For His Grace Is Sufficient
[I was asked to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting this morning about grace and repentance. I ended up focusing mostly on the doctrine of grace, however. What follows is a fairly accurate transcript of my message.]
In December 2002, I was a newly called missionary serving in the Hesperia First Ward in Hesperia, California. I had entered the mission field after just three weeks in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had a strong mastery of the Scriptures, I had memorised the first two missionary discussions (this was back when the missionary discussions were sequential and the content was expected to be memorised and delivered the same way by all missionaries to all investigators), and I knew I had a strong testimony of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.
After a few days of tracting with my trainer, Elder Ben Tracy of Worthington, Ohio, he decided it was time for me to do my first door approach. I remember exactly where we were: 18780 Wisteria Street, the last house on the right facing Covina Avenue. I had followed Elder Tracy’s advice and picked up the newspaper as an act of kindness. We knocked on the door and a woman answered. I handed her the paper, I told her who we were, and I asked how she was doing. She replied something non-specific and then nothing. I blanked. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know how to bear my testimony to a stranger, how to share the wonderful truths of the Gospel that I knew to be life-changing, or how to invite someone to listen to our message. Elder Tracy tried to recover for both of us, but it didn’t work and we left without even really telling her who we were or why we were out and about that morning. I was embarrassed, disappointed, and confused.
Elder Tracy took all the rest of the door approaches that morning and then we went home for lunch. After eating, he decided to take a nap and I sat on my bed, searching the scriptures and wondering how I had let things go so horribly wrong. And then it came to me: I had not trusted in the Lord to fulfill his end of a promise found in Doctrine and Covenants 84:85, which was my mission’s scripture motto - “Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.” I had only trusted in myself.
That afternoon I made a personal covenant with the Lord. I asked Him to forgive me for my pride and promised that I would spend the rest of my mission treasuring up the words of life and asked that in return He would give me the words to say so that never again would I leave the presence of someone on my mission without them knowing who I was and what I was doing. It was in this moment that I believe I first truly began to discover the awesome power of the grace of Christ in my life. I had had fleeting experiences with His grace before, but this was the first time that I can recall actively seeking His “divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love” (Bible Dictionary, “grace”).
Throughout the many years since that fateful day, I have pondered again and again what it means to rely on the grace of Christ. I have wondered what His grace actually is and what its role in my life is. In Moroni 10:32, we are given this amazing challenge with a promise: “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.” What does it mean to be “perfected’ in Christ and to deny ourselves of all ungodliness? Does this mean that our Father in Heaven expects us to be perfect, to be godly, to be like He is? Well, yes and no. Yes, he expects it of us because what else can He do? How can He, as our loving, merciful, kind, and just Father, expect us to be anything less than perfect? In the same vein, how can Sis. Filmore expects the sisters in our ward to do anything less than 100% of their visiting teaching? How can Bro. Alvey or Bro, Reger expect the brethren in our ward to do anything less than 100% of their home teaching? To expect less than perfection is to expect that we will both knowingly and willingly neglect to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters. I don’t believe any of us would want to do that, and I don’t believe any of them will want us to do that.
At the same time, God is all-knowing. This means that He knows we are going to fall short. He knows that being perfect now is not something we will achieve. Fortunately, He is not focused on just the here and now; he is also focused on the eternities. As we strive to become more like Him, as we strive to deny ourselves of all ungodliness, and as we strive to be perfected in Christ, we will find ourselves closer to that goal. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.” God has given us the ability to infinitely persist in striving to become like He is, and yet, no matter how perfect we may be in our efforts in keeping the commandments, we still fall short.
In fact, we will never be able to do it on our own. As King Benjamin taught the people of Nephi shortly before he died, “I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.” And why is this? Benjamin goes on to explain, “And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him. And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?” (Mosiah 2: 21, 23-24).
So if we know that none of our efforts will ever be enough to get us to the state of perfection that God expects of us, and we know that we will always be indebted to Him for all that we have received, are now receiving, and ever will receive, how can we possibly make the bold claim that God’s work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man? How does He redeem us and make it possible for us to life with Him forever in His holy presence? Once again, we turn to the Book of Mormon for answers. In 2 Nephi 25:23, Nephi, writing to us in our days, explained why he and his descendants were keeping records of their dealings with God: “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”
Despite all of our best efforts, after everything we may do or can do to be reconciled with God, the reality is that there is only one way for it to happen: in and through the grace of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. It is through this grace that our faith has meaning and purpose. It is this divine grace, this power that it is mighty to save that we find ourselves able to overcome our weaknesses and shortcomings as we sincerely repent and ask God for His help. It is through this grace that the ordinances of the Gospel take effect in our lives. It is through this grace that we are able to receive Gift of the Holy Ghost and have Him as a constant companion. It is through this grace that we are empowered to endure the many trials that we encounter in our lives. We can’t do it alone. We aren’t meant to do it alone. We have to learn to rely on the Saviour in all things.
It is especially through our trials that we learn that, as Moroni promised us, His grace truly is sufficient for us. We are never going to be perfect in all things. But we can be perfect in some things. Moroni challenged us to not only be perfected in Christ and deny ourselves of all ungodliness, but also to love God with all of our might, mind, and the strength. It can be easy to do this when everything is going well. It is much more challenging when everything seems to go wrong, but it can be done. Last week in Elders Quorum, Bro. Mack taught a lesson about dealing with adversity. Some of the brethren in the quorum suggested that adversity often comes for one of two reasons: either we did something wrong or someone else did something wrong. I would like to suggest that there is one other cause of adversity, and it is the one that can be the hardest to deal with. It is the adversity that comes simply as a result of living in an imperfect world. With my wife Gretchen’s permission, I would like to share a personal example of such adversity we have had to deal with since we got married.
My wife and I are unable to have children of our own at this time. We discovered this during our third year of marriage after experiencing three miscarriages in 18 months. Over the course of the past several years we have had dozens of tests and doctors appointments, multiple surgeries, and three failed attempts at in vitro fertilization. Many tears have been shed, many prayers offered up to the Lord pleading for His divine intervention, many hours spent learning all we could about infertility and some of the medical conditions we have encountered, including polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, sub-clinical hypothyroidism, varicoceles, fibromyalgia, and, most recently, sleep apnea; all have resulted in no change in our current circumstances. In these moments, we have had to continually make a choice: we could do as Job’s wife suggested and “curse God and die” or we could follow Job’s more righteous example and faithfully proclaim, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold” (Job 19:25-27). I can testify that it is because of the grace of Christ that we are able to bear testimony of the reality of the Saviour’s Atonement and that despite our adversities, one day we shall see Him and His promises come true.
I do not know when His promise to us will come true or even how it will come true. What I can say, and I believe Gretchen would agree, is that as challenging as it has been to have to deal with infertility, we have seen blessings come through this adversity, too. Through this adversity we have learned to truly lean upon the Lord and not rely on our own understanding. We have learned to trust in each other as we have also learned to trust in Him and in His grace. And we have been able to use our experiences to help others going through similar challenges. I continue to be amazed at the number of friends and family members we have who are also experiencing the challenges of infertility. Countless times, we have been able to offer solace, comfort, and advice to those who are going through what we are going through. We are able to speak up for those who are not comfortable discussing their challenges with others. Lastly, we have been able to bear witness of the reality of the the grace of Christ in our lives. As we have learned to trust in Him, we have discovered that His grace truly is sufficient for us and I promise it is sufficient for each and every single one of you as well. I bear witness of this and pray that each of you will be able to find evidence of His grace in your own lives. I so testify in His holy name, even the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
“For His Grace Is Sufficient”
Sacrament Meeting Talk - 21 February 2016
In December 2002, I was a newly called missionary serving in the Hesperia First Ward in Hesperia, California. I had entered the mission field after just three weeks in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had a strong mastery of the Scriptures, I had memorised the first two missionary discussions (this was back when the missionary discussions were sequential and the content was expected to be memorised and delivered the same way by all missionaries to all investigators), and I knew I had a strong testimony of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.
After a few days of tracting with my trainer, Elder Ben Tracy of Worthington, Ohio, he decided it was time for me to do my first door approach. I remember exactly where we were: 18780 Wisteria Street, the last house on the right facing Covina Avenue. I had followed Elder Tracy’s advice and picked up the newspaper as an act of kindness. We knocked on the door and a woman answered. I handed her the paper, I told her who we were, and I asked how she was doing. She replied something non-specific and then nothing. I blanked. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know how to bear my testimony to a stranger, how to share the wonderful truths of the Gospel that I knew to be life-changing, or how to invite someone to listen to our message. Elder Tracy tried to recover for both of us, but it didn’t work and we left without even really telling her who we were or why we were out and about that morning. I was embarrassed, disappointed, and confused.
Elder Tracy took all the rest of the door approaches that morning and then we went home for lunch. After eating, he decided to take a nap and I sat on my bed, searching the scriptures and wondering how I had let things go so horribly wrong. And then it came to me: I had not trusted in the Lord to fulfill his end of a promise found in Doctrine and Covenants 84:85, which was my mission’s scripture motto - “Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.” I had only trusted in myself.
That afternoon I made a personal covenant with the Lord. I asked Him to forgive me for my pride and promised that I would spend the rest of my mission treasuring up the words of life and asked that in return He would give me the words to say so that never again would I leave the presence of someone on my mission without them knowing who I was and what I was doing. It was in this moment that I believe I first truly began to discover the awesome power of the grace of Christ in my life. I had had fleeting experiences with His grace before, but this was the first time that I can recall actively seeking His “divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love” (Bible Dictionary, “grace”).
Throughout the many years since that fateful day, I have pondered again and again what it means to rely on the grace of Christ. I have wondered what His grace actually is and what its role in my life is. In Moroni 10:32, we are given this amazing challenge with a promise: “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.” What does it mean to be “perfected’ in Christ and to deny ourselves of all ungodliness? Does this mean that our Father in Heaven expects us to be perfect, to be godly, to be like He is? Well, yes and no. Yes, he expects it of us because what else can He do? How can He, as our loving, merciful, kind, and just Father, expect us to be anything less than perfect? In the same vein, how can Sis. Filmore expects the sisters in our ward to do anything less than 100% of their visiting teaching? How can Bro. Alvey or Bro, Reger expect the brethren in our ward to do anything less than 100% of their home teaching? To expect less than perfection is to expect that we will both knowingly and willingly neglect to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters. I don’t believe any of us would want to do that, and I don’t believe any of them will want us to do that.
At the same time, God is all-knowing. This means that He knows we are going to fall short. He knows that being perfect now is not something we will achieve. Fortunately, He is not focused on just the here and now; he is also focused on the eternities. As we strive to become more like Him, as we strive to deny ourselves of all ungodliness, and as we strive to be perfected in Christ, we will find ourselves closer to that goal. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.” God has given us the ability to infinitely persist in striving to become like He is, and yet, no matter how perfect we may be in our efforts in keeping the commandments, we still fall short.
In fact, we will never be able to do it on our own. As King Benjamin taught the people of Nephi shortly before he died, “I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.” And why is this? Benjamin goes on to explain, “And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him. And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?” (Mosiah 2: 21, 23-24).
So if we know that none of our efforts will ever be enough to get us to the state of perfection that God expects of us, and we know that we will always be indebted to Him for all that we have received, are now receiving, and ever will receive, how can we possibly make the bold claim that God’s work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man? How does He redeem us and make it possible for us to life with Him forever in His holy presence? Once again, we turn to the Book of Mormon for answers. In 2 Nephi 25:23, Nephi, writing to us in our days, explained why he and his descendants were keeping records of their dealings with God: “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”
Despite all of our best efforts, after everything we may do or can do to be reconciled with God, the reality is that there is only one way for it to happen: in and through the grace of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. It is through this grace that our faith has meaning and purpose. It is this divine grace, this power that it is mighty to save that we find ourselves able to overcome our weaknesses and shortcomings as we sincerely repent and ask God for His help. It is through this grace that the ordinances of the Gospel take effect in our lives. It is through this grace that we are able to receive Gift of the Holy Ghost and have Him as a constant companion. It is through this grace that we are empowered to endure the many trials that we encounter in our lives. We can’t do it alone. We aren’t meant to do it alone. We have to learn to rely on the Saviour in all things.
It is especially through our trials that we learn that, as Moroni promised us, His grace truly is sufficient for us. We are never going to be perfect in all things. But we can be perfect in some things. Moroni challenged us to not only be perfected in Christ and deny ourselves of all ungodliness, but also to love God with all of our might, mind, and the strength. It can be easy to do this when everything is going well. It is much more challenging when everything seems to go wrong, but it can be done. Last week in Elders Quorum, Bro. Mack taught a lesson about dealing with adversity. Some of the brethren in the quorum suggested that adversity often comes for one of two reasons: either we did something wrong or someone else did something wrong. I would like to suggest that there is one other cause of adversity, and it is the one that can be the hardest to deal with. It is the adversity that comes simply as a result of living in an imperfect world. With my wife Gretchen’s permission, I would like to share a personal example of such adversity we have had to deal with since we got married.
My wife and I are unable to have children of our own at this time. We discovered this during our third year of marriage after experiencing three miscarriages in 18 months. Over the course of the past several years we have had dozens of tests and doctors appointments, multiple surgeries, and three failed attempts at in vitro fertilization. Many tears have been shed, many prayers offered up to the Lord pleading for His divine intervention, many hours spent learning all we could about infertility and some of the medical conditions we have encountered, including polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, sub-clinical hypothyroidism, varicoceles, fibromyalgia, and, most recently, sleep apnea; all have resulted in no change in our current circumstances. In these moments, we have had to continually make a choice: we could do as Job’s wife suggested and “curse God and die” or we could follow Job’s more righteous example and faithfully proclaim, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold” (Job 19:25-27). I can testify that it is because of the grace of Christ that we are able to bear testimony of the reality of the Saviour’s Atonement and that despite our adversities, one day we shall see Him and His promises come true.
I do not know when His promise to us will come true or even how it will come true. What I can say, and I believe Gretchen would agree, is that as challenging as it has been to have to deal with infertility, we have seen blessings come through this adversity, too. Through this adversity we have learned to truly lean upon the Lord and not rely on our own understanding. We have learned to trust in each other as we have also learned to trust in Him and in His grace. And we have been able to use our experiences to help others going through similar challenges. I continue to be amazed at the number of friends and family members we have who are also experiencing the challenges of infertility. Countless times, we have been able to offer solace, comfort, and advice to those who are going through what we are going through. We are able to speak up for those who are not comfortable discussing their challenges with others. Lastly, we have been able to bear witness of the reality of the the grace of Christ in our lives. As we have learned to trust in Him, we have discovered that His grace truly is sufficient for us and I promise it is sufficient for each and every single one of you as well. I bear witness of this and pray that each of you will be able to find evidence of His grace in your own lives. I so testify in His holy name, even the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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