There are many words to define grace such as kindness, mercy, favor, charity etc. But perhaps one of the best ways to define grace is with an example. I choose as an example this morning, the Milltown Rescue Squad.

Think about it. When you are in need of emergency medical assistance you pick up the phone and call the rescue squad. Anyone in Milltown who has ever had the need to do this does so with a great amount of confidence that the members of the rescue squad will respond to their medical emergency with utmost care and concern.

Have you ever stopped to think and ask yourself why should they? I suppose there are some people who would answer because I made a contribution. Do you really think that entitles you to all the medical attention that they provide?

Can you imagine if every time a call for help was received, they opened up their ledger and looked to see if the person in need had made a contribution and then decided to respond accordingly?

Thank God that is not what they do. Instead when a call for help is received they respond with underserved, but absolute necessary help. This is what grace is.

Do you have the same confidence in God?

Unfortunately too often people approach the throne of God like they are approaching the king in the story, The King and I. The king like any king, dictator, or monarch who suppress their people and demanded that the people bow and grovel before him. If they did not bow low enough he would have them killed.

If this is how you approach God you have an absolute wrong image of God. God is almighty, all-powerful, all knowing, but this doesn’t make God a tyrant. God is a loving Father. God is a God of grace. The Bible is filled with evidence of God’s grace toward humanity. At the center of Jesus’ parables of grace stands a God who takes the initiative toward us. A lovesick father who runs to his prodigal son, a king who cancels a debt, an employee who pays 11th hour workers the same as 1st hour workers, a banquet given for undeserving guests.

Every healing story is a story of grace. Not one of the afflicted deserved or earned God’s attention. His gift of healing was a gift of grace.

Philip Yancy begins his book What Is So Amazing About Grace? with a true story that he also told in his book The Jesus I Never Knew. The story was about a prostitute who came to a friend of his who works with the down and out in Chicago. The woman was in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her 2-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears she told her sordid story. She had been renting out her 2-year-old daughter to men interested in kinky sex. She made more money renting out her daughter for an hour than she could make all night. She had to do it to support her own drug habit.

When the social worker asked if she had ever thought about going to a church for help the women, with a look of pure shock cried, “Church! Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

What has happened to cause the down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome among his followers? Has the church lost the gift of grace?

C. S. Lewis wrote to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. The very grace that you receive from God is the grace you and I are called to give to others.

Grace is God’s voluntary and loving favor given to those God saves. We can’t earn grace, nor do we deserve it. No religious, intellectual or moral person can gain grace because it comes as a gift from God’s mercy and love.

Grace demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it with gratitude. Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. Grace is what makes Christianity unique. Only Christianity makes God’s love unconditional. Every other world religion offers humanity a way to earn God’s approval.

Like the Milltown Rescue Squad whom we honor this morning for faithfully bring emergency medical care to our community, we are called to be God’s rescue squad of grace extending God’s grace to each other and to our community.