Transforming Grace

The Giant Maze

Have you ever been in one of those giant mazes – made out of hedges or timber fences or whatever? You pay good money to get lost – it takes you ages to get through all the twists and turns, you make wrong turns and hit dead ends and all that.

So… how would it be if that was what life was all about – making it through the maze and past the obstacles until somehow, more by luck than good management, you make it through and out to freedom?

Maybe that’s the way life feels anyway. Maybe life is confusing and the things that happen, or at least happen to you, seem senseless or maybe ultimately without purpose.

What would be worse than living that way…?

Discovering when you finally get to the end… that life had nothing to do with how well you got through the maze, nothing to do with making all the right choices or even all the wrong ones!

Billions of people are living with this false understanding – how I get through the maze matters – that’s the carrot – doing whatever I can to win the prize! What will they find in the end? According to the Bible, reward is not based on ability or performance, cleverness, strength, goodness, speed, generosity or karma or anything that we can do. The reward of life in God’s kingdom is given based on grace.

Our understanding of Christ and faith can’t be reduced to just one thing. Faith is complex. Being a disciple is complex. Our understanding of what God has done through Christ is complex. But at the heart of Christianity is one, simple, vital thing to understand. Being a disciple is entirely about God’s grace. We struggle coming to grips with belonging to Christ, what it means to become a Christian, what faith is, our feelings of hypocrisy and inadequacy. But at the top of our list should be understanding the simplicity of… accepting the simplicity of… God’s grace in Jesus.

Have you experienced an act of grace from another person? Do you even know what it is, what it looks like, what’s involved? Can you define ‘grace’? How do we get it?

What is Grace?

Grace is an unusual experience.

It’s not our common daily experience – even in the church. The Bible speaks of the church as the community of grace but I suspect that grace is not what we expect to receive in our day-to-day relationships – even inside the church. Even if we did I wonder if we’d recognise it. What is it?

There’s a clever little anagram.

• God’s
• Riches
• At
• Christ’s
• Expense

It’s interesting – do an online image search for those words and you get lots of words with beach or sunset scenes. I wonder why we equate grace with those images? Anyway… it’s clever and pithy and memorable. But maybe a little too limiting.

Grace is more basic than that. Grace is undeserved kindness or undeserved gain. It’s not a reward for doing something. It’s not payment for services or faithfulness. If I pay you to finish writing this blog our transaction has nothing to do with grace – it’s a payment for services. If I give you a birthday gift or a wedding present – that’s not grace at work. We may say “there’s no expectation to give a gift” but there is a convention, an agreement rightly or wrongly expected that we will celebrate a birthday with gifts or we will help the happy couple get started by giving them presents. If I give you a gift because of an event that’s not grace at work. Grace is not based on anything to do with us, nor on convention or agreement. Grace is not based on expectation of a return.

It is undeserved kindness. It is kindness towards the undeserving, the criminal, the unlovely, kindness to the person who can least expect to receive it by their own virtue.

Let’s say you rob a bank – your mind goes out to lunch and you rip off the local wealth management establishment. The police catch you… and haul you before the judge and he sentences you. That’s fair! You deserve it. But if the judge handed down the greatest punishment possible… and then took the punishment and set you free to – that would be grace. That would be undeserved, unmerited kindness – given to someone undeserving – based on nothing you have or can do.

Undeserved Kindness

That’s what Paul is speaking of in Romans.

Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

A Christian is someone who has been justified through faith – justified means made clean or pardoned – their sins have been wiped from the record book and they are at peace (no longer enemies) with God. A Christian has what was unattainable on their own – access into the grace of God by faith – access to all God’s riches. That in fact is the foundation of our lives. That knowledge – that reality allows us to rejoice in the hope we have of sharing in the glory of God – even when the world makes life tough for us. Because of Jesus – through Jesus we know that we have a new foundation the world can’t demolish – the building of our lives will last into eternity.

Some people say we’re arrogant if we believe we have a guarantee of heaven. But it’s not arrogance but rather acceptance of a truth that we have received from Jesus.

Do you know someone – a solid Christian – a person well known for their faith, who has since died? Where are they – right now? They are home, in heaven. They are sharing in Christ’s inheritance. We can boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God – and that those who have gone before us are standing before our Father in person right now.

How do we get to that point – how do we earn it? What gives us the ‘right’ to make such an arrogant claim? Acceptance!

Romans 5:6-8 “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

This is the judge who handed down the awful sentence of death for the crimes committed, coming down from the judgement seat to take the punishment instead of us. How do we earn it? We don’t – we can’t – there is no option to earn God’s grace. But we are given the right to claim these things. Even though…

Romans 6:23 “the wages of sin is death…”

We also know that…

Romans 6:23b “…the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus – God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense – G.R.A.C.E. The gift is given, the judge takes the penalty. Jesus came with the specific purpose of dying in our place – and God raised him from death to demonstrate his obedience, and his power over sin and death – Jesus was born to put into action God’s plan of grace.

Be Transformed

The big thing about grace is this – the only true grace is transforming grace.

A friend of mine is working through what he believes. He believes in God, but he’s on the fence and has not decided for Christ – his concern is that whilst it’s easy enough to become a Christian he knows that he can never be good enough and he’s afraid of being a hypocrite. What I love, despite wanting him to get off the fence, is that his understanding is so clear.

God’s grace is transforming grace.

1. Once we have accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour God sees us as transformed. When he looks at us he no longer sees our sin but he sees Jesus – pure white as the driven snow. Revelation speaks of us as being – clothed in white and standing before our Father – that is how God sees his people now. He looks at us through the grid of Jesus’ righteousness.
2. This is how we will be for eternity. Not just that God sees us as transformed but we will be perfect for all eternity – it’s so hard to imagine that possibility – but my soul will be as white as the driven snow – not simply clothed in white but washed clean by the blood of Jesus the lamb.

Revelation 7:14b “…they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

We have been washed in the blood of Jesus – what an image – made clean – strange but true. [P]

3. Thirdly it is transforming grace because God expects his people, having died to sin and the old way of the sinful life, and having been born again as new people… God expects that we will be being transformed to become the people God sees us as!

Romans 12:1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God–what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

The Grace of God is a transforming grace – my friend is right to consider the consequences of becoming a Christian – because God expects that we will be changed to be like Christ – and that that will show up in our relationships and lifestyle and activities and everything that we hold dear. God would have us be transformed in how we respond and act towards each other – that we would treat each other with the grace God has given us, that we would live out underserved kindness to one another.

What would that look like in the church?

What would it look like in the world?

It doesn’t come naturally. It’s much easier to assume that other people are around for my benefit – not that we think that consciously. But God has given each of us to the building of his church and for the benefit of each other – this is the ongoing outworking of his grace.

1 Peter 1:3-5 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time…”

1 Peter 1:8-9 “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Disasters and God

9/11?

It was with morbid fascination we watched aircraft plough into NY’s Twin Towers. An outrageous act – how could anyone justify it in the name of god? It was appalling – 3000 dead – and it changed our world. 9/11 has new meaning – terrorism, aircraft security, air marshals, the war on terror. There are lingering fears about high-rise buildings.

Where was God?

Boxing Day 2004 – 237,000 dead or missing, in the aftermath of the Tsunami. Other disasters seem to pale into insignificance with those sort of numbers. 237,000 dead. That means in family terms 1-2 million immediately affected by lost loved ones. 5 million people displaced. How many people would be affected by your death – immediate family, extended family, family you don’t talk to very often, friends, colleagues, neighbours, workers in shops and stores you visit, school friends… how big a list. 237,000 dead – if you know 100 people that’s over 23 million affected in some measure by those deaths. 200 family and friends? Almost 50 million affected long term. And apart from human suffering – a $50 billion clean-up bill, 10-20 years to fix the disaster – psychological trauma, lost businesses and livelihoods, lost networks.

Where is God?

And in-between 2001 and now or 2004 and now – count the disasters. Just this year… earthquake and tsunami in Japan, earthquake in …, mudslide in … floods and cyclones in Queensland, NSW and Victoria,

Letter to the Editor

This bloke wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald in 2004, in the aftermath of the Tsunami.

As the scale of the tsunami tragedy unfolds I wonder just how all the religious people among us are going to explain it to themselves and to people like me. When I hear that 300 Sri Lankans were swept away to their deaths while praying in church I think I can be excused for being somewhat cynical about God’s benevolence. Yet the natural reaction of the faithful after an “act of God” is to flock back to church to praise Him.”

Clearly he is not alone in his thoughts or opinions – and I would say in response… fair question!

Is God proved dead?

Humanists and atheists tell us God’s not around. These events – these disasters are simply “Mother Nature” at her worst, or maybe part of the effects of global warming. It’s an opportunity to show how powerful we are, to make the world a better place. The environmentalists blame humans for it. Some Muslims have called it Allah’s act of vengeance – a judgement against man for ignoring the true and only god. Some Christians have done the same – they just mean a different God. Hindu’s call it the world’s Karma – it was meant to be. Buddhists say something similar. Truth is most religions have nothing to say – certainly no meaningful answers. And neither do the atheists or the environmentalists – the reasons they give are pathetic excuses by a world that simply doesn’t know why. In fact – they are the very opposite of the truth.

Is God proven dead by the disaster? Where is God?

Disaster

It’s a reasonable question – God’s existence, goodness and power? Each fresh disaster brings heated debate! People are afraid – the sheer scale of these disasters is overwhelming. It is devastation on a grand scale, in some case amongst some of the poorest nations on earth. In a country like Australia, the resources we can bring to bear on a disaster are astronomical. The $50 billion clean-up for the Boxing Day Tsunami – in Australia we would basically say “so what”! Yes – it’s a little painful – we’ve just seen the introduction of the disaster recovery levy – we all get to pay a little extra in tax. But – we have that capacity. We can find 50,000,000 dollars. And if it was more, or happened more than once – we could do it again. But in a 3^rd world country, or simply a poorer country – the numbers are basically incomprehensible.

And it shows the weakness of religion and atheism – both of which offer meaningless sayings and platitudes, or are simply reduced to helpless silence.

It’s shocking because there’s no sense to the destruction. Terrorism has a rhyme and reason and someone to blame. Natural disasters wreak havoc and destruction with no logic in who lives and dies. Christian, Muslim, child, adult, poor, rich, innocent and guilty – dead! No one to blame except maybe poor old “Mother Nature”.

If God exists, what’s he doing?

If he’s in charge why would he do such a cruel, undiscriminating thing? Isn’t he a God of love? And if he’s not in charge of nature, then what good is he? Does he look on helpless, sad but unable to intervene? Is he simply weak? Is he a tyrant punishing whoever he feels like punishing? Does he simply not care?

‘god’ Is Dead

Actually disasters do prove that god is dead!

Disasters should wipe away any pretence that the god the world believes in exists at all. The real God of the universe has been forgotten and in his place there is a vague, general religious feeling. We have domesticated and trivialised the true God. We have diluted his character and purpose with false religions, and even with false Christianity. We have turned Jesus’ life, death and resurrection into a sideshow – a child in a manger, a movie star – but mostly just an expletive – a common, foul mouthed, swear word.

And we think we‘re invincible.

In our country, we are well off. We are generally safe. War is relatively unknown to us in Australia. We take great offense when our soldiers travel overseas to fight and worse to die. It’s quite easy for us to think we’re the masters of the world. To us natural disasters are unique, strange – a natural disaster is almost an insult. The world is not meant to be like this; God is kind, God is safe and inactive. Disaster should only occur far away and not too big, where we do not have to explain or respond and so that our short attention span can allow us to forget what the world is really like. And even when it happens here in Australia, to us – well it’s an opportunity to band together, to demonstrate to the world what it means to be an Australian – and we should be proud as a country that we can and do help each other out – mateship is alive. But we do that rather than face the truth that disasters should bring us face-to-face with.

If you want reality – look to the Bible – and to experience. The theme of the Bible is that we are out step with the world because we are out of step with God. The Bible never considers the world to be safe and secure. From the Biblical flood (Noah and the Ark) onward – the whole assumption of Biblical faith is that we live in a fractured, dangerous world. We will frequently experience drought, flood, famine, earthquake, disease and pestilence. The normal relationship between man and nature is one of exploitation and pain.

The god of the world has no answers.

The God of the universe does.

Misunderstanding and Forgetting

My grandmothers both died a few years ago.

I read a story a few years back about four-year-old girl who died by choking on a pebble.

A few months ago a policeman was killed in the line of duty.

Just the other day another Australian soldier was killed in Afghanistan.

Every day we are reminded that death stalks us. But here’s the thing – why are the deaths of 237,000 people worse than the death of my grandmother, or a little girl, or a cop, or a soldier? Does the death of one person mean nothing but the death of thousands suddenly become proof that God does not exist?

The world is mistaken in thinking that a Tsunami, a flood, a cyclone or some other ‘natural’ disaster is the worst disaster to befall mankind. And mistaken too in thinking that the deaths of so many at once disproves the existence God. That argument is simply about scale – so many dying at once – God must not exist – it shocks us!

As shocking, and maybe terrifying as it is that so many can die at once – it’s really the death of individuals that matters.

And truth is – we forget so easily. We have the attention span of a goldfish when it comes to disaster. How many “innocents” have died from AIDS and HIV, smallpox, plague – from starvation and famine, drought, earthquakes, crime and murder? It is not the scale we should question – it’s the very existence of death, disease, crime, pain, sin, hunger, thirst, sadness, poverty – that these exist at all – that is where our questions should be directed.

• In WWI more that 250,000 Australian men died.
• In WWII 20 million Russians – we always think of the Jews murdered – and frankly we should never forget such atrocities – but we mostly do forget the 20 million Russians. We remember Hitler… we forget Stalin!
• Saddam Hussein murdered something like 20 million.
• Pol Pot, Stalin, Idi Amin, Gaddaffi – Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, South America, Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya – you want disaster on a grand scale? Pick a war.
• The great flu epidemic of 1919 – 40 million people.
• The Japanese earthquake in 1923 – 140,000!
• Earthquake in China – 242,000.
• 3 million have died in the Congo wars over the last decade.
• 20 million people right now are on the verge of starvation in the Horn of Africa.
• And let’s be honest – I haven’t touched the surface in recalling the disasters that we have seen in the last 100 years, let alone the rest of history.

We forget!

We ask the question but we don’t remember the disasters. Where is God?

Responding To Disaster

We Christians should probably be accused of failing to answer – many of us blindly accept God’s plan, or misunderstand it – and our answers are often less than helpful. Sometimes we raise as many questions as the world does, because we fail to answer from God’s Word. In all these disasters…

• Was God passing judgement on those people for their sins?
• Were they evil?
• Did they incur God’s wrath?
• Were they being judged for being Muslim or Hindu or for not being very good Christians – or for something else. Were they being judged for being – atheist or agnostic?

There are four things we need to understand if we are to make sense of our world.

1. The Sovereignty of God

Is God sovereign over all things? Is he good? Is he all-powerful? Is he a God of love? The answer is yes – yes – yes and yes! We’re not going to be able to see it clearly from the world – only from Jesus on the cross. It’s God who acted in the person of Jesus to defeat our enemies. Our world cannot explain sin let alone get rid of it. But we can. Sin is rejection of God and ignoring God and it kills us – because God is good he refuses to live with us as sinners. Yet he offeres us life in his presence for all e

ternity.

As the Bible tells us

– when we were still God’s enemies, Jesus destroyed sin’s hold and the power of death by dying to pay the price and rising again.

Is God powerful? Well

… God through Jesus dealt with the two enemies we have no power over. He destroyed the hold that sin had over us and he destroyed the anguish and certainty of death. Yes God is powerful.

1 Corinthians 1:24 “… Christ [is] the power of God and the wi

sdom of God.”

Jesus is the power, the wisdom, the love and the goodness of God in action.

Psalm 25:7-9 “Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD. Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.”

2. The connection between sin and judgement?

Some Christians say that disasters are God’s judgements against sin. And it’s tempting I suppose to try to see that sort of sense behind it – but they are tragically mistaken. There are numerous instances of the link between specific sins and judgement under the Old Testament covenant – that was the agreement between God and Israel. But Jesus says this is no longer the case.

Luke 13:1-9 “Now there were some … who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Were any of the victims of any of the disasters being judged by God for their sin or unbelief?

Yes and no!

Yes in that they have perished and have faced the judgment seat of God.

But no also – the disasters are not sent by God to destroy those who are “more evil”. We need to be very clear. Jesus is asked about some Jews killed at the Jewish altar as they were making sacrifices for their sins – so good, upright, faithful or at least religious Jewish folk. Their blood mingled with the sacrifices, contaminating the sacrifices and making them worthless. Were they worse sinners than everyone else, being judged by God? Absolutely not! Nor were the 18 who died when a tower fell on them. Specific sin and judgment are not linked directly. If you go and sin right now God will not strike you down because of that specific sin.

But – and this is the chilling part, the part the world fails to notice…

Luke 13:5 “unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

3. The reality of judgement?

Zephaniah 1:14-18 “The great day of the LORD is near—near and coming quickly. Listen! … That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,… I will bring distress on the people and they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like filth. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the LORD’s wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth.”

The day of God’s judgment is very real. In each disaster did the people die because of some terrible sin?

No!

Did they die and face judgment for the way they lived and how they responded to Jesus?

Yes!

Sin and judgment are directly linked. If you don’t want to face the judgment of God and perish then repent of the sinful life. However your life is taken from you – a massive “natural” disaster, terrorist attack, a car accident unnoticed by the media, dying alone and senile in a hospital bed – whether the world reels in horror at your death or simply doesn’t notice – if you die unrepentant of your sins then you lose.

God has said clearly that His wrath against sin will consume all who do not belong to Jesus. We must not water down judgement – nor minimise the day of judgement that is coming. We can take God at his word – in the great disasters it is not the scale of the disaster that is at issue, but the death of many individual – and in each disaster every-one who has died has been judged.

Revelation 20:12-13 “… I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. … each person was judged according to what he had done.”

But we also know – as sure as judgment is for all people – Jesus offers hope in the face of disaster. Disaster is meant to be a warning to those left – not that more will come or that life is fragile but that God takes life when he chooses – and he chooses who will survive. He demands our response – turn back to God, repent of our sins and live. Jesus tells a parable…

Luke 13:6-9 “Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ”‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

Every day, every month, every year that we don’t die is a day, a month or a year more in which to produce fruit for God – that is to turn back from our sins and receive life at God’s hands. If we bear the fruit of repentance – if our lives are shown to be faithful in Jesus then we will not be cut but will live. We will receive all that Jesus offers – life, safety, hope, peace and freedom.

How to explain it to non-Christians?

1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

In helping others see the truth we have to recognize that the vast majority of the human race will think we are fools – hopeless, blind children. You can hear it in their words…  “…the natural reaction of the faithful after an “act of God” is to flock back to church to praise Him.”

When you stand up for Jesus people will think you’re a moron. When you stand up for Jesus in the face of a disaster – they will think much worse. But some will believe.

John 1:10-13 “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

The fact is they killed Jesus when he told the truth. Yet a few believed – and 2000 years on – a few still believe. Do you want to know how to explain it to non-Christians?

Tell them the truth and pray for them. We are not responsible for how people believe.

1 Corinthians 3:6-7 “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”

God makes them grow.

What we must do however is live the task of faith. In Paul’s words…

Acts 20:24 “…I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”

We who already believe must tell people the truth – that Jesus died and was raised again so that even in the face of a massive disaster we might have hope for all eternity.

And pray for them, faithfully day after day – that God by His Spirit would move them to see the truth clearly and repent of their sins.

Some will believe.