All human achievements were reached because someone was a risk-taker and was willing to try. This attitude of trying hard and attempting new things carries over into many world religions.
Hindus try through KARMA, to reach the final destination.
Buddhists try to practice the art of meditation until they reach the final stage of nothingness.
Muslims hope that they have done enough good in the world to outweigh the bad and so earn the right to be allowed into heaven.
And, within the Roman Catholic Church as an Institution, there developed and grew a teaching that proclaimed we had to do something to earn our salvation in addition to what Christ has done on the cross.
It’s the characteristic response of mankind in search of spiritual truth. We want to do something for a sense of achievement that satisfies our pride.
On one hand human effort has brought about so much great and beneficial achievement in the world of mankind. On the other hand, human effort has actually served to be the greatest barrier and enemy of the concept we call, the Grace of God. What are we to do? Let’s examine some biblical thoughts and ideas.
What is Grace, after all?
One definition says this: undeserved blessing freely bestowed on mankind by God.
According to the Bible, Grace is one of the characteristics that describes who the God of the Bible is.
The apostle Peter described God as, the God of all Grace (1 Peter 5:10). The God worshiped in most other religions is never described as a gracious, merciful, kind God.
It is sad to say but at the time leading up to the Reformation, the grace, love, and kindness of God were not concepts that were commonly taught in the churches. Instead, there was a heavy emphasis on what man had to do to earn God’s love.
Why do I need Grace?
Are you morally perfect in everything you say, think or do, all the time to everyone you meet? Do you wait patiently in line, do you allow other drivers to get ahead? When someone else gets recognition for something you did, how did you feel? Do you wish your enemy well? How do you feel when you are ignored, mistreated, criticized, abused?
Those who have studied human nature find that all of us innately have a sense that something is just right or just wrong? This sense is not due to culture, education, economic conditions. We all seem to have an inner sense of morals. When someone does not, we describe him or her as abnormal psychopath.
The Bible says that we are not living in the way that we were designed to live and we are aware of our limitations, shortcomings and faults.
We were designed to live in a more gracious, kind, gentle way in a perfect world, but something went wrong.
This is how the Bible describes our condition. In Ephesians 2: 1, 2 we read:
And you, were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walk, following the course of this world, following the prince of power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:1-2).
Paul goes on to incriminate himself as well in verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh or human nature.
“Words have no meaning until they are set in a particular context. ”
It is the same with grace; until we set it in the context of the behavior and attitude that Paul has just described in the first 3 first verses of Chapter 2, we cannot know, understand or appreciate the value of grace.
It is our human condition that required, demanded from God, an act of GRACE if a new relationship between mankind and God was going to be made possible.
He didn’t leave us separated from His presence. His love, expressed in grace, motivated God to provide a way for us to enjoy a new, personal relationship with Him.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul describes the, exchanged life principle. An exchange took place on the cross of Christ. He wrote:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
“Christ actually became sin for us and we actually became the righteousness of Christ. ”
The one who accepts Christ’s sacrifice for sin receives the righteousness of Christ. That is God’s grace for us in action.
What are the dynamics of grace?
We need to understand clearly that God is under no obligation or necessity to act with grace. Grace by its very nature and definition cannot be earned.
It is not grace when your employer pays you what you earned by working for him.
It is not grace when your teacher gives you a good grade for answering the questions correctly on the test.
We need to hear again what Paul wrote in our passage: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. It is this aspect of grace, that it is a free gift from a God who is rich in mercy and love, that makes grace such a difficult concept for us to accept. We don’t contribute to our own salvation. That concept hurts our pride.
Christ paid the price for my rebellion against the creator God who made me. Our rebellion can be expressed in different ways:
Rebellion can be the defiant statement that God does not exist, that this world as we know it happened by chance. God is a myth taught by ignorant, feeble-minded people who need a crutch to get through life.
It can be seen in those who say, well maybe God exists but we can’t know for sure. He hasn’t given us enough information.
Our rebellion can be seen in a popular expression of indifference: I just want to live my own life my own way. I will leave God alone and I want him to leave me alone. The song by Frank Sinatra comes to mind, I did it my way. Quite popular among many especially at funerals.
Our rebellion can be seen in a misguided tolerance that says, it doesn’t matter what God you worship as long as you are sincere.
All of these rebellious attitudes and more, challenge and deny the God who is described in the Bible:
He is the creator of all that exists and He holds every molecule in place all the time
He has spoken and given us enough information both through creation as well as through His Son, the second member of the Trinity, to know that He exists.
To be indifferent to the All Powerful One who has given us life both physical and spiritual and who desires a personal relationship with each of his creatures is rude, arrogant, and ignorant of what is at stake.
It is my rebellion against God, in whichever form it takes, that has separated me from God and requires that God act graciously to me if that relationship is to be restored to His original plan.
It is these Truth claims given in the Bible as God’s promises to all mankind, that were distorted and ignored by the Catholic Church at the time of Reformation.
Luther and his forerunners didn’t discover these promises and truths; they rediscovered truths that were there all along since the New Testament was written. The message was lost that God, who is rich in mercy, wanted to freely give grace to all even though we haven’t earned it and don’t deserve it.
Is grace for unbelievers or believers?
It has sometimes been said that Christians preach grace to unbelievers, but Law to believers. As Christians we are often told to live under a set of rules to maintain our salvation by our good works.
This behavior has been described as a “tread-wheel of performance”. We need to follow a set of rules in order to maintain our relationship with God. It is a works emphasis.
“But God’s action of grace to unbelievers does not end when we first become believers by faith.”
That is a recognition of the need we as Christians have in our daily lives for God’s grace until the day we die. The young believers at Galatia struggled with this question. In Galatians 3:2-3 Paul wrote:
Let me ask you only this: did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh by keeping the law? (Galatians 3:2-3)
The gift of grace God offers us not only covers our sins, but also opens the door of a new, personal relationship with God.
“We are not only forgiven, but we become members of a new family with God as our Father and Jesus as our brother and co-heir.”
Conclusion & Application
To those of you who have never recognized or even thought about God’s grace, will you consider his gracious offer which you can never earn nor deserve? It is a gift He is offering to all.
His gracious gift is that He was willing to sacrifice His own Son, to pay the price of our wrong-doings so that we could have a personal, living relationship with Him, the God of all that is.
Secondly, for those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus, will we humble ourselves to admit and confess that without the power of God in us we can never please or earn His love for us.
One author put I this way: Our motivation for commitment, discipline, and obedience is important to God. God searches and understands every motive of our heart. To be acceptable to Him, our motives must spring from a love for Him not a fear of Him. A love that is fueled by a recognition and acceptance of His grace that has been poured out on us.
He continued to say, the term, growing in Grace, means to continually grow in our understanding of God’s grace, to become progressively more aware of our own continued spiritual bankruptcy.
Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
