Focus: Marvel of Grace

Text: Jh.4:38

"I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other menlaboured, and ye are entered into their labours."

In the Scripture, God is called "the God of all grace," and "the God of glory." There are certainly other descriptions of God like "the Father of mercies" and "the God of all comfort," etc, but the first two stands out for me in the context of this message.

Be it grace or glory, it is simply God being God, and God is infinitely bigger than what our finite minds can fathom.

Grace is God being good to us without conditions attached or qualifications required. When God shows you favor, He is being Himself - God. When He turns your mistakes into miracles, He is being God. When God makes a person sow seeds for another person to reap, that is God being God.

Naomi and Ruth returned to Bethlehem at the time of harvest - a time when they didn't have to sow or farm, but they had the privilege of harvesting crops from a field where they didn't labor to sow. Ruth reaped from a field where she bestowed no labor, because of favor. Boaz instructed his servants to drop some crops on purpose for her to gather beyond the normal gleaning that the law of Moses allowed for the poor. That was grace.

Grace doesn't mean the absence of labor, but it means that someone else has already labored for another person. Someone else has already paid the bills for another person. That is favor.

Calvary is the price that Christ had had to pay for all the blessings and privileges that the believer in Christ enjoys.

The prayers we make for others put them in positions where they enjoy the favors and bounties of God freely. Our intercessions for others attract the interventions of God in their behalf and in their favor.

In Genesis, we find God doing all the work that produced the whole of creation, but Adam, who did no work joined God in His seventh day rest. That is grace.

God promised to give His people "great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full" (Dt.6:11). While in the land of promise, God said to them, "And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat" (Josh.24:13). This is the marvel of grace.

In Christ grace has happened to you. You have the privilege of reaping the benefits of Christ's death on the cross. It is not everything you must labor for. Christ has paid for your salvation, and all the blessings that accrue from it are yours. God's grace is a wonder. One man labors, and another harvests - that's the marvel of grace. God's grace comes to us in different shades and sizes. God's grace always makes us marvel.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter