Gift of Grace || Acts 20:24 || Weekend Wind-Down #4

Welcome to the fourth week of “Weekend Wind-Down.” This series is where we take the verse of the day, look at the face value interpretation, check the background and context of the verse, do a deeper dive on the focus scripture, and figure out what we can walk away with. 

Today’s verse is Acts 20:24, which says this: 

24 But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus – the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God. 

Face Value

The author tells me life isn’t worth living unless I tell others about Jesus and do what God calls. It seems aggressive, but is it accurate? Let’s talk about that!

Background

The book of Acts, or Acts of the Apostles, is written by Luke. This Luke is the same one that wrote the Gospel of Luke. Luke wrote this book to give an accurate account of the birth and growth of the Christian church. The book of Acts opens up with Jesus’s ascension and the story of Pentecost, which sees regular humans like you and me receiving the Holy Spirit and continuing the works of Jesus. 

The book of Acts can be considered a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. As this book ends so abruptly, Luke might have considered writing a third book and continuing the story. 

Our verse today is in Acts 20, where three things happen:

• Paul travels to Macedonia and Greece.
• Paul has a final visit to Troas.
• Paul meets with the elders in Ephesus.

During his trip to Macedonia and Greece, Paul wrote his letters to the Romans. He also had a fantastic crew traveling with him at that time. He had a representative from each of the churches he started in Asia traveling alongside him and sharing their works with their home church. This crew can be called an accountability group. They kept each other accountable, built a community of caring friends, and they ensured the safety of each other.

Paul’s last visit to Troas was an interesting one. He was sharing his message one night to the crowds and preaching for so long that some kid fell asleep, fell out of a three-story building, and died. Yet, Paul, through the Holy Spirit, was able to resurrect the kid.

Then he had what felt like a successful meeting with the Ephesian Elders. Paul shared his journey with them, including the highs and low moments, and was willing to continue. He told them his general message that he adapts to the different communities he visits: to repent (turn away from sin) and turn to God by faith in Jesus Christ. Paul’s visit with the Ephesian Elders is an excellent example of how Christian fellowship works. He showed care, love, and empathy to the elders, who reflected that back to him. Paul shared how satisfied he was with what he had wherever Paul was; he just wanted to share God’s word with the world. Paul even had a side job as a tent maker. This job wasn’t to help him become rich but to support himself in the mission work he devoted his life to. 

The one part I skipped over is the section that includes our focus verse, where Paul talks about grace and grace to the fullest. Let’s dive into this verse.

Deep Dive

Paul considered his life worth nothing unless he used it to do what God called him to do. We can feel like our life is worth nothing when we don’t get something good out of it – recognition, fun, money, success, etc. Paul also had a very single-minded approach to his work. God wants us to focus solely on improving the Kingdom of God in whatever way that looks like for your community. 

Paul then shared his love of sharing the Good News of God’s grace with others. There are three key areas that I’ll dive deeper on: 

• God’s grace is his undeserved favor, freely given, that transforms us by no power of our own. 
• We receive God’s grace most visibly through the death and resurrection of Jesus. This gift leads to forgiving our sins and changing our lives and motivations. 
• God’s grace enables us to have a relationship with God, a heart of thankfulness, and a humbled spirit before God. 

United Methodist Belief

Before I break down Paul’s views of grace, I need to share how my denomination, the United Methodist Church, views grace. There are three types of grace in our life: 

Prevenient Grace: the grace that comes before. This grace calls us into a relationship with God before we can comprehend who God is. This grace prepares us for the awareness of how much God loves us. This understanding connects us to why United Methodists focus on infant baptisms.

Justifying Grace: the grace that happens when Christians abandon all those vain attempts to justify themselves before God. This grace lets God see us as “just” through religious and moral practices. When this grace is experienced and accepted, it’s a time of pardon and forgiveness, of new peace, joy, and love. 

Sanctifying Grace: the grace that enables us to grow into the image of Christ and leads to inward and outward holiness. 

I see some similarities in these types of grace, and as Paul shares it. God’s grace invites us into a relationship with God. God’s grace transforms us to abandon our old selves and receive God’s forgiveness. God’s grace represents how we can be Christ-like in all life matters. 

Take-Home Point: Grace enables us to do life effectively. 

Grace is God’s undeserved favor. It’s given to us by God at no cost. It also transforms us by no power of our own. God favors us more than anything. He loves us so much that God sent Jesus to save us from our sins. God chose to use us to do the work that needs to happen for the Kingdom of Heaven to come to earth. God’s grace comes with no requirements—any requirements we would’ve needed to be fulfilled by the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. The sacrifice tore the curtain in the Temple, allowing us to have a direct relationship with God. In the Old Testament, the curtain separated us from God. Only the high priest and a descendent of Aaron were allowed past the curtain, which was only on certain days. The curtain getting torn was removing an obstacle for us to have a direct relationship with God. God’s grace and the availability of having a relationship with God transform us profoundly. God calls us to be a better version of who we are. God calls us to do more than we think we can. God encourages us to do things outside of our comfort zone. We might think we can’t do what God wants, but his grace transforms us beyond what we think. 

The gift of grace came to us through the sacrifice, death, and resurrection of Jesus. I’m writing this the week after Holy Week, so this journey is fresh. The Holy Week story involves a lot of emotions. From the highs of Palm Sunday to the nervousness at the Last Supper to the anxiety in the Garden to the guilt that Judas felt after he betrayed Jesus to the myriad of emotions Peter had this week, and more goes on. We may not pick up on these emotions in the same context they did during the live events, but we can easily connect with those feelings. We can connect with the nervousness of a group discussion when something sketchy is going on. We can connect by celebrating someone who has done good things and plans to continue doing good things. We can connect with the anxiety Jesus felt about doing something we might not want to do. We can connect with the guilt of doing something you thought was right that ended up wrong. Grace is a gift that shows us that God cares for us in all situations. 

God’s grace allows us to have a relationship with God, a heart of thankfulness, and a humbled spirit before God. Having a relationship with God in this capacity allows us to connect with someone deeper than anything else. God knows our thoughts and feelings; connecting with the one who created us and everything about us allows us to understand ourselves deeper. A heart of thankfulness allows us to experience gratitude in all moments. Our emotions aren’t always positive and comfortable experiences and aren’t always something that we want to deal with. God created our emotions for a reason, and the gift of grace reminds us that we have a connection with a loving friend that understands our feelings and allows us to dig deeper into it without any harsh judgment. We might have conviction as we dig into them, but conviction isn’t judgment. Conviction is the problem area that we know we’re struggling with and that God is highlighting for us to heal. A humble spirit lets us realize that we can’t do everything ourselves. We receive this humble spirit as a way to recognize our weaknesses and can go to a trusted friend to talk about them with. Our humbleness allows our weaknesses to turn into our strengths through God.

Thank you for joining me for this Weekend Wind-Down as we explored the concept of grace through Paul’s teaching. Stay tuned for the next reflection. Let me close out with prayer. 

Gracious God,

Thank you for the beautiful gift of grace. Thank you for choosing us to receive this gift through the sacrifice of your son. 

Please help us to connect with you deeply. Help us to come to you with a thankful heart. Help us come to you with a humble spirit. Help us come to you as we are so that transformation can happen through you. 

Amen.