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.

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