The Grace Between Us

Devotional

Day 1: The Same Waters for Empty Hands

We all approach baptism’s waters with nothing to prove and nothing to earn. No hierarchy exists here—no reserved sections for the morally polished or intellectually superior. These ordinary waters, drawn from the same tap for everyone, dissolve illusions of superiority. Grace flows equally to the uncertain, the broken, and the self-assured. Baptism’s truth levels us: we arrive needy, dependent, and equally drenched in mercy. This reality reshapes how we see ourselves and others in daily life. [35:19]

“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
(Romans 12:3-5, ESV)

Reflection: Where have you subtly assumed you deserve “deeper” grace than others? How might baptism’s equalizing waters soften your gaze toward someone you’ve mentally ranked beneath you?

Day 2: The Invisible Ledger of Judgment

We unconsciously keep score—excusing our flaws while charging others full price for theirs. Patience, benefit of the doubt, and forgiveness become commodities we ration. This hidden accounting poisons relationships, making reconciliation feel impossible. Yet baptism’s waters declare all debts canceled. God refuses to tally trespasses, inviting us to close the books we’ve kept against others. Grace dismantles the math of merit. [40:36]

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
(2 Corinthians 5:18-19, ESV)

Reflection: Whose mistakes do you still “charge full price” for in your heart? How might releasing that debt free you to participate in God’s reconciling work?

Day 3: Soaked in Grace’s Abundance

Baptism drowns every corner of our being—no nook of shame, pride, or fear stays dry. This total immersion mirrors grace’s extravagance: unmeasured, unearned, and uncontained. Just as Tyler’s baptism required no resume, we need no qualifications to receive this flood. When we stop rationing grace like scarce currency, we become conduits of the same deluge that saved us. [50:04]

“He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”
(Titus 3:5-6, ESV)

Reflection: Where are you still trying to “stay dry”—resisting grace for a hidden part of your story? How might full surrender to this flood soften your posture toward others?

Day 4: Reconciliation Begins at the Waters

The baptism pool isn’t for the reconciled—it’s where the unreconciled meet to be remade. Here, enemies share the same waters, their differences drowned in mercy’s tide. This sacramental act defies human logic: grace becomes the ground where opposing stories intersect. To stand here is to admit we need this leveling as much as those we struggle to love. [51:35]

“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
(Ephesians 4:4-6, ESV)

Reflection: Who feels “unbaptizable” in your heart? How might seeing them at the same waters challenge your resistance to reconciliation?

Day 5: Daily Steps in Grace’s Current

Baptism isn’t a finish line but the first step into a river of daily surrender. Like marriage, covenant faithfulness requires waking up each morning to choose grace again. The waters that once drenched us now flow through our ordinary moments—in listening, staying, and asking questions. Reconciliation becomes a rhythm, not a single achievement. [53:39]

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
(Ephesians 4:1-3, ESV)

Reflection: What practical step—listening, asking, staying—can you take today to keep “walking wet” in grace’s current? How will this choice honor your baptismal identity?

Sermon Summary

The waters of baptism tell the truth about everybody. There is no special water for people who have life figured out. It all comes from the same tap. There is no higher place in the pool for the smartest, most certain, most moral, or most successful. All come to the same waters with empty hands, needing grace.

Humility sits underneath listening, asking questions, being curious, and staying at the table. Paul says in Romans 12, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but think with sober judgment.” That kind of pride usually does not sound like, “I’m better than them.” It shows up more quietly, in who gets patience, who gets the benefit of the doubt, whose story gets heard, and whose mistakes never get forgotten.

The invisible ledger exposes the problem. A person explains himself and diagnoses other people. When one person loses his temper, it was stress and exhaustion. When another person loses her temper, she is difficult. When one person changes his mind, he has grown. When another changes her mind, she is inconsistent. That ledger keeps the self near the top and charges other people full price.

Reconciliation becomes hard when someone has quietly decided that another person deserves less grace. Paul’s word for reconciliation, katalasso, carries the sense of change or exchange. God changes what exists between people. Hostility becomes peace. Estrangement becomes relationship. Something happens in the space between.

Second Corinthians says that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, “not counting their trespasses against them.” God does not pretend wrong does not matter, and God does not say truth does not matter. But God refuses to let failure become the final accounting of a person’s life. Grace becomes the ground, and once life is seen as held together by grace, grace no longer has to be rationed.

Humility is not thinking poorly of oneself. Humility is seeing oneself truthfully. A person has wisdom and blind spots, love and limits, convictions and things still needing to be learned. The person standing across the table has the same. That is why listening matters, asking matters, and staying matters, because disagreement does not make anyone disposable in the kingdom of God.

Baptism gives the image again. No resume is needed. No ranking is made. The whole person goes under the water, every nook and corner soaked. God’s grace is abundant like that, and that same grace lives in the space between even the most different people. Reconciliation begins when the books stop being kept in one’s own favor and grace is trusted between people.

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Key Takeaways

1. Same waters, empty hands [35:46] Baptism removes the little platforms people build for themselves. The same tap water receives the one with a polished life and the one with a messy one. Grace does not deepen for the impressive or thin out for the broken. The waters say that every person stands on the same ground. [35:46]
2. Pride keeps an invisible ledger [40:12] Pride often hides inside ordinary judgments, not loud arrogance. The self receives context, excuses, and generous interpretations, while others get reduced to one failure or one label. That kind of accounting makes reconciliation almost impossible, because another person has already been placed in debt. Humility begins when that ledger is finally noticed. [40:12]
3. God changes the space between [43:07] Reconciliation is not only God changing one person over here and another person over there. God can change what exists between them. Hostility can become peace, and distance can become relationship. Grace works in the shared space where suspicion used to live. [43:07]
4. Grace is not rationed out [44:27] God does not count trespasses as the final word over a life. That does not make wrong unimportant, but it means failure does not get the last accounting. When a person sees that his own life is held together by grace, grace no longer has to be guarded like a scarce resource. The generosity received from God becomes generosity extended toward others. [44:27]
5. Baptism is one step forward [52:26] Baptism is real and holy, but it is not the final step of faithfulness. The same grace that meets a person in the water calls that person forward again the next day. Like a covenant kept day after day, discipleship keeps receiving and practicing grace. The baptized life keeps moving toward reconciliation.

## [52:26]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[28:12] - Baptism in the Water
[34:59] - Same Waters for Everyone
[36:40] - Humility Beneath the Practices
[37:18] - Sober Judgment in Romans 12
[38:22] - Quiet Ways People Rank Others
[39:18] - Explaining Self, Diagnosing Others
[40:51] - Reconciliation and Equal Grace
[41:31] - Katalasso and Changed Relationships
[43:27] - God Not Counting Trespasses
[45:49] - Humility Sees Truthfully
[48:40] - Baptism as Abundant Grace
[50:46] - Stop Keeping the Books
[52:26] - Baptism Is Not the Final Step
[53:39] - Grace Between Different People

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading

Romans 12:3
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” [37:18]

2 Corinthians 5:19
“That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” [43:27]

Matthew 22:39
“And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [45:13]

Observation questions

In Romans 12:3, what does Paul tell believers not to do, and what does he tell them to do instead? [37:18]
What are some of the quiet ways people rank themselves and others in everyday life? [38:22]
In 2 Corinthians 5:19, what does God do in Christ, and what does God refuse to count? [43:27]
What picture does baptism give of grace, equality, and belonging? [49:33]

Interpretation questions

Romans 12:3 connects humility with “sober judgment.” How is humility different from thinking poorly of oneself, and what does it mean to see oneself truthfully? [45:49]
If people tend to explain themselves and diagnose others, why does that make reconciliation so difficult? What does that reveal about how grace is being measured? [40:51]
The word reconciliation carries the sense of change in a relationship. What does it mean to say that God can change not only one person and another person, but also what exists between them? [43:19]
Matthew 22:39 calls people to love their neighbor as themselves. If a person gladly gives context, patience, and mercy to himself, how should that shape the way he treats someone he finds difficult? [45:13]

Application questions

Where has an invisible ledger shown up recently in a relationship—at home, at church, at work, or online? Who has been getting patience and benefit of the doubt, and who has been getting charged full price? [40:20]
Is there a person or group that has quietly been treated as deserving less grace? What makes grace feel hard to extend there, and what would it look like to stop keeping the books in that relationship? [50:46]
Baptism reminds believers that all come to the same waters with empty hands. Where is there a temptation to stand on a little platform of being smarter, more right, more moral, or more put together than someone else? [35:29]
Listening, asking questions, and staying at the table all grow out of humility. Which of those practices feels hardest right now, and in what specific relationship does that show up most clearly? [46:44]
God does not let failure become the final accounting of a person’s life. Is there someone whose worst moment, label, opinion, or mistake has become the main way they are seen? What might it look like to see that person more truthfully? [44:08]
Grace lives in the space between different people. Where does there seem to be only distance or tension right now, and what would it mean this week to trust that God is already at work there? [54:04]
Baptism is not the final step; grace calls believers forward again the next day. What is one next step toward reconciliation, humility, or honest self-examination that could be taken this week? [52:38]

Sermon Clips

47s

#ReconcileWithGrace

“``That's where reconciliation becomes really difficult, I think, because it's hard to be reconciled with someone that we have quietly decided deserves less grace than we do. These waters remind us that we all need grace. We all need it abundantly, overwhelmingly No one needs it more than another. No one gets it more than another. We all get it in equal measure. And the the irony of the equal measure is it's infinite. You can't out give God's grace. What we do, sometimes we give ourselves much more grace than we give other people.”

31s

#BaptismEqualsGrace

“baptism has this way of telling the truth about us. Sometimes we don't think about all this. We don't maybe see it all, but there's no special water for people who have life figured out. I don't know if you knew that. It all comes from the same tap. There's no deeper grace in baptism for people who have made fewer mistakes in life than others.”

57s

#GraceBetweenUs

“So maybe maybe as we've been talking about human difference over these the past, I think, maybe two, maybe going on three months now, maybe reconciliation begins when we remember the waters of baptism. When we stop asking who deserves more of our time, of our attention, of our patience, of our love, of our whatever, when we stop asking or when we stop keeping the books, the accounting, the ledger in our own favor while holding others in more debt. Maybe reconciliation one to another begins when we stop giving myself or ourselves generosity that we refuse to extend to someone else. And instead, we trust the grace between us.”

43s

#StopTheLedger

“I love that phrase, not counting. We count. We give ourselves a greater accounting than other people. We may hold other people to more than we hold ourselves to in the ledger of our lives and in our minds and in our hearts. But God doesn't count. God doesn't pretend that wrong doesn't matter. God doesn't say that truth doesn't matter. But God refuses to let our failures become the final accounting of who we are.”

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