Experiencing the Grace of God

Genesis 15:6 tells us, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

The Grace of God is so radically different from other world views and religions. When was the last time you heard someone refer to their karma? Or maybe someone mentioned how their good works put them in good standing with God?

What justified Abraham? Belief. When God promised Abraham’s offspring would be greater than the stars of the sky, Abraham simply believed.

Belief means to put your faith, trust or confidence in someone. Belief in God as Abraham did requires surrender.

In his book The Prodigal God, Tim Keller relates the following story of a woman who struggled with the thought of God’s Grace.

“If I was saved by my good works – there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace – at God’s infinite cost -then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.” She knew that if Jesus had really done this for her – she was not her own. She was bought with a price.”

An old song says:

I owed a debt I could not pay.
He paid a debt He did not owe…

The price has been paid. Will I respond with the simple belief of Abraham?

Why?

One of the top “news” stories of the week focuses on the sexual indiscretions of Tiger Woods.

Why?

Why do the people in our society seem surprised? Why do they even care? Why is it that a relativistic culture is judgmental in the least? Let’s face it. We’ve looked the other way as political leaders, celebrities and even leaders in the church have failed to keep up with expectations.

Is is like a traffic accident where traffic is slow because of the temptation to take a look at the scene? Is it really because of concern for the wife and children?

Why would a man at the top of his career with a beautiful wife and children risk it all for illicit sex?

I’ve been reading a book by Tim Keller called Counterfeit Gods. In it, Keller gives a clear look into the many areas we all fail. Love, Sex, Money, and Success are all attempts to find satisfaction. How many of us are slaving for a Counterfeit God?

Here is an excerpt:

“The human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.” Thus anything can be an idol and, really, everything has been an idol to one person or another. The great deception of idols is we are prone to think that idols are only bad things. But evil is far more subtle than this. “We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.”

In all of humanity’s search for meaning, I am reminded of how Pascal is paraphrased as saying that there is a “God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man”.

Tiger is not alone.

Something Unexpected

Over the last several weeks, I have been leading a class discussing Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God and the implications of Jesus’ parables found in Luke 15 – the lost sheep, coin and sons.

In each of the illustrations there is a celebration of the lost being found.  In the final parable, the celebration begins when the younger son “comes to his senses” and returns.  Jesus tells us of his expectations.  He would apologize and then ask for a job – working for the father and having enough to eat. Most of us would say that his expectations were hopeful and maybe reasonable.  But Jesus shatters our expectations.  Again.

In most of our lives, our expectations of family reunions fall painfully short, yet when the younger son returns the father runs to him, embraces him and kisses him.  The younger son received something unexpected.

I thought about the unexpected reaction this week as I heard David Crowder’s version of  How He Loves Us this week.  The original song contained a line ”so heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss”.  Honestly, the line made me a little uncomfortable and I was interested to see how Crowder handled the lyric.  His version refers to something unexpected – a surprise – “so heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss.”

This morning we talked about how the Salvation of God is experiential. This brings me back to the younger son.  He expected something very different than what he received.  He expected a legal agreement.  Work for pay. He received the father’s love and mercy and restoration to his position in the family.  An unforeseen kiss.

 

Not Christian Enough?

It seems that followers of Christ are sometimes their own worst enemies. We take the Truth of the Gospel and then make it nothing more than religion- a list of do’s and dont’s that somehow will establish a connection with God. In the end religion is a dead end.

In his book The Reason for God, Timothy Keller writes: “Think of the people you consider fanatical. They’re overbearing, self-righteous, opinionated, insensitive, and harsh. Why? It’s not because they are too Christian but because they are not Christian enough.”

Not Christian enough? Consider this. Some of us focus almost exclusively on the Jesus of the New Testament who challenges the religious leaders of His day and who raised the bar on moral expectations. We focus on the Jesus who said that even looking at someone lustfully is an act of adultery.

Where is the Jesus who had compassion on people? What about the Jesus who healed the man who was paralyzed and then challenged the man to leave his life of sin or something worse would come upon him? Or the Jesus who rescued the woman caught in the act of adultery and then said for her to leave her life of sin.

We are not Christian enough when we fail to represent the whole life of Christ to the world around us. Ask Keller said, we can appear self-righteous and harsh instead of compassionate for the people we live and work with. I’ve been guilty of this in the past. Have you?

Paul wrote in Ephesians four that we should speak the Truth in Love. Jesus never winked at sin, but his mission was to restore the relationship between God and mankind and he did that by perfectly balancing Grace and Truth.