The Grace That Offends Us

Sunday's lesson begins with something Christians never tire of hearing: Jesus left the riches of heaven and became poor so that we could become rich.
We call it grace.
But perhaps grace becomes most interesting when it stops being comfortable.

What do you mean?

Suppose I told you grace means God gives me what I don't deserve.
We would say, “Amen.”
Now suppose I told you that the same grace gives someone else what they don't deserve.
Suddenly the “Amen” can become quieter.

That's different. Some people have done things far worse than anything I've done.

Exactly.
We love grace when we are the sinner receiving it. But we can become uncomfortable when grace is extended to the sinner we have already judged.

But doesn't that make grace unfair?

It certainly doesn't look fair by ordinary human standards.
Jesus didn't come because we had earned His sacrifice. He came because we needed it.
Grace begins where our deserving ends.

Then what about obedience? If everything is grace, why should I struggle to obey?

That's the other tension.
Grace doesn't say, “It doesn't matter how you live.”
It says, “You don't have to live in order to purchase what Christ has already given you.”
There is a difference between obeying to be accepted and obeying because you have been accepted.
One produces anxiety. The other produces gratitude.

But couldn't someone use grace as an excuse for sin?

Absolutely.
Grace can be distorted in two opposite directions.
One person says, “Grace means I don't have to take sin seriously.”
Another says, “Grace is wonderful, but I still need to prove that I'm worthy of it.”
Both have missed something,
Grace doesn't make sin less serious. Grace makes boasting less possible.

But we talk about truth, obedience, Sabbath, standards, and being God's remnant people. Where does grace fit into all that?

Perhaps the more uncomfortable question is not where grace fits into our theology.
It's whether grace has actually changed the way we treat people.
I can know every doctrine about grace and still be difficult to forgive and still be difficult to forgive.
I can defend the truth and still make people afraid to admit they're struggling.
I can know salvation is a gift and still secretly feel that my years of faithfulness make me more deserving than someone who came yesterday.

So you're saying grace should be visible?

Yes.
If grace has truly reached me, people should encounter something of it when they encounter me.
Patience.
Mercy.
Humility.
Forgiveness.
A willingness to remember that I, too, am living on borrowed grace.

But what if someone has seriously hurt me? Am I supposed to pretend it didn't happen because of grace?

No.
Grace does not require us to call evil good.
Forgiveness does not erase consequences.
Mercy does not eliminate boundaries.
Grace simply refuses to let another person's sin become permission for my heart to become hard.
It asks me to give others something I freely ask God to give me.

Then maybe the real test isn't whether I believe in grace.

Maybe the deeper test is whether I can receive grace without becoming proud, and extend grace without becoming resentful.
Because there is one final danger.
We can even become proud of understanding grace.
We can say, “I know salvation is by grace,” and then quietly look down on those who don't understand it as well as we do.

So even grace can become something we boast about?

If we're not careful, yes.
Jesus became poor so that we could become rich. But perhaps the riches Christ gives us are not simply something to possess.
They are something to become.
Grace received should become grace expressed.
Otherwise, we may have learned the vocabulary of grace without allowing grace to change us.

Consider this:
If God has given me what I could never deserve, who am I becoming when I decide who else has less grace than I received?