Grace In Which We Stand

Romans 5:1-5

June 2, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC

I have a friend who, in the past year, had a falling out with some family members. As is often the case, this falling out was over money and material possessions—specifically, who got what and who was entitled to what coming out of an estate. So now there are brothers and sisters who won’t talk to each other, longstanding family relationships that are broken, and once-supportive systems destroyed. It is a heartbreaking situation, but unfortunately it is one I have seen over and over again, usually with similar circumstances. And I’m sure some of you have experienced it as well. Broken relationships, broken hearts, broken lives and no one seems to know what to do to repair it all.

There is a great tragedy, though, that many more people live with, and that’s a broken or a not even started relationship with God, the one who made them and the one who loves them more than anything. There are people who live either as if God doesn’t exist or as if God doesn’t matter to them (cf. Wright, Paul for Everyone—Romans: Part One, pg. 81). But there are also some, maybe even some here today, who know that their relationship with God is in disrepair and yet don’t know what to do. If that is you, or if that is someone you know, the life of John Wesley has a word for you this morning: don’t give up on God because God hasn’t given up on you. Revival is still coming.

Last Sunday we began this series of sermons called “Strangely Warmed,” looking at the life of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. In the 18th century, Wesley lived through and led a revival of faith and a renewal of the culture in the midst of a world that was and is to ours, and we talked about how much his world and ours needs a fresh work of the Holy Spirit. Last week, we left Wesley as a teacher at Oxford University, but what we didn’t talk about was the state of his soul at that point. Like his father, Wesley was a scholar as well as a teacher and a preacher. He knew all the right things about the Christian faith and life. He believed every bit of it. And yet he was dissatisfied. His soul was in turmoil. Wesley had been pursuing a very disciplined life, and while there’s nothing wrong with discipline, it’s also true that there’s a fine line between living a holy life and just following a legalistic list of rules (cf. Hamilton, Revival, pg. 61). Even in the midst of doing all these good things for God, Wesley felt far from his savior.

About that time, England launched a new colony in this far-off land called America. It was named Georgia, in honor of King George II, and the first city founded was Savannah. James Oglethorpe, founder of the colony, was looking for people to come to Georgia, and specifically he was looking for clergy to come serve the community and convert the native inhabitants. John Wesley thought maybe missionary service would heal his soul, so he convinced his brother Charles and a couple of others to join him, and suddenly this man who had never been on a ship was headed out on a three-month journey to the New World. And I thought the seven hours we spent on a plane were bad!

During that ocean crossing, the ship encountered terrible storms, and Wesley was terrified he would die in one of them. But the storms outside only terrified him because of the storms raging inside his soul. During one storm, waves were washing over the ship and water was pouring below the decks when Wesley noticed a group of Moravians, German believers, who stood on deck in the chaos and sang a psalm. How could they be so calm in the midst of such terror? Wesley had no answers.

Now, one place we didn’t visit on our Wesley Tour was Savannah, so I sent some special emissaries there last spring to get proof that Wesley had been there. When he arrived in the city early in 1736, some were glad to have him as their pastor. Others found his approach to Christianity far too rigid. One man told him outright, “I like nothing you do…Indeed there is neither man nor woman in the town who minds a word you say.” Nothing like some good constructive feedback! (And that was nothing like good constructive criticism!) Wesley would hold prayer meetings at 5:00 a.m., which is okay, except that he decided if you didn’t come to the prayer meeting you couldn’t take communion. As you might imagine, that did not go over well. And then there was a young lady. Sophie Hopkey. She was about eighteen, Wesley was thirty-two, but they were drawn to each other. And the age gap wasn’t the problem. The problem was Wesley’s inability to decide whether he should marry or not. So while he waffled, Sophie also began seeing another man, William Williamson, whom she then married without Wesley’s knowledge. When he found out, he was understandably hurt and he barred the new couple from receiving communion, publicly. Sophie’s family then brought John Wesley up on charges that resulted in an ugly, extended court battle. Wesley literally left Savannah under the cover of night and sailed back to England, feeling like a complete failure. He wrote in his journal, “I went to America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who shall convert me?” (cf. Hamilton 62-67).

John Wesley’s spiritual struggle during this time was rooted in a question that has challenged believers all through history: what is the balance between grace and law? It’s the very struggle Paul is writing about in his letter to the church at Rome. Paul is emphasizing, all throughout the first part of the letter, that no one can find salvation by living according to the law. It’s impossible. We simply can’t be “good enough.” At the beginning of our passage this morning Paul summarizes what he has said in the first four chapters: “Since we have been justified through faith…” (5:1; cf. Osborne, Romans [IVPNTC], pg. 126). Justified—made right. Through faith—trusting in the work of someone else on our behalf. And the one who did that work was Jesus when he died on the cross. There’s a whole lot of stuff in just those few words that we don’t have near enough time to get into today. But, suffice it to say, there’s nothing we can do on our own to make ourselves right with God, to restore the relationship that is broken because of sin. Nothing we can do, John Wesley. Nothing we can do, Dennis Ticen. Nothing we can do, fill in your name here. All the law-following, legalistic practices in the world will not make us right. Doing all the good works you can possibly do will not make us right. I know a woman whose mother died many years ago but she is still doing, doing, doing lots of good things every day to try to earn her mother’s approval. But that doesn’t work with God. We are only justified by what Jesus already did. Our sins have been forgiven and our guilt has been removed (cf. Osborne 127). Not by what we’ve done or will do but by what Jesus did.

Because of what Jesus did on the cross, then, “we have peace with God” and “we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand” (5:1-2). Again, that’s a whole lot of stuff, Paul, packed into a few words. I wish we had all day to unpack that, but the key thing I want you to hear this morning is that word “grace.” Paul says we have “access” to grace. One of the places we visited in Ireland (which had no connection to John Wesley whatsoever) was the Rock of Cashel. Actually, it was a castle/sanctuary ruin on top of a hill. Due to traffic and other things, we got there a bit late and had to join the tour group in progress. One of the ladies who had been there on time stood near me and complained loudly about the “thirty people” who had snuck into the group. Actually, there were only eleven of us, but I forgave her lack of counting skills. Then, we got to the final stop on the tour. There was a well-preserved chapel that was kept climate controlled in order to protect it. They only allowed so many people in for a certain amount of time and the guide said if you didn’t have a blue wristband you couldn’t go in. Well, I didn’t have a blue wristband. Until I did. Our own guide came over and handed us each a wristband. I suddenly had access because someone else had paid for my entry. I wanted to go wave my blue wristband in the face of the lady who complained earlier and say, “I have access!” I didn’t, but I wanted to. That’s the image Paul uses here. Someone else has paid (that’s Jesus) so that we could have access to God’s grace. We get in—not based on what we’ve done but on what Jesus did. Picking up a theme yet?

Paul says we “stand” in “this grace” (5:2). In other words, it is where we belong (cf. Osborne 128). Just as I “belonged” in the preserved chapel because of my ticket, we belong in the family of God because Jesus says we do. He gave us access. We didn’t deserve it. We can’t earn it. He gave it to us. And, according to Paul, that changes everything, even the times when life gets hard, when suffering comes. Paul says because of where we are, we can even “glory in our sufferings” (5:3). That sounds kind of weird to say, and he’s not saying we should go looking for suffering. What he is saying is that we can go through even the most difficult of times because we know that we are not alone. Jesus is with us. We have access into his presence and he will be with us forever (cf. John 14:16). So suffering doesn’t defeat us. In fact, Paul says, suffering helps us learn perseverance, perseverance develops character, and the more we see God come though in these situations, the greater the hope we have (5:3-4). All because we have been given access.

But let’s go back a moment to something else Paul said near the beginning of this chapter. He says, “We have peace with God” (5:1). In fact, that’s the very first blessing he says comes as a result of our being justified through faith. Peace with God. Undoubtedly, Paul has in mind the Hebrew idea of shalom, which is not so much an absence of conflict as it is a sense of well-being, wholeness, a deep confidence that life is good (cf. Osborne 127). Shalom is something that is not possible without God, which makes it even more interesting that still today in Israel and in Jewish communities, you don’t greet someone with the world “hello” or say “goodbye” to them. The word for both arriving and leaving is shalom. Peace. Peace with God. Wouldn’t be a bad way to greet someone, would it? That phrase, “peace with God,” has a deep importance to me personally. I grew up in the church and knew Jesus from an early age, but there was still within me this deep fear, constant fear, that I wasn’t good enough, that I didn’t measure up. No one told me that, and I’m not sure how I came to that conclusion. But, like Wesley, I spent a lot of time trying to do the right things, to prove myself to God. One day, for some reason, I came across a book on my parents’ bookshelf that I don’t remember seeing there before. It was Peace With God by Billy Graham. It was a small, thin book, and so I pulled it off the shelf and read it through. One of the reasons I have always been a fan of Dr. Graham is the way God used his words in that small book to bring peace to my heart and soul, to remind me of grace. That moment, there in the family room of our house, was a turning point in my life because I found the peace I had been looking for. Have you experienced such peace with God?

John Wesley had a similar experience once he returned to England. Soon after he arrived, he sought out a Moravian missionary named Peter Bohler and confessed to Bohler that he was thinking of giving up preaching until he could feel like he had faith again. Bohler had a different idea. He told Wesley, “Preach faith till you have it, and then, because you have it, you will preach faith” (Hattersley, The Life of John Wesley, pg. 130). So Wesley did that, and most of the time he did not “feel” it, which should remind us of the danger of putting our trust in feelings. Because even though Wesley did not “feel” like he had faith, he still made a difference in many lives. As N. T. Wright puts it, “We mustn’t imagine that our feeling of being close to God is a true index of the reality. Emotions often deceive” (82).

Then came May 24, 1738. It began as a day like any other, and in the afternoon Wesley went to worship at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London where the choir sang, “Out of the Deep I Have Called Unto Thee, O Lord.” He was deeply moved, but still he had no peace (Jackson, ed., The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 1, pg. 103). That evening, someone convinced him to go to a small group gathering on Aldersgate Street in London. He did not want to go. He wrote he went “very unwillingly,” but he went. The study for that evening was a reading from Martin Luther’s “preface” or commentary on the book of Romans. Now, I can’t remember a single person today who recommends we read commentaries out loud for our small groups. Commentaries are not that exciting, and I’ve read the one by Luther that Wesley mentions. It did not leave me on the edge of my seat. And to me this is proof that God can use absolutely anything to reach us when we are looking for him. Wesley was desperate, and that evening…well, let me just read the way he describes it because these are famous words, words that are actually engraved on a monument in London. Here’s Wesley’s famous journal entry from that evening: “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death…I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart” (qtd. in Hamilton 70). To me, the even more amazing thing about all of this is that just five days before this, John’s brother Charles had a similar heart-warming experience (cf. Hattersley 135). Neither brother was ever the same, and neither was England. From that moment on, the Wesley brothers turned the country and the world upside down. But we will get to that story in the weeks to come.

For now I want to ask you: has your heart been strangely warmed? I’m not saying that Wesley’s experience is normative; God works with us wherever he finds us and within the personality he gave us. It’s dangerous to ever make any one experience with God as “this is the way it has to be.” But what is normative is that we need to experience the grace in which Jesus allows us to stand. He has already done everything that is needed to give us access to grace, to a place in his kingdom. Have you experienced that, or are you still trying to do, do, do good things to earn your way in? It’s time to stop that nonsense. It’s time, today, to allow your heart to be strangely warmed and to know, to have the assurance that Christ has died for you, given his life for you. He offers you access into this grace by which you can stand.

Even what we are about to do—it’s a gift. Wesley called communion a “means of grace,” one of the primary ways we experience the grace of God. We do nothing to earn our place at the table. Neither did those first disciples. Judas was about to betray Jesus. James and John thought they should be named “Best Disciples Ever.” Peter struggled with his own arrogance. And all of them, before the evening was over, would leave Jesus alone with the Roman soldiers. None of them deserved to be there. And none of us deserve to be here. Not that we aren’t wanted; just the opposite. But we haven’t earned it. We can’t. Communion is a gift, reminding of us of the grace in which we stand. One time, many years ago, I had a lady who had joined the church but never came forward for communion. I knew her pretty well, so I asked—why not? Why don’t you take communion? She said, “I don’t feel like I’m worthy enough.” And I told her, “Well, join the club. Neither am I. Neither is anyone. We’re not worthy. We can’t earn it. But we’re welcome.” And I’ll say the same thing to you today: you’re not worthy, but you’re welcome. I’m not worthy, but I’m welcome. Jesus wants us here. He died so you could be here. Whatever you receive at this table, it’s all grace. And in that grace, we can stand. Let’s prepare our hearts for holy communion.