Part Four
A story is often told about a father, who, upon coming home from work needed an hour of undisturbed time to finish a report for the next day. To his young daughter, not having seen her dad all day, five minutes seemed like an hour, and an hour seemed more like a lifetime. Not being able to dissuade his daughter from interrupting until he was finished, he had an idea to keep her busy. He found an old magazine that he remembered had a large picture of the world on one page. He tore the page out and began to cut it into tiny fragments. Mixing the pieces up, he gave them to his daughter and told her that by the time she could put the picture back together, he would be done, and then they would play.Thinking that would keep her busy for the whole time, in just a couple minutes she was back with it solved complete and perfect. Wanting to know how she could possibly have done it so quickly by herself, she said, that it was easy. ‘On the other side of the page was a picture of a man. I knew that if I just put the pieces of the man together, I could solve the mixed up pieces of the world.’
We wish the problems of this world could be solved so easily, but I wonder that we don’t trip on the answer in the preceding illustration. We wonder what to do about all of the difficult situations we are faced with, living in a fallen world, plagued by the effects of sin. What rules do we follow? What does God require? What can we and can we not do? Can a Christian get a divorce? Can a divorced person re-marry? Can we smoke? Can we drink? Can we eat meat? Can we gamble? On and on the questions go without any end in sight. What do we have to do; what can we get away with? What are our freedoms; what are our restrictions? What are the loopholes? What does the Bible say? What does Paul say? What does the church say? How do we put the broken, torn up pieces of man back together again and fix the problems in the world?
Just before sitting down to write this paper I began reading a book called: What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey. This book, even in its opening chapters, shows the practical side of grace compared with the alternative of what he termed: ungrace. I will try to refrain from making more than a couple statements about it, lest this writing be turned more into a book report than a response to the topic statement, however, my whole answer to this topic question will be framed around the same message that this book contains. Which in fact is the same message that the Bible contains—God’s Amazing Grace.
Yancey calls grace: "the last best word." The reason, he writes, "it is one grand theological word that has not spoiled." He writes about the many uses of the word grace and its being a taproot to such other words as: graciousness, gratuity and grateful. "It contains the essence of the Gospel as a drop of water can contain the image of the sun." But, Yancey goes on to give this heart searching claim too which I concur, "Oddly, I sometimes find a shortage of grace within the church, the institution founded to proclaim, in Paul’s phrase, ‘the gospel of God’s grace."’ Quoting David Seamands, he says, "We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live." And, he quotes Gordon MacDonald as saying, "…There is only one thing the world cannot do. The world cannot offer grace." The church must do that which the world cannot.
So, there we have it. I have been a Christian long enough to know that, sadly, what he says is true. We talk a good message, but to our shame, for the most part, we (myself included) misrepresent our Lord Jesus Christ by failing to show to others a measure of the same grace we have experienced from Him. We like the part about having our sins forgiven; past, present and future, but we are not so quick to forgive the shortcomings in someone else. Perhaps it is just like what Jesus told the Pharisee, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loveth much: but unto whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." (Luke 7:47) Or even more so, the parable Jesus told of the unmerciful servant, found in Matthew 18:23-35. We really do not understand how much we have been forgiven. Otherwise, having been forgiven, we would be compelled to go, and spread the Good News. The Good News being that, even while you were enemies; dead in sin and trespasses; no way out; no where to go; God has conciled you to Himself, by the death of His Son on the cross, now therefore, be reconciled to Him. Whether it is around the world, or in our own back yard, the message from the Scriptures is the same: FREE GRACE. And if God forgives such an insurmountable debt such as ours, we should forgive the pittance of a debt against us.
It is no wonder that the church system has failed to evangelize the world. It has lost its calling. It has forgotten from whence it began. We can spend billions of dollars to reach around the world, but without a message of grace, freely given by God; freely received by them; with no strings attached by us; we have no Gospel to tell them. Jesus did not come to call the righteous to repent, but sinners. It is not the whole that need a physician, but the sick.
Oh how easily we quote John 3:16; the message of the Gospel itself wrapped up in one verse—and we should! We preach to the lost that they can come to Jesus just the way they are—and we must. That is the message of the Gospel! Come to the Father, just as you are. Jesus has paid the debt. All of it! There is nothing left for us to pay. Nothing! There is nothing that we can do that will add to what Christ has done, that can make the Father love us more. There is nothing that we can do that can take away from what Jesus has done for us that will make the Father love us less. Romans 8:31-39 proves this very fact.
Billy Graham has a choir play and sing as his closing theme during every altar call, and at all of his crusades, the song: "Just as I am". Why then do we make such an offer and hide it behind the conditions of an "ecclesiastical rule book"? The Apostle Paul might ask us the same question he asked of the Galatians: "Who has bewitched you?" We are told to come to Christ just as we are in all of our filth and wretched sin. He will take us in and love us just as we are. He washes away our sin and gives us His righteousness. Now we claim that righteousness as if we earned it ourselves. We make a mockery of God’s grace. Then to compound it, we refuse to give the same grace that we have received to everyone else: saint and sinner alike.
We turn God’s precious offering of grace into a work! How? By attaching conditions of law. Surely we are not under the law we say, and we would never hold anyone to keeping the law. But we do, when we demand of them to keep certain requirements of "lifestyle" according to an interpretation of Scripture. And it is only a difference of opinion according to the interpretation of Scripture that permits or denies any point of lifestyle conduct.
As Christians, we all claim to get our guidance and direction from the Word of God, and yet the same sword can be used either to circumcise, or to castrate! One denomination allows a woman to wear makeup, or preach and another does not. One denomination allows for divorced people to participate in the liturgy of the service, others forbid it. Some will even treat divorced people as though that is the unforgivable sin! Is not everybody reading from the same Bible? What does it say? Can we smoke, or drink? Is buying a lottery ticket gambling? What are the answers to the questions posed at the beginning of this writing? How are we to know the answers to modern problems?
Do we answer from the law, or do we answer from grace? What does the law say, or better yet what does grace say? Is a person righteous because they keep the law, or do they keep the law because they are righteous? The law says you are only righteous if you keep the entire law without fail. Grace says you keep the law because He has made you righteous. The law looks at every issue from the standpoint of right and wrong, grace sees everything from the viewpoint of life! Therefore, which of these two do we choose? How do we answer all of the difficult questions of lifestyle that the Bible seems to be silent on? With the same measure of grace and forgiveness God offers.
"What is the limit of God’s forgiveness? Say…seventy times seven? What is the extent of His mercy and Grace? If you say there is no limit like I do, then that means in the church as well as outside the church. Therefore if God is all forgiving shouldn’t we be the same? So then, does that mean people are free to do anything they want? The simple answer is surprising to some—Yes. Look, do you do what pleases God because you love Him, or because you have to? If everything you do is motivated out of a heart of love for God, then everything you do will please Him. If on the other hand you are only interested in what pleases self, then God will put you through the fire to purify you. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, you will reap what you sow. Therefore sow good seed and reap a harvest of Life!
Amen.
