Read Romans
10:8-17
We continue our exploration of faith,
so let’s begin with what should be a very familiar defining
verse from the King
James Version.
I don’t do
much hell fire and damnation. Jesus
talked about heaven,
hell,
the kingdom
of God, love
and many
other things, but scaring someone into believing in a God who is love was
not his modus operandi.
It’s also
not very effective. People scared in to
confessing Jesus is Lord think they have reached the finish line an are ill
prepared for the race of faith ahead of them.
They are not ready to step out from the starting line of discipleship.
Therefore,
fear is the least used item in my repertoire. The proverbs says that the fear
of the Lord is a good starting
point, but surely not our
destination.
So many
preachers today focus on the condemnation
of sin. Would my brethren really mock
God in this way? God condemned sin
on a hill named Golgotha two millennia ago.
Did he not do a good enough job?
Most of my
messages are targeted to the saints, hoping
to spur them on to acts of love and discipleship.
While most
of the time we have a hymn of initiation near the end of the service, I know
that I am talking mainly to people who have already responded. We know grace.
That said, consider the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
He lived in the time of Adolf Hitler and all of the atrocities that
accompanied this age. Not quite 75 years
ago he was killed in a Nazi Concentration camp.
Here is his
provocation for us today. He uses a term
that might and perhaps should get under your skin. It should be a might prickly for all of us.
Cheap
grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,
baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution
without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace
without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Cheap grace
is perhaps the number one selling item on the Christian Shopping Network. Who doesn’t want grace? Who doesn’t want all of their sin washed
away? Right now for three easy payments of zero
dollars, you may receive grace. You are
forgiven.
The question
is, are we preaching God’s grace as it came to us? Are we preaching the
truth? Have we maintained fidelity
with the truth?
Should we
first proclaim to the world, “Repent
for the Kingdom of God is at hand?”
Should repentance not precede grace?
Is grace
available for the one who will not turn away from the world? Can
you have grace and still not seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness
first? Can the unrepentant heart still
receive grace?
The truth is
that Christ
died for all, but some will desire
the world more. Some chose to continue
in rebellion.
Is
that our burden to carry? No. Ever since God has been sending messages and
messengers, people have ignored
what God has to say.
Some heard. Some responded. Some are blessed. Some are redeemed
but many reject
the truth. Many make a pact
with death.
Many reject
the cornerstone
that is Christ Jesus our Lord.
But these
rejections are not your burden. You are
to proclaim the truth in
season and out of season, and when you think about that, truth is
always in season for the disciple of Christ Jesus.
We speak the
truth and in that truth is good news.
God does
not want to condemn anyone but he will not tolerate rebellion.
God has
forgiveness that we did not and do not deserve.
That’s called grace.
God did it
all. The blood
of Jesus took away our sin. Jesus
paid it all. All to him I owe…
We receive
this gift of grace by faith. We receive
it by faith not works, not our own righteousness, and religion.
Up to the
point where we repent of our sin and profess Jesus as Lord, we are under a death
sentence. The wages
of sin is death.
Once we have
received grace, sin has no power over our eternal destination. It can sure mess up our abundant
life in the here and now but it does not impact where we spend eternity.
If we who have
received grace sin, we confess, and we receive the promised
pardon. We understand that we are a
regenerated, redeemed, and eternally loved by our God.
In this
state of favor and grace, confession is our new first nature when it comes to
sin. It’s not guilt. It’s confession.
Repentance is a real thing and we don’t want anything to do with that which is
not pleasing to God.
Having
received grace and now living in God’s grace, confession is our first nature
when it comes to sin.
Our history
tells us that we were a sinner saved by grace. That is our history. It is a true story but do not confuse our
story with our identity. Our story is
that we were a sinner saved by grace but our identity is as a child of
God and a brother or sister to Christ Jesus.
We are set
apart by God’s truth. Our identity
is that we are wholly
owned by the God of love.
So, what do
we do with this incredible disposition?
We respond
in love. We love God. This love is manifested mostly in obedience
to him—known to us personally mainly by his Spirit—and know to us by
his word, some of which is in black print and some in red. This love
is manifested in three words we know so well, love
one another.
How does this
response of love and obedience relate to the saints—those gathered here who
have repented of the ungodly patterns of the world and received the gift of
grace that we know in Christ Jesus?
Our
example for sure.
More.
How do we
respond? How about in what we share with others?
Do we
speak the truth? Perhaps we speak Mary Poppins truth. Do we sugar coat it just a little so it is
easier to swallow? A spoon full of sugar,
helps the medicine go down…
So many
won’t get the Mary Poppins reference because the sugar is already in the
medicine these days.
Do we
preach to itching ears?
There are a
whole bunch of people in today’s world that don’t want to know what God thinks
or has to say about anything. Putting
your head in the sand is considered a viable course of action today.
But we are
called to preach the truth. We are
called to speak the truth in love, which is an indication of our Christian
maturity. We are called to share the
truth.
So how do we
reach the world with good news that what God has in store for us is so much
better than the world’s offer? How can
the world—this temporal, temporary world make an offer that so many cling so
tightly to? How do we reach people who
only want cheap grace?
How do we connect with people who
want to be saved from death but don’t want to turn away from their sin?
With
love. Our motivation is love, not
hate or condemnation or self-righteousness.
We must speak the truth in love. Some
mistake sugar coating for love but love will not allow itself to be sugar
coated. If you can sugar coat it, your motivation is not love. Love must be our central motivation.
What does
that look like?
There are a
whole bunch of things that God has told us that people don’t want to hear these
days.
We could
make signs and cite chapter and verse.
We could
yell at them.
We could
ignore them.
We could
just feel superior to them. A little
self-righteousness can’t be that bad can it?
We could
post more “You’re going to hell Facebook Memes.”
Here’s a
short rabbit trail. Where do you think
that most of America is learning its theology?
Seminary? Study groups? Individual Bible studies?
I have no
documented research on this but I can post in online and may it true. It seems that most of America is learning its
theology through Facebook memes.
Why
not? You don’t have to consider sourcing
or context. The full biblical witness
meant actual study time. A couple
zingers and a cool picture and you have a theology. If you can make it appealing to what people
want to hear, then you’ve got something.
It has the
depth of Granny’s Pimento Cheese recipe on Pinterest or the video of Squirrels
Playing Banjos on Instagram, but it will get a lot of likes and a couple
hundred hearts.
Maybe the
meme approach isn’t the best for those who have truly repented and want to reach
the lost.
Here’s
something. We could speak the truth in
love. We can preach the truth in season
and out of season. We can be the feet of
those who bring good news.
But here’s
the thing. The truth and good news that
we deliver must be God’s
truth, not some sugar coated, twenty-first century friendly, itching
ears brand of the truth which is just another form of deception.
Faith comes through hearing the
message and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
If you are
thinking about sugar coating or watering-down the message, ask yourself this
simple question.
Who
would you cheat out of grace by sugar coating the message? Who would you tell that this thing is that
God says is sin is not sin? That makes
the conversation much easier but the repentance
and transformation so much more difficult.
Would you be
like Jonah who did not want to go to Ninevah because
the people might actually repent and God forgive them? Who do you not want to repent and
receive a message of life?
How,
then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how
can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear
without someone preaching to them? And how
can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are
the feet of those who bring good news!”
You are
sent! You are sent with the truth. You are sent into a world that doesn’t want
to listen. You are sent out as sheep
among wolves. You are sent and
counseled to be as innocent as doves and as shrewd as snakes.
None of us
are alive in this rebellious age by accident. We may not understand
what God is thinking, but he did not make a mistake with us. We belong
to Christ Jesus. We are God’s
messengers. We have received the
truth. We are commissioned
to deliver it.
So many talk
about how bad things are getting. Hell
in a handbasket and end of days are phrases used more and more but have
we stepped up our game?
If this were
a baseball game, we would have our rally caps on, be shaking the fence, getting
the fans fired up, and doing whatever it took to get on base. There is nothing like a ninth inning rally. But, sometimes it seems we are still in our
pregame warmup.
We are
charged and commissioned to take the truth—the good news of salvation
in the one name given to us—to this rebellious generation.
God did not
make a mistake. You are alive in this
time and place on purpose. In
a time when apathy and ambivalence generate more interest than the truth, you
are to take the truth, speaking it not in condemnation but in
love, to people who don’t
really want to hear it but need it more than they can imagine.
On occasion,
I have been asked to speak to the teachers and faculty in our school system at
the beginning or end of the school year.
There’s a challenge for any speaker.
Everyone there wants to be somewhere else, doing something else, and the
last thing that they really want to hear is another That will fill an hour
guy when they don’t want to be there in the first place. They have others things to do!
I know what
it’s like to talk to people who didn’t come to hear me on purpose. I do my best to make it worthwhile whenever
I’m invited. But you have a message from
God.
People may
not want to hear that message. They may
not want the truth, but they need it.
Don’t water
it down. Don’t sugar coat it. Don’t twist it to suit anyone’s comfort
zone. Speak the truth. We are
told that the truth
will set your free.
What is it
exactly that I am to say?
Repent and believe
the good news.
Repent and
believe the good news.
Repent and
believe the good news.
This is our
message. Can we do this?
How can we
respond in faith if we have not repented?
How can we not respond in faith when our repentance is genuine? Take this world and give me Jesus.
How can we
truly forgive our brother or sister without a genuine response of love? The unrepentant heart still wants vengeance.
How
can I forgive twice, seven times, seventy times if my unrepentant heart
still wants to get even? My words say,
“I forgive you.” My heart says, “I’m
doubling down on karma. You will get
what’s coming to you.”
How can love
fulfil the law if we still desire religion—rules
and regulations for right living over the Spirit
of the living God living within us? We
must surrender all in our repentance. I surrender all.
How can I love
those who don’t love me, if I have not repented—turned away and left behind
for good the ways of this world?
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer coined the
phrase cheap grace. It’s a good
provocation. I think it’s good because
it really is an oxymoron. There is no
such thing as cheap grace. Grace was
very costly and it cannot be cheapened.
I
think what we have today is cheap or pseudo-repentance.
People don’t
really want to let go of who they are in the world. Their response to the truth is on them but our
delivery of the truth is on us.
We must
speak the truth when people just want their ears
tickled.
We must
speak the truth without making
it look like something less than it is.
We must speak
the truth not in condemnation but in love .
Love must govern our delivery of the truth.
The truth is
that God
loves you so very much and wants all to repent of their loyalty to the gods
of this age and return to him.
The truth is
that those who have not received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior stand
condemned already. God wants them to
change their status from CONDEMNED to In a Relationship.
The truth is
that what
God has in store for us is so much better than anything this world can
produce.
Repent and
believe the good news.
Repent—turn away from the garbage this world
has sold you. Make a wholesale exchange—mind,
body, soul, and spirit—for the ways of the Lord. Come home to God whom we have come to
know in Christ Jesus and who continues to dwell within us in his Holy Spirit.
Let’s
deliver this message as people who have genuinely repented, received God’s
grace and favor, and can’t keep this good news to ourselves.
We cannot
contain the good news within us.
How
beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!
Amen.
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