HoHum:
Philip Yancey: I heard this from a friend who works with the down and out in Chicago “A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her 2 year old daughter... I could hardly bear hearing her story. I had no idea what to say to this woman. At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. ‘Church!’ she cried. ‘Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.’”
What struck me about my friend’s story is that women much like this prostitute fled toward Jesus, not away from him. The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge. Jesus was a friend to the tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners. Has the church lost that gift? The down and out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome among his followers. What’s happened?
The more I pondered this question, the more I felt drawn to one word as the key. Grace
WBTU:
Grace is one word that has not spoiled. Yancey calls it the last best word. How we use:
Say grace before meals, acknowledging daily bread as a gift from God.
We are grateful for someone’s kindness and gracious in hosting friends.
When a person’s service pleases us, we leave a gratuity.
A composer of music may add grace notes to the score. Not essential but missed
In England, British subjects address royalty as “Your grace.”
The policy of gracing. If I sign up for 12 issues of a magazine, I may receive a few extra copies even after my subscription has expired. These are “grace issues” sent free of charge.
Credit cards, rental care agencies, mortgage companies extend to customers a “grace period.”
The world thirsts for grace in ways it does not even recognize; little wonder the hymn “Amazing Grace” edged its way onto the Top Ten charts 200 years after composition.
During a conference on comparative religions, C.S.Lewis walked into a protracted debate on what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. The assembled experts had gradually eliminated various possibilities. Lewis who was passing came in to find out what all the noise was about. On hearing the topic for debate C.S.Lewis said, "Oh that's easy. It's grace."
Gordan MacDonald- You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.
“The great Christian revolutions,” said H. Richard Niebuhr, “come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.” Martin Luther and grace.
Thesis: What is grace? A definition and the scope of grace.
For instances:
A definition
Jack Cottrell- It’s basic meaning is “a gift that brings joy.” It is used to describe gifts of various kinds. One verb form means to give freely, as a favor. Another verb form means to bestow favor upon, to bless. The noun form means a gift. “A gift that brings joy.”
Yancey- In my experience, rejoicing is not the first image that comes to mind when people think of church. They think of holier than thous. They think of church as a place to go after you have cleaned up your act, not before. They think of morality, not grace. “Church!” said the prostitute. “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”
Such an attitude comes partly from a bias by outsiders. But yet the prostitute’s comment stings because she has found a weak spot in the church. Many of us neglect the church’s mission as a haven of grace in this world of ungrace.
The scope of grace
What we are asking is how broad is the concept of grace? With the definition being “A gift that brings joy,” that can cover a lot of ground. If we make it too broad then this concept is not unique to Christianity. Three main approaches to this issue:
Grace includes all of God’s works
At first this sounds attractive. Once we think seriously about it, we will see that it cannot be true. If grace is so broadened that it embraces everything God does, it loses its distinictiveness and becomes quite bland.
A more serious problem is that it does not take into account the reality of the other side of God’s nature. If every work of God is a work of grace, then nothing is a work of God’s wrath or holiness. Even works that appear to be expressions of God’s justice and wrath must be seen as just expressions of God’s grace. Some have gone so far as to say that God’s sending sinners to hell is indeed an act of His love.
A thought that might come from this is the denial of any kind of hell altogether and the view that ultimately everyone will be saved. If every work of God is a work of grace, then how could anyone ever be really lost?
Grace includes all of God’s positive works
This view excludes God’s negative works. Works that come from God’s holiness, justice and wrath including hell.
However, this is still too broad, because it includes God’s work of creation, His works of providence (his control and care for his creation), and all works of salvation.
It is true that the Bible’s use of grace does cover this broadness. It is any positive gift from God. In this sense, whatever God does for us, we are not worthy of it; we do not deserve it. It is a gift, a grace. James 1:17: Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
The OT terms for grace are often used in this sense, in talking about God as well as in prayer to God. However, such grace is not to be thought of as saving grace. Sometimes the NT uses it this way as well especially in connection with spiritual gifts. 1 Peter 4:10: Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. Peter is not talking about the saving grace but about the spiritual gifts we have all received.
To use the term grace this broadly does not make it unique. Other faiths and religions can claim this.
Grace refers specifically to God’s works of redemption.
To avoid confusion, the word “grace” should be limited in usage to saving grace. Jack Cottrell- This is my preference. From the standpoint of salvation, grace is specifically the essence of God’s redemptive relationship to human beings as sinners. From the standpoint of the NT, grace is the unique characteristic of the biblical doctrine of salvation from sin. This is the unique Christian concept of grace. There may be “grace-gifts” of a more general kind, but there is a unique grace that comes through Jesus Christ alone, saving grace.
Under this we could use the definition for grace as “unmerited favor.” However, this is not strong enough. It is more like “favor given when wrath is deserved.”
O George Stansberry to a group of Bible college students: If you leave this service today and see a needy person on the street and give him a dollar, that is unmerited favor. He did nothing to deserve it. But if you leave here and go to your car and find a man breaking into your car to steal your radio, and you give him a dollar, that is grace, because that is the opposite of what he deserves.
In the Lookout from 1990 called Meet Me at the Men’s Store by Paul Leonard: Paying my way through Ohio State University was demanding, but the benefit was worth the struggle. My father had died during my senior year in high school, and my mother had become blind. With her encouragement, however, I enrolled in the University on the eve of the Great Depression. By night I was a taxi driver, and during the lunch and dinner hours I waited on tables in a campus dining hall. I made enough to pay my expenses, but I had to always pinch pennies. At lunch one day I was serving a table where faculty members were seated. As I returned to the table with my tray held high, the unthinkable happened! I slipped on a spot of gravy on the floor and watched helplessly as the plates slid off the tray, spilling onto an especially well dressed man, one of my professors. My heart sank. What could I do to atone? I grabbed a towel to clean up the food, but I only spread the mess over more of my professor’s suit. He locked his eyes on me and asked, “Mr. Leonard, what are you going to do about this?” “I’m so sorry, sir. I’ll pay to have your suit cleaned,” I responded. “I don’t believe this suit can be dry cleaned, do you?” my professor countered. It was badly stained. I could tell that. And who was I to question his judgment? he had every right to be irritated. “Whatever it takes, sir,” I answered. And for the moment we left the matter at that. Later that afternoon the extend of the damage was even more obvious. I sat before the same professor in his engineering class as he did his best to present his normal lecture in something less than his usual splendor. When the bell rang I heard the dreaded words: “Paul Leonard, I’d like to speak to you for a moment.” After everyone else had left, he said simply, “Mr. Leonard, I believe it is only fair that you buy me a new suit.” “Yes, sir,” I managed. With a knot in my stomach, I agreed to meet him at a downtown Columbus men’s store the following day. I recognized the name of the store, an exclusive men’s clothier specializing in custom tailored suits. I also knew that I could cover the expense only if I were able to make payments over several months of work and scrimping. As I walked in the front door of the finely furnished store, I grew even more apprehensive. “Oh, there you are,” the ever proper professor remarked. He had arrived early. He had already chosen the fabric, and the tailor had already taken measurements. My professor, a regular customer, had apparently vouched for my trustworthiness before the clerk, nonchalantly accepted the professor’s remark, “Mr. Leonard will be responsible for the bill, as I have indicated.” More than a little disoriented, I turned to follow my professor out of the store. Then he stopped. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” I responded. “It will take time, of course, but I...” He interrupted me with words directed to the clerk. “Let’s see that Mr. Leonard is fitted for a suit just like mine. And put both of them on my bill.” I learned about responsibility in that men’s clothing shop in Ohio. Not only was my debt canceled, but I received what I did not deserve (actually, the opposite of what he deserved!) And my benefactor provided me with more than a suit and an indelible memory. He gave me an encounter with grace.
So What?
Why is this important? Heard from when I was little about how Jesus paid my price.
David Seamands, a counselor, says this: Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that love, forgiveness, and grace to other people. We read, we hear, we believe a theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live. The good news of the gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.
