I find it sad that, in general, it seems that grace does not have its intended effect on western Christians. We think of grace as warrant for getting away will sub-par service to God. However, grace is meant to do things like lead us to repentance and enable us to serve God extravagantly.
This morning I was thinking about this in terms of financial giving. I think the average American gives right around 3% of their income to their church and this type of tight-fisted giving has been a perennial problem in the western church. However, traditionally the stance of the church on offering is "tithing", which literally means "one tenth". The good thing about this stance is that it encourages giving 10%. The problem is that it does not encourage giving more than that.
When grace was first unleashed in the world the earliest Christians sold EVERYTHING and gave it to the church. The view of grace is that humans deserve eternal damnation for their sins, but that through Jesus' death and resurrection Christians have been gifted righteousness. So anything outside of eternal damnation is a gift from God. Therefore, ALL your money is a gift from God; in fact, all of your LIFE is a gift from God. So all of your money should be used in submission to what God would have you do with you money. This is the doctrine of Grace Giving.
With this definition of grace giving the whole discussion of how much ought to be given becomes really simple: you give everything. With this model the question is simply: where does God want me to use my money?
Here is what I think the church needs: more grace. I do not believe that giving is so stingy because times are hard, but because we do not understand the magnitude of the grace we have received. I truly believe that as our view of grace increases, so will our giving. So let's let grace take over.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
The Best Offense is a Good Gracefense
Yes. That is the best blog post title you've ever seen. Although, it is less than accurate, because the truth is that the grace is the only offense when you are fighting sin. That's my point. You could stop reading now and you would not really miss much, except for the answer as to why it is the only offense.
Have you ever heard a sermon on the struggle against sin and gotten really frustrated because of the lack of practical application? I have. Most recently I have listened to several Mark Driscoll sermons concerning sin and the struggle against it. The content was great but even Driscoll, who is notoriously anti-religion, made it sound like you simply need to realize that sin is really bad and stop doing it. Fortunately, behind this was the implied practical answer to putting sin to death.
Driscoll's premise is that sin, of every kind, is idolatry. I think he's right. So the problem for Driscoll is that every human is a worshipper and sin is when they worship something other than God. This position has been around for centuries, and is held by Tim Kelly and Matt Chandler among others. So the problem is what sinners worship. So if sin is worshipping creation, righteousness is worshipping the Creator. Therefore, the cure for sin is worshipping Jesus.
We should worship for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, we should worship because GOD DESERVES GLORY. The only correct response when confronted with God is to worship. However, because he is a gracious, gentle God, who does not delight in forced submission (which isn't really submission at all), he has revealed the myriad of innate reasons for why he deserves worship. One of these reasons, one of the most prominent and fundamental in evangelical Christianity, is grace. I believe this is what Paul is referring to in Romans when he says that it is God's kindness that is meant to lead to repentance. I mean what is kinder than unmerited grace? What God is more worthy of worship than the one who gives such grace without condition or limit?
So here is the answer, and I will try and make it as practical as I can: worship Jesus. How? Pull out a guitar and sing. Pull out a pen and write. Get on your knees and pray. Go into the Bible and marvel. Whatever it is that causes you to realize the greatness of God and the wonder of the grace that he gives to you, do that. Grow in that. If you don't have anything that causes you to be amazed with God then I would say that you probably don't understand grace, or you don't understand the depths of depravity that God has saved you from through Jesus' death on the cross. If none of that makes sense to you, then you're not a Christian and you need to be.
Grace will lead to repentance. You might say, "But what if I just keep on sinning?" If this is your question, then I think you've understood the grace that Paul talks about, because after describing grace the logical question that followed was, "So, should we just keep sinning?" The answer is no, because grace will not lead to that. Worshipping the one true God, destroys the worship of false ones.
Have you ever heard a sermon on the struggle against sin and gotten really frustrated because of the lack of practical application? I have. Most recently I have listened to several Mark Driscoll sermons concerning sin and the struggle against it. The content was great but even Driscoll, who is notoriously anti-religion, made it sound like you simply need to realize that sin is really bad and stop doing it. Fortunately, behind this was the implied practical answer to putting sin to death.
Driscoll's premise is that sin, of every kind, is idolatry. I think he's right. So the problem for Driscoll is that every human is a worshipper and sin is when they worship something other than God. This position has been around for centuries, and is held by Tim Kelly and Matt Chandler among others. So the problem is what sinners worship. So if sin is worshipping creation, righteousness is worshipping the Creator. Therefore, the cure for sin is worshipping Jesus.
We should worship for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, we should worship because GOD DESERVES GLORY. The only correct response when confronted with God is to worship. However, because he is a gracious, gentle God, who does not delight in forced submission (which isn't really submission at all), he has revealed the myriad of innate reasons for why he deserves worship. One of these reasons, one of the most prominent and fundamental in evangelical Christianity, is grace. I believe this is what Paul is referring to in Romans when he says that it is God's kindness that is meant to lead to repentance. I mean what is kinder than unmerited grace? What God is more worthy of worship than the one who gives such grace without condition or limit?
So here is the answer, and I will try and make it as practical as I can: worship Jesus. How? Pull out a guitar and sing. Pull out a pen and write. Get on your knees and pray. Go into the Bible and marvel. Whatever it is that causes you to realize the greatness of God and the wonder of the grace that he gives to you, do that. Grow in that. If you don't have anything that causes you to be amazed with God then I would say that you probably don't understand grace, or you don't understand the depths of depravity that God has saved you from through Jesus' death on the cross. If none of that makes sense to you, then you're not a Christian and you need to be.
Grace will lead to repentance. You might say, "But what if I just keep on sinning?" If this is your question, then I think you've understood the grace that Paul talks about, because after describing grace the logical question that followed was, "So, should we just keep sinning?" The answer is no, because grace will not lead to that. Worshipping the one true God, destroys the worship of false ones.
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