Lavish Grace

 Promises, Promises

lavish grace

 

A sermon given at LCM Anglican Churches

Sydney, Australia

1 November 2020

By Bob Mendelsohn

Bible readings: Jeremiah 31.1-34, Ephesians 1.7-8

 

Salutation to the pulpit

“…in Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of trespasses, in accordance with the richness of his grace, which He lavished on us in all wisdom and insight…”

Shalom to my friends here at LCM and to those for whom this is your first-time meeting or hearing from me, I hope this will be a useful time for you also to consider Jewish people and the Gospel. And for each of us, may this be a significant time in the Word together. Thanks to Darren and all the staff for this kind and annual invitation.

Let’s pray….

Have you ever gone to the movies and arrived late? You have the feeling that some of the opening scenes might be crucial as you walk in and try to find both your assigned seat and the rhythm of the movie. Most of the time, missing the openings are not going to ruin it for you, but still, there’s something you wish you knew.

That’s the feeling I have this morning as I share with you from the two Bible verses that the pastoral staff here have assigned me. We enter into the middle of an apostolic sentence, of blessing and joyful recounting of God’s provision. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll read the opening and get to our text in its place. 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ, ⁴  even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵  He has predestined us for adoption as his own sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his good pleasure and will, ⁶  to the praise of the glory of his grace with which he has highly favored us in the Beloved, ⁷  in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of trespasses, in accordance with the richness of his grace ⁸ which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight.” By the way, the sentence keeps going, so I’ll have to let others who preach next week decide how much to retrace these steps.

Today we will talk about promises. My outline is: 1) The making of promises, 2) the fulfillment of promises, 3) the prevention of receiving promises and 4) the joy of extending promises to others.

Introduction 

Paul is full of thanksgiving and joy as he recounts the many blessings that God has given him and all of the Body of Messiah. This sermon is being given here in Sydney during November, and whenever I, as an American, reach this month, it means two things every year. One is my birthday, which is much less significant to celebrate as the years turn to decades. The other is American Thanksgiving. The fourth Thursday in November is marked with a feast like no other, as well as being the most traveled weekend of the year. Not this year, of course, but usually.

Oh, and every four years, a third thing happens in November. Americans stop and vote, not out of compulsion like we have here, for their favorite candidates for president and other offices in state and local government as well as any propositions on the ballot. You may have noticed that this year, over 75 million have already cast their votes. Amazing energy about this election. And yes, Patty and I already voted. Done and dusted. 

1.     The making of promises

Just like we have here in Australia, during the more reasonable five-week campaign cycles for public offices, politicians tend to make promises by which they hope to gain the favor and the requisite votes of the listeners. Promising a new tax cut or a new relief package, promising something to make everyone feel safer in their suburb or to make the environment a better place. American politicians are no different about making promises, and although some are laughable, others garner major network news beyond the 24-hour cycle in which they are spoken.

Here in both of our Bible readings, Jewish men pronounce promises to the Jewish people as if God himself were speaking through them. Jeremiah the prophet proclaimed God’s truths from about 620 BCE to just past 586 BCE; that’s about 30 years. Paul, who wrote the Ephesian letter ministered about the same length of time in Israel, but in the First Century. And yet, neither of them thought their own ministry was their own. They saw themselves as mouthpieces for the Almighty, so any promises they made were actually God’s promises to his people. That’s something not to miss.

Not that everything God promises to his people is to be desired. Jeremiah addressed judgment and God’s annoyances with Judah probably more than any other ancient prophet. Phrases like “I will pronounce my judgments on them concerning all their wickedness, whereby they have forsaken me and have offered sacrifices to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.” (1.16) and again “Why has this people turned away in continual apostasy? They hold fast to deceit and refuse to return.” (8.5)

But that same prophet says in today’s reading, “the people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness” and “you will take up your tambourines and go forth to the dances of the merrymakers.” (31.2, .4) Jubilation and forgiveness, a serious reparation has taken place. At least the promise of repair is given and that’s an encouragement to the people of God. Later on in the chapter, beginning at verse 31 we hear how this will take place. God says, “I will make a new covenant with the [Jewish people], not like the covenant when they left Egypt…I will put my law on their hearts…I will be their God and they shall be my people.”

What a promise. More on that later.

Let’s talk about the Newer Testament promises as well.

2.     The fulfillment of promises

Back to Paul’s letter. He says we are being promised “according to the riches of His grace ⁸ which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight” Amazing grace. How sweet the sound. God’s riches, some say, the word GRACE, can be an acronym representing God’s riches at Christ’s expense. Pretty amazing. 

And Paul says that grace is lavished on us. Ponder that word lavish for a moment, will you? Lavish. Extravagant. Superb. Sumptuous, luxurious, lush, costly, opulent. You get it. It’s over-the-top. The hymn writer called grace Amazing. I get that. 

What other promises has the Almighty given us through Paul? Last week you learned about some in verses 4-6. And next week, more to come. Chosen. Predestined. Every spiritual blessing. Made known the mystery of his will. Obtaining an inheritance. 

The promises are fulfilled in Messiah. That’s what the text says. But exactly how does that work? What are the mechanisms? And what prevents those mechanisms from their purpose? 

I believe the answer is clear in the Bible. It’s our faith that welcomes the promise and which causes the promise to activate. Without faith, it’s impossible to please the Lord (Heb. 11.6), and faith is available for everyone, which makes the impossible possible. (Romans 10.17) We can experience chosenness and predestination by faith. We can have every spiritual blessing by faith. We obtain our inheritance by faith. You get it.

How did the promise of grace get enacted? What sealed the deal? 

Back to Jeremiah, verse 34 of chapter 31 nails it on the head. “For I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” That’s it! That’s how we secure this heavenly promise. We are forgiven of our sins and receive God’s Holy Spirit in us. 

And how are we forgiven? Paul joins the Jewish chorus which would have understood the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle and later the Temple, where an animal’s blood substituted for the death of the sinner. Paul said 

^“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” (Ephesians 1.7) We are forgiven because a sacrifice has been offered, once for all, and atonement was secured by that better blood, the blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel. It’s the death of Yeshua that made the covenant available.

It’s the blood of Jesus, the Jewish messiah, who suffered in Jerusalem at the hands of Roman sinners, that brought about the riches of God’s grace summed up in “the forgiveness of our trespasses.”

That’s what Jeremiah meant, and which would deliver the promise of the new covenant. 

Lavish.

I’m reminded of the story from England of a large prosperous suburban church that had planted three mission churches in some very tough, bad, city neighborhoods. Every January, the mission churches were invited to join with the posh mother church for a celebration communion service. The makeup of the mission churches was often criminals of all sorts, who had been converted after being in jail for a while. 

On one such occasion, a wealthy magistrate was seen taking communion at the rail right next to a former burglar. The judge had actually sentenced the thief to prison years before. Neither seemed to recognize each other. After the service, the magistrate was sharing with some others from his homegroup. “I was amazed at the grace of God this morning.” 

One of his home group said, “Yes, isn’t it amazing how the sinners from the slums can get saved?”

The judge replied, “I was not thinking of that burglar. I was thinking of me. Even though I had a great education and always attended Scripture in school and have been faithful in church attendance all these years, it took God’s amazing grace to forgive me of all my pride and self-deception, to get me to admit I was no better in the eyes of God than any convict that I had sent to jail.”

3.     The prevention of receiving promises

Grace is lavish. And yet, it’s able to be prevented from reaching us. How? By our pride like the judge said. By our self-centeredness. Jeremiah said, 

“ ‘Because of the lightness of her harlotry, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. ¹⁰ Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,’ declares the LORD.” (3.9-10)

That’s it. If we don’t return to God with all our hearts, that’s how we prevent the promises making their way into our lives. I’m ever amazed at God, the Sovereign of the universes who offers himself to us, who does not dominate us and mandate our submission. He offers us to love him with all our heart and soul. And we can stop that love. We can prevent those promises from being enacted. Wow. No wonder you hear the aching appeals of the Almighty throughout the Scripture. Consider the loving and longing of the Prodigal Father watching daily for his wayward son to return from his riotous living. Grace ready to be poured out, and the prevention of that grace by selfishness and pride. That was finally removed by an act of surrender to the Lord. That’s how I got in on the abundant and amazing grace of God. 

4.     The joy of extending promises to others

Finally, today we think about the joy of extending God’s promises to others. Jeremiah said, 

“They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” (31.34)

The community of faith will be in relationship to the Almighty and to each other. We will all know him and his word of promise. We will all be beneficiaries of his blessings and promises. 

Jeremiah said it like this, “They will come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, and they will be radiant over the bounty of the LORD — over the grain and the new wine and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life will be like a watered garden, and they will never languish again. Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old, together,” (31.12-13)

That’s mishpochah; that’s family; that’s community. Lavish grace. A society sinner and a society standard all under one roof, sharing in God’s love and grace. Prodigal father and prodigal son eating the fattened calf rejoicing together. 

Dear friends, today, that happens when we not only experience God’s grace by welcoming his forgiveness by the blood of Jesus and also when we pass it on to others. The house of the Lord is not a single-family home; it’s all of us together. Let’s be about sharing this message with others. Each of us who knows the Lord has had many people, significant people who helped shape us, who taught us the Word of God, who helped us see and appropriate God’s promises. Please, I urge you, as Paul tells the Ephesians that they and we are ‘his workmanship, created in Messiah Jesus, unto good works... that we should walk in them’ (2.10)

Let’s share this message.

Let’s share his promises. 

Let’s ask others to enter into the new covenant. 

If today, you are hearing this talk and this idea for the first time, if you haven’t yet received Jesus as your Lord and Messiah, please, right where you are seated, welcome him into your life. Repent of your own sin and receive Jesus as your Saviour. And please tell me or someone else here at church and let us help you walk this out with others in COVID time and long beyond.

Final thoughts

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been a missionary with Jews for Jesus for 41 years and privileged to be working in Sydney the last 22 years. You have a white card on your pew [For those watching online or reading this online, just write me at bob@jewsforjesus.org.au ] and if you don’t mind, please fill that out, tear off the perforation, and give me the larger section so that you will either continue to receive or begin to receive our newsletter. We also send much more via email if you prefer things that way.

We have a resource table with books and CDs and such, great gifts for Hanukkah and Christmas, and some free literature also. And I have a Square by which you can either donate to our cause without cash, or you can buy products as well. 

Thanks, Darren, and Andy, Michael, Ken and all of you on staff… and all who volunteer and all of us at the parish who are recipients of God’s lavish and amazing grace, and who want to pass that on to others. 

Let us exalt his name together. Amen. Shalom.

Jeremiah 31

 “At that time,” declares the LORD, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”

 

Thus says the LORD, “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness — Israel, when it went to find its rest.” The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have drawn you with lovingkindness. Again, I will build you and you will be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! Again, you will take up your tambourines, and go forth to the dances of the merrymakers. Again, you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the planters will plant and will enjoy them. For there will be a day when watchmen on the hills of Ephraim call out, ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God.’”

 

For thus says the LORD, “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations; Proclaim, give praise and say, ‘O LORD, save Your people, the remnant of Israel.’

 

“Behold, I am bringing them from the north country, and I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who is in labour with child, together; a great company, they will return here.

 

“With weeping they will come, and by supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk by streams of waters, on a straight path in which they will not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn.”

 

Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare in the coastlands afar off, and say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.”

 

For the LORD has ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. They will come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, and they will be radiant over the bounty of the LORD — Over the grain and the new wine and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; and their life will be like a watered garden, and they will never languish again. Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old, together, for I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow. I will fill the soul of the priests with abundance, and My people will be satisfied with My goodness,” declares the LORD. (1-14)