Taking Our Stand on Grace
by Linda Rex
June 18, 2023, Proper 6 | After Pentecost—Earlier this week, I was talking with a friend about our mutual struggles and difficulties in life. Lately we both have had some real challenges which have reminded us of our need for our Lord’s compassionate love and grace in our everyday lives. During this season of ordinary days on the Christian calendar, all of us have an opportunity to take our stand on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, fully embracing the gift of intimate relationship with our Father through Jesus in the Spirit. This enables us to weather in healthy ways the buffeting winds of suffering, conflict, and offense we experience day by day.
In the gospel passage for today, Matthew 9:35–10:8, Jesus gathered together twelve followers, gave them authority to heal diseases and cast out demons. And he sent them out to share the good news with the lost sheep of his people, to care for the sick and afflicted, while living an ordinary, everyday existence in their midst. The message he gave them to share was that “the kingdom of God is here.” What did Jesus mean when he said “the kingdom of God is here”?
In my youth I recall hearing many a sermon talking about the kingdom of God, but always in a future sense. I remember being told that a kingdom requires a king, and this would be Jesus Christ. I also heard that a kingdom requires an area for the king to rule, and this would be the earth, when Jesus returns in glory, and establishes his kingdom once and for all. I vaguely remember some hints about him reigning in our hearts, but that was well hidden under the emphasis on the coming kingdom of God when Jesus returns in glory.
In reality, we find the kingdom of God wherever God is, for our God as Father, Son, and Spirit reigns over all he has made. And his reign is a spiritual reality, even though we as human beings so often live in opposition to or in ignorance of it. When the incarnate Christ stood there in the presence of those people and said, “the kingdom of God is here,” he was speaking the truth. For those who stood in the presence of Jesus Christ were standing in the presence of God in human flesh, the One by whose word all things were created and were being sustained even in that moment. To say “the kingdom of God is here” is to say that in Jesus Christ, God is present and real, and has brought us into loving, gracious relationship with himself in spite of our rejection and crucifixion of him. The Son of God, the king Jesus, allowed nothing to come between us and God, but brought us home to the Father, and sent the Spirit for our salvation.
Even now, as the Spirit is present and at work in this world and in our lives, we are in the midst of the kingdom of God. We live in opposition to it, or we embrace it. We deny it or we acknowledge it. There are only two possible responses to the spiritual reality of the kingdom of God present in Jesus Christ by the Spirit—and it is important that we come to terms with our own personal response to this reality. And it is equally important that we share this good news with others.
That the kingdom of God is present and real is the message Jesus gave his followers to share with everyone they met. He told his followers to pray that God’s kingdom would come and God’s will would be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Today, as the Spirit lives in and through believers, we begin to see glimpses of the kingdom of heaven at work in this world, becoming a reality in our ordinary lives. We can ignore this, resist this, or participate in this reality. God gives us the freedom to experience the results of our choice.
When we look at all the difficulties and struggles in our everyday lives, it may be hard to believe that God’s kingdom is present and at work in this world. This is understandable. But, look at it this way. One day we will experience supreme joy because the kingdom of God has arrived in its fullness; all suffering and struggles will be over, and all tears wiped away. In the meantime, we experience a divine joy and peace in the midst of our suffering and struggles. Our ordinary existence becomes extraordinary when we recognize and live within the reality that this is not all there is—there is so much more going on that what is merely seen and touched.
What we need to realize is that we are held in the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ by the Spirit even now. We are never alone. We are not powerless any longer, but have been given the presence and power of God to overcome anything that threatens to destroy who we are as God’s beloved children. We are given the capacity to care for others, to fight evil and disease, and to minister to the lonely, forgotten, and excluded. The reason we take our stand in grace is because the kingdom of God is here, present in the person of Jesus Christ by his Spirit. We have nothing to fear, for in Christ, our relationship with our Father is secure, our place in his kingdom is assured, and our future will be full of everlasting joy. Hallelujah!
Heavenly Father, today we pause in humility, asking for the grace to see, acknowledge, and participate fully in your kingdom even now as your beloved children, to recognize and submit to Jesus as king of all, and to allow your Spirit full reign in our hearts and lives. Enable us to take our stand on the grace we have in your Son, as your Spirit floods our hearts with love, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
1-2“Since then it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace, and here we take our stand, in happy certainty of the glorious things he has for us in the future. 3-5This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys—we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us. Already we have some experience of the love of God flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us. 6-8And we can see that it was while we were powerless to help ourselves that Christ died for sinful men. In human experience it is a rare thing for one man to give his life for another, even if the latter be a good man, though there have been a few who have had the courage to do it. Yet the proof of God’s amazing love is this: that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us.” Romans 5:1–8 PHILLIPS
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This entry was posted in Blog Site and tagged authority, Christ, conflict, everyday, Father, grace, heaven, Jesus, joy, king, kingdom, kingdom of God, love, ordinary, peace, relationship, Spirit, stand, struggles, suffering, world.
6 thoughts on “Taking Our Stand on Grace”
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Our Life in the Trinity 
June 6, 2023 at 9:49 pm
I’m looking for a prayer and fellowship please pray for my soul to have revelation of Christ in me
June 6, 2023 at 9:55 pm
Hello, Francis,
I will be praying for you. May you experience the real presence of Jesus in you by the Spirit.
Linda
June 7, 2023 at 8:22 am
I don’t know how to change my life I don’t mean to be making you my counselor but I’m repeating the same behaviors and I feel stuck and I’m exactly what I don’t want to be as I have a Bible and scripture and theology all around me I feel trapped in a useless life
June 12, 2023 at 9:14 am
Hello again, Francis,
There was a time when I felt very much the same way. The key to transformation that I found is getting real with Jesus, realizing that Psalm 139 is a fact–nothing we think, say or do is apart from Jesus by the Spirit. Our life is meant to be an ongoing conversation and relationship with Father, Jesus, and Spirit. God is present in every moment by the Spirit–in both the bad and good of our thoughts and actions. This means he is present even in the midst of our bad behaviors–he is quite aware of everything that provokes our acting out, our every desire and passion, our every thought. It breaks his heart to see us in this place and in Christ, he is fully committed to bringing us into the fullness of the wonder and beauty of the person he created us to be. Do we know to the core of our being that God loves us unconditionally, completely, and with full acceptance–and will we receive that love into the depths of our being? Some days all that is possible is simply a cry of our heart by the Spirit, “Jesus! Jesus!” And that is enough.
One of the flaws of religion as we often experience it is that we have to “do” something in order to be of value to God, in order to have worth as a person. Our society doesn’t help either, for if we aren’t able to meet the standards of those around us or are different in any way from others, we are considered worthless or dispensable. In God’s eyes, our value and worth are simply in Christ, in simply being who God created us to be. We are invited to journey through life with Jesus, in ongoing conversation with him, guided by the Spirit day by day. In that conversation, he will give us his direction–are we willing to do what he says, when and how he says to do it? The Spirit gives us both the will and the power to do–so it’s not all up to us–but we do have freedom of choice. God knows our frame, and has made us the way we are. So he has no expectations, only a desire to be in relationship with us and to walk this journey in and with us. Will we turn to him in surrender and trust him to carry us when we can’t go on?
Prayers for God’s continued grace at work in your life,
Linda
June 12, 2023 at 9:16 am
It just sounds like more self effort to me getting real with Jesus did he get real for me I mean I feel like I’ve been cast down into the dirt surrender getting real just sounds like more religious effort to me something I thought you wouldn’t be a part of but nevertheless what haven’t I read and what haven’t I tried
June 12, 2023 at 12:32 pm
My apologies, Francis,
I did not realize that I had given the impression that there is more for us to do. It was my intention to say the exact opposite, that our life is meant to be a celebratory journey with Father, Son, and Spirit as their adopted, beloved child, NOT more religious effort we must accomplish in order to earn his love and attention. In reality, to be in the place of having tried it all, read it all, made every effort and having no change–this is the place we need to be, for this is where Jesus meets us and does what only he can do. Whatever we may do as spiritual disciplines or activities, they are only a participation in Christ’s own life in relationship with our Father in the Spirit. It’s never all up to us–it’s all up to him now. True, our view of who God is impacts our ability to receive and experience this love and grace that he has for us; so our experience of God’s presence at work in our lives ebbs and flows, depending upon our circumstances. This is why I used the word “surrender”, mostly in the sense of learning to just “be”–to rest in God’s love and grace rather than continuing to run the hamster wheel of religious effort. Perhaps C. Baxter Kruger’s series “Free to Live” may resonate with you–in part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SBtJWrffww) Kruger talks about this very thing, including comments on Wm. Paul Young’s “The Shack.”
God bless,
Linda