Not Sure We Want Grace

One week from Thursday I'm giving our first large group talk: A Community of Forgiveness and Grace. I'm excited about the talk topic except for one thing: I'm not sure that we actually want grace.

Forgiveness is something that's easy for us to culturally get our minds around. We screw up, we need forgiveness.

Even if we don't think we're all that bad, the idea of a God who would forgive us if we hypothetically ever did anything wrong sounds very appealing. I read a quote somewhere recently, "Of course God will forgive me. That's his job."

And in our common usage, we tend to conflate forgiveness and grace. Grace, in our common discussion, is the disposition towards forgiveness.

But when Jesus offers us forgiveness and grace, he has a very different thing in mind. And we see that most clearly in the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8.

For those who might be unfamiliar: a woman is caught in adultery by religious leaders. She's dragged before Jesus: the law says we are to stone such women (and the men, too, by the way--not sure where he is), what do you say? All in an attempt to trip Jesus up.

Jesus' famous response: whoever's without sin, go ahead and cast the first stone. They all walk way (oldest first, a fun detail included in the story). Jesus finally says, "neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more."

"Neither do I condemn you." That's forgiveness. We get that.

"Go and sin no more." That's grace. We don't get that. Because we think that grace means access to further forgiveness. Which it is. But it's more than that.

Grace is the gift of living life as we were made to live it. Grace is the gift of God to walk in right-ness, in right relationship with God, with other people, with the created order. Grace is the calling to "go and sin no more."

Grace is the invitation to live life with God as Lord over your life rather than the tyrants of sin and death. God would not be a generous God if he simply covered up our mistakes while still allowing us to remain enslaved under a cruel master.

So he came, died, overthrew all our former masters that we might actually live "under new management." No longer are we stuck with our own flesh, the fallen world around us, or the evil one. We can actually learn to live free. He gives us His Spirit to do so.

Grace is not inconsistent obedience. My theology prof said that one day and it's always stuck with me. Inconsistent obedience is how we commonly talk about grace, but that's wrong. Grace is the gift of freedom from the old self to live to the new life in the Spirit, in Christ that we were actually made to live.

So I'm thinking about how to speak the good news of that grace next week to a room full of old and new students. You can pray that the Spirit gives us all a deep love for BOTH "neither do I condemn you" as well as the "go and sin no more."

That is, a real love for forgiveness and grace as it is offered to us in the Scriptures