The Question of Grace
Holy People
Ephesians 1:4-6
4 That is, in Christ, he chose us before the world was made so that we would be his holy people—people without blame before him. 5 Because of his love, God had already decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. That was what he wanted and what pleased him, 6 and it brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely, in Christ, the One he loves.
A sheep named Baarack received a much needed shearing after rescuers in Australia found the abandoned animal with more than 75 pounds of wool weighing it down. A video of his transformation on TikTok has more than 18.5 million views. After rescuing Baarack, sanctuary staff gave him the long-overdue shearing and found the fleece clocked in at about 78 pounds. According to Kelly Dinham with Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary, sheep need at least yearly shearing to keep their coats light enough for the animals, otherwise it will continue to grow. Despite his heavy fleece, Baarack was actually underweight after being sheared. The wool around his face impaired his vision, too. Dinham said they found grit and debris "pooling in the gap between his cornea and the lid." And a grass seed stuck in there had caused an ulcer. If a sheep goes for an extended period of time without adequate care, the overgrown wool can lead to build up of manure and urine that then could lead to infection, according to a North Dakota State University fact sheet on sheep shearing.
My wife is not a fan of mud. We have dog towels sitting right by the door so when we bring the dogs in on wet muddy days they can be cleaned off. In our family a great Christmas gift is boot trays so we have a place to put our muddy boots. What is interesting is that my wife and I moved out into the county and are raising chickens and in the winter that means mud and lots of it. As much as she hates mud she loves where we live and what we are doing. Her chickens are precious to her and all the mud in the world would not keep her from them. The image of my wife wading through mud to take care of her cherished chickens makes me think about Jesus and how our faith works. If there is anyone who hates sin more then Jesus I cannot conceive who it would be and yet Jesus comes to deal with all the sin of the would. Think about this, over and over God tells us about sin and how bad it is and we just ignore His warnings and keep sinning. We are up to our neck in the dirty filthy sin that God hates and knows will destroy the wonderful creation He has made. One of the things the law was to do was to clean up the messiness of our sin so that we could be close to God but even that was not enough. Someone was going to have to come and deal with the abominable mess that we had made and so Jesus arrives to deal with the very thing He hates most. How does this righteous and loving person even deal with the situation? We are covered in sin and just getting near us had to be the most horrible thing imaginable and yet Jesus shows up because humans are so precious and so loved by God. Christians should be the people that understand the magnitude of sin and power of God’s love for broken sinful humans. Our faith in Jesus is all about the fact that Jesus came to deal with the ugliness of sin even when Jesus was without sin. Sin crushes and destroys humans lives and it is our fault and our only hope is that someone comes and takes our sin away and that is what our hope in Jesus is all about. Once we grasp how nasty and awful sin is we can start to really appreciate who Jesus is and what He did.
At the end of World War II, there was a question of what to do with all the people who fought on the losing side. It was generally thought that the Japanese and German people were fanatical and could not be left alone after the surrender and thus the countries were occupied by the allies. There were also trials of the leaders that remained alive after the war and those people were punished but the question was what to do with all the “normal” people. You could not punish everyone and even trying to find all the bad apples would take to much time and money. After a lot of thought the choice was made to grant mercy to people and to let people move on with their lives. Mercy does not mean that people did not do wrong but they will not get the punishment that they might have deserved. Getting mercy is a big deal because it means we will not suffer the consequences of our actions but it does not mean we are not guilty. In the Old testament God is described as a merciful God and He is but the fact is that if we are to really be set free we need something more. That is where Jesus comes in because Jesus takes things a step further and brings grace into the situation. Grace is different from mercy because grace means “unmerited favor” and that is different then mercy because we don’t only avoid punishment for what we have done wrong but we instead get what we need, forgiveness. Mercy cannot bring forgiveness and forgiveness cannot happen without grace. The order of magnitude that happens when we move from mercy to grace is so great that it is hard to conceive. Most people can get how mercy works and can value that idea that they are guilty but they will not be punished but the idea that the God of the universe would care to give us what we need most is hard to get our heads around. And yet our faith is not in the mercy of God but in the grace of God and so we need to learn what grace means and how our faith in Jesus transforms us by the grace we find.
Have you ever seen those stories about a mother who forgives the man who killed her child or the man who forgives the person who crashed into his wife’s car killing her. Those accounts tell of amazing strength and a world view that few people will ever get close to but the power of forgiving has spiritual impact that we need to think about. Forgiveness is not about letting the guilty go but making the person no longer guilty. This is what our verse talks about when it says we no longer have blame before God. What a wonderful thing that God no longer blames us for our sin. The question is how do we get here? I mean, how do we get forgiveness for sin that is clearly ours and that is what Jesus is all about. We also have an idea of how this forgiveness happens found in this verse and it is the grace that comes with Jesus that makes it possible. As we have talked before grace means “unmerited favor” and the idea is that God gives us what we need even though we don’t deserve it. Humans need to be forgiven and grace is what makes that possible and grace only comes through Jesus. Our faith is all about trusting in the one who brings the grace that opens the way to real forgiveness. An idea I like that is not my own but I feel it very powerfully is the idea that because of Jesus we swim in an ocean of grace and because of that sometimes we let our faith be about other things and we miss what Jesus says is central to our salvation. The response to grace should be like Peter when he encounters Jesus and proclaims he is unworthy. Paul tells us in Romans that everyone will one day bow before God and some will bow in submission but those whose faith is in Jesus will bow because we are humbled by the grace Jesus brings. Be aware that we not only receive grace but we are called to be people of grace. Jesus calls us to bless people who hate us and that is grace at work in everyday life. Grace has such power and it is only found in Jesus.
So the question our faith needs to know the answer to is how does grace work? The best place to start to get the answer to that is to look at the life of Jesus we have in the gospels. Jesus does not back away from condemning sin and that is a powerful statement. If we don’t know how bad sin is and we are not confronted with our sin we can never value the mercy and grace that Jesus brings. It is the purpose of Jesus condemning sin that we need to see and value. Grace can only be understood if we know we are sinners and know we need God to deal with our sin. Jesus condemns sin not to send the sinner to hell but to save the sinner from hell by offering grace. Grace is all about getting what we need which is to be forgiven. With the coming of Jesus we now have God offering to change us from sinners to people of righteousness and that is done by the grace that Jesus brings. Over and over Jesus offers grace to sinners and the is the hallmark of who Jesus is. Sin is our problem and forgiveness is our need and Jesus stands as the giver of grace that makes forgiveness possible. This is why our faith is in Jesus because only Jesus can offer the grace that will lead us to forgiveness. Finding and living in the grace of Jesus is the only hope of lost people but we have a God who sends Jesus into the world to offer us the grace we need. One of the side effects of grace is it makes us look at our sin and see if for what it is. Sin is horrible and destructive and once we know that we are so grateful that Jesus comes to save us from our sin.
A reason I like writing is because of words. In the process of writing I get to use words and explore how words work to transmit the message that I want communicated. Words and their history and meaning intrigue me. One of the words that has slipped into my vocabulary and I like a lot is the word winsome. Here is a short definition, attractive or appealing in appearance or character. The idea is that it is more about character then appearance and that is a cool thing. I think that Christians should be winsome. Think about it this way, we have the living God dwelling in us and God is the creator of all things beautiful so Christians should be the most appealing people. Part of our charming nature rises from the grace we have experienced from being in Christ. What that means is that we should be people of grace and that we should give people not what they deserve but what they need and they need forgiveness of God. That will mean that we speak about sin but we do it lovingly with an understanding that Jesus came to rescue us from sin not to condemn us. Christians should be a place where people find peace and hope because we know that in Jesus our sin can be dealt with and a new life can be found. Some years ago there was a saying that ask the question, “What would Jesus do?”. But Christians are called to more then that they are called to be like Jesus and that means we need to be people of grace.
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