SERMON: Embrace grace, God’s free gift of salvation

A woman wrote a book about her experience of grace. She had a sister who always obeyed her parents, went to church every Sunday and did everything she was supposed to.

The sister married a good man who was a successful lawyer in the city. The woman envied her sister but felt incapable of doing anything she was supposed to do.

Instead, she messed up her life with drugs, alcohol and teen pregnancy, followed by an abortion and another pregnancy. In the midst of that mess, she turned to Jesus and begged him to save her. Like so many before her, she found mercy.

Nothing changed and everything changed. Nothing changed: she was still pregnant, without a job and without a husband, afraid to tell her parents. Nothing changed because she was still a drug addict and an alcoholic.

Everything changed because God had forgiven her sins. Life was going to be different. It was God’s grace, the free gift of salvation.

She discovered in the depth of her heart that she did not deserve what God was doing for her. She was grateful, very grateful.

'I WILL GIVE YOU REST'

“Turn to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest for your souls.” When Jesus said those words, he really meant it.

Did that make the woman’s life a walk in the park? Far from it. And yet she knew God was going to help her find peace, help her find a way out of the mess she had created.

Perhaps you are one of those who also looks upon salvation as a miracle of God’s grace. You feel the same way St Peter felt when he knelt in front of Jesus and said, “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

You know there’s nothing wrong with complaining to God. That’s what Martha and Mary did when Jesus came “too late” to cure their brother Lazarus. They told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

But maybe you are the kind of person who would never dare complain. Each person has their own experience. So let the Marthas and Marys of this world complain if they want.

You are more like the tax collector in the back of the Temple who feels unworthy simply to kneel before God.

You never went to church. You broke the Ten Commandments many times. You can only look in amazement and listen to St Paul, in the Letter to the Romans: “Blessings upon the one that God reckons righteous apart from works. Blessed are those whose crimes are forgiven, whose sins are blotted out. Blessed is the one the Lord considers to be without sin.” Without sin, because your sins are forgiven.

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