Stolen Grace

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5

Grace: If you’ve been in the Christian Church any longer than six months, you’ve heard the word Grace spoken of often. Ask your average Sunday church going Christian the definition and, while the answers may vary slightly, you’ll more often than not hear the theme “God’s compassionate forgiveness given to me so that I might be saved. Grace is unmerited favor...I didn’t have to earn it. He looked at me in my sinful state and saved me...all my sins washed away. I was saved by grace and I now live in grace.” All of these things are true. All of these definitions are correct if understood in the right light. I am concerned that many in the church today, though, are clinging to this word “grace,” as a gift from God but in a misunderstood manner. As with the truths of God, there are those who have hijacked this word and turned it into a self focused, self exalting theology. Could it be that the true meaning of grace has been stolen?

Jude 1:4 “For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

From the very beginning days of the church, the writers of the New Testament warned believers of false teachers...of false gospels. Why so many warnings? Because they knew that men so often take the truth of God and, as is the nature of the heart of men, change it and twist it to serve their own purposes. They turn it into something that will bring glory to themselves and not Christ.

Not only will there be false teachers but 2 Tim 4:3-4 tells us that the people will actively look for these teachers and pastors...for men who will tickle their ears...make them feel better about themselves as they live a life fulfilling their own desires.

This is, I am afraid, causing many to misunderstand their position in the faith before God. We have passed from death into life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The perfect life that He lived here on earth, because of His sacrifice, became our identity…became our justification before the Father.

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” 2 Corinthians 5:21

That we might become the righteousness of God through Jesus; meaning that now we are acceptable to God because we’ve been given the identity of the sinless Son: This is the definition of grace. God’s favor that we did nothing to earn.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Rom. 3:23-24

This grace that justifies us and gives us the identity of Christ so that we might be acceptable before the Father. This grace takes a dead man and gives Him life.

That is the wonderful unmerited love of God for fallen man. We rejoice in the fact that God has forgiven all of our sins. But then comes the “walking it out” portion of our faith and here is where deception creeps in.

Many go on to live a life as if there was never a change from the old life to the new. There is very little difference in the practical daily life, very little time in the Word (if any); still watching the same shows, still going to the same movies, still enjoying the same life full of people or things that openly mock Christ or, at the very least, don’t acknowledge His Lordship.

When pressed as to how they can still enjoy the same life as they had before, they will say, "I now live under Grace. The Christian life isn’t about rules and “works” but Grace. God knows deep down in my heart that I love Him. The sinful things I engage in don’t really affect me anymore because I’m a believer. He knows I wouldn't engage in that sexual sin I’m watching or use that kind of language I find so funny. He loves all those who are dead in their sins and shouldn’t I be a light in the darkness? I know what the Bible says because I hear it preached each Sunday. He knows my heart. These are the days of grace after all. I feel free enough to know that the outside sins don’t really change who I am on the inside: a saved child of God.”

Oh there is such a fine line that so easily becomes a mixture of truth and lies. In order to combat confusion we must look at what the Word says.

It shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that he will boast, saying, ‘I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart in order to destroy the watered land with the dry. The Lord shall never be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.

Deut. 29:19-20

From the beginning, when God spoke to His people and gave them His law, He saw the heart of man. He saw that even though they Heard His voice and knew His commands they were unwilling to give up their sin and even went as far as claiming peace with God while still stubbornly clinging to the sins God hates. From reading that verse you seem to get the sense that they were even trying to fool their own hearts..justify their own rebellion. God was showing His people grace when He revealed His holy requirements to them..He was showing them grace by warning them that if they didn’t put away their sin He would forever punish them. Things are no different in the New Testament. God shows His grace to us by giving up His Son to die for the sins we are enslaved to..He shows His grace by taking our heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh that we now can obey and bring Him glory by living as Christ lived. How can we, who have passed from death to life still live as if death is our master?

“Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” Romans 1:32

“The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” 1 John 2:6

”If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:6-7

Paul, knowing his own sinful tendencies, knowing the hearts of men he ministered to, writes a sobering challenge...

“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” Romans 6:15 - 18

We are free FROM sin, not free TO sin. The mark of a mature believer isn’t freedom to do all the heart desires knowing that God grace will cover it all. The mark of a mature believer understands that freedom lies in fleeing from the things that used to be the old man...the sin-filled life that kept you from fellowship with the God of this universe. It’s a bit like a person who is finally drug free after a twenty year addiction deciding that they will begin using again. They feel that since they were officially clean for a couple of months that they are no longer an addict and now the drugs they use don’t control them like they used to. They can go to all the support meetings and claim to be drug free but everyone else in their lives knows that they are, in fact, still a drug addict.

Someone who claims to have been freed from sin, that decides to still participate in the same life they had before, isn’t living under Grace. They might just be children of wrath with no love in their heart for God or the things of God.

“And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27

“And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.” 2 John 1:6