In the second sermon in the series ‘Everyday Church’, we looked at the vast topic of God’s grace, there for us every day of our Christian lives, even in ‘the everyday and the mundane.’ (Matt Redman, ‘Your Grace Finds Me’)
‘It’s there in the newborn cry
There in the light of every sunrise
There in the shadows of this life
Your great grace
It’s there on the mountain top
There in the everyday and the mundane
There in the sorrow and the dancing
Your great grace
Oh such grace
It’s there on a wedding day
There in the weeping by the graveside
There in the very breath we breathe
Your great grace
The same for the rich and poor
The same for the saint and for the sinner
Enough for this whole wide world
Your great grace
Oh such grace
There in the darkest night of the soul
There in the sweetest songs of victory
Your grace finds me
Yes, your grace finds me.’
God’s grace, which gives us the confidence to face the trials and uncertainties of life, because we have the assurance He is working all things together for good (Rom 8:28-39), is available to us at all times. It is real, as real as the manna which fed the Israelites during the wilderness wanderings, but must be appropriated every day (even as the manna had to be collected daily and not hoarded, with double the amount provided by God on the sixth day so as to avoid working on the Sabbath.) It requires faith to live under grace and not under law, even as the widow needed faith to keep baking the bread from her meagre provisions. (1 Kings 17:12-16) Grace, God’s undeserved favour, ‘the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it,’ ‘the condescension or benevolence shown by God toward the human race’ is freely available to us all, but must be grasped by each one of us individually if we are to live every day without fear or condemnation or in the hypothetical realm of anxiety and know God with us every day of our lives.