I've been thinking a lot about grace lately. Seems like when we need it the most is when we think about it.
I've been grumpy and petulant this week. Most of it due to pain and/or the medicine I take for the pain. But I thank you all for your patience in putting up with me (and your grace) So many of you hurt, also, and much more than I do, and God chastises me when I complain too much.
Here is a lengthy devotion/short sermon I wrote some years ago about grace.
I turned on PBS to watch Gospel music tonight. Featured group was The Martins, definitely one of my very favorites. Their close family harmony is absolutely angelic. The theme turned out to be grace and I did a lot of thinking as I Iistened to them sing.
I can’t believe I missed so much of the message of grace in my early spiritual life. Maybe it was there in the sermons and I just missed it. The Church of God is what is known as a holiness church, where you are not supposed to sin once you are saved. Not that you can’t. But you are not supposed to. And when you hear that teaching over and over again you tend to become judgmental about others and not real good at either accepting grace (since if you don’t sin, you don’t need it and I say that tongue in cheek) and if you don’t need it you are not really good at extending it to others.
So in the holiness message there isn’t much room for grace and in the 50’s especially, at least where I was growing up, we just didn’t hear it a lot.
I still believe in holiness but I also believe in I John 2:1 I am writing these things to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate before the Father - Jesus - He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world...
But if anyone does sin, that’s where grace comes in.
We Bible students probably all have different points of reference which help us believe. I can look at all the miracles, including the incarnation of Christ, and many other evidences set forth in the Word, but the one that makes it all believable to me is the salvation of Paul.
I think that’s why Paul writes about grace so passionately. Here was a man who was the very personification of evil. He was Hitler and Assad and Saddam Hussein all wrapped up in a package of murder and persecution, and tied with a ribbon of death, and yet Jesus appeared to him personally and spoke directly to him. We have a record of it all in Acts 9. If ever there was an unlikely candidate for salvation, it was Paul, but God in his mercy and grace saved him and used him in a miraculous fashion.
That is what makes me believe!!!
I’m sure it is God’s will and I know it is possible for someone to live a long Christian life without ever straying, or failing God. But the fact is that many do stray. Many do backslide. Many do fail.
Among those who sing and preach the gospel, there have been many. I think of Jimmy Swaggert, and one of the Martins, and Doug Oldham, and I can see so many others in my mind, but can’t think of their names.. Some of them sang with the Gaithers, and several have left and then came back and asked forgiveness from the public and their friends.
Sometimes it is not moral failure but other attitude sins. I saw on a church bulletin board once this quote: God can’t use a man until he has broken him. (Same goes for women, too.) Those of us in the Church of God Reformation Movement can remember Bro. John Conley. Whether it was pride or power or whatever, there came a time when he was broken. I knew him and heard him preach both before and after, and the difference in him was the difference in night and day, how God lifted him up and used him so mightily once he was healed of his brokenness.
So getting back to the Martins. There came a time when there was need for forgiveness and reconciliation among these 3 siblings. Tonight on the program Bill Gaither did a very smart thing. He talked with them and reviewed some early clips and then he sat down with them and played some of the clips of their performances after the failure. He allowed the viewers, like me, to sit and watch them watch themselves and see the brokenness and the love and forgiveness they shared with each other as they sang the songs of God’s grace. Reaching out for a brother or a sister’s hand, eyes welling up with tears yet you could see the love in their hearts.
Sitting here in my office I glanced over at my book shelves and see a book by Philip Yancey called “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”. I need to get it down again and do some more reading in it. I don’t think I ever got through it the first time.
I will close by reminding you of the difference in grace and mercy and justice.
Justice is when you get what you deserve.
Mercy is when you don’t get what you deserve.
Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve.
There is a place for them all in God’s dealing with us. But I am most thankful for grace.
One more thing.This word “advocate” is important. It is the same as a lawyer. In my years as a legal secretary, I saw many lawyers become judges, whether municipal judges or circuit judges, etc. I can remember when one of the lawyers I worked for became a judge. His old clients would come to him when they were in trouble and beg him to represent them, willing to pay whatever he asked. But he had to tell them he was no longer an “advocate” for them, but would be their judge when they came to court.
When a lawyer is practicing law, it is his job to defend those who are accused - to plead their case,to represent them in court, etc. But once a lawyer became a judge, he could not longer do that. He could not plead innocent or guilty, he could not represent the plaintiff or the defendant. He had one job and that was to look at the evidence and make judgment.
The Bible is very plain that in this day of grace, Jesus is our advocate. He stands before the Father and pleads our case. He represents us before God. But the Bible says that at the time of judgment, Jesus is no longer our advocate or lawyer or representative. He will be the judge, and His judgment is righteous and true. We will have no lawyer in that day of final judgement. Satan will be our accuser. Jesus the Son will be our judge. We will stand before the bar of judgment with nothing, no way to escape, unless we have found forgiveness while we are here on earth. It will be too late after we die, or after He comes again.
We have to believe that His grace is sufficient for ALL our needs, and then pray for even more grace. JOhn writes in his gospel chapter 1:16 about grace for grace. I read somewhere that grace is just like the waves of the sea, that every time one waves crashes up on the beach another follows, for ever. And God give us grace upon grace, never ending waves of grace, so that it will always be sufficient.
A song I have sung for so many years says it so well.
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
©To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.
His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.
We will always manage to reach the end of our hoarded resources, thoughts and plans we have kept (hoarded) for the future, but even after we reach their end, God will still be giving grace.
©Joan Rowden Hart 2003
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