God's Amazing Grace
Luke 18:9-14

It's easy for us, looking around and seeing all the horrendous sin in

our culture and in our world, to think we're OK. It's easy for us to

look at the rampant sexual sin, the adultery, the moral free-fall our

culture seems to be in, the awful crimes like rape, murder,

sex-trafficking, even genocide, and think how much worse all these

sinners are than we are.



It's easy to look at the world, and note that according to some

research, there are 27 million people in the world in slavery today, a

very grievous sin to us and certainly to God and though this reality

grieves us, we think, I'd never do that.





After all, we're Christians. We're saved. We're not like that.



And in many ways, of course, that's true. We remember, too, why His

grace and mercy are so needed, so absolutely necessary, to each of us.



1 John 1:8-10 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves

and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and

righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all

unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar

and His word is not in us.



Since I don't want to lie to you, I have to tell you this: I sin daily.

Oh, only a handful of people closest to me ever see the sins I commit,

because there are sins of attitude, habitual sins and sins of the

heart. But these sins are every bit as much as offense to a Holy God,

and are reason enough to condemn me to eternity in hell apart from

God's saving grace in Christ, every bit as much as those sins that I

read about in the paper, or see on television, and shake my head and

think "what a world we live in."



Of course, there are some reading this who have committed adultery.

Some of us have committed some grievous sins, or even visible sins. You

know, it seems to me that those who have experienced God's mercy in

sins such as these, sometimes have a greater understanding of God's

mercy than those of us who haven't.



I think that's because, if we've never committed one of the "big" sins,

one of those sins listed in one of Paul's many lists in several

different epistles, we have the tendency to think that somehow we're

more worthy, somehow we're better than those who have committed those

sins.





Many of us who is reading this have an amazing testimony of how we came

to Christ. Some of us were drug abusers, some committed crimes. Some of

us can talk of God's amazing grace from the standpoint of the awful

sins He has delivered us from.



1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NIV) Do you not know that the wicked will not

inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually

immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor

homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor

slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.



When we read a passage like this, some of us can say God saved us from

these kinds of things. Others of us read this and think, not so much.



But even in a list like this, almost all of us can find ourselves. For

example, if we're honest, we've all been idolaters in one way, shape or

form. We may not be adulterers, prostitutes, thieves or drunkards. But

are we slanderers? Are we idolaters?



My testimony of my life doesn't include things like many of you can

claim. If anything mine would be worse than most when it comes to sin.

I don't speak much of where I come from to many people because I am not

proud of what I did, yet I use that testimony when it is

needed to those who needs to hear them and to only those kind of

people. As with your testimony, it will not work on anyone

but to those who needs to hear it.



I do love my wife and have never cheated on her. Never got in trouble

with the law, I've gotten only one warning ticket in almost

33 years of driving. I'm good with my children, I work hard

for a living. Pretty good by most people's standards of good.





Yet, our standing before God is not measured by the world's standards.

Inwardly, my righteousness is, as the Word tells us, like filthy rags.

My righteousness is absolutely worthless before God. Only Jesus'

righteousness is sufficient to bring me true righteousness, the kind

that God accepts, the kind measured by His holy standard.



That's part of the message in Jesus' parable of the repentant publican,

or tax-collector.



Luke 18:9-14 (NIV) To some who were confident of their own

righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this

parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the

other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself:

'God, I thank you that I am not like other men-robbers, evildoers,

adulterers or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and

give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance.

He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said,

'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather

than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts

himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."



Just because I've committed some really terrible, very

visible sin, and some of you reading this, have amazing testimonies of

the sins God has delivered you from. That doesn't mean we need to go

out and commit some of these sins that this Pharisee was thanking God

he didn't ever commit. Because the truth is, in a very real way, sin is

sin.



Yes there are certainly greater consequences to some sins. Yet, God's

standard of holiness is so much greater than any good things I can

claim in my life. We must recognize the sinfulness of sin. Any kind of

sin. Sin is so horrible, so heinous, that it took the blood of Jesus to

pay for these sins, and then His death, and then His resurrection, to

overcome sin's power of death, and give us eternal life.



It's possible to be externally, visibly, moral and good, yet still to

be sinful and unrighteous before God. It's also true that after we are

justified before God, after we have received the gift of grace in

Christ, after we're saved, we live a lifetime process of being

sanctified, or changed and transformed into His image. During that

lifetime process, even as the transformation progresses, we still sin,

and we still need God's forgiving grace and mercy.





Many of you have heard the story of John Newton. He's best known as the

composer of the great hymn Amazing Grace. The lyrics of that song,

which many of you sung many times, include the first verse, which says

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me."



Wretch isn't a word you hear much these days. But you know what: I'm a

wretch. You're a wretch. A wretch is by definition: "a person of

despicable or base character." Some of you may still be offended

by this and I'm sorry, but God did change this man. It's too

bad it took awhile to make him realize that. God can change

the worst murderer if he or she comes to Christ. For example: If I told

you where I've been in my life, some of you would even be offended

right now of who I use to be, but I am no longer that person for I am

who I am today thanks to Jesus Christ.



John Newton called himself a wretch because he was a sinner like us,

but worse still, he was a slave ship captain. I've heard the story of

John Newton before, and when you hear his story, you think, wow, God

saved this man, delivered him from his sin, and changed him. And God

did in fact do this.



But did you know this? Newton served as a slave ship captain for about

10 years. 10 years of hauling human cargo to a life of slavery. But

most of those years of delivering slaves to their fate, about 7 years,

as nearly as I can figure in my research on this, most of those years

were after he was saved!



Newton traces his own conversion to a night when he survived a severe

storm at sea, and cried out for God's mercy.



Let me continue with the story, as told by Mark McMinn in Christianity

Today:





His blind eyes may have been opened on that dismal night, but not wide

enough. Upon his return to Liverpool, Newton promptly signed on as mate

of another ship and sailed to Africa, where the (new) Christian

traveled from village to village buying human beings and returning them

as cargo. He then sailed across the Atlantic, studying a Latin Bible in

his quarters as 200 slaves lay in the hull, shackled two by two,

squeezed into shelves like secondhand books. As many as a third died

during the long voyage across the ocean, and many more suffered serious

illnesses. When the ship arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, Newton

delivered these men, women, and children into a life of toil and

oppression while he sat in church services and took leisurely strolls

through fields and woods outside Charleston.



This article reports that in his journal, after he'd been converted, as

he still continued this dirty business of buying and selling slaves,

Newton wrote that being a slave ship captain was optimal for "promoting

the life of God in the soul."



How can this be? How can a person who's saved continue to be involved

in such a horrible sin, taking captive his fellow human beings and

facilitating their sale into a lifetime of slavery?



But, again if we're honest with ourselves, we must see ourselves in his

story.



John Newton fell short of God's desire for his life. Not forever. He

went on to become a minister of the gospel. He went on to write Amazing

Grace.



But the reality is that, for most of us, change comes slowly. Yes, we

may be delivered from some sins almost immediately.





Before I was a believer, I had quite the potty mouth. I could swear

like a sailor. Almost immediately after I came to Christ, that was gone.



But our experience is that, while God may illustrate His grace to us by

immediately delivering us from some sins, it takes our entire lifetime

to transform us into the image and likeness of Christ.



Many years later, after he had quit the slavery business, Newton wrote

these words in his great hymn.



"was blind, but now I see."



One of his friends recalled that he never spent a half hour with Newton

without hearing his remorse for trading slaves. It was always on his

mind, always reminding him of his need for God's grace. At the end of

his life Newton said to his friends,

"My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: That I am a great

sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior."





It's not that hard to see the sin in other people's lives. It's often

more difficult to see our own. If a man like John Newton can go for

years, as a follower of Christ no less, and not see this awful sin in

his life, don't we have to wonder what sin-blindness we have in

ourselves?



Quoting again from this article:

A robust finding from social science research is that most people think

they are better than others; more ethical, considerate,

industrious, cooperative, fair, and loyal. People think they obey the

Ten Commandments more consistently than others. One polling expert

noted, "It's the great contradiction: the average person believes he is

a better person than the average person." Sixteen centuries earlier

Augustine bemoaned: "[My] sin was all the more incurable because I did

not judge myself to be a sinner."



Theologians discuss the noetic effects of sin, meaning that our

intellect is dulled our eyes closed as a result of

living in a fallen state. In the narrow sense, it means we cannot

reason well enough to see our need for salvation unless God, in grace,

first reaches out to us. In a broader sense, it means our awareness of

sin is dulled in various ways by pride. Mark McMinn



So, where does this reality leave us? We have a couple of options. We

can be like the Pharisee, in the parable we just read, and thank God

that we're not like all those people in the world who are doing things

so much worse than we'll ever do.



Or we can come to the table of grace, where God is holding out to us

His forgiveness, His mercy, and admit we need it.





I need it.



We can come and say, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." This week,

let's remember what Jesus did, what was accomplished on the cross.



But let's remember why it was necessary.



You don't need grace or mercy if you're perfect. You don't need

forgiveness if you never sin. Jesus sacrificial gift of His precious

blood was necessary because we are sinners.



It's necessary for us to remember His body given for us. It's necessary

for us to remember His blood, shed for us. Because that's what it took

to remove the stain of sin from us, the sins we committed before we

were saved, the sins we've committed since then and the sins we'll

commit tomorrow.



As we sinners come to God, let's come with honesty, and humility and

repentance. That's how God would have us come to Him.





Isaiah 57:15 (NLT) The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the

Holy One, says this: "I live in the high and holy place with those

whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of

the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.



Isaiah 66:2 (NIV) This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and

contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word. And as Jesus told us in

the passage we read from Luke moments ago:



"For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles

himself will be exalted."



Lets approach Him with humility, and repentance, realizing

we bring nothing of worth to God.



Jesus didn't die for us because we are valuable; we are valuable

because Christ died for us.