Continuing in Grace

“Paul and Barnabas…urged them in long conversations to stick with what they’d started, this living in and by God’s grace.” Acts 13:43 (The Message)

Why is this so hard? This may come off as a rant, so I should apologize right up front. But I am actually as frustrated with myself as I am with the rest of Christianity. Paul and Barnabas had seen people respond to the Best News Possible, that sins are forgiven because of Jesus’ death on the cross. They watched as people received the message with great joy and observed their lives being changed.

After they spent a long time instructing them, as they left, wanting to leave them with instructions about faith, the emphasized the beautiful word, “grace”. Essentially they tell the people to continue just the way they started. “You heard us tell you that it is God’s grace alone that brought you freedom and forgiveness. God redeemed the entire world to Himself through His Son on the cross. Now, as you move forward, keep that the focus. ‘Continue’ in grace.”

Here’s my frustration: we may start with grace very nicely. We accept that eternal life cannot be earned and that it is impossible for anyone to live up to God’s level of holiness or morality. We accept it for ourselves, and we preach it to those who have not yet responded to God’s offer of grace. So far, so good…usually.

But, let time go by and, probably with the best intentions possible, we begin to forget grace. We want to grow. We want to get rid nagging negative habits and sins that entangle us. And, not even ourselves, but we grow tired of a world drowning in sin as well. We think our once “Christian nation” sucked down by the quicksand with only a tiny flag-waving hand still visible. And, we are so tired of it, we decide something must be done!

We do not purposely throw out grace. We do not knowingly divorce ourselves from our Father’s offer of unconditional love. We just think we need to shout a bit louder. And, yes, we are beginning to doubt whether this “grace” bit really has all the power promised to change the world. After all, in the 60s you could have volunteer religious education after school and now you cannot even bring a Bible to class. (False dichotomy…I hope you caught it! Students can bring Bibles to class. It is the occasional misguided teacher or administration that falsely thinks they need to send the student home to place her Bible on the nightstand and then return to school.)

We could argue what the elements are which cause change. Sociologists and Psychiatrists have tried to measure what motivates people to change for many years. If I were writing a formal paper, I would take the time to read some studies and quote whatever helped my argument the most. But, because this is on-the-fly, I am hoping most of us identify with the phenomenon of starting with grace and ending up somewhere near the ghost town of legalism.

One thing that motivates this terrible turn off the straight path of grace is the need to qualify who is “in” and who is “out”. Unfortunately, people do not come with markings like measuring cups. We cannot look at them and see how the grace level lines up with the ¾ line, knowing they are a bit low. So, we try to find other ways to define “us” and “them”.

This is all quite opposed to what Jesus taught, of course. He knew we would be tempted to try to pick out the smelly bait fish from the nets we cast into the sea. So, he told us a parable about fishermen who did just that. But, as they tossed out the bad fish, they inadvertently rid themselves of some of the good. Jesus made it clear that we were to leave all of that to His judgment at the end.

Even my own denomination’s Sunday School material sometimes falls into the same temptation. In a recent lesson on Proverbs focusing on purity and wisdom, it used Proverbs 1:22ff. Verse 22 says, “How long will you who are simple love you simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?” Yes, indeed. We all have been frustrated by “simple ones” who just won’t get it, and “mockers” who openly hate knowledge.

But, here is how our curriculum spoke about that verse, and verse 24-25 which speak of the danger of ignoring wisdom.“Unbelievers will at best ignore truth. (Many will openly mock, as seen in verse 22.)” Earlier it stated, “True wisdom can only be defined in context of a walk with God.”

The first statement is, of course, patently false. There are many “unbelievers” who have a huge interest in the truth! Instead of saying a whole class of people “at best” ignore truth, why don’t we reach out to those who have not yet responded to Christ, but are, indeed, interested in truth! We win no one when we say, “At best, you ignore truth!”

Then, to say true wisdom can “only” be defined in context of a walk with God, is false for a very important grammatical reason. Once you say “only”, you have to say that there is no true wisdom at all outside of a walk with God. Has a young father, not yet a follower of Christ, never, ever exercised “true wisdom” in raising his children? Has a head of state, struggling to make good decisions for his people, who is good-hearted, but not yet a believer, never, ever exercised “true wisdom”?

Yes, I am frustrated. I am frustrated with the magnetism that draws me to measure the lines between “me” and “them”. And I am frustrated that leaders in the Church of Christ think in such ways that put up roadblocks to people coming to Christ. If the Bible actually taught that there is “no wisdom” outside God, I would be on board. But that is not what it says. If it boldly proclaimed that only saved people are even interested in the truth, well, I would probably do it too. But it doesn’t teach that!

Oh, let us do exactly what Paul and Barnabas encouraged these young believers to do…shall we learn to “continue” in grace? Let us stick to what we started with…the amazing, awe-inspiring mercy and grace of God through Christ.