Holly Furtick delivers a short sermon on God’s grace and the Christian call to extend that grace in everyday relationships. She emphasizes that grace is undeserved and received from God, then shared with others; uses a middle-school anecdote about being forgiven by pastor-parents to illustrate grace; lists common situations (lateness, missed deadlines, hurtful words, traffic) as opportunities to extend kindness; distinguishes showing grace/kindness from trusting someone; and urges listeners to reflect God’s kindness by looking past others’ actions and offering undeserved compassion.
Chapters
We, as believers in Christ, have received God's grace. We did not earn it, we did not deserve it. But God sent his Son and all we have to do is receive it. What a beautiful gift to have our sin and shame covered by the work of Jesus on the cross. God extended grace to us. And Paul says we are called to to extend grace to others. You see, grace is experienced in relationships. We receive it from God and then we extend it to others. I wonder if you can think of a time that grace was extended to you. One small thing. I remember one time when I was in middle school, I got caught saying a cuss word. Now remember, my dad was a Southern Baptist pastor and my teacher knew that. And so he marched over to the phone at his desk. It was an old timey phone with a cord. And he looked up my number in a paper directory. And somehow, if my memory serves me right, the number that he dialed was my dad's office at the church. Lucky me. And I remember just dreading going home from school that day. I thought that I was going to be majorly punished. But that time when I got home, my parents showed me grace. They talked with me about my words and my choices, but they didn't punish me. Maybe they understood the pressures of being a pastor's kid and a middle schooler. Maybe they understand that everyone lets one fly every now and then. I don't know. But they showed me grace. And we all experience grace from others daily. Maybe you're chronically late to work. Maybe you missed a deadline. Maybe you forgot a birthday or an anniversary, or said something you didn't mean. I think most of the time we expect those we love to extend grace to us, but when it comes time for us to give it, that's another thing, right? In fact, as I was preparing this message, I began to make a list of everyday areas where we should extend grace to others. Just opportunities that we would have. And my list went something like this. Maybe a friend who was late to coffee with you, or a coworker who forgot to do something that they said they would do and maybe blamed you, or somebody cut you off in traffic, or someone said something in anger that hurt you. And as I wrote these things, the Lord clearly spoke to me. Not out loud, it was actually louder than that. He whispered the name of a person to me. Now, let me tell you about this person. This person said something in anger. Not to me. It was worse than that. They said it to my husband. And what they said hurt me deeply. And then what hurt me even More is when they apologized, they made one of those apologies that was like, I'm sorry if you felt that way, which is not a real apology, by the way. And over time, I was able to forgive this person. But what the Lord convicted me of is that I haven't treated them the same ever since. And I know this sounds petty, but it's almost like I wanted them to understand how detrimental that statement was to our relationship. I hope it's okay for me to be honest with you now. Don't get too far ahead of me. Just because you give someone grace does not mean that you necessarily have to trust them. Kindness and trust are not necessarily connected. Like, here's a light example of that. I am a chronically late person. Raise your hand in your group if you, too, suffer from ctd, chronic tardiness disorder. And I speak for all of us with our hands raised when I say we, we are sorry. There are all kinds of reasons that people are late. For me personally, the problem is I just have no ability to discern how much time has actually passed. And not only that, I never know what time it is. And I know I have a watch on, but it's not actually set to the right time because I don't really care what time it is. The problem is, when I get in the car, 10 minutes pass. When we agreed to leave, I'm hoping and praying that Steven Furtick, who has been patiently waiting, will have grace for me. And he does. It's a kind of like, bless her heart, she never knows what time it is, but I love her anyway kind of grace. But that doesn't mean that Stephen trusts me to be on time. In fact, he probably told me we needed to leave 15 minutes earlier than we actually did so that we would leave on time. You don't have to trust people who hurt you, but you can be kind to them. You can extend grace through kindness. Because God is so kind. His grace is expressed through his kindness to us. So sometimes showing grace is being able to see past a person's actions and into what might really be going on in their life. Sometimes it's just a conscious act of undeserved compassion. Sometimes it's a smile. This is what Jesus did. He looked past a person's behavior, their lifestyle, their past choices, and he saw them as a person created for so much more than their external experience or their situation or their actions. He spoke kindly to the woman at the well. He touched the woman, the leper, and healed him. One thing that helps me extend grace to those that I don't think deserve it is to go back to the beginning of our passage where it says we were all by nature deserving wrath. But God. God has been so kind to me. And one of the main reasons that he has put me on this earth is to display his grace.
