Grace Again

COMPOSED

The challenge, once we recognize its importance and want to meet it, is upheld and accomplished by His nature within us. We don’t muster up our best selves, bolstered with conscious effort, to become a perfectly balanced conduit of truth and grace. Indeed, if we are to try, we will not be able to do it. Even if once or twice we succeed, eventually we’ll come up against a scenario which baffles us and we’ll be uncertain of how to respond with the complementary ingredients needed. We might withhold an honest response, or, more often, make the mistake of delivering our black and white version of truth with all the gentle warmth of an avalanche. Once we’ve buried someone’s dignity underneath our sense of superiority, we will not be the one they turn to to help them dig out. 

1 Peter 3:15-16  But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 

It’s notable that these verses seem to say that, not only are we to be, essentially, kind, in our witness, but that it might also be more effective to wait until someone is interested enough to ask what lies behind our hope. It also directly implies that at least some people will find reason to speak against even a kind and sincere response. Gentleness and respect keep us reliably unconcerned with such critical jabs, and help extinguish the flames of further critique.  

But we can’t expect this to be simple. If it was easy, we wouldn’t so often see such a different approach unfold on social media, news outlets, commentaries and elsewhere, including in our local houses of worship and welling up within us. We often see people eager to press their view into being, quite unaware of their unsettling zeal. Sadly, this malicious witnessing distorts Christ’s name, and the petty hypocrite betrays the God he serves. The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war… (Ecclesiastes 9:17-18)

A wise mentor told me years ago that there is much more gray behind surface levels of black and white in our faith world. She did not at all mean that there are no absolutes (truth is truth in the Scriptures), but that I should be aware of the frequent need for a deeper analysis and refrain from a quick surface categorization. Keeping things very black and white is easier for quick maneuvering in an awfully confused world. But to maneuver implies that we are working our way around and through people, to get someplace else. Jesus sat right down for dinner with the objects of His love, and they were sinful. And so are we. 

Romans 6:1-2,14  What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? …For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

The calling of a follower of Christ, then, is to follow Him. He, of course, was without sin, yet was unafraid to show love to those caught in sin’s net. But it wasn’t a message to condone or laugh off the deadly consequences of life apart from Him. He was so desperate for the lost to be found that He stayed in relationship with them – in conversation, interaction, dialogue, over a meal – in hopes that they would experience the message of truth through the grace of His love. Love allows the delivery of the truth. 

2 Timothy 2:24-26  And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. 

Even as we follow Him, it is not we who bring about repentance in another – only God does that. To spread the love of Christ, we need not take up more space than He intends us to, so that we leave Him room to move. Each person is sovereign to yield — or not — to the Sovereignty of God. If we are so desperate for the lost to be found, we will stay with them in relationship – in conversation, interaction, dialogue, over a meal – in hopes that they will experience the message of truth through the grace of His love. Let God’s Spirit speak the truth as we deliver His love. 

AMPLIFIED

None are without need of Jesus’ cleansing sacrifice to wash over the grime of sinfulness. In perfection and holiness, God requires a recompense so that we are clean in His presence. Repentance achieves our acquittal, but we must first believe we are guilty. And self-assurance deceives us. Any trap is one we might easily fall into, or have already crawled out of, time and again. He knows the hidden recesses and indignities of our unseen thoughts and behaviors. How we smugly relish in our rightness, and don’t quickly forgive. Or we make a show of our mercy, seeking admiration for our benevolence. Like a student eager to prove the teacher wrong on a poorly written test question, we want points for our correctness, but we don’t detect our arrogant motives. Pride is a hiding dagger that pierces, once exposed.

Paul was a murderer. We become angry.

David was an adulterer. We look with lust.

Peter was impulsive. As are we. 

We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

We are to give to those in need, more than they ask for, without looking for thanks.

We are to pray and fast without making a show in front of others.

We are not to store up treasures on earth; we cannot serve both God and Money.

We are not even to worry, but to seek first His kingdom.

We are not to judge others. But still, we do.

We are full of pride, but called to a life of humility.

Yet grace is always more powerful than pride. He offers complete forgiveness. And we need to offer the same to others. Freedom comes from letting go of our obsession with others’ missteps; it is for us, as much as for them. In stark contrast to a consumer-driven religion, self-serving in nature, Jesus demonstrates a servant’s heart that forgives and sacrifices for the good of others. He refills us continually to do the same, satisfied and sustained by His overflowing Spirit living inside us. He must become greater, I must become less (John 3:30).

Ever so gently, steadily, He draws us into this honest place, where in humility we lean into His laser-sharp refining process. When He touches our submerged interior, scales of blindness transform into lenses of clarity. Alert to the authentic, unpredictable ways that God is at work, we see a renewal of life’s messiness into the compelling beauty of restoration. We can set ourselves aside and view others through His eyes. And the truth about ourselves requires us to act with overwhelming generosity of heart and mind. The freedom of grace constrains us. As we receive it, we offer it extravagantly to others. It becomes, miraculously, Grace Again.

POSTLUDE

“The Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the disposition that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives are based on that disposition. The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man – the very thing Jesus means it to do. As long as we have a self-righteous, conceited notion that we can carry out Our Lord’s teaching, God will allow us to go on until we break our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him…The bedrock in Jesus Christ’s kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility – I cannot begin to do it. Then Jesus says –Blessed are you. That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor!”  O. Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, July 21

“Thus in a brilliant stroke Jesus replaces the two assumed categories, righteous and guilty, with two different categories: sinners who admit and sinners who deny. The woman caught in adultery helplessly admitted her guilt. Far more problematic were people like the Pharisees who denied or repressed guilt. They too needed hands empty for grace.” P. Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 182

“Never water down the word of God, preach it in its undiluted sternness; there must be unflinching loyalty to the word of God; but when you come to personal dealing with your fellow men, remember who you are – not a special being made up in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.” O. Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, June 28

“By forgiving another…I release my own right to get even and leave all issues of fairness for God to work out. I leave in God’s hands the scales that must balance justice and mercy….Though wrong does not disappear when I forgive, it loses its grip on me, and is taken over by God, who knows what to do…” P. Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 93

“I view with amazement Jesus’ uncompromising blend of graciousness toward sinners and hostility toward sin, because in much of church history I see virtually the opposite.” P. Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 259

“...a clear principle in Jesus’ life: he brings to the surface repressed sin, yet forgives any freely acknowledged sin. The adulteress went away forgiven, with a new lease on life; the Pharisees slunk away, stabbed to the heart.” P. Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 152

“In intercession you bring the person, or the circumstance that impinges on you before God until you are moved by His attitude towards that person or circumstance.” O. Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, December 13

“What blocks forgiveness is not God’s reticence – ‘But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him’ – but ours. God’s arms are always extended; we are the ones who turn away.” P. Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 52

“Forgiveness, we discover, is always harder than the sermons make it out to be…We nurse sores, go to elaborate lengths to rationalize our behavior, perpetuate family feuds, punish ourselves, punish others – all to avoid this most unnatural act…in a stunning reversal, Jesus instructed us to ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ At the center of the Lord’s Prayer which Jesus taught us to recite, lurks the unnatural act of forgiveness…Jesus hinged God’s forgiveness on our willingness to forgive unjust acts.” P. Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 86-87

“Another thing that distracts us is the lust of vindication…That temper of mind destroys the soul’s faith in God. ‘I must explain myself; I must get people to understand.’ Our Lord never explained anything; He left mistakes to correct themselves.” O. Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, November 23

“Martin Luther King writes that he had to fast for several days in order to achieve the spiritual discipline necessary for him to forgive his enemies…he countered violence with nonviolence and hatred with love. ‘Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred,’ he exhorted his followers.”  P. Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 133

“The world starves for grace.” P. Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 39

“One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be humiliated without manifesting the slightest trace of anything but His grace.” O. Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, June 26

“The worst tragedy would be to turn the Sermon on the Mount into another form of legalism; it should rather put an end to all legalism. Legalism like the Pharisees’ will always fail, not because it is too strict but because it is not strict enough. Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.” P. Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 144

“According to Tolstoy, all religious systems tend to promote external rules, or moralism. In contrast, Jesus refused to define a set of rules that his followers could then fulfill with a sense of satisfaction. One can never ‘arrive’ in light of such sweeping commands as ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ In other words, the proof of spiritual maturity is not how ‘pure’ you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.” P. Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 197-8 

“It is possible, warns the biblical writer Jude, to ‘change the grace of our God into a license for immorality…’ ‘Christ accepts us as we are,’ wrote Walter Trobisch, ‘but when He accepts us, we cannot remain as we are.’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer coined the phrase ‘cheap grace’ as a way of summarizing grace abuse…Every call to conversion, he insisted, includes a call to discipleship, to Christ-likeness.” P. Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 184

“It takes God a long time to get us out of the way of thinking that unless everyone sees as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view…Don’t get impatient, remember how God dealt with you – with patience and with gentleness; but never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, ‘Go and make disciples,’ not ‘make converts to your opinions.’” O. Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, May 6

What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Copyright 1997 by Philip Yancey, used by permission.

The Jesus I Never Knew, Copyright 1995 by Philip Yancey, used by permission.

ENCOURAGING WORD

2 John 3  Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love. 

1 John 2:9-11  Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. 

1 Peter 4:8  Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 

1 Peter 2:23  When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.

1 Peter 2:20-21:  But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

Luke 6:27-31  But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Romans 12:14,17,19  Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…Do not repay anyone evil for evil. ..Do not take revenge, my friends…

Matthew 5:11  Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Matthew 18:21-22  Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven times.’

Hebrews 12:3  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful man, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Galatians 5:13-15  You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 

Galatians 6:1-2  Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 

Ephesians 4:32  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. 

1 Peter 2:16  Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.

Jude 4  For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. 

James 3:16-18  For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.