JESUS GETS US: GOT GRACE?

We hope you had a wonderful Easter!  Even though this was the worst weather that we have had for Easter in recent memory, it cannot dampen our joy of resurrection!  If you watched the Super Bowl you may have seen one of the ads about Jesus that simply ended with the phrase, “He gets us.”  This is a major advertising campaign which states on their website: That is our agenda at He Gets Us: to move beyond the mess of our current cultural moment to a place where all of us are invited to rediscover the love story of Jesus. Christians, non-Christians, and everybody in between. All of us. The ads have merit but they have also received criticism.  One U.S. representative said, “Something tells me Jesus would *not* spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign.” What does it mean for that “He gets us?”  The title of our sermon series is Jesus Gets Us.  The redemption story that culminated in the resurrection of Jesus is God’s effort to transform human life, and in particular, our lives.  We begin to understand the power of this transformation with the sermon, Got Grace?  We start this journey at the beginning of the Gospel of John, John 1:10-18.  The Apostle John starts with the fundamental reality that the Word of God has become human in order to connect with all of us!   Before this moment the Word of God has been spoken by leaders, prophets, kings, priests and teachers, but now the Word moves into the neighborhood to share our lives.   Jesus came to show us and share with us a transforming grace that will let us see the light rather than the darkness of our sins!  This is our most earnest prayer that you will be filled with grace on top of grace as you read John 1:10-18:

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God– ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.  (NIV)