Justifying Grace | 5/11/25

• Reflection Questions

  • When have you felt your heart “strangely warmed”?
    Think of a moment when God’s presence felt real to you. What were the circumstances? How did that change you?

  • How has your understanding of faith grown or shifted over time?
    Reflect on how your faith looked in childhood versus now. What helped you on your journey?

  • What bridges has God built in your life?
    Who or what has helped you move from one stage of faith or life to another? How might you help build those bridges for others?

  • Can you think of a time when you felt inadequate?
    Like John Wesley or Simon Peter, have there been times when you felt unworthy or unsure in your faith? What did God teach you in those moments?

  • What is one way that you’ve seen God’s grace at work this past week?
    Look back over your daily life, through interactions, challenges, or quiet moments. Where was God’s grace present?

Transcript:

Good morning, everybody.

Happy Mother's Day! I am so pleased to be here to share this message today and to share with y'all these amazing young women who stood in front of you earlier. We got to confirm and baptize two of them. It has been such a pleasure this year to be with them in confirmation class, where they have dug deep, and the friendship that they share is just beautiful.

So, let's start this thing off with some Scripture.
Our Scripture today is from Ephesians 2:8–10:

"You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith. This salvation is God’s gift. It’s not something you possessed. It’s not something you did that you can be proud of. Instead, we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives."

Let’s pray together.
Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Scriptures are read and your word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you have for us today. Amen.

This Thursday, as I ventured into Panera—my favorite spot to hole up for several hours and write a sermon—I was walking through the door and got a notification on my phone. Y’all probably got a similar one. It said: “White smoke out of the Sistine Chapel.” History! We got to see history on Thursday.

As I looked—very cool, I’m sure—I was watching the coverage as I was ordering my food. I sat down and made my little study area, and we got the news that not only do we have a new pope, we have an American pope! It's interesting and very cool for the Roman Catholic Church.

This pope, now known as Pope Leo XIV, is from Chicago. He spent most of his ministry as a missionary in Peru and is known as a peacemaker, someone who is very balanced. As he came out onto the balcony to address the world as the newly elected pope, he spoke of bridge-building, which struck me. He said, “We must be a missionary church—a church that builds bridges and dialogue, not walls.”

As I sat in Panera crafting this sermon, I kept being brought back to these words of his—these words of bridge-building and mission. It struck me that this is so much of what my job is. It’s what all of our jobs are as the church: to help build bridges with each other, but also to build bridges for our children, from childhood to adulthood.

For me personally, as the youth director, I get to plan and go on a lot of very cool trips, which is great. I get to play a lot of games. I get to play some kickball, y’all! But it’s so much more than that for me. I have the opportunity to help teenagers navigate the place they find themselves in—between childhood and adulthood. I help them bridge their faith, from the faith of a child to the faith that they will walk into adulthood with.

Today, we got to be witnesses of some of our young people taking this big step in faith. We got to see them bridging the faith of their childhood into the faith that they will walk through life with.

Today is Confirmation Sunday, y’all—yay!
It’s so good to say—thank you.

This group of young people—we’ve spent the whole school year together, from September until now. That’s a lot of weeks! We’ve spent many weeks together in confirmation class, and they claimed their faith for themselves today. They were confirmed and joined the church.

So, it’s only fitting that today we continue discussing God’s grace and how we can best understand it as Methodists.

Last week during Children’s Sunday, we heard about prevenient grace—God’s grace that goes before us, that blazes the trail and brings us to the decision of faith. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, described prevenient grace as the porch on a house, where we prepare to enter the house of grace.

Grace may also be compared to a journey. Prevenient grace would be the desire to embark on the trip, the vehicle in which the journey is to be made, and the map to be followed. The beauty of the landscape, the mind and eyes that conceived the journey and perceive its beauty—even the explorer who blazed the trail before us—all of these are gifts of God’s grace.

But there’s more to a house than a porch, right? And there’s more to a journey than just the desire to travel. We must enter the house and begin the journey.

Justifying grace is that second movement—the entering of the house, the beginning of the journey.
John Wesley considered justifying grace as the doorway into the house of God’s salvation, where God reconciles us to Him. He shows us who we are as children of God and incorporates us into the body of Christ, the church.

Wesley described his own experience of God’s justifying grace when he shared what happened to him on Aldersgate Street, on May 24, 1738.

Leading up to that moment, he had lived a good life. He had devoted himself to the church. He studied at Oxford and, with his brother Charles, who, by the way, wrote one of the hymns we just sang, he started the Holy Club. They were very serious about their faith and devoted themselves to studying the Scriptures and praying together. They were known to spend three to five days a week, three-plus hours at a time, doing this holy work.

He was ordained in the Anglican Church in 1728 and served in parish ministry. He then came to the colonies to be a missionary in Georgia. Isn’t that cool? He spent nearly three years in Savannah and St. Simon’s Island—my old stomping grounds—with the mission of sharing the gospel with Native Americans.

But his mission in Georgia wasn’t what he expected. Though he started some societies where people studied Scripture, overall, the mission wasn’t very successful. He left Georgia and went back to England feeling like he hadn’t accomplished much.

That’s where we find him on Aldersgate Street, some six months after returning from Georgia. He wrote that he wasn’t feeling up to going to the meeting that day—that he actually went unwillingly. But he went.

His experience there perhaps best portrays the meaning of justifying grace. He said:

“About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation. And an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins—even mine—and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

In a moment of feeling like he didn’t measure up, when he felt like he didn’t have what it took to preach or to lead others, he experienced God in a way that showed him that it doesn’t matter what he does—because he can’t ever do enough to win God’s grace. God had already given it to him.

It was in that realization that the knowledge in his head and the experience in his heart ignited. And from there, God used him to share the gospel of God’s love and grace all over.

It’s been recorded that from that moment on Aldersgate Street until his death—50 years later—he rode about 250,000 miles on horseback, preached over 40,000 sermons, formed societies, opened chapels, examined and commissioned preachers, administered charities, prescribed for the sick, and supervised orphanages and schools.

He opened the door. He entered into the house of God’s grace. And boy, did he journey with God and his faith in Jesus.

A lot of times, when we talk about justifying grace, we hear these big stories of lives going from darkness to light, like a light switch turning on. But for so many of us, myself included, our experiences with God’s grace are more like a dimmer switch—a significant moment when things seem brighter and clearer.

For me, that moment was the summer after I graduated from high school, on my first mission trip. We were in Highgate, St. Mary, Jamaica, for a construction mission.

The second day of the trip, we went to church, which was an adventure! We rode a bus on a winding road, and then we got to a river. Our leader said, “Okay, we’re going to ride on these big bamboo rafts.” So, we got on these very long bamboo rafts, and someone used a pole to guide us down the river.

When we got to the church, it was full of people. It was very modest, and the hottest I have ever been in my life. And I’m from the South, y’all! We sang, we prayed, and we heard Scripture.

It was in that place, in that moment, that I felt God’s presence in a huge way. I was reminded of God’s grace in a way that knocked me back. I was struck by the bigness of God—how we were there in Jamaica worshiping, and my home church was also worshiping, and people all around the earth were worshiping God.

I was struck by a sense of peace and the realization that I am not alone—that God is with me, God loves me no matter what, and God is in control.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know God’s love. I am so lucky that my life experience included growing up in a church that loved me into this experience in Jamaica.

That heightened experience I had in that ridiculously hot church wasn’t a light switch for me, but it was a moment where the light felt brighter, and my faith and the journey in front of me became clearer.

Another experience I’m always brought back to when I think of justifying grace is from John 21, when Simon Peter and the disciples met Jesus on the beach after His resurrection.

They had seen Jesus arrested and crucified. And Peter—he had denied knowing Jesus three times.

After fishing all night and catching nothing, they heard a voice from the beach telling them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. They did—and caught so many fish they couldn’t haul the net in. Then they realized the voice was Jesus.

Peter jumped out of the boat and swam to shore.

After breakfast on the beach, Jesus asked Peter three times:

“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Peter replied each time, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.”
And Jesus said: “Feed my lambs… Take care of my sheep… Feed my sheep.”

What we see here is a life-changing experience of justifying grace. Peter, who had failed Jesus, was now met with love, forgiveness, and a mission.

Our experiences in life are different, and so are our experiences of God’s grace.

Some people have a light-switch moment. Others, a dimmer-switch moment.

And that’s what’s amazing about God’s grace—our stories don’t have to look the same. Not like John Wesley’s. Not like mine. Not like Peter’s. God moves in our lives in ways that are unique to us.

And that grace? It’s life-changing, for us and for those around us.

So today, our confirmands had the opportunity to stand together and proclaim their faith in Jesus and join the church. They acknowledged God’s grace in their lives. They opened the door. They turned on the car. They began their journey of faith.

I want to leave us again with that passage from Ephesians. Let it roll around in your head this week:

“You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith. This salvation is God’s gift. It’s not something you possessed. It’s not something you did that you can be proud of. Instead, we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for those good things to be the way that we live our lives.”

May none of us forget this—that we are saved by God’s grace, through our faith.
May we not forget to look around for God’s grace in our lives.
May we be changed by it.
And may we share that grace with others, every single day.

Thanks be to God. Amen.