Many of you will remember the riots which took place in South Central Los Angeles. Buildings were burning and stores were being looted. During all the confusion an unsuspecting truck driver named Reginald Denny made a wrong turn and ended up in an area of some of the worst rioting. Millions of people were watching as a news helicopter filmed what happened live. Denny was pulled from his truck after the window was smashed with a brick. Two men pulled him from his cab and threw bricks at him, beat him with a broken bottle and kicked him in the face until he lost consciousness, permanently damaging him. Somehow he lived through the ordeal. When the case came to court, the men who had beaten him were hardened and belligerent. They showed no sign of remorse. Once again the media was filming live as they panned the courtroom. Reginald Denny’s face was still swollen and distorted from the merciless beating he took. The nation watched as Denny got out of his seat, against the protests of his attorneys, and walked over to the mothers of his assailants and hugged them as he told them he forgave their sons. They returned his hugs, and one of the mothers said that she loved him. Whether or not his actions had any affect on his attackers we do not know.
Before you revolt inwardly and think that this is slobbery sentimentalism, disconnected from reality, let me remind you that this is exactly what God has done for you. It is called grace. The men in the courtroom did not deserve forgiveness; they did not ask for it, and they had done nothing to deserve it, but it was offered without condition. But in the same way, the world mutilated Jesus — his body was disfigured from the beatings and the torture of the cross. The world was expressing its hatred of him at the same time his arms were open wide with the offer of forgiveness and reconciliation. Before we ever thought of God, he was walking toward us in an effort to embrace us and give us his forgiveness. The Bible puts it like this: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:21_22). The Bible tells us: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). This is grace: Forgiveness and love are given to us when we do not deserve them. In fact, we still do not deserve it, nor will we ever deserve it. Grace means that God has forgotten about my past sin, so I should too. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1_2). Grace means that forgiveness and reconciliation with God have come, not based on what we have done, but on who God is. Grace is: God’s Reward At Christ’s Expense.
The first point I want you to understand today is: Grace is the defining element of the Christian faith. Several years ago a symposium was held in Britain on comparative religions, with scholars from all around the world. They began to debate whether or not there was any belief which was unique to the Christian faith. Was there anything there which was not taught by the other great world religions? They discussed doctrines like the incarnation and the resurrection. But other religions spoke of gods appearing in human form and accounts of people returning after death, though they usually spoke of it in terms of reincarnation. C. S. Lewis wandered into the room as the debate was in full heat. He asked what all the arguing was about and was told that they were trying to discover if there was anything that was taught in Christianity that was not taught by other world religions. Lewis replied, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.” There was some discussion about his remark, but finally the other scholars had to agree. The idea that God’s love comes to us freely, without any strings attached and asking nothing in return, seemed to go against what was taught in all the other man-made religions of the world. The Buddhist’s eight-fold path was a religious walk based solely on the individual’s performance. Likewise, the Hindu doctrine of karma with its successive phases which determine a person’s destiny was based on certain things a person accomplished. The Muslim’s have the code of the law which must be followed precisely in order to enter into paradise. All of these are ways which a person must work to earn approval. Christianity alone makes God’s love and acceptance something which is offered to undeserving human beings without cost or condition. Indeed, it makes clear that it cannot be earned, it comes as a free gift.
The Bible says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:6_9). All the other religions with their gods and goddesses do count people’s sins against them. Reconciliation is a difficult, if not impossible, climb for them. But Christians understand that the true God of heaven is one who is full of compassion and mercy. Even in the Old Testament we read: “And [the Lord] passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin” (Exodus 34:6_7). God wants to be reunited with us more than we want to be reconciled with him. And the cost of this reconciliation is free — paid for by the offended party. This is the central and defining element of the Christian faith. God’s love and forgiveness cannot be earned — it comes as a free gift.
The second point which is important for you to understand is that: Grace means that you no longer have to try to be perfect. Philip Yancey, in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace?, tells the following story:
“A vagrant lives near the Fulton Fish Market on the lower east side of Manhattan. The slimy smell of fish carcasses and entrails nearly overpowers him, and he hates the trucks that noisily arrive before sunrise. But midtown gets crowded, and the cops harass him there. Down by the wharves nobody bothers with a grizzled man who keeps to himself and sleeps on a loading dock behind a Dumpster.
“Early one morning when the workers are slinging eel and halibut off the trucks, yelling to each other in Italian, the vagrant rouses himself and pokes through the Dumpsters behind the tourist restaurants. An early start guarantees good pickings: last night’s uneaten garlic bread and French fries, nibbled pizza, a wedge of cheesecake. He eats what he can stomach and stuffs the rest in a brown paper sack. The bottles and cans he stashes in plastic bags in his rusty shopping cart.
“The morning sun, pale through harbor fog, finally makes it over the buildings by the wharf. When he sees the ticket from last week’s lottery lying in a pile of wilted lettuce, he almost lets it go. But by force of habit he picks it up and jams it in his pocket. In the old days, when luck was better, he used to buy one ticket a week, never more. It’s past noon when he remembers the ticket stub and holds it up to the newspaper box to compare the numbers. Three numbers match, the fourth, the fifth_all seven! It can’t be true. Things like that don’t happen to him. Bums don’t win the New York Lottery.
“But it is true. Later that day he is squinting into the bright lights as television crews present the newest media darling, the unshaven, baggy pants vagrant who will receive $243,000 per year for the next twenty years. A chic_looking woman wearing a leather miniskirt shoves a microphone in his face and asks, “How do you feel?” He stares back dazed, and catches a whiff of her perfume. It has been a long time, a very long time, since anyone has asked him that question.
“He feels like a man who has been to the edge of starvation and back, and is beginning to fathom that he’ll never feel hunger again.”
What did that beggar to do deserve receiving several million dollars? Absolutely nothing! He had not even bought the winning ticket. All he did was pick it up and cash it in to receive his prize. Someone else had thrown it away as though it was useless, but he saw its potential worth. He had not worked for a long time. He did not earn the money. The check was given to him as a free gift, without conditions. He did not have a job or an education. He did not have to do anything but accept the check.
Having a relationship with God does not depend on how well we do or how perfect we are. It is based solely on the mercy and grace of God. This is good news for us failures. We read in the book of Titus: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4_5). Here is the unique message of the Christian faith. As it says in 2 Corinthians: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). This frees us from guilt and legalistic perfectionism. We understand that we can never be perfect and that our relationship with God is based solely on grace. The Bible says, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4_5).
Phil Yancey writes, “Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more.... And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.” The guilt and condemnation is gone and a settled peace comes upon our hearts as we realize we don’t have to do anything to gain God’s acceptance — we already have it. Our relationship with God is not based on how good we are, but on the character of a gracious and forgiving God who loves us more than we can ever understand.
The third point which is important for us to understand is: Grace inspires us to no longer live in sin. One thing I have learned over the years, as a parent and as a pastor, is that guilt is a poor motivator. Some people are afraid to talk too much about grace out of fear that people will no longer think obedience is important. The truth is that you can motivate people through guilt, but it does not last very long. You can force your children to obey your rules while they are home, but once they are away, and you are no longer there to enforce the rules, the rules will not stick. You can motivate employees through fear and intimidation, but you will find that they will do only what is absolutely necessary, and that resentment will fill your place of business. There are some coaches who try to motivate through humiliation — pointing out everything a player did wrong — even doing it in front of the public. If you want to rip the heart out of a team there is no better way to do it. But begin to let your team know that you believe in them; let your employee know you appreciate them; let your child know that they have your approval even if they fail, and see what difference grace makes.
Guilt and fear are poor motivators, but love motivates us inwardly, from the heart, to do our best. As the apostle Paul said, “The letter [of the law] kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). He said, “Christ’s love compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). We want to serve. We want to do our very best, because we are moved by grace and motivated by love. People whose lives have been touched by grace understand that the Christian life is not a matter of following a moral code, nor is it a matter of believing a prescribed set of doctrines; the Christian life is a relationship with God. That relationship is marked by love and trust. We discover that we are respected and accepted by God and our hearts respond with love and dedication. Some people prefer what someone has called, “the God of the Gotcha” — a God who is always out to get you for something you have done wrong. A God who tells us that we never quite measure up. Even when we do something good we are made to feel we could have done it better. People who live with this kind of God in their brain may serve him, but they do it with cringing and they harbor resentment. Rebellion is never very far away. But we serve a God who loved us when we were still sinners. We were unlovable, but he loved us anyway. This grace changes us.
Augustine said, “Who can be good, if not made so by loving? . . . Love God and do as you please.” He could say that because he knew that when you love God, what pleases you will be what pleases God. Grace has put us in contact with the love of God and love has changed us. But even though grace is our defining doctrine, we in the Christian church have not lived up to it very well. We understand that we have been saved by grace, but then we act as though the rest is up to us. Some have even taught that we are forgiven at the time of our salvation, but if we mess up after that there is no hope for us. But we know that we live by grace every moment of every day.
If we were to scrutinize the thoughts, decisions and actions of our life on any given day, we would find that even the best of them would be filled with selfish purposes and wrong motivations. We never get to the place where we no longer need the grace of God. We can never talk too much about the grace of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once wrote this warning to pastors: “There is thus clearly a sense in which the message of ‘justification by faith only’ can be dangerous, and likewise with the message that salvation is entirely of grace . . . . I would say to all preachers: If your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really are preaching the salvation that is offered in the New Testament to the ungodly, to the sinner, to those who are enemies of God. There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation.”
There may be those who misunderstand the message of grace so that they feel they no longer have to obey God at all, but better that than to have an image of an angry God who can never be pleased and find yourself resenting him. If you have to err, always err on the side of grace.
The final point which is important to understand is this: Grace must be received. I can hold out to you the greatest gift in the world, but if you never receive it, it is never yours. And here is the difficult part, because if you cannot admit that you need grace, you can never receive it. If you never admit that you are guilty you can never receive forgiveness — you will not understand your need of it. C. S. Lewis says that this is the “catch” of grace. Pascal said, “Truly it is an evil to be full of faults, but it is a still greater evil to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognize them.” Grace means that God’s love and forgiveness come to us free and without cost. But there is one catch: The necessity of admitting that we are “sinful, wretched, pitiful, poor, weak and blind.” We cannot earn our salvation, but we do have to accept it. It is ours to have if only we are willing to face the truth about ourselves. Becoming a Christian means that we have to live facing the truth about ourselves, in order to experience the reality of God’s wonderful grace which ushers us into his presence and showers us with his love. Have you taken that step? Have you faced the truth about yourself so that you can receive the fullness of God’s grace? For heaven’s sake do it now.
Rodney J. Buchanan
November 26, 2000
NO LONGER CONDEMNED
Romans 8:1-11
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1_2).
It is important to understand that:
1. Grace is the ______________________________________ of the Christian faith.
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
2. Grace means that you no longer _________________ ____________________________________________________ .
“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4_5).
3. Grace inspires us to _____________________________ ____________________________________________________ .
“Christ’s love compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
4. Grace must be _________________________________ .
“Truly it is an evil to be full of faults, but it is a still greater evil to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognize them.” – Blaise Pascal
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION (Nov. 26, 2000)
1. Why is grace so important?
2. Why is grace so hard to receive?
3. Read Ephesians 2:6-9. What role do good works play in our relationship with God? What role do they not play.
4. Read Titus 3:5-7. How do we come into a right relationship with God?
5. Which motivates you more, appreciation or criticism? How does the notion of grace fit in here regarding your relationship with God?
6. What is God’s attitude toward the world? Toward you personally?
7. How does a person experience the grace of God? What role does honesty play in it?
8. Read John 8:1-11. Who was more righteous, the woman or the Pharisees? How did grace turn this incident around? Who experienced grace and who did not?
9. Someone has said, “People divide into two types: not the guilty and the ‘righteous,’ as many people think, but rather two different types of guilty people. There are guilty people who acknowledge their wrongs, and guilty ones who do not.” What is this person saying? Do you agree or disagree?
10. Many think of Christianity as a moral code, or a set of religious beliefs or teachings. What is it in reality?
