No Place for Grace

The Church of Jesus has been built on grace; grace afforded us from before all eternity (2 Tim. 1:9). What is grace? Saving grace is God’s condescending favor shown to justly condemned sinners. Moved by his love to give of himself freely to undeserving sinners, God afforded us grace so that we might be justified and redeemed. And yet, there is another facet to grace that I believe is too often missing in the Church at large today. It is the grace demonstrated between Christians that flows out of the saving grace we’ve experienced. It is the grace that continues to operate in the Christian Church in which we can express forgiveness to one another, love one another despite our faults, and rectify interpersonal disagreements (2 Cor. 3:18).

This facet of “Body-grace”- the grace that operates day after day; the grace we believers are supposed to extend to one another in our corporate life - is, I fear, becoming stilted and waning in many parts of the Church. In its place has arisen a dangerous, and too often infectious, disease…legalism. Legalism may manifest itself ecclesiastically in what we pastors know as “worship wars”. Churches question the spirituality, let alone theology, of their sister churches over the forms of worship, especially the music, the other church employs. This type of legalism goes both ways; the church which employs a contemporary worship model is accused by the traditional church and vice versa. The grace of God which should characterize the relationship between churches vanishes and is replaced by a dangerous infection of legalism.

And yet, I believe the disappearance of grace and infection of legalism is most dangerously seen in how we treat one another. Let me give you some very real examples. A man commits adultery against his wife. His sin goes public in the church – most know about it, but no one does anything about it. Eventually, the sinning Christian divorces his wife, leaves the church, and abandons God in a very practical way. Many years go by. After a series of life events, the sinning Christian voices his return to Christ. He begins to attend church again, and is even counseling with his pastor to address his life issues and begin growing in Christ once more. Yet, Christian acquaintances from his past refuse to give this brother the benefit of the doubt. They talk (actually gossip) about it, and call his sincerity into question. Another man experiences saving grace from a life of heinous sin – drugs, theft, gang activity. Within a year of his salvation, he slips and gets caught up once more in his old life. He uses drugs once more, gets picked up for check fraud, and ends up back in prison. While in prison he comes back to a place of faithfulness to Christ. He’s faithful to Bible studies, witnesses to his fellow inmates, and grows close to Jesus once more. He does his time and gets out. Upon returning to his church family he is ostracized. Gossip ensues as in the previous example and the young man is forced to leave the church and spiritually fend for himself. A young woman spends her youth in promiscuity and sin, but comes to saving grace in Jesus. At some point after her conversion, she is once again entrapped by promiscuity. She becomes pregnant and bears a child. The Holy Spirit convicts and she returns to faithfulness in Christ. The Lord brings her a Godly man full of talent; well gifted to be a leader in the Church. They marry with the intent of serving Christ together for the glory of God and benefit of his Church. Yet, because of his wife’s past he is advised to seek ministry options elsewhere. The gossips once again go to work; justifying their legalism by claiming his wife’s past is not conducive to one who wishes to lead in the church.

These examples are but a handful to illustrate what I believe is a pervasive problem in the Christian Church; a problem of legalism and absence of grace. I was asked recently what I believe the biggest challenge facing the Church in the 21^st century might be. Outside of theological, political, and cultural challenges; I believe the greatest threat facing the Church is the infection of legalism and the waning of grace.

I think too many Christians have forgotten grace. I believe we have become forgetful and practically deified certain biblical characters. Allow me to illustrate:

1.       Noah was favored of God and the recipient of God’s grace. And yet, one might make the case that he was not the best father in the world. Shortly after leaving the ark, Noah makes wine, gets drunk, walks around his tent naked, and is mocked by Ham, one of his sons, which caused Noah to curse his own son for his sin.

2.       Abraham lied to the king of Egypt by telling him Sarah was his sister (something repeated by his son Isaac); putting his wife’s virtue and life in danger, and tried to push the plan of God into action by taking Hagar and having a son by her.

3.       Moses was a murderer, polygamist who married a Gentile, and failed to listen to God on at least one occasion.

4.       Then there were the first three kings of Israel. Saul rebelled against the commands of God and failed to kill the Amalekites God’s way, David committed adultery, murder, and polygamy, and Solomon was lustful, polygamous, and idolatrous.

5.       The disciples were fraught with failures and sins. Many of them were arrogant, at least one was a terrorist, two were traitors to their own people, and overall they were unfaithful and quarrelsome in the gospels.

6.       Peter gave in to the Jewish legalism of his day rather than accept the Gentile converts as recipients of God’s grace which caused Paul to confront him face to face.

7.       Paul authorized the unlawful execution of Stephen and hated Christians so much he set out to Damascus to arrest and kill as many as he could.

8.       Paul and Barnabas argued so vehemently with each other that they dissolved their working relationship and went their separate ways.

9.       John Mark (author of the gospel of Mark) abandoned Paul and Barnabas because he was homesick.

 

Look at 1 Corinthians 5. Paul admonishes the church at Corinth to remove a man who was committing incest with his stepmother from the body due to his unrepentance. In 2 Corinthians 2:5-8, Paul admonishes that same church to restore to fellowship the man who committed incest due to his repentance. These are amazing cases of grace in action, and good reminders to us today that we need to treat one another with more grace not less. These believers, who had previously winked as this brother’s incest, had to be told to restore this brother with grace. They did not naturally want to do so, it appears.

I am by no means saying we should ignore sin. Scripture clearly lays out a plan for handling interpersonal sin within the Christian community. But once it’s handled; it’s handled. End of story; put the gossips to bed (or stand them in the corner until they learn to shut up); and exercise some more grace. We are infected with a legalism that causes us to look down upon those who don’t measure up to the golden standard of…well…us. When we judge one another by our standards rather than God’s are we not just modern day Pharisees?

So, I ask the question, “Where’s the room for grace?” I’ve been guilty of the kind of legalism I described above, but, by God’s grace, will have no part of it any further. We must eradicate legalism in all its forms and embrace the full-bodied grace and forgiveness available to us. Imagine how much more effective our gospel would be if we did.