“The Grace-Filled Life” (1 Corinthians 15:1-11)

Grace from Frist to Last  

What does the Gospel mean to you? Today’s scripture captures the essence of the gospel message. In particular, in verses 3 and 4 Paul summarizes it like this:

“Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.” (NLT)

This is the gospel in a nutshell. But still, what does this gospel mean to you? How does the gospel affect your life? The Apostle Paul tells us how the gospel came to him personally and changed his entire life. When Paul shares his story with us, he uses the word “grace” three times in one verse:

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them – though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” (v. 10, NRSV)

Paul wrote 13 letters in our NT. He always begins and ends each of them with a blessing of grace upon the Christian readers: “Grace to you,” and “Grace be with you.” So, what is God’s grace? The word “grace” in the New Testament comes from the Greek word charis, which means “favor, blessing, or kindness.” God’s grace is something that comes from God. Grace always starts from God, freely, without being merited or earned. Grace is the overflow of God’s free goodness, favor, blessing. Grace keeps coming to our life like waves to the beach – wave after wave. Grace is power. God’s grace is power-ful. It redeems our past, empowers our present, and shapes our future.

Redeeming the Past

We tend to think that Paul was always a spiritual giant and saint. But he was not. He used to be a persecutor of the church. So even after he came to the faith, that stigma always followed him wherever he went. He was always wearing the scarlet letter. Jewish people called him, “betrayer,” and the Gentiles said to him, “You are unworthy.” But God’s grace sustained him and gave him strength to face his shameful past humbly and boldly. Paul said, “I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (v. 9) But not only that, God’s grace did redeem Paul’s worst past. So, he was able to say, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” (v. 10)

If we summarize Paul’s life before his conversion, it would a “life for God.” As for zeal, he was a persecutor of the church for God, as for legalistic righteousness, he was blameless for God. He observed every single statute in God’s law Book for God. But when he encountered the risen Christ on the way to Damascus, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” (Acts 26:14) All of the life he thought that he had lived for God was actually a life against God. But in his grace God forgave Paul and redeemed his past. By his grace God chose him even before he was born. By his grace God equipped him and prepared him one by one. God redeemed Paul’s burdens, sins, and pain of his past for his glory. God redeemed Paul’s worst past to be useful for his glorious work. By God’s grace Paul was given a special compassion towards his own people – the religious, the self-righteous, the legalistic, because he himself had been there. Paul said, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people.” (Rom 9:2-3) So he did all in. He preached the gospel with all his heart, mind and strength. And he worked hard day and night. But his life is no longer a life for God, but rather, a life with God. Paul said in today’s scripture, “I worked harder than any of them – though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” (v. 10b) God’s grace redeems our past and empowers our present life.

A Tale of Redemption

In his recent new book Where the Light Fell, Philip Yancey, well known Christian author, shares how God’s grace sustained him and saved him from legalism and racism. He was brought up in the Southern fundamentalist family. His father died at age 23, when Yancey was one and his brother, Marshall, was three. His father was bound for missionary work in Africa. Then polio struck, and a few days later his father died. So his father was always remembered as a “saintly giant” to the family. But Yancey learned the truth years later that his father had left the iron lung against his doctor’s advice, believing God would heal him. After the father’s death, his mother dedicated her two sons to the Lord as replacements for her and her husband. As children, teens, and youngmen, the Yancey brothers cannot live up to their mother’s unyielding expectations. Eventually they give up trying. After school and on weekends, the boys accompanied their mother to her children’s Bible classes. There the mother was admired as a saintly woman of God, but at home, they had to suffer from her rage and harsh corporal punishment. The Yancey brothers enter a fundamentalist Bible college. Yancey feels suffocated, but even in the midst of the rigidity and hypocrisy of the school, he begins to see light cracking through. God whispers and woos through music, through nature, and then through love, as Yancey meets his future wife, Janet. He begins to discover a God he never knew. God’s grace is so powerful. But this is just the beginning. God’s grace now leads him to return to those he harmed through the racism he absorbed as a child. He makes a commitment to confession and reparation.

Here and Now

God’s grace is the present progressive. Grace is shaping our faith and making us holy here and now. You see Paul was a task-oriented person even after his conversion. During the mission trip Barnabas, ever the encourager, wanted to take John Mark with them, but Paul was determined not to take him because he had forsaken them previously. Their disagreement was so sharp that they separated. (Acts 15:36-40) Paul became estranged from Barnabas and Mark after this incident. But still, God’s grace was at work so powerfully in their lives. In his last pastoral letter Paul wrote to Timothy like this: “Bring Mark with you when you come, for he will be helpful to me in my ministry.” (2 Tim 4:11) God’s grace restores our broken relationships and empowers us to become more and more like Jesus.

But, it doesn’t mean that grace makes our life easy and problem-free. But grace makes us healthy and strong enough to get through all trials and tribulations. Paul was given a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment him. Three different times he pleaded with the Lord to take it away from him. But each time he heard, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9) God’s grace empowered him to endure and find contentment in his weakness. Yancey’s brother chose the drug and hippie culture, becoming an atheist. Yancey’s mother, still living at 97, has not read any of Yancey’s books. She and her eldest son Marshall remain estranged, locked in legalism, resistance and “ungrace.” But God’s grace leads Yancey to a radically different pathway. Yancey writes, “A third way is possible to stitch together all the strands, good and bad, healthy and unhealthy,” believing that “pain can be useful, even redemptive.”

Grace and Kintsugi

Kintsugi, meaning “to join with gold,” is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold. This restoration process usually takes up to three months. The fragments are carefully glued together, left to dry for a few weeks and then adorned with gold running along its cracks. This art of repair is built on the idea that in embracing “scars” as a part of the design, we can create an even more beautiful piece of art. If we use Kintsugi as a metaphor for our life journey, God’s grace is like “gold” in this restoration process. God’s grace turns scars into stars. God’s grace turns our pain and brokenness into something more unique, beautiful and resilient. Whether we are going through the loss of a loved one, or recovering from illness, divorce or other personal tragedy, all that we are, all that we do – good, beautiful, bad, ugly – our God is able to redeem, restore, renew. In his grace God gave the greatest treasure to the least deserving – which is every one of us. Christ died because of our sins. Christ was raised to life to make us right with God. When we believe this good news, God’s grace redeems our past, empowers our present, shapes our future. So let us come to believe and say, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” And we will hear, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

 

Something beautiful, something good;

All my confusion he understood;

All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife;

But he made something beautiful of my life.

(UMH #394)