Scripture calls such a person a "weaker brother." (We need to be careful here; some people are "professional weaker brothers." Those folks are not weaker brothers at all, they are hardcore legalists who play the role of weaker brothers.)
A balance is necessary. Because grace is risky, self-imposed restrictions are important. It is necessary that we monitor those two things, isn't it? You can't be afraid of the heights if you're going to walk on the tightrope of grace. But at the same time you have to watch out for the strong gusts of wind that will occasionally blow like mad.
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR GUARDING AGAINST EXTREMES
Three suggestions come to mind as I think about living with risks and putting all this into balanced living.
First, guard against extremes if you want to enjoy the freedom grace provides. Try your best to keep balanced, then enjoy it. No reason to feel guilty. No reason to be afraid. Try this first: Simply give yourself permission to be free. Don't go crazy . . . but neither should you spend time looking over your shoulder, worrying about those who "spy out your liberty," and wondering what they will think and say. I will write more about that in chapter 5.
Isn't Grace Risky?
Second, treat grace as an undeserved privilege rather than an exclusive right. This will also help you keep a balance. Live gratefully, not arrogantly. Have fun, but don't flaunt. It is all in one's attitude, isn't it? It has nothing to do with financial status or where you live or what clothes you prefer or which car you drive. It has everything to do with attitude.
Third, remember that while grace came to you freely, it cost the Savior His life. It may seem free, but it was terribly expensive when He purchased it for us. And who wouldn't want to be free, since we have been purchased from the horrors of bondage?
The Killing Fields is quite a movie. It is the true story of a New York Times reporter who was working in Cambodia during a time of awful bloodshed. His closest assistant was a Cambodian who was later captured by the Marxist regime, the Khmer Rouge, a totalitarian group known for its torturous cruelty. What the Cambodian assistant endured while trying to find freedom is beyond belief. If you reacted as I did when you watched the film, there were times you couldn't help but gasp.
The plot of the story revolves around the assistant's escape from the bondage of that terrible regime. It isn't a movie for the squeamish. There are things he sees and endures that defy the imagination. He is brutally beaten, imprisoned, and mistreated. Starving, he survived by sucking the blood from a beast in the field. He lives in the worst possible conditions. Finally, he plans his escape. He runs from one tragic scene to another. On one occasion, while fleeing, he sinks into a bog only to discover it is a watery hellhole full of rotting flesh and human bones and skulls that foam to the top as he scrambles to climb out. It's enough to make you sick! Fleeing from one horror to another, he is surprised as he stumbles into a clearing.
Having endured the rigors of the jungle while being chased by his captors, he finally steps out into a clearing and looks down. To his utter amazement, he sees the Cambodian border. Down below him is a small refugee camp. His eyes catch sight of a hospital and a flag. And on that flag, a cross. There, at
Isn't Grace Risky?
long last, hope is awakened! At that point the music builds to a climax. Light returns to his weary face, which says in a dozen different ways, "I'm free. I'm free!" The joys and the delights of his long-awaited freedom are his once again. Ultimately, he makes it to America and enjoys a tearful reunion with his friend—all because he is free. Free at last!
Grace is God's universal good news of salvation. The tragedy is that some continue to live lives in a deathlike bog because they have been so turned off by a message that is full of restrictions, demands, negativism, and legalism. You may have been one of those held in bondage, victimized by a system that has stolen your joy and snuffed out your hope. If so, I have some wonderful news. You've gotten very close to the border. There's a flag flying. And on that flag is a cross. And if you come into this camp of grace beneath the cross, you'll never have to be in that awful bog again.
You will be free . . . free at last.
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Undeserving, Yet
Unconditionally
Loved
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.o many people, grace is nothing more than something to be said with heads bowed before dinner. But that idea, simple and beautiful as it may be, is light years removed from the depth of meaning presented in Scripture regarding grace. This biblical concept of grace is profound, and its tentacles are both far-reaching and life-changing. Were we to study it for a full decade we would not come close to plumbing its depths.
I never knew Lewis Sperry Chafer, the founder of the seminary I attended. He had died a few years before I began my theological studies in 1959. Some of my mentors and professors, however, knew him well. Without exception they still remember him as a man of great grace. He was an articulate defender of the doctrine and an authentic model of its application throughout his adult life, especially during his latter years. I sincerely regret never having known Dr. Chafer.
I love the story one of my mentors tells of the time when this dear man of God had concluded his final lecture on grace. It was a hot afternoon in Dallas, Texas, that spring day in 1952. The aging professor (who taught that particular semester from a wheelchair) mopped the perspiration from his brow. No one in the class moved as the session ended. It was as though the young theologues were basking in what they
Undeserving, Yet Unconditionally Loved
had heard, awestruck with their professor's insights and enthusiasm about God's matchless grace. The gray-haired gentleman rolled his chair to the door, and as he flipped the light switch off, the class spontaneously broke into thunderous applause. As the beloved theologian wiped away his tears, head bowed, he lifted one hand, gesturing them to stop. He had one closing remark as he looked across the room with a gentle smile. Amidst deafening silence, he spoke softly, "Gentlemen, for over half my life I have been studying this truth . . . and I am just beginning to discover what the grace of God is all about." Within a matter of three short months, the stately champion of grace was ushered into his Lord's presence at the age of eighty-one.
I seldom sing John Newton's eighteenth-century hymn "Amazing Grace" without remembering those final words of that giant of grace:
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see. 1
Nobody—not Lewis Sperry Chafer, not even John Newton— ever appreciated grace more than Paul, the first-century apostle. From a past of pharisaic pride, cruel brutality, and religious unbelief, he was changed from a zealous persecutor of the church to a humble servant of Christ. And what was the reason? The grace of God. Hear his own testimony:
For I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. (1 Cor. 15:9-11)
Undeserving, Yet Unconditionally Loved REAFFIRMING THE TRUTH OF GRACE
Whatever he became, according to his own statement, Paul owed it all to "the grace of God." When I ponder the words from that grand apostle, I come up with what we might call his credo. We can reduce it to three single-syllable statements, the first consisting of only eight words; the second, ten words; and the third, twelve. Occasionally, it helps to take a profound, multifaceted theological truth and define it in simple, nontechnical terms.
First statement: God does what He does by His grace. Paul's first claim for being allowed to live, to say nothing of being used as a spokesman and leader, was "by the grace of God." Paul deserved the severest kind of judgment, but God gave the man His grace instead. Humanly speaking, Paul should have been made to endure
incredible suffering for all the pain and heartache he had caused others. But he didn't, because God exhibited His grace.
That leads us to the second statement: / am what I am by the grace of God. It is as if he were admitting, "If there is any goodness now found in me, I deserve none of the glory; grace gets the credit."
In our day of high-powered self-achievement and an overemphasis on the importance of personal accomplishments and building one's own ego-centered kingdom, this idea of giving grace the credit is a much-needed message. How many people who reach the pinnacle of their career say to the Wall Street Journal reporter or in an interview in Business Week, "I am what I am by the grace of God"? How many athletes would say that kind of thing at a banquet in his or her honor? What a shocker it would be today if someone were to say, "Don't be impressed at all with me. My only claim to fame is the undeserved grace of God." Such candor is rare.
There's a third statement, which seems to be implied in Paul's closing statement: / let you be what you are by the grace
Undeserving, Yet Unconditionally Loved
of God. Grace is not something simply to be claimed; it is meant to be demonstrated. It is to be shared, used as a basis for friendships, and drawn upon for sustained relationships.
Jesus spoke of an abundant life that we enter into when we claim the freedom He provides by His grace. Wouldn't it be wonderful if people cooperated with His game plan? There is nothing to be compared to grace when it comes to freeing others from bondage.
Some, it seems, are like the cartoon character I saw recently. A dominant, aggressive type is philosophizing alongside his friend, who happens to be quieter and more passive. With unhesitating boldness, the stronger one says to the weaker one, "If I were in charge of the world, I would change EVERYTHING!" A bit intimidated, the friend who is forced to listen, says rather meekly, "Uh, that wouldn't be easy. Like . . . where would you start?" Without a hesitation he looks directly back and says, "I would start with YOU!" No grace. You and I have been around a few grace killers like that, haven't we? With that notorious "No" face, they frown, "You need changing, so I'm going to start with you."
There are those who seem to be waiting for the first opportunity to confront. Suspicious by nature and negative in style, they are determined to find any flaw, failure, or subtle weakness in your life, and to point it out. There may be twenty things they could affirm; instead they have one main goal, to make sure you never forget your weaknesses. Grace killers are big on the "shoulds" and "oughts" in their advice. Instead of praising, they pounce!
Jackie Hudson is a good friend. She is the talented lady who has the dubious distinction of trying to teach me to snow ski, and she has the scars to prove it. What a beautiful model of patience! She wrote a book called Doubt: A Road to Growth, from which the article "People Grow Better in Grace" was adapted by Worldwide Challenge magazine in April 1988. In it she illustrates what I'm getting at:
Undeserving, Yet Unconditionally Loved
Early in my career, I had a boss who held to numerous spoken and unspoken rules. One was that I needed to have my lights out by 11 p.m. so I wouldn't be tired on the job the next day. His house wasn't far from mine, and if he noticed my lights on after 11,1 heard about it the next morning.
I remember my first compliment from him—a full year after I'd been on the job. I'd been given a project, and I worked night and day to make it perfect and, thus, win his approval.
The day of the event he wanted all the other employees to arrive an hour early to help with the preparations. Even after I explained that it wouldn't be necessary, he insisted. After the employees stood around for an hour with nothing to do, the program began. I couldn't have been more pleased with the event. The project was flawless.
Afterwards, my boss walked up to me, looked down at the floor, and out of his mouth came the long-awaited words: "Well done, Miss Hudson." My year in this environment brought on a remarkable response: rebellion. I was hardly growing in grace. Grace is fertile soil. . . .
Grace focuses on who God is and what He has done, and takes the focus off ourselves. And yet it's so easy to think we need to do something to earn God's favor, as though grace is too good to be true. 2
Many (dare I say, most?) Christians live their lives as though they're going to be graded once a year by a God who stands there frowning, with his hands stuck in the pockets of his robe. (I don't know why, but probably most people usually think of God with a robe on, never in sweats or cutoffs or a swimsuit . . . He's always wearing a beard and this white robe). Glaring, He says, "Well, Johnson, that gets a C-." And, "Dorothy, you ought to be ashamed!" And, "Smith? Not bad. Could've been better, though." What heretical imaginations we have.
Why do we think like that? Who is responsible for such horror-images of the Almighty? Where did we pick up the idea that God is mad or irritated? Knowing that all of God's wrath was poured out on His Son at His death on the cross,
Undeserving, Yet Unconditionally Loved
how can we think like that? As a matter of fact, the reason He brought Jesus back from the grave is that He was satisfied with His Son. Ponder this: If the Father is satisfied with His Son's full payment for sin, and we are in His Son, by grace through faith, then He is satisfied with you and me. How long must Christians live before we finally believe that? Perhaps our problem is that we will forever have bosses and friends and pastors and parents who will give us lists. There will always be those who will give us more and more and more to live up to. These are grace killers whether they know it or not. By using guilt trips, shame techniques, and sneaky manipulations, they virtually drive us to distraction! But never God. He's the One who assures us that if we are anything, it is by His marvelous, infinite, matchless grace. And once we truly get hold of it for our own lives—once we experience The Grace Awakening —it's amazing how we want to share it. We delight in letting others be what they are by the same grace of God.
In a fine little book titled The Liberty of Obedience, Elisabeth Elliot writes about a young man eager to forsake the world and to follow Christ closely. What is it I must forsake? he, asks himself.
She records the following response and in doing so illustrates the foolishness of trying to please God by keeping man-made rules and legalistic regulations. What must he give up? Try not to smile:
Colored clothes, for one thing. Get rid of everything in your wardrobe that is not white. Stop sleeping on a soft pillow. Sell your musical instruments and don't eat any more white bread. You cannot, if you are sincere about obeying Christ, take warm baths or shave your beard. To shave is to lie against Him who created us, to attempt to improve on His work. 3
"Does this answer sound absurd?" she asks. Then she surprises us with this statement:
Undeserving, Yet Unconditionally Loved
It is the answer given in the most celebrated Christian schools of the second century! Is it possible that the rules that have been adopted by many twentieth-century Christians will sound as absurd to earnest followers of Christ a few years hence? 4
Before we cluck our tongues or laugh out loud at second-century grace killers, we had better ask ourselves questions like: What message are we delivering to our brothers and sisters in the family of God? What list of do's and don'ts have we concocted and now require of others? What must they do to earn their way into the circle of our conditional love so that they can feel more accepted? And I must add this final question: Who gave us the right to give someone else the rules to live by?
If the great apostle had no list, if he was what he was by the grace of God, considering himself undeserving, I can assure you, we are all in the same camp, equally unqualified, undeserving, yet unconditionally loved by our Father. For there to be true maturity, people must be given room to grow, which includes room to fail, to think on their own, to disagree, to make mistakes. Grace must be risked or we will be stunted Christians who don't think, who can't make decisions, who operate in fear and without joy because we know nothing but someone else's demands and
expectations. When will we ever learn? God delights in choosing those most unworthy and making them the objects of His unconditional acceptance.
CONSIDERING AN EXAMPLE OF GRACE
For the next few minutes let's leave our modern world and step into the time tunnel. Travel back with me three thousand years as we return to the days of ancient dynasties and the kings of Israel. It's a brutal era when all those in the family of the previous king were exterminated once a new dynasty took control. Naturally, all members of the former monarch's family
Undeserving, Yet Unconditionally Loved
had every reason to live in fear once the new king took the throne.
In the case I'm thinking of, King Saul and his son Jonathan had died following a battle. When word of the dual tragedy reached David's attention, it grieved him; nevertheless, he was the Lord's choice as Saul's successor. Knowing that David was now Israel's new king, the members of Saul's family fled for their lives, erroneously thinking that David would treat them like all the other monarchs of eastern dynasties. The scene portrayed in Scripture is one of pandemonium and panic.
Now Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the report of Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled. And it happened that in her hurry to flee, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth. (2 Sam. 4:4)
In the haste of escape, Saul's little grandson suffered a permanent injury. Not having medical help available and not knowing where to turn for such assistance, the boy never recovered from the fall. He lived the balance of his life lame in both his feet. We leave him as a five-year-old on the pages of the ancient record. Nothing more is said regarding Mephibosheth for fifteen to twenty years.
A Question Asked
Chapter 9 of 2 Samuel provides a link to the continuing story. Years have passed. Mephibosheth is now an adult, living out his days with a severe handicap. He is still crippled in both his feet. David has not only taken the throne, he has won the hearts of the people. The entire nation is singing his praises. As yet there is not a blemish on his integrity. He has expanded the boundaries of the United Kingdom of the Jews in Palestine from approximately six thousand to sixty thousand square miles. The military force of Israel is stronger than ever in its
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