You can call me crazy, but I’m a firm believer that the king is alive. I know what you are thinking – how can I believe the king is alive when history tells us that he died well before I was born, but really do think the king lives. I’ve never seen him, but I’ve read written accounts from those that saw him after his death and I’m a firm believer that they are telling the truth. I’m serious when I say that I believe with all that I am that the king lives and I would stake my life on it. I believe the king is alive and that he wants all of us to live with him in Graceland.

Now before you go and order me a nice white coat with buckles in the back let me say that the King that I am talking about is not Elvis Aaron Presley, son of Vernon and Gladys Presley, but rather the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. And the Graceland that I am talking about is not some tackily decorated museum of a life cut short by drugs, but rather of the kingdom of God, the place where God’s grace reigns.

Now when you think about it, grace is a confusing word. It is probably one of the most misunderstood and misused words in the English language. We ask God to bless our family, our food, and our digestion and we call that “saying grace.” An ice skater is somehow successful in propelling his or herself into the air, spinning around, and landing smoothly on a thin metal blade and we call this being “graceful.” My favorite of all is the period of time between when we make purchases and when our credit card company starts charging interest – a time that we call a “grace period.” And we wonder why church is so confusing to people. We come to church and we hear of God’s grace and we may think to ourselves, “Does that mean we are about to eat?” or “Wow, that Jesus must be some dancer.” or “Great, here goes the preacher talking about money again.” Sometimes we even look at the bible and misinterpret what grace is about. Take for instance the passage from 2 Corinthians 12 printed on your notes. Paul is writing telling the Corinthians about his praying to God to take away his “thorn in the flesh” and God’s response is printed here, “My grace is sufficient for you.” It’s as though grace is some consolation prize – “Yea Paul, I know you really wanted me to get rid of that thorn in the flesh, but you’ve got my grace and you are just going to have to settle for that.”

Probably the most prevalent view of grace that is presented in Christian circle is what Dallas Willard calls “Bar-Code” grace. A bar-code works by an electric eye scanning the lines and interpreting the information. That eye doesn’t care what’s in the package, it just reads what the bar-code says and charges the amount that is inputted for that code. Put a code from a can of beans on a bag of dog food and as far as the eye is concerned that bag of dog food is a can of beans. To the eye of the bar-code reader, what’s inside doesn’t really matter – it’s all about the label. “Bar-code” grace is that view that what God offers in grace is a new label for us. He puts that label on us and doesn’t really care what, if any, change happens in our lives. In this narrow view grace is only about the forgiveness of sins and entrance into heaven when we die. It is just our ticket into heaven or eternal fire insurance. Bar-code grace says that since God is the one that saves, grace is not at all about us, but about God’s choice to forgive us – to put a new label on us that says we are forgiven.

Frankly, I don’t want this kind of grace. It would be like buying a brand new jaguar convertible, taking out all but the divers seat, welding the top shut, putting a regulator on it so it can’t go over 30, and only driving it once a week to and from work. The car is designed to do and be so much more, and so is grace. We may think of grace only in terms of forgiveness of sins, but what grace is rally about is new life. This is what God has always wanted for us.

Look at your notes with me at this definition of life – Life is self-initiating, self-sustaining, self-directing power to act. Think about it for a moment – what good is life if we can’t choose what we do? And what good is life if we can’t do it by our own power and authority? And what good would it be if we couldn’t decide just how we do things? Some of you are thinking “I know what life like that would be, I live it all the time – it’s called WORK!” What God really want for us, though, is that we have new life. Jesus said, “I come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” God is concerned that we have life in him. This is the message Christ gives to Nicodemus, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Once again we see that God is concerned with new life in us. What God is offering us is not just forgiveness, but new life. Ephesians 2:8 is one of the verses most often used to talk about grace in terms of forgiveness, but if we just read on we read, “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. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God wants to offer more to us than just forgiveness – he wants us to have a new life and a new purpose, to do the good work he created us to do.

Now forgiveness is a great gift of grace and it comes only through God’s power, but there is so much more to grace. I think a better way to understand God’s grace is to think of it in terms of living grace. Dallas Willard defines this grace as “God acting in and with us to accomplish what we cannot accomplish by our own ability.” God’s grace is the power of God doing the things that we cannot do on our own. To put it at it’s simplest, grace is power. Look throughout the New Testament and you will find that grace and power are closely connected. Luke writes of Stephen as a “man full of grace and power.” Paul often writes about grace in terms of power. Look with me at this verse from 1 Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them–yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” Substitute forgiveness for grace and it just doesn’t work. “No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the forgiveness of God that was with me.”? Grace is power from God to do the things we are unable to do. This means forgiveness and so much more.

Looking at grace this way puts everything in a whole new light. With the old “bar-code” grace faith was just about believing the right things about Jesus. Just make a mental assent to Jesus as the Son of God and you are set. But with an understanding of living grace faith is transformed into confidence in Jesus as Lord and Savior – the one who is able to save us when we are unable. Under “bar-code” grace, salvation is about life in heaven after death, but under living grace that new life comes now as well as in heaven. With “bar-code” grace, discipleship is nice, but not necessary. Salvation is not dependent on us committing our lives to growing in Christ, but about God putting on us the tag of salvation. Living grace depends on a transformation of life that makes discipleship about living that new life abundantly. What God wants for us is abundant living both now and in our life to come.

God’s desire is that we live today in God’s kingdom. Not a kingdom of a future heaven, but a kingdom of a present grace. God’s kingdom is not only a future hope, but a present reality. It is not a “savings bond” heaven where God gives us a promise that some day we will be able to cash in. When Jesus was talking about the kingdom of heaven being at hand He was not talking about the end of the world like a spiritual chicken little shouting that the sky is falling. The kingdom of heaven is where what God wants done is done. It is the place and time when we obey God’s commands and God’s powerful grace is in us and flows through us to do his will. Salvation is life in God’s kingdom, a life not of this world or of our powers but of God. This is what living grace is all about, that we may have the right to live as God’s children now and that God’s kingdom is a present reality. Christian salvation is being involved in the life that Jesus is now living on earth. It is about God’s grace working mightily in our lives to do what God wants done. It is new life, life that is God-initiating, God sustaining, God-directing power to do what we cannot do by our own ability. Salvation is not about just believing the right things, but knowing that if our lives are self-directed they will end in shambles. It is about asking God through Christ to transform our wills that we may give ourselves fully to God. It is about trusting God to give us new life with God in control.

And God wants us to work at living this grace. In fact the bible commands us in 2 Peter 3:18, “Grow in grace.” We are charged with the responsibility to turn our lives over to Christ and to actively pursue life in His kingdom. And this will happen when we have a vision of a present life in God’s kingdom. We must realize that God is active right now and that we need to be a part of His kingdom. Second, we must have an intention to live that life now. God does not want future disciples that promise to grow but don’t do anything about it. He wants us to live intentional lives for Him. Lastly we must have the means to carry through. We must seek resources to help us to grow. We must seek after God’s work and after study as well as seeking after God in prayer. These God has given to us as tools to help us to grow in discipleship. Growing in grace is an active choice to be Jesus’ disciple. God will not impose His grace on us. We are invited to it and must act to receive it, though we can never earn it. God intends for us to have new life, and that new life comes when we trust in His living grace.

Paul Simon wrote a song titled “Graceland” and in that final verse he sings, “I’m going to Graceland. For reasons I cannot explain there’s some part of me that want to see Graceland.” God had created us with a desire in us to see Graceland. He wants for us to know that His grace is the power for new life in us that can bring us into right order with his world. He wants us to live that new life in his kingdom of grace. May that grace transform you into a new creation in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.