The pastor explained that God loves us, but because of God’s holiness, he has to address our sin, which creates an enormous debt that we owe God. God paid this debt by sending his son Jesus to die for us on a cross, and Jesus defeated sin and death by rising from the dead.
While in college, Lucado’s heart was “strangely warmed” when he heard a professor describe God’s grace, and a college friend of Lucado’s lived out that grace. The friend invited Lucado to church, where he heard more about God’s grace. Yet Lucado resisted God’s grace for two years.
“Friends, I was a mess. Not only was I drunk, I was a racist, a misogynist, a brawler, and a schemer,” Lucado said. “Worst of all, I was a hypocrite.” He learned how to act like a Christian in order to fit in at his Christian college, but he was living a double life.
“Yet,” said the pastor, “I had no answer to one question: If I don’t trust the grace of Christ, what is Plan B?”
Finally, on March 11, 1975, Lucado put his trust in God. “Grace is the greatest discovery of my life,” he said. “A couple of weeks ago, I chose to commemorate my golden anniversary, not with Ebenezer stones, but I chose to commemorate this anniversary with a tattoo.”
He rolled up his sleeve to show the new tattoo to the congregation, who responded with surprise, laughter, and applause.
“Do you know this grace?” Lucado asked. “Do you? I could care less if you tattoo that truth on your skin—I could care less. But, boy, I care deeply that it be tattooed in your heart.”
Before he encountered God’s grace, Lucado believed that he had to be good enough to earn God’s approval, that he had to “do” to be accepted. He finally realized that, because Jesus paid our debt of sin on the cross, Jesus says, “Done.”
“There’s only two religions in the whole world,” said Lucado, “one that says, ‘Do,’ and the other that says, ‘Done.’”
“Which one is yours?” he asked, concluding his sermon by leading people in a prayer of salvation.
“May Christ grant you what He has given me,” Lucado told his followers in his post. “Grace upon grace.”
