Submerged in Grace

 Submerged in Grace

Sunday, October 24, 2021

Last Sunday, we thought about “the transformed life” spoken of in Romans 12:2 and described in that chapter. Being immersed or submerged in grace is a part of that transformation. In my Bible reading, I came across a verse that aligns with the outline I used to talk about grace (listen to the message here). The points are, the grace of life; the grace of salvation; and the grace of service.

God speaks to Jeremiah, perhaps when he was just a young adult, and spoke to him about God’s involvement in his life, past, present and future: “Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”” (Jeremiah 1:4–5 NAS95). The highlighted phrases correspond, at least in measure, to the three graces mentioned.

Regarding the grace of life, Psalm 139 says the same thing with different words: 

Psa. 139:13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

We tend to think that we are in charge of our lives, but apart from God’s grace, we would have no life at all. There is the story of the young man in England who sued his parents for bringing him into the world without his permission. Along those lines, we could all line up to sue God, - or thank Him, as the case may be, - for the time and place and circumstances in which we were born, along with the many blessings that have attended our lives.

Secondly, God tells Jeremiah, “and before you were born, I consecrated you.” That is, God had ordained Jeremiah to walk in a particular role in association with God. Jeremiah would know God, and respond to God, and love God. Of course Jeremiah had a part in this, though not a-part from God’s grace.

And then God has something else in mind: “I have appointed you.” And He has appointed you and me as well. No, not as a prophet, but as a servant in a particular place and time with particular gifts and opportunities and responsibilities - to fulfill the will of God in ways that no one else would or could - made possible by the grace of God, those graces which cover our lives as the waters cover the sea.