God has been teaching me a lot about grace this year. I have written about this a couple of times. For instance, God has been teaching me and I have written about how grace means a lot more than just forgiveness of past sins, and that it means freedom from sin more than it means freedom from the consequences of sin. As God has been challenging me with this I run into more and more people that are struggling with false definitions of grace and freedom. Grace becomes a license to sin, and excuse to do whatever we want. I had a conversation with a student last night who was struggling with a roommate’s faith and actions and how to respond (this is like the fourth conversation I have had along these lines in the last three months) that reminded me of this whole discussion. Then, when I got home last night I read this in a book by Pete Grieg called The Vision and The Vow (buy it and read it):
As I look around the Church at this time, I see a real danger looming: I am concerned that the message of grace, which is currently being propounded so passionately from pulpits and paperbacks around the word, might merely be a “license to chill”—an all-embracing, one-size-fits-all, mindless rationale for accepting the greatest comfort and personal pleasure in any given situation. Such an aberration of grace labels those who break its code—those people who are seeking to be more disciplined and sacrificial in their faith—“religious,” “pious,” “driven,” “culturally irrelevant,” “caught up in good works,” “perfectionist,” or simply “legalistic.”
Of course, there is an ever-present danger of legalism and unhealthy pietism in the Church at large, and we all need to be told to relax at times, to be reminded and re-assured of God’s love and endless mercy. But in a culture forsworn to self-gratification, the danger far greater to us than legalism is surely the tendency toward the deification of pleasure in the name of grace.
Grace is calling us to “give up the game of minimum integrity.” Too often we are reduced to trivial debates about how far we can go sexually or how much we should give financially—all shades of gray in the ethics of obedience. And I suppose if we are mere adherents to a religious code, then such negotiations are fine and necessary. But if we are caught up in an infatuation of the holy, if this is a religion of living relationship and burning passion, then the impulse will not be to get the best deal, but rather, to give with joyful extravagance. When in doubt, we will not try to negotiate the minimum personal outlay, but rather will go the extra mile.
I hope this offers guidance to some of you, comforts others, and challenges some!
3 comments:
Todd,
Your thoughts on grace reminded me with my own past struggles with what grace is and what legalism is. Maybe these thoughts will add fuel to yours or someone else's fire.
I remember in college I had an accountability partner. I would ask him to hold me accountable to NOT doing some things and accountable TO doing other things. I remember often I would be tempted to say, "I have freedom to do those things...besides, there's grace. And I don't want to be legalistic." I realized that what I was doing was calling hard obedience, "legalism." I've heard people call others "legalists" for simply calling sin "sin." We often forget that legalism says two things:
1. I can earn salvation through works.
2. God won't love me unless I do this.
Both of those things are way different than obedience, which says "I do what my maker, master, and redeemer asks me to BECAUSE He's asked me to." Often, we call a struggle to obey, "legalism." Obedience is hard, and we need to realize that. And in the struggle for obedience, we must realize that it's not legalism, but what Paul calls "putting to death the flesh" or "sowing to the spirit" instead of "sowing to the flesh."
Abiding in Christ, Sowing to the Spirit, Putting the flesh to Death, etc. All of these phrases define what the Christian should look like. None of them are the same as legalism, and we better not call them that. Many people love the New Testament because they see the Old Testament as a bunch of rules, but the New Testament supposedly gives us freedom from rules, yet, reading Matthew 5-7 (the sermon on the mt.) I realized that there are rules in the New Testament, and they are HARDER than the ones in the Old Testament. Not only can we not murder people, but we aren't even supposed to be angry with them, otherwise, we are liable to judgment...according to Jesus. Somehow we need to find out a way as believers to live out the life described in those chapters by Jesus and still not be legalists. He says that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees, we will NEVER enter the Kingdom of God. WOW! We are supposed to be righteous, but not legalists. There is a HUGE difference. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Justin Schell
Right on Justin! It seems elementary to say (though I think we all have forgotten this at some point) that this all comes down to motivation. Legalism says I will do these things to earn God's favor. Grace says I will pursue these standards because I have been freely given God's favor. To adhere to the former rather than the latter is to trade Christianity for a carbon copy of many of the worlds other religions and philosophys.
Todd, hope you guys are doing well. We look forward to seeing you in August as we have a few days in Tulsa for a wedding in NW Arkansas. Take Care,
Justin
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