BONUS CONTENT: Talk on Grace

This is a talk I gave in the Monte Sano Ward on September 8, 2019.  Content is copyrighted.

"Brothers and Sisters, this morning I want to talk to you about the Grace of Jesus Christ.  

Now, I only have 5 minutes to do this in and Grace is a subject that I could talk about for hours.  So today I would like to focus on one of the aspects of Grace: enabling power, the strength and assistance, that we receive to do good works and overcome obstacles we otherwise would not be able to do on our own.  In other words, I want to talk about how Grace applies when we start to think, “I can’t do it.” “I’ll never be good enough.” “Life is too hard.”

To do this, I would like to make an analogy.  Years ago, my son decided he wanted to train to be an American Ninja Warrior.  For those of you who don’t know, America Ninja Warrior is a TV show where the contestants battle through an obstacle course that requires great athletic skill and ability.  There’s a gym in town that does offer Ninja Warrior training to kids so we signed up. He was doing well until he found an obstacle that was difficult to overcome. It’s called a Warped Wall and the goal is to run as fast as you can at a curved wall, to the point you run up the wall a little ways and then jump to reach the ledge at the top of the wall where you pull yourself up and over.  My son found that as he tried this obstacle, over and over again, he would run as hard as he could, get to the part where he needed to jump, and then splat face first into the wall and slide back down. This happened again and again, for weeks.

How does this apply to us in a spiritual sense?  I think we all have those specific weaknesses that we constantly find ourselves doing our best to overcome and yet splat into a wall time after time again.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf in his talk The Gift of Grace talks about the spiritual side of this when he says, “Though we all have weaknesses, we can overcome them. Indeed it is by the grace of God that, if we humble ourselves and have faith, weak things can become strong.23

Throughout our lives, God’s grace bestows temporal blessings and spiritual gifts that magnify our abilities and enrich our lives. His grace refines us. His grace helps us become our best selves.”   In short, we are not only SAVED by Grace, we are CHANGED by Grace.

Weak things become strong.  You see, while my son had been splatting over and over again he had also been inching up the wall.  His muscles had been developing, his dexterity and agility improving. There is a purpose in our mistakes and our need to rely on the goodness of our Savior’s Atonement and Grace. 
Elder Bruce C. Hafen has written, “The great Mediator asks for our repentance not because we must ‘repay’ him in exchange for his paying our debt to justice, but because repentance initiates a developmental process that, with the Savior’s help, leads us along the path to a saintly character” 

And this is where Grace enters into our analogy.  After a few weeks of splatting unsuccessfully against the wall, my son’s Coach came to me and said, “You know, it might help if he wore different shoes- shoes with more grip on the bottom”.  So at the next training session, he had the shoes. And it made a huge difference! He was able to get up much higher on the wall than he had before!  

This is like the Savior’s Grace that gives us strength and assistance that we receive to do good works we otherwise would not be able to do.  

Brad Wilcox, in his talk His Grace is Sufficient, has said, “The Savior’s gift of grace to us is not necessarily limited in time to ‘after’ all we can do. We may receive his grace before, during and after the time when we expend our own efforts”. Grace is not a booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it is our constant energy source. It is not the light at the end of the tunnel but the light that moves us through the tunnel. Grace is not achieved somewhere down the road. It is received right here and right now. It is not a finishing touch; it is the Finisher’s touch.”  

But HOW do we access Grace like this? This enabling power?

Gene R. Cook’s conference talk entitled “Receiving Divine Assistance Through the Grace of the Lord” is a wonderful guide to accessing Grace.  He says, “To obtain grace, one does not have to be perfect but he does have to be trying... Then the Lord may allow him to receive that power.  Moroni sums up the doctrine of grace succinctly: “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…

(Moro. 10:32–33.)“

Back at the training gym, while the shoes made a BIG difference, my son was still splatting against the wall.  Just splatting higher up and closer to his goal now. Finally the Coach climbed up to the top ledge and laid down across the top and extended his arms down to my son.  My son ran up the wall, jumped and reached for the top while the coach grabbed his hands and lifted him up to the top of the wall. He made it with the help of his coach! 

Because my son had a Coach who had personally conquered this obstacle and knew how it worked he was able to guide him over it.  However the Coach also saw the value in building strength and dexterity through failure, the strength and ability my son gained through all those splats. Then after my son had tried his hardest and expended his own best efforts, the Coach was able to help lift him up to overcome that obstacle.  

We have a Savior who has conquered the obstacles of this life, who knows the value in the struggles we face, and who gives us His Grace that enables us to climb and then finally overcome our weaknesses.  Do not be discouraged if it feels like you are constantly splatting and not getting any nearer to the top of your obstacle. Russell M. Nelson has said, “We need not be dismayed if our earnest efforts toward perfection now seem so arduous and endless. Perfection is pending. It can come in full only after the Resurrection and only through the Lord.”

We have a Savior who loves us perfectly and gives us the miraculous gift of His Grace to not only overcome the obstacles in our life, but also to one day return us back to our Father in Heaven."