I Give Up – Grace Alone
There is a thought that is among the most dangerous thoughts that can be thought. This thought probably causes more problems in relationships than any other. It separates us from parents, spouses, friends….and even our Creator. What is this thought? Three simple words: “You owe me.”
They are heard in the child who demands an allowance.
They echo from spouse who has watched the kids all day.
They are joyfully exclaimed by the friend who helped a friend move, and now it is time to return the favor.
You even see it in the Bible.
Eve thought she deserved the knowledge of good and evil. She ate of the fruit.
Jacob thought he deserved Esau’s birthright, so he tricked his father.
The people of Israel thought they deserved a tangible God, so a golden calf was made.
These same people thought they deserved more from God than mana in the desert.
David thought he deserved Bathsheba.
David’s son Absalom thought he deserved the kingdom. So he tried to take it from his father.
I could go on and on. I have only flitted over the first ten of sixty six books of the Bible.
We are no different. We want what we want. “You owe me” also pops up in our spiritual life as well, and that is dangerous. We can develop a spiritual entitlement. How often have you heard someone say “I live a good life, God will accept that.” Or “They were a good person.” Or “God will honor their commitment.” Perhaps “I try hard to make God happy”. Think of the nicest, kindest person you can. Most people probably jump right to Mother Teresa. She was an amazingly kind woman. She set up orphanages, fed the poor. She cared for the least of us. Her life was a sacrifice. One of her most famous quote was this: “I realize that when I touch the odorous and oozing members of a leper, I am touching the body of Christ.” What an amazing witness! Yet Mother Teresa did not go to heaven because of her works. She was selfless, yet even she could not pay her debt of sin off through her actions. (Credit for this whole paragraph given to Bob Lenz, and I consider his book a “must read” on the subject.)
So how did she get into heaven? How do we get into heaven? Sola gratia: “grace alone”. We are saved by God’s grace. God’s undeserved love. You see, before we can claim anything from God we have to ask what we have truly earned. The Bible is pretty clear on that. Perhaps the greatest acknowledgement of this can be found in the 51st Psalm (ESV)
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
According to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
This is echoed in the New Testament, as James writes in 2:10-11 (ESV)
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
Conceived in Sin.
Break one law you have broken them all.
How shall we be saved???
We have to give up the idea that we are good enough, the idea that we deserve God’s love, and the idea that God needs us. We bring nothing to our redemption. In fact, it was this very idea that we can influence our salvation that Luther rebelled against 500 years ago. He stated that faith is not with in the human possibility, nor an aspect of our personality; it is an amazing and free gift of God.
“This is the reason why our theology is certain. It snatches us away from ourselves and places us outside ourselves, so that we do not depend on our own strength, conscience, experience, person, or works but depend on that which is outside ourselves, that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot deceive.”
(Luther, the Large Commentary on Galatians)
Where is this written in the Bible?
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
– Ephesians 2:1–7 (ESV)
Or even simpler, Titus 3:5 (ESV)
He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit
He saved us. God’s gift to you and to me. No amount of human effort will ever earn salvation. So what is this gift that we have been given in grace? What opened heaven to us?
Solo Christo: “Christ alone”
We will talk more on that next week.
Given up on being good enough, and saved only by God’s love.
-Pastor Dan