March 14, 2015

God’s Grace Has You Covered!

4th Sunday in Lent, 3/15/15
Ephesians 2:4-10


God’s Grace Has You Covered!
I. Regenerating you in the past
II. Empowering you in the present
III. Exalting you in the future


Are you covered for that? Whenever an accident occurs in our lives, we wonder if our insurance plan covers the damages. After the hailstorms hit area almost 5 years ago, the claims were so high that many insurance companies adjusted their coverage. Does your homeowner’s insurance cover damage from hail? If so, what’s the deductible and is there a new limit? Or how about this one: if someone other than a family member is injured on your property, and they are uninsured, does your policy cover them? If they file a lawsuit, will your insurance carrier cover the costs of your legal representation?

A little more than a year ago our congregation’s trustees reviewed our property and liability insurance coverage. In the event of a catastrophic loss such as a fire we wanted to be certain that our contents were properly valued and covered. Such a fire can be devastating. Not being properly covered makes things infinitely worse.

Have you ever worried that you might get yourself into a situation in which you’re outside of God’s coverage? That even though you’re trusting in Jesus as your Savior, your God may determine that his forgiveness is going to run out, leaving you uncovered? Have you been in such a dark place emotionally that you’re fairly certain God has withdrawn the coverage of his love from your life? As your days of bearing up under a tough situation continue, do you get the impression that your God has reached the limit of his promise to help and strengthen you? We all have.

Then what a comforting and reassuring message your loving Lord has in store for you this morning. Our text from Ephesians 2 is one of the most familiar and powerful presentations of God’s grace in our lives from beginning to eternity. Paul walks us from the past to the present and then on to the future and reminds that in every stage of life God’s grace abounds. God’s grace has you covered. Let’s take that grace to heart this morning.

Part I.

If you could start your life again, what would it look like? Some of you might reply, “I wouldn’t change a thing! I’ve had a wonderful life.” Others might reply, “There are some things I would definitely do differently, but not many.” Still others are going to say, “I’ve learned a lot and I would change a lot.” It’s an interesting question, but rather pointless because we can’t start our lives all over again.

But your powerful God can and did. Not in the way we were just contemplating, but spiritually. Paul says it like this, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” Paul starts with God’s love, moves to his mercy and then centers on the heart of it all—God’s grace. That’s the only reason that the God who is life would pay any attention to spiritual corpses like us. We didn’t enter this world full of spiritual life and love for our God. We weren’t so spiritually cute and adorable that God couldn’t resist the urge to pick us up and plop us into his loving lap. Just the opposite! We were ugly—dead ugly!

But God’s grace changed all that. For the vast majority of us that occurred with a triple splash of water connected to the words of our almighty God. We entered the church that day as a card-carrying member of Satan’s kingdom and left in the saving ark of God’s Holy Christian Church, spiritually alive by faith in Jesus. Incredible!

And by God’s grace it’s still that way—we’re spiritually alive in Christ. We have real life. You see, just living this life here on earth to the fullest without Christ isn’t really living. It’s really dying in the worst way. It does us no good to eat, drink and be merry if all the while we’re marching one day closer to hell. But that’s not the case with you. By God’s grace he has made you alive—spiritually alive. You have real life—life with him. God gave you that life some time ago by his grace.

God’s grace has you covered, regenerating you in the past.

If you’re going to measure the quality of your life by the tangibles, you’re going to conclude that your life isn’t much different from anyone else’s. Everyone has their triumphs as well as their troubles. And upon further introspection, you might even conclude that you have it a little worse than the rest of the world. You play by God’s rules and can’t seem to get ahead while others blatantly violate God’s rules and seem to be sitting on top of the world. What’s up with that? That’s probably an accurate assessment, but it fails to consider one thing: “your life is now hidden with Christ” (Col. 3:3). You have life with the Savior who died for you. Don’t look for God to make any more dramatic change in your life than he already has by his grace. He has spiritually resuscitated you. You have life—life with him by his grace. God’s grace has you covered.

Part II.

How long has it been since you had one of those days in which you had everything planned out, but nothing turned out? Frustrating, isn’t it? One unexpected thing after another occurs and derails what you had hoped to accomplish. Your toddler falls and hits her head and you spend hours at the emergency department of the local hospital. You’re finished with your second stop of nearly a dozen planned and you get in your vehicle and turn the key but nothing happens. Suddenly tow trucks and mechanics and outrageous charges for repairs slam into your life and you don’t get much done. Your cell phone rings. The person calling informs you of the death of a close loved one. Your next seven days are a blur.

Isn’t that life? Just one long string of mishaps? Not from God’s perspective. Not from the perspective of a God who covers us each day in his grace. Paul reminds us of that daily grace with these words, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Your God not only knows every event in your life today, he also knows it for tomorrow and the next day and the next day. In fact, he knew all that back in eternity. Mind boggling, isn’t it?

He did that not just so that he could be filled with fun facts about your life. He did it so that you could do the things he has planned for you. Look how many unexpected events in your life from your perspective were God’s way of allowing you to touch someone’s life, to bring happiness or comfort or peace or joy to them. He planned your life as his child.

That adds meaning—eternal meaning—even to the most mundane tasks. You young mothers—God planned for you to feed, diaper, discipline, teach, guide and hug your child today. There’s nothing mundane about that. You students—God planned your education and the way you would use it to be a blessing to others. You employees—God planned your tasks, your projects, your efforts to be the best employees you can. You grandparents and retirees—God planned the things you would do for others now that you have a little more time on your hands. Our God doesn’t leave these things up to chance. He plans, guides and directs our lives as his children. So live each day confident that by his grace he will empower you to accomplish the things he has planned for you.

God’s grace has you covered, empowering you in the present.

The Apostle Paul once declared, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13). That wasn’t a pride-filled boast on Paul’s part. Paul, just like you and I, lived each day covered under God’s grace. In his grace the Lord had planned great things for Paul. The pages of the Bible record them for us. God has great things planned for you as well. It’s when we rely on ourselves alone to accomplish them that we fail. It’s when we’ve absent-mindedly pushed our God out of the picture that we find ourselves unable to accomplish what he has planned for us. Each day is a gift of God’s grace—a day to recall our countless sins and failures and to rest assured that our God has all of them covered in his gracious forgiveness. That’s the grace that empowers godly living. God’s grace has you covered, empowering you in the present.

Consider how often we make plans for the future but fail to consider we have no idea what the future will bring. We plan trips and vacations and make reservations but we have no certainty that we’ll ever actually get there.

Thank God that doesn’t happen with God’s grace. Paul says it like this, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Is Paul kidding? He writes like we’re already in heaven.

Exactly! Just as certainly as God raised Jesus from the dead, so certain is our eternity in heaven. It’s so certain that Paul speaks as if it’s already a reality. You talk about grace! We can’t be sure if our plans to travel a few hours will be realized. Your God gives you his always-faithful word that you will make the trip from this world to heaven with him. And none of it depends on what you do. It all depends on what Jesus did for you. The Jesus who lived for you. The Jesus who died for you. That’s grace. God’s grace has you covered, exalting you in the future.

Past. Present. Future. It doesn’t matter. Like a soft blanket God has wrapped his grace around you and will keep you safe there. It’s why he sacrificed his Son for you—so that he could wrap you in his grace. God’s grace—that’s his solution for your worry, your anxiety, your doubts, your despair, whatever it is that robs you of your peace and joy. Come what may, it doesn’t matter. God’s grace has you covered. Amen.