GOD’S AMAZING GRACE
DR. JIM DIXON
LUKE 7:36 – 8:3
JULY 12, 1992
In the year 1792, Princeton University granted three honorary degrees. The first one was awarded to Alexander Hamilton. The second one was awarded to Thomas Jefferson, and the third one was awarded to a man named John Newton. The amazing thing is that John Newton was not even an American citizen, but he was a British man, a man who had once been the captain of a British slave ship dealing with the buying and selling of human flesh. But John Newton had met Jesus Christ. There’d been a radical transformation in his life as he had received Christ as Lord and Savior. John Newton then taught himself Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and he entered the gospel ministry and he became the pastor of the Evangelical Church at Olney in England. With William Wilberforce, it was John Newton who did more than any others to bring about the abolition of slavery in Great Britain.
Now, John Newton and his love for Jesus Christ, of course, wrote more than 300 hymns, the most famous of which is the hymn called Amazing Grace. This morning, I would like us to focus on the subject of God’s grace, God’s amazing grace. I think we can see God’s grace through two qualities of God.
The first quality, the first attribute of God is the attribute of love. God’s love is incomprehensible. The Bible says “and this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave his Son to be the expiation for our sins.” The human mind cannot fathom the depth of the love of God.
David Roever was an American soldier. He fought with an ultra-elite special forces team during the Vietnam War, which the Navy used for search and destroy missions. In one such mission, a midnight raid against an enemy stronghold, David Roever and the other American soldiers found themselves under attack by machine gun fire. David Roever got hold of his phosphorous grenade, and he was going to throw it. He stood up to throw it, and just as he was about to throw that grenade, a bullet hit it, and that phosphorous grenade exploded only a few inches from his head. As it exploded, it literally removed part of his face and his shoulder. He fell into the mud in the riverbank there in the water, and he literally saw part of his face float away on the water.
As the phosphorus that had embedded itself in his flesh came into contact with the air, it began to ignite. His face began to burn, and he knew he was going to die. But incredibly, he didn’t die. His fellow soldiers pulled him out of the mud and out of the river, and they carried him, and they took him to Saigon and then ultimately he was flown to Honolulu, to the hospital there where he was in intensive care. He received emergency surgery, and as the surgeons were working on him, as they peeled the skin, the layers of skin away, and the phosphorous was exposed anew to the air, it would ignite again. In fact, the surgeons many times had to run out of the room because they were afraid that literally his face would explode.
Ultimately, he went through 12 different surgeries. He found himself in the hospital room there with his head the size of a basketball, grotesque. David Roever had once been a handsome man, and he thought to himself, “You know, when my wife arrives, she could not possibly love me anymore.” He despaired and he dreaded her having to look at him. He felt kind of alone, but he was not alone. In his room, there was another American soldier. The other American soldier had also been in the Vietnam War and had his one arm blown off, one leg blown off, and his face disfigured. David Roever remembered that on his first day in the hospital room with his other American soldier, that other American soldier’s wife arrived. She looked at him and she could not bear it.She had to turn away. She wound up saying to him in so many words that she could not live with this, and that she would be leaving him.
David Roever said he could hear the other soldier try to speak through his wounded mouth and tongue. When his wife had left the room, this other soldier, David Roever said, you could hear him just crying and shaking in the bed for two hours. He had lost hope and he felt like he had no value. Two days later, he died. It was three days after that that David Roever’s wife showed up. She came and she was flown in by the military, and she came in to see her husband. It’s kind of a scary moment. He knew he just looked grotesque. He did not know what his wife would think or feel. When she looked at him, he knew he was okay when she smiled. She smiled and she said, “David, I love you.” She said, “I’ll always love you.” She said, “I want you to know that together, it’s going to be okay. Together, we’re going to make it.”
Well today, David Roever and his wife are committed Christians. Their story is told in a book called Welcome Home, Davey, published by World Books in 1986. It’s just possible that some of you feel injured, not so much physically, but emotionally or spiritually. Maybe you feel wounded inside. You might even feel like you are internally disfigured. Perhaps you’re thinking, “Well, nobody loves me like that.” But you see the heart of the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is this: someone does love you like that, and that someone is Jesus Christ. If you come to Him and you receive Him as Lord and Savior, you hear Him say, “I love you. I’ll always love you. Together, it’s going to be all right. Together, we’re going to make it.”
You see, the Bible says, “God loved the world so much, He gave His Son.” The Bible says, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.” The Bible tells us “that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” He says, “To all who believe, you are My friends.” That is the incomprehensible love of Jesus Christ, a manifestation of His amazing grace.
I think there’s a second manifestation of God’s grace, and that’s in His ability to forgive. I believe God is more willing to forgive us than we are to forgive ourselves. I believe God is more willing, certainly to forgive us than we are to forgive each other.
In the year 1944 in Ravensbrück (a Nazi Germany concentration camp—Ravensbrück was one of 22 Nazi war concentration camps) two new prisoners were brought into the barracks number 28. They were prisoners number 66729 and 66730. Their names were Corrie and Betsie ten Boom. I think most of you know the story of the ten Boom family, Christians who sought to shelter Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II. Most of the ten Boom family died through Nazi persecution. But Corrie ten Boom lived. God raised her up and anointed her by the Holy Spirit, and she had one of the most powerful ministries. She has had one of the most powerful ministries in the 20th-century world, testifying for Jesus Christ on four continents. Her story is told, of course, in the book and in the movie called Hiding Place. She’s also written a number of other books. Perhaps some of you know how on one occasion after the conclusion of the war, and as she was speaking in churches throughout Europe, she was in a church and she had told her story and given her testimony.
After she had spoken, people came up front to talk to her and greet her. It was a long line of people waiting to see her after the service. She looked at the line, and as she looked down the line suddenly her heart stopped and her blood ran cold. She saw a Nazi officer who had so persecuted her and her sister at Ravensbrück. She just welled up with rage and hatred. She said, “God, what am I to do? I mean, this man is coming forward to meet me. What do I do?” As time passed, he came closer and closer. Finally, there was that moment where there he was standing before her. They were face-to-face. He had tears in his eyes. He said, “Could you ever forgive me? Can you ever forgive me?” She thought to herself, “Lord, no, I can’t forgive him.” It was like Jesus spoke to her and said, “Just say the words and I’ll do the rest.”
So in obedience, she said, “Yes, I do forgive you.” Suddenly she felt her heart just welling up with compassion for this man. It wasn’t her compassion. It was the compassion of Jesus Christ. It was not her power to forgive. It was the power of Jesus Christ, a manifestation of His amazing grace. As she embraced that man, it’s hard to imagine the healing that took place in the heart of Corrie ten Boom in that moment, maybe even more difficult to imagine the healing that must have taken place in that Nazi officer’s heart.
If you’ve read the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Luke, you’ve noticed how a woman came up to Jesus Christ when Jesus was at the home of Simon the Pharisee, and a woman who was a prostitute, and she was a woman of the streets, an outcast in society. She came up to Christ and she was crying. She fell down before Him, and her tears just fell on Christ’s feet. She took her hair and wiped His feet with her hair and with her tears, she kissed His feet and anointed Him. We are told that Jesus was moved with compassion. He loved her. Jesus said to her, “Your sin is forgiven you.” I mean, isn’t that amazing grace? Jesus said, “Your sin is forgiven you.” Jesus said, “Your faith has made you well.” Jesus said, “Go in peace.” That word for peace does not simply mean the absence of strife, but it’s a word that refers to wholeness. Only when we come and find the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, can we be whole.
It was Marx who said “The greatest needs of society, the greatest needs of humanity, are economic.” Certainly, Sigmund Freud believed that the greatest needs of humanity were hedonistic. Adler believed the greatest needs of humanity were ascensionistic and the need for power.
The Bible and our Lord Jesus Christ tells us the greatest need that we have is spiritual. Our greatest need is forgiveness. It’s a message we take to the world. It’s only when we come in repentance, seeking the forgiveness of God through His Son Jesus Christ, that we can find healing, healing and wholeness. So you know how it is if you’ve ever used a pocket calculator, and I’m sure most of you have, if you’ve ever used one of those and you’ve ever made a mistake, which I’m sure most of us have. All you got to do is push that clear button and it’s just completely wiped out. See, God wants us to understand as we come to communion and we partake of the bread and cup, God wants us to understand when we come to Jesus Christ believing and when we come to Him in repentance, because of His amazing grace, He’s able to just push the clear button. He wipes our sin away as far as the East is from the West. He washes us whiter than snow. He heals us. He makes us whole.
So we invite all of you this morning who believe in Jesus Christ, all of you who have embraced Him as Lord of life, all of you who have accepted Him as Savior from sin, to join us in partaking of the bread and the cup. We rejoice together in God’s amazing grace, His love and His forgiveness. Let’s pray.