Sermon for February 23

Sufficient Grace

2 Corinthians 5:9

 

2 Corinthians 5

7So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

 

“My grace is sufficient for you.” That’s what the Lord said to Paul, and what He says to you.

Paul had this thorn in the flesh. He doesn’t say exactly what type of ailment it is, but you can easily imagine it, can’t you. It’s a very visual turn of phrase. Most of us know what it’s like to get a thorn in the flesh. The smallest thing, a speck, can be so debilitating. Paul prays for relief. He prays that it be taken away, repeatedly he prays, three times. But the Lord is working on Paul, to keep him from being too elated, too proud, too self-sufficient. So He answered Paul’s prayer with a “no”, saying instead, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

There are other things that could be said about God’s grace.

·         We say it’s amazing, “Amazing Grace. . . that saved a wretch like me.” When we grow in it, the more we learn of it the more we appreciate it, the more we are amazed by God’s grace, His amazing love of sending His only Son to die for us to save us.

·         We could say it’s extravagant. More than I deserve.

·         We could say it’s surprising grace. Surprising that God would be kind to us, human beings and not just condemn us all out, as justice should demand.

·         It’s refreshing grace, life-changing grace, giving us new birth and renewed hope.

There is so much to say about grace that it might seem underwhelming to just hear “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Well, sufficient is a very useful word. “That’s sufficient” – is what you tell someone who wants something more or something else and that something would be too much for them or wrong for them. It’s what you should tell a rebellious child who despises the healthy food that’s set before him. “I don’t want this, I want . . . “ No, this is sufficient.”

Sufficient, it means, just right, just enough.

Consider how God made you. Your body is sufficient. Sufficient enough for you to still be alive today: Not too strong – to crush everything you touch; Not too weak as to be unable to lift the fork to your mouth.  Just sufficient.  When you think, oh, I wish I were different, better, stronger, prettier, something else, Stop and remember: you are sufficient.

Consider the world the Lord has made for us. It is sufficient for our lives. There are other planets around. Some are too hot. Some are too cold too cold – our earth is sufficient.

Mars has no atmosphere. There’s no air to breathe there, no cool breeze to cool you on a hot day. Jupiter on the other hand is too windy. You couldn’t even stand up. Well, there’s nothing to stand on anyway, it’s just a ball of blowing hydrogen and helium.

Earth is sufficient, tilted on the axis just so, sufficient for seasons.  with a ratio of land and sea, that’s just right allowing for weather: evaporation, condensation. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater”  (Isaiah 55)

I suppose, We could complain about the weather, but we also ought to remember that it’s sufficient, just right.

Sufficient: that’s a word that should be spoken to a husband tempted to lust someone who has not been given to him. “Love your wife. She is sufficient. Now he’s gotta work on saying other things about her – She’s beautiful inside and out; she’s helpful; she’s probably the best thing he’s got going for him. But at that moment of temptation, he needs to say to himself that the wife of his youth whom the Lord provided for him, is sufficient.

Likewise a wife, who gets to feeling “I wish my husband were more communicative, more aware, more successful, smarter.” That stuff is probably all true. But can you also say, he is sufficient.

The Lord says to you,“My Grace is sufficient for you.”  Not too little  -- not too much.

Too little grace and God comes off as constantly angered by our failings and flaws.

Too much and we have this picture of God as the white bearded permissive Grandpa, who just overlooks all that’s wrong with us.

“My grace is sufficient” – just enough, just right.

Paul prayed for a life that’s easy, free from pain, free from trouble, free from thorns. He wanted something other than grace, something more than grace.

That’s the thinking one has who says, “Yes, I have God’s grace, someday He will take me to heaven. But in the meantime, there’s bigger fish to fry. There are some other favors I need from heaven.” – and these other favors are ultimately less than grace.

“My grace is sufficient for you.” You hear that sentence differently at different stages of you life. A person on their death bed hears their Lord say this and they find peace and rest.  But a young person full of dreams and ambition and self-sufficiency hears this and pays only minimal attention. Be careful. Don’t be too self-sufficient.

Jesus tells a parable today in the Gospel reading, of a sower who goes out to cast his seed (Luke 8:4-15). In this parable, He explains His evaluation of your abilities and potential. There are a number of items in the extended symbolism of this parable. First there’s the sower. As you can usually expect in the Lord’s parables, the subject of the story stands for the Lord Himself. Then he explicitly says, “The seed is the Word of God” (vs. 11). Then all that’s left to decipher the symbolism. What part do you play? The seed is cast into various types and conditions of soil. That’s you. You are the dirt. The Lord Jesus just called you dirt. Not the most flattering comment you’ve ever gotten, is it? What potential does dirt have? If left to itself dirt produces weeds, thistles and thorns. But if tended, if planted with good seed, then it has great potential. Unlike what the environmentalists may believe, dirt is not sufficient in itself. It must find its sufficiency from somewhere else. So you, on your own are not sufficient. You need grace from outside of yourself and that grace comes from the holy life and innocent death of our Savior Jesus Christ.

He plants His invigorating word into you where it sprouts faith and grows to produce fruit a hundredfold, now and forever. Amen.