Grace Exposed

You've heard the jokes about Rednecks.  Here are couple for old time's sake.

You might be a Redneck if:

• the people on Jerry Springer remind you of your neighbors.
• you can't marry your sweetheart because it would be against the law.
• you can change the oil in your pickup without ducking.
• your grandfather is also your uncle and your brother-in-law.
• you've been divorced and remarried three times but still have the same in-laws.
• you stare at an orange juice container because it says "concentrate"
• anyone in your family died after saying, "Hey! Watch this!"
• you think that Dom Perignon is a mafia leader.

 Does all this have a point?  Yes.

Grace is dangerous.  Grace is scandalous.  Grace is uncomfortable.  Grace rocks the boat.  Grace challenges autocracy.  Therefore, Grace must be demonized, vilified, and not allowed in our churches.

(silence)  Would you go to a church which preached that?  Probably not.  But the truth is that many churches teach this, not directly from the pulpit, but by example and omission.

What has happened in our churches since the late 1940s and early 1950s is cultural isolation.  The churches from that era saw trends in the culture and decided to build doctrinally sound guidelines to protect themselves and their young people from being corrupted.  This practice began a dangerous trend of neglecting to teach the Biblical principles of Grace, Love, and Expediency.  Guidelines became rules, and rules became law, and the same teachings circulated so much throughout these churches that the doctrines became incestuous. The churches withdrew from the world and praised each other for standing strong in the faith while denouncing anyone who sought to remain culturally relevant.

Yes, I know what I am saying.  Many of our churches have become spiritual trailer parks, the members spiritual Rednecks and trailer trash (no offense meant if you happen to live in a trailer.  Been there, done that). We now have a fourth generation growing up in churches where the spiritual gene pool has been long since exhausted.  They fellowship only among themselves and other approved churches who see things exactly as they do.  They only marry among themselves or other like minded people because no one else is "safe."  They produce more and more spiritual "freaks" because in their paranoia they must demonize anyone who does not think as they do, and so there is no fresh thinking.  Only stagnation.  Their doctrines have become inbred and grossly exaggerated.  There is no check to their influence because it is not permitted to question their moral superiority, doctrinal purity, or spiritual authority.

I remember the massive uproar over Charles Swindoll's book "The Grace Awakening."  Oh how that book was vilified and, metaphorically speaking, effigies of Swindoll were burned.  The main argument I remember hearing against the work was that teaching Grace would cause many believers to cast off all restraint and do whatever they pleased, even sin without guilt, resulting in the abuse of the Grace of God.

(pause) What happens when people are allowed to think for themselves?  What happens when people are allowed make their own decisions?  They begin to grow.  Abraham Lincoln said that "you cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence."  In churches where everything is predetermined for the follower, where the pastor makes the rules and the flock are expected to obey without question, the people are not allowed to think for themselves.  They are not allowed to have their own opinion.  In these churches, Grace has been excommunicated.

What am I saying?  I am saying that Grace becomes the enemy because Grace will radically challenge the status quo.  Grace affords the individual believer the freedom to live before God according to Scripture and the dictates of his conscience.  This means that someone can do something that I find extremely uncomfortable, and yet be without sin.  The Apostle Peter saw a vision of the manifestation of Grace when he was hungry, and a sheet came down filled with unclean animals and a voice told him to kill and eat.  When Peter refused, as any good Jew would, he heard a voice telling him not to call unclean what God had cleansed.  This happened three times, and then he was visited by some Gentiles who invited him to come back with them and visit more Gentiles.  Talk about a radical confrontation of Grace verses belief systems.

Grace puts every believer, in every country, of every ethnicity, of every language, and of every tribe, on an equal footing.  Grace allows for cultural variances.  Grace permits the unification of all believers under a single banner, Jesus Christ the Righteous.

Grace frees from captivity.  Grace enables me to not only overcome my past, but to embrace new ideas and concepts I had never considered before.  Grace allows me the freedom to exercise my conscience, and even expand its boundaries.  With Scripture as my guide, and the Holy Spirit influencing my thinking, as long as I am convinced in my own mind that a course of action not expressly forbidden in Scripture is not sin, I am free to do it, and not only to do it, but to enjoy it!  I can dance!  I can play cards!  I can buy a lottery ticket!  I can drink a, um, barley soda!  I can puff on a pipe!  I can get a tattoo!  I can get a piercing!

Grace also allows me to fall flat on my face. In this capacity, Grace allows me to get back up and to recognize how stupid I was so that I can learn from my mistakes.  Grace enables me to seek God for more Grace because Grace teaches me that I am insufficient to stand unaided.

But Grace also comes with a freedom of another kind.  Grace allows me to lay down my freedom for the sake of my brothers and sisters in Christ.  Grace allows me to voluntarily chose to refrain from doing something that will harm or cause another to stumble.  Grace allows me to seek the higher good in someone else.  I know I am not bound by something a weaker conscience would stumble over, but for the sake of the weaker conscience, Grace allows me the privilege of temporarily, or even permanently, surrendering my right and freedom in that particular regard.

Why is this? Because Grace has for its foundation the two Great Commandments - love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.  If I love God the way I should, naturally I will love my neighbor as I should.  The two are inseparable.  Love seeks the highest good in its object.  I will not want to harm my neighbor with my freedom because to me his life becomes more precious to me than my own.  This is the essence of true Christianity.  Love.

If I know my brother has an issue with gambling, I will hide the cards and say nothing of my planned Vegas vacation.  If he has a problem with an ingredient in barley soda, then I will not bring the subject up, and I will steer him clear of my fridge, or even empty it before he comes.  If he is someone I am nurturing in discipleship, I'll stay away from the stuff altogether indefinitely for his sake.  Grace is my freedom because I am not bound by anything save for the love of God.  I have absolute freedom to take up a liberty and also to lay it down.

My friends, remember that Grace is not an excuse to do as you please when you please and forget anyone else.  Yes, you have freedom to do certain things that before you may have never thought possible, but you must be convinced in your own mind that it is OK, otherwise you will sin against you conscience, and something that could have been acceptable becomes sin to you.  "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin," the Bible says.  You also have a responsibility to those around you not to cause them to stumble.  If you cause a brother in Christ to sin against his conscience because of your freedom, then you are guilty of the sin your brother thought he was committing.  Read Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8.

With Grace comes great freedom, but also great responsibility.  Ask God for wisdom, and seek His heart.

I am in Grace, and I am at Peace.