Elizabeth Elliot, in her book The Liberty of Obedience, tells the story of a young man who said to an older Christian, “I am in earnest about forsaking ‘the world’ and following Christ. But I am puzzled about worldly things. What is it I must forsake?” The response he received was this: “Colored clothes, for one thing. Get rid of everything in your wardrobe that is not white. Stop sleeping on a soft pillow. Sell your musical instruments and don’t eat any more white bread. You cannot, if you are sincere about obeying Christ, take warm baths or shave your beard. To shave is to lie against Him who created us, to attempt to improve on His Work.” Elliot then says, “Does this answer sound absurd? It is the answer given in the most celebrated Christian schools of the second century!” And then she asks, “Is it possible that the rules that have been adopted by many twentieth-century Christians will sound as absurd to earnest followers of Christ a few years hence?”
One of the things that you discover as you read the Bible, or study church history, is that the peripheral things which Christians considered taboo changed drastically through the years. I remember when I was young, one of the churches near us frowned on jewelry of any kind — even wedding rings. The women all wore long dresses with high collars and long sleeves, and wearing makeup was out of the question. They would not think of going to a movie or watching TV. Now, hardly any of even the most conservative churches follow those kinds of rules.
In the New Testament the rules Christians struggled with centered around eating meat, strict dietary regulations and observing Jewish holy days. Associating with non-Jews was forbidden — just going into their house made you “unclean”. Whether or not a woman should speak in church, whether her head should be covered when she prayed, or how long she wore her hair were all things the early church hotly debated. Those things are completely non-issues in the church today. Conversely, many of the things that are issues in the church today were not issues at all in the early church.
There always have been and always will be “disputable matters” as Paul called them. I want to be careful to say that I am not talking about the moral law of God. It has never changed. The disputable matters are always in the area of customs that are bound by culture and tradition. God does not change his mind about what is right and wrong. Things like murder, injustice, stealing, lying, greed, etc. have always been, and always will be, immoral. It is the peripheral, disputable matters on which sincere Christians disagree that change with time and cultural circumstances.
In deciding these issues, Christians have seemed to bounce between two poles: law and grace. There are those who always emphasize the rules, and there are others who always emphasize grace. My point this morning is that we do not have to choose between the two, indeed we must not. It is not either law or grace; it is a dance of law and grace.
Let’s first consider the dangers and blessings of law. It all began on Mount Sinai when Moses received the Ten Commandments. These were the laws that were to govern the civil and moral lives of God’s people. These laws made Israel different from any other group of people on the face of the earth. And there were great benefits to these laws. The people of Israel enjoyed a freedom and stability that the nations around them did not have. Because of these laws the Israelites had much less crime, oppression and brutality associated with their culture. Families were stronger and people were safer. People were valued as the creation of God and had personal worth. Just imagine how our culture would be different if any one of the commandments was kept perfectly. How about “You shall not steal”? We have had the locks at the church changed at least three times since I have been here. Because of break-ins we had to install an expensive alarm system.
The problem of theft has affected me personally, because just before Christmas someone bought an expensive computer and other items after stealing my identity and using my credit card number. If everyone obeyed just the commandment against stealing we would not have to carry any keys. The police force could be cut in half. Many prisons would be closed. The prices of the things we buy would be drastically cut because there would be no shop lifting, fraud or stealing from businesses. The price of everything we buy is marked up to cover the cost of all these things. We would not need locks, security cameras or guards. We could live with great freedom and security.
What would it be like to live in a world where there were no murders? What if all children respected their parents? What if no married person was ever unfaithful? How different, how much better, all our lives would be. The law is good and necessary. A world without moral law is a world of anarchy and chaos, as we saw in the days following the hurricanes and floods this past year. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy saying, “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels” (1 Timothy 1:8-9). If there was not the problem of rebellion in the human heart the law would not be necessary. If you don’t think that laws are good just think of what would happen if there were no traffic laws. If you think driving down Coshocton Ave. is bad now. . .
It is the moral law of the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus that have changed the world for the better. Where would the world be without the influence of the moral code of Jesus? The United States is not a perfect place, but try to imagine what this country would look like today if we had never had our national and individual consciences impacted by the moral teachings of Jesus Christ. Slavery would most certainly be in existence. Women would not have the rights and dignity they are afforded today. The poor and disadvantaged would not be protected from abuse. Crime and brutality would be out of control.
I always smile when I hear someone say, “You can’t legislate morality.” All legislation is moral legislation. Even when we say, “It is wrong to run a red light,” that is a moral statement based on a moral judgment. Civil law is based on moral law, and that is where it gains its authority. Moral law is what makes a society work. Moral law is also what makes our individual lives work. If you want to invite chaos and ruin into your life simply ignore the moral law — any one of them will do. Let’s say you choose to ignore the ninth commandment and decide that it is okay for you to lie. Almost immediately problems will come. You will notice that your relationships with people are adversely affected. Serious trouble, and possible ruin, will enter your life just because you deliberately chose to break this one commandment. Your relationship with God will suffer, and you will not feel good about yourself. The more laws you decide to break the more difficult your life will become.
So the law is good. It benefits civilization greatly, and is necessary for the freedom and order of society. It benefits us individually, because the laws are given to us by God, not just for the sake of making us do what he wants, but so that we will get the most out of life. These are not just laws written in the Bible, these are laws are written into the very fabric of the universe. The Psalmist said, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Psalm 16:11). So the law is important in our spiritual lives and in our relationship with God — it is the path of life. If the law is so good, then what is the downside of law?
The good laws of God can be distorted in two ways: 1. When we add to God’s law and judge others by those things; and 2. When we think that by obeying God’s laws we have earned our salvation — that our relationship with God is based on our performance. Let me explain the first point with a story. Several years ago I was pastoring in a small community where there was a church that did not believe in being “worldly.” Being worldly meant, among other things, going to movies. It did not matter if it was a G-rated movie, they would not watch it. It did not matter if it was a Christian movie, they did not want it shown in their church. However, if there was a Christian video they did want to watch, they would borrow our church building and come over to the pagan church and watch it there. (You see, when you start making laws of your own, there is always a way around them.) The problem is that sometimes Christians believe that something is wrong for them personally, but then they make it wrong for everyone else as well. They make their personal conscience the rule by which they judge others. They feel superior to others who do not follow their rules and condemn them in their hearts. Because they do not believe it is right for them to go to movies, play cards, swim in public, dance or a whole host of other things, they judge others who do those things. They are the religious police, the keepers of the law.
The second problem with the law is that some people see the Christian faith as merely a moral code — a set of rules to be obeyed, and if you keep the rules, you earn your way into heaven. For these people, being a Christian is about keeping the moral law and doing the right thing. It is a religion of rules. The more rules you keep, the holier you are. What they do not seem to understand is that you cannot keep all the rules. The Bible says, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). You cannot be good enough to make yourself right with God and earn your way into heaven. We sing the great hymn that says:
Could my tears forever flow
Could my zeal no languor know
Not the labor of my hands
Could fulfill Thy law’s demands
All for sin cannot atone --
Thou must save, and Thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring
Simply to Thy cross I cling
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace
Foul, I to Thy fountain fly
Wash me, Savior, or I die.
Paul said to the Galatians: “I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?” (Galatians 3:2). We come into an experience with God through faith. It cannot be earned, it is the free gift of God. Rules by themselves cannot bring about righteousness, in fact, they often do just the opposite. Paul wrote to the Colossians saying, “Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence” (Colossians 2:20-23). In other words, rules can never replace the work of the Holy Spirit.
In the dance of faith, the law is the right foot and grace is the left foot. One step is freedom and the other is responsibility. Both are essential for dancing. Trying to dance on only one foot either makes you very rigid, or causes you to fall on your face. Let’s talk about grace, the other side of the law. There are dangers and blessings of grace as well. Grace is a wonderful thing, but like the law, it can also be distorted. I have had people tell me that they are living by grace, when they are simply being immoral. They believe obeying the laws of God is not important. They believe they can do whatever they wish, because loves people who are messed up and always forgives. The problem with this distortion is that even though God does love messed up people and always forgives, your life is still a mess. We have had people come to our church who wanted to accept positions of responsibility, but who were living in immorality. They could not understand why they could not do anything they wanted and still accept responsibilities in the church. They thought they were living by grace, but they were living a life of disobedience and self-indulgence. To put it simply, they were living in sin.
We often quote Ephesians 2:8-9 which says, “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.” But then the very next verse says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10). The truth is that the Bible says we are saved by grace, but it never says that it is only by grace. It is not faith OR works, but a faith THAT works that saves us. You can’t just believe in God, ask for forgiveness and think that is all there is to it. That is not grace, it is self-centeredness.
There is a dance to be danced between law and grace. We do not obey the laws of God as though the law can save us, and neither do we live by grace as though there is no need for obedience. We realize that it is the grace of God that saves us, but we humbly obey God out of gratitude and a realization that his laws are a gift — the very path of life. In this dance, the “You shall nots,” are superceded by the words of Jesus that you shall, “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).
One of the best loved hymns in the world is “Amazing Grace.” The words say:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I’m found;
Was blind, but now I see.
Many people think it is an old spiritual because of its wistful melody. Actually, it was written by John Newton in the late eighteenth century. He was a self-educated man, who was at one time the captain of a ship in the African slave trade. After his conversion, he realized how spiritually blind he had been and how deep the sin of his heart was. His eyes were opened, and he saw that he was indeed a spiritual wretch — more wretched than the slaves who were held in the stinking cargo hold of his ship. It was this amazing grace that opened his eyes and helped him to see two things: the awfulness of his sin before God, and the amazing grace that was offered to him in Jesus Christ. It was grace that made him turn his back on his sin and old way of life.
So it is with us. There is that awful moment when the grace of God reveals our sin to us in all its terribleness, and at the same moment helps us to see the love of God that is willing to come to us and cleanse us of our sin. In the words of the hymn: “ ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.”
This is the dance that moves us toward God. The melody of God’s love is being played, and the dance of faith helps us to move one foot, then the other, in a rhythmic movement toward the God who waits to embrace us and continue the dance.
Rodney J. Buchanan
April 30, 2006
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
