The Grace Awakening

by Charles R Swindoll

  One of the best-selling books of the previous decade was In Search of Excellence, in which the authors hailed companies who modeled standards of excellence in eight primary areas. The implication was clear: You wish to be excellent? Do not tolerate anything less. It's the same motto we heard from a professional football coach back in the 1970s: "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The downside of such an intolerant philosophy is that it can be interpreted as rejection by anyone who fails to measure up.

  Second, with a lifestyle of discipline there comes impatience and the tendency to judge. Unfortunately, both come in the same package. A person who works hard to stay fit by eating better and less, plus maintaining a consistent, rigorous exercise program, tends to be impatient with those who eat too much and refuse to exercise even a little. The overeaters may view themselves as pleasingly plump. But Mr. Atlas and his iron-pumping wife, Wonder Woman, see them as slobs, plain and simple. Such a contrast reminds me of some amazing statistics I came across in a couple of similar sources that paint a statistical portrait of America. Among the things that happen each day in our country:

  • Americans purchase 45,000 new automobiles and trucks, and smash up 87,000.

  • We eat 75 acres of pizza, 53 million hot dogs, 167 million eggs, 3 million gallons of ice cream and 3000 tons of candy. We also jog 17 million miles and burn 1.7 billion calories while we're at it. 1

  Grace: It's Really Accepting

  • $2,021,918 is spent on exercise equipment, $3,561,644 on tortilla chips. . . . $10,410,959 on potato chips.

  • Americans . . . drink 524 million servings of Coca-Cola, are served 2,739,726 Dunkin' Donuts . . .

  • 101,280,321 adults are on diets

  My point is this: If you're a jogger who burns off hundreds of calories while clicking off six or seven miles a day, you have no patience with the fella who eats half an acre of pizza and washes it down with a couple quarts of his favorite cola. Discipline and impatience tend to occupy the same body.

  Third, with a broad education and a love for culture and the arts, there is usually the flip side of exclusive sophistication. Cultural buffs stick together. Art lovers are in their own world . . . and God help any poor soul who prefers country-western and foot-stompin' bluegrass music but finds himself among those who prefer Brahms or Chopin or Tchaikovsky! Because I happen to enjoy most any kind of music other than opera, I smiled when I read Haddon Robinson's admission. "I do not appreciate opera; what is worse, I have several friends who do." 3 As wonderful, delightful, and satisfying as the cultural world may be, none can deny the air of exclusive sophistication that accompanies it.

  There is also a fourth flip side that comes to my mind: With an emphasis on independence and high production, there is the presence of pride. If you are an independent worker, an independent thinker, or if you have become independently wealthy by nothing other than sacrifice and hard work from ground, zero up, chances are good that you have a great deal of pride. You have struggled for every dime you've made. You took no handouts, got no breaks, and refused all shortcuts to success. Whatever you got, you earned it the "old-fashioned way." Whatever you needed, you dug down deep and refused to quit until you got it. And as a result, you made it to the top, and it is no secret that you're proud of it. Then one day, along comes

  Grace: It's Really Accepting

  somebody who wants to do something for you; someone who desires to extend to you a little undeserved, unearned grace. Lots of luck.

  Right now, do you know who I'm thinking of? A lovely young woman who was very coordinated, athletic, strong, healthy, capable, independent of spirit, and talented. She loved to ride horseback, in fact, she loved everything about life. She was athletic, popular, and fulfilled. Her name is Joni Eareckson Tada. But, as a result of a fateful dive into the Chesapeake Bay in 1967, her world was suddenly reduced to a wheelchair. Joni, still a delightful and beautiful person, is now a quadriplegic. Once independent, she is now forced to depend on others for survival. Can you imagine the difficulty of such a challenge? What a battle I would have with pride! And let's face it, it would be a struggle for any strong-willed, independent, highly productive person to be forced into a reversal of roles, from independence and achiever to dependence and acceptance.

  How difficult it is for those of us who are able to produce a great deal to be accepting and receiving of the grace of others. We are not only determined, we are driven. We set a goal and we achieve it. We meet deadlines because we apply the necessary discipline and we produce. Accompanying all that is an ironlike mind-set and spirit that is so involved in giving, giving, giving that when someone graciously comes to give to us, we are quasi-embarrassed. We may hide it, but we are uneasy, reluctant. To use words we can now understand, we resist grace. Capable and frequent givers find it the next thing to impossible to be grateful and willing receivers.

  This especially reveals itself in the individual who has lived a great deal of his or her adult life without Jesus Christ. If you are independent and proud, successful and strong, productive and competent, you are fairly sufficient on your own. Then along comes someone who tells you about the Savior, Jesus Christ, offering you something you don't deserve and cannot earn. The normal response is "No thanks. No help wanted. I've

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  made it this far, I'll make it the rest of the way." It is possible you may cope fairly well with life, but I must remind you that you will not make it beyond death. As Jesus Himself taught, "For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" (Luke 9:25).

  EXAMPLES OF RESISTING AND ACCEPTING GRACE

  While reading through the Bible this year, I made a note of several lives that illustrate both resisting grace and accepting grace. Though the people we'll be looking at lived centuries ago, their circumstances, surroundings, and attitudes pulsate with relevance, making it easy for us to identify with each one.

  Two Old Testament Examples: Moses and Samson

  Exodus 3 records the account of a man who resisted grace when it was offered to him. His name was Moses. As we step into his life in the third chapter of Exodus, he is eighty years old. His life is a study in contrast between his first forty years and his second forty years.

  During his first forty years he was remarkable. His resume was nothing short of impressive. He was the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter. Raised in elegance. Educated at the Temple of the Sun. Experienced as a warrior. Capable as a speaker. Respected and confident. Josephus, the Jewish historian, suggests that he was what we would call the "Pharaoh-elect." He was being primed to take the throne as the next Egyptian pharaoh. He had won battles fighting Ethiopia and other countries. Perhaps he had a chestful of medals for bravery. He had a polished chariot, and servants available at the snap of his finger. When he rode through the fields, surely the people shouted, "Bow the knee. Bow the knee!" He was the epitome of nobility, the pride of ancient Egypt.

  Grace: It's Really Accepting

  While in the court of Pharaoh, he was spoken to by his God and was told that he was to deliver the Hebrews from bondage. He determined to obey. One day he happened upon an Egyptian assaulting a Hebrew. Without hesitation, he acted in the Hebrew's defense and murdered the Egyptian. To borrow from the words of the prophet Zechariah, Moses attempted to free the Hebrews by "might and power,'' rather than doing the deliverance God's way and in God's time. Tragically, he thought he could lead the exodus in the energy of the flesh.

  God (as always) put thumbs down on the process. There he was, forty years old, no longer the darling of the nation. Everything for Moses changed . . . almost overnight. Pharaoh had no more use for him. He was instantly humiliated as he ran for his life. His guilt must have been unbelievable. His whole life went "down the tubes." It would be like building, building, building, building all through your adult life, and shortly after you reach the pinnacle of success, doing something stupid financially or ethically or perhaps morally. It destroys your family. It de
stroys your reputation. It ultimately destroys your business, even ends your career. And you wind up behind bars. (Scripture calls that "sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.")

  The bars on Moses'jail happened to be the Midian Desert, a sudden and unexpected career change. And for the next forty years Moses' God remained silent. There is no record here or anywhere in Scripture that God spoke to Moses while he was a shepherd working for his father-in-law. Here he is on the stinging sands of the Midian Desert with a flock of sheep—the same man who had the leadership of a nation in his grip and had blown it! Disqualified, he had escaped to the desert. Guilt and remorse consumed him, leaving him with no other thought than this: It's all over. Keep in mind, all of that is the background to Exodus 3.

  One morning Moses awakens and leads the flock of sheep to the backside of the desert. He may have been there hundreds of

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  times before, but today was different. Today, the silence of God would be broken, much to Moses' surprise.

  Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. (Exod. 3:1-2)

  If you have traveled much in the desert, you know that a bush may suddenly, on its own, burst into flames. But of course they always burn up. This one didn't. The flame persisted, but the bush was not consumed. Moses was puzzled. The longer he stood and studied the bush, the more it burned and burned and burned. Abruptly, out of the midst of the bush came a voice he hadn't heard for decades, "Moses! Moses!" Incredible moment! He knew that voice. He remembered it from forty years before. There was no other voice like that one. He thought his life was finished. He had made such a mess of things, he had been convinced he would never hear that voice again. How wrong he was!

  Do you know what is in that voice? Grace. Have you heard it? Sitting in a bar some night trying to drown your fears and loneliness, did you hear the voice? Sitting in jail, having ruined your reputation, have you heard that voice? Leaving a divorce court with horrendous memories of what might have been, as you returned all alone to your apartment, did you hear the voice? Having messed up your life through a series of events too shameful to rehearse, did you convince yourself you were through forever? Or have you forgotten the voice? Listen again! That voice comes from God's heart of grace and it is calling your name. You may have been saying for a long time now, "It is over. It is finished. I am through. There is no chance." Grace knows no such restrictions. Let grace awaken! Like the bush that kept burning, grace keeps reaching.

  F. B. Meyer writes eloquently of this moment.

  Grace: It's Really Accepting

  There are days in all lives which come unannounced, unheralded; no angel faces look out of heaven; no angel voices put us on our guard: but as we look back on them in after years, we realize that they were the turning points of existence. Perhaps we look longingly back on the uneventful routine of the life that lies beyond them; but the angel, with drawn sword, forbids our return, and compels us forward. It was so with Moses. . . .

  . . . Then, all suddenly, a common bush began to shine with the emblem of Deity; and from its heart of fire the voice of God broke the silence of the ages in words that fell on the shepherd's ear like a double-knock: "Moses, Moses."

  And from that moment all his life was altered. The door which had been so long in repairing was suddenly put on its hinges again and opened. 4

  Moses thought he was finished forever. Do you know why? Guilt. Shame. Because of those twin grace killers, don't think for a moment that Moses jumped at the chance to lead the Exodus. Remember, he was finished so far as his mind was concerned. But not God's. What we have in the balance of chapter 3 and into chapter 4 is a dialogue, better defined as an argument. God is saying "Go" and Moses is answering "No." God initiates the invitation: "... come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt" (Exod. 3:10).

  Had he heard that before? For sure. That was four decades ago, back in Egypt, before he impulsively killed the Egyptian, remember? Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. It can't be real . . . or is it? God is saying the same thing he said forty years ago — but it can't be God! No way would He give me another chance!

  Examine the argument. Moses answers, "Who am I?" If God had interrupted, He would have said, "You're nothing. But you don't have to be somebody to be used by Me." Grace means God uses nobodies. Grace also means He makes nobodies into somebodies. The problem is this: Our shame screams so loudly and our guilt is so huge, we convince ourselves we're not useful

  Grace: It's Really Accepting

  and we think we cannot measure up. After all, you may think, / have to be somebody special to be useful or important to God. But the fact is He does great things through nobodies. He does some of His best work with those who think they are finished and, humanly speaking, should be. Moses' words reveal his inability to accept grace. "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?" (v. 11).

  I love God's answer! "... Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain" (v. 12, emphasis mine). Notice God said when, not if. God will get His way. You will look back and say, "I really cannot explain how, but God did it." That is the way it is with grace.

  Moses' fear begins to surface.

  Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?" (v. 13)

  Dear, anxious Moses! He's already got a worry list started. Listen to him rehearse his "they-may-say" concerns. Don't miss his use of the scare-word, "may." It is typical of all who are afraid of acting on grace. The worry hasn't happened yet. But, you know, "Lord, they may say, 'What is His name?' and I won't have all the answers." God's answer is designed to bring comfort: "You will have all of Me." But the man is still unconvinced. He simply cannot accept God's grace.

  The argument continues into Exodus 4. Moses' guilt is enormous! His shame has him pinned to the mat. God hasn't yet convinced him that neither guilt nor shame is appropriate. Moses' answer begins with "What if?" (That is another missile from his arsenal of worry.)

  Grace: It's Really Accepting

  Then Moses answered and said, "What if they will not believe me, or listen to what I say? For they may say, 'The Lord has not appeared to you.'" (Exod. 4:1)

  Moses is saying, in effect, "Lord I won't have their respect. Some of them may even remember I'm the man who killed the Egyptian. They may say, 'You've got a record. You're a killer!'" God reassures him, "You'll have all of My power. You will have all the power you need." And after God performs a miracle in front of him, using Moses' own hands, He adds, "If I can do that with a staff and with a serpent, believe Me, I can take your power, as little as it is, and I can use it." Moses is still hesitant. "Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since Thou hast spoken to Thy servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue" (Exod. 4:10).

  Too many years in the hot desert has blurred Moses' memory. When he was younger, "he was a man of power in words and in deeds" (see Acts 7:22). He was once eloquent. But for the last forty years he had just been talking to those woolies in the wilderness. And you don't cultivate your public-speaking skills in the wilderness with the sand stinging your face and the sun turning your skin to leather. It is survival city out there, nothing more. So he whines, "Lord, I'm not qualified. Those Egyptians are well-trained and well-educated." And he jumps to the conclusion, "I'm not eloquent." In no uncertain terms, the Lord tells him, "You'll have all that is needed." What God w
ants is an obedient heart and availability.

  God commands, "Go, and I'll be with your mouth." Isn't that beautiful? I've claimed that verse on a number of occasions, especially when I have had to stand before audiences I didn't know. I just said, "Lord, You promised Moses You'd be with his mouth, so I ask You to be with mine. I'm satisfied to be Your mouthpiece. My heart's prepared, so please speak through my vocal cords." Time and again, He has "been with my mouth."

  In verse 13 Moses is still arguing: ". . . 'Please, Lord, now

  Grace: It's Really Accepting

  send the message by whomever Thou wilt.'" That may sound humble, but the man is really trying to get out of the assignment. "Send somebody else." One paraphrase reads, "Send anybody else," which, being interpreted, certainly meant, "Send anybody but me." And the Lord says, "Okay, you have a brother. His name is Aaron. I'll send him." Remember Aaron? He was the one who encouraged the people only weeks later, to build and worship the golden calf. One of the heartaches of Moses' life was his brother. Yet God graciously allowed Moses to have him as his spokesman.

  When it comes to accepting grace, the first thing to remember is this: We resist grace when our guilt and shame have not been adequately dealt with. Most folks, it seems, are better acquainted with their guilt and shame than with their God. Grace nullifies guilt. It renders shame powerless. Many of you who are reading these lines are better students of what you have done wrong than you are of what God wants to do with you now that you have made things right. And you are using your guilt and shame as a way to stay away from God's best.

  One more thought on this. You know the last person on earth we forgive? Ourselves. We can forgive an enemy easier and quicker than we will forgive ourselves. But not until we have fully accepted the forgiveness of the Lord God will we be ready to let His grace awaken in us.