christ-followers. We are to be all about Jesus. We are followers of Christ. And we can follow Christ regardless of what is going on anywhere else. The stock market can collapse, and you can follow Christ. Whoever gets elected, you can follow Christ. It just doesn’t matter in that sense.
9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He *said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him.

. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?”
Matthew invites all his buddies over – and all his buddies are tax collectors and sinners. What I want to say – Scholars call this table fellowship – there are books written on this – if you are thinking – going out to Panera with some people from work – there is no comparison there. This is something HUGE for them. To eat together was a demonstration of acceptance, approval, and validation of the person. It was a sign of inclusion.
You can go out with people from work and not approve or accept any of them. To eat with them in that day – means that you did!
On the caution side – this does not mean that He accepts and approves of SIN – He accepts and approves of the person.
We live in a time when two things are said and both are wrong:
If you say you accept a person, but don’t accept the person, you don’t accept the person.
If you say that behavior is wrong, but you accept and approve the person, you are not saying the behavior is wrong.
Jesus says that both of those statements are wrong.
That is what we need to be – that is what we need to find – in our own lives. The reality – it is hard to do that. We as humans are going to go one way or the other on that one. His disciples couldn’t do that.
I think it is the same with us.
From Wolfgang Wolf? A theologian who taught at fuller then Yale
Speaking of how the world of Jesus’’ day were excluded – “A righteous person had to separate themselves from the sinners because their presence defiled because they were defiled.”
Because the tax collectors and sinners were defiled people – you became defiled by being with them. By being with sinners, you became a sinner.
“Jesus table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners – a feature which belonged to the central focus of His ministry – Jesus is always eating with these people the Pharisees are unhappy with Him eating with.
I was reading through two stories – the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak – this woman who had a hemorrhage – she was defiled – not allowed to touch others –
Offset this conception of sin
This idea that the Pharisees had about sin – Jesus was saying – you have missed it – you do not get it – you are not looking at it clearly
“Since He who was innocent and sinless and in God’s camp – transgressed social boundaries that included the outcast – demonstrated that the rules were wrong.
If I, Jesus, enter in to engage with these people – as a completely holy man –
“By embracing the outcasts, Jesus underscored the sinfulness of the systems and persons that cast them out.
Remember the two different sides? Behavior and acceptance – Intolerance is the worst sin today’
“Jesus was no prophet of inclusion – for whom the chief virtue was intolerance – instead – He was the bringer of grace who not only scandalously included anyone in the fellowship – but also made the
The mission of Jesus was not just in relabeling that which was sinful.
Jesus’ way of viewing things was really different – and there is a way to find that ground in our own lives.

12 But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
What Jesus is saying – you must know that you are sick to see a doctor – and the Pharisees’ problem was they did not know they were sick!
We need to be careful to not think that because we are Christians, we are the healthy. We all need the DOCTOR!
Doctors enter into places of infectious disease. Think of the Ebola crisis – those Doctors without Borders went into the area – there is no healing from a distance. And Jesus entered into the place of sickness. Like Dave – was a fireman before he became a pastor – when everyone else is running out – we are running in. We need to be like that – the lives that people are avoiding – we need to engage in those lives.
Mercy – comes from Hosea 6 – Lovingkindness – grace – mercy – compassion kindness – "Chesed" or "Hesed" – that takes the priority over all – His love and mercy and compassion take priority over all. All the other things are built on that foundation.
Jesus uses these phrases often – the importance of love over all – it is the lens God looks through.
How? How do we welcome tax collectors and sinners? How do we welcome those on the margins?
First – we need to identify them. You have them in your lives – it may be immigrants or issue of race or political position. Who are the marginalized? John Wesley – wanted to become a preacher – but because of his ways – he found the marginalized – those working in the mines – and he began preaching – hundreds of thousands turned to Christ. That is what the Methodist church originally did and it spread like wildfire.
Second – we must see that so much of God’s mission takes place in the margins. Jesus came out of Galilee – that kind of a place – working with those who would have been looked down upon by the people who mattered in the important places.
Third – we must repent. We all have embedded attitudes of exclusion – embedded exclusive attitudes we don’t know about – and we don’t know how or why. Who are the people we treat like Pharisees – all of us have it.
Last – finally – we need to do as Jesus did –
He left heaven and became one of us to live for us. We need to enter in and engage sinners and tax collectors – like Jesus did. He became human – and we need to do the same thing. Although He had privilege and position – He gave it up in order that he might enter in with the outcasts.
“The core of the Christ faith – at the core – lies the persuasion that the others – those we tend to exclude – need not be perceived as innocent in order to be loved, but ought to be embraced, even as they are perceived as wrongdoers. That is what Jesus did. He embraced us, and in doing so, made us innocent – and people won’t become innocent until we embrace them with that which God embraced us.
God, I ask – that this might be a little hard for us. I ask that this might be hard to hear – for myself, Lord, there are embedded attitudes that I don’t see that make me like a Pharisee and not like Jesus. May I be able to see that – may You help each of us to see those attitudes – even if they are in places we don’t want to go. May we go.