Salvation by Grace

Harvie Conn was a missionary in Korea. And Harvie was trying to reach prostitutes for Christ. And in the Asian culture, prostitutes had a far lower status than prostitutes do in other societies. And Harvie couldn’t break through, because when he offered the love of Christ, they said, ‘sorry, Christ would never have anything to do with me. You don’t understand. I am an absolute…I’m scum.’ Finally, one day Harvie said, “Let me tell you the doctrine of predestination. Let me tell you the doctrine of election.”

‘Our God doesn’t love you because you’re good…doesn’t love you because you’re moral… doesn’t love you because you’re humbler…doesn’t love you because you’re surrendered. He actually just chooses people and sets His love on you and loves you just because He loves you. That’s how you’re saved.’

And the prostitute said, ‘What?!!

Harvie: ‘Yes!!”

She said, ‘You mean He just loves people like that?’

Harvie: ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, how do I know if He loves me?’

Then Harvie said, ‘When I tell you the story of Jesus dying for you, does that move you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you want Him?’ ‘Yeah!’ ‘You aren’t capable of wanting Him IF He wasn’t wanting you! You aren’t capable of loving Him unless He was loving you.’ And Harvie found that prostitutes started coming to Christ because they got a radical new cultural identity

Editor’s Note: You can access the entire sermon here

For years, Ben Affleck wrestled with alcohol addiction. A consequence, he says, of having an alcoholic father. But the actor shared that he was in a much better place now and doesn't think he will ever return to that way of life.

It is no secret that substance abuse is a pervasive problem in Hollywood. Tragic stories are common. So, how did Affleck escape this fate?

In an interview he credited his Christian faith. Affleck says his Christian faith in later life has allowed him to accept his flaws and imperfections as a man. He said:

The concept that God, through Jesus, embraces and pardons all of us - from those we admire to those we might judge or resent - is powerful. If God can show such boundless love, urging us to love, avoid judgement and offer forgiveness, it serves as a profound model of how we should strive to be.

What I truly appreciate, even as I still grapple with my faith and beliefs, as I think all people do at times, is the profound idea that we all have imperfections . . . It's our journey to seek redemption, embrace divine love, better ourselves, cherish others, refrain from judgement, and extend forgiveness.

Ree is a single mom trying to navigate the rising cost of living, Ree has been feeling "stressed and upset" most days, with the battle only intensified by personal issues. Ree told Yahoo News Australia she was feeling anxious at the prospect of making ends meet before visiting her local Woolworths store.

However, two strangers' patience while she discarded several items at the checkout because she "couldn't afford" them truly made all the difference. She said, “The lady behind me asked the cashier to ring up everything I had put back because she was going to pay for them for me.”

After thanking the stranger and explaining that payment wasn't necessary, Ree was told the stranger was insistent on buying the discarded items for her. "I explained my situation to her and she said she knew how it felt to not be able to pay for things in the past."

In a time of emotional strife, the stranger's kind act has had a profound impact on Ree—one that she struggles to articulate. When asked what it meant to her, she simply replied with one word: "Everything. From the bottom of my heart thank you for making a truly awful situation so much easier in the moment. I walked out crying."

Possible Preaching Angle:

All of us are spiritually bankrupt with no way to pay our debt of sin. Jesus stepped up and fully paid the price for us (Eph. 1:7; 1 Pet. 2:24; 1 John 2:2).

What does it mean when the Bible says that we have been pardoned by God? Here are two classic definitions from American legal history:

First, in 1833, Chief Justice John Marshall, in a landmark decision, described a pardon as “an act of grace … which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed.”

Second, in 1866, the Supreme Court gave another famous definition of a pardon: “a pardon releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offense … A pardon removes the penalties and disabilities and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity.”

Christian Philosopher William Lane Craig offers this as a marvelous description of a divine pardon. “‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation ….’ The pardoned sinners’ guilt is expiated, so that he is legally innocent before God.”

The search for self-esteem through religion and moral virtue presents a greater problem. No matter how good we have been and what we have done for God and others, there is always somebody whose relative goodness makes us feel less than.

Consider the example of John and Libby Moritz who lost all three of their children in a car crash. In response to their grief, they founded a nonprofit for vulnerable children. They sponsored orphanages in Mexico and Grenada, provided scholarships in Kenya and India, alleviated hunger in the Philippines, and provided shoes in Guatemala. They bought a large farm and turned it into a foster home. In virtually everything, they became other-centered. They used their own money to fund the work. In the summers, John tended to his swimming pool business. During off months, they visited the orphanages and programs they sponsored.

Unsurprisingly, the article about the Moritz’s began, “Prepare to feel a little guilty. It’s not that John and Libby Moritz would want anybody to feel guilty. It’s just that if you want to compare good deeds checks list with them, yours will probably come up short.”

In an issue of CT magazine, Megan Hill tells her unremarkable conversion story which initially left her with doubts of its genuineness.

Megan has no memory of becoming a Christian. She says, “I didn’t pray a prayer, or walk down an aisle, or have a eureka moment. My Christian testimony of how I came to faith, is downright boring.”

She was raised by godly Presbyterian parents, gave thanks before meals, and recited prayers at bedtime from the children’s catechism. Church attendance shaped the weekly rhythms of her life. By the time she was age three or four she embraced the knowledge that God was her Creator, Jesus was her Savior, the Spirit was her helper, and the Bible was her rule. Megan writes, “But it took me most of my life to appreciate just how extraordinary was the grace I had received in ordinary circumstances.”

In fifth grade, I began to attend a school where dramatic testimonies were a regular part of morning chapel. Week after week, speakers—a drug addict, a party girl, an atheist—told of God’s rescue. But I am baffled that I never once heard a testimony like my own. And so I began to fear that I hadn’t really been saved … at all. Perhaps I was floating on other people’s convictions, happily living in a Christian environment without actually being a Christian.

Yet I was thankful for the church that had validated my testimony. In December 1989, I approached the elders of the church and asked to become a member. They, who had heard all kinds of stories from all kinds of people, declared my testimony to be a work of God. A few weeks later, I stood in front of the congregation and received the right hand of fellowship from those who had been lost but now were found. My testimony may have been boring, but it was welcomed. And I was also thankful for grace.

It wasn’t until I became a parent, at 27, that I began to see that in all testimonies, it is not the outward circumstances that are amazing. It’s the grace. There is no dull salvation. The Son of God took on flesh to suffer and die, purchasing a people for his glory. As Gloria Furman writes, “The idea that anyone’s testimony of blood-bought salvation could be uninteresting or unspectacular is a defamation of the work of Christ.”

For myself, I cannot point to a specific day of spiritual awakening. I can point only to my Lord, who says, “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). My Jesus, I come. Every day in need of grace. And I find myself not cast out.

Beatrice Fediuk decided to write a resumé for heaven as her obituary. When she finally passed at age 94, the Winnipeg Free Press printed the resumé in its entirety. It starts: "Dear Lord, please accept my application for Eternal Life. My resumé is as follows." She divided her obituary into sections—like a real resumé—objectives, references, training, experience, volunteer work, and hobbies.

Beatrice gave a summary of her life history, saying she was born on October 22, 1927, to “loving parents Eugenie and Alfred. ... I have left my daughter Michelle, her husband Perry, my granddaughter Kali, and many nieces and nephews on earth, as there are no openings for them in Heaven just yet."

She shared her memories, saying: "Lord, you know that (as a teacher) I never had any 'teacher's pets.’ Rather, I put my heart into teaching those with learning challenges, or difficult family situations. It was here that I feel I did my best work. … I also continued volunteer work, knitting scarves for underprivileged children.”

Summing up her CV, she added: "Lord, I hope that you will find that I have met my Objectives and deserve a place in Your heavenly home. You know where to find me to further discuss my qualifications."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sadly, this is how many good people plan to arrive in heaven—on the basis of good works and good intentions. But as Scripture clearly says, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy (Titus 3:5).

A survey by Pew Research Center shows that American Protestants believe that:

46% Faith in God alone is needed to get into heaven

52% Both good deeds and faith in God are needed to get into heaven

46% The Bible provides all the religious guidance that Christians need

52% In addition to the Bible, Christians need guidance from church teachings and traditions

In a survey, two in three Americans told LifeWay Research, “Yes, I am a sinner.” But on what to do about it, self-confessed sinners were split.

All Americans:

34% I work on being less of a sinner

28% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

5% I am fine with being a sinner

Men:

38% I work on being less of a sinner

22% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

6% I am fine with being a sinner

Women:

33% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

30% I work on being less of a sinner

4% I am fine with being a sinner

Protestants:

49% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

31% I work on being less of a sinner

3% I am fine with being a sinner

Catholics

48% I work on being less of a sinner

19% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

4% I am fine with being a sinner

Just outside Carlsbad, CA, a chaotic scene unfolded as several cars stopped in the middle of the I-5 freeway to grab money that spilled out. At 9:15 a.m., the back doors of an armored truck popped open and bags of $1 and $20 notes burst open across the Interstate. One patrol officer described the scene as “free-floating bills all over the freeway."

Some motorists thought it was "Free money" and were grabbing hand fulls of cash and celebrating their good fortune. Others posted stories on social media platforms, sharing with their followers their good luck.

While some returned their bounty, others drove away from the scene. The authorities warned that they would be watching the videos posted online and all the money had to be returned within 48 hours to avoid criminal charges. Imagine the disappointment of those who thought they had easy money.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is easy to have our hope and affections set on the wrong things. The free grace that God offers us in salvation does not disappoint us. Once we receive it, it cannot be taken from us.

Before the discovery of insulin, diabetes was a death sentence. Here’s the life-saving story of how scientists discovered insulin. The American Diabetes Association reports:

In 1889, two German researchers, Oskar Minkowski and Joseph von Mering, found that when the pancreas gland was removed from dogs, the animals developed symptoms of diabetes and died soon afterward. This led to the idea that the pancreas was the site where “pancreatic substances” (insulin) were produced. In 1910, Sir Edward Sharpey-Shafer suggested only one chemical was missing from the pancreas in people with diabetes. He decided to call this chemical insulin.

So what happened next? In 1921, a young surgeon named Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best figured out how to remove insulin from a dog’s pancreas. Skeptical colleagues said the stuff looked like “thick brown muck,” but little did they know this would lead to life and hope for millions of people with diabetes.

With this murky concoction, Banting and Best kept another dog with severe diabetes alive for 70 days. The dog died only when there was no more to extract. With this success, the researchers went a step further. A more refined and pure form of insulin was developed, this time from the pancreases of cattle.

In January 1922, Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old boy dying from diabetes in a Toronto hospital, became the first person to receive an injection of insulin. Within 24 hours, Leonard’s dangerously high blood glucose levels dropped to near-normal levels.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The discovery of insulin, brought life to those near death, giving hope to those at death’s door. We are all sick with sin but the discovery of the gospel and Christ Jesus brings life, and hope.

In his testimony in CT magazine, Allen Langham describes hitting rock bottom in prison and finding Jesus reaching out to him:

As a child, there was violence everywhere I turned. My mother had been widowed by her first husband, abused for 20 years by her second, and deserted by my father when I was eight months old. Throbbing with anger and resentment toward my absent father, I was constantly getting into scraps with neighborhood bullies, hoping to earn their respect. I was also abused several times: by a family friend, by a boy across the road, and by a man I can’t say much about because I’ve blocked the worst details from my memory.

One morning, alerted by the shrieks of my eldest sister, I came downstairs to find my mother dead on the sofa, the victim of a cerebral hemorrhage. Something snapped in me that day—I was only 14—that put me on the road to destruction for the next 20 years.

By the time I left home at 16, I was a ticking time bomb—angry, bitter, and lost. My sister ran pubs, and I started down the path of drinking, gambling, and fighting, emulating the “gangster” lifestyle. This was my idea of what it meant to be a man.

But I excelled at rugby, and at 17 I signed a professional contract with Sheffield Eagles. Craving acceptance from members of the criminal underworld I perversely thought of as “family,” I began fighting for money, selling drugs, collecting debts for dealers, and generally bullying and intimidating my way through life. I walked into my first prison term as a lost little boy trapped inside a professional rugby player’s body. It didn’t take long for prison to turn me into a hardened criminal.

Eventually, after stabbing a number of fellow inmates, I landed in a top-security prison in London. I hated who I had become. With my violent outbursts and paranoid behavior, I had pushed away anyone I ever cared for—and put my family through hell.

I finally hit rock bottom and decided to commit suicide. With tears streaming down my face, I dropped to my knees and made one final plea to God: “If you’re real and you hear me, put a white dove outside my prison window. Show me you are with me!” The next morning, I saw a dove sitting there. Something inside me jumped, and tears of joy replaced tears of despair.

I began praying and studying the Bible in earnest. Before going to sleep, I closed my eyes, imagined Jesus on the Cross, balled up my rage, and surrendered it to him. When I awoke, I felt peace like never before.

God, in his patience, kept using this broken vessel for his purposes. He has given me the privilege of going into prisons and testifying to the hope and forgiveness he offers. I have spoken to rooms full of men convicted of the most heinous crimes and seen them reduced to tears. God helped me launch a ministry (Steps to Freedom) that reaches out to young people abandoned by society. He let me return to my first love, sports, as a chaplain serving several teams.

Miraculously, God has even given me my family back. It has taken years, but one by one he has repaired broken relationships with my sisters and their families, with my three children, and with the father who deserted us so long ago. The refining process has been long and hard. But bit by bit, it’s polishing me into a trophy of God’s grace.

The pandemic has forced some locally owned businesses to close their doors. For one North Texas restaurant owner, he’s finding ways to overcome these challenges and continues to serve free meals to those who need them. Owner Ram Mehta says, “I get to meet a lot of amazing people. It’s all like a big extended family.”

Before customers order at the counter, they’re greeted with a sign on the door:

If you are Hungry, Homeless or Can’t afford a meal.

Please honor us by stopping by during business hours

for a couple of slices of Hot Pizza & Fountain Drink at No Charge.

If any employee here doesn’t treat you with same respect as a paying customer.

Please Call Ram directly at (number given). No questions no judgement.

Thank you for giving us an opportunity to serve you. God Bless You.

Ram says, “At one point in my life I was homeless, and my mom basically told me ‘Never forget where you came from.’” These are words he took to heart. So, he posted this sign to his restaurants' front doors as a reminder. It honors his mother, Lata Mehta who passed away three years ago.

This kind gesture called “Everyone Eatz” bloomed into a movement bigger than Ram ever imagined. He started holding events throughout Texas and has provided more than a half a million free meals and more. He says, “We started giving out cars to single moms, we started paying for rent for a few people, we started giving backpacks, toys for Christmas. So, it’s just about helping your neighbor.”

He hopes this example will inspire others to pay it forward. It’s already working. He says restaurants in Wisconsin and Florida have reached out asking to adopt the movement and help people in their communities.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Believers are to show the same love and care to those in need (1 Jn. 3:17-18; Heb 13:16). This reflects our greater mission of inviting people to “’Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life” (Rev. 22:17).

In 1779, a British pastor published a hymnbook titled Onley Hymns. It became an immediate bestseller. The public largely ignored Hymn #41 in the collection, titled “Faith’s Review and Expectations.” The author of the hymn made no further mentions of it in his diaries during the remaining 30 years of his life. For the next 120 years it never caught on with churchgoers, or with anyone else. Hymn #41 only made one appearance in all the other hymnbooks published in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a hymn without honor in its own country.

But when Hymn #41, originally written by the pastor and former slave trader John Newton, jumped over the shores to America, it quickly rose in popularity. After someone renamed it, a singing instructor from South Carolina set the lyrics to a new tune. During the 1850s, the hymn added some lyrics from African American worship. On December 10, 1947, the famous singer Mahalia Jackson recorded a version of the hymn.

Eventually, this obscure hymn, which is known today as “Amazing Grace,” has become what one person has called “the spiritual national anthem of America.” It’s original author, the pastor and theologian John Newton, would have been astonished by the universality today of the hymn he wrote 250 years ago for his local church worshippers. What he composed to illustrate a village sermon has developed into a global anthem.

Thomas Tarrants shares his testimony of being a former hate-filled Klansman who was saved by God’s grace:

I came of age in the early 1960s in Mobile, Alabama, which had been segregated since its founding. In 1963, reacting to the federally mandated desegregation of Alabama’s public schools, Gov. George Wallace uttered his infamous pledge of “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

I read some white supremacist, anti-Semitic, anti-Communist literature that was circulating within my high school. Then I met the people who were advocating these ideas. The civil rights movement, they said, was part of a Communist plot, and the US government had been infiltrated by Communist agents.

All these warnings made me anxious about America’s survival, and my fears soon turned into hatred—toward those I perceived as America’s enemies. So it was only a short step to getting involved with Mississippi’s dreaded White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the most violent right-wing terrorist organization in the United States at the time.

One summer night, as my accomplice and I attempted to plant a bomb at the home of a Jewish businessman, we were ambushed in a police stakeout. My partner was killed at the scene. Four blasts of shotgun fire at close range left me critically wounded. Doctors told me it would be a miracle if I lived another 45 minutes. Yet God spared my life—to the astonishment of the doctors and the dismay of the police. If anyone deserved to die, it was certainly me.

At the end of a two-day trial, I was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. About six months after arriving in prison, I escaped with two other inmates. But a couple of days later, we were apprehended after a blazing gun-battle with the authorities, during which one of the other inmates was killed. Had this man not relieved me from standing watch about half an hour early that day, I would have been the one killed. God had shown me mercy once more.

Back in prison, I was confined to a six-by-nine-foot cell in the maximum security unit. To keep from going crazy, I read continuously. This eventually led to the New Testament, specifically the Gospels. But as I read the Gospels in my prison cell, my eyes were opened in a way that went beyond simply understanding the words on the page.

My sins came to mind, one after another. Conviction grew, and with it tears of repentance. I needed God’s forgiveness. And I knew it came only through trusting Jesus, who had given his life to pay for my sins. One night I knelt on the concrete floor of my cell and prayed a simple prayer, confessing my sins and asking Jesus to forgive me, take over my life, and do whatever he wanted to with it.

As I read the Bible daily, a whole new world opened up to me, and I couldn’t get enough! Early on, God delivered me from hate, and I began to grow in love for others. Friendships developed with black inmates and others who were very di­fferent from me.

After serving eight years in prison, an extraordinary turn of events resulted in a parole grant to attend university. That set in motion a series of developments which, over the next 40 years, led me first into campus ministry, then pastoral ministry in a racially mixed church, and finally to a long ministry of teaching and writing at the C.S. Lewis Institute.

As I look back over the nearly 50 years since God saved me, I can only thank and praise him that he didn’t give me what I deserved. But because he is full of grace and mercy, he gave me exactly what I needed. He “is patient with [us], not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

In a recent issue of CT Magazine, Astronomer David Block tells how he learned that the same God who numbered the stars knew and loved him personally:

I grew up a Jewish boy in a South African gold-mining town known as Krugersdorp. I remember sitting in (synagogue), enthralled as our learned rabbi expounded how God was a personal God—he would speak to Moses, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to many others. Growing up, I often pondered how I fit into all this.

By the time I entered the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, I was deeply concerned that I had no assurance that God was indeed a personal God. I was confident that he was a historical God who had delivered our people from the hands of Pharaoh. But he seemed so far removed from the particulars of my life. Where was the personality and the vibrancy of a God who truly could speak to me?

I became friendly with Professor Lewis Hurst. He had a great interest in astronomy, and we would discuss the complexities of the cosmos for hours at a time. I remember attending a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society graced by Stephen Hawking. The atmosphere there was intellectually stimulating, but inwardly I could tell that something, or someone, was missing. To be brutally honest, I did not know God.

Back in South Africa, my friendship with Professor Hurst grew, and I started sharing with him my thoughts and feelings about the cosmos. I said, “The universe is so beautiful, both visually and mathematically.” The idea of the universe being designed by a Master Artist continued to resonate with me, but I struggled to find evidence that this artist had any interest in knowing me personally.

I shared further doubts: “Are we,” as Shakespeare said in Macbeth, “just a fleeting shadow that appears and then disappears? What is our reason for living? What is the purpose of life? Is it possible to have a personal encounter with the creator of the cosmos?”

Hurst listened intently. He said, “There is an answer to all the questions you are asking. I am well aware that you come from an Orthodox Jewish family, but would you be willing to meet with a dear friend of mine, the Reverend John Spyker?”

My Jewish parents had taught me to seek answers wherever they might be found, so I consented to meet with this Christian minister. Taking the Bible in his hands, Spyker turned to Romans 9:33 where Paul affirms that Y’shua (Jesus) is a stumbling stone to the Jewish people but that those who freely choose to believe in him will never be ashamed.

By divine grace, suddenly everything became perfectly clear. Y’shua was the stumbling stone—my stumbling stone! Jesus had fulfilled all the messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures (where the Messiah would be born, how he was to die, and much else besides). While most Jewish people today are still awaiting the Messiah’s coming, I knew I had found him and that all I had to do was respond to his free offer of grace.

Immediately, I asked Spyker to pray for me, which he did. And on that day, at the age of 22, I surrendered my heart and my reason to Christ Jesus. His Spirit spread through every cell of my being.

(Reflecting on my early days), I realize they had been infused by God’s grace. He had been planting spiritual seeds every time I gazed up into the heavens. And I still marvel that a God so majestic and powerful would know my name—and love me as intimately as his own begotten Son.

Michelangelo, the great Renaissance artist, is known for his statue of David and the incredible Sistine Chapel. But what many don’t know is that Michelangelo lived as the Reformation was sweeping through Europe and was influenced himself by Reformation ideas about justification by grace through faith.

Michelangelo was plagued throughout his life to live up to his own and others’ high demands for his artwork. But as he approached his death, a spiritual rebirth began to occur. One of his final works, intended to be his gravestone, was a statue of himself, in the guise of Nicodemus—the one who was “born again” (John 4)—holding the dead body of Jesus. You can see the statue at the Duomo Museum in Florence, Italy, where a poem by Michelangelo is printed on the opposite wall. In the poem, Michelangelo describes coming to the end of his life and seeing that his artwork was actually harmful to his soul because it became “my idol and my King.”

At the end of the day, his only hope was not in being a great artist or receiving acclaim from others, but rather, the “divine Love, who to embrace us, opened his arms upon the cross.”

Click here for a poem and photo of The Deposition statue.