God Given Grace
Galatians 4:3-7 and Ephesians 2:1-10
The 2nd sermon in the series, “Sing Spiritually”
I recently joined a book group. I love reading, and I wanted to meet some new people,
and so it seemed like a good idea. It seemed like a good idea, that is, until I heard about the first
book that they were going to discuss. “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think
You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.” I love reading, but I don’t like self-help
kind of books. I find them cheesy and usually unhelpful. And so I delayed in ordering the book
off of Amazon. And because I waited so long, I didn’t actually receive the book in time. And I
wasn’t actually free the morning we were going to meet to discuss the book anyway! So now I
had this book I didn’t want to read and no reason to make myself read it.
It laid on the book shelf unread for a few weeks. That is until my husband Paul and I
prepared to go on a three-week trip across the country. I threw it into my bag, figuring that if I
finished every other book I had brought, including books I’d already read once, it would be a
good back-up to have along. And it so happened, with only two days left in our trip, I ran out of
other things to read. I found myself contemplating whether I should bother to read the book.
Finally, I figured I might as well. I had time, and someone in the book group might refer back to
it in the future, and it would help if I had some idea of what it was they talked about. And so I
picked up the book and started to read.
And about two paragraphs into the book, I had to laugh at myself. I had tried so hard to
avoid this book, and it was probably the very thing that I needed to hear. Because when I’m
being honest, I struggle with perfectionism. I set unrealistic goals for myself. And I have a hard
time offering grace to myself. And while the material in the book wasn’t really new, from time
to time, I need to be reminded to offer myself more grace. How about you? Do you struggle
with perfectionism?
It was a good book for me to read, but it isn’t a Christian book. And, I admit that I
disagree with a very important premise of the book. You see, Dr. Brown argues that we are
inherently worthy, loveable, and wonderful people—and if we had the courage to see that and
embrace ourselves and others for who we are, we would stop our habits of perfectionism.
It sounds wonderful. Beautiful even. It actually sounds like our culture. But it doesn’t
sound like the Bible.
The Bible is clear that we were created beautifully. That we were woven together in the
image of God. And we were created to love God and to be loved by God. So in that sense, sure,
we are inherently worthy.
But Dr. Brown leaves out the fact that we are also sinful people. We have free will, and
we use our free will to put our own wants and needs before our love for God. Adam and Eve
chose to disobey God and seek knowledge when God told them not to. As a whole, we are not
the most obedient people. It’s not by chance that one of our earliest words is “no!” When left to
our own devices, we put ourselves first and God and others second. On our own, we are not
worthy. We are broken people, and because of our sin and misplaced love, we are doomed to
death.
Christ UMC
8.24.14
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God Given Grace
Galatians 4:3-7 and Ephesians 2:1-10
The 2nd sermon in the series, “Sing Spiritually”
Despite our sinfulness, even though we really didn’t deserve it, God continued to love us.
And so God reached down into the world to save us. He sent prophets and teachers to remind us
of whose we are and who we were called to be. Sometimes we listened to them for a little while.
Most of the time, though, we didn’t appreciate the reminders. We ran the prophets off, we
ignored them, we persecuted them, and we killed them. And so we were exiled from the land
that God had given us. We were ruled over by other people for many years. But more
importantly, we were ruled by our sin, unable to break the chains that bound us and kept us
from loving God fully.
Thankfully, though our actions made God sad and angry, God never stopped loving us.
And so God sent Jesus, his son, into the world to live the life we were called to live. Fully God
and fully man, Jesus walked on this earth and showed us who God was. He showed us how to
love God and our neighbors. And then he died the death we were supposed to die, he took our
debt, so that we could have life and be free. It wasn’t something we could do on our own, so
God did it for us. When we acknowledge that what Jesus has done for us and for our world,
when we fashion our life after his example, God washes our sin clean. You see, he takes our
unworthiness and makes us worthy. We were estranged from him, and yet he welcomes us
home and calls us his children.
You see, alone we aren’t worthy. We aren’t loveable by any human standards. But with
God, we are indeed worthy. He breaks the chains of sin that hold us hostage, and he gives us the
power to live a new life, a life of freedom. It’s not that Jesus’ death makes us incapable of sin.
But it does mean that we will have help to overcome our desire to sin. When temptation comes,
we can be sure that God is already there giving us the power to resist that temptation.
It isn’t anything we can do on our own. It is only by the grace of God, given by the one
who believes you are indeed worthy of love. Do you remember that feeling of acceptance when
you first invited Jesus into your heart or believed what Jesus came and did? Have you ever fully
embraced the love of God that is pure acceptance and forgiveness?
God’s love is wonderfully powerful. But that feeling is hard to hold on to. Because the
world says you can’t get anything for free. We constantly hear through advertisements that we
just aren’t enough unless we buy something, eat something, and wear something more. It can be
hard to hear God’s voice calling you his beloved child when you are constantly surrounded by a
world shouting a different message. And it is easy to begin to question if you are really forgiven
for everything you’ve done. And just because God forgives your past doesn’t mean that your
friends and family have forgotten. And even if no one ever knew, if they did, there is no way
they would offer forgiveness. We find ourselves thinking, “No one can find out about _____
because if they knew, they would never forgive me.” We are shameful of things we did before
and the things we continue to do. Guilt is believing that what we did was wrong. But shame is
believing that we are wrong. Shame causes us to believe that are not deserving of God’s grace.
We just aren’t good enough. And it can be hard to hear God calling you his beloved child when
you find yourself doubting that message deep down.
Christ UMC
8.24.14
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God Given Grace
Galatians 4:3-7 and Ephesians 2:1-10
The 2nd sermon in the series, “Sing Spiritually”
And so without always realizing it, we actually end up rejecting God’s grace. Instead, we
try to earn God’s love and the love of others. It isn’t intentional. But we get in the mindset that
if we just do enough, that if we look good enough, well then we can deserve God’s love. When
we don’t fully love ourselves, we tend to aim toward unrealistic goals in order to receive love
and acceptance from others. We try to be perfect.
Hear me out. Perfectionism is not the same as striving to be your best. It isn’t about
healthy achievement and growth. It’s about believing that if we are perfect—if we look perfect,
live perfectly, act perfectly all the time—that we can earn and deserve love from God and
others. At the root of perfectionism is a dissatisfaction with who we are. It is the belief that if
we are perfect enough, we can avoid judgment from God and others. If we lost weight, broke an
addiction, were a good parent, or were successful in our careers…well, if we did those things
then someone would love us and want to marry us, then our parents would finally approve of
us, then we would be worthy of that friendship. Perfection is a way of protecting ourselves and
others from recognizing our limitations and humanness. We work really hard to try to get rid of
our failings, and when we can’t get rid of them, we just try to hide them. We put up a façade to
make everyone thing we have it all together all of the time.
The problem with perfectionism is that it isn’t attainable: You are going to fail. You can’t
actually be perfect. And while we try to be perfect to earn acceptance from others and from
God, striving to be perfect actually separates us from others and God. Perfectionism causes us
to isolate ourselves from others because we never feel like we are worthy of love, and we can’t
actually be ourselves with those we want to love us. Also, when we think we need to be perfect
to earn love, we also tend to believe others need to be perfect to receive our full love, and no
relationship can live up to those standards. Perfectionism separates us from God because it
causes us to be self-reliant, to think we can make it to heaven without God’s help.
Yet, in reality, we can get to heaven only with God’s help. Without God, we will never
measure up. But that is okay. But you don’t need to. You see, Dr. Brown argues that we don’t
need to aim for perfection because if we are courageous we will realize that we are actually
worthy, wonderful, loving people deserving of love. But the Gospel truth is that we can stop
aiming at perfectionism because we are sinful, unworthy people whom God loves anyway.
God’s love and acceptance doesn’t depend on you losing twenty pounds, or staying sober, or
being a good parent, or becoming successful in your career, or finding a spouse, or receiving
your parents’ approval. God’s love for you doesn’t even depend on whether you volunteer for
one more week in the church nursery this month. Dressing nicely for church isn’t going to earn
God’s love. Being nice to your family members won’t do it. Even volunteering to go on the
youth mission trip will not earn you God’s forgiveness and love. These things are all generally
good things. Experiencing God’s love might draw you to do these things. But God’s love
doesn’t depend on you doing any of these things. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, we can
do to earn God’s love and your way into heaven.
Christ UMC
8.24.14
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God Given Grace
Galatians 4:3-7 and Ephesians 2:1-10
The 2nd sermon in the series, “Sing Spiritually”
When Amy Grant wrote “Don’t Try so Hard” she explained, “I think especially for
people who are performance driven, somewhere in this song you find yourself asking God if
you're performing well enough for Him to love you. Of course our performance has never had
anything to do with His love for us. Jesus wants us to celebrate that our freedom from the
burden of our sin was taken away by His sacrifice on our behalf on the Cross. It is so freeing for
me to know that I can't earn God's approval. God doesn't owe me anything, and I don't bring
anything to Him. Everything I have is because of His work on the Cross for me.”
The truth is that God loves you now, right now. If you have asked God to forgive you, if
you have welcomed God into your life as your savior, well you are forgiven. You are free from
the chains that once held you captive. You weren’t worthy, and yet God loved you anyway.
So what can we do if we find ourselves feeling like we aren’t measuring up? What do we
do if the feelings of shame begin to overwhelm us? First, remember who you are and whose you
are. Remember whose image you were made. Remember that Christ loves you despite your
failings. Claim that reality. Drown out the voices around you by soaking in the story of God’s
love in scripture. Surround yourself with Christians who love you for who you are and not who
you think you should be.
The second thing you can do when you feel like you aren’t measuring up and you are
overwhelmed with shame, is to look up. When we are trying to earn God’s love and acceptance,
we tend to focus our energy and attention inwardly at ourselves. We think about all the things
that we didn’t do, that we need to do, that we can’t believe that we said and did. We focus on all
the ways that we have failed, the ways that we aren’t good enough. So when we feel like we
aren’t measuring up, one of the best things we can do is to stop looking inwardly at ourselves
and to look up and to focus on God. We can give thanks to God, for who God is and all that
God has promised. We can give up our attempt to please and to deserve the love….and simply
worship and give thanks to God for all we’ve received. If we start giving thanks to God for who
God is and all God is done, we won’t have time to think of anything else.
Christ UMC
8.24.14
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