Dear friends, St. Paul has written in 1 Corinthians 13:13: "These three remain, faith hope and love; but the greatest of these is love."  Two weeks ago I spoke to you on the greatness of Faith, and last week on the greatness of Hope.  Now today we come to the big one, Love.  And I use as my text Paul's words from Ephesians 2: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast."

          Any single definition of love is inadequate because we use the word "love" in so many ways.  We love our sweetheart and we love ice cream.  We love our spouse, we love our new car.  We love our children, we love football.  Same word, many meanings!

          Sermons on love usually deal the three main different kinds:  1) "eros" (selfish love),  2) "philia" (friendship love), and  3) "agape" (sacrificial love).  But you've heard of those before.  A sermon could be filled with cute definitions, like those children give:

• "Love is an old woman and an old man who are still friends even after they know all about each other."
• "Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Brad Pitt."
• "Love is climbing on Grandpa's lap after grandma died and helping him cry."

          I'd like to talk about a special kind of love - Grace, which is God's love for us that we don't deserve.  I've often told you that God loves us, no matter what.  This is true now and forever.  God's love for us does not change and is not dependent on how we look, or act, or what our background is, and nothing illustrates this better than "Grace."  I don't mean elegance or propriety or charm.  By grace, I mean God's love for us that we don't deserve.  Grace is what moves God to forgive our sins.

          I once read in a church bulletin a sentence that troubled me:  "Grace is meant for all, or it is not grace at all."  That bulletin was from a church that I later learned advocates acceptance of a number of social issues that seem to be against the clear Word of God.  This church body advocates abortion on demand and some forms of euthanasia, so long as these are done out of compassion.  They accept, and even ordain, those who engage in homosexual acts, so long as there is love and commitment between the two people.  So when I read the sentence, "Grace is meant for all, or it is not grace at all," it seemed they were preaching a sermon to those who disagreed.

          Now, grace is God's love for us, given purely out of His fatherly divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in us.  In that sense, grace certainly is for everyone.  As a general principle, God's grace knows no bounds.  It is freely offered to all who have sinned against Him, who deserve death for their sins, even if they are still God's enemies.  It is God who bestows grace, freely, as He chooses.  Grace does not have its origin in us, and so we can never demand it from God.

          During World War II, a giant arose among Christians.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer came from a family of learned but nominally Christian people.  He earned his Doctor of Theology degree in 1927 and was ordained a pastor, while also opposing the Nazis.  He was also critical of the Church during that time, protestant and catholic, because they looked the other way at the abuses of power and the oppression of all who disagreed with Nazi philosophy.  Church leaders ignored human suffering, trying to please the politicians, so Bonhoeffer delivered a series of lectures which later became published in his book, The Cost of Discipleship.  Much of this book discusses the differences between the true grace of God and something he called, "cheap grace."

          Cheap grace, according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is the failure to take sin seriously.  It accepts forgiveness but without any response.  Cheap grace overlooks what it cost God to redeem sinful human beings.  Cheap grace takes the gift and cares nothing about doing any better.  In the first chapter of his Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer summarizes what he means by the concept by stating the following:

          "Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.  Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before ... Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, [it is] baptism without church discipline, [it is] communion without confession, [it is] absolution without personal confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ...

          "Costly grace [on the other hand] is the hidden treasure in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has.  It is the pearl of great price to buy for which the merchant will sell all his goods. ... Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a person much knock.  Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.  It is costly because it costs a man [Jesus] his life, and it is grace because it gives a person the only true life.  It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.  Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of His Son …Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for us.  Costly grace is the Incarnation of God."

          It is easy to be a Christian.  We simply need to receive Jesus as our Savior.  There is nothing we need to be saved except to trust what Jesus has done.  We can't take credit for being saved, although we can reject the gift of grace God gives us.

          But because it is free does not mean we make it cheap.  A free gift should mean a grateful person.  A free gift so great as this should mean we love and honor God and follow His ways.  It should not mean we take it and act as if nothing happened.

          My thought for us all today is this:  Is God's grace to us cheap, or is it costly?  If it is cheap grace, and we change nothing, or do nothing -- just accept it and go home -- do we realize we are risking eternal life?  Something cheaply received will be cheaply given up.  But a precious gift, a costly gift -- is one that we will treasure, along with the one who gave it.

          If we want the genuine article, the costly grace, then are we willing to make some changes?  Are we willing to give up pet sins, or abandon the idols we have in our closets or garages?  Are we willing to admit that sin is sin, and stop doing it?  Will we still claim wrong to be right?  To do wrong is to err, but to insist that error is truth -- and to teach others the same -- is to place ourselves outside God's grace.

          During the building of the Golden Gate Bridge over San Francisco Bay in the 1930s, construction fell behind schedule because several workers accidentally fell from the scaffolding and were killed.  Administrators were frustrated by the costly delays until someone suggested a gigantic net be hung under the bridge to catch any who fell.  And despite its enormous cost, engineers built the net.  After it was installed, a worker or two fell into the net but were saved, and progress was made rapidly.  Ultimately, all the time lost to fear was regained by replacing fear with faith in a net that saved lives.

          The net of God's grace is below us.  The umbrella of His love is above us.  But if we intentionally stand outside its borders, we no longer have its protection.  And if we fall outside God's grace, the net will not catch us.  And if we stand outside the umbrella of God's grace, the rain that falls on us will be the rain of destruction.

          The costly grace of God is for us all.  Christ died for the just as well as the unjust.  In Jesus' story it was the repentant man who went home from the Temple forgiven.  But the unrepentant man who saw no need to change, received nothing.  Grace can be rejected.  It is not automatic.  Grace does nothing for the one who thinks himself good enough, who doesn't feel the need for the cross of Jesus.

          Dietrich Bonhoeffer spent his last two years in prison and died in 1945, just days before the war ended.  He walked to the scaffold alone, knowing his beliefs had cost him his life.  But his last letter reflects a sense of hopefulness and content in the midst of his dismal life.  He wrote, "I believe God can and will bring good out of evil, even this great evil.  As much as I wish to be out of here, I don't believe a single day has been wasted."  God grant that we can say the same at the end of our own life, amen.

Copyright © 2006 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.